Will there not be just as much of a carbon footprint from mining materials to make batteries for all the new electric cars?
And all the precious metals that go into making electronics to make that car operate?
Plus the power generation associated with charging everyone’s vehicle.
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The initial carbon footprint of an EV is much larger, but the overall pollution over the lifetime is better.
According to various studies, it takes roughly between 40 and 120 thousand kilometres for an EV to break even with an equivalent ICE car in terms of total pollution. Even the worst value is well under the life expectancy of the car.
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In addition to other comments about the carbon footprint of an individual ICE vs a power plant – the amount of electronics in an electric car is not that much higher than an ICE car. Modern combustion engines are all driven by electronics (starting with the ECU, and injection electronics), the ABS system, stability control systems, etc. + the in car dashboard of course that also works with a lot of electronics. ICE needs also to drive an alternator which is basically an electric engine (used the opposite way obviously).
So comparing the amount of electronics, the difference is not that much at all, since you remove the injection electronics but add the power regulation for electric motors…
No, but it shifts world power away from legacy oil companies and, concurrently, away from dependence on US petrodollars. And, it gives people an expensive way to feel good about themselves. Ignorance of how much coal and natural gas is burned to create electricity is bliss.
Listen to the Which? podcast about electric cars. Very interesting series
Just my thinking. That electricity for EV needs to come from somewhere.. and a lot of electricity in Europe is made in thermal power plants, so coal is used, etc..
Only benefits is that you dont pollute in your local environment, but 1000 miles away where is that powerplant.. someone needs to calculate what is worse..
The short answer is yes; over the long term, the carbon footprint of EV using electricity is less than combustion engine cars burning fossil fuels. And as electricity generation moves to greener sources, the carbon footprint of EVs will continue to fall. Also note batteries are being produced rapidly now due to evolving technology and high demand, but there is economic and environmental incentive to recycle them for future EVs.
Here’s a great [YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G67i_Z8ukD4) from r/DonutMedia that covers this topic and all your questions.
Even with the extra energy in creating the car, and even with a dirty grid (electricity from fossil fuels) the electric cars still have a smaller foot-print.
However, electric cars won’t save us. To have a realistic chance to stay below 2°C of global warming we’re going to need to reduce our total global energy consumption by around 50% (70% of the energy use in 2010, as listed in the diagram below) unless you believe in fantasy carbon capture tech being deployed in the next 30 years on a planetary scale.
Efficiency gains won’t cut our energy use by 50%, even if we didn’t add any more energy requirements (which we will). The only way we’ll manage to cut our energy use in half is to completely eliminate some uses. The one that seems most likely is private transport. We will need to build much much better public transport networks and reduce the number of vehicles on the road to the barest minimum.
Transport currently uses around 25% of total energy and cutting that is essential. If you want to save the planet don’t buy an electric car, take the bus instead.
Source: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM3b-724×1024.png
I believe it was Polestar that just revealed their study on this. If I recall correctly, an EV has twice the emissions in the production stage compared to an ICE car. So the EV will be better for the local environment when it is first used, but worse for the overall global emission. However, after about 80.000km the EV will reach a point where it is greener than a traditional ICE.
The emissions during manufacturing are higher but with the current European energy mixture, it will take about 50.000 km of driving before the combustion car has emitted more than an equivalent electric car. This means that as long as a car is driven for more than 50.000 km during all of its lifetime, an electric car will have emitted less. Since cars usually drive 2-300.000 km before being scrapped, the lifetime emissions of am electrical car will be about a 4th or a 6th of that of a combustion car.
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