ecasue that doesn't solve any of the problems.
diesel is nasty, it still require reliance on foreign suppliers, bio diesel is not a practical replacement and diesel is more expensive the gas iun the US. It will be even more expensive as it continues to strive to the Europeans diesel standards.
If you double the average MPG of the fleet then it follows that fuel usage will drop in half. Since we use 19.5 million barrels a day and import roughly 9 million a day... We might actually stop funding dictatorships the world over in my lifetime.
I agree diesel isn't a long term solution, but only if you will concede that an electric car is not a short or even medium term solution. The fact is a TDI is far more efficient then even todays hybrids. No battery technology exists that can compete with modern clean diesel in any area much less the all important areas of cost and (overall) pollution. Storing electricity in batteries only makes sense to people who do not have a firm grasp of physics. There is no safe efficient way to store massive numbers of electrons in a portable manner.
Your heart is in the right place, but you need to understand that batteries are universally:
- Toxic
- Expensive
- Heavy
- Inefficient
Charging a battery will require up to 2x the energy that the battery will deliver back. So you waste the charge energy EVERY SINGLE DAY. Couple the production and delivery of 2x the electricity with the pollution footprint of manufacturing the battery and you begin to understand how the electric car might be far less "green" then just burning 1/2 the fuel we do now.
TDI is the answer for TODAY. Maybe the electric car tomorrow, but I seriously doubt it. My money on long term mobile energy is not in batteries but rather in compressed air. There is much less conversion energy required to store, it can be efficiently transported, etc.
Don't think with your heart, think with your brain!
