Toxic Pollution From EVs
The New York Times claims that electric vehicles are “nonpolluting” and “cleaner” than gasoline-powered cars.
IN FACT, at least 5 recent studies have found that EVs emit more toxic or cancer-causing pollutants over their lifecycles than gasoline-powered cars:
- A study published by the Journal of Cleaner Production in 2021 found that manufacturing, charging, operating, and disposing of electric vehicles produces significantly more of every major category of pollutants than conventional cars, including fine particulate matter, human carcinogenic toxicity, human non-carcinogenic toxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity, and marine ecotoxicity.
- A study published by the journal Science of the Total Environment in 2022 found that the environmental impacts of battery-powered electric vehicles are “better only concerning greenhouse” gases, while their “other” emissions are “similar and/or higher” than “other powertrain cars,” including “definitively higher” “cancer effects” for EVs.
- A study published by the journal Materials Today: Proceedings in 2022 found that the adoption of electric vehicles reduces “greenhouse gas emissions” but increases “human toxicity” levels “due to the larger use of metals, chemicals and energy for the production of powertrain, and high voltage batteries.”
- A study published by the journal Energies in 2024 found that the “mining, vehicle production, and operational and disposal processes” of electric vehicles all emit more “harmful substances” than that of internal combustion engine vehicles.
- A study published by the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews in 2025 found that electric vehicles are three times “worse” for “human toxicity” than internal combustion engine vehicles, based on a “systematic literature review” of 60 prominent peer-reviewed articles.
Frequent claims by journalists, activists, and politicians that electric vehicles are “nonpolluting,” “zero-emission,” or “cleaner” than gasoline-powered cars are rooted in 3 sophomoric fallacies:
- They fail to measure all pollutants emitted over the lifecycles of the cars, such as “raw material extraction, material transportation, ultimate product disposal, etc.”
- They ignore all pollutants which don’t come out of a tailpipe, such as “tire wear, brake wear, road surface wear and resuspension of road dust.”
- They conflate carbon dioxide, a clean organic non-carcinogenic gas, with toxic pollutants like carbon monoxide and black carbon.
