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Some Electric Car Drivers Might Spew More CO2 Than Diesel Cars, New Research Shows (bloomberg.com)
bricko shares a report from Bloomberg with the caption, "Making batteries is a mess": Beneath the hoods of millions of the clean electric cars rolling onto the world's roads in the next few years will be a dirty battery. Every major carmaker has plans for electric vehicles to cut greenhouse gas emissions, yet their manufacturers are, by and large, making lithium-ion batteries in places with some of the most polluting grids in the world. By 2021, capacity will exist to build batteries for more than 10 million cars running on 60 kilowatt-hour packs, according to data of Bloomberg NEF. Most supply will come from places like China, Thailand, Germany and Poland that rely on non-renewable sources like coal for electricity.
An electric vehicle in Germany would take more than 10 years to break even with an efficient combustion engine's emissions. "We're facing a bow wave of additional CO2 emissions," said Andreas Radics, a managing partner at Munich-based automotive consultancy Berylls Strategy Advisors, which argues that for now, drivers in Germany or Poland may still be better off with an efficient diesel engine. The findings, among the more bearish ones around, show that while electric cars are emission-free on the road, they still discharge a lot of the carbon-dioxide that conventional cars do. Just to build each car battery -- weighing upwards of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) in size for sport-utility vehicles -- would emit up to 74 percent more C02 than producing an efficient conventional car if it's made in a factory powered by fossil fuels in a place like Germany, according to Berylls' findings. Yet regulators haven't set out clear guidelines on acceptable carbon emissions over the life cycle of electric cars, even as the likes of China, France and the U.K. move toward outright bans of combustion engines. It all has to do with manufacturing. According to estimates of Mercedes-Benz's electric-drive system integration department, manufacturing an electric car pumps out "significantly" more climate-warming gases than a conventional car, which releases only 20 percent of its lifetime CO2 at this stage. "Just switching to renewable energy for manufacturing would slash emissions by 65 percent, according to Transport & Environment," reports Bloomberg. "In Norway, where hydro-electric energy powers practically the entire grid, the Berylls study showed electric cars generate nearly 60 percent less CO2 over their lifetime, compared with even the most efficient fuel-powered vehicles."
An electric vehicle in Germany would take more than 10 years to break even with an efficient combustion engine's emissions. "We're facing a bow wave of additional CO2 emissions," said Andreas Radics, a managing partner at Munich-based automotive consultancy Berylls Strategy Advisors, which argues that for now, drivers in Germany or Poland may still be better off with an efficient diesel engine. The findings, among the more bearish ones around, show that while electric cars are emission-free on the road, they still discharge a lot of the carbon-dioxide that conventional cars do. Just to build each car battery -- weighing upwards of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) in size for sport-utility vehicles -- would emit up to 74 percent more C02 than producing an efficient conventional car if it's made in a factory powered by fossil fuels in a place like Germany, according to Berylls' findings. Yet regulators haven't set out clear guidelines on acceptable carbon emissions over the life cycle of electric cars, even as the likes of China, France and the U.K. move toward outright bans of combustion engines. It all has to do with manufacturing. According to estimates of Mercedes-Benz's electric-drive system integration department, manufacturing an electric car pumps out "significantly" more climate-warming gases than a conventional car, which releases only 20 percent of its lifetime CO2 at this stage. "Just switching to renewable energy for manufacturing would slash emissions by 65 percent, according to Transport & Environment," reports Bloomberg. "In Norway, where hydro-electric energy powers practically the entire grid, the Berylls study showed electric cars generate nearly 60 percent less CO2 over their lifetime, compared with even the most efficient fuel-powered vehicles."
Hasn't it been known for some time that most CO2 is produced during a vehical's manufacturing rather than during use
Except that's not correct. The average car emits six tons of carbon dioxide per year. A medium-sized car produces 17 tons of carbon dioxide in manufacturing. That is not negligible! But once you've kept your car for three years, then no, more carbon dioxide is produced in driving the car than in making the car.
and the most low carbon approach is to keep trying the same vehicle for as long as possible rather than buying a new electric car.
Maybe. This site https://www.greencarreports.co... says not, but it depends on how you analyze the numbers.
You mean like from nuclear power? Lowest CO2 energy source we know of, safest energy source we know of, and as "renewable" as solar power because there is enough thorium and uranium on Earth that we'd never be able to burn it all before the sun consumes the planet.
The solution is relatively obvious; manufacture electric cars using energy from solar arrays or other renewable sources. The cost of solar arrays has dropped so much in the last decade that this is practical now; it does mean you'll want to site car manufacturing plants (and more notably, battery manufacturing plants) in locations with abundant solar energy, but that seems doable-- stay out of Seattle, go for Las Vegas. Wait, that's where Tesla's battery plant is sited.
No one misunderstands the purpose of the electric car.
People question the value of paying a premium for a supposedly "green" solution.
You're sold a reduction of emissions. Governements subsidize a reduction in emission. If you're not actually reducing emissions, that's a whole lot of money getting spent on things you're not receiving.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
BNEF has access to good research and should have written a better article. Instead they've constructed a clickbait article full of gibberish that obscures rather than illuminates what data they do deign to present:
1. An average EV is less polluting, per mile, than even the best gasoline or diesel vehicle.
2. If that EV were built with dirty power, and charged throughout its life with dirty power, it would still be a net win, albeit a small one verging on a tie, on lifetime emissions.
3. We're projected to be be building a whole lot of new EVs.
And there's no mention of the obvious objections to this sort of facile analysis:
1. The average new EV probably displaces a purchase of an average new gasmobile, so the comparison with the most-efficient gasmobile is unrealistic. If the average new EV driver is particularly eco-conscious, and would otherwise be buying a highly-efficient gasmobile, that new driver is probably also sourcing the power from cleaner-than-average supplies, so calculating as if it were charged from the average local grid is unrealistic.
2. Grid carbon intensities are dropping worldwide, and the speed of this drop is accelerating as renewables get cheaper and cheaper relative to fossil-fueled plants. New renewables are cheaper than new thermal power plants almost everywhere, and we're only a few years away from new renewables being cheaper than continuing to fuel an already-built thermal plant in some parts of the world. Over a 15-year lifespan, EVs will keep getting cleaner per-mile, whereas gasmobiles will wear out and become less efficient.
3. While the article focuses on manufacturing emissions, their own graphs show that these correspond to only about 2 years worth of tailpipe emissions. A worthwhile target for reduction, for sure (and one that will happen naturally, as large manufacturers consistently seek to reduce their power costs by buying cheap renewable energy), but not the big target that we should be focusing on. The running costs dominate lifetime emissions, so we should tackle them first (especially as cleaning up electricity generation world-wide would also significantly reduce manufacturing emissions).
BNEF usually produces much better analysis than this. I'm disappointed in them.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
All the article is saying is if you make dirty batteries, you get a dirty product. The spin on it was impressive saying fuck electric cars. (disclosure - telsa owner)
After some google and linked in stalking, all the partners at the firm Berylls Strategic Advisors are a mouthpiece for the big oil think tank part of the Oliver Wyman firm.
However the partner of Berylls (whom came from Audi and OW) is saying buy diesel cars instead.
We all know German diesel cars are totally very much extremely only the best people clean. re: audi, vw
"Every major carmaker has plans for electric vehicles to cut greenhouse gas emissions". Not because the market demands it or because their customers want it.
Tesla Model 3 is now the best selling luxury car in America (ref: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/04... ), and is likely to be the best selling car in America, period, by the end of the year. So it seems that the market does demand it.
Second the improvements in the grid often take place on the decades scale,
Not really, the US went from 58% coal to 23% coal in the last decade, so the improvement is pretty rapid and with wind, solar, and battery tech really hitting the ramp phase in the mass production cost reduction scale it's likely to accelerate globally. As far as replacement battery cost, Tesla is already down to ~$100/kWh at the pack level so future replacement packs aren't going to be anywhere near $30k unless you're talking a medium duty truck. Also, other than the Leaf which lacks active thermal management almost every EV has way better battery degradation than originally feared.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"Every so often" is a bit non-specific.
Kia and Hyundai are offering unlimited mileage warranties on their batteries in the US, or 200k km in other regions. Leaf batteries have proven to be good for 350k km+.
Consumer Reports puts the average lifespan of a car at 250k km (150k miles). Obviously there will be outliers either side. So realistically few people will be wearing out their batteries, and for them the most economical and green option will be to get a used pack from a written off car.
The used packs are also highly recyclable.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Oh, you think Lithium batteries only use lithium? Wow..... stupidly of this magnitude is unprecedented.
About the same amount of CO2 is released from the wood if it decomposes on the surface as if it is burned. Much of it comes from waste, or fast growing hybrid poplar trees.
Even that is not the case.
From TFS, a "conventional car ... releases only 20 percent of its lifetime CO2 [during manufacturing]", so if an average ICE vehicle produces 24 tonnes of CO2 over its lifecycle, that's 4.2 tonnes for manufacturing and 19.2 tonnes while driving. If a BEV requires 75% more emissions during manufacturing, that's only 3.15 tonnes more.
According to the DoE, an average BEV powered in West Virginia (95.7% coal power) would emit 4.29 tonnes a year, compared to an average ICE emission of 5.19 tonnes/year, a difference of 0.9 tonnes. So the ICEV emissions would exceed the BEV even in the worst-case power mix after just 3.5 years.
This is borne out by numerous other studies.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?