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Highly charged motoring

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[2010.10.07]

The Economist

Electric cars have come and gone over the years. Usually an oil crisis has given them a boost; this

time it is a

combination

of oil prices, fears about energy security and climate change.

Now the big car firms are pushing all-electric cars for the mass market. At the Paris Motor Show

this week they unveiled electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Some go on sale in the next few

months.

This represents a huge leap forward for the industry, but the showroom patter will be misleading,

for two reasons. First, although electric cars are nippy, stylish and as easy to drive as conventional

vehicles, electric motoring has some

distinct

disadvantages. Second, they are not really as green

as their promoters claim.

The idea of recharging an electric car at home for only a few dollars and never again having to

visit

a

filling

station

is

enticing.

For

most

journeys,

the

limitations

of

battery

capacity

are

irrelevant.

As

salesmen

will

be

quick

to

point

out,

99%

of

the

time

people

do

only

short

runs

—

the daily

commute,

trips

to

the

shops and

to

pick

up

the

children

—

all

of

which

are

well

within the range of most electric cars.

But that final 1% of journeys

presumably

includes the summer holiday when people pile into the

car and head off for the coast. Hopping on the train laden with suitcases and children may not be

an

attractive

alternative.

And

even

the

relatively

short

ranges

that

salesmen

advertise

may

be

optimistic.

On

a

cold,

wet

night

when

lots

of

electrical

systems

are

running

and

the

vehicle

is

laden with passengers and luggage, a car may lose around a third of its supposed range.

And what of electric cars’ environmental credentials? Elect

ric cars are being hugely subsidised by

tax payers

—

?

5,000 ($$7,940) in Britain and up to $$7,500 in America

—

on the ground that they are

zero-emission

vehicles.

Makers

of

electric

cars

claim

that

this

is

an

efficient

way

to

reduce

greenhouse-gas emissions. Road transport accounts for a tenth of such emissions worldwide; the

sorts of biofuels currently in use are not much greener than petrol; and next-generation biofuels

are proving slow to come to the market.

Although

electric

cars

may

not

themselves

produce

greenhouse

gases,

generating

the

electricity

they use does. How green they are depends on the fuel mix at the power plants in the country in

which they are driven. An electric car in Britain today, for instance, produces around 20% less in

CO2 emissions than a car with a petrol engine. Even if the generating mix gets greener, electric

vehicles are so expensive to produce, that they will still be a relatively costly way of abating CO2

emissions.

The only efficient way to cut greenhouse-gas emissions is to impose a carbon tax. If electric cars

are a good way of reducing emissions, a carbon tax will enable them to

flourish

. Taxes, of course,

are not as popular as subsidies. But subsidies are almost always a waste of public resources. At

this particular time,

throwing more taxpayers’ money at the car industry seems a daft thing to do.

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考研词汇

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但是人的大脑能够扫描一个快速变化的场景，迅速排除

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