I’ve seen a lot of posts here on Lemmy, specifically in the “fuck cars” communities as to how Electric Vehicles do pretty much nothing for the Climate, but I continue to see Climate activists everywhere try pushing so, so hard for Electric Vehicles.
Are they actually beneficial to the planet other than limiting exhaust, or is that it? or maybe exhaust is a way bigger problem?
People who say EVs do nothing just want to complain for the sake of complaining a lot of the time. EVs aren’t ideal, but they are better and more crucially they shift the consumer thinking away from ICE cars and towards alternatives.
But it’s also really dumb to go the other way and focus so much on EVs, isn’t it? Why replace our cars with slightly-different cars, build a whole new charging infrastructure for them, and then phase them out, say, another 40-50 years down the line? It’s not just tailpipe CO2 emissions at issue, it’s poor land-use causing a major housing crisis, it’s the cost of cars skyrocketing out of financial reach of many people, it’s habitat destruction causing populations of wild animals to crash and many to go extinct, it’s particulate matter from tires causing human maladies like dementia and cardiovascular disease, it’s an epidemic of social isolation and loneliness, it’s traffic violence killing over a million people a year, it’s sedentary lifestyles leading to diabetes and cardiovascular problems, it’s CO2 emissions from manufacturing cars and building the infrastructure that they need, it’s the large-scale use of fresh water for manufacturing, it’s the loss of autonomy for children, it’s municipalities going broke trying to maintain car-centric infrastructure, it’s the burden on people in poverty needing to buy and maintain a car, etc. etc.
I mean, the ultimate solution is to have cities and towns that don’t force us to get in the car to drive everywhere, for every little thing, every day. There’s little meaningful difference between transitioning cities away from ICE cars and transitioning cities away from electric cars. We could just start now, and maybe Millennials might be able to see some benefit before they retire. EVs are fine as a stop-gap measure while we work on that, but I see them being treated as the main event.
I don’t think we are focusing completely on EVs, they’re just a very hot topic for some reason. There’s plenty of high speed rail projects, pedestrianisation and other non car related innovations coming through
Buying an electric vehicle does not make the world a better place, but buying and using a gas vehicle makes the world worse by a bigger margin, so if you’re buying a vehicle, an electric vehicle is probably better.
This is a good way to put it. If you’re in the market and need a car, ICE you are knowingly hurting the planet a lot. Buying an EV you’re at least not making the planet worse.
First priority is to get rid of cars in general. Try to use bicycles and public transportation. If you don’t need a car to get to work, consider a car share service to replace your private car/private parking space.
EVs probably have around 1/10th the lifetime emissions of a gas car, which is still really significant.
EVs probably have around 1/10th the lifetime emissions of a gas car
Do you have a source for that because that’s radically better than any number I’ve heard. Most analyses I’ve seen have been more like 40-60%.
Doesn’t this hugely depend on the power generation in your area?
No source, but I remember hearing that EVs earn back the cost of their manufacturing through their zero emissions within about a year. I extrapolated based on that with the assumption that a car will last about 10 years. I live in Sweden where our electricity is carbon free/ carbon neutral.
What you heard was probably about tail-pipe emissions which are very low compared to ICEs indeed but they only represent a small part of an EV’s lifetime emissions.
In the EU, EVs reduce lifetime emissions by about 30%. Certainly not nothing but not anywhere close to solving our transport emissions problem.
It’s basically “refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle” except for cars it’s “refuse, cycle, public transport, car pool”
It is the nuclear power vs fossil fuels vs renewables debate all over again. Nuclear is much greener than fossil fuels but comes with its own challenges regarding cost, safety and waste disposal. Renewable energy like solar, wind and hydro are better than nuclear but the point is that nuclear and renewables are not enemies rather they are allies who have to band together to beat fossil fuels.
Public transport is like renewables, the best solution but one which needs time because years of underdevelopment and under-funding means that they are not as developed as they should be.
EVs are like nuclear. Not the perfect solution but have the capability to serve areas and use cases that public transport (renewables) can’t. There are issues like them costing more than the alternatives and that the disposal of waste produced by both is a problem with an unsatisfactory solution.
ICE vehicles are like fossil fuel energy plants. The worst of the worst with regards to their effect on the planet. Their only advantage is that they offer convenience.
So I think we should stop the narrative that EVs(nuclear) are bad because the are not the best solution at hand but rather combine increasing adoption of both EV(nuclear) and public transport (renewables) to combat the true threat that is ICE(fossil fuel energy plants).
Nuclear power is alright if you disregard it turning two cities into wastelands for a century.
#1 - Burning fossil fuels (automobiles, specifically) kills 250,000 Americans a year. It causes a TREMENDOUS amount of pollution that is hugely impactful to health and quality of life
#2 - The only way to make our energy usage sustainable is to centralize production - ie you have to make all automobiles electric to start before the transition of the grid to renewables has a more dramatic effect. BTW, 40% of energy production of the US in 2023 was renewable. So our grid is getting cleaner and cleaner by the day.
#3 - Climate change. It is the most existential threat to our survival in our lifetime, bar none. We should do everything we can to leave the planet better than when we came. And right now we are failing miserably.
FYI, for all the naysayers saying EVs are “as” or “more” polluting than their ICE counterparts, this has long been debunked. Please do not listen to the Russian/Chinese propaganda or the comments of idiots that have no ability to analyze data.
can you please provide sources for your claims?
- A study published in The BMJ states that air pollution from the use of fossil fuels in industry, power generation, and transportation accounts for 5.1 million avoidable deaths a year globally, with 61% of these deaths linked to fossil fuels. The study doesn’t provide a number for the US.
- According to the International Energy Agency, the transition to electric vehicles is an important step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combating climate change. In the United States, renewable energy sources accounted for 40% of electricity generation in 2023, up from 17% in 2000.
- The United Nations claim climate change is “the defining issue of our time” and “the greatest challenge to sustainable development”.
You just did. For #1, here is the relevant US data (https://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829).
The increase of renewable energy sources from 17% to 40% from 2020-2023 is amazing and mostly due to policies enacted by the current administration. I don’t understand how that isn’t being celebrated and I can’t imagine how that progress will be damaged with the Republican nominee in power.
Thanks!
I like to think of it as “better than”.
They’re not perfect, but they’re better than what people might do instead.
I could swap my older car for a second hand EV, which would be an environmental improvement.
The current car does 50-ish MPG, about 1.5 miles per KWH. An electric would do 4+miles per KWH, which going in reverse is 100+MPG.A bigger improvement might come from me getting the bus/train/bike everywhere, which is where the fuck cars argument comes from.
But I am disorganised, a bit lazy, and I don’t want to shepherd 4 people onto the train, paying £150 to go 100 miles.So for me, slightly better is better than no improvement at all.
The energy used can be green, depending on what the national grid is up to that day. But it’s always more green than burning dinosaurs.
And the reduction in brake dust is always a nice plus.
which going in reverse is 100+MPG.
Holy cow, why don’t people drive in reverse all the time?
/s
Because you have to go forward before you can go backward.
/s
How does one convert MPG to KWh? Electricity generation takes numerous forms with notably different efficiencies converting input to output…
Yeah, it should be miles-per-kilowatt-hour, or kilowatt-hours / litres per hundred kilometers, like most of the world uses it.
I kinda agree, lots of different formats in every direction, lots of dividing 1 by numbers to compare things.
One site lists Wh/mi, another Mi/KWh, manufacturer site only lists the range based on speed.
Then comparing it to figures for countries using metric distance, customary sized gallons for ICE, and L/100KM…It gets fiddly to make direct comparisons!On the efficiency of generation, I guess it’s open to the reader to apply their own modifier.
I’d be aiming to charge the car using private solar as much as possible which would drive it down.
National Grid emissions in the UK last year were about 217g/KWh on average. Even using grid the whole time, the emissions would be easily halved for me.Edit: There is a suitably lengthy wikipedia page on MPGe. Having skimmed it, MPGe doesn’t take into account upstream efficiency. While well-to-wheel gives a clearer picture, I can understand why for a simple metric MPGe does not. Especially since the primary function will be users gauging cost, and the electricity source should gradually improve over time.
It’s the same thing with recycling, companies trying to sell the idea that climate change is a personal failing of every single person even though said companies are responsible for like 90% of carbon emissions.
The problem with EVs is that we already have a better fix for this: public transit. Like trams and trains are both electric and would solve the microplastics caused by tires. Car companies are just pushing EVs to make a profit as always, the percentage of adoption required to effect climate changes isn’t happening in the next several decades so just fix the issue centrally with proper public transit and actually effect climate change before we all die.
The often ignored part of this argument is that 50% of the US population at least lives in rural states. I grew up in a town with less than 10k people.
I’m 100% for more public transit, I live in a city and take the train to work. But for most Americans they do not and for the foreseeable future will not have public transit. I’m all for fighting for it, but it will be centuries before that happens.
EVs are NOT a perfect solution. They are a stopgap. But right now with where the planet is we need something now, we can’t wait for centuries.
As for the companies are worse? Yes, they are. That doesn’t mean we should just be complacent. It means we should be demanding they change AND lowering our own emissions. It’s going to take everybody changing their lifestyles. The rich are the worst because few of them cause a huge percentage, but that doesn’t mean the huge chunk of carbon we all put out together is excused either.
I grew up in a small town of less than 6000 people and we had bus lines connecting it to larger cities and a bus line that went around the town as well, I never had to take a car anywhere and you usually didn’t see more than 3 cars at once because everyone either walked or took the bus.
The problem with EVs is that won’t be adopted at a rate to make a difference while building public transit could happen faster so as a stopcap they do nothing currently and probably won’t until it’s too late either while only working as a distraction while public transit could be just be built with the same political will behind it as EVs have.
Getting everyone to switch to EVs is not happening in several decades, for example here in Estonia people mostly buy old used cars because new cars are ungodly expensive EVs even more so, I have seen one EV in 10 years.
You may not believe it but there in Estonia you are lucky for your transit. My town of 15k ripped up their railroad in favor of a 4 lane highway. Americans love their car so much that they’ll hurt themselves.
We also did not have a bus running through town, even the capital city of the state only had about 10 bus lines, all usually less than hourly, even during commutes.
So yes, I’m very pro transit, but people in America are literally centuries behind you folks in infrastructure
Yea, I have heard, that’s why I’m saying a better solution would be to build proper public transit. Like a political group I’m a part of are trying to get the city to expand the tram network to the surrounding areas in the county. We got them to expand it to the harbor recently and the construction finished like at the second half of last year.
That’s what I try to do here, I’m lucky that I’m in Seattle where we’re having the largest rail expansion in the country right now. But most of the country is not so lucky. I’ll always push for transit, that should be option 1. While waiting on transit, I say EVs are a better alternative than continuing to purchase ICE vehicles - which most of America is still doing. Push for transit, but individually use EVs if you still must drive.
EVs are much better for the environment than ICE vehicles. Mass transportation is much better still.
No product is good for the environment.
But an EV is a hell of a lot better than an ICE.
The best solution is 0 cars anywhere.
A more realistic solution, is to replace planet-murdering cars with planet-kicking cars.The math that I have seen on when an EV becomes better for the planet compared to an ICE is kinda all over the place, mostly due to how the power is generated.
Where I live, with a high amount of coal, buying a used ICE vehicle makes more sense than buying a new EV. If we drove more than just our weekly grocery trip, it might make more sense.
Its all about efficiencies even on a coal fired grid an EV produces less emissions a prius.
As long as you would drive enough so that difference can offset the fabrication of the EV. Most people will hit this number in less than five years.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/We drive about 350km a year on a high-coal grid, so we won’t drive enough for a new EV to be better for the environment than getting a used car that was headed for disposal.
I know people who drive more per day than my household drives per year, so I know that we are going to be a fairly rare case.
Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Technologies (GREET) model
Wasn’t that the fun model where they ignored the emissions of producing the vehicle?
GREET is broken into 2 models; GREET1 which is just about the use of the vehicle, and GREET2 which is just about the manufacturing of the vehicle.
Thanks for the info. Do you know which combination was used to derive the number in the article?
Sounds like you need a used EV.
If there was a decent used EV, it should be used by someone who has a greater need/want than I have.
My coffee consumption has a larger carbon footprint than my household’s driving, so I could try to find other ways to reduce before I throw away a working vehicle.
A more realistic solution, is to replace planet-murdering cars with planet-kicking cars.
What a sad truth. Maybe we can add “and fewer of them”.
Doing “pretty much nothing for the climate” is hyperbole, I think. It’s hard to say what the net climate benefit EVs might have, because our system is so complex. The numbers I found show that electricity and heating accounted for the highest, single category of CO2 emissions, at around 15 billion tons annually in 2020. Transportation came in second at around 7 billion tons. If we could wave a magic wand, and instantly do a 1:1 replacement of ICE cars with EVs, it would put a big dent in that category’s emissions. It would also spike the electricity and heating category. Would the increase be less than the savings in the transportation category? LIkely, and the benefit would increase as more renewable electricity sources come online.
But even if we further used that magic wand to instantly get all of that new electricity for EVs from renewable sources, that still wouldn’t touch the vast majority of emissions, in which car-centric lifestyles play a large role, e.g. manufacturing, construction, land use, even electricity and heating. So saying that EVs will do pretty much nothing for the climate is inaccurate, but so is saying that they’re a big part of the solution. They’re just incrementally better, and the size of the increment is arguable.
I think the push-back is mainly directed at that line of magical thinking that says that all we need to do is switch to EVs to drive to the grocery store, bring re-usable bags, and get Starbucks coffee in compostable cups, and the environment will be saved.
In terms of Carbon, they produce about one third of the damage which an equivalent internal combustion engine car would.
There’s a lot of factors that go into the final figures, like the specifics of the vehicle and the source of the energy used to charge it.
It’s a bit like vaping instead of smoking. Neither are good for you but one is clearly worse than the other.
Does that third also take into account any differences in manufacturing them? In other words, the entire lifecycle.
That’s the best figure I’ve seen for the total lifetime impact.
It depends on a like for like comparison. A really massive and inefficient EV will not stack up so well against a small efficient ICE, for example.
There’s just too much variation for any one figure to be both simple and accurate
A lot of good answers here. One made me think about the good aspects, not just the game reduction aspects.
Electric cars are creating additional sources of funding for battery research, improvement of the electrical grid (there was a movement to get rid of central power generating and just use generators at each house), and electric generation smoothing.
Better batteries faster will help humans to make better use of the minerals we pull from the earth and the electrons we set in motion. (Imagine a battery peaking plant with 1980’s batteries.)
Improvement of the electric grid could limit wildfires caused by them.
Smoothing electric grid drawls moves generation from peaking with natural gas to more base load, hopefully with something better than coal.
Electric cars are creating additional sources of funding for battery research, improvement of the electrical grid (there was a movement to get rid of central power generating and just use generators at each house), and electric generation smoothing.
The kinds of battery used in cars and the kinds of batteries suitable for grid-scale operation only have a small overlap. They have entirely different needs. Car batteries make lots of trade-offs to very lightweight for example which is totally irrelevant in a stationary facility.
I think the only reason Li-ION batteries were even considered for grid-scale is that better suited battery technologies simply haven’t been researched until very recently.
If our goal was energy storage for our grids, we would not be researching BEV battery tech.
Hard disagree.
This week, I’m designing a circuit which would traditionally use relays, but I’m considering IGBTs instead. IGBTs weren’t designed for my industry, but they’re so cheap (thanks to quadcopters) that I can just overspec them and get the job done despite the lack of optimization.
Grid scale energy storage was already being researched before the EV boom – remember when people stopped talking about vanadium-flow? EV batteries undercut stationary-optimized batteries in $/kWh because EVs are lucrative enough to drive the research that much harder. Without the EV industry as the incubator for competing battery tech, stationary storage would still cost what it did in 2010.
EV batteries undercut stationary-optimized batteries in $/kWh because EVs are lucrative enough to drive the research that much harder. Without the EV industry as the incubator for competing battery tech, stationary storage would still cost what it did in 2010.
Cool but that’s beside the point. I don’t care how lucrative a market is for some aristocrat arseholes. I want what’s best for society as a whole, not the pockets of aforementioned aristocrat arseholes.
If we put all the money and effort that went into researching BEV batteries into researching and developing grid-scale batteries instead, I imagine there’s a good chance we wouldn’t need coal power plants anywhere on earth anymore.
I have absolutely no clue about your example but you can ask the same questions: If the R&D went into relay tech instead of IGBTs, wouldn’t you think those would be even less expensive for your use-case?
It is all about people who either are arguing in bad faith, or are focused on perfection.
other than limiting exhaust, or is that it?
Gee, when you say it like that, it makes extinction-level events sound not so bad! It is That Bad, so that would be the most direct answer.
The important thing to note is that even though some electricity is generated from fossil fuels, EVs eliminate the path-dependency that ties transportation to fossil fuels.