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 pledged to phase out the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles over the next few decades, in an effort to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

But with lingering questions over the mining of rare metals, battery manufacturing and electricity consumption, Josh Toussaint-Strauss investigates whether electric vehicles are as green as we've been led to believe

#electriccars #driving #green #climatechange

[misosoppa]

Maybe we should stop having such a car-centric approach to "saving" the environment? One diesel bus can fit a 100 EV drivers, and one high speed train can fit as many as 1400 EV drivers! Imagine how much better that is for the environment!

[davidjma]

In Adelaide South Australia there has been an all electric solar powered bus for at least 15 years!

[JJs_playground]

You're missing a few things about petrol/gas cars. The refinement of the oil into gas, the transportation of the gasoline, the storage of gasoline at petrol stations, the oil changes/ oil filters throughout the lifetime of the ICE car, the reduced efficiency of the gas car over time.

Whereas EVs get cleaner overtime ( as we switch from coal to cleaner forms of power production), ICE cars get dirtier over time.

[isabellatambwe]

So local manufacturing is the key, solar power and doing away with child labour would be the best things. One company cannot earn it all

[davidpalk]

E-cars - just another way to convince us to carry on consuming regardless. The only tangible advantage is cleaner air in cities, which is not how they're selling it to us, is it? Congratulations dear people, you have been well and truly greenwashed by the unstoppable corporate-growth machine which can obviously never advise simply consuming far less.

[uma]

Tesla started to move away from cobalt in batteries in the middle of 2020. Mainly because of cost rather than altruistic ambition, but hey, whatever helps.

[Heddanofarsan]

I've known this for ten years and debated it. It's great that we can now put more evidence into the debate so that global problems can be adressed in a deductive manner.

[MT-ysju]

No one talks about cruise-liners. If they are really serious about reducing emissions they would bad cruise-liners entirely. They have no use other than for entertainment and they are one of the biggest polluters in the world.

[userK]

Batteries are shipped, shock! Like if machine parts are not

[renganathcanandan]

May be the time has finally come for sodium iron batteries initially for low performance and grid storage. As and when the technology develops, we can use the same for other applications which require greater energy density.

[pechaa]

I just read that the Volkswagen ID Buzz doesn’t use cobalt.

[peteradaniel]

Stop lecturing us on personal responsibility when you jettison the chances of the only politicians to promote substantial initiatives on green, public transport alternatives.

[sukanya]

May be there should be a documentary on it backed with some data ! That will help in understanding better

[engineeringtheweirdguy]

“Higher particle emissions from tire wear according to some study” - according to one study.. one thoroughly debunked study that didn’t even use EV’s in said study.

[carkawalakhatulistiwa]

3:53 Soviet Union have trolley electric bus

[darkspeed]

We need to stop saying "if only we use public transport more".
Public transport is a huge inconvenience for long journeys and is often cancelled or delayed, at least here in the UK, and it's particularly worse if you want to travel to somewhere rural.
It's merely a pipe dream to believe we will realistically become a society that chooses public transport over our cars to go somewhere. Anyone who can afford a car is 8/9 times out of 10 going to use it to get themselves around vs public transport.

[incodewetrust]

1) there's no carbon in oil refining
2) there's no geopolitical conflict over oil

[psychiatry-is-eugenics]

Have to include all the fires - ships sinking, factory disasters .

[kadran]

What happens to the batteries when they no longer hold enough charge? This is a critical aspect of the EV carbon and environmental impact which is seldom mentioned.

[flobbie]

"Water lost", "carbon created", what are you talking about? Water isn't lost. Carbon isn't created.