Al Gore,
Rick Wagoner, Tom Friedman, our President Elect, Barack Obama, and many more celebrities are all heavily favoring and supporting a wholesale changeover from fossil fuel driven cars to electrically powered automobiles.
Their faith is based on the Lithium Ion battery. These batteries are very expensive, are heavy, must be replaced after several years, and require hours for recharging. Lithium is not widely available in the US and must be imported.
Electric cars perform admirably. They do not emit greenhouse gases directly, can be designed to accelerate well, and are very quiet. Electric cars are considered by many as the secret weapon that will reduce our dependence on imported petroleum and will lessen our payments to oil producing countries.
In a good year, US citizens will buy roughly 15 million cars to replenish and grow the US inventory of nearly 250 million used cars. It may take anywhere from twelve to fifteen years to replace most of this inventory with new models. The Volt, the first electric car produced by General Motors, will likely be leased in small numbers initially to stay on top of performance and warran