How will electric cars impact the enviroment?

Question

How will electric cars impact the enviroment?

Answer 1

First thing is electric cars would effect the environment that we would have less pollution. There would also be less use for gasoline. Also it could slow down global warming to a normal pace. By having this it would not just  effect the environment, but everyone in the world it would effect.

Answer 2

Electric cars are not perfect, but they are the cleanest option we have.

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Someone else here posted a bunch of absolutely bogus statistics, so I will back mine up with references (which will make this long - sorry - see references at the end .)

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Electric cars are cleaner, and cheaper to drive because they are many times more efficient than gas vehicles (more miles on less energy.) A gas engine is about 25% efficient (diesel 30%) but stop and go driving can reduce this to less than 10% efficient. Overall, about 17% efficient in typical driving.

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Electric motors are nearly 95% efficient. Battery storage around 90% efficient. Charging via the electric grid is 95% efficient (beats trucking gas to thousands of service stations.) EVs also do not lose efficiency in traffic, because they don't idle. And they recover energy from braking to recharge batteries.

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And fuel burns more efficiently in powerplants than it does in your car. Coal at 33 to 85% efficiency (depends on the age of the plant), natural gas burns at 48% efficiency.  And wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear emit no air pollution, and so can be considered 100% efficient for purposes of discussing pollution.

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Calculating from the above numbers gives us an overall efficiency close to 50% (many factors will cause this to vary, but it is always much better than gas). This handily beats gasoline. Fuel prices confirm this. Gasoline costs from 10 cents to over 30 cents per mile, depending on mileage and fuel prices. Electric cars drive around for just a few pennies per mile - my own EV gets 4 miles to the kilowatt-hour, and I have an overnight electric rate of just 3 cents/KWH - that's less than a penny per mile.

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EV batteries are also not an environmental hazard. See my references below.

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Response  to John H revisions above, yes, I believe the most accurate efficiency numbers lie between yours and mine, fuel prices are the best gauge. Also lead-acid batteries are obsolete, Li-Ion batteries are in modern EVs. Improved efficiency of EVs is the reason emissions are far lower - see the well-to-wheel studies below.

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Answer 3

Electric cars will have minimal impact on the environment. This impact comes from coal electricity plants. It is important to note that even though this is a horrible way to produce electricity, the amount of waste it takes to generate the power of an electric car is about 1/100 of the amount of waste produced from an internal combustion engine. For more information you should watch the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car."

Answer 4

It depends on how we produce the electricity to charge the cars.

If we use fossil fuels, we will actually increase carbon dioxide emissions compared to gasoline vehicles.*  This is because we are burning coal to produce electricity (about 60% efficient), then using the electricity to charge a battery (about 30% efficient *) then using the battery to drive the electric motor (about 30% efficient. *).  The entire process is only around 5% efficient* compared to a diesel engine that is about 30% efficient.

*(See Amendments to this below)

For electric cars to decrease pollution, we first need to create  cleaner forms of electric power.  Nuclear power is actually the cleanest high density power that could meet this demand in the next 30 years.  Nuclear releases less radioactivity than burning coal, it releases no carbon dioxide, and the waste is manageable and can actually be reused.  

More info here:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev2...

We also need to dramatically increase solar and wind use for electrical production ASAP.  We have the technology to do this.  It would be nice if everybody would stop talking about doing it and get it done.

We also need to reduce what we use.  A 3000 pound car to move a 150 pound person isn't very efficient.

*Amendments: Some of my efficiency data (listed above) is dated in regards to battery charging and electric motors.  

For lead-acid batteries the charging efficiency can be as high as 95% when partially charging a battery.  It is between 45 and 85% when fully charging a battery according to:

http://www.sandia.gov/pv/docs/PDF/batpap...

Electric motors are about 78-96% efficient if they are loaded towards the top 25% of their load capacity according to:

http://www.psnh.com/Business/SmallBusine...

Any acceleration loads will decrease the efficiency of the electric motor.

So for overall efficiency estimation I'll use:

Coal power plant efficiency: 60%

Battery charging efficiency: 65%

Electric motor efficiency: 78%

Total electric car efficiency = 30%

This can be increased by:

1.) Under-charging batteries

2.) Designing transmissions and controls to use the electric motor near its load capacity especially during acceleration.

I appreciate apeweek pointing out the bad efficiency numbers above.  I believe that the amended information is more likely to be encountered in typical use.

We still really need to significantly decrease the pollution involved in electric power generation before we will realize a significant decrease in the overall creation of pollution even with the use of electric cars.

Answer 5

Fossile fuels still has to be burned to generate electricity to charge their batteries anyway, so they won't help much.

Answer 6

- It will help reduce C02 emissions

- It will slow down the depletion of fossil fuel resources

- It will cause oil prices to fall

- It will save money

Answer 7

I strongly recommend a dvd for people interested in this topic!

Its called

"Who Killed the Electric Car".

It is a new release here where I am from and it opened my mind to a lot of issues concerning electric cars!

Strongly Recommended!!!

Answer 8

ofcourse!!!  Plug them into an outlet and watch them go!!!!

Answer 9

yes

Answer 10

Its pretty likely everything will be electric eventually...and yes, batteries are a disposal problem (not as bad as nuclear waste, however).  The question is where do you get the power to charge the car? Use solar and you are home free! Direct solar, wind, even hydropower...all good.  There still is some advantage to electrics even IF charged by traditional fossil-fuel power plants. 1) the power is generated efficiently at a central plant and the pollution (including possible carbon sequestration) is all there....not at the end of every tail pipe.  REALLY cleans up the City's air if the plant is somewhere else. 2) electric and hybrids would (hopefully) all use regenerative braking to capture the energy otherwise lost as heat in traditional brakes and used (instead) to recharge the batteries every time you break.  That is why hybrids are so efficient in city more than on the freeway.  Pure electrics would do the same brake-recharging scheme.  In fact, that is the main reason hybrids are so efficient (obviously, it would not otherwise make sense to burn fuel to generate electricity for an electric motor...there has to an efficiency loss as compared to just burning fuel in a traditional car engine).  Hybrids capture the energy of braking and are (mostly) very streamlined to overcome air resistance and built light.

Answer 11

Electric cars have been done and over with (if you mean the initial cars like the GM ev). They are not reliable, it takes hours for a recharge, and would be a big burden on electric companies, especially in big states like California. Currently it is not a viable option because of problem dealing with the fuel cells. I would expect in the future maybe (with the newer fuel cells)..but for now they are dead. They don't impact the environment at all other than with heat and water, it is pretty clean. I think the new technology down the future will be a good option to lower pollution levels in the big urban cities. Another option worth looking into is the hydrogen car.

Answer 12

I don't care people who drive electric cars think they are better than everyone else.

Answer 13

I saw a program on the discovery channel which stated that everything in the future will be solar powered, and therefore 100% eco friendly :)

Answer 14

Still uses fossil fuels, at power plant ,to charge,but regenerative brakes will save some of that.Batteries may become a waste problem.Power plants can be more efficiently designed to reduce emmisions,or nuc plants with no emmisions,both better than combustion engines.Plus lower noise pollution...a good alternative,but we need more nuclear power...

Answer 15

Hope this site will help you.

http://h.webring.com/hub?ring=savetheart...