An article on EV pollution!

This was posted on Huffington, Article appeared on Citylab. There were a few things that seemed wrong about the conclusions drawn and the choices of data selected to get the results. What do you think?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/electric-vehicles-pollution_n_7708406.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000015

One of the reader comments reflected my question. He claimed, and I'm suspecting it's true (anyone know?) that what this study compared was all the pollution that went into the generation of the electricity vs the tailpipe pollution from the gasoline. Obviously if you include all the environmental cost of bringing the gasoline from deep in the ground to your tailpipe, it's a lot more.

And obviously the tailpipe emission from an EV is nil.

Anyone know?

I don't know, but I've stopped even reading these studies. Like many wanna-be economic analysts, they make (and hide) unsupportable assumptions.

An example I read compared "gas cars" to a Focus EV in Grand Forks, ND. First, I'll bet the "gas car" they are using is something like a new Civic, if not a modern PZEV like our Accord. So if you are comparing our very clean PZEV Accord to the Focus in a region that has it's own oil and refineries but uses old coal plants for electricity, perhaps you could make a case that the Focus is less advantageous environmentally. However, these are ridiculous examples. Nobody has a Focus EV in Grand Forks--I'd be surprised if there was even one--and the average "gas car" that people are driving is probably a ten year old dually diesel pickup with half the emissions equipment removed.

I suspect that some of the more "advanced" analyses actually do include the gasoline supply chain--and that is why they love to talk about areas that have a very short, local gasoline supply chain and old coal generator plants.

In the actual study they specifically picked the FFE and compared it to the ICE Focus because it is the only BEV available with a gas engine counterpart.

The author of the study does recognize the fact that they didn't calculate the production emissions (e.g. refining the gas, drilling, transport of oil & gas, and digging the coal).

I figure I'd just wait until one of the EV sites deconstructs the study.

Car and driver did an article on this years ago using only carbon emissions. Same conclusion. I crunched the numbers and the information was valid for tailpipe emissions of a gasoline powered car versus the emissions from the electrical grid. This is a case of an author deciding what the outcome of their research will be and making the "facts" agree with their preconceived sensationalized story. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes...

"Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination."