As we become more and more concerned with the environment--or just simply concerned with being trendy--electric cars have been on the rise. I have always heard that they’re either better for the environment, or much worse for the environment. I wanted to learn the truth for myself, so I began my research. I currently have a hybrid, but since I want to help the planet in any way I can, I wanted to see if an electric car would truly make a huge impact.
The benefits of electric cars are well-known due to their popularity. They don’t emit environmentally-harmful greenhouse gases or life-threatening nitrogen oxide. This fact alone demonstrates that electric cars are simply safer to own or to be exposed to. Electric cars are appealing due to the fact that they can help you save money as well. For example, if you are consistent in charging your car every night before you drive it for the day, you may never have to go to a gas station ever again. Since gas prices are constantly on the rise, having an electric car could possibly save you thousands of dollars every year.
These benefits all sound amazing for both your convenience and the health of the environment, and it may seem like the electric car is 100% safe. However, there are factors that can be very harmful to the environment. For example, electric cars require much more energy to create due to their complex batteries, which means that more greenhouse gases will enter the atmosphere. These batteries also cause an increase in mining due to the fact that they are made from materials such as copper and cobalt. Mining can lead to toxic tailings being exposed to ecosystems and humanity, which can be extremely dangerous. Another harmful factor can be that if your electric car runs on electricity from fossil fuels, it really makes no difference, for it would still be running off of the gases it claims to not release. The appeal of a fancy new car can also cause people to turn away from public transportation and instead get a car, which would also cause the atmospheric conditions to worsen.
However, if you are aware of the environmental costs by electric cars, you can actually help your electric car or hybrid to truly be better for the environment. For example, if you make sure your car uses electricity from a clean source such as wind or solar power, you could help the environment improve. What makes an electric car environmentally friendly isn’t the design of the car, but the owner.
Would you ever consider getting an energy-efficient car? Why or why not? Do you make a conscious effort to get from place to place in an environmentally-safe method?
Works Cited
Deutsche Welle. “How Eco-Friendly Are Electric Cars?: DW: 04.08.2017.” DW.COM, www.dw.com/en/how-eco-friendly-are-electric-cars/a-19441437.
“Electric Vehicle Benefits.” Energy.gov, www.energy.gov/eere/electricvehicles/electric-vehicle-benefits.
InNewsThe Crash Course. “Are Hybrid or Electric Vehicles the Most Environmentally Friendly Cars?” Schaefer Autobody, 5 June 2019, www.schaeferautobody.com/most-environmentally-friendly-cars/.
Kiley, David. “For All The Talk About Electric Cars, Why Hybrids Are Still King of Green.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 30 July 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/davidkiley5/2018/07/30/for-all-the-talk-about-electric-cars-why-hybrids-are-still-king-of-green/#55c619bb73f1.
20 comments:
In answer to your question, I would answer a environmentally friendly vehicle. But the majority of people will likely not also switch to environmentally friendly vehicles if they continue to be expensive. However, these vehicles are only expensive because they aren’t being bought by a large amount of people and many of them use limited resources. If we developed a cheaper and more efficient way to produce these vehicles while distributing them to a greater number of people, environmentally friendly vehicles can become the norm.
I love that you show both the pros and cons of an environmentally safe car. It is essential to know both sides because people believe it is only for the best. Although getting a car like this would help it can deprive the Earth of rare minerals and resources. I do believe if there is a way where we can make cars like this available to all people and find a way where there are not drastic changes it will benefit all of us.
I like how you showed the positive and negative aspects of environmentally friendly cars. Although there are many pros to this type of vehicle, there are also cons that can possibly defeat the purpose of being "environmentally friendly." I think that the idea of this car is good, but in reality, it's probably too expensive for most people to actually go out and buy one. If the price can be lowered, it's more likely that people would make the switch over to electric cars.
While your article is very informative on the cons of electric cars, I would argue that these electric cars outweigh any car driven by fossil fuels and nonrenewable resources. While it is true that these "environmentally safe" cars do damage the environment, they do it to a lesser extent than traditional cars, leading to a "lesser of two evils" situation. I think that while there are improvements that need to be made, electric cars are the first step to a new, environmentally conscious age. Moreover, people don't need to rely so heavily on cars in the first place. Taking public transportation, or simply walking will damage the environment far less than using cars.
I always hear so much about the how environmentally friendly electric cars are so it was refreshing for me to read about how they are not so great after all. However, I would argue that electric cars run by solar panels or water power are very expensive for everyday use. Maybe if we find a way to make it more cost efficient for everyone to use, we can actually praise electric cars for making our planet more sustainable for the next generation.
Electric cars is a great start to saving the world from the depleted resources of fossil fuels. Solar panels can help so much in the present world, but they can also be very expensive. I believe electric cars will benefit the world today because decreasing the amount of gas used each day can help the atmosphere exponentially. Decreasing the use of non renewable resources can help the environment and become safer for many organisms.
I have heard about the positive effects of hybrids or electric cars on TV and the news, but I didn’t realize there were also many harmful effects as well. I would consider getting an electric car, but I believe that some electric cars can be very expensive and would have to be a lot better for the environment if I was to buy one. The major benefit is that the car does not directly emit emissions in the air, but mining the needed materials causes the car to not be as environmentally friendly as I first thought. I also believe that these cars will be a big step towards having sustainable resources.
Electric cars are a relatively new thing and most people think they are the future of cars because gas isn’t needed. While this isn’t a bad assumption, there are several cons to this drastic change. This blog does a good job in highlighting both sides of the argument and why change could work. Making this change would be a slow process but in order for our world to become sustainable, change is needed.
This was a very interesting read, i enjoyed hearing both sides of the argument. It is so interesting to hear the negative effects of electric cars that no one talks about. Change is a scary thing that not a lot of people are ready to adapt to, but for the sake of the future generations of the world we have to find a new sustainable resource. Thank you for writing it.
People always hear about the positives of owning electric or hybrid cars and oftentimes fail to see the potential harm that they may cause. In some aspects, hybrid or electric cars may not be as environmentally friendly as we always think. I really loved your last line about how the owner is ultimately they one responsible for the damages their vehicles may cause to the environment because that is so true! Interesting topic!
The perception on electric cars are always so positive. I have never heard anything negative towards electric cars until I read this blog. I really like your unbiased viewed on the topic. You bring facts to both sides, pros for electrical cars and cons for electrical cars. Personally, I believe the pros outweigh the bad considering the fact that there are zero exhaust emissions for electrical cars.
To me, this blog was very informative as I was never aware of the negative effects of electric cars. Although, it would be interesting to know if, suppose, everyone owned an electric car that was solar or wind powered, would the green house gas emissions still equal the emissions released with gas run cars (taking into fact that more demand = more supply)? If not, then this is the obvious choice as any way to reduce green house gases should be considered. If given the choice between an electric car and regular car before reading this, I would have chosen an electric car in a heart beat. But after reading your blog, I would now need to reasearch how much money is required to make the car as eco friendly as possible because otherwise, as you mentioned, the ghg emitted essentially remains the same.
The information you present forces people to decide what is the lesser of two evils, for lack of a better term. Will the greenhouse gases emitted from producing electric cars surpass the amount emitted by fuel-powered cars, or will it be less in the long run? I look forward to the day when humans actually invent sustainable means of transportation that people will actually invest in. Until then, doing your own research like you did is one of the best things you can do.
This was very fascinating to read! As shown in the blog, although there are a lot of benefits for electric cars, there are also disadvantages. If people start using more electric cars there would be less resources available to the earth. Therefore, it isn’t completely safe to the environment and if there are any other transportations that are more beneficial than electric cars, it should be available to everyone for an affordable price.
Wow this blog was very fascinating because I thought that electric cars are safe for the environment. I didn’t really know that the amount of energy it makes can harm the environment even more. I also didn’t realize that the materials to make the battery were cobalt and copper which would lead to mining. I did like how you also stated the benefits of how electric cars don’t emit greenhouse gasses and how they are supposedly safer. What really stands out is how you give a possible solution to using electric cars by using clean energy. This shows how we must take action to can be our ways to help the environment.
Great article! Personally, I probably wouldn’t buy an electric car for the environmental impact being that to me it seems the negative impacts outweigh the positive. Electric car batteries also use rare metals in the battery that are difficult to extract from the earth and find. This, along with the massive carbon emissions released during creation seem to outweigh the few positive impacts on the environment of electric cars.
I appreciate how you point out the aspects of electric cars that are not so savory, as I feel that many casual internet environmentalists tout these vehicles as completely environmentally blameless. What this post shows to me is that in essence, human beings only truly care bout the environmental destruction that they can experience: seeing smog in the air, the scent of gasoline cars, and the prevalence of oil spills. While immediate environmental effects of the electric car are mitigated, things like strip mining of toxic chemicals is just as, if not more, polluting to the environment, and it draws questions of efficacy and what we are willing to tolerate. Are we willing to accept one form of environmental destruction as an anecdote to another? Can we ever care find a single occupancy transportation service that will be truly emissions free? You produced a very thought provoking article, thank you.
This is so crazy because I thought electric cars were good for the environment because they don’t release chemicals and toxins into the atmosphere.
While electric cars may have some environmental detriments, it's hard to believe that nobody saw it coming given that at the end of the day it's still an automobile we're talking about here. I think the intended purpose of an electric car was not to completely clean the environment but rather to improve the environment's current worldly condition. Yes, electric cars may be the source of some greenhouse gas emissions, but environmentally they are still far better than traditional gasoline fueled cars which burn an extensive amount of fossil fuels into the air and have greatly increased the level of carbon emissions present in the atmosphere.
I would definitely buy an electric car if it used renewable energy and looked nice. This was interesting because I never knew that electric cars still had a significant effect on the environment. But personally, I don’t think solar or wind powered cars are efficient enough to be used in everyday life just yet. But in the future, they may be, after people find a way to maximize the energy created by these sources. And again, I would definitely buy one if it helps the environment.
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