Electric Cars? Forget About It!

With its sophisticated electronics, ultralight weight and efficient aero-dynamics, the General Motors EV1 is the state of the art in electric cars. Its closest rival is the Honda EV PLUS, a four-passenger compact powered by a $20,000 nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) battery pack. Both cars are available by lease only: the Honda just in California, the GM in California and Arizona. A warm climate was chosen for the car's debuts: cold weather severely compromises their performance.

A  researcher from the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies who calculated that replacing all gasoline-burning cars in the United States with electric ones would reduce tailpipe emissions by only 20 percent. Even as expensive toys, electric cars have not been a hit. Despite massive hyping by environmentalists and electric-power companies, only 269 EV1's have been leased. Honda's new EV PLUS has won fewer than 50 customers since its debut in spring1997.

The U.S. government and manufacturers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make cars light enough for batteries to power - and trying to make batteries powerful enough for normal consumer driving. But delivering the goods at a reasonable price has proven elusive.

The Honda EV PLUS has a nominal sticker price of $53,999 - some $40,000 more than a Honda Civic. GM's two-seater EV1 is lease-priced at $33, 995. Compare that to buying a two-seater Mazda Miata, which far outstrips the EV1 in performance and costs around $21,000.

Many states, including New York, Florida and Illinois, have or are considering taxpayer subsidies for electric cars. Yet even with taxpayer help, automakers must discount auto parts and electric cars  to sell them in United States. The difference is then passed along in higher prices for conventional cars, costing consumers even more.

People expect reliable, beast-of-burden versatility in their cars. But that's just where electric cars fall short. Driving up hills, for instance, gobbles up battery capacity. Add a passenger: more drain on the battery. If the temperature outside drops to freezing, battery life drops substantially. While other cars give optimum performance with only a half-gallon of gasoline left, an electric car's performance falls when its batteries are low.

We talked about a 50-or even 100 mile range as being acceptable for an electric. But wait a minute - would you drive 35 miles to a party on a frigid winter night with a four-gallon gas tank and no gas stations open? Would you put your family in that car?

Auto companies, battery makers and the government have spent about $200 million (half of it taxpayer money) searching for the Holy Grail of batteries: one that will reliably, cheaply and safely deliver loads of power. The issue is energy. In a car, a lead-acid battery stores enough energy to lift its weight ten miles. But a gallon of gasoline contains the energy to lift its weight 1000 miles. Even if scientist were to double the battery's energy, gasoline still has 50 times more.

Not even the most promising new battery, the NiMH, comes close to gasoline's performance. Solectria Corporation of Massachusetts drove its NiMH-powered, ultralight, jellybean-shaped Sunrise Sedan 211 miles from Boston to New York City on a single charge. This was touted as a "real world" test of an electric's range.

But the Sunrise costs $100,000 (and that's after the company received $7million in government subsidies). For that price you get a car with less than half the range of an $18,000 Honda Accord.

There isn't going to be a miracle battery. If we get 100 miles of real-world range, that's where it's going to stop for a very long time. The knee-jerk reaction of many has been 'cars pollute so let's put a battery in them - and when that doesn't do it, let's put a better battery in'. This kind of thinking can bring people to dead ends. The gasoline is getting better, cheaper and lighter. Indeed, if electrics ever do become practical, they will probably derive their power from renewable fuel cells rather than batteries.

I have been a car nut all my life, and when I drove GM's EV1 in Detroit, I was impressed by its smooth, quick pickup. It was comfortable and it handled well. But as I later drove to the airport in my (gas-powered) rental, I asked myself, Was the electric car superior to other, far cheaper cars I've driven? No.