1. Single engine vs. wheel motors

Cars generally have one engine, which converts potential energy (stored in gasoline, diesel, ethanol, etc.) into kinetic energy (rotation). This rotation is then carried via a rotating drive shaft to the wheels. This doesn’t make any sense for an electric vehicle. Electric motors are small and can be placed adjacent to (or inside) the wheel they turn. If one breaks, the other three can still push the car. This also simplifies automatic traction control, and allows a more balanced vehicle weight. The heavy drive shaft can be replaced by much lighter electrical cables connecting the motors to the batteries.

2. One gas tank vs. many batteries

Since gasoline is a liquid, and has to be pumped into a vehicle, it made sense to store all the car’s gas in a single tank. Batteries are not liquid. An electric vehicle does not need a single gigantic battery in the middle. It can have a plethora of small batteries, placed wherever is convenient. The mechanical engineer is free to rearrange batteries of varying sizes to manipulate the car’s center of gravity, handling and performance in crash tests.

3. Breaks vs. generators

Cars have brakes – pads that create friction within the wheel assembly to slow the car. This kind of brake system is unnecessary in an electric car with wheel motors – when you want to slow down, you just reverse the motor and it becomes a generator. This not only rapidly slows the vehicle but also charges the batteries. Want a list of other things electric vehicles don’t need? How about mufflers, exhaust pipes, pistons, carburetors, spark plugs, gas tanks, fuel lines, brake fluid, starting motors, crankshafts, fuel injection systems, turbochargers, transmissions, clutches, ignition systems, liquid cooling systems, drive shafts, stick shifts, tachometers, and differentials. Electric vehicles are just simpler.

4. Single vs. multiple energy sources

Cars burn gas (or diesel, or ethanol, or whatever). The point is that cars get energy from exactly one source – whatever’s in the tank. EVs, in contrast can exploit many energy sources, from plugging in to a traditional wall outlet, to regenerative braking (mentioned above), to photovoltaic paint, to pedal power, to wind, to heat. So when you hear these assholes saying “biodiesel can’t solve the energy crisis because there’s not enough of it” (substitute hydro, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal etc. for bidiesel), offer them a steaming cup of shut the fuck up. It’s not about one magic bullet, it’s about the combined electrical output of everything we can find. This applies to individual cars as well as the electric grid as a whole.

5. Heavy vs. light

Cars, vans, SUVs, and trucks are heavy. Everything about them is heavy, from the engine to the seats, steering columns and chassis. The first rule of efficient vehicles is ‘Heavy is bad!’ What the car companies need to do is hire bicycle designers. Those guys understand how to make things light and strong. Consider the extent of this inefficiency: A typical 1/2 ton truck (say a 2002 Ford F150) weighs about 4000 lbs and can carry about 2000 lbs. A Surly Big Dummy longtail bicycle, in contrast, weighs about 40 lbs, and can carry 400.

6. Traveling vs. commuting

“But what if I want to go on a road trip?” people always ask when someone points out that electric vehicles have a particular range. How many goddamn road trips do you go on? First, if 99% of your travel is within a city, or from a suburb to city and back, that’s what EVs are for. If you’re using your car to travel hundreds of kilometers at once on a regular basis, you need to rethink your lifestyle. Second, both EVs and cars have a particular range. The difference is pumping gas is fast and recharging batteries is slow. This isn’t an EV problem, it’s a battery technology problem – particularly a problem with chemical batteries. It requires us to rethink energy storage. One alternative with some potential is the high-speed flywheel. On a related note, vehicle designers shouldn’t assume that power will be stored in chemical batteries (or fuel cells, or whatever). We should review as many energy storage alternatives as possible, and pick the best combination.

7. Gas stations vs. ubiquitous charging

When the tank is low, car drivers stop at gas stations to refill. EVs, in contrast, are recharged at home – at least, that’s the current thinking. We need to start thinking of EVs as charging all the time, as if they were little rolling power-plants. We also need to think of plugging EVs into the grid whenever we park, be it at home, in the parking garage at work, in the parking lot at the mall, etc. Having millions of EV-sized batteries connected to the grid allows for the kind sophisticated power management described by Thomas L. Friedman. Short version: the grid charges batteries when demand is otherwise low (at night) and drains them (just a little bit) to even out demand peaks. You can, of course, override the centralized power management and set the EV to charge if you have far to go. In summary, we need to start thinking about ubiquitous connection infrastructure, rather than intermittent fueling stations.

8. Parallel vs serial hybrids

The Toyota Prius and virtually every other hybrid car you see on the road today is a parallel hybrid. An internal combustion engine and an electric motor simultaneously generate torque, which is combined in the drivetrain. This creates all manner of unnecessary complexity, as embodied by Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive. It is far simpler to make an electric vehicle and, for those who need extra range, include the option of a backup generator with a small gas tank. Suppose, for instance, that 360 days per year, you drive a maximum of 100 km per day, but 5 days a year, you have to travel up to 500 km to meetings or whatever. For those 5 days a year, it may make sense to spend an extra $1000 on a backup generator for your EV. Key point: this backup generator should be removable so its weight doesn’t decrease the efficiency of the EV for normal trips.

Conclusion

Most people thinking of electric vehicles as some kind of drawback requiring painful compromises. That’s bullshit. Electric vehicles are an overwhelming technological improvement over fossil-fuel burning cars. EVs are inherently more efficient, more powerful, faster, simpler, quieter and more versatile. The dimension on which EVs are inferior to gas-powered vehicles is refueling/recharging time, and this is easily managed for the vast majority of applications.

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Dear Environmentally-Conscious but mathematically challenged bureaucrats,

Please stop with the eco-theatre. If you want to make a real impact, try starting with the things that create the most pollution. Start with the enormous amounts of methane produced by the livestock that satiate our meat addiction (not that meat is bad – we just eat too much of it.) Start by reducing sprawl so people don’t travel as far. Start by improving building codes so we stop building inefficient structures. Start by improving the emissions standards for all the buses and heavy construction equipment spewing diesel fumes night and day. Start with the coal- and oil-fired power plants.

And for fucksake do the math before you open your mouth.

5. Rework taxes and tariffs to punish wastefulness and pollution

This is pretty simple really: slap a tax on anything that emits pollution (especially the greenhouse gases) and a tariff on anything imported from an environmentally unfriendly factory or country. These taxes and tariffs should vary according to the severity of the pollution or waste. Then take all the money that’s collected, and give it right back to the public. This way, those who create the most pollution get punished, the average person breaks even, and that guy at the office who rides his bike to work makes out like a bandit. This has the added bonus of transferring wealth from the rich (who are a wasteful bunch on average) to the poor (who can’t afford to use as much energy).

4. Make extensive public transit free

This is a no brainer. Driving wastes energy. If we want people to stop driving, we should maximize the incentive of the alternative. Yes, this means public transit must be run by the government. What people don’t realize is that the massive savings from having fewer cars on the road, including less road maintenance and construction, can offset the cost of providing public transit. Free public transit also boosts tourism, gets people walking more, increases economic mobility, and decreases drunk driving and accidents.

3. Live in smaller homes

There’s no getting around it: big houses full of appliances waste energy. You don’t need three TVs, five computers, four sound systems and an electric can opener. You don’t need more rooms in your house than there are people living there. All that extra space wastes energy not only in its construction but also in heating, cooling, cleaning and maintenance.

2. Live closer together

With all this focus on more efficient transportation, people are forgetting that if you live within walking distance of work, hybrid cars are a moot point. The huge cost in energy and money associated with transportation is largely due to everything being way too spread out. Urban sprawl is a huge energy sink, not only in transportation costs, but also in road construction and maintenance, extra street lights, power transmission, utility provision, etc. There’s also the huge opportunity cost associated with the land use. And don’t even get me started about entire cities that shouldn’t exist. Los Vegas, Los Angeles, I’m looking at you. The energy required just to move water to these cities is unfathomable. Water-loving humans have no business living in the desert!

1. Scratch Capitalism

People have to start facing facts. Capitalism is antithetical to environmentalism. Capitalism is based on ever-growing consumption. Environmentalism is based on conservation. Our economic system is near perfectly designed to transform the Earth into an uninhabitable garbage dump. I’m not saying communism is any better, but capitalism, as it stands today, is untenable. It has to go. We cannot allow free market principles to freely destroy the natural world.

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1. You’re less likely to be robbed, raped, beaten or shot.

Generally speaking, other developed nations have lower crime rates than we do, according to UN crime rate statistics. The United Kingdom, Denmark, and Finland are exceptions (as well as a host of crappy undeveloped nations) – these countries do have higher crime rates than the United States. Don’t worry, though, there’s still plenty of places that offer a safe alternative – most of the EU, for instance, or Canada, our friendly neighbors to the north. Hell, you could even move to Yemen or Russia if you’re just looking for a lower crime rate.

2. You won’t feel the gas crunch nearly as much.

I’ve already discussed in previous posts how other countries are not affected nearly as much as we are by the rising cost of gasoline. Sure, they pay even higher prices than we do at the pump; that’s why the first thing you do when you move is sell the damn car! Though there are big parts of Canada where this doesn’t hold true, chances are if you head across the big lake to Europe, you’ll find you don’t even need a car. In fact, in many cases, it’s a bigger inconvenience than it is a boon. It’s easier to take the incredibly efficient public transit, or even hop on a bicycle for the scenic route. Most countries in Europe are scooter-friendly, too, so you can look dorky but save a ton of money on gas by putting around on a Vespa. Imagine all the cash you could save right now if you could just stop taking your car to work – personally, I’d pocket an extra $160 a month, and I live within five miles of my job. Unfortunately, it’s only a dream for many living outside the major metropolises in the United States.

3. You won’t face the burden of listening to people talk about their faith.

Alright, so this is more of a personal benefit for rational atheists like myself. Being an atheist in Europe is pretty nice. Very rarely will a European confront you about faith. You won’t have some Bible-beater blaring a megaphone in your ear while you’re having a beer at Oktoberfest in Munich. Ask the Naked Cowboy if you can say the same about Bourbon Street.

However, the benefits of a secular state don’t just affect nonbelievers. Our very own founding fathers knew the wisdom of keeping church and state separate, though in practice they did not do a perfect job of implementing it. It prevents discrimination against both believers and nonbelievers; it does not allow the rights of one group of believers to take precedence over another group. Unfortunately, faith has become a major factor in U.S. elections. It’s doubtful a presidential candidate who did not profess Christianity could win any time in the foreseeable future.

Ironically, many EU nations to which you might expatriate do not have the same clause about separation of church and state which we follow in the United States. They’ve just managed to collectively not give a shit about religion for long enough that the same religious apathy has leaked into their public policy making.

4. Castles kick ass.

Let’s face it: the scenery matters. This is the reason I’m thinking Europe > Canada, assuming this whole Russo-Georgian conflict dies down in the near future. Castles seriously rock, and it would behoove you to live near one so you can see how awesome they are.

Ronneburg Castle, Hessen, Germany. It has a catapult on the other side, just in case you question how much ass it kicks.

5. You’ll live longer.

As if castles and a lower crime rate aren’t awesome enough reasons to leave America, there’s the higher life expectancy the United Nations report in many other countries. Canada, the UK, the EU – all have higher life expectancies. Meanwhile, the United States falls at number 38 on the list – just below Cuba and just above the bustling nation of Portugal. Seriously, people, Cuba does better than us on keeping people alive?

We can argue about the benefits of socialized medicine all we want to, rehashing every argument Michael Moore or Ronald Reagan could drum up for or against it, but the fact remains that folks tend to live longer in all those evil socialist countries to which conservatives so fervently wish to ship all us libs. Even if every perceived evil of socialized medicine is true, they’re still doing their job better than we are, if you consider that job keeping folks’ tickers ticking for longer.

Conclusion

Originally, I’d intended to keep this list down to five good reasons. Unfortunately for any American nationalists reading this, I came up with a lot more than five reasons, so we’ll save the next five for next week. Let’s just hope the Bush croneys don’t ship me off to Gitmo before I get around to posting them.

That’s right, you heard me. Neocon leader William Kristol says we owe it to Georgia to defend their nation against Russia because of the 2,000 troops Georgia has given to the War on Terror. What is this douche, a comic book villain trying to end the world?

Arkham Asylum: where Bill Kristol should be bunking with the Penguin.

This guy is completely insane, and here’s three damn good reasons why.

3. We don’t owe Georgia a damn thing.

Georgia’s contribution of a whopping 2,000 troops to our bullshit war in Iraq is Kristol’s primary justification for calling troops to war. He says that “for this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious commitment to defend its sovereignity.” And I agree. We owe them vast amounts of moral support and diplomatic maneuvering to make sure they maintain their sovereignity. We don’t owe them a damn thing in the way of troops.

Georgia only joined the Iraq war in an effort to join NATO out of a belief that we would protect them from their large, aggressive neighbor: Russia. I sympathize with their plight. Russia is big and scary. So Georgia sent in their 2,000 troops to help us out. Apparently Georgians are not as astute as I am, but if we need the help of a third-world country whose government has only existed since 2003, what the hell makes them think we can help them fight Russia?! Which brings me to my next point…

2. Our forces are stretched too thin already.

CNN recently asked a group of 34,000 military officers about their situation in the Middle East, so why not listen to the pros: “Of those surveyed, 88 percent believe the demands of the Iraq war have ‘stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.’ . . .  Eighty percent of officers believe it is unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to wage another major war successfully at present.” (CNN, 2008)

The truth is, at a time when recruitment for the military is way down, we are fighting two conflicts, and if you think things in Afghanistan are a-okay, think again. It’s idiotic to even think we could carry the battle to a third front – let alone one as vast as Russia. If we learn nothing else from Napoleon and Hitler, we should know the cold truth that Russia will break the back of any force split on multiple fronts.

1. Kristol’s motivations are less than pure.

Hmmm, now why would a neo-con like Kristol push for us to go to war in Georgia? For one thing, the American people are a heck of a lot more likely to vote for conservatives during periods of war, and let’s face it: we just aren’t paying attention to Iraq anymore. The Iraqi headlines have fallen to page 2A, and it’s simply not enough exposure to guarantee a Republican win in the presidential election.

More importantly, though, there’s the BTC Pipeline, the very reason Russia has decided they want Georgia so badly. The pipeline transports petroleum from Azerbaijan over 1,000 miles to a port in Turkey, making it not only the second-longest oil pipeline in the world, but also one of the most important ways oil makes it to the West.

So why would we want to fight Russia over Georgia? Because, what better way for us to sneak in the back door to gain access to the BTC Pipeline. Like Kristol says we owe Georgia for their support in Iraq, how much more do you think they will owe us if we bail them out of a fight with Russia?

Now, I’ve never been the biggest Paris fan (what does she even do, other than third-rate porn flicks?), but at first glance her energy policy almost won me over. She offers a reasonable solution – not a dichotomy of ‘drill more’ or ‘find alternative energy sources.’ Instead, Paris says we ought to have limited drilling offshore while offering incentives for manufacturers to produce more hybrid vehicles. Holy crap, a common sense solution not driven by party ideology, but by examining the problem and coming to a reasonable idea to solve it?

Paris Hilton in the hottest mugshot ever. Is America ready for a bimbo president?

Now, that’s not to say her solution actually makes sense. Paris says we need to drill offshore to ‘carry us through’ until the technology developed; she probably doesn’t keep up with advances in technology any better than I do. It wasn’t until I saw these that I realized much of the technology already exists. Here’s another example. It’d make more sense to offer incentives for developers to produce these things for commercial use while developing vehicles that don’t rely on fossil fuels at all. And Hell, these things even look cool.

The Aptera prototype. Wouldn’t you feel like Judge Dredd driving this thing?

It wouldn’t take us much time at all to roll vehicles like these off the assembly line, while drilling more in, say, ANWR, would not produce anything for about another ten years. The truth is, we’d have the hybrids out before ever seeing any effect from drilling offshore.

Needless to say, I had a good chuckle and went about my day, until hearing the same fake ad pop up on ABC News on the local AM radio station – right alongside the legitimate campaign coverage on the news, ABC dropped in a few sound bytes from the Paris Hilton spoof ad. That’s when the horrific realization set in: what Paris Hilton has to say in some stupid online video is as legitimate and (apparently) important to people as what our candidates for the highest office in America have to say.

It’s a sad state the world is in when a spoiled brat turned amateur porn star has equally relevant input on our country’s affairs as the two men vying for the nation’s leadership. It tells me we’ve become so divided along party lines we’re unlikely to ever come to a reasonable, common sense solution to any of our problems. It took a couple of comedy writers with a bong one afternoon in a smoky room to come up with a reasonable solution to the energy crisis, however misinformed those writers were of the development of new hybrid technology. But it took unfounded outrage over Obama suggesting folks air up their tires for that candidate to edge away from the old Democrat-Republican dichotomy.

You know, now that I think about it, screw this. Maybe instead of voting for Paris Hilton, I’ll just move to Paris, France.

In the meantime, has anyone else noticed that whenever someone comes up with a perfectly good idea to save energy, some (usually republican) buzzkill points out that all by itself, this perfectly good idea can’t completely and utterly annihilate the energy crisis. The latest in this string is Obama’s comment that people could save gas by keeping their tires inflated, an idea ridiculed by the McCain campaign (despite estimates that correct tire pressure and regular maintenance could have an immediate effect on gas consumption much greater than this offshore drilling in 10 years bullshit.)

But that’s not the point. Solving the energy crisis does not require a single, silver-bullet solution. Hundreds of millions of people applying a proliferation of modest energy saving techniques can add up to an enormous impact.

Perhaps these critical assholes are just desperately employing whatever rhetorical bullshit they can think of in a throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks strategy to discredit Barrack “the-second-coming-of-christ” Obama. But I think there’s a simpler explanation.

Republicans can’t add.