Electric cars just took another very public hit. Or rather, their batteries did. A123 Systems, a poorly-named advanced battery manufacturer has defaulted on its $249 worth of government loans and declared bankruptcy. A123 made the batteries that go into a high-profile luxury EV, the Fisker Karma, and was one of the early success stories of the green tech boom. It raised over $1 billion over its lifetime, much from venture capital and $400 million from its 2009 IPO.But no more. After it had to recall a round of defective batteries, the Karma has struggled to get off the ground, and demand for EVs was lower than expected, it all came crashing down. A123’s stock plummeted to mere cents, and its entire automotive business was sold off for $125 million to Johnson Controls.And the green-hating punditry right laughed and they laughed. The dream of electric cars and a clean powered-world is for fools, they intone, as the oil industry runs ads on their networks and finances the candidates they favor. A123 may well turn up as a talking point in tonight’s debate; Mitt Romney may blame Obama’s government for picking a “loser,” as he called Fisker and Tesla (both of which are actually quite fiscally healthy).All that amounts to cynical shortsightedness from the well-remunerated protectors of some of the richest corporations out there: Oil industry execs and the pundits and politicians who love them. After all, oil accounts for more of our energy use than any other source in the United States, and it is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind coal. If we have any interest in averting climate change, or investing in the transportation industry of a post-peak oil economy, we must seek alternatives to the status quo. But, surprise, none of those who enjoy their spot in the fossil-fueled hegemony are eager to give it up. Jowls wagging, they lambast the alternative with vague hopes it will not someday thrust them from their perch.I don’t know if transportation of the future will hinge on electric cars. Personally, I imagine more electrified mass transit and walkable urban areas. But if I know anything about America, I know America likes cars. And EVs are a viable way to preserve our automotive culture in a reasonably resource-friendly way. It seems a worthy investment; to lay the groundwork for this alternative auto industry.But it’s a great struggle to electrify the cars of the future. There needs to be vast infrastructure investments, mostly in charging stations so people feel comfortable driving them about town. We need a cure for “range anxiety.” Awareness must spread, so that they might become more popular — after people know someone with an electric car, they become more likely to consider one — so that they might be mass manufactured, so that costs might come down. And this alternative transportation dream is competing with the entrenched, gas-guzzling establishment, an industry that pays little for the pollution it looses into our lungs and can mass-produce big, cheap cars with cheaper parts and labor.It’s tricky business, what the Obama administration — and plenty of private investors — did: invest hundreds of millions in promising new EV companies, at the whims of a stagnant, unforgiving market. It’s true that few have clean-powered dreams in recessionary times. But let’s not forget the aims of their work. Building a cleaner alternative transportation system that won’t speed the rise of climate change. Don’t listen to the oil-soaked naysayers. Funding clean technology is among the more commendable aims our government has undertaken of late.
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