Emissions of electric car battery

Some time ago there were huge articles about how bad electric cars actually are as battery manufacturing generates huge amount of carbon dioxide (co2). According to most extreme claims BEVs (battery electric vehicles) would always be worse than ICE (combustion engine, let's use gasoline here) powered car.

Okay, let's do some math.

Note, I write "of co2" often below, but generally it's "co2 equivalent" number that considers also other greenhouse gases like methane also.

According to a some figures, grid electricity in Finland has 0,1kg co2 production per kwh. A liter of gasoline generates total of 3,4kg of co2 (not exact figure obviously, but close enough.)

Let's say our electric car uses 15kWh/100km, and equivalent gasoline gar uses 5l/100km. Therefore we have figures of 1,5kg of co2 for BEV and 17kg of co2 for 100km.

So, the battery. I'll use my Kona as example, and apparently it uses LG Chem batteries. Quick googling finds a like to LG Chem/Ford reference that says that production of battery generates 140kg of co2 per kWh. Kona has 63kWh battery, so 8820kg total.

We'll just assume for rest of the calculation that excluding the battery, manufacturing gasoline and electric cars generates approximately same amount of co2, so we can ignore that for now.

So with some quick math with these figures we find out that approximately at 57000km the total co2 production of these cars match, and at 100000km electric car has generated 10320kg of co2 total, and gasoline car already 17000kg of co2 total.
Double the co2 of electricity (to 0,2kg / kWh), and match point moves up a bit - from 57000 to about 60000km.
Even if you were to use horribly dirty lignite, it's still better than gasoline - at around 0,41 kg co2 / kWh or 6,15kg co2 per 100km.

So, effectively, if you have to have a car, electric is pretty much always better, but obviously not having a car at all would be even better. For many that is unfortunately not an option.

May I bring your attention to another option though? Biogas (sorry, couldn't find english version of the page with quick glance). Gas (as in natural gas or biogas) vehicles aren't very common, and if you were to use natural gas (I hate that name, it makes it sound so much better for environment than it actually is) there would be little point. But if you use biogas to run this vehicle the situation is much better. And almost all cars use gasoline as backup, so you don't lose flexibility either. Too bad the gas and gasoline tanks in these vehicles seem to be quite small so often...

But wait, there is more!

According to same study I used above, manufacturing BEV (Ford Focus BEV specifically, with 24kWh battery that takes about 3360kg of co2 to produce) generates about 40% more co2 total than manufacturing a ICE car. So, working these numbers backwards tells us that manufacturing a new ICE car generates approximately 8400kg of co2 (and BEV with 24kWh battery approximately 11760kg or co2 total).

So, if you upgrade your gasoline car that used 7l/100km, to a one that uses 5l/100km, reduction of co2 produced by gasoline is 6,8kg per 100km. In order to cover even co2 produced by manufacturing this car (assuming calculated co2 above), you would have to drive some 125000km first. So if you are worried about environment, fuel economy actually doesn't do so much difference - unless there is huge improvement.

So, if manufacturing battery for electric car is bad, so is upgrading your old gasoline-powered car, especially if actual consumption figure isn't significantly better. Both cause a lot of co2 emissions.

All together I'd definitely say that upgrading to BEV (or at least PHEV) is much better option than plain gasoline car for majority of people who need a car. For huge number of people, "charging is slow" (and other similar issues) is nothing but bad excuse to not change their habits. I know, getting used to charging PHEV daily took some time, and all it takes is to plug the car in. But then, driving past gasoline station and remembering that last time I refueled was 2 months and 1500km ago and I still have half tank of gas remaining, it kinda pays off...

And maybe, if you absolutely, positively have to have gasoline powered vehicle, maybe it could be one that can use biogas as primary fuel and gasoline only as backup? Assuming, of course, that you have a refueling (regasing?) station somewhere nearby.



And obvious disclaimer: The figures used above are the ones I've been told or have found and they do vary from region to region, and with seasons as well.