The pending electrification of the vehicle raises major concerns for consumers, a new study shows.

Some 97 percent of power customers surveyed by DTE Energy “have some level of concern” about the reliability and economic viability of electric vehicles, said Knut Simonsen, president of Ann Arbor-based DTE Energy Ventures, the utility's investment arm.

The results from the study will be released next week at the Center for Automotive Research's  Business of Plugging In conference in Detroit.

“Will the consumer be comfortable with that purchase when those vehicles show up in the showroom?” Simonsen said. “Are they more concerned about the electric drivetrain, are they more concerned about the battery or are they more concerned about this being a sluggish, goofy looking car? All of that is probably part of this response. Until we have the vehicles, it’s going to be hard to dispel that.”

As an investor in rapidly expanding battery startup A123Systems, DTE has an interest in the success of electric vehicles, which will rely mostly on lithium-ion batteries.

Simonsen suggested that the federal government should consider new incentives or regulations that guarantee the quality of electric vehicles so that consumers feel confident enough to make the buy. Right now, government incentives for buying an electric vehicle range up to $7,500 per vehicle.

But the U.S. faces stiff competition from other nations in the incentives race. Britain, for example, recently implemented an incentive of up to 5000 pounds (about $8,100) for an electric vehicle.

In Hong Kong, the government is waving registration fees  for electric vehicles. The fees typically range from 30 percent to 100 percent of the base cost of an internal combustion engine vehicle.

“To encourage people to switch to electric vehicles, we have waived the registration tax on the vehicle,” said Donald C. K. Tong, commissioner of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, in an interview this week. “It is a very important financial incentive.”

Mainland China, meanwhile, is also taking an aggressive approach to incentives for alternative propulsion vehicles.

Electric vehicles could represent 10 percent of the global market by 2020, according to one study.

Ultimately, incentives could play a crucial role in driving early sales of electric vehicles such as General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt, which will be released in November 2010.

“Michigan is really the original innovator in this area,” Simonsen said. “This is a tremendous opportunity not only to sell this technology into the U.S. market but the rest of the world.”

Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.