If EVs Are Linked to Cancer, Would You Drive One?
By Chris Weiss
2011 Chevy Volt
Hybrids and EVs are all the automotive rage right now. Everyone is building one, or at least talking about doing so sometime in the future, and the media is clamoring for exciting breakthroughs in efficient design. With oil supplies diminishing, electrics are poised to be the transportation solution of the future.
In a Slate article that reads more like a rhetorical question than a substantive report, author Matthew DeBord brings up the issue of whether the electromagnetic field produced by electric motors will be linked to cancer. Like cell phones, power lines and pretty much anything else that produces EMFs, EVs will likely come under this type of scrutiny as they become more prominent. So far, answers are slim, but it does make for an interesting quandary.
Presumably, if cancer were found to be a direct cause of EVs, people would ditch them as fast as they could drive to the local junkyard, but what if it was loosely linked? What if oil supplies continue to diminish and the choice is between driving an EV and not driving at all? What other technologies will emerge to simultaneously address both issues?
Until such an EV-cancer connection is made, EVs continue to be the cleanest, most viable long-term option. But will it last? [Slate via AutoBlog Green]
