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Article in the Wash Examiner Electric cars may be worse for the environment than gas"

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New study: Electric cars may be worse for the environment than gas-powered | WashingtonExaminer.com!

I guess I'd like to see the full study to understand all the factors they took into account. I fully understand that electricity is generated in many different fashions across the country, coal powered, nuclear, water, wind, solar etc.. So depending upon what produces your local electricity the 'environmentally friendliness' of your Model S may vary, just like the 'environmentally friendliness' of your ICE vehicle will vary (Ford Excursion or Honda Civic).

But I hope they also took into account no oil changes, no anti freeze, no transmission fluid etc..
 
New study: Electric cars may be worse for the environment than gas-powered | WashingtonExaminer.com!

I guess I'd like to see the full study to understand all the factors they took into account. I fully understand that electricity is generated in many different fashions across the country, coal powered, nuclear, water, wind, solar etc.. So depending upon what produces your local electricity the 'environmentally friendliness' of your Model S may vary, just like the 'environmentally friendliness' of your ICE vehicle will vary (Ford Excursion or Honda Civic).

But I hope they also took into account no oil changes, no anti freeze, no transmission fluid etc..
As a general rule, articles like this are simply hit pieces against EVs with little to no scientific basis. Most of those articles don't take in to account extracting and refining gas, so I doubt they'd talk about oil changes and transmission fluid.

There are a LOT of people invested (financially, and emotionally) with ICE, they will keep putting out articles like this as long as they think it will help prolong their favourite technology.
 
"National Bureau of Economic Research" ... a truly august body of informed chemists and physicists <--- yes, that's sarcasm.

Environmental Benefits from Driving Electric Vehicles?

The actual study is protected by a pay wall, but the summary seems to indicate that they only pollution in the report relates to air pollution. And even at that the conclusions are suspect.
Probably air pollution only at the tailpipe (ignoring how the fuel got there) vs a coal plant.
 
Our media/politicians/lobbyists is a sad sad story. These same people also said smoking is not bad for you.

You don't need to be a scientist to understand that,

- Thousands of cars in 1 mile radius from you, have their gas pedals depressed half way and engines at 4000 RPM, all day long, and that can't be good for us.
- Exhaust is carcinogenic, but the noise the engines make is also not great. Just try spending a night in a cheap hotel in Barcelona or Milan, those damn scooters.
- Where I live, 50% of our electricity comes from coal - and even that is cleaner than burning gas. The rest of the 50% is not coal. And if you feel coal is polluting, I say encourage solar cells, make them free. Its certainly not the worst thing our tax money is being spent on, is it?
- Okay fine, lets say you are a climate change denier, and that you have your head so far up your ass that you cannot see the impact of all these exhaust fumes around us. FINE! Still, you cannot argue that oil fuels some of the most evil things on this planet.
- Okay, lets say you are insane and want to argue that also. Tesla is made in America, and so is the electricity that fuels it. I'd rather support American workers than Saudis/Chinese/or whatever. I don't hate them, I just love America and western values more.

Before we give too much credibility to 4 economists talking about environment, I propose they should first be made to smoke the exhaust of a car running at 4000 RPM for about an hour (typical drive for an average american).
To make the competition fair, I will sit in a Tesla listening to music in a closed garage for the same 1 hour. Actually, lets make it even more fair, I'll sit in a P85D, while they can chicken out and smoke a measly 4 banger.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that article is flawed.
 
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well, don't have time to read the full thing, but the first thing that pops immediately to the forefront is that, as I suspected, they only count the tailpipe for ICE, the fuel just magically gets out of the ground, refines itself and appears in the tank...

Their evaluation of electricity generation on the other hand seems quite thorough.

They also argue that EVs are worse because their pollution occurs somewhere further away from the vehicle, when in fact that's one of the advantages (less pollution where the people are)

But basically it's a hit piece on EVs arguing that existing subsidies should be lowered, stopped, or reversed in all states.

Wow... the more I read, the more ridiculous it gets, they argue that under CAFE regulations, an EV (which they already argue is environmentally harmful) also causes manufacturers to make less efficient gasoline vehicles to harm the environment more because they can due to the credits CAFE gave them for the EV. And therefore blame the EV for the ICE being built!! (and yes, they really do make the argument that the EV is then responsible for that environmental harm as well!)
 
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Didn't Jesus say, "Stupid people will always be with us?", oh wait, that's not quite right.

Anyways, articles like this are unfortunate. Not being a progressive person myself, I do see how stupid papers like this (and the pavlovian reaction from people who lap it up) reinforce the characture of right wingers being dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
 
All anecdotal bull**** with no data to back up their numbers. A replay on the old tactic of criticizing the CO2 footprint of electricity production without a comparable critique of the CO2 footprint of gasoline/diesel production (i.e. the entire oil industry). As far as they are concerned, the only source of CO2 on the ICE side is that which comes out of the tailpipe. I do agree though that the electricity footprint varies from state to state since some states use more coal than others.
 
The actual paper is behind a paywall... and as always, one has to read the actual research paper and examine the assumptions and the model used to weigh the outcomes.

Certainly, in some parts of the country, electricity production can be relatively dirty.
 
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