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It won’t happen overnight. Hybrids and electric cars ARE the future. If you had solar it wouldn’t cost much to keep them either. No oil changes or engine work. More mechanics are going to be needed to understand and repair these cars too. More jobs.
All electric cars are becoming more and more common. If everybody drove electric cars there would be far less air pollution and it would really save on oil and gas. My next car will probably be all electric.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbohm
as for saving on oil and gas, and reducing pollution, remember that recycling, and production, and mining of the necessary materials to build these vehicles is not a clean business. oil is also still used in many areas of life, not just powering vehicles.
for instance the plastics you use DAILY, are often made from one of two sources, corn or crude oil. same with the medications people take,
and consider where the electricity you use comes from. coal fired power plants, natural gas fired power plants, oil fired power plants, nuclear plants, hydro electric plants, etc. do you have a propane bbq? it comes from crude oil.
my point is that while more EVs would reduce gasoline consumption, it would not necessarily reduce over all oil consumption. the electricity has to come from somewhere, and the current output isnt enough to run all the electric vehicles we would have if the internal combustion engine was fully replaced, or eve jut half the IC cars were removed from the roads and replaced with EVs. and no solar and wind power are no where near enough to do that.
and you are never going to get rid of portable generators that are powered by fossil fuels either.
This is a very good response.
I would like to add that even if we were to ignore all of the fossil fuels that likely need to be burned in order to create the electricity, consider this...
The electricity that these cars run on is made in a plant that is several miles away. Along the way this electricity needs to be sent through several step down transformers before it gets to your house (or wherever you charge the vehicle), then converted from AC to DC, and then sent through a battery charger to charge up the batteries. There are efficiency losses at every step of the way.
If everybody switched over to electric cars I can guarantee that the earth probably wouldn't notice much of a difference.
With that being said, in many situations electric vehicles can be cheaper to operate and more convenient if it means that you can start out with a "full tank" every day without ever having to stop at a gas station. I have also read that they have the potential to be more reliable/longer lasting with less maintenance needed than gasoline vehicles. For these reasons I believe electric vehicles can make a lot of sense as a daily driver for a large percentage of the population.
I just hate that for a time being it seems like the only people who drive them are smug do-gooders who think that they're saving the world, when they really aren't.
A mileage tax would have to be implemented. True, the gas tax only covers half the cost of maintaining the roads, but it's better than nothing. There will be a lot of yelling and screaming, but it has to be done. Good news: gas, for those left who use it, will be cheaper.
Mileage tax? How would they implement that, more toll booths?
You’d have to run a generator all night long to recharge a car.
There is other ways to generate electricity, solar power, wind power, and solar is becoming more and more advanced.
And in a grid down situation you will probably be running your generator all night anyway, if you have one and you don't have an adequate means to one of the methods mentioned above.
And you can do that with electric cars in this day and age.
Yes you can do that in part of the country, but not in others.
Where we live, go to any parking lot and you will see 75% PLUS OF ALL VEHICLES WILL BE MEDIUM AND LARGE SUVs AND 4X4 CREW CAB PICKUPS, and not 1 electric powered car.
Recently bought a new gas powered car,the only thing that stopped me from buying an electric car is lack of charging stations, there is no place in my highrise apartment building to charge up the car, the nearest charging station is at the library 2 miles away and with only one charger its bound to be in use most of the time. Electric cars? not yet.
Yes you can do that in part of the country, but not in others.
Where we live, go to any parking lot and you will see 75% PLUS OF ALL VEHICLES WILL BE MEDIUM AND LARGE SUVs AND 4X4 CREW CAB PICKUPS, and not 1 electric powered car.
So you live in an economic backwater?
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