Do electric cars really produce less CO2 than petrol cars? | Plug Life Television episode 28

Many people are concerned that the environmental impact of manufacturing an electric vehicle’s battery, and producing electricity to charge it, means that EVs work our more carbon intensive than a new petrol or diesel car, but is this true? To find out, we’ll pit the average new ICE against the average new EV, crunching the carbon numbers for battery manufacturing and electricity production and comparing those to the emissions from refining and burning fuel. Let’s see how clean an EV is today, and how clean it could really be.
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[@andymohawk]

You do an amazing job of researching and presenting. What you do is of immeasurable importance. Thank you.

[@eamonstack4139]

Excellent as usual. Very useful, accessible video as reference site for ev-doubting-thomas'.

[@mickwilson127]

Brilliant as always Euan, economics and health the perfect storm

[@bruceharrison9798]

As usual Euan knocked it out of the park, good and proper. Many thanks.

[@offgridsolaruk843]

One thing many forget is the engine oil in all ICE cars and its yearly oil change, that's a lot of oil in itself!

[@bertlevis]

Very thorough , yet presented in such a way that the content is fully understood, thank you.

[@seanbranagh]

Excellent! Nothing I didn't already know but this video has still made me feel better when I step out of the house and see our Model 3 and our Leaf in the driveway :)

[@user-yn5sk5ru5g]

I'd say this myth was thouroughly debunked 👌

[@IDann1]

You can thank transport evolved for sending me over to this channel, well worth it.

[@benjaminford9932]

An excellent video. Clear presentation of factual information. Thank you very much.

[@rosskirkland3089]

Another excellent video Euan, thanks for sharing! :-)

[@mooremob100]

I thought you were very nice not including the Tanker operation they use bunker fuel which is the dirtiest fuel there is, a good informative video.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Thanks! Good point about bunker oil. The source of the oil and distance that it travels to the refinery have a considerable impact on the well-to-refinery carbon footprint, but some studies suggest that this, plus oil refining, can equate to as much as 15-40% of exhaust CO2 emissions of petrol and diesel cars - i.e. 15-40% added on top of the car's exhaust emissions.

[@MiniLuv-1984]

Australia has very little green energy - coal, gas and minor renewable (20%) and the government is pushing for gas fired power plants and insistence on digging up coal and exporting it. Add to this our appetite for heavy diesel 4x4 utilities, we can safely assume that any savings UK is making, we here in Australia are squandering it by the bucket load.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Reading the negative comments in response to the news that Sydney now buys all of its electricity from renewables, it's sadly clear that many Australians' attitudes are about 10-20 years behind the rest of the world, and it's driven by poor education - and deliberate misinformation - on renewables and the true economic and environmental impact of fossil fuels. The latter is particularly worrying given that last year's apocalyptic bush fires are still fresh on people's minds. Maybe Murdoch's strong media influence has something to do with it? The notable exceptions appear to be South Australia and Tasmania, which make good use of renewables. Even with the above being the case, any Australian can choose to run an EV very cleanly. Fitting solar panels to your house will create a renewable energy island in a sea of fossil fuels, so you'll be decarbonising your way into the 21st Century even if your neighbours and government are regressing back to the 1950s.

[@MiniLuv-1984]

@@PlugLifeTelevision exactly - on all counts. All driven by our over-exuberance and adoption of thatcherism

[@tonystanley5337]

@@MiniLuv-1984 Thather was a scientist and would have supported the drive against global warming, the UK would have benefited from investment in green tech, however other social policies such as selling off social housing (while well intentioned) didn't work, and the response to union corruption was not moral and the war against unions and drive to privatise everything (like the US) is short sighted and immoral. Trickle down economics also didn't work and seems still to be popular.

[@ipb1966]

Just found this channel. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you. Love the juxtaposition of the hi-tech subject and the ‘Plug Life’ typeface!

[@showme360]

Thank you and will share now!

[@mikeyonwin8195]

I stopped watching at 2:08. "Chassis" vs "Monocoque"? Then I continued watching. Your message at the end was "reduce the embodied carbon of your products, right from the off, and that makes them so much greener". Very laudable.

[@rrtind]

Can you make a video factoring in the extra weight of an EV? More weight is likely to shorten the tyre life, making tyre replacement more frequent and tyre manufacture is likely a reasonably dirty process. Also more weight on the road shortens the useable life of the road, meaning more frequent resurfacing work. Re-tarmac-ing a road is also not likely to be a clean process. To bring balance to the argument, I appreciate an EV will likely be more frugal on brake pad and disk material usage courtesy of regenerative braking. So I’m not trying to pick on negatives for EVs or for petrol cars, I just think there is more that needs covering to bring a truer representation of the carbon footprint for both petrol vehicles and EVs. Well done on this video and hope you can make more great videos!

[@StewartMidwinter]

It's true that an EV will weigh more than the identical vehicle running on petrol. But the majority of EV vehicle sold until now has been small, light sedans. The majority of petrol vehicles on North American roads at least are either large SUVs or pick up trucks. Those all way considerably more than the typical Tesla.

[@CaroAbebe]

Excellent explanation, thanks a lot!

[@ruaraidhmcdonald-walker9524]

Great episode Euan. Hope all's well. Cheers.

[@juanjoevchannel]

good video, clear, I just suscribe :)

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Thank you Juanjo, glad you liked it!

[@steve_787]

Wish I'd come across this video a few weeks back. Trying to explain this to some over comments on another EV related channel was like banging your head against a brick wall. Explaining that, as counter intuitive as it may seem, holding onto an ICE car for longer, is not always the "greener" option. Unless you are doing really low mileage then switch to a BEV on an average mileage pretty much offsets itself within 20-25k miles. But people just can't get their heads around it. Unless you go ICE>ICE then hold on as log as you can (ICE aren't always that much more efficient), ICE>BEV do it as soon as you can afford, but then back to hold as long as you can if going BEV>BEV.

[@MrSensible2]

You state with great conviction that the UK grid is getting cleaner. However you seem to have 'forgotten' that four of our remaining five nuclear generation sites are scheduled to shutdown in the next 2 to 4 years, leaving us with just Sizewell B until Hinkley Point C comes online at some unspecified point in the future. What will back-fill for the loss of this base load capacity? Not solar or wind for sure as they are too unreliable. More likely it will be gas & if we can't find enough gas, coal. That's not the grid getting greener is it??

[@hakantoptas6306]

Thanks a lot for the information. It may be a good idea to compare a new EV with converting the old ICE to EV.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Converting an old ICE to a new EV is undoubtedly greener since it immediately mitigates the embodied energy and carbon associated with building a new chassis. There are already several firms doing this in the UK, Ireland and the US amongst other nations, including Electric Classic Cars who have their own TV show on Quest called Vintage Voltage. I briefly touch upon these firms in the Plug Life Television episode "Watt Barriers: balancing social equality Part 1."

[@hakantoptas6306]

@@PlugLifeTelevision I think people should force goverments to force-convince ICE car makers to make conversion kits for their current models and train their service network for conversion and EV service.

[@DogsBAwesome]

Reducing CO2 emissions from cars is a laudable ideal but cars percentage of CO2 is fairly small. The best reason for the UK to go EV as far as I'm concerned is removing pollution from towns and cities.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

The reduction in urban pollution is a huge advantage of EVs. As such, public transport and delivery vehicles need to electrify as well. Of course, we should also be redesigning our urban centres to make them more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists, including the provision of rentable e-bikes and e-bike charging stations.

[@tonystanley5337]

According to the EU cars are the single biggest contributor. www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190313STO31218/co2-emissions-from-cars-facts-and-figures-infographics

[@DogsBAwesome]

@@tonystanley5337 biggest contributor in vehicle C02 emissions but that's only 60% of 30%

[@CarverElectric]

Excellent video, thank you. Need to re-watch this a few times to internalise everything.

[@Skylancer727]

Only issues now is that the average EV today has a bigger battery than the Leaf. So it makes the numbers a bit closer. Still, being only like 30% better than a modern Prius after 160K miles is pretty weak. I still say if the environment was really a concern we would be moving to alternative forms of transport as cars will always be one of the least efficient and resource intensive.

[@maxtorque2277]

BTW, one interesting fact that most people don't know is that the development of eMachines and batteries can uses the intrinsitic bi-directionality of there architecture to leverage much lower energy consumption during those tests. When an ICS is run on a test bed, it is mostly a total loss of energy. Ie the fuel it burns during the tests is wasted to low level heat in a water cooled eddy current dyno. Running say a calibration test bed for 6 months burns about 25,000 litres of fuel. In the best case, the test facility will use modern AC dynos, (which are electric motors being used as a generator) so at least some of the energy in the fuel being burnt then goes on to be useful to other processes (because it gets turned into electricity). However, the ratio of fuel energy to usefuel electrical energy is very low (typically well below 20%). When an eMachine is run however, it is most often run into another identical machine or electric motor. This "Back to back" testing means that one machine acts as a motor and drives the second machine acting as a generator. In this scenario, most the power actually cycles round in circles where the motoring machine turns electical power into mechanical work in the spinning shaft that connects the two machines and the generating machine turns that mech work right back into electrical power. This means that the actually power required to be added, from an external source is actually only the power required to overcome the total losses in the system. And because these losses are pretty small (typically around 7% per machine, 14% total) that external energy is actually pretty small. As an example, you can run a pair of 400kW electric machines back to back with less than 50kW of externally added power. And of course, that external power is electricity, which can be sources with a low carbon intensity (from local renewables, or from a high renewablly source grid) So, take a typical 1000 hour durability test: Typical 200 bhp ICE (@ 250 g/kWh) burns 37,313 kg of fuel, and releases 86.194 tonnes of CO2 (ignoring the CO2 required to extract,refine and transport that fuel) Typical 200 bhp eMachine (@93% efficiency with inverter) consumes 22,468 kWh of electricity, and at an average grid intensity of 250 g/kWH releases 5.6 tonnes of Co2

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Great point! The vast majority of battery labs I've used have discharged cells and modules back to the grid.

[@honesty_-no9he]

LG choosing Poland is maddening. Though it could help drive the change.

[@chargeheadsuk]

A fantastic video. I reckon an update is needed using a Tesla model Y as its the biggest selling EV everywhere at the moment and is surely going to last 300,000 miles plus 🤷‍♂️

[@TheWitchfinderGenral]

Excellent, concise information!

[@robertbooker7331]

Inspirational Euan thank you.

[@surreyshooter]

What about engine oil changes impacting the environment? Replacement exhaust systems? Spark plugs, gaskets? etc. etc. those 160,000 miles of a fossil fuel driving produce other outputs.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Spot on. The comparison only looks at manufacturing and driving, but as you point out, petrol and diesel aren't the only hydrocarbons consumed in an ICE. In general, there are far less oil-contaminated components swapped out of an EV during its lifetime than out of an ICE, although an EV still benefits from an oil change to its (fixed ratio) gearbox at major services.

[@timothydevries383]

Power generation plants and the grid also use massive amounts of energy to build and maintain. That is equivalent to a well, refinery and fuel logistics.

[@StewartMidwinter]

That remains to be proven.

[@frymate1261]

You need A LOT more subs

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Hehe, thanks! I've never been one to shout "Like and subscribe!" but if you like these videos, please feel free to point others towards this channel ;)

[@erstwhilegrubstake]

Was pointed here from the "Transport Evolved" channel.

[@simonsangster5404]

I got here via a link posted on the Kia e-Niro FBk group and am very impressed with the clear and detailed information - really useful and informative. In relation to this particular episode I'd be very interested in any comments you might have on Polestar's (=Volvo) recent climate impact analysis of its Polestar 2 EV vs Volvo XC4 petrol. This gives a CO2 break-even point of 70K miles at global energy CO2 production rates.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Thanks Simon! I'll need to check out Polestar's calculations in more detail. 70k miles sounds a bit steep, but the Polestar 2 will easily have a lifetime of 3x that at the very least I reckon, so it's still a net benefit.

[@tonyblighe5696]

Fantastic presentation. Thank you. The only change I would make would be to start with lifetime energy usage, which is indisputable. Then look at where that energy comes from and translate to CO2 in different scenarios.

[@FthePump]

Nice explanation

[@borodinojoe1850]

Good job.

[@error079]

Great video. Thank you!

[@zxcxz]

It's sad that BMW didn't do more with its head start. The i3 was manufactured in a mostly renewable-energy supplied factory and used recycled materials in many areas. Back in 2012 this was pretty revolutionary. Having done nothing more than produce the same car for 8 years is pretty poor.

[@mooremob100]

I have an account with Ecotricity for my home supply, which is 100% renewable, can I legally say that my Leaf runs on 100% renewable even though the electricity coming out of the socket is probably a mix, you will always have some one argue the opposite?

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

True, you'll always get naysayers who argue that you can't cherry pick your electrons. You can, however, pay for the same amount of energy that you consume from the grid, to be matched by renewable generation. In other words, you're only paying the owners/operators of wind turbines, solar panels, hydro plants etc for their electricity. Coal and gas plants don't get a penny from you. If they want to try to provide your electricity for free, they'll quickly go out of business. The advent of grid energy storage systems such as batteries and cryogenic air is starting to allow truly 24/7 provision of renewable power.

[@dogsdinner99]

What would be the additional CO2 and pollution cost to ICE cars of the building of oil drilling platforms, tankers and other shipping, and the fuel they use, and all the other infrastructure involved in fossil fuel production (saw you included refining). Yes we will still need some of this for production of other oil based products, chemicals, plastics etc, although it would be interesting to know how far we can get away from these as well. There certainly seems to be alternatives being found to oil based plastics

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

The short answer is it would add a few tonnes to the ICE calculations for sure. The video "The Dirty Truth about Combustion Engine Vehicles" delves into this in more detail: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5yQfaGLjqqLq68

[@dogsdinner99]

@@PlugLifeTelevision Yes seen that, great to the point video. Thanks 👍

[@mikebrett3002]

Euan - do your figures allow for (typical) distribution losses in the electricity supply? Or are they negligible in the context of other assumptions?

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Electricity losses will vary depending on the source of power, e.g. roof-mounted solar panels on your house vs a gas plant 150 miles away. Regardless of this, any loss in efficiency, and gain in carbon emissions, placed on the EV by grid losses will be offset by the embodied carbon associated with finding and extracting oil, shipping it to a refinery, then transporting refined petrol and diesel to petrol stations, which is not factored into the calculations in this video.

[@tonyblighe5696]

Average uk grid loss in 2019 was 7.6% of demand. www.gov.uk/government/collections/digest-of-uk-energy-statistics-dukes Some encouraging take-aways from this report: 2019 compared to 2010 Total electricity demand down 10% Renewables up x4 Fossil fuels down 51%

[@nunusengatv]

Nice explanation, thanks for sharing this information

[@anthonytrujillo106]

Not if they are charged quickly!!!! CARB lies about the efficiency of EVs! In their ARB/MSD/7-6-94 they claim that battery efficiency is 80% and motor is 90%. These are lies!!!! Charging a battery in one hour is 5.88% efficient. In 15 minutes it is only 0.3675%!! The motor efficiency depends on how many stops are made, each time it starts the motor and system efficiency are almost ZERO because of the motor starting current which also harms the battery!!!!

[@nervousfrog101]

Any chance you could do a video like this but for heat pump vs gas boiler?

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Brilliant suggestion, and incidentally one of the episodes that queued up in the editing suite!

[@John.0z]

These comments below are really minor, and I agree that the CO2 and other forms of pollution argument in favour of an EV is compelling. However, I have to make 2 points... I would dispute that claim about the Honda Insight Mk1 being the most efficient car. The VW XL1 was only a limited production car, but it was in production, and it is named because it could get 100km from 1L of diesel fuel. I would agree that the Honda is the most efficient *widely available* ICE production car, and with everything else you say in the comparison, except the engine life. The XL1 was not a sensibly priced car for wider production. But it is a production vehicle, and it is efficient. I would love to have a pure electric version of it, and I have no idea why VW has not even talked about something like it in their future range. I do think you are being very hard on the life cycle of modern ICE engines. My last car, a Toyota Corolla, started to give better fuel economy when it got to about 100,000km. So I interpret that as being that it had finally bedded in! There were no looming needs for engine work, but the air conditioning condenser had to be replaced. Many cars have been shown on KZbin after 300,000km with nothing but routine maintenance, and a lot can reputedly manage 500,000km. At that point a top-end inspection is probably a good idea, but many will still be OK after a bit of targetted parts replacement - like piston rings and maybe pistons. When Mercedes Benz introduced a new model of S-class about 20 years ago I was invited to attend. That model engine introduced a cylinder with embedded hard element technology that was claimed to reduce bore wear, so that sort of engine would be expected to give at least 500,000km. There may well still be a lot more heavy maintenance effort needed for an ICE driveline after many kilometers than an electric motor after the same distance; but this does say that the ICE engine life is much longer that 160,000 miles, and so the associated CO2 number should be assumed as lower in your calculations. On a different subject, have you heard that the Australian state of Victoria has chosen to add a new taxation on electric cars "to pay for road maintenance". That serves to show how powerful the oil and ICE car industries are here. This is in spite of all Teslas being expensive enough to be hit with a luxury car import tax. I am not sure if the (high) prices of the Ionic, Kona and Leaf are also affected.

[@zunayedhabib9814]

could u please add links to your sources

[@eddiestevenson-kaatsch6306]

May we have an analysis between battery EVs and Hydrogen/electric EVs?

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

That's a good suggestion, thanks! For a quick analysis, reduce the battery's embodied energy by about 80% (hydrogen cars still have batteries) and multiply the CO2 from driving by 2.5 to factor in the production of hydrogen from water and the lower efficiency of a fuel cell. As for the embodied energy and carbon of the fuel cell itself, this will require more info on its constituent materials, such as platinum, and its operational lifespan in miles. Until this info is known, it won't be accounted for in my above quick calculation.

[@MrSensible2]

Over the last 12 months, the carbon intensity of the UK power generation grid (all sources) worked out at 232 grams CO2/kWh. Assuming the average EV does 3 miles/kWh (4.82 km/kWh), that's equivalent to 48.1 g CO2/km. However power generated at the power station is not the same as charge in your EV's battery. About 9% of power generated is lost via grid transmission/distribution losses. Furthermore power is lost (converted to heat) every time you charge up your EV's battery. Recent tests by ADAC suggest an average loss of 16.2% over 15 different EVs. Factor in those losses & the average EV will emit the equivalent of 64 g CO2/km (for comparison, my little petrol car regularly does 90 g/km). Whilst this is better than most ICE cars, it's widely accepted that the process of making an EV (& especially its battery) generates 2.5x more CO2 than a conventional ICE car My weighs in at 840kg. A Tesla Y weighs 2 tonnes. Don't tell me the same amount of CO2 is released for both cars initial manufacture. Overall, the most efficient ICE cars compare favourably on CO2 emissions with the average EV & importantly, don't cost £30k+!! And one other thing you conveniently forgot to mention is TAX. Over my car's lifetime, I'll pay out great gobs of money on fuel duty/VAT, VED & it's a company car, BIK tax. What do EV drives contribute to the functioning of civic society by way of tax? BUGGER ALL!!! It's not solely about CO2 emissions is it?

[@maxtorque2277]

One factor that i've never seen being included is the development and certification overheads for the ICE. ICE vehicles require extensive development projects, involving many thousands of hours runing, both the engine on a engine dyno, and the vehicle at proving grounds and in teritory testing etc. That burns thousands of liters of fuel. They also must meet certification limits for tailpipe emissions (thousands more litres of fuel) and On Board Diagnostics (thousands more litres), In fact, a typical Tailpipe and EOBD project,that must be carried out one each and every single individual model (even if the engine used is identical) involves a thousand people, takes 3 years, and typically costs around £25M. None of that is required for an EV. You can take the motor out of one model and put it in another with hardly any re-certification requirement. The battery cells you use in your family saloon canbe used, without change and with a tiny amount of extra validation, in your premium SUV model. Batteries and motors are intrinsically scalable. Take the rotor or stator iron laminates. The machine that stamps them out can be identical between motors of different power levels , simply the more powerful motor uses more of the same laminate. You 100 bhp eMAchine might use 100 of them, and your 200bhp eMachine 200 of them, but the part, the process, the supply chain and the development and production processes required is shared and unchanged. Even the machine you build the motor on can build both, the only difference is that one motor is physically longer than the other. This parts sharing and the next level component sharing, leads to enourmous reduction in embedded carbon. The piston in a 1.6l ICE car is not the same as the piston in the 2.0l model, depsite looking broadly similar. The other important factor is that using certification tailpipe or economy figures is not representative of the real world. As an ICE wears out, it experience both increased consumption (because it's efficiency falls) and increased exhaust emissions. The OnBoard Diagnostics laws regognise this and allow the vehicle to produce around 50% more tailpipe emisisons at 150,000 km (93k miles) than when new! An EV is exactly as efficient at 150,000 miles as it is when new! (in fact, as the grid greens it's actually very likely to be cleaner!!) When you look at a battery pack,which is fundamentally parallel in architecture, and then look at a modern engine and gearbox, i find it hard to believe that the battery pack will have a greater production impact when built in the same volume. Look at a modern ICE. it's really, really, really complex. Turbo chargers, catalyst, particulate filters, EGR systems, variable valve trains, ondemand oil and water pumps, hgih pressure injectors and fuel pumps, active engine mounts, harmonic TV dampers, dynamic oil control systems, VGT actuators, electronic throttle bodies, multiple radiators and oil coolers, Extremely complex mulitspeed transmissions filled with unique gears, clutches,soilenoids, bearings, shafts, dogs and syncro's and much much more. Pretty much all of those parts are made from high grade materials, with complex multistage production like CNC machining, forging, heat treating. IMO, the only reason today an ICE has a lower impact per car made is because they are made in much higher volumes, so the overheads are amortised among a greater number of individual units. Once BEVs are produced in the same volume, and as ICE volumes fall comensurately, i think the anaylsis are going to show a massive shift in that production impact in favour of the BEV.....

[@davesmith9104]

Can you look at Sustainable fuels like P1 fuels and if that would make an ICE car win? Just thinking of the energy cost of making the fuel

[@wobby1516]

Whilst I would agree with most of what you say. Surly if the manufacturer of the chassis on an electric car can have a low carbon footprint if using renewable energy the same must apply to the petrol or diesel cars chassis.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Even if the chassis of a petrol or diesel car was somehow magically produced with zero embodied carbon, the emissions from running that engine would quickly surpass the lifetime embodied carbon of an EV.

[@induran2008]

Hi Euan, thanks for a great analysis. Would you mind citing your references for this video. I'm using it to raise capital for my gas-to-electric conversion company. Thanks.

[@wobby1516]

They’ll still be those who will never agree with you. I was ask by a man the other day, can that car, my Kona Electric, really go up steep hills on just an electric motor? To which I replied, can that train really haul all those carriages with an electric motor. People are surprised at how powerful an EV is and how cheap it is to run however they still think electricity and cars spell danger and at the moment quite expensive compared with an ICE.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Quite how people can be oblivious to the power of electric motors when, as you point out, they've been using them on high speed rail journeys for decades is beyond me. Even my 20kW Peugeot 106 Electric made it up the Dundee Law, and that's a pretty darn steep hill.

[@estebanod]

I have the same wallpaper in two pannels in my room

[@cptspinach]

Now imagine all of the now-electrified heavy equipment used to extract the resources. An electrified world will build on itself and support itself.

[@leftmorningstar6954]

i like my v8 amg , i gonna buy a new one and cut the convertors off for more fuel economy😁

[@mikebiddell9238]

Where's the comparison of the energy required to manufacture the drive train components factored in ?????? We seem to have energy for the battery pack, but no energy for the ICE engine and gear box?

[@cjmillsnun]

It's in the chassis calculation. The carbon required to produce an ICE car is similar to an EV minus the battery.

[@IleBudic]

Bull, why the average car, vs worst smallest EV available with a tiny range? Why not take the light small diesel engine vs Leaf. That's a good comparison. The best comparison would be similar interior space, similar range of travel so find an ev with a range as that of a diesel car with a similar interior volume. At this point you'd be comparing EV's that are FUNCTIONALLY the same as the diesel or gas car. So find an EV with range of say 500 miles it's cubic space it carries, then compare it to a diesel car. Also add the toxicity of batteries and you must add recycling.

[@steve_787]

The Leaf isn't the "smallest" EV going and has a fairly large battery (could have used the 44kWh leaf) and is more like a Ford Focus than a Fiesta. Maybe he could have used a Zoe or a Seat Mii. Don't get fixated on the image he used for an average petrol car. He did then go on to put the leaf up against a very small and efficient car and yet still beat it. I doubt it would have made much of a difference if he'd used a Model S

[@tonystanley5337]

Seem to have forgotten about the petrol/diesel Engine manufacturing energy.

[@frankdahlin]

And Oil and Coal extraction and transport and gearbox. Also I guess fossil cars could be produced using sun and wind energi.

[@JackFeelsNerves]

I’m always impressed with the level of detail and the obviously well-researched nature of your presentations Euan, well done. Can you do an episode about the tyre industry, please? I feel this is one last bastion of defence against EV adoption which needs thorough examination from an expert such as yourself.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Thanks! I'm glad you said tyre "industry," i.e. looking at tyres for all cars, not just EVs. There have been some scare stories about EVs producing more particles from tyre wear than petrol cars, and tyre wear producing more nanoparticulate matter than exhaust fumes. Both stories were quickly debunked; for starters, the tyres-worse-than-exhaust one claimed that your car tyres lose their mass so quickly that your car would literally end up running on its rims in less than 10,000 miles! The tyre industry is actively pursuing more sustainable materials and reduced wear, so it's something I'll cover when I get more info on the latest developments. In the meantime, Nokian make winter tyres for Teslas etc that are at least partially made from natural, sustainable materials.

[@jur4x]

There is good way to solve issues with Polish battery factory getting power from dirty grid - build those factories in Lithuania. Or Latvia. Though, Lithuania has cleaner grid thanks to interconnect with Sweden. Latvia is a bit dirtier because it imports some power from Estonia, where they run powerplants in Narva on oil shale, which apparently is even worse than coal. Latvia has some hydro, but all the big plants are located on the same river in cascade, so can't run simultaneously

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

True, it makes sense to build heavy industry in areas with cleaner grids. That's exactly why Northvolt are building a battery gigafactory in Sweden, and hydro-powered Norway are getting into the battery game too. Rumour has it that Dundee will soon be home to a large battery factory too, which thanks to North Scotland regularly powering itself entirely on wind and hydro, will be one of the cleanest battery factories in the world. For whatever reason, Poland remains a popular location for new battery factories, so there is extra emphasis on carpeting the roof in solar panels and building as many wind turbines as possible nearby.

[@jur4x]

@@PlugLifeTelevision They are relatively large country with large pool of workforce and wages that are lower than in Western Europe. And they are right in the middle of Europe geographically. What comes to energy though... Heavy coal lobby and government that is generally anti wind and not really supportive of solar.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

@@jur4x and having just seen their election results, it looks like it'll stay that way for another five years. Very sad for many reasons, with their carbon intensity and continued coal-related air quality and health issues being just some of them.

[@simongl1985]

Good video, there is just one problem. The batteries chemically degrade and you would need to replace them at about 10years. I doubt that you would get 160 000 with an EV in 10 years because that is 16000mi per year. Are there any data on the environmental damage that lithium mining causes that you could ad to this please? It would balance the argument.

[@cptspinach]

YES

[@nigelweir3852]

Yes

[@marcusulrich409]

Excellent analysis. Some considerations however: You consider a Nissan car with a battery made in the UK. However most of EV are coming from Asia with batteries made in China or Korea. All of these use not gas, but coal for their electricity. Poland heavily looks into atomic energy. How will this change the equation. Secondly Lithium is coming mainly from Chile and the mining is a heavy burden on the environment and the local population. >60% of the cobalt is coming form Kongo using child labour. I have some doubts if these factors are considered in the calaculation of the said study. Lastly, there are talks about "recycling" but currently none of the metals of a Li-ion battery are really recycled. Also recycled materials will not have the purity required to build new ones (unlike lead). So there is more work to be done on our road to green mobility. Keep it up. Thanks

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Hi Marcus. Good news: everything you mentioned above has already been considered: 1) My initial analysis for the EV was based on a battery built on a carbon-intensive grid. Countries like China and South Korea have a lot of coal power, but also have a lot of nuclear and an increasing amount of renewable energy, which averages out their grid carbon intensity to about the same as a 100% gas-fired grid; hence using gas as an example. It's interesting that you should highlight Poland; they currently have no nuclear power plants, and due to their excessive use of coal, they have one of the dirtiest power grids in the world. Besides, many battery and EV factories across the world have onsite renewables, such as BMW's Brilliance factory in Shenyang; it is possible to have a renewable energy island in a sea of fossil fuels, which in turn reduces the embodied carbon of the products from that factory. 2) Lithium mining in Chile is water-intensive, and this issue does need to be addressed. Thankfully there are plenty of other lithium sources in the world, as I highlight in the Watt Barriers series of Plug Life Television. On top of this, the UK has lithium-rich brines in Cornwall, which will provide a rich source of lithium (and other minerals and heat) with minimal environmental impact. This was explored in a recent episode of Fully Charged, presented by Helen Czerski. 3) >60% of cobalt currently comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, but nowhere near 60% of cobalt involves the use of child labour. Only a very small percentage of cobalt from DRC comes from artisanal mines, and only a very small percentage of those mines use child labour; although no child labour should be used, the problem is greatly exaggerated by naysayers. Many battery manufacturers are actively working to improve the working conditions at artisanal mines and ensure that children are not used as labour. Incidentally, the ethical smartphone company Fairphone is leading efforts in this regard. The same cannot be said of other users of cobalt, including jet engine alloys and the oil and gas industry, where cobalt is used to refine petrol and diesel. Cobalt was also covered in a recent episode of Fully Charged. On top of this, the cobalt content of EV batteries has been slashed by 90% over the past decade and continues to decline, with the standard range Tesla Model 3 using a cobalt-free battery already. I cover this in more detail in the Watt Barriers series. Finally, other countries are ramping up cobalt supply, which allows EV manufacturers to bypass DRC altogether. 4) Few EV batteries have been recycled today because the vast majority of them are still powering cars on the road. However, don't think for a second that recycling projects aren't underway. Leading examples like Li-Cycle can recover up to 100% of the materials in a Li-ion battery, and are in the process of building the first of their major recycling plants. That is just one example from over 90 companies around the world that are working on Li-ion battery recycling techniques with increasing efficiency and yield. By the time that we eventually see former EV batteries ready for recycling en masse (give it another 15-20 years at least, given that most will end up going into Second Life grid storage projects first), the recycling capacity will be there for them, including in the UK. Furthermore, the quality of the recycled content IS battery grade material, and has already been used to produce new Li-ion cells; some reports have indicated that cells made from recycled content actually have better performance than cells made from virgin materials.

[@jeremywilson2022]

What about the CO2 from shipping all the stuff around the world?

[@tedthomson4619]

Thank you for the insightful presentation. I would like to see a PHEV, perhaps the 2020 Prius Prime, added to the comparisons. The battery driven vs gas powered, variables with the PHEVs could be interesting. For example I would expect to drive greater than 80% on ev whereas another driver may need to drive 80% on gas.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Good point. There are substantial differences in the average petrol consumption of PHEVs depending on the usage pattern. Worryingly, some PHEV drivers don't even bother to plug them in. That's why the UK Government removed incentives for PHEVs and made purchase and tax incentives available to pure EVs only.

[@honesty_-no9he]

Now do a MODEL 3 with LFP pack in a TESLA gigafactory that produces a MODEL 3 in one third of the time it takes VW to make an ID3 or ID4. Sadly the gigafactory in Shanghai is not renewables powered but even if you take China's grid into account the numbers should still be good. Ironically CATL the makers of the LFP prismatic pack does have a plant covered with solar panels.

[@proadlekopy]

I was blown

[@SheepShearerMike]

Euan, this question isn't relevant to this video, and maybe a topic of another video. What is the best way to look after an EV with a badly degraded battery? I just bought a cheep Nissan (my first EV) and Leaf Spy tells me it has 12kw hrs in when full, is it past worrying about things like only charging to 80% and not rapid charging too often, or is the battery past caring about now? If the 80% charge does apply, that would have to be of the current battery usable, ie, about 10 kw hrs, or, is it still 80% of the original battery, which I cannot get to now, so I therefore can fill it to 100% of what is left? Also, will it help maybe to balance the battery if I run it nearly dead flat then charge it to full, or is that the worse thing to do? (I might be remembering that from the Nickel Cadmium days of mobile phones?).

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Oh wow, that is a heavily degraded battery. Is it a Japanese built Mk1 LEAF perchance (2011-2013)? The cell chemistry in the original LEAF degraded much faster than the newer chemistry they used in LEAFs built in Sunderland. Once Japanese-built LEAF batteries start to degrade as heavily as that, the capacity starts to fall off a cliff. I'd start by recalibrating the BMS and balancing the pack by running the battery down to close to 0% (try not to get stranded!) then fully charging and balancing to 100%. Once that's done, check the cell voltage readings on LEAF Spy. The difference between the highest and lowest cell voltages on a fully charged healthy pack should ideally be less than 20mV - if it's greater than 50mV, then some cells are more heavily degraded than others. To preserve the battery as much as possible, enable Long Life Mode which sets the charging limit at 80% of its capacity today (as opposed to 80% of the capacity when new). Try to avoid discharging below 20%. What's the SOH reading on LEAF Spy and the real world range of the car? From what you've said, I'd recommend looking into getting the battery replaced or upgraded. Whereabouts are you based? I'm aware of several companies than can replace LEAF batteries with newer, better chemistries.

[@SheepShearerMike]

@@PlugLifeTelevision Another full reply Euan, thank you. I don't know how to find out where it was built, but I am in the UK, and it was first registered in March 2011. The state of health is 59%, I ran it down to 1kw and Leaf Spy showed 141mv difference, I then charged it to full on the car (although Leaf Spy showed 93% SOC and it showed 21mv difference. I have only had it a few weeks but it seems to run for about 30 miles before the low charge voice starts shouting at me (showing 8 miles range left). I know a tiny bit about having the cells in the pack at a similar valtage and it looks like 5 are a good bit higher and 20 are lower than the average, is the a company that will charge those for better matched ones, or would it be easier (or cheaper) to just swap the pack for the newer type chemistry? I did some Googling but only found a company that said they couldn't get hold of the cells anymore, can you recommend one, I do know about Muxan? The car was only £3800 so I didn't expect much! Thanks for confirming to still use the 20% to 80% charge limits to help keep it alive!

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

@@SheepShearerMike £3800 is a bargain nonetheless! 2011 is definitely a Japanese LEAF with poor chemistry. Muxsan are good at what they do but are in the Netherlands. I'm aware of numerous companies in the south of England who can do pack swaps, and the Electron Garage in Fife. Let me know whereabouts you're based and I'll let you know your closest pack swapping specialist.

[@SheepShearerMike]

@@PlugLifeTelevision It was a bargain which is why I just had to buy it, especially as a couple of your videos show how it is so much cheaper to run than a petrol car. I am in the middle of the UK, in Lincolnshire, so either would do I dare say. Also, talking of balancing cells, I see when Leaf Spy shows the 96 cells (or however many) some are blue and some are red, it says the red ones have a 'Bleed' applied to drain it a little to help balance the pack, (maybe by charging the 12 v battery or something), which sounds good, but while watching it for a while I would have thought it would bleed the highest charge cells, but it does all sorts, including the cells with the lowest voltage, is that how it should work, or is there some sort of software fault which isn't helping my poorly battery? Thanks again for answering these questions, it really is a help to me, and hopefully others. Oh, and one more thing, did I hear there was a software update that helps with range on these old Leafs, of was that on a newer Leaf? Or maybe that is a question for Nissan?

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

@@SheepShearerMike Electron Garage would be a good shout - they have a website and can also be found on Facebook and Twitter. Balancing involves bleed resistors being used to bypass fully charged cells whilst other cells are catching up, so it's a bit odd that cells at lower voltages are also being bled. I wouldn't think that it indicates a BMS fault though; I'd expect the pack in an early Japanese LEAF to be heavily degraded anyway. The software update was for 30kWh LEAFs if I recall correctly - your LEAF is due a pack replacement. Incidentally the Electron Garage could upgrade your LEAF to a 30 or 40kWh pack if you like, rather than just swapping for a 24kWh with the newer, better chemistry. It'd be a cheap way to get a longish range EV.

[@MrSensible2]

Let's just have a closer look at that 9.6 tonnes of CO2 the average EV uses over its 160,000 mile lifetime. Does the average EV do 4 miles/kWh of onboard charge? I think not. Over ALL conditions (including winter months, nighttimes & 70 mpg motorway driving), a more reasonable number is 3 miles/kWh; so that's 80 g of CO2/mile. But you need to factor in AC-to-DC battery charging losses (+ miscellaneous other losses) of 16% which ups it to 95.2 g CO2/mile. Add in the grid transmission/distribution loss which is typically 9% in the UK & it rises to 104.6 g of CO2/mile. So now over 160,000 miles we're seeing 16.74 tonnes of CO2 emitted which is a bit different to your 9.6 tonnes wouldn't you agree??

[@shraka]

What about a brand new EV vs a brand new PHEV?

[@gingernutpreacher]

I came here because I wanted to check the info about Volvo that they need 70000miles to become equal which seam's to high . But you're figures are a bit off it doesn't take 6.5 kWh for a gallon but 4.5 and only a small percentage of that is electrically yes the reamaning still produces co2 my car gets 65mpg (real world) I have gotten more but get sick of driveng like a granny weigh's 830kg and will never do more than a 100000miles how does that work out to the leaf? The only car that works for me was the city E go price wize and size ect but it's discontinued

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

Electric Trolley bus vs electric battery bus

[@johnsimpson1637]

You are ignoring the main emissions of ICEs NOx, carbon monoxide, sulfer dioxide, 10 particulates, 2.5 particulates. 7 million premature deaths per anum from air pollution, not counting the millions of birds and other air breathing animals.

[@SheepShearerMike]

So where is the break even point, round 80,000 to 100,000 miles maybe. Also, can you compare the Cobolt use of both vehicles over the 160,000 miles, I dare say the petrol car might win that one, but might not?

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Based on the scenarios in the above video, the break even point is: Carbon intensive EV manufacture, electricity from UK grid mix: 46,500 miles (which is at most a quarter of the way into the EV's chassis, motor and battery life - electric motors can easily do hundreds of thousands of miles without issues, and even if the battery expires after a few hundred thousand miles - at which point it will be reused in energy storage applications - the car could be repowered with new, better batteries and keep on going) Nissan LEAF's Sunderland manufacture and electricity from UK grid mix: 1,230 miles 100% renewables scenario: 740 miles EV manufacture is only ever going to nudge further towards Nissan's present-day example and the 100% renewable scenario, so that crossover point keeps getting lower and lower as grids get greener and tech gets cleaner. You'd be surprised on the cobalt front: cobalt is used in the refining of petrol and diesel, from which it isn't recovered. Annoyingly, fossil fuel companies are quite reluctant to share exactly how much cobalt is used in this process, so I don't have the exact figures to hand. However, cobalt is also used in jet engine alloys and is heavily used in the batteries found in consumer electronics such as smartphones and laptops. Despite this, it is only EVs that are ever put under the media spotlight for their cobalt use. This is unfair not only in its bias, but because EVs are seeing by far the most rapid phasing out of cobalt use in any sector: the cobalt content of leading EV batteries has been slashed by 90% over the past decade and continues to decline. Tesla are going to use cobalt-free batteries in their Chinese-built standard range Model 3, and the chemistry that they use in their US-built cars has been shown to be able to function well without cobalt too, so their US cars could go cobalt-free soon. Svolt recently unveiled a cobalt-free version of the batteries used in most other EVs. Such as been the rapid phasing out of cobalt, that global mining giant Glencore reported a 44% reduction in its cobalt mining in Q1 2020 and shuttered the biggest cobalt mine in the world.

[@tonystanley5337]

The break even point depends on manufacturing mix and recharging mix. Recharging mix continually improves, and so payback can happen faster and faster. The point as well made in the video, manufacturing mix is fixed at the time of manufacturing so we need to not neglect this asap. Also products need to last a long time, we need to stop our disposable /fashion culture (and I don't mean clothes, I mean the lastest car, the latest phone, latest computer, but clothes matter too), this is the intentional obsolesence business model that tweaks a designs calls it a new model, better than the last and "sells" it hard, also combined with features like low battery life, fragile products etc. There wil be some new EU legislation on this soon, to require serviceability/repairability and encourage longer useful life.

[@SheepShearerMike]

@@PlugLifeTelevision Well, thank you Euan, that is what you call a comprehensive reply (and just about worth it's own video). I see it is hard to quantify with so many variables of what power source is used for manufacturing the cars and producing the petrol and electricity, but one thing that does not change is, the ICE car will always have to burn carbon based fuel, even if it is refined with solar. As far as cobalt goes, it sounds tricky to campare if the petroleum industry won't release any figures to show how much cobalt they buy compared to how much petrol they produce in a year (thus an amount per letre).

[@offgridsolaruk843]

Did you factor in Diesel for mining the lithium? And the general Environmental footprint is more than just the CO2 it emits.

[@MrSensible2]

I have a problem with your Honda Insight comparison. It is not exceptional. My Suzuki Celerio happily does 70 mpg on bog standard unleaded & has done for the last six years. It achieves this via a combination of an efficient 1 litre, high compression ratio (11:1) engine, thin (0W20) engine oil & light weight (840 kg). It's small but certainly not diminutive & will comfortably seat four adults. Your analysis is structured to confirm your own bias & prejudice...'EVs good, petrol bad'. It's arguments like yours that are, down the road, going to lead to a society where driving is the sole preserve of the rich, EV owning minority. You really do need to think this through some more...

[@StewartMidwinter]

You are just proving his point. Your vehicle is exceptional and does not represent the norm. I realize you are in the UK, but in North America, the fleet average fuel economy is closer to 25 miles per gallon for petrol vehicles.

[@MrSensible2]

@@StewartMidwinter The US has always been weird! Who needs an F-150 to take their kids to school in the morning??? And if you want to make the argument for EVs in the US, you can't really get away from the fact that in 2023, 60% of your electricity was generated with fossil fuels & that a goodly percentage of what's output from your power stations gets lost transversing your notoriously creaky grid system. Dirty leccy makes for dirty EVs....

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

We don't use car in ussr

[@MrSensible2]

Your refining numbers are just plain wrong. According to the latest UKPIA stats, for every 100 tonnes of crude that arrives at a UK oil refinery jetty, 5.6 tonnes is consumed in the various conversion processes (& ultimately goes up the stack as CO2) while 94.4 tonnes leaves as some kind of refined product. Because of the highly integrated nature of refining processes, it's fairer to ascribe that 5.6% loss to ALL products (eg jet fuel, chemical feedstocks, fuel oil, lubricant base stocks, elemental sulphur) & not single out petrol & diesel for special treatment. On that basis the incremental lifetime CO2 emissions from refining drop from your 3.1 tonnes to a more realistic 1.87 tonnes. And please stop perpetuating the myth that oil extraction & shipping is this horrendous source of CO2 emissions! There are drill holes in the Persian Gulf that were sunk 50 years ago & are still yielding oil. And yes, there's a lot of steel that goes into making a North Sea drilling platform but equally there's a shit load of stuff that goes into building a nuclear power station. If you're going to pronounce on the wonders of EVs, then the least you could do is be consistent.

[@thewolfdoctor761]

You just magically assume that the emissions generated by getting oil to the refineries (searching for oil, drilling and transportation) is zero.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

I explicitly mention at 5:33 that the embodied carbon of petrol and diesel hasn't factored in extracting and shipping oil, i.e. the embodied carbon of petrol and diesel is higher still.

[@thewolfdoctor761]

@@PlugLifeTelevision Which agrees with my comment. How hard would it have been to factor in those things ? Your numbers mean nothing without these factors.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

@@thewolfdoctor761 Given that the numbers already demonstrate that an EV has a substantially lower carbon footprint than an ICE, even if produced on a carbon-intensive grid and charged using the average grid mix rather than renewable energy, adding in the embodied carbon of extracting and shipping oil wouldn't change the outcome.

[@thewolfdoctor761]

@@PlugLifeTelevision The outcome would be the same but the numbers given make the results seem slipshod.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

@@thewolfdoctor761 Tell you what, here's a challenge: why don't you provide the figures for extraction and shipping here? Show your working and references. I've already quickly run the numbers, so it will be interesting to compare.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Thanks very much. Are you interested in translating these into French and German? I've talked to my Nissan Garage friends, as well as my grid pilot and they are very interested in your channel. We also could translate them into Albanian and Portuguese just with my group of EV friends.

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Wow, that's amazing, thanks! Please add me on LinkedIn to discuss.

[@tonystanley5337]

21 MWh to make a car chassis, ****! BTW Steel production creates CO2 directly

[@mickwilson127]

You on Twitter Euan?

[@PlugLifeTelevision]

Yes @106Euan

[@2011dyrose]

He's missed the loss from converting energy to electric (>35%), electric to battery stored energy (>20%) & electric to force (4% to 30%). Also knocking off 100g of CO2 from the electric supply seems to be a bit of a fudge.

[@2011dyrose]

Also a regular average car Vs a ultra lightweight car?

[@3-5-9-61]

Did I somehow the co2 from manufacturing the petrol engine instead of the electric engine? What is the difference there? And of course, the massive amount of CO2 from the thousands of rocket flights Elon is going to be financing with EV sales while trying to inhabit and inhabitable planet, LOL?

[@luizg9239]

that's not even 1/2 of the story, you are not accounting for the extra tires 35% sooner than petrol on electric cars, your assumption of a decarbonized grid is wild and short sighted. you overlooked all the metals and minerals required for making the batteries that comes from mineral rich African and China were emission and child labor is another big negative factor. Furthermore, even if we mine 100% of all minerals on earth that are required to make electric cars we would not have near enough to make the switch. Electric cars you expect the battery to last at best 10 years then is off to the scrap and start again, I drive a 25YO bog that does and excellent job and should go for another 15 as is. the mining alone, to make the 1k Lb batteries is enough to make it a terrible idea.

[@ElectricDriveAfrica]

Nice. Please share your email. Would like to collaborate and do this calculations for some specific African Countries

[@Thors.hammer69420]

Meh electric vehicles are still a joke.