Many of us look forward to the day that electric cars are the common method of transportation. The Green Movement and Environmentalists alike proclaim this as a progressive step for society.
However, problems arise and need to be dealt with before such a dream can come to reality.
Imagine you are in Florida and a hurricane is coming towards your location. Of course, you hit the road with your vehicle, as the government orders an evacuation. All cars head northward away from the hurricane’s reach. They are, most electric cars, and so they need to be recharged in say Jacksonville. If they are all-electric vehicles (EV) and are caught up in a three-hour traffic jam, with dead and draining batteries, then what? What to do? Say this happens in a northern region where there is snow, so freezing temperatures. EV cars have virtually no heating or air conditioning available because of the high battery consumption.
If you get stuck on the road all night, no battery, no heating, no GPS, no radio, no windshield wipers(these all drain the batteries) all you can do is try to call 911 to take women and children to safety. 911 cannot come to you as all the roads are blocked and probably all police cars will be EV also. When the roads become unblocked no one can more. Their batteries are all dead. How can you charge thousands of vehicles in a traffic jam?
Summer vacation offers many miles of traffic jams also. Batteries drain, leaving you with no air conditioning. Where can the needed electricity be found? Today’s electric grid is antiquated at best, handling our present electrical needs most of the time. Can we use nuclear power, natural gas as sources for power generation, boosting EV batteries?
What will be done with the billions of dead batteries that will not take electric charges? Present-day EV batteries are difficult to maintain over time and very difficult to replace. Like nuclear rods, we will need to find ways to hopefully batteries recycle and replace older batteries as well as electric batteries. They cannot go into the ground or landfills.
Seems like the cart is way ahead of the horse. Have the governments and agencies responsible for this movement towards the electric vehicle thought whats so ever on how to handle any of the problems that batteries can cause? They do not talk or report on any of these issues.
EV Batteries that last a long time just do not exist in the market presently, yet corporations build these vehicles and promote them. . Many EV batteries will not take charge over time, placing the owners of these vehicles in a major bind. The most essential of vehicle parts are not easily available and are also experimental and not readily tested over time.
Currently, in France thousands of EV taxis are now stored as inoperable because the batteries are dead and to replace them would cost as much as the value of the vehicles themselves.
A lot like winning the large house in the lottery. Great to own, but what about the cost of its maintenance, land taxes, utilities, possible repairs over time. I don’t know about you, but those who proclaim the new age advancement to electric vehicles do not seem to speak about all that comes with it. The media does not seem to write about the big picture when reporting EV Technological advancements.
Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
skaszab@yahoo.ca
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