Electric cars emit less over their lifetime – often 50%–67% less — than gas or diesel cars

Posted by cgiattino

21 comments
  1. Wasn’t always the case, but now with mass production – duh!

  2. I was surprised it wasn’t more, but then I glanced at the article and of course it’s for America where on average the electricity grid is not particularly green (outside of a few select states). 

    51% net-zero energy in the UK in 2024 makes that number much bigger 🤓

  3. Car tires are surprisingly bad for the environment. Guess not so surprising when you think about it lol

    Not to mention the impact of roads and infrastructure for car-centric design… 

    We need to move away from car-centric communities, not just marginally improve one aspect of them 

  4. “Often [up to] 67% less” feels like a bit of a stretch here. The only place I can find a 67% or greater reduction in the charts is comparing an ICE Land Rover to an electric sedan, which really isn’t a helpful comparison.

  5. Something tells me this isn’t a “cradle to grave” analysis

  6. I charge my car from nuclear power plants produced electricity. I would imagine the carbon footprint is even smaller.

  7. Battery technology. We are about a generation or two away from getting to where we want to be with batteries.

    with Electricity: we know how to make it many differnt ways, including clean and sustainable. We know how to transport it, even wirelessly. We know how to use it, electric motors can be very effecient in output. What we can’t do? Store it very well. That’s the one key piece that is holding back EV from being truly great.

    Thankfully, research has been continuous and seems to be well funded for future research as well. Hopefully in some years (hopefully within my lifetime) we’ll see some exceptional battery technology that makes storing electricy as easy as storing a jug of water (or gasoline).

  8. ICE-cars powered with renewable diesel have even lower lifetime emissions than EVs.

  9. Cool, but they’re completely impractical to own if you don’t own a house with a driveway.

  10. And LEDs consumed much less energy overall, but people used them more frequently because they felt less ashamed. It’s a monkey’s paw issue.

    The rebound effect should not stay unrecognized; the best way forward is to heavily build our public transportation infrastructure.

  11. I’d need to know how much CO2 is released during the construction process and weather the electrical grid is using fossil fuels to make any kind of assumption here.

  12. This whole EV vs. gas car emissions debate is filled with misleading assumptions, cherry-picked comparisons, and an outright dismissal of real-world conditions. First off, the claim that EVs are automatically better ignores the fact that their entire advantage hinges on grid energy sources, which in most places are still fossil-fuel heavy. The upfront emissions from battery manufacturing are substantial, and the assumption that they “pay back” in a few years only holds if you’re driving tens of thousands of miles annually—what about people who drive less? Then there’s the comparison with a Fiat 500, a tiny econobox, instead of a hybrid like a Prius, which would make the emissions gap much smaller. And let’s not forget the complete lack of discussion on battery disposal and resource extraction, both of which are environmental nightmares. This isn’t to say EVs are *worse*—but the idea that they’re a climate savior while completely ignoring grid realities, battery recycling, and the actual *use case* of different drivers is pure propaganda.

  13. Except Tesla – that guy emits pure evil at higher rates

  14. Just a heads up, I’m seeing a lot of bot spam in the comments, Elon’s AI farms are most likely involved.

  15. Did they include the “cost” of producing that electric vehicle?

  16. Big miss on the mining of the minerals needed to make those batteries. We need a much more robust recycling program. We throw away billions worth of lithium etc every year in old laptops and anything else that is rechargeable because we do not have a good recycling chain to get those back into the system

  17. What about the impact mining for the materials to build the battery has? The whole process needs to be considered.

  18. This is not new at all. Two studies were done in 2016 and 2018 that took a look at all of these factors (and included the tire weight to road deterioration issues into account). EVs came out significantly cleaner than their ICE counterparts, then – and still now – because nothing has changed.

  19. interesting, now make the comparison between like-priced vehicles

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