Environmental Impact Of Electric Cars

The world produces around 85 million barrels of oil each day. About a quarter of that percentage goes to the United States of America, which is used up mostly by means of transportations. Most people get around from place to place using a car, a car that is powered by fuel. Everywhere one goes driving, they will eventually run into a gas station but not a charging station for electric cars. Regular cars, burn off fuel that produce emissions (carbon, nitrogen, sulfur) that pollute and harm the environment. Although, there are some positives about switching there are also some problems that could appear but could be fixed. Electric cars have the potential to reduce the amount of pollution in the environment, boost the national economy and help

The issue that I have chosen is electric cars. This issue is significant because there are many people that choose electric cars over gas-powered cars. Electric cars are known for eliminating oil from transportation and being the better choice; But is it really? In the article I chose it says "Your battery powered vehicle is only as green as your electricity supplier". Electric vehicles are a smarter choice because they are economically feasible. This means that if you own a gas-powered car, it will be more expensive to keep filling up your tank with gas. The cost per mile for gas-powered vehicles is a lot more when filling it with fuel. Gas vehicles are at an average of $3.65 a gallon while electric vehicles fill up for an average of $1.14 per Gallon. The negative traits about electric vehicles is that the battery has to be replaced about every eight years and it doesn’t do so well in the winter because it has to be charged every night can could go up to 80 MPH, which is an expense that gas-powered car owners don’t have to worry about. Reading on this topic more I have learned that the first cars that were made were all mostly electric and as time has gone on gas-powered cars started to get more popular.

“We can break our dependence on oil…and become the first country to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” President Obama said in his January 2011 State of the Union address (Institute for Energy Research 1). While this may sound promising, the practicality and merit in achieving this goal remains unclear. Auto manufacturers have been working on plans for electric cars for years, especially the three largest companies in the US: Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford. These companies have been hoping that the development of electric cars would create a sort of lifestyle change for consumers, both weaning the U.S. off of its dependence on foreign oil and breathing life into the market for auto sales at the same time. Electric cars are often sold as zero emissions, but technically that is only true once they are charged and in terms of their tailpipe emissions. After all, they have to get their energy from somewhere and, more often than not, the electricity used for charging is supplied by traditional coal fired power plants. The real question then is whether the source and amount of energy required to build and supply an electric car with power is actually cleaner and more economical than a traditional combustion automobile. As it turns out, the answer is both unexpected and fairly complicated. In order to assess whether the use of

Gas powered cars are one of the major causes of global warming , and air pollution. Gas powered cars are able to create a lot of carbon dioxide that harm the environment. These cars can also spill certain fluids that can harm the environment. Some of these fluids are motor-oil, gasoline and brake fluid. These fluids can harm humans as well as animals, and can pollute our water systems. Electric cars on the other hand are better for the environment. They use half the energy of a gas powered car, so they don’t cause as much pollution in the air. They also use cleaner energy; electricity, which doesn’t harm the environment as much as

The number one reason why electric cars became popular is the ability to reduce the air pollution. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) almost 30% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by transportation and most of them could be reduced by driving electric cars. The UK Department for Transport divides vehicle emissions in two categories: direct and life cycle. Direct emission are created by burning fuels while driving on the road. Petrol, diesel, and other alternative-fuel engines produce very high amounts of gases, that not only have impact on our health, but also on climate change. Gases like NO or CO2, that are known for causing many different respiratory illness. There is an estimate of 29,000 deaths a

Abstract—In this modern era, many advancements in technology have been witnessed. Research and data collected around the world have allowed for these advancements to take place. This has allowed for a better understanding of the footprint humans leave on the environment. As a result, this has allowed for the planet to become eco-friendlier. An eco-friendly advancement in the 21st century is the electric vehicle. There are a plethora of benefits using electric vehicles. Some advantages include no emissions, cost-effective, and low maintenance.

1. Your upfront cost. Electric vehicle prices have come down, but they are still higher than comparable gas-powered models. A Nissan Leaf will cost you at least $30,000 new, while a well-equipped Nissan Sentra costs about $20,000. Fortunately, taxpayers may find themselves eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit as well as state-level credits, rebates and incentives. Ideally, you will want to recoup the cost of your investment, something government-backed incentives make possible. In a best-case scenario, the “bad” can actually be categorized as “good.”

Electric cars are vehicles, which, instead of internal combustion engines, are driven by electric motors and controllers. They have proved to be a good substitute for conventional vehicles and are considered as a revolutionary innovation designed to protect the earth from the damaging effects of global warming, as they work on the electricity supplying the integrated rechargeable battery that can be easily recharged. Compared to traditional means of transport, electric vehicles seem to be more viable and environmentally friendly because they do not need oil or other fossil fuels as an energy source but the high cost of such a car and other important issues of exploitation discussed in this paper make their use very doubtful comparing to the usual cars.

Climate change and transportation play a big role and it is important to be concerned for our future generations. The use of gasoline cars is a major producer in carbon dioxide emissions, although they are not entirely responsible for it—they play a role in it. Other form of transportations like buses and taxis also contribute to carbon dioxide emissions. The total amount of carbon dioxide emissions from an average car is seventy six percent which comes from usage of a vehicle containing gasoline. Efficiency has increased by twenty percent in regards to electric motors, especially when it comes to their wheels using no power when the car is at rest. Car ownership will increase and with this, improvements in technology could be a vital

Electric cars may not be as environmentally friendly as society portrays them to be. Forbes.com states that electric cars tend to be just as polluting to the environment as traditional gas powered cars. In order to transfer energy to the charging station for the cars, the factory that makes the energy must burn carbon in order to power the charging station. The charging stations are what produce the pollution, not the vehicle. Although there has been a push for alternative energy in automotive production, electric cars are just as contaminating to the atmosphere as traditional gas-powered cars.

Electric cars are becoming more and more a part of the world today. Society can see them everywhere, from the streets to TV. Car companies like Nissan and Chevy have their own line up of electric cars that perform well. Now one of the most popular car companies, Tesla, can make the Lamborghini of electric cars. To help lower emission levels and jumpstart the industry, the federal government offers a $7,500 tax credit for buyers of pure electric vehicles (Schaal, 2015). Which brings up some common questions; are all these changes in the car industry a good change from the traditional gas engine and are electric cars truly better than Gas powered vehicles making gas powered vehicles slowly become obsolete. Electric cars barely have any maintenance needed compared to gas powered vehicles. Emissions

Car companies argued that using coal for electric vehicle power would produce worse emissions than using petroleum. Energy experts dismissed these arguments as the electric drive train is inherently more efficient (does not idle or have a poor efficiency driving mode), and uses regenerative braking to recharge the batteries. EVs are less polluting even if the electricity comes from coal fired power plants. Furthermore, the emissions of coal fired power plants can be controlled and regulated in ways not possible for vehicles, as the number power plants is miniscule compared to the number of gas powered vehicles.

This is very concerning because this is where I live. Many people around me have their electric cars, but this is not entirely helping. I will have to look into seeing which is the lesser of two evils, burning fossil fuels to charge the electric cars, or the emissions release by gas running cars. Even with both types of vehicles however, I was happy to read that by reducing the Sulfur dioxide released from power plants has already show to be a positive change on the environment in New

In fact, depending on where the electricity that is being put into the vehicle originates and the type of vehicle, electric cars are not all great. Due to the nature of batteries used, electric cars have a limited range, around eighty to a hundred miles, long charging times, and disastrously high costs (Berman). The Tesla Model S for example, costs roughly 70,000 dollars; even the Chevy Volt is 38,000 dollars (Perlow). Average families simply do not have the money to pay for such expensive vehicles even if they are cheaper to run. In accordance with high costs, EVs are not practical long-distance travelers because they have a limited range before the batteries run out of electricity and you are left stranded in the middle of nowhere. Furthermore, when it does come time to charge, the average is one hour for twenty to twenty-five miles of range if you can actually find a charging port. Do the math and that adds up to four hours for only one hundred miles of driving. Some Volkswagen Passat TDIs that run on biodiesel average 600 miles on one tank that can be filled in less than ten minutes (Perlow). But perhaps most importantly, the electricity that is primarily being used to charge these new cars comes from a power plant that may or may not be polluting the earth. Sixty-four percent of United States residents obtain their electricity from either a coal or natural gas power plant which put thousands of

 It wasn’t until the early 1970’s that car manufacturers saw a need to restrict the pollutants from their automobiles.  Thus came the advancements of new emission controlling components in the vehicles.  There was the catalytic converter which changed carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, this change still resulted in pollution but significantly decreased the harm done.  Next came EGR which is Exhaust Gas Recirculation and forces unburned gas from the exhaust back into the engine making the car far more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly.  Unfortunately the next thing to follow was a serious toning down of the power of the engines.  The earlier thoughts were that bigger and more powerful were better, however these types of cars sent pollution caused by automobiles into an exponential growth.  The internal combustion engine vehicles that are on the road right now account for the vast majority of the air pollution around the world.  The electric vehicles, however, have zero emissions.  If this proposal is passed, then the condition of the urban airways will be