Pumped Up or Charged Up?

Whether you store energy in a cell phone or a car, doing so via a battery pack rather than a gas tank is more convenient, cleaner, cheaper and quieter.

Convenient: Wouldn't you be annoyed if you had to run to a "cell phone gas station" every time your cell phone needed to be "gassed up" instead of just plugging it into an electrical outlet at your home to get "charged up"?   Apply the same analogy to your car. We accept going to the gas station because we're used to that drill, baby -- if you'll pardon the pun -  but wouldn't it be great if you could stay home to fuel your car? You can plug your electric car into your home's electricity supply to charge it up while you sleep-- just as you do with your cell phone.

Clean: Your usual cell phone is neither stinky nor smelly, and your car doesn't have to be either!  An electric car, like a cell phone, is clean as a whistle and absolutely odor free. The best part?  There is no tailpipe on your EV, because neither emits noxious fumes to foul your personal space, your garage or your world. Even with 50% of U.S. power coming from dirty coal plants, plug-in cars still reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and most other pollutants compared with either conventional gasoline cars or hybrids.

EVs also allow you to use 100% clean, renewable electricity from sources such as the sun or wind. In addition, EVs get cleaner as the electrical grid gets cleaner. Gas cars only get dirtier as they age. Plug In America supports replacing all fossil-fuel electricity generation with clean and renewable generating methods. Read the summary of more than 30 studies, analyses, and presentations on this topic.

Cheap: An EV has no inefficient, vibrating internal combustion engine requiring frequent maintenance, tune-ups, smog checks, oil changes, or expensive gasoline to fuel it -- which means it's a whole lot cheaper to keep in good running order.

Costs to charge depend on the vehicle and electricity rates. On average, it will be less than $1.00 to charge a plug-in hybrid and $2.00 to $4.00 for an all-electric car. EVs are so efficient that the cost per mile driven is significantly less than a gasoline-powered car. For instance, a 2002 Toyota RAV4 will travel 100 miles on 4 gallons of gasoline. At $2.50/gallon, this is $10.00. A 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV will travel 100 miles on 30 kWh of electricity. At 10 cents per kWh, this is $3.00.

Quiet: In a world very nearly driven to distraction with noise, an electric car provides an island of calming quiet in the usual urban din.

At the end of the day, you recharge your cell phone, and now your electric car is simply powered by that outlet on yonder wall, happy for a place to plug in.