How many households have one vehicle?
The researchers found that households that own one internal combustion engine (ICE) car and replace it with an EV start to see their carbon footprint shrink after 28,068 miles of driving.
Households that own an ICE car and add an EV as a second car or own two gas-powered cars and replace one with an EV require different math. Those, the researchers found, see their emissions start to drop after 68,160 miles.
‘Dirtier to build but cleaner to drive’: This is how many miles you need to drive an EV to reduce its carbon footprint, study finds (msn.com)
- In the U.S., about 92% of households have at least one vehicle.
- About 59% had two or more vehicles as of 2020.
- Over 22% had three or more vehicles. But about 1 in 3 households in WY and UT had 3 ore more vehicles. This pattern likely repeats in the expansive western states, whereas a few dense cities have lower car ownership. (Obviously, to save the climate, we must ban living in the western U.S. states, especially the inland mountain states and the mid-west. Obviously.)
- 60% of all vehicles in the U.S. are trucks.
- 78% are trucks or SUVs. The “average car” in the U.S. is a truck or an SUV. The U.S. does not have cars anymore.
- EVs are less than 2%.
About 18% of carbon emissions in the U.S. come from all light vehicles used for personal and business transportation. About 10% come from heavy trucks, trains, ships and aircraft. About 72% come from electricity generation, heating and industrial processes. The latter also includes on-site electrical generation at large businesses.
Because much of a vehicle’s energy consumption occurs during manufacturing (about half of its lifetime energy use), converting all light vehicles to EVs reduces the 18% contribution by may be 25% of the vehicles’ total life – or less than 5% reduction overall.
EVs are a focus of politicians because people see cars on the road – they don’t see electricity generation or industrial processes. For all the attention given to EVs, getting rid of gas cars does not have much impact on carbon emissions – and nowhere close to what most are expecting. And then you have to assume that this small reduction in carbon emissions will have a measurable impact on the world’s climate, considering the many other drivers of climate.
The article linked above is quite decent but complains that early EVs cost too much. This is true of most product launches of new technologies – where products target early adopters first, and prices come down over time, in part due to moving up the learning curve (lowering manufacturing costs), and competitive pressures that force efficiency improvements. The author of the article is a long-time auto industry writer with a BA in English and Philosophy.
Afterward: Today it is challenging to purchase a small car in the U.S. The U.S. car makers have abandoned the small car market and sell trucks and SUVs. The Japanese car makers have reduced their offerings in the U.S. For example, the Honda Fit, a highly ranked care for features and reliability is still sold throughout the world as the Honda Jazz – but Honda abandoned the U.S. market for that vehicle in 2020 – and sells the HR-V instead, a larger vehicle with higher profits. Since then, Honda introduced outside the U.S., both 4WD and hybrid version of the vehicle. But the U.S. market has been persuaded they must have very large vehicles. VW does not even sell their ID.3 EV in the U.S. – it is literally an EV version of the Honda Fit. The only subcompact or compact cars available today come from Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Kia.
This is why the average price of new cars in the U.S. is about $50,000/year now – only expensive cars are sold here.
