Bob Lutz Claims Electric Cars Should Be Part Of Our National Security Strategy

Good luck with that. Drill!! Baby Drill!!!

So a country is idiotic to be self reliant, to run off wind power or solar, never again to fight a war over oil. to look to the future. I'm with Lutz on this one. VFW member here!

"Rising domestic production will not shield Americans from oil price volatility."

It is not hard to understand this.

Yes, time for us to grow up and stop doing things just because that is always the way they have been done. Electric power will shift the middle east into irrelevance.

Not true even in the lightest. Oil is used for more than just gas. Several daily used products, from plastics to fabrics are petroleum based. Even if the entire Western World shifted to electric based transportation, there would still be billions of people around the world that still depend on petroleum.

@morepower: While this is an accurate statement, I believe you would also agree that the western world uses the vast majority of the world's crude oil. Compared to transportation, all the remainder is a far smaller percentage. If even just North America was to switch all personal transportation we would likely have no need for oil from Europe/Asia. The amounts available domesticly could cover the remainder. If we don't need outside oil, we don't have to fund the people trying to exterminate us.

"The only way to fundamentally solve this problem is to break oil’s stranglehold on the transportation sector, which accounts for 70 percent of the total oil consumed by the United States and relies on oil for 94 percent of its fuel."

Last time I checked no one was complaining about the price of plastics sold at Wal-Mart. Besides plastic resins are also made from components derived from natural gas including reclaimed gas from land-fills.

Energy (oil) independence is not a unrealistic expectation. Renewable energy is not an unrealistic expectation. In France derives 75% of its electrical power from Nuclear energy. Iceland plans is to get rid of all oil imports by 2020. Most of the Canary Island are getting rid of oil too. China rapidly has moved along the path of renewable energy development. Decades of transfer of US wealth has gone to oil producing countries, the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.

Electric cars are already working (they are just expensive at the moment), especially the Volt and Fisker designs that don't have range limitations like the all-electrics. The biggest single component is the battery, which you can replace in half an hour if a better technology come out. The electric engines don't have the wear and friction of an internal combustion, or the pollution. If you hate government intervention in markets, ok, but regardless, these ideas are going to become competitive sooner or later with or without the subsidies, as fossil fuels get more expensive and more foreign countries start burning them.

I think a lot of strategies can be done to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It is very important that we develope the infrastructure to support electric vehicles. However as it has been said the battery technology has to improve by leaps and bounds and the precious metals have to be mined here,NOT CHINA. While electric is being further developed a simple immediate change we can make is to buy more diesel cars.50% of all Euro cars sold are diesel. True diesel fuel costs a bit more then gasoline but the offset is significantly better mileage capability without significantly larger aquasition cost of a hybrid or an EV.Natural gas vehicles should be greatly expanded as well. This, however, does require some more drilling. However, just making these changes could significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil.