You're forgetting that batteries are made from pretty toxic materials.

And batteries don't last forever (even rechargeable ones lose their charge over time) and need to be replaced.

I'm all about getting beyond gasoline and switching to something better. I wondered about the tradeoff though, so I'm glad to see some numbers thrown around to evaluate. Sounds good so far. My next question would be: How will this compare in terms of expenses to the consumer? Will it cost more or less to "fuel up" than it does with gas? Got any numbers on that as well? Would love to know.

Yes, batteries are made from toxic materials. Gasoline is toxic, too. How many people drink gasoline, or eat batteries? Now, how many people have been injured by the batteries or the gasoline, percentage-wise, in electric car collisions vs. gas-power car collisions? Have you ever heard of even *one* electric car exploding when it was rear-ended? How about the Ford Pinto? Ever heard of that?

And yes, batteries have to be replaced periodically. With minimal care, one battery pack will last 3 to 5 years. When you replace it, the old batteries go to be recycled to make new batteries - they don't go to the landfill, or into the local water system.

So the toxicity of batteries is irrelevant to the equation.

@DazzlinDonna - costs of "refueling" an electric car are, of course, pegged to the local utility rates wherever you are. Let's assume a rate of 10 cents/kWH (slightly above the national average according to http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/115.htm) and that the car holds 53 kWh, like the Tesla. Cost of 100 charges annually would then be $530/yr. Now, I don't know what you pay for gas, but I am around $2.75/gal here in Oregon. Let's assume it never goes above $3/gal again; I use a gallon a day, on average, so that's $1095/yr for gas (@ $3/gal).

And remember, there's no oil changes ($30 or more every 3000 miles or 3 months), no engine cooling system to backflush and fill twice a year (so no ethylene glycol getting spilled into the environment), no spark plugs... Basically, no maintenance except charging, washing, and chassis lubes if your car still has grease fittings; possibly the rare transmission lube refill. So regular maintenance costs are practically gone.

I am Charter Member #14 of the National Electric Drag Racing Association; we know electric cars. We love them.

To Old Man Dotes,

First and foremost your saying "how many people percentage wise have been injured by the batteries" lacks one important factor. Numbers. Look at how many fully electric cars or even hybrids are on the road compared to regular gasoline engines. Your argument is like me saying fewer people have been injured by debris falling from space compared to gunshots.

Well, if we had a couple of solar panels on every home and recharged at home it would cut powerplant usage alot. AND, if those panels where in place your home could be off the grid as well or, just use smaller amounts of power at night. If the government wanted to really be energy smart we would use the bailout money to place solar energy on every home, make us a little more self sufficient and thus re-charge our cars at the cost of...FREE

Li-ion batteries like the ones used in the Tesla are not your standard lead and sulfuric acid car batteries. Li-ion batteries use Lithium, a transition metal (or metals), and then either phosphate or oxygen as your cathodes. The electrolyte most likely has flourine in it, or something equally as electronegative. While Li-ion batteries are quite good at energy density their lifetime suffers considerably, I think the Tesla's 7year/100,000 mile claim for battery life is quite optimistic, however they even claim that at the 7 year mark their battery maximum charge will be ~50% of its original peak meaning a 70 mile range before you need to recharge your car. Acceptable for a commute but not much more.

We have quite a few things to overcome before purely electric cars are common place. However it is a very good direction to go, especially with the possibility of fission power in the too distant future.

Okay, add this to your equation;

-The cost of converting all highway gas stations to electric quick fueling stations (full battery in under five minutes).

-The cost of developing such a system in the first place.

Without those two, interstate traffic is screwed, especially trucks. Without trucks, all those goods get shunted to our aging, bottlenecked, and decrepit rail system. Costs of transportation increase, especially among perishable items, as it now takes longer to get from A to B.

Now also consider the economic hit of losing the majority of local gas stations.

Definitely not worth it.

The battery remanufacturing industry (especially NiMH) is improving continously. The biggest issue is that the cost of lithium ion batteries does not currently include the environmental cost of cleaning up a lithium mining operation. Were this externality included (like, say, by law having to clean up your nasty mess, even if you're purchasing from overseas miners), then the cost of recycling lithium ion would be offset by demand, and thusly bring profitability to lithium ion (or the new lithium polymer) battery recycling industry. There's little profit motive now because of the cheap availability of Chinese, Argentinian, and Chilean lithium. Not to mention our own (the U.S. is one of the largest producers of lithium ore). There's also cheap lithium to be had in vast quantities from Australia, Canada, and Zimbabwe, though to a lesser extent than the first countries mentioned.

BTW, concerning Tesla, as a company, they take back and recycle ALL of their batteries (through an outfit called Toxco in the U.S. and Canada who take recycleable metals from across North America). So, there is no reason others entering the market could not do the same.

It's better than that. It turns out replacing a gas car with an electric car will cause zero increase in electric draw. Why?

Gasoline refineries use 7 kWh of power to refine crude oil into a gallon of gasoline. That Tesla Roadster can go 25 miles on that 7 KWh of power. So the electric car can go 25 miles using just the electricity used to refine the gallon of gas that a combustion engine car uses to go the same distance.

Has anyone considered the fact that after the batteries lose their charge they will then pile up in landfills? Maybe?

@charlesr : uh, you mean like everything else we use?

i don't understand how it is even a question whether or not ev's are better than gas powered ones. but whatever, hopefully one day soon we won't get to choose.

Sounds great!

Now which one of you is going to buy all this stuff for me?

The numbers you're playing with strike me as being a bit odd, but let me see if I can steer things in a slightly different direction.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_32.html), US passenger cars (not counting trucks, cycles, etc) drove 1.683 trillion miles in 2006.

Now, if we take your assumption that EVs use 2 kWhr/ mile, that means that it'd have to come up with 3.366 trillion kWhr. I believe in the article, it was mentioned that the US grid makes about 4 trillion kWhr, so that's a massive increase in power.

Also, at 2 lbs of CO2/kWhr, that's 6.73 trillion lbs of CO2 released, or more than double the amount mentioned released for gasoline.

Someone please check my math and tell me if I'm missing something. If I am, I apologize in advance.

@Tdave

Good point. Just wondering where you got the 7KWh/gallon of refined crude figure.

I got a problem with one of your assumptions,

Question to the EIA..How does 1 gal of gasoline(aprox 8lbs) become 20 lbs of CO2????

excuse me.. the EPA gave that assumption..tailoring facts to match your theories is SOP for that agency...

lol - most of america's electricity comes from coal. Coal consumption makes fossil fuel consumption insignificant says Wired.com

Has anyone thought about how the passengers would be kept warm in winter in an EV? That would drain the batteries pretty quickly.

@Johnny5: Many people have a problem with this.

Gasoline is mostly carbon by weight, and it does not contain any oxygen. When the gasoline combines with oxygen from the air you have CO2 formed (and other products). Now you have a molecule that has more than TRIPLED its weight just going from one carbon atom to three atoms of 1 carbon and 2 oxygen.

So for the gallon of gas, the 6 lbs of carbon joins with 14 lbs of oxygen to form carbon dioxide.

(this is all approximate, but it should be fairly close)

@Zillatain

High School Chemistry for the Win!

Many batteries can be recycled, not sure about the current tech.

Personally I believe that compressed air is a better storage system then batteries, but that's just a personal opinion, and there are places where it doesn't matter.

As for cost of creating new infrastructure, and the loss of jobs from losing current fueling stations. Umm, it seems like these two objections cancel each other out yes? Energy companies sell energy. If they had to switch to make money, they would and jobs would be created, and then lost again after construction. What else is new.

Making stuff happen creates jobs and costs money. That's how the world works currently. It would be neat if we could create jobs without spending money, but that's for Star Trek, not our reality.

I don't believe you factored in human nature. When people know that they get more Miles per Gallon or when fuel is cheaper then they drive and thus consume more. A great example of this is in the seventies when CAFE standards were imposed; gas mileage went up and so did the amount we drove thus increasing our demand on foreign oil. If plugging in is cheaper and the action disassociates us with the cost (you see the price at the pump, but not at the outlet) and we assume that human nature does not change then we will drive more and consume more energy thus energy production will need to increase above your 600 billion kWh figure. How much? I don't know, but it needs to be factored in.

Fault: "Everybody knows" is not science. Carbon's climate effects are based on assumptions. There is no science to support it. Energy costs for production are not entered into equation. Average mileage estimate based on 20mp-day or less, requiring everybody to live in urban areas. Make it cheaper and people will buy it. Argue that it is cheaper and there will be doubt.

http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1715

"The electricity used to refine oil alone would power cars further than what's in the rest of the barrel"

so if you have two or more clunkers at your house you cannot trade both of them for one car. The program is for one per
person.

Jimhenry
Blogger
www.cashforclunkersfacts.info
http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.info

Naive oversimplification. You cannot reasonable calculate all of the relevant factors with "back of a napkin" math.

@Mighty Man.

Hmm. Kinda makes a big difference which numbers you start with on the back of your envelope, doen't it?

This article is devoid of logic.

Electric companies stand to gain huge profits from "electrifying" cars and oil companies stand to lose huge profits.
I just cant see the oil companies going out without a major fight.
Nor can I imagine electric companies really promoting the use of solar cells and wind towers by individuals (unless they are getting some cut of the generated elecricity).

This wont be about making the world better ...this will be about profits and who controls the politicians better.
In the long run, the stats may not really have an impact on the decision.

you've missed a clear point of Somalwar's article: "By using coal as an energy source, electric cars will decrease price pressure on gasoline, leading in turn to less conservation and increased consumption. In simple words, electric cars will free up gasoline for Hummers (even if those guzzlers are in China)."

I'm pretty sure that parenthetical in the last sentence is more than just a throwaway. Your back of the envelope math fails to account for the global price rammifications. If the US switches 100% of it's vehicles on the road to electric drive, the global price of gasoline, and fossil fuels in general, will decline, making it much more likely that developing nations, read: China and India, will more readily adopt internal combustion engines, or other CO2 producing technologies unhindered by the then lower price of gas.

"Green," is a constructed category. Back of the envelope math doesn't really evaluate "green-ness," as there are nuanced political questions behind what we mean by "green." As comments have pointed out, electric cars may produce less CO2, but will produce more toxic materials in production and eventual destruction of said cars. You've framed the terms of "green" around a myopic notion of environmental stewardship, one that is merely satisfied to reduce the tonnage of CO2 produced in the US. The environment knows no geography. And the sad, crushing fact is that for any solution to be truly "green," in the sense that it conforms to the core behind any rhetoric in which it has been employed - namely an a-technological, highly efficient, waste minimizing, and footprint reducing ethic - it must be global, drastic, and to this current cultural mileux, unfeasable.

Simple math never takes human nature into account. People will charge their cars every time they are near an outlet. I think most people will plug in every day when they get to work. EVs are important to meet our country's environmental and energy goals, though. It's vital that EVs--battery and fuel cell--come to market!

I have no doubt that going all-electric will decrease the overall consumption of fossil fuels - simply based on the efficiency of size. Large power plants are more efficient than small gas engines. period.

The big hurdle I see - which Tesla has ingeniously overcome - is the COOL factor. I think NEDRA needs more press (just learned about them from the comments here! www.nedra.com) - make electric cars cool, THEN they will sell in the US. If it's just about being green, sales will be limited to the proud granola's in the country.

Can you just see an all electric car winning the Indy 500???
How would sales go then??

Not to pile on here, but I'd like to see your "simple math" re worked to include.

The environmental impact of manufacturing the batteries.
The environmental impact of LiOn batteries being recycled

Batteries filling landfills, coal plants clogging the skies with soot, nuclear plants irradiating ... uh, genitals!

This argument presumes that once we choose EVs that the innovation engine of America will grind to a halt (must be fossil fueled).

There are vast ways of generating electricity, and once the paradigm shifts to EVs, you can bet there will be tons of investment in the better battery, improvements in the grid, infrastructure changes to accommodate EVs. Man that sounds like an economic recovery just waiting to happen!

All we need is gas to cost > $4 a gallon to really motivate folks to change. If only the government had a really expensive social program that they needed to pay for...

This article brings to mind one of my favorite old saws.

"Great ideas are easy when you're not smart enough to make them work."

If we want to be truly green,
1.use local products (less transportation).
2.use as less as possible.
3.travel only when it is necessary.
4.use mass transport, for goods as well as for passengers.
5.reduce unnecessary competition and stress.

Alas! these things are against our current Consumerism Philosophy.

-No technology is pollution free. May be we do not know them !!!

I'm sure by next year when the world's polar icecaps are melted and the electric cars are underwater we can all breathe a refreshing lungful of water that at least we railed against the oil companies and made the economy crumble to nothing. Ooh! I'll get my "floaties"!

check this out:

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/05/awesome_greengt_electric_race_car.html

check this out:

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/05/awesome_greengt_electric_race_car.html

Just more propaganda from idiots. You all said ethanol was "greener", come to find out it's not. And now you say electric cars are greener? Come on. How do you have any credibility when everything you have ever said is a lie.

You guys are forgetting that with the increase in demand for electricity the price is going to go up as well. Sure right now as one of the previous comments mentioned it will cost about $530 a year for reachrging but you assume that the price per killawat will stay steady. Let me clue you all into something, it never does!!!!!!! Last year i paid 2 cents per killowat of electricity and this year im paying allmost 10 cents per killowat!!!! If everybody switches to electric cars wat how fast that price will jumto to 15, 20 or even 30 cents per killowat . Sure the electric cars may be greener but definitely not cheaper. Sooner or later we all be back to riding donkeys to save money.

Agree with ugtv.org - I've yet to see a comprehensive understanding about the environmental impact of manufacturing BATTERIES and recycling BATTERIES...

@Mighty Man

I think that your math might be off a little.

In the article, the author states that "typical EVs [get] about 2-3 miles per kWh"

i.e. 2 - 3 miles/kWh. That means that they use 0.5 - 0.33333 kWh per mile.

Let's redo the math using your other numbers:

(1,683,000,000,000 miles/(3 miles/kWh)) = 561,000,000,000 kWh.

561 billion kWh * 2 lbs CO2/kWh = 1.122 trillion lbs CO2

If we are going to be conservative and say that EVs get 2 miles/kWh, then:

((1,683,000,000,000 miles/(2 miles/kWh)) * 2 lbs CO2/kWh) = 1.683 trillion pounds of CO2

Both of these figures are less than the author's estimated value of 3 trillion pounds of CO2. In fact, the first figure is less than half and the second figure is a little more than half of 3 trillion.

The Rutger's professor has failed to take into account of simple math and logical accounting. I hope he doesn't get fired for his opinion, but if he teaches physics, I feel sorry for his students. He assumes that ALL power source is coming from dirty coal.

Maybe his pro-petrol stance is influenced by a possible consultancy of an Indian motor company (Tata)?

I'm gonna run my house on petrol..
I hate these Electric cars. Bet blind people feel the same when they don't hear it flying towards them.. What if your battery goes flat 100 miles from home, can't just pour some petrol in & drive straight off..

The Sony GTI & The Panasonic turbo can f*ck right off.

This is fun, "kill the heritic! He speaks false truths!" Ha ha, hippie on hippie blood bath.

Buy your EV's, drive the cost of petrol down. More to feed my big black Cadillac, that will be fantastic.

@deadasdisco - I will be dead in the ground before someone makes me own any car. And those that come for my machine will get a chunk of steel in the face.

@Bob Monkeypimp - You stole my bit. I was gonna mention that when life catches up with you (anyone, not just you) and the batteries go dead cause the dog pulled the plug out and you get stranded with a screaming baby in the back of the Green Machine how fun will that be? Your brother-in law can't roll up with a gallon of dino juice, so it is time to pay for a hook and get the little eco-mobile dragged to the nearest plug for a few hours. Yah, the boss is gonna love that.

Guess I need to look into a tow truck with a big ole' diesel. I just love capitalism. "I see your bat-ry ran out eh ma'am. Fer $50 I will tow you to the nearest Edison station." Awesome.

On the subject of alternative fuels. Whatever happened to the guy that invented that car that ran on water? I'll tell ya. His corpse is rotting away in the desert somewhere and all his plans are sitting somewhere in a goverment vault, never to see the light of day again. A water powered engine is virtually unmarketable beyond the engine itself, the fuel covers 70% of the earth and falls from the sky for cripes sake, there's no money to be made there so the goverment has to step in do something about it. Heaven forbid the public have access to FREE energy.

I think the one thing that everyone seems to completely forget when it comes to arguments against new and emergent 'Green technology' is that YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE.
Yes EV's may just be centralising the production of electricity to power stations, and that may not be an absolute solution. But the flipside of the coin is that the Oil on which we as western nations depend so heavily, WILL RUN OUT. Its not an IF, its a WHEN. As for the polution from batteries and the hazardous waste they produce, there is always recycling. And the more of an industry there is the more recycling will become common place.
Everyone seems so concerned about how much its going to affect they're back pocket. Sore that its going to cost you 1000 dollars more a year to run your EV? Have fun when in ten years time theres aint no fuel left to put in your rediculously oversised 6 litre hummer. Oh but then again, EV's weren't economically viable were they?
EV's may not be the absolute best option now, but once the methods of energy production at the power plant level become greener then viabilty of EV's becomes much greater. Its time to quit complaining and get your heads out of the sand.

Who cares? I don't want one. If it doesn't sound like horsepower, feel like horsepower, and you can't smoke the tires, what fun is it?

Let's not forget, Lithium has to be mined, just like any another metal. The biggest lithium mines so far, are in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Not all that US friendly, and environtamlly sensitive. I am sure, they could form an OPEC like entity if the demand is there, and clear millions of acres for this new gold rush. I guess that is what they mean by energy independence and environmentally friendly. There is no way around ecominics, ie scarcity and its no free lunches.

Obviously if there were 200 million all electric cars in the US, the electricity grid would have to be upgraded, especially if we go to the recommended 220V or 440V systems to quickly re-charge cars. Wind and Solar are not base load power, like Coal/nat gas and nuke. 90 percent of the power comes from those three sources. I don't know if EV affect the energy balance or not, but they are not the holy grail of anything.

Amazing how this article precedes a paid "advert" by Prius. Gotta love coincidence.

Pretty much a standard sampling of moot points. When battery powered vehicles are more economical, they will have a superior market position. Using force to make them seem a better choice is not the same as making them a better choice. Besides, geocentrism lost favor shortly after Copernicus and Galileo, except with the rabid faithful, of course.

I fly electric R/C planes. Ever wondered what happens to the highly reactive lithium when one of these batteries is damaged???

Cant wait for the first EV major accident report!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OsBc8RqSKU

Everyone seems to be forgetting the other choice. Hydrogen cells. No taxing the grid,no harmful enmissions. The gov't has been giving the "big three", should be little three now, about 2 billon dollars a year to perfect hydrogen fuel cells. Could be expensive at first but when the economies of scale take over it should leaves us with reasonable price, unlimited inventory and Zero emissions. Cal your Congress person and Senators and ask the m why we don have it yet. Mercedes has a test model running, but their problem is they didn't use hydrogen fuel cells but hydrogen. A computer had to pump in the hydrogen.

Has anyone thought about the increase in ozone production? Ozone is already a big problem in the southern states.

"Considering our 25kWh battery, and with typical EVs getting about 2-3 miles per kWh, let's be conservative and say each one will need two full charges a week." So you are saying the average car is driven from 100 to 150 miles per week? That is actually about 1/3 to 1/2 the average of 15,000 miles per year (per Federal govt.). So your estimate is not "conservative" it is grossly liberal in terms of favoring your own argument.

BTW I drive a hybrid .. it burns gas and rubber

@Jim T - "Zing!" I thought that mileage number was grossly under quoted. I know I drive 60 miles a day and my wife lays down around 110 so we put in 170 a day our own-selves.

What kind of Hybrid do you drive? Sounds like you are enjoying it instead of hypermileing to enjoy your own smug.

Hybrids and EVs have the potential to be awesome sports cars given the high torque nature of electric motors. I personally am not against a non-ICE car as long as I get to choose to drive it and it hauls ass.

@ bh -- You are exactly the kind of people who are destroying our planet. Congratulations.

Equinox, your eco-puritanism is showing.

Very simple.
So every single kWh generated at the power station reaches the road, does it? Gosh, I wonder where all that heat comes from when you charge your (heavy, toxic) battery. And when you discharge it, too. Transmission losses are 5%-10%. Battery efficiency (power out as percentage of power in) perhaps less than 50%. Electric motor efficiency again maybe only 50%.
Conclusion: you need to multiply your carbon cost for electric cars by 3 or 4 times.

@Equinox - What about me? I am the kind of person that is destroying the planet too you know. It's not fair that you only pick on bh. Where is your sense of equality?

Just because bh doesn't want to by a smug mobile doesn't mean he is destroying the planet, he may just be an enthusiast. Not every one is a hard line Berkinstock wearing, granola munching, tree-hugging, drum circling, "Hope" t-shirt wearing, mud hut living, Burning man attendee. Some people just recycle and turn off the light when the leave a room, like Captain Planet told us too. CP didn't say sith about not buying muscle cars.

Oh, quick question. Did every '08 Prius come with an "Obama" sticker or was that a dealer option?

Instead of embracing change, we should just stick to the current system which will solve the pollution problem. Let me explain how: we import over $1trillion of oil every year, and our exports don't keep up. And thus our wealth in this country is steadily shrinking (hidden only by loose monetary policy/housing bubble since 2001). So, at the current rate of consumption of oil, we will go broke and won't be able to afford to drive anywhere (nor will we have a need, since we'll be unemployed). Therefore, we won't have to worry about pesky fossil fuel pollution. Everyone wins. Yeah!

Or, another option, get your head out of your ars, embrace change, find solutions that shift production of power to local resources (such as coal, natural gas, offshore drilling, wind, whatever) so as to avoid economic collapse, and be the leader in exporting new technology like EV (instead of sitting idly by while Japanese car companies win at hybrid tech and China threatens to invest to be the leader in battery/EV future).

Good God, even if you don't care about breathing in smog, take 5 freaking seconds to think about what it means every time you buy something that's imported. If you want to piss away your children's future, go right ahead. Enjoy your gas-guzzler trip to walmart for another 5 years tops, and take your grandchild on your lap and tell them about the good old days, when you used to eat more than once a day and there was a yellow ball in the sky you could see instead of this pesky grey cloud.

DAD, where do you get the hydrogen? While it is plentiful it's not easy to separate from oxygen - requires energy expenditure - I bet far in excess of the 7 kwh it allegedly takes to produce a gallon of gas.

Sorry, These are still the cars of the rich. There is no way the average family is going to be able to afford one of these cars. I saw in a gov't program for trade in, that to be eligible for the tax break, the hybrid car you bought had to be at least $25,000. When I bought my last car, a Nissan Versa, I cringed at paying 13,000. (three months later it went down to $9,999!)

Plus how are people who drive to work in areas where there are no choices for recharging going to be able to work this out? For example, to interview for a new job, I had to travel 277 miles. If the average range of a fully electric car is 200 miles (a number I've heard more than once), I would have had to have arranged for an overnight half way, and then find a hotel friendly enough to have allowed me to use an outlet in which to plug in.

No, they are too expensive, and not practical enough for the average family in this country.

Plus there are plenty of studies now coming out Questioning the impact of CO2 on the environment. It may not be the villain in this story after all. It looks like the blame may be on 1) the solar activity and 2) Earth's wobbly orbit.

First thing I'm all for EV's; that can go farther than 50 miles on one charge.

But, let's consider the source of this information. Dvice is sponsored by Scifi (I refuse to use the OTHER name), which is owned by NBC, which is owned by GE, whose CEO is on Obama's business advisory panel and just sunk a lot of money into "green" projects (both GE and Obama). This article would have more clout with me if it was in Popular Science or another Tech mag.

Hey folks,

Remember that the ICE powered automobile was a big improvement over its predecessor (the horse drawn vehicle). We could all be hip deep in horse dung.

Coal power is pretty gross, as far as radioactives, and sulphides - way worse than Nuclear.

Electrics are still an improvement, bring 'em on, I say and build a bunch of Nuclear powerplants while we're at it..

cheers,
Robert.

PS. CO2 is overrated, it's a harmless odorless gas

Always interesting to understand current perspective outside the lab about future transportation options.

Unfortunately, there are major issues missing from the discussion. Tesla and the Volt are not viable solutions as we need to consider we are already at a peak lithium condition. Watch your laptop batteries triple in cost over the next few years.

The future is synthetic diesel from jatropha and eventually from micro algae. Common Rail Diesel engine (TDI) powered vehicles is the only viable, scalable, sustainable solution we have.

These guys have it right. http://etcgreen.com

Great - You do your calculations based on a $100,000+ car smaller than a Prius or an Insight. How about what it will take to electrify a working family with 2 or more kids that drives 200 or 300 miles a week or more?
Not only that you mention replacing the power plant in your car every 3 to 5 years. Given all the toxic wastes this creates, the massive cost of purchase and repair, not to mention the actual energy cost its just not feasible! A normal car motor will last 15 years or more if cared for and the cost is negligible in comparison.
The only way all this green stuff works is if you implement the Portland plan globally and force everyone to live in mass blocks of apartments in mega cities and mostly use mass transit, and stick them with the whole enchilada of reproductive licenses to limit children, dietary restrictions to ensure proper food usage, age restrictions on heath care to get rid of wasteful older folks, remote-controlled environmental and lighting controls to limit people's energy usage.
Basically you're talking an eco-Orwellian "1984" and I promise you, if you try to push this on the people of this country you will get a fight back that makes the last civil war look like a pillow-fight. Not to mention that B.R.I.C. has said they aren't playing. ..

For everyone pulling apart these calculations - where is your math to the contrary?
It's one thing to say "What about----", it's another thing entirely to refute the logic and figures that are sited.
Like all problems in the world, we shouldn't be waiting around for the "silver bullet", instead we should be trying a number of potential solutions in an effort to diversify and work toward the overall goal.

Bio batteries are in the development stages - urinate on them and they power up.
Also, what about solar cell windows and now with flexable solar cells how about putting them on the top of the car? How about pouring urine into your tank or wiping down your car because you ran out of juice ... ??

I've a friend who drives a Prius. I drive a Jeep - an old, beaten-up Jeep. I envy his Prius.

He recently upgraded his Prius to the type which uses solar energy to cool it down. I still drive my old, beaten up, early nineties Jeep.

There's always going to be have vs have-nots. Big, fat, hairy deal.

There's going to be a shift in technology; Japan is light years ahead of us in better than a dozen technologies; things they take for granted, we can only gawk and give rednecked responses to.

I'd like to see the Hydro cell, the Prius, the EV's and all the alternatively fueled machines continue to get worked on; people had knocked ARPANET, yet the internet is navigated today by three-year-olds.

The U.S. has lacked productivity for years; the last frontier the US has dominated was in its rust belt; it is time to make the US a major fiscal contender in the global economy, and I feel that can only be accomplished through scientific innovation.

Also: about the doubts of repowering a stranded EV: who is to say that a combination business of recycling batteries and mobile power stations won't have your local AAA guys carrying a battery booster similar to the current battery boosters, but with more charge?

Technology changes...

I enjoyed how the author rounded down for the carbon emissions for the electric and rounded up for the gas powered. That really makes someone look unbiased.

Still the math seems a little off. If you look at the problem differently (it is still just a basic dimensional analysis problem) it might would clear things up. Instead of worrying about the total carbon emissions for all of the country, look at only the emissions produced by one person
Beginning with the electric car,

miles/KWh = 2 or 3, just assume 2.5 for ease
CO2/KWh = 2 lbs
so CO2/Mile = (CO2/KWh) / (Miles/KWh) = 2 / 2.5 = 0.8

Now for a gas car to be equally "green" it must have a CO2/Mile= 0.8

so (CO2/Gal) / (CO2/Mile) = (Miles/Gal) = 20 / 0.8 = 25

Even if the electric got 3 miles/KWh a car getting 30 miles/gal would be equally green (it is a 10:1 relation). The new Prius is supposed to get 50 miles/gal which would mean an electric car would have to get 5 miles/KWh to be competitively green with the Prius.
Honestly this seems a much better way of calculating the "green-ness" of a car, you don't ask how many galleons of gasoline are used in a year to calculate a cars fuel economy, you ask how many miles per gallon. So why not ask how much CO2 per mile to get its environmental impact.

Assuming that the authors initial numbers are correct it would seem that for an individual driving anything other than an SUV would be greener than getting an electric car powered by coal plants.

Additionally the author seems to over look several things. First the average driver in America, depending on whose estimate is used, drives 12,000-15,000 (the current DOT estimates about 12,500, an older AAA estimate was 13,500, and a different DOT estimate is about 14,000) miles a year. This is 230-290 miles per week (just divide by 52) which is roughly 4-5 charges weekly with the example electric car. I know not everyone drive this much, I drive maybe 50 miles a week total if I have a busy week, but for everyone like me there is someone driving over 500 miles a week. Another is that power line transmission is not perfect. Roughly 7-8% (7.2% in 1995, http://www.climatetechnology.gov/library/2003/tech-options/tech-options-1-3-2.pdf page 1) is lost on average just through the process of sending the electricity to your house or some hypothetical electric service station. So you will have to add this to your carbon footprint.

All of this said, I still think the US needs to research alternative fuels (and just research in general like the_kcar mentioned). Talk about "being green" and "carbon footprints" aside, there is a finite amount of fossil fuels, and resources in general, eventually they will all run out.

1) hybrids - answer distance questions
2) batteries in hybrids are lasting substantially longer than expected on average.
3) batteries (LI or NiMH) are completely recyclable.
4) batteries gives us the flexibility to use other fuels simply put.

It wont be the government forcing us to change, but the economy will force us to change as we saw last year.

I don't know if anyone mentioned it, I didn't want to read ALL the posts but what about how many of those vehicles that are on the road are delivering Gas, if all the vehicles were Electric then we wouldn't need those right? As well as their emissions, which may not really add up to an awful lot but it and things in that line of thinking are worth considering at least.

The problem with Peter 's article is he is not comparing appples to apples.

You can't just use number of barels of gasoline as your comparitor as there are lots of lage cube vans, trucks and other inefficient vehicles that are source of consumption. heres the right way to do it.

3kwh*25KHW pack=75miles percharge
75miles percharge*100 charge per year =7500 miles driven ev and ultimatley 1.2 trillion co2

7500 miles driven at 20mpg average fuel economy per vehicle =375gallons of gas used per vehicle year. Multiply this by 250M vehicles and result by 20 poounds co2 and end result is 1.875 trillion ounds of co2.

Gas is still more but not quite as much of benefit.

I am a strong supporter of ev but lets stick to real calculations here.

I think everyone needs to start taking in to account everything. What is crazy is there are countries REMOVING ROADS... where we keep adding them. Expanding freeways to add lanes only increases the number of people driving which in very very short time becomes more traffic jams just more people sitting in them. I have seen places that remove roads and become better with mass transit, bike friendly and bigger sidewalks for people to walk and such. NY crazily enough is one of the greenest cities in the nation, even tho places like LA and Portland are doing alot. France has an amazing 20,000 bike system that you can use for free for the first half hour and then a small fee after that. Our problem, especially here in Phoenix is that we live spread out. We live one place work 30 miles away, goto a grocery store 15 miles away, HAVE to shop at the mall thats 15 miles away, and we just drive and drive and drive. My car was totalled in January and I have live with just a bike since and it is the greatest thing ever. I know its not for everyone, but also our society so is screwed up they think they deserve everything. The people that have fought for our country would be appalled. We will pay 2000 dollars for Hannah Montana tickets for our kids or 6000 dollars on a new tv but when it comes to anything green or efficient no way in hell. Why would anyone want to install solar panels on their house when the government has rebates, electric companies write you a check, local government pitches in another 1000. And you would pay either your electric bill to the local company or to the company that made your solar panels for like 6-9 years and then never pay again, or pay for 50 years of your life. As far as cars we are willing to shell out so much money so that we can live in our cars. Studies have shown that people who drive rather than bike or whatnot are more stressed also most of those people sit in cubicles. Most people dont go outside. Most people dont like natural light that available all day we would rather turn on every light in the house. Most people dont mind leaving the computer on and tv on and radio on and take 25 min showers. No one sees anything as wrong or ridiculous. I don't know how or when things are going to change but everyone from the last 200 years has thought they have been doing a great service and they have, they have grown a huge nation, strong nation. But now things need to change again. ASU has a new Global Institute of Sustainability that I will start attending in August, and they just got a huge grant from the Fed Gov to further research on solar processing water into hydrogen and oxygen. I was talking to my girlfriend and she was like your going to be a hero, which I replied I dont want to be a hero, to which she came back with "Fire fighters dont want to be heroes and its not just the ones that run in and save the baby that are heroes, they all are and thats just how it is" Im not saying everyone go by a VOLT or Tesla. Thats not how it works. But we do need to buy them and we do need alot research and dev to further batteries and further mass transit and everything. We need to changed alot in the world and I think we all can. Little by little but we have to change. I have been ignorant for the past 23 years. I thought france was a piece of shite, come to find out when I spent awhile there that I love the place, people were great and I think they are doing great work. I think there are alot of extremists on both sides and I don't want to be either I think everyone needs to stop hating and live.

I have looked at all kinds of fuel alternatives and I agree with labrat. Algae biofuel is the most likely outcome. It grows super fast, produces large amounts of oil per sq ft compared to corn and it feeds off CO2. It is grown in huge enclosed vats that are fed from power plant CO2 emissions! All the big boys are investing heavily in this. If Obama gets his cap and trade watch algae producing startups being attached to every power plant in the US. Don't believe me? Check out this article that just came out today:

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_408258.html

This one talks about NASA has found a way to grow the algae at sea with water waste which has normally been dumped in the ocean. I also heard from a NASA scientist that
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/14/nasa-algae-biofuel.html

ON top of all of this a Gene Scientist has partnered with Exxon to take it to the next level. An algae biofuel which will run in cars and planes with NO engine modifications!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/14/green-algae-exxon-mobil

I didn't read all the comments but one important thing where Electric and Hybrid Cars come in are the Batteries and the Carbon Footprint it takes to produce them.
It doesn't matter how poisonous Batteries are, they're sealed and you'd have to intend on breaking one open to eat it.

What's bad is the Countries that produce the Batteries for these "Green" Cars have little or no EPA regulations so the pollution and toxic by products created in the production is really staggering.
I know in the long run an all Electric or Hybrid Car is better than a Car with an ICE, but at what cost?

Right now Co's like Ford and GM have devastated Mexico's environment leaving very sick and dying People in their wake.

At what cost are we going to produce the Batteries for our "Green" Cars.
Will it be the attitude "Well, it's not in my Back Yard so it's OK with me".
Or how about "Until someone comes up with a Battery that is safe to produce, I'm not buying".
I know what Americas attitude will be and it's a shame.

As long as I'm getting 65mpg out of my little Diesel I'm not going to contribute to another Country turned into a Toxic environment for the People working and living there.

We should be so much farther ahead of this Curve than we are and until we catch up, count me out.