Are Teslas Actually Better For The Environment?
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- Опубліковано 29 тра 2024
- Are Teslas Better For The Environment Than Gasoline Cars?
Sponsored by Omaze: Enter Here To Win a 1965 Convertible VW Bug
Powered by Tesla Batteries - bit.ly/Win-1965-Electric-VW-Bug
Are Tesla Electric Cars actually better for the environment versus alternative energy sources? Do electric cars have lower emissions, even if their energy comes from fossil fuels? Between electric, hydrogen, gasoline, diesel, and hybrids, which uses the least amount of total energy, from well to wheel? This video will analyze the entire energy equation, starting from the very source of the fuel, whether that’s petroleum, natural gas, or other energy sources.
Featured in the video is a 1965 Convertible Bug powered with Tesla battery pack modules. The car uses five modules of the 16 total in a Tesla Model S or X battery pack, giving it approximately 100 miles of range, paired with a 102 horsepower electric motor, and a manual transmission! It’s the ultimate environmentally friendly car, with a reused Beetle matched with reused Tesla batteries. Check out the video for a full breakdown of the emissions related impact of gasoline vs electric cars.
Related Videos:
Electric Car Production Emissions - • Are Electric Cars Wors...
Electric Car Battery Concerns - • What Really Happens To...
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People love to talk about the emissions associated with electric car production, or the materials and disposal of batteries. I'd encourage you to watch these videos before making assumptions.
Production Emissions: ua-cam.com/video/6RhtiPefVzM/v-deo.html
Battery Production/Disposal: ua-cam.com/video/1mXSMwZUiCU/v-deo.html
I'm missing the source of the papers you cite; is it me who can't read or did you forget to source them?
In other words: pls sauce me daddy °^°
What about shipping the materials?
@@Moontrue1on1 whell the oil has to be dug an refined also
The biggest problem is people assume that carbon emissions are a bad thing. What they fail to understand is that just like the water cycle the earth has a carbon cycle which must take place. Just like the water cycle. If we don't produce carbon emissions the earth will.
"Even the WORST Electric car on the market"
*Audi, visibly nervous*
@@Contrailing new leads are nice
@@Contrailing He means in terms of efficiency though
@@Contrailing the Zoe is streets ahead of the LEAF. You yankeedoodles don't have it.
Geoff from top gear lol
:o)
Absolutely love this channel. Really appreciate the depth of research done and the delivery of the information
Thank you!
@Engineering Explained bravo sir, well done. What we really need next is a detailed video showing the benefits of retrofitting all of our current cars with battery drive systems just like the Omaze Beetle. Why produce millions of entire new cars when we can just retrofit a battery and drive system? It seems that would be the best use of limited resources. As you know, there are plenty of mom and pop shops already doing this...we just need the big players to contribute.
@@EngineeringExplained Absolutely love this channel too, but your posts have become more about entertainment than engineering... since their are to many varied parameters (such as picking NG vs coal), in the real world than what was used in your oversimplified example.... this is why real engineers don;t get sucked down these types of political "rabbit holes"... that have no definitive answer.... for a counter narrative
But at least they are amusing :)
@Genghis Chuan good point. I did think about it too. Maybe a follow-up video on emissions of production of these cars? I think i heard a story of how making a Prius gives off the same amount of emissions a Range Rover gives off in 10-20 years?
@@jitinvp3358 He is way ahead of you ;) The links to the production-related videos are linked in the description as well as in his pinned comment
Which is most efficient? Tesla, x ,y, z, etc.
"Hold on, let me handicap the Tesla to make this comparison more fair."
4 min later: now on top of that I'm going to round up the efficiency of gas production by 8.3%
Annnd the electric still wins by more than 15%
Mike Stromecki he was smart to do that. Otherwise, the haters would hammer him so, giving the benefit of the doubt and still losing gives them no leg to stand on.
David DiStefano go Tesla :)
@@dreadone6894yea boi
that 90% is generous by at least 5% from anything I've read.
The Flintstones fixed this problem since 2019 *B.C.*
Food production is incredibly energy intensive; calorically, the most efficient form of human transport is the bicycle.
Video posted the same day John B Goodenough wins Nobel prize of chemistry for invention of lithium ion cell. 😀
Well, these batteries aren’t... goodenough!
Damn, for a guy named Goodenough he's still teaching and researching at 97 years old.
I read he recently published a paper on a new type of battery. Exciting stuff
@@LoserEater303 Real exciting, a better battery would basically double/tripple electric car efficiency, drones could fly for days instead of hours at a time, you phone wouldn't need to be charged every few hours and even if it did the gianormous ammount of space the battery takes up could be drastically decreased. Batteries are basically everywhere in our lives, and even 0.01% improvements in their technology is huge in the long run to the whole of humanity.
@@mataskart9894 If you talking about glass batteries then those were debunked some time ago. If something newer then it's all cool and stuff untill the energy is realeased uncontrollably. You'd be holding 100+ grams worth of TNT in your hand
You completely ignored the smug emissions associated with the typical Tesla owner, though.
I own a Tesla 🙃
Those also go down with time as better and better EVs are adopted.
@Andrew Gutmann You. sir, win the internet!!
Do you drink your own farts too? Lol
Smug emissions mainly come from hybrids though don't they??
I supercharge near a Mexican restaurant and all the money saved goes to lunch. He did not account for my increased emissions. People of Columbus TX know.
Mmm I love when you talk emissions efficiency. Very informative! Thanks for making this.
you guys should collaborate...
God damn electic cars would be great in New Zealand, 85% of our electricity generation is renewable 😁
98% in Norway 😂
It is now, but how about when everyone is on electric? You'd need gas power plants to cower the electricity deficit
@@lenesutesting why would there be an electricity deficit? NZ barely has 5 million people...
@@lenesutesting do renewable naysayers even try to be correct on the internet?
@@KendrickMan as you can see yes
I noticed that you didn’t include human powered.
How far can you travel on a cup of soup vs a cup of gas?
You can work it out. The calories / energy are on the packet. I don't think it's particularly efficient given that running your brain and body uses most of your energy and only a tiny amount goes into mechanical output.
💀💀💀
James Cross woosh
Certain soups make me gassy...
@@bosstowndynamics5488Thought it was interesting so had a look. I found a study that measured cycling 1km = 26g CO2. Which makes it better than a car, except it doesn't scale well. A car can carry 4 people. A fit person can produce about 150W of sustained power but they consume 100W doing nothing so at least third is overhead - plus you have to keep feeding a human even when they are not pedalling you to work. If food is derived from farmed meat it looks catastrophically bad in terms of emissions especially methane which is 25x worse than CO2. If thats not bad enough you're obliged to wear cycling shorts and have a bad attitude and life is too short anyway to be made shorter by getting squished by a prat in a Range Rover.
As usual, awesome job presenting the facts!
ChrisFix hey guys , chrisfix here ! 😂😂
ChrisFix love your videos dude
Here's some facts for you @ChrisFix and undeniable ones at that.
The same repetitive psychological iterations which have culminated in you being able to read my comment and indeed write yours are being deployed via TV and radio to directly influence your behaviour.
They do this via your subconscious mind the very same subconscious mind which allows individuals to sleep walk and sleep talk or if you wish to see it actively taking control over yourself then of course a methodical task being performed in silence will facilitate the conditions for your subconscious mind to play music in your head and you either sing, hum or tap objects with your hands or feet.
It's not my guess that TV and radio is directly manipulating your behaviour it's a fact you can easily prove when you take into account that it was exactly repetition which culminated in you being able to read this and I'll be willing to bet anything on it that music is what influences everyone reading this whether it's them putting the radio on or the subconscious mind picking up on radio someone else near by is listening to.
Turn off your TV and radio and you'll find the real you's not the one which that radio has been repeatedly throughout your entire lives curtailing via the same repetition which allowed you to read this.
HEY *GUYS*
UPLOAD A VIDEO BROO
Very nice, but I was missing 2x items from the electric calculation model.
- self discharge rate of the batteries over time (may be significant in not used frequently)
- energy needed to heat the interior of the vehicle (repeated winter short trips)
and co2 emmision to make the battery
@@handbollish co2 emissions to build a 1000lbs battery vs the c02 emissions to extract and refine 30,000lbs of gasoline, plus another 1000lbs of motor oil over vehicle lifetime. Engine plus transmission plus alternator plus starter motor takes more c02 to build than a couple electric motors also.
13:17
Porsche Taycan engineers: “Allow us to introduce ourselves”
Close, I'm pretty sure he was talking about the Audi SUV, the Taycan weighs around 5k pounds and it is a sedan
The Taycan is a sedan? Isn’t it?
Am not an engineer but this is a fascinating presentation. Thank you.
I'm not an engineer, and I too like to watch UA-cam videos :)
In a just world, every newspaper owner/editor would require their writers/pundits to watch this video before publishing a single “news article” on EVs
@@aussie2uGA What world are you living in? The mainstream media is full of lefties that talk about the environment every day. The reasons Teslas get bad rep is because they have quality issues.
@Robert Ljenko you seem to forget that the propaganda machine always takes either the worst case or best case scenario of a scientific study to sale their product, Make a Headline, then they bury the rest of the facts under a hundred words..
@AnimeBeefRandoms this comment is so off topic that you clearly did not watch the video either. Step 1, you watch the video, step 2, comment on whether others should watch the video
AnimeBeefRandoms AnimeBeefRandoms even if that was true, at least they listen to the scientific community much unlike the right wing media who either gladly take that oil money, or reject the evidence because it conflicts with their ideologies.
@@aussie2uGA do you think Baillie Gifford & Co is in it to save the environment or make money?
Well produced and researched as always. Very informative. Thanks
Thanks, your videos are always awesome and well thought out.
As an old gear head who work in the petro-biz for a quarter-century, I SO want to hate on electric vehicles, but you're making that a difficult prospect.
You don't need to hate on them. Think of them like, the general public who don't care about cars, should use these eletric cars, while we gear heads can use our lovely singing internal combustion engines.
@@SgtKanyo I love the sound of an NA V8, but damn if youve ever driven one of the performance Teslas, the driving experience is insane, and it's only going to get better.
@@yel27 It's because it has huge instant torque and AWD. So it grips. Want to experience the same? Do a launch control with a GTR and you get pretty much the same.
But for me I don't care so much about the accelerations. Sure it needs to be above a certain acceleration, but the fact that you hear an engine working, going through the gears, the roar of a v8, or the howl of a V12, the way you put that car into corners especially if it's RWD. An eletric car with it's washing machine sound will never come close. The electric car is faster in a straight line, but anything else, the ICE beats. No soul in those cars.
That's my 2 cents.
Agree, some enthusiast cars can still run fuel. Electric mainstream will be great though
As someone who owns a classic car I get easily annoyed at neckbeards who think they're saving the world when they want to ban everything that isn't electric. I get that not every EV owner is like this but we have far too many people like that in positions of power right now. EE at least doesn't let fear mongering overrule science and I respect that about him.
Am I the only one that says “Hello everyone and welcome” in his accent when the video starts 😂 great content 👌🏼 been watching your videos since the small white board
Accent?
@@Maroco918 i'm assuming to everyone else in the world, and even regions of the U.S., this guy has an accent to them. you know we aren't the center of the universe right?
@@daftnord4957 i live in dublin you twat 😂😂
@@Maroco918 Everyone has an accent and OP might not be from the US you twat
@Tee Hoe gaan dit?
Hey, Jason! I just saw your interview with Gears and Gasoline and it really put you into a new light for me. Earlier, you were just some dude with a lot of knowledge about cars and I deeply respected you and your passion. Now, I believe I know you a little better than I did before and that is so satisfying. I know you get a lot of mean comments and hate and meaner jokes. I just hope you get much more appreciation.
I really appreciate your work and your passion. You're humble, knowledgeable, smart (read: IQ 2000). I respect your yearning for learning and hope to learn more from you. I admire you, man. Thank you so, so, so much for everything.
Thank you for this video! You are the man!
*lives in washington*
Almost all of our energy is clean
*Can't drive anywhere without seeing 10 teslas*
@Charles-A Rovira Here in small town Snohomish we tend to forget that DC exists. Danka chu.
Nathan Skinner try driving to Yakima
Nathan Skinner snohomish aka Seattle
@@ChaseOGLP No, it's a totally different place. I dislike going to seattle because it is basically baby manhattan.
Same here in Temecula ,CA. Multiple Teslas at intersections!
That was highly intriguing! Thank you!
Brilliant video! Thank you so much!
Thanks Jason for your great calculations as always! It’s so important right now that we have guys like you who get to the ground proofing that it’s the cleaner alternative!
Except for the prevalent use of estimations and percentages. Cleaner isn't necessarily better.
can you do a series on energy production comparing the emissions and hazards of various forms of power generation and comparing real world costs with renewables such as batteries and toxic waste from photo-voltaic solar panels
Good topic I enjoyed it very much. Thank you!
Love you work, Mate!
I still love my Volkswagen Lupo 3L
Those Lupo/A1 3L cars were little cars that could. Low-key achievements of efficient engineering.
How much soot and NOx is your 20 year old diesel emitting?
Also, eco mode sounds like what vw later added to every car only to be used during emissions testing. Lol.
@@fields1 The CO2 emissions are only 81 gram / km. In terms of NOx and particulate matter emissions, this Lupo version already complied with the Euro IV standard that came into effect in 2005 when it was introduced in 2001. This means that the emissions of NOx and particulate matter (including soot) are below 0.25 resp. 0.025 g / km.
Also, the claimed 3L/100km (33km/L) of the Lupo 3L was from before a more realistic measuring system was introduced. In those days they removed all unnecessary parts of the car (seats, mirrors, etc.), used special non-standard low-friction wheels, taped over all exterior cracks and spaces, etc. to boost the numbers. In practice it was supposedly around 20-25km/L in normal use, which is also fine but nothing like what was claimed.
lifecycle CO2-equivalent emissions (g/kWh)
coal - 820
gas - 490
biomass - 230
solar pv, utility - 48
solar pv, rooftop - 41
geothermal - 38
concentrated solar - 27
hydro - 24
wind, offshore - 12
nuclear - 12
wind, onshore - 11
(median values calculated by the IPCC 2014)
(note: solar/wind require buffers, which are not part of this calculation)
Exactly nuclear is the clear winner. Yet if you ask anyone they'll tell you nuclear is bad. It's the only one that is clean, controllable and reliable.
@@Name-kd5jj Plus nuclear doesn't kill endangered birds in large numbers like wind. Also, they completely ignore the fact that nuclear has a small foot print. Wind and solar take up massive amounts of land in comparison. Which could have trees on them, for example.
Nuclear ftw
why are his numbers so much lower then? he has EV as 100% natural gas and has a g/kWh as 190
@@itemushmush In the video he shows grams of CO2 per mile driven, the comment shows grams of CO2 per Kilowatt hour of energy.
amazing thank you for this insight
Thanks for making this vid!
Well done EE! Thank you for the well informed video answering the relevant questions regarding gasoline/diesel VS alternate powered vehicles. Love the complete efficiency breakdown from energy origin production to daily driver efficiency VS emissions output. Great stuff! Keep your well informed objective videos coming!!! 😄
TL:DR - Yes, hugely, and improving in two ways at once
amazing effort, well done
thanks mate! amazing video!
Natural gas releases much less co2 than coal, which accounts for (like you said) ~33% of electric generation in the US. The coal produces sulphur and nox as well. In addition, don't forget that the average car in the US is 11.8 years old.
Nat Gas is 36%, and has been increasing. Coal power production is 28% and has been steadily decreasing (hence I chose nat gas for the analysis). If you include the overall pie, which means 38% renewable/nuclear, those two sources dramatically reduce CO2 emissions (as they have none associated with power production).
@@EngineeringExplained I'd love to see you take into account the cleanest combustion engine, with best fuel economy, best emissions and really good production efficiency, that is the CNG, number 10 on the list. Just the recovery and easy transportation via pipelines and way cleaner and efficient combustion, that should've been even closer to challenge electric cars.
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Yyyyeeeessss
Hahaha
Your data interpretation and analysing is excellent
Great follow-up to your other video!
Jason - If you're going to do such a detailed breakdown, then you should at the very least figure out how much electricity is used to refine that gasoline, and also figure in the source of that electricity and how polluting THAT is.
I think my EV uses less electricity than the equivalent gas car uses just to refine and pump its fuel.
Can confirm, my grandfather set up power systems for refineries, and stated that this was the case.
@@Mech-Badger-Man Gotta love anecdotal evidence......
I was also curious about the emissions and energy expenditure for transporting the gasoline or hydrogen. Transmission power lines loss were calculated.
Pretty sure that was included in the 81.7% efficiency. We have been refining for a long time and this process is very optimized.
How on earth is the most efficient diesel on sale in the US only getting 37mpg?! My 12 year old Audi diesel gets 55 mpg quite regularly.
Couple reasons. One is different gallon sizes, I presume you're outside the US where gallons are 4.54 vs 3.79 litres. The second is test cycle, the EPA testing perhaps isnt the best for accurate diesel mpg, we all know a BMW/VW diesel is a mega on fuel. Still 39 mpg combined is 46 mpg in larger gallons, which is a fairly realistic 50/50 highway/city mpg. Lastly US diesel isnt as good as say Euro diesel, one of the reasons Mercedes have injector issues in their US models.
you don't have california legislation that requires a dpf which kills mpg
Mark Wells I don’t live in the US. I live in England, and have a dpf which is the law here.
Donkeh McDonkey ahh interesting! Thanks for explaining
@@markwells8347 the rest of the developed world complies with Euro 6 emission standards, which are pretty much as restrictive as US emissions laws, particularly for commercial vehicles.
Love your videos, man.
U’re a good teacher man with crisp explanations.
I actually was able to follow along and I’m not very bright.
It’s one thing to know sth it’s a whole different story to teach it.
That 90% efficiency of gasoline during extraction, refining and transportation is way too high I think.. we already loose 5% just by evaporation! And as said here in other comments, that refining requires huge ammounts of energy.
But good to see once again that driving a Tesla is superior to driving an average gasoline car.
that 90% is refining only. not included is extraction, transportation, boil off, or the car's engine of about 20%.
Have to agree. There is a measurement of how many barrels of oil are recovered from a barrel of oil used: Exploration through extraction, and its getting lower; especially as we extract the harder to get sources such as shale oil. Early days this was 100-to-1 currently about 20-to-1.
Let me save you 15 minutes: YES.
thanks a lot
Your answer was faster, but it wasn't even remotely interesting. The video still wins.
Mark Langridge His answer wasn’t trying to be “remotely interesting” he was just trying to be quick and answer the initial question the video proposed to save people the 15 minutes who may be looking into buying or are interested in a tesla like he said
aaron names care to explain why?
Thank you captain
I have a 2014 Cruze diesel and over 167,000 miles, it averaged 37.3mpg so your numbers are right on. Now that doesn’t take into account that working security, I idle the car for many many hours which hurts obviously. I also got fuel for free which helped my cost big time but doesn’t change the mileage. Great explanation and research as always.
Wow great research!!! Sharing it on fb!
I seriously question the automotive or petroleum Industries calculations of 81.7% efficiency!
Yes. It's outside the scope of this video, but the "energy returned over energy invested" (EROEI) calculations of some of the worse recovery methods are much less than 80%.
In fact fracking might possibly be close to 0%.
@@gelu88 One study (DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.05.049) puts gasolene production EROI at around 15:1, meaning an efficiency at around 93%
The better it is the more money they make. I can imagine they put a good bit of effort in that.
I thought refineries are the biggest users of electricity. So gas car are using gas made by electric power.
But do you ever question Tesla's calculations?
Here in brasil toyota recent released the corolla hybrid flex. It can be powered with E100. Do you know how the efficiency of ethanol production impacts on this calculations and carbon emissions ?
Thiago Penso Bevilacqua Sure, the E100 fuel’s CO2 emissions are a closed loop, but in order to get all the farming land, a lot of rainforest had to be burnt down, which was actually a biospheric carbon storage...
It’s a double edged sword
Toyota releasing this Corolla without having the options to charging externally and advertising it as self charging made me lose all respect for them
I have not done the math on it, so I don't have an exact number on it. I do, however, recall seeing a study where the land mass required (square footage) to create the necessary amount of energy is massive, and that from an energy standpoint there were more efficient ways to use that land (solar, wind, etc) which in turn would have lower impacts. But again, it'd be interesting to run the analysis on.
@@propergander8509 I am not so sure about that, most of the ethanol on Brazil is made with sugar cane that is not planted close to the amazonian rainforest. because the soil is too poor here. But of couse it was planted on the Southeast region of Brazil and northeast coast of course, most of the original forest on the southeast is not there anymore but that is because there is where most of the population of the country lives
we're arguing if EVs pollute less or not, when we could have race fuel, pollute less and have a blast :D
Great video. Well done.
thank you for this interesting video
I love the depth of research but I would prefer to see the numbers of lithium mining and refinement added into these numbers. Actually, that being said it would be interesting to look into the amount of energy expensed when obtaining the raw materials for a variety of vehicles.
That would be really helpful but he already has the attitude that lithium mining is "not so bad"
12:09 No, it isn't zero.
I remember a paper the german budestag commisioned, to inform them a few years ago in that matter. (so not by a political party but by all together do have a ground for discussion and decision) who came out with the numbers as following: production of electricity over the lifecycle of a power plant:
hydro: 4 grams of CO2 per produced kWh, wind: 9 solar 12, and coal was above 50 when just used for electricity and around 38 when also used for "comunity heating" (force-heat coupling). (these were the best case scenarios)
Nuclear power they said is almost not calculatable because of the efforts in producing the materials, maintaining the facility (and security) as well as the immense time of storage of the radioactive materials and the effort to store them in a safe and secure way for that long.
I'm also wondering about your comment concerning battery production. As everybody else calculating came to the conclusion that for the prodiuction of one electric car you produce the same amount of CO2 as you would for producing one middle class diesel car + driving it for 50k km.
He did say that EV production emissions are offset on average by driving it for 1.67yrs
nirfz “basically zero” once a solar array is running it produces no CO2 besides the maintenance. As the power grid and society becomes more green, that reduces emissions on everything including those maintenance emissions and production emissions, thus it will become “basically zero.” Also as I’m aware most people tend to drive a car more than 50,000km before getting rid of it so that argument doesn’t make sense.
@@johnmoore1495 "will become zero" is not the same as "is basically zero" until then, we can not calculate with zero. That would be a dubious practice. We take all those things into account everywhere else too, so why ingnore them here, just to make it look better than it is? People also often underestimate the damage to the envirement in getting raw materials. That's not just the case with oil, coal and natural gas thats also true for materials used for solar cells and batteries. Then there is something hardly mentioned about the solar and wind plants: they are destabilizing the grid. No problem at all if they are not connected to the grid. Then thats fine, but because their power output is varying due to natural causes that can cause huge problems in the grid systems. It has in the past caused high CO2 emissions because caloric plants (coal, oil ect) had to be use to cover the gaps and stabilize the power distribution.
As to "that argument makes no sense" Think about it again: It means that by the time you have gone 50 000 km with a middle class Diesel car, this has caused the same amount of CO2 (inlcuding the manufacture of the car as well as all the maintenance and fluids the electrical car hasn't needed) as a freshly produced electric car without going even 1 meter.
And if you then take into account the numbers of emitted CO2 per kWh of produved electricity (and as long as those plants aren't built without causing any CO2 emissions, this has to be taken into account. I think in general we shoud try to reduce electricity consumption, so that eventually the amount we consume can be achieved by less harmfull production. Wind plants where i live are put on mountains, ruining the wildlife there, huge roads to bring those big windwheels up have to be created, the cranes and trucks to transport them and assemble them aren't running on solar power, the concrete bases they have to build to make them withstand the huge windpressure is almost as much as you need for a hydro plant and also has to be produced and brought there,and the copper needed to connect them to the grid isn't produced nor the calbes laid by "green" vehicles either... The report i mentioned that stated the 9grams of CO2 by 1 kWh in wind energy would in my opinion have an even less good value for wind energy if germany wouldn't have big flat areas with much better preconditions to build windfarms than we have in my country.
wow man youre incredible. please keep it up!!
Wow, I've never had something so complex be explained so well to me.
Another point is that Tesla actually builds their batteries in low emissions plants which use much cleaner power overall than the average grid.
But in any case, the average emissions for US electric production, per the EIA data, are about 1 pound CO2 equiv. per kWh. Since the EPA is basing it's MPGe numbers on an estimate of 33.7 kWh of energy per gallon of gas, you can say this amounts to 33.7 pounds of CO2 per gallon equivalent.
The CO2 emissions per gallon of gas burned by an ICE car are less. About 19 pounds directly, but about 26 pounds once you account for wheel to well (emissions during production, refinement, and transportation). But this still implies that the EV only needs to be about 27% more efficient in it's MPGe (33.7/26=1.27) in order to be producing lower overall emissions.
So an EV only needs to be better than 32 MPGe to beat the average gas car (25) and better than 64 MPGe to beat a good hybrid (50) on emissions.
Even in the state with the dirtiest grid (WY) per the EIA state profiles, about double the national average CO2 emissions, the EV only needs to beat 65 MPGe to be better than the average gas car, but needs to reach 130 MPGe to beat the 50 MPGe hybrid.
Overall, I think the numbers for hybrids and PHEV can get close enough to EVs that it can be reasonable for people to decide between those technologies based more on convenience and economic costs. But if we are taking environmental costs seriously, nearly every new vehicle should really be at least a hybrid.
My VW TDI turbo diesel gets 50 miles to the gallon. I can go almost 700 miles on one tank.
Tell me about it. 37mpg for a diesel? Give me a break. I'd need to drive around all day with the throttle pedal planted through the floor to get my diesel consumption down to 37mpg.
same mile units?
Thx for the comparison. It’s hard to make comparisons with so many variables 😁
Good video as always! Ryan-
I would say the only problem with this analysis is that it doesn’t account for the amount fossil fuels needed to power the heavy equipment to extract the lithium and other materials raw materials from earth to make the battery. These materials are finite and rare earth elements. With respect to the rare earth minerals that also present challenges from a geo political respect with China having the largest deposit. I would be curious to see carbon emissions if all these factors were called into question. But great video!
There are studies out there including this and the emissions from making gas. Basically it came down to majority of emissions from cars comes from driving them. So yeah evs start out a little higher but even if youre powering on 100% coal electric over lifetime of car itll be less emissions than a car running on gas
Then you would have to compare the amount of energy needed to manufacture an electric car vs an ICE car
This is related to vehicle production emissions. And he says multiple time in the video to check out his other video about vehicle production emissions for both gasoline and electric cars.
There is an equation at the end of the video that clearly shows an electric car will make up for any extra production emissions including battery production in less than 2 years.
One thing I think that is missing is the category of manufacturing efficiency of producing the vehicle (emissions related to battery mfg, cost of battery materials, emissions related to vehicle and battery disposal, etc)
Cost of battery materials doesn't actually matter as if you compare with other harmful fuels.
Yes but battery disposal is gonna be a major issue
He said multiple times that he has other videos about the battery effiency etc. Just go watch those.
You were not paying attention.
@@Markle2k Yes! Just look at the comment of Engineering Explained and you will get your answer
As discussed in the video, here are the links:
Production Emissions: ua-cam.com/video/6RhtiPefVzM/v-deo.html
Battery Production/Disposal: ua-cam.com/video/1mXSMwZUiCU/v-deo.html
Love your videos!
Wow great video!
I live in Germany and I drive a 2006 Ford Fiesta 1.6 TDCi. Normally I get 50mpg. If I put effort in driving economically and limit my speed to about 55mph, I get easily to 70mpg with my personal best being as high as 84mpg.
With my camper (partly integrated design) based on a Ford Transit, I get to 30mpg and that is a big car!
You should compare the Tesla to the most efficient fossil fuel car in the same category as the Tesla. That would make more sense.
That's Euro MPG, he's talking US MPG, by which I mean they can't even measure a gallon properly over there.
Unfortunately the us government and big oil have determined we cannot have the high mileage autos you have in Europe. While electric cars are cool I don’t like the fact that Teslas are in constant contact with headquarters and can have features turned off and on OTA any time they deem it necessary. For long distances they don’t make sense due to recharging times
@@stevemiller6766 tbf Supercharger network is already pretty large across the states and when you travel, you usually make stops and 30 minutes should be enough to recharge.
In the latest UK reliability survey the 2nd worst brand (Land Rover, which are awful) scored 78%. Tesla barely scraped 50%. That's a Tesla thing not an electric thing of course, but I'll stick with the Lexus for now. The connection thing is coming for all cars and I hate it, I don't mind my location being tracked but every tiny detail of what I'm doing? Sure, they don't really spy on people as such but I'll pass anyway.
@@ApothecaryTerry we dont use MPG in europe, we use L/100km
This is an amazing video with some great info showing how good electric cars really are even when charged through fossil fuels. My only issue is the gasoline comparison has been done using american averages and the america has some of the worst average fuel economy in the world. I live in the UK and average MPG of a car here is 51MPG for petrol cars and 61MPG for diesel, with some of the best economy cars like the new renault clio getting around 80 in the real world. Would be interesting to see these numbers added to the overall efficiency grid to see how they stack up. In america the average person would clearly be putting out less CO2 in an EV vs a gasoline car but I'm not sure the same would be true for the UK or other countries like japan where cars average MPG is better.
Thanks again for another great video :)
A US gallon is only 3.79 litres whereas an imperial gallon is 4.54 litres! So 20 mpg in the States is 24 mpg in the UK.
Kevin Urben I didn’t know this so thanks for that. But as C- said even taking this into account the average is still very different compared to other countries
@@matthewclarkson4883 Even considering the better fuel economy cars in Germany or the UK get, you have to remember that some european contries get a lot more of their energy from renewables (just checked for Germany, the biggest source for energy in the first half of 2019 was wind power - at least for private households - according to the Fraunhofer ISE)
Thank you!
Informative
Would like to see the ev's where you calculated the efficiency by combining all of the different electricity supplies. So that you got the average scenario and not the one were only gas is used to produce electricity.
Agreed. This is a flawed comparison, because once you have oil, it's easier to burn it than refine it to gas before burning it.
You should consider the marginal source of electricity, that is the source that will be used to INCREASE the electricity production due to the replacement of a gasoline car with an electric car... If all the cars will be electric the amount of electricity needed will increase hugely... It seems that everybody always forget this
@@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele Wrong. It takes a lot of energy to refine gasoline. One litre of gasoline is about 35 kWh. That's about half of the charge in my Model S. It takes much more than 35 kWh of electricity to refine that litre of gasoline. If you charged an EV with it instead of refining gasoline, you could drive a lot farther.
If you are going to talk about the overall energy picture if everyone switches to EVs, you have to also take into account that we won't need to refine gasoline any more, *drastically* reducing those energy needs.
Obviously this guy is an EV advocate. Its easy to cherry pick your own info to suit your opinion. For example"we will just say diesels and petrol is the same." Are you kidding me?
@@unbiasedcobra6672 Diesels and petrol cars have the same fuel economy in USA apparently. In Europe we have better fuel economy on diesel cars but our engines are usually under 2 litters because of exponential tax increase when you go over 2 litters. That's one of the reasons why Diesel cars are more widespread in Europe than gasoline cars but people started to get sick of all the emissions reduction systems that fail again and again and are starting to look at gasoline or electric vehicles as well.
I would love to see this kind of video in the future with the data updated.
This^^
I found your results amazing in a n awesome way! I want to say that by producing electricity from water renewable resources, the emissions efficiency of an electric vehicle compared to gasoline, would undoubtedly be the most environmentally friendly vehicle.
Nice video, and is not just the efficiency, removing all those fumes from the cityes is a big plus for ppls health
I worry about battery degradation and eventual cost replacing them if buying a 2nd hand electric car
You shouldn't worry. In Teslas last earnings call, they confirmed the Million mile battery. That is 50 years if you travel 50 miles every day. Plus Redwood Materials are recovering >95% of the raw materials for reuse in Lithium batteries today, which will improve as they scale. Buy a Tesla, it'll be the last car you need as the over the air software upgrades keep improving the cars performance and range.
You should do a video on how cold weather affects battery range, heat issues and all that stuff too.
Love your videos, keep it up! :)
Great video!
I think this usage comparison is cool, but I'd be interested in the emissions comparisons between electric and gasoline cars (generally) made by the manufacturing process.
he already made a video covering that
He mentioned like 3 times that he has a video covering this.
Hey EE, you forgot to cite the efficiency % of the internal combustion engines in the gasoline cars, which typically averages around 21% (I got 19.655% in a dual-turbo V6). Different cycles also have different efficencies, such as the Rankine, and diesel engines under compression as well (30-40%).
Over 80% of the thermal energy in the refined fuel is lost as waste heat in the conversion to kinetic.
Thank you!
@M Bacon Very good point! People often underestimate how large the Model S and X are. The model 3 is a big improvement without sacrificing much internal space. Difference between model 3 and S is about 400 to 600 kg. Furthermore, those vehicles still utilise wet cells, imagine them using dry cell technology (solid state).
That'd be included in the mpg. If a car is more efficient because it wastes less energy to heat, that means it goes father with the same gallon of fuel (aka more miles per gallon)
The efficiency of the engine/motor is captured in the MPG rating. And yes, that's where they major loss is: lots of that gasoline energy is wasted in heat and noise, idling, and so on as an ICE is quite inefficient as you note. Electric motors are easily 2x as efficient. What's also interesting is that Tesla has put substantial effort into reducing drag, as well as reducing rolling resistance -- things that few other production cars do as well (other EVs included).
@M Bacon Excellent point on weight and overall person/freight transport efficiency, as well as the "US business as usual" approach to transportation. PEVs are the best option in terms of short-distance, inner-city commutes, IMO.
A Tesla Model 3 SR+ (RWD, standard range) weights 1,600 kg (3,500 lb); I weight 70 kg (154 lb). So:
- The car weights nearly 2300% my body weight
- Little over 4% of the energy is used to move ME, while the other 96% goes to moving the car.
My electric unicycle, for instance, weights 25 kg. So:
- The wheel weighs roughly 36% of my body weight.
- 26% of the energy is used to move the wheel, while the other 74% is used to move ME.
Now THAT is an infinitely more efficient means of transportation, especially if you consider that a ridiculous percentage of internal combustion cars are actually used as one-personal vehicles...
And for long-distance travel, it's a shame we aren't investing in high-speed rail...
@M Bacon BTW, in a Tesla Model 3 SSR+, for instance, what percentage of the useful work is applied to transporting a person?
Pertinent subject!
What is the total carbon output of each. We also know that epa rating are not accurate.
ICE have a higher carbon output, not to mention that it has been going for like 100 years so keep that in mind :v.
U didn't consider the right factor for gasoline conversion cause there are many more steps to make gasoline use ready and not all plants are equally efficient in extracting fuel
Like co2 for trsanportation
It was best case scenario for ICE and worst case scenario for EV
Yes i also noted that he clearly said WHO published these numbers for the efficiency of gasoline from well to gas station... So take a guess
@@StellarGale sorry but worst case scenario would be if he calculate with an Powerplant using Coal. The Best Powerplant with coal is 45% eff.
@@StellarGale It's not worst case scenario for EVs, that's just an assumption. Charging and discharging efficiency can vary greatly.
Also he forgot to include the negative externalities of fracking to extract the natural gas. Coal would be the worst-case for EVs.
Thank you
I love this channel because of the amount of thought and brainpower that goes into the analysis! On my channel, by contrast, most recently I've been attempting to fry an egg ... :D
grams/mile. LOL
Love this channel and LOVE how you go into the details of this. So often I hear people use this exact argument "EV's are bad for the environment because they run from coal".
Nope, still better, even from coal. Great job.
This video needs to be redone with oz/km :P
I don't get these people's logic as if coal was the only energy provider. I live in a region where the electricity is 95% hydroelectric, i'd like to hear them how it's bad for the environment when the energy is renewable.
@@Djou-Karl AN where I live it is 95% coal so what is your point? An EV built in Asia and operated here takes about 150,000KM of driving to drop to the same per km CO2 emissions based on whole of life costs compared to a modern 2L ICE car in the same class. They never reach ROI parity if bought on finance due to the increased cost of the EV.
I wish it were otherwise but life sucks.
@@SurmaSampo You seem to be interpreting these numbers different than I would. As long as you don't crash it in the first 5 years, it's more efficient than ICE. Most cars last at least 300,000km if they aren't complete garbage.
Lithium mining carries high environmental costs. Mining companies prospecting lithium in northern Tibet, salt plains of South America, and Chile as well as lithium at Bolivia's Salar De Uyuni require extensive extraction operations and water in a dry land.
go watch his other video titled: "Are Electric Cars Worse For The Environment? Myth Busted" at 11:23 of that video he talks about what you just said and explains why it's not bad compared to crude oil extraction.
Lithium is not the final word on batteries though. Eventually advancements will be made to use more sustainable battery chemistry, we just aren't there yet. And of course, lithium batteries are recyclable so it's not all being consumed with use.
Numbers are speaking the truth so simple it is. Great analysis and easy to understand.
Good video, and I would've loved to see a full "cradle-to-grave" analysis for each type of vehicle. Should also consider production costs of petroleum, natural gas or hydrogen, including the energy required to transport those materials via ships to refineries and finally to your local fueling station. Being a civil engineer, I love this stuff. Could you link your sources in the description?
You could do a best case for the EV, so we could see, "what we are fighting for".
This video made me feel old. Like how I look at cars from the early 1900s that have to be cranked to start. That’s how gasoline cars will look 100 years from now. 🤯
In 100 years the climate will have warmed so much and so many cities flooded and people displaced that people will look back and hate cars from this era.
They will seem like a product of their time. Best we could do right now in the circumstances we are in. Unfathomable amounts of engineering, testing and improving on improvements.
Also totally idiotic :D
Dang you must be really old
Westin R I’m 24 😂
You anti-oil bitchers forget that many things come from petroleum - Plastic buttons on your shirt, for example, or the plastic dash in your electric car. I still haven’t heard how that stuff will get replaced. Corn? Maybe the ‘farm bot’ will do it for us. I like EVs, converted one 10 years ago, lead acid batteries suck. Ask me how I know. While everything still works (except the controller smoked, had to fix that - and the BMS timer failed, and over charged the batteries) - the lead-acid batteries (even if the BMS hadn’t failed) - would not have lasted 10 years. Lithium ion batteries last a while in a car, and can be repurposed for a power-wall in your house. My EV only pulled 200-300 amps during mild acceleration. Hills? 600 amps. Houses use less than that. If you use commercial chillers instead of compressing refrigerant, and if you use rocket mass heaters instead of electricity, your heating and cooling costs go way down.
Really nice video. Lovely to watch. I wish you wouldn't change numbers which you've found cited in some literature though (e.g. gasoline efficiency from 82% to 90%). Better to just clearly state where the number is from. Doesn't take away from your overall point however, so kudos for the fantastic content.
I recently came across some old Motoring magazines from 1954 and there was fuel economy tests it showed a current model for the time Citroen the results for it for 67.3 miles per gallon
And yet we see high 30's as good :/
It's prompted me to look at fuel economy of cars and there are actually a lot of old cars that far more efficient then I think that new cars are just far too heavy and have too many accessories to ever be fuel efficient
In Hamburg, Germany they are building a 100 Megawatt modular Hydrogen plant that extracts CO2 from the air, powered by wind energy. In Spain there is a Kerosene plant that also extracts CO2 from the air and is powered by solar energy.
Can you also explain ill effects or advantages of Lithium mining and its effects in the environment ?
Thank you...as an engineer to hear people blindly sing the praises of EVs without looking beyond the hype has been frustrating. Lithium mining and recycling all the material needed to switch EVERYTHING to battery motors is going to cause its own environmental problems.
@@buffteethr
Engineering Explained
has already done a video on this though, he says this right at the start of this one...
@@buffteethr except he has already done a video on that
@@buffteethr in this video I guess he thinks hydro, wind, solar electricity plants just magically appear too
@@whaterfoo Power production will appear, but not magically. Power demand will continue to grow as people consume more power. Not only this, but the source of power will constantly be pushed to be cleaner and more efficient. So power production will keep changing, so its a matter of developing forwards, or becoming complacent and never advancing.
I think it would be better to develop towards nuclear and renewables, dont you?
Hi, your videos are too good, well explained. Kudos for that, can I request you to do or rather take time to explain the differences between, different firing sequences on multi-cylinders engines. Inline, parallel, 45°|90° vtwin, and it's firing timing.
I gotta say...I really like the look of your model 3 with the new wheel/tire package! I would have chosen a different surface appearance ( the black look is so over with to me) but it's not my vehicle right! Still, I Bet it's a far more comfortable riding car now! Put a space in the trunk/frunk thingy and ya got an ideal car!
how about the electricity while extracting oil and refining and transportation fuel (how much it uses and how much more electricity it uses to extract and refine). You should do another calculation on how much emission will be to drive 100 km.
that's included in the 82% number.
What about electric in winter in montana? Are you going to factor in range when heating batteries and cabins?
Hey what about people who live in large cities with horrible traffic and will have worse gas mileage
Or summer in Florida.
Don't come here with your logic, this is a Tesla fanboy gathering and this blasphemy will not be tolerated.
My friend in NW Montana has a model S and the heater in winter takes 150 miles off the range in the winter.
See? This is a problem. Anyone who understands these.basic details is going to see through any video such as this. These half truths are full lies. It is dishonest. This video is dishonest.
I live in the UK and was looking at this recently but I approached it slightly differently. I found reliable data on gross UK electricity production in 2018 based on our UK mix of generation. Our overall figure was 283g of CO2 per kWh. I then found transmission and charging losses similar to yours of 50%. Then found a quoted figure for a Nissan leaf of 4.9km/kWh. Calculate this out and you get 115g of CO2/km.
Compare this to a Toyota self charging hybrid Auris, they quote a figure of 84g of CO2/km.
Also there is a practical limit of how much intermittent solar and wind generation the grid can tolerate and is economic. Its unlikely we'll get to even 50% intermittent. If we go heavily into thorium nuclear generation that would be a game changer I suspect but there is still substantial co2 associated with nuclear when the full life cycle is considered.
Anyway thanks for a good video, bye.
I had a physics teacher that taught mostly mechanics. Doc Watson wore an ammo belt loaded with chalk and enforced learning the fudge factor.
You should make a video on price per mile considering the average use life of a car comparing ev to gas
operating cost of a EV is around $0.03-$0.05 per mile. whereas the operating cost of a ICE vehicle is around $0.08-$0.09 per mile, excluding the cost of repairs for the ICE vehicle. Depreciation is not factored in here, as it would be highly subjective (which ICE vehicle, and depreciation is non-linear). The average vehicle ownership is about 5 years, and the average annual mileage is about 15000 miles. Thus, the operating cost of the EV for those 4 years is: $1800-$3000. Whereas that for the ICE is $4800-$5400. Thus, based on operating cost (assuming no maintenance costs), the delta is only about $3000 odd.
@@kapilchhabria1727 what i find interesting here is that tesla recently annouced their soon to be 1 million mile life exentency battery, wich means if they get implemented in the teslas, it's gonna cost even less per mile to operate
@@tisebi14 i estimated based on the energy consumption and average cost of electricity. given such lofty mileage, over time, owning a EV will far outstrip an ICE viz-a-viz lower cost of operation.
Great info, still looks like Hybrid is a great option, even adding in the cost of production. Thanks!
Good option if you're on a dirty grid that won't ever get cleaner
Not really a good option. After all that in the video there are the mantelpiece costs and hybrids and gasoline really suck there :)
they're not a great option, that doesn't account for cost of the car and cost of ownership.