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Good Reasons to Drive an Electric Car
Unhook from the pump
(Subtitled, why we all should have had an electric car a year ago; ) I remember feeling so helpless, watching the price of a gallon of gas go up and up. Didn't you? We said that when gas prices hit 2.00 a gallon, we were gonna quit driving and just WALK everywhere. Guess what? We didn't. Because the husband has to get to work, the kids have to get to school, the cat has to get to the vet, and so forth...we just coughed it up, because we didn't think we had a choice. Now, it's 2.50, down from 3.00, which we also had to pay, having no choice, while a few happy people in Armani suits enjoyed their
RECORD PROFITS.
...we've got our own BILLS to pay. And of course, we know the fossil fuels aren't going to last forever!
...which seems like the same thing as 'gas is too darned expensive', but isn't quite exactly; )Even though electric cars are still theoretically in their high-dollar prototype stage, they're STILL not too expensive to buy. This one's about ten thousand dollars, brand new... And after you take it home, it just gets better. The cost-per-mile is measured in pennies, not dimes. It costs about fifty cents to power up for the day. 
...even with the price of today's electricity from the GRID.Laugh your way past the gas pump, have a moment of silence for your sisters who are still PINNED, then plug in your car next to the toaster and power up while you sleep (and when electricity should be cheapest because of low demand). A little aside about electricity from the grid: As you may know, a lot of our electricity is generated the REALLY old fashioned way: with coal being burned to boil water to produce steam and turn turbines and finally make electricity. This is a bad way, because coal is 90% carbon, and burning it for any reason
heats up the atmosphere.
So, you might ask quite reasonably, what have we accomplished by getting out of our internal combustion car and hooking up to the coal-coughing grid?
Click here for an interesting discussion on this.
The rest of that story is that we have choices on what we use to generate power for the grid. We can use non-polluting wind, solar (and you can even unhook from the grid altogether and get you some solar panels to generate your own electricity) and hydroelectric power to get juiced. Demand green electricity.
Unlike me, electric cars are remarkably low maintenance ; ) Why? The motor has only ONE moving part. The fossil-fuel-mobile, by contrast, has about a MILLION moving parts in it's engine and drive train, all of which RATTLE and make a bunch of RACKET and OVERHEAT and need to be tightened up, replaced, or bathed in slime regularly. (Am I the only one who needs a courtesy call from the mechanic to get the oil changed on time?) I don't know about you, but I can't even gap my own spark plugs... ...although I think it involves a quarter or a dime or some other coin. I forget which. Anyway, I want a car that MINDS ITS OWN BUSINESS, for the most part. Some days it takes all my attention just to drive on the correct side of the road ; )
One thing I DO expect from a car is not to get STRANDED anywhere. BORE me with reliability. 
You know how the standard gas-mobile's engine lifetime is measured in 100,000 mile increments? For example, an American car might go a hundred or so thousand miles if you take REALLY good care of it, and one of those wonderful Japanese cars might go three or four hundred thousand.Well, an electric car's motor lifetime is measured in MILLIONS of miles. 90 years, if you drive it fifty miles a day. Safety
Here's a point that sold quite a few ladies on the earliest versions of electric cars back in the day.No gasoline on board... ...so no catching fire or blowing up or whatever if you crash. (Sorry, Hollywood. I know it's an old standby.)
Noise is one of the biggest polluters of our times. It stresses us out, even when we're used to it.Electric cars are pleasantly quiet compared to your average noisy smog-cougher, which is packed with sound-proof insulation to fool the ear as long as you're INSIDE the vehicle. But pity the poor fool who lives by the freeway... ...not to mention the poor animals, wild and domestic, who have to live with the constant ROAR of gas-burning TRAFFIC in their ears. Now picture yourself driving your electric car at your local national park, and having to HONK at the wildlife in the road because they didn't hear you approach ; ) 
No toxic air pollution
falling out of the tailpipe and into our lungs. Electric cars are ZEVs, which is car-jargon for Zero Emissions Vehicles. That means just what it seems to ; ) Hybrids are not ZEVs, but they do a much better job at keeping the air clean than gas-chuggers do.
More to read on how driving a fire-breathing GAS guzzler affects our health...
Even the friendliest internal combustion engine gobbles up oxygen and puffs out clouds of carbon dioxide. It's just the nature of burning; you can't get away from it.As most of us are all too aware of, now, carbon dioxide is one of the major players in the greenhouse gas game. It goes up into the atmosphere somewhere and traps in the sun's heat, and before you know it you've got monster hurricanes, starving Polar bears, and record heat waves. 
I know, I know, our President says there's no connection between cars, global warming, and hurricanes etc. This is all I have to say on that subject: There are smarter Bushes in the world... ...and two of them are planted in my YARD ; ) It's true, there are plenty of people who are trying to convince us that global warming is a myth, or a hoax.
Go from Electric Car Advantages to Hybrid Electric Cars
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