The Environmental Protection Agency measures vehicle emissions in three ways: tailpipe emissions, which account for greenhouse gases and other pollutants released while operating a vehicle; and fuel-efficient vehicles, which have the largest tailpipe emissions. In 2019, the majority of cars were road transport in the US, Europe, and China. Studies have shown that producing an electric vehicle creates more greenhouse-gas emissions than producing an equivalent gas-powered vehicle.
To reduce CO2 emissions from cars, there are two ways: by making vehicles more efficient or by changing the fuel used. Electric vehicles (EVs) can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions reductions, but this depends on the source of electricity that will power them. EVs have no tailpipe emissions, but emissions are created during both the production and distribution of the electricity used to fuel the vehicle. About 18 of total GHG emissions created by electric vehicles are associated with the battery manufacturing process, while about 17 of GHG emissions from electric cars come from the rest of the manufacturing process.
All-electric vehicles produce zero direct emissions, while fully battery-electric vehicles produce zero direct emissions when in all-electric mode. Electric vehicles (EVs) have an initial higher carbon footprint after production than gasoline-powered vehicles. Electric motors do not emit CO2 when they run, but CO2 can be emitted during the generation of electricity that EVs draw from the electrical grid.
Electric SUVs produced 37% of the emissions of a gasoline-powered counterpart, and a BEV pickup created 34% of the emissions. The IVL researchers now estimate that battery manufacturing emissions are between 61 and 106 kg CO2-equivalent per kWh, with an upper limit of 106 kg CO2-equivalent per kWh.
📹 How green are electric cars? | It’s Complicated
There’s no denying that electric vehicles are what most of us will be driving in the near-future. Countries around the world have …
How much greenhouse gas is produced by electric cars?
The average US vehicle is responsible for the emission of 66 tons of greenhouse gases over the course of 200, 000 miles, whereas a battery electric vehicle is accountable for 39 tons.
How much CO2 does it take to produce an electric car?
The International Labor Institute (IVL) has revised its 2019 study on battery manufacturing emissions, estimating them to be between 61 and 106 kg CO2-equivalent per kWh, with an upper bound of 146 kg. The revised estimate is based on new data for cell production, including more realistic measurements of energy use for commercial-scale battery factories. Carbon Brief conducted a literature assessment of 17 studies, including seven published after the 2017 IVL estimate, and found that most studies published after 2017 showed lifecycle emissions smaller than those in the original IVL study, with an average of around 100kg CO2 per kWh.
Manufacturing emission estimates are generally higher in Asia than in Europe or the US, reflecting the widespread use of coal for electricity generation in the region. Studies comparing batteries manufactured in Asia to those in the US or Europe found lifecycle emissions around 20 lower outside of Asia.
What is the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions?
China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide gas, with 11, 397 million metric tons emitted in 2022. The primary source of CO2 emissions is fossil fuels, particularly coal-burning ones. The Global Carbon Atlas reveals China as the worst offender. NASA’s Climate Science division states that the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has increased by 50 percent since the Industrial Revolution, leading to climate change. Around 90% of carbon dioxide emissions are attributed to fossil fuel use.
What is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions?
Fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas, are the primary contributors to global climate change, accounting for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions trap the sun’s heat, leading to global warming and climate change. The world is currently warming faster than ever before, altering weather patterns and disrupting nature’s balance, posing risks to humans and all life forms.
Most electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, producing carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, which trap the sun’s heat. However, over a quarter of electricity comes from renewable sources like wind and solar, which emit minimal greenhouse gases or pollutants.
Is making electric cars bad for the environment?
Electric vehicles (EVs) have a significant carbon footprint due to the mining and processing of minerals, resulting in a higher initial harm to the environment than gas cars. However, the environmental impact of building and using a vehicle, known as a “lifecycle analysis”, has shown clear benefits for EVs. The size of these benefits varies by vehicle, electricity source, and other factors, but the overall trend is clear. The production of EVs requires significant resources, making them more environmentally damaging than gas cars.
What percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from producing electricity?
In 2022, the U. S. electric power industry accounted for 33 of total U. S. energy-related CO2 emissions, while the sector accounted for 31. Carbon dioxide emissions slightly fell in 2022 due to a reduction in the carbon intensity of electric power sources. The electric power sector accounted for about 31 of these emissions. The data was last updated on November 30, 2023, with data available at the time of update.
What pollutes more EV or gas?
A recent resurfaced study suggests that electric vehicles (EVs) release more toxic emissions than gas-powered vehicles and are worse for the environment. The study found that EVs are 30 percent heavier on average than gas-powered vehicles, leading to faster wear and release of toxic particles into the atmosphere. The Daily Mail resurfaced a quote from the New York Times about California officials who claimed EVs produce zero emissions.
The study by Emissions Analytics found that EVs can release more emissions than gas-powered vehicles, and California is accused of trying to conceal this fact. The report highlights the need for more stringent regulations and policies to protect the environment and reduce the harmful effects of EVs.
What is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases?
Fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas, are the primary contributors to global climate change, accounting for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions trap the sun’s heat, leading to global warming and climate change. The world is currently warming faster than ever before, altering weather patterns and disrupting the natural balance, posing risks to humans and all life forms on Earth.
Most electricity is generated by burning coal, oil, or gas, which produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, which trap the sun’s heat. Over a quarter of electricity comes from renewable sources like wind and solar. Manufacturing and industry also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, with machines used in manufacturing often running on coal, oil, or gas. The manufacturing industry is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Why shouldn’t we drive electric cars?
Electric vehicles, while potentially making significant environmental progress, do not produce zero emissions. They also generate more emissions when charged, often by burning fossil fuels. The Biden Administration’s investment in electric vehicles is illegal and costly, as mining for materials for batteries is primarily done overseas, with China dominating the industry. The US’s lithium mine supplies about two-thirds of the world’s annual supply. Traditional cars have never been cleaner, with even President Obama’s EPA head stating they are 99 cleaner than a few decades ago.
Do electric cars produce more pollution than gas cars?
All-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) typically produce lower tailpipe emissions than conventional vehicles, and zero tailpipe emissions when running only on electricity. These emissions are influenced by the life cycle of a vehicle, which includes upstream emissions such as fuel extraction, refining, production, and transport. Estimating cradle-to-grave emissions requires considering both fuel-cycle emissions and vehicle-cycle emissions, including material and vehicle production and end of life.
All-electric vehicles and PHEVs running solely on electricity have zero tailpipe emissions, but electricity production may generate emissions. In areas with low-polluting energy sources, these vehicles have a significant life cycle emissions advantage over conventional vehicles. Vehicle emissions can be classified into air pollutants and greenhouse gases, which can be evaluated on a tailpipe, well-to-wheel, and cradle-to-grave basis.
📹 Are Electric Cars Really More Environmentally Friendly?
Some people say that buying an electric car is a great way to fight climate change – but if they use electricity that is made by …
I wrote a report on EV’s that totaled ALL of the CO2 emissions. It included obtaining and processing the resources, producing the vehicles, upgrading the grid, electricity production, maintaining the vehicle, lack of an end of life plan. Not to mention the fact the plastics will spend an eternity in a landfill. because the nature of plastics are nearly impossible to recycle and they don’t decompose. Then there is the fact that the rare earth metals used to manufacture come from countries that practice slavery among other horrible human rights violations. When you add in the amount of Co2 produced by electric cars they are a profound environmental and humanitarian disaster.
For those wondering about the manufacturing of electric cars being dirtier — that is silly, the materials are the exact same as the gas versions, same plastics, aluminium, even the motors are made of the same raw material (mining) as the gasoline engine’s wiring & alternators(an electric motor itself). As for mining the lithium and co. For the highcapacity batteries, Bolivia’s reserves are the Largest in the world and are being developed for these car batteries specifically, and in the most green way possible. The demand itself for batteries is driving economic prosperity in poorer countries, and as opposed to exploitative mining, the batteries themselves are being made almost on site in these new mining complexes, adding new jobs and education as well. (Opposed to chinese debt traps). The governments have little interest in destroying their own environments either, spending large investment in doing it cleanly.
A couple things you overlooked – the first is transmission loss. Up to 15% of the energy generated at a power plant is lost as heat as it makes its way to an outlet. This is simply the second law of thermodynamics at work. The second is the fuel source. The simple fact is that in the U.S., most of our electricity comes from coal, which is inherently dirtier than natural gas. Coal burning dwarfs natural gas in terms of net CO2 emissions, and is also a leading contributor to methane emissions. This cannot be disputed, if you don’t believe me check the EPA’s 2019 GHG inventory. As I am writing this, the overall most efficient single occupancy vehicle you can buy is a high efficiency hybrid. Unless of course we all move to Alaska :0
Another thing that occurs to me is that even if your electricity comes from coal, replacing IC cars with electric cars centralizes the major source of CO2 production which makes it easier to clean up in the future. It’s much easier to replace a few dirty power plants with cleaner ones than it is to replace or retrofit millions of cars.
Currently, some of the people able to afford a Tesla also afford to install solar panels on their homes. This doesn’t directly offset most their charging though since they usually drive in the day and charge at night, but for those that install solar power and car chargers they use at their place of business too, then that really would be removing polluting electric production.
I believe we’ll get to full electric vehicles for the most part in a couple more decades. I’m sure there will be niche areas like off road vehicles and motorsports, that will stay gasoline or alcohol powered for a bit longer. And I’m all for everyone transitioning to greener means of transportation. For me, the upfront cost of an electric vehicle as well as the range is an issue. I realize prices are going down all the time and battery ranges are increasing for electric vehicles too. But at this moment, I simply cannot afford an electric vehicle and even if I could, I live in a very rural mountain town which is about 35 miles from the nearest grocery store. I need something that could give me a greater than 70 mile range with no issues. Most of my other errands I run are even further. And it being a rural mountain road, I need AWD. Preferably Four Wheel Drive. I really wish hydrogen fuel cells didn’t require platinum to operate. If scientists could work out a more readily available catalyst material, hydrogen powered cars would absolutely be the perfect replacement for gasoline. At least In my opinion.
Here in Brazil, the most comon alternatives to gasoline are etanol and natural gas. Most cars are bifuel (gasoline/ethanol), but you can convert most cars to natural gas (conversion is expensive as hell, but the natural gas is extremely cheap). I wonder how green thpse alternatives are compared to gasoline and electricity.
There’s this idea that to be ” responsible ” and to ” save the world ” you can’t have fun doing it and people cash in on that marketing as at the production level it saves money to build something as simply as possible and often times, it’s built without joy and without the intention to bring joy other than the ” virtue ” that you are saving the world.
In am a huge Tesla fan and share holder but I want to be 100% sure when countering people saying this. Does your conclusion take into account the up to 33% energy lost to heat through transmission? Also, I would like to see some numbers about emissions to produce electric vs gas cars, especially because that is where the argument typically comes from.
As an auto tech and having done my research on this subject. You may be correct on the most resent numbers regarding fuel efficiency and with most cars and trucks searing away from steel and going towards aluminum alloys traditional fuel cars are getting just as bad for the environment during manufacturing as electric cars. The batteries for electric cars and trucks on the other hand are still far more toxic for the environment during their creation and disposal.
If you say that it is good for the environment to go for ev’s in Norway, the people that argue do not say it is not better than petrol, they say that hybrid cars are better for the environment. Then again it depends on how far you drive, also 96% of the power is hydropower so no CO2 emissions from our powerplants
Since it’s a science show, I’ve tried to make some estimates: lets assume making a modern ICE car cost 10t CO2, and an EV 5t CO2 + 15t CO2 the battery, which lasts 160.000 km (100.000 miles). There is a German study about tesla model 3 batteries showing it would cost between 11 and 15 tons CO2 to make it. An average modern ICE car would make 120g /km CO2, and an EV efficiency would be 120 Wh/km (probably this is a Good value rather than average). Assuming 80% efficiency on the charger you would have 150 Wh/km. I found that in my country, 1kWh energy in the input of the charger equals 2.6kWh in the power plant, and this makes 0.65kg CO2 on the atmosphere, so this would make the EV car “send to the atmosphere” 98 g/km CO2. Someone posted here that refining 1 gallon gas = 6kWh electricity, which would be 3.9 kg CO2. 120g/km CO2 in a gas engine equals 5.15 l/100km so in order to do 160.000km you need about 8.5t CO2 on refining fuel, and 19.2t CO2 emmited by the car exhaust ( 120 * 160000). The transportation of the fuel i found to be negligible, but lets say its another ton (i think this is way excessive, but lets go with it) Summing up the ICE CO2 released over 160.000km it would be something like 10t+19t+8.5t +1t = 38.5t For the EV 160.000km * 0.15 kWh/km * 0.65 kg CO2 / kWh = 15.6 t CO2. Summing up: 5t+15t+15.6t = 35.6t But an ICE vehicle can run up to 300.000 km in its lifecycle so 10 + 19*2 + 8.5*2 + 1*2 = 67t, whicle the EV has to use 2 batteries so 5+15*2 + 15.6+2 =66.2t It looks very close to me.
Ok so I know the big thing about electric cars is emissions out of the pipe but what about cost?? I have just done a quick basic cost calculator and based on the Nissan Leaf, Juke, and Micra (all 3 are the base spec available on Nissan’s website in the UK) The price is based on buying the car new and using it for 5 years with 14,000 miles per year and includes: Cost of buying the car, Vehicle tax, and cost of the fuel (Leaf is based on charge cost at home of £5.60 per full charge as advertised on pod-point.com/guides/driver/cost-of-charging-electric-car ) (all fuel cost was based on the lowest advertised MPG figure) Juke £31,497.78 Leaf £30,328.32 Micra £21,672.83 So if my calculations are correct which they could well not be so someone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong then owning an electric car is not cost effective at all. I would quite happily have an electric car if it was cost effective and the infrastructure was there to support it but where I live it just isn’t. I will stick to my trusty old 190,000 mile Skoda diesel which I average 60mpg. thankyou.
Last I saw, the figures were something like 11% total carbon footprint saved over a car’s lifetime, using the average resource consumption ratio of a US powergrid, and totalling in manufacturing and shipping’s footprint. There’s a lot of misinformation via excluding manufacturing footprints for normal cars, or cherrypicking “dirty” grids with abnormally high coal use, for instance. The most important thing to remember, however, in spite of the small reduction, is that the best benefit of electric cars is being able to turn over the powergrid and transportation fuel source in tandem. Should we ever stop using fossil fuels, and use nuclear/renewable energies in their place, those cars will become all the cleaner.
The answer is it is really complicated and it depends. Other factors include mining for battery rare earth minerals is very environmentally damaging and very carbon intensive. A gas powered car has to pay for the gas to be mined, refined and shipped to your gas station. But electricity loses around 3% to 14% of the power during transmission. Your average scrapped car has about 80% recycled. It is not as simple as they make it sound here.
Thermal efficiency of state of the art oil/gas power plants is typically around 60%. In comparison, the most efficient gasoline engines in today’s vehicles can achieve around 40% thermal efficiency. However, in electric vehicles, the power supplied by power plants has to undergo an additional round of energy conversion from electric to kinetic in the electric motor which normally has a thermal efficiency of 90%. Calculated this way, electric vehicles are really only marginally more efficient.
For Australian viewers Victoria has 2.2 times the carbon content in their electricity compared to Colorado so it is quite a bit worse to drive an electric car here than in the worst parts of the states. That said petrol and electric should break even for emissions here in about ten years (renewable percentages increase in the grid mix) so spending on EV infrastructure still makes sense in the medium term. I would caveat this by saying that there will also be a large requirement on smartening up the grid to take all of the new capacity requirements. If everyone wants to charge their electric car at 5.30pm when they get home from work while also turning their air conditioner on we will have lots of blackouts. That has to be then weighed against Hydrogen which is likely to also have it’s pitfalls but economically and flexibility wise (range, independent of the grid, fuel able to be stockpiled) might be preferential for such a large country like Australia. I reckon it will be EV for small commute city dwellers and hydrogen for long commuters, travellers, regional people.
There seem a few mistakes here. Though I don’t know the US figures, I know the German ones. The average “gasoline” car only makes 9km/L? In Germany the average non-hybrid petrol does at least 14-15km/L, diesel even more. “Car production leads to greenhouse emissions weather it’s electric or not” – to be fair it should be said then that the greenhouse emissions for producing an electric car are at least 70% higher than for an ICE car. In Germany it is said that when power plants cause more than 400g CO2 per kWh, the electric car is actually worse than a comparable ICE. After arguing with Russia and our Government switching off all nuclear power plants, the current German average in power production is 649g CO2 per kWh!
Frankly i’m disapointed about this article, i’m useally not when it comes to sci-sho. While your at it. Please mention effeciency. Carbon based fuel got much higher energy values and effeciency is low compared to electric. Also while manufacturing the steel for both cars is about the same (gasoline engine- the electric engine). It will also be usefull mention lithium extraction when you mention gasoline refinement. Major points worth to mention. Although the article was informative it, i think it is important to take it all the way from “from the material” and into the creation of the vehicle. And also consumption over 10-15 years including the battery change on a car. And also interesting questions If you used all the fuel a gasoline car uses on 100km, burned it for a generator/powerplant. How long could an electric vehicle drive on that power? ( says something about effeciency in a more material way)
Decent article but it feels like a missed opportunity to talk about better more sustainable transit solutions like expanding and revitalizing rail networks and lessening our dependence on autonomous vehicles. And although the cars themselves might produce less CO2, building auto-centric environments is significantly less sustainable and efficient. Not to mention the cost of mining the materials to make those batteries.
My ebike can get me 100 (ish) km down the road in real world conditions on 1.2kw/h of power. Every part of it is easily replaceable, serviceable and recyclable. I wonder what that equates to in kilometers/liter in even Colorado. Here our power is a mix of hydro, nuclear and renewables so my bike emmits zero CO2 (unless i decide to peddle, in which case I do have to breath a little harder).
I think the question is, “would it be better to buy a used gas car or a new electric car?” If you buy a new electric car how far would you have to drive it for the emissions to be equivalent to buying a used 30mpg car. The emissions it took to make that car have already been spent, buying a new electric car is putting new emissions into the atmosphere because it is brand new. Of course if you buy a used electric car I would agree that is better for the environment.
The way this is presented is kinda misleading. If you live near a coal power plant, that doesn’t mean your power mostly comes from coal. The way electricity works is that every power generator connected to the grid is working simultaneously to produce power. So the source of your energy is the aggregate of every generator.
All depends of where they come, if electric come from thermoelectrics, isn’t ecologic, practically is the indirect version of the petrol, electric would be ecologic if they produce by solar or wind energie, like the diesel if works with biodiesel, (produced by recycled materials, of course), also hydrogen and biogas engines.
When you charge a car, you use a lot of power. As we use more electricity we will need to generate more electricity. The consideration should be a combination of what electricity is present, and what is currently being installed as electric cars will not only last for some time using those sources they will accelerate the production of those sources.
it takes four minutes to pump 12 gallons of gas into my car, with which i can drive 380 miles before i’ll need 12 more gallons. how far can i travel on a full electric charge and how long does it take to charge a depleted battery from 5% to 100%? that is an important consideration if one intends to travel any considerable distance.
Why do people always ignore the fact that Fossil fuels are refined using dirty electricity? Refining is a very energy-intensive process. Plus, more of that dirty fuel needs to be transported by dirty fuel-burning trucks over long distances, thus adding to the problem. Electric vehicles don’t need electricity to be transported by trucks; the fuel transports itself. That alone makes a huge difference.
That all good to know and thank you…. can I say tho that i think all those detergents/chemicals we see in the cleaning isles at the supermarkets are worse than emissions. Does bleach stop being bleach after I’ve used it? So these endless fixtures full of chemicals are all going into the sea. This would kill microflora. This in turn would affect the life cycles slowly and surely……. the microbiom of the earth. Humans get very sick when their microbiom is unhealthy. The earth has lost the Elm, the Ash, and now the Juniper berry……. I use the chemicals too …..
I heard that in the future they want to only exist electric cars avaible for sale which I think it’s not the best. First of all it takes around 30 minutes to charge one meaning that if there are 3 people in front of you you need to wait 2 hours until your is fully charged instead of sitting two minutes for fuel so there gotta be at least 100 chargers at every gas station so this can work. Plus all the races: F1, NASCAR, rally etc runs on fuel en so we gotta make them electric too. The top speed cars run on fuel or hybrid which means that we gotta start again with pretty slow cars. Easy modifications won’t be available like engine mount, intake, turbo/supercharged etc. Plus no burnouts, no reving, no flames, no raw/exotic sound only the electric sound that sucks for real.😢
You haven’t factored in all the energy it takes to pump the oil out of the ground, transport it to massive refineries through supertankers/long expensive pipelines, refine it, and then distribute the petrol to thousands of gas stations with diesel trucks. Most coal burning plants are near the source of coal w/ rail used to transport directly to the power plant and electrical lines are all that are needed to transport the energy.
Regarding Colorado, what you omitted was the fact that in addition to driving the car, you need to run the HEATER in order not to be too cold in the car. Gas engines recycle the heat that is already produced and otherwise wasted by combustion, electric vehicles need to use battery power for heat and that takes a lot of energy from the battery. True “mpg” figures need to consider how the car is used, not just how it is driven. Number two, electric vehicles are made smaller than gas powered vehicles, you dont put an electric engine in a semi, you put it in a Smart and vice versa, you dont put diesel engines in a Tesla, you put them in trucks. Electric vehicles get better mileage because they are built lighter and smaller: Compare a gas engine’d motorcycle to an electric powered motorcycle and you see that the electric vehicle is impossibly useless.
For those arguing that the batteries are recyclable: It’s not what can be recycled, but what will be. Recycling in general has become a huge failure becuase the cost is now prohibitive. We are currently being lied to, as most of what we think is being recycles is not anymore, and much of it never was. As the battery technology quickly evolves it is unlikely that the current batteries being used will ever be recycled, at least not entirely, and probably not at all. The recycling argument has over the last 20 years created more waste and CO2 than it has prevented. Government mandates and tax dollars are currently propping up virtually every green technology, which means they do not yet work.
But what about the battery manufacturing and recycling aspect? Ignoring the sustainability issue, I remember reading a few years ago that hybrid cars like the Prius need to be driven for ten years to be more environmentally friendly than gas cars. Modern hybrids like the Chevy Bolt would be much better because they’re electric cars with a generator rather than both engine types. And these might even be better environmentally than pure electric because they compromise on range by having the generator and most people don’t need a huge range most of the time, and it’s the batteries that are the biggest environmental concern between how they’re made, how long they’re used, and how they’re recycled. I know the issue is that every car is different and how you use a car can be drastically different. Electric car range can become the issue of the rocket equation: you need so many more batteries to haul the extra weight of the batteries to get more range…