disembodied_voice

About cars... I've heard the waste produced to make the batteries is as bad or worse than the waste produced in manufacturing gas combustion vehicles....

As the lifecycle analyses demonstrate, cars incur far more environmental impact in operations than they do in manufacturing, and electric cars have a significantly lower operational impact than gas cars so. This means that the EV's operational impact reductions end up more than outweighing any increase in manufacturing impact, leading them to be better for the environment overall than gas cars.

Hi! I found your State of Charge report back in 2012 to be very informative in showing the regional variation in electric car emissions (and I've put your work to good use here in informing users when relevant), and I hope to find the time to read your latest lifecycle analysis soon. In the meantime, I've got some questions for you.

There are critics of electric cars who claim that the environmental costs of mineral extraction and manufacturing of an electric car's batteries ultimately make them worse for the environment than gasoline cars, outweighing any and all benefits from reduced emissions and improved efficiency. While I do not personally hold such a position, how do you respond to these claims?

The second one's a bit tougher: As you are no doubt aware, the National Bureau of Economic Research recently produced a paper which produced maps showing that electric cars exhibit greater marginal damages on the east coast than the west coast, which seems to be somewhat at odds with your maps, which show EVs are also a net benefit on the east cost. The principal difference that I can discern is that your work incorporates upstream emissions while theirs does not, but do you have anything else to add in terms of a rebuttal to their work?

Because the operational efficiency gains massively outweigh any carbon footprint increase incurred by manufacturing and transport. In the end, even if you account for procuring and transporting the batteries, electric cars are still better for the environment than normal cars.

doesn't it take a lot of energy and emissions to make an electric car? Is the earth better off with me just using my existing car as long as possible to reduce factory and manufacturing and materical sourcing emissions in making a new electric car?

As it turns out, the large majority of any car's emissions and energy use come from operations, not manufacturing. In fact, over the long run, the operational energy and emissions reductions of going from a gas car to an EV will outweigh the impacts of building the EV. This meas that even new EVs are preferable to used gas cars. A used EV would be best, of course, but the transition from gas to electric matters more than keeping existing cars running.