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Jimmy Barnes

Malcom Campbell

UWRT 1103

4 April 2019

What’s the Best Option: Electric or Gas Vehicles?

Across the globe people are considering their carbon footprint by looking at how many

gallons of water they use in a day, how turning lights off in unused rooms saves significant

power or considering the tailpipe emissions from their vehicles. This raises the question in many

driver’s heads, “What’s the best option: electric or gas vehicles?” With the thought of zero

emissions from a vehicle, commuters may lean towards the option of joining “Team Electric” but

do they consider how these electric vehicles play a detrimental role in the environment, and how

large or small that role is in comparison to gas vehicles?

Sean Clarke, a writer for The Guardian, states that there are many types of vehicles out

there, giving consumers a variety of options. The types of vehicles available are gas, hybrid,

plug-in hybrid, range-extender, and pure electric. Each type of vehicle operates in a different

way. Gas vehicles are all internal combustion engines. This means they burn gas to power the

engine. Hybrid vehicles, for example a Toyota Prius, use gas as the main input of fuel, but as the

vehicle drives part of that fuel is used to charge a battery so that when the hybrid vehicle is

operating at a low speed the fuel for the vehicle will be coming from the battery and not burning

gas. A plug-in hybrid performs the same operation as a hybrid vehicle but has the option to

charge the vehicle’s battery from an electric power supply. In other words, the vehicle could be

totally electric if desired. Range-extenders are designed to travel greater distances than a hybrid
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vehicle and are primarily battery fueled. However, if a range-extender vehicle gets low on

battery while away from a charging station then the gas in the vehicle will be used as a secondary

fuel source and get the vehicle to where it needs to go so that it may recharge (Clarke). An

example of a range-extender would be a BMW i3. Finally, pure electric vehicles, like a Tesla, are

only battery powered. So, if the battery runs out somewhere, that’s it. Basically, a pure electric

vehicle is like a gas vehicle but only battery dependent.

Now knowing which type of vehicles are out there, it is really a matter of finding out

which vehicle is the best fit for each consumer based on their needs and ethics. According to

Money Living, every vehicle has its benefits for example, electric vehicles are said to be more

cost effective because electricity is cheaper per unit of energy than gas. When looking at the

benefits of gas vehicles, for starters they are easier to maintain. This is because of the surplus of

gas stations and auto parts stores. Additionally, gas vehicles have better ranges. Hybrid vehicles

are ideal for the consumer that wants increased fuel economy but doesn’t want to wave goodbye

to the idea of range. In terms of purchasing a vehicle, gas vehicles are significantly cheaper than

electric vehicles (Money Living). For example, a 2019 Chevy Silverado starts anywhere from

28,000 dollars to 34,000 dollars. A 2019 Chevy Volt or Bolt, both electric, start at 33,000 dollars

to 36,000 dollars (“Award Winning Dependability Year After Year After Year After Year”). If

someone wanted a high-end luxury electric vehicle like a Tesla, they would spend approximately

42,000 dollars to 82,000 dollars (“Tesla”). All of those numbers are just to buy the stock vehicle

without all the “bells and whistles.”

In terms of refueling electric and gas vehicles each are a little different. In regard to

electric vehicles, on average in the United States, a unit of electricity other known as a kilowatt

costs 12 cents and most people drive approximately 15,000 miles per year. This would calculate
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to around 540 dollars per year to charge an electric vehicle (Moloughney). On the other hand,

refueling a gas vehicle costs an average of 1,117 dollars per year. Of course, it ultimately

depends on electricity and gas prices for where a consumer lives, what size vehicle they drive,

and how often they drive (“Costs and Benefits of Electric Cars Vs. Conventional Cars”). If a

consumer is concerned with which refueling process is more efficient, then gas vehicles are the

winner of that battle by far. It’s common knowledge that a gas vehicle can be refueled within a

matter of minutes, and an electric vehicle can take up to eight hours to charge (Money Living).

While considering the time and cost of refueling, the range comparison of vehicles is also

essential to research. Most electric vehicles cannot travel more than 150 miles at a time and gas

vehicles can travel 400 miles or more at a time (Money Living). Needless to say, when refueling

and driving, gas vehicles are the winner.

Going back to the topic of emissions, a common misconception is that electric vehicles

are all zero emission. This statement is false. People may think electric vehicles are zero

emission, but they are not necessarily zero carbon (Marcacci). How clean an electric vehicle is, is

all based on how clean the energy production for the vehicle is. For example, electricity can be

produced in many ways: the use of wind technology, hydro technology, nuclear power,

renewable, and the burning of fossil fuels like oil (Clarke). To provide a rundown in order of

which vehicles have the strongest to the lowest greenhouse gas emissions are: gas vehicles with

the strongest emissions, hybrid with the second highest amount of emissions, followed by plug-

in hybrid, then range-extenders, and lastly pure electric (Clarke). This is just a general scale

again it is how the power for the vehicles is produced that really makes the long-term difference.

In the category of tailpipe emissions, Forbes reports that “a typical gas-powered car emits around

a pound of carbon dioxide per mile traveled, and the U.S. reached an all-time high of 3.17 trillion
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annual vehicle miles traveled in 2016.” With numbers like these many health risks occur. The

American Lung Association states, “gas powered transportation costs an average of 37 billion

dollars in health impacts such as asthma attacks, premature deaths, lost work days, and hospital

visits across just 10 states.” After reading statistics like this, and knowing that people need to get

around, it’s no wonder that people want to switch to electric vehicles. This has pushed a

movement to lower the price for renewable resource electricity production, making it more

affordable, in hopes that the world will be more environmentally friendly (Marcacci). That being

said, people have already started measuring carbon dioxide emissions, just to see how

environmentally friendly drivers are getting over time and how drivers can be more effective in

being ecofriendly. For example, Tesla, a leading manufacture in the electric vehicle world, has

posted on their website a counter of how many tons of carbon dioxide has been saved just by

Tesla vehicles alone. As of now that number is 4,021,297 and rising rapidly (Tesla).

Now what about the manufacturing process: Which is cleaner? Gas vehicle production or

electric vehicle production? Research shows that the production of gas vehicles uses an average

of 5.6 tons of carbon dioxide whereas electric vehicle production uses 8.8 tons of carbon dioxide.

Gas vehicles seems to be the winner here too. Although, it is argued that electric vehicles are

better in the long run because they only emit 80 percent of what a gas vehicle would emit in

tailpipe emissions (Clarke). Ultimately, what is boils down to is: How is the battery being

constructed? What is it made of? How does it work?

There is a demand by people for wanting to move around quickly and efficiently. How

can this be done? By using larger means of transportation, in other words mass transit. Subways

are electric powered, so coming up with environmentally friendly means of energy production

for those is basically like creating the charge for an electric vehicle through environmentally
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friendly practices. Another form of mass transit is buses. Researchers have started to consider the

idea of electric buses over gas buses, in hopes that one day a switch will be made. The

researchers have been looking at a few main points: wireless charging versus plug-in, battery

downsizing, vehicle light weighting, and energy consumption. As of now, wireless charging

batteries can be downsized 27-44 percent of a plug-in battery. A wireless charging system uses

0.3 percent less energy than the plug-in charger and emits 0.5 percent less greenhouse gas.

Reducing the overall weight of a bus by 12-16 percent has a significant effect on the battery-to-

wheel energy consumption, lowering the amount of energy consumption by 5.4-7 percent. The

overall idea here is to keep buses moving as well as people, so a wireless charging option seems

to be the best because buses could charge while at bus stops or transportation centers (Applied

Energy 11-19).

It is unknown when exactly electric mass transit will become the primary way of moving

people around. What is known is roughly when electric vehicles will surpass gas vehicles. An

article by Brad Plumer, writer for the New York Times, states that Bloomberg New Energy, a

research group, predicts that between the years of 2025 and 2030 electric vehicles will become

cost competitive with gas vehicles which will cause a shift of drivers switching to electric

vehicles. He accredits this to the idea that as technology for vehicle batteries advances gas prices

will remain the same. In a way he is hinting to the idea that at some point electric vehicles will

be cheaper and more affordable than gas vehicles. “Tesla and Volkswagen claim that they will

produce over a million electric vehicles per year by 2025.” Volvo later came out and stated that it

will stop producing combustion engines or in other words gas vehicles and in 2019 will start

creating all of the new car models to be either hybrid or battery powered. All of this talk does

worry the gasoline industry. Exxon Mobil claims that electric cars could cause the collapse of
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their business. Exxon Mobil predicts the new electric car sales will only grow by 10 percent by

2040. On the other hand, Bloomberg expects new electric vehicle sales to sky rocket by 54

percent by 2040 and cause a sellout of all gas vehicles (Plumer).

All of this is accredited to the discussion on electric vehicle batteries. The cost of lithium-

ion batteries has dropped by two-thirds which has a current price of 300 dollars per kilowatt-

hour. Bloomberg expects the drop to continue to 73 dollars by 2030 (Plumer). The fade into

electric vehicle dominance will not happen immediately, Plumer says that for the next decade all

will remain the same as now. Electric vehicles will still be reliant of government incentives and

still play large roles in China, Europe, and the state of California. Of course, as automaker create

more of a variety of electric vehicles they soon will stand on their own. He then adds that this

prediction or outcome is not quite guaranteed. Backing up this claim by stating that Governments

could halt their incentives before the electric vehicle trend gets too far down the road. Electric

vehicle batteries do bring up some negative aspects, such as the chance of battery manufactures

running out of materials, production problems that cause the inability to cut costs, and the chance

of technological failures like battery fires. That’s not to say that electric vehicles as a whole are

bad, they can still be a key part to fighting climate change. Provided that the fuel for the electric

vehicles is from a low-carbon source (Plumer).

Historically many cars have not used a low carbon source, for example diesel engines. An

article written by Paul Eisenstein, a writer for NBC News, reports that Volkswagen at one point

in time was using a “defeat device” to illegally pass emission tests. This allowed for Volkswagen

engines to produce up to 40 times more pollutants than the law allows with only two of its diesel

engines. Eisenstein also reports that Volkswagen is not the only automobile manufacturer to do

this. Some parts of the globe have lowered diesel vehicle sales. The most famous part of the
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world for doing so would be Europe. On the other hand, the United States has taken a stricter

approach to combat the diesel dilemma. Mercedes-Benz claims that they have taken away their

diesel option in American automobile markets. Although at the same time automobile

manufacturers such as Mazda and General Motors are still adding new diesel models to their

fleets. Toyota is hinting that in the coming years, particularly 2021, that they will partner with

Mazda to create a new series of electric vehicles that will feature something called a solid-state

battery. Rumors say “that technology is expected to be lighter, smaller, less expensive, and far

more energy dense” by providing electric vehicle drives the option to travel 400 miles or more

between charges. Another rumor is that the charging for this battery could only take 10 minutes.

This could eventually challenge the refueling of gas vehicles. (Eisenstein). Eisenstein closes the

article by saying that as for now gas and diesel vehicles will still be a part of the vehicles on the

road giving drivers some flexibility as to what they wish to drive.

If a driver lives in other parts of the world besides the United States, then chances are

they have already been subjected to a movement to become completely electric. Parts of the

world that are or have taken action in this movement are Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, and the

Netherlands. All of them are planning to ban gas vehicles starting in 2030. Britain, France

Taiwan, and the state of California will ban them in 2040, and Norway will start banning them

even earlier in 2025. As for the ban of diesel vehicles that movement is not too far behind. The

cities of Paris, Rome, Madrid, Athens, and Mexico City will all begin banning diesel vehicles as

of 2025. Currently China is the world’s largest car market and is attempting to move to a pure

electric vehicle lifestyle as well. Reports say that the city of Beijing hopes to see at least 20

percent of the vehicles produced in China are either electric or hybrid by 2025 (Cho).
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As for American and European automobile manufacturers they have to sell vehicles

across the globe particularly in China to stay on top. With this in mind companies such as Ford,

Daimler, and General Motors have started to feature electric vehicles for this reason. Evidence

shows that Ford plans to have 16 new electric vehicles on the market by 2022 and that the Volvo

brand is going 100 percent electric, with plans to create its first commercial electric truck. In

regard to General Motors they plan to produce 20 new electric car models and become 100

percent electric as well but by 2023 (Cho).

With that in mind mass electric vehicle charging will certainly need to rise. As

technology advances things will become more efficient and more affordable. Batteries will

become will require less toxic material and become more powerful and lighter.

PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that between the years of 2025 and 2030 the cost of electric

vehicle batteries will fall lower than the price of combustion engines or in other words gas

vehicles. It is expected that within the next few years parking lots will feature wireless charging

pads, and chargers under solar roofs, creating a cleaner approach to the fueling of electric

vehicles by using renewable energy practices. Advances in renewable charging technology also

is taking action just like the advances in electric vehicle batteries. Wind and solar power are

becoming more common and more reliable. Bloomberg New Energy predicts that with that 54

percent rise in electric vehicle sales, there will be 530 million electric vehicles on the road by

2040, which will save 8 million barrels of oil a day (Cho).

In conclusion, the answer to the question of: “What’s the best option: electric or gas

vehicles?” is still somewhat unanswered. To purchase a vehicle today, a gas vehicle is more

affordable than an electric vehicle. Secondly, gas vehicle can be refueled much faster and travel

greater distances. Thirdly, gas vehicles come in a variety of sizes from small sedans to giant
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trucks, whereas electric cars are generally small sedans or small SUVs. Electric vehicles have

lower tailpipe emissions, but the manufacturing process is not as environmentally friendly as that

of gas vehicles. So, if one had to be chosen over the other as which is the better vehicle right now

then the answer is gas vehicles.

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