Study Finds EVs Will Do Little to Clear the Air

Much to the chagrin of environmentalists, a new research report says even a sharp increase in the use of electric-drive vehicles by 2050 will not significantly reduce U.S. emissions of high-profile air pollutants carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide or oxides of nitrogen.

The study by North Carolina State University, supported by a National Science Foundation grant, included hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicles.

Joseph DeCarolis, an assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering, says he wanted to see how important EDVs might be over the next 40 years in terms of their ability to reduce emissions.

“We found that increasing the use of EDVs is not an effective way to produce large emissions reductions,” DeCarolis says in a statement.

His research team reports in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that they ran 108 different scenarios in a powerful energy-systems model to determine the impact of EDV use on emissions between now and 2050.

The team found that, even if EDVs made up 42% of passenger vehicles in the U.S., there would be little or no reduction in emissions of key air pollutants.

DeCarolis says there are a number of reasons for this. “In part, it’s because some of the benefits of EDVs are wiped out by higher emissions from power plants,” he says. “Another factor is that passenger vehicles make up a relatively small share of total emissions, limiting the potential impact of EDVs in the first place. For example, passenger vehicles make up only 20% of carbon-dioxide emissions.

“From a policy standpoint, this study tells us that it makes more sense to set emissions-reductions goals, rather than promoting specific vehicle technologies with the idea that they’ll solve the problem on their own.”