Pollution
and emissions: Automobiles produce an
estimated 25% of the world’s pollution emissions and with 65% of the world’s
electricity produced by fossil fuels, replacing one problem with another is not the solution.
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Congestion: With 1 billion automobiles one the road
around the world, it is estimated that commuters spend as much as 8 days (200
hours) a year in congestion. Changing to
1 billion electric automobiles will do nothing to ease this problem, and that's without considering future population growth.
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Expense: With the cost of a car, maintenance,
insurance, and fuel, it is estimated that it costs $500-$2000 per month to own a
car. This, for an asset that sits parked
over 90% of the time. Switching to
electric cars reduces these costs marginally since you still have the cost of electricity, depreciation, insurance, and the parking problem still remains.
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Efficiency: It is estimated that over 75% cars on the
road have only one occupant. Pushing a 3000-pound
vehicle down the road with only one occupant is an extremely inefficient use of
capital, energy and infrastructure, whether it is gas or electric powered.
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Infrastructure
construction and maintenance: The cost
of building and maintaining bridges, roads and freeways have traditionally
fallen on systemically inefficient and cash strapped governments. This cost remains the same when you switch to
electric vehicles.
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Environmental
costs: Drilling, fracking and oil spills
have a huge environmental cost, especially to oceans, surface and ground
fresh water.
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Resource
depletion: With the world consuming
about 100 million barrels of oil per day, it is rapidly depleting a finite
source of energy that once it runs out, can never be replaced.
