SUVs, Oil Demand, and the Gulf Oil Spill

An article on the Gulf oil spill that appeared a couple weeks ago said that it's hypocritical of people to criticize the oil spill or bemoan all the harm done—as long as they themselves are driving their thirsty SUVs that create the oil demand that in turn necessitates drilling in the Gulf.

I have a friend who is very enthusiastic about electric vehicles—should I say "coming electric vehicles"? He forwarded to me an article that mentioned an estimate of how much oil would be saved when we are driving electric cars. Quoting Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the article says,

Our goal should be to electrify half our cars and trucks within 20 years, which would reduce our dependence on oil by about a third. . . .

That sounds good. But I'd be very curious to know how that would compare with the percentage of oil that would be saved if we could move people out of their SUVs and into reasonably fuel-efficient vehicles.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein