Spoiler: Well-to-wheels, BEV cars are better than the best gas cars (top end prius) even if the source electricity is 100% coal.
The best is still not driving, but it's a step in the right direction.
That means electric companies are losing money running coal plants.
They are racing to replace them with wind and solar and natural gas turbine, with the gas turbine slater for replacement with storage once that is cheap enough.
Finally, with EVs and the electric grid, the power can be phased out centrally. Even if coal is used RIGHT NOW, once new power generation is available it is a seamless switchover for EVs.
If in the long term some dirt cheap thorium reactor supplants solar and wind, EVs don't care where the electrons come from.
Plus home solar, EVs doubling as home energy backup/storage, less components in the EV require less manufacturing, safer skateboard design, more internal space, lower center of gravity, regen breaking.
Although the ideal transition is a 100 mile LFP PHEV for the next ten years. No range anxiety, 90% + of daily and weekend driving is all electric, maximizes use of current manufacturing capacity of batteries, regen breaking efficiency.
Ten years ago (,ten years after the first Prius) we should have required all consumer passenger vehicles to be PHEV in a phased in manner.
It's still not too late to do that.
The sources he uses for breakeven time (DOE) assumes 24.3 mpg [1] for the average regular car, but people don't drive average cars they drive specific cars.
If you take the DOE assumptions and approach this from the other end, CO2 pollution by mpg, then you find an ICE car getting approx 30 mpg or more is less polluting per mile driven than an EV powered entirely by coal, and one getting >45 mpg is less polluting than an EV powered by natural gas. This does not include the battery at all, which makes sense as it is an independent consideration.
This is a more honest way to present the information so individuals can make informed decisions for themselves among potential car purchases and so that people aren't fooled into thinking that all EVs are less polluting in all circumstances.
1 - https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions_sources....
Coal is rapidly been retired as a source of electricity generation - 85% of generation capacity being retired in 2022 will be coal[1] - and there hasn't been a new large coal plant built in the US for over a decade[2]. In Europe the amount of electricity being generated by coal is half of what it was at its peak.
Meanwhile, renewables now make up about a 87% share of new electricity generation capacity in the the US[3]. Europe is similar.
Pricing the CO2 emissions cost of an EV using the dirtiest and fastest declining electricity source (coal) does not seem fair or honest to me.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50838
[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-the-u-s-ever...
[3] https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/renewables-are-87...
Your analysis would result in the conclusion that charging an EV in France (90% carbon free electricity) causes the same amount of CO2 emissions as using one in South Africa (90% fossil fuel electricity).
The expansion of EVs has coincided with a massive drop in coal electricity share and a massive increase in solar PV and wind share, globally. Assuming that expanding EVs are being powered by coal is odd to say the least. Especially given that (at least where I live) 70%+ of EV charging is done at home, mostly using off-peak electricity, which tends to have a much higher renewable share.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/classic/fuels/lcf...
If you only charge from noon to two in Q1, then use have zero marginal emissions per mile driven (this is the best case). If you only charge from 7-8pm you emit 142.06 gCO2e/MJ.
1 megajoule = 0.2777777778 kilowatt-hour
Converting gives us ~512 g CO2e per kWh.
Car efficiency is measured in miles per kWh. 4 miles per kWh is doable (some cars are better, some worse). So, that's 128g CO2e per mile.
50 miles per gallon would be great. A gallon of gas emits 20 lbs CO2, or 0.4lbs per mile, which is 181 grams per mile.
So, if you only charge at the worst possible time in California (basically forcing PG&E to use natural gas plants to charge your car), then a 50 mpg car is still 50% worse than a slightly larger EV.
In practice, you charge during off peak hours. At night, emissions are about half worst case. During the day, they're 10% of worst case.
I feel like there are many people who see 30 coal / 45 nat gas and take offense that it doesn't make EVs sound particularly good. This is why I called it a more honest presentation because EVs in terms of CO2 are fairly bad in WV and marginal in DE or MI or many other places compared to a high-mpg regular car. Instead of taking offense and setting out to correct the record, understand that not sounding particularly good is an accurate view.
Even in CA, the mpg needed to be cleaner than EV formulation makes it clear that driving a 100 mpg hybrid for instance is so good that any further gains are of little consequence.
How exactly? Do you have any examples? Also, have you ever seen the price of car infrastructure? I would be willing to bet that denser walkable urban infrastructure projects are waaaaay cheaper than building and maintaining sprawling road, sewage, and power transmission networks. Sprawl is seriously draining the finances of many small cities and towns in the US. There's a whole book about it: https://www.google.com/search?q=strong+towns
You could also just watch this smug video https://youtu.be/7IsMeKl-Sv0
But, when it comes to schools, fewer buildings means lower costs. We've been suffering this for years, there aren't anywhere near as many schools in my district as there were 30 or 40 years ago, even as the number of students go up. It's less expensive to consolidate the schools into a fewer number of locations and increase the capacity of the remaining locations.
Ergo, going the other direction and creating more, smaller schools (each with their own infrastructure, custodians, some level of administration, etc) is going to require taxpayers to foot the bill. And not like a levy that only lasts for X years, but on an ongoing basis. Where I live (Oregon) there is massive resistance to new taxes. I do not think we are unique in that regard.