The Automobile’s Forgotten Secret
5th July 2011
The automobile’s potential is its greatest secret—an open secret and yet, it often seems, a forgotten one. The big SUV in my garage may occasionally make a 10-mile trip to Walmart or 2-mile run to the volunteer fire station when the siren sounds. But it has the potential—the size, the power, the range—to take me, my friends, and our bicycles over the mountain to a distant bike trail, or 1,100 miles with a load of furniture and books to my son’s house in Florida.
And that potential translates into freedom, freedom that most people won’t give up, whatever the nagging by the masters of the Nanny State.
This powerful potential is at the crux of replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs). Can EVs ever develop the potential that ICE cars routinely deliver? This is not merely an issue of range, but range plus the sheer reserve power to carry real-life loads, deal with emergencies, and finesse the unexpected detour or delay.
The problem is that we just don’t have the technology (yet) to make an electric car that’s a reasonable substitute for a gas-powered car. And all the subsidies and preferences in the world can’t make up for that basic deficiency.