Sweet_Guard3904 t1_ix93ll7 wrote on November 21, 2022 at 6:13 PM

Reply to comment by zombienudist in How do you find out whether companies manufacture their products morally and sustainably? by Dokayn

I'm in the market for a new car, and opting for a used gas than and new hybrid based on the mileage I intend to drive. It won't be a daily driver, so I've calculated that the difference would only be about a metric ton on GHG emissions which I can easily offset, versus buying a new car made from virgin materials.

zombienudist t1_ix946dq wrote on November 21, 2022 at 6:17 PM

Sounds like you have done the math and it is better for you to go that way. FOr me it is much better to buy a new BEV where I am instead of a used gas car based on the amount I drive and how clean the grid is. My comment was about how you have to be careful making blanket statements about what is better as there are many examples where it is better to buy something new then to keep using something that is older.

Walkop t1_ix95ofh wrote on November 21, 2022 at 6:27 PM

It's really better to buy a new BEV vs a used gas vehicle? That's interesting. How old are we talking? I figured the older you get, the better it is, until you hit a tipping point where fuel economy is really bad.

If you're driving a lot of miles in a year, too, I'm sure that makes a big difference. The more miles you drive over the lifespan of the vehicle the better a battery vehicle is.

Really, I feel like it actually depends on how long you plan on keeping the vehicle. E.g. f you keep a battery electric vehicle for 25 years after you purchase it, there's no way in heck any gas vehicle is going to be that over 25 years; new OR used. Obviously, the batteries lasting that long is doubtful, but the point remains.

zombienudist t1_ix9bvtv wrote on November 21, 2022 at 7:08 PM

Whether it is better depends on the factors used. Operationally the numbers are easy to do then you just have to figure out the manufacturing emissions. But yes in my case here it is better to buy a new BEV. The numbers are actually pretty easy to do from a carbon emissions point of view especially for the operation.

Here is an example of the math and I am doing it in metric because that's what we use here. I drive around 24,000 kms a year. So if I bought a gas car (or kept using one that I already bought) I would use 1882 liters of gasoline to drive that distance if the car got 7.84 L per 100 km (30 MPG). Each liter of fuel emits 2.3kg of carbon when burned and then there is another 0.4 kg of carbon per liter to extract and refine oil into gas. So a year i am looking at 5081 kgs of CO2 to drive that distance in the used gas car.

My BEV gets around 6.2 kms per kWh in efficiency on average. So to drive 24,000 kms will require 3871 kWh of electricity. Charging losses will add about 10% onto that number so make the number 4100 kWh a year used. Our grid produces about 45 grams of CO2 per kWh produced. So that is 184.5 kgs of CO2 or 28 times less CO2 then the gas car above.

See I think this is where people just don't really understand these numbers. They believe that the gas car and BEV might be far closer in operational emissions then they are. And they possibly could be on a dirtier grid. But on a clean grid the amount of CO2 from the car is almost negligible. In fact my car emits less CO2 in operation then I breath out in a year. And based on this (a negative view of electric cars) a 75 kWh battery will emit about 4500 kgs of CO2 to build the battery.

https://8billiontrees.com/carbon-offsets-credits/carbon-footprint-of-electric-cars-vs-gasoline/

So that is a tiny amount compared to the 15,243 kgs of CO2 the gas car will emit in operation alone over the next 3.

So again it is far better here to buy a new BEV then keep driving a used gas car if you want to reduce your carbon emissions where I live and with my numbers. Where you live and with your numbers it might be different.