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One of the biggest debates in the modern auto industry, that there are comparative or more greenhouse gases produced through electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, seems to finally be resolved after the release of a comprehensive review.
Using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), measuring every ounce of carbon created from the cradle to the grave of the vehicle showed that electric vehicles still had substantially fewer emissions than internal combustion engine (ICV) vehicles.
From the moment the curtain was first raised on the concept of the Toyota Prius, automotive minds have been skeptical that hybrids and electric (EV) were greener after considering the extreme carbon costs of creating the battery and the fact that the electricity to charge it came from burning the very fossil fuels they were meant to replace.
However, in the new LCA of the International Council for Clean Transport, everything from the costs of extracting lithium to make the batteries, to transporting it around the world via a container ship, to the loading of the end of its useful life and even current and perceived life. The mix of power generation in a given society was considered in the four dominant automotive markets: Europe, the US, India and China. Even in the latter two, the largest coal (often lignite) and oil burners for electricity on Earth, it still uses less emissions to drive an EV than an ICV.
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“The lifetime emissions of today’s average midsize electric vehicles are already lower than those of comparable gasoline cars by 66% -69% in Europe, 60% -68% in the States. States, 37% -45% in China and 19% -34% in India ” the report summary says.
“Additionally, as the electricity mix continues to decarbonize, the life cycle emissions gap between electric vehicles and gasoline vehicles increases substantially when considering midsize cars that are projected to register in 2030.”
Early skeptics of electric vehicles and hybrids had reason to suspect how eco-friendly they were at the turn of the century – for example, even with modern battery technology, making an electric vehicle or a hybrid is still a bit more carbon-intensive. .
However, like all technologies, market innovations make things better, cheaper and faster. Battery recycling technology, for example, would not only reduce the cost of the electric vehicle, but also the carbon footprint.
One setback in the report is that use estimates from the International Energy Agency to make projections about the potential energy mix 18 years into the future, which is the duration that the report assumes is the driving life of a car.
That is extremely approximate, as bureaucrats around the world tend to say much more than they do regarding the advancement of renewable energy policy, and should there be a major political power shift in any of these countries, the IEA report wouldn’t explain. changes in policy.
However, you would only have to drive an electric vehicle purchased today for a year before officially using less carbon than if you bought an ICV.
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