6 May 2012
The electric car. This will undoubtably bring to mind the hero to vanquish the great villain that is CO2. But has any one actually bothered to check whether it is doing any good?
Firstly the electric car gets power from the national grid, which gets the majority of its power from fossil fuel power stations. Now these power station have the same (maybe a little less) efficiency than a normal car. Now when you take into account the power loss in the motors and transmission of the power, it suddenly becomes a lot less efficient than the demonised internal combustion engine.
In my experience people have a tendency to retort with the argument that not all power comes from fossil fuel power stations. However these plants do not exceed the numbers required to offset electric cars use of fossil fuels.
The Electric Travel Ecomyth • Opuss № I