Page 15 - BBC Focus - August 2017

AUGUST 2017

CAN ELECTRIC CARS SAVE OUR CITIES?

As Volvo announces plans to go all-electric by 2019, transport expert Ian Walker

weighs up the environmental pros and cons

Volvo is the first major car company to There’s also a host of issues that
announce that all its cars will soon have electrification, at best, addresses to such a
electric motors. None of its new models marginal degree that it’s hardly worth the
will rely solely on internal combustion bother. Take noise pollution. This is a far
after 2019, and other manufacturers are bigger public health problem than you
presumably not far behind. So what does would believe, contributing to conditions
this mean for the environment, and for our like hypertension, sleep disorders, and
congested cities? Are electric cars really as behavioural problems in children. But
eco-friendly as we’re led to believe? above even modest speeds, the noise from
There is one area where electrification cars is mostly from the tyres, not the
clearly brings an advantage, and that is engine. Research we’ve carried out at
exhaust emissions. Fumes from vehicles Bath, with colleagues from Trinity College
are implicated in around 40,000 Head of Volvo Dublin, showed that even if vehicles went
premature UK deaths every year, with Hakan Samuelsson at 100 per cent electric overnight, the noise
around 9,000 in London alone. Diesel the announcement issue would be only very slightly reduced.
fumes are a major issue here, although Hardly a ringing endorsement.
petrol is hardly benign. Vehicle emissions But perhaps the greatest public health
cause a host of unpleasant conditions, issue of our age is one that electrification
including cancer, heart disease, diabetes “GOING ELECTRIC completely fails to address: physical
and Alzheimer’s. Shifting to electric inactivity. The way we build and run our
vehicles has the potential to change this WOULD DO towns and cities means that it’s easy, and
dramatically, especially in urban areas. socially acceptable, to drive short
There is also the possibility that electric NOTHING TO REDUCE distances. At least a quarter of English car
cars, in the long term, might introduce a journeys are under two miles, usually
virtuous cycle of energy efficiency. CONGESTION” taking up precious road space by carrying
Electric motors are not as heavy as their around several empty seats. These are
oil-powered ancestors, which means the journeys that in most cases would be
overall vehicle can be lighter. In a country Given their potential advantages – and quicker, cheaper and a great deal healthier
where most vehicles have become lighter, the lack of urban pollution is one that’s and less congesting if walked or cycled.
the damage from impacts is reduced. This particularly appealing – it would be easy The guilt-free nature of electric cars could
means cars need less protective armour, to become highly enthusiastic about even make this slightly worse.
which makes them even lighter, so they electric cars. Many people already have. There are certainly advantages to a
need even less energy to get around, which Governments might even be tempted to change like Volvo’s, particularly when it
further reduces their damage, and so on… subsidise them to encourage a rapid comes to reducing urban pollution. But all
Finally, there is the possibility of uptake. But before we rush headlong into we are being offered at the moment is the
reduced carbon emissions, although this an electric future, it’s important to chance to replace cars’ engines, not to look
one is a bit less clear-cut. The carbon cost consider any possible downsides too. at the way we use cars in society. This
of electricity entirely depends on how it’s The main issue is that cars – both by means that we fail to work towards towns
generated. I’m writing this on an overcast, their intrinsic design and by the way we and cities that are truly healthier, safer
still day, and right now 49.4 per cent of UK use them – are associated with a broad and more welcoming, and we fail to free
electricity is from burning gas. Charging a range of problems that, at best, will be rural communities from their car
car now would be far less green than untouched by taking out a combustion dependence. There’s a sense in which
charging it when it’s sunny or windy. The engine and replacing it with an electric electric cars are old milk in new bottles.
greenness of electric vehicles, then, motor. Going electric would do nothing to Really we should be asking far more
depends either on people’s willingness to reduce congestion – indeed, it could fundamental questions about how and
hold off charging them until conditions plausibly make it worse if pollutionless why we travel rather than just what sort of
are good (which, based on some of our driving starts to feel ‘guilt-free’. engines our cars have.
research at the University of Bath, looks Electrification also fails to address the
unlikely) or a breakthrough in battery issue of where we store cars when they’re Dr Ian Walker is a psychologist at the University
technology that allows energy to be stored not being used – and when you think of Bath who specialises in traffic safety, transport
efficiently from good days to bad days. about it, that’s almost all the time. choices and energy consumption.

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