Under the current situation of global environmental protection, electric vehicles have become the default trend to replace fuel vehicles. Governments around the world have introduced a variety of subsidies for purchases, and even strict regulations that require manufacturers to sell electrified vehicles.
Under the pressure of policy guidance, the number of electric vehicles in the world has grown rapidly, but the question of whether electric vehicles are pseudo-environmental protection has always been hotly discussed by people inside and outside the industry.
Many car fans believe that the so-called electric car is nothing more than using coal to generate electricity, and then using electric motors to drive, but in fact it is more like a coal-fired car, which is a regression of human technology and has nothing to do with environmental protection. On the contrary, the pollution of conventional fuel vehicles is actually far from being as terrible as people think.
After two years of research, the Association of German Engineers has its own answer to the fierce collision between different points of view.
The essence of environmental protection
Before comparing which of the two is more environmentally friendly, we must grasp how they are calculated and the criteria. The carbon emissions of electric vehicles and fuel vehicles are calculated in a completely different caliber, and for fuel vehicles, the carbon emissions in the process of vehicle use are mainly calculated. Electric vehicles, on the other hand, mainly calculate carbon emissions from electricity extraction and transportation.
Combustion engines produce close to 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of gasoline burned. Each liter of gasoline weighs about 750 grams, and after combustion, it will produce 0.75*2.9251=2.194 kg of carbon dioxide.
In 2019, the highest carbon emission in the country was the North China Power Grid, with 650 grams of carbon emissions per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. Because electric vehicles do not produce carbon emissions while driving, carbon emissions from the grid are equivalent to carbon emissions from electric vehicles.
The VDI, the association of German engineers, has conducted a life-cycle carbon emission analysis for electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and combustion vehicles. The results show that electric vehicles cause more pollution in the production process than gasoline vehicles, but when the vehicle has a range of 90,000 kilometers, the carbon emissions emitted by the two will be equal to each other.
At 200,000 kilometers, the total carbon emissions of electric vehicles are 24.2 tons, and the diesel vehicles in the same class are 36% higher, reaching 33 tons. Interestingly, the plug-in hybrid model, which was previously questioned as non-sticky, has a total carbon emission that is only 0.6 tons higher than that of electric vehicles, which is almost the same as that of pure electric vehicles in terms of environmental protection.
The VDI, the association of German engineers, concludes that there is still a lot of potential for the environmental impact of electric vehicles at this stage, and if all the electricity consumed by electric vehicles comes from fossil fuels (i.e. coal), then the carbon emission level of electric vehicles will be extended to 160,000 kilometers.
If electric vehicles can only be driven after 160,000 kilometers, then they will lose their environmental significance. As Liu Ke, a foreign academician of the Australian National Academy of Engineering, said: If electric vehicles have been relying on coal power in the future, its existence will only increase carbon emissions, and there is no environmental protection at all.
Back in 2020, electric vehicle brand Polestar conducted a carbon emission test on its Polestar2 model, and the results showed that the electric car needs to travel 72,420 kilometers to have lower carbon emissions than the Volvo XC40.
This was an instant source of extreme displeasure among EV proponents, who said that Polestar's tests were hindering the development of EVs, but then car manufacturers countered with stronger rhetoric and attitudes.
On the day that Fiat Chrysler Auto AG and PSA Group merged to form Stellantis, CEO Carlos Tavares was in the global spotlight, blasting electric vehicle regulations as coercing car companies to force the production of electric vehicles.
He said that governments around the world have not fully understood the environmental impact of new technologies, and in fact, the carbon emissions generated by the manufacturing process of batteries have already stifled the meaning of the word environmental protection of electric vehicles.
At the same time, some industry insiders pointed out that there are big problems in the comparison of fuel vehicles and electric vehicles, and people often ignore environmental factors such as acidification, freshwater ecotoxicity, eutrophication, human toxicity, land use and photochemical ozone formation, etc. In fact, electric vehicles should be more harmful to humans.
The environmental implications of electric vehicles
In fact, the environmental challenges of electric vehicles are not limited to emissions, but also battery recycling.
Power batteries contain a large number of heavy metals, electrolytes, solvents and various organic excipients, which are seriously polluting. Lead-acid batteries from traditional vehicles can be widely used and recycled, but lithium-ion batteries from new energy vehicles are difficult to recycle.
Lithium batteries will cause serious harm to the soil and air whether they are buried or burned, and at present, "dismantling and recycling" and "cascade utilization" are the only two options.
Dismantling and recycling are divided into two treatment processes: fire recycling and wet recycling, and the more common fire recycling is to mechanically crush the battery and then extract the usable metal through combustion. Wet recycling involves immersing the battery in an acid pool, which in turn produces a metal-loaded soup.
There are pros and cons to both methods, but no matter which one is chosen, there is no way to avoid the problem of generating waste and emitting greenhouse gases, and lithium battery treatment is still unsolved.
Echelon utilization, on the other hand, refers to the method of repair, modification and remanufacturing to make it continue to work and use. Retired batteries have been tested for performance and can be used in areas with lower standards in the future. Until it completely loses its performance, it is then handed over for recycling, but this is still not a long-term solution. And the overall route of echelon utilization is still relatively vague and sluggish.
For China, the effective life of power batteries is 4~6 years, and the peak period of the first electric vehicle popularization in mainland China is 2014, which means that we have ushered in the peak period of the first wave of battery retirement in 2022. Ten years from now, millions of electric vehicles will be officially retired, and the recycling of power batteries will be a difficult problem.
However, it is comforting that at present, major car companies and third-party companies in the mainland are actively building a closed-loop system for the life of new energy vehicles, as well as exploring the recycling route of power batteries, hoping that they can achieve something and share the worries of the motherland.
Finally, there is a consensus in the automotive industry that the production process of electric vehicles has many more carbon emissions than gasoline vehicles, especially the mining and refining of battery "cobalt". It is roughly estimated that the carbon produced by the manufacture of an electric vehicle is 40%~50% higher than that of a gasoline vehicle.
That's why the German Association of Engineers VDI and Polestar say that electric vehicles need to travel hundreds of thousands of kilometers to be environmentally friendly. But the problem is that there is no perfect solution for the waste batteries generated after hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
What is certain is that the coexistence of oil and electricity is an inevitable situation in the short term. Despite the growing growth of new energy vehicles, they are rewriting the pattern of automobile development. However, in the short term, new energy vehicles will inevitably not be able to replace fuel vehicles due to various problems such as their own environmental protection and battery life.
The PHEV plug-in hybrid, as a transitional model for the transformation of fuel vehicles into new energy vehicles in the future, needs to be vigorously promoted by various governments. For major car companies, the new choice of automobile power does not mean removing the old and replacing the new, but to make a reasonable layout and choice on the two roads. Toyota and Mazda, for example, are particularly fond of hybrid models, and their core view is to improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions through internal combustion engines and hybrid technology.
And this view, after being tested, is also the most in line with today's environmental concepts. As far as China is concerned, we lag too far behind Western countries in traditional fuel vehicle manufacturing technology. New energy is a rare opportunity to overtake in corners, which can make the national automobile manufacturing industry grow by leaps and bounds, and plug-in hybrid can also become our first choice.
In the future, new energy vehicles will have to go through a series of transitions such as the development of green power grids, new battery recycling technologies, and the promotion of renewable energy, but we can fully expect the day when new energy technology will be truly successful.