What Is The Point Of An Electic Car If the Carbon Footprint Is BIGGER Than A Normal Car?

If you are part of the 20% who actually care about C02 emissions, then you should learn the energy source used to generate your electricity and then make an informed decision (it may not be as clean as you hope).

Or if you are part of the 50% who only care what fuel costs, then all you need to do is compare equivalent energy use per mile and ignore the source.

But if you're like me and part of the 30% who could care less about fuel cost and C02, then feel free to drive what you want - its still a free country (at least for now).

It's a regional issue, were I live in the mountain west the majority of electricity is from natural gas.

Less dependency on oil

How about 3,000 ft/lbs of instantly vectored torque to all 4 wheels, zero maintenance, more interior space, and low cost to operate? Not here yet, but will be.

3,000 ft-lbs sans transmission is equivalent to a 200-300 ft-lb engine with a transmission...

also, advanced electric vehicles have their own maintenance issues, they to require clutches, cooling systems, brushes need to be replaced every 50,000-80,000 miles, batteries need to be replaced. Transmissions need lubricant. Tires need changing, windshield wipers need replacing etc etc believing that an electric car will be zero maintenance is a fallacy.

also, they are horribly inefficient at providing hvac to the operators since they have to rob energy from the battery to warm the air, and not just use an engine byproduct. Driving them in winter months also cause the batteries to operate less efficiently, so much so that you might only get 50% as far as you would in the summer.

No Joe, I really meant 3,000 ft/lbs of torque...in a vehicle in the future. My point being...gas is a mature technology that is nearly done, but electric opens new doors of potential. Which means interesting projects for people in the science and engineering fields...

no t_bone. All of the electric cars that have stated superior torque ratings like that are stating the numbers at the wheel. At the wheel a 200-300ft-lb engine will make the same numbers!

Plus, it's really annoying me that you keep saying ft/lbs. 3000ft/lb would mean 1ft away, and 0.0003333lbs of force

thstone - you're spot on. I get a big kick out of 009's endless effort to disparage alternative fuel technologies. Everything has its pluses and minuses but it seems like 009 wants to undermine anything and everything that is other than petrol.

come on people the first conventional cars had a carbon foot print the size of Canada, the first electric will become cleaner and cleaner as time progressives and will most definitely put more Americans to work than oil ever did.

It's just something for the liberals to jerk themselves off with.

Why the push from the government. The Tech for better electric cars will come without rushing it. I promise we won't run out of oil before it happens.

I love how the media eats it up. Do people think plugging their car into the wall means their car is emission free? *facepalm* What about THAT coal?

Not only this, but....

What about the cost of replacing the batteries when they are kaput?

What about the fact that batteries too use non-renewable resources like lithium? I read somewhere that 90% of the world's lithium supply is in one country, Bolivia. And everyone talks about OPEC. This could be much worse than that. Imagine someone like Hugo Chavez controlling 90% of the world's supply of lithium.

What about the cost (economic and environment) of producing and disposing of mountains of batteries?

Why aren't these issues talked about? Seems like there is a huge agenda to push something the media PERCEIVES as "green", something that more like pie in the sky but makes us feel better about ourselves. How much better is all-electric really?

I think we should devote more of our energy to hydrogen. And, one country can't control the world's supply.