EVs Can Save China (And The US) From Its Air Pollution Problem

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

By Joseph Nagle

Electric vehicles are off to the races.

NRDC, WWF, China, China Coal Cap Project, coal, air pollution, renewables, climate change, smogSparked by eco-concern, the high maintenance cost of internal combustion vehicles, and the ever-dwindling oil supply, EVs have found a definite lasting foothold in the personal vehicle market. While eco-friendly vehicles have a lot of promise for the entire world, no place will benefit more from their rapid growth than China.

China, already the most-populated nation on Earth, combined with rapid industrialization and a fast-growing economy, has the expanding middle-class hungry for more modern luxuries. China is now the world leader in car production and thanks to a vehicle-hungry marketplace 1 billion strong, with traffic jams that can take up 50 lanes and last for days, the problem is already here and, just like their economy, growing rapidly.

Smog and dust particulates are a daily occurrence in Beijing, at times getting so thick it forms a noxious fog throughout the city, and breathing that level of polluted air is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes per day. Now imagine sitting in a car, surrounded by other cars, with the AC sucking in all that pollution and blowing it directly into your face. It’s no wonder Teslas need a bio-weapon defense mode, as all that pollution certainly warrants it.

EVs, however, offer hope to a country that is literally drowning in its own fumes. 200 million vehicles are projected to be on the road in China by 2020 and the market is only going to continue to increase. Replacing all those internal combustion engines won’t be easy, but with the market still ramping up it has to be done.

China happens to be a world leader when it comes to investing in sustainable energy. By dumping billions of dollars into solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power over the past several years, China is quickly trying to fix factory-born air pollution. With electrical production being generated from sustainable net-zero sources, EVs take China’s air pollution down even further. With a high number of EVs on the roads, air pollution could easily become a thing of the past.

Even replacing one third of those vehicles with EVs, air pollution begins to take a big hit, which is also good news for the west. China’s air pollution problem isn’t just China’s problem. Although they suffer the most from it, trade winds can carry that pollution directly into the US. It’s estimated that nearly one-third of San Francisco’s air pollution comes from mainland China and if the trend continues the US will surely be drowning in fumes too.

Electric vehicles take pollution out of the equation for both China and the US. According to the EPA, motor vehicles collectively cause 75 percent of carbon monoxide pollution in the U.S, while the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) estimates that on-road vehicles cause one-third of the air pollution that produces smog in the U.S. Add all that with the rapid growth of motor vehicles in China, and we see a very smog-filled future for the entire world. Getting EVs to stay has already happened, now it’s time we start to make a real difference with them.


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Guest Contributor

We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people, organizations, agencies, and companies.

Guest Contributor has 4378 posts and counting. See all posts by Guest Contributor