Every Day is a 'Spare the Air' day in an Electric Car

When you hang around a bunch of electric car enthusiasts, you get a great deal of feedback from like-minded people.  Yesterday, I joined my fellow enthusiasts for the first of many Earth Day events in the month of April.  The members of the Electric Auto Association of Silicon Valley have attended most of these Earth Day events for many years. It was a great day to show the public the advantages of driving electric.

It was only in 2008 when I joined the Electric Auto Association, but the club had been official for 41 years at that time.  Back in 1967 the symposium of people who were meeting for the sake of electric vehicles decided to form what today is a club of over 2000 members through the United States.  And although it has held on this long, it was no easy ride.

At the turn of the last century (early 1900's) one-third of all horseless carriages were electric. But the advent of the internal combustion engine would soon curb the progress of the electric car. It was primarily a range problem and, in the nearly 100 years to following the range of electric vehicles did not improve.

Air Quality

Today however, the message of the electric car is finally making headway.  One of the slogans of the EAA is

"Every Day is a 'Spare the Air' day in an Electric Car

It was very apparent in the 1950's and 1960's that automobile pollution was causing problems.  My dad told me of the Smog Days that he experience growing up in Southern California at that time.  He lived in the Foothills North West of Los Angeles where there were days when the mountains were hidden by the pollution.  There were predictions that any child born between 1968 and 1980 would have life-long respiratory problems due to the smog.

Even today we are still concerned with the quality of the air, as rightly so.  It's not just a nice feeling to know that you're driving a vehicle that produces no emissions, it's a direct correlation. No emissions, breathe easier.

Notable Concerns

Of course there are still arguments about how the energy is produced that will run the electric car.  And there are concerns about usage and power balance in the grid.  It is important to know where your power comes from and what it is used for most often.

Where electric cars use electricity directly, in California at least, more than 50% of electrical power is produced from renewable sources and natural gas.  It takes electricity to extract, refine, ship, and pump gasoline.  And there is, at least for now, no way to convert sunlight into gasoline.

Granted, the manufacture of batteries is quite complex and still very expensive, but no less environmentally costly that all the fluids and needed to produce the current internal combustion engine and peripherals.

Conclusion

Assuming (broadly) that the production and recycling costs, be it environmental or monetary, of each type of car is effectively equivalent, the one trouble that we still face is at the tailpipe.  We're still making progress in education and the more people we can help to learn about electric cars, the better decisions can be made for the future.  It's up to you to decide how to get from point A to point B. Will it be clean and quiet or loud and dirty?