Question: Hi Sam, you seem like a good person to ask this question to. Do electric cars really save the environment? I've heard that production of batteries for these cars release quite a lot of CO2, but does the zero emissions of the car make up for this?

Sam Smith answered on 21 May 2020:

Hi Omar, thanks for the question (and the compliment)!

Electric cars definitely do help protect the environment. There will be a massive reduction in the emissions that transport gives out when electric vehicles fully replace vehicles using petrol or diesel. Although producing batteries does give off carbon dioxide, the reduction in CO2 and other gases that electric vehicles will bring will out-weigh this. Additionally using electric vehicles will hugely improve air quality in the world’s urban areas (such as central London) which are hardest hit by local air pollution. The plants used to build the batteries can be built away from populated areas, and will contain a range of measures to reduce the amount of CO2 and other gases they give off, making these emissions more controllable than those given off by transport. One thing we will have to to deal with is the emissions from the production of electricity to fuel these vehicles, but this should not stop us going to electric cars, as many of the worlds nations are naturally moving towards forms of energy that produce less CO2 and other gases. It just means that in nations using a lot of coal at the moment, they will need to be careful to move to electric cars at the same time as they move away from coal and natural gas power stations.
Hopefully that answered your question!