Considering what it takes to make a battery, what to do with them when they go bad, and how much of a toxic trouble they are in an accident.
Actually, the batteries in electric cars are made from lithium metal oxides with no lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBBs or PBDEs. There are no heavy metals or toxic materials. Plus, they can be easily recycled (96% recyclable versus, say...only 38% of glass can be recycled).
An electric car starts at $40,000 and will need $5,000 or more in new batteries every 5 or 6 years
I'm not quite sure where you're getting your numbers from...
The Nissan Leaf is supposed to cost $25,280 with tax breaks - and the battery comes with an 8 year warranty.
The Chevy Volt is supposed to cost $33,500 with tax breaks - and the battery also comes with an 8 year warranty.
The Tesla Model S is supposed to cost around that much - but we'll see what happens.
Add in the fact that the "power" the car uses comes from a power plant that burns coal or crude. All you have done is moved where the carbon footprint takes place at.
This is the same crap argument I hear all the time. To start with, don't you think it would be better to stop buying foreign oil and instead bring this cash flow into our own country, causing bigger investments in our energy programs? Second, in the United States right now - your electricity generation is 23.4% natural gas, 20.3% nuclear, 6.9% hydroelectric, and 3.6% other renewable like wind and solar. Your car uses 100% petroleum. It is estimated that an electric car would use about 115 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, versus 250 grams for a gas powered car. Cut your carbon footprint in half, save money by not buying gas, stop buying foreign oil, invest in our own country....sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
