The Myth of the Electric Car
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Earth Day has passed. I spent a fair amount of time making sure that people knew it was Earth Day. Honoring the planet on which all of our lives are dependent is a good practice to get into, in my opinion. So, I chose to finally sit down a do a little research on the electric car. For years, I’ve been questioning whether an electric car is really better for the environment (particularly for producing greenhouse gases) than an traditional Honda Civic or other economy car. These cars are typically getting high 30s to low 40s for the MPG, which I believe produces much less CO2 than an electric vehicle.
I’ve found myself in a number of debates with hardcore environmentalist over this issues. After all, electric vehicles don’t produce any pollution at all, right? Well, not exactly. That electricity has to come from somewhere. While we’d like to think that it comes from solar panels sitting on top of people’s houses, it couldn’t be further from the truth. As I pointed out in my article about the energy crisis we face in America, 50% of our electricity comes from burning coal. While conditions have improved since the Clean Air Act of 1990, coal isn’t exactly Mr. Clean.
I’ve asked myself some very simple questions:
- How many kilowatts of energy does it take to move an electric car 30 miles?
- How much CO2 is generated by coal to produce a kilowatt of energy?
- How much CO2 is generated by a gallon of gas (what it takes to move a care 30 miles)?
Finding the answer wasn’t the easiest thing, but the Internet makes research so much easier than ever! One of the things I found interesting during my research was that most of the articles about electric cars were focused on saving money on vehicle cost much more so than the noble act of reducing pollution or “protecting our planet”.
An interesting website called Calcars.org has an article heavily pushing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). The article has no publish date on it, but it cites a 2004 report from the California Air Resource Board that claims PHEVs are 67% cleaner than traditional gasoline powered vehicles. The problem with this general number is that it clearly requires more energy (no matter if it is electric or gas) to move a large truck than it does to move a compact car. So I’ve kept to my research. Finally, the answers to the questions above:
- Electric vehicles most get 2.8 miles per Kilowatt/hour
- According to the American Chemical Society: 1Kilogram or 2.205 lbs
- According to Green Guide: 25.3 lbs (that also includes the foot print of creating gas from oil)
Using these numbers, an Electric vehicle produces 23.625 lbs of CO2 for every 30 miles (30 miles divided by 2.8 mpKwh times 2.205 lbs of CO2 from Coal). That’s a paltry 1.675 lbs difference. A far cry from 67%
To be sure, not all electricity comes from burning coal. The EPA even has a tool that allows you to see where your energy is coming from. For my area, I only generate 13% from coal and 46% from gas. This reduces my CO2 output significantly, but it doesn’t completely erase it.
Either way, I’m still not looking at a 67% drop unless I’m driving around an SUV. Fortunately, I’m not.
One final note. While doing the research for this article, I found an interesting article on slate.com that claims:
Lower carbon dioxide emissions aren’t the only advantage to going electric with your wheels. EVs such as the Roadster don’t even have tailpipes, so there’s not a constant plume of acrid smoke wafting into the air. As a result, EVs produce less methane, nitrous oxide, and assorted other greenhouse gases than their gas-powered counterparts. The one exception: sulfur dioxide, which is produced by coal combustion and can lead to acid rain.
While the output of other greenhouse gases may be less (especially in the immediate proximity of the vehicle), it does not mean that burning fossil fuels won’t produce these gases. While emissions of these other greenhouse gases are down since the Clean Air Act of 1990, they have not completely disappeared. In the case of an electric vehicle, these greenhouse gases are just produced in a separate part of the ecosystem that you don’t have to sit in right now.
What does all this mean? Go buy a fuel efficient or small car. If you have kids and need to transport a lot of people or things, pick up one of the new Hybrid SUVs. Electric vehicles are not the answer, especially after we take into consideration the batteries, but that will have to be for another time.
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Comment by kent beuchert on 23 April 2008:
Unfortunately, you start off with a really bad assumption - namely that electric cars get 2.8 miles per kilowatt hour. You may have been confused by the fact that the Chevy Volt has a 40 mile range but uses a 16 kilowatthour battery. Actually, the Volt needs that many batteries for power output, not capacity - the Volt ony uses half of its battery apck capacity, in order to extend the life of those batteries. It therefore needs 8 kilwatthours to go 40 miles, thus gets 5 miles per kilowatthour.
Don’t attempt to determine electric mileage by comparing energy contained by gasoline versus eelctricity - that doesn’t work - only a fraction of gasoline’s energy is actually used to move the car - a lot of the energy is wasted as thermal energy.
Comment by drivin98 on 24 April 2008:
“…but the Internet makes research so much easier than ever!”
Evidently not easy enough since your comparison is fundamentally flawed.
There are plenty of discussions on the internet that cover all of this territory. Happy reading.
Comment by Fred on 24 April 2008:
Good sleuthing. Electric cars are a fraud. Check out the Eco-car myth!
Comment by Vee on 25 April 2008:
One of my pet peeve is when someone tries to prove a point by skewing the fact. Within the first paragraph I already see a misrepresentation of facts, not to mention what other I will find if I kept on reading. First, You know perfectly well just because the sticker on the window stays 41/31, in the case of a Civic (and only the new models), by no means it will get that. I would say that the majority of small cars gets an average of mid-30s at best under normal driving conditions.
Yes electricity does come from coals (as well as others sources). However, it is easier to control, set/govern standards on waste coming from a few sources vs. waste coming several millions sources. In addition, as demand for electricity increase, improvements will be made on ways to generate electricity (or store it). Most likely it will be to reduce cost and reduce the over waste coming from a kilowatts of electricity (or storage of it). And finally your MPG fact is coming from a NEW car perspective. How much extra CO2 will come from that same Civic four years down the road do the possibility in lack of maintenance, natural ware and tare, and others?
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Comment by Jared Tracy on 25 April 2008:
Fueleconomy.gov reports via contributions from drivers just like you and me that the Honda Civic gets 30 mpg. This 30 mpg is what I used for my calculation. This same source shows that older Honda Civics actually get better gas mileage.
My entire analysis is based upon how much CO2 is generated by driving a gasoline car 30 miles vs. an electric car 30 miles. It has nothing to do with how much energy we get from gasoline vs. coal. We get get far more energy from splitting a couple of tiny little atoms, so would you suggest that we switch everything over to nuclear energy? Not likely.
Since our concern is the environment, we should be thinking about how much pollution we can reduce, not how much money we can save or how green chic we are by driving an electric car. Everyone remember how cool it was to save trees by getting plastic bags instead of paper? DOH!
I’m a huge supporter of electric cars driven by people who have solar panels on their house. Otherwise, they are just contributing to the problem rather than the solution.
Comment by Bob on 27 April 2008:
You green thumpers probably believe in cars that run on nothing but air. Energy always comes from somewhere.
Also, Jared, you are completely wrong about plastic vs. paper. Plastic bags take less energy and natural resources than do paper. They are also light weight, which requires less fuel to transport. Paper bag production also generates more pollution than plastic bags. Guess you missed this interactive article on MSNBC when you were supposedly doing your research.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23358591
Comment by Bob on 28 April 2008:
Want a real green car? Watch this video of water fuel car.
Comment by Bethany on 28 April 2008:
I think you are missing the point about plastic bags. We were so cool with our “new” cause, saving trees, that we missed the fact that they are piling up in our dumps and oceans! Same can be said about bottled water, not on the green front but health. Who’s to say what is worse? How about cloth reuseable bags and bottles? And skip the debate altogether!
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