[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