---
title: 'Are Electric Cars REALLY Better for the Environment?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=G67i_Z8ukD4'
video_id: 'G67i_Z8ukD4'
date: 2026-07-01
duration_sec: 692
---

# Are Electric Cars REALLY Better for the Environment?

> Source: [Are Electric Cars REALLY Better for the Environment?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=G67i_Z8ukD4)

## Summary



## Transcript

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