Introduction to the Benefits of Electric Cars
In our society today, there are many vehicles to choose from when the big day comes of buying your first car. With all the available choices, which car is not only the best for your own sake but best for the environment too? That would be the electric car. Rather than gas cars, electric cars have many ecological benefits and do not destroy the precious planet we call home. Since the electric car has so many benefits, it could be very easily thought that it would be more expensive to get an electric vehicle rather than a gas-powered vehicle, but that is not the case. The electric vehicle is amazing for the environment and doesn't take a huge dent out of your wallet as would a diesel truck. There is an extensive amount of research done on this subject, and the findings speak for themselves.
Performance and Environmental Impact
Most cars have specific jobs, for example, a truck is made to transport large things while a formula car is built for racing. Therefore many people in our easily brainwashed society stereotype the typical electric vehicle to being built as just an eco-friendly vehicle although most have great performance. In “Why Electric Cars Are Better,” Carolyn Fortuna, a writer, researcher, and educator with a lifelong dedication to ecojustice explain how electric vehicles are nothing less than high-performance quality. Fortuna States, “Put the idea of an electric golf cart out of your head! EVs have extremely high torque power, so they have really quick acceleration. If you’re at a stop light and want to zip into space in traffic ahead, you can count on your EV to give you just the zip you need. If you are on the highway and need to accelerate away from a swaying tractor-trailer, you can count on your EV to speed up easily and smoothly and get you into a safe lane of traffic. Electric motors react quickly, so they’re very responsive and give you the driving edge that you want.” (Fortuna 1). So, if you catch yourself side by side with an electric car while you are in your gas guzzler, don't even think about racing it. The Earth will take a small beating from pollution and you will take an even bigger beating from the electric beast.
The Ecological Advantages of Electric Vehicles
After you get demolished in a race against the electric car you underestimated, you should sit back and think about the harm you just put on your ego, and the Earth. , In “Gasoline Explained,” the US Energy Information Administration explains how pollution is caused by the notorious “gasoline.” The EIA states, “Gasoline is a toxic and highly flammable liquid. The vapors given off when gasoline evaporates and the substances produced when gasoline is burned (carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and unburned hydrocarbons) contribute to air pollution. Burning gasoline also produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas…. The United States used about 392 million gallons of finished motor gasoline per day in 2018. Most consumers use gasoline in cars.” (EIA 1) With the constant growth of greenhouse gases in our world, gasoline should be removed from the equation of our society. The sake of Earth is in our hands, we should do everything we can to help Earth thrive in the solar system while also completing everyday tasks such as transportation.
Geographical Variations in Electric Car Benefits
As every day goes on there is more and more evidence showing that electric cars are far more sustainable for our planet than gasoline-powered cars. In “Even More Evidence that Electric Cars Could save the planet,” Jack Stewart details a study done by the Union of Concerned Scientists which expresses how electric cars’ benefits vary based on geographical location, yet still produce much healthier statistics in comparison to a gasoline-powered car. Stewart states, “The results depend on where in the US you live and drive, but in general battery, boosters can breathe easy… “For the US overall, an electric vehicle is much cleaner than a gasoline vehicle, even when you take into account the emissions from natural gas, coal, or however else you’re generating the electricity,” says Dave Reichmuth, a senior engineer in the nonprofit's clean vehicles program. And as the electric grid moves away from dirty fuel sources, the gap is widening. The UCS study looks beyond driving-related emissions to consider the entire supply chain that goes into making cars go. For the gas guys, that means all the emissions associated with extracting crude oil are included. For electrics, the UCS uses power plant emissions data from the EPA and includes the environmental cost of mining coal, for example. Because different chunks of the country make power in different ways, the results vary by region...To put everything on the same scale, the researchers turned their calculations into a familiar format: miles per gallon. An electric car driver in renewable-happy California is doing as much damage to the environment as a gas car that gets 109 miles per gallon. In Texas, that number drops to 60 mpg. In the center of the country, around Illinois and Missouri, it’s just 39 mpg. Nationwide, under this system, electric cars produce the same emissions as cars that get 80 mpg—making them several times cleaner than the average economy of regular cars, which hovers around 28 mpg.” Every state has a different quantitative sum of electric vehicle benefits, and the electric car is still a much better choice in each state by a longshot.
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Government Incentives and the Push Towards Electric Cars
We as typical American citizens have the right to believe and say as we wish, but the way in society is very low for each specific individual. Therefore, government officials and other powerful individuals pushing for eco-friendly cars allow the emergence of the situation to skyrocket. In “Are Electric Cars Worse For The Environment?” Jonathan Lesser explains how the government and people of a higher power in this specific topic are slowly starting to lean towards going all-electric and are saving electric car owners a large sum of cash. “If you believe the headlines, traditional automobiles are speeding toward a dead end. All those V8s, V6s, and turbocharged vehicles we’ve grown to love will soon be replaced by squadrons of clean, whisper-quiet, all-electric vehicles. And if you believe the headlines, the environment will be much better off. Policymakers at every level have done their part to push electric vehicles by creating a tankful of subsidies. Thanks to laws signed by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, electric-vehicle buyers can feast on federal tax credits of up to $7,500 that reduce the initial purchase cost of their vehicles. Not to be outdone, many states also dangle their own mix of goodies for electric vehicle buyers, including purchase rebates as large as $5,000, additional rebates for vehicle chargers, and free use of public charging stations—which, of course, are only “free” because they’re subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers. Some states even give electric vehicles preferential access to carpool lanes.” The US government as a whole and governments within states have made extensive efforts in ridding gasoline cars and switching to a safer alternative. With the continuation of these efforts, our Earth is on track to have a gasoline-free mankind.
Challenges and Criticisms of Electric Vehicles
While by now you have probably looked up your gasoline-powered cars’ trade-in value on Kelley Blue Book, the downside of electric cars has not yet been interpreted. In “The Dirty Secret of Electric Vehicles,” Douglas Broom explains how electric cars use coal, a natural resource in child labor that is being used to consume on a manufacturing basis. Groom states “Amnesty points to serious health risks to child and adult workers in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, documented in a report it issued. More than half the world’s cobalt comes from southern DRC, much of it from artisanal mines that produce 20% of the country’s output… Artisanal miners as young as seven were seen by researchers who visited nine sites including deep mines dug by hand using basic tools. Miners, the youngest of whom were earning as little as $1 a day, reported suffering chronic lung disease from exposure to cobalt dust… Cobalt from these mines is sold to major producers. No country has laws requiring producers to report on their supply chains, which Amnesty says means the chance electric vehicle batteries are “tainted with child labor and other abuses” is unacceptably high.” (Groom 1) Although the use of child labor can be despised by almost every person on Earth, the use of child labor in the electric car industry is not proven to be an area of concern. Although few countries have no child labor laws, there is no major manufacturer of electric cars that condones such an act of cruelty and no proof that any manufacturer uses coal from these horrible places, it is simply just a quote followed by no evidence. Margaret Kantz, a scholarly author, explains how there must be extensive research done before trying to persuade within a subject in “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively.” Kantz states “We need a theory-based explanation, one grounded in the findings of the published research on the nature and reasons for our students' problems with writing persuasive researched papers.” (Kantz 1) Groom does not use enough research, instead, Groom uses a small chunk of research and tries to use ethos to persuade. Also, in “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” James Porter explains how texts depend on separate texts to help get a stronger point of emphasis. Porter states “Not infrequently, and perhaps ever and always, texts refer to other texts and in fact rely on them for their meaning. All texts are interdependent: We understand a text only insofar as we understand its precursors. This is the principle we know as inter.” (Porter 1) Groom does not rely on other sources, but rather just relies on nonproven evidence and research.
In another article in opposition, “Electric Cars Are Going Nowhere Fast,” Lawrence Ulrich explains how the electric vehicle is rapidly on the rise, there is no car that can seal the deal and send Americans to the dealership demanding an electric car. Ulrich states, “The Chevrolet Bolt, already basking its 2017 North American Car of the Year award, is about to test that theory. The spunky, smartly engineered Chevy can travel 238 miles or more on a charge, and it sells for just $29,995 after a federal tax break. Tesla's Model 3, the Bolt’s more-fashionable rival, will travel at least 215 miles on a charge when it reaches customers, ideally by late this year. That’s all great stuff, and the Bolt and Model 3 will surely do their part to lift EV sales. But neither car is the game-changer that many analysts and media have proclaimed.” (Ulrich 1) Although this may be true, the rise of electric cars has only been prevalent in the past few years, while gas-powered cars have been around since the Model T. Therefore, the technology regarding electric vehicles is not on the level that many hard-headed Americans desire. The electric car is still in the juvenile stages and already is a much healthier and better overall alternative. From a more personal perspective, my aunt has a Tesla Model 3, one of the first models of a Tesla, while my Uncle has a brand new BMW 328i. Although the BMW is newer and a selectively modified version compared to the previous year’s model, the Tesla performs better and doesn't use any gas while it is the first of the SUV crossover Tesla models.
Conclusion: The Future of Electric Cars
All in all, the electric car has many more benefits than a gas-powered car, from factors such as saving money to saving the Earth, the electric car dominates the gas-powered car in a large number of ways. With the ongoing research of electric cars, the popularity of gas-powered cars is on a rapid decline within our society as a planet rather than just our peers. While many still are very against hybrid and electric cars, we as a society can make the choice of getting an electric car the most obvious and correct thing to do. Hopefully, after reading this essay, you can make the best decision of your life and buy an eco-friendly electric car rather than an “Earth-Destroying” diesel truck and save the Earth one step at a time while doing so.
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