EVs are a massive, massive improvement, and while I like improving stuff (or using alternatives) to reduce further downsides, I don’t think we should look a gift horse in the mouth, here.
To be honest even this is a bit of an overstatement. An MIT study found that a huge chunk of the lifetime emissions of a vehicle is in the production alone. EVs, mostly due to their batteries, have much much higher production emissions.
And given how dirty our current energy production is (and the added costs and inefficiencies of storing and transporting electricity) we won't feel the benefits of EVs offsetting the initial added costs for many many years
Also given how notoriously unreliable certain brands like Tesla have been (27th of 28 in Consumer Reports reliability index) it's possible that the added maintenance costs will push this break even point even further down the road
But as of right now all we've really managed to do is push these emissions from the first world (combustion emissions) to the third world (production emissions)
EDIT: link to MIT study: https://energy.mit.edu/research/mobilityofthefuture/
Around 40% of an EVs lifetime emissions are from production alone. Tesla's tend to be even higher because of the larger batteries and less efficient production
Electric vehicles have almost half the lifetime emissions. That's huge, no matter how you spin it.
Also one thing missing from this analysis is maintenance. The three factors taken into account are initial production (much higher for EVs), cost of fuel production (also much higher for EVs), and emissions from fuel combustion (0 for EVs). However batteries don't last forever and it still remains to be seen that EVs can reach the maintenance costs of combustion engine vehicles (with Tesla being a notable argument against EVs potential)
The batteries last longer than the 150,000km these studies assume. My 2013 Model S is at 209,000 kilometers and going strong with little (10% or less) range reduction.
I looked at the study a bit, and they use Model S-sized battery size and efficiency assumptions (about 3mi/kWh) to compare to a Camry. More appropriate would be Model 3 assumptions (4mi/kWh). The emissions factors are from a white paper 5 years ago, itself using older data. They assume 525grams of CO2 per kWh for the reference case going down to 345 in 2050, but the US already has emissions of about 375gramsCO2/kWh and falling. Just terrible assumptions. A bunch of stuff like that in the study.
And it compounds! A factor of 1.33 bigger battery (3mi/kWh instead of 4mi/kWh) whose manufacturing emissions are 1.41 times as high (525grams of CO2 per kWh vs 372, if we optimistically assume electricity is the main energy input but pessimistically assume the energy needed to make a kWh of capacity remains the same) means a factor of 1.9 exaggeration in manufacturing emissions. Plus the operating emissions per mile are also exaggerated by a factor of 1.9…
Finally: Batteries in modern EVs last the life of the vehicle. 500,000km or so. Potentially longer with LFP cells.
No it's very much not. Please see chapter 4 of the linked MIT report:
Fuel production emissions are also
typically higher for BEVs (and FCEVs) because, on
average, generating and delivering a megajoule of
electricity or hydrogen to a vehicle battery or fuel
cell consumes much more energy than producing
and delivering a megajoule of gasoline to the fuel
tank of an ICE1. Emissions from initial production
2. Emissions from fuel production
3. Emissions from fuel consumption
For EVs, emissions from 1 and 2 are higher. But this is more than offset by having 0 emissions from the third category. So yes, the emissions per mile traveled is less in EVs. However the cost of fuel production per mile traveled is still significantly higher (around 192% higher)
PS you're the only one who used the word "cheaper". I only used it when directly quoting you. I presumed we were still measuring by emissions and not by dollar cost, but I see now that you were talking about something else
EDIT: check out figure 4.6 on page 68
> “cost of fuel production (also much higher for EVs)”
At this point, that's only true if you're living in the dirtiest power grid in the US, are a low milage driver, and you junk your EV within two years of purchasing it new.
Also, the ICE car in this comparison has to be over a decade old (< 10% of the original embodied CO2 averaged out over the years), has to have top-tier fuel efficiency and also be much smaller than the EV.
The union of concerned scientists has a calculator for this based on zip code, and the exact model of EV.
This is false and actually the opposite is true. They actually used Model S sedan figures (3mi/kWh) for efficiency to compare to Camry sized vehicle. The more appropriate comparison is to a Model 3, which gets 4mi/kWh.
People underestimate how efficient Tesla’s powertrains are compared to most competitors. Tesla tends to do much BETTER at efficiency than their peers, not worse.
The Model 3's (mid range 2020) MPGe-CO2 is a bit better than a BMW i3 (2018). The i3 is a little euro city car thing.
They carefully optimized the BMW for weight, and also have some funky custom ultra efficient tires. For example, the frame is made of (hemp - supposedly lighter) fiberglass and carbon fiber, and they didn't offer power seats. It has a tiny trunk / no front trunk. It only gets EPA 135 miles per charge.
The BMW and Tesla are both much better than a 2022 BMW i4, Nissan Leaf, or Polestar 2. They're a bit better than the most recent Fiat 500e, which is closer to the i3's size.
Tesla's energy efficiency vs. size is really impressive.
They're also just... bad at making them. A 2020 survey by JD Power found that Tesla ranked last of the 38 brands they looked at in initial quality. It's a measurement of how many problems new vehicles face in the first 90 days of owning them
This is consistent with Consumer Reports rankings of Tesla as second to last in reliability
This is what I'm talking about when I say "inefficient manufacturing". Not fuel usage
all we need to do is convert street parking into bike lanes, and build a few parking structures in the oldest neighborhoods that were built before onsite parking was common (this mitigates the biggest legitimate objection for getting rid of street parking).
It will never happen of course, because the city council and most wings of local government are openly corrupt with regular FBI indictments.
The problem with electric cars is that they are still cars.
Sure, it's not a cure-all, and more pedestrian areas, better bicycle infrastructure, more medium-density housing with walkable neighborhoods, and heat-pumps instead of burning oil or gas are still important issues. But just switching from ICE to electric engines is a cheap win that I'm glad to get as well.
A 2022 Model Y (SUV) weighs 4400 pounds. A 2022 ICE Ford Explorer weighs 6100 pounds.
Maybe this is because Ford sucks at making reasonable-weight vehicles, right?
Well, a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E weighs 4700 pounds, which is a bit overweight vs. the Model Y, but still way lighter than their old flagship SUV.
I'm not sure how, but in the US, EVs are somehow lighter than comparable gas vehicles.
You are just using the wrong comparators. A Tesla Model Y is more comparable (for instance, it's a lot closer in dimensions) to the 3,700 lb Ford Escape SUV than the 4,400 Ford Explorer.
If you require everyone around you to to have the same priorities as you, then you may be happier in a smaller town.
The main issue with having cars (or not) is that infrastructure that costs many orders of magnitude more than the cars has to be rebuilt if you want to switch between car-dependent and walk/bike-everywhere.
May be you didn't pay attention? They were already protests in the 1970s to stop the non sense of building highways in the middle or urban centres. Jane Jacob was talking about it in the 1960s. It's not so much about environmentalists but urban designers have been talking of the negative impact of car culture on our society and way of life for decades.
Both things can be true. EVs are better than ICE cars. Not having your lifestyle and cities designed around cars for every single trip is better than EVs. And we can switch to EVs gradually while also making our dense communities more livable.
Not everything revolves around Elon Musk ideas, as much as he would like many to believe.
But, if the alternative to the BEV SUV is an ICE SUV then they'll still help a lot, saving lots of money and many lives.