It’s unfortunately not uncommon to see skewed and misleading articles about electric vehicles in the popular press. The most recent example, a Washington Post article “Electric cars and the coal that runs them” by Michael Birnbaum, is a textbook example of how to dismiss EVs by cherry-picking statistics and ignoring current science. Even worse, the article has been reprinted in other papers with the headline “Boom in electric cars boosts demand for coal power” with no support for the false claim that electric cars are causing an increase in demand for coal power.
The author bases much of his claims on the experience of Netherlands, a country that is leading in the deployment of electric vehicles. Like many countries, the Netherlands gets its electricity from a number of sources, including coal. Reading the article, you would get the impression that the country relies on coal for much of its power—but exactly how much Dutch electricity is coming from coal? According to the author’s own research, less than 30% last year.
The critical mistake made in this article and by many other critics of electric vehicles is that electricity does not have to be perfectly clean to make EVs a better choice than gasoline vehicles for reducing global warming emissions. Our recent report found that driving an EV anywhere in the U.S. produces less global warming emissions compared to an average new gasoline vehicle. Over two-thirds of Americans live in areas where driving an average EV is better than the most efficient hybrid gasoline vehicle on the market. Based on today’s sales, the average EV in the U.S. has emissions equivalent to a gasoline car getting 68 MPG.
Nowhere in the U.S. has a coal-only grid, but even in coal-heavy countries like Japan or China, EVs still produce lower global warming emissions than the average new gasoline car. And by plugging vehicles into the grid, EVs are able to benefit from global warming emissions reductions over the vehicle’s lifetime, often about 15 years. U.S. electricity has gotten cleaner over the past three years and should continue to improve through Renewable Energy Standard commitments and the implementation of the EPA’s new Clean Power Plan.
There are also local benefits to reducing tailpipe emissions cars spew in densely populated cities that we also expect to decrease as electricity gets cleaner. Using worldwide data for assessing the current impacts of EVs is not appropriate because these impacts mostly depend on the region where an EV is driven. And often EVs are in driven in areas where there is less dependency on coal generation, as we see the E.U. and U.S. reduce their reliance on coal.
In our report we look at not only global warming emissions from driving an EV, but also emissions from producing battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) similar to two of the most popular BEVs on the market today: the 84-mile midsize Nissan LEAF and 265-mile full-size Tesla Model S. Even though the global warming emissions from manufacturing a BEV are higher than similar gasoline cars, mostly due to the lithium-ion battery, the additional emissions from manufacturing are offset within 6 to 16 months of driving.
While electric cars are clean and getting cleaner, we also need to lower emissions from gasoline cars through strong fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards. Pitting electric vehicles against cleaner gasoline vehicles is a false choice: cutting oil use and moving toward cleaner electricity worldwide are both vital to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. EVs are a part of the solution. You can check out our EV tool to see the global warming emissions from an EV in your area.