While I am not against electric cars, and they have a place for city commuting, in the grand scheme of things the electric vehicle is really not significantly better than gas powered vehicles. Unless your electricity is hydro, wind, solar, or maybe nuclear, you are generating a lot of pollution and waste that you don't see.
One note of caution: Do not confuse electric with hybrid. There is a big difference between the two. Hybrids ARE efficient because the engineers can finely tune the engine, which makes a huge difference in efficiency. A lot of the electric car's efficiency is also simple regenerative braking, which a hybrid can easily do.
Power plant efficiencies are high, but not 100%. Most power comes from coal, and coal fired power plants are quite possibly THE biggest air polluters in the USA. The transmission of power over the grid loses 10+% of the power, and that percentage will rise significantly if electric cars become popular. The battery is not 100% efficient. The battery has toxic and corrosive chemicals. Morons dumping them in fields and otherwise disposing of them improperly poison the groundwater.
Many people get suckered in by the initial high mileage claims, which assume a fully charged battery. Unless you can get large quantities of electricity for free, you need to add that cost in. poof, there go the savings. The proponents of the electric vehicle, and hybrids, count on people being too uninformed to figure that out.
Almost every owner will also need to install a new electric circuit in their garage to handle the monster power needs of the battery. |
