Electric cars are greener than gas, literally everywhere

[hunter]

2. Solar panels over the parking lots of workplaces are a more direct solution.

Drive to work, park under the solar panels, plug your car in... There are many workplaces in my city that have installed parking lot solar.

A better solution would be to reduce automobile commuting and to denormalize car ownership. This could be done by creating attractive walkable urban areas and higher density suburbs, places where few people want to deal with the hassles of car ownership.

When my wife and I met we were Los Angeles commuters, suffering every working day an hour or more of stressful freeway traffic that averaged 15-20 miles per hour or less.

By some planning and greater good fortune we've managed to avoid the automobile commuter lifestyle since the mid-eighties, but we still live in a place where functional adults are expected to own cars.

I have a niece and a nephew living in San Francisco. Whenever they need a car for occasional trips out of town, they rent one.

Currently the cost of an electric car plus the solar panels requires to keep it fully charged are beyond the economic reach of middle class U.S. Americans.

I drive an $800 car (I've got some mechanical skills) and I top up its gasoline tank about once a month. It's going to be a long time, if ever, before electric cars and solar panels fall into that price range.