electric cars — VOICES for REASON

Following up on an earlier post, here’s another insightful challenge to the mythology of electric cars.

Considering the batteries we have today, and the trajectory of the technological development, I am pessimistic about the viability of a mass market for battery electric cars in the near to mid-term.

Our current battery technology simple does not provide the cost, durability and energy storage attributes that allow for the development of mass-market products. We can get around some of these issues with niche products or schemes like battery leasing, or subsidizing the products but none of these are solutions for the mass market.

Within Toyota, we’re working on a niche electric vehicle. At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this year [2009], we showed a concept of what our current thinking is. A small, city car with relatively limited range, that’s reasonably affordable, targeted at non-traditional markets. But it’s not intended to be a mass-market car. We’re looking at sales volumes of thousands not millions. To produce an electric vehicle that’s truly intended for a mass market, a replacement for your current gasoline car, we’re going to need a battery chemistry that isn’t currently available.

Now, some readers might yet suspect that the person quoted is a shill of the oil industry. In fact, the statement is from Bill Reinert, one of the designers of the ultimate “green” icon: the Toyota Prius.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In his latest piece, Wall Street Journal business columnist Holman Jenkins argues that today’s electric cars are “welfare wagons”–overpriced, underperforming novelty items that the rest of us will be subsidizing for upwards of $7,500 apiece. Of Nissan’s much-touted Leaf, he writes:

the Leaf is a car for a wealthy hobbyist, good for a trip of 100 miles after which it becomes an inert lump at the end of your driveway (or behind a tow truck) for the many hours it will take to recharge.

Read the whole thing.

For those inclined to believe that today’s electric cars are just going through the growing pains of any new technology, consider what a wise man told Henry Ford over 100 years ago, when electric cars were also considered the wave of the future.

Electric cars must keep near to power stations. The storage battery is too heavy…Your [gasoline] car is self-contained—carries its own power plant—no fire, no boiler, no smoke and no steam. You have the thing. Keep at it.

The wise man’s name? Thomas Edison.

Of course, we can’t and shouldn’t rule out the possibility that some brilliant company will overcome all the obstacles to practical electric cars–but that company must prove itself on the free market, not gorge itself on other people’s money.

Image: Wikimedia Commons