Following is in video description by @MoneyShift
The most common argument against electric cars is that once you factor in battery manufacturing and lithium mining, they aren't actually cleaner. MIT tested that directly, and the answer is no longer ambiguous.
Researchers Marco Miotti and Jessika Trancik built a lifecycle model covering thousands of US zip codes, drilling down to individual driver behavior rather than comparing broad regions. They accounted for battery and vehicle manufacturing, fuel extraction and refining, regional electricity mix, local meteorological data, traffic density, trip length and duration, acceleration patterns, gas and electricity prices, and state fees. The study appears in Environmental Research Letters.
The concession first: building a battery is dirtier than building a comparable gas car, and an EV starts life with a larger manufacturing footprint. MIT states that plainly rather than working around it.
The findings: in most US locations, a battery electric vehicle reduces lifetime greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 60 percent compared to a similar gas vehicle, with larger reductions in urban areas. On cold weather, MIT found that in a climate like North Dakota, efficiency can drop as much as 50 percent on a particularly frigid night, but the effect on annual emissions benefits is minimal. Miotti's own conclusion was that even in the most unfavorable conditions, EVs still reduce emissions substantially.
On cost, EVs are competitive with comparable combustion vehicles in lifetime ownership cost across most of the country, even without clean vehicle tax credits. Where electricity is relatively affordable, battery electrics tend to cost less outright. The study also found that individual driving behavior matters roughly as much as regional electricity mix, with the biggest reductions going to people who drive more, drive larger vehicles, and spend more time in traffic.
MIT also updated their public tool at carboncounter.com, where you can compare lifecycle emissions and ownership costs for nearly any car on the market.
None of this means you have to like electric cars. Dislike the steering feel. Dislike the brake feel. Want a manual. Those are real objections. The emissions one is finished.
Car news the way Doug DeMuro, Jason Cammisa and Chris Harris cover cars, every day
it count where the electricity come from, in the US. They use nuclear there for clean electricity, not the same in EU
US is only 20% nuclear
France is 68%.
so with 60% coal and gaz electricity in US the car is 40% less CO2 intensive than a oil car... seems it all boil down to how the electricity is made. France is poster child for nuclear power, I doubt other EU member are so clean
Even if 100% of the electricity was made from burning coal, EVs make less emissions than ICE. ICE is a lot of incomplete inefficient combustion and over 75% of the energy in gas is wasted as heat.
If we stuck to EVs from the first cars (which were EVs) it would seen pretty stupid to ever justify gas cars.
if it was so effective it wouldnt be only 50% more effective, with 40% clean elec , no? I mean 50% is good, but it seems low for something that doesnt use oil
EU average energy production is 27% fossil (9% coal), 22% nuclear and 50% renewable.
https://electricity-data.eurelectric.org/electricity-generation/electricity-generation-by-fuel.html
The only countries that had over 60% of their energy produced by fossil fuels were Cyprus, Malta and Poland