MovieChat Forums > Revenge of the Electric Car (2012) Discussion > Electric car factories pollute much more...

Electric car factories pollute much more than normal car companies.

posted 12 years ago by Pseudoephedrine
2 replies | jump to latest

File this under the DUH! Section.

So for those who 'care' about the environment: Get a regular gas powered car.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19830232

of note:

The team looked at the life-cycle impact of conventional and electric vehicles.

In essence, they considered how the production, the use and the
end-of-life dismantling of a car affects the environment,
explained co-author Prof Anders Hammer Stromman.

"The production phase of electric vehicles proved substantially
more environmentally intensive," the report said, comparing
it to how petrol and diesel cars are made.

"The global warming potential from electric vehicle
production is about twice that of conventional vehicles."

In addition, producing batteries and electric motors requires
a lot of toxic minerals such as nickel, copper and aluminium.

Hence, the acidification impact is much greater than that
of conventional car production.

[–] apeweek 12 years ago

The study does not, in fact, make that conclusion. Here's a quote from the study's summary:

"...We find that EVs powered by the present European electricity mix offer a 10% to 24% decrease in global warming potential (GWP) relative to conventional diesel or gasoline vehicles"

What is in fact going on with your news article about the study is that it is often very easy to misrepresent what a study says, simply because a study may present many possible scenarios, some more likely than others.

A newspaper reporter, looking for a headline, takes one of the most unlikely worst-case scenarios and says "electric cars suck!", when in fact the gist of the study is that they almost certainly will have very positive environmental benefits.

Here's something very important to remember about electric cars versus gasoline: It takes huge amounts of electricity to refine oil into gasoline. So how likely is it that a car that uses BOTH electricity and oil can be cleaner than one using just electricity?

In this case, the study reaches a reasonably positive conclusion about EV environmental impact without even considering the upstream environmental costs of gasoline.

[–] damamirlo 9 years ago

Toxic minerals... nickel, copper and aluminum? Are you *beep* insane, or do you get paid for this by some gas company?

EDIT: had a long look at the forum. Time to ignore the troll.