Electric cars are becoming popular. There aren’t many of them, relatively; but, their sales growth rate is ten times that of conventional cars. Conventional car sales are growing at about 5% per year. Electric car sales are growing at 50% per year. Usually, early adopters attract a lot of attention, but not necessarily much momentum. That usually comes later when there are more options, more mature technology, and better economics. Plug-in cars are evidently so appealing to people that even the few versions of the early generation products are enough to convince people to switch. Depending on how a region gets its electricity, electric cars can either reduce or increase pollution (hydro versus coal plants). If they do produce more pollution, at least it is remote and more easily managed. Whether low pollution, quiet ride, or even performance is the appeal, the shift away from internal combustion engines may happen more quickly than many imagine.
(Click on the photo for the link.)
“Plug-In Car Sales Growing 10x Faster Than Gas-Powered Cars” – Treehugger
Pretending Not To Panic 
This is good news as I saw a post saying that EV sales, at least in California, have flattened since 2014. In terms of coal vs renewables or hydro, the statement that EVs can increase pollution seems dubious to me. Do you have a source? It is my understanding that they always reduce pollution, even if by a little bit. Either way, they eliminate point source emissions.
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I don’t have the link, but I do recall it was a Scientific American article. In regions with coal-powered electricity, considering efficiencies, the pollution from the extra coal at the power plant exceeds the pollution from the gasoline that would be burned by the conventional car. The pollution shifts to the outskirts, and the total increases, but it is also more manageable because it comes from an industrial site where it is easier to use scrubbers.
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From Scientific American:
Electric Cars Are Not Necessarily Clean
Your battery-powered vehicle is only as green as your electricity supplier
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-cars-are-not-necessarily-clean/
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