The Department of Engineering Studies for Innovation at the Ibero-American University revealed that, currently, in Mexico, electric cars are more polluting than gasoline cars. According to Enrique Healy Wehlen, a master's degree holder in industrial engineering from the institution, although electric cars do not emit pollutants from the exhaust pipe, if the electricity used to charge them comes from fossil fuel-based energy sources such as coal or natural gas, they are indirectly more polluting than internal combustion vehicles.
In Mexico, 75% of electric energy is generated from fossil resources, which are highly polluting, while only 25% comes from renewable resources. In this scenario, a gasoline car emits 16 kg of CO2 for every 100 km, while an electric vehicle emits 19 kg of CO2 over the same distance due to the use of dirty fuels in electricity generation.
Healy Wehlen pointed out that if Mexico could emulate the capacity of countries like Spain or France, where a high percentage of produced energy is clean and renewable, electric cars would be much less polluting. Currently, the demand for electric energy in Mexico already exceeds the installed capacity of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), and increasing it to accommodate more use of electric cars would entail an increase in fossil fuel burning.
One of the additional challenges facing electric cars is the use of non-renewable lithium batteries, whose production and disposal generate high environmental costs. The energy consumption of an electric car is significantly higher than that of a conventional home, which would imply a considerable increase in electric demand with the mass adoption of these vehicles in the country. In this regard, the current infrastructure would not be prepared to meet this growing energy demand, which could lead to increased use of fossil fuels and a negative impact on the environment.
