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fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

The company's chairman insists that going all-in on electric cars is wrong [motor1.com]:

Akio Toyoda is a man who speaks his mind. He’s been saying for years that forcing everyone to buy EVs isn’t the way forward. Toyota’s chairman is adamant that the transition can’t be rushed and that going all-in on electric vehicles would have massive repercussions across the automotive industry. He believes millions of jobs throughout the supply chain could be at risk if the combustion engine is phased out too quickly. On the environmental front, Toyoda maintains that EVs are still much dirtier than hybrids.

The grandson of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda claims the company has sold around 27 million hybrids since launching the first-generation Prius in 1997. According to him, those hybrids have had the same carbon footprint as nine million fully electric vehicles when adding battery and vehicle production into the equation.

Toyoda argues that a single EV is as dirty as three hybrids. However, while it's true that producing EVs and their batteries creates more carbon emissions than building gas cars, over their life cycles, EVs are responsible for far fewer overall emissions [insideevs.com].

From InsideEVs [insideevs.com]:

The biggest anti-EV argument stems from the emissions generated during the mining, refining and processing of the raw materials used in high-voltage batteries. EV batteries use materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel that require hazardous, water-intensive mining processes [insideevs.com].

So when an EV rolls off a production line, it’s already born “dirtier” than the average gas or hybrid vehicle, for now. It comes with a bigger “carbon debt,” a term that researchers use to calculate the emissions vehicles gather before even hitting the road.

A research paper published in the scientific journal IOP Science [iop.org] says that gas and hybrid vehicles create six to nine metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in their manufacturing, depending on the vehicle segment. EVs, on the other hand, generate 11 to 14 metric tons of CO2 emissions before going into the hands of customers.

But that’s only part of the story. Once EVs hit the road, they begin paying off that carbon debt and their overall “emissions” start decreasing. Hybrids and gas vehicles, on the other hand, head in the opposite direction, growing their carbon emissions over time. After a certain number of miles, an EV can potentially clear that debt entirely.

How long that takes, exactly, can depend on who you ask. A 2023 Argonne National Laboratory study [osti.gov] found that it can take an electric car 19,500 miles to mitigate the emissions made during manufacturing. That’s less than two years of typical American driving, according to FactCheck.org [factcheck.org]. Another study [kbb.com] in the journal Nature put that number higher, with carbon reductions beginning around 28,000 miles. Either way, considering how long Americans keep their cars, EVs become the far cleaner option [caranddriver.com] over time.

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