Hi Bill
On (09 Dec 96) BILL BAUER wrote to Brian Lane...
 BB> Well, maybe I am dense or dumb or stupid or something, but seems to
 BB> me like going to electric cars isn't going to solve much of anything.
 BB> While it's true that the cars themselves won't pollute nearly as much
 BB> as the gas engine ones do but the additional power needed to charge
 BB> those cars up are going to do about as much polluting as the gas
 BB> engine cars did.
Not so. Battery Elec cars are much used, tho not as much as pre WW1 when 
hese
outnumbered the petrol ones. Where elec cars are used these are low powered
sub- compacts as a rule, unsuited to highway speeds. The lower power is OK
around suburbs and shopping districts where red traffic lights multiply and
acceleration, not power are desirable.
Each elec car today, has maybe one tenth the horsepower of the petrol car it
replaces. The consequent  pollution [at a distant generating station] is
trivial compared with with the stinkin' poison that blows out of the tail
pipes where you and I live or work.
I think it's an awfully poor swap.
You are half right. It's a great swap in some towns, but a rotten swap for
long distance travel. I reckon petrol cars will be popular for another 100
years but in fast declining numbers. We'll be charged by the oil Cos and 
axed
by the governments so badly, that walking cycling and riding "golf carts" 
ill
get to be real common. A gentle revolution.  Cheers.....ALEC
... ........The hasty and the slow meet at the ferry
--- PPoint 1.92
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