Remember parachute pants? Those shiny, ill-fitting trousers that were all the rage in the 80s but quickly faded into the realm of bad fashion memories? Well, today’s electric vehicles (EVs) are the modern equivalent—another short-sighted fad that some believe is the future of transportation. Sure, they’re trendy now, but like parachute pants, their time will come and go. Anyone thinking EVs are a long-term solution to environmental woes is setting themselves up for disappointment.
Why? Let’s start with those lovely batteries. EVs rely on lithium-ion batteries, which are packed with toxic chemicals like cobalt and nickel, not to mention the environmental toll of mining those materials. Manufacturing and disposing of these batteries can cause more damage to the planet than the carbon emissions from your average gas guzzler. But hey, who’s keeping track, right? These so-called “green” vehicles could end up being worse than the very fossil-fuel guzzlers they aim to replace.
If we want true innovation, the future lies in hydrogen fuel cell technology. Imagine using water as fuel and having the combustion process create nothing but more water as a byproduct. No toxic battery chemicals, no mining devastation—just clean, efficient energy. Hydrogen fuel cells are forward-thinking, while EVs are just old technology repackaged for a gullible generation. Fun fact: the first electric vehicle was actually invented back in 1828! Yes, nearly two centuries ago. If it wasn’t good enough then, why are we pretending it’s revolutionary now?
Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, here we are, pushing electric vehicles as the cure-all for climate change when they’ve been found lacking for over a century. Instead of learning from the past, we’re just plugging into the same old problems. We’re moving backward, not forward, and the environment could pay the price for our short-sighted obsession with EVs.
So, before you trade in your gas-guzzler for an EV in the name of eco-friendliness, maybe it’s time to look ahead to real innovation. The shiny new toy that’s an electric car may be today’s answer, but it’s certainly not tomorrow’s. Like parachute pants, it’s bound to be another forgotten fad. Hydrogen, anyone?
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I wish I could give the author credit, but a meme from Facebook said it well. “Electric vehicles. A solution that will not work, for a problem which we do not have.”
Oh, remind me of something said by a friend of Mike Ford, Sam Pearson, and a few other authors on this site. In the time I typed this, he would forgotten more about energy production than I will ever know. We were discussing this issue a few years back, and he agreed hydrogen fuel cells have a good future, but he made the point I didn’t think. Hybrids. I did not know this, but he said pretty much every train engine in this country is now a hybrid engine, diesel, and battery. Oil is going nowhere. Every time I get a clueless, enviro-nut saying something like that, I start asking about jet fuel, diesel, rubber, and a few other things. They look like I’ve got two heads.
Another point I will make to EV worshipers, how are you going to transport heavy things? One of my best friends is a long haul truck driver. I asked him will an EV have the torque to haul 80,000 pounds? He said sure, the problem is, it won’t go very far, it’ll drain the battery quickly. He recalls going over the Rocky Mountains with a load and the diesel engine was at 2 miles a gallon. He figures the EV version of a rig these days may make it 30 to 40 miles with a good load.
To be technical, the difference between a diesel locomotive and an electric like the Milwaukee bipolars, Pennsylvania GG1 or the New York Central boxcabs that ran the last leg down the Hudson into Grand Central is whether it relies on cable-transmitted power or carries its power generator on its back. Very few diesel locomotives in railroad history have used “direct drive” (be it geared or hydraulic) transmission like your Ram or F-350; until relatively recently the norm was to have the prime motor and generator pump 600v DC into the traction motors, but since the 1980s there’s been a gradual shift to 3000v AC.
Sorry, great-grandson of a Latest Steam Era railroader–when Great-Grandpa retired, diesel-electrics were switchers and steam’s lock on the Water Level Route was beyond question for another five years.