How green are electric cars?

clipped from www.energyefficiencynews.com Hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles are all the rage for transforming transport into a ‘low-carbon’ alterative and increasingly being backed by governments in Europe and the US. But how ‘green’ are they? The simple answer, of course, is that electric vehicles are only as green as the electricity supply they rely on. If you assume that an electric vehicle is run on electricity supplied by a coal-fired power station, then a diesel alterative will emit around half as much CO2 taking into account the emissions from power generation, according to research by independent group Transport Watch. Furthermore, the research calculates that of the energy generated by a power station, only a quarter will actually reach an electric vehicle because of leakages and losses along the transmission route. This means, says Transport Watch, that electric vehicles have an efficiency of only 24% – around half that of a modern diesel alternative.