Charged Up for Electric Cars

Charged Up for Electric Cars appears in today's Washington Post Outlook section. It's an interview with Shai Agassi, one of the leading proponents of all-electric cars. Agassi has recently entered into an agreement with the government of Hawaii (that's him with Gov. Linda Lingle at left) to roll out electric car stations statewide.

Agassi says, "President-elect Obama has to say that every parking spot in America [needs] to have electric power." It's not so much about electric-vehicle technology or battery technology, as some other advocates would have us believe, it's more about what will replace today's gas stations. He wants drive-through stations that look like car washes and will exchange your depleted battery for a charged one. You'll do this on a yearly plan that you buy for so much a year. You'll pop into one of these stations after you have exhausted the 100-mile cruising range of your car's existing battery. For everyday use, though, you'll just recharge your existing battery. Thus the need for every parking spot to have electric power.

"The cost of [installing recharging stations] is two months worth of oil," says Agassi. "And then it pays for itself again and again and again."

Won't all this overtax our existing electric grid and generating capacity? No, because "every electron we buy from the [electric company in Hawaii] will be matched with renewables [such as] 20 more windmills on Maui."

And we need to do this nationwide why? "The government cannot afford not to go off oil. Every time the price of oil goes up, the trade deficit goes north of $1 trillion. Every time the economy starts picking up, it will crash because the price of oil will go up again. So the only way to get the economy picking up is to get off oil."