exhaust-poisonThere has been quite a bit of press coverage recently resulting from the study by the  University of Minnesota that had the predictable headlines of “Your all electric car may not be so green” or similar, despite that same study stating the cleanest vehicles are electric cars powered by renewable energy. Funny how some reporters prefer the doom and gloom headlines.  Other more enlightened ones have reported on the positive aspects of the report – read here.

We don’t dispute the study results but the press emphasis has been to highlight that EVs run on coal fired power are worse than petrol cars – we agree!  That’s why it is important for EV owners to switch to a renewable energy option from their utility provider or install some solar panels on the roof.  The cost of doing so will easily be recovered in the reduced operating costs of an electric vehicle.  (Click here for our EV cost savings calculator to work it out for yourself).

With solar panels becoming so cheap to install, it makes perfect economic (and environmental) sense to install rooftop solar and eliminate fuel costs altogether.  Bye bye big oil – we won’t miss you!

The simple facts are that petrol powered cars will never be clean and will always emit toxic exhaust emissions leading to declining air quality in our cities.  In Australia we already spend (year 2000 figures) just under 4 billion tax dollars annually in health and premature death costs related to air pollution while in the US the economic costs (year 2002 figures) were around 182 billion dollars annually.  EVs run on renewable energy are virtually pollution free as the study states.  Report-EV

Now who amongst us (apart from the current Australian prime minister and some of his rear vision cronies) thinks coal fired power stations are the visionary energy source of the future to power our electric fleet?