Is the next step plug-ins or natural gas for cars?

Articles — By forcechange on September 3, 2008 5:00 am

As the movement to get our cars off of petroleum creeps forward, there seems to be two main alternatives being proposed: electricity or natural gas.  The electricity proponents argue that it is the cleanest alternative, since energy produced for the national electricity grid can be generated by renewable sources like wind, solar, nuclear and geothermal.  They also argue that natural gas, while cleaner burning than oil, is still a fossil fuel that is limited in supply and therefore a less than ideal solution.  The natural gas proponents don’t disagree that electricity could be a cleaner solution, but argue that existing battery technology is not yet sufficient to allow widespread electric car adoption.  

Companies like Tesla Motors, and now Toyota with their proposed electric Prius, would beg to differ with this assessment.  Last week, Toyota’s president announced that electric Priuses would be released to government and commercial fleets by next year (a year ahead of schedule).  However, there is no firm date set for the sale of these cars to the public, over lingering concerns about the state of the technology, as well as limited plug-in infrastructure.  Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see how this debate plays out.  Unfortunately, in order to really shift off of oil burning cars, a decision needs to be made sooner than later.  Hopefully a better understanding of the potential for widespread battery usage in vehicles will develop in time to make an informed policy decision.