The best car for the environment?

k6chris

I have a lot of single use plastic pens at home, which were aquired over the years. With hindsight, single use plastic pens are not a good thing for the environment, but binning them now and replacing them with say a founatin pen or traditional pencils, would not make much sense as the manufacturing damage has been done. I just need to focus on recycling the plastic when the stop working.



I have a car, which is diesel, not electric. I could buy a new electric car to reduce my local emissions, but then there would be an enviromental impact in terms of the production of the new car, the fact that not all electricity is 'green' and someone else would then be driving my old car in any case.



I can't get my head around this, namely 'at what point is switching to an EV the environmentally right thing to do'??


Help!

AdrianC

The best car for the environment is not using a car at all.

Cycle. Use public transport. Reduce unnecessary journeys. If you must use a car, can you use a shared one, from a "car club", or hired?

EVs are far heavier than direct equivalent IC cars. Because of the "techno-bling" factor, they tend to be more electronically complex, even in the non-drivetrain components. Then there's the environmental impact of the substantial batteries.

Against that, you're using fuel that's only about 50% directly fossil-sourced, rather than 95% (all petrol and diesel is 5% bioethanol)... I'll let you decide where you sit on the ~20% nuclear-generated electricity.

marlot

Given the huge amounts of energy that have gone into making your existing car, scrapping it is not terribly sound. Better to extend its life by walking and cycling and just use the car less.

But its about a lot more than just energy - there's also air quality, use of scarce earth resources, etc to take into account.


You don't say what your existing car is. A big SUV will have much more impact than a little peugeot, for instance.

jk0

k6chris wrote: »

I can't get my head around this, namely 'at what point is switching to an EV the environmentally right thing to do'??

When your present car is no longer repairable, surely?

Richard53

All of which goes to show that the most environmentally friendly car at the moment is a 1960s Series Land Rover:


* All manufacturing costs and resource usage well in the past
* Can be repaired almost infinitely
* Requires only tiny amounts of rare earth metals, environmentally destructive battery chemicals etc
* Repair and maintenance is possible at home or by small garage - keeps people in employment and maintains hand skills
* every one that is kept going is preventing the mining of the earth's resources and massive energy usage to make a new one.


The greater fuel usage and emissions are a downside, but pale into insignificance beside the environmental benefits.


In my opinion, of course.

k6chris

jk0 wrote: »

When your present car is no longer repairable, surely?

Yes, this is my gut feel - use the car less, but don't change it until it drops dead and is scrapped. I do use public transport, where appropriate and in good weather, walk everywhere within say a 4 mile radius, if time is not an issue. I ask because I perceive a lot of 'virtue-signalling' with hybris / EV at the moment??

Robisere

One thing that keeps returning to my thoughts about EV's: where is all the electrical energy going to come from? We are already forecasting energy shortages in the UK within a decade or two.

Who is going to provide all the infrastructure? Energy companies? Oil Companies? Don't make me laugh, it hurts my wallet! There needs to be a proper Energy/transport plan for the UK, all we have seen from any government is proposals that do not hold water.

sevenhills

k6chris wrote: »

I have a car, which is diesel, not electric. I could buy a new electric car to reduce my local emissions, but then there would be an enviromental impact in terms of the production of the new car, the fact that not all electricity is 'green' and someone else would then be driving my old car in any case.

I can't get my head around this, namely 'at what point is switching to an EV the environmentally right thing to do'??

You have the answer there already, electric cars reduce pollution locally, but climate change is international.
A diesel car which is good on fuel, ie smaller car that is aerodynamic, not a Land Rover, would be the most environmentally friendly.
I gave up my car for around 5 years, to see if I could. I prefer to have a car, I see the MPG as unimportant, so long as the population is increasing and car ownership increasing.
I do less than 4,000 per year, some of those are business miles, where I need a car.

Supersonos

k6chris wrote: »

I can't get my head around this, namely 'at what point is switching to an EV the environmentally right thing to do'??
Help!

Do you have children?

System

k6chris wrote: »

I can't get my head around this, namely 'at what point is switching to an EV the environmentally right thing to do'??

When your current car is no longer capable of making it down the road. Until that point the environmental impact of buying a new EV will outweigh the savings from not burning diesel. EV tech is changing rapidly and I'm keeping my Mondeo going for a few more years just for this reason and then I'll buy an EV.

Robisere wrote: »

One thing that keeps returning to my thoughts about EV's: where is all the electrical energy going to come from? We are already forecasting energy shortages in the UK within a decade or two.

Personally for me working nights doing a 56 mile round trip commute a 4-6kW solar panel system on the roof of my property would do the job, even on the shortest day of the year.

AdrianC

Richard53 wrote: »

All of which goes to show that the most environmentally friendly car at the moment is a 1960s Series Land Rover:

<looks out window at 1980 s3 88"...>
Not at 15mpg, it bloody isn't.

No, wait a sec.

A couple of hundred miles a year? Ah, right. Yes. Far "greener" than the 1997 50mpg diesel we do 10k/yr in, and the 1982 40mpg petrol we do 3k/yr in.