I have read with interest the various reports and excitement generated by the switch to electric vehicles from Internal Combustion Engines. Back in the early part of the 20th century most cars were actually electric but they were found to be inadequate going forward. As technology has improved the pendulum appears to have swung back to the use of electric, or has it?
One of the main attributes of the electric car, we are told, is that there is no pollution from the exhaust, because it doesn’t have one. That is absolutely correct, but should that be the deciding factor? Should we not be looking at the whole life cycle of a car, or any other vehicle for that matter? Certainly EuroNCAP reports suggest we should, and I believe that is what we need to look closely at. The carbon dioxide is not just emitted from the exhaust, there is the whole fact that the vehicle has to be built in the first place, and how it is produced must be considered. That carbon dioxide has been created somewhere, even if not right next to the road and houses, and it is thus in the air.
I turned my attention to a report produced by Footman James Insurance, a reputable well established company, which outlines the subject of carbon dioxide as mentioned above. Here are some facts they have gathered together:
• A typical modern car such as a VW Golf creates some 6.8Tonne of carbon dioxide by the time it has been manufactured. Clearly it then continues to create carbon dioxide as it is driven and at 12,000 miles a year would create a further 5Tonne per year thereafter.
• A typical electric car, such as the Polestar 2 being heavily advertised at the moment, creates 26 Tonne of carbon dioxide by the time it has been manufactured, but clearly very little from then on.
• A hybrid car seems to encompass both variants with very high claimed miles per gallon and would thus appear to be of value.
So now let’s look at what this actually means going forward. My thoughts are as follows.
- If you buy an electric car you are ‘front loading’ carbon dioxide i.e. you are emitting a large amount of carbon dioxide immediately, so 2030, could produce very high emissions if we switch to total electric. Something approaching 5 times as much in fact.
- If we continue research into improving fuel economy it could be many years before the VW Golf matches the Polestar 2 for the amount of carbon dioxide produced, and that would be spread over a number of years, not all at once.
- Hybrid cars are an especial puzzle. Driven as an electric vehicle they are being driven like any electric vehicle but are ‘lugging’ around 200kg of unnecessary engine and gearbox. Driven as a petrol vehicle they are ‘lugging’ around 200kg of battery and electric motors. So either way they have excess weight!!
So my thoughts are a bit left of centre going forward. I would like to see recycling taking centre stage on a grand scale.
Car body shells last way longer than they used to and indeed there are plenty of cars of 15 years in age still being driven around on a daily basis.
My plan would be to get the manufacturers to offer a refurbishment service and switch some of their factories to this end. You take your 10 year old Ford to a main dealer, they send it off to be updated, stripped out so it comes back as a new car and you either wait for it to come back and pay, or you get another that is sat in their showroom that has been done but the original owner wanted something else. Full guarantee etc. etc.
This would dramatically reduce carbon dioxide production and would be much more sustainable than just simply forcing all to drive an electric car regardless.
Mike Jordan
22/08/2022