Are Electric Automobiles A Solution or Just A New Problem?

Personal automobile ownership is growing in the developing world.  We are told that electric vehicles, in particular personal electric vehicles (EVs), will save the environment.  Certainly, EVs will reduce CO2 generation and positively impact air quality.   But, are they the best solution?  Does everyone in the world need to own at least one personal automobile?  One group in the United Kingdom has a different answer.

The Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions  (CREDS) report calls on the government to devise a strategy allowing people to have a good standard of living without needing a car.

CREDS is an academic consortium of more than 80 academics across the UK.

"Car use is a massive blind spot on government policy," Prof Jillian Anable, one of the authors of the report, said.

She added: “For many years ministers have adopted the principle of trying to meet demand by increasing road space.

"They need to reduce demand instead.” 

While acknowledging that many people do need a car, the report authors suggest that changes in government policy and funding could substantially reduce the number of private vehicle and substantially mitigate their impact on CO2 generation.

She [Prof Anable] maintains car ownership is wasteful because cars are parked for 98% of their lifetime, with a third of cars not going out every day.

“Once you own a car,” she says, “there is a compelling temptation to use it even for simple journeys.

“But it is a really expensive investment. If people do not have cars they can spend the money on other things.

The report is also skeptical of claims that self-driving cars will reduce congestion and argue that they could substantially increase urban congestion.

The report warns this dream could also turn sour as car owners may choose to live many miles from their workplace, using their car as a mobile office while sitting in traffic jams they have helped to create.

The AA’s [Automobile Association] president Edmund King agrees electric driverless cars could make congestion worse.

He told us: “One vision of hell is that the driverless car turns up in the city centre where there is no parking.

"The occupant gets out to do their business, whilst the car just continues driving around for hours on end until beckoned back by the user.”

Granted that the US and UK are substantially different, but the issues are still very consistent.  As long as public policy favors the private automobile over other means of transportation, those other means will not be successful.  Fast, cheap reliable public transportation is the exception in the US.  Bicycles are considered more of a nuisance and bike lanes are given up grudgingly, if at all, by motor vehicles.  

As a species, we are running out of time to avert the worst impacts of climate change.  We need to stop thinking that changes on the margins - EVs for fossil fuel vehicles for example - are going to save us.