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But you have to account for the fact that much/most of the electricity used by EVs is generated in ways that produce carbon emissions. And even if we specify th

But you have to account for the fact that much/most of the electricity used by EVs is generated in ways that produce carbon emissions. And even if we specify that it all comes from "zero-emissions" sources there's still an environmental cost that comes with manufacturing, and mining/processing materials, for cars, batteries, wind turbines and solar panels, nuclear and hydropower, etc. Which is not to say it isn't an improvement, just that it oversimplifies things only to look at one side of the balance sheet.

danans 9y ago
> much/most of the electricity used by EVs is generated in ways that produce carbon emissions This is highly dependent on where you live. At the extreme, North Dakota [1] gets 75% of its electricity from coal burning. But in California, the mix is 35% Natural Gas, 25% Renewable, 10% hydro, 10% nuclear [2], so nearly half of the electricity is carbon-neutral. If huge places like California go electric, they will take other places along with them. But even in the unlikely scenario of a primarily coal-based grid in the future, the efficiency increase that comes from the centralization of combustion at the coal plant (as opposed to in the vehicle) still results in lower well-to-wheels CO2 emissions [3]. [1] http://www.ndenergyforum.com/expert-facts/ http://www.ndenergyforum.com/expert-facts/ [2] http://www.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_system_power.html http://www.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_syst... [3] http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/CorporateDocuments/SectorPages/Portfolio/PDM/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/CorporateDocuments/SectorPages/P...