Dog & Lemon Guide slams electric cars

The New Zealand car buying guide, the Dog & Lemon Guide, says electric cars "simply don't make economic or environmental sense." The guide has so much influence that Meridian, a New Zealand power company, is questioning an electric car project. Here are some of the problems the Dog & Lemon Guide editor Clive Matthew-Wilson has with electric cars:

"The electric cars you see on tv that do fantastic mileages are built of super-lightweight materials like fibreglass and carbon fibre. These materials are not suitable for the mass-production of cars because they both expensive and incredibly toxic. Aluminium is just as bad because it requires staggering amounts of energy to produce."
"Many of the electric cars that are currently being trialed would kill their occupants in a serious collision, because their lightweight construction lacks the most basic safety features. If these vehicles were as safe and affordable as the average new passenger car then they'd be just as heavy and use just as much energy to get around."
"Electric cars still need energy to power them, and New Zealand's electricity supply is a strictly limited resource. Large numbers of electric cars would cause a localised energy crisis during periods of high energy use, such as winter nights."

According to the NZ Herald, Meridian "is prepared to pull the plug on plans to import electric cars, if materials and methods used to produce the vehicles prove too polluting." New Zealand's energy minister defends electric cars saying, "the Government has no plans to relax safety standards for vehicle imports. These technologies are already being used in top-end cars and manufacturers are unveiling plans to make electric cars mainstream." Quite a lot of EV action going on in New Zealand these days.
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