Chris Cherry, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, discusses electric cars with WBIR-TV news anchor Robin Wilhoit. Cherry recently conducted a study in China which discovered that the use of electric vehicles may not be as clean as originally thought. Cherry, and graduate student Shuguang Ji, found that in terms of air pollution, electric vehicles were more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled than gasoline-powered cars in China. In China, about 85% of the country’s electricity is powered by fossil fuels, of which 95% is coal.