New research suggests replacing a gas car with an electric vehicle can cut overall emissions even when the gas car is only a year or two old.
That means the speed at which drivers switch to electric vehicles is a critical factor in efforts to fight climate change.
However, plug-in hybrids which have larger batteries than regular hybrids and can be charged from the wall are almost never worth replacing.
Generous subsidies for scrapping gas vehicles are necessary, in order to make it financially viable to replace relatively new gas cars without just redirecting them to the used-car market.
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