MIT Study Finds Gas Cars Aren't Secretly Better For The Planet Than EVs, Despite What Everyone On Facebook Says

Anyone who's spent much time on social media already knows that if you really think about it, electric cars are secretly terrible for the environment, and true leftist commies who want to "save the planet" or whatever should stick to gas. Those are just facts, confirmed by your high school gym teacher, that college buddy who dropped grad school to become a chiropractor, and anyone driving a deleted diesel. Sadly, not everyone trusts Facebook science, like these researchers at MIT whose new study shows that, across the board, EVs in the U.S. pollute less than gas cars do. Yeah, ok. Sure.

Obviously, since we're talking about a bunch of college kids, they know nothing about the real world, but a book that AI summarized for me said to know your enemy, so let's take a look at what this so-called "study" that used data gathered from every zip code in the U.S. found:

In most locations, BEVs save 40%–60% of emissions compared to ICEVs, though these values can vary substantially at the extremes (0–4700 kgCO₂eq yr⁻¹ or 0%–82%). The electricity mix is the most important contributor to these regional variations, leading to more uniform and greater emissions reductions if the electricity supply decarbonizes. Regional driving patterns mean that PHEVs achieve 80%–90% of the emissions savings of BEVs in urban areas and 60% in rural areas, assuming regular charging. Individual driving patterns can, however, lead to as much variability in emission savings and costs of EVs as all regional factors combined.

See? Even those Massachusetts Tech students admit that under extreme conditions, EVs might not emit less pollution than gas-powered cars, and some of the ways U.S. Americans generate electricity can also be dirty. Checkmate, atheists. Now bring on the downvotes.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with going to college. I'd definitely rather my kids spend two years at Massachusetts Tech than waste my boat money chasing one of those useless four-year degrees. But this is just ridiculous:

We note that our modeling framework does not presently incorporate forecasts of how certain conditions can change over time. If the emission intensity of electricity continues to decrease, as it has over the past decade, the emissions reductions from BEV adoption could be significantly higher than shown here.

Change how we generate electricity to dump less pollution into the air, causing fewer heart attacks and giving fewer kids lung conditions? All to give EVs an unfair advantage like that? Maybe in Europe, but not here in America. And to further highlight just how ridiculous this "study" is, they can't even decide if plug-in hybrids are 100% good or 100% bad, which we know are the only two options. Supposedly, "PHEVs achieve 80%–90% of the emissions savings of BEVs in urban areas," but then they say it's only "60% in rural areas" and add the caveat "assuming regular charging." We're supposed to just believe a hybrid magically knows to pollute less in a city? I know I look young, but I wasn't born yesterday. But at least they admit EVs are completely useless in winter:

While cold winters have a larger relative impact (in percentage terms) on BEV fuel economy than on ICEV fuel economy, the absolute impact on fuel efficiency (measure by the energy required per distance) is more similar, meaning that only the most extreme climates have a substantial impact on the emission reductions achieved by BEVs. And while the fuel economy of BEVs may be reduced by 50% or more on a particularly cold day at night, such conditions do not regularly exist during the day and throughout the year in any location.

See, if you only focus on the most extreme, temporary weather conditions, an EV can't go anywhere. Well, anywhere further than the 150 miles or so the battery's still good for without a charge. If you're racing from Texarkana to Atlanta in those conditions, there's no way you'll make it in 28 hours or less. It's just all so ridiculous. What we really should have done is made the Car Talk guys president. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that those two would never have forced me to listen to what some MIT grad thinks.