Your Car Would Have to Get 70 MPG to Be as Clean as an Electric Car, Study Finds

Are electric cars less catastrophic for our future climate than gasoline cars? Well, duh. But, here’s another study carefully poring over the evidence and showing it to be the case. At least for Europe.

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A team of Empa scientists made a detailed life cycle assessment of the current state of the art lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries used in electric vehicles, and published it in the scientific journal “Environmental Science & Technology.”

Comparing not just the energy sources of gasoline-powered versus electric-powered cars, but also comparing an exhaustively detailed full life-cycle analysis of every step to make a battery versus a combustion engine: what did the researchers find?

The EV is the cleaner way to go.

This is contrary to widely spread beliefs – based on the earlier lead-acid and nickel metal-hydride (NiMH) batteries – that batteries are dirty to manufacture. Also, the common misconception that running electric cars on coal power would be worse for the environment than running gasoline cars on gasoline.

Researchers at Empa’s “Technology and Society Laboratory” calculated the ecological footprints of electric cars fitted with Li-ion batteries, taking into account all possible relevant factors, from those associated with the production of individual parts all the way through to the scrapping of the vehicle and the disposal of the remains, including the operation of the vehicle during its lifetime.

They also factored in the energy sources, by comparing an average (Golf-sized) electric car, run on average European electricity (currently 46% carbon-free) to a car that runs at average fuel-efficiency for Europe (“consumes 5.2 liters of petrol per 100 kilometers”) run on gasoline.

The energy source is a much bigger factor than the batteries. Even Europe’s relatively clean electricity is responsible for three times as much pollution as from the Li-ion battery alone.

But even if you drove an EV on 100% coal power – which is no longer possible in Europe – you would make an electric car only 13% more environmentally unfriendly than one run on 46% clean power.

But even that 100% coal power would still be less harmful to the environment than driving a gasoline car. (Here, you’d have to move to one of the 5 dirty states that get over 90% of their electricity from coal: Wyoming, North Dakota, Indiana, Kentucky or West Virginia).

What they found: a gasoline car would have to get 70 miles to the gallon to compete in environmental friendliness with the (Li-ion) electric car run on average EU electricity.

Source: Notter et al. Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles. Environmental Science & Technology, 2010; 44 (17): 6550 DOI: 10.1021/es903729a via ScienceDaily

Image: Mark Dalzel

Susan Kraemer@Twitter

Tags: 70 mpg, Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles., Environmental Science & Technology, Gas, lifecycle analysis, Notter

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

Justin

I thank all power should come from coal, or as much as possible.
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Edwin Swanson

The projected MPG could be drastically different if battery charging could be from other energy sources and conversion technologies.

Example is for a fuel cell with CO or CO2 on one electrode and another electrochemically-appropriate material on the other electrode.

The Hydrogen-Oxygen fuel cell used in the 1970s Apollo space missions had better than 90% electrochemical efficiency, which is far better than the best IC engine with 25% Carnot thermal efficiency. Other electrochemical combinations (either with or without Li-Ion batteries) will have differing chemical efficiency and weight/storage characteristics.

I recommend that readers download the ES&T and further discussed both here and with the authors.

This is great stuff for studying a topic, and promote opportunities for factual dialogue in this often-misused medium.

Again, many thanks to Susan for getting this out to CT readers.
Edwin Swanson

Susan,

Thanks for providing links to the source material for your article.
Jon

Khurt,

No your car can’t get 300 miles on ten gallons. Gasoline is extremely inefficient to refine. You have to deduct the energy required to pull it from the ground, ship it to the refinery, refine it and ship it to the gas station. Hopefully you don’t live by the refinery, as it is most likely the biggest polluter in your town.

You can plug electric cars into outlets and charge them. Soon you will have quick charge stations everywhere and the Tesla Sedan, out in 2012, will get 300 miles on a charge. Bye, bye, ICE! May you rest in peace. Change is always difficult for people…but it is constant and you should accept it.
Dirty Sanchez

My Jetta TDI runs on bio-d I get in the city 42 mpg on average and 52 mpg freeway on average. I can use the oil from the fryers after it has been filtered. And i can fill the air with teh smell of tacos and french fries.
http://islandinthenet.com Khürt

Oops. The was supposed to be “my car can go about 300 miles on 10 gallons of gasoline”
http://islandinthenet.com Khürt

I want to make sure I understand this. Am I to believe that if we all sucked it up and payed the extra cost for 100% carbon free electricity generation, sucked it up and bought a more expensive electric vehicle (limiting ourselves to short distance driving) – that things would all be much better with the climate?

Perhaps, my “Car Would Have to Get 70 MPG to Be as Clean as an Electric Car”, but my car can almost 400 miles on a 10 gallons of gasoline and I can re-fuel at will.
Ben

I agree with Paul, I think the 70 mpg is a conservative number.

My question is, where do you get the oil to make the gasoline? All the easy oil has been found and now extracting oil is a much more energy intensive process. For example, if your oil comes from Saudi Arabia, Shipped to Texas, then refined, and then shipped back to NY as gasoline, then even before you put that gas into your tank it already has a pretty big carbon footprint.
Christof Demont-Heinrich

And, on top of it all, there’s the beauty of the 100-percent renewable energy powered EV — a reality that more people than you think can realize, including, very soon, yours truly
Paul

Even 70 MPG sounds EXTREMELY conservative. The regular equivalency factor is around 170 MPG

The amount of energy in gasoline that is wasted in an ICE car is staggering. If an EV could carry the same amount of energy contained in a single 20 gallon fuel tank, it could travel over 3400 miles.

For an EV to store as much energy as a 20 Gallon fuel tank it would need a 674 kWh battery, that’s over 12x the size of the battery in the Tesla Roadster and almost 27x that in the Nissan Leaf.