If you are looking to buy a car, you are confronted with many choices: what brand to get, what model, what year, used or new, or whether to buy that old broken down car which that one family friend is clearly just trying to get rid of. Likewise, when you first went to get a microwave for your dorm room or apartment, you faced similar choices: what brand, what make, how old, or whether to use the microwave that had been handed down in your family for generations. However, with cars, because of the increasing awareness of climate change and economic and regulatory pressures, people are now having to make a new choice: whether or not to go electric. There are several questions we should ask when deciding whether or not to get an electric or gas car: the price, the availability of fuel/charging, and the environmental impact.
The first question, which especially applies for us poor college students, is the price. After all, electric cars are more expensive than gas cars. The difference in average vehicle price between gas and electric can be pretty significant– ranging from $11,000 extra for the more luxury electric cars, to about $6,000 more for cheaper electric cars. So there can be a fairly significant difference in price, but the place where electric cars really shine is in their cost for charging. The Department of Energy did a study on how much it costs to drive an electric car as opposed to a gas car when it comes to fuel, and found that with electric, the average person in a year would spend about $500 less on recharging than they would on gas. When one then considers that with electric cars a person doesn’t need oil changes, filter changes, or several other kinds of regular maintenance necessary for gas cars, on average, a person will actually save a significant amount of money per year. If one takes the full lifespan for the car, an electric car’s operating cost will be between $15,000 and $20,000 less than a gas car, which more than offsets the initial extra cost. So, while it may be expensive at the beginning to buy an electric car, in the long run, because electricity is cheaper than gasoline, and maintenance costs are lower for electric vehicles than gas, one ends up saving money.
Now, one may think that because electric cars are a relatively recent development, and are not universally used, that charging stations may be fairly rare. However, currently in the US there are more than 45,000 charging stations, which one can then compare to the 115,000 gas stations. So, charging stations are actually not as rare as one might think, and considering that more and more charging stations are being constructed every year, we can expect that the number and availability of charging stations will be increasing. Since one can charge their car at home, for most daily use, one does not actually need to find charging stations that often. Even for larger trips, there are apps that can not only help you find charging stations, but can also help you plan your route around where charging stations are located. A quick online search shows multiple different apps designed to help you keep charged on longer trips.
As for environmental impact, the better of the two vehicle options seems pretty obvious. After all, electric cars don’t release any gas emissions, while gas cars do. However, one does still need to consider the gas emissions from producing the electricity used to power the cars, as well as the greenhouse gasses emitted from producing the electric car, since the power used to produce the electricity, coal and natural gas are still used. When it comes to production of electric cars, that is, the environmental impact of producing the car, one actually finds that the amount of greenhouse gases used to produce an electric car is worse than that required to produce a gas powered car. The main problem is batteries; batteries require a lot of manufacturing, refining, and energy to produce. However, even though making the electric car produces more greenhouse gases than a gasoline car, over the lifetime of the car, because the electric car does not produce tailpipe emissions, it ends up producing less greenhouse gases, making the electric car still the better choice. Besides pollution from production, charging the car does generate some pollutants. However, as countries are moving more toward renewable sources of power, like solar or wind, the amount of polluting gases produced for the electricity used will go down. Even now, when there are still a lot of fossil fuels in use, it is better as far as greenhouse gas production to drive an electric car.
We find ourselves in a changing world. As climate change is an increasingly important problem, we are going to find ourselves having to make difficult decisions, including whether or not to go electric. What we find is that while electric cars may be more expensive in the short term, and may be more polluting than gas cars to produce, they are better in the long run— that is, they are an investment. And really, I think that this is an important way for all of us to approach climate change in general. We will have to make choices that may cost us money, convenience, time, and other things now, but what we must realize is that what we may think we are losing now is actually going to make a better future. What we will gain from making these hard choices will not only benefit us later in life, but will allow future generations to have a habitable planet. For those who are concerned about how expensive trying to correct climate change would be, consider this: by 2050, if climate change continues at its current rate, it will lead to a decrease in global economic output by as much as $23 trillion. Just like the electric car, while we may pay more now, if we are willing to make the investment, we will save not just money, but more importantly, we will save our planet, and by extension, ourselves.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.