Even though the electric cars seem like a great alternative to gas powered vehicles, manufacturing great numbers of them is still not that much better for the environment. According to Bjorn Lomborg's article in the Wall Street Journal, the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere when making one electric powered car is over twice as much as that for conventional cars. A whopping 30,000 tons per electric car and 14,000 per gas powered car. It does mention that gas powered cars produce 95,000 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 100,000 miles, but partially electric run cars such as the prius produce 38,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. The difference of carbon dioxide released being 41,000 pounds (95,000+14000-38000+30000).That is a big difference but is it really enough to stop global warming? I think changing from gas powered cars to electric cars is the first step we can take but people should still look for alternatives for transportation. According to bloomberg.com Scientists in Israel have invented a car that runs on water that gets 1000 miles per gallon. Th ere hasn't been any information released yet about the amount of carbon dioxide this car produces, but it is promising and is an example that there are always way to keep improving and lower our carbon footprint.

Good idea

Great idea Borami! I think that having more electric powered cars would be great, but what about the impact of making them?  I feel like the manufacturing of the car and the use of the car would just cancel out the carbon emissions and not really alleviate them. And what about the constant demand of the cars. Do you think that the manufacturing of the electric powered cars would have more of an impact on the environment than continuing  to use gas powered cars?

i think that's a good idea

In terms of making cars, electric or gas, I think it all depends on how the company chooses to conduct its processes. Even if manufacturing electric cars creates more CO2 when compared to the average gas car, in the long run a gas car's total will be much higher than one from an electric. In the US, the average car age is about 11.4 years, which, if we apply it to the average mileage per year of 12,000, means that one gas car, over 12 years produces about 136,800 pounds of CO2. Hybrid cars, for example what Borami stated, the Prius, which produces about 38,000 pounds, will dratically lower the amounts of carbon dioxide produced. Then when you factor in fully electric cars, since extremely low amounts of CO2 are produced from them, the overall carbon footprint will decrease.