Following is in video description by @MoneyShift
The most common argument against electric cars is that once you factor in battery manufacturing and lithium mining, they aren’t actually cleaner. MIT tested that directly, and the answer is no longer ambiguous.
Researchers Marco Miotti and Jessika Trancik built a lifecycle model covering thousands of US zip codes, drilling down to individual driver behavior rather than comparing broad regions. They accounted for battery and vehicle manufacturing, fuel extraction and refining, regional electricity mix, local meteorological data, traffic density, trip length and duration, acceleration patterns, gas and electricity prices, and state fees. The study appears in Environmental Research Letters.
The concession first: building a battery is dirtier than building a comparable gas car, and an EV starts life with a larger manufacturing footprint. MIT states that plainly rather than working around it.
The findings: in most US locations, a battery electric vehicle reduces lifetime greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 60 percent compared to a similar gas vehicle, with larger reductions in urban areas. On cold weather, MIT found that in a climate like North Dakota, efficiency can drop as much as 50 percent on a particularly frigid night, but the effect on annual emissions benefits is minimal. Miotti’s own conclusion was that even in the most unfavorable conditions, EVs still reduce emissions substantially.
On cost, EVs are competitive with comparable combustion vehicles in lifetime ownership cost across most of the country, even without clean vehicle tax credits. Where electricity is relatively affordable, battery electrics tend to cost less outright. The study also found that individual driving behavior matters roughly as much as regional electricity mix, with the biggest reductions going to people who drive more, drive larger vehicles, and spend more time in traffic.
MIT also updated their public tool at carboncounter.com, where you can compare lifecycle emissions and ownership costs for nearly any car on the market.
None of this means you have to like electric cars. Dislike the steering feel. Dislike the brake feel. Want a manual. Those are real objections. The emissions one is finished.
Car news the way Doug DeMuro, Jason Cammisa and Chris Harris cover cars, every day
Another reason why I’ve been hesitant to be an early adopter. Clearly this tech hasn’t matured yet.
It’s such a catch-22. Do I want a car that goes 1000km on one charge? Or do I want to be limited to200km at a time but without some AI gooning at me 24/7.
My partner and I have always had two cars. A year ago we sold a gas car and bought an EV ($20k CAD) with a 400km+ range. We kept our other gas car.
We’ve taken longer trips in the EV where we’re down under 50% range remaining. We just find a fast charger, plug it in, and go do something for the hour or so it takes to charge (dinner, movie, whatever).
EVs aren’t a direct replacement for the gas car habit. It takes a little planning for longer trips and the ability to accept you might have to sit and have a nice dinner or a long walk in a park while it charges.
Since buying the EV, we’ve barely driven the gas car because the EV has been perfectly fine.
Lol, it’s already better…
This argument has already aged like milk and is turning into cheese…
I’d say you missed the “early adopter” period by like a decade. I’ve owned a Nissan Leaf since 2013, recently upgraded to a used 2023 Kia Niro. The Niro goes almost 300 miles, which is farther than almost any of our trips, and I don’t feel like AI is “gooning” at me, whatever that even means. It comes down to either you want to quit burning gas or you don’t.
I would rephrase that as “It comes down to either you want to quit spending a ton of money burning gas or you don’t.”
Honestly based on the severity of this incongruency in thought, I’m gonna have to remove you from my lemmy experience.
aw, OP is a dweeb who’s upset that people can’t follow his incoherent garbage.
It’s all that AI in 2013 vehicles, of course.
I have a 2017 Kia Soul EV. Not sure what gooning is but I’d say my spouse’s ice vehicle is worse. It’s always connecting and uploading something.
Gooning is the new word for lusting I think.