“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
Arthur Ashe
Photo by averie woodard on Unsplash
If you’ve been along for the ride, this is the final article in my series on electric vehicles. In case you want to catch up, here is part one and part two. Today I’m pulling it all together to answer the question – are electric vehicles really a climate change solution?
Manufacturing our cars
When we look at the carbon footprint of any product, we need to consider emissions from manufacturing and transporting the product as well as those created while using the product. Manufacturing EVs creates more CO2 than manufacturing gas-powered cars (mostly because of the EV battery). Skeptics are quick to point this out, and they are correct. But it’s only part of the story.
Powering our vehicles
Cars are made for driving, and both EVs and internal combustion cars and trucks need energy for power. In the case of traditional cars, it’s gas. For EVs, it’s electricity. Both forms of energy can create heat-trapping emissions, but gas has several additional downsides: it is more expensive, has price volatility, pollutes the air, and releases CO2 through the exhaust – a.k.a. tailpipe emissions.
As for EVs, the source of the electricity used to power them depends on where you live. For many people it is clean energy, for some it is natural gas, and for a declining percentage it’s coal. Even if the energy comes from coal (the dirtiest from of energy), EVs are still cleaner and use less overall energy than gas-powered vehicles.
Indeed, EVs produce more “up-front” CO2 emissions than other vehicles. That said, they make up the difference within a year or two by their lack of tailpipe emissions, and are cleaner from that point forward. Internal combustion cars rely on gas and oil continuously, so there are significantly more emissions over their lifecycle.
Only up from here
Importantly, the benefits of EVs are on the upswing because of:
- An increasing percentage of clean energy in the power grid
- Improvements in lithium-ion battery recycling
- Better battery technologies
- More domestic lithium extraction and better techniques
- More efficient EVs with longer range
A climate change solution?
As I pointed out in the first article, transportation produces 28% of all heat-trapping emissions. The simple solution would be for us to drive less by biking, using public transportation, combining errands, etc. But let’s be real, in much of the United States, we need cars. So the next most obvious thing to do is improve our cars.
All things considered, do EVs really help solve climate change? EVs are dirtier to build, but cleaner to drive. Since vehicles are driven for years, the answer is yes. Are EVs a perfect solution? Nope. Then again, every solution comes with tradeoffs. We need to shoot for better, then keep improving from there. If we hold out for perfect, it will be too late.
What can we do?
EVs aren’t for every person or for every family, but if you’re in the market for a car, at least check them out. There are a growing number of new and used options across price ranges. In the meantime, look for ways to reduce the amount you drive. It will save you money and help decarbonize at the same time. Win-win.
Let’s do something about climate change. Learn about it. Think about it. Talk about it.