Fully electric car makes pit stop at Wilton Library

Sick of paying for gasoline?

Most Americans probably are.

Enter the fully electric car.

On Tuesday, one such car — a smart fortwo, a two-seater “microcar” made by smartUSA — was on display in front of the Wilton Library. Jennifer Ferreira, the regional director for smartUSA’s Northeast operations, showcased one of the six prototypes the company has in America.

Ms. Ferreira said that smartUSA has been making energy-efficient vehicles since 1998 and started selling them in the United States in 2008. But those cars weren’t powered solely by electricity.

Though the solely electric car won’t be available for lease until 2012, Ms. Ferreira said she thinks the time is right for electric cars.

“We believe there’s a great opportunity for electric vehicles,” she said. “It’s a fun, affordable, interesting vehicle.”

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Your Car Would Have to Get 70 MPG to Be as Clean as an Electric Car, Study Finds

Are electric cars less catastrophic for our future climate than gasoline cars? Well, duh. But, here’s another study carefully poring over the evidence and showing it to be the case. At least for Europe.

A team of Empa scientists made a detailed life cycle assessment of the current state of the art lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries used in electric vehicles, and published it in the scientific journal “Environmental Science & Technology.”
Comparing not just the energy sources of gasoline-powered versus electric-powered cars, but also comparing an exhaustively detailed full life-cycle analysis of every step to make a battery versus a combustion engine: what did the researchers find?
The EV is the cleaner way to go. This is contrary to widely spread beliefs – based on the earlier lead-acid and nickel metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries – that batteries are dirty to manufacture. Also, the common misconception that running electric cars on coal power would be worse for the environment than running gasoline cars on gasoline.
Researchers at Empa’s “Technology and Society Laboratory” calculated the ecological footprints of electric cars fitted with Li-ion batteries, taking into account all possible relevant factors, from those associated with the production of individual parts all the way through to the scrapping of the vehicle and the disposal of the remains, including the operation of the vehicle during its lifetime.

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