The View from the West

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Hybrid cars are a costly mistake

By: Mischa Popoff

Posted: 10/21/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

FORGET precious metals like gold and silver. Billionaire Warren Buffet is investing in lithium because unprecedented quantities of this metal will soon be required for electric and hybrid car batteries. But before you take out that second mortgage to invest, consider the potential for the whole venture to implode. Yes, the value of lithium will rise as governments respond to green activists by "encouraging" auto companies to produce more electric and hybrid cars. But the increasing cost of lithium will drive the price of these vehicles out of reach for the consumer.

While the prices of other technologies like home computers and cell phones plummet as production skyrockets, the electric/hybrid alternative is destined to become a victim of its own success; unless of course government steps in.

A run-of-the-mill hybrid battery is currently triple the cost of a gasoline engine, about $8,000. Raw materials comprise 70 per cent of this cost. With the December Copenhagen Conference looming -- at which Nobel Laureate President Barack Obama hopes to convince the world to wean itself off oil -- the price of American lithium has risen 100 per cent in the last 60 days. Experts predict a 600 per cent increase by the end of 2010.

There are a lot of reasons not to buy an electric or hybrid car: lack of performance, lack of range, lack of towing and carrying capacity; basically lack of everything you buy a car for. Sure, engineers could put in larger batteries, but that will only accelerate the demise of electric and hybrid cars by increasing demand for lithium.

Take, for example, the high-performance 2010 GM Volt hybrid. Its lithium battery costs a whopping $21,000. Let me stress, that's just for the battery at today's price for lithium.

It would be one thing if there was a payoff in the cost per mile travelled. There is not. A whole slough of gas-powered automobiles do as well or better than hybrids, and diesels consistently beat hybrids in fuel efficiency. And yet, "hybrid faith" is sweeping the Western world.

Green marketers claim battery technology will someday allow you to charge your battery in less than 20 minutes and travel up to 500 miles on a single charge! When will this happen? Don't be such a skeptic! We're heading in that direction and that's all that matters. Till then, shut up and pay your taxes! Feel better now?

Facts and science no longer matter in this debate. That should be reason enough to quit wasting public money developing hybrid-electric cars. Add in the undeniable fact that the more batteries made, the more astronomical their real cost will be, and you have to wonder, what's driving this insanity?

Mischa Popoff is a freelance political writer with a bachelor's degree in history.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 21, 2009 A10

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