this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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In countries that generate almost all of their electricity from renewables, they are better tbh. Although more environmentally damaging to produce.
The problem is more like that cars that use fossil fuels have a very much lower efficiency rate than electric cars. So theoretical if you use the same amount of FF for the energy production and use that for electric cars it would be more efficient. But that shouldnt be the solution.
They are also better in countries with little renewable electricity.
Even if an EV is 100% powered by coal power plants, it still produces 40% less Co2 than an ICE car.
Its always more costly and less efficient to produce new things in smaller quantity than large numbers. So electric car manufacturers at this point in time costs more to produce from an environment perspective. As the number of electric cars go up, my understanding is that this will compare to fossil fuel car production.
Imo you cannot compare these two as its impossible to be as efficient as a large scale manufacturer until you become one yourself.
It has nothing to do with quantity.
Electric cars have batteries that need cobalt and other stuff that is hard to get which a normal gas car would never need.
At the moment they do with the Lithium batteries but better and cheaper batteries are already on the market that have solved that rare minerals problem. Sodium ion batteries have most of the capacity by weight of Lithium type batteries, but they do not require any of the rare minerals, in fact they can be made with minerals that are cheap and abundant in the USA. They are also non-flammable, much safer than lithium.
Fossil fuel cars do use cobalt though, significantly less though. But they also need fossil fuels which are hard to come by (in an environmentally friendly way.
Yeah economies of scale are absolutely a thing, but what the average person is coming around to is the idea that the personal vehicle is environmentally unfeasible. Tyre wear alone has a significant environmental impact and electric vehicles are only going to make that problem work. That's just one factor of countless factors. Transportation is a necessity, personal transportation isn't (not entirely true, some places have such terrible transportation infrastructure that a personal vehicle is a necessity). Electric car manufacturers are never going to tell you not to buy their car regardless of the fact that their products significantly contribute to climate change.