Electric cars are becoming increasingly popular every day for all the right reasons! Not only do they save you money on gas, but they’re also great for the environment.
This blog post will cover some of the top benefits electric cars have on the environment. But first, let’s try to understand how they function and differ from fuel-powered vehicles.
How Do Electric Cars Function?
Conventional cars are fuel powered. They get power by burning gas (petrol or diesel) and use an indirect route to move the car. The power first flows to the transmission and drivetrain of the car before the wheels start moving.
This process is slow, consumes extra power, and releases harmful CO2 emissions contributing to environmental damage.
On the other hand, an electric car derives its power from the car’s battery and sends it directly to the wheels. As a result, electric vehicles don’t produce any tailpipe emissions. They have minor carbon emissions from the car’s AC unit, but those are negligible.
This is why experts don’t regard electric vehicles as zero-emission cars but consider them much better for the environment than fuel-powered cars.
Now that you know how electric cars function, let’s get into the benefits they have on the environment!
How Do Electric Cars Benefit The Environment?
Electric cars help keep the environment safe in more than one way:
1)No Carbon Emissions
As stated earlier, electric cars don’t burn gasoline as a power source. They instead use lithium-ion batteries to get started (just like our mobiles and laptops).
Since no combustion is involved, no harmful emissions are released into the atmosphere. This benefits the environment because it doesn’t add to the smog and air pollution like fuel-powered vehicles do.
Plus, it helps slow down climate change by reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
So, if you are an electric vehicle user, you play a small but important role in saving the planet!
2)Lower Maintenance Costs
Electric cars also have lower maintenance costs than fuel-powered cars.
One of the main reasons for this is the presence of fewer parts in electric cars than in fuel-powered cars. For example, electric cars don’t have a combustion engine, spark plugs, valves, or fuel pump.
Since electric cars have fewer parts, fewer things can go wrong, meaning you or the workshop will spend less resources on maintaining an electric car. This will save you money and help reduce our carbon footprint on a bigger scale.
But just because they’re cheaper to maintain doesn’t mean they can’t get damaged. So make sure to get comprehensive car coverage from a reliable provider like NRMA to protect your vehicle from theft and natural disasters.
3)No Noise Pollution
We’re sure you’ve noticed how fuel-powered cars can be pretty loud. They have a combustion engine that often thuds when starting up or when you’re revving the engine. That sound is annoying, disruptive, and adds to the noise pollution, especially in urban areas.
Electric cars don’t make noise when starting up or running, making them much more peaceful and suitable for city driving. This helps reduce noise pollution, making cities more livable and the environment more sustainable for every living being.
Tip: There can be many reasons behind a car’s thumping noises. Get them fixed as soon as you can.
4)Reduced Dependence On Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels, such as gasoline and coal, are non-renewable energy sources. This means that they will eventually run out. And when they do, we’ll be in big trouble!
Electric cars inspire using clean, green energy sources (electricity) and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
How?
Combustion engine cars will always need fuel to run. But, it isn’t readily available, like electric vehicle charging stations. Instead, this fuel is extracted, refined, distributed to gas stations, and then burnt by vehicles, producing more gas emissions. These emissions are called upstream emissions or wheel-to-wheel emissions.
Electric cars can help us avoid this entire process and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Tip: If you have solar panels at your home, you can power your car entirely for free using renewable energy!
5)Continuous R&D To Go Green
One of the best things about electric cars is the research and development that makes them more efficient and greener.
The electric car industry is still relatively new, and there’s a lot of room for improvement. Every year, we see new advances in electric car technology that helps reduce their impact on the environment even further.
Manufacturers are actively working on replacing toxic materials, making cars lighter, and finding new ways to reduce emissions.
However, one of the industry’s biggest challenges is making the battery-production process sustainable. Electric car battery (lithium-ion) production currently adds considerable CO2 to the environment.
But thankfully, companies like Tesla are maximizing their efforts to adopt the recycling of used car batteries. In fact, the company claims to use almost 90% of the components from old batteries, thereby reducing waste.
This is a massive step in the right direction, and we hope to see more such initiatives from other companies in the future.
So, do all these reasons make you think about switching to an electric car? If yes, now may be the right time to explore car loans to finance your next purchase!
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