Electric Cars Not So Green After All

Good luck taking a long road trip in an electric car. A British test drive of the Nissan Leaf found that "recharging takes so long that the average speed is close to 6 mph — a bit faster than your average jogger," writes Bjorn Lomborg in the Wall Street Journal. Worse, the electric car is anything but a zero carbon emissions vehicle. "When an electric car rolls off the production line, it has already been responsible for 30,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emission" — the equivalent of 80,000 miles of travel in the vehicle."

If a typical electric car is driven 50,000 miles over its lifetime, the huge initial emissions from its manufacture means the car will actually have put more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere than a similar-size gasoline-powered car driven the same number of miles. Similarly, if the energy used to recharge the electric car comes mostly from coal-fired power plants, it will be responsible for the emission of almost 15 ounces of carbon-dioxide for every one of the 50,000 miles it is driven—three ounces more than a similar gas-powered car.

Even if the electric car is driven for 90,000 miles and the owner stays away from coal-powered electricity, the car will cause just 24% less carbon-dioxide emission than its gas-powered cousin. This is a far cry from "zero emissions."

Full article: Green Cars Have a Dirty Little Secret