Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Electric Cars

Talking Headways Podcast: California Über Alles

By Tanya Snyder | May 1, 2014 | 2 Comments

Welcome to our all-California, all-the-time episode of the Talking Headways podcast. We start with a statewide debate over whether $60,000+ Teslas should qualify for tax breaks — or whether any electric vehicles should get tax breaks. Then on to the conversation about how California’s cap-and-trade dollars should be spent. One proposal, from the State Senate leader, […]

The Exaggerated Benefits of Electric Cars

By Angie Schmitt | Jul 1, 2013 | 60 Comments

Just how green are electric vehicles? Ozzie Zehner, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, says it’s not as clear-cut as we generally assume. In an article published in Spectrum, the news arm of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Zehner notes that researchers have come to some widely divergent conclusions. Industry-funded research tends to […]

Obama’s Clean Energy Policy Elevates Efficient Cars Over Efficient Modes

By Tanya Snyder | Mar 18, 2013 | 4 Comments

It has a nice ring to it: using oil and gas revenue to shift transportation off oil and gas dependence. President Obama announced a plan to do just that on Friday — but the details of his plan are disappointing if you want to see the conversation on clean transportation go beyond cars. The Energy Security […]

Study: Electric Cars Not So Green Unless Powered by Renewables

By Angie Schmitt | Dec 5, 2012 | 16 Comments

A study by the government of the Australian state of Victoria highlights the limits of electric cars, in isolation, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Victorian government’s ongoing “electric vehicle trial” [PDF] found that electric cars powered by coal may actually produce more carbon emissions than petroleum-fueled cars over the lifetime of the vehicle, from manufacturing […]