Just Asking: Are electric-vehicles the new ethanol?

Electric-vehicles, like the 2010 Mitsubishi iMiEV I recently drove, are a dream come true for those who don’t want to burn fossil fuels in their cars. But not everybody view EVs as the green motoring panacea that others are making the so-called “electrification of the car” out to be.

Timothy P. Carney, a Washington Examiner columnist, thinks governments are blindly rushing into financially supporting EVs, much as they did with ethanol— a “green” fuel which the writer cites as having created water pollution, soil erosion, deforestation and even air pollution.

And Carney’s biggest worry is the lithium required for EV battery packs.

There are some definite advantages to using lithium. Relative to lead acid (the most common car batteries) and nickel metal hydride (the most common hybrid battery), lithium-ion batteries are less toxic, more powerful and longer lasting. But Carney sees the lithium supply chain offering the kind of political quagmire that has the U.S. at war to secure foreign oil.

Apparently, half of the world’s lithium reserves are in Bolivia. And a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report warns a "major shift" to lithium-powered cars “could substitute reliance on one foreign resource [oil] for another [lithium."

Carney says, in the name of "clean energy," Washington is subsidizing a switch from gasoline-powered cars to cars powered mostly by coal. And in the pursuit of "energy independence," the feds may foster addiction to a fuel concentrated in a socialist-run South American country.

And although EVs emit and use no gas in operation, harvesting lithium may not be so earth friendly.

“Extracting lithium from locations where it is abundant, such as in South America, could pose environmental challenges that would damage the ecosystems in those areas,” warns Carney.

Hmmm… Is this just the rantings of another paranoid conspiracy theorist?

Or do you think the clean promise of EVs is worth the potential dirty results he brings up?

And, knowing what we now know about ethanol, do you have any confidence that politicians have the capability to properly research lithium’s sustainability before piling on the tax-payer-funded moneys?

[Source: Washington Examiner]

Autopocalype Update: Porsche Canada pulls out of the 2009 Toronto auto show

Just as it was the first of the herd to abandon the Detroit auto show last January, Porsche said today it will not have a display at next February’s Toronto auto show.

When the U.S. arm of the German automaker bailed on the Detroit shindig last year, it pragmatically claimed that it simply didn’t sell enough vehicles in the Michigan region to justify the costs of attending.

But the Toronto show is a different matter. The GTA is one of the largest Porsche markets in the country.

And, so far at least, Porsche’s Canadian sales haven’t been hit too hard by the Autopocalypse.

Sales for November were off only 0.9 per cent, 114 to 115 units, compared to the same month last year. That's relative to an industry that's down 10.3 per cent overall.

“The Toronto auto show is the most important in Canada,” said Jasmin Rawlinson, Porsche Canada’s Director of Marketing.

“We did not take this decision lightly.”

Instead of appearing at the Toronto show, Porsche said it would deploy its marketing resources in a “targeted fashion to interact more directly with its customer base.”

The list of this season’s auto show no shows is growing.

General Motors, Volkswagen and Chrysler canned media presentations at last month's L.A .show. And next month in Detroit, along with Porsche, Suzuki, Nissan/Infiniti, Honda (no media presentation) Ferrari, Land Rover, and Rolls-Royce are all no shows.

Will you miss Porsche at the Toronto auto show?

Or maybe a better question is: With so many buyers getting their info online, are auto shows in general relevant anymore to the new car buying process?

[Source: Porsche Cars Canada]