Electric car subsidies don't make much sense

It is widely accepted that Americans are science-challenged. Because of that we tend to substitute popular opinion for scientific fact. Despite being ill- informed, we are full of moral certainty. The media contribute to this, and the government takes advantage of it to create a requirement for government intervention.

For example, despite conventional popular belief, there is no such thing as an electric car. Seventy-one percent of our electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels, and only 35 percent of the energy from burning that fuel actually reaches us as electricity -- the rest is lost to heat. Electric cars actually run on fossil fuels. Even that paragon of ecology, the National Geographic magazine, recently wrote that electric cars produce essentially the same pollutants as gasoline-engine cars.

Yet the government is spending more than $6.3 billion of our tax dollars subsidizing electric auto manufactures and battery manufacturers. They are even contemplating setting up charging stations along our highways. They also are subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles -- you might have seen the ad for golf carts with a federal subsidy of $5,335 each (according to the government, if it has four wheels, it's an automobile).

Instead of explaining to the public that electric cars don't make sense, officials capitalize on our ignorant but firm beliefs to establish more bureaucracy and achieve greater control.

When we produce most of our electricity from nuclear power, like France does, electric cars might make sense.

Pete Welch

Hilton Head Island