Mike Berry column: Breakneck speed for all-electric cars is a little shocking

Star Courier
·3 min read
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Have you bought your electric car yet?

No? Well, what are you waiting for?

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There aren’t many all-electric vehicles on the road yet. But the automakers are convinced that electric is the future:

  • CNN Business reports that Ford and a South Korean energy company, SK Innovations, are investing $11 billion to build two “enormous manufacturing campuses” for electric vehicles. This will create 10,000 jobs and will be the biggest manufacturing investment in Ford’s history.

  • General Motors is planning to build electrics in Michigan and in Mexico, and will offer nothing but electric vehicles by 2035.

Chrysler will hit the all-electric target even earlier, by 2028, company officials say.

The reason for electric vehicles is that they don’t spew noxious gases out their tailpipes. (As far as that goes, I don’t imagine electric vehicles have tailpipes at all. Or mufflers.)

I’m no automotive expert, but giving this matter a little thought, I came up with some questions:

  • Isn’t the electricity used to charge an electric vehicle’s batteries coming from power plants? And don’t those plants burn coal, oil and natural gas?

  • Sure, there are nuclear power plants, and we in downstate Illinois are well aware of the growing use of wind and solar power-generating. But we’re probably a long way from moving totally away from using fossil fuels to generate electricity.

  • What would you do if your battery is almost dead and you’re a hundred miles from the nearest charging station? Nowadays you could hike to the nearest gas station with a gas can, hoping to encounter a friendly driver who’ll give you a lift at least part of the way. You can’t put electricity in a can.

  • When your batteries go bad, what do you do? I’ve read that replacing the batteries can cost as much as a used car goes for today. And the materials used to make electric-vehicle batteries can pose a threat to the environment if the depleted batteries aren’t disposed of properly.

I saw a YouTube video the other day that indicated that electric vehicles don’t really cut down so much on carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere.

Yes, when an electric car rolls down the road, it doesn’t eject any CO2, as a gas or diesel vehicle does. But the video pointed out that so much CO2 is discharged by plants that make car batteries that the electric vehicles aren’t really making much of a difference in CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

I’m sure these issues will be addressed. . .they’ll find ways of recycling old batteries which should reduce the cost of new ones, thousands of new charging stations will be built, battery manufacturers will come up with ways to keep from releasing CO2 into the air.

Whether it’s a good idea or not, it appears that electric cars and trucks are in everyone’s future.

So if you really like pumping $5-a-gallon gas, make sure you keep your car well-maintained. There could come a time when you won’t be able to buy another one.

This article originally appeared on Star Courier: Mike Berry: Breakneck speed for all-electric cars is a little shocking