In an effort to bring all sides of the story here on our site, we are presenting another research study about plug-in vehicles and hydrogen vehicles.  If you have followed the previous articles regarding the National Research Council study titled "PHEVs and EVs To Cost Tens of Thousands More Than Gasoline Counterparts for Next 20 to 30 Years", and the follow up article titled, "National Research Council Report on PHEVs and EVs May Be Biased", then you are aware that there is some controversy surrounding the research.

As many have pointed out, and our follow up articles points out, the research may be biased.  Click the links above for the previous stories.  There is always more than one side to a story and now new research finds EVs to be better than hydrogen in at least one way.

Now there's new research from a different group and this research suggests that EVs could be cleaner than gasoline powered cars, while some types of hydrogen powered vehicles are likely to be more harmful to the environment that gasoline vehicles.  The study was published in Science Direct.  The study looks at emissions of each vehicle type from start to finish.  For example, how is the electricity created, how is the hydrogen created and what is the overall impact of each source of motivation.

The research concludes with a statement that won't make fans of hydrogen vehicles happy.  As Green Car Congress reports directly from the study, ""All of the pathways except for [fuel cell vehicles] using hydrogen from electrolysis reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions compared to ICEs and [hybrid electric vehicles]."

The author of the study also states that energy to charge EVs may come from inefficient and dirty sources but,  the impact on the environment is still lessened overall as compared to gasoline vehicles.

There are several ways to conduct research into advanced vehicles and different studies seem to show different results.  Some suggest that hydrogen is the cleaner solution while others suggest that EV are.  This report provides evidence that EVs can be more environmentally friendly than  some hydrogen vehicles, but all of the studies should be viewed with caution.

Source:   Science Direct via Green Car Congress