[JohnMakin]

Unless your EV is powered by 100% renewables and you completely avoid plastic products somehow you're probably still consuming it in some way. Ethical consumption isn't really possible in today's world, unfortunately. Nearly anything you touch is the result of slave labor or human rights abuses somewhere.

[ziddoap]

>you're probably still consuming it in some way

Perfect is the enemy of good, etc.

Using less is better than using more. Buying as ethically as you are reasonably able to do is better than not trying to buy ethically at all.

[JohnMakin]

> Buying as ethically as you are reasonably able to do is better than not trying to buy ethically at all.

I'm not suggesting at all to do the latter - merely pointing out that the GP comment seemed to be under the impression that purchasing an EV vehicle was avoiding saudi oil. Many people are under similar impressions about their consumption choices. Being aware of the consequences of your choices is just as important.

[vel0city]

> purchasing an EV vehicle was avoiding saudi oil

Its avoiding a lot of Saudi oil. A 25mpg car over 150,000mi will go through 6,000gal of gasoline. That's ~308 barrels of oil just for the energy of moving the car.

A car will have ~400lbs of plastic parts. You'd need like 3.9 barrels of oil to make that plastic. Both a gas car and an EV will need this plastic.

You're going to use almost 100x as much oil driving the car around than the plastics in the car. A 100x reduction in oil use is significant. Quit pushing lies about how EVs still use a significant amount of oil, as if they're pretty much the same. Either you should be aware of the falsehoods you're suggesting or you need to be informed.

And no, the energy generation for an EV isn't anywhere near as significant as the oil use for burning in an ICE. In most modern grids a lot of that energy is going to come from locally produced natural gas, maybe still coal, some nuclear, and a decent chunk of renewables. Burning oil isn't that massive of an overall electricity source.

[vel0city]

It's still significantly reducing the amount of Saudi oil and support of global oil prices to drive an EV. The inability to make a perfect choice shouldn't mean you can't make any choice at all; if you're needing to pick either product A or B but product A is knowingly worse than B despite B still having some bad externalities you should probably pick B!

You'd have to really look deep to find oil for the electricity generated in my area. Practically have to talk about the insulation on the wires in my home or the lubricants on the turbines. It's practically all natural gas, wind, and solar powering my EV.