Electric Vehicles: Cool Technology but Not So Good For a Warming Planet Earth?

I like electric cars. Several of my friends, including a next-door neighbor, have hybrid plug-ins (HPEV). They’re quiet, stylish and don’t give off a bad smell of catalyzed sulfur under hard acceleration. The start-up torque of the induction motors even brings to mind fond memories of the muscle cars of my youth (almost).

Still, my wife and I can’t justify buying one at this point in our lives. We have an 11 year-old Honda Accord with 31K miles (you read right!) and a 2004 Toyota Tacoma with 67k miles. I have a very short commute to my office. So…it will be years before we really need to buy another car and of course we’ll consider either a hybrid or all-electric. But, unless there are some big technology and manufacturing changes, it won’t be because electric vehicles (EV) are better for the environment.

The generation of electricity used to charge EV’s, whether from a power plant or an on-board internal combustion engine, pumps carbon into the atmosphere as  greenhouse gas (see How Clean and Green are Electric Vehicles? It All Depends… ). Depending on the regional resource mix (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, solar etc.), these emissions can cancel out most of the environmental advantage of owning an EV versus a modern, high fuel mileage (and much less expensive) conventional vehicle.

Now a new British study (see Electric cars may not be so green after all, says British study)   has determined that a mid-size electric car would produce about the same amount of carbon emissions as a similar sized gasoline powered car over a lifetime mileage of 80,000 miles. Go beyond that mileage and the EV wins as the cleaner vehicle. But if the gasoline powered car is driven more than 80,000 miles (to be expected) and the EV is driven less, then the lifetime pollution of the EV is worse. Even if the EV is driven more than 80,000 miles the difference is marginal.

The surprising quantity of lifetime EV carbon emission is due to:

• 50 percent more energy required to manufacture the EV because of special battery processing requirements
• Energy required for battery recovery, recycle and disposal
• Grid energy for battery charging

There are other reasons to get away from gasoline powered vehicles – perhaps the biggest is our over-dependence on oil, foreign and domestic. I’m betting that we’ll see continued EV development, but with less hype. And, considering the increasing supplies of natural gas, we may see a resurgence of interest in natural gas powered combustion engines.

Maybe we'll see less energy intensive batteries paired with a natural gas engines in hybrid plug-in electric vehicles?                                                    

A reader sent me an email the last time I wrote an article on electric vehicles. He implied I was a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragger living a life of abundance in the warm pocket of Big Oil. I appreciate the emails and you’re welcome to call me anything you want as long as it’s not too obscene to publish. Take your best shot and have fun. Even more, I’d like to see you share your considered opinions, pro or con, in the comments area below. You’ll need to register, if you haven’t already, but that’s easy.

About the Author

Editor:

Paul Mauldin

Paul earned his B.S. and an M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of California-Berkeley and is a registered professional engineer. He has worked in the energy industry for more than 25 years, developing and implementing advanced energy technologies. As research director for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. he pioneered methodologies used in the design, maintenance and control of energy delivery systems. As a consultant he has provided guidance to utilities and the vendor community, nationally and internationally.