The Electric Vehicle Transition Could Improve Human Health

The switch to electric vehicles and a greener power grid could cut deaths from car pollution in the U.S. to a quarter of today’s numbers, new research finds.

Today, pollution from the tailpipes of light-duty vehicles leads to approximately 3,000 deaths per year in the U.S. This number is expected to decline to approximately 1,800 per year by 2050 even without electric vehicles, according to the new study, as older cars reach the end of their lifetimes and are replaced by newer vehicles held to stricter emissions standards. But electrifying the passenger car fleet with a renewable-energy power grid could further decrease this number to only 800 deaths a year.

“With electric vehicles taking over in the next ten to 15 years, we continue to see declining trends in air-quality-related mortality,” says Jean Schmitt, a postdoctoral researcher in environmental engineering at the Univ. of Toronto who led the new study. Without electric vehicles, he adds, the benefits plateau.

The transition to electric vehicles is a key part of policy efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and thus, climate change. But transitioning from gasoline to electric vehicles will also reduce tailpipe emissions of pollutants like nitrogen oxides and particulate matter of 2.5 µm or less in diameter (PM2.5). This should have positive health impacts, because these pollutants increase the risk of stroke, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other deadly conditions.

The exact effect has been difficult to predict, however, because the impact depends on factors ranging from how electricity is produced to the speed at which gasoline vehicles are replaced by battery-powered cars and trucks. The new research takes a dynamic approach to the question,...