[0:00] (upbeat music)
[0:02] - [Nolan] Every time we do
a video on electric cars,
[0:05] the same debate shows up in my comments.
[0:08] Some people argue that electric vehicles
[0:10] are worse for the environment
[0:12] than internal combustion engines.
[0:14] Others say that EVs are
not even close to as bad
[0:18] as internal combustion.
[0:20] I--
[0:20] I don't know.
[0:22] So, I set out to find
out once and for all,
[0:25] are electric vehicles
worse for the environment?
[0:28] What I found genuinely surprised me.
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[1:29] Support the companies that support Donut
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supporting this show.
[1:32] In this video, we're gonna do our best
[1:34] to compare the environmental impact
[1:36] of electric vehicles
versus gas-powered ones.
[1:39] And look, I'm gonna try to be as impartial
[1:42] and unbiased as possible
[1:44] because I am a car boy,
[1:46] I love gas cars
[1:47] and I love electric cars,
[1:49] and I have no agenda to push.
[1:50] I just wanna know what's true
[1:52] and what's false, okay?
[1:53] This could've easily
been an hour long video
[1:55] because honestly,
[1:56] this is a lot more complicated
than I initially thought.
[1:58] But, I know you're busy,
you ain't got time for that,
[2:00] so we're just gonna look at some facts
[2:02] for both types of vehicles
[2:03] and try to draw a conclusion from that.
[2:05] First, let's take a look at some ways
[2:07] electric cars are bad for the environment.
[2:10] And let me tell you, there's a few.
[2:12] (upbeat music)
[2:14] One of the biggest arguments
against electric vehicles
[2:17] is that battery production for an EV
[2:19] is much more detrimental
for the environment
[2:21] than the production of
internal combustion vehicles.
[2:24] So, is that true?
[2:26] Uh... yes!
[2:27] The initial environmental footprint
[2:30] from current electric vehicle production
[2:32] is greater than production of
internal combustion engines.
[2:37] The large batteries EVs
use are made with lithium,
[2:40] which, like any raw
material, needs to be mined,
[2:42] and the mining process produces
lots of greenhouse gases.
[2:47] It's a problem that's only going to grow
[2:49] unless the manufacturing
process becomes more efficient.
[2:52] Sales of EVs topped one million per year
[2:55] for the first time in 2017.
[2:57] Some estimates predict
that by the year 2030,
[3:00] there will be more than
125 million EVs on the road
[3:05] and those vehicles are
gonna need batteries.
[3:07] Needless to say, lithium is in high demand
[3:10] and it all has to come from somewhere.
[3:12] It takes on average about
eight to 10 metric tons of CO2
[3:16] to produce an electric vehicle.
[3:18] That's a lot.
[3:19] Obviously, the bigger the battery,
[3:20] the more CO2 it takes to produce it.
[3:23] Some smaller batteries in economy size EVs
[3:25] may take as few as two
metric tons to produce
[3:29] but larger EVs with long-rang batteries
[3:32] could be responsible
[3:33] for up to 17 metric tons of CO2 emissions.
[3:37] Good Lord.
[3:38] Conversely, the average production
[3:40] for an internal combustion vehicle
[3:41] produces around seven metric tons of CO2.
[3:44] Why does EV production
[3:46] lead to a bigger environmental footprint?
[3:51] More than half of the
world's lithium supply
[3:53] comes from the, quote, lithium triangle,
[3:56] an area between Chile, Bolivia
[3:57] and Argentina.
[3:58] In the arid salt-plains
of the Atacama desert,
[4:01] high up in the Andes Mountains,
[4:03] workers drill through
the crust of the salt
[4:05] to get to the mineral-rich
brine below the surface.
[4:09] This process leaches massive
amounts of groundwater
[4:12] from the surrounding area,
[4:13] resulting in a decreased water supply
[4:15] and less accessible water
for local agriculture.
[4:18] In a region of Chile
called Salar de Atacama,
[4:22] mining companies have used
65% of the region's water.
[4:25] It takes 750 tons of brine to
produce one ton of lithium.
[4:29] But lithium is just one of
the components of a battery,
[4:32] it's actually a smaller percentage
than you might think too,
[4:34] at around six percent.
[4:36] A growing concern surrounds the sourcing
[4:38] of another element used
in batteries: cobalt.
[4:41] But the issue is more
of an ethical dilemma
[4:43] as some cobalt mines use child labor,
[4:46] which is reprehensible.
[4:48] And then, there's the problem
of recycling these things.
[4:50] The process in which lithium
ion batteries are recycled
[4:53] is not at the point it needs to be
[4:55] to deal with the growing
number of spent batteries
[4:58] from electric vehicles.
[4:59] There are plenty of different challenges
[5:01] associated with recycling these batteries.
[5:04] Relatively inane things like
storage becomes a huge issue
[5:07] because of the volatility of the elements
[5:09] in a lithium battery.
[5:10] There have already been a number of fires
[5:12] in facilities that process old batteries.
[5:15] Is the number of potentially
catastrophic fires
[5:17] and explosions gonna go up
[5:19] as more batteries are
stockpiled in the future?
[5:21] It all depends on how
quickly the industry evolves
[5:24] to deal with these issues.
[5:25] The fact of the matter is
[5:26] modern electric vehicle production
[5:28] is in its relative infancy
compared to gas engines,
[5:31] so as time goes on
[5:33] and new processes come into play,
[5:35] the environmental impact will get better.
[5:37] I hope.
[5:38] The same can be said about
where electric vehicles
[5:40] get their electricity.
[5:41] Right now, many regions of the U.S.
[5:43] are still getting their
power from coal power-plants,
[5:46] so the impact of driving
a zero emissions car
[5:48] in those regions
[5:50] is more detrimental to the environment
[5:51] than driving an EV in
place with clean energy,
[5:55] such as wind, solar
[5:56] and hydroelectric power-plants.
[5:58] But, as those types of
energy become more common,
[6:01] the efficiency at which an EV
operates will only get better.
[6:05] So now that we know the very real problems
[6:07] of electric vehicle production,
[6:09] how do they compare to the
internal combustion engine?
[6:12] Let's start where we did
with the electric vehicles:
[6:14] production.
[6:17] Manufacturing the average
internal combustion vehicle
[6:20] produces seven metric tons of CO2.
[6:23] This number takes into account everything
[6:25] from the mining ore for steel
[6:27] to the moment the car rolls
off the production line.
[6:29] That number is lower than EVs
[6:31] because of the absence
of lithium ion batteries.
[6:34] It also has to do with
[6:35] how efficient ICE
manufacturing has become.
[6:38] We're talking about the industry
[6:39] that is responsible for
inventing the assembly line.
[6:42] After the car rolls out of the factory,
[6:44] greenhouse emissions from
gasoline-powered cars
[6:47] average around 5.2 metric tons per year,
[6:50] and that's if the car drives
[6:51] the national average of
about 11,800 miles per year.
[6:55] Over the lifespan of a car,
[6:56] it's responsible for
57 metric tons of CO2,
[6:59] that's seven for production
[7:01] and 50 in emissions.
[7:02] Gasoline, like lithium, has to be mined.
[7:05] The average car in the U.S.
[7:06] goes through about 500
gallons of gas per year,
[7:09] and that gas, like the
lithium in the batteries,
[7:12] has to come from somewhere.
[7:13] There's a lot of steps between
the extraction of crude oil
[7:17] to you filling your
car at the gas station,
[7:19] and each step has an environmental impact.
[7:22] Crude oil extraction starts
with drilling into the earth,
[7:25] either on land or on the ocean floor.
[7:28] After the crude oil is mined,
[7:30] it needs to be refined into gasoline
[7:32] and other petroleum
products such jet fuel,
[7:35] petroleum jelly
[7:36] and plastic.
[7:37] This process releases
tons of greenhouse gases,
[7:40] including not only CO2 but methane
[7:42] and nitrous oxide as well.
[7:44] Every day around the world,
[7:45] close to 95 million
barrels of oil are produced
[7:48] and every day oil
refinement is responsible
[7:51] for emitting 767 millions tons of CO2
[7:55] into the atmosphere.
[7:56] Sure, the average car
[7:57] is responsible for 5.2
tons of CO2 every year,
[8:00] but oil refineries release
[8:01] a whopping 280 billion metric tons of CO2
[8:06] in that same timeframe.
[8:07] (engine revs)
[8:08] (beep) chargers driving by, dude.
[8:11] All right, let's dial it back
[8:12] and get some more
manageable numbers, okay?
[8:14] I'm sorry.
[8:15] We know that over the
average lifespan of a car
[8:17] with an internal combustion engine,
[8:19] it will emit roughly
57 metric tons of C02.
[8:22] Over the same time period,
[8:24] the average EV
[8:25] is responsible for 28
metric tons of emissions,
[8:28] less than half of that of an ICE engine.
[8:30] Despite the fact that electric vehicles
[8:32] make more CO2 during their production,
[8:34] they more than make up for it
[8:36] by not having any emissions during use.
[8:39] Taking into account the emissions
[8:41] produced by electric power-plants
[8:43] that electric vehicles
source their power from,
[8:45] the national average for an EV
[8:47] is around two metric tons per year.
[8:50] So that means the average EV
will become more efficient
[8:53] than a gas-powered car between six months
[8:56] to two years of driving it.
[8:57] In fact, even the least
efficient electric vehicle
[9:01] with the dirtiest power source,
[9:03] like a coal power-plant,
[9:04] will be better for the environment
[9:06] than the most efficient gas engine
[9:09] after a certain period of time.
[9:10] Electric vehicles in states
[9:12] with access to cleaner electricity
[9:14] like windmills, solar
[9:15] and hydroelectric power-plants
[9:17] are significantly more efficient.
[9:19] Look, I cross-referenced
everything in this video
[9:21] and have no agenda to push,
[9:22] I just wanted to put that out there
[9:24] because, you know,
[9:25] it's kinda tiring seeing
the same bogus facts
[9:27] being regurgitated in the comments
[9:29] every time we make a video on EVs.
[9:31] Let's take a look at a few more myths.
[9:33] Myth number one:
[9:34] electric vehicle production
[9:35] and charging from coal-powered plants
[9:37] produces more emissions
than gas car production
[9:40] and operation.
[9:41] False.
[9:42] If you need a little more convincing,
[9:43] here's an amazing app that can calculate
[9:45] and compare the emissions of any gas car
[9:48] versus any electric car,
[9:49] and in the long run,
[9:50] any EV beats any gas car in efficiency.
[9:53] I'll put the link right here
[9:54] and in the description
[9:55] if you wanna check it out for yourself.
[9:56] Myth number two:
[9:57] our electric grid can't
handle the onslaught of EVs.
[10:00] This one is also false.
[10:02] Even if a quarter of the cars on the road
[10:04] were electric tomorrow,
[10:05] the electric grids in the U.S.
[10:07] could handle all of them
without a disruption.
[10:10] Myth number three:
[10:11] government subsidies for electric cars
[10:13] are unfair to poor people,
[10:14] they only benefit the rich.
[10:16] Now this is a pretty
(mumble) insight, okay?
[10:18] It's true that if you buy an electric car,
[10:20] you can get a federal
rebate of up to 7500 bucks.
[10:24] That benefits everyone.
[10:25] But if you're rich enough to
buy an expensive luxury EV,
[10:28] like a Tesla Model X,
[10:29] you'll actually only receive
about half of that amount.
[10:34] Yeah, kinda surprising, huh?
[10:35] Look, man, I love my gas-powered Mustang,
[10:38] I'm gonna own a gas-powered
car for the rest of my life.
[10:41] Nothing matches the sound of
a V8 turning gas into noise,
[10:45] I'm gonna get that
tattooed onto me someday.
[10:47] But I still have to acknowledge the truth.
[10:49] No matter how you spin it,
[10:51] electric vehicles have less
of an environmental impact
[10:54] than gas-powered cars.
[10:55] I'm not gonna say you're a bad
person if you don't like EVs,
[10:57] 'cause you're not,
[10:58] I just wanna put the facts on the table.
[11:01] If this video helped you learn,
[11:02] I'm very happy for that,
[11:03] and I welcome you aboard.
[11:05] There doesn't need to be
any sort of separation.
[11:07] Hey, if you liked this video,
[11:08] hit that subscribe button down there
[11:09] and hit the bell too
[11:10] so you never miss another Donut video.
[11:12] We're uploading every day now,
[11:14] which is... kinda stressful.
[11:16] But we're having fun.
[11:17] Follow me on all socia media @nolanjsykes.
[11:20] Follow Donut @donutmedia on all socia.
[11:22] Be kind.
[11:23] Be kind!
[11:24] I'll see you next time.
[11:26] All right.
[11:27] (cup crashes)
[11:29] Ah Christ.
[11:29] I just spilled water everywhere.