Detroit and Electric Cars

* Tom Hayden’s “Conspirators Are Targeting Electric Cars” (Column Left, Nov. 2) reflects the mentality of our lawmakers, not to mention Vice President Al Gore and the Congress who spawned the EPA. Collectively they have all contributed to the basket case that American business is becoming. There is a general belief that all of our environmental problems can be solved by “passing a law.”

Unfortunately, so many environmental laws have been passed that the transportation of hazardous materials without proper documentation would be a felony, and with current technology, electric automobiles would fall into that category. Virtually any combination of materials that could be used in battery manufacture would fall into this category. (Prop. 65, the anti-toxics law, Tom Hayden’s baby). The batteries would of necessity be large and would contain a lot of sulfuric acid, for example.

Let us give the technical people in the automobile industry some credit. Their mistakes end in litigation.

PHIL C. BALDWIN

El Segundo

* I know that the automobile and oil industries are the major part of our economy. But can’t they see that if we don’t switch from petroleum-powered motors to something that doesn’t create exhausts that destroy the ozone layer and/or the life-sustaining nature of the atmosphere, there won’t be anybody left on the planet to buy their products? Isn’t it possible that our government could create inducements that would move these industries in the direction of the survival of the world?

Sooner or later, we’re going to have to give up petroleum as the basic fuel for this civilization. Am I overly naive to think that the oil industry could, itself, lead the way in the research and conversion to alternate systems? The first oil company that gets on this bandwagon will make a fortune. I think we can weather the changeover if the industry, itself, leads the way, with appropriate government assistance by way of tax incentives, etc.

ALLEN M. ROSENTHAL

Marina del Rey

* Now comes Tom Hayden arguing that the law demands electric cars, but that a conspiracy in Detroit is preventing their production. Ho hum.

I would invite Hayden to remember that what we are really trying to do is to fight pollution. Cars of recent vintage are already so pollution-free that they contribute very little to the overall problem. The real problem lies in older cars, which continue to pollute as people drive them.

T. A. HEPPENHEIMER

Fountain Valley