Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images )

Around the world, governments are starting to discuss, or even schedule, banning the sale of new vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Here in the United States, as is often the case, we may well have to wait for private industry to move first, thanks to the sclerotic nature of US politics, particularly when it comes to climate change. This week, such a move happened, and it came from an unlikely source.

On Thursday, General Motors Chairwoman and CEO Mary Barra announced a new climate pledge. The nation's largest automaker says it will become carbon neutral across its global operations by 2040, which it will achieve through "science-based targets." GM has also now signed a pledge by businesses to try to keep global warming to 1.5˚C . That's a remarkable change for an automaker that, until very recently, supported the previous administration's plan to make US market cars less fuel efficient.

Making this happen will require GM to transition its vehicle portfolio to battery electric vehicles, as well as other hydrogen fuel cell EVs. In fact, the company says it has "an aspiration to eliminate tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035."

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  Electric motorcycles, like electric cars, have been more expensive than their gasoline-powered cousins. Sondors hopes to change that with its new Metacycle. [credit: Sondors ]

It's unavoidably clear that staving off the worst extremes of climate change will require a wide-scale electrification of our vehicle fleet. There's a hitch, though—it's not cheap. We have the technology to make electric vehicles, and it's getting better all the time. But as of right now, the bill of materials for an electric car is still higher than for an equivalent vehicle with an internal combustion engine, even with impressive reductions in the cost of lithium-ion batteries .

The problem doesn't just affect passenger cars. It's more expensive to buy an electric garbage truck or school bus than one with a diesel engine, although after four to five years of operation, it balances out thanks to the cost of fuel. It's even true for motorcycles; Harley Davidson's new electric LiveWire costs an eye-watering $30,000—only slightly less than a Nissan Leaf . All of which makes the price of the Sondors Metacycle so notable. When it goes into production later this year, you should be able to pick one up for just $5,000.

Until now, Sondors was a brand people associated with electric bicycles. It's the brainchild of company founder Storm Sondors, who decided the time was right to expand the company's range with a highly affordable electric motorbike that's meant not for enthusiasts but for everyday transport. And the key wasn't perfecting a new type of motor or battery. "Oh, the hard part was done by people who are 1000 times smarter than any one of us," Sondors told me by phone.

Enlarge / Smog is bad. (credit: Steven Buss )

Common arguments about how electric vehicles cause more emissions than traditional vehicles when the electric grid is coal-powered are actually wrong . Still, it’s certainly true that a cleaner grid is needed to fully realize the benefits for climate change. Beyond the climate, part of the appeal of EVs is also the improved air quality, of course, and here the grid can be even more important. In the wrong situation, switching to an EV just moves the air pollution from the street to the power plant.

Building models

A team led by Northwestern’s Daniel Peters decided to have a particularly detailed look at this issue, examining several scenarios of grid generation and EV adoption in the US. The results show that even with today’s grid, switching to EVs produces significant benefits.

The researchers used simulated hourly air pollution data from vehicles around the country, along with emissions data for power plants. This went into a model of weather over the course of a year (2014, as it happens), which also simulated important chemical reactions and natural emissions of compounds that interact with pollutants. The resulting air quality simulations were applied to an EPA population health model to show the expected impact on human health.