Thanks for posting. I put a comment on th Daily Mail Website, which I will paste in below. I am no fan of government mandated or subsidized electric cars but particulate pollution is not a good argument FOR gas engines. This study looks like they wanted to get a counter-intuitive result so they could get more publicity.
“Professor Cherry and his team focused on China because of the popularity of electric vehicles. “
Really? Let’s look at the facts:
China has:
1. Among the least efficient electricity production in the world (china’s coal consumption is 50g/KwH more than the world average);
2. Among the highest ratios of coal to other sources such as gas or nuclear;
3. Among the highest rate of transmission losses (7% compared to 2-3% in developed countries);
4. Among the most highly polluting coal plants (on average) in the world. Only half of china’s coal plants have any particulate emissions control equiptment and even those that have it often don’t use it.
So in summary, if you searched the world to find the one place where electirc cars would pollute more than gas ones, you would find it in China.
Try the same study in the US and then let’s start drawing policy implications from this kind of “research”.