I am grateful for people like Daniel Lyons, whose recent guest column expresses his concerns about electric vehicles (“Electric vehicles and the future,” Gazette, Jan 9). But while it’s good to be well-informed about risks, we shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. The project to electrify our transportation systems is essential to meeting emission reduction goals. The negligible benefit of electrification that Mr. Lyons asserts is based on old data and bad assumptions. Even when charged on a gas-fired electric grid, today’s EVs have a carbon footprint of about one-third that of a comparable internal combustion engine car. Will the implementation of the new federal and state climate laws to promote EV adoption be a seamless process? Undoubtedly not. But the direction we must move in is clear, despite the naysayers who cherry-pick data to support the status quo. Policymakers must be clear-eyed, and they must not get waylaid by skeptics and scoffers who scold us about possible but easily preventable outcomes. As to Mr. Lyons’s concern that consumers will not have a choice in what kind of vehicle they buy, I would point out that for a century or more, we had no choice but fossil-fueled vehicles. Consumers will choose EVs not only for their reduced maintenance and fuel costs but also because they recognize that the consumption of fossil fuels has damaged the planetary systems that support life. Let’s keep the broader perspective.

Frederick Hewett

Cambridge

]]>