[citation][nom]drosencraft[/nom]You are partially right, but you miss a lot of points. No, electric cars are not going to solve all environmental problems, but cars are a huge contributor due to their being a huge consumer of oil, so getting people off a gasoline car and into an EV is the best course of action. As for the Tesla, the problem with it is that it's not that great. It gets a lot of press for being an electric sports car, but like your own example shows, people who can afford one are more apt to be able to afford the gas that goes with a better car for the same price category. Yes, most "affordable" EVs are actually fairly expensive, but they aren't "overpriced" since they are usually sold at very low to negative margins. The basic fact is that an EV battery is a very expensive piece of equipment, and account almost entirely for the difference in price from the gasoline equivalent. And unfortunately what is most aerodynamic is not always the prettiest to look at. Now, a little math. Assuming 20 total miles a day for travel to and from work and the store or what have you, at the current national average of $3.29 a gallon, and a 40mpg car, that is about $600 a year (assuming gas never goes back up, your car never drops below 40mpg or somehow spikes above it, and you maintain a yearly average of about 7300 miles). It will take a while for an EV to recoup the price over a gasoline car. But again, a major part of that is because the battery and other tech is very expensive. It's the real reason battery powered cars died the first time around. Push it now, because if you wait it'll just be more expensive then. Get the tech out there, get it used, have the kinks worked out and production standardized, and then the price comes down. The premium shrinks to near nothing. We need to think of these cars in the same vein as computers. Ram used to be ridiculously expensive, until enough use and pressure brought the price down. Give it some time.[/citation]
Electric cars are not going to solve any environmental problems. For one thing, all they do is shift WHEN the pollution is generated, they don't end it. How do you charge an electric vehicle? On a wall charger, powered more than likely a coal plant. The pollution is merely generated indirectly when the car is in the driveway rather than when it being run. And let's not forget battery disposal. There is no such thing as an environmentally friendly battery. EV's are like Apple products, merely a status symbol, not a solution to anything.
The fact is EV vehicles is nothing new. There were battery powered cars a hundred years ago. What we need is to encourage people to truly innovate, to get new technology going, but in this day and age, it won't be happening any time soon.