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Study Finds EVs Greener Than ICE Vehicles, Water Is Still Wet

Did you know that electric vehicles were a thing more than 100 years ago, before gasoline and diesel became the golden standards for cars, SUVs, and big rigs? An inventor from France rolled out the first EV that could carry people under its own power source in the 1880s, a few years before the Benz Patent-Motorwagen paved the way for personal transportation with the help of the internal combustion engine.
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Fast-forward to the present day, and there’s a question we have to ask. Are electric vehicles better for the environment than those running on gasoline or diesel? A study from the universities of Exeter, Nijmegen, and Cambridge says yes, EVs are greener in… wait for it… 95 percent of the world. Wait, what?

Published in Nature Sustainability, the study highlights that exceptions such as Poland make up the remaining 5 percent because “electricity generation is still mostly based on coal.” The environmental impact of coal power plants is nothing short of a disaster in the Balkans, India, Russia, as well as South Africa. Coincidence or not, countries who rely a lot on coal have less restrictive regulations than western nations such as the U.S.

The study also makes a point about the average lifetime emissions from electric vehicles. More to the point, up to 70 percent lower than fossil-fuel vehicles in Sweden and France and approximately 30 percent lower in the United Kingdom. The higher percentage attributed to Sweden and France is fairly easy to explain. As opposed to the UK, these two get the most of their electricity from renewable sources and nuclear power plants.

By 2050, “every other car on the streets could be electric.” This projection translates to a reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions of around 1.5 gigatons every year, the equivalent to Russia’s total output. And on that bombshell, are you ready for a bit of a shocker?

“Even inefficient electric cars will be less emission-intensive than most new petrol cars in most countries, as electricity generation is expected to be less carbon-intensive than today.” That may sound like wishful thinking now, but going forward, governments from all across the world are proactively making changes in the name of going green.

This gets us back to Sweden. The Scandinavian country is set to eliminate fossil fuels from electricity generation by 2040 within its borders, ramping up investments in wind and solar energy as well as energy storage, smart grids, and cleaner public transport.

Costa Rica is another environmental leader of the 21st century that needs to be mentioned, and it aims to become the first carbon-free and single-use plastic country by 2021. The geography of the Central American nation has also helped Costa Rica generate 95 percent of its energy from hydro, geothermal, solar, and wind over the past five years or thereabouts.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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