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Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery-electric equivalents, according to a study adding to evidence that moving away from gasoline and diesel cars will bring big net environmental benefits.
Only around 30 kg of raw material will be lost during the life cycle of a lithium-ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared to 17,000 liters of oil, according to an analysis by Transport. & Environment (T&E) seen by The Guardian. A calculation of the resources used to make automobiles relative to their weight shows that it is at least 300 times greater for automobiles fueled with oil.
The campaign group said battery electric vehicles were superior to their gasoline and diesel counterparts in terms of demand for raw materials, energy efficiency or cost, as well as eliminating exhaust emissions of carbon dioxide. and other harmful gases.
The accelerated move towards electric vehicles will have environmental costs. Increased battery production will require more extraction of minerals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.
However, T&E argued that the cost of extracting oil for fuel represents a much higher environmental cost. The report pointed to a “double standard” used when assessing the relative merits of electric and fossil fuel vehicles, which takes the use of oil for granted.
“When it comes to raw materials, there is simply no comparison,” said Lucien Mathieu, T&E transportation analyst and author of the report. “Over its useful life, an average fossil fuel car burns the equivalent of a 25-story high stack of oil barrels. If you take into account the recycling of battery materials, only about 30 kg of metals would be lost, about the size of a soccer ball. “
Advances in battery technology will reduce the average amount of lithium, nickel and cobalt required for each car, mitigating some of the increased demand for the materials and lowering car prices. At the same time, circular economy regulations that mandate higher recycling rates could further reduce demand.
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T&E calculations suggest that battery electric cars will use 58% less energy than a gasoline car over their lifetime and emit 64% less carbon dioxide. Emissions associated with electric cars occur primarily from energy-intensive battery manufacturing, while the vast majority of emissions associated with internal combustion engine cars come from their use.
Some manufacturers of internal combustion engines have advocated the benefits of reducing emissions through hybrids that combine batteries with gasoline engines, in part because of the emissions associated with battery production. However, Aston Martin faced a backlash last year after a report making similar claims – that the large amount of carbon used to make electric car batteries undermined the case for a gasoline switch – was attributed to a company from Registered public relations to the wife of a UK automaker director.
