Electric cars are crap...

Out here in Hawaii, a majority of our electricity is generated by fuel oil at the local HECO Plant, but we have some people saying that they drive a electric car because there carbon foot print, blah, blah, blah.

Reality is, that on the islands, they're idiots.  My jeep probably has a smaller "Carbon Footprint" than their smug mobiles cars.

The fact is, when you convert energy, you produce heat as a waste product.  Not to mention the amount of environmental damage to produce the batteries, which might last 5 - 10 years (think mining the ore, transporting the ore, refining the ore, making the battlers, transportation of the batteries  for final assembly of the car, and lastly disposal of the dead batteries).

Also, have fun paying for the replacement batteries ($15000 - $30000) vice a new engine ($2000)

For over 100 years, we have been using Lead Acid batteries in everything from submarines to cars and the technology is relatively mature.   Lithium Ion batteries, not so much.  For proof google "Lithium Ion Battery Fire", only 2,750,000 results.  Lead Acid Fires only returned 1,700,000 results, but we have been using them for over 100 years.

As for greenhouse (cough, cough, bullshit, cough) gases, whether burning petroleum or garbage, if combustion is complete, you produce the following major constituents:

CO₂

H₂O

Your minor constituents include

NO_x

SO₂

and whatever else makes up the fuel

But to give you an idea of the waste, let's compare my 2006 Jeep to a smug mobile electric car:

Process	My Jeep	An Electric Car	Waste
Transporting Fuel to Hawaii	Same	Same	Fuel burned in transportation
Energy (distributing fuel)	Same	Same	Energy used to pump/deliver  the fuel
Burning the fuel to produce mechanical energy	Waste	N/A (but it uses electricity, see below)	Heat
Burning fuel to generate heat	N/A	Always	Heat
Converting heat to steam	N/A	Always	Heat
Steam turning the turbine	N/A	Always	Heat
Turbine generating electricity	N/A	Always	Heat
Stepping up the voltage to distribution voltage (>100000 VAC)	N/A	Always	Heat
Stepping down the voltage to local distribution (<10000 VAC)	N/A	Always	Heat
Stepping down the voltage to household distribution (110 VAC per phase)	N/A	Always	Heat
Stepping down household voltage and converting to D.C. voltage to charge the batteries	N/A	Always	Heat
Charging the batteries	N/A	Always	Heat
Discharging the batteries	N/A	Always	Heat
Powering the electric motors that move the car	N/A	Always	Heat
The electronics that control the car and batteries	N/A	Always	Heat
Any other device that is operating (i.e. the controller that controls the whole damn thing, radio, A.C., heater, lights, etc.)	N/A	Always	Heat and wasted energy.  If it isn't going to the motors, it's being wasted/

  

Looking at this should make al gore cry and cause instant death to polar bears.

Fuck al gore