Out of nostalgia for the first car, which barely lasted more than 250,000 km, or out of ignorance about the operation of electric cars, it is often claimed that combustion engines have a better ecological balance. Is that true?

  • Electric cars run cleaner than combustion engines, even when powered by coal!
  • How clean is the European electricity mix?
  • As a new car, an electric car has a worse ecological balance than a combustion engine – at the end of its life a much better one

There is a claim that electric cars are not environmentally friendly because the energy balance of their production is worse than that of combustion engines. Critics like to cite two arguments: Battery production is energy-intensive. If coal-fired power is then used for charging, the electric car is even more harmful to the environment than a vehicle with a diesel engine. The study by the independent institute ICCT (International Council on Clean Transportation) from the USA contradicts this prejudice.

Electric cars run cleaner than combustion engines, even when powered by coal!

The entire life cycle of an electric car was taken into account when comparing the CO2 footprint. This includes the extraction and processing of raw materials, the production and provision of fuel or electricity, and the greenhouse gas emissions that arise during operation and recycling. Data from the USA, China and India were included. These are the largest sales markets for new cars, with a 70 percent share of the global market.

The result: In all markets, an electric car is already significantly more climate-friendly than a car with a combustion engine, assuming the same mileage over its lifetime. In the USA, electric cars can save between 60 and 68 percent of CO2. Surprisingly, even in India, electric cars are 19 to 34 percent greener, and in China, 37 to 45 percent greener. And yet there are still many old coal-fired power plants there that cause high emissions.

How clean is the European electricity mix?

And in Europe? In 2020, the share of fossil-fuelled electricity ranged from two percent in Sweden to 83 percent in Poland. On average, less than two fifths (39 percent) of European electricity comes from fossil sources. The median is 37.5 percent. Since the share of coal almost halved between 2015 and 2020, the electricity mix has become 29 percent cleaner in these five years. In 2020 alone, the reduction in CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity was ten percent. However, 43 percent of coal has been replaced by gas.

Of course, there is still room for improvement in terms of charging current. But when you consider that refining a single liter of gasoline consumes 1.5 kWh of electricity, it's something to think about. With this electricity alone, an electric car can travel eight to twelve kilometers. Given that the lightest Tesla currently consumes 14.9 kWh per 100 km, you quickly come to the conclusion that an electric car can only run on the energy that is wasted on extracting, transporting, refining and distributing the gasoline. This does not include the energy contained in the oil itself, so it could remain in the ground.

As a new car, an electric car has a worse ecological balance than a combustion engine – at the end of its life a much better one

No matter how clean the electricity is, it has to be stored in the battery. Battery production contributes most to the grey energy of an electric vehicle. This is why an electric car initially actually produces a larger amount of CO2 emissions than a combustion engine. However, after 80,000 kilometers at the latest - depending on the size of the vehicle - the electric car has made up for this disadvantage and is then much more environmentally friendly than a car with a different drive system. The good thing about it is that after one life as a vehicle battery, batteries are given a second life as battery storage for the home and can then be recycled almost 100 percent.

Conclusion

  • An electric car easily lasts more than three times as long as a combustion engine car because it has far fewer wearing parts.
  • Electric vehicles use 90 percent of the energy supplied for propulsion - petrol vehicles only use 15 percent. The rest goes into heat.
  • The traction current can be generated in a 100 percent CO2-neutral way using water, wind and solar energy. Exhaust fumes, oil seeping into the groundwater, tanker accidents, fracking, grey energy in the transport of heavy oil, disposal of used oil and filters and much more are avoided.

The bottom line is that an electric car with the European electricity mix produces just two-thirds to half the emissions of a combustion vehicle. In the future, the ecological advantages of electric cars will continue to increase due to the increasing share of renewable energies.