Note on electric vehicles - 2022

Introduction

Circularity

Emissions

Exhaust

Life Cycle

Future

Currently, there are 3 main types of electric vehicles (EV): 100% electric, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells. As the last one is not widespread, we will not focus on it and on utility vehicles, but only on electric vehicles for personal mobility.

From a technical point of view, a 100% electric vehicle has only one gear without a clutch (so no gearbox). The batteries are usually located under the floor and it is thanks to their weight that an EV has an almost incomparable handling. There is no oil level, alternator or timing belt. To fill up, a standard household outlet is enough or via the use of a charging station. So no more smell or traces of gasoline after a refuel. There are currently two "standard" systems: the European CCS combo and the Japanese CHAdeMO. The CCS is the most widespread in Europe.

From a strict energy efficiency point of view, EVs are much more efficient, between the power supply and the energy delivered during its use, especially if one has a personal energy source. Recharging time varies depending on the charging station and battery capacity. Plugged into a household outlet, a full charge can last 24 hours. A classic plug offers a charge of 2,3kwh (+/- 10 A). If we take the Zoe model from Renault (the one I use), with the most recent characteristics, i.e. 50 kWh, the full charging time will last more than 24 hours. But as the battery is rarely below 20%, the charging time will approach 14 hours to reach 80%, and more than 21 hours for 100%. In general the manufacturer provides a Green up plug which increases the charging capacity to 3,2 kWh (+/- 14 A), which reduces the charging time by approximately 30% and a better stability to the grid. It is also possible to install a 7 kW (+/- 32 A) charging station, for prices around 1,000 euros, which will reduce the charging time by 3. (Clean car)

Circularity

Manufacturing:

20% of total GHG emissions for ICE vehicles and up to 47% for battery EVs are generated during the production phase.(Steel.org 2019). In addition, the manufacture of a vehicle generates approximately 110 kilograms of waste.(Scientific American 2017) Smart manufacturing and technologies such as industrial IoT (internet of things), data analytics, and robotics can make production more efficient, resulting in leaner operations while reducing recall rates for defective parts. According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) in 2020, CO2 emissions from vehicle manufacturing in Europe have decreased by more than 33% since 2005 thanks to more efficient smart management.

Wasted capacity:

Automobiles have a low utilization rate - typically 5-10% - which consistently leaves €7 trillion worth of personal cars idle. (Fortune 2016) The "use phase" also has a large waste footprint that includes, greenhouse gas emissions (road transport accounts for 17% of global emissions), micro plastics from tires, precious metal particles emitted from catalytic converters, the wasted intrinsic value, and not recovered, of the various parts and consumables (such as filters, fluids, and wiper blades) that are replaced during the life of the vehicle. In Europe, private cars have an estimated average age of 9.7 years and 12 million vehicles are taken off the road each year.(t2ge 2019) This equates to millions of tons of potentially valuable waste from end-of-life vehicles.(ec europa 2020)

I

Share:

Wyman Oliver and UC Berkeley estimate that the market for car rental, carsharing, and other EV-related services will grow by 40% by 2030, from 260 billion in 2020 to 660 billion in 2030. This means that 11% of car sales will migrate to the sharing economy as a new consumption model, which should push automakers to change their business models to remain competitive.

Secondary Markets

Currently, remanufactured parts are sold at 50-70% of their original price, with significant environmental savings (up to 80% less energy, 88% less water, 92% less chemicals and 70% less waste).(Esteva 2021)

Aids:

Short-term projections for complex systems that can be heavily influenced by a number of arbitrary decisions such as unexpected government subsidies, new laws, or sudden political reversals-remain highly uncertain, and even the short-term outlook yields a wide range of outcomes and possibilities. The technical difficulties accompanying the introduction of personal electromobility have not been insurmountable, but the sector has matured slowly, while combustion engines have continued to improve their efficiency, keeping their initial cost lower for several more years. While some countries have encouraged the purchase of electric cars by offering subsidies or lower taxes, others have offered little or no assistance.

Status of the fleet

By 2021, nearly 10% of global car sales were electric, four times the 2019 market share. Electric vehicle sales outright doubled from the previous year to a new record of 6.6 million units. While in 2012, total annual global sales were 120,000 EVs, by 2021 that represents weekly sales. This brings the total number of electric cars on the world's roads to about 16.5 million, triple the amount in 2018. In 2022 global electric car sales continue to climb, with 2 million sales in the first quarter, a 75% increase over the same period the year before.

The IEA's Announced Commitment Scenario (ACP), which is based on existing climate-focused policy commitments and announcements, assumes that electric vehicles will account for more than 30% of vehicles sold worldwide in 2030, across all modes (excluding two- and three-wheelers). While impressive, this is still well short of the 60% share needed by 2030 to align with a trajectory that would achieve zero net CO2 emissions by 2050. (IEA 2022)

Electric vehicle, thermal vehicle or both?

We regularly see "analyses" claiming that electric vehicles would be bad for the environment. In particular, it is common to claim that electric vehicles are worse than other vehicles because they would be responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions per kilometer than conventional vehicles. We will examine this claim, using readily available numbers and easy-to-understand formulas. Although the analysis is a European-specific average, the formulas we use can be adapted to any other country in the world, or for any vehicle, as long as you have the corresponding data.

Exhaust emissions

Gasoline-powered vehicles have CO2 emissions that are released by the combustion of the fuel in the engine and discharged through the exhaust pipe. Electric vehicles do not. But for a fair comparison, we need to go back to the source of the energy used to charge an electric vehicle and account for the emissions emitted by the power plant. We'll call these corresponding stack emissions the "tailpipe" emissions of an electric car and compare them to the actual tailpipe emissions of a conventional car. How does this compare to the average vehicle on the road?

Given that burning gasoline emits 2392 g of CO2 per liter of gasoline and that the average European car consumes more or less 6l/100km (16.7 km/l)

(2392/1)×(1/16,7) = 143,2

According to the EIA, the average CO2 emissions per kWh of electricity generated in Europe were 265 g in 2021. Based on an efficiency of 6.76km/kWh, this means that the Tesla Model 3 is responsible for an average of 34g of CO2 per kilometer driven in Europe.

(265/1kwh)×(1kwh/4.76) = 34.15 g/km

We can see that a thermal car emits 143 g of CO2 per kilometer, which is 4 times more than a Model 3 charged with the average European electricity. Therefore, the average Model 3 in Europe is much better than the average gasoline car.

Using the same formula as before, we find that the Ioniq Blue emits 98.03 grams of CO2 per kilometer, 288% more than the Model 3. The Hyundai Ioniq Blue consumes 4.1 l / 100km (24.4km/l)

(2392/1)×(1/24,4) = 98,03

CO2 emissions by vehicle type: electric, hybrid, conventional

Life cycle emissions

Tailpipe" emissions are obviously not the only emissions associated with a vehicle. While the energy required to manufacture most of the components of an electric car and a car with an internal combustion engine is relatively comparable (and therefore negligible), the battery of an electric car requires a much larger amount of energy to produce.

A rough estimate of the emissions produced in the manufacture of one kWh of electric vehicle battery (obtained by averaging the results of different analyses) is about 150 kg of CO2 per kWh of battery. For a Tesla Model 3 with a 54 kWh battery, that is 8,100 kg of CO2. Dividing this figure by the lower limit of Tesla's stated battery life (500,000 km) gives 16.2 g of CO2 per kilometer. Adding this to the 34.15 g/km of tailpipe emissions gives 50.17 g of CO2 per kilometer, which is almost half the emissions of the Ioniq Blue.

Future emissions

No matter what we do, since it still runs on gasoline, the Ioniq Blue will still have tailpipe emissions of about 98 g CO2 per kilometer in Europe. There is nothing we can do to reduce these emissions, except perhaps some marginal efficiency improvements in future models.

For the Model 3, on the other hand, we can do a lot to reduce emissions further. On the consumer side, we can charge our electric car with solar power, which in many places is already cheaper than buying electricity from the grid. If we don't include the energy needed to make the solar panels, the 16g of CO2 per kilometer from charging the car becomes zero. If we include the life cycle emissions of about 25 g CO2 per kWh produced by the residential solar panels (recent estimates2021), our "tailpipe" emissions are still only 9 g CO2 per kilometer, less than one tenth of the tailpipe emissions of the Ioniq Blue.

Therein lies the real promise of electric vehicles. While internal combustion engine vehicles are doomed to have the same tailpipe emissions for the life of the vehicle, an electric vehicle's tailpipe emissions will gradually decrease over time as the grid becomes less carbon intensive, and they can also be reduced by about 90 percent at any given time simply by recharging them with renewable energy. In this way, electric vehicles are the only type of vehicle that have the potential to become progressively greener over time.

In terms of manufacturing, we can also use renewable energy to produce the batteries, as Tesla has already begun to do. While some of the emissions associated with battery production will remain for the foreseeable future (not all of them result from electricity consumption at the factory, which can easily be replaced by solar power), we can also significantly reduce the lifecycle emissions associated with battery production.

And while conventional or hybrid vehicles will still have the same emissions, electric vehicles will become cleaner as the electric grid continues to decarbonize, and emissions can be reduced even further when cars are recharged (and batteries manufactured) with renewable energy.

Therefore, if our goal is to increase energy efficiency while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, battery electric vehicles are the way to go.

Notes

<Musk writes in his tweet that the range is between 300,000 and 500,000 miles. Thus, and after conversion, we can say that the battery of a Tesla Model 3 has a life that varies between 500'000 and 800'000 km.>