There’s an urgent need to use less fossil fuels, and that includes cutting down on how much gasoline we put in our cars. Does that mean longstanding ideas about what counts as “good gas mileage” are out of date?
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Today, we’re tackling a simple question: what is good gas mileage anymore? Meg Talikoff and Christine Okulo from our Possibly Team are here to fill us in. Hey guys!
Christine Okulo: Hey!
Meg Talikoff: Hi Megan!
Megan Hall: So, my instinct is that you want as many miles per gallon as possible, right?
Christine Okulo: Yeah, that’s true. But it turns out, there’s a little more to it than that.
Megan Hall: Okay! Tell me more.
Meg Talikoff: First, let’s have a tiny refresher on why gas mileage even matters.
Costa Samaras: The transportation sector, how we move around, how we get our things delivered, is the largest portion of US greenhouse gas emissions right now.
Christine Okulo: That’s Costa Samaras—he directs the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University. He also used to work on clean energy for the White House.
Meg Talikoff: Costa recently co-authored a paper that showed that unless we really reduce our transportation emissions, it’s going be hard to keep climate change in check.
Megan Hall: What do you mean? What aren’t we doing that we need to be doing?
Christine Okulo: To meet our climate goals, the transportation sector in 2050 should only generate 10-20% of the emissions that it did in 2005.
Meg Talikoff: One of the simplest ways to make that happen is to switch over to electric vehicles.
Christine Okulo: But we’d have to make that change really fast. We really couldn’t be selling anything other than electric cars after around 2035.
Megan Hall: Wow, that seems really soon! Is that likely to happen?
Meg Talikoff: In some places! For example, 50% of all new car sales in China right now are electric or plug-in hybrids.
Christine Okulo: But the US is not going that fast. As Costa says,
Costa Samaras: We will always need to go faster. There is no possible way that we’re going fast enough, because we have to get to zero emissions as soon as possible.
Megan Hall: Okay, so we have a ways to go. But it’s also really abstract. Can you translate the big-picture issues into steps that each of us can actually take?
Christine Okulo: Yes! Let’s get back to gas mileage.
Meg Talikoff: The reality is that we need a framework shift. No gas mileage is good gas mileage, because we need to go electric.
Megan Hall: So, we have to get rid of all of 0ur gas-powered cars?
Christine Okulo: Eventually, yes. But nobody is telling people to throw away perfectly good conventional cars to get electric ones.
Meg Talikoff: Don’t stress about filling the tank you already have, just when the time comes to make a switch, get the most efficient car you can.
Costa: Hopefully it’s electric. Maybe it’s plug-in hybrid. Maybe it’s hybrid. The jump to a new car should be as clean as possible for each individual household, that makes sense for them.
Christine Okulo: That’s the first step toward making your car emissions closer to zero.
Megan Hall: What do you mean by closer? I thought electric cars didn’t create emissions.
Meg Talikoff: Well, nothing comes out of the tailpipe, but electricity has to come from somewhere. Unless that source is renewable, it creates emissions.
Christine Okulo: But no matter where your electricity comes from, in almost every case, electric cars create fewer emissions.
Megan Hall: Why?
Meg Talikoff: Electric motors are just way more efficient than gas motors. You can see just how much more efficient by looking at the number of miles per kilowatt hour an EV gets.
Christine Okulo: Plus, as we get more of our electricity from sources like wind and solar power, greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity we use to run our EVs will drop even further.
Meg Talikoff: Thanks to a bunch of recent policies, buying an electric car shouldn’t be more expensive than buying a conventional one.
Christine Okulo: And fueling your car with electricity is consistently cheaper than filling up your tank with gas.
Meg Talikoff: The decisions we make about the new vehicles now will make a huge difference because cars last a really long time. The car you get tomorrow could be on the road in 2040.
Christine Okulo: So, when the time comes to get a new car, you can do your part by going electric.
Megan Hall: Alright, sounds good! Thanks, Meg and Christine.That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or X at “askpossibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.
The post What is good gas mileage anymore? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.