The Environmental and Energy Impacts of Plug-in Electric Vehicles

The Capstone workshop assisted Sierra Club's recently launched “Go Electric” campaign, which promotes a switch to electric vehicles as an important way to reduce emissions and the U.S. dependence on oil. The main goal was to understand the environmental and energy impacts of plug-in electric vehicles in different regions of the United States.

The market for electric vehicles (EVs) is currently small but has great growth potential. President Barack Obama has made known his goal to have 1 million EVs on the road by 2015, and a recent Bloomberg report has projected that more than 1.5 million EVs will be purchased in the U.S. by 2020. Research thus far has made clear that electric vehicles are cleaner overall than gasoline powered vehicles in nearly all, if not all, parts of the country, regardless of the source of electric power in any particular electric grid (with cleaner grids leading to cleaner charging of electric vehicles, but nearly all EVs being cleaner than nearly all gasoline powered vehicles). However, regional maps about electricity and emissions are thus far only broken down into 10 to 26 regions at the most.

The original objective of the project was to look at the possibility of breaking down electricity emissions (CO2 and other harmful emissions) further by city or county or state and then make much more specific "well-to-wheels" comparisons among electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, and traditional gasoline powered vehicles in each given city/county/state. This information, added to oil savings, will be a valuable addition to researchers, consumers, government agencies, and corporations interested in automobiles, electricity, petroleum reduction, and the environment.