this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Go for it, or link me to where you did before. All I'm seeing is the math working in certain individual cases, not broadly at least not yet, and at best moving the emissions 2 or 3 steps down a chain of emissions.
There will be a time when, broadly speaking, it's best to just nuke your car and get an EV. That time is not there yet. It's probably when the manufacturing emissions are roughly equal to those of ICE cars, and/or when there's more renewable energy than coal. Please, though, show me math.
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/sustainability/358628/car-pollution-production-disposal-what-impact-do-our-cars-have-planet
5.6 tons of CO2 to produce a gas car, 8.8 tons of CO2 to produce an electric car.
We'll use 10k km/year as a baseline (with is way less than average)
Three Toyota Corolla, 2010, 2015, 2020
They release 1.8, 1.7, 1.6 tons of CO2 a year respectively driving 10k km (fueleconomy.gov)
The EV is a 2024 Toyota bZ4X (what a stupid name) and it releases zero CO2 a year to drive 10k km
So we're in 2024, the emissions from the gas cars so far are:
2010 > 5.6 + (1.8 x 14) = 30.8 tons
2015 > 5.6 + (1.7 x 9) = 20.9 tons
2020 > 5.6 + (1.6 x 4) = 12 tons
Total: 63.7 tons
So we can already see that the 2020 has released enough CO2 in 4 years to beat an EV.
Let's say we add another 5 years to each cars... We're now at 39.8, 29.4, 20 tons respectively for a total of 89.2 tons
Now, what's the impact in 5 years if we take the 2010 off the road and introduce a 2024 EV instead? Scraping the 2010 releases CO2, it's evaluated at half the production so 2.8 tons. So our new numbers are:
33.6, 29.4, 20 and 8.8 for the EV for a total of 91.8
After five years with the 2010 off the road we're at 91.8 - 89.2 = 2.6 tons extra so two years from being carbon negative compared to never changing the 2010 for an EV.
Two more years of gas car: 89.2 + (2 x 1.8) + (2 x 1.7) + (2 x 1.6) = 99.4 tons
What's the portrait in two more years if we had scraped the 2010 in 2029 instead?
89.2 + (2x1.7) + (2x1.6) + 8.8 = 104.6 tons
By switching in 2024?
91.8 + (2x1.7) + (2x1.6) = 98.4 tons
By scraping the 2010 in 2024 we saved 6.2 tons of CO2 in 2031(equivalent to 3.4 years of driving the 2010) compared to doing it in 2029.
If we didn't scrap it at all and didn't introduce an EV to replace it, we would be at + 1 ton in 2031 and it would keep increasing the longer we keep the 2010 on the road.
Keep in mind that that's with less than half the annual average mileage in the USA (14k miles/22.4k km) AND it doesn't take maintenance into consideration and gas cars need more of it and it pollutes more (lots of oil) so the real difference is even greater!
Cool, some numbers. First off, looking over your math, it looks correct, so that's good. The article seems to be a bit confusing, however, or you're taking a best case scenario they don't approach in the article. It states that an EV takes 8.8 tons of co2 to produce. It later states, however, "However, a BEV (battery electric vehicle) produces less harmful emissions over its entire life. The study found that a medium-sized petrol or diesel car produces around 24 tonnes of CO2 versus a BEV’s 18 tonnes" this seems to imply to me that we shouldn't keep emissions at 0 throughout the EV's lifetime? I would assume this additional tonnage is from less-clean electrical generation methods and overall maintenance requirements.
If this is the case, it paints a bit different of a picture, more in line with what I said - that you should buy one if you're going to buy a car anyway, and drive yours. What the numbers provided does give us now, though, is a point at which the sunk cost DOES become too large, and that seems to be a car in the age range of 10-15 years at present.
Please, if I've misunderstood something with the article, correct me, and thank you for the write up with sources.
I added a "disclaimer" after the fact to mention that it's based on mileage way under what people actually drive and it doesn't take maintenance into consideration, with "real" mileage we're better off switching to an EV now because the switch makes you carbon negative after 5 years or so. The numbers used are appropriate in the sense that in both cases we don't count the CO2 coming from the production of the energy source used by either of them. If the vehicle life is the same, the 24 and 18 tons numbers (which seem to be under what would be expected based on the math I've done, that's a 10 years life expectancy for the gas car???) also show that the quicker we get rid of the gas cars, the quicker we reach a point where we're carbon negative compared to continuing to drive the gas cars until they're not drivable anymore.
If we go with a number much closer to the actual average (20k km/year) you can buy a new Corolla, replace it the next year with an EV, park the Corolla and never drive it again and the math goes like this:
5.6 (prod )+ 2.8 (scrap) + 3.2 (driving) + 8.8 (EV) = 20.4 tons
Years to reach 20.4 tons if we drive just the Corolla > 5.6 + (3.2 * X) >= 20.4? X = 5 years of ownership = 21.6 tons
After 4 years of owning the EV you're carbon negative in comparison.