The big problems that folks don't want to face are the hypocrisy of electrical and the inefficiencies of it. The transmission lines and the grid necessary to support this move doesn't exist and will be a national project on the order of the creation of the Federal Interstate system if it is to work at all. Don't even get me started about how this power is generated. There is no such thing as making more energy than the potential energy which is contained in one unit. I'm saying that if you're burning fossil fuels to generate electricity to send out over power lines then to dump in a car, that is inherently wasteful. There is always loss, some bleeding of power here and there because of inefficiencies in the stem between pulling that fuel out of the ground to creating torque with it in the motor of a car. If these vehicles are powered by now-existing, largely fossil fuel generation, all the individual drivers are doing is unburdening themselves of their personal carbon footprint, which instead is a cloud out in the suburbs or rural area, choking our wildlife and contaminating our water. Just kicking the can down and across the street, so one doesn't have to look at it, but it's still one's own trash.
The only way to make electric cars environmentally friendly (as can be) is to use solar, hydro, or wind generation. Other than that, an electric car powered by a fossil fuel plant somewhere else, is more wasteful than an in-tune fossil fuel powered car. My 1972 Mercedes-Benz reliably gets 32+ mpg. I have a range of about 400 miles on one tank. There is no existing electric car out there that can take my 4,300lb car 400 miles on one charge. My old 1978 Toyota Corolla got 41 mpg, as measured in 2002. We had this efficiency thing under control in the mid to late 70s, done with innovation on already existing technology.
What about diesel fuel? Diesel technology is far more environmentally friendly now than back in the days of black smoke belching Detroit diesels, which are still very efficient for internal combustion engines. These days, we have bacteria and algae that can digest any cellulose material to produce a cleaner and more environmentally friendly version of diesel fuel. Even bio-diesel, made from largely soy and rapeseed, is far more clean burning than the dinosaur fuel we all know and love. This is before the addition of catalytic reduction, which drastically reduces harmful emissions. Really, if you look at efficiency, follow the money and what is the most efficient way of moving material is turbodiesel internal combustion engines, or diesel/electric engines, if it were any other way, the people who have money to make and money to save on how commodities were being moved would have gone there. Semi trucks and trains would burn gasoline, instead of diesel, LPG or light distillate. Ships would do the same thing.
I'm all for saving the planet and I absolutely believe climate change is a man-made real thing that is going to make life much more difficult for future generations, but I also think that innovating the technologies we have now, instead of coming up with more junk for people to buy, use, and sell, is the way we'll save the planet and ourselves. Until we come up with a totally clean way of generating power and an extremely efficient way of transmitting that power, personal electric vehicles will not be an answer to anything other than unburdening ourselves of our perceived fossil fuel usage, while that fuel has instead just been burned out in the burbs somewhere.
Phil Forrest
