Hope everyone's having a great day! I put a ton of time into researching this video, and was surprised numerous times to learn about the differences in lifecycle emissions between gasoline cars and electric cars. It's a fascinating subject and I'm sure we can keep the discussion below civil! (That was a joke 😜). If you were curious about the battery video referenced towards the end, here's the link: th-cam.com/video/1mXSMwZUiCU/w-d-xo.html
Real research takes time, but takes even more time to digest and compress the data in comprehensive information. At least you had a personal interest to find the answer yourself and just decided to share it with everyone. Thanks!
How would it stack up with a next-gen battery (maybe sodium glass?), and how it would make the EV superior (if costs go down, charging times down, W/h up, enviromental impacts down, etc..)
This doesnt surprise me, but how would a modern diesel engine in a passenger car stack up? I know that there are modern diesel engines that have close to no emissions, curious if thats true and would watch another 10+ minute video about this subject
And it doesn't even have to be walking or biking. Many Motorcycles, scooters, etc are energy efficient, and someone is going to I vent(or has invented) a safe micro car for one person, to get around d town, do errands, etc.
@@daniloreyes2 Could you explain? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would have expected most motorcycle to be better than a car so long as you're in an area that you can use it most of the year. My motorcycle gets ~45 mpg which is better than most cars that I could afford while also having an ICE. I would imagine that the emissions from creating it are linear to that of an ICE car since it is all the same parts, just less weight in total, i.e. less emissions being made. So the only thing I can think of that would make it worse is the life span of motorcycles usually being much lower than a car, meaning more emissions through creation of the vehicles. Would like to hear what you have to say :)
Bicycles can emit more pollution than a car, I know it sounds strange, but when 10 cars drive behind a bicycle on the street without having an opportunity to overtake that's 10 cars that pollute extra because of the bicycle from driving in lower gear. Bicycles are only environment-friendly if they have their own driving lanes, which in itself is a lot of space needed that destroys the environment.
@@balazsjakabffy2556 they do, but the trade off is worth it. For bikes it depends on where, if they cause lots of traffic they actually hurt the environment more than people think.
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 are you really saying that the only time cars ever have to crawl behind a slow moving vehicle is when it's a bike? have you ever seen something called "traffic"? that's caused by a lack of people on bikes and mass transit...
Great explanation! But I think you only missed one point here. the gas doesn't magically appear at the gas station, a lot of emissions on transporting (dirty ships) and refinning oil, the later is big, 6kwh of eletricity to refine 1 gallon of petrol.
This should really be included in the calculation. It quite quickly kills the argument that "an old gasoline car is better for the environment than a new all electric car"
Good point. I’m not sure if this was factored into the gas calculations here (doesn’t look like it) but I would be curious to check out the primary sources in my ‘spare’ time to see if any of the researchers did.
One thing that always bugged me when comparing running emmisions is that for EVs they take into account the emmisions for producing the power, but my feeling is that for ICE it’s only the tailpipe emmisions. If you take into account the emmisions for producing the fuel, I think this will be a very different story.
@@takuhiro I don’t see it. He’s talking about emissions from buiding the car and tailpipe emissions compared to electricity generation emissions. I meant the emissions related to oil extraction/refinement/transport to the pump.
Oh okay I see what you mean. Yeahit becomes increasingly difficult to accurate compare emissions when there are so many moving parts of the production process @@Then00tz
. believe EV and "going green" to be a scam 1. We have deposits of lithium, cobalt, and copper in America. There is a couple sitting on 1.5 billion dollars worth deposit of lithium in the US, but the EPA and US government has banned them from mining because it would cause substantial damage to the environment So yall don't think is odd will mine for oil all day in our United States, but we refuse mine for lithium in our own country because it's causes too much damage to the environment. There is literally only one lithium mining company in the United States. We have no issue buying it from 3rd world countries where there is no regulation, though lmao lol. 2. We have only recycled 5% of all the trash and waste we have produced, since "going green". 3. You still will need oil, it impossible to phase out. As the guy stated above. If you calculate the amount of gas/oil need to mine materials, refine materials, manufacture, transport, build and etc. 4. Research has shown that we will reach 1.5*C increase on global temperatures. Certainly, the is no power source available or that be mass produced that will decrease our reliance on fossil fuel if anything or use of fossil fuel is expected to increase. The closet to sustainable clean energy would be fussion and they finally proved the concept but it will be decades before we get a fusion energy to generate high amounts of energy and probably a century before we can mass produce it. 5. In order to support the power grid you would still need to burn more fossil fuel and the Biden administration wants 60% of vehicles manufactured to be EVs.
No, it becomes easier because the amount of electricity required to produce a gallon of gas is approximately equal to the amount of electricity it takes for an EV to go the same distance as the average fuel economy of a petrol engine. So if we don't account for the electricity input into gasoline production we can ignore the electricity consumed by EVs. So in Jason's simple Total CO2 equation, the annual emissions for an EV goes to zero and the equation becomes: Production + annual*T = Production 10.0 + 5.9T = 15.3 => T= 0.898 So the EV's CO2 break even point is under 11 months. And as the grid becomes more green (wind/solar are now a higher percentage of US energy than coal as of December 2023), this time gets shorter and shorter. One other thing that Jason didn't mention here is battery recycling. Since this video was posted, processes have been developed and scaled that can recycle over 90% of lithium, cobalt and nickel in EV batteries. This will drastically reduce the CO2 from future battery production but will take time to proliferate in the supply chain.
The comparison takes into account carbon produced to manufacture a battery. But gasoline doesn't magically appear at a gas station. Does this comparison take into account the carbon produced to pump, transport the oil (on a boat?), refine oil to gasoline, and the transportation (using a truck) of gasoline to a station? For transportation electricity flows over a wire which I believe produces no carbon.
@hexaitine Good points, thanks. But from a job experience I had many years ago, it is not rare for gas station tanks to leak. On average there could be some loss, and also by evaporation. That's getting pretty detailed.. Overall it seems to me that if carbon for battery production is taken into account, then gasoline production and transportation, or maybe just production should be as well. Presumably, the results will be more advantageous to EV. Also, over time going forward, renewable energies are used more and more..
@@PaulBiagi also have to take the fact of mining the aluminum and copper , producing the sheathing and insulating parts ( paper = trees ) . More mining ( iron , oh and carbon for turning iron into steel ) ........... yea guys it's only a short pro electric video . But science is getting better ( if theyed only get the fusion energy closer than 20 - 50 years . And also small batteries that could be changed out like propane on the barbieQ . But some one needs to come up with a better sustainable energy source , cause situational renewable resources (even with magical tesla storage batteries) , is not a long term solution . Not for a on demand world . As much as people hate hydrocarbon products ( fossil if it helps with anger ) , how many people are looking for pre 1900 with glee . And until we can produce a clean and sustainable efficient energy solution . Smart engineering and affordable conveyance , is always gonna be a who's right or who's wrong strong arm argument . Maybe afterwards we can figure out how to stop these damned carcinogenic spewing volcanoes from interfering with people's vacation .
@@terrystanley2989 Mining and carbon for battery production is included in the video. My original point was that carbon to produce and deliver gasoline is not...
If you included the CO2 emissions of battery production, you should have compared it to C02 emissions of Gasoline production. It won't be fair not to include both, what powers each vehicle.
Joseph Domingo Ensano don’t you think gasoline vs power cost would be more rational. Since batteries aren’t the thing powering the car, just storing the energy that powers it. Since it’s not the gastank powering fossilefueled car, rather the gas inside it.
does it really matter unless you are in a city electric car is 100% useless to you doesn't matter how much carbon it releases are Dutton release face it if you can't get over 150 mi in the country it is useless and that's probably with over 12 hours of charging if you're in a Heavenly traffic City it could be useless too because you can be stuck in traffic and your battery dies unless you turn the damn thing off unless don't forget the air conditioning all this stuff kills your battery. to get to the point focusing on pure electric cars is a fantasy and hurting a real Solution by diverting resources to it. and let's don't forget these cars are dangerous if they catch fire that lithium will burn a hole to China I'm being a little bit dramatic do you know how they will deal with it take a fire axe and chop into the battery and stick their fire hose into it if they don't get electrocuted to do that.
@@codeward7249 You alright bud? You sound like you might still be stuck in 2016, current range on new ev's is over 350+ that's the same as a tank of gas, they also have this super nifty thing called a 240W home charger, works great. Full battery every morning. Good day to you!
@@ageminiani After extracting, refining and delivering, 'gas' cars come out at about 2% efficient (IE, turning crude oil into 'go,' and not heat, light, and waste product) - which offsets this calculation quite a bit.
Fun fact about the Atacama desert where the 7% of the lithium in your car battery may have been mined: There are parts of that desert where rainfall has never been recorded, and where it has never even been *known* to have rained. NASA has sent it's MARS rovers there for training, and they have sampled the soil and in some areas found literally no signs of life.
@@kojimasan444 I'm saying that mining lithium from a lifeless desert has fewer downsides than drilling for oil in oceans and other ecologically sensitive and biodiverse areas. There's literally nothing to kill there. And so far there has been no such thing as a lithium tanker spill or a lithium pipeline break.
@@mikemcmo oh great then. Let's avoid the real solutions and try to piss on a forest fire by producing 564987287689906776656789 gazillion more cars. Problem solved! World saved! I love George Carlin's quote on this issue; "The planet is fine, the people are fucked"
@@mikemcmo it is useless info what about the other 93 percent of lithium mines, what about the mines near people and their water supply, what about the damage it does to the environment. I hate tech sim0s that will only bring up the good of things but will overlook how it is worse for the environment to build electric car batteries because it uses a crap load of water it tends to poison nearby water and kill nearby wildlife and destroys the nearby ecosystem when mining for lithium, cobalt, or any other item for said battery.
you forgot to faktor in the emissions from the production of the gasoline, the transport to the gasstation, refining etc. If you factor in the production of the electricity you also have to factor in the production of the gasoline
@@DoktrDub Energy efficiency of hydrogen storage and engine is combined at ~60%. Regarding battery driven vehicles its about 85%. I dont see where hydrogen is cleaner and more efficient.
Let's just ignore the fact that the power grid system still heavily relies on fossil fuels. That's why this is a joke. As a person that works in the electric utility industry we still rely on dirty power over anything else.
Well ICE's are about as good as they are going to get. EV's just got started Also the grids get better and better so the EV looks better and better over time.
I agree, in 5 years we'll just begin to get data on how long the average EV battery and drive motor actually lasts and then that number can be factored into the equation.
Great video, very thorough. One thing you didn't explore, however, is accidents. The reason why I bring this up is because Rich Rebuilds recently pointed out how Tesla discards essentially brand new cars that might only need a moderate amount of work rather than repairing them, which is a huge waste. Given that Tesla is not very friendly towards third-party repair, we kind of have an Apple situation on our hands where usable parts and salvageable cars end up going to waste simply because the manufacturer doesn't want other people working on them and they don't want to fix them themselves. Granted, Tesla is not as bad as Apple in this regard, as Apple really goes out of their way to both prevent repair and prevent parts from getting into the second-hand market (even shredding perfectly good computers), but with Tesla doing things like disabling supercharging on salvaged vehicles, they're certainly not making themselves appear to be much better.
im wondering if this will increase (not because of any political thing) but because the frames are going to be from one pieace of metal (which while makes you need to replace the entire thing, it makes it increadibly safer as well as less parts that can break or come off) i hope they will increase the amount of people who can fix the cars and such, but im not sure if it will be much of an option once that happens.
Several comprehensive studies have been performed on this topic. They found that, while the cost/effort/environmental impact to source the materials for an EV are higher, the environmental scales tip in favor of the EV after relatively few miles (I believe it was 8,000-12,000 miles driven). Many factors make ICE vehicles worse for the environment, including the entire oil/petroleum infrastructure required to drill, refine and distribute gasoline/diesel to depots and gas stations. Beyond the petroleum infrastructure, ICE cars obviously pollute as they drive.
The same question could be asked for Lithium and the other material used in EV. Cobalt and Nickel. 70 % of Cobalt is comming from Democratic Republic of Congo, Afrika. Rest is from: Indonesia, Russia (They are under sanctions, but we probably still buy Cobalt from them), Australia, Canada, Philippines, Cuba, Papua New Guinea, Madagascar, Morocco. Many of these mines have very poor work conditions that kills the workers. Nickel is from: Indonesia, Philipines, Russia (They are under sanctions, but we probably still buy Nickel from them), New Caledonia, Australia, Canada, China, Brazil, USA. So that calculation is not funny! EV are only green as long the transport, the mining and the workers health is not taken into account! But who's giving a F¤¤k as long we can call it green!
The same applies for the Electricity generated by the fuel. that coal extraction also emits lots of CO2. unless your electricity is generted either by nuckear or by hydro.
You should that, as well as the cost to refine and transport fossil fuel. But you should also include those same cost things when electric energy comes from fossil fuel, plus the electric energy lost in the transmission of the electric energy on the grid.
@@Random_Banshee That was covered. I would have loved adding the Consumables each car uses at different stages of it's life, say, a gasoline car needs Engine oil replacements every 20K miles, battery-powered doesn't need it.
@@Dhirengoyal Battery powered vehicles need heavy amounts of cobalt not found in america in countries where its common to have forced child labor... which also produces a hazardous material with no potential to be reused and gets thrown in a garbage dump after being used for 100k miles.
@@JrSpitty Cobolt is a bi-product of copper and nickel production. Before it was a kind of waist product. Anyway, there is less use of cobolt in newer batteries.
Why do people not factor in the CO2 created when making the gas to drive the gas car if we are looking at the cost of producing "fuel" for electric cars shouldn't you also factor in the cost of producing fuel for gas cars? If I am wrong someone please explain.
Nobody really knows how much CO2 it takes to do anything really, except for chemists in highly controlled circumstances. Unaccounted losses are everywhere. One batch of oil might go from the well to the customer with no issues, and another batch might burn up in a refinery explosion. Sometimes you have to skip over the infinite details like the carbon cost of boiling crude oil or painting wind turbine blades if you want to get to an answer within your lifetime.
yes we do which is why data are given with margins of error included. some data have quite a variation as in the 2-17 tonnes figure in the video, but to claim that's somehow the same as not knowing is ridiculous. what happens from one batch to the next doesn't effect the answer because the answer is the average of all the good bad and in between.
@@satoau1 That information belongs to the companies that produce the product. If they don't want to tell you or they don't have an actual answer you just have to move on. This is a big part of why a carbon tax isn't feasible. Keeping track of all of this would be far too complicated since everything is interrelated, things change every day, and not every thing is measured, tracked, or analyzed.
I thought the same thing. With the comments on Wikipedia being bad. Its actually really good for finding peer reviewed papers..and to the comments about citing sources not making it credible, its much better than not citing your sources as it gives people the chance to go to the source and work out it its credible rather than just "trust me this is a fact".
In terms of overall environmental savings, public transportation would win out easily. 1 bus could carry about 40 people. So having efficient and smart public transit might take 40 cars off the road. The problem is the US doesn't push for public transportation that much. Instead, we keep adding more and more lanes and pushing EVs
@@Mentality Doesn't really feel like freedom when I'm stuck in traffic for an hour. Like, even if you don't ever get on a bus or train, consider supporting public transportation. Other people will use it. That means they'll be driving less. That means less traffic to deal with. Not to mention if less people drive, the demand for gas goes down.
Joe Johnson nuclear power is only 20% of electric power in the USA compared to fossil fuels (coal, gas, and petroleum) that account for 60% of the electrical power.
True, but he _did say_ he was giving as many [reasonable] advantages to gasoline vehicle as possible. 👌
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Electric cars in theory are a good thing, but they have toxic batteries, take on average 4 hours to charge, the electric grid is not capable of charging millions of cars and if the battery goes flat on congested networks in rush hour all hell will break lose as how do you move the vehicle? They are more expensive to buy and of course governments are giving sweeteners such as cheap charging to get people to take them up. Remember diesel when it was cheaper than petrol to get you to buy diesel cars in the UK. Also crude oil is not a base element even if the world is not making it man will find a way of joining carbon and hydrogen to form oil.They already make artificial diamonds and diamond cutting tools are now very cheap.
@ I'll have a go at addressing your points in turn... 1. Watch the bit in the video on Lithium mining 2. True, charging speed is a big problem for long journeys, but *most* people can charge at home/work/shops *most* of the time 3. The electric grid has lots of spare capacity during times of low demand, especially when renewables are contributing - utility companies have an incentive to try to use electric cars as energy storage devices, rather than just sucking in energy. I'm interested to see how this problem will be solved. 4. If your gas tank gets empty at rush hour all hell will break lose as how do you move the vehicle? 5. The lower running costs make EVs cheaper to own after roughly 3-4 years at current prices 6. Cheap charging isn't thanks to government subsidy. EVs are cheaper to run because they need less energy and maintenance. Per kWh, electricity is more expensive than gas, you just need fewer of them per mile in an EV. 7. It'd be interesting to see artificial "oil" - could be useful e.g. in aviation. Creating it would probably use a lot of energy, and we'd have to accept the fact that 70% of that energy is wasted in an IC engine as heat. For an EV at least 70% of the energy you put in at the power station is turned into useful work.
@@shfnnghh Trees need CO2 to make oxygen, the problem is too much forests are lost. also CO2 stop the world plummeting into an ice age. the problem is finding a good balance. They should force peoples covid masks to clean your mouth exhaust. also the Sun modulates heat, and the entire solar systems temp has gone up and not just earth.
Great analysis. Just a few points of concerns: 1. It is false that desserts don't have life forms. In fact a dessert can be one of the richest areas of life on Earth. We just tend to assume that is not the case because we can't think of living without water in a hot dry place. 2. We need to think about the scarcity of cobalt and other minerals and the human impact it has. Often the mining companies for cobalts, nickels, etc. tend to have some of the most inhumane work conditions in the world, even resembling to slavery in some places. In saying that, I'm an avid advocate for electric cars, I just believe that we need to be more conscious of all the impacts it has and addresses those concerns instead of blanketing the whole process as "better than oil" in order to morally good without doing any work.
He took bad data as the input though. This video uses Swedish statistic that made artificially inflated numbers by using outdated, 2 times more costly per kWh, Leaf 1st gen batteries made in LNO technology. All new Leafs, e-Tron, Kona, Bolt use much more efficient MNC and Tesla use NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum). Divide all emissions from EV production by at least 2.
@@EngineeringExplained Haha, this pretty much brakes down my bachelor's thesis into easy to digest 13 minutes! I set out to smash the EV, rooting for ICE and came up mildly disappointed but quite a lot smarter :D I compared cars (petrol, diesel, hybrids, EVs) during some standardized lifecycle (300 000km or so) and came up with similar results. Looking at car production/life/expiration emissions as well as "Well to Wheel" emissions and efficiency of energy production, needed to propel chosen cars. This efficiency is sadly where hydrogen cell cars struggle incredibly. Regarding precious metals mining, iI only made a personal comment bringing up many massive ecologic catastrophes done by the oil industries to compare. While both are almost impossible to quantify, its a solid argument against played out "lithium mining". Thanks for making these videos. I just wish I seen them 6 years ago while still in school.
One aspect I never hear get talked about is the impact maintaining the infrastructure required to transport fuel and electricity. If people love to include emissions from power plants when talking about EV's, then fuel refinement and transportation emissions should also be included when looking at ICE's. Remember, big trucks use fuel to transport fuel for smaller cars.
Yeah if you include the emissions for the life cycle of the fossil fuel it’s not not even close for the ICE vehicle. That’s why all the ICErs conveniently leave that data out. Much like they ignore for the subsidies for fossil fuels, when they get on about EV subsidies. Was disappointed that EE did not touch on this subject. This video got my first thumbs down on the channel.
@@DhirC35 As an electrician and operations manager of an electrical contracting company I have a fair bit of knowledge about electricity. ;-) Do you think gasoline appears out of nowhere? Or the crude oil from which it is refined? Do you think that no electricity is used in the gasoline "well to tank" process?
@@DhirC35 As I hoped! It is just important to consider the ENTIRE economic effect of two items evenly. That is my problem with a lot of information out there, it's not comparing apples-to-apples. (On both sides of most discussions.)
@@mikishootsonfilm He doesn't know, he is just spouting off. All this propaganda for EV cars and Co2 BS is just fear mongering. Society is so infantile because they are bereft of personal responsibility and because of this NGO's and world governing bodies like the UN can use fear tactics to manipulate people into theft scams like carbon taxes and EV vehicles that you can never hope to own or repair on your own. You will be in perpetual debt even more so than the world already is today if that is even possible.
Your comparing the average ice powered car to the smallest and most efficient electric car. USA buys bigger vehicles, I think you should be comparing the same size vehicles.
Mr Ouroborous your conspiracy theories demonstrate a paranoia born of a lack of scientific and practical knowledge. Spouting off is your department, using demonstrable facts and figures is EE's department. Still believe in a flat earth and that some god chose to pop you on this planet as an object of ridicule?
This video uses Swedish statistic that made artificially inflated numbers by using outdated, 2 times more costly per kWh, Leaf 1st gen batteries made in LNO technology. All new Leafs, e-Tron, Kona, Bolt use much more efficient MNC and Tesla use NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum). Divide all emissions from EV by at least 2. In reality it's MUCH much better for the EV.
@Solyndros What are you talking about? Literally, the whole world uses the metric system apart from America and some country in Africa and Burma. Not using the metric system is pretty much the dumbest decision you can make.
@@strayjames8751 for science, engeineering, trade/commerce and military the US uses metric as the standard. they just need to standardise the rest of the measurements.
@@EngineeringExplained It is the best video on the reality of electric cars vs gasoline powered cars, but you left out a very important aspect, people choose also with their wallets and the cost of unit of electricity is an important aspect, especially here in Europe. Norwegians buy more teslas than anyone else outside of the US (afaik) and they've completely green hydroelectric power and tax breaks for electric cars, yet they are a major oil/gas producing country. The cost per unit of electricity in my home country of Ireland, makes owning a small economical car and even closer run competition....Wallet also means taking into account depreciation....This is a very interesting subject, but the media and living in a consumer based society has everyone believing the new way is the best.....Horses for courses...as we say!
@@EngineeringExplained By around 2050 Potable water is projected to run out or diminish significantly due to overpopulation and climate change. Desalination is a slow and costly process which would easily be overwhelmed by the huge needs of masses. Electric is not perfect but improving every few years or so. Being dependant on oil running vehicles solely has gotten us nowhere. The transition to electric is the beginning to a solution.
I wish he would have calculated in how temperature and accessories effect the mileage ratings. The stated milage ratings are "best case" conditions. Driving in cold weather drops battery efficiency (while actually improving ICE efficiency). Not to mention headlights, heaters, radios, and accessory charging, etc.
@@jpgmccabe Can you get solar on your roof? Do you get enought light? We in Australia get huge amounts of solar, our own home produces enough electricity to run 5 homes every day!
seems the NJB effect has hit EE too! but he is right tho, public transit is much much more efficient, as are bicycles, even the notorious e-bikes and scooters are more efficient... heck, even the noisy ass motorcycles are more efficient. car-centric urban planning is seriously the worst in terms of gross efficiency.
@@zbarba actualy i live in tropical region haha. snow on the road is just one of the problem. you will get cold just by being outside. with car, at least you have a heater.
@@imustbust998 the average winter temperature in the netherlands is around 0 celcius, which is much warmer than all of canada, most of northern US and most other northern european countries. Where i live, the average winter temperature is -20 celcius (it frequently gets much colder) so it's not quite as easy to ride a bike in the winter over here. It's obviously different based on climat, but it's important to have othersustainable means of transportation that most can use year-round
I mean, I've been watching pretty much every video on TH-cam other than music at 2.5x speed for the past 5 years or so lol, sometimes can get to 3x if they talk slow enough
As a fellow engineer I applaud all the info you have assembled. Trying to calculate a complete energy envelope of both gasoline and electric is very difficult to do, especially when you have to try to factor in the future emissions related to tailings close out on a mine. In the end neither technology is great for the environment for different reasons.
Neither is great for the environment, but which is less bad? How do the benefits of "going electric" outweigh the costs, big-picture-wise, for say the next 30 to 50 years?
Great comment and exactly correct. And…Which mine because some are more efficient than others including environment damage! Almost impossible to calculate with any accuracy this comparison question.
@@jeromeglick Good question….the issue we have is emotions (green lobby) + the great unwashed will always win over logic + the educated few. And so your statement is correct - market will drive change not facts.
You might take a different position when you see the 2000+ acres Piedmont Lithium (Australian company) is about to start strip mining not 1800' from my house (in NC). Plenty of emissions there, habitat destruction and water poisoning. Not a big deal when it's in Chile' I guess, but how about when it's destroying US farmland, woodlands, ground and surface fresh water sources? Let me guess, "Take one for the team?" "Look at the big picture?"
@@wyrazowfkp Most places that have coal plants have a local coal supply, same goes for natural gas. You wouldn't build a plant if you had a hard time fueling it.
The thing about batteries - if we can figure out how to make better ones in, say, 20 years it will be simple to retrofit today's vehicles with the new tech. The same way it's easy to put modern rechargeables in a 20 year old walkman.
Yeah, we won't be able to make better gas in the future and we're well into the diminishing returns territory concerning the efficiency of combustion vehicles, but batteries still have a lot of room to improve.
LOLLLLLLLL simple Okay, retrofit lithium ion into a nicad battery. I'll wait while you try to figure out how to get the voltages to match (your not cause a lition cell is 3.7 volts... and thats it, your getting 3.7 or 7.2, and so on... modern rechargeable are no where near the same as changing battery TECH... that rechargeable most of the time has LESS capacity than a on time use battery.
@@mattlane2282 The voltage is the least of your problems. At the voltage most electric cars run, a cell plus or minus won't be a problem to get a voltage match. The bigger problem is the vehicle's charger (including braking/regen) will not use the right algorithm to safely charge a different battery chemistry.
@@brianorca While true, I was trying to make it simple for them... but ya your totally right, it would be a disaster just make a drop in battery replacement using new tech...
Yes. Also, transporting from the refinery to the gas station and powering the gas station's pumps. That would make the combustion engine vehicle even worse, and make the EV the greener option even sooner. But, like he said, he was giving the benefit of the doubt to the combustion engine.
@@mjc0961 where does the electric come from? you do realise most countries still have loads of nuclear power plants which emit a lot of carbion dioxide, also the materials to make batteries are found underground which means a lot of digging is needed to find the materials needed to make the battery then theres the emissions made from the vehicles used to dig up the materials.
Since petrol extraction and refinement is only part of the industry gasoline production is a very tiny part of that. Most chemicals are made from oil extraction, plastic battery casings, paint, plastic interior parts, solvents, bailing twine which should be made from hemp, diesel, lubricants, electronic components and insulators, milk containers, bottled water containers, plastic grocery bags, etc etc etc etc.... since 1971 we have increased demand for crude extraction for all these products that we never needed by about 5 million percent. That make gasoline production the most insignificant portion of all. Not to mention gasoline is mixed with water and alcohol to reduce its quality and make it cheaper. So technically gas is worth far less now than it was 50 years ago. 0.25 cents per gallon should be considered a high retail price for gas. Not that price has anything to do with it but you can see that electric cars are dependent on the oil industry just as modern gas cars are.
@@Mrcool2oo3 the mining of the uranium to actually get the reactor to work as uranium is the power source needed, im not against nuclear power generation but thought I could say something y'know, also when the rods have to be disposed off its a very dangerous job.
It’s great to see an analysis on this. I always wondered what the environmental payoff really is. But I can’t believe that disposing of (or recycling) all those battery packs is a trivial matter.
I agree, this is a great video. The answer depends, and the energy mix does have a lot to do with it. This is why it's annoying when people think electric cars are always good all the time and will solve all the problems of the world. In places like China which are still very coal dependent, it can make things worse.
@@motormusique China's very coal dependent now, but they're moving rapidly toward solar and other renewables, because they've finally gotten their butts in gear over pollution. That's one of the coolest things about electric: an EV you buy today gets cleaner over time as your local power mixture becomes greener. While a gas car at best retains the same level of pollution for its entire life, though most actually get worse as their efficiency falls due to wear and tear.
Actually, his analysis is extremely poor. He doesn't even mention, let alone discuss the fact that ALL marginal (i.e. the next increment of X) electricity production comes from coal and hydrocarbon sources entirely. NOBODY runs a solar cell field, or wind turbine field at anything other than the maximum level that can be squeezed out, for the simple fact that the solar cell is out there, getting shined on, regardless of whether you use the electricity or not. 50% draw from a solar panel field costs no more than 100% draw... so you ALWAYS draw the maximum possible from it at all time. Same goes for wind turbine farms.... there is NO benefit to drawing anything less than the maximum that you can at any one time. On the other hand, a coal or gas fired plant... you shut one of those boilers down as soon as there is excess capacity, because if you don't have a customer to buy those electrons, then you're burning fuel and shunting those electrons into stand-by loads and NOT EARNING A CENT FOR IT. So, despite what this guy says, ALL electricity production that is added to the baseline load is done with carbon-based fuel. This destroys his argument that "well, in such and such state, x% comes from hydro"... yeah, but the output from the hydro plant IS ALREADY BEING CONSUMED 100% before you even plug your electric car into the wall socket. That means the increase in production MUST come from a variable source... which a means carbon-based fuel, and nothing other than a carbon based fuel source.
@@dirkgently120That doesn't seem to make sense, though. You say that all the hydro, wind, and solar generation is happening regardless of whether it's being used, and then go on to (I think?) claim that every electric car is somehow not tapping into that wind/hydro/solar power, and only using marginal power generated by fossil fuels? How does that make any sense? Why do EVs not count as part of the "baseline load", whatever that is.
This video uses Swedish statistic that made artificially inflated numbers by using outdated, 2 times more costly per kWh, Leaf 1st gen batteries made in LNO technology. All new Leafs, e-Tron, Kona, Bolt use much more efficient MNC and Tesla use NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum). Divide all emissions from EV production by at least 2.
My biggest problem is that the sources don't differentiate between cars and trucks. the website used takes average electric car CO_2 which is what? Tesla's , Nissan Leafs , BMW I3 , then compares them to ICE Gasoline vehicle CO2 production which includes everything from smart cars to F750 industrial gas powered trucks and everything in between. so your comparing what is going to be a relatively low polluting passenger electric cars to ALL ICE vehicles which includes massive trucks. The ICE Gasoline Vehicle CO2 emissions production needs to be adjusted to only include passenger cars and not full size trucks / SUV's or industrial gasoline powered trucks. it will bring the margins significantly closer together. Jason says he's comparing "cars" multiple times in the video but the source he uses to get the CO2 production numbers never specifies that its only using data from "cars" the website says Gasoline VEHICLES. it's an important factor if you want to make a actual scientific comparison. Relatively he's comparing apples and oranges.
@@TheDaltonmichaels On the flip side, in all the other calculations he took the *most expensive* values for electric (e.g. the most expensive estimate for battery production emissions, etc), not to mention presuming that - excluding the battery - production emission for electric and ICE cars were the same... Complaining about the one instance where he numbers marginally favour Electric, without pointing out the many other instances where they favour ICE, is definitely trying to bias the argument...
There are tons of people who had already stated the point you made in the comment section but as far as i know i'm the only one whos mentioned what i previously posted. Also maybe im miss interpreting what you and Jason said , but if you exclude the emissions from the battery from the analysis doesn't that benefit the electric car heavily? leaving out the battery to an electric car is like leaving out the engine on an ICE vehicle. It doesn't work without it. Its not an independent variable it has to be in there. So idk why one would bother with using figures that left the battery out. And even if the EV numbers are inflated it probably doesn't remotely come close to how inflated the ICE numbers are inflated due to including full size trucks , vans , SUVs and industrial vehicles in the average. And in my original comment i said i think electric cars would still beat out ICE vehicles but only in very green states with lots of renewable energy and the time it takes to make up for CO2 production would be very much extended to what amount i cant say. Basically if you corrected all the number while including the batteries it would greatly narrow the margins. For reference Truck , Van , SUV sales make up 65.4% of auto sale in the US. that leaves 35% of sales for crossovers and cars of all kinds combined. So if your averaging the emissions for the average ICE vehicle sold the emissions are going to be incredibly high. compared to if you had the average from only ICE cars and crossovers. The only electric cars that i know of are mostly small cars , some full size cars , and tesla who has the only crossover ish EV. Audi Is coming out with a wagon EV that looks pretty sweet though.
Remember: this video is 3 years old & now there are more efficient ways to manufacture batteries, even without cobalt. Also the energy mix got cleaner in the last years.
You forgot to mention an important point: the transportation of the millions of barrels daily in each country that pollutes a lot to carry them to destination to finally waste 80% of them by the ICE cars in heat. And the pollution to extract and process petrol, sometimes directly in marine ecosystems.
@Allen Loser National average (residential) price of a kWh in the US is US $0.135. The 36.6 kWh in that gallon of gasoline would carry my (ordinary daily driving) Model 3 about 110 miles, for an average cost of US $4.94 for that 'gallon' -- but I bet your VW diesel needs a heck of a lot more than one gallon to go 110 miles. But it seems like Danyl Bekhoucha was talking about pollution, not cash -- and just refining a gallon of fuel costs upwards of 6 kWh, to say noting of the energy consumed to extract, transport (by tanker ship), pump (several times on the way to & at the refinery), transport again (by tanker truck), and pump (twice more) again. That 36.6 kWh worth of energy doesn't magically appear in you car's tank -- it takes considerable energy to get it there, representing a big loss. Just on the energy consumed to refine a single gallon, I can (recklessly and irresponsibly) drive twenty miles. ICE vehicles are not efficient, they are not clean, and they are not as inexpensive as many think.
@Allen Loser Except that the numbers in the video already take that into account; he specifically factors in the power plant and 'overall efficiency' of the BEV -- and uses a seriously low-ball number, too.
Can anyone conifrm that the refining costs of gasoline are not accounted for in the ICE CO2 calculations on the monroney? If it takes 4kw/hrs per gallon of gas refinement thats too big of an impact to leave out of the calculations.
@Allen Loser But its likely not "none". Once it is none then EVs will have zero emissions from a completely green grid. I looked up the regulations on monronies. They dont calculate gasoline processing in their figures, only tailpipe emmisions. If you have a 12 gallon tank and get 30mpg on that tank you are getting 360 miles per tank at an estimated fuel processing cost of 48kwh of electricity for that tank before you even combust any of it. My Model 3 has a 55kwh pack and can go 240 miles. So the ICE vehicle can do 7.5 miles per KWh and the EV 4.3 miles per KWh. The EV is powering off of the grid for propulsion while the above miles per KWh cost for the ICE is just in gasoline processing energy alone! That doesn't even account for the tailpipe emmisions.
Very educational as always. I also love the fact that you come clean with the sources you are using, and am pretty grateful for all the research you are doing to make these videos as accurate and accessible as possible. Thank you good sir !
Wont be friendly if battery dies think buying used EV is a big gamble. Far as i know about batteries they don’t last much longer than 8 years. If battery goes ur looking at a lot of money to replace probably not even worth it. Maybe one day when battery prices go down be a whole different story but right now id be very skeptical buying used EV.
@@joshgessinger4509 - I bought an 8 year old Leaf and the battery is still 83% of original capacity. At that rate (and with my driving habits) this car will last me another decade.
There are also other pollution factors, than just CO2.... for example nitrogen oxides, carbonmonoxide and particulates are basically a none issue in EVs, but a huge health and enviromental problem. Another big enviromental issue from fossile fuels, is oil spilling in the environment, toxic chemical from mining oil sands, gas flaring and wastes from refineries.
tucanchu. You can smell refineries from afar. Should be enough to prove waste. But what I want to object to is the level of bias. For one, it's like the OP forgot lithium extraction is a toxic mess, to say the least.
Grow up. If a smell comes from a refinery, what could it be? Petroleum products of course. And inhaling petroleum products sure doesn't affect your health in any way right? A google search for 2sec gave me a link between premature births and proximity to refineries. And do you think that it happens by pregnant people looking at the refineries? Do they go swimming there? No they inhale waste.
@@trx420fm1 If a refinery would process all their waste and byproducts, there would be no way they could compete with foreign imports. The pollutants are: particulates, SO2, NOx and hydrocarbons in the air and hydrogen sulfides, thiols, phenols, thiophenol, ammonium compounds, cyanide, naphthenic acids, thiosulfate, alkanolamines, as well as heavy metals and other lye/acid from processing the oil. As long as the local goverment cares, many of them are removed to a certain extent, but even then a lot gets out into the environment, if you look closely you can find breaches and leaks in none essential compartments in almost every factory on this planet.
Excellent point! They always talk about some warm coastal climate where no one needs a heater, They never mention that AC also takes about 3-5 kilowatts.
@@rom5285 the AC in a Tesla uses 2kwh according to their estimates, but independent tests showed that with the HVAC system running full time, the range decreased by 60 miles or 19%.
I think that we tend to nitpick EV’s because it’s so easy to see by switching on a component how much the draw is increased or because of how relatively consistent the mileage is from a battery charge. On my 2013 Avalon Hybrid I have a lifetime average of 38.9 mpg. Recently (in Jan/Feb - while running on snow tires and sub 0 temps in many cases mind you ) I changed something in my driving. I started turning off the heater while climbing hills. The result? As high as 42.5 mpg. That’s a 10% increase. My point is that the very things that affect the range of an EV also affect the range of a gasoline car but they can be harder to nail down, partially because a lot of people don’t bother to keep track.
@@dcheard2 Well, an EV almost shuts down. An internal combustion engine has to keep running, and the momentum of the flywheel has to be maintained. Hence the use of gas to keep the engine running verses the use of electricity to keep electronics going. Slam dunk for the EV.
I really appreciate this, I definitely want to learn more. I will say initial cost, repair costs, and right to repair are still big issues to me in regards to these however.
1:15 "Try to see where this information comes from..." What can I say more!? You are maybe the one in a million person that does not allow to be biased with false scientific data! Well done! Quantitative thinking - that's the difference between the average people and the intelligent one.
@@muskokamike127 "Good demonstration"? That's the best demonstration so far in TH-cam I've ever seen. Nevertheless, if you want to let me (and the others) know about the other forms of pollution, I'll be glad if you provide more details, expressed *quantitatively* of course, and provide a *reliable* source for it.
@@muskokamike127 You said "manufacturing a car." So if an EV and a regular car were produced the same way (say, ford focus base vs ford focus electric), then they would produce the same amount of these other pollutants you described. So if you can reduce just one of them, like emissions, then it is better for the environment, is it not? Almost everything we produce will have negative impacts to the environment no matter what you do, so you can't just say that "oh, this pollutes so it's bad" and then ignore the comparable thing that pollutes just as much, if not more. Also, where are your sources for those car manufacturing pollutants?
I wonder how the efforts to recycle each type of vehicle (ICE/EV) compare. Since EV batteries might have less lifespan than an ICE, would recycling more of them more freqently be enough to negate some of their carbon offset / savings?
+ CO2 emission is not the worst thing that come with battarys, li-ion battery produce a lot of of emission, including very dangerous HF, POF3, Lithium oxide and others.
@@crobdog warranty doesn't mean your battery is dead when the warranty ends. Unless you have some extreme conditions, or defect in your car electronics, it will last well beyond 2 years.
I am also curious about emissions generated by the more frequent servicing of gasoline cars. Dirty engine oil has to go somewhere, and the new engine oil has to be drilled/refined/transported/packaged. Air filters, oil filters, sparkplugs get replaced and discarded regularly in gas cars but not in electric vehicles. That is part of the overall emissions picture too.
A revisit given cobalt and nickel production is done in an extremely biodiverse and socioeconomically unstable areas is worth looking into. Recycling may be profitable but we're still pulling a lot out of the ground for these batteries. Also would be nice to see the comparisons of pollution from cars vs a single point like a coal plant as well.
Cobalt is doing its job in your ICE car too and is used in fuel production. Nickel is a very commonly used metal in alloys all over the place. So your point is moot unless you immediately stop using your ICE as without cobalt there is no fuel for that bugger.
12:30 He didn't mention nickel mining but lithium was mentioned. As a mining engineering student I know that mining and processing nickel is toxic to the environment but necessary for reality. Good luck finding someone to work on it though, also let's be real here these cars won't do much. In order to see decent change you'll need to replace most cars with these and wait 5 years. Low income families can't afford this and the vast majority of people will just stick to a $5000 4 cylinder car which is fuel efficient. My 2001 Camry is great on gas.
Not only that but how many of these electric cars are built to last? I worked for a dealer and some of the bolts and bolts were sounding creaky and old at around 60k. My truck has 175k on it and I intend to keep it for double what it currently is. Many never vehicles are not made very solid or are desirable for long term use.
@@lolbuster01 there are many electric vehicles with over 300,000 miles with minimal battery degradation. Internal combustion engines require a lot more maintenance due to extra moving components under high pressures and temperatures (exhaust system, EGR valves, more hydraulic brake requirements, fuel injectors, fuel pumps, piston rings, timing belts, complex transmissions, etc.) The longevity of EVs isn't a problem. The price point is coming down, but still needs to come down more. You can get a Chevy Bolt for $32k new, and a base Model 3 off menu over the phone for $35k new. Also, I know a little about ICE, because I used to be a Mechanical Engineer specializing in ICE design.
@@StephenYen you're forgetting about battety changes on those EV vehicles that have dead cells in the battery packs (which happen more than you think). So not the EV's are having the issue I was screaming about years ago. What to do with all the dead battery packs? Tesla is trying to "recycle" them. But are finding out you can't. Only parts of the battery are recyclable. And what to do with the hazardous waste? They have no clue. And some of these batteries are already finding themselves in landfills. That's safe! Only sheep believe EV's are a good replacement for our current non climate changing vehicles. Changing one problem for another one. While saying one is better than the other. Love it when folks do that.
Have to point out that you are ignoring the energy (fuel) generation aspect. This should include the distribution contributions as well. To run/charge an electric vehicle requires that some fuel (coal, nuclear, petrochemical) be burned to generate steam to turn a steam generator. Also, the electricity needs to be transmitted /distributed to enable the charging at your location. Those should be included both for gasoline (and diesel) AND electricity. These have largely been ignored in the conversation and line losses and conversion losses have also been ignored. Let's see where the numbers fall once those are included.
If you do that you also have to take into account the energy used to drill, refine, ship, pump, and then you get to a maximum combustion engine efficiency of 33%.
@@ogzombieblunt4626 OP did specifically say for both mate. There is an issue of emissions and pollution regarding EV & Renewable production and disposal presently, yes. However, almost 100% of all materials used in EVs & Renewables can be recycled with near no emissions or pollution. Additionally, the extraction and production of new materials for new EV's & Renewables can be almost 100% free of emissions and pollution as well. The thing is it requires using emissions and pollution to establish the required facilities & processes to achieve that Also not withstanding the required regulations and standards to establish particular less profitable practices like recycling facilities.
@@soulsurvivor8293 How recyclable is a fiberglass windmill?? How recyclable are the rare minerals in solar panels? How recyclable are the rare minerals in lithium batteries?? Not very.
I live in Hong Kong and the government has been pushing people to buy electric cars, for the sake of electric cars. The thing is, the majority of electricity here is from coal power plants. And for the cars, most people drive less than 8000km per year, while taxis and ubers do like 10x that. however, the government is giving heavy incentives for people to literally throw away old cars, to get a huge discount on a new electric car via the 1 for 1 replacement incentive. And as you have pointed out, a 100 kwh tesla is not really going to do any better for the environment than a normal car if the power is from coal, then the whole electric car fab is just complete farce. I'd argue that it's even worst when you are destroying perfectly fine, usable cars in favor of creating more cars. The best way to stay environmental is to reuse, reduce, and recycle. Over the 5 years of owning my car, I've driven just over 52,000km. Driving it another 5 years would still be more environmental friendly than driving an electric car.
This is something that seems to be overlooked all the time - but was alluded to in this video towards the end. The particulates produced by energy production, especially from Diesel, are hugely damaging to human health so the move to electric should massively improve air quality in our highly populated cities by centralising the energy production from the individual vehicles in the city to our out of city power plants.
forget about the EV drivers in West Virginia what about all these guys standing in front of the fridge with the door wide open in the middle of the night looking to make a sandwich knowing full well they ran out of bread that afternoon?
The cost of manufacturing these batteries is 10 times worse than what does video showing… According to a report by Friends of the Earth, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and causes air contamination. In Argentina’s Salar de Hombre Muerto, locals claim that lithium operations have contaminated streams used by humans and livestock, and for crop irrigation. In Chile, there have been clashes between mining companies and local communities, who say that lithium mining is leaving the landscape marred by mountains of discarded salt and canals filled with contaminated water with an unnatural blue hue. “Like any mining process, it is invasive, it scars the landscape, it destroys the water table and it pollutes the earth and the local wells,” said Guillermo Gonzalez, a lithium battery expert from the University of Chile, in a 2009 interview. “This isn’t a green solution - it’s not a solution at all.”
I'd like to see a follow up video on the lifetime cost of operation. Green is great, but not if it comes at a higher personal cost to the end consumer.
After 10 years with Nissan Leaf, and 9 years with a Mitsubishi Outlander, i can give you the facts right away. My diesel has had 80 barrels of diesel through it and estimated cost of 17.500 USD (norwegian price at pump). Also, about 7000 USD in oil/filters/fluid changes. In the same timespan, our Nissan Leaf has had 10 new cabin filters 😂 Thats it. We did not notice a sharp increase on our electrical bill. But generally an EV uses 1/5th in fuel costs in Norway (expensive gas and cheap power). Other. Ountries will vary.
If you install solar panels on your roof, an electric will basically drive and operate on the costs of tires and brakes alone. And it uses way less brakes. We never changes brakes in 10 years because of wear. Rust from road salt is what made us change and lubricate them.
Operating costs my butt just wait until the next pipeline or refinery fiasco or war in the middle east. Ev's will driving by the miles long gas lines smiling and waving.
@@timduncan8450 You are aware that Norway lies on the arctic circle, beyond which the sun never sets during summer?! Google midnight sun Norway, enjoy photo evidence. But on the rainy Westcoast of Bergen, which have 2200mm of precipitation per year, there was a couple who installed solar some 12 years ago. They broke even on their investment, and compared to then, prices per panel is now dirt cheap. Also, we actually have hydropower covering some 98% of our power needs. My electric car is powered by rainwater.
For around town travel nothing beats a good ol' full-speed sprint, fueled by pure caffeine. Need to get to work and your work is 10 miles away? No worries! Wake up 6 hours early and run as fast as you can!
This is a very simplistic analysis and doesn't include several issues including any of the infrastructure that is required to make EVs anything more than a few percent of the fleet, The other big issue isn't lithium but the copper demand which is a massive uptick on existing demand especially as the ore grades available continue to decline demanding exponetially more energy to process and refine.
@@AndrewUnruh You can purchase what you like - just don't pretend you're saving the planet. You're consuming the planet's resources at a rate that's into the 95th percentile, in all likelihood.
I am really happy (but not surprised) you took the time to explain the conservative estimate and show the actual results of your calculations and the impact of changing variables.
He's also assuming that the pollutants don't drift. We have this thing call wind and weather....His argument is basically: meh, it's not harming where I live so it's all good.
There is life pretty much anywhere you can go on this planet. Just because it may be a species we don't particularly care about, it doesn't follow that they are unimportant to the food cycle or nature itself.
I live off grid and am contemplating an electric car to dump my excess energy production into. Some days I let as much as 30kw bypass my system and just not get used. Would be nice to throw that into a leaf or bolt and have a smaller fuel bill. I also commute 50 miles each way, 5-7 days a week, I’d like to drop my oil reliance a bit :P.
@Angel Dust Well. For me, I found a piece of land that had no utilities coming to it. Instead of investing money to connect to the grid (Power, Water, Sewer). I put my money into developing those services myself. My power is Solar. My sewer is a septic system, and my water is a rainwater catchment system. All told, I am into it for less than it would have taken to simply connect to the grid, since power is about 1/2 mile from my house.
Such a simple, old, well-known phrase that people don't realize applies to *every* situation on earth. The problem with EVs is that trade-off happens in the production stages of the vehicles, and by the time it's in possession of the end user, they can play ignorance about all that and simply focus on their lack of emissions and therefore how elite of a human they are. It's wack.
The emissions from internal combustion engines are even worse when the drilling, pumping, transporting and refining process is taken into account. There is a huge amount of energy used and emissions created before the fuel even gets to the tank of a petrol or diesel car.
Lithium mining considerations should include how many millions of litres of fresh water are needed to produce the lithium for the battery and where did that water come from? As well as how are the communities near the mine suffering because they don't have sufficient fresh water?
Lithium takes 500,000 gallons of water per ton to mine. Extracting such large amounts of water will likely have unforeseen consequences. Also there are large mining operations in areas that people and wildlife both inhabit. Another thing that's failed to mention is that this is often fresh water and it is polluted during the mining process. A question not answered is whether lithium is endlessly recyclable or will mining continue to expand along with ev industry expansion.
I was hoping someone mentioned this, as it was somewhat skimmed over in the video. I believe he said something along the lines of "large amounts" of water, Well, that's relative. But when you actually put a number to it, suddenly it becomes a real concern I think for most people. Also, another thing that should be an area of concern this video missed is cobalt mining. China owns something to the tune of 15 out of 19 cobalt mines in or around The Congo. Which is the leading area for cobalt production. China is straight going to town 1901 industrial revolution in NYC style. Child labor for mere pennies a day is rampant, with terrible living and working conditions. Deaths from "work" related accidents or from the security at these Chinese mines getting overzealous seems to be a daily occurrence. Well here if someone is interested they can watch this video quickly or read this story quick. Is this honestly the picture everyone has when they think of EV and saving the planet? Furthermore, I'll admit the west is not perfect, far from it. But for most people, it could be the best choice so far for personal liberties and freedom (if our governments stuck to the things they were formed to handle) I can say one thing, I am personally not looking forward to a future where the Communist Chinese Party has a monopoly (numerous monopolies, acquired through practices ranging from highly questionable to downright illegal and banned) on vehicle production and that is exactly what our leaders have railroaded all western countries into. While simultaneously China is allowed to continue to build coal power plants and bring them online. Now call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure what comes out of the coal plants over there will eventually still have an effect on the climate of all the countries in the west that have pledged to effectively knee cap their own economies in the name of combating climate change. Now either I'm a card-carrying member of MENSA super genius, all of our leaders took remedial classes in school, or the more likely option, they are all aware of everything I just said but they don't care because no part of the coordinated global push to EV cars was ever about stopping climate change. It was about the greatest transfer of wealth and power ever in the history of human civilization and it was all accomplished through espionage, fraud, bribery and blackmail because our "leaders" in the west or spineless, feckless, shortsighted cowards. Btw in case, anyone who is reading this is wondering, I mean liberal and conservative alike.
Likewise with nickel mining's effect on habitat. Someone please show me a nickel mine with anything growing nearby. These metals travel the world before settling down on a car lot. If we had a real president, petroleum would travel a few hundred miles from source to use.
To ask this question, you have to be ready to compare it to the impact of petroleum drilling and refining. Otherwise, it comes off as being a naysayer, because the new technology doesn't check 100% of the boxes yet.
@@DEAR7340 I don't think critics of either industry are prepared for the discussion. It really comes down to how the political investments developed from critics of the petrol industry itself. Anyone who criticizes the industry constantly blows right past the public health and safety systems surrounding it as if whenever we run into trouble an industry the only option is to just totally abandon it. Filtration and contamination control systems haven't been allowed to advance due to loss of funding in the R&D sector of the industry. That very funding was stripped away in favor of placing it into the unknowns of alternative energy sources. You can link the dangers of the fossil fuel industry to the development of alternative energy and redirection of funds from public safety advocates within the petrol industry.
Thank you for the analysis. Regardless of which side of the fence I'm on (EVs if you must know), if you're going to analyze the production of EV batteries, you must do the same for extracting/refining/transporting gasoline and engine oil (ships, trucks), production/transport of fuel/oil filters, and then there's processing of used oil. There's so much more to this puzzle than meets the eye.
These types of comparisons always simplify what is a more complex issue than first meets the eye. The other issue that impacts the emissions of EVs versus ICE vehicles over their lifetime is how many vehicles are written off before they reach the end of their useful life. My daughter’s car was written off this year as were many other people’s where I live due to flood damage. It had only travelled 20,000 miles. Had it been an EV, it would over its lifetime have produced more greenhouse gas emissions than an equivalent ICE vehicle. The same calculation could be applied to vehicles that are written off in accidents or damaged beyond repair while being transported from point of manufacture to point of sale. Unfortunately, the latter happens more frequently than I imagined it would.
that´s the problem, they do that for ICE but not EVs. they also ignore the fact, that there is no way to recycle the battiers and they die in about 10y. additionally, he is comparing pickup trucks, SUV and 6litre Ford Mustangs with a 30kwh tiny nissan leaf... guess why he need to "lie"...because the truth is against EVs
I'm sure 'the environment' doesn't just mean how much CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere. What about the other social/environmental concerns such as nitrous oxide and dioxide. Nitrous oxide is much worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and although it is produced in smaller quantities by all oil burners, its impact on air quality affecting people can't be ignored
CO2 equivalent is calculated taking into account all greenhouse gases and by molecular weight conversion getting how much pure CO2 would those gases emissions be equal to. It's only an unified quantifier.
davekirk100 electric cars are doing worse by releasing chloride into the atmosphere from their batteries. And the lithium mining process that they use currently should be absolutely banned.
What if you can't afford an electric car or solar? Like the rest of us out here! My mom drives a Toyota hybrid... the battery died and needed replacement after ten years or so, cost her nearly $9000 by the time installation was included on a ten year old car. I thought it was a questionable spend considering the car's age. Hopefully she doesn't live to regret it. Nice thing about ICE engines is they last a very long time, end even longer if you take good care of them and very cheap if you do the work yourself! 😊 Well done video!
Production is a tricky one... But CO2 for actual use is highly conditional, since it can range from being based 100% on coal electricity, or, can be based 100% on renewables, and both give completely different answers. Both are valid, but it shows, above all else that you can't meaningfully answer the 'better or worse than petrol' answer without some additional context. It also shows that the impact of electric vehicles can vary over time, while the petrol vehicle's impact in use will be pretty consistent no matter what. Also worth noting, which is a side issue, but still relevant - whatever carbon emissions an electric car produces during use are located at the power plants producing the electricity, while for a petrol vehicle they happen at the location of the car itself. So, electric vehicles would work wonders in improving air quality around cities, if nothing else, since vehicle emissions are pretty bad for that.
5:54 the video shows the CO2 emissions based on the method each state produces its electricity, then he uses the national CO2 emissions of all the states combined average. also producing electricity by coal has waste, so does producing petrol when mining in deep sea or losing petrol during the extraction and refining process since it isn't a 100% efficiency rate for getting petrol from earth into the gas stations. there's tons of emissions from the inefficiencies of both but petrol car seems to have a greater emissions impact on the scale of the nation. we should try to save petrol vehicles for situations where no alternative exists. individual driving/commuting people and materials can definitely be handled by electric vehicle & battery technology. especially if given the same amount of time and money that the petrol industry has been given.
A crucial metric missed (it was touched on) is the energy consumed exploring, drilling, pumping, trucking, barrelling, barging, refining, trucking, and finally pumping gasoline into a car. Refining gasoline is incredibly electric intensive. Electricity has the HUGE advantage of transmitting across power lines. If an electric power plant is eventually updated to renewable sources, you get the instant benefit of decreasing all electric car emissions powered from that plant.
@Alan Bee All good questions. Bottom line is we can't sustain using fossil fuels indefinitely. We need to work to update our energy grids and solve mass battery storage. Saltwater batteries or some other technology could solve mass storage by not using lithium or other minerals that are hard to mine. This won't happen over night, but we need to plan, innovate and start transitioning now. One question I can answer now: my Chevy Volt consumes 0.5kw at idle if the heater is not on.
All the electric equipment on drilling rigs is run off large diesel generators. Doesn't affect the grid as they usually too remote to use the grid. So don't sweat that part.
So that's why oil pipeline builds were abandoned for hauling by rail? Imagine if the electric lines were replaced with batteries that needed replacement as they became used up and those replacements were remotely built and shipped in by the railways and trucks.
@@papahajek5383 "So that's why oil pipeline builds were abandoned for hauling by rail?" No. That was specific political circumstances. It has nothing to do with my statement comparing the entire lifecycle of electric-to-gas generation.
How does this compare in colder climates like Scandinavia where we drive really fuel efficient cars and the electric cars will have to use more battery during the winters because of snow and cold? It would be really interesting so see.
It compares even more favorably, as in many Scandinavian countries the electricity production is very clean with a lot of renewable energy. The percentage is 100% renewable energy (Norway, Iceland), Denmark is at 60%, Finland is around 40%. So, using more energy to heat the car doesn't really affect emissions that much, especially in countries that use 100% renewable energy like Norway, which happens to be the EV capital of the world, with more electric cars per capita than anywhere else in the world.
Actually, electric cars have an added advantage over internal combustion vehicles. Whilst an EV is recharging, it warms up the battery to up to around 41 degree C. Knowing this fact, manufacturers have built into most modern EVs a method to have that heat transferred into the cabin if the driver has scheduled the car for when they next plan to depart. This is achieved by delaying the charging process until the optimum time. If used correctly, this minimises the range drop. Of course, this only works best if the car is plug in.
@@mysterythecat971 batteries tend to be well insulated, which includes thermal insulation. It only becomes more of a factor if left inactive and unplugged for long periods in harsh conditions. For ICE vehicles. I would expect the engine to burn more fuel to maintain a higher operating temperature, particularly when most engines aren't that well insulated. This is evident in the drop of MPGs and power under such circumstances. The engine might not even turn over half the time.
You are not including the gas used during the lithium mining, the long lasting damage to the area mined, the disposal of batteries, or the fact that if 10% of Americans drive electric cars it will require 33% of our entire electric grid to power them. FACTS
@@Brian-om2hh Hi, I don't need to imagine... If Piplines are used rather than trains, ships, or trucks petrolium leaves 71% of the carbon footprint that electric currently does. I assume electric will eventually almos catch up, but it's not there yet.
Is there any information regarding the CO2 emissions of producing and delivering the gas to the gas station? If you are going to include power supply emissions I would think that you need to do the same fuel supply.
Very true, also unnacounted for is how switching over to ev's provides more incentives to start producing renewable energy to satisfy the new extra demand on the grid
mkrakoff this is what you would call the “upstream GHG profile” or upstream emissions profile. In general gasoline has a 25% upstream footprint. I can’t recall the source but you can use these terms as a springboard for further research. The upstream profile is often included in the electric energy source discussion but is almost always excluded from the gasoline discussion. The long tailpipe concept that EVs are dinged for also applies to petroleum cars.
Seems to me that the video used the worst case scenario for electric vehicles and a best case for gasoline vehicles. The closer we get to true apples to apples comparisons the greener the EVs get. Due to grids getting greener each year, it is also the only vehicle that gets greener as it gets older. I'm sure as a gas vehicle ages, its emissions get worse as well. In addition, particulate matter emissions of diesel vehicles is not CO2 (for this discussion), but causes thousands of premature deaths per year and seems apropos to discuss in the wake of the continuing diesel-gate investigations.@@OVER-bENGINEERED
I worship a V12 like any other car guy, but I still hope to see the day when, in heavily populated places like LA, NY, Paris and London, which are noisy and with relatively high pollution levels, all you see is mostly electric vehicles and the most pronounced sound you can hear from cars is just tires rolling down the road!...
i'd really love a world like that and we can put performance engine to the place where they belong, the race track, where the smell of burning tire, petrol, and roaring engine is apreciated
@@andhikabayutrimulya5801 performance cars should be used everyday. Why waste time with a bland commuter car and push performance cars away from the middle class?
I feel like you should have touched on the environmental impact of making fuel (oil refining) when crunching the numbers. only seem fair if you're gonna take into account the carbon produced to supply electricity to an electric car than why not also factor in the carbon produced when refining crude oil.
But as far as CO2 it is a plant food. Does it really create a run away climate catastrophe? Back when plants came to exist CO2 was 5X what it is now and the environment didn't turn to Venus. And according to measured temperatures since 1900 the extreme temperatures are becoming shorter and with less magnitude.
@j s Dependant on what source you read and the figures do vary wildly, the amount ofCO2 absorbed by plants is either the same or far less than that absorbed by sea algae.
@@DDFergy1 Yes, the other emissions from ICE and refining crude have a far greater immediate negative impact on the environment, causing air pollution and health problems for all life--including us!
@@DDFergy1 No, this is just wrong. Show me the data that claim a decreasing mean temperature of the athmosphere as this is what we refer to when speaking of global warming. Also noone ever said the environment will turn to venus. It doesn't have to to impact our lifes significantly. Have a look at some paleoclimatic research of what temperatures correlate with the high CO2 amount you spoke of. Then compare those to the estimated risen temperatures we speak of as becoming dangerous. Just because the T-Rex was happy on his tropical earth, humans would be too, you know?
I think eventual lack of generating capacity is a cost. Only a matter of time before electric will also have taxes like gasoline. Government won't lose gas tax revenues without replacement. That tax would have to be measured against all your use unless a separate meter was put at a dedicated charger outlet.
The correct term is actually 'Oilsands'. The term 'tarsands' was coined and used by Environmentalists in an effort to make this resource sound as dirty as possible. However in Canada, many programs are deployed in order to minimize environmental impacts, such as carbon capture at the source (Shell and Syncrude), and land reclamation, which many companies participate in.
Great job Jason! Another thing to include might also be the large percentage of EV owners that also have solar at their house. This of course further reduces the CO2 from the cars during operation making that payback period even shorter, regardless of location.
Actually it wouldn't affect the calculation. The electricity from your solar panels is sent back to the grid and contributes to the overall average emissions for the electricity generated in your state--which is what he used in the calculation. Of course, if you have solar and a complete battery backup, and are not connected to the grid, than your assumption would be correct.
@@marcw6650 Solar produced at home goes straight into your home first, then what isn't used gets sent to the grid. This is therefore not calculated in the average emissions for the electricity generated in your state (no one bought or sold it)....Solar panels are WAY more efficient in generating and transmitting electricity due to the very short distances involved. EV charging from solar is 100% tailpipe emission free. (happy dance)
A very well balanced look at the Electric vs Hydrocarbon issue as it applies to emissions. I found it to be highly informative. Thanks for the time and effort you invested in this!
One of the concerns that i still have over electric cars is our track record. As humans we have a history of running blindly towards a solution, all the time screaming this is it, this it the solution to all of our problems. A few examples that have not turned out as well as hoped are transitioning to plastic bags from paper in the late 70's and early 80's because we were cutting down too many trees, that turned out well. Ethanol seems to have been great move ( insert sarcasm) . Compact fluorescent lighting was supposed to be the be all end all and not so much. The point I am trying to make is I wish there was more weight being put on the other options that have been brought forward. Hydrogen, grid powered semis in Europe as well as other fuel options, to name a few. With out the benefit of foresight we don't really know if this is the basket that all of our eggs should be placed in. I'm neither for or against electric vehicles, I do see some problems with mass adoption but we don't know at the end of the day if this is the right path. Only time will tell us that.
China is actually at the brink of making a thorium power plant. Cleanest nuclear energy we can get and there is an abundance of it. Nuclear energy is the future.
Electric cars are good, for the people that need cars. It isn't a complete solution. A complete solution would be public transit for your average Honda civic driver, and to keep electrics for the people that need/want luxury cars, while keeping the gasolines for the enthusiasts.
@@honkhonk8009 The thing that bothers me ( or at least one of the things) is everyone looks a the solution based on their needs. I live four and half hours from the nearest major centre. There are many communities four , six and ten hours north of me. So how is an electric car going to perform when some one has to drive to a doctors appointment in Edmonton when they live in High Level and its -45(8 -10 hour drive depending on road conditions). Half the energy in that battery pack will likely be used to keep the passengers warm. By the way people travel further at -45. Its the part of the world I live in.
Agree with Keith Winsor, focusing only on electric means that we are putting all our eggs in one basket whereas there may be other "baskets" out there getting ignored because of all the brouhaha over electric. Perhaps hydrogen is the ultimate answer, or something else?
@@keithwinsor8361 PHEV - short electric range for around town, and an ICE that kicks on to run the vehicle as a hybrid. Some of the incredibly remote regions of northern Alberta and BC will probably never get much in the way of reliable charging infrastructure - highway 20 and highway 37 barely have gas stations as it is. I've driven around Northern BC with an EV. For me personally, even in the winter I'd still live with a full EV, mostly because I'd like the ability to charge off-grid with solar, which is what I'd primarily be doing if I lived in a remote area in northern BC. If fast charging infrastructure exists, covering 800 km in the dead of winter is totally doable in a day's time, just requires somewhat frequent stops. If no chargers of any kind are available, then it's a non-starter anyways and a full EV wouldn't be an option regardless, and that's where PHEV steps in.
You forgot to factor in the child labor factor for kids digging up battery making materials in the Congo. Rich Tesla drivers owe them a debt that they will never be able to pay. Think that might swing the balance just a tad?
Before you try sending EV owners on a guilt trip, take a look where your clothes were made. If it's Thailand, India, Pakistan, Vietnam etc, then you've also contributed from the efforts of child labour too..... And, in case you were not aware, the big oil companies have mined cobalt for decades, because they need it to remove sulphur during the refining process. And guess who digs that out of the ground? Yes, my friend, if you drive a car you're just as guilty too.......
Has anybody factored in the disposal of waste motor oil and transmission fluid, in comparison to battery replacement? How about total potential for waste and material recycling? I suspect that these will tip the balance even further towards electric cars.
Also brake dust. That layer of soot that covers you rims (mostly the front ones) is almost absent in electric cars because most of the braking is done by the motor instead of the actual brakes.
@@Hamachingo You're right about brake dust. I'm just not sure how much is replaced by regenerative braking. Makes a lot of sense that it would be less.
@Revol2010: Batteries are also recycled, but both process consume energy and produce waste. Pretty sure, that it balance further towards electric cars. @@eugenevodjansky4384 A lot. In tesla (which are very heavy), the brake pad last 3 times longer.
@@Revolt2010 And how many people do that vs tipping it into the garden or down the drain? Plus, there's then all the energy spent transporting the oil to a location where it can be recycled let alone the actually recycling process then shipping the new product to customers.
Why didn’t you give a figure for the amount of electricity used to produce a gallon of petrol? Giving a figure of kw per gallon produced only to burnt at a 37% efficiency.
Maybe it comes up later (I'm midway through the video)- When you look at the Monroney sticker for an ICE, are the emissions what physically comes out of the tailpipe or does that include all of the emissions down the line? Since the EV figures for emissions were based on electrical generation, feels like if you don't include the equivalent for the ICE, it is getting a bit of an advantage in these calculations.
One other thing to consider is the massive amount of energy carried by gasoline currently in our transportation system. To go even 50% electric for transportation would require doubling or even tripling our existing grid of generation and transmission of electricity. That means more power plants, more transformer stations, more power lines, all to make electrical transportation possible. Plus as I said in my other post moving electricity from its generation station to the area where it is needed comes at a cost of power loss. Plus the amount of power needed to charge a battery does not equal the power you get from it. Gasoline while not the cleanest source of power is the most efficient method of storing and transporting power. To create a means to replace it with equal efficiently requires more technology that we just do not have yet. Diverse infrastructure is also beneficial as to the point that if one is hampered, the other can take up the slack.
This is a falsehood for two reasons: 1. Most charging happens at night. At night, we literally throw away excess electricity at base-power generating plants by grounding it. We could use this electricity instead. 2. More electric vehicles means fewer refineries. Refineries use massive amounts of electricity - so for each refinery that gets decommissioned, we get to use that electricity to charge cars instead. I do however agree with your point of diverse infrastructure.
Yes, gasoline has more *potential* power than batteries per unit weight. However, internal combustion engines are very inefficient and you only reap about 20% of gasoline's potential goes to turning the wheels. In an electric car, about 80% of the battery's power ends up turning the wheels. Plus distribution of electricity is about 95% efficient, whereas distribution of gasoline is much less efficient, depending on how far the tanker trucks have to drive from the refinery to the filling station. Note that on its return trip, that tanker truck is empty - very inefficient. Also note that electricity produced in bulk at a power plant is done more efficiently and is cleaner than burning the fuel in millions of individual internal combustion engines. When you do the calculations from beginning to use to recycle, electric cars are significantly cheaper than gasoline cars.
The problem is not "what kind of car you drive" or what you use to fuel it. The problem is that humanity has spent the past century-plus constructing a built environment and an economy based upon personal mobility. The problem is *that you drive, at all*. The emissions of the vehicle is a red herring. The emissions that the vehicle enables are far greater.
Agreed on the hybrids. They are a terrible option... double trouble. I don't agree about the ICE/batteries developement. ICEs have been the choice for the last 100 years. A lot of money and resources have been thrown to try and make them more efficient. Some progress have been made, but the margin is really small to get better as they have a lot of moving parts and a lot of heat is dissipated. On the other hand, batteries have been there for longer than the ICEs but for a long time they have been just a complementary device so not much has been done to improve them. Li-Ion batteries were a revolution in its time and we can thank them for all the mobile devices we use daily. But now we need another revolution because we need more range on our EVs, but even more important, to have faster charging times. All the automobile's industry resources dedicated to improve ICEs are now turning into EVs, and it's just a matter of time that we have some results because Money Talks and the money is there right now. 10 years..... Who knows. But it's comming. I've just bought my last ICE car some months ago. Next one will be electric.
@TJ Roelsma Nonsense re hybrids. Try actually driving a 2018 Camry or Accord hybrid, for example. (I have.) Just because things start rough with new technologies does NOT mean they don't bet better. Plus, 47ish mpg real world city for a midsized family car vs. 20ish mg real world city for an ICE, given traffic lights, etc. is an amazing improvement for fuel, with a car providing essentially identical function -- and these days not very much more money, especially given the amount of gasoline saved over a 150,000 to 200,000 mile lifetime for the car. Re battery technology, let's all moan and groan and pretend technology NEVER changes and that things never get better. Like with cell phones, or electronics, or CARS. /s I notice you have no citations for your claims. You're simply not credible.
Samsung is almost ready to show off graphene batteries in smartphones, which means with the usual production ramp they'll be powering EVs if companies producing them are committed enough. And we do know there is at least one car company that's fully committed to high-volume, high-performance EV production, so the rest can either follow the pace and help with the innovation, or fall behind.
Lithium-Ion batteries may go away, but it is likely that batteries that use the Lithium element will be around for a very long time, as it is very compatible with battery technology and is a very light weight element. They can even increase the energy density if they figure out how to pack higher percentages of reactive lithium into the battery matrix. But yes other chemistrys are possible and the use of other elements like Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, and even Calcium, or Aluminum may result in a much cheaper alternative since those elements are so much more readily abundant than Lithium. Lithium will likely remain one of the top competitors when it comes to light weight applications however, since that is one of it's most attractive qualities.
Frankly, I want an electric car to be set free of oil prices. Prices keep going down in the refineries here, but the gas stations keep increasing them for some ludicrous reason, so having an electric car would be a middle finger to the gas station companies. Get solar panels for your house and you have another middle finger to the always increasing electric bills! I live in Brazil, by the way.
But very bad for your wallet, compair sales price of a new car to a electric car and de difference is usually 20k or more, im not going to spend 30k on a new car. Electric cars... Well past a certain age there value will plommet because the battery will be dead or close to it and they are real expensive to replace.... What they do not tell you is that Electric cars are a huge problem if every one owns one... The power grid can't handle it. Or there are not enough charging poles to top your car off..
Great video! I just wanted to mention one important thing thatI feel is to often left out of these discussions, and that is the amount of electricity required to refine the fuel for a gasoline vehicle. The studies I’ve read vary between roughly 3-15kwh per gallon of gasoline, but the majority seemed to hover right around 7kwh, so that’s the figure that I use. This offsets the ICE (internal combustion) emissions even higher than most might expect, especially in markets where lots of non-renewable electricity is used. Assuming an electric car getting getting even a relatively low efficiency of 3.5mi/kWh, that is still almost 25miles that an EV could travel on the amount of electricity used to refine on gallon of gasoline.
One thing I still keep asking thatno one has answered, is what is the long term environmental impact of all the batteries that have gone bad. Where do they go? How are they disposed of?
Hope everyone's having a great day! I put a ton of time into researching this video, and was surprised numerous times to learn about the differences in lifecycle emissions between gasoline cars and electric cars. It's a fascinating subject and I'm sure we can keep the discussion below civil! (That was a joke 😜). If you were curious about the battery video referenced towards the end, here's the link: th-cam.com/video/1mXSMwZUiCU/w-d-xo.html
Hope you're having a great day too 🙂
Real research takes time, but takes even more time to digest and compress the data in comprehensive information. At least you had a personal interest to find the answer yourself and just decided to share it with everyone. Thanks!
Awesome video, thanks!
How would it stack up with a next-gen battery (maybe sodium glass?), and how it would make the EV superior (if costs go down, charging times down, W/h up, enviromental impacts down, etc..)
This doesnt surprise me, but how would a modern diesel engine in a passenger car stack up? I know that there are modern diesel engines that have close to no emissions, curious if thats true and would watch another 10+ minute video about this subject
The greatest point made here was that using a 3000 lbs vehicle to transport a 150 lbs person isn't efficient
Yes, you should rather buy a 150 lbs slave person who will carry you
Wrong
And it doesn't even have to be walking or biking. Many Motorcycles, scooters, etc are energy efficient, and someone is going to I vent(or has invented) a safe micro car for one person, to get around d town, do errands, etc.
Nope, a motorcycle is worse than a car for the environment. scooters should be bad too...
@@daniloreyes2 Could you explain? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would have expected most motorcycle to be better than a car so long as you're in an area that you can use it most of the year. My motorcycle gets ~45 mpg which is better than most cars that I could afford while also having an ICE. I would imagine that the emissions from creating it are linear to that of an ICE car since it is all the same parts, just less weight in total, i.e. less emissions being made. So the only thing I can think of that would make it worse is the life span of motorcycles usually being much lower than a car, meaning more emissions through creation of the vehicles. Would like to hear what you have to say :)
My bicycle only emits when I activate the turbo.
Powered by brown beans.
Sjoerd Velzen HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAA
Bicycles can emit more pollution than a car, I know it sounds strange, but when 10 cars drive behind a bicycle on the street without having an opportunity to overtake that's 10 cars that pollute extra because of the bicycle from driving in lower gear. Bicycles are only environment-friendly if they have their own driving lanes, which in itself is a lot of space needed that destroys the environment.
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 Ah, and the cars have no driving lanes, so they don't destroy the environment.
@@balazsjakabffy2556 they do, but the trade off is worth it. For bikes it depends on where, if they cause lots of traffic they actually hurt the environment more than people think.
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 are you really saying that the only time cars ever have to crawl behind a slow moving vehicle is when it's a bike? have you ever seen something called "traffic"? that's caused by a lack of people on bikes and mass transit...
Great explanation! But I think you only missed one point here. the gas doesn't magically appear at the gas station, a lot of emissions on transporting (dirty ships) and refinning oil, the later is big, 6kwh of eletricity to refine 1 gallon of petrol.
This should really be included in the calculation. It quite quickly kills the argument that "an old gasoline car is better for the environment than a new all electric car"
My thoughts exactly. We must consider the emissions to produce gasoline too. Especially if we are factoring in the electric cost to recharge.
nickolas but just one time, gasoline needs to be transported and refined, every time... Any way, EV is better in the majority of places
Good point. I’m not sure if this was factored into the gas calculations here (doesn’t look like it) but I would be curious to check out the primary sources in my ‘spare’ time to see if any of the researchers did.
Or 1.62 kWh per litre.
One thing that always bugged me when comparing running emmisions is that for EVs they take into account the emmisions for producing the power, but my feeling is that for ICE it’s only the tailpipe emmisions. If you take into account the emmisions for producing the fuel, I think this will be a very different story.
He literally addresses this exact point at 8:10 lmao
@@takuhiro I don’t see it. He’s talking about emissions from buiding the car and tailpipe emissions compared to electricity generation emissions. I meant the emissions related to oil extraction/refinement/transport to the pump.
Oh okay I see what you mean. Yeahit becomes increasingly difficult to accurate compare emissions when there are so many moving parts of the production process
@@Then00tz
. believe EV and "going green" to be a scam
1. We have deposits of lithium, cobalt, and copper in America. There is a couple sitting on 1.5 billion dollars worth deposit of lithium in the US, but the EPA and US government has banned them from mining because it would cause substantial damage to the environment
So yall don't think is odd will mine for oil all day in our United States, but we refuse mine for lithium in our own country because it's causes too much damage to the environment. There is literally only one lithium mining company in the United States. We have no issue buying it from 3rd world countries where there is no regulation, though lmao lol.
2. We have only recycled 5% of all the trash and waste we have produced, since "going green".
3. You still will need oil, it impossible to phase out. As the guy stated above. If you calculate the amount of gas/oil need to mine materials, refine materials, manufacture, transport, build and etc.
4. Research has shown that we will reach 1.5*C increase on global temperatures. Certainly, the is no power source available or that be mass produced that will decrease our reliance on fossil fuel if anything or use of fossil fuel is expected to increase. The closet to sustainable clean energy would be fussion and they finally proved the concept but it will be decades before we get a fusion energy to generate high amounts of energy and probably a century before we can mass produce it.
5. In order to support the power grid you would still need to burn more fossil fuel and the Biden administration wants 60% of vehicles manufactured to be EVs.
No, it becomes easier because the amount of electricity required to produce a gallon of gas is approximately equal to the amount of electricity it takes for an EV to go the same distance as the average fuel economy of a petrol engine. So if we don't account for the electricity input into gasoline production we can ignore the electricity consumed by EVs. So in Jason's simple Total CO2 equation, the annual emissions for an EV goes to zero and the equation becomes:
Production + annual*T = Production
10.0 + 5.9T = 15.3 => T= 0.898
So the EV's CO2 break even point is under 11 months. And as the grid becomes more green (wind/solar are now a higher percentage of US energy than coal as of December 2023), this time gets shorter and shorter.
One other thing that Jason didn't mention here is battery recycling. Since this video was posted, processes have been developed and scaled that can recycle over 90% of lithium, cobalt and nickel in EV batteries. This will drastically reduce the CO2 from future battery production but will take time to proliferate in the supply chain.
This guy looks 50 and 17 at the same time
New change unlisted_viewer facts
He could have a heart attack from pimples
Too much soy.
Which makes him 57.
He's 67
The comparison takes into account carbon produced to manufacture a battery.
But gasoline doesn't magically appear at a gas station.
Does this comparison take into account the carbon produced to pump, transport the oil (on a boat?), refine oil to gasoline, and the transportation (using a truck) of gasoline to a station?
For transportation electricity flows over a wire which I believe produces no carbon.
@hexaitine Good points, thanks. But from a job experience I had many years ago, it is not rare for gas station tanks to leak. On average there could be some loss, and also by evaporation. That's getting pretty detailed.. Overall it seems to me that if carbon for battery production is taken into account, then gasoline production and transportation, or maybe just production should be as well. Presumably, the results will be more advantageous to EV.
Also, over time going forward, renewable energies are used more and more..
@hexaitine Double-like!
@@PaulBiagi also have to take the fact of mining the aluminum and copper , producing the sheathing and insulating parts ( paper = trees ) . More mining ( iron , oh and carbon for turning iron into steel ) ........... yea guys it's only a short pro electric video . But science is getting better ( if theyed only get the fusion energy closer than 20 - 50 years . And also small batteries that could be changed out like propane on the barbieQ . But some one needs to come up with a better sustainable energy source , cause situational renewable resources (even with magical tesla storage batteries) , is not a long term solution . Not for a on demand world . As much as people hate hydrocarbon products ( fossil if it helps with anger ) , how many people are looking for pre 1900 with glee . And until we can produce a clean and sustainable efficient energy solution . Smart engineering and affordable conveyance , is always gonna be a who's right or who's wrong strong arm argument . Maybe afterwards we can figure out how to stop these damned carcinogenic spewing volcanoes from interfering with people's vacation .
@@terrystanley2989 Mining and carbon for battery production is included in the video. My original point was that carbon to produce and deliver gasoline is not...
Are there any discussions on how electric cars might have a major impact on cali's potential energy crisis? I think that's important too.
If you included the CO2 emissions of battery production, you should have compared it to C02 emissions of Gasoline production. It won't be fair not to include both, what powers each vehicle.
Joseph Domingo Ensano don’t you think gasoline vs power cost would be more rational. Since batteries aren’t the thing powering the car, just storing the energy that powers it. Since it’s not the gastank powering fossilefueled car, rather the gas inside it.
With new environmental equipment on a gas engine the CO2 is virtually less than 1%
does it really matter unless you are in a city electric car is 100% useless to you doesn't matter how much carbon it releases are Dutton release face it if you can't get over 150 mi in the country it is useless and that's probably with over 12 hours of charging if you're in a Heavenly traffic City it could be useless too because you can be stuck in traffic and your battery dies unless you turn the damn thing off unless don't forget the air conditioning all this stuff kills your battery. to get to the point focusing on pure electric cars is a fantasy and hurting a real Solution by diverting resources to it. and let's don't forget these cars are dangerous if they catch fire that lithium will burn a hole to China I'm being a little bit dramatic do you know how they will deal with it take a fire axe and chop into the battery and stick their fire hose into it if they don't get electrocuted to do that.
@@codeward7249 You alright bud? You sound like you might still be stuck in 2016, current range on new ev's is over 350+ that's the same as a tank of gas, they also have this super nifty thing called a 240W home charger, works great. Full battery every morning. Good day to you!
@@ageminiani After extracting, refining and delivering, 'gas' cars come out at about 2% efficient (IE, turning crude oil into 'go,' and not heat, light, and waste product) - which offsets this calculation quite a bit.
Fun fact about the Atacama desert where the 7% of the lithium in your car battery may have been mined: There are parts of that desert where rainfall has never been recorded, and where it has never even been *known* to have rained.
NASA has sent it's MARS rovers there for training, and they have sampled the soil and in some areas found literally no signs of life.
Cool, but useless.
@@kojimasan444 quite important actually.
@@kojimasan444 I'm saying that mining lithium from a lifeless desert has fewer downsides than drilling for oil in oceans and other ecologically sensitive and biodiverse areas. There's literally nothing to kill there. And so far there has been no such thing as a lithium tanker spill or a lithium pipeline break.
@@mikemcmo oh great then. Let's avoid the real solutions and try to piss on a forest fire by producing 564987287689906776656789 gazillion more cars. Problem solved! World saved!
I love George Carlin's quote on this issue; "The planet is fine, the people are fucked"
@@mikemcmo it is useless info what about the other 93 percent of lithium mines, what about the mines near people and their water supply, what about the damage it does to the environment. I hate tech sim0s that will only bring up the good of things but will overlook how it is worse for the environment to build electric car batteries because it uses a crap load of water it tends to poison nearby water and kill nearby wildlife and destroys the nearby ecosystem when mining for lithium, cobalt, or any other item for said battery.
you forgot to faktor in the emissions from the production of the gasoline, the transport to the gasstation, refining etc. If you factor in the production of the electricity you also have to factor in the production of the gasoline
Lukas Beckers the fact is that neither will be as efficient and clean as hydrogen powered vehicles
That just proves his point even more. Even if we ignore those emissions the electric car is still superior to the gasoline powered car.
He didn't consider the secondary costs of electricity distribution, either. I'd guess they are both negligible.
@@DoktrDub Energy efficiency of hydrogen storage and engine is combined at ~60%. Regarding battery driven vehicles its about 85%. I dont see where hydrogen is cleaner and more efficient.
Let's just ignore the fact that the power grid system still heavily relies on fossil fuels. That's why this is a joke. As a person that works in the electric utility industry we still rely on dirty power over anything else.
I'd love to see you do this again on 5 years so we can see if there was progress or significant progress for both ICE and EV.
Well ICE's are about as good as they are going to get. EV's just got started Also the grids get better and better so the EV looks better and better over time.
Yeah technology advances pretty fast which I personally think is fascinating
I guess that once solid state batteries become a thing, you can say farewell to gasoline cars.
l30n: do you think they'll get their wildly varying estimates right by then? hehe...i rather doubt it
I agree, in 5 years we'll just begin to get data on how long the average EV battery and drive motor actually lasts and then that number can be factored into the equation.
Great video, very thorough. One thing you didn't explore, however, is accidents. The reason why I bring this up is because Rich Rebuilds recently pointed out how Tesla discards essentially brand new cars that might only need a moderate amount of work rather than repairing them, which is a huge waste. Given that Tesla is not very friendly towards third-party repair, we kind of have an Apple situation on our hands where usable parts and salvageable cars end up going to waste simply because the manufacturer doesn't want other people working on them and they don't want to fix them themselves.
Granted, Tesla is not as bad as Apple in this regard, as Apple really goes out of their way to both prevent repair and prevent parts from getting into the second-hand market (even shredding perfectly good computers), but with Tesla doing things like disabling supercharging on salvaged vehicles, they're certainly not making themselves appear to be much better.
Repairable, modular, open source technology will always prevail and will always be most efficient and affordable. We need a Model T of electric cars.
@@misterbulger I certainly hope so! I agree with you 100%. Thanks!
Good points all over.
im wondering if this will increase (not because of any political thing) but because the frames are going to be from one pieace of metal (which while makes you need to replace the entire thing, it makes it increadibly safer as well as less parts that can break or come off) i hope they will increase the amount of people who can fix the cars and such, but im not sure if it will be much of an option once that happens.
The reason is , a Tesla after a minor bump is essentially a ‘right off’. A replacement battery is a new car. Utter garbage. It’s a pig in a poke.
During the calculation of the running CO2 do you calculate the CO2 needed to extract, refine and transport the fossil fuel ?
Several comprehensive studies have been performed on this topic. They found that, while the cost/effort/environmental impact to source the materials for an EV are higher, the environmental scales tip in favor of the EV after relatively few miles (I believe it was 8,000-12,000 miles driven).
Many factors make ICE vehicles worse for the environment, including the entire oil/petroleum infrastructure required to drill, refine and distribute gasoline/diesel to depots and gas stations. Beyond the petroleum infrastructure, ICE cars obviously pollute as they drive.
The same question could be asked for Lithium and the other material used in EV. Cobalt and Nickel. 70 % of Cobalt is comming from Democratic Republic of Congo, Afrika. Rest is from: Indonesia, Russia (They are under sanctions, but we probably still buy Cobalt from them), Australia, Canada, Philippines, Cuba, Papua New Guinea, Madagascar, Morocco. Many of these mines have very poor work conditions that kills the workers.
Nickel is from: Indonesia, Philipines, Russia (They are under sanctions, but we probably still buy Nickel from them), New Caledonia, Australia, Canada, China, Brazil, USA.
So that calculation is not funny! EV are only green as long the transport, the mining and the workers health is not taken into account!
But who's giving a F¤¤k as long we can call it green!
There are no fossil fuels. Just oil refined for specific purposes.
The same applies for the Electricity generated by the fuel. that coal extraction also emits lots of CO2. unless your electricity is generted either by nuckear or by hydro.
You should that, as well as the cost to refine and transport fossil fuel. But you should also include those same cost things when electric energy comes from fossil fuel, plus the electric energy lost in the transmission of the electric energy on the grid.
What about the emission produced during refining gasoline ?
Good point. I wish he had touched on that as well
what about the emission produced in creating the electricity?
@@Random_Banshee That was covered. I would have loved adding the Consumables each car uses at different stages of it's life, say, a gasoline car needs Engine oil replacements every 20K miles, battery-powered doesn't need it.
@@Dhirengoyal Battery powered vehicles need heavy amounts of cobalt not found in america in countries where its common to have forced child labor... which also produces a hazardous material with no potential to be reused and gets thrown in a garbage dump after being used for 100k miles.
@@JrSpitty Cobolt is a bi-product of copper and nickel production. Before it was a kind of waist product. Anyway, there is less use of cobolt in newer batteries.
Why do people not factor in the CO2 created when making the gas to drive the gas car if we are looking at the cost of producing "fuel" for electric cars shouldn't you also factor in the cost of producing fuel for gas cars? If I am wrong someone please explain.
Or the cost of electricity. Or I guess it isn't so bad since you're using big coal power plants to make it.
good point. refineries use massive amounts of electricity.
Nobody really knows how much CO2 it takes to do anything really, except for chemists in highly controlled circumstances. Unaccounted losses are everywhere. One batch of oil might go from the well to the customer with no issues, and another batch might burn up in a refinery explosion. Sometimes you have to skip over the infinite details like the carbon cost of boiling crude oil or painting wind turbine blades if you want to get to an answer within your lifetime.
yes we do which is why data are given with margins of error included. some data have quite a variation as in the 2-17 tonnes figure in the video, but to claim that's somehow the same as not knowing is ridiculous. what happens from one batch to the next doesn't effect the answer because the answer is the average of all the good bad and in between.
@@satoau1 That information belongs to the companies that produce the product. If they don't want to tell you or they don't have an actual answer you just have to move on. This is a big part of why a carbon tax isn't feasible. Keeping track of all of this would be far too complicated since everything is interrelated, things change every day, and not every thing is measured, tracked, or analyzed.
Upvoted even just because he was talking about the importance of citing/sourcing information.
as long as it's any site other than Retardipedia (aka Wikipedia), then it's valid.
I thought the same thing. With the comments on Wikipedia being bad. Its actually really good for finding peer reviewed papers..and to the comments about citing sources not making it credible, its much better than not citing your sources as it gives people the chance to go to the source and work out it its credible rather than just "trust me this is a fact".
+megabigblur Agreed. Citing/sourcing PLUS LOGICALLY CONSISTENT MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS!
Jack Son Wikipedia is God!
Jack Son Wikipedia is the best source dude? It’s widely used, easily available, oh and Wikipedia also cites its information.
In terms of overall environmental savings, public transportation would win out easily. 1 bus could carry about 40 people. So having efficient and smart public transit might take 40 cars off the road.
The problem is the US doesn't push for public transportation that much. Instead, we keep adding more and more lanes and pushing EVs
Public transportation is for communists and people in large cities....you can keep it.
public transportation is anti american, cars provide freedom
@@Mentality Doesn't really feel like freedom when I'm stuck in traffic for an hour.
Like, even if you don't ever get on a bus or train, consider supporting public transportation. Other people will use it. That means they'll be driving less. That means less traffic to deal with. Not to mention if less people drive, the demand for gas goes down.
@@snipehunter795 talk about entitlement and sheer arrogance, you're truly shameless aren't you
The Asshat Patrol had to Show up and ruin a perfectly worthy debate
Factor in NOx and the numbers gets even worse.... for the gas engine. And diesels even more.
Joe Johnson nuclear power is only 20% of electric power in the USA compared to fossil fuels (coal, gas, and petroleum) that account for 60% of the electrical power.
assfacekenny - There’s a big difference between coal and natural gas, champ.
True, but he _did say_ he was giving as many [reasonable] advantages to gasoline vehicle as possible. 👌
Electric cars in theory are a good thing, but they have toxic batteries, take on average 4 hours to charge, the electric grid is not capable of charging millions of cars and if the battery goes flat on congested networks in rush hour all hell will break lose as how do you move the vehicle? They are more expensive to buy and of course governments are giving sweeteners such as cheap charging to get people to take them up. Remember diesel when it was cheaper than petrol to get you to buy diesel cars in the UK. Also crude oil is not a base element even if the world is not making it man will find a way of joining carbon and hydrogen to form oil.They already make artificial diamonds and diamond cutting tools are now very cheap.
@ I'll have a go at addressing your points in turn...
1. Watch the bit in the video on Lithium mining
2. True, charging speed is a big problem for long journeys, but *most* people can charge at home/work/shops *most* of the time
3. The electric grid has lots of spare capacity during times of low demand, especially when renewables are contributing - utility companies have an incentive to try to use electric cars as energy storage devices, rather than just sucking in energy. I'm interested to see how this problem will be solved.
4. If your gas tank gets empty at rush hour all hell will break lose as how do you move the vehicle?
5. The lower running costs make EVs cheaper to own after roughly 3-4 years at current prices
6. Cheap charging isn't thanks to government subsidy. EVs are cheaper to run because they need less energy and maintenance. Per kWh, electricity is more expensive than gas, you just need fewer of them per mile in an EV.
7. It'd be interesting to see artificial "oil" - could be useful e.g. in aviation. Creating it would probably use a lot of energy, and we'd have to accept the fact that 70% of that energy is wasted in an IC engine as heat. For an EV at least 70% of the energy you put in at the power station is turned into useful work.
As a Mechanical Engineer I really appreciate your videos. It’s clear you have done your research and and put a lot of time and thought into them.
What is the cost to the environment when disposing the lithium batteries?
@@jimdaley3921 doesnt cookie monster just eat them?
@@jimdaley3921 Wouldn’t it just be easier to part out the rare earth materials to use in other products as opposed to disposing batteries entirely?
How do you know if someone is an engineer?
@@SavedbyHim Jason literally has a BSME from North Carolina State lol
Short Answer: No
Long answer: nooooooo
😂😂😂
Except C02 is good for the environment... ?
@@andrewstout5400 CO2 is very bad for the environment. it’s what’s causing global warming if you didn’t know.
@@shfnnghh Trees need CO2 to make oxygen, the problem is too much forests are lost. also CO2 stop the world plummeting into an ice age.
the problem is finding a good balance.
They should force peoples covid masks to clean your mouth exhaust.
also the Sun modulates heat, and the entire solar systems temp has gone up and not just earth.
@Ryan Farris They've already declared "A carbon tax for all !"
That is their only solution...
Great analysis. Just a few points of concerns:
1. It is false that desserts don't have life forms. In fact a dessert can be one of the richest areas of life on Earth. We just tend to assume that is not the case because we can't think of living without water in a hot dry place.
2. We need to think about the scarcity of cobalt and other minerals and the human impact it has. Often the mining companies for cobalts, nickels, etc. tend to have some of the most inhumane work conditions in the world, even resembling to slavery in some places.
In saying that, I'm an avid advocate for electric cars, I just believe that we need to be more conscious of all the impacts it has and addresses those concerns instead of blanketing the whole process as "better than oil" in order to morally good without doing any work.
Incredible video, thank you so much for the time you put into this
Very welcome, thanks for watching!!
Usable electricity doesn't exactly make itself either.
He took bad data as the input though. This video uses Swedish statistic that made artificially inflated numbers by using outdated, 2 times more costly per kWh, Leaf 1st gen batteries made in LNO technology. All new Leafs, e-Tron, Kona, Bolt use much more efficient MNC and Tesla use NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum). Divide all emissions from EV production by at least 2.
I can't even imagine the time he spent on this. Really good.
@@EngineeringExplained
Haha, this pretty much brakes down my bachelor's thesis into easy to digest 13 minutes! I set out to smash the EV, rooting for ICE and came up mildly disappointed but quite a lot smarter :D
I compared cars (petrol, diesel, hybrids, EVs) during some standardized lifecycle (300 000km or so) and came up with similar results. Looking at car production/life/expiration emissions as well as "Well to Wheel" emissions and efficiency of energy production, needed to propel chosen cars. This efficiency is sadly where hydrogen cell cars struggle incredibly.
Regarding precious metals mining, iI only made a personal comment bringing up many massive ecologic catastrophes done by the oil industries to compare. While both are almost impossible to quantify, its a solid argument against played out "lithium mining".
Thanks for making these videos. I just wish I seen them 6 years ago while still in school.
One aspect I never hear get talked about is the impact maintaining the infrastructure required to transport fuel and electricity. If people love to include emissions from power plants when talking about EV's, then fuel refinement and transportation emissions should also be included when looking at ICE's. Remember, big trucks use fuel to transport fuel for smaller cars.
Yeah if you include the emissions for the life cycle of the fossil fuel it’s not not even close for the ICE vehicle. That’s why all the ICErs conveniently leave that data out. Much like they ignore for the subsidies for fossil fuels, when they get on about EV subsidies.
Was disappointed that EE did not touch on this subject. This video got my first thumbs down on the channel.
@@mikereliford55 u just think electricity appears out of nowhere dont you
@@DhirC35 As an electrician and operations manager of an electrical contracting company I have a fair bit of knowledge about electricity. ;-)
Do you think gasoline appears out of nowhere? Or the crude oil from which it is refined? Do you think that no electricity is used in the gasoline "well to tank" process?
@@mikereliford55 i know very well that it doesnt come out of nowhere and needs to be refined
@@DhirC35 As I hoped! It is just important to consider the ENTIRE economic effect of two items evenly. That is my problem with a lot of information out there, it's not comparing apples-to-apples. (On both sides of most discussions.)
This video was much needed to combat the false theories floating around out there.
...namely?
@@mikishootsonfilm He doesn't know, he is just spouting off. All this propaganda for EV cars and Co2 BS is just fear mongering. Society is so infantile because they are bereft of personal responsibility and because of this NGO's and world governing bodies like the UN can use fear tactics to manipulate people into theft scams like carbon taxes and EV vehicles that you can never hope to own or repair on your own. You will be in perpetual debt even more so than the world already is today if that is even possible.
Your comparing the average ice powered car to the smallest and most efficient electric car. USA buys bigger vehicles, I think you should be comparing the same size vehicles.
Mr Ouroborous your conspiracy theories demonstrate a paranoia born of a lack of scientific and practical knowledge. Spouting off is your department, using demonstrable facts and figures is EE's department. Still believe in a flat earth and that some god chose to pop you on this planet as an object of ridicule?
This video uses Swedish statistic that made artificially inflated numbers by using outdated, 2 times more costly per kWh, Leaf 1st gen batteries made in LNO technology. All new Leafs, e-Tron, Kona, Bolt use much more efficient MNC and Tesla use NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum). Divide all emissions from EV by at least 2.
In reality it's MUCH much better for the EV.
If you’re going to be fair, you also need to include the amount of CO2 generated in refineries to produce the gasoline burned by the ice cars
..and thank you for working in metric for those of us outside the US.
Is the conversion really that difficult?
@@ayayronjohnson2823
No, but it's pointless. The imperial system must die. The sooner, the better for everybody.
@Solyndros What are you talking about? Literally, the whole world uses the metric system apart from America and some country in Africa and Burma. Not using the metric system is pretty much the dumbest decision you can make.
@@strayjames8751 for science, engeineering, trade/commerce and military the US uses metric as the standard. they just need to standardise the rest of the measurements.
@@strayjames8751 Incorrect. The UK still uses the Imperial system quite heavily as well.
Wow, this is by far one of the best videos you’ve made. Bravo my friend
Very kind, thanks for watching and glad you enjoyed it!
@@EngineeringExplained It is the best video on the reality of electric cars vs gasoline powered cars, but you left out a very important aspect, people choose also with their wallets and the cost of unit of electricity is an important aspect, especially here in Europe. Norwegians buy more teslas than anyone else outside of the US (afaik) and they've completely green hydroelectric power and tax breaks for electric cars, yet they are a major oil/gas producing country. The cost per unit of electricity in my home country of Ireland, makes owning a small economical car and even closer run competition....Wallet also means taking into account depreciation....This is a very interesting subject, but the media and living in a consumer based society has everyone believing the new way is the best.....Horses for courses...as we say!
@@EngineeringExplained
By around 2050 Potable water is projected to run out or diminish significantly due to overpopulation and climate change. Desalination is a slow and costly process which would easily be overwhelmed by the huge needs of masses. Electric is not perfect but improving every few years or so. Being dependant on oil running vehicles solely has gotten us nowhere. The transition to electric is the beginning to a solution.
I wish he would have calculated in how temperature and accessories effect the mileage ratings. The stated milage ratings are "best case" conditions. Driving in cold weather drops battery efficiency (while actually improving ICE efficiency). Not to mention headlights, heaters, radios, and accessory charging, etc.
@@jpgmccabe Can you get solar on your roof? Do you get enought light? We in Australia get huge amounts of solar, our own home produces enough electricity to run 5 homes every day!
Adding the emissions from energy production means you gotta do it for gasoline production & transport, etc..
I liked how he made the comparison, and then stated that obviously its not a very green of us to use a vehicle to transport ourself places.
seems the NJB effect has hit EE too!
but he is right tho, public transit is much much more efficient, as are bicycles, even the notorious e-bikes and scooters are more efficient... heck, even the noisy ass motorcycles are more efficient. car-centric urban planning is seriously the worst in terms of gross efficiency.
@@alveolate bikes arent good in winter.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 that's not true. You think that because you don't live in a city with decent bike paths
@@zbarba actualy i live in tropical region haha. snow on the road is just one of the problem. you will get cold just by being outside. with car, at least you have a heater.
@@imustbust998 the average winter temperature in the netherlands is around 0 celcius, which is much warmer than all of canada, most of northern US and most other northern european countries. Where i live, the average winter temperature is -20 celcius (it frequently gets much colder) so it's not quite as easy to ride a bike in the winter over here. It's obviously different based on climat, but it's important to have othersustainable means of transportation that most can use year-round
i like that you speak very clearly, makes watching at 2x speed actually doable 😂👍
Genius
for real tho AHAHHAHAHAHA
Agreed. Makes binging so much less time consuming.
I can only do 1.25x
I mean, I've been watching pretty much every video on TH-cam other than music at 2.5x speed for the past 5 years or so lol, sometimes can get to 3x if they talk slow enough
As a fellow engineer I applaud all the info you have assembled. Trying to calculate a complete energy envelope of both gasoline and electric is very difficult to do, especially when you have to try to factor in the future emissions related to tailings close out on a mine. In the end neither technology is great for the environment for different reasons.
It is indeed very tough to do. The strongest argument for getting electric and gasoline might have to do with diversifying energy consumption.
Neither is great for the environment, but which is less bad? How do the benefits of "going electric" outweigh the costs, big-picture-wise, for say the next 30 to 50 years?
Great comment and exactly correct. And…Which mine because some are more efficient than others including environment damage! Almost impossible to calculate with any accuracy this comparison question.
@@mtscott So if it's impossible to calculate I suppose that means let the market and policy decide and see what happens.
@@jeromeglick Good question….the issue we have is emotions (green lobby) + the great unwashed will always win over logic + the educated few. And so your statement is correct - market will drive change not facts.
Why nobody counts emissions to produce GAS?
Because of oil lobbies, my guess.
Drilling, pumping, refining and transport of fossil fuel also takes energy and creates pollution.
Same with mining and bringing fossil fuels to power plant (coal, natural gas, oil, uranium etc.)
Same goes refining and transport of Lithium, Cobalt, and Nickel though...
@@ConBroHermano Yes, but that only needs to be done once per vehicle.
You might take a different position when you see the 2000+ acres Piedmont Lithium (Australian company) is about to start strip mining not 1800' from my house (in NC). Plenty of emissions there, habitat destruction and water poisoning. Not a big deal when it's in Chile' I guess, but how about when it's destroying US farmland, woodlands, ground and surface fresh water sources? Let me guess, "Take one for the team?" "Look at the big picture?"
@@wyrazowfkp Most places that have coal plants have a local coal supply, same goes for natural gas. You wouldn't build a plant if you had a hard time fueling it.
The thing about batteries - if we can figure out how to make better ones in, say, 20 years it will be simple to retrofit today's vehicles with the new tech. The same way it's easy to put modern rechargeables in a 20 year old walkman.
Yep!
Yeah, we won't be able to make better gas in the future and we're well into the diminishing returns territory concerning the efficiency of combustion vehicles, but batteries still have a lot of room to improve.
LOLLLLLLLL simple
Okay, retrofit lithium ion into a nicad battery.
I'll wait while you try to figure out how to get the voltages to match (your not cause a lition cell is 3.7 volts... and thats it, your getting 3.7 or 7.2, and so on...
modern rechargeable are no where near the same as changing battery TECH... that rechargeable most of the time has LESS capacity than a on time use battery.
@@mattlane2282 The voltage is the least of your problems. At the voltage most electric cars run, a cell plus or minus won't be a problem to get a voltage match. The bigger problem is the vehicle's charger (including braking/regen) will not use the right algorithm to safely charge a different battery chemistry.
@@brianorca While true, I was trying to make it simple for them... but ya your totally right, it would be a disaster just make a drop in battery replacement using new tech...
Realy interesring!
But isn't the emissions from extracting and refining petrol forgotten in the equation?
Yes. Also, transporting from the refinery to the gas station and powering the gas station's pumps. That would make the combustion engine vehicle even worse, and make the EV the greener option even sooner. But, like he said, he was giving the benefit of the doubt to the combustion engine.
@@mjc0961 where does the electric come from? you do realise most countries still have loads of nuclear power plants which emit a lot of carbion dioxide, also the materials to make batteries are found underground which means a lot of digging is needed to find the materials needed to make the battery then theres the emissions made from the vehicles used to dig up the materials.
Since petrol extraction and refinement is only part of the industry gasoline production is a very tiny part of that.
Most chemicals are made from oil extraction, plastic battery casings, paint, plastic interior parts, solvents, bailing twine which should be made from hemp, diesel, lubricants, electronic components and insulators, milk containers, bottled water containers, plastic grocery bags, etc etc etc etc....
since 1971 we have increased demand for crude extraction for all these products that we never needed by about 5 million percent.
That make gasoline production the most insignificant portion of all. Not to mention gasoline is mixed with water and alcohol to reduce its quality and make it cheaper.
So technically gas is worth far less now than it was 50 years ago. 0.25 cents per gallon should be considered a high retail price for gas. Not that price has anything to do with it but you can see that electric cars are dependent on the oil industry just as modern gas cars are.
HunterSpider what kind of nuclear reactor produces carbon dioxide?
@@Mrcool2oo3 the mining of the uranium to actually get the reactor to work as uranium is the power source needed, im not against nuclear power generation but thought I could say something y'know, also when the rods have to be disposed off its a very dangerous job.
It’s great to see an analysis on this. I always wondered what the environmental payoff really is. But I can’t believe that disposing of (or recycling) all those battery packs is a trivial matter.
Exactly you put them in a crusher.
Have you seen one burn yet? You can't put it out. It burns until it's done burning.
@@Bellathebear777 Google how often EVs catch fire in comparison to ICE or Hybrids.
@@Bellathebear777 It all depends on charge level mate.
I at this stage I would not agree that lithium out of an EV battery is recyclable
Excellent video, well presented, objective arguments (something which is distinctly lacking these days).
I agree, this is a great video. The answer depends, and the energy mix does have a lot to do with it. This is why it's annoying when people think electric cars are always good all the time and will solve all the problems of the world. In places like China which are still very coal dependent, it can make things worse.
@@motormusique China's very coal dependent now, but they're moving rapidly toward solar and other renewables, because they've finally gotten their butts in gear over pollution.
That's one of the coolest things about electric: an EV you buy today gets cleaner over time as your local power mixture becomes greener. While a gas car at best retains the same level of pollution for its entire life, though most actually get worse as their efficiency falls due to wear and tear.
nitemunky76 h
Actually, his analysis is extremely poor. He doesn't even mention, let alone discuss the fact that ALL marginal (i.e. the next increment of X) electricity production comes from coal and hydrocarbon sources entirely. NOBODY runs a solar cell field, or wind turbine field at anything other than the maximum level that can be squeezed out, for the simple fact that the solar cell is out there, getting shined on, regardless of whether you use the electricity or not. 50% draw from a solar panel field costs no more than 100% draw... so you ALWAYS draw the maximum possible from it at all time. Same goes for wind turbine farms.... there is NO benefit to drawing anything less than the maximum that you can at any one time. On the other hand, a coal or gas fired plant... you shut one of those boilers down as soon as there is excess capacity, because if you don't have a customer to buy those electrons, then you're burning fuel and shunting those electrons into stand-by loads and NOT EARNING A CENT FOR IT. So, despite what this guy says, ALL electricity production that is added to the baseline load is done with carbon-based fuel. This destroys his argument that "well, in such and such state, x% comes from hydro"... yeah, but the output from the hydro plant IS ALREADY BEING CONSUMED 100% before you even plug your electric car into the wall socket. That means the increase in production MUST come from a variable source... which a means carbon-based fuel, and nothing other than a carbon based fuel source.
@@dirkgently120That doesn't seem to make sense, though. You say that all the hydro, wind, and solar generation is happening regardless of whether it's being used, and then go on to (I think?) claim that every electric car is somehow not tapping into that wind/hydro/solar power, and only using marginal power generated by fossil fuels? How does that make any sense? Why do EVs not count as part of the "baseline load", whatever that is.
This is a topic that needed to be addressed for a long time.
You've got a lot of important data to back up certain claims. Thanks.
This video uses Swedish statistic that made artificially inflated numbers by using outdated, 2 times more costly per kWh, Leaf 1st gen batteries made in LNO technology. All new Leafs, e-Tron, Kona, Bolt use much more efficient MNC and Tesla use NCA (nickel cobalt aluminum). Divide all emissions from EV production by at least 2.
Rrr Ggg True, and in europe, there are restrictions on max co2 levels in cars. So the driving emissions should be divided by 4 (four) in ICE vehicles
My biggest problem is that the sources don't differentiate between cars and trucks. the website used takes average electric car CO_2 which is what? Tesla's , Nissan Leafs , BMW I3 , then compares them to ICE Gasoline vehicle CO2 production which includes everything from smart cars to F750 industrial gas powered trucks and everything in between. so your comparing what is going to be a relatively low polluting passenger electric cars to ALL ICE vehicles which includes massive trucks. The ICE Gasoline Vehicle CO2 emissions production needs to be adjusted to only include passenger cars and not full size trucks / SUV's or industrial gasoline powered trucks. it will bring the margins significantly closer together. Jason says he's comparing "cars" multiple times in the video but the source he uses to get the CO2 production numbers never specifies that its only using data from "cars" the website says Gasoline VEHICLES. it's an important factor if you want to make a actual scientific comparison. Relatively he's comparing apples and oranges.
@@TheDaltonmichaels On the flip side, in all the other calculations he took the *most expensive* values for electric (e.g. the most expensive estimate for battery production emissions, etc), not to mention presuming that - excluding the battery - production emission for electric and ICE cars were the same...
Complaining about the one instance where he numbers marginally favour Electric, without pointing out the many other instances where they favour ICE, is definitely trying to bias the argument...
There are tons of people who had already stated the point you made in the comment section but as far as i know i'm the only one whos mentioned what i previously posted. Also maybe im miss interpreting what you and Jason said , but if you exclude the emissions from the battery from the analysis doesn't that benefit the electric car heavily? leaving out the battery to an electric car is like leaving out the engine on an ICE vehicle. It doesn't work without it. Its not an independent variable it has to be in there. So idk why one would bother with using figures that left the battery out. And even if the EV numbers are inflated it probably doesn't remotely come close to how inflated the ICE numbers are inflated due to including full size trucks , vans , SUVs and industrial vehicles in the average. And in my original comment i said i think electric cars would still beat out ICE vehicles but only in very green states with lots of renewable energy and the time it takes to make up for CO2 production would be very much extended to what amount i cant say. Basically if you corrected all the number while including the batteries it would greatly narrow the margins. For reference Truck , Van , SUV sales make up 65.4% of auto sale in the US. that leaves 35% of sales for crossovers and cars of all kinds combined. So if your averaging the emissions for the average ICE vehicle sold the emissions are going to be incredibly high. compared to if you had the average from only ICE cars and crossovers. The only electric cars that i know of are mostly small cars , some full size cars , and tesla who has the only crossover ish EV. Audi Is coming out with a wagon EV that looks pretty sweet though.
what about not buying a new car every year?
myownname myownlastname What about it. The used car is bought by someone else who would otherwise have bought a new one. So no impact.
I don't have enough money to buy a new car every year.
What about cooling it on the red herrings?
People buy a new car every year?
My car is made in 1985, that most be the most environment frendlies way?
(is a 1,6L)
Remember: this video is 3 years old & now there are more efficient ways to manufacture batteries, even without cobalt.
Also the energy mix got cleaner in the last years.
@Ayy Lmao are you dense? Some electric cars can go over 400 miles on a single charge. Do your research
@Ayy Lmao Tesla model s. Donno the price
@Ayy Lmao that wasn't the argument. You said that EVs "still has the battery mileage of literal toys" and you're wrong
@@sergeantretard7776 combustion engines are just way more fun to me. An EV feels like it's dead with no soul, so no EV for me
@@fireblow44 Oh i agree. I won't buy electric in at least 20 years. I'm a huge sucker for upgrading and tuning cars.
You forgot to mention an important point: the transportation of the millions of barrels daily in each country that pollutes a lot to carry them to destination to finally waste 80% of them by the ICE cars in heat.
And the pollution to extract and process petrol, sometimes directly in marine ecosystems.
@Allen Loser National average (residential) price of a kWh in the US is US $0.135. The 36.6 kWh in that gallon of gasoline would carry my (ordinary daily driving) Model 3 about 110 miles, for an average cost of US $4.94 for that 'gallon' -- but I bet your VW diesel needs a heck of a lot more than one gallon to go 110 miles. But it seems like Danyl Bekhoucha was talking about pollution, not cash -- and just refining a gallon of fuel costs upwards of 6 kWh, to say noting of the energy consumed to extract, transport (by tanker ship), pump (several times on the way to & at the refinery), transport again (by tanker truck), and pump (twice more) again. That 36.6 kWh worth of energy doesn't magically appear in you car's tank -- it takes considerable energy to get it there, representing a big loss. Just on the energy consumed to refine a single gallon, I can (recklessly and irresponsibly) drive twenty miles. ICE vehicles are not efficient, they are not clean, and they are not as inexpensive as many think.
@Allen Loser Except that the numbers in the video already take that into account; he specifically factors in the power plant and 'overall efficiency' of the BEV -- and uses a seriously low-ball number, too.
@Allen Loser The model 3 battery pack is rated for a lifespan of 300,000 to 500,000 miles by Tesla.
Can anyone conifrm that the refining costs of gasoline are not accounted for in the ICE CO2 calculations on the monroney?
If it takes 4kw/hrs per gallon of gas refinement thats too big of an impact to leave out of the calculations.
@Allen Loser But its likely not "none". Once it is none then EVs will have zero emissions from a completely green grid.
I looked up the regulations on monronies. They dont calculate gasoline processing in their figures, only tailpipe emmisions.
If you have a 12 gallon tank and get 30mpg on that tank you are getting 360 miles per tank at an estimated fuel processing cost of 48kwh of electricity for that tank before you even combust any of it. My Model 3 has a 55kwh pack and can go 240 miles.
So the ICE vehicle can do 7.5 miles per KWh and the EV 4.3 miles per KWh. The EV is powering off of the grid for propulsion while the above miles per KWh cost for the ICE is just in gasoline processing energy alone! That doesn't even account for the tailpipe emmisions.
Very educational as always. I also love the fact that you come clean with the sources you are using, and am pretty grateful for all the research you are doing to make these videos as accurate and accessible as possible.
Thank you good sir !
Basically, a used EV is the most environmentally friendly family car
Wont be friendly if battery dies think buying used EV is a big gamble. Far as i know about batteries they don’t last much longer than 8 years. If battery goes ur looking at a lot of money to replace probably not even worth it. Maybe one day when battery prices go down be a whole different story but right now id be very skeptical buying used EV.
@@joshgessinger4509 - I bought an 8 year old Leaf and the battery is still 83% of original capacity. At that rate (and with my driving habits) this car will last me another decade.
Would love to see an updated comparison today with the escalation of renewable energy, especially focusing on at home from solar generation.
There are also other pollution factors, than just CO2.... for example nitrogen oxides, carbonmonoxide and particulates are basically a none issue in EVs, but a huge health and enviromental problem.
Another big enviromental issue from fossile fuels, is oil spilling in the environment, toxic chemical from mining oil sands, gas flaring and wastes from refineries.
What kind of waste come's from refineries in the US and many other countries in 2018? please explain!
tucanchu. You can smell refineries from afar. Should be enough to prove waste.
But what I want to object to is the level of bias. For one, it's like the OP forgot lithium extraction is a toxic mess, to say the least.
@@benghazi3754 Lol smell is enough to prove waste, thanks for the laugh buddy
Grow up. If a smell comes from a refinery, what could it be? Petroleum products of course. And inhaling petroleum products sure doesn't affect your health in any way right?
A google search for 2sec gave me a link between premature births and proximity to refineries. And do you think that it happens by pregnant people looking at the refineries? Do they go swimming there? No they inhale waste.
@@trx420fm1
If a refinery would process all their waste and byproducts, there would be no way they could compete with foreign imports.
The pollutants are: particulates, SO2, NOx and hydrocarbons in the air and hydrogen sulfides, thiols, phenols, thiophenol, ammonium compounds, cyanide, naphthenic acids, thiosulfate, alkanolamines, as well as heavy metals and other lye/acid from processing the oil.
As long as the local goverment cares, many of them are removed to a certain extent, but even then a lot gets out into the environment, if you look closely you can find breaches and leaks in none essential compartments in almost every factory on this planet.
*WEST VIRGINIA*
*MOUNTAIN MOMMA*
*COUNTRY ROAD TAKE ME HOME!*
@@jesusramos__ *TO THE PLACE... I BELOOONNNGGG!!!!*
West vigina
BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS
I always say back door momma
I've always wondered about this, thanks for breaking it down
What about keeping the interior of an e car warm, especially in the winter? That must significantly affect the range.
Excellent point! They always talk about some warm coastal climate where no one needs a heater, They never mention that AC also takes about 3-5 kilowatts.
@@rom5285 the AC in a Tesla uses 2kwh according to their estimates, but independent tests showed that with the HVAC system running full time, the range decreased by 60 miles or 19%.
I think that we tend to nitpick EV’s because it’s so easy to see by switching on a component how much the draw is increased or because of how relatively consistent the mileage is from a battery charge.
On my 2013 Avalon Hybrid I have a lifetime average of 38.9 mpg. Recently (in Jan/Feb - while running on snow tires and sub 0 temps in many cases mind you ) I changed something in my driving. I started turning off the heater while climbing hills. The result? As high as 42.5 mpg. That’s a 10% increase.
My point is that the very things that affect the range of an EV also affect the range of a gasoline car but they can be harder to nail down, partially because a lot of people don’t bother to keep track.
on the flip side.. how much does an EV use when idle or in traffic? note: In the US, gas cars wastes 5% of gas a year at idle.
@@dcheard2 Well, an EV almost shuts down. An internal combustion engine has to keep running, and the momentum of the flywheel has to be maintained. Hence the use of gas to keep the engine running verses the use of electricity to keep electronics going. Slam dunk for the EV.
I really appreciate this, I definitely want to learn more. I will say initial cost, repair costs, and right to repair are still big issues to me in regards to these however.
@hatchettwit look at Aptera!
1:15 "Try to see where this information comes from..."
What can I say more!? You are maybe the one in a million person that does not allow to be biased with false scientific data! Well done!
Quantitative thinking - that's the difference between the average people and the intelligent one.
@@muskokamike127
"Good demonstration"? That's the best demonstration so far in TH-cam I've ever seen.
Nevertheless, if you want to let me (and the others) know about the other forms of pollution, I'll be glad if you provide more details, expressed *quantitatively* of course, and provide a *reliable* source for it.
@@muskokamike127 You said "manufacturing a car." So if an EV and a regular car were produced the same way (say, ford focus base vs ford focus electric), then they would produce the same amount of these other pollutants you described. So if you can reduce just one of them, like emissions, then it is better for the environment, is it not? Almost everything we produce will have negative impacts to the environment no matter what you do, so you can't just say that "oh, this pollutes so it's bad" and then ignore the comparable thing that pollutes just as much, if not more. Also, where are your sources for those car manufacturing pollutants?
I wonder how the efforts to recycle each type of vehicle (ICE/EV) compare. Since EV batteries might have less lifespan than an ICE, would recycling more of them more freqently be enough to negate some of their carbon offset / savings?
+ CO2 emission is not the worst thing that come with battarys, li-ion battery produce a lot of of emission, including very dangerous HF, POF3, Lithium oxide and others.
Your standard car battery has a 2 year warranty.
EV has 8 year.
@@crobdog so? It doesn't make ev battery ecological.
@@crobdog warranty doesn't mean your battery is dead when the warranty ends. Unless you have some extreme conditions, or defect in your car electronics, it will last well beyond 2 years.
@@erenkruger8800
The recycling of EV batteries does.
You forgot about emissions during extraction, transportation and refining of oil in comparison with electricity production for electric cars.
I am also curious about emissions generated by the more frequent servicing of gasoline cars. Dirty engine oil has to go somewhere, and the new engine oil has to be drilled/refined/transported/packaged. Air filters, oil filters, sparkplugs get replaced and discarded regularly in gas cars but not in electric vehicles. That is part of the overall emissions picture too.
A revisit given cobalt and nickel production is done in an extremely biodiverse and socioeconomically unstable areas is worth looking into. Recycling may be profitable but we're still pulling a lot out of the ground for these batteries. Also would be nice to see the comparisons of pollution from cars vs a single point like a coal plant as well.
Cobalt is doing its job in your ICE car too and is used in fuel production. Nickel is a very commonly used metal in alloys all over the place. So your point is moot unless you immediately stop using your ICE as without cobalt there is no fuel for that bugger.
LFP batteries are becoming more common. No nickel no cobalt.
12:30 He didn't mention nickel mining but lithium was mentioned. As a mining engineering student I know that mining and processing nickel is toxic to the environment but necessary for reality.
Good luck finding someone to work on it though, also let's be real here these cars won't do much. In order to see decent change you'll need to replace most cars with these and wait 5 years. Low income families can't afford this and the vast majority of people will just stick to a $5000 4 cylinder car which is fuel efficient. My 2001 Camry is great on gas.
Not only that but how many of these electric cars are built to last? I worked for a dealer and some of the bolts and bolts were sounding creaky and old at around 60k. My truck has 175k on it and I intend to keep it for double what it currently is. Many never vehicles are not made very solid or are desirable for long term use.
@@lolbuster01 there are many electric vehicles with over 300,000 miles with minimal battery degradation. Internal combustion engines require a lot more maintenance due to extra moving components under high pressures and temperatures (exhaust system, EGR valves, more hydraulic brake requirements, fuel injectors, fuel pumps, piston rings, timing belts, complex transmissions, etc.)
The longevity of EVs isn't a problem. The price point is coming down, but still needs to come down more. You can get a Chevy Bolt for $32k new, and a base Model 3 off menu over the phone for $35k new.
Also, I know a little about ICE, because I used to be a Mechanical Engineer specializing in ICE design.
Ryan Dravinski From what i remember from my thesis, isnt most nickel in the world nowadays a product of recycling?
@@StephenYen you're forgetting about battety changes on those EV vehicles that have dead cells in the battery packs (which happen more than you think). So not the EV's are having the issue I was screaming about years ago. What to do with all the dead battery packs? Tesla is trying to "recycle" them. But are finding out you can't. Only parts of the battery are recyclable. And what to do with the hazardous waste? They have no clue. And some of these batteries are already finding themselves in landfills. That's safe! Only sheep believe EV's are a good replacement for our current non climate changing vehicles. Changing one problem for another one. While saying one is better than the other. Love it when folks do that.
Why would you factor in nickel?
Have to point out that you are ignoring the energy (fuel) generation aspect. This should include the distribution contributions as well. To run/charge an electric vehicle requires that some fuel (coal, nuclear, petrochemical) be burned to generate steam to turn a steam generator. Also, the electricity needs to be transmitted /distributed to enable the charging at your location. Those should be included both for gasoline (and diesel) AND electricity. These have largely been ignored in the conversation and line losses and conversion losses have also been ignored. Let's see where the numbers fall once those are included.
If you do that you also have to take into account the energy used to drill, refine, ship, pump, and then you get to a maximum combustion engine efficiency of 33%.
There’s no logic in green energy.
@@ogzombieblunt4626 OP did specifically say for both mate.
There is an issue of emissions and pollution regarding EV & Renewable production and disposal presently, yes.
However, almost 100% of all materials used in EVs & Renewables can be recycled with near no emissions or pollution. Additionally, the extraction and production of new materials for new EV's & Renewables can be almost 100% free of emissions and pollution as well.
The thing is it requires using emissions and pollution to establish the required facilities & processes to achieve that
Also not withstanding the required regulations and standards to establish particular less profitable practices like recycling facilities.
@@MrBasicHelixLoop Yeah, if people still want to wear a mask, go ahead. 😆
@@soulsurvivor8293 How recyclable is a fiberglass windmill?? How recyclable are the rare minerals in solar panels? How recyclable are the rare minerals in lithium batteries?? Not very.
I live in Hong Kong and the government has been pushing people to buy electric cars, for the sake of electric cars. The thing is, the majority of electricity here is from coal power plants. And for the cars, most people drive less than 8000km per year, while taxis and ubers do like 10x that. however, the government is giving heavy incentives for people to literally throw away old cars, to get a huge discount on a new electric car via the 1 for 1 replacement incentive. And as you have pointed out, a 100 kwh tesla is not really going to do any better for the environment than a normal car if the power is from coal, then the whole electric car fab is just complete farce. I'd argue that it's even worst when you are destroying perfectly fine, usable cars in favor of creating more cars. The best way to stay environmental is to reuse, reduce, and recycle. Over the 5 years of owning my car, I've driven just over 52,000km. Driving it another 5 years would still be more environmental friendly than driving an electric car.
Can you provide an updated video that shows data on pollutants other than CO2? Cars and power plants emit more than just CO2.
This is something that seems to be overlooked all the time - but was alluded to in this video towards the end.
The particulates produced by energy production, especially from Diesel, are hugely damaging to human health so the move to electric should massively improve air quality in our highly populated cities by centralising the energy production from the individual vehicles in the city to our out of city power plants.
CO2 isn't even a pollutant, it's natural and good for the plants.
forget about the EV drivers in West Virginia what about all these guys standing in front of the fridge with the door wide open in the middle of the night looking to make a sandwich knowing full well they ran out of bread that afternoon?
Andrew Baker now that’s funny!
Andrew Baker 😂👍
The cost of manufacturing these batteries is 10 times worse than what does video showing…
According to a report by Friends of the Earth, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and causes air contamination. In Argentina’s Salar de Hombre Muerto, locals claim that lithium operations have contaminated streams used by humans and livestock, and for crop irrigation. In Chile, there have been clashes between mining companies and local communities, who say that lithium mining is leaving the landscape marred by mountains of discarded salt and canals filled with contaminated water with an unnatural blue hue.
“Like any mining process, it is invasive, it scars the landscape, it destroys the water table and it pollutes the earth and the local wells,” said Guillermo Gonzalez, a lithium battery expert from the University of Chile, in a 2009 interview. “This isn’t a green solution - it’s not a solution at all.”
And is is pretty much the same for the mining of cobalt, which the oil companies carry out?
they're resources. it'll be mined and used/sold regardless if we use EVs or not. it won't just sit there. we also drill for oil, mine for other metals
Does any of this take into account the emissions required to produce the gasoline?
I don't think it did. Good point
I'd like to see a follow up video on the lifetime cost of operation. Green is great, but not if it comes at a higher personal cost to the end consumer.
After 10 years with Nissan Leaf, and 9 years with a Mitsubishi Outlander, i can give you the facts right away. My diesel has had 80 barrels of diesel through it and estimated cost of 17.500 USD (norwegian price at pump). Also, about 7000 USD in oil/filters/fluid changes. In the same timespan, our Nissan Leaf has had 10 new cabin filters 😂 Thats it. We did not notice a sharp increase on our electrical bill. But generally an EV uses 1/5th in fuel costs in Norway (expensive gas and cheap power). Other. Ountries will vary.
If you install solar panels on your roof, an electric will basically drive and operate on the costs of tires and brakes alone. And it uses way less brakes. We never changes brakes in 10 years because of wear. Rust from road salt is what made us change and lubricate them.
Operating costs my butt just wait until the next pipeline or refinery fiasco or war in the middle east. Ev's will driving by the miles long gas lines smiling and waving.
@@retroMartin dude lives in Norway. Solar can only make advertised power a couple minutes of each clear day. Basically false advertising.
@@timduncan8450 You are aware that Norway lies on the arctic circle, beyond which the sun never sets during summer?! Google midnight sun Norway, enjoy photo evidence. But on the rainy Westcoast of Bergen, which have 2200mm of precipitation per year, there was a couple who installed solar some 12 years ago. They broke even on their investment, and compared to then, prices per panel is now dirt cheap. Also, we actually have hydropower covering some 98% of our power needs. My electric car is powered by rainwater.
For around town travel, no vehicle beats a bicycle. It runs on fat and sugar.
Coffee too
For around town travel nothing beats a good ol' full-speed sprint, fueled by pure caffeine. Need to get to work and your work is 10 miles away? No worries! Wake up 6 hours early and run as fast as you can!
@@brewergamer On level ground and downhill, a bicycle is faster and easier on the joints. I have gotten up to probably 35 miles per hour on a bicycle.
sweety
@Allen Loser nice, 45mph is scary enouh for me!
Still waiting for Mr. Fusion.
Strangely, the car was still powered by fuel and only the time machine used the power from Mr Fusion
Man the garbage and trash we’ve accumulated would be gone so fast
@@Ganliard Oh I thought OP was talking about a car powered by internal nuclear fusion...
I am a retired engineer and this was exactly the analysis w was going to do on my own. Than you for doing it for me!
googling could help, someone out there might have already done what you're going to try to
This is a very simplistic analysis and doesn't include several issues including any of the infrastructure that is required to make EVs anything more than a few percent of the fleet, The other big issue isn't lithium but the copper demand which is a massive uptick on existing demand especially as the ore grades available continue to decline demanding exponetially more energy to process and refine.
@@AndyRRR0791 So as a Californian I shouldn’t have purchased my EV?
@@AndrewUnruh You can purchase what you like - just don't pretend you're saving the planet. You're consuming the planet's resources at a rate that's into the 95th percentile, in all likelihood.
@@AndyRRR0791 Sure, but he also skipped the emissions from refining crude, which are enormous.
I am really happy (but not surprised) you took the time to explain the conservative estimate and show the actual results of your calculations and the impact of changing variables.
The atacama desert actually has a decent amount of biodiversity, for example there are at least 230 species of vascular plants known to live there.
yes, and this doesn`t even begin to address the question of global lithium reserves!
@@donkeyshot8472 I know right? I would love ev's to be better for the environment though. That would be excellent!
Not compared to the ocean or other more lush areas
He's also assuming that the pollutants don't drift. We have this thing call wind and weather....His argument is basically: meh, it's not harming where I live so it's all good.
There is life pretty much anywhere you can go on this planet. Just because it may be a species we don't particularly care about, it doesn't follow that they are unimportant to the food cycle or nature itself.
I live off grid and am contemplating an electric car to dump my excess energy production into. Some days I let as much as 30kw bypass my system and just not get used. Would be nice to throw that into a leaf or bolt and have a smaller fuel bill.
I also commute 50 miles each way, 5-7 days a week, I’d like to drop my oil reliance a bit :P.
Then do it? 🤷♂️
Yah less money you spend on gas if you do spend gas off the grid.
You could save your solar? energy in a battery like the Tesla Powerwall and then use it for your EV or for whatever you need it ;)
@Angel Dust Well. For me, I found a piece of land that had no utilities coming to it. Instead of investing money to connect to the grid (Power, Water, Sewer). I put my money into developing those services myself. My power is Solar. My sewer is a septic system, and my water is a rainwater catchment system.
All told, I am into it for less than it would have taken to simply connect to the grid, since power is about 1/2 mile from my house.
@@astrong1984 yep, that's awesome. I want that as well for my future home.
Thanks!
Could you do an updated version of this video now that we have LFP batteries
Here's a mato my dad always use to tell me "Theres no free lunch" You will always have trade offs!
Such a simple, old, well-known phrase that people don't realize applies to *every* situation on earth.
The problem with EVs is that trade-off happens in the production stages of the vehicles, and by the time it's in possession of the end user, they can play ignorance about all that and simply focus on their lack of emissions and therefore how elite of a human they are. It's wack.
Sure, but one lunch is still much cheaper in the long run.
@@peterkiss1204 might be but not in the very long run
*motto
@@colleenmarin8907 fixed
The emissions from internal combustion engines are even worse when the drilling, pumping, transporting and refining process is taken into account.
There is a huge amount of energy used and emissions created before the fuel even gets to the tank of a petrol or diesel car.
It would be interesting to make this comparison with ethanol.
Or Biodiesel from soybean oil and corn.
Or biofuel from Algae oil which is way more sustainable than corn or soybeans
@@hippieJOSH420 that works
I think there's been some studies that show that ethanol isny actually carbon neutral but its productions absorbs less co2 than how much it produces.
Or my propane powered geo metro...barely registered on the emissions test
Lithium mining considerations should include how many millions of litres of fresh water are needed to produce the lithium for the battery and where did that water come from? As well as how are the communities near the mine suffering because they don't have sufficient fresh water?
Lithium takes 500,000 gallons of water per ton to mine. Extracting such large amounts of water will likely have unforeseen consequences. Also there are large mining operations in areas that people and wildlife both inhabit. Another thing that's failed to mention is that this is often fresh water and it is polluted during the mining process. A question not answered is whether lithium is endlessly recyclable or will mining continue to expand along with ev industry expansion.
we burning the fossil fuels to produce the electricity that we need (EV is not green)
I was hoping someone mentioned this, as it was somewhat skimmed over in the video. I believe he said something along the lines of "large amounts" of water, Well, that's relative. But when you actually put a number to it, suddenly it becomes a real concern I think for most people. Also, another thing that should be an area of concern this video missed is cobalt mining. China owns something to the tune of 15 out of 19 cobalt mines in or around The Congo. Which is the leading area for cobalt production. China is straight going to town 1901 industrial revolution in NYC style. Child labor for mere pennies a day is rampant, with terrible living and working conditions. Deaths from "work" related accidents or from the security at these Chinese mines getting overzealous seems to be a daily occurrence. Well here if someone is interested they can watch this video quickly or read this story quick. Is this honestly the picture everyone has when they think of EV and saving the planet? Furthermore, I'll admit the west is not perfect, far from it. But for most people, it could be the best choice so far for personal liberties and freedom (if our governments stuck to the things they were formed to handle) I can say one thing, I am personally not looking forward to a future where the Communist Chinese Party has a monopoly (numerous monopolies, acquired through practices ranging from highly questionable to downright illegal and banned) on vehicle production and that is exactly what our leaders have railroaded all western countries into. While simultaneously China is allowed to continue to build coal power plants and bring them online. Now call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure what comes out of the coal plants over there will eventually still have an effect on the climate of all the countries in the west that have pledged to effectively knee cap their own economies in the name of combating climate change. Now either I'm a card-carrying member of MENSA super genius, all of our leaders took remedial classes in school, or the more likely option, they are all aware of everything I just said but they don't care because no part of the coordinated global push to EV cars was ever about stopping climate change. It was about the greatest transfer of wealth and power ever in the history of human civilization and it was all accomplished through espionage, fraud, bribery and blackmail because our "leaders" in the west or spineless, feckless, shortsighted cowards. Btw in case, anyone who is reading this is wondering, I mean liberal and conservative alike.
Likewise with nickel mining's effect on habitat. Someone please show me a nickel mine with anything growing nearby. These metals travel the world before settling down on a car lot. If we had a real president, petroleum would travel a few hundred miles from source to use.
To ask this question, you have to be ready to compare it to the impact of petroleum drilling and refining. Otherwise, it comes off as being a naysayer, because the new technology doesn't check 100% of the boxes yet.
@@DEAR7340 I don't think critics of either industry are prepared for the discussion. It really comes down to how the political investments developed from critics of the petrol industry itself. Anyone who criticizes the industry constantly blows right past the public health and safety systems surrounding it as if whenever we run into trouble an industry the only option is to just totally abandon it.
Filtration and contamination control systems haven't been allowed to advance due to loss of funding in the R&D sector of the industry. That very funding was stripped away in favor of placing it into the unknowns of alternative energy sources. You can link the dangers of the fossil fuel industry to the development of alternative energy and redirection of funds from public safety advocates within the petrol industry.
Thank you for the analysis. Regardless of which side of the fence I'm on (EVs if you must know), if you're going to analyze the production of EV batteries, you must do the same for extracting/refining/transporting gasoline and engine oil (ships, trucks), production/transport of fuel/oil filters, and then there's processing of used oil. There's so much more to this puzzle than meets the eye.
These types of comparisons always simplify what is a more complex issue than first meets the eye. The other issue that impacts the emissions of EVs versus ICE vehicles over their lifetime is how many vehicles are written off before they reach the end of their useful life. My daughter’s car was written off this year as were many other people’s where I live due to flood damage. It
had only travelled 20,000 miles. Had it been an EV, it would over its lifetime have produced more greenhouse gas emissions than an equivalent ICE vehicle. The same calculation could be applied to vehicles that are written off in accidents or damaged beyond repair while being transported from point of manufacture to point of sale. Unfortunately, the latter happens more frequently than I imagined it would.
Very good point.@@stephentreble7
that´s the problem, they do that for ICE but not EVs.
they also ignore the fact, that there is no way to recycle the battiers and they die in about 10y.
additionally, he is comparing pickup trucks, SUV and 6litre Ford Mustangs with a 30kwh tiny nissan leaf...
guess why he need to "lie"...because the truth is against EVs
I'm sure 'the environment' doesn't just mean how much CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere. What about the other social/environmental concerns such as nitrous oxide and dioxide. Nitrous oxide is much worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and although it is produced in smaller quantities by all oil burners, its impact on air quality affecting people can't be ignored
yeah
CO2 equivalent is calculated taking into account all greenhouse gases and by molecular weight conversion getting how much pure CO2 would those gases emissions be equal to. It's only an unified quantifier.
Yes, CO2 can easily converted to O2 by plant
davekirk100 electric cars are doing worse by releasing chloride into the atmosphere from their batteries. And the lithium mining process that they use currently should be absolutely banned.
@@THESLlCK so would you mind going into details of where the chloride actually come from?
What if you can't afford an electric car or solar? Like the rest of us out here! My mom drives a Toyota hybrid... the battery died and needed replacement after ten years or so, cost her nearly $9000 by the time installation was included on a ten year old car. I thought it was a questionable spend considering the car's age. Hopefully she doesn't live to regret it.
Nice thing about ICE engines is they last a very long time, end even longer if you take good care of them and very cheap if you do the work yourself! 😊
Well done video!
Electric cars will save about 8k in maintenance over the life of the vehicle. So savings could be where you get that replacement battery.
I can easily think of a lot of ICE engines that blew up within a few years. Thats called anecdotal evidence, which isnt evidence at all....
@@simcowgames981 But they cost an average of 18k more than their gas-powered counterpart up front
Production is a tricky one...
But CO2 for actual use is highly conditional, since it can range from being based 100% on coal electricity, or, can be based 100% on renewables, and both give completely different answers.
Both are valid, but it shows, above all else that you can't meaningfully answer the 'better or worse than petrol' answer without some additional context.
It also shows that the impact of electric vehicles can vary over time, while the petrol vehicle's impact in use will be pretty consistent no matter what.
Also worth noting, which is a side issue, but still relevant - whatever carbon emissions an electric car produces during use are located at the power plants producing the electricity, while for a petrol vehicle they happen at the location of the car itself.
So, electric vehicles would work wonders in improving air quality around cities, if nothing else, since vehicle emissions are pretty bad for that.
5:54 the video shows the CO2 emissions based on the method each state produces its electricity, then he uses the national CO2 emissions of all the states combined average.
also producing electricity by coal has waste, so does producing petrol when mining in deep sea or losing petrol during the extraction and refining process since it isn't a 100% efficiency rate for getting petrol from earth into the gas stations. there's tons of emissions from the inefficiencies of both but petrol car seems to have a greater emissions impact on the scale of the nation.
we should try to save petrol vehicles for situations where no alternative exists. individual driving/commuting people and materials can definitely be handled by electric vehicle & battery technology. especially if given the same amount of time and money that the petrol industry has been given.
A crucial metric missed (it was touched on) is the energy consumed exploring, drilling, pumping, trucking, barrelling, barging, refining, trucking, and finally pumping gasoline into a car. Refining gasoline is incredibly electric intensive. Electricity has the HUGE advantage of transmitting across power lines. If an electric power plant is eventually updated to renewable sources, you get the instant benefit of decreasing all electric car emissions powered from that plant.
@Alan Bee All good questions. Bottom line is we can't sustain using fossil fuels indefinitely. We need to work to update our energy grids and solve mass battery storage. Saltwater batteries or some other technology could solve mass storage by not using lithium or other minerals that are hard to mine. This won't happen over night, but we need to plan, innovate and start transitioning now. One question I can answer now: my Chevy Volt consumes 0.5kw at idle if the heater is not on.
All the electric equipment on drilling rigs is run off large diesel generators. Doesn't affect the grid as they usually too remote to use the grid. So don't sweat that part.
So that's why oil pipeline builds were abandoned for hauling by rail? Imagine if the electric lines were replaced with batteries that needed replacement as they became used up and those replacements were remotely built and shipped in by the railways and trucks.
@@papahajek5383 "So that's why oil pipeline builds were abandoned for hauling by rail?" No. That was specific political circumstances. It has nothing to do with my statement comparing the entire lifecycle of electric-to-gas generation.
California banned sales of gaming computers for using too much energy. Good luck.
How does this compare in colder climates like Scandinavia where we drive really fuel efficient cars and the electric cars will have to use more battery during the winters because of snow and cold? It would be really interesting so see.
Electric cars are more important in warm climates where pollution is a problem due to the thin warm air.
It compares even more favorably, as in many Scandinavian countries the electricity production is very clean with a lot of renewable energy. The percentage is 100% renewable energy (Norway, Iceland), Denmark is at 60%, Finland is around 40%.
So, using more energy to heat the car doesn't really affect emissions that much, especially in countries that use 100% renewable energy like Norway, which happens to be the EV capital of the world, with more electric cars per capita than anywhere else in the world.
Actually, electric cars have an added advantage over internal combustion vehicles. Whilst an EV is recharging, it warms up the battery to up to around 41 degree C. Knowing this fact, manufacturers have built into most modern EVs a method to have that heat transferred into the cabin if the driver has scheduled the car for when they next plan to depart. This is achieved by delaying the charging process until the optimum time.
If used correctly, this minimises the range drop. Of course, this only works best if the car is plug in.
yet driving will cool the battery down shortening drive time.
@@mysterythecat971 batteries tend to be well insulated, which includes thermal insulation. It only becomes more of a factor if left inactive and unplugged for long periods in harsh conditions. For ICE vehicles. I would expect the engine to burn more fuel to maintain a higher operating temperature, particularly when most engines aren't that well insulated. This is evident in the drop of MPGs and power under such circumstances. The engine might not even turn over half the time.
You are not including the gas used during the lithium mining, the long lasting damage to the area mined, the disposal of batteries, or the fact that if 10% of Americans drive electric cars it will require 33% of our entire electric grid to power them. FACTS
And how much power do you imagine drilling, extracting and refining oil into gas and diesel uses?
@@Brian-om2hh Hi, I don't need to imagine... If Piplines are used rather than trains, ships, or trucks petrolium leaves 71% of the carbon footprint that electric currently does. I assume electric will eventually almos catch up, but it's not there yet.
Is there any information regarding the CO2 emissions of producing and delivering the gas to the gas station? If you are going to include power supply emissions I would think that you need to do the same fuel supply.
Very true, also unnacounted for is how switching over to ev's provides more incentives to start producing renewable energy to satisfy the new extra demand on the grid
mkrakoff this is what you would call the “upstream GHG profile” or upstream emissions profile. In general gasoline has a 25% upstream footprint. I can’t recall the source but you can use these terms as a springboard for further research. The upstream profile is often included in the electric energy source discussion but is almost always excluded from the gasoline discussion. The long tailpipe concept that EVs are dinged for also applies to petroleum cars.
Seems to me that the video used the worst case scenario for electric vehicles and a best case for gasoline vehicles. The closer we get to true apples to apples comparisons the greener the EVs get. Due to grids getting greener each year, it is also the only vehicle that gets greener as it gets older. I'm sure as a gas vehicle ages, its emissions get worse as well.
In addition, particulate matter emissions of diesel vehicles is not CO2 (for this discussion), but causes thousands of premature deaths per year and seems apropos to discuss in the wake of the continuing diesel-gate investigations.@@OVER-bENGINEERED
And the cost/risk/impact of all the safety requirements for that network. And that people die all the time extracting oil and shipping it around.
Totally agree. Environmental impact is much greater than emissions alone. @@aidanapword
I worship a V12 like any other car guy, but I still hope to see the day when, in heavily populated places like LA, NY, Paris and London, which are noisy and with relatively high pollution levels, all you see is mostly electric vehicles and the most pronounced sound you can hear from cars is just tires rolling down the road!...
i'd really love a world like that and we can put performance engine to the place where they belong, the race track, where the smell of burning tire, petrol, and roaring engine is apreciated
@@andhikabayutrimulya5801 performance cars should be used everyday. Why waste time with a bland commuter car and push performance cars away from the middle class?
How much "performance" can you really get without violating traffic laws?
I feel like you should have touched on the environmental impact of making fuel (oil refining) when crunching the numbers.
only seem fair if you're gonna take into account the carbon produced to supply electricity to an electric car than why not also factor in the carbon produced when refining crude oil.
The cost of refining fuel is covered in the price.
But as far as CO2 it is a plant food. Does it really create a run away climate catastrophe? Back when plants came to exist CO2 was 5X what it is now and the environment didn't turn to Venus.
And according to measured temperatures since 1900 the extreme temperatures are becoming shorter and with less magnitude.
@j s Dependant on what source you read and the figures do vary wildly, the amount ofCO2 absorbed by plants is either the same or far less than that absorbed by sea algae.
@@DDFergy1 Yes, the other emissions from ICE and refining crude have a far greater immediate negative impact on the environment, causing air pollution and health problems for all life--including us!
@@DDFergy1 No, this is just wrong. Show me the data that claim a decreasing mean temperature of the athmosphere as this is what we refer to when speaking of global warming.
Also noone ever said the environment will turn to venus. It doesn't have to to impact our lifes significantly. Have a look at some paleoclimatic research of what temperatures correlate with the high CO2 amount you spoke of. Then compare those to the estimated risen temperatures we speak of as becoming dangerous. Just because the T-Rex was happy on his tropical earth, humans would be too, you know?
I think eventual lack of generating capacity is a cost. Only a matter of time before electric will also have taxes like gasoline. Government won't lose gas tax revenues without replacement. That tax would have to be measured against all your use unless a separate meter was put at a dedicated charger outlet.
The correct term is actually 'Oilsands'. The term 'tarsands' was coined and used by Environmentalists in an effort to make this resource sound as dirty as possible. However in Canada, many programs are deployed in order to minimize environmental impacts, such as carbon capture at the source (Shell and Syncrude), and land reclamation, which many companies participate in.
Great job Jason! Another thing to include might also be the large percentage of EV owners that also have solar at their house. This of course further reduces the CO2 from the cars during operation making that payback period even shorter, regardless of location.
Really tricky to measure/calculate but it would surely have a big impact
Like a make of break kind of deal
Actually it wouldn't affect the calculation. The electricity from your solar panels is sent back to the grid and contributes to the overall average emissions for the electricity generated in your state--which is what he used in the calculation. Of course, if you have solar and a complete battery backup, and are not connected to the grid, than your assumption would be correct.
@@marcw6650 Solar produced at home goes straight into your home first, then what isn't used gets sent to the grid. This is therefore not calculated in the average emissions for the electricity generated in your state (no one bought or sold it)....Solar panels are WAY more efficient in generating and transmitting electricity due to the very short distances involved. EV charging from solar is 100% tailpipe emission free. (happy dance)
@@lindam.1502 that might be true, if it wasn’t for the fact that most people charge their EV’s overnight when the sun doesn’t shine.
A very well balanced look at the Electric vs Hydrocarbon issue as it applies to emissions. I found it to be highly informative. Thanks for the time and effort you invested in this!
Happy to hear it, thanks for watching!
One of the concerns that i still have over electric cars is our track record. As humans we have a history of running blindly towards a solution, all the time screaming this is it, this it the solution to all of our problems. A few examples that have not turned out as well as hoped are transitioning to plastic bags from paper in the late 70's and early 80's because we were cutting down too many trees, that turned out well. Ethanol seems to have been great move ( insert sarcasm) . Compact fluorescent lighting was supposed to be the be all end all and not so much. The point I am trying to make is I wish there was more weight being put on the other options that have been brought forward. Hydrogen, grid powered semis in Europe as well as other fuel options, to name a few. With out the benefit of foresight we don't really know if this is the basket that all of our eggs should be placed in.
I'm neither for or against electric vehicles, I do see some problems with mass adoption but we don't know at the end of the day if this is the right path. Only time will tell us that.
China is actually at the brink of making a thorium power plant. Cleanest nuclear energy we can get and there is an abundance of it. Nuclear energy is the future.
Electric cars are good, for the people that need cars. It isn't a complete solution. A complete solution would be public transit for your average Honda civic driver, and to keep electrics for the people that need/want luxury cars, while keeping the gasolines for the enthusiasts.
@@honkhonk8009 The thing that bothers me ( or at least one of the things) is everyone looks a the solution based on their needs. I live four and half hours from the nearest major centre. There are many communities four , six and ten hours north of me. So how is an electric car going to perform when some one has to drive to a doctors appointment in Edmonton when they live in High Level and its -45(8 -10 hour drive depending on road conditions). Half the energy in that battery pack will likely be used to keep the passengers warm. By the way people travel further at -45. Its the part of the world I live in.
Agree with Keith Winsor, focusing only on electric means that we are putting all our eggs in one basket whereas there may be other "baskets" out there getting ignored because of all the brouhaha over electric. Perhaps hydrogen is the ultimate answer, or something else?
@@keithwinsor8361 PHEV - short electric range for around town, and an ICE that kicks on to run the vehicle as a hybrid. Some of the incredibly remote regions of northern Alberta and BC will probably never get much in the way of reliable charging infrastructure - highway 20 and highway 37 barely have gas stations as it is. I've driven around Northern BC with an EV. For me personally, even in the winter I'd still live with a full EV, mostly because I'd like the ability to charge off-grid with solar, which is what I'd primarily be doing if I lived in a remote area in northern BC. If fast charging infrastructure exists, covering 800 km in the dead of winter is totally doable in a day's time, just requires somewhat frequent stops. If no chargers of any kind are available, then it's a non-starter anyways and a full EV wouldn't be an option regardless, and that's where PHEV steps in.
You forgot to factor in the child labor factor for kids digging up battery making materials in the Congo. Rich Tesla drivers owe them a debt that they will never be able to pay. Think that might swing the balance just a tad?
Before you try sending EV owners on a guilt trip, take a look where your clothes were made. If it's Thailand, India, Pakistan, Vietnam etc, then you've also contributed from the efforts of child labour too..... And, in case you were not aware, the big oil companies have mined cobalt for decades, because they need it to remove sulphur during the refining process. And guess who digs that out of the ground? Yes, my friend, if you drive a car you're just as guilty too.......
Also a good question would be how much emission producing in order to get 1 gallon of gasoline ( gasoline gets from oil) ?
Has anybody factored in the disposal of waste motor oil and transmission fluid, in comparison to battery replacement? How about total potential for waste and material recycling? I suspect that these will tip the balance even further towards electric cars.
Use them to paint wood
Also brake dust. That layer of soot that covers you rims (mostly the front ones) is almost absent in electric cars because most of the braking is done by the motor instead of the actual brakes.
@@Hamachingo You're right about brake dust. I'm just not sure how much is replaced by regenerative braking. Makes a lot of sense that it would be less.
@Revol2010: Batteries are also recycled, but both process consume energy and produce waste. Pretty sure, that it balance further towards electric cars.
@@eugenevodjansky4384 A lot. In tesla (which are very heavy), the brake pad last 3 times longer.
@@Revolt2010 And how many people do that vs tipping it into the garden or down the drain? Plus, there's then all the energy spent transporting the oil to a location where it can be recycled let alone the actually recycling process then shipping the new product to customers.
Why didn’t you give a figure for the amount of electricity used to produce a gallon of petrol? Giving a figure of kw per gallon produced only to burnt at a 37% efficiency.
Maybe it comes up later (I'm midway through the video)-
When you look at the Monroney sticker for an ICE, are the emissions what physically comes out of the tailpipe or does that include all of the emissions down the line? Since the EV figures for emissions were based on electrical generation, feels like if you don't include the equivalent for the ICE, it is getting a bit of an advantage in these calculations.
One other thing to consider is the massive amount of energy carried by gasoline currently in our transportation system. To go even 50% electric for transportation would require doubling or even tripling our existing grid of generation and transmission of electricity. That means more power plants, more transformer stations, more power lines, all to make electrical transportation possible. Plus as I said in my other post moving electricity from its generation station to the area where it is needed comes at a cost of power loss. Plus the amount of power needed to charge a battery does not equal the power you get from it. Gasoline while not the cleanest source of power is the most efficient method of storing and transporting power. To create a means to replace it with equal efficiently requires more technology that we just do not have yet. Diverse infrastructure is also beneficial as to the point that if one is hampered, the other can take up the slack.
This is a falsehood for two reasons:
1. Most charging happens at night. At night, we literally throw away excess electricity at base-power generating plants by grounding it. We could use this electricity instead.
2. More electric vehicles means fewer refineries. Refineries use massive amounts of electricity - so for each refinery that gets decommissioned, we get to use that electricity to charge cars instead.
I do however agree with your point of diverse infrastructure.
Yes, gasoline has more *potential* power than batteries per unit weight. However, internal combustion engines are very inefficient and you only reap about 20% of gasoline's potential goes to turning the wheels. In an electric car, about 80% of the battery's power ends up turning the wheels. Plus distribution of electricity is about 95% efficient, whereas distribution of gasoline is much less efficient, depending on how far the tanker trucks have to drive from the refinery to the filling station. Note that on its return trip, that tanker truck is empty - very inefficient. Also note that electricity produced in bulk at a power plant is done more efficiently and is cleaner than burning the fuel in millions of individual internal combustion engines. When you do the calculations from beginning to use to recycle, electric cars are significantly cheaper than gasoline cars.
Thank you Jason for the insight. Very informative, fact driven and professional as always. Keep up the good work.
Omar happy to hear it, thanks for watching!
The problem is not "what kind of car you drive" or what you use to fuel it. The problem is that humanity has spent the past century-plus constructing a built environment and an economy based upon personal mobility. The problem is *that you drive, at all*. The emissions of the vehicle is a red herring. The emissions that the vehicle enables are far greater.
You're not wrong, but we have to address the world as it is today. We can't go back and change the past.
Lithium may not be the battery of choice in a few years....there are many new battery technologies being worked on.
Agreed on the hybrids. They are a terrible option... double trouble.
I don't agree about the ICE/batteries developement. ICEs have been the choice for the last 100 years. A lot of money and resources have been thrown to try and make them more efficient. Some progress have been made, but the margin is really small to get better as they have a lot of moving parts and a lot of heat is dissipated.
On the other hand, batteries have been there for longer than the ICEs but for a long time they have been just a complementary device so not much has been done to improve them. Li-Ion batteries were a revolution in its time and we can thank them for all the mobile devices we use daily. But now we need another revolution because we need more range on our EVs, but even more important, to have faster charging times.
All the automobile's industry resources dedicated to improve ICEs are now turning into EVs, and it's just a matter of time that we have some results because Money Talks and the money is there right now.
10 years..... Who knows. But it's comming.
I've just bought my last ICE car some months ago. Next one will be electric.
The great thing about an EV is that it doesn't care about the source of the electricity. This makes it highly flexible.
@TJ Roelsma Nonsense re hybrids. Try actually driving a 2018 Camry or Accord hybrid, for example. (I have.) Just because things start rough with new technologies does NOT mean they don't bet better. Plus, 47ish mpg real world city for a midsized family car vs. 20ish mg real world city for an ICE, given traffic lights, etc. is an amazing improvement for fuel, with a car providing essentially identical function -- and these days not very much more money, especially given the amount of gasoline saved over a 150,000 to 200,000 mile lifetime for the car.
Re battery technology, let's all moan and groan and pretend technology NEVER changes and that things never get better. Like with cell phones, or electronics, or CARS. /s
I notice you have no citations for your claims. You're simply not credible.
Samsung is almost ready to show off graphene batteries in smartphones, which means with the usual production ramp they'll be powering EVs if companies producing them are committed enough. And we do know there is at least one car company that's fully committed to high-volume, high-performance EV production, so the rest can either follow the pace and help with the innovation, or fall behind.
Lithium-Ion batteries may go away, but it is likely that batteries that use the Lithium element will be around for a very long time, as it is very compatible with battery technology and is a very light weight element. They can even increase the energy density if they figure out how to pack higher percentages of reactive lithium into the battery matrix.
But yes other chemistrys are possible and the use of other elements like Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, and even Calcium, or Aluminum may result in a much cheaper alternative since those elements are so much more readily abundant than Lithium. Lithium will likely remain one of the top competitors when it comes to light weight applications however, since that is one of it's most attractive qualities.
Frankly, I want an electric car to be set free of oil prices. Prices keep going down in the refineries here, but the gas stations keep increasing them for some ludicrous reason, so having an electric car would be a middle finger to the gas station companies. Get solar panels for your house and you have another middle finger to the always increasing electric bills!
I live in Brazil, by the way.
This is my dream, and lol what a way to put it, indeed many middle fingers To fuel and powerplants when you're indepedant on energy production
But very bad for your wallet, compair sales price of a new car to a electric car and de difference is usually 20k or more, im not going to spend 30k on a new car. Electric cars... Well past a certain age there value will plommet because the battery will be dead or close to it and they are real expensive to replace.... What they do not tell you is that Electric cars are a huge problem if every one owns one... The power grid can't handle it. Or there are not enough charging poles to top your car off..
How are you going to run your AC at night time? With a generator?
Great video! I just wanted to mention one important thing thatI feel is to often left out of these discussions, and that is the amount of electricity required to refine the fuel for a gasoline vehicle. The studies I’ve read vary between roughly 3-15kwh per gallon of gasoline, but the majority seemed to hover right around 7kwh, so that’s the figure that I use.
This offsets the ICE (internal combustion) emissions even higher than most might expect, especially in markets where lots of non-renewable electricity is used.
Assuming an electric car getting getting even a relatively low efficiency of 3.5mi/kWh, that is still almost 25miles that an EV could travel on the amount of electricity used to refine on gallon of gasoline.
One thing I still keep asking thatno one has answered, is what is the long term environmental impact of all the batteries that have gone bad. Where do they go? How are they disposed of?
They can either be recycled or reused as home batteries for storing solar energy.
@@MatejaMaricno. No. No. They are not re-used. Fire risk . But recycled? yes