Primer: Should you buy an electric car?

Electric vehicle and charger (via Walter Baxter)

Knowing my keen interests in transport and climate change, people sometimes ask me whether they should buy an electric car for environmental reasons. The short answer is "it depends", and the long answer is annoyingly complicated, so to help others who might be wondering the same thing (and to help illustrate a point I want to make in tomorrow's blog post) I thought I'd summarise the key points here. 

When we consider the lifetime emissions of a car, we need to consider both the carbon involved in running it - for petrol and diesel cars, the emissions from burning fuel every kilometre - and the "embodied" carbon involved in building it in the first place, and mining the materials that went into it. The precise amount of embodied carbon varies a lot from car to car - it depends on the specific model of car, the materials it's made from, and even whether the factory was running on renewable or coal-powered electricity. And of course, some cars will do a lot more kilometres over their lifetime than others. But for the average Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car, doing the average number of lifetime kilometres, the embodied carbon is about half the total carbon. 

This means that we can't just consider the environmental cost of driving cars, we need to consider the cost of building new ones - ICE or EV. Even though the running carbon-costs of EVs are better than for ICE cars (and they are - even if charging from coal-fired electricity) the sunk cost of building them in the first place is pretty similar for both cars. 

Just as carbon is not the only problem with planes, carbon is not the only problem with cars - and unfortunately most of the non-carbon problems carry over to EVs. Cars are extraordinarily space-inefficient - per person carried, they require huge amounts of road space to get from A to B, and they also require huge amounts of storage space to park them at either end. Catering to these space requirements not only means huge spending, and the opportunity costs of land that could have been used for something better, it warps the very fabric of our cities - making them sprawl out further and making it harder to walk to places. 

EVs may emit less carbon, but they still take up lots of space (via Sensible Transport)

Cars are also dangerous - not just at the hands of a drunk driver, or a fatigued driver, but even a competent driver of sound mind and body. Car accidents are among the top five causes of death for Australians aged under 45. EVs don't have the tailpipe emissions of an ICE, so no diesel particulates - but they still produce other particulates from tyre rubber and brake dust, which don't play nicely with people's lungs. They're also bad for our health in subtler ways - people who drive everywhere get less incidental exercise, contributing to obesity. The sprawl they cause, and the danger of sharing roadspace with them, also further deter people from walking or cycling. 

"Land transport accidents" are a leading cause of death in most age brackets (via AIHW)

So, yeah. EVs are definitely better than ICE cars, but they're still pretty problematic. So as much as we don't want to be burning petrol or diesel, we shouldn't really be rushing out to buy EVs and thinking that will solve all our problems, either. 

So the highest priority is: try to do everything you can to reduce how much you drive. 

The first thing to do is think about the kinds of trips you take regularly, and know well - the trip to work, to school, to uni, to the supermarket, to the pub - and run through the hierarchy of transport modes, from least to most carbon-intensive. Firstly ask yourself - could I walk for this trip? If it's too far to walk in a reasonable time, ask yourself - could I ride a bike for this trip? If that's not viable either, ask yourself - could I take public transport for this trip? If that's no good, you'll need to keep driving. 

Using journey planner software can be very useful, rather than the time-consuming and daunting task of trying to figure out individual bus timetables or whatever. My default option is Google Maps, but I quite like Arevo too - an app which allows for more interesting mode combinations, such as "cycle to the station, then take PT from there". The process does require you to really engage in good faith, and in some cases try things out and see how they go - it's easy to just instantly answer "no" to all these questions as a way of justifying doing what you're already doing, and it's also easy to imagine these things would be more painful than they actually are. Personally I do get frustrated at times with not owning a car, but equally, it turns out I do really enjoy walking a lot, and I'm starting to get back into cycling as well. For many years I quite enjoyed long drives from Melbourne to Ballarat for work, with the music blasting and me singing along at the top of my lungs - but I've gotta say that when I transitioned to taking the train from Melbourne to Ballarat a year or so later, I enjoyed sitting quietly and reading a book (or sleeping!) even more. Certainly, when I'm sitting in school dropoff traffic in Mount Clear, I'm glad to be scrolling through Twitter on the bus instead of behind the wheel of a car. 

So if something looks a bit borderline in terms of time and practicality, try it out for a week or two and see how it goes - you might find yourself willing to put up with a slightly slower journey, if it offers you other benefits. 

"...I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it."

Anyway. If, after all of these checks, you find that you've been able to change your transport habits, and you don't need to drive very much, your best bet is to keep your existing car for as long as possible. The embodied carbon of your existing car is a sunk cost, and a fixed one - your aim should be to ensure that cost isn't wasted. You should however do your very best to avoid buying a new ICE car - the next car you buy should ideally be an EV, you just want to make sure that happens as far into the future as possible. 

Now, EVs are still fairly expensive, so it's certainly possible that your existing car will cark it and your finances will force you to buy another ICE car - but by trying to keep your existing car going as long as possible, and by keeping its kays to a minimum, you give yourself the best chance of the price having dropped by the time you need to make the change. 

Tesla Model S (via Vauxford)

If, however, you find yourself unable to substitute many trips and still needing to drive a lot - and many of you will - then yes, you should look into buying an EV in the near future, rather than waiting. The benefit of no tailpipe emissions offsets the cost of embodied carbon more quickly when you do a lot of kays, so in this circumstance it makes more sense. 

Even if you do end up buying an EV because you have to drive a lot of kays, though, it's still worth trying to substitute as many trips as you can, for all those reasons above. Even if it just means that your trip to the supermarket gives you some fresh air and exercise, it'll be worth it. And every trip you take on public transport adds to the ticketing stats, and helps advocates like me convince politicians to make it better - which can help make the systemic changes that will help us all have more choices for how to travel. 

This post has looked at what you as an individual should do to make your transport as sustainable as you can. Tomorrow I'll take a look at what policies governments should use to transition to the transport network to the sustainable future we need. 

EDIT 16-12-2020: this post is a few weeks old now, but this article reminded me of a point I forgot to make: what kind of car you buy does matter a lot for these externalities. 

Bigger, taller, SUVs and trucks are significantly more likely to kill a pedestrian or cyclist, do more damage to the roads, throw off more particulates from their tyres and brakes, and so on - and of course, if it's an ICE vehicle, the bigger and heavier it is, the more fuel it requires and the more carbon it emits. 

So if you're in a position where you do have to buy a new car, and you can't afford an EV so you're going for an ICE car, it's definitely worthwhile trying to go for a smaller sedan, coupe or hatchback rather than one of these Toorak Tractors. 

Thankfully most of the EVs on the market today are smaller sedans, coupes and hatches (which ironically is one of the reasons their sales have been lower - this bucks the trend of what Australians are buying these days) but that's likely to change as the range expands. And, y'know, that's a good thing, because we do need to transition our light commercial vehicles as well as our cars. 

But if you're not an actual tradie or farmer who needs a big truck, when the time does come for you to trade in your ICE car for an EV, please try to go for a smaller one. Carbon isn't everything.