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Why is Houston going to be the electric car capital?

28 February 2010 4 Comments

Why not Detroit? Or Cleveland? Or a more compact, less-sprawled out city like Pittsburgh?

This Reuters story says Houston, the “petro metro” is aiming to be the electric car capital of America.

Stories like this make me so mad.

A city in the Great Lakes region would be much better suited to this, yet some folks in Houston are showing more leadership on this issue. For instance, Houston has signed a deal to build public charging stations. “Such agreements are key to easing skeptical consumers’ fears of running out of juice if their car batteries run low before they can reach their garage charging stations,” the story explains.

-KG

Popularity: 23% [?]

  • http://blog.robpitingolo.org Rob

    Electric vehicles alone will do nothing to solve problems of sprawl, traffic, congestion, mutilated urbanism, etc. They will merely change the way we fuel cars. A much better solution would be for cities to invest in public transit, mixed use developments, and other forms of alternative transportation. It actually seems appropriate to me that a sprawled-out city like Houston be the electric car capital. Electric cars are a dream solution that will ultimately solve few problems.

  • Alex Parker

    There are some leadership issues here…..but I bet it comes down to Houston being a lot richer than Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc.

  • http://alternative-fuel.automotivewisdom.com/opel-to-launch-inner-city-electric-car-afp-enuws/ Opel to launch inner-city electric car (AFP) | enUws | Alternative Fuel Automotive Wisdom

    [...] Why is Houston going to be the electric car capital? | Rust Wire [...]

  • http://diggingpitt.blogspot.com/2009/10/support-braddock-projects-on-pittsburgh.html John Morris

    I agree fully with Rob. Electric cars are not zero emission vehicles, they just don’t come from the tailpipe.

    FYI–In the case of the midwest and former rust belt, this means your car will be fueled by coal since this is the dominant power plant fuel source.