I’m surprised you haven’t heard the opposite. It’s wrong, but a really common talking point for a while was buying an EV wasn’t actually good because of the pollution involved in manufacturing the car. Then a few years later they updated the rhetoric to talk about the minerals mined for batteries. I assume it was pushed by Fossil Fuel companies.
This The Guardian article mentions the minerals one. You can see an example of The Daily Telegraph pushing the myths with the headline: “Electric cars are made of pollution and human misery.”
These figures are also heavily dependent on where and how the car was manufactured, too. If the factory is powered by clean energy, doesn’t that reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emitted during manufacturing? If EV tech advances enough that the mining rigs are electric-powered, does that not also reduce the amount of GHG emitted mining lithium? Eventually we’ll also have enough batteries to recycle that too (batteries are basically a very rich lithium ore), can’t we do that in clean-powered factories?
Basically, I think the conversation on “how much manufacturing a given product pollutes” is entirely focused on the wrong thing…
Also, a lot of these studies compare an EV’s complete lifecycle with just the tailpipe emissions of an ICEV. Mining, refining and transporting gasoline has a huge carbon impact before you even put it in the car.
But the guardian article mentions the points but comes to exactly the expected conclusion:
The data we have leaves little doubt that resource extraction will be significantly lower for electric cars compared with their petrol or diesel equivalents as recycling increases.
I’m surprised you haven’t heard the opposite. It’s wrong, but a really common talking point for a while was buying an EV wasn’t actually good because of the pollution involved in manufacturing the car. Then a few years later they updated the rhetoric to talk about the minerals mined for batteries. I assume it was pushed by Fossil Fuel companies.
This The Guardian article mentions the minerals one. You can see an example of The Daily Telegraph pushing the myths with the headline: “Electric cars are made of pollution and human misery.”
These figures are also heavily dependent on where and how the car was manufactured, too. If the factory is powered by clean energy, doesn’t that reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emitted during manufacturing? If EV tech advances enough that the mining rigs are electric-powered, does that not also reduce the amount of GHG emitted mining lithium? Eventually we’ll also have enough batteries to recycle that too (batteries are basically a very rich lithium ore), can’t we do that in clean-powered factories?
Basically, I think the conversation on “how much manufacturing a given product pollutes” is entirely focused on the wrong thing…
Also, a lot of these studies compare an EV’s complete lifecycle with just the tailpipe emissions of an ICEV. Mining, refining and transporting gasoline has a huge carbon impact before you even put it in the car.
But the guardian article mentions the points but comes to exactly the expected conclusion: