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Several EV writers, including John Voelcker and Nikki Gordon - Bloomfield, have already written <br />detailed rebuttals of the AP article. Those few who read the study itself will find that it is far <br />from an indictment of EVs. Rather, its conclusions serve as a call to continue the trend toward <br />cleaner sources of electricity. <br />"Our assessment... of 10 alternatives to conventional gasoline vehicles finds that EVs powered by <br />electricity from natural gas or wind, water, or solar power are best for improving air quality, <br />whereas vehicles powered by corn ethanol and EVs powered by coal are the worst," wrote co- <br />authors Christopher W. Tessum, Jason D. Hill and Julian D. Marshall. "Our findings thus <br />reinforce the benefit of pairing EVs with clean electricity." <br />While many eagerly seized on the AP's headline as the complete story (and some didn't even <br />trouble to include the word "may "), some at the other end of the spectrum will be reluctant to <br />accept even the assertion that a coal -fired vehicle is dirtier than a gas guzzler. The study does <br />leave unanswered several questions that bear on this point, including: <br />The findings seem to contradict an April 2012 study by the Union of Concerned <br />Scientists, which found that "even when charging an EV with electricity made only from <br />coal, the dirtiest electricity source, the EV has better emissions than the average new <br />compact gasoline vehicle." The two studies may not be using the same sets of figures — <br />the authors of the new study don't specify exactly what they mean by a "gasoline <br />vehicle." Prius, Hummer, or something in between? <br />A coal - powered EV may be a dirty beast, but how many such vehicles are out there? The <br />states with the largest proportion of coal - generated juice (Illinois, Ohio, North Dakota, <br />West Virginia, and Wyoming) have few EVs. California, home to almost half of the <br />nation's pure EVs, gets almost all of its electricity from natural gas, nuclear and <br />renewables. Instead of comparing an ICE vehicle to a hypothetical coal - mobile, would it <br />be more relevant to compare it to the average EV actually on the road today? <br />Sources: AP, Green Car Reports, Transport Evolved, National Academy of Sciences, Energy Information <br />Administration, Union of Concerned Scientists; Images courtesy of Arnold de Leon /Flickr <br />