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Comment by Jtype | Hacker News Reader

You don't provide any evidence to refute OP, and you use vitriol in your reply.

EV cars use more rare elements that require more mining is true. So one would assume that the initial CO2 generated in the productions to be higher.

The grid isn't 100% renewable so there is plenty of co2 produced in running an EV.

EV batteries wear out around 100000 miles, requiring a costly(both $$ and CO2 production) replacement. Meanwhile ICE cars today can regularly approach 200000 miles before replacement.

With those three things considered, I highly doubt that CO2 production is impacted all that strongly by switching to an EV.

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It's not like this is a new topic:

https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/driving-c...

Figure 4 on page 11 is particularly interesting.

Their summary points are:

* Everywhere in the United States, driving the average EV results in lower emissions than the average new gasoline vehicle.

* Over 90 percent of people in the United States live in regions where driving the average EV produces lower emissions than the most efficient gasoline vehicle on the market today (59 miles per gallon).

* Driving the average EV in the United States produces global warming emissions equivalent to those emitted by a gasoline car getting 91 miles per gallon.

* Driving the most efficient EV produces lower emissions than the most efficient gasoline car where 97 percent of the population lives—in other words, virtually everywhere in the United States.

* Everywhere in the United States, the emissions from driving an EV pickup truck are lower than those for the average new gasoline or diesel pickup truck.

The problem here I think is that you miss the original point of the top-level parent. They weren't claiming that EVs emit more CO2 from driving, but from _manufacturing_.

Whether or not this claim is true I can't say for sure, because nobody on either side of this discussion in this thread has provided links/proof to back up/refute these claims, so it's just a bunch of people throwing numbers at each other with no context.

The link supplied by @ZeroGravitas above does prominently include the lifecycle analysis you seek.

Figure 6 on page 13 and the surrounding discussion to be exact.

Manufacturing CO2 over vehicle life:

64 grams per mile (g/mi) for the EV

35 g/mi for a gasoline car

Fuel carbon over vehicle life:

EV emits 117 g/mi versus

335 g/mi for the gasoline car

which is 1:2 for EV and 1:9 for gas, presumably the precise ratio depends on how far you drive a car, how efficient it is.

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