I’m trying to find the source again, from memory the production itself was 2 tons of CO2 for a compact sedan and 8.5 tons for an equivalent EV and then the Civic (and that’s numbers I’ve just checked) emits about 3 tons of CO2 a year driving 16k km (which is less than the US average) while the EV emissions will vary depending on what is used to produce the electricity, but after two years the gas car has polluted as much as producing the EV and then a year later if it’s green electricity it was above the EV…
So if you take a Civic that’s already on the road and replace it with an EV you don’t include the original 2 tons from producing the Civic, but it only means three years of CO2 emissions from burning gas before it catches up with the EV production.
From memory after about 6 years the EV came out on top even if it was replacing a road worthy Civic even in the worst scenario…
We have to keep in mind that producing electricity from petrol is more efficient than using that petrol to move cars (even with the losses along the way) as car engines aren’t that great at extracting energy from gas…
Edit: just wanted to add that if we don’t just look at CO2 the same logic applies to other types of emissions and replacing old cars with newer cars even if both are petrol powered and it even applies to CO2 if someone is driving an inefficient car and is thinking that replacing it with a more efficient new car will be worse for the environment…
I’m trying to find the source again, from memory the production itself was 2 tons of CO2 for a compact sedan and 8.5 tons for an equivalent EV and then the Civic (and that’s numbers I’ve just checked) emits about 3 tons of CO2 a year driving 16k km (which is less than the US average) while the EV emissions will vary depending on what is used to produce the electricity, but after two years the gas car has polluted as much as producing the EV and then a year later if it’s green electricity it was above the EV…
So if you take a Civic that’s already on the road and replace it with an EV you don’t include the original 2 tons from producing the Civic, but it only means three years of CO2 emissions from burning gas before it catches up with the EV production.
From memory after about 6 years the EV came out on top even if it was replacing a road worthy Civic even in the worst scenario…
We have to keep in mind that producing electricity from petrol is more efficient than using that petrol to move cars (even with the losses along the way) as car engines aren’t that great at extracting energy from gas…
Edit: just wanted to add that if we don’t just look at CO2 the same logic applies to other types of emissions and replacing old cars with newer cars even if both are petrol powered and it even applies to CO2 if someone is driving an inefficient car and is thinking that replacing it with a more efficient new car will be worse for the environment…