Why Low-Emission Vehicles Are More Economic For Consumers?

One of the most oft-touted claim for electric and hybrid vehicles is that their fossil-fuel based benefits are often balanced by emissions generated from their manufacturing and power generation process. In that respect, they are just like all other gasoline powered vehicles. However, a recent study results released by MIT debunked this claim. The team working for this study tested 125 U.S. automotive models and observed all aspects related with the vehicles for a lifetime right from maintenance to manufacturing costs to operation costs. The results revealed that not only the low-emission vehicles are better in bringing down emissions but they are also less costlier as compared to the normal vehicles. So, now you don’t need to feel exceptionally guilty while purchasing an EV or hybrid, all you need to look after is your wallet.

You may want to dismiss this thought calling it a liberal propaganda, But note that the research team that was working on this project were encouraged to pursue this project due to lack of consumer driven resources that help in evaluation of light-duty vehicles. They started common evaluation of the all available powertrain alternatives for all kind of general consumer vehicles including the plug-in hybrid electric, fuel-cell vehicles, battery electric, hybrid-electric, and internal combustion engine. The cost of every single vehicle estimated by them included both operating costs and sticker prices according to the total lifetime of vehicle. To calculate emissions, they recorded the operating emissions of the vehicles along with the emissions produced in their manufacturing process.

Marco Miotti says, “To enable a fair comparison between cars of all technologies, we include all emissions coming from the fuel, electricity, and vehicle production supply chains.” The team also took the U.S. emission reduction goals under consideration while conducting the study. They observed the overall reduction that is needed between 2030-2050 and calculated the fraction that is needed from light duty vehicles.