We're in Beta! Help us test our site by sending any bugs or feedback to us by clicking the Give Feedback button. Thanks!

By now, most people have seen the clip on YouTube or even the feature-length documentary about GM crushing its 1999 electric cars at the behest of Big Oil.   Ironically, GM are now trying to furiously claw back their initial advantage with the Volt, though the field is a lot more crowded now.

Electric cars are all the rage, as illustrated by the British Government’s announcement last week of a £25m scheme to get the public to test-drive electric cars from various manufacturers.  John Walsh of the London Independent tested several of them, including the Tesla roadster, far and away the car of choice for anyone looking for speed and style, although a US home-made drag car version is just as powerful and a little more unique.
But as I’ve written before, switching from oil to electricity is a little like switching from heroin to methadone: it’s still addictive, messy and unhealthy.  More interesting to me are complete alternatives, like the hydrogen-powered car, although refuelling for this one could be a little more complicated.  But my number one prize goes to the Japanese water powered car - who can fault water as the fuel of the future?  Well, Big Energy, maybe!  Is that why we haven’t seen any publicity about this one?  The only method that could be more innocent to the environment is the velocipede - that’s right, pure calorie-fuelled energy as you pedal – for 14,000 dollars!!!  Glass of water, anyone?

Okay, now these geniuses at MIT are starting to scare me.  They’ve figured out how to increase the charging speed of batteries by 36 times: and this time there are no bacteria involved, the Friends of Bacteria Association will be please to note.  The science is intricate, but basically by making nano grooves in batteries’ surfaces, the ions travel much faster, putting the possibility of electric cars’ acceleration matching petrol engines in the near future, and thereby attracting all those speed demons who won’t touch electric cars at the moment.  My resistance to viewing electric cars as the answer to our woes continues, however, as the power still has to come from somewhere: while the recharging technology could be integrated into the existing battery infrastructure in two years, home rechargers for electric cars would have to be redesigned to handle the rapid transfer of energy. “For cars, the speed that they can recharge at home will be limited not by the battery but by how much power can be made available to homeowners through the [electric] grid,” said Byoungwoo Kang, an MIT doctoral candidate working under engineering professor Gerbrand Ceder.  But it’s still no good having electric cars if everyone drives alone!  I read today in The Lazy Girl’s Guide to Green Living that there are 10 million empty seats every day, and if everyone took just one passenger (or2.37 passengers, but who’s counting?), congestion would be reduced by a third: more than the sum of the parts, methinks!

At first glance, the idea of everyone in Ireland driving electric cars sounds great.  But when looking at Minister Eamon Ryan’s announcement of his ambition to have 10% of the cars in Ireland electric by 2010, one has to notice his collaborators: ESB, Nissan and Renault.  None of these parties can or should be expected to serve anything other than their own interests.  The minister provides very little detail on how this new demand for electricity is to be met.  If this announcement were linked to new wind or sea-power farms, or animal methane, or the dairy by-products and cooking oils that are already fuelling cars around the world, that might be something to get excited about.  But hoping that electric cars will be the magic bullet for our climate change problems, and that an electricity company and car manufacturers are going to be the saviours, sounds at best naïve.  The roads are already overcrowded and making the shift from oil to electricity is like a heroin addict switching to smoking instead of shooting: the greater problem remains.  Is the minister going to require all civil servants to carpool by 2010?  Or offer free tolls, discounted insurance and/or motor tax to carpoolers? That would make a big difference to the energy usage and carbon footprint of this country, but no profits for ESB, Nissan and Renault.  Who’s running this government, anyway?