Monday, June 27, 2011
"Electric cars may not be so green after all..."
Electric cars are NOT yet ready for prime time.
Current versions are NOT cost effective, and will NOT save the environment. Charging their batteries requires electricity produced by burning the very same fossil fuels that we'd like to reduce our dependency on.
As they are now, they are just "feel good" items...
Current versions are NOT cost effective, and will NOT save the environment. Charging their batteries requires electricity produced by burning the very same fossil fuels that we'd like to reduce our dependency on.
As they are now, they are just "feel good" items...
Ben Webster writes about one aspect of them at theAustralian.com:
"ELECTRIC cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found.
An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.
The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars."
