I grew up just outside of Detroit, home of the American auto industry. Unsurprisingly, cars have always been of interest to me, so this infographic was a lot of fun to read!
So just how bad are cars for the environment and the earth? Transportation accounts for 20 percent of all global energy use and for 25 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions! Nearly half of these emissions are generated by passenger cars alone!
Luckily electric cars, which do not generate as much emissions, are becoming more popular in America. They grew from a mere 18,000 in 2011 to 62,400 in 2012! And if the Obama administration gets its way, some 1,000,000 electric cars will be sold in 2015.
In Europe, however, they still account for less than 1/10th of a percent of all car sales! Check out the bottom of this infographic for the details regarding electric car sales in various international cities. Looks like America is leading the world in electric car sales!
Anyways, the American government has been pouring cash into electric car technology. Nearly 2.5 billion dollars has been spent on batteries alone. 115 million dollars has been spent thus far to establish electrical charging stations, while 151 million dollars has been spent on building a lithium ion manufacturing plant in the United States!
Electric cars themselves are still quite expensive, wracking up between 30K and 40k per car. Why are they so pricey? Because lithium ion batteries still cost a lot. In fact, the Nissan Leaf is a 36,000 dollar car but its battery along costs nearly 15,000 dollars!
Anyways, hopefully rising electric car sales will help out the U.S. economy! Americans could really use some more jobs. As for the rest of this infographic, make sure you read through all of the data filled charts and graphs!
