Are EVs Really Better for the Environment?

We know that we don't talk about the downside of making petrol in this video and focus on lithium, it's because when we've talked about the environment in the past and without fail people bring up "but what about child labor" and "what about mining lithium?" We address that in this video. We don't talk as much about how dirty it is to refine petrol. At the end of the day, EVs from cradle to grave are better for the environment.

If you count the mining, manufacturing of battery against EV's carbon footprint, shouldn't you count mining/transporting/refining hydrocarbons against ICE?

What, no mention of the collosally filthy petrochemical industry then? If you're going to mention the effects of mining for EV battery materials, you should probably mention the environmental impact of the well to pump petrochemical supply chain too.

It would be interesting to see a study that included HEV life cycle emissions vs. EVs. With some HEVs consuming one-third to nearly one-half the fuel of similar ICE vehicles but with a battery pack a fraction the size of an EV — typically 1.5 kWh vs. 75-100 kWh — I would think the difference in life cycle emissions would narrow considerably.

For EV to even be continued to be used new and different battery tech is required, Lithium is actually dangerous in many ways...

Sigh, if people really want to save more carbon footprint, then either walk or ride a bicycle.

Forgot to mention that the electricity it takes to simply pump oil to the surface requires enough electricity to power 12.5 million EVs. Want that pumped to the refinery? Another 5 million EVs from that electricity. All of that needs to be considered when considering the fuel component of the ICE cars. Studies today consider only cost to transport fuel (22% correction) not the raw mining costs of oil. Add to this 10% of all shipping is for fossil fuels. The EV difference is under represented even in those studies cited.

The emissions of ICE vehicles of 430 grams per mile is very low. It accounts for jus5 burning the fuel for running the car. If you add up the amount of CO2 that is added due to exploration, drilling, extraction, transporting, refining , transporting to pump, pumping into a vehicle., emissions from abandoned wells. Just for refining a gallon of gasoline, it requires 4 kWh of electricity, which is got some portions directly from grid and the rest by burning the dirty gas oil. The CO2 emissions and other pollutants are enormous. A Tesla Model 3 can run 17 miles on 4 kWh, the amount needed for one gallon of gasoline. The things are oil spills, leaks everywhere and other loss of fuels like flaring etc. Finally, there are 3 million abandoned oil wells in US and much more abandoned wells from fracking. Fracking wells usually work for 6-18 months and after that we don’t get enough oil to keep it alive. Oil companies never seal these wells and if they seal it works for ten years and after that the seal breaks or explodes. These cause huge methane emissions and also other chemicals totally polluting the neighborhood. Oil companies are not interested in abandoned wells at all because they lose money in that operation. You need account this methane emissions in your calculation. Also, regarding EVs, most used battery chemistry is LFP which requires only Lithium and Graphite, no other Cristal metals. Lithium processing and the Logistics are improving and it be much easier and faster to extract Lithium from ore. Once the recycling of batteries goes on in large scale, it will become even more economical and less polluting. A lot of Lithium refineries are opening in many non China locations

This is not a terrible comparison; but, as others have indicated. You must account for "mining" of oil for burning and lubrication, refining facilities, hazards of environmental catastrophe (oil spills, blow outs, pipeline leaks, train derailments, refinery explosions, large scale benzene pollution from refineries), the transportation and the fuel used to do all these things.

Why the f does YouTube have to keep labeling these videos with context about climate change (linking antiquated info) when this video is evaluating further info than what their articles dwelle into ? ? - Keep the narrative grounded at the same old facts even if proven to be not completely accurate ? Sounds like the Google/Alphabet way !

We recycle lead acid batteries at about 90% that's why we don't have lead mines everywhere. Some of the lead in your battery might have been mined in the 1950s. We will do the same with EV batteries. By the way cobalt is needed to refine oil into gas so not unique to EVs. The reason EVs don't seem to be making a difference is because they are not "replacing" gas cars, most of them are in addition to gas cars and the gas cars traded in or handed down when someone buys an EV is likely to drive more miles each year than it did with the first owner. It's going to be very slow going.

With lesser parts in EV, the life time of the vehicle does not need more replacement than an ICE Vehicle (engine spark plugs engine oil etc) isn’t that more environmentally friendly in that sense lol

I like how all the people that are pro EV think that they dont require oil maybe not in the way of fuel but the lubrication of all mechanical components and most countries generate at least a portion of there electricity with fossil fuels the tyres synthetic fibres used to make the the interior components (seats carpets and plastics) all these thing mean oil doesnt go away its mining is an additional mined element to there construction and operation it doesn't remove any it might reduce the fossil fuel burning at the vehicle but its still happening somewhere weather it be during the mining the manufacturing the charging or the maintenance it still requires fossil fuels and if you think solar and wind power generation is fossil fuels free again oils lubricate moving parts of a wind tubine coal is used in the steel manufacturing of the poles in which they are mounted and the energy to produce solar panels and the tubine blades requires a lot of heat and energy to creat that heat is more then likely natural, coke gas to generate enough heat but yeah you keep believing that your EV is free of these pollutants 👍

Anything can pass smog if you know the right people.

Not bad but you left out that toxic tailpipe vehicles use cobalt in their petroleum refining process as well,also that about 40% of all ship travel is just moving fossil fuels around, and that the amount of energy it takes to go from crude in the ground to gas in the tank I about as much energy as it takes to power an ev... before burning a drop to move an inch.

Yes I was wondering as you had carbon footprint for batteries & did a deep dive into human suffering mining the rare earth metals , do you have carbon footprint oil ? The land ploughing it, removing the trees drilling one 200 wells to find one well that works pumping high-pressure water into the ground to push the oil out, transporting the oil to refined. We refining the oil where they all have long pipes burning off, methane and natural gas as a byproduct into the air, transporting the gas now to the place And the countries in the Middle East that we buy oil from that are in the Middle East countries that we fought wars in , civil wars for oil killing each other over , currently sinking super around tankers around Somalia, , over oil the cost to clean up the super tankers that sink, I’m not saying making batteries is clean just be fair and talk about oil is extremely dirty and carbon footprint to make and turn into gas

I drive an EV because of the performance, not for the environment. I wish the EV industry never mentioned environmental advantages. It just further separates people. When people try and bring this crap up with me and my EV, they shut right up when I tell them it’s the performance

This argument is always presented in unhelpful ways. They key thing to understand is that eliminating CO2 emissions in transport to maximize environmental benefit is a multi-part solution. You need both clean energy and EVs. That's the goal. To do this as quickly as possible, we should work on both at the same time. Are EVs better for the environment right now with your current local energy generation mix? It's really an irrelevant question in the long run. Sure, if you only build half a house, it doesn't work very well. Build the other half too, and then it works great.

FYI because of the dangerous nature of current EV battery tech insurance is going through the roof, so no savings will be realized in using electricity at all

Yes, but not as bad as gas cars.