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this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Cool, some numbers. First off, looking over your math, it looks correct, so that's good. The article seems to be a bit confusing, however, or you're taking a best case scenario they don't approach in the article. It states that an EV takes 8.8 tons of co2 to produce. It later states, however, "However, a BEV (battery electric vehicle) produces less harmful emissions over its entire life. The study found that a medium-sized petrol or diesel car produces around 24 tonnes of CO2 versus a BEV’s 18 tonnes" this seems to imply to me that we shouldn't keep emissions at 0 throughout the EV's lifetime? I would assume this additional tonnage is from less-clean electrical generation methods and overall maintenance requirements.
If this is the case, it paints a bit different of a picture, more in line with what I said - that you should buy one if you're going to buy a car anyway, and drive yours. What the numbers provided does give us now, though, is a point at which the sunk cost DOES become too large, and that seems to be a car in the age range of 10-15 years at present.
Please, if I've misunderstood something with the article, correct me, and thank you for the write up with sources.
I added a "disclaimer" after the fact to mention that it's based on mileage way under what people actually drive and it doesn't take maintenance into consideration, with "real" mileage we're better off switching to an EV now because the switch makes you carbon negative after 5 years or so. The numbers used are appropriate in the sense that in both cases we don't count the CO2 coming from the production of the energy source used by either of them. If the vehicle life is the same, the 24 and 18 tons numbers (which seem to be under what would be expected based on the math I've done, that's a 10 years life expectancy for the gas car???) also show that the quicker we get rid of the gas cars, the quicker we reach a point where we're carbon negative compared to continuing to drive the gas cars until they're not drivable anymore.
If we go with a number much closer to the actual average (20k km/year) you can buy a new Corolla, replace it the next year with an EV, park the Corolla and never drive it again and the math goes like this:
5.6 (prod )+ 2.8 (scrap) + 3.2 (driving) + 8.8 (EV) = 20.4 tons
Years to reach 20.4 tons if we drive just the Corolla > 5.6 + (3.2 * X) >= 20.4? X = 5 years of ownership = 21.6 tons
After 4 years of owning the EV you're carbon negative in comparison.