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How Long Till We Have Only Electric Cars?
I thought we were making progress. Gobsmacked. That’s the feeling I had when I learned why we still need oil.
What we know now
Like you, I knew that personal automobiles make up a good percentage of annual fossil fuel use contributing to climate change, about 11% annually. I knew automobiles produce carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from the tailpipe and even hydrofluorocarbon emissions from leaking air conditioners. Where cars emit 24 pounds of greenhouse gases for every gallon of gas, electric cars produce 0.
With a sigh of relief I watched Tesla roll out 1.9 million electric cars. Though it took a while to get the memo, every major car maker also offers an electric model or has one in the works. I’ve seen EV charging stations pop up at offices, supermarket parking lots, and homes to the extent that most electric car users don’t have to worry about running out of charge anymore. We seem to have solved the automobile problem. I thought were making progress.
I was wrong.
The compounding automobile problem
Worldwide, 1.5 billion vehicles tread our roads each day. To date, only 10.2 million cars are electric, less than 1%. Globally, the…