Investigating The Effect of Expanding The Use of Electric Cars On The Environment: A Case Study From Scotland

This paper investigates that expansion of the use of electric cars on the environment; a situation in which all of the lightweight vehicles that use an internal combustion engine are replaced by electric cars in Scotland. The idea is to estimate whether it would have a positive impact on the environment. The methodology is based on analysing the most common electric and conventional vehicles helped to estimate the amount of additional electricity that would be needed to charge that expansion. The paper has also looked at the running costs. The results show that approximately 4,066 GWh per year of additional electricity will be needed to compensate for such expansion. With that rise in electricity production, the amount of carbon emissions from the electrical grid will increase slightly by 0.47 megatons CO2 per year. Given that the carbon dioxide generated by the light internal combustion vehicles at the moment is 3.6 megatons of CO2 per year, it is concluded that the total amount of greenhouse gases will decrease if all electric cars in Scotland are replaced by electric cars. The initial cost of an electric car is found to be higher than the conventional one, but in the long term, recharging an electric vehicle will be much cheaper.