Yes, almost always. But it's important to point out the edge cases.

Where I'm from the largest power plant in the country is also insanely polluting - Bełchatow power plant burns lignite for electricity and the CO2 emissions are just bananas. The official number is around 1.7kg(!!!!!!!) Of CO2 for every kWh of electricity produced[1]. If you run your electric car using energy from that power plant then yes, it pollutes more than almost any petrol/diesel vehicle bar some sports cars and large trucks.

But that's a curiosity, an edge case, and if anything it proves that Bełchatow should be closed down immediately and not that EVs are a bad thing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Stat...

> An electric car powered by coal is still cleaner overall than one powered by gasoline

I'm sceptical that we know enough about the energy and resource mix in use across our global supply chains to be anywhere near that confident.

Look up Enrico Mariutti and his thoughts on the photovoltaic lifecycle figures ( mentioned in "China's dirty fuel advanage" - https://public.substack.com/p/solar-panels-more-carbon-inten... )

"You glide silently out of the Tesla (TSLA.O) showroom in your sleek new electric Model 3, satisfied you're looking great and doing your bit for the planet. But keep going - you'll have to drive another 13,500 miles (21,725 km) before you're doing less harm to the environment than a gas-guzzling saloon."[0]

Appreciate this may be desperately off-message here, but here's the rub: what we change in Europe and North America isn't going to fix anything unless we take China, India, and all the rest of the world with us.

"Most of the electricity in China comes from coal, which accounted for 62% of the electricity generation mix in 2021"[1]

"China permits two new coal power plants per week in 2022"[2]

"China ramps up coal power despite carbon neutral pledges. Local governments approved more coal power in first three months of 2023 than all of 2021."[3]

If we really care about fixing the planet, China and India are where we should be looking. Teslas in California are an irrelevance.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China [2] https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/24/china-ramps-up...

Electric fueled by coal produces less CO2 than gasoline. It's not cleaner by a long shot. The pollution produced by a coal plant, especially a brown coal plant, is insane even when they don't have an ash pond breach that kills more wildlife than a tactical nuclear explosion.