As electric vehicles become more common, many students at RCMS believe climate change will begin to improve.

“Climate change is a major problem that will heavily affect the future generations, especially our generation,” said Arjun Chitla, a seventh-grader on the Trailblazers team.

Electric vehicles run primarily on electricity rather than gasoline, resulting in a lightened carbon footprint. There are quite a few types of electric vehicles such as battery-electric, hybrid electric, and fuel cell electric vehicles.

Battery-electric vehicles run solely on electricity. Currently, these vehicles are capable of a range of up to 300 miles. Hybrid-electric vehicles use both electricity and gasoline. The batteries are capable of a range of 55 miles and then switching to gasoline. Finally, fuel-cell electric vehicles use hydrogen gas and oxygen to create electricity and have a range of up to 400 miles.

Regardless of the type, electric vehicles have been considered to be positively impactful to a global problem, climate change.

“Climate change has been occurring for many, many years, but we have only started to see the effects now,” Freddy Westrich, a seventh-grader on the Legacy team, said.

However, some like Ansh have yet to be informed on the severity of climate change and its effects on the world.

“Before learning about the true effects of climate change, I thought climate change was a minor issue rather,” Ansh Gupta, a seventh-grader on the Legacy Team said. “However, after diving deeper and looking into stories, I realized that climate change is a major problem for the planet.”

Arjun believes the electric car has positive impacts on the environment.

Arjun said, “Replacing a gas or diesel car with an electric car will help improve local air quality, especially in neighborhoods near busy roadways and as a result, will improve climate change.”

In a statement posted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Even accounting for these electricity emissions, research shows that an EV is typically responsible for lower levels of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) than an average new gasoline car.”

However, Ansh said that electric vehicles came with disadvantages as well.

“Electric vehicles look to be the future of America,” said Ansh. “However, there also come some disadvantages. Climate change will be affected positively without gasoline in the air, however, the battery and the gasoline used in electric cars to start the motor is also increasing climate change.”

This led to Kailash  explaining why the public might decide to stick with gasoline powered vehicles for a longer period of time.

“There are a plethora of reasons why people who have gasoline powered cars don’t decide to buy electric cars,” said Kailash Satish, a seventh-grader on Dream Team. “They might not be able to afford them, they might not have heard of it, or they don’t have electric charging stations near them.”

Rather, Arjun said, “People might stick with gasoline powered cars for convenience reasons.”

He added, “I think people might decide to stick with gasoline powered vehicles because they are easy to use, easy to fuel, and have a driving range that makes them more practical for long-haul road trips.”

Frederick Westrich, a seventh-grader on the Legacy team said that gasoline powered vehicles were a cheaper and more standardized choice. 

“Gasoline-powered vehicles are the most standardized, there are more gasoline-powered vehicles than electric vehicles, and gasoline-powered vehicles are way cheaper than electric vehicles,” he said.

With this, Kailash and Ansh also shared how long it’ll take electric vehicles to go mainstream, and the methods to get them mainstream.

Kailash said, “For the majority of the cars to be electric, there should be media highlighting these cars.”

 Ansh agreed with Kailash.

“The transition to the electric car will take 5 to 10 years in America, as they are new ideas that haven’t been around as much as Ford, Toyota, or Honda,” he said.

Arjun had similar thoughts, but thought that it would take this duration of time for other reasons. 

“I think the big transition to electric vehicles will happen in 2030 because many people are buying them now,” he said.

As explained by Kailash, Ansh, and even experts, electric cars will positively affect climate change and benefit the environment once implemented. 

“Climate change has been occurring for many many years but we have only started to see the effects now,” Freddy said. “Hopefully, we find new, convenient ways to heal our world.”