[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.