Do you think auto makers should be required to make fully electric cars to help meet air quality standards?

Answer 1

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Electric cars are the best alternative fuel solution we have, if reduction of pollution and energy independence are our goals.
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Despite oil-industry propaganda being spread around, electric vehicles do NOT cause anywhere near the level of pollution that gas-based vehicles do. It's true that many powerplants burn dirty fuel (like coal), but even these dirty fuels are burned with a far greater level of efficiency at the plant then they could ever be burned in your car. Greater efficiency means more miles driven on less fuel - and much less pollution per mile.
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Electric motors are also far more efficient than gas engines are (95% versus 25%). But here's the best part. Electric cars are the only vehicles that fuel by wire - and the electric grid that moves electricity around the country is 95% efficient. Compare this with the vast, inefficient oil-industry system that trucks gasoline to thousands of service stations around the country - and creates still more pollution in the process.
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Plus, don't forget that additional pollution is created when gasoline is refined - a process that uses lots of electricity!
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As for the argument that too much CO2 is not a pollutant because plants like it... well, water isn't a pollutant either - but ask the folks in New Orleans if TOO MUCH water might be a problem!
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Answer 2

NO

fully electric cars meet air quality standards - BUT ONLY at car level

somewhere upstream you need to produce that electricity, and in the US that process largely happens in oil or coal-fired power plants, producing a lot of greenhouse gases.

I don't see the point of a population of electric cars if the overall fuel consumption is going to be similar (and simply moved away from the cities, to the countryside locations where the power plants are located).

Answer 3

The cost to benefit ration is far too lopsided. It would still be more cost beneficial to drive an enormous truck and fill up on Diesel fuel everyday as opposed to the initial cost of the "Air" car. To balance out, the cost per gallon of gasoline would have to soar to well over $700 a gallon before it would become economically feasible. Brightest Blessings, Raji the Green Witch

Answer 4

Electric cars won't really help air quality in the long run. Coal plants is still the majority of where we get our electricity. We would have to burn more coal to power these electric cars.

Answer 5

Air quality standards are better off than u think. That old CO2 is not a pollution and has not increased. We have a friend the plants that remove the CO2 from the air and replace it with oxygen.
Methane u cant find it to measure it . where has it gone???
NO2 is not a pollutant it is a fertilizer.
Most of this is political garbage.

Answer 6

I wouldn't`t buy one. I think Bio diesel and ethanol is the way to go.

Answer 7

they should but they won't.. i think the car industry and the oil industry are too tightly wound up together.. so.. they are probably not much for it...