The future of motoring is sticking out its ugly head, and it’s much closer than you think. If I were to describe the ugly head to you, the image of a yuppie comes to mind. )If you don’t know what that is, go ask your dad.) Specifically the yuppie of the 90’s with its Bluetooth thingy in the ear, bring pink shirt and gelled up hair. Oh, and don’t forget the goatee. Why then so bleak you may ask?
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| A modern yuppie with a really big turd - photo from http://www.automopedia.org |
It is the dawn of the electric car. We heard of it, we know it, we can even buy it locally, here, in South Africa. It’s called the Nissan Leaf, let’s be clear on this, at this stage I will not be testing one soon, but would love to, and once that is done, I will let you know. Onwards then.
I am using the Leaf as an example, as this, as far as I know, currently is the only electric car that can be bought in South Africa. The price? Try R485,900. Honestly, for that amount of money, I’d rather buy a proper car, one that does not leave me stranded after 195 kms, although it will be fun pointing at the people next to the road who ran out of batteries.
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| Nissan Leaf - photo from |
My concern about the electric revolution is much more than simply the death of internal combustion. Currently Eskom does not have enough power to see to the demand of this country, now add just one city, wanting to charge their cars. The results are pretty grim. Light out South Africa. Now all these
automobiles (they cannot be classified as cars) require an average of 8 hours to fully charge. Imagine the chaos then.
The second part is the whole green movement thing. You are forced to buy these new automobiles to save the world, but is it really as green as you think, or is it just clever marketing? According to a recent published study done by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the electric cars produce 3.6 times more soot and smog deaths than petroleum based cars, because of the pollution made in generating the electricity if powered by coal stations, which we have an abundance of. And that is just the charging part.
"Unfortunately, when a wire is connected to an electric vehicle at one end and a coal-fired power plant at the other end, the environmental consequences are worse than driving a normal gasoline-powered car" This was said by Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science, who wasn't part of the study but praised it.
Then there is the production. Electric cars are not as green as you may think, if you like charts and pictures, read here for a little more info, for the rest of us, they produce more pollution than the normal car when they are manufactured.
Hence the Yuppie. Forcing itself on the rest of the motoring world. Car manufacturing companies are now being forced on the green train, they are under strict laws to comply with all these regulations, even if they are not remotely electric,they still have the CO2 laws at play. Build quality suffers, product range shrinks, entire development budgets are blown to fit in. A perfect example of this is the Toyota Prius. Enough said. These companies go to extreme lengths just to comply, and is it really worth it?
We as humans do not yet have the ability to develop the batteries that are needed, and until then, the electric car may just do more harm than good.
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