Do electric cars really produce fewer carbon emissions than petrol or diesel vehicles?
Jasper Jolly
The Guardian
23 December 2023·
Photograph: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock
There is a spectre haunting electric cars: the question of greenwashing. What if, for all the green hopes attached to zero-emissions cars, the truth is that they fail to achieve their main goal of cutting world-heating carbon emissions?
Our EV mythbusters series has looked at some of the most persistent criticisms of electric cars, ranging from car fires to battery mining, range anxiety to cost concerns. This article asks: do electric cars really produce fewer carbon emissions than petrol or diesel?
The claim
In the US, the Florida senator Rick Scott said there was “ample evidence to suggest that EVs are not as clean as people are being led to believe and folks deserve to know the truth”. He and other Republican colleagues introduced the (suggestively named) “Directing Independent Research To Yield Carbon Assessment Regarding Electric Vehicles (DIRT Y CAR EV) Act”, which tried to call for analysis of the carbon footprint of vehicles.
A recent article in the UK’s Daily Mail reported that “the environmental benefit of electric cars may never be felt” because many electric vehicles “will never hit their mileage target as owners upgrade to newer models, leaving swathes of used electric cars sitting unwanted on garage forecourts”.
But it is not only the rightwing press. In June, the Guardian published an article by the actor Rowan Atkinson in which he said he felt “duped” by EVs’ carbon claims and that the reality was “very different”, citing Volvo research suggesting greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are almost 70% higher than when manufacturing a petrol one.
“It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis,” Atkinson wrote.Interactive
The science
Any assessment of carbon emissions associated with a product needs to look at its whole life cycle, from manufacture to scrapping (and, hopefully, recycling). Many claims about electric cars’ supposedly worse environmental toll focus on manufacturing and ignore the actual use of the cars.
The grain of truth in the criticism is that EVs do indeed take significantly more energy to manufacture. Battery production requires large amounts of electricity to heat ovens to bake electrode materials, and to charge and discharge the battery to prepare it for use. While electricity can be produced with zero emissions, most countries still burn carbon-heavy fossil fuels to turn generators. Analysis by the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, cited by the US Environmental Protection Agency, suggests that manufacturing battery cars produces about 60% more carbon emissions than their fossil fuel cousins.
That means that electric cars start with a big carbon disadvantage, sometimes described as a “carbon debt”. However, Eoin Devane, a senior analyst for surface transport at the Climate Change Committee, the UK government’s climate science adviser, said: “If you look at the data, that ‘carbon debt’ is paid off within about two years of driving the vehicle.”
The vast majority of fossil fuel cars’ carbon footprint comes in use, when exhaust pipes constantly spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Transport & Environment (T&E), a campaign group, calculates that a new petrol car will produce about 27 tonnes if driven for 100,000 kilometres (62,000 miles), and 49 tonnes over 200,000km.
Electric cars, by contrast, use less energy and can charge from zero-carbon sources. Just how much greener electric cars can be in operation depends on how much renewable electricity is used in local grids. Transport & Environment has a handy online calculator that allows you to play with the grid, choosing between different countries’ energy mixes and whether the battery was made in carbon-heavy China or greener Sweden. Where the lines cross indicates how many miles are needed for a battery car to win on carbon emissions.
Lucien Mathieu, T&E’s cars director, said that even if you choose a worst-case scenario – vehicles made and driven with electricity largely from coal – the electric car will win out after about 70,000km (about six years of driving). “The more you drive an electric car, the better it gets,” he said.
The picture for electric cars will improve as power from the wind and the sun replace gas and oil, reducing carbon emissions from generating electricity. Colin Walker, the head of transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, said: “Even if you have a really dirty grid, EVs are still better for the environment. That will keep going as the grid gets cleaner and cleaner.”
We also need to take into account the future of the technologies. Auke Hoekstra, an energy transition researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology, said emissions from fossil fuel cars cannot fall much further, meaning they are not a viable technology for a zero-emissions world. Yet battery development is still in relative infancy, and is likely to tip the balance further in favour of electric cars.
Batteries are “a good endgame solution” for the transition to net zero, Hoekstra said. “The gasoline engine is basically going nowhere.”
Any caveats?
Batteries are not the only way to get cars to net zero. You can fill them with “e-fuels” – petrol made with carbon from the air, hydrogen from water, and green electricity. That technology works and will probably be used to power classic cars long into the future. Other people advocate using the hydrogen in fuel cells to run a motor.
However, in either case the energy efficiency is drastically lower than using that electricity directly, and the fuel is likely to be needed for planes, which are much harder to decarbonise.
And there was an important point in Atkinson’s Guardian article: replacing an old, little-used car with a brand new electric car may not make sense because of the “carbon debt”.
“If the vehicle is not being regularly used there is certainly a case to wait until the point you’re going to replace it anyway,” said the CCC’s Devane. However, he and others cautioned that any calculation of relative carbon savings for individuals would be complicated. And, Hoekstra added, “not having an electric car is better for the environment” if you can rely on public transport instead.
The verdict
The scientific consensus is overwhelming: on any realistic like-for-like comparison a battery car will be cleaner than its petrol or diesel equivalent. Burning fossil fuels to make and drive electric cars will still cause emissions, but at a lower level than inefficient fossil fuel engines.
That is true of today’s grid (in richer economies, at least) but in tomorrow’s grid the benefits will grow as long as countries continue to shift away from coal and gas to generate electricity. Putting batteries in cars so far appears to be the only practical way to shift the tens of millions of light vehicles sold every year towards net zero emissions.
Making the switch to electric vehicles: ‘The biggest shock was the huge savings’
Jem Bartholomew
23 December 2023·
Photograph: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock
There is a spectre haunting electric cars: the question of greenwashing. What if, for all the green hopes attached to zero-emissions cars, the truth is that they fail to achieve their main goal of cutting world-heating carbon emissions?
Our EV mythbusters series has looked at some of the most persistent criticisms of electric cars, ranging from car fires to battery mining, range anxiety to cost concerns. This article asks: do electric cars really produce fewer carbon emissions than petrol or diesel?
The claim
In the US, the Florida senator Rick Scott said there was “ample evidence to suggest that EVs are not as clean as people are being led to believe and folks deserve to know the truth”. He and other Republican colleagues introduced the (suggestively named) “Directing Independent Research To Yield Carbon Assessment Regarding Electric Vehicles (DIRT Y CAR EV) Act”, which tried to call for analysis of the carbon footprint of vehicles.
A recent article in the UK’s Daily Mail reported that “the environmental benefit of electric cars may never be felt” because many electric vehicles “will never hit their mileage target as owners upgrade to newer models, leaving swathes of used electric cars sitting unwanted on garage forecourts”.
But it is not only the rightwing press. In June, the Guardian published an article by the actor Rowan Atkinson in which he said he felt “duped” by EVs’ carbon claims and that the reality was “very different”, citing Volvo research suggesting greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are almost 70% higher than when manufacturing a petrol one.
“It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis,” Atkinson wrote.Interactive
The science
Any assessment of carbon emissions associated with a product needs to look at its whole life cycle, from manufacture to scrapping (and, hopefully, recycling). Many claims about electric cars’ supposedly worse environmental toll focus on manufacturing and ignore the actual use of the cars.
The grain of truth in the criticism is that EVs do indeed take significantly more energy to manufacture. Battery production requires large amounts of electricity to heat ovens to bake electrode materials, and to charge and discharge the battery to prepare it for use. While electricity can be produced with zero emissions, most countries still burn carbon-heavy fossil fuels to turn generators. Analysis by the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, cited by the US Environmental Protection Agency, suggests that manufacturing battery cars produces about 60% more carbon emissions than their fossil fuel cousins.
That means that electric cars start with a big carbon disadvantage, sometimes described as a “carbon debt”. However, Eoin Devane, a senior analyst for surface transport at the Climate Change Committee, the UK government’s climate science adviser, said: “If you look at the data, that ‘carbon debt’ is paid off within about two years of driving the vehicle.”
The vast majority of fossil fuel cars’ carbon footprint comes in use, when exhaust pipes constantly spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Transport & Environment (T&E), a campaign group, calculates that a new petrol car will produce about 27 tonnes if driven for 100,000 kilometres (62,000 miles), and 49 tonnes over 200,000km.
Electric cars, by contrast, use less energy and can charge from zero-carbon sources. Just how much greener electric cars can be in operation depends on how much renewable electricity is used in local grids. Transport & Environment has a handy online calculator that allows you to play with the grid, choosing between different countries’ energy mixes and whether the battery was made in carbon-heavy China or greener Sweden. Where the lines cross indicates how many miles are needed for a battery car to win on carbon emissions.
Lucien Mathieu, T&E’s cars director, said that even if you choose a worst-case scenario – vehicles made and driven with electricity largely from coal – the electric car will win out after about 70,000km (about six years of driving). “The more you drive an electric car, the better it gets,” he said.
The picture for electric cars will improve as power from the wind and the sun replace gas and oil, reducing carbon emissions from generating electricity. Colin Walker, the head of transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, said: “Even if you have a really dirty grid, EVs are still better for the environment. That will keep going as the grid gets cleaner and cleaner.”
We also need to take into account the future of the technologies. Auke Hoekstra, an energy transition researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology, said emissions from fossil fuel cars cannot fall much further, meaning they are not a viable technology for a zero-emissions world. Yet battery development is still in relative infancy, and is likely to tip the balance further in favour of electric cars.
Batteries are “a good endgame solution” for the transition to net zero, Hoekstra said. “The gasoline engine is basically going nowhere.”
Any caveats?
Batteries are not the only way to get cars to net zero. You can fill them with “e-fuels” – petrol made with carbon from the air, hydrogen from water, and green electricity. That technology works and will probably be used to power classic cars long into the future. Other people advocate using the hydrogen in fuel cells to run a motor.
However, in either case the energy efficiency is drastically lower than using that electricity directly, and the fuel is likely to be needed for planes, which are much harder to decarbonise.
And there was an important point in Atkinson’s Guardian article: replacing an old, little-used car with a brand new electric car may not make sense because of the “carbon debt”.
“If the vehicle is not being regularly used there is certainly a case to wait until the point you’re going to replace it anyway,” said the CCC’s Devane. However, he and others cautioned that any calculation of relative carbon savings for individuals would be complicated. And, Hoekstra added, “not having an electric car is better for the environment” if you can rely on public transport instead.
The verdict
The scientific consensus is overwhelming: on any realistic like-for-like comparison a battery car will be cleaner than its petrol or diesel equivalent. Burning fossil fuels to make and drive electric cars will still cause emissions, but at a lower level than inefficient fossil fuel engines.
That is true of today’s grid (in richer economies, at least) but in tomorrow’s grid the benefits will grow as long as countries continue to shift away from coal and gas to generate electricity. Putting batteries in cars so far appears to be the only practical way to shift the tens of millions of light vehicles sold every year towards net zero emissions.
Making the switch to electric vehicles: ‘The biggest shock was the huge savings’
Jem Bartholomew
The Guardian
23 December 2023·
Photograph: Doug Houghton/Alamy
From the bottom of Max Berman’s garden in High Wycombe, he can see the M40 motorway, with cars shooting between London and Birmingham up one of England’s great asphalt veins. On some days, Berman says, he can see the diesel fumes suspended in the air.
It was this awareness of pollution that led Berman, a 50-year-old working in the film industry, to switch to an electric vehicle (EV) in 2019. He found a pre-owned Volkswagon e-up! for £6,500 on eBay. Now Berman’s car is one of more than 940,000 fully electric vehicles on UK roads, according to government data.
Most electric cars are already cheaper over the long term than petrol or diesel, according to research organisation Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and the UK government’s Climate Change Committee said in October that EVs “will be significantly cheaper than petrol and diesel vehicles to own and operate over their lifetimes”.
That means Berman’s EV switch is one that many households are considering. And from 1 January, carmakers must ensure at least 22% of new UK cars sold are fully electric, which raises incrementally to an eventual 100% by 2035.
But there are drawbacks. There are 52,602 public chargipoints for EVs in the UK, government figures show, up by 44% on last year, but still well below the 2030 target of 300,000 public stations.
Nearly half of EV drivers still suffer “range anxiety”, a YouGov poll found. And EV purchases are on average more expensive than petrol or diesel cars upfront, a significant roadblock for lower-income households.
Expensive cars were cited in September by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, for delaying the ban on petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035, a move which attracted scorn for a U-turn on a popular green policy. The “upfront cost is still high, especially for households struggling with the cost of living,” Sunak said.
Ahead of the new 22% EV requirement on 1 January, the Guardian spoke to drivers who got in touch to share their plans.
‘The biggest shock was the huge savings’
After going electric, “the biggest shock with electric driving was the huge savings,” Berman says. He estimates reductions of about £1,000-a-year on fuel and hundreds on service fees. It costs roughly 1p-a-mile to run, he says, compared with about 16p for his old petrol VW.
Berman says EVs make total sense for short journeys. But he travelled 420 miles – and back – to collect his mother from Stirling, Scotland, for Christmas, which meant two stops at roadside charging stations.
“My mum’s about to experience motorway electric driving for the first time as well, which might be a bit of a hair-raiser,” he said, speaking before the trip. “We’re in the hands of the gods.”
Yet overall, he is happy to be electric. “I love it,” Berman says – feeling like he’s making an effort not just for the wider push towards a net zero carbon future, but decreasing local pollution and smog for his two children, too.
‘It feels the right thing to be doing’
Don Sims, a 51-year-old doctor in Birmingham, will switch to electric in 2024. He is buying a new Kia Niro EV with a £30,000 upfront payment.
“It feels like its a no-brainer” for the environmental benefits, Sims says. He does feel some range anxiety, over visiting his daughter at university, but “it feels the right thing to be doing,” he says.
Sims hopes with far fewer moving parts, the maintenance will prove much cheaper over the vehicle’s lifetime – after being forced to splash out £1,200 last month on a clutch for his current Ford Focus – and estimates the on-the-road costs will be 25% to 50% lower than fuel expenditure.
Sims enjoyed test-driving the Niro. “Quiet, smooth, easy to drive – but automatic, which is just weird I think,” he says.
‘It’s totally impossible’
Yet many people cannot afford the upfront fees. South Wales pensioner Stephen Coates, 74, said he would like to swap his 15-year-old VW Passat for an EV but prices are too high and charge points too sparse.
“I’m someone who believes we need to look after our environment – we need to look after the plants and the trees and everything – and with six young grandchildren now, I need to be aware that what I do now will probably have a great impact upon them in the future when they’re young adults,” Coates says. Yet the £23,000 for an EV he checked out is too expensive.
Coates says he and his wife are on the fixed income of the state pension and two private pensions and the initial cost of going electric makes it “totally impossible”. “Obviously now with all the cost of living things, food going up, it makes it just manageable to get through the month with buying the food and paying the utility bills.”
Moreover, Coates says, the terrace houses in his Welsh town make it difficult to charge EVs, unless you “run cables across the pavement,” which would be “quite dangerous”. Coates says there are only six public sockets nearby.
‘Electric cars for me are a long way off’
Sue Horton-Smith says she realised it was time to replace her nine-year-old diesel Renault Clio when she got fined for driving in Bristol’s clean air zone recently.
But when Horton-Smith, a 67-year-old retired from the education sector, began looking at options, she says EVs did not seem possible. She lives on a terraced road in Greater Manchester, often travels long distances to Cornwall, and feels there has been a lack of government investment in electric infrastructure. She says a decent scrappage scheme for older fuel-guzzling cars would have been helpful to incentivise going greener.
“I honestly can’t see how I’ll ever be able to have an electric car, compared to people like my brother who has a garage and off-street parking,” she says. “Really, electric cars for me and my circumstances are a very long way off.”
Instead, Horton-Smith opted to buy a secondhand hybrid this autumn – a Renault Clio again – and is very happy with it. The only difference to get used to was the automatic gear system.
‘The infrastructure is getting there’
Darren Fox-Hall, a 53-year-old in Lincolnshire who works for an IT outsourcing firm, will go electric with a Škoda Enyaq in March next year.
Fox-Hall says his transition is smoothed out by it being a company car, which means he will pay a £560-a-month lease over four years but face no initial outlay, except installing a home charge socket for £1,500. That is slightly more than his monthly lease of £460-a-month, he says, but with fuel and tax significantly less, costs are lower.
He says his one worry is charging availability on longer journeys, such as taking his wife and three children on holiday to Cornwall.
“Doing a little bit of research, people [are] saying they’re financially slightly better off, which is great, but I don’t want to be stranded on the motorway because there’s no chargers,” Fox-Hall says.
However, he adds, “the infrastructure is getting there”.
23 December 2023·
Photograph: Doug Houghton/Alamy
From the bottom of Max Berman’s garden in High Wycombe, he can see the M40 motorway, with cars shooting between London and Birmingham up one of England’s great asphalt veins. On some days, Berman says, he can see the diesel fumes suspended in the air.
It was this awareness of pollution that led Berman, a 50-year-old working in the film industry, to switch to an electric vehicle (EV) in 2019. He found a pre-owned Volkswagon e-up! for £6,500 on eBay. Now Berman’s car is one of more than 940,000 fully electric vehicles on UK roads, according to government data.
Most electric cars are already cheaper over the long term than petrol or diesel, according to research organisation Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and the UK government’s Climate Change Committee said in October that EVs “will be significantly cheaper than petrol and diesel vehicles to own and operate over their lifetimes”.
That means Berman’s EV switch is one that many households are considering. And from 1 January, carmakers must ensure at least 22% of new UK cars sold are fully electric, which raises incrementally to an eventual 100% by 2035.
But there are drawbacks. There are 52,602 public chargipoints for EVs in the UK, government figures show, up by 44% on last year, but still well below the 2030 target of 300,000 public stations.
Nearly half of EV drivers still suffer “range anxiety”, a YouGov poll found. And EV purchases are on average more expensive than petrol or diesel cars upfront, a significant roadblock for lower-income households.
Expensive cars were cited in September by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, for delaying the ban on petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035, a move which attracted scorn for a U-turn on a popular green policy. The “upfront cost is still high, especially for households struggling with the cost of living,” Sunak said.
Ahead of the new 22% EV requirement on 1 January, the Guardian spoke to drivers who got in touch to share their plans.
‘The biggest shock was the huge savings’
After going electric, “the biggest shock with electric driving was the huge savings,” Berman says. He estimates reductions of about £1,000-a-year on fuel and hundreds on service fees. It costs roughly 1p-a-mile to run, he says, compared with about 16p for his old petrol VW.
Berman says EVs make total sense for short journeys. But he travelled 420 miles – and back – to collect his mother from Stirling, Scotland, for Christmas, which meant two stops at roadside charging stations.
“My mum’s about to experience motorway electric driving for the first time as well, which might be a bit of a hair-raiser,” he said, speaking before the trip. “We’re in the hands of the gods.”
Yet overall, he is happy to be electric. “I love it,” Berman says – feeling like he’s making an effort not just for the wider push towards a net zero carbon future, but decreasing local pollution and smog for his two children, too.
‘It feels the right thing to be doing’
Don Sims, a 51-year-old doctor in Birmingham, will switch to electric in 2024. He is buying a new Kia Niro EV with a £30,000 upfront payment.
“It feels like its a no-brainer” for the environmental benefits, Sims says. He does feel some range anxiety, over visiting his daughter at university, but “it feels the right thing to be doing,” he says.
Sims hopes with far fewer moving parts, the maintenance will prove much cheaper over the vehicle’s lifetime – after being forced to splash out £1,200 last month on a clutch for his current Ford Focus – and estimates the on-the-road costs will be 25% to 50% lower than fuel expenditure.
Sims enjoyed test-driving the Niro. “Quiet, smooth, easy to drive – but automatic, which is just weird I think,” he says.
‘It’s totally impossible’
Yet many people cannot afford the upfront fees. South Wales pensioner Stephen Coates, 74, said he would like to swap his 15-year-old VW Passat for an EV but prices are too high and charge points too sparse.
“I’m someone who believes we need to look after our environment – we need to look after the plants and the trees and everything – and with six young grandchildren now, I need to be aware that what I do now will probably have a great impact upon them in the future when they’re young adults,” Coates says. Yet the £23,000 for an EV he checked out is too expensive.
Coates says he and his wife are on the fixed income of the state pension and two private pensions and the initial cost of going electric makes it “totally impossible”. “Obviously now with all the cost of living things, food going up, it makes it just manageable to get through the month with buying the food and paying the utility bills.”
Moreover, Coates says, the terrace houses in his Welsh town make it difficult to charge EVs, unless you “run cables across the pavement,” which would be “quite dangerous”. Coates says there are only six public sockets nearby.
‘Electric cars for me are a long way off’
Sue Horton-Smith says she realised it was time to replace her nine-year-old diesel Renault Clio when she got fined for driving in Bristol’s clean air zone recently.
But when Horton-Smith, a 67-year-old retired from the education sector, began looking at options, she says EVs did not seem possible. She lives on a terraced road in Greater Manchester, often travels long distances to Cornwall, and feels there has been a lack of government investment in electric infrastructure. She says a decent scrappage scheme for older fuel-guzzling cars would have been helpful to incentivise going greener.
“I honestly can’t see how I’ll ever be able to have an electric car, compared to people like my brother who has a garage and off-street parking,” she says. “Really, electric cars for me and my circumstances are a very long way off.”
Instead, Horton-Smith opted to buy a secondhand hybrid this autumn – a Renault Clio again – and is very happy with it. The only difference to get used to was the automatic gear system.
‘The infrastructure is getting there’
Darren Fox-Hall, a 53-year-old in Lincolnshire who works for an IT outsourcing firm, will go electric with a Škoda Enyaq in March next year.
Fox-Hall says his transition is smoothed out by it being a company car, which means he will pay a £560-a-month lease over four years but face no initial outlay, except installing a home charge socket for £1,500. That is slightly more than his monthly lease of £460-a-month, he says, but with fuel and tax significantly less, costs are lower.
He says his one worry is charging availability on longer journeys, such as taking his wife and three children on holiday to Cornwall.
“Doing a little bit of research, people [are] saying they’re financially slightly better off, which is great, but I don’t want to be stranded on the motorway because there’s no chargers,” Fox-Hall says.
However, he adds, “the infrastructure is getting there”.
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