Interestingly, figures here and in the question mostly match: they talk about 0.15 - 0.2 kg CO2eq/Wh for the battery, and "16000 liters of fuel burnt or 36,960.00kg of CO2" ~ 2.3 kg CO2 per litre of petrol. Where they went wrong is comparing "36,960.00kg of CO2" to "20.000kg of CO2" and claiming "the math seems to add up". If they had taken the figure of 20000kg of CO2 and tried to get an equivalent distance, they'd have landed at a figure close to yours.

@muru it's not an order of difference. If they are trying to say (which I'm guessing they are) the difference between using gasoline vs. electrical isn't incredibly great they are right. Also in terms of ecological savings one should probably estimate the amount of CO2 produced by creating the electricity for the tesla driving 200k. And really the cost of production of the gasoline and the cars themselves.

More for clarification, 8 l/ 100 km seems fairly high to me for a new car. But a fair comparision would not compare to some tiny fuel efficient car but rather to one of a similar size (and motor power?). Is 8l/100km a reasonable assumption for these kind of cars?

There is a new version of the report where the new range for emissions from production has been calculated at 61–106 kg CO2 eq / kWh ( original article in Swedish )

8l is not high at all. If you do any kind of city driving you will be at 8l very easily. I drive a Nissan Qashqai and it is at 8.3 avg.

@user1721135 at my company we get a bonus if the avg usage of our cars is below 6.5l/100 and we get that every year. So 8l (to me) sounds high.

I'm actually struggling to understand the conclusion. Is there an excecutive summary, for us dummies?

@Strawberry The conclusion is that the original claim is around 50-150% too high for an assumed 8 liters per 100km car, but depends on which kind of car you compare it to. Also, not mentioned in the answer itself, it only compares CO2 from battery production to the CO2 emitted by a non-electric car while driving, not CO2 used for mining and refining the gasoline the non-electric car uses nor production of its gas tank, which makes it an apples to appletrees comparison.

It's still a pretty reasonable claim even if the numbers are slightly off: they are trying to say that driving an electric car is not as green as you think. (This reminds me of an apocryphal tale of someone heckling a politician for supporting an event that caused 50,000 deaths, to which the politician retorted, "That's not true! It was only 47,345!" and then proceeded to act as if he'd won the argument)

@Jungkook I've had individual long journeys that beat 4 l/100km in the '08 diesel estate I used to have, but for typical mixed (urban+distance) driving 6.3 l/100km was more common. Thus it's very dependent on journey type. Company cars tend to do long trips, so that target seems fairly easy if driving efficiently - and presumably the goal is to encourage efficient driving (which correlates with safe driving in most situations, and reduces wear and tear, so has further savings)

@user253751 It isn't a reasonable claim. You're not taking into account the carbon you end up putting in the atmosphere while making said gasoline - which isn't a trivial amount by any means.

@T.Sar-ReinstateMonica Moreover, carbon emission are not all equivalent. The CO2 produced when I breath isn't the same as the one produced from burning fuel.

@Zonata - I'm confused. What is the difference between the CO2 produced by animals and that produced by burning fossil fuels. (We're strictly talking about the CO2 here; not the particulates and gasses and other by-products of burning fossil-fuels).

Also much of the energy input to make a battery is spent heating and drying. Presumably in a hot, dry climate this could be done very cheaply with low-grade solar power.

@Mayo Its the origin of the carbon. The carbon I breath out came from plants which took that carbon from CO2, so its a carbon neutral process. Carbon from fossil fuels adds new CO2 to the atmosphere. If some synthetic food were made from mineral oil and I ate it then my breath would be adding CO2.

@PaulJohnson: Actually, it adds old CO2 to the atmosphere, from carbon that had been removed from the atmosphere for millions of years. But yes. ;-)

@Mayo - ahh. yes. I wasn't thinking of that I interpreted what you wrote as the CO2 produced by breathing was different than the CO2 produced by burning. You are, of course, correct - that is a major difference.

If I did the math right (someone please double check) the following link indicates CO2e from production of a gallon of gasoline averages 3lbs (0.36kg/l). Perhaps something to add to the analysis. news.stanford.edu/2018/08/30/…

As long as we're listing exceptions here--why does the comparison ignore the CO2 emissions that go into parts of the conventional car's production not needed by the electric car since the batteries replace an entire engine and drive-train--on top of that, electric car wear much less and there are no oil changes, … OTOH in some areas it's likely that the electric is 100% as CO2 unfriendly as the gas, even moreso because of battery inefficiencies. Electric in cars is a power transport mechanism, not generation! It just gives us the ability to choose better power generation.

8 L / 100km? My car does 6,5 L / 100km on a bad day...

We should also keep in mind that the situation is only going to turn more and more in favour of electric cars. The growth of electric cars had been stunted all these years because research was mostly concentrated on IC engine power-trains. Now, battery technology is improving, percentage of clean energy in grids all over the world is increasing and in general, EV technology is continuing to improve in massive strides. However, internal combustion engines have now reached a point of stagnation. Even if EVs were as bad as ICEs today (which they aren't), they would only keep getting better!

I wonder if it's worth mentioning that batteries which are unsuitable for cars can be, and are, re-purposed as stationary batteries. I think as-is, the argument implies that EVs are responsible for a, within an order of magnitude, similar amount of CO2 as an ICE but since the batteries are used beyond their life in a car, it is understating their usefulness.

@PaulJohnson Actually I suspect the CO2 you produce by breathing consumes more fossil CO2 than the gas does; between food transport, farming, fertilizing and land use changes. And regardless, the world doesn't care if we bury food (instead of eating it and block it from being digested) or stop burning gas (leave it in the ground); CO2 is CO2 is CO2.

@CramerTV That does make sense; if it took anywhere close to the energy value of gasoline to make gasoline it wouldn't be an energy source, it would be like ethanol: a way to convert coal energy into a nice liquid form.

I would be interested in knowing how easily one of those batteries could be recycled and what the impact would be after 1, 2, 5, 10, 50 recyclings of the battery.... I assume that once every car is electric (even without any other factors coming into play) the equation shifts significantly.

@Yaak The point about CO2 production making gasoline is that normally gasoline is considered to only put the carbon that it actually contains into the atmosphere. But if you are comparing gasoline with the lifecycle cost of batteries then you should consider the full lifecycle of the gasoline too. If it takes 1MJ energy to produce 1MJ-worth of gasoline that just doubles its carbon cost (assuming no renewables used).

@Yakk - CO2 is not all the same. If you have to remove the carbon from the atmosphere before you use it, then it adds nothing to the concentration and has zero warming effect. If you are taking carbon that was steadily removed from circulation over hundreds of millions of years, and then dump it back into the atmosphere that's a huge impact and difference from the previous status quo.

@pole the removal is the same; plants, trees, animals, oil. The return is the same; burning breathing, whatever. CO2 doesn't care where it comes from, and there is no moral difference between fossil CO2 and burning a log. Now, the log might be more likely to rot, being on the surface already, so that is a difference.