An alternative to battery electric vehicles would be vehicles with engines running on an artificial liquid fuel. It may be that they’d co-exist with electric cars and be used where electric cars have insufficient range. On the other hand, the range problem of electric cars could be solved; part of the solution could be a battery exchange program. Surely improved public transportation would be part of the solution. For electric cars to reach their full potential, we need abundant clean energy.

For some occupations, the need to commute could be reduced with applications like skype.

In any case, we cannot continue with business as usual.

First the Science; Electric technology has been available and in use in large parts of Asia and Europe for the last decade, and I am not just talking about NEV’s here but a fairly mature market in most ways including battery development that is not perfect, but very advanced compared to the US Car yahoo’s.

(WW Rutland Wrote: I read a lot of this crap and I’ll tell you what we need and will use. An electric car with a 60 mph speed and at least a 60 mile range. When we can buy that then I’ll have one and so will others.) ..WWR I have seen them, driven them, been asked recently to help market them, there available and their coming.

I have personally been to dozens of E-factorys in Asia and they have been at it since 1995 in terms of R+D and market breakthroughs with vehichles that can reach 80-95 mile ranges and speeds that hit 80 mph and battery warrenty’s of 2 years plus, and some have e-mailed me that they have or are getting their DOT certifications. Its our automakers and media that don’t promote e-awareness or availability.

Now lets talk politics: you would think that a grave energy crisis would have America up in arms demanding something be done, given that there were realistic alternatives available. Well If I remember right, oil hit $170.00 a barrel and gas was at $4.50+ and climbing, the public was screaming bloody h*%ll.

This was a perfect storm scenario where both the public will, and the necesary available technology was avaliable to capitalize and manage change via the reactionable crisis (simular to the crisis in the 70′s and again in the 80′s) in which politicians given fortitude and character, could have made a difference with a variety of alternative sources.

As someone who is finishing up the final touches on rolling out the country’s first ‘All-Electric’ dealership I am counting on the enlightened few, and in particular the next generation to really drive home the reality of electrics as a wholly capable Industry! (yes I am convinced that Electrics not hybrids are the real direction America should be pursuing, Interested? e-me at : rawni(at)sbcglobal.net))

Until the American public can remember longer than what it ate for breakfast this morning, until politicians can say no to the lobbyist’s lining their pockets from all the energy and auto players in the US. When the media here is not held in the hands of a select few who don’t want to wake a sleeping public, America will be relegated to second world status in the new age of clean energy!
RSA

That’s part of the problem: we have become so accustomed to ‘buying’ an education, or ‘buying’ someone to do our work for us, or ‘buying’ a car to go to the mall to buy a new car. Now, we are looking for ways to ‘buy’ a ‘green’ job that is mostly greenwashing of a typical consumerism job (building mass transport to move people instead of teaching them how to stay home in the first place).
It’s the buying and traveling to someone else’s market-based coercion system that takes us away from our place and our land. No high school that I know of is teaching kids how to stay in their place and make it better. They are all testing kids to get them into colleges someplace ‘else’.
The problem is that our minds are set on selling something away from our place (including our children) and not putting the same value back that we have ‘harvested’. Our kids leave to join the march of “progress”, our food production (from petroleum) displaces hand labor, and our lives are determined by our jobs, which are what we do to make someone else at least twice as much money as we get paid, usually at work that is organized to increase consumption.

Thanks for the Energy-Related Paradigm Shifts.
Ten years ago, I was reading a book from Alvin Toffler.
The book was written in the 80′s and this problem was analysed.
Educated people will be more able to adapt to the future.
They will be able to work at home, get food from the garden, water from the roof, electric power from the Sun or wind, to solve the mobility problems and to choose better politicians. They will prefer EV’s without gasoline or hydrogen.
Blockade the Sun or the wind is impossible…

Thanks, Best Regards.
Manuel Gama

In carrot and stick terms, I think of the above as the stick. What might be the carrots of change? I consider the author’s observation on the efficacious nature of incremental change to be a valid generalization. Smaller carrots?

In the interest of keeping my post akin to a drunken walk event, I provide a bit of a personal sidebar.

Like many, I am a member of a health club. I can go there and move a lot of iron and other materials in a reciprocating motion, ostensibly to my benefit and to the detriment of the club’s HVAC. I can also pay a gardener considerable amounts of money to move rocks and other portions of my property for the benefit of my aesthetic sensibilities, and considerably more so for the gardener. A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that those rocks were irregularly formed exercise machines, and that I could combine these activities in some measure, both profitably and health-wise. I still have a gardener and I still belong to a health club. What happens in the two venues has however evolved, and continues to. I would also add that the stick in this analogy would be my doctor threatening me with a quadruple bypass, although that has not yet happened.

We don’t easily drive little eco cars, ride bicycles, walk or take public transportation every single day of the week. We can however dip our toes in the water, most especially when there are other threads of self-interest making themselves apparent. There is no question that others will have more interest in my electric bike when gas goes over $4 (stick). If I also present the electric bike as an opportunity for fun and optional exercise, it gets an even better reception. My electric car? At the moment, that’s early adopter stuff, and as we know, early adopters don’t need targeted marketing. They are usually the ones in line at 2am in the morning. I do however use that car as a means of show and tell for the good things coming, and I predict that many of the people around me will be quite receptive to the Nissans, Mitsubishis, Chryslers, Renault, BYD, what-have-you electric cars a year from now. It will all seem a bit familiar.