A fully electric car never fills up at the gas pump, but it does use water. No, the water doesn't fuel the car, but power plants use quite a bit of water to make the electricity that surges through the plug. And as more electric vehicles hit the road, power plants will use more water. Driving a car on electricity consumes three times more water than driving with gasoline, mile for mile, according to new research published in ES&T (pp 4305-4311). Water use is not an issue that people typically associate with plug-in vehicles, which have many environmental benefits, say study coauthors Carey King and Michael Webber of the University of Texas Austin (UT).
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