every time we do a video on electric
cars the same debate shows up in my
comments some people argue that electric
vehicles are worse for the environment
than internal combustion engines others
say that EVs are not even close to as
bad as internal combustion why I don't
know so I set out to find out once and
for all our electric vehicles worse for
the environment what I found
genuinely surprised me hey big thanks to
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for sporting the show in this video
we're gonna do our best to compare the
environmental impact of electric
vehicles versus gas powered ones and
look I'm gonna try to be as impartial
and unbiased as possible because I am a
car boy I love NASCAR's and I love
electric cars and I have no agenda to
book I just want to know what's true and
what's false okay this could have easily
been an hour-long video because honestly
it's a lot more complicated than I
initially thought but I know you're busy
you ain't got time for that so we're
just gonna look at some facts for both
types of vehicles and try to draw a
conclusion from that first let's take a
look at some ways electric cars are bad
to the environment let me tell you
there's a few one of the biggest
arguments against electric vehicles is
that battery production for an Eevee is
much more detrimental to the environment
than the production of internal
combustion vehicles so is that true yes
the initial environmental footprint from
current electric vehicle production is
greater than production of internal
combustion engines the large batteries
Eevee's use are made with lithium which
like any raw material needs to be mined
and the mining process produces lots of
greenhouse gases it's a problem that's
only going to grow unless the
manufacturing process becomes more
efficient sales of v's topped 1 million
per year for the first time in 2017 some
estimates predicted that by the year
2030 there will be more than 125 million
EVs on the road and those vehicles are
gonna need batteries needless to say
lithium is in high demand and it all has
to come from somewhere it takes on
average about 8 to 10 metric tons of co2
to produce an electric vehicle that's a
lot obviously the bigger the battery the
more co2 it takes to produce it some
smaller batteries in economy-size EVs
may take as few as two metric tons to
produce but larger EVs
with long range batteries could be
responsible for up to 17 metric tons of
co2 emissions good lord
conversely the average production for an
internal-combustion vehicle produces
around 7 metric tons of co2 why does
evie production lead to a bigger
environmental footprint more than half
of the world's lithium supply comes from
the quote lithium triangle an area
between Chile Bolivia and Argentina in
the arid salt plains of the Atacama
Desert high up in the Andes Mountains
workers drill through the crust of the
salt to get to the mineral rich blind
below the surface this process leeches
massive amounts of groundwater from the
surrounding area resulting in a
decreased water supply and less
accessible water for local agriculture
and a region of Chile called salar de
atacama mining companies have used 65%
of the region's water it takes 750 tons
of brine to produce just one ton of
lithium but lithium is just one of the
components of a battery it's actually a
smaller percentage than you might think
- at around 6 percent a growing concern
surrounds the sourcing of another
element used in batteries cobalt but the
issue is more of an ethical dilemma as
some cobalt mines use child labor which
is reprehensible and then there's the
problem of recycling these things the
process in which lithium-ion batteries
are recycled is not at the point it
needs to be to deal with the growing
number of spent batteries from electric
vehicles there are plenty of different
challenges associated with recycling
these batteries relatively inane things
like storage becomes a huge issue
because of the volatility of elements in
a lithium battery there have already
been a number of fires in facilities
that process old batteries is the number
of potentially catastrophic fires and
explosions gonna go up as more batteries
or stockpiled in the future it all
depends on how quickly the industry
evolves to deal with these issues the
fact of the matter is modern electric
vehicle production is in its relative
infancy compared to gas engines so as
time goes on and new processes come into
play
the environmental impact will get better
I hope the same can be said about where
electric vehicles get their electricity
right now many regions of the US are
still getting their power from coal
power plants so the impact of driving a
zero emissions car in those regions is
more detrimental to the environment than
driving in evey in places with clean
energy such as wind solar and
hydroelectric power plants but as those
types of energy become more common the
efficiency at which an e V operates will
only get better so now that we know the
very real problems of electric vehicle
production how do they compare to the
internal combustion engine let's start
where we did with electric vehicles
production
Manufacturing the average internal
combustion vehicle produces seven metric
tons of co2 this number takes into
account everything from the mining or
for steel to the moment the car rolls
off the production line that number is
lower than V's because of the absence of
lithium-ion batteries it also has to do
with how efficient ice manufacturing has
become we're talking about the industry
that is responsible for inventing the
assembly line after the car rolls out of
the factory greenhouse emissions from
gasoline-powered cars average around 5.2
metric tons per year and that's if the
car drives the national average of about
eleven thousand eight hundred miles per
year over the lifespan of a car it's
responsible for 57 metric tons of co2
that's seven for production and fifty in
emissions gasoline like lithium has to
be mined the average car in the US goes
through about five hundred gallons of
gas per year in that gas life the
lithium in the batteries has to come
from somewhere there's a lot of steps
between the extraction of crude oil to
you filling your car at the gas station
and each step has an environmental
impact
crude oil extraction starts with
drilling into the earth either on land
or on the ocean floor after the crude
oil is mined it needs to be refined into
gasoline and other petroleum products
such as jet fuel petroleum jelly and
plastic this process releases tons of
greenhouse gases including not only co2
but methane and nitrous oxide as well
every day around the world close to
ninety five million barrels of oil are
produced and every day oil refinement is
responsible for emitting 767 million
tons of co2 into the atmosphere sure the
average car is responsible for 5.2 tons
of co2 every year but oil refineries
release a whopping 280 billion metric
tons of co2 in that same time frame
Chargers driving by dude
all right let's dial it back and get
some more manageable numbers okay I'm
sorry we know that over the average
lifespan of a car with an internal
combustion engine it will emit roughly
57 metric tons of co2 over the same time
period the average evie is responsible
for 28 metric tons of emissions less
than
half of that of an ice engine despite
the fact that electric vehicles make
more co2 during their production they
more than make up for it by not having
any emissions during use taking into
account the emissions produced by
electric power plants that electric
vehicles source their power from the
national average for an EB is around two
metric tons per year so that means the
average evie will become more efficient
than a gas powered car between six
months to two years of driving and in
fact even the least efficient electric
vehicle with the dirtiest power source
like a coal power plant will be better
for the environment than the most
efficient gas engine after a certain
period of time electric vehicles in
states with access to cleaner
electricity like windmills solar and
hydroelectric power plants are
significantly more efficient look i
cross-reference everything in this video
and have no agenda to push I just wanted
to put that out there because you know
it's kind of tiring seeing the same
bogus facts being regurgitating in the
comments every time we make a video on
V's let's take a look at a few more
myths myth number one electric vehicle
production and charging from coal
powered plants produces more emissions
than gas car production and operation
false if you need a little more
convincing here's an amazing app that
can calculate and compare the emissions
of any gas car versus any electric car
and in the long run any evie beats any
gas car inefficiency I'll put the link
right here and in the description if you
want to check it out for yourself myth
number two our electric grid can't
handle the onslaught of EVs
this one is also false even if a quarter
of the cars on the road were electric
tomorrow
the electric grids in the US could
handle all of them without a disruption
myth number three government subsidies
for electric cars are unfair to poor
people they only benefit the rich now
this is a pretty impression in sight
okay it's true that if you buy an
electric car you can get a federal
rebate of up to 7500 bucks that benefits
everyone but if you're rich enough to
buy an expensive luxury evie like a
Tesla Model X you'll actually only
receive about half of that amount
yeah kind of surprising huh look man I
love my gas-powered Mustang I'm gonna
own a gas-powered car for the rest of my
life nothing matches the sound of a v8
turning gas in denoise I'm gonna get
that tattooed on me someday but I still
have to acknowledge the truth no matter
how you spin it
electric vehicles have less of an
environmental impact than gas-powered
cars am I gonna say you're bad person if
you don't like these because you're not
I just want to put the put the facts on
the table if this video helped you learn
I'm very happy to do that and I welcome
you aboard that doesn't need to be any
sort of separation hey if you liked this
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all right
Christ Stillwater