Is the electric car the future? Or just an illusion?

The earth has been alarmingly polluted and damaged due to our excessive fuel consumption and dependency on foreign oil. Even though significant measures have been taken in order to introduce drastic change (such as the oil embargo that was put into place in 1973), the U.S has dramatically increased its oil consumption and its import of oil from various foreign countries. One solution to this dilemma is producing the electric auto for all consumers.

A few hundred years ago, electric cars were actually the preferred form of transportation instead of the traditional cars with combustion engines, which are the norm today. Ultimately, what gave way to this preference was the more affordable price of non-electric cars and an increase in the accessibility of oil, along with the mass production of vehicles dependent on oil championed by the Ford corporation.

There were many millions of cars were produced in the twentieth century, and almost every single one of them contained combustion engines. The scientific community is in agreement that human activity is largely responsible for the planet’s global warming problem and it is mainly due to our vehicles averaging a massive total of nineteen pounds of carbon dioxide emissions for every single mile driven. Despite this looming thread, around the 1980s the giant automotive company GM was starting to gain significant attention for its focus on alternative energy sources. During this period, there was further pressure for car companies to design and manufacture “clean” products. An example of this can be seen in the “Zero Emissions mandate” passed in California, which requires a set perentage of vehicles to be produced which emitt less carbon monoxide when compared with regular cars.. And in the 1990s General Motors assigned automaker Saturn to market the EV1, the first electric car ever designed for mass production and sales.

A three part consumer question was the benchmark for the ambitious marketing campaign of pushing the EV1 to the public : How fast can this vehicle travel? How fast can this car go? What is the final cost? At the start these cars gained great popularity from the masses.. There was actually a rather long list of people who were on the waiting list to purchase on these vehicles.. Interestingly, General Motors did not put these cars up for sale and were only willing to lease them. Nevertheless, the drivers were quite thrilled and enthused about the EV1 as it produced zero carbon dioxide emissions and was a joy to drive. Despite getting just 60 miles per charge these cars were preferred by many drivers.. So in fact, quick and sleek electric car was much more popular than its “nuclear time bomb” counterpart. So, what happened to this unheard of, oil-less wonder?

General Motors maintained that there was no interest and consumer base for the EV1 despite having poured millions of dollars into numerous campaign ads, and that the waiting list was not a viable source for proving actual consumer demand. Eventually, the hype was killed with GM removing all leased EV1s from the streets and turning them into demolished cubes. In defense of these roguish actions, among many other discussions, the auto industry argued that electric cars, because they were charged with electricity produced by coal, were even worse for the environment. In addition, the oil industry supported arguments against this emerging technology, and President Bush pushed for the inefficient and impractical fuel cell and hydrogen technologies to be the wave of the future and replace combustion engines.

This is a rather serious matter which requires our immediate and full attention; this car which could possibly save the earth and our environment for future generations, was pushed back by the government, the oil industry, and the automotive industry. What is more concerning however, is that we as a nation did not take the action of voicing our concerns and insist on the mass production of these cars. Luckily, there is still time for us to mass produce electric vehicles in the future. The EV1 was beautiful, smooth, fast and extremely popular with consumers. It’s imperative that this technology becomes the norm in the near future.

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