EVs: Cleaner Cars from Cradle to Grave – Definitive Proof from the UCS

Cleaner Cars from Cradle to Grave – How Electric Cars Beat Gasoline Cars on Lifetime Global Warming Emissions:

Electric vehicles (EVs) are a critical part of the American transportation future given their potential to dramatically cut global warming emissions—especially when charged by a clean electricity grid.

Together with other oil-saving approaches, such as more efficient vehicles and advanced biofuels, EVs can help cut projected U.S. oil use in half over the next 20 years. EVs will also be essential to achieving the deep emissions reductions by mid-century needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

This report compares battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) with similar gasoline vehicles by examining their global warming emissions over their “life cycles”—from the raw materials to make the car through manufacturing, driving, and disposal or recycling. Toward that end, we performed up-to-date assessments of the carbon footprints of BEVs, taking into account the latest information about electricity generation and BEV models. The two BEVs we modeled, midsize and full-size, are not specific to any particular manufacturer but are based on the two most popular BEV models sold in the United States today: the Nissan LEAF and the Tesla Model S. Our analysis reflects the BEVs available to American consumers and comparable gasoline vehicles.