Future Drive

Book excerpt: In Future Drive, Daniel Sperling addresses the adverse energy and environmental consequences of increased travel, and analyzes current initiatives to suggest strategies for creating a more environmentally benign system of transportation. Groundbreaking proposals are constructed around the idea of electric propulsion as the key to a sustainable transportation and energy system. Other essential elements include the ideas that: improving technology holds more promise than large-scale behavior modification technology initiatives must be matched with regulatory and policy initiatives government intervention should be flexible and incentive-based, but should also embrace selective technology-forcing measures more diversity and experimentation is needed with regard to vehicles and energy technologies Sperling evaluates past and current attempts to influence drivers and vehicle use, and articulates a clear and compelling vision of the future. He formulates a coherent and specific set of principles, strategies, and policies for redirecting the United States and other countries onto a new sustainable pathway.