Your gas car works fine. Consider an EV anyway, scientists say.
A few years ago, environmental scientist Elliot Campbell went around asking people why they would, or would not, switch to an electric vehicle. A surprising number of them asked him a question in return: Because building an EV generates emissions, isn’t it better for the planet just to keep my gas car running for as long as possible?
Campbell, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, didn’t know the answer, so he set out to find it. Turns out the old adage that the greenest car is the one in your driveway is a myth. In fact, his study, published today in the journal Science, finds that swapping even a two-year-old gas car for an EV leads to a lifetime emissions savings of roughly 50 percent.
Not everyone can afford to ditch a nearly new car, of course. …