Do I keep an old banger or buy a EV?

Question

So this is a "personal intersects policy" thought.I read that on average a new Electric Vehicle has so much energy embedded in its creation that it needs to be driven 100,000 miles before the amount of carbon emitted in its creation is less than the amount for a new petrol car, plus the emissions of the petrol.So we have been a one car family for years, and only occasionally does life and work mean that becomes painful. But it's more and more given a job chnage.My father in law is going for a new car, and is handing over his old banger as a second car. I had been angling for a nice small EV. But this will be a second car (I know first world problems and so on) but it will barely do a thousand miles a year.I don't think I can justify the market signal of a new EV when simply running the old petrol car into the ground is, it seems counter-intuitively, more climate friendly.Yes this is absolutely a first world problem - but it's still a problem. At what point should we subsidise new EVs versus just running old cars (versus urban planning, public transport, and other solid not car centric solutions)thoughts, well cited papers and commentary welcome:-)

bell-cot · Accepted Answer

Any new car, EV or not, has a large carbon footprint from its manufacture. If the car "will barely do a thousand miles a year" - the old banger is a huge win on the CO2 front, and the nice small new EV is performative activism.A pretty-sensible article on this, though it's from 2010 - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

DamonHD · Answer

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-21-misleading-myths-ab...

FALSE: ‘An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even’

One of the most common false claims made against EVs is that they offer little or no climate benefit over conventional cars, due to the emissions associated with making their battery.

In a Twitter post promoting his anti-EV comment article for the Daily Mail, for example, the climate-sceptic former Conservative peer Matt Ridley claimed:

    “An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even with an ICE [internal combustion engine] car. That number is growing, not shrinking.”

This is doubly false. As Carbon Brief showed in its 2019 factcheck, it takes less than two years for a typical EV to pay off the “carbon debt” from its battery. Over the full vehicle lifecycle, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from an EV are around three times lower than an average petrol car.

simonblack · Answer

As long as the 'old banger' starts and moves reliably, keep it.
At what point should we subsidise new EVs versus just running old cars
We shouldn't. The extra carbon-emissions from running an old machine is miniscule compared to the enormous amount of carbon-emissions produced by making a completely new car. (Whether that new car is EV or ICE is pretty much irrelevant, here.)
And of course, running an old car is several orders of magnitude cheaper that buying a new car, whether that new car is subsidised or not.

brudgers · Answer

If you really want to change the world, take the banger.
And give the banger to someone who really needs a car because cars change lives and good cars for cheap are hard to come by.
Sure that's probably not someone you know.
Changing the world isn't as easy as shopping.
Good luck.

Do I keep an old banger or buy a EV?

If you really want to change the world, take the banger.And give the banger to someone who really needs a car because cars change lives and good cars for cheap are hard to come by.Sure that's probably not someone you know.Changing the world isn't as easy as shopping.Good luck.

If you really want to change the world, take the banger.
And give the banger to someone who really needs a car because cars change lives and good cars for cheap are hard to come by.
Sure that's probably not someone you know.
Changing the world isn't as easy as shopping.
Good luck.