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."

Comments

I did the math on that actually

[blkhawk]

For a diesel Volvo vs a Tesla model S, assuming the average 2015 power mix in Europe the break even point is about 28.000Km.

I did take some big shortcuts tho. I compared 100kwh worth of Panasonic LiPo batteries + power to the diesel fuel needed to drive the volvo the same distance using Tesla Model S power usage figures.

There are way to slew this in one or the other direction - for instance I did also add CO2 Equivalent for refining the diesel.

Considering where Berylls Strategy Advisors is located and the fact that the German car companies still have no mass-market ready electric car my guess is that this is fake news and can be disregarded.

Re:Known for some time

[XXongo]

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.

Use renewable sources

[XXongo]

Having driven both, I like electric cars. The technology is finally right up there equal to, and in many ways superior to, internal combustion cars.

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.

Re:Use renewable sources

[Rei]

The solution is relatively obvious: don't spread BS (the article in the Slashdot headline).

Whenever I see claims that amount to "science says...", I immediately check to see:

  * In what journal was it published?
  * What is that journal's reputation?
  * How does it compare to the overall corpus of research on the topic?

In this case, the "study" fails at the first bar: there's no study at all. The source of this article is "Berylls Strategy Advisors". There is no peer review. It's simply "take the word of a company that describes its business as "modern premium automotive consulting" and works for major established automakers, primarily "Dieselgate" German automakers". And we're supposed to ignore the (contradicting), actually peer-reviewed research in the process. Most of the latter of which is regardless rapidly obsoleted regardless by the ongoing wave of battery manufacturing energy improvements, which comes hand-in-hand with battery cost reductions.

It's "Swedish Battery 'Study' Part Deux".

But indeed, as you noted, the solution is to manufacture using solar. Which is actually a very popular solution among EV manufacturers. Tesla has started installing the solar roof that will entirely power Gigafactory, for example - but they're hardly alone in this regard.

Nope

[WindBourne]

U should have read the article and listened. It all depends on Where and how the battery is made. For example, we own a model S. The cells came from Japan. Ok clean. Not great, not bad. However, the model is in not just in Nevada, BUT Tesla is adding massive solar to power the manufacturing of the cells and batteries, and about 1/2 of the drive train. Supposedly, they have added batteries to run the plant at night ( also get cheap charge and help in daytime ). The model 3 is not only the cleanest made car, but likely one of the cleanest made product.

And yes, most of the rest are produced in China in some of the worst locations. To make matters worst, all the lead-acid and li-ion batteries made in China is some of the most polluted on the planet. As such, wind and solar do not play a part for them. So when Tesla goes to China, those batteries will be made/used in China. Compared to a new clean ice vehicle, the Tesla may never fully recoup the massive co2 added

Evaporite deposits [Re:Use renewable sources]

[XXongo]

This doesn't address the fact that they are raping the earth for the minerals to build these batteries.

Huh? Lithium comes mostly from evaporite deposits. Don't see why you would "rape the Earth" to get at evaporites, which generally don't require deep mining. You want to see what "raping the Earth" means, look at coal mining: https://grist.org/business-tec...

Steel and Aluminum now are some of the most recycled materials there are. And there is plenty of the product left to recycle.

Well, lithium is one of the most easily recycled materials there is. And, of course, not just internal combustion cars, but electric cars are also made out of steel and aluminum.

Not saying Electric is bad, I just prefer honesty when promoting them.

Re:Don't be disappointed

[blindseer]

As solar and energy storage get better, the need for large centralized fission plants will fade.

Until that happens we need nuclear power today.

I keep hearing on how we need to act RIGHT NOW on lowering CO2 but when nuclear power is brought up the response is how solar and batteries will be better than nuclear in 5 or 10 years. Well, can we wait for this to happen or do we have to act RIGHT NOW? If we can wait then let's wait, and shut up already on having to act RIGHT NOW. If we can't wait then stop coming up with excuses on why we can't use the safest and lowest CO2 producing energy source we have today.

Oh, but it takes 10 years to finish a nuclear power plant build? Well, then what are we waiting for? Even if we get this new solar technology on the time frame it is promised it will still take years for it to be brought to market and deployed. In the mean time we'll be building an electricity source that can power the factories that will be building these next generation solar collectors.

Here's what I'm suspecting on why solar and wind advocates oppose nuclear power, they can't compete against nuclear power.

I have no problem with wind and solar power, only the people that say we need to use these and not even try with nuclear power. We have seen the US government issue only a handful of permits to build a new nuclear power plant in the last 40 years. Before then they were issuing dozens per year. It's not that people weren't asking for permits, applications were still being submitted. The government simply stopped issuing permits. There's nuclear power plants that have been under the application process for decades and still did not get a permit. Stop this madness, fix the process, and issue some permits already.

Whatever problem one can raise opposing nuclear power is nothing compared to global warming. If global warming is the threat that it's claimed to be then any problems nuclear power might cause are nothing by comparison.

At this point if you oppose nuclear power then you are denying the catastrophic effects of global warming. If we should fear nuclear power more than global warming then global warming cannot be all that bad.