[lbo-talk] The War on the Car

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Mon Nov 14 15:20:49 PST 2005


On 11/14/05, John Costello <joxn.costello at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/14/05, Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
> > ivan illich once wrote [echoing Thoreau on Trains] that the average velocity of a car was
> > slower than walking when one took into account the time spent earning the money for the
> > car, caring for it, parking it ....
>
>
> There's a similar calculus involved in hybrid or battery-powered
> vehicles. It may be true that there's no net pollution gain from
> battery-powered cars.

No. First battery powered cars are a lot more efficient than gasoline powered; at least I don't know any gasoline powered car that comes close to the 200 mpg that a solaria selectric obtained. Secondly, no IC or diesel car engine can come close to the pollution control per btu routinely installed in megawatt scale power plants. So electric cars don't just shift pollution; they reduce it a hell of a lot.



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