American car makers failed us

By Scott Anthony

A new movie called "Who Killed The Electric Car" seemed like a good movie to watch after enduring Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." That movie was so depressing I wanted to shut off the power at the breaker box and sit in my dark, cold house in shame for being a member of the human species.

Even though it's no fun to be scolded, it's an important film to see, especially for young people, because they will be saddled with the decisions we make today. This new documentary with a somewhat jocular title, sounded like it might have a little comic relief. After only 15 minutes, I was ready to head for the breaker panel again.

The film, about the fate of electrically driven cars in this country in the mid 1990s, dealt with a car General Motors made for about three years called the EV-1. The gist of the movie questions who is at fault for the failure of electric cars to become commonplace in this country. Electric cars only need a household outlet to charge them up and though their traveling range is limited to less than 70 miles on average, the vast majority of commuters do not travel farther anyway.

They emit a very small fraction of the pollutants that petroleum fueled vehicles do and need little maintenance.

In the middle of the movie an interviewer asks a General Motors mechanic to ask about the service record of the EV-1. The mechanic began to pull parts out of pile.

"This is a muffler, don't need this with an electric car; this is a catalytic converter, unnecessary with the EV-1; this radiator, these fan belts, etc, etc." You get the point. The mechanic even explained that the brakes never needed attention because of a built-in "regenerative braking" system that does some of the work of slowing the car when needed.

We can argue the value of different alternative fuels until we pass out. There are hurdles with them all. Greasel is nearly free if you are handy with things like mixing tanks and it makes your diesel car smell like French fries. Biodiesel can be made from soy and rapeseed crops that are grown in our own states, but again, only good for diesel vehicles and may ultimately end up being cheaper to import. Ethanol made from corn supports the American farmer, but according to a Cornell University study, may require more energy to manufacture than it can provide in use. Hydrogen fuel cells are fundamentally very clean and highly renewable, but require expensive infrastructure in filling stations and because of the second law of thermodynamics, hydrogen fuel cells will always have a bad "energy return on energy invested" index.

Even though our own automakers, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and (now out of business) American Motors could not see fit to provide consumers with these alternatives, (the Ford Escape hybrid being a lackluster exception averaging only 30 mile per gallon), Japan has stepped up.

The Toyota Prius and Honda Insight are two examples of currently available gas/electric hybrids that get in excess of 50 miles per gallon, and it is possible to modify these vehicles to get double that number. Where do you get one of these transportation marvels? The Toyota dealership in Auburn will sell you a brand new Prius for 27K or you can find a used Honda Civic or Insight Hybrid on E-bay for much less.

Sunday morning, I drove to Blockbuster to return the movie at the after-hours slot. I wondered how humans got to this state of affairs, where we overuse our cars for things that were not necessary just decades ago. I stopped by the post office and pulled into the drop off lane, and as I stuffed the Christmas cards into the out of town box, I thought about the number of cars and trucks on the road that get less than 15 miles per gallon. At the coffee drive-thru, I got an eggnog latte and considered asking the girl if she's ever seen any electric cars stop by, but she seemed too busy to chat.

At the Jiffy Lube, I sat in the waiting area reading Car and Driver and listened as the crew pumped quarts of fresh earth blood into my crankcase.

To be sure, the real issue is not about how people can continue to maintain current lifestyles and still be "green." It's more about the peculiar zeitgeist that "I am my car" and the truly best option is to find a way to pry us out of them altogether.

Individuals with moxie and commitment will always be the leaders in this fight, but until governments decree meaningful laws to wean us off of oil dependency, the fate of the planet does not look good. See both of these movies if you dare and if my house looks dark, I'm not hiding out with the lights and furnace off. I'm out riding my bicycle.

Scott Anthony lives in Federal Way and writes a regular weekly column for Robinson Newspapers there. He can be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com