4 Key Problems With Measuring EV Pollution vs. Gas Cars

A post I wrote last week on where electric vehicles cause more pollution than gas cars produced some unusually high reader emissions rates. Amid the more combustible reactions were a number of quite thoughtful ones, laying out some legitimate critiques to both the research study that prompted the post as well as our description of the work. So we reached out to several experts on electric cars and the environmental impact of transportation to offer a wider perspective.

First a quick recap: the NBER study I originally referenced measured pollution produced by EVs (via the electricity grid) and gas cars (via on-road emissions) across the U.S.—in effect, comparing power plant smokestack to vehicle tailpipe. In the West, EVs tended to be cleaner than gas cars; elsewhere they rated out worse. The economists leading the work priced this difference by geography to determine where electrics should be subsidized, and where they should actually be taxed.