There has been a lot of mention on here about EV vs ICE emissions, this should answer most of the questions -
EV vs combustion engine: which car has fewer lifetime emissions?
By James Jennings
November 27, 2021
With many car manufacturers planning to either greatly reduce or entirely phase out combustion-engined vehicles over the next two decades – as governments, particularly in Europe, crack down on CO2 emissions – the buzz around electric cars grows by the day, driven by their zero tailpipe emissions.
Petrol and diesel-powered cars emit the harmful greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in varying amounts, but the overall effect is vast. In 2021, the American EPA estimates the average passenger car in that gas-guzzling country produces 4.6 metric tonnes of CO2 per year, while locally, data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries reveals the 2020 average emissions intensity for passenger cars was 149.5gm per kilometre driven, which adds up to just over 1.98 tonnes of CO2 annually per car.
There are more than 1 billion cars on the road, worldwide, which helps you to understand how road transport is estimated to make up between 15 and 30 per cent of carbon-dioxide emissions each year, depending on which country you’re in.
While the environmental benefits of zero-emission electric vehicles seem clear, there are other less-obvious pluses.
The energy efficiency of EVs compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles significantly tips in favour of the former, according to the US Department of Energy, as EVs convert 77 per cent of the energy in their batteries to power at the wheels, whereas ICE vehicles only convert between 12 and 30 per cent of the energy stored in petrol to power at the wheels.
When the environmental life cycle of an electric vehicle is taken into account – including the greenhouse gases created during production, and potentially the burning of fossil fuels to produce the electricity that powers them – they are far from carbon neutral.
Many car companies have pledged to improve this equation, however, with Polestar – the fully electric offshoot of Volvo – pledging to build the world’s first entirely carbon-neutral car, the Polestar 0, by 2030.
Fredrika Klaren, Polestar’s head of sustainability, has compared the goal to a moon shot.
“Just like JFK, we don’t know how to land on the moon but we know that we need to do it,” she says. “We’re putting the goal out there and then we’re building the road map as we go along.”
In part, this will mean creating a car-assembly plant that is carbon neutral and runs on green energy alone, something Audi has already achieved as part of its “Mission: Zero” goal.
Its factory in Brussels, where the Audi e-tron EV is built, was awarded a certificate for CO2-neutral production in 2018, thanks in part to the fitment of Europe’s largest solar rooftop. Audi has pledged to make all of its production facilities carbon neutral by 2025.
One method used to monitor the greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles is called “well-to-wheel”, which is broken down into two parts: well-to-tank, which are the emissions created when producing the fuel (or electricity) for the car; and tank-to-wheel, which measures the efficiency and emissions associated with the operation of the vehicle.
While EVs produce high well-to-tank greenhouse gas emissions during electricity generation, the CO2 tank-to-wheel emissions are zero, unlike ICE cars.
If renewable energy like wind, hydro or solar is the source of an EV’s electricity – something the average Australian buyer can easily achieve by installing solar panels on their house – the well-to-tank rating can drop close to zero.
Car manufacturers are also increasingly using sustainable materials for car interiors, particularly in EVs, including recycled plastic waste for trims, floor mats and seats.
Audi’s new Q4 e-tron SUV, for example, features 27 components that contain recycled materials, including seat upholstery that uses polyester fibres obtained from recycled PET bottles and old textiles.
Other sustainable materials include kenaf (made from a plant in the mallow family), hemp, eucalyptus and wood (all used for BMW’s i3 EV), as well as cork, which the Mazda MX-30 Electric uses for its console (the car also uses eco-friendly vegan-leather upholstery, also seen in Teslas and Volvos).
Car manufacturers have also turned their attention to the time when EV batteries will begin to reach the end of their life cycles. Nissan and Renault have implemented ways to recycle and reuse EV batteries, and Volkswagen plans to recycle up to 3600 battery packs during the first year of operation of its new recycling plant in Salzgitter, Germany – a process that will extract precious cathode metals like cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese for reuse.
Regardless of the sustainability and carbon-footprint challenges for manufacturers of EVs, their superiority in terms of environmental impact is clear.
A 2021 white paper published by the International Council on Clean Transportation compared the lifetime carbon emissions, both today and in 2030, of mid-sized vehicles in Europe, the US, China, and India across a variety of powertrain types.
The study found that all-electric vehicles in Europe produced 66 to 69 per cent less carbon-dioxide emissions than comparable ICE vehicles. In the US, a typical EV produced 60 to 68 per cent less emissions over its lifetime.