Of course it takes more energy to build the car because it has a battery and an electric motor in addition to a gas engine. The additional energy used in manufacture is small compared to the energy saved driving the vehicle. The less we rely on internal combustion engines the more energy we will save. Electric motors such as in a hybrid or a manufacturing plant have an efficiency in order of 90% or higher. The internal combustion engine typical has an efficiency in order of 20 to 30%. The more we use electric motors in place internal combustion engines, the more energy the country will save.Not all subsidies are bad. A subsidy for a new technology that benefits the nation, such as the hybrid car subsidy, which expired in 2010 is a good thing providing it's phased out as sales increase and the technology matures. When hybrid cars first came on the market, they had many deficiencies and only one manufacture willing to build them. Subsides helped increase sales and improvements. Today there are at least a dozen models of hybrids from a number of manufactures.What kind of an investment is it when the government kicks back thousands of dollars to someone willing to buy an electric vehicle? It helps sales??
The dealer gets his sticker price, the consumer gets a heavily discounted vehicle, and the government is out millions upon millions of dollars.
I'm fine with EV's, PV's, windmills and the like. But subsidies for alternatives and renewables isn't an investment - it's a giveaway. These energy generators have little hope of ever competing in the marketplace with hydrocarbons.
Alternatives/renewables do in their own way affect land, sea, and air and therefor our "quality of life".
And re: oil company "subsidies". I've sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into deep vertical holes in the ground over the past 20 years and have yet to see a check in my mailbox with an Uncle Sam return address.
Electric cars have the potential for reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and decreasing pollution, and greenhouse gases. Subsides can improve sales and profitability and stimulate development of improvements. Greater sales will mean lower prices. The amount of the subsidy decreases each year the model is on the market and is eventually phased out. The hybrid car subsidy worked quite well. I expect the EV subsidy will also be successful.
Takes more energy to build and run a hybrid so that kind of makes it less efficient. The subsidy is because it is not profitable. No profit means its a failure. Always will be.
The hybrid is a stepping stone to full electric vehicles.