Example with the latest Tesla Model 3.
It has a battery of 80kWh is 80 * 150 = 12 000 kg of CO2 just for the manufacture ... It is the equivalent of 100 000 km of emission for a thermal car to 120 gr / CO2.km ...
Obviously the manufacture of the thermal car also emits CO2 ... but the electricity, unless it comes from a source 100% renewable, is not neutral in CO2 either ... In short it is not won the friends!
But it's not just CO2 in life (an electric car does not emit lethal fine particles, for example) and it's easier to produce green electricity than bio-refinery ...
See also the study of the ADEME of 2013 (quoted in the article below and which has quite different figures): Transportation-electric / Ecobilan-global-ademe-of-the-car-electric-vs-thermal-t13331.html
The Swedish Agency for Research and the Environment has made an interesting assessment of the environmental cost of producing lithium-ion batteries. It indicates several axes of improvement.
The Swedish Research and Environment Agency (IVL) has relied on more than 40 international research studies to take stock of the controversial production of lithium-ion batteries. In addition to the details, the agency offers several areas for improvement.
A controversy
This aspect of the production - or rather the cost - of batteries is one of the clashes between "pro" and "anti" electric cars. Because if it is clear that the electric car has more advantages than some during the phase of use (emissions of CO2, emissions of particles and atmospheric pollutants and noise), it is necessary to take the entirety of the imprint ecological, including the recycling phase (which is not taken into account here).
150 to 200 kilograms of CO2 per kWh
"Electric and hybrid cars have major advantages over petrol and diesel vehicles, particularly with regard to local emissions and noise levels. But it is also important to evaluate the entire picture and minimize the environmental impact at the production stage, "emphasizes Lisbeth Dahllöf, a researcher at IVL. According to the authors' compilations, each kWh of batteries produced would generate the equivalent of 150 to 200 kilos of CO2 in the atmosphere, a figure that is based on the global energy (production) mix still predominantly held by fossil fuels (from 50 at 70% of electricity produced).
Between 5 and 17 tons for a battery
According to this estimate, the production of a battery of 30 kWh would then turn around 5 tons whereas that of a Tesla 100 kWh would exceed 17 tons. This puts us far from the figures provided by ADEME (Public Agency for the Environment and Energy Management in France) in 2013 which gave 9 tons of CO2 for an electric vehicle and 22 tons for a thermal but with the accuracy of basing its calculation on the complete life cycle of the car (production, use, recycling), projection which necessarily offsets the emissions from this phase of production during use, or even recycling because the batteries can be reused (see below).
Everything depends on the source
That said, the study indicates that CO2's emission volumes can be very different depending on the reality of each country. Because the origin of the energy production can be responsible up to 70% of these emissions. Example: if we take into account how to produce electricity in Sweden - and therefore the estimate that 162 kWh of electricity is needed to produce 1 kWh of battery - the carbon impact could be lower by more than 60 % thanks to 58% of renewable energy production for 42% of nuclear shares.
The progress of the industry
The authors are also convinced that the carbon impact would be even more limited thanks to the progress that manufacturers can make, for example by placing solar panels on the roofs of factories, as is the case with Tesla. "For a sustainable future, it is important that the production of electric car batteries is as energy efficient as possible and produced with electricity that is totally or very carbon-free," says the study. It also invites the authorities to require manufacturers to publish figures on the "global" emissions of their models to better inform the consumer.
The impact of the consumer
The IVL study finally indicates that consumers also have their share of responsibility and that they could also reduce the CO2 impact of battery production by better measuring their needs. Indeed, the "range anxiety" or fear of running out of fuel pulls the production of large batteries upwards when this is not necessarily necessary. Supply and use should therefore be better segmented in order to produce as efficiently as possible. In short, it is therefore above all necessary to think of the evolution in a global way, knowing for example that the batteries of our electric cars will be able to experience a second life in our homes as an area for storing electricity when it is the most available or surplus during the day. We could thus use a battery for 30 or 40 years knowing that in the meantime, progress in recycling will have greatly evolved. The future must be thought about now, but in a necessary globality, which our leaders do not seem to understand at all, very unfortunately.
Source: https://www.moniteurautomobile.be/actu- ... ction.html
Download the study: http://www.ivl.se/english/startpage/top ... ction.html
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