Say you’re looking to buy a car.
How do you pick the best car for the planet?
There’s already a lot to consider when choosing a new ride, and factoring in climate change
makes it even trickier.
Well we’re here to guide you through it… even if we can’t come to the dealership
with you.
Hey, I’m Joe.
Let’s get something out of the way right out of the garage: cars don’t just produce
emissions when we’re driving them.
Making a car–any kind of car–takes an enormous amount of energy, and so does disposing
of it.
So when we talk about a car’s climate impact, we have to consider factory to junkyard, not
just on the road.
So, that applies to all types of cars.
But there’s still a lot of options to consider.
First up, we’ve got our good ol’ internal combustion engine cars.The ones we’ve been
zooming around in for over a century!
They can be powered by propane, ethanol, even biodiesel, but most run on gasoline and regular
diesel.
These kinds of cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all US greenhouse gas
emissions .
But you’ve still got some options that can reduce the impact of even a gas-burning car.
Fuel efficiency--how far you can go on one gallon or liter of gas--depends a lot on vehicle
type, model and age.
Older cars can be less fuel efficient, but buying a used car technically produces less
emissions than a new one, because no extra energy went into producing the used car.
Luckily there are a few easy tools you can use to compare cars' fuel efficiency.
We've linked them down in the description.
And when it comes to which fuel, carbon dioxide emissions from diesel cars do tend to be lower...but
diesel cars emit more of other kinds of air pollution, that may not affect the climate,
but do make air less healthy to breathe.
Considering all this, many climate- and environment-conscious car buyers are turning to electric vehicles--or
EVs.
These run on electricity stored in a battery–basically a scaled-up version of the battery tech in
your laptop or smartphone.
When it’s empty, you plug the car into an outlet to recharge it.
Pretty simple!
EVs don’t burn any kind of fuel--they don’t even have a tailpipe--so they don’t release
any emissions….
...when they’re on the road.
Remember, making a car–any car–and all of its parts takes energy, and this can create
its own emissions.
So how clean are electric vehicles, really?
Today’s electric cars typically run on lithium ion batteries, which contain elements that
are really rare and hard to find–like cobalt.
The process of mining and processing these raw metals into usable battery components
requires a huge amount of energy.
Even the wiring, casing, and the stuff that holds the battery together are expensive…
money-wise and energy-wise.All this considered, manufacturing an electric car produces about
68% more greenhouse gas emissions than manufacturing a regular car.
Here’s the kicker: When an EV is plugged in, it’s pulling electricity from the power
grid.
Depending on where you live, that electricity that could be generated by coal, natural gas,
nuclear, wind, solar… or in most places, a mix of these.
So driving an electric vehicle will probably still produce emissions, just not from the
tailpipe.
When you factor in manufacturing and charging, there’s no truly zero emissions car on the
market yet.
But.
Here’s the thing.
Even though making an electric car produces more emissions than making a gas-powered one,
and EVEN though many electric cars get their energy–at least partially–from non-renewable
sources...over their entire lifetime most electric cars still produce less than half
of the emissions of gas-powered vehicles.
Electricity generating plants are simply more efficient at turning combustible fuel into
energy than a car engine is at turning gasoline into energy.
So, are hybrid cars a good middle ground?
Well, non-plug in hybrids–which have gas engines and batteries charged when the car
is moving or braking–are basically just really fuel efficient regular cars with a
more emissions-heavy production process.
The impact of plug-in hybrid cars–small gas engines and batteries charged by plugging
in–is hugely dependent on the energy source charging them.
Manufacturing emissions are higher for hybrids too, but in many cases the on-the-road emissions
savings is more than enough to make up for that.
The biggest factor in whether a plug-in hybrid contributes more or less emissions than a
regular car is the source of the electricity going into its battery, similar to those questions
surrounding electric cars.
There are a couple of other futuristic options out there too, like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles,
which use hydrogen gas to power an electric motor!
The technology is tricky, the infrastructure just isn’t there--yet--and as of right now
they are SUPER expensive.
It's too early to suppose how they may stack up compared to gas and electric vehicles in
a practical way, but if you want a whole video on how they work and how they could transform
our emissions in the future, let us know in the comments below.
The real answer to this question of “which car?” could be...no car at all.
If you live in an area that’s highly walkable or bikeable or that has convenient public
transportation, it may not make sense to drive every day.
But the hard truth is we've built a world that depends on automobiles, so we need to
drive toward a cleaner car future.
Just think--if everyone in the US drove electric vehicles, we could cut our total car-produced
carbon emissions in HALF, even without changing how we make our electricity!
We’re in a huge time of transition when it comes to how we get around in a climate-friendly
way.
So buckle up--I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna be fun ride..and hopefully you can use
this handy-dandy green car guide to walk you through your next car purchase.