EVs No Longer Emission-free?

The EPA will not be allowing Electric Cars to claim that they have zero-emissions after 2016.

As part of the new CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) and GHG (Greenhouse Gas) standards the EPA will not be allowing electric cars to claim that they have zero-emissions after 2016. After that EVs (electric vehicles) will no longer carry a zero-emissions tag. EVs will be assigned an emissions number based upon some arbitrary average of the CO2 created from producing the electricity needed to charge the vehicle, which of course would vary depending upon where you live and what the local electric utility company is using for fuel (coal, hydro, nuclear or geothermal etc.).

The environmental consumer advocate Ken Burridge of EV.com says “Obviously a single number is unfair and perhaps even misleading to the average consumer. If it is the EPA’s goal to educate the population and for them to hopefully become more environmentally responsible for their actions by understanding the environmental consequences of flipping an electrical switch or fueling their vehicle based on the over-all cost of the energy source then they are not going far enough”.

It is generally accepted that automobiles and light-duty trucks account for almost two-thirds of CO2 emissions from the transportation sector in the USA, but that’s only the case if one doesn’t consider all the upstream environmental and financial costs associated with fossil fuel production, which is what the new EPA laws will be doing by assigning an emissions number to EVs. [Click Here for more information]

To be fair the EPA needs to add up ALL the environmental cost of: finding, acquiring, transporting, and refining crude oil (including the substantial electric sources used during the refining process) and then finally transporting diesel and gasoline to the local filling station.  That way petroleum-powered and hybrid cars will also be assigned an emissions number based upon some arbitrary average of the CO2 created from producing the fuel allowing consumers to make informed environmental decisions about their purchase as well.