“EVs are not better than Petrol and Diesel for emissions” – WRONG!

Note: This is part of the FUD Destroyer Page, which you can have a look at here

Updated: 12/04/2024 (With RSC Referencing System).

The argument against EVs has always been one of the following:

  1. Energy use in the production of EVs is more than petrol/diesel
  2. EVs will never payback the carbon emissions in order to make them, compared to petrol and diesel

The 1st statement is undisputable . Manufacturers (China) are not using renewables in the harvesting of the raw materials of the pack, or within the production of the pack. There are manufacturers such as BMW who are pioneers in reducing carbon emissions .

We should be using Life Cycle Assessment

However, we should be using LCA or Life Cycle Assessment for actually measuring the impact of EVs . LCAs are overviews of raw materials, production, use and disposal.

Initial production is a small part of both ICE and EV production, whereas the use of the vehicle is likely the most polluting stage within an ICE vehicles’ lifecycle. This therefore is likely the sole answer to the question

I put my Mk1 MG ZS EV, bought in 2019 and 63,000 miles (101,000 km) as a guideline from Transport and Environment. The car is built in China, with the CATL cells also built in China.

In Summary (Mk1 ZS EV):

  1. 13.6 tonnes carbon dioxide emitted with my EV, whereas an equivalent petrol would be closer to 27.9 tonnes.
  2. Across 4 years of ownership, that’s on average around 3.55 tonnes per year (or 1.5x my current CO2 emissions from my gas usage at home for perspective).
  3. I would’ve paid off the additional CO2 due to battery production and shipping by 27,000 km (about 16,000 miles). That was completed in 1 year. The rest I am saving.
Graph from Transport and Environment

What about other vehicles?

To keep a point of comparison, we’ll use a nickel, cobalt manganese (NMC) mix, and a Tesla Model S Long Range with a 100kWh battery pack, one of the largest pack sizes in passenger vehicles

MIT state the amount of CO2 is approximately 2.4-16 tons of CO2 . That is a large uncertainty, but this is caused by the grid mix of manufacturing hubs in China vs US and EU.

Sidenote: The study also uses data from 2010 onwards, and what we are finding is that places like China are speeding ahead when it comes to renewables. This worst case scenario is going to be significantly lower now, even if China is still working at around 70% fossil fuels .

Let’s take the worse case scenario, 16 tons. According to a MOT study, the average mileage of a UK motorist is around 7400 miles .

When calculating the CO2 emissions of both petrol/diesel production and use, the CO2 per mile (at an unrealistic 50 MPG with petrol) would be around 285g/mile Therefore, 7400 x 285g = 2.1 tons.

Purely from this measurement, with the worse case scenario, it would take the average UK motorist approximately 8 years to pay off the additional CO2, assuming a 0g/CO2 grid. My estimates assuming a conservative UK grid mix and efficiency is around 50 g/mile, so I would anticipate a bit longer than this.

Clearly, this is where news outlets have got this idea that it may not be worthwhile. Purely on this (and a dollop of misinformation) you are also right. However:

  1. There is plenty of life left in the battery. Tesla with similar age experience around a 15% reduction in capacity (when looking at 2014 cars for example). Tesla with around 50,000 miles are experiencing approximately 5% . Easily capable of many times that mileage if the degradation is between 5-15%. Recall that even degradation does also not mean it needs to be scrapped either.
  2. There has been a study which uses MOT data which has demonstrated that the average lifespan of EVs in on par with the fleet average, and exceeds the average petrol lifespan in mileage
  3. GreenNCAP predict around 8.4 tonnes for the Model S specifically which is around 4 years before payback. However, again, that pack is going to last far longer than 4 years, with a prediction around 16 years
  4. 100kWh battery pack is not the norm and there are plenty of vehicles which are not Tesla. Other studies have shown, that the figure is closer to 14-20,000 miles

Finally, the largest argument is that the exploration, extraction, refining, transport and use of petrol and diesel has a CO2 output (around 3.14 kg/l for petrol and 3.34 kg/l for diesel respectively) . This will not reduce.

In fact, if you compare a better apples to apples approach, with lets say a car the size of a Model S (S-Class, A8 size vehicle), CO2 emissions will be significantly greater. For example, the Mercedes S-Class has a WLTP combined of 32.9 MPG. Once converted to UK gallons and CO2 is calculated, it equates to 432 g/mile.

That brings the total assuming 7400 miles a year to 3.2 tons, or a 5 year payback period. This is well within the battery warranty alone (both on age and mileage), and well within the expected lifespan.

In the case of an EV, it is more than reasonable to see CO2 output reduce. For example, as we move towards 100% renewables, even if wind and solar have manufacturing emissions, this will always be lower than using oil. It is always forgotten about.

What if it was scrapped today?

Even if the car had to be scrapped and put into a landfill (stupid, not required, and almost impossible) today, it would’ve still saved 14 tonnes of CO2.

Now why would it never be put into landfill and left to rot?

  1. The car itself has scrap metal value, and plastics have value. Currently, government guidelines require a vehicle to be 95% recycled, with EU averaging 88.1% .
  2. The battery can be reused in the first instance: If the battery capacity falls below a reasonable level (e.g. arbitrarily 60% compared to new), although it may not be useful inside a car, it certainly can live out as stationary battery storage. This causes much less wear on the cells so could potentially mean similar or greater life compared to inside the car. In fact, there have been studies to demonstrate the used EV battery market could satisfy all battery stationary storage by 2030
  3. Alternatively, the pack could be broken up cell by cell and repurposed into the ever growing EV conversions market and/or repairs. ChargedHeadsUK have discussed their TVR project on our channel based on a very similar crashed ZS EV!
  4. Finally, there is an option to recycle the pack itself, at 95% recovery rate, with Li-Cycle as well as RSBruce
    1
    Battery Recycling, https://www.rsbruce.com/www.rsbruce.com/battery-recycling, (accessed 16 June 2024).

So there you have it! Let me know what you think in the comments on YouTube, and feel free to debate the above (if you have your sources too).

Bibliography

1
Li-Cycle, Technology, https://li-cycle.com/technology/, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
E. Yuraday, A Study on Real-Life Tesla Battery Deterioration | NimbleFins, https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/study-real-life-tesla-battery-deterioration, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
S. Hanley, Old Nissan LEAF Batteries Being Used For Grid-Scale Storage In California - CleanTechnica, https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/25/old-nissan-leaf-batteries-being-used-for-grid-scale-storage-in-california/, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
C. Xu, P. Behrens, P. Gasper, K. Smith, M. Hu, A. Tukker and B. Steubing, Nat Commun, 2023, 14, 119.
1
Toyota, Recycle My Car | Sustainability & Governance | Toyota UK, https://www.toyota.co.uk/discover-toyota/sustainability/governance/recycle-my-car, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
Eurostat, End-of-life vehicle statistics, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=End-of-life_vehicle_statistics, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
Britannia Car Leasing, What is the average annual car mileage in the UK?, https://www.britanniacarleasing.co.uk/news/annual-uk-car-milage/, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
D. Reichmuth, J. Dunn and D. Anair, Driving Cleaner: Electric Cars and Pickups Beat Gasoline on Lifetime Global Warming Emissions, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2022.
1
GreenNCAP, .
1
I. Hilton, How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy, https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-renewable-energy, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
Innovation Origins, Producing gasoline and diesel emits more CO2 than we thought, https://innovationorigins.com/en/producing-gasoline-and-diesel-emits-more-co2-than-we-thought/, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
Transport & Environment, How much CO2 can electric cars really save?, https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/how-clean-are-electric-cars/, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
I. Crawford, Y. Shao-Horn and D. Keith, How much CO2 is emitted by manufacturing batteries?, https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufacturing-batteries, (accessed 12 April 2024).
1
European Environment Agency, Life Cycle Assessment — European Environment Agency, https://www.eea.europa.eu/help/glossary/eea-glossary/life-cycle-assessment, (accessed 12 April 2024).
Scroll to Top