How do you transport yourself?

If you live and work in a big city, chances are that you are not driving your own car to work. It’s much cheaper and easier to use public transportation, or a bike, to get around if you don’t have to travel too far to get to work.
But even if you do, there are lots of alternatives to driving one person in one car every day. Carpooling and remote work can minimise the number of cars in the city on a daily basis, and switching to EV cars can help reduce the pollution and the GHG emissions.

Public transportation
Even though it is well known that mass transit through public transport systems is more environmentally friendly when considering carbon emission, a lot of people still choose to take their private car to and from work instead. The main reasons for this are convenience, time, prices, comfort and habits. These are all powerful factors that need to be addressed if public transport is going to be the preferred option. 
This Dutch 2001 survey investigated the attitude towards public transport along the following aspects: arousal, comfort, convenience, freedom, not stressful, control, status, sexy, pleasure, various experiences and flexibility. LINK
They found that public transport only scores higher on one of these aspects: Traffic safety!  


To be more competitive public transport therefore needs to highlight and develop the following aspects where they actually do have clear advantages over private transport.
  • Lower cost
  • Reduce congestion
  • Less pollution
  • No parking issues
  • Efficiency

Public transportation needs to work well and be cheap and reliable in order to keep customers loyal. Most people can handle the switches between transport modes, and the inconvenience of having many people crammed together, if the fares are cheap, and the trains and buses are on time. If we have given up on public transport and found other ways of transportation we quickly get into the habit and stay there. LINK 


European laws drives the change
The European Union has established European norms in order to reduce pollution and chemical emissions, where all vehicles that are sold in a EU member state must uphold these norms. The norms consist of a maximum limit of allowed emissions from a vehicle. Since the establishment of the European norms in 1992, pollution with particles, lead and Sulphur has been reduced by 95%. LINK 
The EU has now taken this even further and banned all ICE vehicles from the year 2035. LINK 
 As a consequence of implementing green initiatives to aid in the roll-out of electric cars, European countries are compelled to adapt to new circumstances. The Norwegian government, even though it’s not a part of the EU, has invested millions of Euros to install a vast network of electric vehicle charging stations, lowering taxes on EVs and increasing them on ICE vehicles. LINK and  LINK 

After such drastic and effective initiatives, the Norwegian government now needs to establish a more sustainable transport system and reform taxation again on electric vehicles in order to prevent further loss in tax revenue needed to maintain public charging stations, road maintenance, etc. 
The conversion to EV is only working, if you have the necessary charging infrastructure in place. Some countries like Norway are very far in this process while others seem to be lacking behind. But since most EV owners still have the luxury of charging at home the need for a country wide charger network will never be similar to the existing petrol station networks. The biggest problem in this regard is going to be in the big cities, where charging stations and parking spaces are scarce resources. 
Many other countries are also pursuing these policies and are now restricting older diesel cars from entering the city centres as well as setting up large charging stations in and around the cities and on the motorways.
What is the Carbon footprint of your car?
Because of the different characteristics of the energy mix of each country, it can be difficult to know exactly when the break even point will be for your choice of EV, but here are a few calculations that might help you to find out, how much you need to drive in order to make your EV the more sustainable option. 

Producing a medium sized EV emits approximately 9.2 tons CO2, in comparison to producing a medium sized fossil fuel driven car, which emits 7.2 tons CO2. Approximately half of CO2 emissions from manufacturing an electric vehicle originate from producing the vehicle’s battery. 

While all the different factors make it hard to pinpoint this elusive break even point, everybody agrees that it is real, and that EV cars will have a lower carbon footprint during its lifetime. Most of the calculations agree that the break even point will be reached within the first or second year of EV ownership. Find a discussion about this topic here: LINK 
What powers the EV?
It must, however, be considered what kind of energy is used to charge the vehicle’s battery during its lifetime. Depending on where you live, electricity is produced from different sources. This is the so-called “Energy mix”. If the energy used to charge the battery is primarily produced from fossil fuels i.e. coal, gas or oil, driving the electric car will have a greater carbon footprint than if the Energy mix primarily stems from green sources like wind and solar (or nuclear). LINK

In this link, you can see a graphical representation of the energy mix of the different European countries. Click on the icons beneath the graph to see how much each country relies on the different types of energy sources.

In Northern Europe, many countries have a high percentage of their energy production coming from clean and sustainable energy, such as hydro, wind and solar power. If you charge your EV in Sweden, the energy provided in the charging stations is very green, as Sweden produces a lot of their electricity from Hydro- and Nuclear plants. If you, on the other hand, charge your EV in Germany or Poland, much of the electricity is produced from coal. This affects the size of the carbon footprint, and so, it also determines how far you need to drive in your EV before you get to the “break even point” of the ICE vehicle, where the EV has caught up with the ICE. The lower emission of the EV dictates that you WILL eventually catch up to the ICE vehicle. 

What car should I drive - EV or ICE?
But let’s take a closer look at the electric vehicle (EV) vs internal combustion engine (ICE) car debate. How much do EVs really save on GHG emissions compared to ICE vehicles?

Picture source: solarreviews LINK 


It goes without saying that CO2, NOx and other pollutants are non-existent when you drive an EV, but what about the production of the car itself? If we look at the overall GHG emissions (CO2) in a vehicle’s lifecycle (the carbon footprint), an EV still emits far less GHG (and other emissions) than an ICE vehicle. It has to be taken into account that the carbon footprint of the production of an EV is larger than an equivalent ICE car because the batteries are still very resource-heavy to produce. But if all phases of a vehicles’ life cycle are considered; manufacturing, driving and recycling an EV will result in a lower carbon footprint, compared to an ICE vehicle. LINK

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