Are Electric Cars REALLY Better for the Environment?

Hey guys I felt this was an important video for us to make, and I'm really glad you guys like it. We've covered a lot of different cars on this channel and talked to a lot of owners, and the one thing that unites them all is the desire for MO POWAH BABEH! So no matter how your car makes its power, you're welcome in the Donut community. - Nolan

Hello ! One IMPORTANT thing ! An EV car will have its batteries wasted in 10 years so for a 20 years lifespan you have to also reinclude the battery CO and CO2 and water and energy consumption. So here comes the real kicker --> You buy a EV car in 2024 for 40 000 dollars and in 2032 the batteries are to be replaced because they cannot hold charge. So you get a quotation for 30 000 dollars for a complete new battery pack (deinstallation reinstallation and waste management that the car owner one way or another will be asked to pay for). Would you do it for a 8 year old car? Probably not. So where goes the car ? What happens to secondary users ? No one can buy the car. Environmental disaster. If a good premium car has 20 or 25 years lifespan it will help many people. First owner, secondary owner etc.

It's actually pretty simple. The problem isn't asking if electric cars are better for the environment with current power systems. That's the wrong question. The right questions to ask are more about how quickly and completely we can transition to clean energy, including wind, solar, and nuclear. If we want to tackle the alarmingly climbing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, which is bound to have seriously negative consequences at some point, we need BOTH clean energy production and clean energy consumption. In other words, we need the EVs, be it now or later. We also need clean energy production. That change is happening also, but the pace of both are pretty slow. If we wait to do EVs until clean energy production is ramped up, the whole process will take twice as long. We need to continue to work on both in tandem.

My plants say Co2 really good. By the way it also says global warming is for stupid people

The only real problem with EV’s is the price, accessibility of charging stations, the speed of charge and battery retention over time and cold temps. As in, I’d like to be able to leave for a month and come back and it still has the same charge just like an ICE will still have the same amount of gas and also not have it lose charge super fast or just not be able to charge when it’s cold. But I’m sure all of those will be fixed soon, but not yet.

You know what’s funny? The internal combustion engine was invented to get rid of horse carriages because they were a pollution problem lol. They’d die in summer from heat and winter from cold and you actually couldn’t haul them away, there were a few laws that said that you’d have to wait for it to start rotting to take it away in pieces. Horses are huge. So there’s poop, pee, hay and water all over the city and it’s just yucky. It cakes up over time to the point that those fancy little townhomes in NYC with stairs were built specifically that way because the roads and sidewalks were disgusting. Cars were supposed to solve the problem and ‘clean up the city’, which they did do. But now the solution has become the problem… and I can’t help but think that this is what will happen with EV’s too; the solution will become a problem later. And really think about it, this is normal for humans. If we’re truly THAT smart as a species, we wouldn’t come up with ‘solutions’ that then become problems in and of themselves in the first place 😂

Electric cars is a joke and only a way to see yourself as warrior for the eviroment lol and finding a charging point is a pain in developed countries and then you have karens that use it as a parkingspace and where do the power to charge them come from some of the materials in it will cause fires that cant controlled even if the car is under water!
It could be something when there is actuall infrastructure for them in the future preferly with less poisionus batteries aka eco friendly.
Im waiting for hydrogen or something

1. The recycling of batteries is slowly improving. Similarly, the use of used car EV batteries is also increasing. This is going to help in reducing the impact of Lithium mining on the environment. Additionally, techniques are being developed to clean the brine and other toxics that are the result of Lithium mining.
2. Cobalt is still an issue.
3. Alternatives for Lithium, which are much better for the environment, are also being developed. These include aluminum ion batteries, which are made of aluminum, which have very low impact as the mining of Alluminium is a well established industry. Also, recycling of Alluminium is also well established.

these are only estimates of emmisios 1: the amount of power required to charge EV's is astronomical - 300+KW per Hr. Enough for around 30 Homes a day.... 2: EV Batteries are highly toxic to recycle and when EV's catch fire the 4000degF toxic smoke and thermal ruaway made the highly dangeous (just look at small electric bike/phone fires) 3: The cost of a relacement battery for an EV for even a small scrape on its case is ridiculous. you can buy a whole new car for this price of what would have been a minior dent in a ICE car

"TOKYO, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Japan started releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, a polarising move that prompted China to announce an immediate blanket ban on all aquatic products from Japan."

"Chernobyl will be habitable again in about 20,000 years due to the long-lasting effects of ground absorption of radiation. Visiting Chernobyl is now considered safe, but there are still risks associated with touring due to the structural instability of the ruins.Nov 9, 2023"

E.V.= Famine, &Drought. OUTLAW, & BAN IT.

LAWSUITS , AGAINST E.V., MANUFACTUERS; WILLB.

E.V.'z= Vehicular- Garbage; & Consumer- Farce.

E V.= MENACE, 2SOCIETY/HUMANITY.

This is conjecture because you never mentioned the "environmental impact" of diposed batteries. I've read they're very toxic. If you forgot that, what else did you not mention?

You should make a video reviewing solid state batteries in EV's because most of the cons for EV's you described were mostly from lithium. And since state batteries are WAY WAY more efficient in every way to lithium batteries. I'd love to see how your opinion changes for EV's

For whoever still reads comments. I recently heard the argument that evs use a lot more copper per car than an ice car. From up to 40lbs to about 180lbs. Is this a major problem? Why or why not?

I like electric cars

When you think about it. An older car is more CO2 efficient to maintain than an electric car atleast for now with the lithium batteries not being as reliable as an ICE. I'd have to say that yes electric cars are the future only when the batteries actually start lasting long times of use without needing to change them. For now ICE's and Hybrids in my eyes are the way to go.

Where did he get the information from

Wind, solar and hydroelectric power plants are the 3 whales of most eco unfriendly tipes of power plants😂
With near zero efficiency of first two they harm enviroment the most (to the point of total destruction of ecosystems).
Sound polution; lead, chrome and cadium polution; flooding of one areas and making others into deserts. All of these tipes of energy production are from 300 to 500 times more harmful to enviroment than nuclear power plants.😂

How about the toxic smoke when they burn

you fail to pay the appropriate attetion to the battery of EV cars. They are the biggest environmental fuckers.While a gasoline car can last for about 10-15 years or longer with good maintainance, battery of EV can last for about 7 years before the need to replace.

volvo was the 1st company that published a study about EV's
so VOLVO says that manufacturing an EV has 70% more co2 footprint over its ICE equivalent.
in order to get EVEN with ICE cars , both EV and its ICE equivalent have to drive 200.000 klms!!!!!
AS YOU SAID the average klms of a car in US is about 17000klms per year
correct?
so an EV has to drive 200.000 klms divided by 17000 klms per year gives us
11.7 years of driving an EV
now im challenging you to give me 1 EV car that its battery can last 11.7 years or 200.000 .
now TESLA admits that over the 6 year period , battery health is declining , cant hold charge as much thus it needs more frequent charging .

and its not that .
EV's are heavy ,
that means the tyre wear is heavier, which in turn means they need faster replacement .
i can keep going giving you cons of EV's

the truth is EV's will never be more environment friendly as ICE cars are .
do your math

The claim that Electric Vehicles are environmentally friendly is a huge lie because the environmental impact equation is computed only after the battery is fully charged when one adds required battery charging process to the environmental impact equation one finds electric cars pollute about twice as much as gas cars and as you mentioned there's the environmental impact of mining materials and manufacturing the required battery.

Electric cars are not the future. The biggest problem in this world is mankind. And there is nothing kind in mankind. Destroying nature and the rain forest is mans biggest evil and downfall.

Scattering harmful materials around like this will poison the entire surface. Water animals our kids and water, I guarantee! 10-20 years watch

I don't agree with attributing all of the metric tons of oil refining to gas cars. Oil refineries produce many different other stuff when refining said oil, from petroleum jelly, all the way to jet fuel etc. So in your calculations, you should definitely take that into account.

The unaddressed issue is lifespan of EV batteries. Time will tell with that one

One thing about EV's is it produces half the carbon footprint but then the batteries can't be recycled so you'll be polluting a very large area in a very short time.
Anything the government thinks is a good idea is a terrible idea.

you forgot 2 important things.

in many countries, the electric grid would not be able to handle everyone switching to EVs, and what happens when these batteries will need to be replaced or destroyed? because they don't last for ever. if those 2 questions get sustainable solutions, i promise i'll never say a bad word about EVs again. untill then, thanks but no thanks

cobalt*

I would like to clarify one issue that doesn’t move the needle either way - the myth behind electric cars destroying our power grid is rooted in the fact that our electric grid, if not upgraded/fixed, will cause our demand to closely resemble our supply of electricity.

This isn’t BECAUSE of EVs, in fact some estimates show that it only accounts for <5% of the demand, so if everyone switched now it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Although our overall usage and demand is rising faster than we’re currently able to produce, and at the rate we are going today we will be reaching electrical supply problems in just a few years.

Here’s hoping we begin fixing the electrical problem approaching.

They just found a bunch of lithium underneath the Salton Sea. Good luck with that. 👎

Shut up about CO2 . It is a natural existing gas. Safe for the earth and plants. I am so sick of hearing about it!!!!

EA load of hogwash. One vehicles pollution is the same gas that flows out of your own body and the other is real kind of pollution that makes water that you can’t drink and land that can’t sustain life. Plants live on CO2. The earth has been lush and green with 5 times the CO2 levels we have today. If CO2 levels increase plants will respond by turning more of it into oxygen. A bunch of idiot con artists throwing around words about efficiency that have no real basis in fact.

Don’t forget that wind turbines break a lot and never can break down in several lifetimes of humans, same with solar panels.

They need more than one batteri during livespan

The problem is, there is not enought battery materials to replace ALL classic engines whith evs. And wind energy is not "clean". 1) You need other sourses of generation\accumulation to compensate lack or excess of power, 2) its super expensive to recicle wind turbines as they break, 3) they are very detremental to wild life around them. The only real clean energy is nuclear stations of closed cycle, where waste from 1 type of stations serves as fuel to other stations and vice-versa, untill full deplition of nuclear fuel to led. You can add to that a fact that EVs still need ruber, plastic and lubrication just as EC engines do, so you will not be able to get rid of oil industry any time soon.

I am not questioning anything you say but the idea of waiting an hour or more for to charge it along with higher insurance premiums is enough to put me off buying and keeping an electric vehicle regardless if they are truly greener than the ICE

I love your channel, but there is a lot of wrong information in this video and know the electric grid could not handle that many electric cars. This is coming from someone who worked in the energy department.

Own 2 Tesla. Best car ever. Never going back to gasoline cars.

Alternative fuel all the way , in Australia they tell us to turn of our aircon in summertime as the grid cant handel it , now they want electric cars .

EVs are a disaster and are harmful to mother Earth!! Mining is an INCONVENIENT truth

It makes me wonder tho, why didn't we just try reusing the "dangerous" gases emitted like nitrous oxide, co2, and methane?

best with the line chart graph to understand the emission part too.. and batteries life for each EV can last max of 5 yrs (avg 4 yrs) ? every time there is a replacement, will this be extra emission?

science!! its so good.

I don’t like the fact we shift our co2 problems to drought problems and child labor elsewhere. Could you make a video comparing co2 pollution sources? I can’t believe cars are the big culprit here