Nature Electric cars have a bigger carbon footprint than petrol car

[Maciamo]

I am getting seriously fed up by people who believe that electric cars are better for the planet than petrol cars. It may seem like a logical idea, especially when one believes Elon Musk's deceitful propaganda, but in reality electric cars have a bigger carbon footprint than petrol car. I wouldn't be surprised if the huge increase in sales in the last two years are one of the reasons behind the acceleration of global warming in 2023.

The big problem with electric cars is the huge carbon footprint of batteries. There is also the environmental destruction linked to the extraction of lithium and other minerals needed for the batteries, but I will concentrate here on the effects on global warming rather than environmental pollution (or labour exploitation in poor countries).

The production of a Tesla car battery (just the battery) has the equivalent of 17 tonnes of CO2. That's the same as burning 6800 litres of petrol (gasoline for Americans). A petrol car consuming 5 litres per 100 km (2.1 gallons per 100 mile for Americans), which is about the average for a recent car in Europe, could drive 136,000 km with 6800 litres. In other words, buying a Tesla would cause more carbon emissions than a petrol car for anyone driving less than 136,000 km without replacing the battery. As an EV battery has a lifespan of about 8 to 12 years, one must drive at least 11,350 to 17,000 km per year in order for a Tesla car to be more eco-friendly then a petrol car. Most people drive less than that. According to this website, Europeans drive in average about 6000 km per year, Australians 10,000 km/year, Americans 14,000 km/year, and Japanese people only 4000 km.

So, except for people who drive a lot like taxi drivers and maybe some Americans, most people buying a Tesla (or most other electric cars) end up causing far more CO2 emissions than if they had bought a petrol or hybrid car. Hybrid cars also have batteries, but much smaller than EVs, so the carbon footprint is also smaller.

But that's only if people charge their EV batteries using 100% green electricity (like with home solar panels). There are very few developed countries where electricity is mostly carbon neutral (renewable or nuclear). These are mostly Nordic countries, France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovakia. The US and China have the biggest EV markets, with about 15 million electric vehicles in the former and 3.5 million in the latter. But both countries still rely heavily on fossil fuels for the electric production, so recharging an EV with regular grid electricity in these countries is far worse than having a petrol car, as it combines the high carbon footprint of the battery manufacturing process with high CO2 emission electricity!

(map sources)

In conclusion, buying an electric car is only better for the planet than a petrol car for people who drive a lot (let's say over 15,000 km/year to be on the safe side) and recharge it with 100% green electricity. That's still a small minority of the population and it is unfortunate that most people believe that EVs are good for the planet somehow.

 

[Maciamo]

Electric vehicles are not all bad. They can see at least two major advantages of EVs compared to petrol cars:

1. Lower air pollution, especially in cities.
2. Less money for the petrol industry and petrostates.

They would be great if only they didn't rely on environmentally destructive lithium and didn't carry such a high carbon footprint. I'm confident that there's technology progresses batteries will last longer and have a smaller ecological impact. But at present electric vehicles should only be purchased by people driving at least 15,000 km per year and recharging them using green electricity. For anybody else buying an electric car is more damaging to the planet than a regular petrol car.

 

[Pineaple]

Beautiful map. Very pretty, very colorful. What does >90% mean? What does < 5% mean? What are your sources?

You might want to check your American conversions. Not all of them are correct and conclusion is incorrect as well. You are doing the math based on yearly distance driven, instead of during the lifecycle of the vehicle. You mention carbon footprint of 1 Tesla car production, and compares it to how much an European can drive instead. Its like comparing apples to onions. Bizarre logic indeed. You need to compare it to ICE vehicle production instead.

 

[Maciamo]

Beautiful map. Very pretty, very colorful. What does >90% mean? What does < 5% mean?

Really, you don't know the meaning of basic universal symbols like < (smaller than) and > (bigger than)? Have you never been to school? (I mean primary school, they teach that in 3rd grade here)

What are your sources?

Sorry, I should have posted a link to the ecological map page on this website for new members unfamiliar with my map section. The sources are always mentioned there.

You might want to check your American conversions. Not all of them are correct and conclusion is incorrect as well.

I did check the conversions. You might want to be more specific.

You are doing the math based on yearly distance driven, instead of during the lifecycle of the vehicle. You mention carbon footprint of 1 Tesla car production, and compares it to how much an European can drive instead. Its like comparing apples to onions. Bizarre logic indeed. You need to compare it to ICE vehicle production instead.

That's exactly what I did in this thread two years ago. I pinned it at the top of the Nature, Environment & Ecology forum to be sure that people see it. But I suppose you followed the link to this article that I posted on Twitter/X a few hours ago. Anyway, as you will see I compared the manufacturing carbon footprint of nearly 200 cars (petrol, hybrid and electric) and determined that in average, a hybrid car requires 2 extra tonnes of CO2e to build, a plug-in hybrid 3 extra tonnes, and an electric car 6 extra tonnes..

 

[norbert]

For now, EVs represent a sort of virtue-signalling consumerism among the rich and the upper middle classes. And that is all they do which is signalling virtues, not living by them. They buy those cars not to replace their expensive SUVs running on internal-combustion engines but as their second or perhaps even third cars. And they do this only because the purchase is subsidised by the tax payer. As you have already elaborated, the carbon footprint is way too large for the EV to be a viable alternative to petrol/diesel cars. The EV would have to be cheaper or at least not more expensive in regards to both purchase and maintenance. Its range has to be better than that of a conventional petrol/diesel car, in winter as in summer and with a trailer attached to it. Technical sustainability has to be another important factor. The average customer wants a reliable car he can drive for at least 10 years. Maybe for 20 or more but let's say 10 if he wants to sell it and get some good money back. EVs do not meet the criteria, to put it mildly. It is nothing more than an advertising gimmick to present EVs as a clean means of individual transport. All it takes to debunk that lie is to look at the extraction of metals and materials required for battery production and where most of the electricity comes from. You can't claim you're driving carbon-free while the power in your socket comes from a coal power station. The only 100% reliable clean energy we may ever have may be the one produced by nuclear fusion but that may happen in 30 years or never. Don't forget that it's not just millions of tons of CO2 that goes up into the atmosphere during the entire process of battery production but also water vapour whch is a more dangerous greenhouse gas as its trapping more heat. Not to mention the scope of ecological destruction and deprivation of water in areas where every drop is essential for survival.

At the current state of technology, the EV cannot compete with internal-combustion engines, especially diesels and it is not an option to the vast majority of population and won't be for a very long time. I have heard a lot of EV fanboys talk about how electric motors have a far higher efficiency than ICEs. What they don't like to talk about is for how long that advance lasts. It's long enough for an orgasm but I guess that's all that matters to the consumption-corroded mind with an attention span of a few minutes at best. This being said, I'm not anti-EV. I do believe that we have to get away from fossil fuels but I'm realistic enough to understand that this will be a gradual process and that policies have to be made in accordance with technological possibilities and economic realities. And this is where we get to the crux of the problem. Enivironmental protection is not the first thing on the minds of those people who are pushing this agenda. Western economies are radically financialised and on their way to a full transition to an authoritarian rentier capitalism or high-tech feudalism where you have to pay for everything while owning nothing. It's not just about streaming films and music but also leasing cars that are becoming so unreliable (by design) that you're forced to get a new one every 4 years or so. As those cars are heavily digitalised, you'll be forced to subscribe to various updates and services as well.

Another reason for the aggressive pro-EV campaigns is owed to the fact that the West has no substantial natural ressources and the times when it had the power to loot the rest of the world are over. This is also the background of the conflict with Russia and its allies. As our industries are largely destroyed, good-paying jobs included, states have less revenues and governments are forced to come up with new tax burdens on the general population because finance and rentier capitalism does not reinvest its profits back into the economic cycle as industrial capitalism once did. I won't be surprised if they introduce a human breath tax in the near future since we breathe out CO2.

But back to EVs: they are good for city traffic and taxis, although it should be noted that the latter buy mostly hybrids to get tax breaks while using petrol. But for the rest of the population, EVs are simply not an option. I'm also against the rather lunatic idea of discarding internal combustion engines from a strictly technological point of view. They are master strokes of engineering that have been perfected for more than a century. An electric engine is relatively simple and in fact, the first engines were electric. But they are toys compared to ICEs. By the way, what exactly is environment-friendly in an electric SUV weighing 3 tons? The particles from tire attrition resulting from that weight are a pollution disaster in itself. Compared to that, modern diesels, thanks to their advanced particle filters, are an eco utopia as the air coming out from a diesel exhaust is cleaner than the air we breathe. This is not a glorification of ICEs but a a refutation of EVs as a clean and economic alternative for the masses.

 

[Pineaple]

Beautiful map. Very pretty, very colorful. What does >90% mean? What does < 5% mean?

Really, you don't know the meaning of basic universal symbols like < (smaller than) and > (bigger than)?

Sunshine, I didn't ask for the meaning of <,> . I asked for >90%, and <5%. A 3rd grader should have been able to tell the difference.

A petrol car consuming 5 litres per 100 km (2.1 gallons per mile for Americans)

Pls, check the math. A demonstration of comprehension failure. 5 liters, while "rightfully closely" converted to 2.1 gallons, the 2.1 gallons per mile, is way off. Translated back to European units, it should mean 5 liters per 1.6 km not 5 liters per 100km. You see the mistake? by the way, 5 liters is about 1.3 but I didn't want to confuse 3rd graders or hurt your feelings that's why I kept calculations simple, just used incorrect values you initially provided. Live and learn, as they say.

You are doing the math based on yearly distance driven, instead of during the lifecycle of the vehicle. You mention carbon footprint of 1 Tesla car production, and compares it to how much an European can drive instead. Its like comparing apples to onions. Bizarre logic indeed. You need to compare it to ICE vehicle production instead.

That's exactly what I did in this thread two years ago.

Doesnt look like you did that. What you did was this ...

In other words, buying a Tesla would cause more carbon emissions than a petrol car for anyone driving less than 136,000 km

Don't you think, those driving a petrol car, would need to buy the said petrol car first than drive it? Their driving carbon footprint would be the vehicle manufacturing footprint + driving footprint.
Skipping the ICE vehicle carbon manufacturing footprint, at best is a mistake at worst ... who knows what, but in between there is intentional misguidance.

 

[Maciamo]

Sunshine, I didn't ask for the meaning of <,> . I asked for >90%, and <5%. A 3rd grader should have been able to tell the difference.

Then I don't understand what the issue is. On the map in question >90% means that over 90% of electricity is produced from low CO2 sources (nuclear, hydro, wind, solar).

Pls, check the math. A demonstration of comprehension failure. 5 liters, while "rightfully closely" converted to 2.1 gallons, the 2.1 gallons per mile, is way off. Translated back to European units, it should mean 5 liters per 1.6 km not 5 liters per 100km. You see the mistake? by the way, 5 liters is about 1.3 but I didn't want to confuse 3rd graders or hurt your feelings that's why I kept calculations simple, just used incorrect values you initially provided. Live and learn, as they say.

Ok, the conversion was right, but I wrote too quickly and should have written "per 100 mile" (as I intended).

Doesnt look like you did that. What you did was this ...

Don't you think, those driving a petrol car, would need to buy the said petrol car first than drive it? Their driving carbon footprint would be the vehicle manufacturing footprint + driving footprint.
Skipping the ICE vehicle carbon manufacturing footprint, at best is a mistake at worst ... who knows what, but in between there is intentional misguidance.

But that's exactly what I did if you checked the other thread in link. I calculated the difference of manufacturing carbon footprint between an EV and ICE vehicle. I even tried to find car models that exist in EV, hybrid and ICE to avoid comparing apples and oranges. For exactly the same model, in average an EV has a manufacturing carbon footprint of 6 tonnes of CO2e more than an ICE (mostly because of the battery). For a Tesla, the battery is so big that its carbon footprint is not 6 tonnes of CO2e, but 17 tonnes of CO2e.

Obviously an ICE car consumes petrol/gasoline or diesel, but it would take in average 40,000 km of driving with an ICE to compensate those 6 tonnes of CO2e if we compare to a driver who charges his EV with 100% green electricity. But only 20% of the electricity generation in the United States is green, so for the majority of Americans an EV will always have a carbon footprint higher than an ICE, as there is 6 extra tonnes of CO2e from the start, and CO2 consumption is more or less equivalent to refilling an ICE tank with gasoline if they charge their EV with dirty electricity (in fact, electricity from coal plants would have a higher carbon footprint than gasoline). Add to this that an EV's battery has a lifespan of only 8 to 10 years in average, so an EV would add about 6 tonnes of CO2e (40,000 km of gasoline) when the battery is replaced.

For a Tesla that's even worse as the battery has such a big carbon footprint.

 

[iamme2]

you are a straight shooter ,not alot of people have the ability to fact check ,(they count on that ) ,you will be counted with the patriotes, thank you ,hold the line .