| > Electric cars produce more CO2 during manufacturing. How much more? Sources, please. The internet tells me that adding an 85 KWH battery in a Tesla adds ~1 tonne of CO2e. [1] Tesla, as a whole (Which includes non-manufacturing, but does not include the carbon cost, of say, smelting the steel that went into their cars, or Panasonic manufacturing their batteries), produced ~300,000 tonnes of CO2e in 2018. They shipped ~250,000 vehicles in 2018.[2] Bloomberg claims something completely different, but doesn't provide any concrete numbers. [3] The study it seems to cite is [4], which claims that a Tesla's battery is ~15 tonnes of CO2e, if manufactured in a factory powered by 50% coal power. There seem to be no other studies on the subject. Panasonic, which manufactures Tesla batteries, is doing some work to make their batteries carbon neutral [5][6]. It's unclear how much volume this factory produces, and what the emissions of their other factories are. > Indian taxis/cars on Indian roads do worse. This also means that the existing ICE taxis don't have a long prospective life, and at least 40% of them are due to be replaced by 2026. It's why this legislature is coming into play in 2026, and not in 2020. > India's electric market is 60% coal. Thanks to Carnot efficiency, even if your electric car is powered by a coal plant, it is still more carbon efficient than powering it with gasoline. Your V6 engine doesn't reach the temperature differential that utility coal plants do. Electric vehicles also have near-zero-cost regenerative breaking, which increases waste energy, that would otherwise go into heating brakes in a non-hybrid ICE. > Who is the you here? Someone who is comparing the environmental benefit to the monetary cost of switching from ICE to electric. You get a lot more reductions, for the same dollar spent, from electrifying taxis, then from electrifying heavily-used personal vehicles. You get more reductions from electrifying heavily-used personal vehicles, then lightly-used weekend vehicles. Pick the lowest-hanging fruit first. [1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ska839... [2] https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/04/tesla-emissions-... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-16/the-dirt-... [4] https://www.thegwpf.com/new-study-large-co2-emissions-from-b... [5] https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/battery/primary_ba... [6] https://www.panasonic-batteries.com/en/news/panasonic-enviro... |
I am not against electric cars, I want them. I am against the idea to replace cars which have already contributed to significant pollution being removed from road.
The lowest hanging fruit for me is to get US and other top polluters to reduce pollution. India and China are doing good already as they are increasing more green cover. The reality is the India car drivers cannot afford the cheaper electric cars, forget about Tesla.