There are good reasons why we are not all driving electric vehicles.
First, when the cost of electric vehicles is compared to the cost of
gasoline-powered vehicles, replacement batteries are usually left out
of the calculation. If the total costs of ownership over the expected
life of the vehicle are compared, gasoline-powered vehicles actually
come out ahead on resource consumption. They are not the wastrels they
appear at first blush.
Second, there is the problem of range. Road & Track did a road test of
GM's EV-1 when it first came out. They said if you replaced its
electric motor with a gasoline engine of the same power and replaced
the battery packs with a fuel tank of the same size and weight--but
left everything else the same--the resulting vehicle would have a range
of approximately 4,000 miles between fillups!
Craig Foch
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