Importance of Electric Vehicles

This essay discusses the importance of electric vehicles in reducing pollution and fuel consumption. It explores the benefits of EVs for the environment and the community.

Running head: IMPORTANCE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES
IMPORTANCE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES
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1IMPORTANCE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Since the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, environmental pollution has been a
significant part of human history. In recent times, the amount of pollution, especially air
pollution, has exponentially increased, mainly due to the combustion of fossil fuels. Cars
consume the largest amount of fossil fuel, given their numbers around the world. Keeping that in
mind, this essay would argue that electric cars are a practical solution to this problem, keeping
the pollution levels low. An electric vehicle is an automobile that uses electric propulsion of one
or more engine, and newer models generally do not consist of a traditional combustion engine.
The points to be discussed below are how such vehicles would affect emission and pollution
levels and reduction of fossil fuel costs could affect other parts of the society.
There are multiple reasons why electric vehicles (EVs) could be more beneficial, not just for the
environment, but also for the community of car owners in the future. The most important claim
that companies make about EVs is that they produce less harmful emissions. Traditional
combustion engines produce particulate matters like soot, hydrocarbons, gases such as Nitrogen
oxides and Carbon monoxide. EVs comparatively have lower tailpipe emissions. Referring to
Mallig et al. (2016), authors state that EVs, which have both battery and combustion systems,
run about 60% on just battery-only mode. When running on full-power mode, vehicles run 90%
of the driven mileage. This indicates significant reduction in pollutant emissions by the vehicles.
One point of criticism would be that there must be intelligent charging strategies put into place
before launching such vehicles on a large scale. This is because charging would peak at certain
hours of the day and surplus of renewable energy might not be available to meet the demands.
Therefore, strategies should be formulated to charge EVs during times of the day when surplus
energy would be available. The second factor to consider is the lower consumption of fossil
fuels. These are non-renewable sources of energy and at the current rate of production and

2IMPORTANCE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES
extraction, they will last for an average of another one hundred years. Therefore, the advent of
EVs on a large scale will reduce fuel consumption to a significant amount. According to Holland
et al. (2016), reducing fuel consumption would generate good geopolitical relations, reduced
military expenditures, economic benefits from insulation to oil prices shocks, and more, with
determined benefits of $1,400 (Holland et al. 2016). However, in this case, benefits from EVs
would be visible more in metropolitan cities compared to cities lying in the outskirts or cities
with less connectivity where the figures would be around +1 cent to -1.7 cents (Holland et al.
2016). To conclude, it is evident from the above essay that using electric vehicles over cars with
traditional combustion engines is beneficial for the environment and the community as a whole.
If the concerned authorities take necessary steps and avail facilities for the process of induction
and acceptance of such technologies, electric vehicles could be brought into the market and
could see high number of sales. The reduced amount of pollution and the economic benefits that
owners of such vehicles would gain could mean better environmental conditions and lesser
demand for fossil fuels in the future.

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Bibliography
Holland, S., Mansur, E., Muller, N. and Yates, A. 2016. Are There Environmental Benefits from
Driving Electric Vehicles? The Importance of Local Factors. American Economic Review,
106(12), pp.3700-3729.
Mallig, N., Heilig, M., Weiss, C., Chlond, B. and Vortisch, P. 2016. Modelling the weekly
electricity demand caused by electric cars. Future Generation Computer Systems, 64, pp.140-
150.