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A pair of psychologists and an economist at the University of Turku, in Finland, have found that because the average electric vehicle (EV) owner is wealthier than the average person, they still have a bigger than average carbon footprint.

For their paper published in the open-access journal PLOS Climate, Nils Sandman, Elisa Sahari and Aki Koponen analyzed questionnaires sent to thousands of random adults in Finland regarding lifestyle choices, car use, environmental opinions and how they felt about EVs.

As global warming, exacerbated by human-origin greenhouse gas emissions continues, makers of some goods have begun to alter their products in ways that reduce emissions. One such product is the automobile.

The vast majority of cars and trucks on the road today are still powered by burning gasoline—a primary source of greenhouse gas emissions. In response, car makers have been developing and selling EVs, which produce no greenhouse gas emissions while they are driven.

In this new study, the research team investigated whether consumers who purchase and drive such vehicles have a smaller carbon footprint than other consumers who continue to drive gasoline-powered vehicles.

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