New EV vs. old beater: Which is better for the environment?
New EV vs. old beater: Which is better for the environment?

            
  
  
  
    

    

    
      EVs require more energy to build, but they are far more efficient to operate.
    

    

    
            
              
            
    
    
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          Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

                  
          
  
          

    
    
    
          Credit:

          
          Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

                  
          
  
  



  

  
      
    
    
                      
                          
  Earth Day was April 22, and its usual message—take care of our planet—has been given added urgency by the challenges highlighted in the latest IPCC report. This year, Ars is taking a look at the technologies we normally cover, from cars to chipmaking, and finding out how we can boost their sustainability and minimize their climate impact.

                      
          
For many people, buying an electric vehicle puts a stake in the ground—if I'm going to drive around town, I'm going to do it while reducing my carbon footprint.
“Gone are the days of burning toxic gasoline. A new age of electrons and instant torque is upon us,” you might say, standing next to your new vehicle and blue recycling bin.
But as with traditional vehicles, not all EVs are equal in terms of their impact on the world. A quick look at the specs and sheer size of the new GMC Hummer EV is all you need to understand where some automakers are willing to take the powertrain—and it's not in service of efficiency.
Not all EPA testing is equal
If you want to determine which EVs are the most efficient, a good place to start is the Environmental Protection Agency’s fuel consumption ratings. The EPA lists electric vehicles based on the amount of energy they use to travel 100 miles, and the lower the number of kilowatt-hours of electricity used, the more efficient the vehicle is. For example, according to the EPA, the 2022 Tesla Model 3 RWD uses 25 kWh per 100 miles traveled, while the 2022 Audi e-tron S (with 21- or 22-inch wheels) uses a less-efficient 52 kWh per 100 miles traveled. (Note that larger wheels typically reduce the range of a vehicle.)
For the model year 2022, these are the top five most efficient vehicles for sale right now based on the EPA's measurement of energy used per 100 miles:

2022 Tesla Model 3 RWD: 25 kWh
2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring: 26 kWh
2022 Chevy Bolt: 28 kWh
2022 Hyundai Kona Electric: 28 kWh
2022 Tesla Model S: 28 kWh

The top 10 finishers were the Model Y, Bolt EUV, Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and finally, the Kia Niro, all of which posted 30 kWh of energy usage per 100 miles or lower.

          
                      
                  
                    
        
          
    
    
          
          
These are impressive numbers, but there’s something else to take into consideration—namely, the adjustment factor used to determine EPA range data. To get these numbers, all EVs are strapped to dynamometers (like a treadmill for cars) and run until their battery is depleted. It’s not quite a real-world test, as the vehicles don't have to deal with changing elevations, wind, asphalt discrepancies, and all the various other issues they would encounter on actual roads.
To make matters a bit more complicated, some automakers take the EPA's 30 percent adjustment factor. For example, if a vehicle travels 500 miles on the dynamometer, the automaker takes a 30 percent hit, which reduces that range by 150 miles, giving you 350 miles of range on the EPA cycle. It’s the method used by Hyundai, Kia, and GM.
Tesla and Lucid do something different. They perform additional runs on the dynamometer and are allowed to use those results to produce better adjustment factors. Those numbers help bump their range numbers up.
So while the EVs listed above are certainly efficient, they’re not all being tested in the same way, and that can result in discrepancies.
Factory impact
As automakers are transitioning to battery-electric vehicles, they're also touting their current or eventual carbon-neutral factories. A cleaner factory results in a cleaner vehicle coming off the line. It’s a commendable plan, but for many manufacturers, it's a promise that hasn’t quite been implemented yet.
Tesla seems to have the most difficulty in this area at its Fremont, California, factory, where it produces all the vehicles it sells in the United States. In February 2022, the automaker settled with the EPA over Clean Air Act violations spanning from 2016 through 2019. In 2019, the company was fined by the EPA for hazardous waste violations, and in May of 2021, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District fined the company $1 million for violations, including exceeding its permitted emissions.

          
                  
                    
        
          
    
    
          
          
The Lucid Air is built at the company’s new Arizona factory. The 500-acre property in Casa Grande, Arizona, spun up in the fall of 2021, but the company hasn’t yet announced any carbon-neutral or energy-reducing initiatives at the plant.
The Kia EV6 is built in Hwaseong, Korea, and Kia announced that it has improved the handling of chemicals and is moving to alternative products for the production of vehicles at the plant.
Meanwhile, Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 and Kona Electric are both built at Ulsan Plant 1 in South Korea. The company announced that it plans to make all locations carbon neutral and run on 100 percent renewable power by 2045. That's a long way off.
Finally, the Chevy Bolt and Bolt EUV are both built at the Orion plant in Michigan, which uses landfill gas to power the plant.
Other manufacturers are doing better, though. While the Porsche Taycan isn’t on the top 10 list, the company's Zuffenhausen factory is carbon neutral, and all electricity comes from renewable sources. So it's possible for an automaker to hit its factory efficiency goals; it just might take longer for some to do so.

    
              
                
              
                Porsche had a complicated job to upgrade Zuffenhausen to begin production of the Taycan, but it succeeded, and the car's production is carbon neutral.
                                  
                    Credit:
                                          Porsche 
                                      
                              
            
                  
          
    
    
      Porsche had a complicated job to upgrade Zuffenhausen to begin production of the Taycan, but it succeeded, and the car's production is carbon neutral.

              
          Credit:

          
          Porsche 

                  
          
  
        
            


Carbon footprint break-even point
Wherever they're built, there’s one thing EVs can’t escape: They have a larger manufacturing footprint than that of comparable gas-powered vehicles. This fact has become ammunition for those eager to argue that EVs are just as bad for the environment as gas-powered vehicles.
The idea is right up there with the myth that the United States is powered almost entirely by coal and that EVs are thus worse polluters than gas engines. The reality is that coal makes up about 20 to 22 percent of the national power grid.

          
                  
                    
        
          
    
    
          
          
Still, the amount of energy and resources needed to build an EV exceed those of a gas car. But once both vehicles are on the road, the carbon footprint immediately begins to narrow.
According to a recent Reuters article using a model developed by the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, the point at which an EV’s carbon footprint meets and begins to fall below that of a comparable gas vehicle in the United States is at around 13,500 miles.
So after an average year of driving, the EV is better for the environment. Beyond that, the gap widens. This data is based on the national average of the electrical grid’s energy sources. Your situation may vary depending on what types of power stations feed your area’s electrical needs; for more localized information, the Union of Concerned Scientists has an online tool that lets you check how clean an EV is in your zip code compared to a vehicle that gets the mid-sized vehicle average of 29 miles per gallon.
EV or your old car
Of course, buying a new or used car right now isn’t easy. Prices have skyrocketed, and many dealers are adding ludicrous markups that were previously only found on low-production, high-performance vehicles.
Hopefully, prices will come back down to normal, and more options will be available in the future. But right now, strictly considering cost, it may be better to keep your older gas-powered vehicle, especially if it’s paid off. EVs are still relatively expensive, even with federal tax credits.
But if you’re more concerned about your carbon footprint than cost, there are some quick calculations we can do. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in 2021, the average age of a car on the road was 12.1 years. So let's go back in time 12 years to 2010. Per EPA data reported by The New York Times, the average miles per gallon for 2010 was roughly 22.5 miles per gallon.

          
                  
                    
        
          
    
    

        
        
          
          
According to the EPA, an average vehicle that gets 22 miles per gallon emits 404 grams of CO2 per mile. Let’s say the vehicle travels 10,000 miles per year. That’s 4,040,000 grams (or 8,907 pounds) of CO2 making its way into the world each year.
On the EV front, let’s look at the Chevy Bolt or Hyundai Kona since they are the least expensive of the top five vehicles, starting at $31,500 and $34,000, respectively. According to the EPA, both emit 130 grams of CO2 per mile, based on the average US electricity mix. After 10,000 miles, that's 1,300,000 grams (or 2,866 pounds) of CO2 per year.
Per year, the EV produces roughly 6,041 pounds less CO2 than the 2010 vehicle.
As far as manufacturing goes, the old car is already built, so let’s give it a pass regarding its manufacturing carbon footprint. According to a 2015 Union of Concerned Scientists report, a full-size long-range (265 miles) vehicle had a carbon footprint of about six tons, or 12,000 pounds.
In two years, the EV will have caught up to the used car in terms of ecological footprint. After that, as with new gas cars, an EV surpasses it in efficiency for its entire life cycle.
So the only real issue at this point is cost. EVs are still out of reach for those who can’t afford to drop $30,000 on a vehicle, even with federal tax credits. But if the recent uptick in EV sales due to the jump in gas prices continues, the economies of scale might yield some EVs that will make the daily commute better for the environment without breaking the bank.


          
                  

                  
          


  
    Listing image:
    Aurich Lawson | Getty Images
  






  
    
    
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