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TL'DR: - this swedish government study analyses CO2 emissions from battery pack production - for a Tesla S3, the emissions at purchase are 17.5 tonnes of CO2

TL'DR: - this swedish government study analyses CO2 emissions from battery pack production - for a Tesla S3, the emissions at purchase are 17.5 tonnes of CO2 - That means 8.2 years of driving to just break even with an equivalent petrol car [0] - for the smaller battery Nissan Leaf, it is 5.2 tonnes of CO2 and 2.7 yrs of driving to break even - vast advances in battery production are needed to have climate impact w/ electric vehicles. - Or battery production close to abundant clean energy sources. Additional source: [0]: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fing.dk%2Fartikel%2Fsvensk-undersoegelse-produktion-elbilers-batterier-udleder-tonsvis-co2-200080&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

biehl 9y ago
> - Or battery production close to abundant clean energy sources. Like a gigafactory located close great land-wind resources?
honestoHeminway 9y ago
My brother used to state this- and to be honest i did not believe him. The conclusion is- cars should run much longer to wear off there energy debt. A mindset is needed that runs directly contrary to the colour and form frenzy that is capitalism, which is unlikely to change. A compromise would be a car - consisting of a near everlasting baseframe, and a decoration shell, that can be exchanged as often as the heart desires for monetary value. That and software could continu with constant change, while the hardware remains relatively stagnant.
Gibbon1 9y ago
The argument then is that electricity production needs to switch to low carbon sources. If you reduce the CO2 emissions per kwh by half then the breakeven for a Tesla and Leaf drop to 4.1 and 1.35 years.
- vkou 9y ago
  Or, that we need to hard-switch to carpooling. It will solve congestion, and emissions problems overnight.
  - Gibbon1 9y ago
    My take away from the ride sharing mania is that cities have woefully under invested in small scale public transportation. Instead of a few 40-80 person buses that stop at every stop, you need a large fleet of 10-20 person buses. And larger buses need to be express buses.
telchar 9y ago
The analysis in your link of this document is very flawed. They only consider tailpipe emissions from a gas vehicle. Without considering the GHG cost of an electric car in total vs cost to manufacture an equivalent gas vehicle in addition to the lifecycle GHG cost of extracting, refining and burning fuel, the time to payback is artificially inflated. An apples-to-apples analysis results in electrics having a much more favorable outcome (I have done this myself in the past). Also, as more renewable electricity production comes online the numbers will continue to become more in favor of electrics.
- blacksmith_tb 9y ago
  Yes, that would seem to be nonsense, the general estimate you see floated around is that the manufacture of an IC engine vehicle generates emissions equal to those from its operation[1]. Clearly the battery pack in an EV / (P)HEV will also create some, but it seems unlikely to be as large a delta as all that. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
The real tl;dr is the same as all of these reports: Stop using coal. Introduce a carbon fee. Charging electric cars in certain states causes pollution? Stop using coal power plants! The electricity for making batteries causes pollution? Stop using coal power plants! A thousand other little industrial processes dump carbon into the atmosphere as it is an uncosted externality from their perspective? Carbon fee aligns everyone's incentives. The weird hyperfocus on anything vaguely green is absurd when the whole of modern society is running on those same coal plants and carbon squandering.

biehl 9y ago

> - Or battery production close to abundant clean energy sources. Like a gigafactory located close great land-wind resources?

honestoHeminway 9y ago

My brother used to state this- and to be honest i did not believe him. The conclusion is- cars should run much longer to wear off there energy debt. A mindset is needed that runs directly contrary to the colour and form frenzy that is capitalism, which is unlikely to change. A compromise would be a car - consisting of a near everlasting baseframe, and a decoration shell, that can be exchanged as often as the heart desires for monetary value. That and software could continu with constant change, while the hardware remains relatively stagnant.

Gibbon1 9y ago

The argument then is that electricity production needs to switch to low carbon sources. If you reduce the CO2 emissions per kwh by half then the breakeven for a Tesla and Leaf drop to 4.1 and 1.35 years.

vkou 9y ago
Or, that we need to hard-switch to carpooling. It will solve congestion, and emissions problems overnight.
- Gibbon1 9y ago
  My take away from the ride sharing mania is that cities have woefully under invested in small scale public transportation. Instead of a few 40-80 person buses that stop at every stop, you need a large fleet of 10-20 person buses. And larger buses need to be express buses.

telchar 9y ago

The analysis in your link of this document is very flawed. They only consider tailpipe emissions from a gas vehicle. Without considering the GHG cost of an electric car in total vs cost to manufacture an equivalent gas vehicle in addition to the lifecycle GHG cost of extracting, refining and burning fuel, the time to payback is artificially inflated. An apples-to-apples analysis results in electrics having a much more favorable outcome (I have done this myself in the past). Also, as more renewable electricity production comes online the numbers will continue to become more in favor of electrics.

blacksmith_tb 9y ago
Yes, that would seem to be nonsense, the general estimate you see floated around is that the manufacture of an IC engine vehicle generates emissions equal to those from its operation[1]. Clearly the battery pack in an EV / (P)HEV will also create some, but it seems unlikely to be as large a delta as all that. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

ZeroGravitas 9y ago

The real tl;dr is the same as all of these reports: Stop using coal. Introduce a carbon fee. Charging electric cars in certain states causes pollution? Stop using coal power plants! The electricity for making batteries causes pollution? Stop using coal power plants! A thousand other little industrial processes dump carbon into the atmosphere as it is an uncosted externality from their perspective? Carbon fee aligns everyone's incentives. The weird hyperfocus on anything vaguely green is absurd when the whole of modern society is running on those same coal plants and carbon squandering.