From SanFranciscoEVA

Choose a car to stabilize the climate and your wallet.

The technologies exist to clean the air, stabilize the climate and maintain our standard of living while saving money all at the same time. By relying on clean renewable technologies we can eliminate the U.S. trade deficit, achieve energy independence and eliminate much of the reason for war. By adding more batteries to hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), we could build plug-in hybrids (PHEV) that offer the range of gas vehicles (400 miles) with the environmental benefits of electric vehicles (EVs) for short trips. The main assumptions used to produce the values in the chart below are:

1. The average cost of gasoline over the next year will be approximately $2.50/gallon.
2. The Time of Use (TOU) rate for nighttime electrical charging is $0.05/kWh.
3. There are about 40 kWh of energy in a gallon of gasoline.
4. Burning 1 gallon of gasoline produces approximately 23 lbs. of CO2.
5. All gas or hybrid vehicles hold 5 passengers and have a 350-mile gas range. The EV in this example--GM’s EV1-runs 120 miles with no gas at all.

Vehicle Type	$ Gas 50 Mi./Day	kWh 50 Mi./Day	$/Month 50 Mi./Day	Tons of CO2/Year Tailpipe	+Tons of Upstream CO2/Year[1]
10 MPG Gas	12.50	200	375.00	21	27.3
20 MPG Gas	6.25	100	188.00	10.5	13.6
30 MPG Gas	4.17	67	125.00	7	9.1
40 MPG Gas	3.13	50	94.00	5.2	6.8
50 MPG Gas	2.50	40	75.00	4.2	5.5
40 MPG PHEV w/25 Mile EV Range	1.56 for 25 Miles	10 for 25 Miles	62.00	2.5	3
PHEV w/50 Mile EV Range		22	33.00	ZERO	.4
EV1, 120-mile Range (built & crushed by GM)		12	18.00	ZERO	.2

1. ↑ This column includes upstream CO2 emissions for exploration, extraction, transport, refining and distribution of gasoline, as well as CO2 emissions from the California mix of power plants that produce electricity to charge electric vehicles.

Experts suggest that in order to stabilize climate change the US population must reduce its total CO2 emissions to below 2.5 tons/person/year. Even this low number assumes that most developing countries will keep their CO2 emissions below 1 ton/person/year. This means that for every full-size SUV driver in the U.S. producing 30 tons of CO2/year there must be 18 people producing less than 1 ton/year to stabilize climate change. PHEVs could offer zero emissions for every-day commuting and the convenience of traveling 300-400 miles on one tank of fuel for trips over the battery's capacity. Long trips are relatively infrequent, so PHEVs could decrease overall gas consumption by 90%. EVs are the cleanest cars, especially if the electricity comes from solar power (not shown).

By Steve Heckeroth, steve [at] renewables [dot] com, and adapted by Sherry Boschert, shaalub [at] yahoo [dot] com.