This does seem to have some truth. Why is it downvoted?

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/mpg-for-electric...

"From a carbon-dioxide standpoint, you’d be better off burning the fossil fuel directly in your car."

That conclusion is odd. It mentions that not all electricity comes from fossil fuels, then immediately launches into a calculation that assumes all of your electricity comes from fossil fuels. It also completely ignores the fact that different fuels emit different amounts of CO2 for the same amount of energy. This one actually supports their conclusion; as far as I can see, gasoline produces less CO2 for a given amount of energy than natural gas, and way less than coal. There's also the nontrivial energy and thus CO2 emissions needed to extract, refine, and deliver gasoline, and of course that comes into play (albeit less so) on the electricity side as well. I think that part of the article glosses over these details a little too much.

Sociable pollution? The world is still not cleaner or safer to live in as CO2 is still being produced somewhere. This whole 'out of sight, out of mind' outlook on green issues isn't a solution. Until we move away from burning stuff to make energy, Telsa can create millions of car, it still doesn't help anything.

I would love to see this chart and the projection of how it would be shaped if 50% / 75% / 100% of cars on the road were electric: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16511&src=Tot...

What happens when you shift the energy requirements from transportation to residential? What happens when you shift from high yield energy (gasoline) to low yield energy (coal)?

> Until we move away from burning stuff to make energy, Telsa can create millions of car, it still doesn't help anything.

Actually, it still helps a lot, because burning fuel at power plants is much, much more energy efficient than in internal combustion engines (I think I saw a factor of 3 or 4 in some analysis). So by going all electric, you get 3 times less pollution for the same number of cars (actually, you'd get even less, because power plants are better at filtering pollutants).

Also another added benefit is that the moment you go green by e.g. switching to nuclear power, suddenly all your cars get their carbon footprint cut down by two orders of magnitude.

Electric cars (and buses, etc) is not the solution, but it's part of it. Lots of countries are moving to cleaner electricity production, and electric cars allow transportation to benefit from that pollution-wise.

Exactly this. Now we've only got the one problem to solve.

If not in cities, where do your electricity plants exist?

You are right in that electric cars only relocate the pollution and energy consumption, but it still has to happen somewhere.

Of course, but a single power plant will pump out less pollution than the equivalent millions of car engines.

By moving this source of pollution out of the cities to an unpopulated location you're saving the health of millions of people.

In the middle of nowhere: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Callaway+Nuclear+Power+Pla...

CO2 isn't the only pollutant I don't want in my lungs. Hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter are moved from cities and reduced overall.

CO2 is one of the few pollutants I don't care about having in my lungs. There's already a bunch in there, and any additional amount that comes from external sources is going to be trivial compared to what I make on my own. CO2 is dangerous globally but essentially harmless locally.

Good point, I should probably be more worried about CO :)

Does CO cause harm beyond killing you if there's too much of it? It probably does, seems like everything causes cancer or something, but I'm not too familiar with it beyond the part where it displaces all your oxygen and suffocates you.

Well I get asthma, so I need all the O2 I can get!