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Ethical, Environmental, and Economic Analysis
of Electric Car Technology.
Purely Battery-Electric Cars have been around since the 1800's. We mostly see them today as short-range vehicles such as Golf-Carts, segways, and scooters. We also see Toyota and Ford offering "hybrid cars" with electric motors to supplement their gasoline engines. But the potential exists to mass-market electric cars to the commuting consumer market. Granted, electric cars are not for everyone. They will only serve the needs of 90% of the population. But the technology has evolved to a point where it is more than feasible to sell electric cars, and great effort is being made to hold back the introduction of the technology for political and economic reasons. This is a deeply unethical business practice.
When you compare an electric sports car such as the EV1 to a similar sports car running off a combustion engine, a few things stand out. First, the electric car has no exhaust, so it does not pollute the air as it drives around. The car is charged electrically at night when you plug it in to any 110 AC power source. Essentially, your car gets its power from your local power utility. Here in Illinois, about 65% of our electricity is generated by nuclear power. If you were to drive an electric car in Illinois, you could say its power is 65% nuclear.
Electric cars are cheaper to operate than comparable combustion engine vehicles. Typical consumer questions include: How far can it go on one charge, and what does it cost to "fill up?" To put it in perspective, try imagining a car with only a 7 gallon gas tank, but the gasoline only costs 60 cents per gallon. That's what it's like to drive an electric car. As long as you charge it every night and don't need to drive over 100 miles in one stint, you could do all your commuting in a zero-emission vehicle. That range might seem like a limitation, but realize that it could double with just a few years of R&D.
If you consider that every gallon of gasoline burned in a combustion engine adds 19 pounds of greenhouse gases to our atmosphere, suddenly it becomes deeply unethical for our society to burn fossil fuels when they are not the most environmentally efficient, or even economically efficient energy storage system available. The true scope of the choice between gasoline and electric becomes clear after you spend just a few minutes in Los Angeles: the American city with the worst air pollution. Roughly 40% of L.A. smog is caused by passenger cars. Roughly 80% of those cars don't need to run on gasoline to serve their passengers’ needs.
An electric car does not need a radiator, or a water pump, or oil, or an oil filter, or an oil change every 3000 miles. A technician can work on the electric motor without even getting his hands dirty, because nothing is being burned under the hood. While a typical combustion engine has about 100 parts, any of which could fail and many of which need constant maintenance, the electric car has less than twenty parts in its engine compartment that need any maintenance at all. The majority of the parts in an electric car will last for the life of the vehicle. The electric car does not need gasoline. It just needs a power outlet.
So why aren't there more electric cars on the road? Why has GM and Toyota and Ford and other car manufacturers pulled the plug on their attempts to sell electric cars to the general public? Well, the best answer I can give has a political component and an economic component. To illustrate, imagine a day when 50% of the commuting cars on the road are battery-electric vehicles. Think of all the people who make parts for gasoline engines, maintain gasoline engines, sell engine coolant and lubricant and fuel additives and radiators, water pumps, coolant hoses, antifreeze, and the other 80 components that electric cars don't need. Now imagine 50% of those people suddenly becoming structurally unemployed. Imagine your job is to sell oil filters and one day your market is slashed in half. Even if it the most viable alternative from an environmental justice point of view, a lot of people still have a lot to lose if electric cars become commonplace on the road. People are just too selfish: they can’t think long term.
The typical line that economics classes feed you is that whatever firm can provide the best product at the lowest cost ends up getting the lion's share of the profits in a market economy. That's the essence of competition, the essence of trade that spurs advancements that expand our GDP, expand our Production Possibilities Frontier and move society forward. However, in reality, this trend is the exception rather than the rule.
In the auto industry, we have an oligopoly. Not only is there is heavy horizontal price collusion between “competing” car companies, but there are very heavy ties between automakers and fuel companies. One system powers the other, so there's an understanding and a set of common interests, say, Between GM and Exxon-Mobil.
Just because a technology exists that is cleaner, more efficient, and cheaper to manufacture and cheaper to operate does not naturally move it to the forefront of consumer demand. It sounds unnatural for society to resist efficiency and social progress, and for that trend to occur, you need political pressure to hold back the naturally equilibrating market forces. You need to plant the seeds of fear and doubt into the minds of the American consumer. You need to promise them impossible futures with "hydrogen fuel cells" and fill their minds with disinformation. You need to label Global Warming as a myth and keep America addicted to oil.
Why would a company like General Motors do such a thing? Why would one of our oldest and most respected American companies resist change? Well, GM took sides on this issue in 1927, when it bought up one of the first electric car manufacturers and then shut them down. GM knows that they have a lot to lose (in terms of expensive upkeep revenues) if they produce a product that doesn’t need regular maintenance. Similarly, currently employed auto mechanics fear for the loss of their jobs. It is a fact that electric cars need less maintenance, and the maintenance they need is different than what the typical auto mechanic knows how to do.
Similarly, the oil industry has a lot to lose if the electric car becomes commonplace. Since 65% of Exxon-Mobil's revenue comes from consumer vehicles, they have good reason to suppress alternative energies. As long is there is oil in the ground, the people owning those oil fields want to make sure that society doesn't jump on the electric bandwagon and leave gasoline-based commuting "in the dust."
Critics say the electric car is not a feasible idea, that limitations in battery technology limit the range of the cars, that there is no demand for such a product. If that is the case, why has General Motors swallowed up and shut down every electric car maker it can get its hands on since 1927? Every time there is a new advancement in battery technology - something strange happens. When higher-yield Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries were developed, big oil bought the company and their patent, and closed down the facility. GM bought the patent to large-scale high-yield lithium ion batteries before they could be considered for the automotive market. They own the technology, and all they have to do is sit on it.
This month, Firefly Energy, a company out of Peoria, Illinois, developed a modification to a lead-acid battery to remove the inefficient lead plates and install a graphite sponge, with 200% more surface area and up to 10 times the power of a typical car battery. Right now, the military uses these batteries for silent-running electric tanks and weapons, but will not make them commercially available.
How can the power of capitalism hold progress back? How can greed and unethical corporate behavior be tolerated when our entire ecosystem is at stake and fossil fuels threaten to destroy our very way of life?
-TBF-
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| | Posted 11/29/2006 11:44 PM - 179 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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