If electric vehicles are the way to go to reduce emissions, wouldn’t charging them use up a lot of power, therefore still being costly and polluting? How does it work?

Question

I know very little about today’s climate actions despite routing for them, so I just want to take an opportunity to better understand them. How some things may just be temporary solutions or revolutionary ones.

I do not want climate change debates, I just want to know if powering electric cars has its trade offs or are really going to help.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

1) gas cars are 25% efficient while power plants are 50% efficient
2) buying a new electric car adds a new load to the grid, which requires new power plants. All of the power plants being installed (in America) are solar or wind
3) electric cars are going to be useful for helping achieve 100% renewable grid by controlling charging to match the supply of solar and wind, helping to keep the grid balanced.