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Comment by orangejuice101 | Hacker News Reader

Here are some stats on fossil fuel deaths in general

On average in the US, the CO2 output required to power an electric vehicle is 1/3 of an ICE vehicle. So theoretically this would translate to less deaths as bb123 suggests, but hard to compare to direct pedestrian deaths. (Yes there are some logical gaps as ICE C02 output is a very low percentage of total fossil fuel output).

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Remember the emissions to manufacture the vehicle... they're higher for EVs. Lifecycle emissions for EVs therefore aren't much lower than ICE.

The lifetime emissions for EVs are massively lower than ICE's, unless the EV gets totalled in its first year of operation.

They are maybe 40-50% lower. Does this move the needle for climate change? No. And it’s not just lifetime car emissions. It’s the car dependent life that cars require

Source: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129478_lifetime-carbon...

It's only 50% lower because most electricity grids emit a lot of carbon. Once the grid switches to 100% carbon-free, the number becomes a lot lower. And most of the embodied carbon in the car comes from industrial electricity or transport, so as the grid & transport goes green the embodied carbon goes down, eventually to zero.

Electricity only accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, but it also enables industry (20%) and transportation (15%) to decarbonize too, by allowing them to replace their fuel with electricity.

A 50% reduction is already massive, but electrification of both vehicles and the industrial processes creating the vehicle will eventually let that number go to zero which should be our goal.

if you're adding those, you need to add the emissions when actually processing crude oil into gasoline.

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