Enviroweenies are in a tizzy over General Motor's planned phase out of electric cars. The leases are coming due, and the automaker doesn't want to sell them outright, because of the cost of maintenance. GM plans to destroy the cars.

Some 800 drivers once leased EV1s, mostly in California. After the last lease ran out in August, GM reclaimed every one of the cars, donating a few to universities and car museums but crushing many of the rest.

Enthusiasts discovered a stash of about 77 surviving EV1s behind a GM training center in Burbank and last month decided to take a stand. Mobilized through Internet sites and word of mouth, nearly 100 people pledged $24,000 each for a chance to buy the cars from GM. On Feb. 16 the group set up a homely street-side outpost of folding chairs that they have staffed ever since in rotating shifts, through long nights and torrential rains, trying to draw attention to their cause.

So why do envirowackos want the cars so badly? Probably because letting them go the way of the dodo would mean admitting that the cars were a failure in the marketplace.

Of course they aren't saying that. Instead they are claiming that electric cars are the next best thing to sliced bread.

What's at stake, they say, is no less than the future of automotive technology, a practical solution for driving fast and fun with no direct pollution whatsoever. GM agrees that the car in question, called the EV1, was a rousing feat of engineering that could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in under eight seconds with no harmful emissions. The market just wasn't big enough, the company says, for a car that traveled 140 miles or less on a charge before you had to plug it in like a toaster.

No wonder it didn't catch on. And in my humble opinion, even the environmental goodness is dubious. Electric cars may not pollute directly, but the indirect pollution may be far worse than gas burning vehicles. For starters, most of our electricity still comes from fossile fuels. So you may not see fumes coming out of the tail pipe (or even a tail pipe), but somewhere there is a oil, gas, or coal fired power plant belching out smoke to provide enough electricity for all these electric cars. And given California's electricity problems you would think they would have outlawed electric cars years ago.

Of course there is also the pollution caused by disposal of all those batteries. Power cells don't last forever, and when you dispose of them they are classified as hazardous waste. Yeah, California may be keeping their neighborhood clean, but only because they are shipping all their pollution and toxic waste out of state.