4 reasons to love electric vehicles (even if you don’t drive one)
The rise of electric vehicles will benefit you whether you drive one or not. Here’s how.
Electric vehicles are driving job growth
Increased demand for electric vehicles is already creating jobs in manufacturing and engineering, not to mention related fields like battery technology.
Research by Environmental Defense Fund and WSP found that the boom has created more than 143,000 new jobs in the U.S. over the last eight years. And there’s more to come.
In the next five years, at least 15 U.S. states will have new factories or production lines to make EVs, batteries and chargers.
They'll decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil
Mass adoption of electric vehicles, coupled with an uptick in domestic renewable energy sources, reduces U.S. reliance on foreign oil. This is important for national security.
If the U.S. doesn’t have to rely on other countries to meet our demand for energy — future energy crises (and the high gas prices that come with them) can be more easily avoided. The faster the shift to electric cars and trucks begins, the faster the nation can make a real dent in the amount of oil the U.S. needs.
More electric vehicles mean cleaner air and healthier kids
Since electric vehicles don’t burn fuel, they don’t produce unhealthy tailpipe pollution. Less pollution from cars and trucks isn’t just a win for the climate. It’s a win for your health.
As you might guess, tailpipe pollution isn’t good for you. It’s linked to asthma, heart disease — even cancer. And the culprit isn’t just cars. In the U.S., diesel trucks and buses make up less than 10% of vehicles on the road, but they’re responsible for more than half of the harmful tailpipe pollution from all road vehicles.
All that pollution has negative health consequences — especially for kids.
Research shows that in neighborhoods where thousands of trucks rumble through on a daily basis, children face twice the risk of developing asthma. And since transportation is the biggest source of America’s climate pollution, electrifying the sector will not only clean up our air, improving the health of millions, it will also tap the brakes on global warming.
Battery breakthroughs could transform transportation
Electric vehicle batteries equipped with bidirectional charging technology can already turn EVs into generators, allowing them to power buildings when the grid goes down, for example in the wake of a hurricane.
Now, with both governments and the auto industry making significant investments in innovation and development, the field is set to take off. Within just a few years, all that money could translate into cleaner, longer-lasting batteries. One innovation which most major automakers are already exploring is a “solid state” battery that could result in an EV with a 1,000-mile range.
Hope for a warming planet
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