How green is an electric vehicle?
QUESTION
Hi John,
My second question is around the green credentials of fully electric cars? Are they actually green or have we all been sold a rhetoric on them.
I’ve heard several people over the years state that a small internal combustion produces less carbon over the life of the car then a full electric vehicle, Jeremy Clarkson being the first one I ever heard to state this – given the massive amounts of energy that goes into making them.
Also please see the federal government’s Green Vehicle Guide:
https://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au
(I hope the link works, if not select a 2020 Nissan Leaf and a 2020 Hyundai i30 CRDi. Then see fuel lifecycle g/km)
Especially given that currently the lithium is not able to be recycled into a pure enough form to be recycled into batteries, but again it takes a huge amount of energy to do this. Are we simply exporting our carbon by buying one?
Cheers
Warren
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ANSWER
Hi Warren,
On EVs, the Green Vehicle Guide is a reasonable overall representation of what a vehicle emits, but it doesn’t necessarily offer context such as how hard or gently a person drives. This makes it kinda meaningless unless you intend to by a vehicle that only ever idles in your driveway.
Accelerating gently in an unladen V8 can use less fuel than using full throttle in a small hatchback loaded with bags of concrete. And as for EVs, using Ludicrous Mode in a Tesla will drain more electrons from the battery than calmly getting up to speed using Eco Mode in a Kona Electric. The them ‘green’ is kinda meaningless.
According to the Green Vehicle Guide, a new Mazda 3 is gunna create less CO2 in its lifecycle than a Tesla Model X flagship, but more than a Hyundao Kona EV.
I’ve reported on EVs many times and the lifecycle thing has come up quite a bit. I think the jury is out - and it really depends on the source of the electricity, as well as where the batteries are made. There are several academic papers online which examine this in significant detail.
Pretty clearly the advantages for EVs which are not disputable are: Clean air for our cities, and energy security for the nation. Big tick there on both of these points. As for ’saving the planet’ - it’s a myth that humanity can save itself through increased consumption of EVs. Cars are only about 9% of greenhouse in any case.
My EV video playlist is here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnjhI4Ajj3UMfp3eGu6oIa5VrjQGbsWZe
Hope this helps mate.
JC
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