Doesn the electricity used to charge the batteries contribute to pollution from coal power plants?
The EV is more efficient than a gasoline vehicle, so the amount of pollution generated by producing the electricity to power an EV is much less than the pollution from a gasoline vehicle. Even with 50% of U.S. power coming from dirty coal plants, EVs still reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared with gasoline vehicles due to so much of the pollutants emitting from the tailpipe. Coal power plants, as dirty as they may be, are more efficient and less polluting than gasoline vehicles due to efficiency of scale at which they convert fossil fuels to electricity. A gasoline vehicle or one powered by ethanol, biodiesel, or hydrogen, can only make use of about 20% of the energy that it consumes compared to an EV being able to put more than 80% of the energy it consumes for operation. Where gasoline vehicles get dirtier as they age, EVs get cleaner as the electrical grid gets cleaner. Also EVs can run on power generated from 100% clean renewable electricity from wind or solar power.
