Does electric cars REALLY PRODUCE LESS pollution overall ???

Question

Does electric cars REALLY PRODUCE LESS pollution overall ???

(considering most electricity produced in the US are from burning coal/gas anyway) not to mention energy is lost everytime when the energy is transfer or change. Support your answer with links etc…..How about hydrogen cars?

Answer 1

Yes, because of the high efficiency of electric motors.  Studies have shown that even with power grid mix made mostly of coal, EVs would still reduce total emissions as compared to gasoline powered cars.  See the link below for further details.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/electr...

As for hydrogen - that's hard to say at this point, because the technology hasn't been developed very far, and 96% of our hydrogen currently comes from fossil fuels.  I suspect a hydrogen car overall would produce slightly less emissions than a gas car, but more than an electric car.  See link below.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/hydrog...

Answer 2

NO about 40% is lost in the charging. As the batterys get older it will be worse.

Answer 3

I'd say that electric cars are probably much more polluting. Think about all the effort that goes into making tonnes and tonnes of lithium ion batteries. All the pollution made in the process. Now, think about the fact that you've got to dispose of this stuff every few years.

Sort of makes a bit of CO2 look clean.

I'm excited about things like flywheel energy storage technology, which will last for 20 years and won't lose capacity over time.

Answer 4

If countries were powered by solar power, there would be no problem in using electric cars.

However, hydrogen powered cars also contribute to pollution. Although they only emit water, lots of electricity is needed in the reaction to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water, and in large scale, it would use a lot of energy.

Answer 5

It actually uses more energy and causes more pollution to make these types of vehicles, than it does to make a gasoline engine. But figuratively speaking, they do produce less pollution after the complete build up.

Answer 6

Yes, because electric motors and generators are well over 90% efficient while any kind of heat engine (gasoline, hydrogen, ethanol, whatever) is less than 50% efficient.

Answer 7

No, no, and no.

If you are still burning a carbon-based fuel (gasoline, ethanol, etc.), you're still releasing CO2.

If you're not generating energy inside the car (burning gasoline in an internal combustion engine), then the energy has to come from someplace else.  And that someplace else is spewing out just as much CO2 per unit of energy that your car would have.

Hydrogen: Same thing as battery.

We're not harvesting hydrogen, we're using energy to convert water into H2, and generating that energy causes the pollution.

Answer 8

you probably have a valid question. This is quite possibly true considering ethanol is actually causes more polution then gas and diesel.