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  • Switching to electric cars would help cool down cities

    by 
    Jon Fingas
    Jon Fingas
    03.22.2015

    Electric cars can do more for the environment than cut back on air pollution and fossil fuel use -- they can make sweltering summers more bearable, too. Researchers have determined that EVs create a cooling effect in urban areas, since they aren't producing heat that builds up in traffic jams. That, in turn, reduces the need for air conditioning, which spews out pollution and chews up additional energy. In Beijing, a wholesale switch to electric cars in summer 2012 would have cooled things down enough to eliminate 11,779 tons of air conditioning-related carbon dioxide emissions per day, and 14.4kW of matching electricity use.