Why in some countries electric cars pollute more than gasoline cars

Exactly. In some countries, electric cars are not yet the solution to reduce pollution.

An electric car contaminates more than one of gasoline. A truth that is a lie, and vice versa. But it is the provocative headline what is extracted from a recent research published by the University of Michigan (USA). This study reaches a conclusion as striking as inaccurate, but also very illustrative: a gasoline car that consumes an average of less than 4.6 liters per 100 kilometers is cleaner than an electric one.

One has to put itself in a position to understand the phrase, because in the unconscious of the drivers it has been installed the idea that battery-powered cars do not emit gases harmful to the atmosphere during their operation. But they do contaminate indirectly and that is the focus of the study.

The report, with the signature of experts Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle, compares the methods of obtaining the energy needed to move a car in 143 countries. And in many of them, according to the results obtained, driving an electric is not especially clean.

For example, in Cuba it is enough for a car to spend less than 7.5 liters per 100 kilometers to emit less CO2 into the atmosphere than a vehicle driven by electricity, and the figures are also high in India (6.5 l/ 100 km) or in the Dominican Republic (6.3 l / 100 km). In the Spanish case, on the other hand, a combustion car should fall below 2.9 liters to be less dirty than a battery model, since in Spain the process of obtaining electricity is less than in those countries.

“The reasons for carrying out a comparison of this type, country by country, is that indirect emissions from battery-powered vehicles depend on the mix of fuel sources used to generate electricity, and countries differ widely in that combination,” says Sivak.

Specifically, the study takes into account emissions from the extraction and delivery of raw materials to power plants, emissions generated by the use of specific fossil fuel in the process of electricity production, electricity losses during distribution and the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.

For gasoline vehicles, the authors of the study analyzed emissions from crude oil extraction, oil transportation, refining, delivery of the fuel to a point of sale and combustion of gasoline in the vehicle.

The researchers analyzed four categories of fuel sources for electricity production: coal and oil (equivalent to consuming 8.1 l / 100 km), natural gas (4l / 100 km), geothermal and solar energy (0.6 l / 100 km); and nuclear, wind and hydraulic (0.1 l / 100km).

Thus, in countries like Albania, where all electric power comes from hydroelectric power plants, battery-powered cars are obviously cleaner than gasoline ones. A gasoline car should consume less than 0.05 liters per 100 km to pollute less, a figure that is repeated, for example, in Paraguay. Among the countries in Europe, France stands out as a clean producer of electricity. There, the border is 0.44 liters per 100 km.

Its green credentials depend to a certain extent on how the mains electricity which it uses is generated. In practice the ultimate source of your mains electricity is likely to be decided by the country you live in. Electric car drivers in Norway will mostly be using hydroelectric power; those in France, chiefly nuclear, and those in Germany and the UK, a mix of fossil and renewable, broadly comparable with the “EU-mix” figures. In the United States, the electricity source varies regionally; California uses a lot of renewables, while areas in the north-east are more likely to use fossil fuels including coal.

What the study does not take into account, however, is the actual manufacture of the cars or the batteries that move the electric models, polluting processes that also generate many controversies. In fact, manufacturing an electric vehicle generates more carbon emissions than building a conventional car, mostly because of its battery, the Union of Concerned Scientists has found.

Electric cars rely on regular charging from the local electricity network. The power plants providing that energy aren’t emission-free; even in California, 60% of electricity came from burning fossil fuels in 2015, while solar and wind together made up less than 14%. In other cases, it gets worst, as an example, in the production process at the Spanish company Red Electric only 20% of the energy is renewable.

California’s electric vehicles can plug into a greener grid than most regions of the world — especially China, where coal generated 72% of all power in 2014 according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The US gets about a third of its electricity from coal-fired power, IEA says, and more than 40% of total electricity worldwide comes from burning coal.

Moreover, its utility has been questioned multiple times. According to Bloomberg the electric car rush started too early as the most long-range electric cars can go 300 miles on a charge under perfect conditions. They take hours to charge at most of the currently available stations, and even the minimum of 30 minutes one needs to spend at a Tesla Supercharger is a nuisance on long journeys. Even if carmakers can incrementally improve the driving range, it won’t catch up with that of gasoline-powered vehicles without an engineering breakthrough. Nor will fast charging be possible at most stations with the current battery tech.

In countries where most of the world’s population lives, the energy mix used in power generation makes sure an EV leaves about as much of a carbon footprint as a gasoline-powered car. Only where utilities use a lot non-fossil energy sources (hydro in Brazil, nuclear in France) are EVs truly environmentally friendly. In the U.S., a Prius is at least as easy on the environment as a plug-in, and in a state that uses a lot of coal to generate electricity

Many experts support the idea that natural gas is more conventional as its manufacturing and mobility process is less complex and cleaner than the one of electric cars. Not only that, but also the oil distribution network serves for natural gas too polluting less than electric cars whose distribution consumes a lot of fossil fuel energy where coal holds a considerable percentage.

Hence, as a conclusion when it comes to urban mobility, electric cars may be cleaner than gasoline cars improving air quality in the cities. However, regarding interurban mobility, the process of production and manufacturing of electric cars and its battery can be more pollutant than the one for gasoline cars. This can lead to bigger fossil fuel energy consumption and, therefore, a more polluted environment overall.