Electric cars - a REAL option?

I think that every Economics teacher should show this to each one of their classes. Here's a young man, Shai Agassi, who says that electric cars will become a reality - and a MAJOR player - by 2015. They will cost the owner just 2 cents per mile. His company, Better Place. Check it out. Google it!

There is SO much to talk about with this video that I'm SURE that teachers will be stopping the video from time to time to ask questions and allow the students to chew on the ideas some. (Forum opportunities, perhaps?)

• Do they think it's REALLY possible to make 100 million electric cars by 2020?
• What do they think will be the ramifications of a world no longer dependent upon oil? (If you've ever read, "The Pentagon's New Map" by Thomas Barnett then you will have read one philosophy that says that we should NOT remove our dependence of oil, as that would then shut down the economies of those countries. THEN what would they do? Some interesting ideas.)
• What other side businesses would arise from all electric cars?
• Why do they think that only one automobile manufacturer met with Shai Agassi?
• Where will the electricity come from? Coal? Nuclear? We say electric cars as if electricity is free and has a zero carbon footprint.

This idea, I think, is the first ripple of a GIANT tidal wave that will change our world as we know it. By the time our students are ready to retire they will talk about gas-guzzling cars like my parents talked about the old Model T's, and their kids will laugh just like we laughed. (ANd I can't wait until there are electric motorcycles so we don't have to hear then from 3 miles away!)

WATCH THIS NOW! Send it to your favorite economics teacher. There is SO much here!

Posted in: electric,Ted