Electric vehicles are future and one of the ways to save the planet. They would be in much more massive use by now if there wasn't so much money involved regarding oil and strong influence of rich Arab countries whose existance depends on oil.
I have a bit of a quibble here. I'm in favor of electric vehicles, and not too opposed to fuel burners. But the planet is just fine. It was here before us, and it will be here after we're part of the fossil record.
The problem is saving ourselves, and current lifeforms on this planet. And of course, getting off of it.
The Arab nations do not have near as much influence on this as the 'western' nations, to be honest. They have a lot of petroleum, and they use it to enrich themselves. But, given the necessity and continuing growth of polymer use, oil used as fuel is wasteful, not just because of the environmental concerns. To my mind, it's far more valuable for everything it's used for EXCEPT fuel.
The large energy conglomerates resist change because they (wrongly) think it will hurt them, and (rightly) that it will reduce their ability to control things and people. For something as high tech as oil refinement and it's associated disciplines, they're an incredibly luddite group.
If they were to switch to renewable fuels, such as ethanol (just one possibility) and various blends of vegetable oils and such for general fueling, the cost would actually be on par with that of refining crude oil. The changeover would be very expensive, but not prohibitively so, and they would in a decade be able to produce more fuel at lower cost than with the current paradigm. They'd come off as heros. However, this is not easy, simple, or without risk, and those are the things they look at.
Further, they fear (rightly) that people will figure out that they can make these fuels themselves, for their own needs, at relatively low expense. They fear decentralization even more than the banks do.
Electric vehicles do almost nothing to address that. They are perceived as environmentally freindly (a debateable proposition), but they still require the consumption of fuels elsewhere to charge the batteries. This is not, as noted above, and unsolvable problem, but it's one that the energy conglomerates can kick down the road as long as the PERCEPTION of lower emissions is in place.
To my mind, electric vehicles are a step in the right direction, but only part of a comprehensive solution. Electric motors are vastly more efficient at transmission of force than gasoline motors, but their energy consumption is actually somewhat higher. As electric vehicles continue to be develooped, that inefficiency is coming closer to parity, and likely will eventually exceed the efficiency of gasoline engines. It has already exceeded the efficiencies of ethanol/methanol conversions (though that too, is underdeveloped).
In any event, breaking the stranglehold that the energy conglomerates currently have is not going to happen because of the rising popularity of electric vehicles. It affects them not at all, or positively because of the requirement for more electrical power.
Decentralization of the power grids is a much more useful approach to fixing the massive environmental problems of the current paradigm, and it's doable. But it requires people at large to get educated, get smart, and start building shit. Slogans and bandaids are NOT going to fix the problems.
