Electric Cars... are we ready??

This letter was published as letter of the month in Overdrive and TopGear(india) Feb'06 issues

As we all are seeing that there is great deal of lobbying going on in our country (and everywhere else also ) for giving a thrust to use of electric cars over those that run on fossil fuels but have we calculated the benefits of the same before we start doing it blindly, well I do not think so. Using purely electric cars are a bane at least for our country than being a boon, the reason we are still approximately 60 % dependent on thermal energy for production of electricity and most of these establishments use coal as there primary fuel (this is cheap and available in abundance but the quality of coal available still forces us to import it mainly from Australia). This introduction of electric vehicles will no doubt reduce our fuel import bills but at the same time make this place inhabitable as burning of coal gives out more green house gases ( approx. 50% more) than burning of fossil fuels and also the particulate emmision is more for the same amount of energy also as these electric cars will be drawing power directly from the grid the transmission losses associated actually increase the losses more and create more pollution than is created by normal well maintained cars. Hope this thing is thought of before we plunge into something disastrous. I personally feel that hybrids are a much better technology and similarly use of biofuels is better than using pure electric vehicles.

One more thing what about disposing the parts of the cars(both electric and hybrid) that will have to be disposed after the vehicle wears out?
This is just one of the many socio economis issues that should be considered before giving a push to a new technology.