OPINION
BY DAVID HUMPHRIES, Sophomore
Electric cars are the future and if that future does not come soon enough, then long coming consequences will occur soon.
An area of the world where consequences are becoming more apparent is in China.
According to a resident of China, the oxygen in the air is getting thinner and thinner as it is replaced with carbon emissions. It gets harder and harder to breath, to the point that going outside is not safe.
This repercussion of pollution is a reality that people in highly polluted areas such as China have to go through and is a possible fate for the United States with the increase of pollution sources in the country.
According to JP Morgan, 20 percent of the matter found in the polluted air is from cars, and that is just in the capital of China, Beijing. Across the whole country cars account for 27 percent of the total emissions found in the air.
Car manufacturers are currently researching ways to reduce the carbon emissions produced by cars. One way this is being done is through the reburning of fumes within the car to decrease the amount released. Another way is placing a filter inside the exhaust of the car.
Filters sometimes do not help, but can actually cause more emissions to be produced due to them blocking the air to the engine which produces more emissions.
¨Cars produce emissions regardless of filters and not much can be done to decrease the amount produced,¨ said Daniel Burke, science teacher.
Filters that do not work are not what we need, a reliable source to decrease carbon emissions is what we need.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, electric vehicles produce lower emissions than the average gasoline-powered car. Even if the car is charged using a coal-powered electricity grid, the electric vehicles still produce lower emissions.
UCS also said electric vehicles that are charged using the cleanest electricity grid still produced less pollution than gas-powered cars.
If the majority of people in the world switched to electric-powered vehicles, then the overall global emissions would decrease. In the United States alone, there are around 210 million drivers.
The switch from gas to electric-powered vehicles would lead to a positive impact worldwide.
¨Large countries would see a lowering in their total emissions if the majority of people switched from gas-powered cars to electric-powered cars,¨ Burke said.
Producers of large amounts of carbon emissions such as China, Russia, and the United States would see a drop in their total emissions.
However, electric cars are not the only alternative.
Currently research is being done on solar powered cars.
A solar powered car is currently being produced by an electric vehicle startup called EVX Ventures located in Melbourne, Australia.
According to EVX Ventures, a vehicle named ¨The Immortus,¨ which is being priced at around $370,000, is currently being designed which would be able to be driven forever as long as the sun is shining and the driver does not exceed 37 miles per hour.
EVX Ventures says the car is able to do this through it being covered with 86 square feet of solar panels, and it also has a low mass which allows the car to not have to work as hard.
¨The Immortus¨ is far from being ready though, but a scaled down model is said to be unveiled soon.
Solar-powered cars are a ways away from being a reality and would also cost more money than the majority of people are willing to pay for.
Since solar-powered cars are not currently a reality, the most logical choice is to switch to electric-powered cars. Electric-powered cars are priced at an average price of $32,769.
These cars would help lower global emissions through their use of clean energy and would help us avoid a future where even going outside would be injurious to our health.
