Why is an electric car supposed to be good for the enviroment?

Question

If you charge it from the utility company it is pretty much being powered by Coal, Oil, natural gas, or a Nuke plant. Where's the Greenness??

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/ipp/ipp_sum.html

Answer 1

They use less of those things and they don't let off as much bad air pollutants.

Answer 2

Well, the thing you have to remember is that everything has pros and cons normally.  Its just the ratio of pros versus cons differs.  Electricity can come from many different sources, hydro electric plants, coal, natural gas, geothermal, nuke, wind, solar, etc.  Some of those are environmentally friendly and some aren't.  But a car running on electricity does at least allow the option of green energy sources to be used.  The other pro regarding them is that they are normally more efficient than fossil fuel cars.  That is because you have less moving parts to lose energy at.  Less energy is also lost as heat compared to a fossil fuel car.  One example of the energy savings of electricity is the use of regenerative braking.  Another is the use of hub motors.  Hub motors fit directly at the wheels, so you don't have energy lost in driveshafts and gears to the wheels.  The energy is applied directly to the wheels.  Electronic steering and electronic fan motors are other examples of where electricity saves energy on a car.  Both those and regenerative braking are already in use on fossil fueled cars.

There are two major pitfalls to electric cars though.  The first and biggest is the batteries.  They create a major disposal problem because you need a lot more batteries to power an electric car.  Batteries contain a lot of acid and that acid makes for a disposal problem.  The second is the weight of the batteries.  They make an electric car much heavier than a fossil fuel car of the same size, thus reducing the car's efficiency.

Another thing to keep in mind is that electricity from an electrical grid is much cheaper than gasoline.  That is why GM is looking at making the Chevy Volt a real production car.  And power plants are more efficient than cars at using the energy they consume to produce power.  It would be like comparing a gas home back-up generator to the electric company's multi-million dollar generator.  There's is much more efficient.

Answer 3

When a car runs on electricity, it doesn't care where the electricity came from - coal, nuclear, wind or solar.    So if / when our mix of electric sources changes, an electric car would change right along with it.    

If you wanted a car that ran on coal right now, but in a few years could switch over to running on wind or solar, you'd be stuck.   Solar panels on a car are impractical - for many reasons.   And just switching a car from running on one liquid fuel to another can be tricky, or even impossible.   Let's not even think about how you would switch a cars energy source between nuclear and hydro.

In the case of automotive fuels, electricity is sort of the great equalizer.    Whatever fuels you can use to make electricity can then be used to run your car.   Without the need for a new car or a new fuel distribution system.    It's true that this means that you can use dirty fuels to run your car, but it gives you the option of switching to cleaner fuels as they become available and practical.

At least, that's always been my understanding about electric vehicles.

Answer 4

Stationary power plants can put a LOT more pollution controls on their stacks than cars can. Modern power plants produce VERY little pollution these days.

And electric cars are providing the infrastructure for when zero point motors become available.

Answer 5

there are two great answers there that cover your question, basically it's the stopping of pollution around the car as well as giving the opportunity for the supplier to change.

So the car may still pollute as much as a coal power station one week but in the next week it changes over to as clean as a windmill.

Answer 6

Yes, to get the power you'll be utilizing power plants, many of which are coal followed by the others you listed. However, having the source of pollution in one spot instead of spread out all over freeways and roads is a lot more easy to control and will produce less pollution overall. I guess an analogy would be, would you rather have a large bag of garbage in your living room that you had to clean up, or slightly more garbage spread around your entire house? The amount of fossil fuel used to power an electric car per mile is more efficient and produces less pollutant than the fuel used to power a gas car. Though it doesn't get us off fossil fuels, it still works better.

Answer 7

Manufacturing batteries is not very green IMHO.

Answer 8

Think of it like a cell phone.

Answer 9

The main reason is that EVs are highly efficient.  Electric motors are on the order of 90% efficient, and large power plants can also have good efficiency.  In comparison, an internal combustion engine is only about 25% efficient.

See the 'Environmental Impact' section in the link below for further detaills.