Don’t Fall For The Myth That Internal Combustion Cars Are Greener Than Batteries Over Their Life – They’re Not

Don’t Fall For The Myth That Internal Combustion Cars Are Greener Than Batteries Over Their Life – They’re Not

Share to Linkedin A few weeks ago, I argued that battery-electric vehicles are greener than fossil fuel or hydrogen where well-to-wheel emissions are concerned. But that is only part of the story, and many argue that, once you take battery production into account, BEVs don't look so green. That's not true, though. This is a common trope in online anti-EV arguments and was particularly fueled last year in the UK by the infamous "Astongate". This involved a report commissioned by Aston Martin, Bosch, Honda, McLaren and the Renewable Transport Fuel Association called Decarbonising Road Transport: There Is No Silver Bullet. The report argued that you would need to do at least 50, 000 miles in a BEV before it broke even with fossil fuel vehicles for CO2 emissions. The exhaust emissions from fossil fuel vehicles far outweigh the fact that less energy is used in ... [+] their making. I debunked this report at the time here in Forbes, and as it turned out the document was produced by a puppet PR company called Clarendon Communications owned by Aston Martin's Director of Global Government & Corporate Affairs, James Michael Stephens, but registered in the name of his wife, a nurse.