Dirty electric car lie

Despite continued protesting from many electric vehicle (EV) sceptics, numerous studies have shown that the average fully electric car is better for the environment than a petrol or diesel car.

While EVs produce no harmful gasses through tailpipe emissions, the anti-EV crowd is often quick to criticise their carbon-intensive manufacturing processes.

The biggest contributor to this is the high-voltage battery, which is made from materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

These must be extracted in mines and processed before being put into a usable form in cell and battery assembly, which themselves are energy-intensive processes.

Research by Argonne National Laboratory has suggested that making an EV produces about 60% more carbon emissions than an equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) model.

This impact will reduce as EV production and supply chains mature, but it will likely take many more years to reach parity with ICE manufacturing, which has more than a century’s advantage in mass production.

However, research has shown that EVs are already far better for the environment over their entire lifecycle than ICE vehicles because they are far more energy efficient per kilometre.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explained that one of the biggest reasons for this is that EVs use approximately 87% to 91% of the energy stored in their batteries to propel themselves.

Petrol or diesel vehicles can only convert about 16% to 25% of their fuel’s energy into movement.

The Argonne National Laboratory found that the lifecycle emissions of an EV were less than half of an equivalent ICE model using grid electricity in the US in 2024.

With more renewable power coming online over the next decade, it calculated an EV will be 80% less carbon-intensive by 2035.

To better understand how an EV makes up for its initial high environmental impact over time, we looked at three comparable models’ estimated CO2 equivalents (CO2e) consumptions from production to recycling.

For a good comparison, one can look at the data from its research into the environmental impacts of the BMW X3 series, which has petrol, diesel, and electric variants.

When looking specifically at EV use in South Africa, it would be remiss to ignore that most of our electricity comes from a dirty source — coal.

According to the latest Grid Emissions Factors Report, South Africa consumed roughly 0.96 tonnes of CO2e per MWh generated, working out to 0.00096 tonnes per kWh.

The BMW iX3’s official energy efficiency is 0.176kWh per kilometer, but EV Database provides a more conservative “real-world” figure of about 0.196kWh.

Over 200,000km, the iX3 would consume 39,200kWh of energy, requiring 37.6 tonnes of CO2e if the driver used only the national grid for charging.

When compared to BMW’s official vehicle environmental impact reports, it would appear that the iX3’s running impact is better than the most economical petrol-powered version of the X3 but worse than the most economical diesel-powered X3.

However, BMW and other manufacturers exclude the impact of fuel production and transport in their non-electric vehicle impact reports.

Research has estimated that the production and transport of fuel add roughly 15% to 30% more CO2e emissions to the total consumption.

We assumed an additional 22.5% contribution as a reasonable mid-way figure for our comparison.

We also used the 60% additional CO2e in the iX’s manufacturing process, as calculated by the Argonne National Laboratory.

Overall, our calculations showed the iX3 would consume 14% less CO2e over its lifecycle than the petrol X3 and 4% less than the diesel model.

This difference will likely become far greater over the coming years as South Africa’s grid balance shifts more towards renewables or if an iX3 owner uses their home or office solar power to charge the EV.

While our assessment includes some assumptions based on third-party research, BMW has also compared the total environmental footprints of the electric iX3 and the X3 30i petrol model.

While BMW did not include specific CO2e numbers in its comparison either, it found that the iX3 consumed about 43% less CO2e than the X30 30i, which was over a 200,000km lifecycle when only grid power was used in Europe.

If only renewable power sources were used for charging, it would be 67% less carbon-intensive than the petrol model.

The table below compares the lifecycle CO2e impacts of the BMW X3 petrol, diesel, and electric models using South African grid power.