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"Tesla Model 3 Produces More CO2 than a Diesel Car" - Please debunk

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The hatchet job referenced in the OP has much the same flavor as the oldie but goody FUD that Prius is environmentally worse than a Hummer. Even casual reading of either exposes assumptions that are either very debatable or flat out wrong. The most charitable reading is that the authors construed a theoretical corner case as typical. The only interesting part of this article to me is that it was written by German academic economists. As someone who respects science and its methods, garbage publications rub me the wrong way.
 
Sick of getting forwarded articles like this from friends/family. Can anyone help me out and definitively debunk this article?

From a reputable website run I think by the US DOE for New York:
Alternative Fuels Data Center: Emissions from Hybrid and Plug-In Electric Vehicles

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  • In the developed world the electric grid continues to get cleaner over time as more renewables are used and dirty coal plants are phased out which means that EVs get cleaner
This much beloved trope of the EV world is more wrong than right because it presumes that clean electricity consumed by EVs would not have been utilized to displace dirty energy elsewhere. A future TOU economy will change things (by decreasing curtailment and increasing the value of daytime PV generation) but for now an EV is best approximated as just another appliance on the grid, not much different than a toaster.

Unless you make your own clean electricity because you own an EV. Then you are golden. This is not meant to be a snark; it is common amongst EV owners and a financial no-brainer in many (most?) parts of the country.
 
This much beloved trope of the EV world is more wrong than right because it presumes that clean electricity consumed by EVs would not have been utilized to displace dirty energy elsewhere. A future TOU economy will change things (by decreasing curtailment and increasing the value of daytime PV generation) but for now an EV is best approximated as just another appliance on the grid, not much different than a toaster.

Unless you make your own clean electricity because you own an EV. Then you are golden. This is not meant to be a snark; it is common amongst EV owners and a financial no-brainer in many (most?) parts of the country.

I’m not sure I understand your point. If you want to look at this with the assumption that EVs require additional energy on the grid then EVs are even cleaner than if you look at the grid as a whole because most of the new energy coming online is renewables (mostly solar and wind). For example, IRENA estimated that 66% of new capacity in 2018 was from renewables. In 2018, 66% of New Electricity Generation Capacity was Renewable, Price of Batteries Dropped 35% | News | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD.

In any case, the point is simply that the grid gets cleaner over time so an EV bought today will cause fewer emissions over time. EVs don’t somehow selectively displace renewable capacity that would otherwise replace dirty energy any more than toasters do. And if EVs cause more power to come online that power is very likely to be renewable so their marginal emissions are even lower than if you look at the grid as a whole.
 
There is another point that is often missed in this discussion which is that batteries are a critical piece of the puzzle in shifting the grid to 80% and eventually 100% renewable energy.

Battery prices have been dropping rapidly driven by the explosive growth of EVs. According to Wright’s Law, the faster the growth, the faster battery costs will fall, and the more economical it will be to have renewable energy provide higher percentages of electricity on the grid.

Without rapid EV growth driving down battery costs, we would not be seeing all of these ridiculously cheap wind/solar+battery electricity generation projects coming on line.

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Electric cars create more CO2 during production but make up that deficit over the first 30-70k miles

main point is that we have significant opportunities to make EV production and electricity production cleaner. Fossil fuel cars don’t have the same potential.

also, when people tell you they are dirtier, does that mean they actually care how much pollution they create? Or is it just an easy excuse to not change their lifestyle?
 
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My favourite thing about driving a Tesla in Europe and Australia is that I not continually sending my hard-earned cash to support despicable oil-rich regimes in the Middle East and their multinational distributors.
Actually not much crude imported to Europe is from Saudi, but rather from Russia, Norway, etc. Also few of it goes to Australia.

The Saudis do have an ownership stake in Tesla Inc
 
Here's a decent debunk: Electric car ‘hatchet job’ debunked | Transport & Environment

(Elektrek also did a debunk making similar points)

So by making the diesel car emissions forty percent lower than they should be and the EV emissions fifty percent higher than they were three years ago (more than that now,) and assuming the battery production produces three times as much pollution as it does, they were able to show the 3 producing 8% more pollution than a much slower diesel?

Wow, they really had to work for that one...
 
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Sick of getting forwarded articles like this from friends/family. Can anyone help me out and definitively debunk this article?

A Tesla Model 3 Produces More CO2 than a Diesel Car, Says New Study

The family forwarding these articles are not driving a Tesla, another EV, or even a Prius, right?
They don't have solar and don't really care about the environment from what you can tell, right?

Best way to silence them? Consider saying, something like, "Yeah, I don't know about that whole study thing either, but really, I'm all about the performance, handling, and not buying gasoline. Oh, did you know this... ( Tesla Model ___, or the Tesla Model 3 Performance, Tesla Model S..., etcetera) is quicker than a multi-million dollar supercar like the McLaren F1? Oh, and no oil changes, and maybe one or two brake jobs over hundreds of thousands of miles? When (you/I) visit, you've totally got to check it out. You'll want one too probably. Remember, I used to not like electric vehicles just as much as the next person."

Have fun! They won't know how to react. Focus on enjoying your (current/future) vehicle.

Sure, you could explain that the study is likely funded by German auto manufacturers which might actually be the truth. Don't be THAT person, and besides that is certainly not any fun.

I've been driving a Tesla for over four years now, including my first, and STILL love telling people the story about when, in 2011, when my good friend bought an "orphaned" Nissan LEAF that I asked him why he didn't buy a Prius. Back in 2011, I thought my EV buying friend was the biggest idiot. He never did spend a penny on maintenance on his LEAF over four years and I actually ended up in a Tesla before he did, and we both took it's first road trip, forty-four hundred miles in ten days. STILL remember that trip like it was just a few months ago.
 
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One thing to keep in mind, even if theoretical numbers based on published emissions show an ICE equaling or beating an EV with regards to emissions, is that all ICE cars are extremely dirty and polluting when they are warming up. This warmup period can easily take 5-10 minutes. During that time, the ICE car essentially has no emissions control and can easily be polluting at levels 10 times higher than the published emissions numbers state. 90% of all pollutants emitted by an ICE are created in the first minute it is running! Those pollutants are right at your front door! Warmed up and raring to go: What happens when a car starts in the cold?

Average commute time in the US is 27 minutes. So potentially 1/4 to 1/3 of that commute interval is done when the car's emissions systems are not up to temperature. Even worse, when the cars are at their dirtiest, is when you are driving through your neighborhood. So your car is spewing the highest levels of NOx and hydrocarbons, when the car is in close proximity to your house and children's schools. Limiting local emissions are one of the massive benefits for EVs.

Diesels are even more sensitive to temperatures. In cold weather environments, their emissions systems may never reach operating temperature.
 
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In any case, the point is simply that the grid gets cleaner over time so an EV bought today will cause fewer emissions over time.
I don't think that is a reasonable way to look at this problem although it does seem intuitive. EVs coming online are simply extra grid customers (presuming that the EV owner did not buy e.g. PV to power the car.)

Your argument is valid IF additional clean energy grid resources come online because of EVs.
 
I don't understand why anybody serious about the question would even ask it. I mean...do they really think there are the first person to think of the question? Do they think it's not been answered before - many times over many years? Can't they search the answers? Don't they think that the DOE, EPA, UCS, DOD, Sierra Club, Plug In America, Lung Association etc have all looked into this issue much more extensively than pretty much any individual ever will (yes, they all have) and support EVs because they are cleaner (yes, they all do)?

As others have noted, almost nobody I've heard ask the question was seriously interested in the answer. They are usually people that are just trying to argue about EVs; and they assume anybody "supporting" EVs must be a left-wing radical tree-hugging hippie (a myth in itself) trying to make government bigger. If you spend a bunch of time to prove the questioner wrong on this topic, they won't thank you for the information - they will usually just move on to another EV myth, because they aren't looking for the answer. They are trying to convince you that you are wrong to support EVs, and so they start their attack on the only reason they see to support them.

(Of course there are exceptions. Somebody that knows you, and knows you know about EVs, may seriously ask the question. I'm talking more about questions from the general public that walk by and see your car; I am at a lot of events so that happens a lot for me).
 
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I don't think that is a reasonable way to look at this problem although it does seem intuitive. EVs coming online are simply extra grid customers (presuming that the EV owner did not buy e.g. PV to power the car.)

Your argument is valid IF additional clean energy grid resources come online because of EVs.

Follow-up with an example:

Say I am considering an EV today. Regardless of whether the clean energy component of the grid is 1% or 99%, my EV will be fueled with additional fossils