How green are electric cars?

[Bob Purton]

Media Release, 25th February 2010
HOW ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY ARE ELECTRIC CARS?

In recent years, various claims have been made about the comparative environmental virtues of electric cars. However, for the first time, a motoring expert has carried out research on their „real world? fuel economy figures. Michael Boxwell tested two electric cars and two powered by internal combustion engines. Over the chosen route, the electric cars gave a carbon footprint of just under 50 g/km (compared with over 160g/km for the other two cars) and a total fuel cost of 26p (compared with over £1.50).

The electric cars chosen for the test were a new Mitsubishi i-MiEV and a three year old REVA G-Wiz dc-drive with old batteries. The results from both were very similar. They were compared with two economical compact cars: a new Toyota Aygo and a 2007 Fiat Panda.

Michael Boxwell explains: “I tried to ensure that the conditions were as similar as possible throughout. The tests were carried out in January 2010, with temperatures around freezing for the duration of the trial. Cabin heating was used where necessary. This is an important point, as electric cars are less economical in cold conditions than they are in warm conditions.

“The route I chose was my own personal trip to and from work – a total distance of just over 14 miles. This includes a total of about five miles of fast freeways and nine miles of busy inner city roads in Coventry. The carbon footprint calculations included the carbon impact of sourcing the fuel and transporting it to the power station, the production of the power, and the average transmission losses as it was delivered to the car.”

He adds: “Although these tests haven't been independently verified, they at least give a useful indication of relative fuel economy and carbon emissions. Even from my test figures, it can be seen that electric cars show remarkable levels of fuel economy and very low recharge costs compared with the other two models. There is little doubt that electric cars have a significantly lower impact on the environment than cars with combustion engines.”

Michael Boxwell is a best-selling environmental and technology author and speaker. He is the founder of the REVA/G-Wiz Electric Car Owners? Club, which has over 1,000 members. He has just produced a new book: “Owning an Electric Car”, with a foreword by former Top Gear presenter, Quentin Willson. The book includes a chapter that gives full details of the results of his tests. Further information can be found at: http://www.owningelectriccar.com.

[marcus]

Interesting stuff, cheers Bob. We hear a lot against electric cars in the media, and we all know that there still a few obstacles to overcome, but that seems to counter a lot of the pundits who keep telling us that electric is not as green as it claims. You already made an important point that you and your wife's use of your GW is optimal for a battery/electric car, whereas for me it would not be so good, and it looks like battery electrics may disappear within 10 years, but it is good to know that even this "flawed" system does have good Green Credentials!

[Big Al]

This test misses the point. The green measure of anything is the impact from obtaining raw materials to end of life not the small amount of carbon produced by use to do approx 100,000 miles. If you ask the wrong question you get the wrong answer. I suspect the electric cars are 'greener' but I also suspect that a true reflection will be not by much. The older and higher the milage the more green the vehicle is a pretty good rule as construction pollution far outweighs usage pollution.
Most of the statistics associated with green issues are wildly skewed. There are green answers but unfortunately they tend to discomfort the lazy western lifestyle and are therefore not greatly popular hence lots of bullcompost - goodness me there is one, stop eating cows now!

[Rusty Chrome (Malcolm Parker)]

These "dust to dust" reports have been quoted quite a lot - I know an article in CAR magazine in the UK had one showing how a Land Rover Discovery was more environmentally friendly than something like a Toyota Prius.

The site is here http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/

I don't think they're applied the same testing to an all-electric car yet

[Bob Purton]

I guess its like all things where money is involved, each side will present a case in there own favour, statistics will be distorted. My uninformed opinion is that I cant really see how a small electric vehicle which has a fraction of the moving parts that a IC engine car has that all have to been founded and engineered can be more damaging to the environment, ok, it has eight lead acid batteries but all cars have one battery and lead is constantly recycled. I'm not actually an ecowarrior at all or am I an evangelical vegetarian, just someone who has made a couple of choices that suit me. At the weekend I was still bellowing out two stroke smoke across the Cambridgeshire countryside. At least we are beginning to have a choice as to the energy we use to propel ourselves.     

[Big Al]

As Bob says the other statistics for the Prius are probobly promoted by the opposing camp. The issue of green really revovlves around length of service and the servicing requirements are minimal and simple. This is where economics come in. If cars last 30 years and are effcient siutable for home service no one makes very much money out of them after they are sold. Therefore we are told that designs that are overly complex requiring manufacture service, of a life over 10 years or so are green. They are not! You old fizzy is probobly greener than the G-Whizz if total impact is taken as the rule of measure!
Is a parrifin powered Prius called a Primus?

[Bob Purton]

Total impact is one part of the issue, the other is avoiding a high concentration of vehicles in one place i.e. cities, all bellowing out toxic fumes because it has an unhealthy effect on the inhabitants. Alan are you under the impression that I have a Fizzy [Yamaha FS150] ?  Sorry but its a Puch MS50. Or is Fizzy just a term you attach generically to all mopeds? Then again I think fizzy is also your nick name for Stuart isnt it?

[Chris Thomas]

Daer all

The issues surrounding electric vehicles as I see it are this. Electic motors are a proven means of creating rotational power that is reliable, compact, safe and low maintainence. Where as steam powered factory machinery in the past, now every machine is electric. So there is nothing wrong with electriity forming motive power. In the same was as you would not have a four stroke powered drill to put up some shelves, so scale is important. An electric cargo ship powered by batteries or solar panels, or a transatlantic plane, would be unthinkable, where as cars are on the edg where with an improvement in battery technology we will see in our lifetime more electric cars.

Next we have supply. If it were not for the internal combustion engine petrol would be a waste product after all the other fractions of oil had been split out for lubricants, plastics, fuel oil, parafin, etc. so everything has to be kept in balance. At the moment there is a greater demand for petrol than other fractions and so petrol is becoming more expensive and plastics are becoming cheaper, to try and maintain the balance. Electric cars will help to even out this imbalance.

life expectancy of petrol engines has improved ovr the last 40 years to the point where we get 4x the mileage out of an average engine and get 4x the power on half the fuel. But electric motars are far more reliable, with fewer moving parts and not needing complicated gearboxes, cooling systems, silencers, and other systems to control them. So potentially provided the structure of the vehicle remains intact it should outlast a petrol engined vehicle. The one weakness it has are the batteries.

Chris Thomas

[Chris Thomas]

Next we have legislation. Petrol is easily taxed and provide a lucrative income stream for the government, and is jusified by stating that making fuel more expensive makes us use less and so is morally correct. What the governmnt want is for more petrol to be usd so they can tax us more. Electric vehicles are hard to tax as thevast quantity of electricity is not for vehicle use and differentiating it would be seen as unfair or disproportionate. This is why road pricing is being introduced. Without road pricing the government does not want to promote electric vehicles as it would affect the tax income. We already have road pricing, it is called the London congestion charge zone. This is the first step to full road pricing. While electric cars are free under the scheme that could change overnight.

So to recap, Electric motor verses petrol engine, the electric motor wins on power and reliability. Battery verses petrol tank, petrol wins, hads down. Running cost, electric wins now but it will even out when road charging becomes law. Electric vehicles win on embodied energy over the life time of the vehicle and recyleability, and electric generation wins regardng diverity of production, ie Hydroelectric, wind farms, nulear power stations, Coal and gas stations, and now we have hydrogen power as well. Our love of oil and petrol is sowly coming to an end and all the microcars w love so dearly will be pieces of history which must be preserved for thenext generation, so they learn from our enginuety and mistakes.


There are of course other issues, but these I see as the ones we should be thinking about.

Chris Thomas

[marcus]

Another factor is life expectancy, and most modern cars are forced off the road by failed electronics and other repairs which are too expensive for end users to pay for, even though the engine and structure may still have years of use. Some models of Vauxhall Astra suddenly start cutting out, and no-one knows how to fix them

[Bob Purton]

I fear this is going to be the case with the G-wiz. Already some are being broken for spares due to a new battery pack costing more than the cars are worth.

[marcus]

There was a website I saw  couple of years ago, where you put in all details of your home, travel, work, shopping, diet etc, and at the end it calculated a number for your lifestyle, showing how many Earths it would require to maintain all humans at that level. Myself and various neighbours tried it, and it became clear that the biggest factor in getting a low/greener score was a vegetarian or vegan diet, even more so than driving a "green" car.

[Bob Purton]

Oh, I'm doing SOMETHING right then! Cheers Marcus.

[marcus]

You and me...Eco Warrior Hippy Tree-Huggers Anonymous!

[AndrewG]

Whole-life energy use models throw up some curious results, though there is almost no way of testing the validity of the major assumptions used in them.

I have become an enthusiastic (pedal) cyclist for fitness and read with interest an Australian whole-life study of bicycles which indicated that cars have a lower energy consumption.  The vast majority of bicycles sold spend all their life on a garage wall and it is thought that the average life mileage of all bicycles is only around 100 miles.  The energy used to make them is not negligible so when it is spread over that 100 miles, they aren't very 'green'.

Nothing is simple.....

Andrew
(with 10,000 miles on his bicycle)