> ... the electric car simply moves our consumption of energy That's right. The nice thing about shifting the burden of energy production over to the electrica

> ... the electric car simply moves our consumption of energy That's right. The nice thing about shifting the burden of energy production over to the electrical grid is that the energy becomes, in CS terms, an implementation detail: You can upgrade the environment impact of all the cars in an entire geographical area just by switching the underlying source of energy from, say, coal to wind or water. That is already happening in many places. Many countries are already energy-sufficient based on renewables. Norway and Sweden get most of their power from hydro, for example, Denmark gets a lot from wind. Many countries (including Germany and Australia) are gearing up to become self-sufficient within 10-20 years. Germany was at 18% in 2010, planning to be at 66% in 2020. As EVs increase in numbers and in mainstream acceptability, this will push companies to focus on the grid and on new energy sources. Right now, if everyone in the world switched to EVs, the grids would collapse. Second point: The grid (or rather, its tributaries) is simply a better place to convert raw materials into electricity. The internal combustion engine is pretty efficient, but not particularly efficient compared to, say, a coal plant. Lastly: EVs eliminate local emissions. That's a good thing.