Are Electric Cars Actually Good for the Environment?

wow after 26000 miles its already better than the toyota, thats shorter than i thought, based on average yearly mileage thats just 2 years and the saved emissions only grow further from there

EV do not use engine, transmission and gear oils that need to be maintained. EV's powertrain has ~90% less parts ( therefore less to maintain). Living in a big home and eating too much (especially beef ) are also not good for the environment.

If they keep releasing electric vehicles like they are brand new iphones, and people upgrade to a new model every year then yes electric will be worse for the environment.

Videos like this are almost as misleading as videos that dismiss the current environmental impact of electric vehicle production. Tailpipe emissions are just part of the picture when comparing electric vehicles to combustion engines. Combustion engines require oil to reduce friction and lower the engine temperature. They also requires transmission fluid. Although these aren't replaced as often as gasoline, there is a significant environmental cost associated with production and waste disposal. This would be eliminated with the use of electric vehicles.

Most combustion engines still idle when a vehicle is not moving, expelling exhaust. Electric vehicles use hardly any electricity when they're not moving. There's also the matter of the inefficiency of combustion engines. 60-68% of the heat generated from burning fuel is released into the atmosphere. Lest than 40% of the total energy delivers power to the wheels and other components. Electric vehicles have consistently shown efficiency factors as high as 90%. This has a tremendous effect on the amount of fossil fuels needed to generate the electricity for charging.

Sometimes when analyzing a shift to different technology, we get hung up on the fact that it doesn't fix everything all at once. Much like combustion vehicles, which were noising, dirty, and far less efficient than they are now, the production and operation of EVs will improve over time as more people use them. Over time, there will be a strong incentive to manufacture batteries from other materials. Yes, increased use of public transportation is part of the answer, but electric vehicles replacing gasoline cars is part of it as well.

First, all the fossil fuel plants need to be replaced with nuclear power plants. Second, the entire rail infrastructure needs to be electrified.

Utrecht is the future role model

Pleasantly surprising seeing this coming from a leftist organization. Good job Gravel Institute!

Adding an extra 50% of weight to all vehicles will save energy and be good for the environment :/

Bumper cars with the overhead electric grid would be good.

Retired, divested all my market investments the day before Biden took office and never went back, YET ! Knew he was ant- fuel zealot . Said he would cancel leases etc and did. EV are a scam.

EV manufacturers, like Tesla, are funded by US. Not the market. Obama financed Tesla with our tax money. Among other climate B.S.

Funny how they keep saying electric is the future yet EVs and the batteries are not 100% recyclable.

They suck

I’ll take the train when Biden closes the border, gets rid of crime

Silly. No one ever said electric cars are good for the environment. .

The most enviromenyaly friendly var typ buy is a used car. A car that did not need to be produced for you to use it.

So as always it's what the government and businesses want to make more money, not what's better for us and the planet 🙄

There is NO WAY public transport will be the dominant mode of transport. It's too inconvenient. It's one thing to take the bus or train to work everyday, but the logistics of using pt for just about everything else, when you want to get from A to B quickly, to go shopping, visit friends and family, going out for leisure, just about every time you're going somewhere specific not within walking distance. It's just not feasible. And pt infrastructure isn't sufficient NOW let alone if EVERYONE relied on it. The only people that use public transport either don't have a car or use it for getting around a busy city or to avoid traffic, not for everyday tasks. And no ones going to pay to have a car and only use it when absolutely necessary

No discussion of DEAD BATTERY DISPOSAL POLLUTION ❓

Cars suck… period. they are horribly inefficient and wasteful, let’s tear it all down, build back up the trains, buses bikes refurbish the city roads as walkways and the highways ripped up and replaced with forests

Most cars will hit 26,000 lifetime miles. Correct me if I'm wrong.

hypocrisy

This article is b.s. you act like the only way to make Electricity is threw coal plants. Are you aware of how few coal plants are in America? Or how fast solar is growing? And mining, there are batteries out the that use 0 cobalt in electric cars. New tec has changed the battery game. We can 100% recycle batteries now. The days of strip mining is over.

Stop cutting trees down , start with that problems?😊

it's funny because they hold the working man liable, but corporations produce 70% of global emissions. The average hard-working citizen only produces 30% of global emissions.

the problem is animal agriculture. transport is not that bad and would be reduced by stopping the 80 billion animals to be transported and their feeds.

Sure walking and PT are important factors, but electric cars will be a huge step in the right direction. This video is b.s.

Not just public transit, but 24/7 public transit. People will still own cars if you shut down the public transit at night.

So you only have to drive an electric 26000 miles to break even with a gas car if (1) the battery minerals were mined rather than recycled and (2) you power it with coal (which is not true in areas where EVs are most popular). In any case, both of these are mitigated as the industry scales. So the more people buy EVs, the cleaner they are when compared to gas cars. My EV was made with mined battery minerals, but I power it with solar, so it's already cleaner than gas after about 7500 miles.

This is why I support electric cars in EU, but not in US. First, variety of options for electric cars in EU is greater (I mean look at your slides, you show only Tesla like it is the only electric car that exists). In EU electric cars often are the cheapest option. Second, public transport is much better so there is already smaller dependency on cars vs the US. A lot of city dwellers only use their cars for weekly shopping trips. Third, in some EU countries renewable energy production is now over 50% of total energy produced whereas in US it is barely 15%. Fourth, EU has big plans for old and used car batteries (they will be re-used in things like public lights and other less demanding tasks since used batteries can still hold charge, they are just not suitable for something as powerful as electric car) whereas in US it goes into landfill (like most things, cause recycling barely exists in the US).

So US has tons of shit to figure out before it is even ready for electric cars.

My answer to the question "are electric cars the future?" is:
Cars aren't the future, but electric cars are the future for cars.

I think we all know the Socialism is the best answer, but before that happens, I think the obsolescence of cobalt and beating the 42% adoption rate goes a long way towards fixing the problem.

Tibet isn't a country

Cobalt is less and less! Lithium is much better than Oil. Oceans Horizon and Exon Valdese ... Lithium (oil) spill will never happen! Oil puddles in the parking spots of walmart.... Oil is killing the world NOT LITHIUM. Every 6 mths I would need to change the oil in the engine on my ICE car. I have drive 150,000 - 200000 miles (26,000 to break even) 15x's the break even point.

Getting more people to use public transportation faces a lot of the same obstacles as EV's. Life style changes. People want to go where ever they want, whenever they want. Not to mention the logistics of traveling as a family. People don't want to check bus schedules. Just like people don't want to wait hours for their car to charge. The just want to gas up and go.

Electric car tires wear out 3 times faster because of the battery weight

What's this 'Electric cars have relatively low tailpipe emissions'?....The have none, zero!

So you are saying walkable cities are better than electric cars.

Good exposition and full systems thinking. Ernest Callenbach's book, "Ecotopia" illustrates how this can work.

The trouble with Ev's.
1. Range anxiety.
2. Explosion fears.
3. 60% depreciation.
4. Elon Musk's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
5. Exploited Third World child labor.
6. They brick in cold weather.
7. Insanely high insurance rates due to repair costs and the liability of exploding batteries.
8. Insurance companies writing off ev's in a minor crash.
9. Ev battery replacement up to $60,000 or more.
10. Inadequate charging stations powered by diesel generators.
11. Non eco-friendly emissions in a fire and during the manufacturing process.
12. Ev's chew thru tires like a drunken sailor.
13. Tire and brake pollution.
14. Suspension failure.
16. Ev's chew thru brakes like a drunken sailor.
17. Pushed by the WEF.
18. No ability to charge EV if you live in an apartment.
19. Having to wait for EV to charge.
20. Charger point vandalism.
21. Collapsing electric grid cannot cope.
22. Lose charge range in cold weather.
23. If the manufacturer goes out of business, now you have to junk your EV, because it has become worth absolute zero.
24. Absolute nightmare to put out EV fires.
25. Electrical, electronic, and software problems will leave you stranded.
26. Toxic gas vapors from EV explosion will kill you.
27. Not suitable for road trips.
28. Rapid battery degradation over time as miles rack up.
29. Ev's too heavy for crash barriers (guard rails).
30. All Ev charging is paid for with digital currency.
31. Copper thieves are targeting EV charging cables and wind turbines.
32. Ev's are causing double the road damage.
33. Gaslighting from EV manufacturers is pouring gasoline on the fire of EV rejection.

Problem with making investments into public transit is that people live in sprawl. So they would still need their own car to take them to a bus stop.

I work with ev batteries. As of now, this is true. But. The hope is that in the future, they will be charged with renewable energy. There is also a lot of work and research being done on how to recycle old battery packs to reuse in order to reduce the resources needed for future production. So, over time, with new breakthroughs, ev will be even more environmentally friendly.

Now it makes sense why The world economic forum is pushing fifteen minute cities. All the lefty support them

Planning on taking a solar velomobile across the Trans Canada Trail. We can have the transportation paradigm shift if we demand it. Solar covered raised electric trams supporting micro-mobility Greenways. I hate car-culture. Plus I am starting to germinate the thousand walnut trees for these Greenways. Everyone can help.

So isn’t the solution to privatize public transit so that there will be innovation and people will want to use more efficient transportation options? The current public transit system is terrible and the reason people have their own cars isn’t because they are right wing, or anti-community, or selfish. It’s because public transit doesn’t work at the moment. And no amount of government investment is going to make public transportation work in its current state. There needs to be some sort of innovation to come along and make it appealing to people that have places to go.

Can we just get some damn trains in this country?!

What about 10 people on public transportation, doesn't that inflate the cost per mile? So finding a way to not only increase Public Transportation but getting people to use it is the real solution. In the meanwhile you have two unsustainable systems competing: Underutilized public transit and cars of any kind.

the green push is simply money!!!!!!!!!!!