[briandear]

> This is good news for the planet, as studies show that EVs create less carbon pollution than conventional gasoline-powered cars, even after accounting for energy expended to produce, transport, and charge them

How about the mining of battery materials and the effect of that? Or the disposal of batteries. This article is pretty biased in that it fails to address the externalities of the entire EV lifecycle.

[ajross]

Can we please stop with this copypasta in every EV thread? None of that is genuinely sustained by numbers, it's all just FUD. Batteries are, and have been for decades, among the most productively recycled materials. The number you see thrown around that Electric Vehicle batteries are not often recycled is down to the overwhelming majority of EV batteries still being productively used in their original installation.

There are better arguments, FWIW, about "EVs as personal transportation" that point out that battery production is going to be constrained as the industry evolves and that the comparatively few batteries we have should be prioritizing transit and grid storage vs. more Model S's. And I think there's a reasonable argument there (though the response will be that high margin luxury products are a much more effective way to grow that market than boring stuff).

But no, there's no one serious out there claiming that batteries are a bad environmental tradeoff.

[jakewins]

I’m confused why you think production and disposal aren’t part of the data going into that statement. Every comparison I’ve seen includes battery production in the life cycle analysis.

Do you have an example of a full - ”cradle-to-grave” - life cycle analysis that shows EVs to have higher total emissions over their life span?

[pdabbadabba]

The quote you highlight says "even after accounting for energy expended to produce, transport, and charge." And the assertion holds up.

For example, this recent study University of Michigan study [1] shows BEVs producing fewer carbon emissions over their lifetime, accounting for battery production, though it takes a few years to offset the greater initial carbon footprint of BEV production. (I'm not sure that this includes battery disposal specifically. Though I wouldn't expect that to be a decisive factor on its own.)

This is a complicated topic, and I'm sure it's very challenging to accurately estimate the carbon footprint of each step in the manufacturing production and value chain (for both BEVs and ICE vehicles). So I'm sure we'll continue to get a better picture as research continues. But it's incorrect to insinuate that these issues have not been accounted for.

[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac7cfc

[mtmail]

I wouldn't expect a 368 word article go to deep into all EV lifecycle issues or studies.

[capableweb]

Wouldn't that be a part of the "energy expended to produce" part of the statement? Maybe it's intentionally ambiguous, misleading if so.