[MuffinFlavored]

Elon has taken at least that many internal combustion engines off the road thanks to Tesla, right? /s

What are the actual stats on manufacturing a Tesla vs manufacturing an internal combustion engine car? Where is the "CO2 emission breakeven"?

[ajross]

A quick Google pulls up this article that says[1] "2500 miles" (to offset the energy overhead in manufacturing a 80 kWh battery assuming all the input was coal electricity): https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac....

Basically, yes, things are as they seem and EV's carbon footprint has only a minimal manufacturing overhead to go with the extremely large consumption advantage. They aren't as good as giving up private transport entirely, but yeah: buy the Tesla.

This argument doesn't fly, basically. It's just the same recycled FUD distributed by the fossil fuel industry, just coming out of the mouths of different folks now that it turns out Musk is a political enemy.

[1] Among a ton of context. As always, "it's complicated". But the answer is definitely in favor of the EV.

[culi]

That's only looking at the production of a 80 kWh lithium-ion battery

EDIT: also that's a mistaken quote. The article actually says it takes between 6,250 (all hydro) and 40,000 (all coal) miles for an ICE to produce the amount of CO2 that the manufacturing of a battery would produce.

Doesn't at all account for

1. the rest of the damn car

2. emissions due to unclean energy sources

But yes the battery is definitely the most polluting part of making an EV, so that is somewhat promising even though a battery's lifespan tends to last less than an ICE

[ajross]

The comparison is between an EV and an ICE vehicle. Surely 1 and 2 favor the EV by definition (no engine, so less material; and <100% fossil fuel usage vs. ==100%[1]), no? Where is the disadvantage you're seeing coming from?

You're also forgetting:

3. Much higher energy efficiency per distance travelled. Even if you have a bunch of oil and are forced to use it to push wheels around on roads with no other energy source, EV's still win on carbon output!

[1] Depending on how you classify ethanol additives, I guess. But regardless, the carbon emissions content of the electricity grid is vastly higher than any agriculturally-source fraction of the gasoline economy.

[culi]

I think you're missing the point.

The 2,500 miles figure is just:

  the amount of CO2 emitted in the production of a battery represented as how many miles driving an ICE to produce a similar amount of emissions

A purely arbitrary and somewhat useless comparison. That's all I was trying to point out. If you read into the source of that article it has some actually relevant figures :)

EDIT: also, you misread that bit. 2,500m is for one metric ton. The article states that a battery's manufacturing will take between 2.5 and 16 metric tons of CO2

So the actual figure is: 6.25k-40k miles

[mhio]

That's cited as 1 ton of CO2 emissions:

> Just how much is one ton of CO2? As much as a typical gas-powered car emits in about 2,500 miles of driving

2.4 - 16 tons in manufacture of a 80 kWh battery = 6000-40000 miles.

That's not accounting for the GHG's emitted in generation of the electricity, which if it's coal based takes longer to claw back (and there's probably a million other things to take into consideration, weight increase is often one).

Not to shit on EV's. I think they are the future and will be a great improvement, especially in cities, but there is a non FUD manufacturing cost that needs to be worked off.

[lancesells]

This is the question I would love to have answered for so many things. When is buying a used gas guzzler better than a brand new electric vehicle?

[ajross]

It depends more on your own use than the vehicle itself. Most old vehicles sit in garages most of the time as secondary vehicles. So extending the life of a ICE car vs. manufacturing another to do the same (light) workload is a loss. But if you're buying a vehicle to use as a rideshare or whatever for 8 hours a day, the beater is going to be much worse for emissions.

[chris222]

Yes, all of that can easily be boiled down to the efficiency of an electric motor versus a gasoline engine. The more miles you drive the faster you will offset any carbon from manufacturing.

[mikojan]

Can you link to an article on that?

[chris222]

BEVs on average currently take more energy than ICE to build but the difference is made up in a couple years because electric motors are so efficient compared to gas engines.

[cosmodisk]

I don't know about electric cars, but from what I remember, for a car with ICE, it's about 8 years.

[pclmulqdq]

The breakeven milage is depressingly far. Electric cars take a lot more stuff and much more polluting manufacturing processes to be made.

Around 2016, the total carbon footprint of a gas car was lower than a Tesla, pretty much for its entire life. It's getting better and better as energy gets cleaner, though.

[Kranar]

The EPA does a good job of debunking the persistent myth you're spreading about the manufacturing process of electric cars.

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myt...

[culi]

that link doesn't actually directly address the point brought up though. It uses GREET for its number though and others have used that model to answer it, but the the estimates vary widely based on inputted assumptions. E.g.[0]

Tesla Model Y (EV) vs Honda CR-V (gasoline):

  9,200 miles if the grid is 100% hydroelectric
  89,000 miles if the grid is 100% coal

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifeti...

[lucideer]

Everyone cites this EPA piece with heavy use of the word "typically" throughout.

The gp has made two statements:

1) that manufacturing is more polluting.

This is confirmed by your EPA link - the graph shows EVs are ~ twice as polluting in this area.

> Some studies have shown that making a typical EV can create more carbon pollution than making a gasoline car. This is because of the additional energy required to manufacture an EV’s battery.

2) that in 2016, the breakeven wasn't met.

Your EPA link states figures are from 2020. Obviously the breakeven is going to vary greatly by region depending on grid mix, but renewables in the US mix used in the EPA figures has grown ~33% between 2016 & 2020 so the difference isn't going to be small here.

The gp's line may be a myth on technicalities, but not a particularly binary right-wrong one. It's recently been a close enough call to be worthy of discussion, rather than the dogmatic claims of dishonesty in the replies.

[pclmulqdq]

I suppose the knives have come out to "debunk" the meaning of the word "depressingly."

Personally, I did the math on a Tesla purchase in 2020 given my own climate (very cold), driving patterns (90% high-efficiency highway driving), and energy mix. The end result was somewhere between 50k-100k miles to break even compared to a small, fuel-efficient Honda.

Keep in mind that a Tesla is a comparatively big car, and if you don't want to haul around that much car, you don't have to - estimates in the literature tend to compare cars of a similar "class," when your personal alternatives may be outside that class.

Also, the Reuters folks (and the EPA) are a bit optimistic and fall on the low end of published estimates I have seen for the carbon footprints of electric cars.

However, keep in mind that there's a huge variance here and many of the factors swing both ways: comparing a Tesla model X to a Honda pilot in SoCal (warm climate and tons of green energy) for a commuter (mostly city driving in traffic) may break even at 5000 miles or less.

[ajross]

What's the conversion between "depressingly" and "miles"? What you're saying is untrue, but you don't provide a cite so I don't know what to refute.

[pclmulqdq]

This is an intentionally vague statement because "depressingly" means "between 5,000 and 200,000 depending on your circumstances and alternatives, and whether you take a high or low estimate of the additional pollution involved in EV manufacturing."

[MuffinFlavored]

So is it safe to safe that the average Tesla buyer/"consumer" is "virtue signaling" that they are actually contributing a measurable change towards climate change but instead just doing something trendy? Granted, the cars have "good tech" (fake full-self-driving claims or not).

[recursive]

Not at all. No gas stations and no oil changes is a real quality of life improvement, and would be even if Teslas ran on pure coal and orphans.

[cokeandpepsi]

I don't drive but IMO there's a lot of reasons to not want to use gasoline beyond just 'the environment'

[Kranar]

Never take what people on this site say at face value. If someone is unwilling to provide sources, it's usually a sign they are hiding something and you should put in some effort to independently verify their claims with reputable sources.

Doing so will produce a wealth of sources that all point to OP being misinformed on this issue.

[MuffinFlavored]

as in I'm misinformed or somebody else?