What my 40yo diesel has going for it is that it already exists. The production cost has been paid for already. I'm fully prepared to buy an eV or hybrid when it dies but in the meantime it's what I've got. Plus I don't actually drive very much.
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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I made the calculation with a 10 years old Civic vs new EV once and the math came out in favor of the EV after a few years anyway, especially if you get green electricity where you live... Now with a 40 years old diesel it's even worse considering how much diesel emissions equipment has improved since it was built. There's a reason why some cities like Paris are completely banning older diesels...
You have to take into consideration that the total emissions from your already existing ICE vehicle keep increasing very quickly over time where an EV has a higher total when comparing two new vehicles, but then the EV has so much lower emissions during usage that they catch up very quickly, even if the electricity they use comes from coal powered generators. Hell, the average big truck probably release as much emissions every year as what it took to produce it in the first place...
Diesel has more NOx emissions and significantly more particulate emissions than cars running on gasoline, which is why cities are banning older vehicles running on Diesel. They're harmful to people's health, especially if they lack modern filters.
For CO2 though, Diesel usually runs miles around gasoline. That's why the EU has favored Diesel engines over gasoline one's since signing and ratifying the 1997 Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse emissions.
CO2 is directly related to fuel economy (no filtration of it) which is why diesel do better than gas. OP has a 40 years old diesel truck though, I wouldn't expect it to be getting that great fuel mileage, especially not if they're from the US.
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Any chance you can source your numbers? I tried to do the same calculation for my 18 year old gas car, and it came out a being a wash.
Finding hard numbers on the energy cost to build a new car was tough - the green sites showed the EV car poofed into the world with magic and butterflies, while the gas-centric sites made it sound like it took the entire world's GDP to produce a single EV.
Also disheartening, the very few sites I could find that would list replacement costs for a battery pack had the price higher than the vehicle itself - IE, when the battery pack goes, you throw the car away & buy another one. That's been a huge turnoff for me.
I'm trying to find the source again, from memory the production itself was 2 tons of CO2 for a compact sedan and 8.5 tons for an equivalent EV and then the Civic (and that's numbers I've just checked) emits about 3 tons of CO2 a year driving 16k km (which is less than the US average) while the EV emissions will vary depending on what is used to produce the electricity, but after two years the gas car has polluted as much as producing the EV and then a year later if it's green electricity it was above the EV...
So if you take a Civic that's already on the road and replace it with an EV you don't include the original 2 tons from producing the Civic, but it only means three years of CO2 emissions from burning gas before it catches up with the EV production.
From memory after about 6 years the EV came out on top even if it was replacing a road worthy Civic even in the worst scenario...
We have to keep in mind that producing electricity from petrol is more efficient than using that petrol to move cars (even with the losses along the way) as car engines aren't that great at extracting energy from gas...
Edit: just wanted to add that if we don't just look at CO2 the same logic applies to other types of emissions and replacing old cars with newer cars even if both are petrol powered and it even applies to CO2 if someone is driving an inefficient car and is thinking that replacing it with a more efficient new car will be worse for the environment...
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Unless your vehicle has particularly bad emotions, generally speaking that's the recommendation. All vehicles have a front-facing emissions cost from their manufacture; EVs having more due to the battery materials. While it's better in the long run to have an EV on the roads than a gas/diesel, there is value in maintaining an existing vehicle.
Like, I'm not sure how to properly convey the point but there's something about reducing the market demand for a new car and its environmental impact. If someone were to trade in their old vehicle and buy a new one every few years (which is unfortunately pretty normal in the US for middle class'folks), they'd actually have a worse carbon footprint buying EVs because of those front-loaded emission costs.
The best step towards a greener future is cutting out unnecessary production rather than chasing the next gadget that's supposed to save the world.
Not necessarily, an EV running on green electricity catches up in about 30k km if I recall correctly, that's two years of driving.
The vast majority of ICE cars emissions come from their usage, not their production, so it's environmentally beneficial to take them off the road and recycle as much of them as possible even if they're still road worthy.
Public Transit is even better
on average, Canadian EVs have up to 77% lower emissions than conventional models
That's quite a bit less. The headline sounds like "Do ICE vehicles pollite less than EVs ?" is a valid question, is there any argument that's the case? I'd have guessed EVs were obviously better, and you'd be hard pushed to argue otherwise?
(obviously I'm thinking 'new ev' vs 'new ICE' - putting second hard vehicles introducrs all sorts of caveats)
It might be due to a larger proportion of green energy sources powering these EVs, not sure how they calculate the emissions figures.
These kinds of studies usually go by the average emissions of the relevant country's power generation.
Heres the relevant bit for this study though, it has both national and by province:
In addition, electric vehicles also benefit from the low-emissions intensity of electricity generation relative to gasoline in most parts of Canada. Comparing the lifecycle emissions of the two fuels on an equivalent energy basis, grid electricity emissions are 61% lower than those of gasoline at the national level and 20%-93% lower in the 8 provinces/territories whose grid electricity is cleaner than gasoline.6 A handful of provinces and territories have grids that are more emissions intensive than gasoline based on the 2023 domestic electricity generation profile (chart 2). That said, even in this latter group, most electric vehicles still have lower fuel-related emissions and lifetime emissions than comparable gasoline vehicles because they use less energy during operation. (See appendix for a breakdown of electricity generation by fuel type).
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Manufacturing a BEV creates about twice the emissions as making an ICE vehicle, primarily due to making its lithium-ion battery
This is likely exaggerated, or certainly not "necessary emissions". You can estimate the production emissions by the cost of the car. EVs are now reaching sticker prices below ICE cars. Especially in China. While making an ICE engine includes significant manual labour, and steel or iron ore production can be decarbonized with Hydrogen, the manufacturing of individual engine parts out of steel is a more intensive process than casting an electric motor casing/stator, and winding some copper.
The China link is that they are the ones most likely to decarbonize mining through either LNG, H2 and electric. With price parity of EVs (happpening in NA too), manufacturing emissions should be very close.
On the point of fuel vs charging, one of the best symbiosis of EVs is home solar, including oversized solar to use less imported energy into home. Cheapest way to charge an EV, and also serve as emergency home power if needed.
Does this take into account emissions from the exothermic combustion event experienced by many Teslas, especially those parked outdoors on dealer lots?
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