How environmentally friendly is it currently to charge an electric car?

Electric motors & batteries are much more efficient than combustion engines. Current engines are about 12-20% efficient, whilst electric motors can be 90%+ efficient.

From then it depends on how efficient your power station, grid and batteries are. The latest Economist quotes, per kWh, a combustion engine can drive 1.5-2.5km, a diesel hybrid 3.2km and an electric car up to 6.3km.

Anyhow, the Chevrolet Volt claims to drive 64km on a charge of 8.8kWh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt

Or about 0.14kWh/km.

CO2 emissions from a coal power station are somewhere between 900-1300g/kWh. Assuming a relatively new power station it's about 900g:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint#Carb...

So a km driven in the Volt on coal powered electricity is just under 125g CO2.

A similar sized car, the UK's Ford Focus Zetex, gets 155g CO2/km. Small cars and hybrids get lower, though.

The UK grid electricity average is about 430g/kWh and in the US it's under 700g. So a Volt in the UK currently gets 60g/km, lower than any marketed petrol or diesel car. In the US it's under 95g.

In France (mostly nuclear) it's something like 15g/km, over 90% lower than the Focus.

CO2 emissions from electricity in many developed nations will probably fall too because of efficiency and global warming concerns.

The UK is planning 30% renewable electricity and a new generation of nuclear power stations, and coal power stations can't be built without capturing part of their carbon.

You're making the assumption that electricity generation is the exact conversion as burning gas in a car. so there is no net advantages to really think electric cars are any better, but shifting the pollution to the coal fired plant.

Actually its slated that most electric cars will be used as daily commuters starting out, and thus will be charged during the evening. Right now the baseline coal, gas and nuclear plants have to operate nearly at a 100% 24/7 because they cannot afford to change the heat levels. Too much variation cracks the waterlines that are very expensive to fix. So the heat is kept the same, so the input of fuels is the same, so what you have right now is a lot of electricity going into the ground because the transmission lines have to stay at 60 hertz whether you flip on a light, or the large industrial company turns on a major piece of equipment. So that energy right now is wasted in the evening, but the same level of fuel is being used. Most baselines are providing around 20-35%, so the other 65-80% goes into the ground during the night without the ability to store it.

Electric cars charging at night will make our baseline generator more efficient, and less gasoline and diesel will be needed, decreasing the level of pollution.

Look at the difference between baseline and peaker generation plants. Baseline fleets often take a long time to get to 100%, and nuclear plants are really slow going, so they do not expend or use energy the same way your foot would on a gas pedal of a car. Therefore it's not a net issue of either gasoline or coal.

The future is even brighter when more renewables are more available. There will be many more homes with assisted loads that could be used to charge the car making fossil burning very little, it hardly necessary, especially if they figure out how to do a fast charge, where you could get 100 miles for say a 10 minute charge.

Well take a look at efficiencies. As an Otto cycle engine, the gasoline engine is theoretically limited to less than 30% efficiency due to the requirement for relatively low compression ratios in order to avoid premature ignition and the formation of nitrous oxides. In practice, gasoline engines are often as low as 15% efficient. Even the old inefficient coal power plants are 37% efficient and the government is mandating that they reach 60% by 2025.

To improve the technology of power generation means addressing a few power plants whereas there are nearly a billion vehicles on the road today. It would be far easier to nudge the electric grid toward a greener future than it would be to transition automobiles in general.

Given that, electric cars suffer from the fact that existing vehicles are not electric hence they have to either be replaced or converted to move to an electric car based future. Again, this could be addressed by simply synthesizing fuels from biomass and other green sources rather than refining it from fossil fuels.

In a sense, gasoline is energy stored chemically just as batteries store energy chemically. Basically gasoline is a battery too, it's just that we're getting our gasoline from energy collected by photosynthesis over millions of years and using it at a rate faster than it was and is being collected.

If we just synthesize gasoline using clean energy as demonstrated by Sandia Labs, we would have all the advantages of electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars without having to replace a billion vehicles or the support infrastructure for them.

Personally, if I could and could find one with the range I needed for the price I could afford, I would buy an electric. The cost per mile is a mere fraction of a gasoline vehicle and there's almost no maintenance. But to benefit the environment, we should be focusing our efforts on how we make the fuel not on replacing all the cars.

Yes, Electric cars are environmentally friendly. A lot of people say that because they are charged using fossil power they are not as good as conventional vehicles. These people are simply speculating and have no basis for their assumptions. Electric cars (typically) save 75% of the emissions of petrol cars - more is saved if renewable electricity is used to recharge the batteries. Additionally, by moving the emission source to power plant, there is less smog on the streets, which lead to all sorts of respitory illnesses. So yes, electric cars are better for the environment! The Tesla is a great car (according to reports). But they have made a big splash for just 200 cars. I wish the impact was great enough to encourage other car makers to do the same. As for Hydrogen (as someone else commented), Hydrogen is not an energy source, but a storage mechanism. It is also very difficult to store. Does anyone else see this as stupid?? While I'm not trying to hinder progress on an alternative energy system, I do not believe the hydrogen economy will work, because, it is based on using Hydrogen as a storage system, when it is so difficult to store hydrogen!! I, personally am going to take the plunge and build myself an electric car and I encourage everyone who has the skills (or can learn the skills) to build one themselves and reduce their dependance on oil!

It's better than a gas car. How much better depends on where you live and how much of your energy comes from coal, but on average in the USA, it's 46%.

See the link below for a summary of studies comparing hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric cars to gas cars.

I don't have a web site for the info you are seeking, but I do know you are on the right track.

Energy derived from coal is just as dirty as burning gasoline. You are trading one source of pollution for another.

Hydro, Solar and Wind generated electric power are probably a greener option but cost a lot more. Then there are the spent batteries we are going to generate. Lithium batteries are not easy or cheap to recycle.

There not that good to the environment. Its a given that it is more healthy to run than a V8, V10 or V12, but the stages it goes through to be built is quite damaging to the environment.

the frame is built in china, then that is shipped over to america or somewhere to get the engine, then its shipped to Japan to get filled with foam and other interior things, then its sent back to China to be finalised and checked over then it goes to all the countries that sell them.

Stupid Idea. Just get a petrol car. or at least a diesel. uggh *shudder* diesel...

electric cars are the future