Page 86 - Motor Trend (April 2020)

NEWS I OPINION I GOSSIP I STUFF

Angus MacKenzie
The Big Picture

There’s No Silver Bullet When

It Comes to Driving Green

ou don’t have to poke around the dingier corners and soul, of delivering freedom and adventure beyond
of the internet to wonder whether we’re barreling the imagination of our ancestors a mere 150 years ago.
toward a new Dark Age, where superstition once The problem is, there is no one vehicle or powertrain
again supplants science. concept that neatly solves the climate change conun-
Y These might be strange days, indeed, on planet drum, no silver bullet technology that’ll magically enable
Earth, but the vast and complex machinery of the us all to drive greener. And that includes electric vehicles,
universe grinds on regardless, and our precious little blue because unless you’re plugging into a grid powered
world is beholden to its laws, not our beliefs. Jump out entirely by nuclear, geothermal, or renewable energy
of a tree, and you’ll hit the ground. Travel in a straight sources, the energy going into the battery has come from
line, and you’ll eventually end up where you started. Put burning fossil fuels.
more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and you’ll For more than three decades now, people have been
change the climate. asking me what sort of vehicle they should buy. My first
There, I said it. response has always been, “What do you want to use
Climate change is a fact, not a political statement. If it for?” Right tool, right job; it’s always been a sound
you listen carefully, the climate change debate is not guiding principle when deciding on a daily driver. Today
a debate over a process that has been proven to be as it’s arguably more important than ever.
ancient and elemental as the planet itself. It’s a debate Not that long ago, almost everything on America’s
about whether we contribute to it. And here the answer roads was powered by an internal combustion engine
is clear and inescapable. that burned gasoline. Now you can buy vehicles with
Carbon dioxide is an inevitable byproduct of burning mild and plug-in hybrid gasoline-electric powertrains, as
fossil fuels. Coal, natural gas, diesel, jet-A, gasoline. EPA well as ones powered by diesels, electric motors, and even
numbers show the average light-duty passenger vehicle hydrogen fuel cells. None is perfect. But used the right
in the U.S. emits more than 14 ounces way, each has the potential to help reduce the
of carbon dioxide per mile traveled. automobile’s contribution to climate change.
As of 2017 there were more than If you live in a crowded urban area and
270 million such vehicles on America’s have a regular commute in heavy stop-and-go
roads, and figures published by the U.S. traffic, then an electric vehicle, whose highly
Energy Information Administration efficient motors only use energy when the
show they collectively traveled more than 2.8 trillion vehicle actually moves, makes a lot of sense as a daily
miles in just 2017. You do the math. Then multiply the driver. If you regularly cruise long distances on the
answer by four to get a rough idea of how much carbon interstates, the much-maligned diesel, which is extremely
dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere each year by cars, efficient at constant throttle, is a good option. The best
SUVs, and pickups around the globe. all-arounder? The gas-electric plug-in hybrid, coming
Yeah, we contribute. versions of which will offer up to 60 miles of pure electric
If you’re a member of MotorTrend Nation, then, like us, range around town and, thanks to motor assistance, the
you can’t imagine life without the automobile. It might be efficiency of a diesel on the highway.
more expensive, more regulated, and more complex than Yes, a plug-in hybrid is heavy and not the most effi-
ever, but the modern automobile is—with all its faults, its ciently packaged, because you have to carry around a
capacity to maim and kill and congest and pollute—still battery as well as an internal combustion engine. But
a wondrous thing, capable of transporting both body right now, it’s probably the closest thing we have to an
automotive Leatherman. Q

86 MOTORTREND.COM APRIL 2020