http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1360062/Watchdog-says-electric-cars-dirty-diesel.html
So why are they touted as cleaner by people and the government?
Obviously some people own businesses that produce the cars and theis components, and they want more consumers. Advertising them as clean is fine (even if it is false), what is not fine is subsidising them from the extorted funds.
limitgov:So why are they touted as cleaner by people and the government?
I wonder how many people truly realize this.
Because people are stupid and simply don't think about the fact that producing cars or electricity may cause emissions too. "If it says electric it doesn't cause any emissions. Durr". It's just silly, emotional asceticism, without much rational thought about actual consequences. Btw, producing electricity creates such high emissions because it's mostly coal power in the US, thanks to that stupid anti-nuclear energy movement in the 70's. Of course the solution for all that is solar energy. Which is a joke, but it sounds so fluffy that it makes the emotional dreamers completely forget about economics or physics.
Note also that producers can't produce environmentally friendly cars as fast as people want to buy them. That means that in the immediate future the amount of electric or hybrid cars on the street is a zero-sum game. Buying one does not add to the amount being driven, since every of these cars is bought by someone. In fact, if you don't drive a lot and buy a environmentally friendly car for the sake of the environment it is likely that you just snatch it away from someone who would drive it a lot more that you. That means buying an environmentally friendly car actually causes more miles to be driven by a car that has worse gas mileage.
Recently I discovered BMW is marketing an electric car. Same size as a Smart city car but the price of a 5 series saloon. BMW is usually extremely careful as far as market trends go so I wondered why did they put out such an unpalatable car. The answer is simple: the EU is about to launch a scheme to force manufacturers to comply to "fleet CO2 emission" standards. An electric car has zero CO2 emission: handy for the manufacturer of the M5 and M3 sports saloons. Of course the EU is threatening manufacturers to build serious electric cars people will really buy or else. But we already know the car industry and the legislating bodies are like two capercaillies at a lek: it's all show and nobody will get hurt.
We just need to creat clean forms of electricity THEN they'll be perfectly clean....
This discussion reminded me that in some countries consumers can choose between different electricity plans - sun, green, nuclear, etc. The sunny one costs the most, IIRC. The funny thing is, the provider has only one network for distribution of electricity (yeah, there is some redundancy, but no separate wires for sun, hydro, or nuclear electricity). Basically, there is no evidence that by paying more you endorse "cleaner" energy (whatever cleaner may mean).
Another funny thing is, energy producers have no problems using "unclean" energy (nuclear) to pump water into lakes, then using that potential energy to produce "clean" hydro energy (the infrastructure was obviously developed to convert cheap night energy into expensive day energy, but found additional use with advent of green craze).
All "clean" devices work exactly the same way, including the human body. You can use babies and kittens as fuel for a turbine boiler and if the conversion chain is more complicated than two steps Joe Dolt will see the end device as kosher.
It's a play on your emotions (many people are concerned about the "enviornment" these days) in order to get you to buy a more expensive vehicle in hopes that you won't notice that a reduction of pollution on the front end doesn't necessarily equal less net polution. I wonder how many people truly realize this.
Aha! This is as a result of the capitalist system! The producers of the goods (the proletariat) become alienated from the goods, so they care little about it!
My solution (which is utopia) is scientific management of society where somehow, everyone manages each other while still being left alone to manage themselves! Then everyone can produce for themselves (getting rid of alienation) and for other people (thus bringing back alienation)
...wait, what?
Giant_Joe:Aha! This is as a result of the capitalist system! The producers of the goods (the proletariat) become alienated from the goods, so they care little about it!
Realistically, I would call it social conditioning (read "public education") and the marriage between "corporations" and "state."