Tuesday 22 February 2011. The Green Piece Column.
Just how green are electric cars? It’s a debate that has raged since battery powered vehicles were looked at as a serious alternative to the internal combustion engine – and also a debate that seems to prompt some questionable statistics and ‘evidence’ from critics.
However, few vehicles have received such a torrent of questionable media analysis as the range-extended Chevrolet Volt (known in Europe as the Opel/Vauxhall Ampera).
Top 12 Green Cars
According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) the Chevrolet Volt is at the bottom of the list when it comes to green cars. In its eighth annual “Greenest Car” list, the Volt finished in twelfth place – the last car to make the listings.
The greenest car, according to the ACEEE, is the Honda Civic GX, a natural gas powered model that achieves just 24/36mpg but yet is ranked as the cleanest vehicle of all because of the use of clean-burning natural gas. Indeed there is no denying the merits of the Civic GX – however, with no real infrastructure to support natural gas vehicles in the US and no push for public filling stations, it is little more than an impressive fleet vehicle.
The full list is: Honda Civic GX; Nissan LEAF; Smart ForTwo; Toyota Prius; Honda Civic Hybrid; Honda Insight; Ford Fiesta SFE; Chevy Cruze Eco; Hyundai Elantra; Mini Cooper; Toyota Yaris; Chevrolet Volt.
The main focus of the ACEEE’s rankings appears to be fuel efficiency along with the air contaminants involved with the functionality of the vehicles. The Nissan LEAF, for example, comes in second place in the list, because even though it doesn’t create any emissions of its own it is reliant on electricity which comes from predominantly fuel burning power plants.
So where does this leave the Chevrolet Volt? Bizarrely, it is assumed that because it is a range extended vehicle “it will use petrol about a third of the time”, thus hurting its standing. This overlooks the fact that the Volt has been designed to run as a zero emission vehicle for up to 40miles, more than the average daily travelling distance for most Americans, with the range extender only needed for lengthier journeys, assuming the vehicle is charged overnight. As more charging stations are introduced around the country, the Volt, much like the LEAF, can be charged more frequently and therefore there may be no need to use its petrol engine at all.
What’s particularly worrying about the list, however, is that there are so many petrol-only vehicles listed ahead of the Volt, which will cause further confusion among average consumers.
A wider problem
To make matters worse, the misplaced criticisms aren’t restricted to the Volt alone – there appears to be widespread negativity in the media towards the electrification of the motor vehicle in general.
For example, Amy Kaleita PHD, of the Californian Pacific Research Institute, was recently quoted as saying that promoting electric vehicles like the new Chevrolet Volt and Nissan LEAF could: “cause more harm than the perceived good that it provides.”
Her argument is that because of the American grid’s reliance on coal, electric vehicles are far from being “zero emission”. Indeed her theory is indisputable but it overlooks the fact that coal’s share of the grid is shrinking as more plants go offline and because natural gas is currently very affordable. There are also an increasing number of campaigns to take more electricity from renewable sources.
As part of her study, Kaleita suggests that plug-in hybrid cars don’t have much of an impact when connected to a coal-fuelled grid (which itself is a harsh analysis given the array of sources of energy used by the grid). However, she ignores the fact that both hybrids and plug-in hybrids are much cleaner in terms of carbon dioxide emissions than regular cars with the Natural Resources and Defence Council and the Electric Power Research Institute showing that in the nine scenarios studied, electric cars are 30-40 per cent cleaner than standard petrol vehicles – a statistic that will only improve as the grid itself gets cleaner. It is also unlikely that there will be any need to build further power plants as long as electric vehicles are predominantly charged overnight, thus avoiding going above the excess capacity.
Our verdict – Time to stop resisting change
There’s an old saying that “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Indeed it’s easy to see why the average onlooker would assume that there’s nothing wrong with the way we run our vehicles now with so much criticism of the global warming issue in general and a transport system that appears to be working “just fine.”
However, reality is that there is a vast need to break dependence on foreign oil; and to reduce the harmful emissions that not only threaten our environment but also threaten our health.
Critics are hanging on to the idea that electric vehicles are not cleaner than internal combustion engines because of how that electricity is produced. However, studies prove that electric vehicles are already cleaner now and with more money put into renewable sources this gap will only widen.
It’s time for naysayers to break their fear of the unknown and stop resisting change. The era of electrification is not only inevitable, it’s necessary.
Faye Sunderland
