Are Electric Cars Worse For The Environment? Myth Busted
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ต.ค. 2018
- Are Electric Cars Greener Than Gasoline Powered Cars?
The Facts About Electric Cars & The Environment - Sponsored by FE
What Happens To Old EV Batteries? • What Really Happens To...
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Electric cars are touted as a solution for reducing emissions and improving the environmental impacts of transportation, but are electric cars actually any better for the environment than gasoline cars? This video looks to answer three main questions:
1) Doesn't EV battery production cause a lot of emissions?
2) Don't electric cars get their power from fossil fuels?
3) Isn't lithium mining terrible for the environment?
References:
MIT Emissions Study - bit.ly/2zeYfqd
Cradle To Grave Emissions Estimates - bit.ly/2rEhB4D
Vehicle Production Emission Estimates (Low) - bit.ly/2yGoEh8
Vehicle Production Emission Estimates - bit.ly/2yoX6hC
Vehicle Production Emission Estimates (High) - bit.ly/2dhB1Tu
EV Battery Production Emissions - bit.ly/2yCMwSY
End Of Life Emissions - bit.ly/2ETHh77
Annual Vehicle Use Emissions - bit.ly/2Sxo65K
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3. Tuning Electric Cars - • Can You Tune Electric ...
4. 300 MPH Electric Production Car - • Why Has No Production ...
5. How EVs Beat ICE - • 5 Ways Electric Cars O...
6. My New Car Is Electric - • My New Car Is Electric!
7. Are Electric Cars The Future? - • 5 Signs Electric Cars ...
8. Horsepower vs Torque - EV vs Gas - • Horsepower vs Torque -...
9. Electric Car Battery Recycling - • What Really Happens To...
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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...
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.
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.
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.
His name is Dorian Grey.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
@@Mentality Yeah as if you aren’t allowed to drive when there are buses in the town
You get to choose what to do. You can’t do that when there’s no public transit
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
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.
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.
Didn’t mention anything about the abhorrent cobalt mining conditions in the Congo. Child labor, slave wages, no ppe for workers, etc.
That was not the topic of the video but since this vidseo was made most batteries are now lithium iron phosphate and even most of the motors no longer contrain much cobalt. Not for moral or ethical reasons but for cost reduction.
Hey Jason. Nice video, very informative. By any chance did u address the charging infrastructure or lack there of in one of your videos? Just wondering. Thanks.
I'm sure someone asked the same question when the world moved from horse and carriage to petrol fueled vehicles, about fueling infrastructure.
The channel Technology Connections has talked about charging infrastructure in a couple of his EV videos.
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.
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.
Does any of this take into account the emissions required to produce the gasoline?
I don't think it did. Good point
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.
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.
And electric cars are still overpriced and still have the battery mileage of literal toys.
@@ayylmao394 are you dense? Some electric cars can go over 400 miles on a single charge. Do your research
@@sergeantretard7776 Please tell me which model is that electric car youre talking about and its price.
@@ayylmao394 Tesla model s. Donno the price
@@sergeantretard7776Is 90k usd, you can get a 2018 Jaguar XF for 50k usd and that has a range of 731 miles per tank.
No person with two braincells or looking for an affordable car would buy electric.
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.
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.
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...
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!
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.
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.)
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.
@Joe Johnson that radiation and nuclear waste would exist whether we use it or not. It just would be in the ground and water. It's a problem in many places in Canada. Radio active gases continually leak out of the ground into buildings causing lung cancer.
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.
Would love to see an updated comparison today with the escalation of renewable energy, especially focusing on at home from solar generation.
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
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
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.
Why nobody counts emissions to produce GAS?
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
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.
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..
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?
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.
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.
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.
Great video. I wonder about the straight comparison between power plant emissions and vehicle emissions per unit of energy. Is one less markedly less polluting or are they comparable? Both are regulated, but they are different regulations.
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
Thank you! This is an excellent video for many reasons! Any chance there is an updated one? I see this is 5 years old. Thanks again! Job well done :)
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
This video was much needed to combat the false theories floating around out there.
...namely?
@@MIKIZAZPIKI 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.
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...
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
Over 280 million automobiles are in the U.S. If every one of these were replaced by just the small 30 KWH E-V, then we would have to produce an extra 8 Terawatts of electricity every time the E-Vs were charged, over and over. Also, a barrel of oil doesn't just become gasoline. The other products, like pharmaceuticals, fertilizer, jet fuel, plastics, etc. will still be needed. Spend a week with a loved one in the hospital and then tell the staff they should do away with plastic. In the nineteenth century, the combustion engine was introduced to use the then waste product of gasoline. The gasoline was being dumped in the river. I don't think we should go back to that.
..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.
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.
Would be interesting to also include the environmental impact of end of life car utilization. As I recently watched Tesla 4680 baterry pack fissasembly by Munro, these seem to be REALLY hard to reprocess or recycle. This is opposed to ICE car that is goung to be smashed and grinded. Do you have any information on that aspect pleade?
batteries are not standardized, that could help significantly. I also wonder about the added waste of tires and roads with heavier (constantly heavier, regardless of battery load) vehicles, and even battery degradation over its lifetime. Besides maybe increased risk of much worse fires, unless maybe there's some new kind of firefighting tech on the way to deal with the resilient and even "spontaneously respawning" (AFAIK, not sure) fires of electric batteries.
I'm afraid BEVs just replacing ICEs may be simply the wrong way of changing things, delaying a more optimal solution that would mainly consist in trains and wired-electric vehicles in general, more efficient in many ways, not only the purely mechanical aspects, but things like being the way to end with traffic jams, where everyone is just really moving even slower than if they were walking on foot for one hour. Which incidentally is also energy-inefficient and bad for the environment, but perhaps more than anything else, is something we'd want to get rid of regardless.
@@petitio_principii I think the argument of EV's being heavier is a non-argument.
The reason being that the biggest market at the moment for cars, especially in europe is crossovers and usv's.
Which by default are usually heavier cars and due to their design not as efficient.
Sure the battery pack influences the weight of the car but I believe the issue is hardly so big as people make it out the be.
On the fires you should be careful about those statements. Not that there are no fires, cause there certainly are, but the amount of the is far lower then it seems.
Batteries don't spontaneously combust and there is always some reason for it. Ok, maybe you might not see the issue before things go south but it doesn't happen that much that we need to worry about it.
And with battery tech taking big steps to completely new and higher capacity ones that are safer to use and charge faster without degen.... well the future might be looking really good.
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.
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.
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.
The analysis is misleading. You didnt include ALL factors of the production.
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.
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)
One thing you didn’t really cover was the increased electricity production needed for the cars. Those coal powered states are going to have to burn more coal to recharge all those new EV’s every night. Based on whatever percentage of power increase is needed (I think you said 30% in another video?), the emissions of those plants will theoretically go up roughly 30% too. I’d be interested to know what the carbon footprint of those power plants would be compared to what they are now.
There are only 8 states that get the majority of their electricity from coal. More than 25% of Americans live in states with no coal plants. The increase in power will come from gas plants and renewables.
@@pbfreespace3134gas power-plants won’t solve GHG emission issues still. OP has a good point.
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...
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 😂👍
Your video leaves out a huge component of calculating emissions to dive the car, and that's the energy required to refine the gasoline. Petrol doesn't just come out of the ground ready to put into your gas tank; it has to be refined from crude oil in a process that uses a huge amount of electricity (oil refineries are almost always located very close to power generation stations, or have their own generating station on site for this reason). Replacing an ICE car with an EV results is almost no net increase in electricity use overall because it offsets about the same amount of electricity used for gasoline refining.
Great point!
😂😂😂
Any chance you could run the same analysis between garden related tools, string trimmers, hedgecutters, blowers, and mowers. Gas vs battery. Being used in the professional environment, such as a contracter, landscape gardener etc please?
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.
As an original Leaf early adopter, who still drives his 2011 with almost 100k miles on it (and one warranty battery replacement), I appreciate this video. I make my own electricity at home with solar panels, which shifts the equation even more towards EV's. There's nothing stopping folks in West Virginia from doing the same. Beyond the economics (electricity is cheaper and the price is more stable as well), EV's are just more fun to drive, and I have spent almost nothing on maintenance, besides tires, over the life of my Leaf. There's no going back.
Renewable energy grid and electric vehicles work best together when it comes to energy efficiency.
My location may not be receptive enough for me to plan something like that. I would prefer in suburbs where wind is decent, considering my latitudinal position.
Water-driven generators could also contribute to grid contribution, that is if rainfall is suited for that.
Dedicating the grid to an electric vehicle gets more interesting due to the need of batteries for stored energy.
An electric vehicle being more fun to drive is a subjective opinion.
No manual transmission equals not fun to drive for me.
Well, the Honda GX series engine on a Huffy bicycle has been quite reliable and fun as well. If we're being practical for more types of travel than just fun or trips 100 miles or less, though, gasoline or diesel engines on small motor vehicles are currently the way to go, depending on load. That might be just my opinion, but when you look at charging for hours every 5-100 miles, VS filling up a tank for less than 15 minutes every 50-720 miles if you use bikes, cars or trucks, I'm not about to sleep at a rare charging station, steal or ask for electricity from another source, and turn a couple or several hour trip into a 2-4 day trip or longer if you're caught taking electricity from an outlet at a park's shelter or on the outside of a building without permission and get put in jail. I don't think electric is my thing for an all-around mode of transportation. If it works for you, great :)
Glad your Leaf is working out well for you, but it's still petroleum powered. Your solar panels would be off setting petroleum electric power plants if they were not charging your Leaf. Basically, solar panels are great, but EV's are neutral at best environmentally. I do agree that EV's offer a superior driving experience in most situations.
It's somewhat disingenuous to say you have had 100K trouble free miles when that battery had to be replaced. That is the equivalent of replacing the engine in an ICE car.
Hi @engineering explained, may I know if you factored in supplier's green house emissions and environmental cost of lithium and other rare earth mining in your calculations . Since lithiums concentration is very low , extensive mining is needed for ev.
When coal is the primary source of energy for electricity around the world, I am not sure the trade off is worth it.
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
Fantastic analysis, which clarifies a lot of info. There are a lot of considerations. In colder climates like Canada there could be more issues with battery life and keeping the car/passengers warm in winter vs soaring temperatures in summers. The cold may affect battery chemistry, etc. Anyone know of research on this?
Lithium batteries and cold do not mix. The care have to use electricity to keep the batteries warm all day and all night
Batteries are highly temperature sensitive, They are affected by both high and low temperatures.
Were consumable costs like motor oil,antifreeze and gasoline/diesel production co2 taken into account?
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.
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.
Is there any way you can include the emissions from gas refinery carbon footprint
Great video. perhaps I missed it, but what about the cost of producing the gasoline itself?
Yep...the environmental cost of gasoline production, the environment cost of recycling the engine oil (about 2 - 3 gallons per year per average vehicle), the environment cost of brake pad material being constantly scrubbed off and discharged into the air (brakes usually last into the 100,000 mile range on an ev as most stopping is done via regenerative braking), engine air filters just go into the trash, belts, engine coolant, transmission fluid, etc., My annual maintenance cost for our EV is pretty close to $0. Cabin air filter every 2 years...$40 or so.
There is a whole host of issues that are ongoing with an ICE vehicle that is there at a much lesser extent on a full ev.
No vehicle is perfect and they all have a negative affect on the environment but I will happily drive my EV.
Have a good day.
Mike 🇨🇦
@@michaellippmann4474 I can compeltely agree as fellow EV driver.
My brakes don't need any maintenance, no oil change, no gearbox wear, no chains or belts that need to be replaced, no oilfitlers, air intakes, sensors for air going in and out of the engine, no exhaust system with filters, etc etc.
Sure EV's might be less good for nature during production but with current measures and looking into the future, the crossover point comes earlier and earlier.
Especially now that car companies are by law required to build in more and more filters and sensors to monitor everything on the car.
In the end it is also not just about the co2 and other gasses but the air pollution with break dust and other particles that ICE cars throw through a city street.
8:30 he summed it up - ‘If you’re driving a performance EV sedan you probably didn’t care about the environment to begin with.’ That is exactly why most of the population has such a negative opinion of the EV owner.
My observations of EV owners driving habits is what gives me a negative opinion of them. Many of the Tesla drivers I have come across drive like assholes.
i think its because they just want to hate them for some reason. it doesnt affect them at all and ive never heard an electric car owner be smug about how much co2 theyre saving lol
@@MarcoReyes-sv7hz I wish EV drivers were saving co2 emissions but those coal burning plants making electricity are an issue. Burning natural gas to steam fresh water to spin turbines to make electricity is a problem. Don’t forget about those kids, forced to mine the cobalt for the EVs. Then, after the EV manufacturing has polluted the environment, the EV car is heavier eroding the roadways faster but there is no funding put back into the system through the fuel tax to repair the roads. EVs are parasites to our infrastructure but that EV owner sure does think about the environment while killing it to drive a POC.
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.
Are the maintenance fluids something that is factored in here for gas vehicles? Stuff like coolant and lube?
You don't include the emissions from fuel production for combustion engines which adds 20% to the emissions of gas cars.
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'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.
Completely ignored/omitted the emissions produced by the significant dump truck fleet(s) that are utilized to extract the compounds from the mine(s). Those emissions are *not* trivial.
How do you dispose of the battery in both style Cars? How do they effect our Ecosystem?
Also a good question would be how much emission producing in order to get 1 gallon of gasoline ( gasoline gets from oil) ?
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
Thanks!
Could you do an updated version of this video now that we have LFP batteries
Really appreciate all the info you have condensed into this short video....very informative and cleared up my mind regarding many points about electric vehicles overall environmental impact....keep up the good job and come up with many more such videos
Great video! Did the energy production efficiency include charging and transmission losses? How do transmission costs compare for electricity versus fuel. Charging losses can be very high, depending...
Look up a channel by Joe Scott, also called "Answers with Joe". He has a great video that breaks down the energy losses and requirements to collect crude oil, refine it, deliver it to gas stations, and finally use it vs. losses in electric production, transmission, battery charging, and finally use it. Sorry, I wish I could give you a direct link, but I'm on mobile and it would take me forever. It's a great video that answers your question perfectly, and Joe's channel is awesome.
Did you include the emmisions related to oil exploration, digging, transporting, refining and distributing all that gasoline all over the country ?
I think the cost to generate green energy might have been underestimated. Remember you have to go all the way back to the mine for that as well. Wind: wind turbine materials and construction, solar panels: panel materials, energy to make, transport and construction, Hydro: dam etc.
Then are you going to take into account all of the emissions needed for the fossil fuel plants, and the gas refinery plant? Because those aren't emission free either
I've always wondered about this, thanks for breaking it down
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?
Are there any comprehensive reviews specifically on hybrid vs EV, including production and full lifecycle total emissions?
Are there any benefits to water evaporation lithium mining in the high desert vs sea level where atmospheric pressure is higher for example?
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.