Your electric car simply transfers the carbon emissions from the tailpipe to the local powerplant smokestacks (unless your utility uses nukes).
Running an electric car on pure coal is more CO2 efficient than any gasoline car out there. And it's easy to switch to cleaner electricity sources.
That claim is contentious. http://elpc.org/plug-ins#4
>Multiple studies have shown that EVs and PHEVs reduce total pollution compared with conventional gasoline or diesel-fueled vehicles, even when batteries are charged with electricity from coal plants.
I've run the numbers myself several times (simply Google for 1. coal's CO2 output per KWH, 2. miles/KWH, 3. CO2 output per gallon of gasoline), and coal-EV has always come out as a super CO2 efficient way to travel, the equivalent of a 50-60 MPG/car, if I recall correctly.
Do you have any sources of contention for that?