High Cost of Cleaner Vehicles
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An electric vehicle on the Tesla Motors assembly line. Photo: Steve Jurveston
August 9, 2013
By Rebecca Williams
Brett Smith is the co-director of the Manufacturing, Engineering, and Technology Group with the Center for Automotive Research. He says the industry is making cars that are much more fuel-efficient, but the change is incremental.
"We don’t have fuel cell cars. We don’t have electric battery, battery electric vehicles in high numbers here, because the technology is enormously challenging and enormously costly. And the perception I think from most looking at the industry from the outside is why don’t you just do this? This should be easy. It’s not easy," Smith says.
But he says automakers are taking action on climate change. Ford recently pledged to reduce the CO2 emissions from its factories by an additional 30 percent by 2025.