Electric vehicles are incredibly efficient, and drastically reduce pollution when compared to gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. They also can have stunning acceleration performance. In addition, I've seen one report that stated you could power 75% of the current U.S. vehicle fleet on the electricity wasted by power plants idling overnight when electricity demand is low, without emitting another pound of carbon into the air.
That said, electric vehicles aren't the dominant form of car because their range is so severely limited compared to gasoline and diesel vehicles. Even the best, most expensive electrics are topping out at just over 200 miles driving on a charge, where gasoline vehicles easily can do 350 - 450 miles on a tank of gas.
There is the rub. Without drastically better battery and/or engine technology, carbon-based fuels for vehicles take the endurance prize - and therefore the market share.
The question, however, is, does it really have to be that way?
Why aren't we investigating laying magnets in roadway beds, so that the vehicles themselves have to produce less on-board power to move themselves? If the roadways were embedded with either electromagnetic tracks that the vehicles could pull against, or power induction systems, (Like a scaled-up electric toothbrush charger.) couldn't most of the power be put into the roadway itself instead of heavy batteries on the vehicles? Would this allow electric vehicles configured to use such a system to achieve even greater range than gasoline-powered vehicles?
It seems to me that such a system could be done with long-distance highways, starting with the Interstate system, and then following with the older two-lane highway system.
Urban streets might be a much longer-term project with much greater challenges involved, but current battery technology can handle most jaunts across town. It's the cross-country driving that is a problem for electrics. Ok, EXTENDED city driving would be an issue as well, but most of us aren't joyriding much anymore with the current prices of gasoline.
An alternative method might be to have "car ferry" trains or semi trailers running along the interstate highway system for electrics. Pay $50.00 or whatever the cost breaks down to, and catch the 07:00 a.m. car-hauler from Chicago to St. Louis. Once you get there, you're back on batteries.
If it was done with trains running in the meridians of the interstate system, you could haul electric vehicles or gasoline vehicles, thus reducing the pollution emitted by the cross-country gas-car trip through the efficiency of scale that trains have. Especially since modern trains are almost all diesel hybrid-electrics.
Using tactics like these, you could improve the market demand for electrics and slash vehicle pollution for cross-country travel fairly quickly, but buffer the rate of change veghicle drivers would have to face in order to facilitate the gradual transition to electrics.
After all, no one wants to have to trade in their brand-new car.
Anyway, there's my two cents. Thank you for reading.
Dan
A personal quest to promote the use of wind energy and hydrogen technology in the Great Lakes area of the United States. The Great Lakes area is in a unique position to become an energy exporting region through these and other renewable energy technologies. *Update 2014: Just do it everywhere - Dan*
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