Are electric vehicles green?

Some people state that electric vehicles (EV) are green, some of them state that they are not. Who is right?

Why some people considered EV are not green? Well total emissions (TE) of the car are calculated like this: production emissions, emissions during usage, and utilization emissions. For EV first and last are quite high and that allows these people to state that EV are not that green. Also, they stated that most electricity generation produces emissions as well. They also stated that production of solar panels are quite dirty as well if you state that you are using solar panel to charge you EV.

Let’s assume that TE of EV is higher than normal car. Should we stop using EV and ban them? Absolutely not. Key difference here that production, utilization and electricity generation are far away from where EV are used. And I would like to explain this in detail.

Obviously that most emissions of normal car are running emissions when car is burning petrol. These emissions are quite toxic and most of them going into atmosphere and other people are breathing them. If you check statistics you will find that a lot of people dying earlier due to that fact. And biggest problem that it is extremely hard to lower that kind of emissions. There are few limiting factors:

• Cost. If that process will cost a lot of money from customers, they will go to competitor
• Size. Device that filters emissions should be compact
• Service intervals. If that device will require more often service intervals customers will definitely not appreciate it

For example, modern diesel cars can reduce emissions by using some chemicals that are expensive and requires to add them regularly and storage of that chemical reduces space in car. Or they can use special filter called DPF (diesel particles filter) to catch harmful particles and burn them later. But burning process happens only when on highway speeds and if you drive mostly in city you can break it and it is quite expensive to replace or fix.

EV on other side produced on factory. Factory can use any way to reduce emissions. They can use filters that requires adding chemicals (even if they have to add chemicals every day), they can use special burning methods, they can build huge filters etc. The only restriction is cost. And due to economy of scale these devices will be much more effective than millions of small filters installed in every car. And even after that EV production and utilization still produces more emission it is state for today. They are improving every day and I believe soon they will produce much less emissions. You can compare emissions of normal cars say 30 years after their invention and now.

Now let’s talk about energy generation. Let’s assume that energy generated only by burning the same petrol as in cars. Again, power plant can use economy of scale here and build most efficient and most clean generators.

But car engines are quite ineffective due to following facts

• car engine has some optimal rotations per minute but usually engine at lower or higher rotations
• most cars have engine running when drivers are waiting. For example, of traffic light, for window defrosting, waiting for someone, engine heat up etc.
• modern cars also using a lot of electricity as well and car engine rotate generator to produce energy as well similarly to power plant but less efficient
• EV car can recuperate energy when they are breaking
• EV cars have better drag coefficient because they do not need air intake and can have much more streamlined front
• Car engine requires service, coolant and oil. And this cost money and produces toxic waste

Right now, EV requires two times less money to drive same distance than regular car. So, it speaks for itself that producing same amount of energy is much cheaper at power plant.

But if consider that there a lot of nuclear and other types power plants that produce much less emissions you will come to conclusion that running EV is much cleaner that normal car. Also, many types of plants still produce energy even there is no demand for it and it is huge problem. For example, at night and EV fits here very well.

Also, electric cars heavily demand on batteries. They need much cheaper and much more efficient batteries and that industry drives research in this area. Even slight improvement will make you rich but if someone invents battery that last twice longer that person will be billionaire. Someone may say that mobile phones, notebooks and car batteries also drive industry to innovate but to be honest it is not even close. Who cares that mobile phone is 20 grams lighter? Notebooks can last like 10 hours already and people are not dying for 20 hours. Sure, it is nice to have but it is not game changer. EV on other side are barely overcome normal car in efficiency because they are heavy, battery degrades over time and it takes a lot of time to charge. So, the is extreme demand and extreme investments. I believe than in 3-5 years we will have much better batteries. And I don’t mean 30% more efficient. I think at least 100% in capacity much less degradation, faster charge time and less weight and much safer.

And if you still not convinced, please answer on following question: imaging you are in traffic jam in hot weather. Would you prefer that cars around you are EV or normal cars? I think answer is clear here. And lastly, I pretty sure that most of you woke at least few times at night when some moron quickly accelerates on extremely loud sport car. Imaging he is doing the same on EV. It will be almost inaudible.

And lastly with EV you don't need to go to gas/petrol station. You charge it home and save yourself 10-15 minutes. Also service interval for EVs are very long. I watched video about person who owns Nissan Leaf and for 4 years he did rotate tires and that's all. No other service done. Now he owns Tesla and he is planning to do service every 4 years except tire rotation. It is huge money saving.