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There is the advantage that the pollution coming from this car is from fairly centralized sources. The power pollution is at the plant, not the tailpipe, and you're not building a car that inherently depends upon coal. It could run off any power source you can attach to the grid.

The battery pack stays with the car until you're in EOL mode for it, which can then likely be recycled reasonably.




Sure. However, in the US, no new nuclear power plants have been built since the 70s and no new ones are planned. Here, the relatively clean sources of electricity (nuclear and hydro) make up less than 20% of the total production [1]. And once again, the amount of energy that goes into the production of the batteries I bet far outweighs the energy used to drive the car for a few years (have not done the actual numbers). Yes, if we start adding cogeneration capabilities [2] to our coal-fired power plants, we may come out somewhat ahead. However, almost nobody does it currently, except small universities.

As for attaching solar panels to the roof of your house, you might break even assuming you get a full subsidy from your state and the panels outlast their expected lifetime. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source for more fun facts.

Fun fact: I once calculated that adding cogeneration to one average sized coal power plant would more than make up for all the energy spent making and recycling plastic grocery bags. There are thousands of these plants in the US.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration




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