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To the Editor:
Re “A 300-Mile Range Is the Wrong Goal for Electric Cars,” by Edward Niedermeyer (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 29):
This essay seems to hold a somewhat privileged view of cars and the role they play in today’s American families. No, we may not need to drive 300 miles very often — but when we need to drive that far, we often really need to go on that trip.
A car that travels long distances enables us to attend funerals out of town, seek treatment for serious illness at faraway hospitals, take children on college trips or move across the country. Many people can’t afford to fly or take the train. A car is freedom, and limiting people to 300 or fewer miles between charges also limits their access to family, friends, education, job opportunities, nature, relaxation and more.
I understand how difficult developing electric vehicles and their batteries can be. But think about the impact these charging limits would have on lower-income folks. How would they afford a small electric vehicle for daily use and a hybrid truck for long trips, as the essay suggests?
Car manufacturers need to make vehicles that work for all, not just a privileged few.
Patricia Ferrito
Angola, N.Y.
To the Editor:
I agree with Edward Niedermeyer.
If G.M. can sell a 260-mile electric car (the Bolt) for the mid-$20,000s after federal incentives, a 100-mile version of the car might come in under $15,000 and undercut every other vehicle on the market. That is when the E.V. “revolution” will really take off.
Cheap, reliable urban vehicles are popular in Europe and could be superb commuter cars within dense urban areas in the United States.
Steve Morris
Lake Forest Park, Wash.
To the Editor:
The subsidies in support of expensive electric vehicles have not brought down prices. Instead, with supply chain constraints, prices are rising. Edward Niedermeyer writes that “the path to lower battery costs is extracting and processing minerals at a great scale.” I have some news. We can’t just dig our way out of this problem.
We need to attack it the old-fashioned American way: Invent our way out. This means devise a new battery chemistry that requires no cobalt, no nickel, no manganese and no lithium, but instead is made of substances that are earth-abundant and readily available here in North America. It’s time to stop propping up the tired 30-year-old lithium-ion battery technology as a key enabler of the green transition.
Invented in America, sourced in America and made in America: That’s the prescription for independence from Chinese battery supply chain dominance.
Donald R. Sadoway
Cambridge, Mass.
The writer is emeritus professor of materials chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder of the battery company Avanti.
To the Editor:
People who live in Mountain States or the Great Plains routinely drive three-digit distances. Have you looked at the Dakotas? Nebraska? Colorado? Texas? The prospect of grinding to a halt in the middle of, say, Montana or Nevada is guaranteed to cancel the appeal of a short-run E.V.
Consider, too, Midwestern winters with their occasional blizzards. Even though you’d avoid traveling in such weather, sometimes you don’t have a choice (a birth, or a death …). Who wants to be stranded in a whiteout on a closed interstate in Kansas? Not my preferred way to die.
Recharging stations are nearly nonexistent in many areas of the sprawling West and Midwest. Until they become ubiquitous, there is a market for those big batteries.
Lynn Evenson
Ely, Minn.
To the Editor:
I agree that the 300-mile-range battery is the wrong goal. Here is a thought experiment. Would that battery capacity still be the automobile industry’s goal if a rail system adequately met the average family’s needs for more extended travel?
In other countries, trains provide the capability to make extended travel possible without using the family automobile. In the United States, such a rail system would result in the 300-mile battery serving only a small niche market, not the mass market goal currently pursued. It is the current inadequacies of our long-distance public transport that helps fuel the automobile industry’s battery pursuits.
Philip Q. Hanser
Newton, Mass.
The writer is a lecturer in economics at Northeastern University.
Spare the Child the Paddle
To the Editor:
Re “Paddling Makes a Comeback in Missouri” (news article, Aug. 29):
Let me understand this: Institutions of learning are teaching children what? Oh, OK, I get it now. Hitting a child with a wooden paddle is the way to teach them to behave and show respect.
Does it work? No. Countless scientific studies have shown that physical punishment is not effective. Humiliation and pain lead to alienation, bitterness and revenge — not increased self-control, cooperation and empathy.
So, in whose interest is this brutality? Perhaps frustrated teachers and parents gain relief by administering corporal punishment. (How does this square with anti-bullying campaigns? Oh, wait, it doesn’t.)
For starters, what about investing in adequate mental health services, offering parent education programs, and training teachers in effective classroom management techniques?
Children benefit more from a helping hand than from a striking one.
Lawrence Balter
New York
The writer is professor emeritus of applied psychology at New York University and the author of “Who’s in Control? Dr. Balter’s Guide to Discipline Without Combat.”
A Young Girl’s Fight to Save Her Goat
To the Editor:
Re “A Fair Auctioned a Beloved Goat. Its Owners Filed a Federal Lawsuit” (news article, Sept. 4):
I am the executive director of Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, a home to 400 rescued farmed animals in the Hudson Valley. I’ve been following the story of Cedar, the goat who was seized and killed after the young girl who raised him through a 4-H program to be auctioned at the Shasta District Fair wanted to save his life and keep him safe. I am saddened but not surprised by the outcome.
There are so many accounts of traumatized children trying to save the lives of the animals they raised in 4-H, as well as of adults who are still haunted by the memories of the animals who trusted them and were auctioned off to be killed. Woodstock Sanctuary is leading a coalition of farmed animal sanctuaries around the country to educate the public about state and county fairs and their role in perpetuating the myths that animal farming is good and natural and without victims.
Cedar and the child who raised him for auction and then changed her mind after she developed a friendship with him are both victims of 4-H and the Shasta District Fair. I hope Cedar’s friend gets some peace knowing that she tried to save his life, and I’m so sorry this happened to them both.
Rachel McCrystal
High Falls, N.Y.
To the Editor:
The unfairness of slaughtering a child’s beloved pet reminds me of Fern Arable in “Charlotte’s Web” when she saw her father heading to the hoghouse with his ax: “This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of.” Out of the mouth of a fictional 8-year-old came wisdom. Thank you, E.B. White.
Arthur C. Benedict
Peaks Island, Maine
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