MANY drivers are considering switching to an electric car, but the battery-powered option might not be as green as you think.
Under current government plans, EVs will be the only kind of new car that motorists will be allowed to buy after 2035.
Many drivers are considering switching to an electric car, but they might not be as green as you thinkPA
Electric cars obviously don’t have exhaust pipes, which means unlike petrol and diesel vehicles, they don’t produce polluting fumes when they are driven.
However, battery-powered cars are only as clean as the electricity used to charge them.
According to official figures, Britain still derived 40.3 per cent of its electricity from fossil fuels in 2022, the Mail reports.
Another 10.6 per cent came from thermal renewables – which are mainly large industrial power plants that burn wood chips harvested from forests.
Shockingly, genuine renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydro only made up 30.4 per cent of the electricity produced in the UK.
And manufacturing an electric car typically involves 40 per cent more carbon emissions than producing a diesel or petrol vehicle.
This is due to the fact that the batteries in EVs are made of rare metals, which must be mined laboriously in great quantities.
A comparison of a Volvo-owned Polestar Electric and a diesel Volvo XC40 revealed that producing the EV involved 24 tonnes of carbon dioxide – which is 70 per cent higher than the 14 tonnes of carbon dioxide involved in the manufacture of the latter.
Many drivers considering switching to an electric car are wondering how long they have to drive before an EV can truly be said to have lower lifetime emissions than a petrol or diesel vehicle.
According to The Argonne National Laboratory in the US, an EV in Norway, where 96 per cent of electricity comes from renewable hydropower, would need to be driven just 8,400 miles before “breaking even”.
Experts are also reticent to believe that EVs would drastically reduce PM2.5 pollution in big cities.
According to a study by consultancy firm Emissions Analytics, modern petrol engines are so efficient that they are responsible for a tiny proportion of overall PM2.5 pollution, as nearly 2,000 times as much comes from brakes and tyres.
This comes after drivers were warned over ways that their super heavy electric cars actually end up producing MORE pollution than petrol and diesel motors.
Plus, electric car owners were warned that increasing temperatures this summer could lead to massive tyre damage and potential fines of up to £1,000.