ELECTRIC cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy used in making their batteries, a study has found. An electric-car owner would have to drive at least 130,000km before producing a net saving in CO2.
Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they usually have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips.
Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.
The study, the first analysis of the lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by rapid introduction of the cars.
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Just now they begun an Australian-first trial involving real-world use of an electric vehicle for two years in Perth...
Plugging into the future
Update 20 June:
The US Department of Energy has predicted that batteries for electric vehicles, which account for nearly 60 per cent of the cost, will be 70 per cent cheaper by 2015.
I researched this question recently:
ReplyDeleteThe source article quotes:
> It found a mid-size electric car would produce 23.1 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, compared with 24 tonnes for a similar petrol car.
http://rodgerswriting.blogspot.com/2012/06/vehicle-lifetime-cost-of-energy.html
http://rodgerswriting.blogspot.com/2012/06/electric-vehicles-vs-internal-combusion.html
http://rodgerswriting.blogspot.com/2012/06/hummer-versus-prius.html
Sorry, that isn't the number that some quite simple calculations came up with.
An ICE (internal combustion engine) car getting 25 MPG will produce 76 Tons of C02 over the car's lifetime of 200K miles! Whereas, an EV getting average "mileage" will only produce 30 tons of C02, using the USA weighted average for electricity production.
In addition to seriously faulty numbers, the article also does not compare apples to apples. It looks at the ICE direct contribution to CO2. But them looks at the EV's INDIRECT contributions to creating the battery.
For a true comparison, you would also need to include all the indirect costs that are associated with ICE vehicles. Such as, all the energy to move the fuel from the middle east to your gas pump. Where are those numbers please?