Source: Coneee, flickr.com, used under creative commons.
In the past week, there has been a lot of talk about the US federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program. By most accounts, the program has been quite popular. Indeed, the program’s original $1 billion in funding was exhausted in about two weeks, prompting Congress to vote another $2 billion for the program this past week.
Under the program, consumers can trade-in an old car which gets less than 18 MPG towards the purchase of a new car. The consumer gets a credit equal to the scrap value of the car, plus $3,500 to $4,500. The car dealership then takes the traded-in car, pours solvent into the engine to ruin the lubricating oil, and runs it until the engine seizes. The car is then junked for scrap. More than 230,000 cars have been traded in under the program so far.
Insight: In junking the clunker cars, we are about to throw a whole bunch of babies out the bath water. It consumes a tremendous about of natural resources to produce an automobile. So, while it is good to get a quarter million 18-MPG or less motors off of the road, it does not make sense to crush all of those cars to leave them to rust in a junk yard. In fact, it is a bit of an environmental nightmare.
I suggest that the Cash for Clunkers Program consider a plan which permits rolling-up the clunkers, removing their seized engines, and converting the cars to electric vehciles.
Internal combustion engines have had their day, but sooner or later they will have to give way to a more efficient system. Because of the ability to quickly replenish the vehicle’s energy supply with cheap oil, internal combustion engines are convenient, but they are truly wasteful. Internal combustion engines are perpetually trying to tear themselves apart from the inside and turn most of their chemical and kinetic energy to heat.
So, in light of not having to produce more steal and generate more waste in the production, the electrification of existing vehicles makes some sense. To electrify the cars, requires removing the internal combustion engine and the fuel system and replacing them with an electric motor and battery system. Pretty much everything else in the cars stays. The conversion to electric is not all that hard to do. In fact, DIYers are already doing conversions in their garages – takes about 40 to 100 hours and good set of tools. Nearly all electric cars are already conversions. Even the macdaddy of electric vehicles – the Telsa Roadster – is just a pumped up Lotus Elise with better aerodynamics and giant cordless phone battery. And, despite the fact that the clunkers used cars, they are still attractive for conversion. Since an electric motor has a single moving part, a well-done electric conversion can be expected to last for over 1 million miles. Further, used cars have already gone through a break-in period so there is a lot less friction in the bearings and drivetrains.
As a threshold problem, one would need to determine statistically which makes and models are being traded in as clunkers. Further, one would have to determine, from an engineering stand point, which of the most makes and models could be converted to electric cars. Finally, a business case would have to be completed in order to determine whether conversions of these vehicles could be done at minimum viable scale.
We can do this. After all, we already own GM and it is idling factories and laying-off workers.
The electrified clunkers could then be sold a low cost to be used as daily commuter cars. This would have a multiplier effect for both the economic and environmental dimensions of the program.
NB: I do not argue that electric cars are an environmental panacea. First, the electricity used to charge the cars has to be generated in a carbon-neutral way. Second, more than 90% the alloys need to make high efficiency electric motors comes from China. This would have the effect of changing geopolitical power from oil-exporting countries to a single nation. However, the present situation is unsustainable.