By Kevin Doan, Staff Writer
With the public growing conscience to the environmental factors of pollutants and companies like Tesla making national headlines, it is no surprise that the type of car seldom seen 5 years ago has exploded onto our streets. Though seemingly nature-friendly, how green are these cars?
Tesla, Inc. is a name that has been long associated with the electric car. Since the company’s debut, it has risen to the top of the market and is currently the leading manufacturer of electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States, selling approximately 67,650 of their Model 3 cars as of June 2019. For context, the second most sold EV in the United States as of June 2019 was another Tesla model, the Model X, which sold 9,000 vehicles. Tesla’s adherence to its key morals and green vision makes the company a dominant force in the market.
Tesla only offers a few options to actually create sustainable energy though. At the moment, the company’s flagship product isn’t its solar panels or battery packs but is its electric cars. All Tesla manufactured sustainable energy products are sold as secondary to cars and—as of the time of the writing of this article—are very inaccessible to the average consumer. Because of the rarity of sustainable energy creating products, most EV owners will plug their cars into the power grid instead. Even though the car itself doesn’t create environmental waste, the energy used to power most EVs do produce negative effects for our environment.
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that as of March 1, 2019, the three largest sources of the US power grid are 63.5% fossil fuels, 19.3% nuclear energy, and 17.1% renewables. This means that over half of the energy that goes into an electric car in the US is powered by fossil fuels; that is the same type of fuel that powers the majority of gas cars. Fossil fuel sourced energy is an amalgam of the burning of natural gas, coal, and petroleum along with small percentages of other gases which is a direct producer of harmful air polluting, greenhouse effect inducing and carbon emissions.
Now does this mean that electric cars are just as harmful as gas cars? NO! Electric cars are one step in the right direction for humanity and in the future, most cars may even be able to be completely powered by sustainable energy. So, even if electric cars might not have an exhaust pipe, it doesn’t mean that they are completely green or environmentally sustainable.
We must remember that we aren’t done innovating yet; our failure to power electric cars in an environmentally conscious way is our drive to create solutions for the future.
