Tesla Dust Up

Greetings

    What is the take home message, from the Tesla controversy?   Reporters will anything for a good head line?   Electric cars have a shorter range than ICEs? (duh)  Car companies exaggerate?  (also duh).  Electric  cars are for woolly headed eco freaks?  

    Dave Roberts argues that instead of thinking of alternative vehicles to plug into the current system, we need to be thinking of a new system.   (Cris Nelder outlines what such a system might look like.) 

     There is no doubt that it is easier to suggest we can move to lower carbon future by plugging in a different widget into the current system.  Why would we want to disrupt everything by creating a new system?  

        Well one reason might be because we would like to continue to have a nice cozy bio sphere to play in.  But  perhaps that involves too much long term thinking. (if we hit 4-6 degrees by 2060, when do you suppose we'll hit 2-3 degrees?). 

         Let's take a shorter term view.  Lets suppose that starting about 2015, petroleum prices are going through the roof.   And so, petroleum based ICE systems are going to be priced out anyway.   Given that scenario, considering options which seem less than ideal in today's world might be more palatable.

    But, instead we are given a completely different message.  The message is first that there's no reason to move away from oil, because there is so much of it.  Secondly that any other kind of car, or transportation scheme,  is just...  well... a night mare!

The Tesla Nightmare Shows Why All-Electric Cars Are (Basically) Dead On Arrival
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-problem-electric-cars-2013-2

http://grist.org/business-technology/the-teslan-y-times-fight-is-a-sideshow/

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/energy-futurist/reframing-the-transportation-debate/128