BBC: Electric Car Emissions Myth 'Busted'

Just in case you missed the last 100 studies that also prove EVs are cleaner

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Tom Moloughney

By: Tom Moloughney

Mar 27, 2020 at 5:54am ET

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We've already published so many studies here on InsideEVs that prove electric vehicles are clearly cleaner than internal combustion vehicles in nearly all circumstances. Still, when we see a new one we like to reference it to offset the near-constant flow of anti-EV rhetoric and FUD that's spread around.

News on EVs and emissions

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In this latest article, written by Roger Harrabin a BBC environmental analyst, the point is made that recent media reports have questioned if electric cars are really “greener” once upstream emissions (from manufacture and electricity generation) are factored in.

“The idea that electric vehicles could increase emissions is a complete myth.

“We've seen a lot of discussion about this recently, with lots of disinformation going around.

“We have run the numbers for all around the world, looking at a whole range of cars and even in our worst-case scenario, there would be a reduction in emissions in almost all cases..” - Dr Florian Knobloch from the University of Nijmegen

Upstream emissions do need to be considered because they are all part of the full environmental impact that driving on electricity causes. However, many of the people and groups (usually funded by the fossil fuel industry) that demand to know the upstream emissions of the supply chain of electricity, don't want to talk about the true cost of oil. It's as if the gasoline just magically appears in an underground storage tank where they refuel.

In just about every credible, comprehensive study we've seen, electric vehicles are cleaner than gasoline or diesel-powered cars in nearly every location. There are a few exceptions, though. In the study that the BBC refers to by Nature Sustainability, Poland was singled out because the majority of their electricity generation is from coal.

Exhaust pipe emissions

However, the study shows that in 53 of 59 global regions that were evaluated, in Europe, the US and China, the findings show that EVs have less overall emissions than their fossil-fuel counterparts.

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The best news here isn't even that EVs are indeed cleaner than gas cars today, it's that they continue to get cleaner all the time. That's because electricity generation continues to rely less on fossil fuels, and more on clean renewable energy every year.

The exact opposite is happening to the supply of gasoline. As oil becomes less available, we'll need to drill deeper and in unconventional places like deep offshore, and on some of the precious lands of our National Parks. Because of this, the exploration and extraction efforts are consuming more energy than ever before.

Source: BBC

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