Manufacturing a BEV creates about twice the emissions as making an ICE vehicle, primarily due to making its lithium-ion battery
This is likely exaggerated, or certainly not “necessary emissions”. You can estimate the production emissions by the cost of the car. EVs are now reaching sticker prices below ICE cars. Especially in China. While making an ICE engine includes significant manual labour, and steel or iron ore production can be decarbonized with Hydrogen, the manufacturing of individual engine parts out of steel is a more intensive process than casting an electric motor casing/stator, and winding some copper.
The China link is that they are the ones most likely to decarbonize mining through either LNG, H2 and electric. With price parity of EVs (happpening in NA too), manufacturing emissions should be very close.
On the point of fuel vs charging, one of the best symbiosis of EVs is home solar, including oversized solar to use less imported energy into home. Cheapest way to charge an EV, and also serve as emergency home power if needed.
Public Transit is even better
on average, Canadian EVs have up to 77% lower emissions than conventional models
That’s quite a bit less. The headline sounds like “Do ICE vehicles pollite less than EVs ?” is a valid question, is there any argument that’s the case? I’d have guessed EVs were obviously better, and you’d be hard pushed to argue otherwise?
(obviously I’m thinking ‘new ev’ vs ‘new ICE’ - putting second hard vehicles introducrs all sorts of caveats)
A new EV pollutes more than using old ice until its end.
That might be the case, although this study is explicitly comparing new EV to new ICE right? (which seems like the relevant comparison)
It may study that indeed but the people picking between new ice or ev are the in overwhelming majority ones who already have a completely fine, new ish car that is good to go for decades. Most new planet saving EVs are produced without there being any real pressing need for them. Finishing up using all the existing cars would be hell lot better than replacing everything with Ev’s.
But that’s not how the car industry works. That “newish” car isn’t scrapped, it is sold to someone whose car died or wanted a newer used car. And then sold to someone with a worse or dead car. Very few “good” cars are being scrapped for EVs. Most cars being taken out of circulation are extremely old or totaled in an accident…
It is how it works but it shouldn’t if we want to be green, instead of appearing green.
It might be due to a larger proportion of green energy sources powering these EVs, not sure how they calculate the emissions figures.
These kinds of studies usually go by the average emissions of the relevant country’s power generation.
Heres the relevant bit for this study though, it has both national and by province:
In addition, electric vehicles also benefit from the low-emissions intensity of electricity generation relative to gasoline in most parts of Canada. Comparing the lifecycle emissions of the two fuels on an equivalent energy basis, grid electricity emissions are 61% lower than those of gasoline at the national level and 20%-93% lower in the 8 provinces/territories whose grid electricity is cleaner than gasoline.6 A handful of provinces and territories have grids that are more emissions intensive than gasoline based on the 2023 domestic electricity generation profile (chart 2). That said, even in this latter group, most electric vehicles still have lower fuel-related emissions and lifetime emissions than comparable gasoline vehicles because they use less energy during operation. (See appendix for a breakdown of electricity generation by fuel type).
They go into detail. Most FF electricity will be 40%-60% effiency, though peaker plants can be as low as 25%. ICE to wheel efficiency is 18%, and natural gas is cleaner than oil to boot. Canada has a lot of hydro and nuclear.
What my 40yo diesel has going for it is that it already exists. The production cost has been paid for already. I’m fully prepared to buy an eV or hybrid when it dies but in the meantime it’s what I’ve got. Plus I don’t actually drive very much.
I made the calculation with a 10 years old Civic vs new EV once and the math came out in favor of the EV after a few years anyway, especially if you get green electricity where you live… Now with a 40 years old diesel it’s even worse considering how much diesel emissions equipment has improved since it was built. There’s a reason why some cities like Paris are completely banning older diesels…
You have to take into consideration that the total emissions from your already existing ICE vehicle keep increasing very quickly over time where an EV has a higher total when comparing two new vehicles, but then the EV has so much lower emissions during usage that they catch up very quickly, even if the electricity they use comes from coal powered generators. Hell, the average big truck probably release as much emissions every year as what it took to produce it in the first place…
Any chance you can source your numbers? I tried to do the same calculation for my 18 year old gas car, and it came out a being a wash.
Finding hard numbers on the energy cost to build a new car was tough - the green sites showed the EV car poofed into the world with magic and butterflies, while the gas-centric sites made it sound like it took the entire world’s GDP to produce a single EV.
Also disheartening, the very few sites I could find that would list replacement costs for a battery pack had the price higher than the vehicle itself - IE, when the battery pack goes, you throw the car away & buy another one. That’s been a huge turnoff for me.
I’m trying to find the source again, from memory the production itself was 2 tons of CO2 for a compact sedan and 8.5 tons for an equivalent EV and then the Civic (and that’s numbers I’ve just checked) emits about 3 tons of CO2 a year driving 16k km (which is less than the US average) while the EV emissions will vary depending on what is used to produce the electricity, but after two years the gas car has polluted as much as producing the EV and then a year later if it’s green electricity it was above the EV…
So if you take a Civic that’s already on the road and replace it with an EV you don’t include the original 2 tons from producing the Civic, but it only means three years of CO2 emissions from burning gas before it catches up with the EV production.
From memory after about 6 years the EV came out on top even if it was replacing a road worthy Civic even in the worst scenario…
We have to keep in mind that producing electricity from petrol is more efficient than using that petrol to move cars (even with the losses along the way) as car engines aren’t that great at extracting energy from gas…
Edit: just wanted to add that if we don’t just look at CO2 the same logic applies to other types of emissions and replacing old cars with newer cars even if both are petrol powered and it even applies to CO2 if someone is driving an inefficient car and is thinking that replacing it with a more efficient new car will be worse for the environment…
Diesel has more NOx emissions and significantly more particulate emissions than cars running on gasoline, which is why cities are banning older vehicles running on Diesel. They’re harmful to people’s health, especially if they lack modern filters.
For CO2 though, Diesel usually runs miles around gasoline. That’s why the EU has favored Diesel engines over gasoline one’s since signing and ratifying the 1997 Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse emissions.
CO2 is directly related to fuel economy (no filtration of it) which is why diesel do better than gas. OP has a 40 years old diesel truck though, I wouldn’t expect it to be getting that great fuel mileage, especially not if they’re from the US.
Fair enough, older cars absolutely have worse fuel economy. I wonder how much this is offset by US trucks growing in size and weight though - a modern gasoline truck may even have worse fuel economy despite 40 years of advances. Although that’s not a high margin to clear to be honest.
Meanwhile, other studies say they wear tires out way faster because they’re heavier, and rubber tire dust adds quite a bit to the emissions as well.
Entirely dependent on the model. A base model RWD EV sedan (Model 3, Ioniq 6) weighs less than 2 tons.
If you have a moronmobile like a Hummer, sure.
The lightest model 3 weighs about 3900lbs. Which is going to be like 1000lbs on any similarly sized ICE car
What?
My Ford Focus weighed 3000 lbs and was half the size of a Model 3.
You’re full of shit, my dude.
Would you consider a BMW 3 Series a similar sized ICE car?
According to BMW they range from 3536-4008 lbs.
Sorry I figured 900 lbs was pretty close to “like 1000 lbs”
3900-3500 = 400?
This comment is not useful unless backed up with data on how much relative emissions this would contribute.
Unless provided, please refrain
Not OP, but tire dust is a real problem. It’s one of those things we haven’t studied until very recently. It’s just gone under the radar because it’s easy to point at tailpipe emissions.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/tire-dust-makes-up-the-majority-of-ocean-microplastics-study-finds
Now are EVs worse? If we compare the same class of vehicle, EVs are going to be about 20% heavier, so yes, they’re going to create more tire dust. Is that worse than the tailpipe emissions from a gas vehicle? Probably not. But it’s deceptive to not include tire dust when comparing emissions between the two vehicle types.
I very much agree that tyre dust is a problem, and that weight is a large issue.
However, these kinds of caveats are routinely used to downplay the level of harm reduction that transitioning ICE cars to EVs would bring. Note how right-wing media basically uses this technique - mostly with the emissions associated with making EV batteries - to justify the continued use of ICE cars.
The antidote is to require numbers for this type of claim.
Fwiw, I don’t own any kind of car, I bike and take transit everywhere, and I’m broadly against cars on account of their outsized negative impact on society. I still believe EVs represent a necessary amount of harm reduction.
Pick up trucks are the same weight or more than most evs sold today. The tire wear discussion was on weight of vehicles, not evs. Other sites reported on it and grossly overestimated the average weight of an ev.
Have you ever stood next to a Cybertruck?
I have. Those stupid sharp corners are close to the height of the average person’s fucking heart.
And they’re glued together no less. Like WTF, real vehicles secure everything properly with threaded nuts and bolts.
You can’t even get out of a Tesla on fire unless you know how to disassemble the door panel to access the emergency latch. WTF?
Also, vehicle weight scales are pretty damn accurate, even mandatory in certain industries. I’m pretty sure nobody estimated a damn thing, they literally weighed the vehicles.
The Cybertruck isn’t an average EV anymore than the gas powered Hummer is an average gas burning car.
True
meanwhile, my ev weighs 1340kg.
sush, only EVs are teslas. No other Ev’s exist. Stop fighting the narrative.
Ow, sorry 🤐
Okay, not bad. For those that measure in giraffes, that’s about 2955 lbs.
It would be nice to know what model EV you have for reference. I’m sure it ain’t a Tesla…
Bmw i3s with 120ah battery. Really good car tbh.
I’m not even mad, I assume it’s a good vehicle for you…
It is. Thank you 😊.
There’s less than 50000 cybertrucks on the road. BYD sold 3 million cars in 2023, most of which are ‘normal’ cars that only weigh slightly more than the equivalent ICE car. The cybertruck is a rounding error and irrelevant.
EVs on average wear out their tires slightly faster than a similar car, but it’s not by orders of magnitude, and they actually emit less brake dust because of regenerative braking.
Again, private car ownership should definitely be discouraged and alternatives can be found, but this is a prime example of rejecting a solution that solves many issues because one aspect of it is slightly worse than the thing it’s replacing.
Also, all the Cybertrucks got recalled, because roof trim panels are falling off because of bad/wrong glue.
Glue?!?!?!
Don’t they know how to attach parts to a motorized vehicle by now? Nuts and bolts and washers. You know, tried, true, tested, and proven technology?
Look, I’m not against the idea of simple, affordable electric vehicles. But they should also be affordable, relatively easy to fix as necessary, and like not fucking lock you inside while you burn to death…
Why do you keep talking about the fucking cybertrucks? Everyone knows they’re shit. Nobody’s defending them here.
It wasn’t way faster. It was marginally faster. This study was falsely reported on a number of times and that’s what people remember.
Do you know the name of this study? I’m curious to see if they tested the same set of tires on both or if the EV was on factory low resistance ones
I was just searching and genuinely couldn’t find it anymore. I distinctly remember watching an engineering explained video on it, too, but couldn’t find it.
The thing is: heavier cars wear tires down more. This also applies to large SUVs and Pickups. The issue is that people only care about it when it’s due to it being an EV.
If I recall they didn’t actually test the ev. They tested a heavier vehicle and just assumed that would be the ev since evs are heavier.
One sec, ill look for it
