I have had this point brought up against me many times, and had to defend myself on each occasion. When talking about electric cars and their benefits, I am repeatedly asked why I don’t drive one if I want to protect the environment so much. Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge proponent of protecting the Earth and its environment, as well as trying to stall our impact on global warming. Inevitably, when talking about reducing our carbon footprint, the topic of vehicle comes up and what I drive. When people hear that I drive a V8 full size SUV, I am immediately attacked for being a hypocrite! How could someone who supports green living and protecting the environment drive such an inefficient gas guzzling vehicle!? Well there's a very good reason for this. Electric vehicles are simply not viable yet, unless you only want to drive 200 miles in a day. To add on to that, full size SUVs in electronic form don’t even exist yet. Basically, if you want to tow or haul anything, you’re stuck with a big heavy truck with a big inefficient engine. That’s the reality of our current situation. Electric vehicles are simply not a viable form of transportation, no matter how much they are marketed. In almost all other areas of life, there are alternatives to the traditional, inefficient technology. Solar energy instead of coal. Recycled paper, high efficiency appliances, etc. But, vehicles are still in stagnant territory. There have been small improvements, cylinder deactivation, electric assistance, improved aerodynamics, but the big issue still looms. Internal combustion engines still take the vast majority of energy from gasoline and turn it into heat. Electric motors are over 90% efficient with the energy they use, but even the most efficient engines are barely a third that efficient. So long as this engine is still in use, we will continue to be inefficient with our transport. Cars have been essentially the same since 1890 when the first atkinson cycle engined vehicle was made. A mechanic from back then would still be able to understand how engines from today work. The big reason behind this is the push from the government to have car companies improve on their efficiency has been long time coming, and only in the last ten years have regulations come out really setting high standards for corporations to try to make cars more efficient and bring them up to par as far as advanced technology with the rest of the large sources of pollution. Though this is a welcome change, the auto industry still has a long way to go before it is on par with the rest of the industries. That being said, the advances made in the last decade have been fantastic, and have allowed for the combustion engine to lengthen its stay on Earth. Soon, the electric car will take over and be the main form of transportation, and we won’t even be driving them. But, for now, the engine is here, and better than ever.