Are EVs really better for the climate?

Electric vehicles are rapidly growing in popularity as the number of different options has increased dramatically over the last couple of years and prices are beginning to move towards parity with internal combustion engine cars. But once all the carbon costs of extracting, processing and manufacturing are taken into account, how much lower is the overall lifetime carbon footprint of an EV compared to and ICE car? And for that matter, what's the carbon footprint of all the other types of transport we use in modern society?

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Research Links

ICCT Research Paper

Visual Capitalist

World Resources Institute report on China's decarbonisation

ICCT - 5 things you thought you knew about EVs that are not quite true

China's new energy policies

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[benpaynter]

I think the biggest point which was covered and I come across time and again is that when anti-ev people compare emissions they almost always look at mining of lithium, cobalt etc but then only include tailpipe emissions from ICE and totally ignore the oil extraction, processing and transport.

[comboyneorchard]

Answered a lot of questions perfectly. One of my pet peeves in Australia is the running down of public transport, back in the day we all caught busses or trains to work. What happened, they were the original self driving vehicle.

[deepphilip]

this channel is totally underrated for what it delivers...quality content 100%

[extraincomesuz]

I road a bicycle (non-electric) to work 15 years ago when I lived in Denver which has amazing cycle paths. My coworkers thought I was crazy but after a while when they saw me slim down and very fit, they changed their tune. Now I ride a bike and a scooter in Malaysia (I can't wait until they get electric motorbikes here). Thank you for the great videos!

[demetriostsillas]

Keep you current car as long as you can and drive it as little as you can. That's the best thing for the climate.

[kateevans]

I've had an EV for 2 years now and apart from the obvious savings on fuel (I've got PV panels and a domestic battery; at the moment my electricity bill, including the car, is around £25.) even though it's only got a 100 mile range, I would NEVER go back to an ICE car, they are a joy to drive and as my son says, even mine will go 'like s***t off a shovel'. The charging infrastructure in the UK needs work and govmnt support, but thats another story. (See EVman's rants on the subject!) These figures simply confirm what I've been trying to tell people. Cars cost about the same to manufacture whether they're ICE or EV, and once you've taken this into account, there's no comparison! Thank you Dave for your always informative and unbiased work, you are the best on Youtube! Cheers Kate

[Takahanazawa]

I appreciate this so much. I keep seeing people argue with me that lithium mining or dirty grids mean that EVS aren't any better than gasoline vehicles and I'm glad I have such a comprehensive study to point them towards now

[malcolmfowler]

Excellent video. I bought a 6 month old EV almost two years ago and wondered if I was making the right decision having frequently read anti-EV comments?
Best car I have ever had. So much more relaxing to drive and I am saving nearly £2k a year in fuel costs.

[markpickering]

I love my car but recently on a visit to Basel Switzerland I was seriously impressed by the tram network. Many people use bikes and walk, and Basel is also part of the huge European rail network. Trains are expensive but if you don't have a car they are reasonable. If occasionally I need a car I can just hire one!

[dougowt]

As always a very fair and balanced look at the subject. The naysayers never factor in the fact that pumping and refining oil, uses colossal amounts of electricity, so the emissions of internal combustion vehicles are worse in the countries that burn a lot of coal for their electricity. And as Robert Lewellyn often says, show me a recycled litre of burnt diesel

[Ehralur]

The only thing the study missed is how this only applies to EVs with a battery made from newly mined resources. Recycling batteries is cheaper than mining new materials, and we can already recycle over 90% of the materials. An EV made of these recycled batteries would have even way fewer emissions.

[TTTzzzz]

It's not only about how you travel but also how far you must travel. North American suburbia types of housing force people to travel long distances just to do their basic shopping. These wastelands could be rebuilt to accommodate local shops, parks, train- and tram stations, schools, etc. Walking and cycling would also become viable means of transport.

[luispendragon]

At university, as mechanical engineer, we saw that internal alternative combustion engines efficiency is at best 14% at shaft in automotive application.
Around 10% usable power at wheel after going through gearbox and differential.

For stationary power generation for this engines I was told that best efficiency was achieved by a two stroke diesel giving out around 23%.

All these numbers I have to beleive that are correct since I was tought so during my college studies, and what is more, none of these are never ever found or given by manufacturers.

There are big differences and will make big different results depending wich you use.

People have to stop believing that internal combustion engines are OK. They are a disaster.
100Hp car uses 1, 000Hp of power.... totally unacceptable.

I truly beleive that you give the best information possible and really apreciate your effort for It.
I love your channel.

[WilhelmDrake]

We need to encourage public officials to redesign cities to be more efficient for public transit.

[thevivariumforhalfmeasures]

As an Asian, it boggles my mind that traveling from London to Paris by train is about 15 times more expensive than traveling by plane. This isn't a good incentive for people to take sustainable public transportation .

[adamd]

Hi Dave, good food for thought, thanks.

The transport comparison graph at 10:00 is quite illustrative. We’ve been trying to work out when we can practically move from our conventional ICE car to an EV or hybrid (given prices, apartment living, local recharging infrastructure etc). In the meantime, I’m cycling more and more where previously I would’ve made a one-person car journey. (Even despite distinctly unfriendly-to-bikes local conditions!)

Oh, and I especially liked the bonus parenting tips at 09:00 “setting a good example etc” - nice :).

[piersdowell]

Good timing Dave, Although I am the worlds biggest petrol head I personally can't wait to get an EV. I've been frustrated recently by all the myopic views and posts on social media recently so I'll link this video as a great response. Thanks again, keep up the good work.

[jameshughes]

'determined not to be convinced' is such a good quote. I suspect lots of these people are rejecting reality to satisfy some emotion like guilt, fear or shame. No one should feel guilty for driving a gasoline car, they should instead be angry at the oil companies who for decades pushed propaganda while millions die every year from air pollution. That anger, which would be correctly placed, is a much stronger motivator to buy an EV I think.

[waynecartwright]

Having owned an EV for over 6 yrs my experience has highlighted to me the lower wear on brakes, the absence of waste engine oil, air, fuel & oil filters, and cam, alternator drive belt wear. as well as gearbox oils, and clutch wear, and spark plugs. Do we class the Exhaust system as a consumable too?

[michaelwhite]

Fantastic presentation of the subject matter. I'm a brit living in Norway where the use of electric cars is extremely widespread, the charging network is pretty good and almost all the electricity is generated using hydro power (so all in all, a pretty unique situation looking at the global picture). I've owned a VW e-golf for the last 4 years, but I also have a diesel VW Touran for practicality purposes (big loads and it has 7 seats). As the Touran is getting old and the options are getting better, I'm on the verge of buying a larger electric vehicle to replace it. Last week I rented a VW ID4 to do a long journey within Norway (as my son is starting a year at University on the other side of the country) to take the opportunity to see how it would go using an electric car for long journeys. This was the first time I've ever done a journey more than 100 km in an electric car and the first time I've ever used a public charging station. The journey was roughly 360 km (220 miles) and was a reasonable overall increase in altitude (roughly 450m), but with a rough range of 500 km, I was fairly confident the ID4 would be able to do it on a single full charge. We stopped to charge anyway while having a bite to eat (speed limits and intercity roads in Norway are not what you would call ideal, so it's roughly a 6 - 7 hour journey). The 20-25 minutes it took us to eat was enough to put an extra 200 km range in the battery, so 'range anxiety' was never an issue. On the way back, I didn't even consider charging as the battery level hardly moved in the middle of the journey because of the regen keeping the battery topped up as I came down off of the highest point on the mountain roads (I would guess I got about 100 - 150 km 'free'). The whole experience was quite honestly, fantastic, with two exceptions -1 being something with the car and the other the charging network. The thing with the car is the touch sensitive controls for just about everything in the ID4 (irritating and temperamental - as documented on numerous reviews of the ID4). The thing with the charging network is the absolute insistence of the charging companies to require a mobile phone app to use the chargers!?!?!?! There are a few apps which cover multiple charging companies, but our experience was that there are various incompatibilities with certain phones (payment methods, android versions, Ios versions) which don't present themselves until you actually try to charge the car (they install ok initially, but can be fiddly with setting up payment methods - but may not ultimately work anyway). I had numerous problems with this on my Sony android phone (which is admittedly not the newest model, but it's also not ancient either) - with both the multi-company apps and the dedicated single company apps. Why oh why can there not be standard card reader payment on these chargers - just like a petrol/diesel pump?!?!?!? This is something that the government needs to step in on and state there has to be a standard card payment option on all public chargers, in my opinion. Fortunately, when I did get one of the apps to work on my phone, there were more than enough chargers available around the major routes and towns to travel around without any concerns. So, with more and more public charging stations popping up on a regular basis, there's no reason not to take the plunge (at least here in Norway) to going fully electric now that there are a number of vehicles with over a 400 km range.