How much coal does it take to charge one electric car?
The energy it takes to move a car down the highway is not tied to the power source but to the aerodynamic drag, rolling drag and gravity if on a slope. The next question is efficincy of the source. Electric and hybrid cars are great in city diving because they draw no energy when stopped and can recoup the energy from breaking and rolling down hill. While electrics and plug in hybrids remain niche vehichles the question of where the powerer comes from is not very interesting. Most will charge at night when there is excess capacity. When adoption of electric cars reaches 10 or 20 percent it will become a major issue. And while the car itself does not run on coal it does run on the stored energy from coal or nuclear or hydro. The same is true if your decide to use hyrdogen as a fuel source, it’s just another way to store energy, it has to get made with power from some source. So you can choose your where and how you polute but no matter what it takes a certian number of kW to move a car
