A common misconception, perpetuated by those who are interested in perpetuating such faulty information, regarding electric vehicles is that they are somehow more "green" or "efficient" than their internal-combustion-engine equivalents. This is incorrect – it is not that "green" vehicles pollute less; they simply pollute less here:
Chris Cherry, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, and graduate student Shuguang Ji, analyzed the emissions and environmental health impacts of five vehicle technologies in 34 major Chinese cities, focusing on dangerous fine particles. What Cherry and his team found defies conventional logic: electric cars cause much more overall harmful particulate matter pollution than gasoline cars.
"An implicit assumption has been that air quality and health impacts are lower for electric vehicles than for conventional vehicles," Cherry said. "Our findings challenge that by comparing what is emitted by vehicle use to what people are actually exposed to. Prior studies have only examined environmental impacts by comparing emission factors or greenhouse gas emissions."
Particulate matter includes acids, organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust particles. It is also generated through the combustion of fossil fuels.
The basic premise is that particulate matter is getting into the air at the power plants generating the electricity for those electric vehicles, and it is doing so at a significantly higher volume-per-vehicle than the ICE cars running around; as such, people in densely-populated areas breathe easier, while the areas around power plants make up for the difference. In other words, NIMBY, with the back yards being in the cities, and the eventual location of the pollution being "fly-over" areas.
Now, obviously, our power grid is very different from China's – only 70% of our power comes from fossil fuels, with coal accounting for 65% of that, compared to China's 85% and 90% numbers, respectively, so the net impact of a single electric vehicle on our country's total pollution output will be at least 17% smaller than China's, but the underlying premises probably still hold true.
As I have repeatedly said before, I have no significant problems with the notions of electric cars – being an engineer and science fiction addict, I cannot help but to like them. However, they are patently an immature technology, they massively fail on the cost-benefit analysis, and they are nowhere near ready for the mainstream use they are being forced into… and that is being forced upon us. And, apparently, until such time as our electric grid is mostly fed by systems that pollute in more containable, controllable fashions than fossil fuels (like nuclear power), they are not going to be any more "green" than anything else rolling around on the highways.
I would wonder how this news will impact those folks who were suckered into buying oversized, undercapable golf carts on the promise of their being "green", but something tells me facts like these will not penetrate their personal clouds of smug.
