Electric cars cut back on air pollution

The argument

The case rests on a difference in how the two kinds of vehicle are propelled and on what each therefore emits at the point of use. A conventional car produces its motion by burning fuel inside the engine, and combustion generates exhaust. An electric car produces its motion from electricity delivered to a motor, with no burning taking place in the vehicle at all. Because there is nothing being combusted, there is no exhaust stream, which is why proponents say that unlike regular cars, electric cars don't produce air pollution: the absence is structural rather than a matter of how clean a given engine is. Why that matters follows from what the emissions do. Over the years, air pollution, such as carbon monoxide, has caused health problems and, on this account, destroyed the earth's atmosphere. The health effects fall most heavily where the pollution is produced, which for road transport means the streets people live and walk on. Each conventional car contributes a small amount continuously, and the cumulative effect of an entire vehicle fleet is what turns individually negligible emissions into a serious problem. That structure is also what makes the remedy work by substitution rather than by restraint. Since electric cars use electricity to function and so don't produce carbon monoxide, every replacement removes a source outright rather than merely reducing it, and no change in how much people drive is required for the benefit to be realised. Scaled up, the effect is held to be decisive: if most of the global population used electric cars, the ozone layer would stop degrading. Because electric cars cut back on air pollution, proponents conclude, people should switch to them for the environment.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Although electric cars don’t produce carbon monoxide, they still require fossil fuels to operate. Power plants use fossil fuels to create electricity. This means that harmful fumes are still being released into the atmosphere. Therefore, the idea of electric cars as an environment friendly car is flawed.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Although electric cars don’t produce air pollution, the electricity it needs is made from burning fossil fuels. [Rejecting P3] Using electric cars globally would increase the amount of fossil fuels used in power plants.