Not much, surprisingly.
Source: Fast Facts on Transportation Greenhouse Gas Emissions | US EPA
Transportation (all types) accounts for 27% of GHG emissions. Of the 24% attributed into “Industry” much of that is from private electricity generation.
Of the 27% allocated to transportation, 57% is to light duty vehicles – this includes personal autos, pickup trucks and SUVs, and also all light duty vehicles (vans, pickups, autos) used by business.
This works out to 15.4% of all GHGs is due to light duty vehicles.
This means that if we converted all light duty vehicles to EVs, and assumed a 100% efficiency rate, we would reduce GHGs by at most 15.4%.
However, we are nowhere near 100% efficient. While an individual EV is more efficient than a similar sized ICE vehicle, most electricity to charge them is still generated from fossil fuels.
When overall vehicle lifetime energy consumption is considered, an EV needs to be driven 200,000 miles before achieving an average of -28% GHG reduction (that estimate includes energy used to produce the resources and manufacture the EV, and considers a typical energy production mix, nationwide).
Thus, we do not reduce GHGs by 15.4%, but, for now, just 28% of that or as little as a 4.3% reduction (let’s round that to less 5%). For a very large expense and changes to behavior. Perhaps eventually – decades from now – electricity generation from charging will come from non-GHG producing sources (indeed, if I had an EV at my house, the charging would be from my solar PV system – which produces more than enough excess currently for local and regional EV use).
It is surprising that switching from your ICE to a comparable EV has such a small reduction in your carbon footprint.
[…] There is not much we can do, personally, in terms of energy used in food growing, production and distribution, or other products and services, including health care, that make life possible. But we have done what we can do. Many do not understand that even if you reduce your personal footprint, energy is still used to produce and deliver food, products, and services that make your life possible. All transportation produces an estimated 28% of US greenhouse gases – that’s about 10% for ships, large trucks, aircraft and railroads – and the rest for personal vehicles and small business vehicles (pickup trucks, vans, etc). The rest (72% or so) comes from electricity generation and industrial processes. Driving an EV only impacts your minor component of greenhouse gases, if your electricity is cleanly sourced. In fact, if we switched all light vehicles used by consumers and businesses to EV, tomorrow, we might reduce …. […]