Electric cars may not reduce carbon dioxide emissions - and could even increase them, a green lobby group warned yesterday.
The Environmental Transport Association said generating electricity - by burning coal and oil - to charge the so-called 'clean' cars could cancel out the benefit of abandoning fossil fuel vehicles.
Its report said hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius could be the 'greenest' as they do not rely on mains power to charge batteries. (No, it just relies on a petrol engine and the occasional hill. Night Train)
It added that if electric cars become widely used, they would need a meter on the dashboard to charge motorists as they drive. (I always said that that would be likely! Night Train)
The report represents a potential blow to Gordon Brown's stated dream of making Britain 'the electric car capital of Europe'.
It also said there is potential for improvement in performance and reduction of costs in the medium term, but not enough to suggest electric cars could compete head-on with conventional vehicles within the next two decades.
Even if the National Grid has the capacity and infrastructure to meet the needs of electric cars, demand could lead to greater use of coal and nuclear power.
The report warned that European officials have assumed that electric cars are 'zero-emission', and failed to take into account the electricity they use.
But it said that once the effect of burning fossil fuels is taken into account, they actually emit more CO2 than a hybrid car.
It calculates that an electric car has emissions of 106 grams of CO2 for each kilometre used, compared with 172 grams for an average petrol car. By comparison the latest Toyota Prius hybrid car has official emissions of 89g/km.
ETA director Andrew Davis said the report was not meant to dampen enthusiasm for electric cars but 'their introduction should not be viewed as a panacea'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0WmYnqqQE
And I thought that generating electricity for the grid was more energy efficient then burning petrol or diesel in individual cars. I also thought that we had some renewables supplying the grid too.
The whole reason I think vehicles would be electric is that at some point we would use less fossil fuel powered generation and more renewables as well as being more energy efficient overall.
I wonder if the 172grams of CO2 from the average car includes the emissions from fuel tanker lorries, refineries, super tankers and the mining process?