Which is why I put a used EV as being better for the environment vs a new one.

But both will be better for the environment in their lifetime than keeping a used ICE on the road.

It's more economical to keep your current car until it starts seeing major mechanical issues. However, environmentally an EV will (almost) always beat an ICE, the sooner you get one the better. Especially in a place like the EU where you can get even more environmentally friendly EVs due to the lower amounts of driving. You can, for example, grab the BYD seagull which has a 30kWh battery pack. That alone significantly reduces the new EV environmental impact beyond what some of the older numbers would have shown.

This is simply not true. A new EV will not reach emissions parity with a used ICE car in its average useful lifetime (12.5 years).

This isn't close or controversial, so I wonder what the basis for your mistaken belief otherwise is? Not even EV companies make this claim.

If your used ICE vehicle has 15 to 25,000mi in it, then yeah, replacing it with an EV today is the better choice. It's more a matter of when it will be the better choice.

This is only not true if you have very low yearly milages or a particularly efficient ICE. Which, maybe you do.

[1] https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/dec/06/carbon-dioxid...

That's the payoff period for the carbon differential between a new EV and a new ICE, not a new EV and your existing ICE, where the carbon cost of production is already sunk. Hence why the GP commented that keeping your ICE is environmentally better than buying a new EV.

Also note that 15-25k miles is 24-40k km, or 2.4-4 years of the average annual mileage in the EU. That's to break even with a new ICE. To break even with a second hand ICE, it's on the order or 15-20 years, or effectively longer than the useful life of the EV.

> If your used ICE vehicle has 15 to 25,000mi in it, then yeah, replacing it with an EV today is the better choice. It's more a matter of when it will be the better choice.

This claim is simply false. There is no point in the lifetime of a used ICE where replacing it with a new EV will result in reduce overall emissions.

No, that's to break even with a new EV per the article I posted.

I'd love to see a source that says otherwise. I think you have a bad source for the CO2 emissions of new EV production.

> One common claim is that electric vehicles have higher emissions associated with battery manufacturing. While manufacturing emissions for battery electric cars are roughly 40% higher than for gasoline cars, the ICCT’s research shows that this initial “emissions debt” is typically offset after around 17,000 kilometers of driving, usually within the first one to two years of use in Europe.

The emissions debt is relative to a new ICE.

In cradle-to-grave emissions, electric cars are much lower than ICE cars in lifetime carbon footprint, often 50% lower.

That doesn't change the fact the replacing a used ICE with a new EV will result in increased overall emissions and increase the net carbon footprint.

> I'd love to see a source that says otherwise. I think you have a bad source for the CO2 emissions of new EV production.

This is a completely uncontroversial fact and no environmental or governmental bodies make the claim which you are putting forward, so I'd rather like to see your sources.

Source: https://theicct.org/pr-electric-cars-getting-cleaner-faster/...

Just fuzzy eyeballing (I don't see the actual numbers for the manufacturing estimated CO2, just the graph), it looks like ~10% of the lifetime emissions for a new ICE come from manufacturing. That would put the the new EV payback vs used ICE at 4 or 5 years.

At that point, it just sort of depends on how long you hold onto your ICE for.

My wife might be able to do it with the amount she commutes, but for me, working from home, it's utterly laughable.