OBQ: Do electric cars really harm the environment less than gasoline-powered cars?

MITEI Energy UROP Penelope Swain ’29 quantified energy burden across the United States to aid the evaluation of policies incentivizing solar energy and electric vehicles.

The Trump administration recently scaled back fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, which are meant to reduce gasoline consumption and speed the shift to electric vehicles. Economists have disputed the calculations behind this decision, including Christopher Knittel (MIT Sloan), who said, “If you do the analysis right, we found that revoking these standards does not save consumers money.”