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1、Highly charged motoring 负重前行 2010.10.07 The EconomistElectric cars have come and gone over the years. Usually an oil crisis has given them a boost; this time it is a combination of oil prices, fears about energy security and climate change. Now the big car firms are pushing all-electric cars for the
2、 mass market. At the Paris Motor Show this week they unveiled electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Some go on sale in the next few months. This represents a huge leap forward for the industry, but the showroom patter will be misleading, for two reasons. First, although electric cars are nippy,
3、 stylish and as easy to drive as conventional vehicles, electric motoring has some distinct disadvantages. Second, they are not really as green as their promoters claim. The idea of recharging an electric car at home for only a few dollars and never again having to visit a filling station is enticin
4、g. For most journeys, the limitations of battery capacity are irrelevant. As salesmen will be quick to point out, 99% of the time people do only short runsthe daily commute, trips to the shops and to pick up the childrenall of which are well within the range of most electric cars. But that final 1%
5、of journeys presumably includes the summer holiday when people pile into the car and head off for the coast. Hopping on the train laden with suitcases and children may not be an attractive alternative. And even the relatively short ranges that salesmen advertise may be optimistic. On a cold, wet nig
6、ht when lots of electrical systems are running and the vehicle is laden with passengers and luggage, a car may lose around a third of its supposed range.And what of electric cars environmental credentials? Electric cars are being hugely subsidised by taxpayers5,000 ($7,940) in Britain and up to $7,5
7、00 in Americaon the ground that they are zero-emission vehicles. Makers of electric cars claim that this is an efficient way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Road transport accounts for a tenth of such emissions worldwide; the sorts of biofuels currently in use are not much greener than petrol; a
8、nd next-generation biofuels are proving slow to come to the market. Although electric cars may not themselves produce greenhouse gases, generating the electricity they use does. How green they are depends on the fuel mix at the power plants in the country in which they are driven. An electric car in
9、 Britain today, for instance, produces around 20% less in CO2 emissions than a car with a petrol engine. Even if the generating mix gets greener, electric vehicles are so expensive to produce, that they will still be a relatively costly way of abating CO2 emissions. The only efficient way to cut gre
10、enhouse-gas emissions is to impose a carbon tax. If electric cars are a good way of reducing emissions, a carbon tax will enable them to flourish. Taxes, of course, are not as popular as subsidies. But subsidies are almost always a waste of public resources. At this particular time, throwing more ta
11、xpayers money at the car industry seems a daft thing to do.考研词汇combinationkmbnen n.结合，联合，合并；化合（物）distinctdstkta.清楚的，明显的；（from）截然不同的真题例句 The BBC “aint broke”, they say, by which they mean it is not broken (as distinct () from the word broke, meaning having no money), so why bother to change it?1996年阅
12、读2例句精译 他们说英国广播公司“没有破产”，他们的意思是说它没有垮掉（垮掉与“一文不名”含义不同，“一文不名”指没有资金），那为什么还要自找麻烦去改变它呢？irrelevantrlvnta.不相关的真题例句 But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or
13、 the single suspicious face in a big crowd.2002年阅读2例句精译 但是人的大脑能够扫描一个快速变化的场景，迅速排除98%的不相干的物体，立即聚焦于森林中婉蜒道路旁的一只猴子，或者人群中的一张可疑的脸。presumably prizju:mbliad.推测起来，大概真题例句 Naturally he will try to borrow money at a low (49：rate) of interest, but loans of this kind are not (50：frequently) obtainable.2000年完形(50)
14、A genuinelyB obviouslyC presumablyD frequently例句精译 他自然会设法寻找低息贷款然而这类贷款常常是不容易弄到的。(50) A 真诚地B 明显地C 推测起来D 常常，频繁地efficientfnta.有效的，效率高的；有能力的，能胜任的真题例句 At the same time these computers record which hours are busiest and which employees are the most efficient (), allowing personnel and staffing assignments
15、to be made accordingly.1994年阅读2例句精译 同时这些计算机记录哪些时间段是高峰，哪些员工工作效率最高，进而就能对人员分配进行相应的调整。flourish flrv.繁荣，茂盛，兴旺真题例句 Its theory to which many economists subscribe, but in practice it often leaves railroads in the position of determining which companies will flourish and which will fail.2003年阅读3例句精译 这种理论得到了多数经济学家的认同，但在实际操作中，它使铁路公司获得了一个决定谁败谁荣的权利。背景常识介绍近几年，“绿色交通”作为一个全新的理念越来越被人们所关注，其倡导的低能耗、低污染、高效率的城市交通体系其本质是在满足人们的交通需求的同时，维持城市可持续发展，保证环境、经济与社会的永续性。在新能源汽车中，由于电动车具有无废气排放，噪音污染小的特点，已经成为未来绿色交通发展的必然趋势，但冷静思考，不难看出目前电动汽车行业仍存在诸多问题。参考译文这些年来，电动汽车时而“时兴”时而“失宠”。通常，是石油危机给他带来机遇，但这一次是高油价
