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Analysis: When do electric vehicles become cleaner than gasoline cars?
The answer is 'It still depends...'
Analysis: When do electric vehicles become cleaner than gasoline cars?
You glide silently out of the Tesla (TSLA.O) showroom in your sleek new electric Model 3, satisfied you're looking great and doing your bit for the planet.
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Argonne once offered a free GREET Workshop, where anyone could stay at the lab in an opulent guest facility for $75/night while listening to lectures and instruction during the day.
The analysis by Reuters is mostly right, but here they get it wrong:
"Even in the worst case scenario where an EV is charged only from a coal-fired grid, it would generate an extra 4.1 million grams of carbon a year while a comparable gasoline car would produce over 4.6 million grams, the Reuters analysis showed."
According to the GREET model an EV charged by a 100% coal-fired mix emits 370g GHGs/mi; a comparable SIDI* gasoline-powered car emits only 353g. This is pure gasoline BTW - not the 5.7% ethanol blend used in California and many other states, where gasoline emissions would have been even lower:
True, if you were buying a car in the 1980s without fuel injectors, you would have been better off with an EV. But in the 1980s EVs didn't exist.
*Spark Ignition - Direct Injection
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