What’s Going On Here?
A new study published in Nature: Sustainability shows that electric vehicles (EVs) produce up to 70% less CO2 than their petrol counterparts, across their entire life-cycle.
What Does This Mean?
Whilst this may seem obvious to us curious.readers, in recent years there have been many detractors claiming that ‘the production of electricity and their manufacture outweighs the environmental benefits.’
Scientists from the University of Cambridge, Exeter and Nijmegen (The Netherlands) looked at environmental life-cycle costing for electric vs petrol cars across 59 regions across the world (accounting for 95% of global traffic). Their results showed that in 53 out of 59 regions, electric cars already have lower lifetime carbon emissions, than petrol cars.
In countries like Sweden and France (that have a high mix of renewables and nuclear power) the savings on CO2 emissions are up to 70%, whilst in the UK, EVs produce 30% less CO2. It is only in countries like Poland and India, where their electricity grid is heavily dependent on coal, that emissions for EVs are currently higher than petrol car emissions.
Why Should We Care?
Governments across the globe are pledging ambitious targets to reach net zero carbon targets, and those dates are getting closer every day.
In the UK, transport is now the biggest contributor to carbon emissions, so a combination of decarbonising the energy grid and utilising clean energy for transport and heating is essential for us to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Florian Knobloch of Nijmegen University and the lead author of the study, sums it up perfectly.
“There is no need to wait. There’s a net benefit from electrification even given all the uncertainties and variations. Don’t be confused by all those different results out there. It’s a no-regret choice already.”
Be curious!
Electric vehicles are on the rise, and as more and more manufacturers go ‘all-in’ for electric vehicles, the cost of owning and maintaining one will keep falling.
- Switch to a sustainable electricity supplier like Ecotricity or Octopus, it might take you half an hour, but it really is worth it knowing that the kettle that just boiled for your 4th cuppa this morning was powered by renewable energy, rather than oil or coal.
- Test drive an electric car – we know it might not be the most ideal time, but for now why not take a look at electric vehicles on the market and when you can, book in a test drive!
