The world has been dreaming about a convenient and energy conserving means of transportation for centuries. Nowadays, scientists managed to invent electric cars and their hybrids which unlike fuel-based vehicles use the alternative sources of energy. Therefore, it is considered that these inventions introduce a new eco-friendly way of using energy without polluting the atmosphere. Moreover, the newly-produced vehicles are said to reduce manufactory emissions. However, albeit the received opinion electric cars are not so eco-friendly as they seem due to high carbon footprint and a considerable influence on global warming.

Many proprietors of electric transport consider these vehicles an important and useful step forward towards eco-friendly future. Moreover, it is cheaper to charge an electric vehicle than a fossil-fuel propelled one. Among other benefits of eco-friendly means of transporting is that they produce no tailpipe emissions especially models based on nuclear, solar, hydro, or wind power. The most obvious advantage of electric cars is zero tail emissions which will help to reduce pollution. In addition, due to the green source of energy these vehicles do not make much hassle on the road, and at the same time convert more energy than traditional ones. Therefore, the government offers benefits for those who uphold a good topics for argumentative essays and  eco-friendly program and encourage them by decreasing taxes for charging and proposing special parking lots. Moreover, it is comfortable to refill the car even at night because the electric grid is available everywhere.

Another opinion suggests that electric cars can have even a worse impact on the environment than the conventional ones. Among the popular electric cars are Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, Tesla Model S, and Ford Focus Electric. Media reports state that hybrid batteries demand rare-earths, many hybrid SUVs have lower gas mileage (23 mpg) than conventional compact cars. Moreover, such electric vehicles are pronounced to have zero emissions but it is not completely true. The thing is that society does not take into account the fact that power plant generating electricity to fill the batteries for the cars produce dangerous emissions. Especially, it concerns vehicles which batteries work from energy produced of carbon dioxide. Despite the fact that many producers of electricity for cars use solar or water energy, there are ones working on coal only. Unfortunately, most of the vehicles are charged with energy produced in such a disastrous way. Therefore, such countries like Paraguay, Iceland, Sweden, and Brazil have an advantage to fill their transport using alternative sources of energy, for example, hydroelectricity. In these countries, electric cars can considerably reduce the pollution and be rightly considered eco-friendly ones. However, India, China, South Africa, Australia, and Indonesia have the highest rates of carbon emissions. The carbon emissions of grid power electric vehicles are four times greater in countries with coal-dominated power generation.

The world has been looking for a new way to save our planet from air pollution and global warming for centuries. The solution is the invention of electric cars and their hybrids which is estimated to reduce and even eliminate emissions in the atmosphere in comparison to other cars. However, electric transport turns out to be less eco-friendly than it seems. The reason is that they may pollute our planet even more than internal combustion vehicles depending on how they are charged and the area of functioning. Thus, the well-known eco-friendliness of electric cars is overestimated.