A Dirty Little Secret - Many "Green Cars" On The Market Are Still Not Using Climate-Safe Refrigerant

America’s electric cars are better for the environment, but they share a dirty little secret.

The Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf and Tesla Roadster all use a super greenhouse gas known as HFC 134a as the refrigerant for their air conditioners. The liquid coolant is so potent that when it leaks into the atmosphere, it traps 1,400 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time horizon.

For automakers and advocates of green transportation, it poses an uncomfortable truth: Vehicles touted as a solution to climate change carry a hairspray-sized canister loaded with a chemical that significantly contributes to warming of the earth’s climate. As much as half of current HFC emissions, a small but fast-growing source of global warming pollution, come from leaks out of the air conditioners in cars.

vdiv - 4/7/2014 10:54:47 AM

+2 Boost

Running out of Volt-hate material a bit?

atc98092 - 4/7/2014 2:03:36 PM

+2 Boost

And how does that differ from almost every other car? They switched from R-12 to R-134a because of greenhouse issues. I'll wager just about every car on the road right now has R-134a as the AC fluid. What a stupid article.

JPWhite - 4/8/2014 6:28:04 AM

+1 Boost

The real news (not this article) is that GE have perfected the magnetic fridge which uses water as refrigerant and uses 20% less electricity to achieve the same refrigeration.

http://www.geglobalresearch.com/innovation/magnetocaloric-materials-chill-next-generation-refrigerators