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>I've heard people say that one reason why we shouldn't bother with electric cars is that they still generate a lot of carbon from their production supply chain

>I've heard people say that one reason why we shouldn't bother with electric cars is that they still generate a lot of carbon from their production supply chain. All the minerals and metals mined, the parts being shipped around, the energy in manufacturing, etc. "A lot" = 15% more.[1] Approximately 1 ton of extra emissions, which it takes a daunting 4,900 miles to pay back- less than 5 months of the average American's driving. A great deal of this pollution comes from energy use- that report[1] says that if the grid was powered by 80% green energy then manufacturing a BEV would produce 25% less pollution than a normal car. [1]: http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-exec-summary.pdf http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cle...

sxates 9y ago
Right, all things considered they're still less carbon intensive than and ICE car, especially with a few hundred thousand miles on the odometer. People seem to conveniently forget that an ICE car requires a lot of carbon to manufacture, and then creates even more with every mile driven. So even at the start the EV is ahead (or as your source says, within 5 months it's ahead).
- hwillis 9y ago
  I'm a little triggered when people bring up BEVs being more intensive to manufacture. That report I linked was used as the posterchild for why BEVs are garbage, like Wired's "Tesla's electric cars aren't as green as you might think"[1]. But the report is amazing! It put to bed fears that electric cars needed 50% or more as much to make, that they needed to be driven 150,000 miles to break even, etc etc. On top of that it says that BEVs will be cleaner than conventional cars to build. It was an incredibly great result to that investigation, but people still turned around and portrayed it was a bad thing. That really annoyed me, since it was more optimistic than even most proponents of electric cars had expected. I personally thought electric cars would always produce more waste just by virtue of weighing more, but they are so much simpler to create that that isn't true. [1]: https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/ https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not...

sxates 9y ago

Right, all things considered they're still less carbon intensive than and ICE car, especially with a few hundred thousand miles on the odometer. People seem to conveniently forget that an ICE car requires a lot of carbon to manufacture, and then creates even more with every mile driven. So even at the start the EV is ahead (or as your source says, within 5 months it's ahead).

hwillis 9y ago
I'm a little triggered when people bring up BEVs being more intensive to manufacture. That report I linked was used as the posterchild for why BEVs are garbage, like Wired's "Tesla's electric cars aren't as green as you might think"[1]. But the report is amazing! It put to bed fears that electric cars needed 50% or more as much to make, that they needed to be driven 150,000 miles to break even, etc etc. On top of that it says that BEVs will be cleaner than conventional cars to build. It was an incredibly great result to that investigation, but people still turned around and portrayed it was a bad thing. That really annoyed me, since it was more optimistic than even most proponents of electric cars had expected. I personally thought electric cars would always produce more waste just by virtue of weighing more, but they are so much simpler to create that that isn't true. [1]: https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/ https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not...