Do electric cars really help save the planet? Their detractors believe that the environmental benefits are exaggerated, but concerning global warming, studies show that they emit less greenhouse gases than combustion engine cars.
It is important to distinguish the impact on the climate from other aspects, such as mining pollution. AFP has verified three claims circulating on social media about electric vehicles.
Coal cars?
A frequent argument is that these electric cars would emit as much greenhouse gas as thermal cars, because the electricity they use is itself produced by power stations using fossil fuels such as coal.
But according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, an electric car charged in St. Louis, Missouri – one of the states most dependent on coal for electricity – produces an average of 247 grams of carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) per mile (i.e. approximately 154 grams per kilometer), compared to 381 grams for a thermal vehicle.
The carbon footprint of an electric car depends on the region or country where it was charged: it is higher in countries like Poland or Asian countries, which produce a large part of their electricity from coal, than in France where it depends very mainly on nuclear power.
And when we take into account the entire life cycle, including the production of raw materials for batteries and going all the way to recycling at the end of their life, internal combustion cars still emit far more CO₂ than electric cars, a concluded the expert organization International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) in a thick study.
Dirty mining extraction
Battery manufacturing is an energy-intensive process, because some components are mined and raw materials must be transported around the world for assembly and sale. Recycling them is expensive.
According to a post shared on Facebook, it would take 227 tons of earth to be dug to extract the metals needed for a single electric car battery.
This estimate appears to come from an analysis published in 2020 by the Manhattan Institute, a climate-skeptical research group. But according to several experts consulted by AFP, these figures are misleading. “That’s a gross exaggeration”, says Peter Newman, professor of sustainable development at the University of Curtin, Australia. According to him, it all depends on the region of exploration and the type of battery.
Beyond the climate, mining has other negative impacts: 70% of cobalt, one of the components of batteries, comes for example from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where children are exploited in the mines.
Access to components also poses strategic supply issues, many of which come from China, according to the International Energy Agency. However, oil drilling, with its significant environmental impact, is not a better solution according to Georg Bieker, researcher at the ICCT.
The risk of global warming caused by greenhouse gases is much greater for humanity, concluded the UN climate experts (IPCC) recently.
“In any case, it is clear that the social and environmental impact of global warming is catastrophic and of a magnitude far greater than that of mining for batteries”supported by M. Bieker.
The risk of getting “stuck in the snow”
After a snowstorm in Virginia, United States, in January, people shared posts on Facebook claiming that electric cars were at risk of breaking down in traffic, leaving passengers stranded without heating inside and lengthening again the lines of cars.
Several fact-checking organizations have sought to verify this claim and have found no evidence for these claims.
The question of the overconsumption of electric cars when it’s cold is debated among experts, with some claiming that internal combustion cars ultimately consume more because they have to keep the engine running to run the heating.
The British magazine Which? tested the battery of an electric SUV by simulating a traffic jam situation in summer, with the air conditioning, the radio and the light on inside, as well as a connected tablet.
In these summer conditions (and certainly not winter), the testers only consumed 2% of the battery in an hour and a quarter, or the equivalent of 13 kilometers of autonomy.