Electric Cars: Not Going to Save the World

The shocking truth about electric cars 

...The fantasy that electric cars are right around the corner doesn’t survive even the most cursory reality check. As Dennis DesRosiers, a leading auto consultant, points out, consumers simply won’t pay a $20,000 premium for a vehicle that doesn’t go very far, isn’t very convenient, and runs out of juice as soon as you turn on the air conditioner.

Consider hybrids. After a decade on the market, they’ve captured only 3 per cent of sales. To get to Mr. McGuinty’s 2020 target, green-minded Ontarians would have to buy at least 100,000 electric cars a year every year, starting right now. Total U.S. sales of electric vehicles are about 10,000 a year.

 But, but, but, if we did all buy them it would solve all our energy problems, right?

Here’s another catch: Electric cars aren’t necessarily green at all. Electric vehicles require large amounts of electricity – so much that Toronto Hydro chief Anthony Haines says he doesn’t know how he’d get it. “If you connect about 10 per cent of the homes on any given street with an electric car, the electricity system fails,” he said recently.

And if the extra electricity isn’t generated by renewable energy, then overall carbon dioxide emissions will go up, not down, Prof. Smil says. “The only way electric cars could reduce global carbon emissions would be if all the additional electricity needed to power them came from carbon-free energies.” He also makes the essential point that the world’s energy infrastructure is based on fossil fuels. Changing that will take decades.

Damn that Third Law of Thermodynamics anyway!  I thought the Democrats repealed that in 2008! We know those science hating Rethuglicans won't help with that!

Please don’t blame me for this splash of cold water. Blame the greens, whose grasp of basic consumer behaviour, energy economics and political realities are shockingly inadequate. The facts Prof. Smil sets out exist independently of global warming, which, he believes, is a well-established reality. But just because the facts are unwelcome doesn’t make them untrue. Time and time again, the greens have harmed their cause with their uninformed fervour and simplistic thinking.