The power has to come from somewhere, but power from the grid has at least the possibility of being generated from clean, renewable sources. And even dirty sources like coal can, if centralized, have all sorts of high-tech wizardry applied to make them clean(er). You just can not do that with a car burning gasoline.

And unfortunately, petroleum-derived hydrogen is actually worse- it takes nearly three times the energy to extract the hydrogen that it would take to produce a similar amount of power directly as electricity. And current methods for producing hydrogen would result in a pump-cost of about $10 for the equivalent energy of a gallon of gasoline. We seem to be heading the wrong way with hydrogen fuel cells…

As for the cost of the car…people will spend $80k to buy a hummer, or $60k to buy a BMW. A pickup truck is $45k. And has room for two people, three if you don’t mind being really friendly. A Prius can have 5 people, and costs about $35k. I don’t see that as unreasonable. What I see as unreasonable is the guy who thinks it is his god-given right to drive all by himself in a suburban or a Hummer up and down highway one in rush hour traffic.

It is a matter of perspective, I guess. If I need to cart around a refridgerator once a year, does it make sense to buy a vehicle for that one instance a year? Or should I buy a more efficient vehicle, and rent something for that one day a year I need the extra capacity? Why does someone carting 7 people around need a Ford Excursion at 6 mles to the gallon, when they could get a minivan that gets 25 miles to the gallon to haul the same number of people?

I know myself that I find it hard to think in terms of having “enough” for 95% of my needs. 200 km of range covers that 95%, but having to go through the “hassle” of renting or something when I decide I want to go a bit further…I’d rather not have to compromise, I guess. But I’ll give it more serious thought the next time I buy. In half a decade or so, maybe the available vehicles will have caught up with my wants.

Interesting fact from Who Killed the Electric Car…current laws allow a private business in the U.S. to write off $4,000 for the purchase of a hybrid or electric vehicle. Under the same current legislation, that private business could write off up to $100,000 for the purchase of a Hummer or similar super-sized 4×4. That makes it pretty clear to me that the “green movement” has a point when they say that the hyper-consumers and the big business that feeds them are stacking the deck unfairly.