The truth behind electric cars and their CO2 emission!

Dear fellow reader, before you throw your hands up in the air due to outrage what Guido has to say again....let me first say: SORRY. I didn't mean to burst your bubble. Matter of fact, I am a BIG supporter of electric cars, after all they are faster than regular gas powered cars and some of them, like the TESLA Roadster are pretty darn sexy!

I have a great supporting video http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=376826002719 posted on my fanpage "Guido's Garage" on Facebook.

On that show made by "Top Gear", which is probably the best car show on the planet, you can watch a test between the new Lotus Elise vs. the Tesla Roadster. GAS power vs. ELECTRIC power. In short: The Tesla (which is based on the Lotus Elise, built in England then shipped without an engine to the States...) is super fast, matter of fact, it beats even most Ferrari's and Lamborghini's. From Zero to 60 mph in just about 3.9 seconds. WOW... I WANT ONE!

The Lotus Elise, which is lighter because it doesn't have the lithium batteries, is much more nimble and outdoes the Tesla with it's handling. So, all you car nuts, including myself, are pretty blown away by both cars!

Having said that there are many good reasons to buy a Tesla or any other electric car currently on the market and if you look at the new upcoming Tesla Sedan (see picture), you can now buy GOOD looking affordable electric cars. But my reason for buying an electric car is not to save the planet and producing less CO2 emission, it is to stop the "oil crises" and the wars over oil, therefore taking the fuel out of terrorists hands.....

"Click to view the new Tesla Sedan Picture"

Matter of fact, if you are concerned about protecting mother nature you SHOULD NOT buy an electric car at the moment. Here are two good reasons why not:

Production of Batteries:

Did you know that the nickel for cadmium batteries, a.k.a. NiCd is mined all over the world, but that the batteries used in the Tesla or the Toyota Prius Hybrid for that matter come from Canada and the United States. Cadmium is HIGHLY TOXIC, in fact it is so toxic that during the process of mining it many miners die and lose their life.

Then, this cadmium is being shipped by boat to Poland and Hungary, where in sometime less than super-modern factories the people prepare the cadmium, containing this toxic metal to be put into a charging process, which is called electrochemistry procedure. Once they are done doing that, they ship it by trucks through Russia to China (I don't want to know how many accidents happen on that 3'000 miles trip)

In China, some 30 cents an hour workers and most likely without any proper protection manufacture the actual batteries, which are then shipped to Japan (in case of the Prius) or back to the United States (in case of the Tesla), where they are being put into the cars.

IN FACT: You could have driven a Toyota Corolla with a 2 lt, 4-banger engine for 280'000 miles and would have produced the same amount of CO2 emission as this toxic battery for the Prius/Tesla produced!!! That is a FACT.

And, don't get me started on the issue of DISPOSING old batteries, which are clogging our landfills and are highly toxic waste.

TESLA vs. ELISE CO2 output

What CO2 output you might say on the TESLA? I am not talking about the manufacturing process of the vehicle, which by now has produced 280'000 miles full of CO2 for their batteries. NO, I am talking about another pretty dyer fact. Except you live in Switzerland where 70% of it's power comes from hydro-plants, 20% from nuclear plants and 10% from alternative like wind mills, you are probably living in a country that produces it's electricity from COAL.

What do you think happens when you burn COAL? Exactly, it produces CO2, tons of it! Did you know that in 2008 the world's combined energy consumption was 474 exajoules with 80 to 90 percent derived by fossil fuels like oil and coal? That is right, in many countries they burn oil to produce electricity.

In the test video, they drove both cars in California. The range of the Tesla was about 250 miles per charge and the range of the Elise was about 250 miles per tank as well. Both cars are equal there. A tank full of unleaded premium costs around $45 for the Elise and a full charge of 9 hours on the Tesla (with those outrages high electricity prices in CA) almost the SAME.

And now comes the bummer: 2/3 of California's electricity production comes from....COAL! The production of this power produces the SAME AMOUNT of CO2 as the Elise emits from it's unleaded fuel!!!

Does it make sense now to buy an electric car? Besides the unstable world politics and wars over oil, it truly doesn't make sense to spend the extra dough on an electric car!

What are our options? I tell you one thing, keep a close eye on AIR POWERED cars like the ones invented in FRANCE by MTB. You can fully drive any car purely powered by AIR, compressed air that is. I will pick up on that topic soon once I finished my research on it...but AIR is the future and perhaps some other electrical devices, like the one Nikolai Tesla invented 100 years ago called electromagnetism. (Rumors say he got assassinated for that invention...). By the way, it came to my attention that the inventor of the TESLA cars calls them after Nikolai Tesla...perhaps the company is on to "something" ???

Anyway, I have spoken my mind again. I don't want to discourage you from buying a Tesla or other electric vehicle, just think about where you live and where the power comes from. Put a solar cell on your roof to charge up your Tesla please!!!