Electric Cars

Make no mistake about it, we in America are behind the eight ball when it comes to our love of cars and getting from point A to Z. We as a people love the zero to sixty in seconds because we are power addicts in our cars. More power, more horsepower, and then we do that Tim Alan thing with the grunt as we pass a school bus with our mini van on a double lane road. Then we get to the gas pump and wonder why out loud with many expletives under our breath why it cost sixty, seventy or even a hundred dollars to fill our gas tank.

One of the things that is going to happen in America over the next decade is the extreme change to our choice of motor vehicles. It isn’t by our choice rather than our need as a people to move from one point to the other freely and the rising cost of gasoline will be the ultimate reason behind the engineering changes. You can blame OPEC, Wall Street, or the money grabbing oil companies with billions of profit per quarter or you could just look in the mirror. No matter how you look at the cause of blame, the car market is going to have to move to new forms of transportation or go the way of the stage coach. Just as the horse and buggy was replaced with the combustion engine, the same is going to happen to the combustion engine form of transportation.

Europe has been paying grotesque prices for gasoline for decades and in doing so has been the front runner on new technology to save money on the family budget. Over at Reuters they have this video on the latest car show featuring electric cars…

Wind power and Solar power is growing in America like a virus out of control and for a good reason. Our nation is in trouble when it comes to our energy needs and changing the source of that need is the only way out of it. All across America wind farms are going up like a wild weed overcoming the oil giant garden and this weed is not easily wiped out by insecticides or political lobbyist. What is amazing is that many people in the private sector are taking the initiative and installing their own wind turbines.

When you think about it, every single wind turbine is stealing away from the harmful alternatives that we use for electric generation every single day. Every single megawatt turbine is that less energy from coal powered power plants. Every single megawatt turbine is that much less energy needed from a natural gas fired power plant.

As for the solar power market and people embracing that new and improved energy source, the industry can not grow fast enough. Here in New England, Governor Deval Patrick has endorsed and put his money where his mouth is on green energy, and the solar power industry can not keep up with demand for the product that just sucks up energy from the sun.

Would it not be nice to throw up a solar panel on your roof and a small wind turbine to generate enough energy for not just your car to get from A to Z but also power the toaster, the fridge, the television and of course your computer to read posts like this one?

Anywho, electric cars are coming to America. They need to work on making them look more conventional and macho. Real men, macho hairy men, will be the worst enemy of the electric car industry. Little two seater’s that look like a sardine can will never wash. Get past that hurdle and it will sell like the next coming of Christ. Put the technology of electric cars in a midsized Ford or Chevy model and America will embrace it in a heartbeat.

Papamoka

*****Reuters has picked up this post... Thank You!

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