German power mix plays a major role
A German study shows that electric cars in Germany have an increasing indirect CO2 emissions. This is largely due to the changing electricity mix in that country. The study thus underlines the importance of truly green energy to make electric cars a sound alternative to fuel-driven cars.
Although an electric car does not emit any CO2 itself, whether its CO2 emissions are actually lower than that of a fuel car depends on how the electricity was generated for it. In Germany, the picture does not look good in that regard, concludes the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, according to Automedien Portal. In fact, according to research by KIT, fully electric cars produce CO2 emissions that are higher than those of the majority of conventionally powered vehicles. This is due to the way in which the Germans generate their electricity: it does not make it ‘greener’.
Germany is scaling down power generation with nuclear power stations and is also forced to generate more power with coal-fired power stations because of the shutdown of the Russian gas tap. The result is that the electricity that goes into the EVs already has a nice ‘footprint’. According to KIT, a fully electric car currently uses an average of 23.6 kWh per 100 km. That seems like a generous estimate, but the institute has calculated from the generation to the actual use by the car. Power loss occurs in many ways on the way from the power station to the battery of the EV. According to KIT, the pure average consumption of electric cars is 18.4 kWh per 100 km.
Calculated with the aforementioned 23.6 kWh per 100 km, an electric car in Germany produced CO2 emissions of 175 g/km in the first half of 2022. According to KIT, this value is representative for a whole year, because the calculation includes a cold first quarter and a warm second quarter. According to KIT, CO2 emissions for EVs will only increase further in the near future, due to the further scaling down of nuclear and gas energy in favor of coal energy. In 2023, according to current developments, emissions would be 184 g/km. Closing the nuclear power plants in 2024 will increase emissions in that year to 196 g/km, according to KIT. Should the gas supply also be a problem in that year and 20 percent less natural gas enters than originally intended, the value would even rise to 201 g/km.
‘Fuel engine not finished yet’
Professor Thomas Willner of the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg responds to the research with the recommendation to focus more on clean fuels for conventionally powered cars. “While we really need to immediately reduce CO2 emissions to meet the 1.5 degree target, e-mobility instead leads to a huge increase in CO2 emissions compared to the status quo and therefore to an even faster exhaustion of the CO2 budget. The policy focus on e-mobility also prevents the existing fleet, which runs for more than 99 percent on combustion engines, from being made climate neutral as quickly as possible.”
There is an important caveat to KIT’s investigation. As mentioned, this concerns the electricity mix of Germany and this is of course not illustrative for all European countries. A study by Green NCAP showed earlier this year that the average European energy mix would be good for lower CO2 emissions from electric cars compared to models with a combustion engine. The only question is whether this still applies now that the energy system in Europe has been overhauled because of the war in Ukraine. Another caveat is that the projection for the coming years is based on the currently measured average power consumption of electric cars. However, they are becoming more efficient. Earlier this year, Green NCAP argued in favor of increasing efficiency and reducing power loss from power generation to battery in order to make the EV ‘cleaner’.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl