There were several comments saying that I did not take into account the CO2 released in the pumping, refining and transportation of crude oil. While indeed, these processes emit CO2, we should remember that at least 60% of the electricity produced world wide uses fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. So in order to be fair, the CO2 emitted in the extracting, refining and transportation of these fossil fuels must also be taken account for electricity generation. In my view this aspect is somewhat of a wash for both gasoline-powered and electric cars. And even without taking this into account, we can see that the conclusions of this video would still be valid, from the most conservative viewpoint.
On the other side another minor inefficiency of the transport of electricity via the grid and other supporting infrastructure, with the projected necessary expansions (in case EVs quickly ramp up in numbers) and their associated emissions also worth a mention. This gets complicated fast because one can argue the extensions of the grid becomes important anyway, and just how much is due to ev adoption could bee debated. An other interesting question is how EVs lower direct air pollution in the cities air which can depend on factors like where, and what kind of power plant provides the charging. That being said it is fair and excellent video about how we should look at these problems from an objective point of view. One more thing to consider though, mass transport via electric trains are even more efficient.
What did you mean when you said "there is some controversy over why the temperature is rising"? Anthropogenic climate change is a consensus scientific position, and any controversy is in the details, not in the broad strokes. This phrasing risks giving the public the wrong impression.
Also: sure, used EV batteries are not designed to be easy to recycled, but don't you think it would be easier to refine or extract raw materials from a battery pack, rather than from much larger volumes of dirt and rock? This is the real interesting part you should do a video on, because it's a big opportunity in the grand scheme of things: think about the CO2 emissions involved in big mining projects, which you've factored into the environmental impact of EVs, and compare that with the energy requirements of battery recycling. Suddenly the big picture looks much brighter!
@@epgui While I agree with your viewpoint, in the US the reason for the change is controversial, many people dispute the cause of climate change. I am acknowledging that fact for US viewers.
I can't understand why the carbon footprint of the mining, transport, refining, transport, transport, and transport of diesel and petrol (gas), before it's even in the car, is never incorporated in these comparasions. The effects of fracking, drilling (and leaks), evaporation at the pump, are also seldom mentioned.
Mainly because it would make things look even worse. The same mining is needed to get the resources needed for cobalt. Often it is mined together with other things, like copper. Sadly, where there is cobalt, there often is also materials that are radio-active. Making the process, locally, even worse than 'normal' mining. This is why its mostly ignored. Because there isn't much difference, if not straight worse.
@@Shangori cobalt is mined once (and most EVs now are using, or moving to LFP = no cobalt) for an EV. Petroleum is mined for every time someone fills the tank. That's a major difference
@@foley.elec.services Might as well bring up solid state batteries. Talking about the future is a bad idea here. Can talk about fusion all I want, if it isn't here yet, it isnt here yet. And seeing how rare cobalt is, it currently is not viable to mine 'just' for cobalt.
@@Shangori dude, do a bit of research on LFP. It's only high performance (eg. plaid) that use cobalt and nickel chemistry. My Corsa-e and my wife's Dacia are both cobalt free LFP
That would expose the real dirty reality about BEVs, and destroy the reason of BEV enforcement. The reality is, without investing into Nuclear Reactors, and more sustainable battery Cells Chemistry, this switch won't change much about total Carbon emissions.
Just 100% wrong. C02 does not trap heat, it’s a very heavy gas that sits at the surface. It’s been way hotter in the past, look up Medieval Warming period. The Greenland Ice cores show we are in normal temp ranges. All BS.
You forgot the maintenance, thousands of mechanical parts that have to be produced for a motor engine, oil, oli filters, breaks etc.( Evs use regenerated break mainly) is a hole polluting industry that exist only for maintenance of a petrol cars.
Yes, I did not get into this in detail, other than mentioning that EVs are mechanically simpler. So let me take this opportunity to point out the complexity of components necessary to support the internal combustion engine in a car, that would not be present in an EV: 1) Water coolant system for engine temp control 2) Exhaust system for exhaust gases 3) Electronic Ignition system 4) Fuel storage and delivery system (fuel pump, fuel line, or fuel tank, fuel injection system) 5) Sound deadening (muffler) system 6) Gas scrubber systems (catalytic converter) All these components take resources to manufacture and maintain, which would be eliminated in EVs.
@@ArvinAsh Is thousands and thousands of parts and fluids, dealerships make more money during the life of the veicule in maintenance than in the car itself, obvious working hours is a big factor, but even so, all this parts is another polluting industry by itself.
@@ArvinAsh Sounds almost like a chatGPT list answer. haha. Which is totally fine, as it make sense. The 6th point mention “catalytic converters”, which contain elements such as palladium, rhodium and platinum, whose mining impact could be the subject of an entire video, as it's probably not better than cobalt extraction that you mentioned in this video
At 5:38, the chart shows ~200g/km of CO2 for a gas car. However, it seems they never account for the drilling for oil, the refinement process, and the transportation. If we are going to factor in every detail regarding electricity generation, then we need to do the same for gasoline, comparing apples to apples, not just tail-pipe emissions.
Oil products including diesel is used extensively to produce electricity, so it is not always a useful figure to use. In the US, natural gas is used extensively to produce electricity. This also has a CO2 footprint. The main takeaway should be that EVs are greener long term. Any CO2 saved from producing fossil fuels would be icing on the cake.
@@ArvinAsh My point was, when these comparisons are made, *everything* should be taken into account. Otherwise how do we have a true contrast? The electricity used to refine one gallon of gasoline will propel an EV further than that gallon of gasoline will a gas car. So the gas car is actually creating CO2 from burning the fuel, and also from the electricity the refining process requires, and several other sources of CO2 to maintain the gasoline supply. Petroleum is used very little to produce electricity, yet it is used exclusively to propel gas cars (as well as for oil changes).
Even the people making the EV’s are shaking their heads in disbelief as to why Politicians are pretending they are green. They should of kept with cleaner emissions from ICE cars.
Of course, one must also take into account the fact that as more and more EV’s come into use, more and more charging stations must also be manufactured, which will also cause more CO2 to be released. Secondly, the current (no pun) electrical grid in the US, and I would think in other countries cannot handle the increased demand for power if the majority of vehicles become EV’s. This will also need to be replaced (i. e. manufactured) as well, releasing more greenhouse gases. The EV solution cannot take place overnight. It will take years, if not decades.
Forgot a very important step - you have to clear the forests to mine lithium. Then leave a toxic disaster where nothing grows after it has been mined. Then calculate impact on water and environment from mining lithium.
Aside from greenhouse gases, not being energy dependent upon countries who aren't very friendly is a huge bonus. We spend a trillion dollars +/- per year on defense to protect ourselves from countries building militaries with fossil fuel money or being forced to deal with those with horrific human rights records.
Shouldn't we take into account the process to create fuel for the powerplants and for the combustion engine. And also the infrastructure to distribute it for people to be able to get it? (Gas stations, fuel deriving from oil, charging stations, etc)
I agree and my view is If you scale that one percent ev's worldwide to 50 or 75 percent or so, all the grids in the world need to be fortified to deliver the power needed to charge al those ev's as fast as possible. This will take A LOT of copper for example. Powerplants need to be built (hopefully nuclear) to supply for the increased demand of raw electricity and the people who build all that infrastructure need to be fed. Extra factories for billions of batteries need to be built and new mines need to opened for the resources for those batteries and infrastructure changes. Charging stations need to be built everywhere and in theory you would need more of them because it takes longer for an electric car to fill and you drive less km with a full battery compared to a full tank. And i probably missed some more yet unknown issues we need to take into account. In my personal opinion the EV remains a technical utopia if we do not manage to control the total energy balance and conversion efficiency. The energy source/storage with the highest conversion efficiency (as you may know, energy is always converted, never 'won' or 'lost') and the highest energy density (joules/kg) will always win in the long run, we only need to find and combine the best ones, like nuclear ( 1 kg of uranium replaces about 1000 kg of coal i think) for electricity generation.
@@fredhawken1112 All good points, and for reasons like those I don't think the future of electricity management will look anything like the current system does now. When petrol took over from the horse and buggy, there were alot of projections for future needs based on what horse and buggy travel required. Same stuff is happening now. Safe to guess however that a complete replacement of petrol vehicles won't happen soon. Petrol and electric vehicles both thrive economically under different conditions, so alot of people will probably end up with one of each. Gas or diesel as a backup/for long trips, and electric for around town use. Further speculation might suggest solar panels will become a standard feature on electric vehicles offsetting several miles of demand per day(the ultra efficient three-wheeler in California is rated at 20 miles/day from onboard solar for example). Solar Panel technology is rapidly improving as well, it's getting cheaper and simpler to tie solar power harvesting into homes. The benefits will only become more notable and economical as electricity prices go up(seems a safe bet they will). In many rural locations going offgrid vs connecting to utilities for a new home build is already a cheaper option, and adding in a few panels to support a car(batteries are the expensive part of solar implementation) is a negligible expense. Especially with a petrol backup, an electric car can double as a booster to offgrid energy stability(when it rains a week straight for example.) Electric cars are a much younger technology than ICE vehicles. There's alot of growing room. Different locations will be better suited for different ratios of each as well(imagine living in a place where the average temperature is negative with anything BUT an ICE vehicle, not happening). In conclusion I'd offer that electric vehicle adoption won't look like we might straight-forwardly project it will, ICE vehicles will remain a mainstream choice of travel working synergistically with electric vehicles, and the rapid exploration and improvement of complimentary electrical systems will have a multiplicative effect on the speed at which these systems get adopted.
@@fredhawken1112 We need 1 KWH for 5 to 6 km driving with an EV, Average 10500 miles (17000 km). We need LESS than 3000 kwh/year for this. When you buy a new desktop (including monitor, printer, router for internet etc) it will use (most people keep there computer running) 7*24 350-500 watts of energy , most depending on the graphics card. That thing also uses 3000kwh/year taking 350 watts consumption. And you are telling me that the grid cannot support EV's but can support PC's? EV's can be charged during the night time....when other demands are low. This means that there cannot be a grid issue with EV's as reason.
Do the CO2 numbers mentioned for gas powered cars also reflect the energy which is required to generate the fuel? Like, getting it out of the ground, cracking (not to be confused with fracking), refining and transportation?
Great topic and video! 5:14 - It’s worth pointing out that this 75-85% number includes losses charging and discharging the battery. Just the motors themselves are on the order of 90% efficient. 6:45 - Actually, although lithium ions are what transfer charge between the electrodes, lithium batteries are only around 7-8% lithium. Other elements, like cobalt and nickel, are bigger concerns. Also, the most common lithium-mining method is not an extremely energy-intensive process, but it is a very water-consuming process. It’s also worth pointing out that most new battery-manufacturing plants are designed to run on renewable energy, so that part of the process is less carbon-intensive. 9:25 - Indeed! Most people don’t fully grasp just how inefficient a space- and weight-constrained internal-combustion engine is, especially when rarely allowed to run under optimum RPM and temperature conditions in general. That’s one of several ways that hybrid vehicles reduce fuel consumption, BTW: They endeavor to shut off the engine entirely, except when it can operate at close to optimum conditions.
EVs are awful 'fake greenery' gone mad.. Lib-Con forced mass sales scam - one of far too many... They made the time we were all MASS-FORCED to 'upgrade' our light bulbs to HIGHLY POISONOUS flourescant, 'long life' bulbs that were half as bright after one year, and were half as bright in the first place compared to incandescent light bulbs that handily heated the room a bit too.. CRAZY-NASTY FAKE GREEN BULLSHIT... -- Petrol's ease and power to weight ratio cannot be beaten. CO2 emissions should NOT be regulated but all vehicles and factories should be made to only emit (near enough) PURE CO2, O2 and H2O only.. a mostly Iron, plastic and carbs economy is much easier to recycle and manage than one reliant on ever rarer, evermore exotic, difficult to produce materials.. Your Fake Green 'sustainable energy profits' scams go hand in hand with the Fake Green hyper-junk, mega-polluting, land-filling, inefficient, EV Revolution.. Unaffordable cars for The Masses, power and heat.. NEO C*NTZ of the Internazti Neo World Order(s)..
It does not take into account the efficiency loss in the production AND the transmission of the electricity. That number is isolated to the vehicle only once the electricity is in the vehicle.
@@The1stDukeDroklar OK, let's do that. And Consider the grid energy used to refine fossil fuel. (It's about the same amount used to either move an EV a set distance, or refine fuel to move an equivalent ICE vehicle the same distance. The "Electricity cost" is equal when the EV had a "full battery" and the ICE beside it has fuel for the equivalent range. The difference? The moment you move those vehicles, the EV is "Paid for" in terms of the energy AND pollution. The ICE vehicle moving is ALL pollution as the fuel burns. . It's not even close
Denmark today: The wind is blowing and 124% green energy has been produced.. Most days it is windy in Denmark. And the energy is produced by wind turbines. In the news in Denmark, when presenting the weather, also mention the day green energy production. We have Europe's cheapest electricity after Iceland.
In Denmark people ride bicycles. In America people drive huge F150's to the corner store. They won't wear masks because it damages their brains. What would a bicycle do?
Great work Arvin - I've read quite few articles on this topic (overall efficiency and benefit of EVs in contrast to ICE-based vehicles) and your video is _exceedingly_ well done. This topic is very complex, with myriad facets and you did it justice. I also appreciate the neutral tone you took focusing on just the facts and considerations. Great job, again!
A nice video! Still I have many concerns. Can an ev battery be regenerated? At what cost? What about disposing it? What about environmental issues and how much impact would it have if 90% of vehicles would be EV? How much CO2 does disposing battery emit comparing to scrapping a combustion engine car? What is an average lifespan of both solutions? What about economic costs? Most people can't afford EV at the moment anyway. The biggest problem I have this transition into ev is strongly influenced by politicians and the history teaches us it ends very badly most of the time. This also creates misallocation of resources in economy and waste of energy itself.
Wonderful presentation. I hope this enlighten many people that are usually EV enthusiast and missing always the whole picture just out of pure ignorance. That EV vehicles are the future is highly questionable despite forecasted evolution of the EV technology. Today, Implementing EV vehicles and 2050 agenda (will never happen) is just a question of political and financial interest, nothing to do with environmental concerns. Which politicians do not care about. From a technological standpoint of view, my bet would be hydrogen or fusion energy by 2100 so long politicians allow it. We are nowhere close.
Transportation accounts for 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That's all transportation, including air travel, ships, rail, trucks, and cars. Even if everyone on earth switched to an EV right now (assuming the charging infrastructure was in place, and all the electricity came from "green" sources, and ignoring the resources needed to manufacture billions of EVs) the effect would be only on a portion of that 29% of greenhouse gasses. The push for EVs is a distraction. EVs aren't the answer.
I personally think that the best reason to buy battery-electric cars is simply that _they are just better cars_ ! They’re more responsive, quieter, faster-accelerating, and smoother in every sense. They also require a lot less maintenance. If you can charge at home, they’re more convenient to fuel up: 5 seconds to plug in at night (once you get it all set up), and five seconds to unplug in the morning! Yes, road trips are more involved, but most people only take a 3-4 road trips per year. Most EVs’ GOS navigation systems include navigation through DC fast-charging stations, which are increasingly common. For most people, they’re also cheaper per mile, although that varies a lot by locale. They keep smoke out of residential and pedestrian -intensive areas.
'Only 5% of electric car batteries are recycled'. Yes, this is true, but as you say, the rest is used for second life batteries. None are being put in landfill - they are too valuable! Also, the CO2 cost of the batteries when widespread recycling is implemented will come down significantly as the raw materials will not be mines and refined.
@@awesomedavid2012 None. 95% of the battery can be reused, so once the electric vehicle numbers have stabilised, you will not need to dig up any minerals
@@awesomedavid2012 do you throw away electrical cables at the end of life ? No ! Why ?..because someone will buy that scrap from you, process it, and resell it...........just like a lithium-ion pack
Actually car batteries are being recycled. The 95% comes from general battery waste, like phones, laptops, power tolls etc. EV's are actually helping to solve the problem, making recycling of all batteries viable.
Completely forgot to include the emissions cost of drilling, pumping, shipping, and refining oil, and the military cost of soldiers and sailors lives keeping the supply lines open, through endless patrols and the occasional war.
If I had to choose between mining for lithium, or recycling used lithium battery cells, I'll bet recycling used lithium cells has to be close to an order of magnitude easier than mining for fresh lithium.
Seems to me that we could save just as much CO2 at vastly less cost by simply making cars smaller and lighter and making tax advantages for buying smaller cars. Small hybrid cars with relatively small batteries could be a good option overall, most journeys are quite short. Electric only vehicles seem to be a dead loss for the mass market, they're simply far too expensive and there's no sign whatsoever of the prices coming down, if anything they're going up.
It’s a bit complicated. It depends on the car (weight and battery size), the country (for its national source of electricity - France is all nuclear and renewable for example while Poland is mostly coal) and the drivers use case. I drive a relatively small EV and do about 70 miles per day. It works perfectly for me and beats the diesel I had before ( which I loved! ). I ‘m happy I made the switch, but I had to do a lot of homework and cost analysis to see if it was the right choice for me. At work, I got the job of assessing our field teams vehicle use, who often drive 3000 miles a month and over 300 miles per day. Factoring all things the company was interested in (CO2, practicality, cost, etc), the answer was to stay with diesel for at least another two years. Changes are always coming and I’ll be rerunning the analysis every year. One day, electric will probably win, but for their use, not yet. We live in a hybrid (sorry!) time for cars. The right answer for each person right now could be petrol, diesel, hybrid or full electric. As I said at the start, it’s complicated!😊
I would have really appreciated if you dove more into how not using a car is even better. Using EVs when you don't have any other option for transportation is great, but for most of the world not having that 19 tonnes carbon footprint is even better. Advocate for better public transportation and walkability in your city, the streets will be safer and greener.
Why is the graph @2:53 so miss-leading? Is there a reason you used the 1.4% graph from the next item instead of the much different 9% your talking about at this point?
@@zoch9797 Yeah. Not so much. No I'm not going to take the time to measures the angles from a screenshot of such a lazy video. (And yes, this was just the first part of the lazy reporting I spotted in this video.) But I did go to an online pie chart generator. 1.4% roughly matches what we see here. 9% it's not even close. So bad editing, I'm guessing farmed out. But the lazy reporting makes me think Shell is the sponsor.
There's bound to be teething problems with EVs but the big win is that people are beginning to see them as the norm, and so there is potential for development of cleaner technologies off the back of them. It's taken a century for people to think of electric cars as real world and not sci fi, so let us appreciate how this baby step helps us all.
I wouldn't call 1.4% of vehicles worldwide the norm. Also, at present all but the relatively affluent are priced out. Battery issues really need to be solved- weight and flammability for starters.
Need about 10-100 times as much electricity to accomplish American dreams. Nuclear is the only option, just don't build them on the San Andreas Fault. But.....common sense has vanished with Covid!
@@rweinc1424 What are you talking about? How did you come up with 10-100 times more? If to replace all personal petrol cars by electric cars, electricity production must be increased by 30% at most.
@@yansakovich projection by Elon Musk .....that includes home heating, factories, commercial building, everything!! A difficult issue relates to the thousands of airplanes in the air at any moment. They are polluting far above the clouds where it stays for years, if not longer! Your 30% is ridiculous!
The one thing you didn’t mention Arvin and that is that evs relocate the harmful emissions away from cities where most of us live and where most of the fossil fuel related health problems occur… So there are other benefits other than the carbon footprint…
Great video, but as a Czech, I can't see how we could switch to more renewables in the near future. The sun just doesn't shine here that much, we don't have that many usable rivers like Scandinavia, and even wind isn't very viable because we don't have sea. The only option seems to be nuclear but we haven't even started to build new reactors (although one seems to be on the way).
couldn't you theoretically form treaties or unions with other countries to help fund their green energy revolution with the stipulation that you get some of that energy back to Czechia?
The countries in Europe, who has favorable coastlines are putting up more wind power than they will be able to use themselves all the time, so don't worry it will average out, you'll get renewable power too, even if you have no wind turbines.
Then focus instead on sustainable infrastructure instead. How is the public transport in Czechia? Have you heard of the recent measures to pipe heat around neighboring buildings in industrial complexes to recycle some of the waste heat? adding on to that, is there any chance to push for more geothermal where you are? (I don't know the geology of the region)
@@howdy832 Thanks for the reply. I believe public transport here is more than okay, for example we have perhaps on of the densest railway networks in the world. Geothermal is a no go unfortunately, Czechia lies in a geologically very old part of Europe. Heat pumps are increasingly popular for people to power their homes but I haven't looked at the enviromental friendliness of it. Haven't heard about the heat recycling, will look into that. Cheers!
@@Javaman21011 Thanks for the reply. I'm no expert but I think that is exactly the way it goes in the EU. Countries like Germany, Scandinavia or France are betting on renewables in a big way, but I'm afraid it still won't be enough without nuclear energy. (Again, not an expert.) Getting rid of coal should be the priority, I think everyone agrees on that. Also, all in all, I think Czechia is a net exporter of energy thanks in big part to our nuclear facilities.
From a futuristic point of view, there is no doubt that EV come out victorious. Electricity is much more versatile after its been produced. Imagine the emissions released just from transporting the fuel to the petrol/gas stations.
its an alright video, he left out a number of factors, such as what about hybrid cars, what about having enough resources to even replace all of those vehicles, what about since EVs tend to be heavier, the wear and tear they cause on roads, what about other solutions such as an increase in public transport as an option. what about making cities more bike and ebike friendly. making things walkable. I feel like changing every vehicle to an EV is an extreme scenario, that should be considered as a last result. as we could easily do other things with the infrastructure that we already have available to significantly reduce out pollution output to reasonable levels. For me I would honestly love to take the bus everywhere, however, in the US buses tend to not have enough routes, or a large bus station that you can go to. then when it comes to greyhounds and longer bus transit, it is less expensive to drive a car than it is to take a bus. With that price the time of travel tends to be 4 to 5 times as long, making a 2 hour trip into a 8 hour endeavor. Making public transport more of an option, or just making sidewalks so that it isn't dangerous to walk outside is a much much cheaper and more effective way to reduce emissions than trying to replace 10s of millions of cars. I wish you went into more detail about other alternatives than just 'oh an ev is better that's what you should look to get in the future'. cause again road damage such as potholes are caused by heavy vehicles traveling across them, so increasing the average weight of a car by several tons will significantly increase road damage causing entire roads to need to be replaced much more often then the current 30ish years. with that I believe hybrid cars are an excellent remedy for this issues, as some hybrids are bordering on 50 miles a gallon, and their efficiency has only been increasing. oh and how could I forget the increase to the electric grid due to so many more people owning evs that's a whole another issue. sorry for the rant, i would just rather not have to drive at all, heck for the summer i was driving 17 miles round trip per day to get to work. I just used an ebike, which has much less impact on the environment.
Don't forget the emissions that occur from processing oil into gasoline, and if you want to be technical, the emissions from wars fought over control of oil producing countries such as Iraq.
Cars cannot be the future. In Europe probably scooters are going to take the role of cars in the future. - Less battery required, making it affordable - 90% of the energy to move a car is spent in the car itself because it's 90% of the weight. This is something I don't see people talking about enough. - Removing cars from the streets would make scooters and bikes safe.
Finally, a non-biased evaluation of EV's. It still amazes me that car companies can call EV's zero-emission in their ads. That is a flat-out lie, and last time I checked, that is illegal.
@@ArvinAsh Unless you are charging it with electricity generated by a coal power plant. I consider that a direct emission. Even a "green" power generation still has a carbon footprint that is increased by higher power demand.
@@InsideOut204 The vehicle is zero emission, so the statement is correct. The air quality improvements in our towns and cities should not be ignored. and of course there are many renewable sources of electricity. Renewables are now the cheapest and fastest growing in the energy sector.
When I was in my Elementary school days, I learned that plants take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Why isn't planting more trees and plants a viable solution to counter the carbon dioxide emissions causing climate change?
It will help solve the problem to some degree. The problem we have currently is that we are not only producing an overabundance of carbon, but the natural sinks for this excess carbon, like trees, are also being destroyed faster than ever.
13:20 why would anyone put them in land fill? Even after the battery has degraded enough that it's no longer got enough capacity that it's not useful in a EV that can still be used as grid storage as it doesn't matter about the capacity to weigh ratio if it's not moving anywhere
Main reason is cost. Currently, it's more costly to recycle them than to create new batteries. Existing batteries would need to become more recycle-friendly, and recycling would need to be more widespread.
@@ArvinAsh My point is that they don't need to be recycled after the useful life as a EV battery because they are still fully functional, they just don't have the same capacity as they used to but they still store energy There is no need for any EV battery to ever go to landfill th-cam.com/video/JqlOlqK_ot8/w-d-xo.html
Now add in the cost in CO2 for the production of gasoline/diesel, something totally ignored in your discussion. If the costs for the production of the materials for the batteries is important to track as is the costs involved in producing the electricity, why not the costs involved in the extraction, shipping, and refinement of the fuels and then the delivery thereof? I think you'll find the equation shifts somewhat if you do not ignore this huge cost...
One thing is overlooked here. As demand for EVs reaches parity with IC vehicles, the demand for electricity will sky rocket and unless there's a giant shift towards cleaner energy production then it's moot. There's a whole host of other problems not related to emissions like infrastructure for charging, poor range and reduce performance in colder climates where a higher demand is placed on the battery from tempreture and additional power draw for ancillaries. I don't hate the EV revolution. But it's been vastly oversold. Nuclear energy is the only realistic solution to the world's energy problems but its a long way off.
I don't disagree with that assessment. Nuclear is probably not going to be a savior because, at least in the U.S., nuclear power plants take 10-20 years to get approved and built. However, even in the worst case scenarios, natural gas-fired, and diesel-fired power plants could be built fairly inexpensively and quickly. And these would still be much greener than ICE cars.
You neglected to note that to produce 1 gallon of gasoline (petrol), it’s takes an *additional* 1.2 gallons in the extraction, refining, and shipping of oil/gas/petrol. So you should at least double all of the ICE emission numbers. Further, the source of power for EV (for grid powered) is getting cleaner every day and will eventually be 100% generated from renewables and other clean technologies, all over the world. EVs also require far less maintenance since they have roughly 1/10th of the moving parts that ICE cars have.
He ignores many of the negatives in the internal combustion engine side of the comparison with electric vehicles. I don't know if he's being deliberately misleading as is usually the case with these comparisons or just didn't learn enough about the topic before making the video.
But it looks like fuel preparation for electricity production is also not taken into account. So, both should be doubled, and the conclusion would be around the same. The fact that electricity generation becomes cleaner is mentioned in this video.
The point is often that 1.2 gallons is also used by the power plants. And if EVs are powered by Green sources then that is power taken from the grid, thus power of homes and buisnesses thus a net wash on overall power consumption emissions.
An overlooked drawback of EV's and air quality is that a significant portion of airborne particulates comes from the rubber dust created from the friction of the tires. EV's emit just as much as ICE vehicles in that regard.
huh? don't you mean airborne particles from brake pads ? The weight of tyre residue (mass/cm3) is a LOT higher than pads, which means that it doesn't stay suspended (ie. you don't breath it)
Excellent presentation of a relatively obscure topic for most of the viewers. At personal level there is another problem. I understand that for optimal battery life, EV should be driven for about 20-25 KM a day. Assuming that this is correct, it poses problems to persons who use the car only during weekends or short trips.
I live in Brazil and have used ethanol from sugar cane (100% renewable and not contributing to global warming) as fuel since 1986 (when I started driving). Most cars are “flex”, meaning you can choose between ethanol and gasoline. Worth mentioning that gasoline in Brazil contains 22% ethanol. A portion of Brazil is already “carbon free” concerning fossils fuels and switching to EVs will not help on that. I also produce my own eletricity (500-800 kwh/month on solar panels) and would like to to have an EV to save on fuel. However, we are far from a positive business case here… an EV cost 3x (or more) than a flex car and it doesn’t pay off during the most of its lifecycle. Once it drops to within 20-30% of a flex vehicle, I will consider it
One thing that cannot be forgotten in any product is the cost of transport. Both money and pollutants emitted. Most EV components are sourced from all over the world (like anything, these days, but more heavily, it would seem). That, itself, emits a lot of CO2 since it is all via diesel engines.
Another important point of comparison when it comes to CO2 produced during operation is between electric automobiles and other modes of transportation. Automobiles are, regardless of their motive power type, a much less efficient form of transport than almost any form of mass transit. They expend a lot of energy just to move the vehicle, which can only ever carry a handful of passengers and frequently carries just the driver, and they occupy a relatively large physical volume of space on the road. A larger mass transit vehicle -- like a bus -- uses less energy *and* a smaller volume of road occupied per passenger per mile/km. On top of that, rubber-wheeled vehicles on asphalt roads are inherently much less energy-efficient than metal-wheel vehicles on metal rails: the former has a lot more rolling resistance just to move. You can also chain railed vehicles together much more easily, amplifying the energy expended per passenger per mile/km advantage even further. All these advantages and disadvantages add up and multiply one another. At a certain scale, and depending on the power source used to charge the EVs, a fleet of cutting-edge EVs becomes more polluting than a 100-year-old coal-fired steam locomotive pulling enough passenger cars to move the same quantity of people over the same distance in the same time. EVs alone aren't going to solve climate change. We need mass public transit, and we need it on an epic scale in a hurry. TL;DR: car bad train good
Saying that EVs are responsible for the emissions of power generation is a misdirection: the transition to EVs doesn't solve all greenhouse gas emission problems, but it removes a bottleneck that currently exists in transportation. EVs are only part of the equation, but they're a necessary part!
The relative low efficiency of the internal combustion engine is only very marginally linked to the fact that mechanical energy is being generated in 1 of 4 cycles. It is strongly linked to how much mechanical energy is being "captured" in that one cycle it is being created and how much is being "wasted" (as heat, mostly). 2 stroke engines have lower efficiency than 4 stroke engines.
You also have to take into account that an EV cost about the double of a gas car, this cost can be also measured in work hours for the customer try to buy the car, hour working and generating more CO2. En general the EV car will not impact significantly on CO2 emissions, will be good, but for cleaner air in large cities (no doubt is a good thing) and for the global account of some car companies.
Would love to know the financial side of this. How much would it cost to charge a EV for 15k miles> to break even with the environmental impact? How much would it cost in petrol to drive 15k miles. What if....they used EV's to manufacture and deliver the petrol ....hmm
"There is no such thing as a free lunch" EV cars need Lithium, Cobalt and other metals - the UK are stopping sale of fossil fuel cars in 2030 and an estimate I saw that there are not enough mined materials world-wide to satisfy the demand of the UK alone - let alone a global transition to EVs. Add to that growing demand for the same materials for other technology and the wasteful cycle of phone upgrades etc. and there are rough times ahead. It also doesn't address the child labour and appalling conditions in the mining industries, esp. for Cobalt. Another point that is not addressed is where is all the electricity going to come from for charging? The UK and much of Europe has been worrying about the need to ration electricity this winter over gas prices - and currently charging a car in the UK is more expensive than filling a petrol tank because of huge energy price hikes.
Very good. One more potential advantage of electric cars is that being simpler mechanically, less maintenance may be required and thus with proper maintenance, the useful life of the car may be longer. Internal combustion is a violent process that generates wear & tear on a lot of components; EV much less so. Of course, that's a potential advantage, depending on actual maintenance habits but also willingness of manufacturers to provide economical ways to replace batteries when performance drops, but the car otherwise still have lots of life left in it. Also depends on people not wanting to get a brand new car every 5 years or so. Which may actually be the biggest issue here.
End of life recycling for large amounts of lithium-ion/lfp batteries doesn’t exist at the moment but there are at least two companies in existence that have developed processes that prove it is possible to do it in a clean cost effective manner, one of which has demonstrated that batteries manufactured from recycled materials match those from sourced materials in terms of performance.
Lunacy on stilts that's what we are dealing with. The UK is importing wood chips from North America to generate power instead of high quality coal on the doorstep.
Arvin: Could you please do a video on how electricity "Actually" travels in transmission lines and powers our devices and compare the classical theory to the actual quantum reality of electricity? thanks
"Travels in",, I remember a physics professor telling me that the majority of charge flows on the surface of the conductor not through it. If you want to increase current flow you use lots of strands instead of one wire, in doing so you increase the surface area.
I drive a PHEV and think there are a few things worth considering that you didn’t cover in this video: 1. The location that the CO2 is produced. With EV’s, the CO2 is all produced at the power plant(s) - where industrial capture systems can potentially trap/filter the CO2 better before it gets released into the atmosphere. With gas cars, the CO2 is spread out and released wherever the car happens to be. EV’s help keep the air in big cities much cleaner. Industrial scrubbing (cleaning and filtering) systems don’t really exist everywhere right now, but are actively being developed and are nearing viability. 2. The extra cost of catalytic converters, exhaust systems, etc in gasoline cars. If you’re going to consider the batteries in EV’s, you should consider these components of non-EV’s. And 3 - the most important factor of all - which doesn’t relate to CO2 at all - is energy versatility! With a gasoline car, you are locked in to using gasoline and only gasoline. A single energy source. But an electric car can be powered by coal, or nuclear, or wind or hydro or solar or any other mechanism that produces electricity. If push comes to shove, an EV can be fueled at home with a solar panel and inverter. They will be in extremely high demand after the zombie apocalypse! 😁
I’d love to see a video that compares electric vehicles to hybrids. Personally I think that battery powered cars are far from a mature technology, and are simply not practical for most people at this time. It doesn’t help that many of the people sounding the climate change alarm are more concerned about virtue signaling than actually solving problems. They have addicted themselves to the rush of endorphins they get when they feel superior to others.
Even if different people and country drive differents amount per year, but perhaps a better statistic is what is the average life time of a car in KM? And i would say almost every car produced at least is drive up to 100 thousand kms if not more.
I've heard that co-generation is "not economically feasible" or words to that effect. It's hard for me to understand why. In a coal-fired power plant, for example, there is tremendous heat that's rejected to the environment, instead of going through a secondary system to extract power. For example, using a CFC to absorb heat and run a turbine. There's extra investment, and extra maintenance, but there's also extra power extraction.
@@ArvinAsh The Department of Energy’s SuperTruck II research program surpassed 55% Brake Thermal Efficiency or BTE by using (among other things) an engine equipped with waste heat recovery. Large ICEs used for electrical power peaking run at over 55% thermal to electrical output efficiency by using waste heat recovery. Additional overall improvement can be had with using high temperature fuel cells as a pre not post part of the cycle for a “heat engine”. BUT all of these additional “cycles” add cost.
A lot of generators in electric power plants use "combined cycle" generation. This is especially common in the case of natural gas turbines that use their waste heat to power a secondary steam generator. These combined cycle turbines can currently reach *65% thermal efficiency. Natural gas generates the largest amount of electricity of any source in the United States and the high efficiency of these combined cycle generators is one reason why grid charged EV's are so much more efficient and produce so much less greenhouse gas than internal combustion vehicles. *[In December 2017, GE claimed 64% in its latest 826 MW HA plant, up from 63.7%. They said this was due to advances in additive manufacturing and combustion. Their press release said that they planned to achieve 65% by the early 2020s]
"not economically feasible" WTF co-generation is very popular and super financially lucrative depending on the geographical location. As long the HEAT customer is near the plant within a dozen miles. Co Generation is very effective and as simple as STEAM pipes.
It's as simple as this imo: If power generation became completely green / emission-free, then how much pollution would each vehicle contribute? 1. ICE: some 2. Electric: none and since we're working towards switching power generation to completely green sources, it's fairly obvious that we should also be working to switch all cars to completely green source as well.
I always wanted to have an electric car and help fight against climate change. But learning India produces electricity mostly from coal is a real slap in the face.
We'd do better if we concentrated on using EV in their best capacity, which is short trips around town and such. They would have smaller batteries, shorter range, and require much less time and money to recharge. I really want a small, simple, cheap EV for around-town use. I have a second vehicle that can handle long highway trips and hauling stuff, and I suspect most people (at least in the US) have two vehicles anyway.
Yes, go for the low hanging fruit and keep the battery pack smaller and lighter which will allow for a larger production of EVs while battery production is constrained. EV purest will never acknowledge the logic of plug-in hybrids for the next 15 years but even California IS allowing them after the general cutoff of ICEs in 2035.
@@deinauge7894 That would seem to be the obvious solution but in reality it is complicated and a simplistic approach to this issue can backfire. I promoted a new line for the local transit district to serve the industry park district after 5 million sq ft of new industrial buildings were completed (Think Amazon, UPS, a number of regional hubs). The result was that the buses were effectively empty but have to run 16 hours a day. The California transit districts are massively subsidized by what is effectively public funds. Generally speaking, unless you are on the inside of a transit district, you have almost no understanding of the funding, cost and transportation efficiency of public transit. People think LA, Bay Area, but as an aggregate for public transportation in California it is very complicated and the actual numbers are “interesting”.
@@Mentaculus42 simplistic is everything that fits in a yt comment ;) but i am not thinking of la, but mid sized European cities. Personally i do almost everything by bike. should be a possibility for most people in cities. if your city does not really allow that due to streat design, than that's really bad
@@deinauge7894 It should be recognized that small city in Europe is much more compact than what is the average in California. I have been in Europe a lot and public transportation is and order of magnitude more effective there than the “average” in California. I am constantly pushing on the local transit district with regard to “unmet needs” (which is the actual technical name). But the reality is that in the “average” California medium to small cities the transit districts have had to cut back on service due to regulatory requirements and funding. That is even with most of the fuel and electricity being covered by LCFS CREDITS (subsidies). AND if anyone thinks that the fares actually cover any significant expenses, since COVID the district is lucky to get 10% which is significantly below regulatory requirements (the state has been allowing the transit districts to break this requirement for now). What is particularly worrying is that the number of passengers has in general not reasonably recovered from pre COVID days for most general lines in the district that I get numbers from.
Thank you for this interesting, and informative video. But it is a shame that you couldn't investigate the costs of battery disposal and recycling. If electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla had to directly pay the costs of battery disposal their profits might not be so huge, and their share price so high. But I'm betting the cost of the clean up will be left to the taxpayer. As usual profits are privatised, losses socialized and the environment loses again so that billionaires can boast about how rich and clever they are.
One thing that this presentation misses is that GHG emissions are a system wide issue and that at that level an emphasis on battery EVs makes far less sense until we have first eliminated the use of fossil fuels, especially coal for electricity generation and other purposes. As an example space and water heating are major consumers of fossil fuels, but heat pumps for those purposes often have COPs in the 2-4 range. Fossil fuels used for this purpose are then 25-50% as efficient and the heat pumps do net require high density energy storage. Also, although EVs are more energy efficient than ICs as noted, hybrids make up part of that gap and use existing infrastructure. To me the most effective way to reduce GHG emissions globally would be to emphasize, and optimize, hybrids rather than full EVs, and eliminate as quickly as possible non-transport related uses of fossil fuels, especially coal fired power plants.
I once saw an EV station where some anti-EV "genius" put a sticker on it saying "This electricity comes from burning coal.". What they're clearly missing is that, even if it's true for that particular station, it's possible to power and operate an EV emission free whereas it's impossible to do so with an ICE vehicle. That's a very important fact that coal and oil lovers don't understand and/or don't want to hear.
the negatives with cars and electric vehicles still needs to be solves before we adopt or change to it. clearly at this point we must stop using and making cars until we have a viable solution.
Good analysis, but I'd have focused more on the issues around limited supplies of lithium, platinum and so forth. It seems like these could be a deal breaker. Is research underway into storage modalities that would get around this problem?
Lithium is fairly common, supply is limited due to the market, which is also getting in the way of EV production. Price per ton has gone from $10k US to $70k as invertors pile in.
Platinum won't be a problem since we have over a billion cars with catalytic converters on the roads. Just recycle them and also all the resources goes into building new converters (>100,000/day) can also go into batteries, motors and other green hi-tech stuff.
@@ddanielsandberg "Won't be a problem". We'll see. Every competent researcher who examines location and availability of rare earth and precious metals vs anticipated increased demand predicts that it is likely to be a very big problem. Even if all of those catalytic converters were to be recycled (highest recycling rates outside North America are 60%), world demand for electricity is rising exponentially. Recycling of solar panels is laughably low, and is not expected to suddenly become economical.
Arvin I have a Bolt EV. I live in CA and on a sunny day charge my car to a range of over 200 miles with solar panels on my roof. I drive for free. No emissions. Anyone in a reasonably sunny place can do this. (By the way, Na, sodium, can be used to make batteries instead of Li.)
The only thing Arvin did not mention is the damage that ENGINE OIL does to the environment. It is costly to properly dispose of, so in too many places it is just dumped into the soil, where it poisons our aquifers. Same goes for transmission fluid. Millions of gallons of this stuff is sold every year around the world and it is harming us in more insidious ways. For this reason alone, EVs are better.
The issue is not the electric car, it is electrical generation. Gasoline vehicle will always emit CO2, electric cars could be zero but for the generation. All steps of producing a car could be powered by zero emission power and that simply isn't the case for gas. There are synthetic fuels that work in ICE, but what an inefficient cludge these are to produce. Plus, charging cars at night stands to balance grid demand which is a good thing for overall efficiency per unit energy
As someone with an EV, I can say a few dated statements, but most are good. It is now over 10% of cars sold are EV, up from your 9%. Most car batteries are under warranty, and most of the Li-ion batteries coming from wreaked are reused currently. So, it is only bad batteries that are being recycled. I will give you Li recycling is a young growth industry, but it exist. There are some cars which charge at rates over 120kW, which gets an EV 20% charge to 80% in about 20 mins. I am sure someone with more knowledge of CC could say more with this.
One thing isn't mentioned: The slave children that work in Lithium mines. But most people in our rich countries don't care about that. It's far away and out of side. In my opinion electric car's are not greener, but more Red of blood and suffering.
My understaing is that CO2 is only part of the problem of vehicles with an internal combustion engine. CO and other harmful emissions cause pollution locally, which electricity is produced efficiently by power stations (if not from renewable sources). I think the development of EVs will form part of the solution moving forward; for instance, combined with a hydrogen fuel cell onboard the vehicle.
A plea from a physics teacher: From 3t, calculate 25000km but not 25210km! We try hard to get students to think in terms of significant digits - maybe in vain - but still: please help us fight pseudoaccuracy on your channel!
There were several comments saying that I did not take into account the CO2 released in the pumping, refining and transportation of crude oil. While indeed, these processes emit CO2, we should remember that at least 60% of the electricity produced world wide uses fossil fuels, including coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. So in order to be fair, the CO2 emitted in the extracting, refining and transportation of these fossil fuels must also be taken account for electricity generation. In my view this aspect is somewhat of a wash for both gasoline-powered and electric cars. And even without taking this into account, we can see that the conclusions of this video would still be valid, from the most conservative viewpoint.
On the other side another minor inefficiency of the transport of electricity via the grid and other supporting infrastructure, with the projected necessary expansions (in case EVs quickly ramp up in numbers) and their associated emissions also worth a mention. This gets complicated fast because one can argue the extensions of the grid becomes important anyway, and just how much is due to ev adoption could bee debated. An other interesting question is how EVs lower direct air pollution in the cities air which can depend on factors like where, and what kind of power plant provides the charging.
That being said it is fair and excellent video about how we should look at these problems from an objective point of view.
One more thing to consider though, mass transport via electric trains are even more efficient.
What did you mean when you said "there is some controversy over why the temperature is rising"? Anthropogenic climate change is a consensus scientific position, and any controversy is in the details, not in the broad strokes. This phrasing risks giving the public the wrong impression.
PS.: That pie chart at 2:52 definitely does not illustrate a 9% share.
Also: sure, used EV batteries are not designed to be easy to recycled, but don't you think it would be easier to refine or extract raw materials from a battery pack, rather than from much larger volumes of dirt and rock? This is the real interesting part you should do a video on, because it's a big opportunity in the grand scheme of things: think about the CO2 emissions involved in big mining projects, which you've factored into the environmental impact of EVs, and compare that with the energy requirements of battery recycling. Suddenly the big picture looks much brighter!
@@epgui While I agree with your viewpoint, in the US the reason for the change is controversial, many people dispute the cause of climate change. I am acknowledging that fact for US viewers.
I can't understand why the carbon footprint of the mining, transport, refining, transport, transport, and transport of diesel and petrol (gas), before it's even in the car, is never incorporated in these comparasions. The effects of fracking, drilling (and leaks), evaporation at the pump, are also seldom mentioned.
Mainly because it would make things look even worse. The same mining is needed to get the resources needed for cobalt. Often it is mined together with other things, like copper. Sadly, where there is cobalt, there often is also materials that are radio-active. Making the process, locally, even worse than 'normal' mining.
This is why its mostly ignored. Because there isn't much difference, if not straight worse.
@@Shangori cobalt is mined once (and most EVs now are using, or moving to LFP = no cobalt) for an EV. Petroleum is mined for every time someone fills the tank. That's a major difference
@@foley.elec.services Might as well bring up solid state batteries. Talking about the future is a bad idea here. Can talk about fusion all I want, if it isn't here yet, it isnt here yet.
And seeing how rare cobalt is, it currently is not viable to mine 'just' for cobalt.
@@Shangori dude, do a bit of research on LFP. It's only high performance (eg. plaid) that use cobalt and nickel chemistry. My Corsa-e and my wife's Dacia are both cobalt free LFP
That would expose the real dirty reality about BEVs, and destroy the reason of BEV enforcement. The reality is, without investing into Nuclear Reactors, and more sustainable battery Cells Chemistry, this switch won't change much about total Carbon emissions.
No politics, no BS and very thorough. You’re awesome man! Great video.
Just 100% wrong. C02 does not trap heat, it’s a very heavy gas that sits at the surface. It’s been way hotter in the past, look up Medieval Warming period. The Greenland Ice cores show we are in normal temp ranges. All BS.
Climate change is a lie
@giftokoh7153thats for cobalt and evs don't use cobalt niw
You forgot the maintenance, thousands of mechanical parts that have to be produced for a motor engine, oil, oli filters, breaks etc.( Evs use regenerated break mainly) is a hole polluting industry that exist only for maintenance of a petrol cars.
Yes, I did not get into this in detail, other than mentioning that EVs are mechanically simpler. So let me take this opportunity to point out the complexity of components necessary to support the internal combustion engine in a car, that would not be present in an EV:
1) Water coolant system for engine temp control
2) Exhaust system for exhaust gases
3) Electronic Ignition system
4) Fuel storage and delivery system (fuel pump, fuel line, or fuel tank, fuel injection system)
5) Sound deadening (muffler) system
6) Gas scrubber systems (catalytic converter)
All these components take resources to manufacture and maintain, which would be eliminated in EVs.
@@ArvinAsh Is thousands and thousands of parts and fluids, dealerships make more money during the life of the veicule in maintenance than in the car itself, obvious working hours is a big factor, but even so, all this parts is another polluting industry by itself.
@@ArvinAsh Sounds almost like a chatGPT list answer. haha. Which is totally fine, as it make sense. The 6th point mention “catalytic converters”, which contain elements such as palladium, rhodium and platinum, whose mining impact could be the subject of an entire video, as it's probably not better than cobalt extraction that you mentioned in this video
@@ArvinAsh EVs have a battery cooling/heating system and need energy from the battery to heat/cool the cabin.
Great video. Thanks.
@@migsvensurfing6310
That's a sealed system.
At 5:38, the chart shows ~200g/km of CO2 for a gas car. However, it seems they never account for the drilling for oil, the refinement process, and the transportation. If we are going to factor in every detail regarding electricity generation, then we need to do the same for gasoline, comparing apples to apples, not just tail-pipe emissions.
Oil products including diesel is used extensively to produce electricity, so it is not always a useful figure to use. In the US, natural gas is used extensively to produce electricity. This also has a CO2 footprint. The main takeaway should be that EVs are greener long term. Any CO2 saved from producing fossil fuels would be icing on the cake.
@@ArvinAsh My point was, when these comparisons are made, *everything* should be taken into account. Otherwise how do we have a true contrast? The electricity used to refine one gallon of gasoline will propel an EV further than that gallon of gasoline will a gas car. So the gas car is actually creating CO2 from burning the fuel, and also from the electricity the refining process requires, and several other sources of CO2 to maintain the gasoline supply. Petroleum is used very little to produce electricity, yet it is used exclusively to propel gas cars (as well as for oil changes).
Even the people making the EV’s are shaking their heads in disbelief as to why Politicians are pretending they are green. They should of kept with cleaner emissions from ICE cars.
Of course, one must also take into account the fact that as more and more EV’s come into use, more and more charging stations must also be manufactured, which will also cause more CO2 to be released. Secondly, the current (no pun) electrical grid in the US, and I would think in other countries cannot handle the increased demand for power if the majority of vehicles become EV’s. This will also need to be replaced (i. e. manufactured) as well, releasing more greenhouse gases. The EV solution cannot take place overnight. It will take years, if not decades.
Forgot a very important step - you have to clear the forests to mine lithium. Then leave a toxic disaster where nothing grows after it has been mined. Then calculate impact on water and environment from mining lithium.
Aside from greenhouse gases, not being energy dependent upon countries who aren't very friendly is a huge bonus. We spend a trillion dollars +/- per year on defense to protect ourselves from countries building militaries with fossil fuel money or being forced to deal with those with horrific human rights records.
Shouldn't we take into account the process to create fuel for the powerplants and for the combustion engine. And also the infrastructure to distribute it for people to be able to get it? (Gas stations, fuel deriving from oil, charging stations, etc)
I agree and my view is If you scale that one percent ev's worldwide to 50 or 75 percent or so, all the grids in the world need to be fortified to deliver the power needed to charge al those ev's as fast as possible. This will take A LOT of copper for example. Powerplants need to be built (hopefully nuclear) to supply for the increased demand of raw electricity and the people who build all that infrastructure need to be fed. Extra factories for billions of batteries need to be built and new mines need to opened for the resources for those batteries and infrastructure changes. Charging stations need to be built everywhere and in theory you would need more of them because it takes longer for an electric car to fill and you drive less km with a full battery compared to a full tank. And i probably missed some more yet unknown issues we need to take into account.
In my personal opinion the EV remains a technical utopia if we do not manage to control the total energy balance and conversion efficiency. The energy source/storage with the highest conversion efficiency (as you may know, energy is always converted, never 'won' or 'lost') and the highest energy density (joules/kg) will always win in the long run, we only need to find and combine the best ones, like nuclear ( 1 kg of uranium replaces about 1000 kg of coal i think) for electricity generation.
@@fredhawken1112 All good points, and for reasons like those I don't think the future of electricity management will look anything like the current system does now. When petrol took over from the horse and buggy, there were alot of projections for future needs based on what horse and buggy travel required. Same stuff is happening now.
Safe to guess however that a complete replacement of petrol vehicles won't happen soon. Petrol and electric vehicles both thrive economically under different conditions, so alot of people will probably end up with one of each. Gas or diesel as a backup/for long trips, and electric for around town use.
Further speculation might suggest solar panels will become a standard feature on electric vehicles offsetting several miles of demand per day(the ultra efficient three-wheeler in California is rated at 20 miles/day from onboard solar for example). Solar Panel technology is rapidly improving as well, it's getting cheaper and simpler to tie solar power harvesting into homes. The benefits will only become more notable and economical as electricity prices go up(seems a safe bet they will).
In many rural locations going offgrid vs connecting to utilities for a new home build is already a cheaper option, and adding in a few panels to support a car(batteries are the expensive part of solar implementation) is a negligible expense. Especially with a petrol backup, an electric car can double as a booster to offgrid energy stability(when it rains a week straight for example.)
Electric cars are a much younger technology than ICE vehicles. There's alot of growing room. Different locations will be better suited for different ratios of each as well(imagine living in a place where the average temperature is negative with anything BUT an ICE vehicle, not happening).
In conclusion I'd offer that electric vehicle adoption won't look like we might straight-forwardly project it will, ICE vehicles will remain a mainstream choice of travel working synergistically with electric vehicles, and the rapid exploration and improvement of complimentary electrical systems will have a multiplicative effect on the speed at which these systems get adopted.
@@fredhawken1112 We need 1 KWH for 5 to 6 km driving with an EV, Average 10500 miles (17000 km). We need LESS than 3000 kwh/year for this. When you buy a new desktop (including monitor, printer, router for internet etc) it will use (most people keep there computer running) 7*24 350-500 watts of energy , most depending on the graphics card.
That thing also uses 3000kwh/year taking 350 watts consumption.
And you are telling me that the grid cannot support EV's but can support PC's?
EV's can be charged during the night time....when other demands are low. This means that there cannot be a grid issue with EV's as reason.
1 kg of Uranium is ~3000 TONS of coal, so 3 million times more energy dense
I'm not a car guy. Selfishly, a car with fewer moving parts and less maintenance headaches has a lot of appeal.
Do the CO2 numbers mentioned for gas powered cars also reflect the energy which is required to generate the fuel? Like, getting it out of the ground, cracking (not to be confused with fracking), refining and transportation?
R U new ?
in my country it takes about 1 barrel of oil to extract 20.
@@hehehahahmhmhm But that does not include cracking and refining, which both are very energy intensive, right?
Great topic and video!
5:14 - It’s worth pointing out that this 75-85% number includes losses charging and discharging the battery. Just the motors themselves are on the order of 90% efficient.
6:45 - Actually, although lithium ions are what transfer charge between the electrodes, lithium batteries are only around 7-8% lithium. Other elements, like cobalt and nickel, are bigger concerns. Also, the most common lithium-mining method is not an extremely energy-intensive process, but it is a very water-consuming process. It’s also worth pointing out that most new battery-manufacturing plants are designed to run on renewable energy, so that part of the process is less carbon-intensive.
9:25 - Indeed! Most people don’t fully grasp just how inefficient a space- and weight-constrained internal-combustion engine is, especially when rarely allowed to run under optimum RPM and temperature conditions in general.
That’s one of several ways that hybrid vehicles reduce fuel consumption, BTW: They endeavor to shut off the engine entirely, except when it can operate at close to optimum conditions.
Just commenting to give the above comment a little more visibility, because these are all very important aspects.
@@danieloberhofer9035 thanks!
EVs are awful 'fake greenery' gone mad.. Lib-Con forced mass sales scam - one of far too many... They made the time we were all MASS-FORCED to 'upgrade' our light bulbs to HIGHLY POISONOUS flourescant, 'long life' bulbs that were half as bright after one year, and were half as bright in the first place compared to incandescent light bulbs that handily heated the room a bit too.. CRAZY-NASTY FAKE GREEN BULLSHIT...
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Petrol's ease and power to weight ratio cannot be beaten. CO2 emissions should NOT be regulated but all vehicles and factories should be made to only emit (near enough) PURE CO2, O2 and H2O only.. a mostly Iron, plastic and carbs economy is much easier to recycle and manage than one reliant on ever rarer, evermore exotic, difficult to produce materials.. Your Fake Green 'sustainable energy profits' scams go hand in hand with the Fake Green hyper-junk, mega-polluting, land-filling, inefficient, EV Revolution.. Unaffordable cars for The Masses, power and heat.. NEO C*NTZ of the Internazti Neo World Order(s)..
It does not take into account the efficiency loss in the production AND the transmission of the electricity. That number is isolated to the vehicle only once the electricity is in the vehicle.
@@The1stDukeDroklar
OK, let's do that.
And
Consider the grid energy used to refine fossil fuel.
(It's about the same amount used to either move an EV a set distance, or refine fuel to move an equivalent ICE vehicle the same distance.
The "Electricity cost" is equal when the EV had a "full battery" and the ICE beside it has fuel for the equivalent range.
The difference?
The moment you move those vehicles, the EV is "Paid for" in terms of the energy AND pollution.
The ICE vehicle moving is ALL pollution as the fuel burns.
.
It's not even close
Denmark today: The wind is blowing and 124% green energy has been produced.. Most days it is windy in Denmark. And the energy is produced by wind turbines. In the news in Denmark, when presenting the weather, also mention the day green energy production. We have Europe's cheapest electricity after Iceland.
In Denmark people ride bicycles. In America people drive huge F150's to the corner store. They won't wear masks because it damages their brains. What would a bicycle do?
@@mymonster156 Yes, we are responsible people .. peace .. Go Vikings
@@mymonster156 A bicycle can damage your brain . We wear helmets , like Vikings do . And we always have a tailwind on the cycle path . THAT´S BY LAW
@@TorbenMougaard26.. haha, I forgot!
Great work Arvin - I've read quite few articles on this topic (overall efficiency and benefit of EVs in contrast to ICE-based vehicles) and your video is _exceedingly_ well done. This topic is very complex, with myriad facets and you did it justice. I also appreciate the neutral tone you took focusing on just the facts and considerations. Great job, again!
Effective public transport is not a thing in the UK unfortunately unless you in London.
A nice video! Still I have many concerns. Can an ev battery be regenerated? At what cost? What about disposing it? What about environmental issues and how much impact would it have if 90% of vehicles would be EV? How much CO2 does disposing battery emit comparing to scrapping a combustion engine car? What is an average lifespan of both solutions? What about economic costs? Most people can't afford EV at the moment anyway. The biggest problem I have this transition into ev is strongly influenced by politicians and the history teaches us it ends very badly most of the time. This also creates misallocation of resources in economy and waste of energy itself.
Wonderful presentation. I hope this enlighten many people that are usually EV enthusiast and missing always the whole picture just out of pure ignorance. That EV vehicles are the future is highly questionable despite forecasted evolution of the EV technology. Today, Implementing EV vehicles and 2050 agenda (will never happen) is just a question of political and financial interest, nothing to do with environmental concerns. Which politicians do not care about. From a technological standpoint of view, my bet would be hydrogen or fusion energy by 2100 so long politicians allow it. We are nowhere close.
Transportation accounts for 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That's all transportation, including air travel, ships, rail, trucks, and cars. Even if everyone on earth switched to an EV right now (assuming the charging infrastructure was in place, and all the electricity came from "green" sources, and ignoring the resources needed to manufacture billions of EVs) the effect would be only on a portion of that 29% of greenhouse gasses. The push for EVs is a distraction. EVs aren't the answer.
Cars are not the problem. Public transportation is.
I personally think that the best reason to buy battery-electric cars is simply that _they are just better cars_ ! They’re more responsive, quieter, faster-accelerating, and smoother in every sense. They also require a lot less maintenance.
If you can charge at home, they’re more convenient to fuel up: 5 seconds to plug in at night (once you get it all set up), and five seconds to unplug in the morning! Yes, road trips are more involved, but most people only take a 3-4 road trips per year. Most EVs’ GOS navigation systems include navigation through DC fast-charging stations, which are increasingly common.
For most people, they’re also cheaper per mile, although that varies a lot by locale.
They keep smoke out of residential and pedestrian -intensive areas.
'Only 5% of electric car batteries are recycled'. Yes, this is true, but as you say, the rest is used for second life batteries. None are being put in landfill - they are too valuable! Also, the CO2 cost of the batteries when widespread recycling is implemented will come down significantly as the raw materials will not be mines and refined.
None for now. But if all of the cars in the world were electric now, how many batteries would simply be disposed of?
@@awesomedavid2012 None. 95% of the battery can be reused, so once the electric vehicle numbers have stabilised, you will not need to dig up any minerals
@@awesomedavid2012 do you throw away electrical cables at the end of life ? No ! Why ?..because someone will buy that scrap from you, process it, and resell it...........just like a lithium-ion pack
Actually car batteries are being recycled. The 95% comes from general battery waste, like phones, laptops, power tolls etc. EV's are actually helping to solve the problem, making recycling of all batteries viable.
Completely forgot to include the emissions cost of drilling, pumping, shipping, and refining oil, and the military cost of soldiers and sailors lives keeping the supply lines open, through endless patrols and the occasional war.
If I had to choose between mining for lithium, or recycling used lithium battery cells, I'll bet recycling used lithium cells has to be close to an order of magnitude easier than mining for fresh lithium.
Seems to me that we could save just as much CO2 at vastly less cost by simply making cars smaller and lighter and making tax advantages for buying smaller cars. Small hybrid cars with relatively small batteries could be a good option overall, most journeys are quite short. Electric only vehicles seem to be a dead loss for the mass market, they're simply far too expensive and there's no sign whatsoever of the prices coming down, if anything they're going up.
It’s a bit complicated. It depends on the car (weight and battery size), the country (for its national source of electricity - France is all nuclear and renewable for example while Poland is mostly coal) and the drivers use case. I drive a relatively small EV and do about 70 miles per day. It works perfectly for me and beats the diesel I had before ( which I loved! ). I ‘m happy I made the switch, but I had to do a lot of homework and cost analysis to see if it was the right choice for me. At work, I got the job of assessing our field teams vehicle use, who often drive 3000 miles a month and over 300 miles per day. Factoring all things the company was interested in (CO2, practicality, cost, etc), the answer was to stay with diesel for at least another two years. Changes are always coming and I’ll be rerunning the analysis every year. One day, electric will probably win, but for their use, not yet. We live in a hybrid (sorry!) time for cars. The right answer for each person right now could be petrol, diesel, hybrid or full electric. As I said at the start, it’s complicated!😊
I would have really appreciated if you dove more into how not using a car is even better. Using EVs when you don't have any other option for transportation is great, but for most of the world not having that 19 tonnes carbon footprint is even better. Advocate for better public transportation and walkability in your city, the streets will be safer and greener.
Why is the graph @2:53 so miss-leading? Is there a reason you used the 1.4% graph from the next item instead of the much different 9% your talking about at this point?
Probably because the graph is not accurate for either 9% nor 1.4%
@@zoch9797 Yeah. Not so much.
No I'm not going to take the time to measures the angles from a screenshot of such a lazy video. (And yes, this was just the first part of the lazy reporting I spotted in this video.)
But I did go to an online pie chart generator.
1.4% roughly matches what we see here. 9% it's not even close.
So bad editing, I'm guessing farmed out. But the lazy reporting makes me think Shell is the sponsor.
There's bound to be teething problems with EVs but the big win is that people are beginning to see them as the norm, and so there is potential for development of cleaner technologies off the back of them. It's taken a century for people to think of electric cars as real world and not sci fi, so let us appreciate how this baby step helps us all.
I wouldn't call 1.4% of vehicles worldwide the norm. Also, at present all but the relatively affluent are priced out. Battery issues really need to be solved- weight and flammability for starters.
Need about 10-100 times as much electricity to accomplish American dreams. Nuclear is the only option, just don't build them on the San Andreas Fault. But.....common sense has vanished with Covid!
@@rweinc1424 What are you talking about? How did you come up with 10-100 times more? If to replace all personal petrol cars by electric cars, electricity production must be increased by 30% at most.
@@yansakovich projection by Elon Musk .....that includes home heating, factories, commercial building, everything!! A difficult issue relates to the thousands of airplanes in the air at any moment. They are polluting far above the clouds where it stays for years, if not longer! Your 30% is ridiculous!
@@mymonster156 I do not understand you. But I'd like to point out that I was talking about electrical requirements for personal cars only.
The one thing you didn’t mention Arvin and that is that evs relocate the harmful emissions away from cities where most of us live and where most of the fossil fuel related health problems occur… So there are other benefits other than the carbon footprint…
In many cases your personal demand for a vehicle is not under your control at all and it is in fact dictated by the place that you live
Great video, but as a Czech, I can't see how we could switch to more renewables in the near future. The sun just doesn't shine here that much, we don't have that many usable rivers like Scandinavia, and even wind isn't very viable because we don't have sea.
The only option seems to be nuclear but we haven't even started to build new reactors (although one seems to be on the way).
couldn't you theoretically form treaties or unions with other countries to help fund their green energy revolution with the stipulation that you get some of that energy back to Czechia?
The countries in Europe, who has favorable coastlines are putting up more wind power than they will be able to use themselves all the time, so don't worry it will average out, you'll get renewable power too, even if you have no wind turbines.
Then focus instead on sustainable infrastructure instead. How is the public transport in Czechia? Have you heard of the recent measures to pipe heat around neighboring buildings in industrial complexes to recycle some of the waste heat? adding on to that, is there any chance to push for more geothermal where you are? (I don't know the geology of the region)
@@howdy832 Thanks for the reply. I believe public transport here is more than okay, for example we have perhaps on of the densest railway networks in the world. Geothermal is a no go unfortunately, Czechia lies in a geologically very old part of Europe. Heat pumps are increasingly popular for people to power their homes but I haven't looked at the enviromental friendliness of it.
Haven't heard about the heat recycling, will look into that. Cheers!
@@Javaman21011 Thanks for the reply. I'm no expert but I think that is exactly the way it goes in the EU. Countries like Germany, Scandinavia or France are betting on renewables in a big way, but I'm afraid it still won't be enough without nuclear energy. (Again, not an expert.) Getting rid of coal should be the priority, I think everyone agrees on that.
Also, all in all, I think Czechia is a net exporter of energy thanks in big part to our nuclear facilities.
From a futuristic point of view, there is no doubt that EV come out victorious. Electricity is much more versatile after its been produced. Imagine the emissions released just from transporting the fuel to the petrol/gas stations.
its an alright video, he left out a number of factors, such as what about hybrid cars, what about having enough resources to even replace all of those vehicles, what about since EVs tend to be heavier, the wear and tear they cause on roads, what about other solutions such as an increase in public transport as an option. what about making cities more bike and ebike friendly. making things walkable. I feel like changing every vehicle to an EV is an extreme scenario, that should be considered as a last result. as we could easily do other things with the infrastructure that we already have available to significantly reduce out pollution output to reasonable levels. For me I would honestly love to take the bus everywhere, however, in the US buses tend to not have enough routes, or a large bus station that you can go to. then when it comes to greyhounds and longer bus transit, it is less expensive to drive a car than it is to take a bus. With that price the time of travel tends to be 4 to 5 times as long, making a 2 hour trip into a 8 hour endeavor. Making public transport more of an option, or just making sidewalks so that it isn't dangerous to walk outside is a much much cheaper and more effective way to reduce emissions than trying to replace 10s of millions of cars. I wish you went into more detail about other alternatives than just 'oh an ev is better that's what you should look to get in the future'. cause again road damage such as potholes are caused by heavy vehicles traveling across them, so increasing the average weight of a car by several tons will significantly increase road damage causing entire roads to need to be replaced much more often then the current 30ish years. with that I believe hybrid cars are an excellent remedy for this issues, as some hybrids are bordering on 50 miles a gallon, and their efficiency has only been increasing. oh and how could I forget the increase to the electric grid due to so many more people owning evs that's a whole another issue.
sorry for the rant, i would just rather not have to drive at all, heck for the summer i was driving 17 miles round trip per day to get to work. I just used an ebike, which has much less impact on the environment.
Don't forget the emissions that occur from processing oil into gasoline, and if you want to be technical, the emissions from wars fought over control of oil producing countries such as Iraq.
Cars cannot be the future. In Europe probably scooters are going to take the role of cars in the future.
- Less battery required, making it affordable
- 90% of the energy to move a car is spent in the car itself because it's 90% of the weight. This is something I don't see people talking about enough.
- Removing cars from the streets would make scooters and bikes safe.
Finally, a non-biased evaluation of EV's. It still amazes me that car companies can call EV's zero-emission in their ads. That is a flat-out lie, and last time I checked, that is illegal.
I don't disagree with you. Though EVs do not have any direct emissions.
@@ArvinAsh Unless you are charging it with electricity generated by a coal power plant. I consider that a direct emission. Even a "green" power generation still has a carbon footprint that is increased by higher power demand.
@@InsideOut204 The vehicle is zero emission, so the statement is correct. The air quality improvements in our towns and cities should not be ignored. and of course there are many renewable sources of electricity. Renewables are now the cheapest and fastest growing in the energy sector.
"That's *petrol* powered to SOME of our international audience!?" You mean ALL of your international audience! 🤣
This is the only channel that I don't skip the ads section, because it's really interesting!
When I was in my Elementary school days, I learned that plants take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.
Why isn't planting more trees and plants a viable solution to counter the carbon dioxide emissions causing climate change?
It will help solve the problem to some degree. The problem we have currently is that we are not only producing an overabundance of carbon, but the natural sinks for this excess carbon, like trees, are also being destroyed faster than ever.
13:20 why would anyone put them in land fill? Even after the battery has degraded enough that it's no longer got enough capacity that it's not useful in a EV that can still be used as grid storage as it doesn't matter about the capacity to weigh ratio if it's not moving anywhere
Main reason is cost. Currently, it's more costly to recycle them than to create new batteries. Existing batteries would need to become more recycle-friendly, and recycling would need to be more widespread.
@@ArvinAsh My point is that they don't need to be recycled after the useful life as a EV battery because they are still fully functional, they just don't have the same capacity as they used to but they still store energy
There is no need for any EV battery to ever go to landfill th-cam.com/video/JqlOlqK_ot8/w-d-xo.html
Now add in the cost in CO2 for the production of gasoline/diesel, something totally ignored in your discussion.
If the costs for the production of the materials for the batteries is important to track as is the costs involved in producing the electricity, why not the costs involved in the extraction, shipping, and refinement of the fuels and then the delivery thereof?
I think you'll find the equation shifts somewhat if you do not ignore this huge cost...
You should consider the costs of Oil and Co2 for production, extraction, car consumption, and oil leaks into Nature into this study
One thing is overlooked here. As demand for EVs reaches parity with IC vehicles, the demand for electricity will sky rocket and unless there's a giant shift towards cleaner energy production then it's moot.
There's a whole host of other problems not related to emissions like infrastructure for charging, poor range and reduce performance in colder climates where a higher demand is placed on the battery from tempreture and additional power draw for ancillaries.
I don't hate the EV revolution. But it's been vastly oversold.
Nuclear energy is the only realistic solution to the world's energy problems but its a long way off.
I don't disagree with that assessment. Nuclear is probably not going to be a savior because, at least in the U.S., nuclear power plants take 10-20 years to get approved and built. However, even in the worst case scenarios, natural gas-fired, and diesel-fired power plants could be built fairly inexpensively and quickly. And these would still be much greener than ICE cars.
@@ArvinAsh I'm honoured Arvin!. Really enjoy your content and the community engagement!. Thanks!.
Very well done. 👍
You neglected to note that to produce 1 gallon of gasoline (petrol), it’s takes an *additional* 1.2 gallons in the extraction, refining, and shipping of oil/gas/petrol. So you should at least double all of the ICE emission numbers.
Further, the source of power for EV (for grid powered) is getting cleaner every day and will eventually be 100% generated from renewables and other clean technologies, all over the world.
EVs also require far less maintenance since they have roughly 1/10th of the moving parts that ICE cars have.
He ignores many of the negatives in the internal combustion engine side of the comparison with electric vehicles. I don't know if he's being deliberately misleading as is usually the case with these comparisons or just didn't learn enough about the topic before making the video.
But it looks like fuel preparation for electricity production is also not taken into account. So, both should be doubled, and the conclusion would be around the same.
The fact that electricity generation becomes cleaner is mentioned in this video.
The point is often that 1.2 gallons is also used by the power plants.
And if EVs are powered by Green sources then that is power taken from the grid, thus power of homes and buisnesses thus a net wash on overall power consumption emissions.
An overlooked drawback of EV's and air quality is that a significant portion of airborne particulates comes from the rubber dust created from the friction of the tires. EV's emit just as much as ICE vehicles in that regard.
EVs would be expected to emit as much, in which case it would be a wash. So the other factors I covered would be more important aspects.
huh? don't you mean airborne particles from brake pads ? The weight of tyre residue (mass/cm3) is a LOT higher than pads, which means that it doesn't stay suspended (ie. you don't breath it)
EV weight more, so probably tires would produce more pollution
So is there no way to turn gasoline into electricity in a more efficient way?
Stellar breakdown, Arvin.
Excellent presentation of a relatively obscure topic for most of the viewers.
At personal level there is another problem. I understand that for optimal battery life, EV should be driven for about 20-25 KM a day. Assuming that this is correct, it poses problems to persons who use the car only during weekends or short trips.
I live in Brazil and have used ethanol from sugar cane (100% renewable and not contributing to global warming) as fuel since 1986 (when I started driving). Most cars are “flex”, meaning you can choose between ethanol and gasoline. Worth mentioning that gasoline in Brazil contains 22% ethanol. A portion of Brazil is already “carbon free” concerning fossils fuels and switching to EVs will not help on that. I also produce my own eletricity (500-800 kwh/month on solar panels) and would like to to have an EV to save on fuel. However, we are far from a positive business case here… an EV cost 3x (or more) than a flex car and it doesn’t pay off during the most of its lifecycle. Once it drops to within 20-30% of a flex vehicle, I will consider it
6:30 I don't understand, why the brand logo is blurred here? Tesla cars are shown with their logo clearly seen
Excellent, insightful summary. Arvin, where would hybrids fit in your analysis?
Thank you for the great video. It explains the issue very well. Possibly the only one video in youtube that captures the big picture.
One thing that cannot be forgotten in any product is the cost of transport. Both money and pollutants emitted. Most EV components are sourced from all over the world (like anything, these days, but more heavily, it would seem). That, itself, emits a lot of CO2 since it is all via diesel engines.
Right, but shipping oil from the middle east for the lifetime of the car isn't cheap either.
@@handelsm I agree. Hence why Biden killing domestic production and then begging the Saudis for oil is retarded.
Numerous companies. like Tesla and Volvo, have EV transport trucks.
@@sweiland75 What percentage do they make of the entire transport truck fleet in the US?
@@chriswhite3692 That didn't happen. Since Joe Biden took office, oil production has risen both on federal lands and on U.S. lands overall.
Another important point of comparison when it comes to CO2 produced during operation is between electric automobiles and other modes of transportation.
Automobiles are, regardless of their motive power type, a much less efficient form of transport than almost any form of mass transit. They expend a lot of energy just to move the vehicle, which can only ever carry a handful of passengers and frequently carries just the driver, and they occupy a relatively large physical volume of space on the road. A larger mass transit vehicle -- like a bus -- uses less energy *and* a smaller volume of road occupied per passenger per mile/km.
On top of that, rubber-wheeled vehicles on asphalt roads are inherently much less energy-efficient than metal-wheel vehicles on metal rails: the former has a lot more rolling resistance just to move. You can also chain railed vehicles together much more easily, amplifying the energy expended per passenger per mile/km advantage even further.
All these advantages and disadvantages add up and multiply one another. At a certain scale, and depending on the power source used to charge the EVs, a fleet of cutting-edge EVs becomes more polluting than a 100-year-old coal-fired steam locomotive pulling enough passenger cars to move the same quantity of people over the same distance in the same time.
EVs alone aren't going to solve climate change. We need mass public transit, and we need it on an epic scale in a hurry.
TL;DR:
car bad
train good
Require all commercial buildings to be better insulated, no more naked glass and steel
Saying that EVs are responsible for the emissions of power generation is a misdirection: the transition to EVs doesn't solve all greenhouse gas emission problems, but it removes a bottleneck that currently exists in transportation. EVs are only part of the equation, but they're a necessary part!
Excellent video Ash 👌🏻
The relative low efficiency of the internal combustion engine is only very marginally linked to the fact that mechanical energy is being generated in 1 of 4 cycles. It is strongly linked to how much mechanical energy is being "captured" in that one cycle it is being created and how much is being "wasted" (as heat, mostly). 2 stroke engines have lower efficiency than 4 stroke engines.
You also have to take into account that an EV cost about the double of a gas car, this cost can be also measured in work hours for the customer try to buy the car, hour working and generating more CO2. En general the EV car will not impact significantly on CO2 emissions, will be good, but for cleaner air in large cities (no doubt is a good thing) and for the global account of some car companies.
Would love to know the financial side of this. How much would it cost to charge a EV for 15k miles> to break even with the environmental impact? How much would it cost in petrol to drive 15k miles. What if....they used EV's to manufacture and deliver the petrol ....hmm
Currently electricity cost per km is much cheaper than gasoline. You can look it up for your area.
"There is no such thing as a free lunch"
EV cars need Lithium, Cobalt and other metals - the UK are stopping sale of fossil fuel cars in 2030 and an estimate I saw that there are not enough mined materials world-wide to satisfy the demand of the UK alone - let alone a global transition to EVs. Add to that growing demand for the same materials for other technology and the wasteful cycle of phone upgrades etc. and there are rough times ahead.
It also doesn't address the child labour and appalling conditions in the mining industries, esp. for Cobalt.
Another point that is not addressed is where is all the electricity going to come from for charging? The UK and much of Europe has been worrying about the need to ration electricity this winter over gas prices - and currently charging a car in the UK is more expensive than filling a petrol tank because of huge energy price hikes.
Love this video. Especially the Nuclear plugs. Great job Arvin.
Excellent video. Thank you!
Very good.
One more potential advantage of electric cars is that being simpler mechanically, less maintenance may be required and thus with proper maintenance, the useful life of the car may be longer. Internal combustion is a violent process that generates wear & tear on a lot of components; EV much less so. Of course, that's a potential advantage, depending on actual maintenance habits but also willingness of manufacturers to provide economical ways to replace batteries when performance drops, but the car otherwise still have lots of life left in it. Also depends on people not wanting to get a brand new car every 5 years or so. Which may actually be the biggest issue here.
I would expect lower maintenance costs long term. Although EVs on the market today have not proven to be so.
Skoda, a VW-owned company, delivers its electric models to the customer's door with a CO2-neutral balance sheet.
End of life recycling for large amounts of lithium-ion/lfp batteries doesn’t exist at the moment but there are at least two companies in existence that have developed processes that prove it is possible to do it in a clean cost effective manner, one of which has demonstrated that batteries manufactured from recycled materials match those from sourced materials in terms of performance.
How can you have an "ultimate verdict" on an industry that's hasn't even matured.
Lunacy on stilts that's what we are dealing with. The UK is importing wood chips from North America to generate power instead of high quality coal on the doorstep.
Lithium price has already increased approximately 4 times in alag 3-4 years.
So has oil.
The "good" folk at the WEF can pay for any marketing stunt...
Arvin: Could you please do a video on how electricity "Actually" travels in transmission lines and powers our devices and compare the classical theory to the actual quantum reality of electricity? thanks
"Travels in",, I remember a physics professor telling me that the majority of charge flows on the surface of the conductor not through it. If you want to increase current flow you use lots of strands instead of one wire, in doing so you increase the surface area.
I drive a PHEV and think there are a few things worth considering that you didn’t cover in this video:
1. The location that the CO2 is produced. With EV’s, the CO2 is all produced at the power plant(s) - where industrial capture systems can potentially trap/filter the CO2 better before it gets released into the atmosphere. With gas cars, the CO2 is spread out and released wherever the car happens to be. EV’s help keep the air in big cities much cleaner. Industrial scrubbing (cleaning and filtering) systems don’t really exist everywhere right now, but are actively being developed and are nearing viability.
2. The extra cost of catalytic converters, exhaust systems, etc in gasoline cars. If you’re going to consider the batteries in EV’s, you should consider these components of non-EV’s.
And 3 - the most important factor of all - which doesn’t relate to CO2 at all - is energy versatility! With a gasoline car, you are locked in to using gasoline and only gasoline. A single energy source. But an electric car can be powered by coal, or nuclear, or wind or hydro or solar or any other mechanism that produces electricity.
If push comes to shove, an EV can be fueled at home with a solar panel and inverter. They will be in extremely high demand after the zombie apocalypse! 😁
I really wish fuel cells caught on nationwide. There are other downsides to EVs- price, fires, and weight.
There is a reason fuel cells never took off. They make no sense.
that 9% looked like about 2%. "The heart of the engine is the internal combustion engine."
I’d love to see a video that compares electric vehicles to hybrids. Personally I think that battery powered cars are far from a mature technology, and are simply not practical for most people at this time.
It doesn’t help that many of the people sounding the climate change alarm are more concerned about virtue signaling than actually solving problems. They have addicted themselves to the rush of endorphins they get when they feel superior to others.
Even if different people and country drive differents amount per year, but perhaps a better statistic is what is the average life time of a car in KM? And i would say almost every car produced at least is drive up to 100 thousand kms if not more.
After watching quite some videos about this over 3 years or so. I can confidently say this is the best video explaining it. Thank you so much Mr Ash!!
Super interesting, as usual
I've heard that co-generation is "not economically feasible" or words to that effect. It's hard for me to understand why. In a coal-fired power plant, for example, there is tremendous heat that's rejected to the environment, instead of going through a secondary system to extract power. For example, using a CFC to absorb heat and run a turbine. There's extra investment, and extra maintenance, but there's also extra power extraction.
it is a matter of cost effectiveness. The secondary energy becomes too expensive to capture.
@@ArvinAsh The Department of Energy’s SuperTruck II research program surpassed 55% Brake Thermal Efficiency or BTE by using (among other things) an engine equipped with waste heat recovery. Large ICEs used for electrical power peaking run at over 55% thermal to electrical output efficiency by using waste heat recovery.
Additional overall improvement can be had with using high temperature fuel cells as a pre not post part of the cycle for a “heat engine”. BUT all of these additional “cycles” add cost.
A lot of generators in electric power plants use "combined cycle" generation. This is especially common in the case of natural gas turbines that use their waste heat to power a secondary steam generator. These combined cycle turbines can currently reach *65% thermal efficiency. Natural gas generates the largest amount of electricity of any source in the United States and the high efficiency of these combined cycle generators is one reason why grid charged EV's are so much more efficient and produce so much less greenhouse gas than internal combustion vehicles.
*[In December 2017, GE claimed 64% in its latest 826 MW HA plant, up from 63.7%. They said this was due to advances in additive manufacturing and combustion. Their press release said that they planned to achieve 65% by the early 2020s]
"not economically feasible" WTF co-generation is very popular and super financially lucrative depending on the geographical location. As long the HEAT customer is near the plant within a dozen miles. Co Generation is very effective and as simple as STEAM pipes.
It's as simple as this imo:
If power generation became completely green / emission-free, then how much pollution would each vehicle contribute?
1. ICE: some
2. Electric: none
and since we're working towards switching power generation to completely green sources, it's fairly obvious that we should also be working to switch all cars to completely green source as well.
I always wanted to have an electric car and help fight against climate change. But learning India produces electricity mostly from coal is a real slap in the face.
It is likely to change over the next couple of decades, but yes, today it is mostly coal.
We'd do better if we concentrated on using EV in their best capacity, which is short trips around town and such. They would have smaller batteries, shorter range, and require much less time and money to recharge. I really want a small, simple, cheap EV for around-town use. I have a second vehicle that can handle long highway trips and hauling stuff, and I suspect most people (at least in the US) have two vehicles anyway.
Yes, go for the low hanging fruit and keep the battery pack smaller and lighter which will allow for a larger production of EVs while battery production is constrained. EV purest will never acknowledge the logic of plug-in hybrids for the next 15 years but even California IS allowing them after the general cutoff of ICEs in 2035.
you could do much better with a good public transport infrastructure in the city, instead of a second personal car....
@@deinauge7894 That would seem to be the obvious solution but in reality it is complicated and a simplistic approach to this issue can backfire. I promoted a new line for the local transit district to serve the industry park district after 5 million sq ft of new industrial buildings were completed (Think Amazon, UPS, a number of regional hubs). The result was that the buses were effectively empty but have to run 16 hours a day.
The California transit districts are massively subsidized by what is effectively public funds. Generally speaking, unless you are on the inside of a transit district, you have almost no understanding of the funding, cost and transportation efficiency of public transit. People think LA, Bay Area, but as an aggregate for public transportation in California it is very complicated and the actual numbers are “interesting”.
@@Mentaculus42 simplistic is everything that fits in a yt comment ;) but i am not thinking of la, but mid sized European cities.
Personally i do almost everything by bike. should be a possibility for most people in cities. if your city does not really allow that due to streat design, than that's really bad
@@deinauge7894 It should be recognized that small city in Europe is much more compact than what is the average in California. I have been in Europe a lot and public transportation is and order of magnitude more effective there than the “average” in California. I am constantly pushing on the local transit district with regard to “unmet needs” (which is the actual technical name). But the reality is that in the “average” California medium to small cities the transit districts have had to cut back on service due to regulatory requirements and funding. That is even with most of the fuel and electricity being covered by LCFS CREDITS (subsidies). AND if anyone thinks that the fares actually cover any significant expenses, since COVID the district is lucky to get 10% which is significantly below regulatory requirements (the state has been allowing the transit districts to break this requirement for now). What is particularly worrying is that the number of passengers has in general not reasonably recovered from pre COVID days for most general lines in the district that I get numbers from.
Thank you for this interesting, and informative video. But it is a shame that you couldn't investigate the costs of battery disposal and recycling. If electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla had to directly pay the costs of battery disposal their profits might not be so huge, and their share price so high. But I'm betting the cost of the clean up will be left to the taxpayer. As usual profits are privatised, losses socialized and the environment loses again so that billionaires can boast about how rich and clever they are.
One thing that this presentation misses is that GHG emissions are a system wide issue and that at that level an emphasis on battery EVs makes far less sense until we have first eliminated the use of fossil fuels, especially coal for electricity generation and other purposes. As an example space and water heating are major consumers of fossil fuels, but heat pumps for those purposes often have COPs in the 2-4 range. Fossil fuels used for this purpose are then 25-50% as efficient and the heat pumps do net require high density energy storage. Also, although EVs are more energy efficient than ICs as noted, hybrids make up part of that gap and use existing infrastructure. To me the most effective way to reduce GHG emissions globally would be to emphasize, and optimize, hybrids rather than full EVs, and eliminate as quickly as possible non-transport related uses of fossil fuels, especially coal fired power plants.
I once saw an EV station where some anti-EV "genius" put a sticker on it saying "This electricity comes from burning coal.". What they're clearly missing is that, even if it's true for that particular station, it's possible to power and operate an EV emission free whereas it's impossible to do so with an ICE vehicle. That's a very important fact that coal and oil lovers don't understand and/or don't want to hear.
the negatives with cars and electric vehicles still needs to be solves before we adopt or change to it.
clearly at this point we must stop using and making cars until we have a viable solution.
Great overview 👍
Also at 8:20 the EV break’s even slightly sooner since would be polluting more those 25,000 km.
Good analysis, but I'd have focused more on the issues around limited supplies of lithium, platinum and so forth. It seems like these could be a deal breaker. Is research underway into storage modalities that would get around this problem?
Lithium is fairly common, supply is limited due to the market, which is also getting in the way of EV production. Price per ton has gone from $10k US to $70k as invertors pile in.
Platinum won't be a problem since we have over a billion cars with catalytic converters on the roads. Just recycle them and also all the resources goes into building new converters (>100,000/day) can also go into batteries, motors and other green hi-tech stuff.
Veritassium has a decent video on the supply and availability if anyone is interested.
@@spindoctor6385 I've seen it. He has an excellent channel.
@@ddanielsandberg "Won't be a problem". We'll see. Every competent researcher who examines location and availability of rare earth and precious metals vs anticipated increased demand predicts that it is likely to be a very big problem. Even if all of those catalytic converters were to be recycled (highest recycling rates outside North America are 60%), world demand for electricity is rising exponentially. Recycling of solar panels is laughably low, and is not expected to suddenly become economical.
Fusion reactor batteries: Hold my beer!
Arvin I have a Bolt EV. I live in CA and on a sunny day charge my car to a range of over 200 miles with solar panels on my roof. I drive for free. No emissions. Anyone in a reasonably sunny place can do this. (By the way, Na, sodium, can be used to make batteries instead of Li.)
It’s not free you fool. 😂😂 Damn humans can be so stupid
The only thing Arvin did not mention is the damage that ENGINE OIL does to the environment. It is costly to properly dispose of, so in too many places it is just dumped into the soil, where it poisons our aquifers. Same goes for transmission fluid. Millions of gallons of this stuff is sold every year around the world and it is harming us in more insidious ways. For this reason alone, EVs are better.
Did you count power loss in transmission and charging?
between 3 & 8% depending on the local grid, on or off-board AC-DC converter, battery chemestry, etc.
The issue is not the electric car, it is electrical generation. Gasoline vehicle will always emit CO2, electric cars could be zero but for the generation. All steps of producing a car could be powered by zero emission power and that simply isn't the case for gas. There are synthetic fuels that work in ICE, but what an inefficient cludge these are to produce. Plus, charging cars at night stands to balance grid demand which is a good thing for overall efficiency per unit energy
Good points.
As someone with an EV, I can say a few dated statements, but most are good. It is now over 10% of cars sold are EV, up from your 9%. Most car batteries are under warranty, and most of the Li-ion batteries coming from wreaked are reused currently. So, it is only bad batteries that are being recycled. I will give you Li recycling is a young growth industry, but it exist. There are some cars which charge at rates over 120kW, which gets an EV 20% charge to 80% in about 20 mins. I am sure someone with more knowledge of CC could say more with this.
One thing isn't mentioned: The slave children that work in Lithium mines. But most people in our rich countries don't care about that. It's far away and out of side. In my opinion electric car's are not greener, but more Red of blood and suffering.
The solution to all of these problems is one thing: degrowth. We have to dismantle the car industry.
My understaing is that CO2 is only part of the problem of vehicles with an internal combustion engine. CO and other harmful emissions cause pollution locally, which electricity is produced efficiently by power stations (if not from renewable sources). I think the development of EVs will form part of the solution moving forward; for instance, combined with a hydrogen fuel cell onboard the vehicle.
A plea from a physics teacher: From 3t, calculate 25000km but not 25210km! We try hard to get students to think in terms of significant digits - maybe in vain - but still: please help us fight pseudoaccuracy on your channel!
Another amazing video👏👏👏👏