I was surprised no one mentioned the load being added to our electric grid by bit coin manufacturing, and they are not done yet building more facilities. One new facility brought back on line a once dormant coal mine to help provide electricity. Electric vehicle demand on top of that and we in Texas have already been asked once to watch our usage during peak hours. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm unconvinced that this was a worthwhile thing to debate in rhetorical terms given that real data should've been available to form rational, numbers-based decisions on the arguments presented. A better way would be to allow readers to examine the evidence before the debate and then to let the debaters lay out their best cases yay or nay. One article that I recalled listening to this debate is this one from WSJ :https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better-for-the-environment/ A Toronto-based research team discovered that it does not take very long (20,600 miles) for a typical EV's total carbon footprint--including cost of manufacturing and mining raw materials--to break even with a conventional petrol vehicle. The overall difference in carbon footprint continues to grow substantially as the number of miles increases, as well. It would have been nice if someone cited this study in the debate (I apologize if I missed that) but it seems that we have more substantive way of determining these things than rhetoric.

I have to say that I'm quite disappointed with how this conversation was set up. A compelling discussion would have pitted the direct carbon emission reductions of EVs against more holistic efforts to reduce car dependency vehicle miles traveled (VMT) overall. Instead, what we got was a laissez faire neoliberal automotive apologist hemming and hawing about the crisis of climate change for half of the conversation. This topic should be returned to, and I think a full debate would is warranted.

It would be nice to make the jump from all-gas/diesel vehicles to all-electric vehicles in a single step, but it’s a larger and more expensive step than we need to take at the moment. And we have the technology for the in-between step. Consider these four PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles): • Vehicle Combined MPGe/MPG • Chevy Volt 106/42 • Honda Clarity 110/42 • Hyundai Ioniq 119/52 • Toyota Prius Prime 133/54 I obtained the EPA combined city/highway mileage numbers from https://www.fueleconomy.gov/. They may represent different years. All these vehicles can be charged at home to provide gas-free transportation until they have to revert to their small gasoline engines. They have reduced carbon footprints even while operating on gas alone and do not require changes to our existing infrastructure. For many people their daily home-to-work and errands mileage may fall within the vehicle’s battery-only capability requiring only that they charge the batteries every night. Warren W.

The reason we don't have new nukes is that the government subsidies ended. Ask him about that.

No mention yet of taxpayer subsidies to fossil fuel companies.

Vehicle Two Grid or V2G. Tesla batteries can run for over 300,000 miles and still work at 80% capacity. One million electric vehicles with a range of 200 miles would be enough to back up the entire California grid with energy storage. There are currently 15 million vehicles in the state. A pilot program in the UK let by the battery company Moixa paid Nissan Leaf owners up to $75 a month for discharging onto the grid. That's $900 a year.

EV's are I am convinced worse for CO2 emissions - unless most of the electricity is generated through nuclear fission - which is generally opposed by people wanting to lower CO2 emissions. Ms Gross did not address the issue of production (i.e. mining) which is also opposed by environmentalists. So yea, in a way people imagining EV's will save the world seem to believe ih things that are not supported by evidence - it is as if they want to see EV's but do not seem to know what the overall impact will be. and yes, today, EV's are affordable by the rich - subsidized by the poor through tax dollars - we are all worse off.

It was disappointing that neither party discussed the urban air quality benefits. Take a stroll down any cross street in Manhattan and you will understand instantly How incredible the city could be without tailpipe emissions. Power plants can be built far from dense areas where vast forests exist to filter some of the particulate matter AND power plants can get the attention and afford to at the cutting edge of filtration and carbon capturing technologies.

This was disappointing, in that Mr. Lesser advanced disingenuous and outright false arguments in an insulting manner (I don't recall the last tome Donvan had to tell a participant to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric). Ms. Gross did a reasonable job of making her case, but a fairly poor job of responding to his. His claimed calculations of relative emissions are just plain wrong (a new EV's impact generally equals the impact of a comparable new gas car within about 10,000 miles of driving, and beyond that, it's all relative benefit as the EV gets cleaner and the gas vehicle gets dirtier). Lots of hey was made of the EV-related subsidies, but nothing at all about the $600bn+ US direct and indirect subsidies of the oil industry.

Electrification is being pushed too soon and is helping prolong dirty electricity by raising electric demand. The EV efficiency numbers are rosy because they assume average cleanliness for electricity. But if I were to plug in a new EV in my state NJ today, despite the overall clean electricity in NJ, the actual end effect is that extra coal will have to be burnt somewhere in Ohio, say. EV proponents need to make the case without using the word "eventually". Not mentioned in the debate was how the "clean" credits for the EV I buy allows more gasoline guzzlers to be sold. The time it takes to switch auto manufacture is far less than it takes to clean up the electricity. We need to reduce the electric load to get rid of dirtiest electricity and turn on electrification when clean electricity is actually in sight. Mr. Lesser made several key points including that carbon pricing is the most efficient way to go, but too bad that his delivery was tinged with the sense that he does not view US emission reduction as an urgent issue. Pushing shiny toys is easy compared to the hard lift of raising carbon prices in a tax neutral fashion, but these shiny toys are hurting the climate cause.