Anyone who read my editorial about the GMC Hummer EV knows I am not personally a fan of this electric pickup truck. Despite that, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) published an article about the Hummer EV that I feel obliged to discuss because it proposes the wrong discussion.
What ACEEE said is that 60% of the electric energy in the U.S. is generated by fossil fuels. The entity concluded that this leads the Hummer EV to indirectly emit 341 grams of CO2 per mile – or 21 g more than the 320-g-CO2/mile gasoline-powered Chevrolet Malibu. The source is an article from Quartz, which presents their source as “Quartz research.” To keep the discussion going, let’s consider our Quartz colleagues did a good job, and the numbers are correct.
For ACEEE, this is evidence that EVs must not be treated as if all of them were carbon neutral. In other words, the entity urges the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “explore ways to factor EV efficiency into fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas standards.” The premise for that request is that “behemoth EVs can still be worse for the environment than smaller, conventional vehicles.”
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