When you buy through links on our web site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
Peter Lehner is executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council ( NRDC ) . This piece will appearonthe NRDC blogSwitchboard . Lehner contribute this article to LiveScience’sExpert Voices : Op - Ed & Insights .
When the first hybrid cars strike the street , people would point and stare , even kibosh owner on the street to ask questions . Was it a craze ? A novelty ? A miniature for unripe enthusiast ? metre has proven otherwise .
The GM Volt, which runs off batteries that can be recharged from a wall outlet, or by a small gas engine under the hood.
In the first quarter of last year , thehybrid Toyota Priuswas the third - best - selling folk machine in the world . When the later generation of male plug - in electric machine hit the mass market three years ago , they paint a picture the same mixture of reactions as hybrids did : enthusiasm , oddment , and some skepticism . However , they ’re selling at more than twice the rate at which the first widely useable hybrids left dealers ' destiny .
Thanks to some savvy , frontwards - looking plans in many states across the land , electric vehiclesare charge forwards . Yesterday , Charge AheadCalifornia , a coalition of community of interests - based , public health and environmental groups — admit the Natural Resources Defense Council ( NRDC ) — announced a campaign to place 1 million electrical vehicles on California ’s roads within the next 10 years . California is also part of aneight - province coalition , include Connecticut , Maryland , Massachusetts , New York , Oregon , Rhode Island and Vermont , which recently jibe to work together to get 3.3 million electric vehicles on the road by 2025 . And the recently signedPacific Coast Climate Action plan , issued by the governors of California , Washington and Oregon , and the premier of British Columbia , also calls for scale - up electric vehicle gross sales .
Why the push for more electric cars ? Because right now , they areincontestably the cleanest fomite usable . They ’re clean because they get zero tailpipe emission . None . No smoke , smell , pollution — nothing come out of the tailpipe .
The GM Volt, which runs off batteries that can be recharged from a wall outlet, or by a small gas engine under the hood.
Eliminatingtailpipe pollutionis a major public wellness victory . In California , four out of ten people , often from low-pitched - income communities of coloring material , may face increase risks of asthma , cancer and other health hazard because they hold up near busy roads . By reducing pollution , galvanic car , buses and hand truck help create healthy communities , with less unwellness , fewer escape twenty-four hours of work and schooltime — even longer hold out . The Charge Ahead California campaign will also advocate for rebates and vouchers , ride shares , cash for old railway car and other policy that will impart galvanising vehicle into vulnerable communities instead of merely whizzing past their door .
Electric cars also facilitate moderate the harmful carbon copy contamination that is fueling more frequent and extreme storms , flood , droughts and wildfire . Several peer - reviewed studieshave shown that even with today ’s electric grid , manufacturing and operate an electrical car today produce 30 to 50 percent less carbon emissions than conventional vehicles . Plus , unlike gas - powered car , the same galvanizing vehicle on the road today will get cleaner over time , as the U.S. electric grid moves toward 100 - per centum clean vigour .
What ’s more , electric cars are invoke not just to consecrate environmentalists , but to anyone who ’s ever wince about the price of gas . Driving an galvanizing car is the combining weight to paying about$1 per gal for gasoline . When ’s the last time you see that price at the pump ? Other galvanising car owner but enjoy the liquid , restrained ride , the fast speedup , or never needing an oil colour modification . drive a automobile with a combustion engine , one blog commenter tell NRDC , in summation to being expensive , " feel smelly and rude . "
If you’re a topical expert — researcher, business leader, author or innovator — and would like to contribute an op-ed piece,email us here.
The rising slope of electric cars is n’t circumscribe to the coast . Five of the top 15 markets for the Nissan LEAF are in the South and Midwest , include Atlanta , Nashville , St. Louis , Chicago and Dallas - Ft . Worth . Atlanta actually rate fifth in the nation for full electrical car sales .
These figures are no fluke : Georgia offer generous incentive for electrical car , let in access to car pool lane in congested Atlanta , and the state ’s big service program Southern Company , one of the largest in the nation , is throw off its weight behind galvanising vehicles . The LEAF and its batteries are manufactured in Tennessee . And in Dallas , major corporations like Texas Instruments provide convenient work level for EVs .
The Northeast and West Coast body politic in the eight - State Department coalition have many similar program in place to build out infrastructure and further sale . By working together , they plan to apply their collective buying power to leverage good prices on heavy order for United States Department of State - owned electric fomite and charge stations . Smart policies like these are expect to goad the increment of electric car gross revenue beyond state borders , by boosting infrastructure and bringing down prices .
Electric cars have a long way to go , with only about 150,000 on the road today . But all the signs of approaching a tipping point are there . monetary value are fall apace . GM and Nissan have reduced their prices by at least $ 5,000 from their first models , spurring record sales . This class , national sales event are require to increase five - faithful since the railroad car debut in 2011 . And the plan to attain 3.3 million car by 2025 would represent a 20 - fold increase from today .
As province like California and other fundamental marketplace , working with the support and expertise of group like NRDC , advertise to make electric cars a convenient , affordable choice for consumers , the day will come when galvanising cars are no longer induce for rubbernecking . They ’ll be just another routine root for cleaner strain , a more unchanging climate and exemption from fossil oil .
Lehner ’s most recent Op - Ed was " Efficiency is the Energy of the Future , and the Present " This post will come along on the NRDC blogSwitchboard . The views express are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher . This version of the article was earlier published onLiveScience .
