EVs are cleaner than gas cars, but a growing share of Americans don't believe it
EVs are cleaner than gas cars, but a growing share of Americans don't believe it
Electric vehicles are caught up in the culture wars. Data from Ipsos shows the percentage of Americans who believe EVs are better for the environment than gas cars has dropped 5 points since 2022.
Everyone knows that electric vehicles are supposed to be better for the planet than gas cars. That's the driving reason behind a global effort to transition toward batteries.
But what about the harms caused by mining for battery minerals? And coal-fired power plants for the electricity to charge the cars? And battery waste? Is it really true that EVs are better?
The answer is yes. But Americans are growing less convinced.
The net benefits of EVs have been frequently fact-checked, including by NPR. "No technology is perfect, but the electric vehicles are going to offer a significant benefit as compared to the internal combustion engine vehicles," Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told NPR this spring.
It's important to ask these questions about EVs' hidden costs, Trancik says. But they have been answered "exhaustively" --- her word --- and a widerange of organizations have confirmed that EVs still beat gas.
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IMO, I still think there's not enough infrastructure to support charging EVs. Don't get me wrong I've seen some. Just... Not a lot. Until charging is as prevalent as gas its just not worth it. Or if you have a house I guess.
In some areas I hear it's good. But in my area there's only 1 set of charging stations at a Wawa that I know of. And that Wawa is an hour drive away. Plus I'm at a rental complex that mows the lawns regularly and having a cable run from my house to the car is not allowed.
My current gas operated vehicle has about 160000 miles on it. I'm hopeful that my vehicle will last a long time. And then when my vehicle dies, I'll look at the infrastructure again and see if it's beneficial for me to switch to an EV. I'm going to continue to wait until it's beneficial for me to buy a new car.
We'll see how it goes.
Well, gas stations don't really want electric because it would cut into their main source of revenue so I think I may have spotted the bottleneck.
The only way charging stations will become prevalent is if municipalities start setting them up. Either that or grocery stores. Though Answers with Joe made an interesting case for Buccees adopting charging stations as a method of generating revenue through increased tourism at their locations.
Gas stations actually make almost all of their money on things other than gas that people buy while they are at the gas station. It's true that people wouldn't come to existing gas stations nearly as much if they weren't buying gas but they could make as much or more from users charging.
The real problem from their perspective is how infrequently users may need such especially if they charge at home and the cost of charging infra which is always in addition to gas not instead of