Are Electric Cars the Answer?

We watch the Olympics every night and one commercial I noticed has been airing a lot is for the Nissan Leaf 100% electric car. Yes the car is cute and the idea of no gas plus zero emissions does sound awesome. But I have to wonder if electric cars are really the way we should be moving. Let's think about the reasons we want to get away from gasoline:

1. Cost - the price of gasoline is steadily on the rise again (funny how no one mentions it now that the election is long over)
2. To reduce our consumption of oil and fossil fuels

Now here is my issue with electric cars. Yes it is great that they do not require any gasoline and yes it will save us money. However, they do require electricity. Electricity comes from power plants and how do power plants create electricity? Fossil fuels. It probably uses less fossil fuels to create the electricity to power this car as opposed the amount used to create gasoline for a car, but it is still using fossil fuels none the less. And to me, that is not moving forward that is moving sideways.

I have two words for the government and car manufacturers: renewable energy. Instead of putting money into developing the technology for electric cars, how about we put it towards developing solar powered cars? And do not tell me that the technology is not there yet and it can't be done. We were told by someone from the electric company that we could fit our house with solar panels that would not only provide more than enough electricity to power our house, but also have enough excess power to sell back to the electric company. So you are telling me that solar technology can power my 2,000 sq ft home of 6 but it can't power a car? Sorry, I'm not buying it. Maybe the reason that the technology "isn't there yet" is because no one is trying to get it there. And I think we can thank that to the fact that oil companies have too much control over Washington.

Oh and let us not forget that now there is talk about building charging stations for these electric cars. The stations will charge the car faster than one can do at home. Great, more resources wasted to build these stations. Meanwhile a solar car requires no such station, only the darn sun! The whole thing just aggravates me.

Personally, I will be holding out for a "car that runs on water man!"