I had a young female friend tell me she wasn’t worried about gasoline prices because she owns an electric car.

She likes the fact that they don’t have emissions and they are high tech.

She figures to save a lot of money and to “save the planet.”

Maybe not.

Here are some of the problems with electric cars that the liberal news media has hidden from view in their quest to advance their dogma about “global warming.”

Electric vehicles have limited ranges, especially in comparison to regular cars. The affordable electric cars have about an 130-mile range without recharging. So, if you go to a football game in Norman, you would have to charge the car to drive back to Tulsa.

You can get a higher range but only with a much more expensive car. Regular cars can go 500 miles on a single tank and you can fill up in minutes.

It takes several hours to fully charge the average electric car. You can get a Tesla or a Porsche with a supercharger that can get your battery to more than 75% in less than 30 minutes.

Bad weather and harsh temperature changes can limit that range, too. The batteries lose power in cold temperatures.

Electric cars are best suited for short trips. On a long trip, you have to plan carefully for charging stops and hope they aren’t very busy when you arrive.

As far as the environment, lithium-ion batteries cause pollution and they can’t be recycled. That will put a drain on landfills.

And where does the electricity for electric cars come from? From coal-fired plants, from natural gas plants, nuclear plants, which have some pollution. And the increase in electric cars will put a strain on an already busy power grid in America.

The top models of electric cars cost well over $100,000. Who can afford that? Even the less pricier models like the Volkwagen Golf or Nissan Leat still cost a lot less than gasoline-powered cars.

And forget about getting your electric car serviced inexpensively. They require complicated service procedures and they have extreme safety measures.

God forbid that your electric car catch on fire. You can’t put a battery pack out with water. You have to carry a special fire extinguisher because batteries burn at a high temperature.

Electric cars are heavier than regular cars because of the weight of the battery pack.

The Kia Soul EV is more than 450 pounds heavier than the gasoline model due to battery weight. A Texla Model X has a battery pack that weighs more than a thousand pounds. That takes more energy and means more tire wear, maintenance and fuel consumption.

The top speeds for electric cars is less than gasoline vehicles. That could be a problem in an emergency.

Electric cars get a lot of energy from regenerative braking, which cuts fuel efficiency. On a highway trip, with less braking, the batteries drain more quickly.

And they don’t handle big loads easily. Regular cars get less mileage under a load but not as bad as electric cars.

And electric cars are so high tech that they can track your driving habits, where you stop to charge and other information that used to be private. Do you want that?

And electric cars are making things more expensive for people who like gasoline-fueled cars. Our government is trying to force car manufacturers to switch.

Gas-driven cars get better all the time but demand drops, so will technology.

And most of the world can’t afford to switch to electric cars, especially for the myth of climate change. That is really true in Third World countries.

Will electric cars hold a resale value? Maybe but maybe not. Right now, they depreciate faster than regular cars. Most drivers lease their electric cars and return them to the dealer after a few years. Used car buyers are very suspicious.

And families will have to have two vehicles if they have an electric car and need dependable transportation.

To sum it up, electric cars a less dependable, more expensive to maintain and operate and not very useful on long trips.

And many Americans resent the idea that the government is forcing the switch to electric vehicles. President Biden wants the U.S. Military to go all electric. Can you imagine the battery you would need for a tank? Can you fly a jet with electricity? Think about the cost of dumping all our gas- or diesel-driven military vehicles for electric vehicles that run out of energy in about 100 miles? The nation with the energy wins the war.

Everyone is free to drive whatever car they want. Before ordinary folks rush out to switch to an electric car, they should consider the problems.