Electric vehicles have disadvantages. Where does the electricity come from mainly, power plants? What are power plants mainly operated with, fossil fuels? Imagine that.
Another disadvantage is that charging stations are required to power these vehicles. Imagine 30 cars in line to use the same charging station. What about the electrical infrastructure currently in use? If all cars on the streets were replaced with electrics today, the system would implode. What happens to the network when a tornado, flood or ice storm hits? Check out what happened in Texas last winter. It would cost trillions to upgrade the current system.
How about? Drive your car on ethanol and drive your trucks on vegetable oil. Racing cars in the Indianapolis 500 run on ethanol. It burns cleanly, has a higher octane rating than gasoline, and can be grown in the field.
Dr. Diesel, who developed the basic engine for our trucks, ran one of its engines on vegetable oil. Vegetable oil like ethanol can come from plants that can be grown. A team of college engineering students took a diesel school bus and drove it from coast to coast on used cooking oil from restaurants. There was a downside, however: Those who followed the bus developed a strong hunger for fries.
– Frederick L. Alsace, Northern Canton
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Letter to the Editor: Electric vehicles have drawbacks
