Let's think about this even further shall we? Most of the power to run your EV is coming from a power plant burning fossil fuels. Most of the plants run off of coal. Most of the CO2 the alarmists bleat about comes from coal fired power plants. You lose a good portion of the electricity you generated in transmission loss. The Leaf costs roughly twice what a good ICE powered auto costs. Further it costs THREE times as much to actually run it. Then what do you do when the battery pack runs out of life cycles? You junk it because no one will pay a dime for a vehicle that will cost 18K to rebattery. The ICE powered vehicle on the other hand can roll on and on and on. Simple maintenance will keep them running well over 200,000 miles these days.
I can go on if you prefer, but your argument that we will save money that is otherwise going to Arab countries is a non starter. The energy to power your little EV has to come from somewhere and currently the simple fact that it costs three times as much to run compared to the ICE option means you are actually using MORE energy than the ICE counterpart. That is called math. Further when it reaches the end of its life it is junk, no one will pay for it so you have the additional loss of resources needed to manufacture a replacement whereas the ICE option can continue to soldier on for many many years theryby negating the expenditure of enrgy to replace it.
EV,s I hope, will eventually have a place. Right now they don't. Get the efficiencies up to at least within 20% of an ICE vehicle and then you will see more people buy them. Figure out how to rebattery them for less than 5K and that will enable more people to afford them in the long run.
In other words, instead of giving our precious money to the likes of Mann and Jones and Hansen, give it to the people who are trying to fix those issues. Then the EV will fly.
Frist no one has ever accused me of ever being remotly in agreement with Dr. Mann whom I consider to be a fraud and someone looking for publicity and economic gain rather than science. Further, I do think, I pointed out or at least tried to ,that operating costs of the current generation of EV cars and trucks are not only higher than their Hybrid counterparts but also the cost and impact upon a persons utility bill must be factored into that cost. Now having said that, I'm well aware that our nations energy production is in large measure coal based at the moment. Frankly though, I cannot and will not buy the agrument that because technology exists in a current form, it cannot be improved upon, or other means sought to benefit this nation. Every soultion poses some sort of risk or some sort of challenge, it's when we as a nation cease to take those risks is when we relegate ourselves to 3rd world status. I do see EV technology as it matures as a good solution to this nations transportation needs when taken in conjunction with a national self producing energy policy that includes, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, (fill in the blanks). In short the current generation of EV cars is in it's infancy and i'm sure if you purchased a 2011 Ford Mustang with the same operating paramters of a Model T you might come up with the same opinion of the Ford Mustang and its internal combustion engiine.
Your point though on current EV's is a valid one, in that to make a leap to EV technology would given the current operating costs of these vehicles prove economically a disaster. That is why bridge technologies exist, like the Hybrids, that I spoke of, that allow such vehicle to mature to the point where they do make econmic sense. In short if we as a nation choose to move to these techologies we cannot do so without every energy source brought to the table in a safe , and clean manner and I for one am of the opinion our nation still has the ability to do so, if put to the test.