The EPA’s final rule follows a concession to labor unions worried about a rapid shift to electric vehicles, and a nod that EV sales are slowing
The EPA’s final rule follows a concession to labor unions worried about a rapid shift to electric vehicles, and a nod that EV sales are slowing
Also of note: it’s almost always worse for the environment to replace a working gas car with an EV. When it comes time to purchase a new car because yours is dead or too costly to maintain, that’s a good time to look at EVs.
I see this sentiment repeated a lot, and it strikes me as … incomplete.
If measured at just the individual level this is absolutely true. If you own a current ICE car, 100% of the resources and energy used to create that car have already been expended. Essentially its already been “paid for” in CO2 for the creation of the vehicle (but not the operation of it, for forget that for now). Disposing of a perfectly working CO2 “paid for” ICE car to buy a new BEV that takes on the “bill” of “paying for its CO2” is environmentally negative.
However, this ignores that these actions don’t happen in isolation. You don’t DISPOSE of your old well running ICE car. It goes to a new owner, not the trash heap. Running used cars have to come from someplace, and people replacing their old dead ICE (or very poorly running) cars may not be able to buy a BEV today because they are still relatively high compared to well running used cars.
I wonder if there isn’t actually a net benefit to the environment for folks that want a BEV parting with a well running ICE car. The oldest cars on the road today usually have the worst emissions. Those owners may be hanging onto those old ones because better running, better emissions used ICE vehicles are more expensive and out of reach. So trading in a well running ICE would push down prices on better used cars allowing buyers in that segment to truly scrap the worst polluting cars on the road.
I’d like some real evidence before I throw my full weight behind this opinion and I haven’t found enough through my quick google searches. One article supporting this position (which one isn’t enough) is here. Its talking about Western nations exporting used vehicles and these are usually the oldest, which are the worst polluters.
If anyone has reputable evidence or articles for or against this. I’m interested in seeing them.
Problem is that a big chunk of new vehicle buyers never run their old cars into the ground like that; they treat ‘new car every few years’ as a status symbol. And a big chunk of vehicle buyers can only ever afford used cars. So it’s important that new vehicles all be electric, and not just some random subset.
Even then: ICE cars with synthetic, co2 neutral fuel are even better, than new EVs. And then there’s the argument, that a hunk of aluminium with pistons is “cheaper” (in terms of ecological impact) than lithium. Because the EV also needs aluminium, the production of aluminium is going to go down the route of co2 neutral anyway. So a mix of both things and especially EVs with smaller batteries makes a lot more sense…(which has also been proven with various studies, but who gives two flying things about that these days)
If you’re going to include the environmental impacts of the one-time lithium extraction (which are usually exaggerated anyway), you must also include the decades of environmental impact of petroleum exploration and extraction. You don’t get to count just the cost of burning the fuel either. You must include the of searching for new deposits, setting up extraction infrastructure, infrastructure for logistics for shipping all the raw then refined goods, and possibly even the costs and geopolitical impacts of war for securing petroleum interests globally.
In fairness, I would also include the cost for electricity generation as a cost for BEVs for an apples-to-apples comparison. Electricity generation (transmission and distribution) will vary widely but we have these metrics for the USA at least. In extreme cases, there are BEVs charged with rooftop solar, which would SERIOUSLY undermine your argument about ICE vehicles being a better ecological choice.
And that’s where your argument falls flat, because we are not talking about the past, we’re talking about the future and making it a better one. EVs are a part of that future, but not “the only” thing in that future.
You missed the point completely.
No - they wouldn’t, for the simple fact, that zero co2 stays zero co2. They can be on par with a small battery, but everything above 60 kWh needs more than 15 tonnes of co2 to be even produced, making the rucksack impossible to get rid off. A current Golf needs around 9t of Co2 to be produced, a current ID.3 needs 14t
So if both cars are “fueld” with energy that has zero co2 emissions, the ID.3 keeps it’s 5 tonnes deficit.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. Your prior post seemed to make a comparison to the CO2 created with ICE vs with BEV. That’s what I was responding to. What “the future” thing has to do with that comparison? ICE and BEV vehicles are made today and the inputs are known. There is nothing ambiguous about today’s vehicles. You seem to suggest ICE are lower CO2 impact than BEV. I think you’re leaving out massive amounts of CO2 with ICE.
Feel free to restate it in a single clear statement. Your point is not clear from your prior post or this one.
You’re calling out numbers for production of EV without including the equivalent ICE CO2 creation (and not just manufacturing). “rucksack”?
Where are you getting efficiently created, consumable. and widely available ICE fuel with zero CO2 impacts?
Is that real yet? I’ve never heard of that in mass production.
I think the biggest downside of ICE is you’re only getting a small fraction of the power out of the fuel, even if it’s carbon neutral. There’s a ton of waste in burning that fuel.
No, various synthetic fuels have been used at points through automotive history, including ethanol in a lot of todays gasoline in the US, so technically correct. However they’re much more expensive and haven’t been able to scale or be carbon neutral. That ethanol example is the biggest rollout, but several studies claim it’s worse for the climate than burning gasoline would have been, while others have claimed there’s no way to scale it to completely replace gasoline
You could even argue against the validity of the basic idea of carbon neutral fuel. The idea is you’re emitting carbon already in todays carbon cycle, instead of emitting carbon that was sequestered for hundreds of millions of years. However does hot air with excess carbon and other pollutants from burning, really do no more damage than the plant it was made from?
It is in Sweden, Finland, California, Italy and now Germany. (Although in a different form, called HVO, which is Diesel from garbage (even plastic) and needs roughly 1,5 kWh per Liter)
The “waste” is irrelevant, if it’s made from power that could not have been used anyway, because it was made in a remote part of the world. We’re still a long, long way away from a global power grid. That power would have to be converted anyway - and we do have all the infrastructure ready to go for that liquid stuff.