Electric car policies: great but might need a reality check 20 August, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Car technologies, Climate change, Global Warming, Sustainable transport.trackback
Don’t get me wrong. I am all in favour of transforming our petrol-based car industry and putting it on a more sustainable path. But it seems to me the new enthusiasm about electric cars might need a good reality check.
The latest example of electric car hype comes from Germany, where the CDU-SPD government presented an action plan (“Nationaler Entwicklungsplan Elektromobilität”) to put one million electric cars on the road by 2020. Read about this action plan in Focus, Der Spiegel (“Koalition treibt Wahlkampf mit E-Auto-Plan”) and Handelsblatt. It is interesting to see that some of the media look at this plan as an election stunt from both governing parties.
The problem with electric cars is that they can only be as green as the source from which the electricity is generated. Do we really need cars on the road powered by new coal power plants? Is that climate-friendly?
Another issue is that it will still take quite a while before these cars will be commercialised and bought in big numbers. In the meantime, Chinese and Indians will continue putting more petrol-based cars on the roads and the contribution of the transport industry to global warming will continue to grow.
Last but not least, the batteries for these electric cars need precious metals like lithium and a rush for this metal could lead to new resource scarcities (see Wall Street Journal blog “Peak Lithium: Will Supply Fears Drive Alternative Batteries?”).
This post presents some interesting points.
I think what it comes down to is that there is no single solution to the automobile energy issue – petrolium research hasn’t fruited any sustainable source, but for right now it works. Eletric and hybrid cars are a way to cut down on petrol usage, but you’re right – the electricity has to come from somewhere.
As consumers, I think the cost is a priority, and powering a vehicle electrically is much cheaper than gasoline, but electric cars are still relatively rare and more expensive, so not as many people will buy them.
In my opinion the only real solution is time and conscientiousness
I’ve always wondered about this too. Electric cars, though carbon zero on the outer surface, have an electric supply which comes from the very coal plants that supply the rest of our appliances.
It’s ironic. We want to get off petroleum, but does that mean we have to leap to coal?
thanks for this post. It helped me a lot. Btw How you get ideas for such posts. sorry if it’s out of topic.