Electric vehicles (EVs) significantly cut lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions in almost all circumstances and are the key technology for decarbonising road transport.
While not having a car has even larger climate benefits, many peoples’ ability to go car-free is limited by their circumstances and the availability of alternatives.
This means EVs are “likely crucial” for tackling transport emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
EV sales are growing fast, accounting for one in every seven cars sold globally in 2022 – up from one-in-70 just five years earlier.
Yet EVs are also being subjected to relentless hostile reporting across mainstream media in many major economies, including the UK.
Here, Carbon Brief factchecks 21 of the most common – and persistent – myths about EVs.
- FALSE: ‘An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even’
- FALSE: ‘VW’s e-Golf becomes more environmentally friendly only after 77,000 miles’
- FALSE: The ‘electric Volvo C40 needs to be driven around 68,400 miles to cut carbon’
- FALSE: ‘Electric vehicles have little or no CO2 advantage over the car you already drive’
- FALSE: ‘Climate change is accelerating because of the ban on combustion-engines’
- FALSE: ‘Old bangers are the green motorist’s choice’
- FALSE: ‘EVs simply displace carbon emissions from roads to distant power stations’
- MOSTLY FALSE: ‘Electric cars are not green machines’
- INCOMPLETE: ‘Electric vehicles alone can’t solve climate change’
- FALSE: ‘EVs are [low-mileage] runabouts…[that] take a long time to pay off their carbon debt’
- FALSE: ‘Synthetic petrol could displace electric vehicles’
- FALSE: ‘Hydrogen cars are more sustainable than EVs’
- FALSE: ‘Sales of electric vehicles appear to be slowing’
- FALSE: ‘Electric cars could soon be more expensive to drive than their petrol equivalents’
- FALSE: ‘There are insufficient raw materials…for all vehicles to be EVs’
- FALSE: The lifetime of EV batteries is ‘horribly uncertain’
- FALSE: ‘Electric vehicles can explode – petrol ones only do it in movies’
- FALSE: ‘Under Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, 40% of US auto jobs will disappear’
- FALSE: ‘Electric car revolution at crisis point’ due to ‘charging point shortage’
- FALSE: ‘Britain’s creaking power grid cannot cope with charging electric cars’
- FALSE: ‘How your super heavy EV produces MORE pollution than petrol and diesel cars’
FALSE: ‘An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even’
One of the most common false claims made against EVs is that they offer little or no climate benefit over conventional cars, due to the emissions associated with making their battery.
In a Twitter post promoting his anti-EV comment article for the Daily Mail, for example, the climate-sceptic former Conservative peer Matt Ridley claimed:
“An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even with an ICE [internal combustion engine] car. That number is growing, not shrinking.”
This is doubly false. As Carbon Brief showed in its 2019 factcheck, it takes less than two years for a typical EV to pay off the “carbon debt” from its battery. Over the full vehicle lifecycle, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from an EV are around three times lower than an average petrol car.
In reality, therefore, an EV in Europe will pay off its carbon debt after around 11,000 miles (18,000km), according to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).
Moreover, the lifecycle benefits of EVs are increasing over time as electricity grids get cleaner.
In a 2021 lifecycle analysis, the ICCT found that an EV bought in Europe would cut emissions by 66-69%, relative to a conventional car. By 2030, this emissions saving would rise to 74-77%, the ICCT said, “as the electricity mix continues to decarbonise”.
New Carbon Brief analysis shows that a Tesla Model Y, the world’s best-selling EV, would pay off its “carbon debt” after around 13,000 miles in the UK (21,000km), as shown in the figure below.
This would take less than two years for the average UK driver.
Typically, claims to the contrary argue that the higher emissions created during production of an EV are only very slowly paid off, or perhaps not at all, during the vehicles’ full lifecycle.
Yet these claims almost always make the same three key mistakes, which serve to underplay the emissions from combustion-engine cars and overestimate those from EVs.
First, these claims routinely overstate the emissions associated with manufacturing EV batteries, often cherrypicking older studies with the highest estimates.
Second, they usually take fuel-efficiency figures at face value, ignoring the long-standing issue that vehicle test cycles are unrealistic – with real-world efficiency around 40% worse than stated.
(Combustion-engine car test cycles were the subject of deliberate manipulation exposed by the “dieselgate” scandal. While real-world EV mileage is also lower than in test cycles and some electricity is lost during charging, this only adds around 19% to energy use, according to the ICCT.)
Third, they generally ignore the significant amount of CO2 associated with fuel production, including refining, which adds at least 20% – or more – to that emitted from the car’s tailpipe.
Taking these together, the ICCT concludes that combustion-engine cars have lifecycle emissions that are “twice as high as official tailpipe CO2 values”.
FALSE: ‘VW’s e-Golf becomes more environmentally friendly only after 77,000 miles’
In order to support their false claims about the climate benefits of EVs, many articles refer to figures published several years ago by carmaker VW.
These studies have an air of credibility – after all, surely the manufacturers know best about their own supply chains? Yet both have been comprehensively – and repeatedly – corrected.
A few days before publishing Ridley’s false claims in July 2023 (see above), the Daily Mail published a news article including almost identical inaccuracies about the emissions benefits of EVs:
“The environmental benefit of electric cars may never be felt – with their production creating up to 70% more emissions than their petrol equivalent. Electric cars need to be used for tens of thousands of miles before they offset the higher releases, with VW’s e-Golf becoming more environmentally friendly only after 77,000 miles, according to the manufacturer’s own figures.”
There are several issues with these figures, including the fact that the e-Golf was discontinued three years ago. More substantively, the figures behind the VW analysis – shared with Carbon Brief in 2020 – show that the company makes the same key errors identified above. (See: FALSE: ‘An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even’.)
Specifically: VW overestimates the emissions associated with making batteries; VW fails to account for the real-world fuel economy of its diesel Golf; VW underestimates the emissions associated with diesel fuel production; and VW overestimates the emissions in EU electricity.
Correcting for these errors shows that the e-Golf – if it were still being produced – would pay off its carbon debt after closer to 14,000 miles, or less than two years of UK average mileage.
Carbon Brief and others corrected these figures from VW at the time – and they no longer appear on the VW website – yet they continue to be repeated in media attacks on EVs.
FALSE: ‘The electric Volvo C40 needs to be driven around 68,400 miles to cut carbon’
Newspapers have also continued to reuse estimates of the climate impact of Volvo’s EVs, published in 2021, which, as with those from VW, have been repeatedly corrected.
For example, a July 2023 article in the Daily Mail wrote:
“Volvo revealed in 2021 that the emissions from the production of electric cars can be up to 70% higher than petrol models and said it would require between 30,000 and 68,400 miles for an EV to become greener overall.”
This is recycled wording from the newspaper’s 2021 article, which had said:
“Volvo estimated that an electric Volvo C40 needs to be driven around 68,400 miles to have a lower total carbon footprint than its petrol equivalent, if the former is powered by the current global electricity mix.”
The Daily Mail’s repetition ignores a 2021 correction from Auke Hoekstra, a researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU Eindhoven).
Hoekstra said Volvo overestimated the emissions in electricity generation, overestimated the fuel efficiency of its petrol car and underestimated the emissions associated with fuel production.
Overall, Hoekstra estimated that the Volvo C40 EV would pay off its “carbon debt” relative to a petrol XC40 after 16,000 miles, rather than the top-end 68,400 miles quoted by the Daily Mail.
Interestingly, Volvo itself says in its 2021 report that – even with its disputed figures – its C40 EV shows a “great reduction” in emissions compared with a petrol equivalent:
“The carbon footprint [of an electric C40 Recharge] shows a great reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to that of an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle.”
Elsewhere in the report, Volvo notes that its assumptions are “conservative” and that, for example, it is “highly probable” that the carbon intensity of electricity generation will improve rapidly during the lifetime of an EV, meaning its results are “likely to overestimate the total carbon footprint”.
The manufacturer also says: “Volvo Cars has committed to only sell fully electric cars by 2030.”
FALSE: ‘Electric vehicles have little or no CO2 advantage over the car you already drive’
Some newspapers have gone a step further in their attacks on EVs, falsely suggesting that they may not benefit the climate at all compared with combustion-engine cars.
The Daily Express gave climate-sceptic motoring lobbyist Howard Cox a July 2023 comment slot to argue: “Electric vehicles have little or no CO2 advantage over the car you already drive.”
As explained above, EVs cut lifecycle emissions relative to combustion-engine cars by around two-thirds in Europe – and this figure is expected to climb.
After an average petrol car has been driven for 14 years – the UK-average age at scrappage – its carbon footprint would be 45 tonnes of CO2 (tCO2), illustrated by the black line in the chart below.
In contrast, an electric Tesla Model Y would emit 14tCO2 – a saving of 30tCO2 or 68%. This is shown by the curved red line, with the Tesla’s annual impact falling as the grid is decarbonised.
Indeed, a petrol car driven a UK annual-average of 7,400 miles emits nearly 3tCO2 every year thanks to the emissions from burning its fuel. (This is based on 2019 average mileage, as driving distances have yet to recover to pre-Covid levels.)
For comparison, global CO2 emissions are an average of 4.7t per person per year, 5.1tCO2 in the UK and 14.9tCO2 in the US. The average for Africa is 1.0tCO2 per person per year.
In support of his false claim that EVs do not have an emissions advantage over combustion-engine cars, Cox cites a self-published report that his organisation, FairFuel UK, funded with the Alliance of British Drivers and the Motorcycle Action Group. No authors are listed.
The report’s references include the notorious climate-sceptic blogs Watts Up With That? and JunkScience, an article in the Jaguar Drivers’ Club in-house magazine, and the climate-sceptic lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation and its campaigning arm Net Zero Watch.
The report’s false assertions are at odds with analysis published by the IPCC, the ICCT, the British and US governments and many others.
FALSE: ‘Climate change is accelerating because of the ban on combustion-engines’
German magazine Der Spiegel has published even more outlandish claims about EVs.
In an August 2023 article, it quotes the former head of the ifo institute Hans-Werner Sinn saying that “climate change is accelerating because of the ban on combustion-engines”.
The quote comes from an interview Sinn gave to German tabloid Bild. He argued that while EVs might reduce oil demand and emissions in one country, this is simply displaced elsewhere.
Notably, Sinn is contradicted not only by the expected climate benefits of EVs in the future, but also by the evidence of their emissions impact in the recent past.
In an October 2022 analysis, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that EVs and renewable energy sources had prevented some 600m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) emissions last year. It said:
“The rise in global CO2 emissions this year [2022] would be much larger – more than tripling to reach close to 1bn tonnes – were it not for the major deployments of renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles (EVs) around the world.”
In separate analysis published in April 2023 and covered by Carbon Brief, the IEA said that the EVs sold in 2022 alone had cut global emissions by 80MtCO2.
The IEA added that, by the end of the decade, EV sales were on track to displace 5m barrels of oil demand per day – some 5% of the current total – and to cut annual global emissions by 700MtCO2, roughly the current yearly output of Germany or Saudi Arabia.
FALSE: ‘Old bangers are the green motorist’s choice’
Another common argument against the adoption of EVs is that keeping older cars – colloquially known in the UK as “bangers” – would be more environmentally friendly than buying a new model.
Writing in the Guardian in June 2023, for example, comedian Rowan Atkinson said that “keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV”.
(The Guardian subsequently published a factcheck of Atkinson’s claims, including this one.)
Atkinson’s argument was supported by letter-writers to the Sunday Times, which published their missives under the headline: “Old bangers are the green motorist’s choice.”
A 2021 comment for the Daily Telegraph by assistant editor Jeremy Warner was more definitive:
“If you want to do your bit for the planet, forget Tesla and other super expensive electric vehicles; just carry on driving the same old gas-guzzling banger you’ve always had. As much if not more carbon tends to be expended producing a new car as actually driving it.”
Avoiding the premature scrapping of functioning vehicles makes financial sense. Indeed, this is embedded in government plans to ban the sale of new combustion-engine cars by 2035 or before.
(The UK government had pledged to ban new combustion-engine car sales from 2030, with hybrid vehicle sales allowed to continue until 2035. It has since pushed back the ban to 2035.)
Given a lifetime of around 15 years, a 2035 ban would ensure that combustion-engine cars are off the road by 2050, when CO2 emissions need to reach net-zero to limit warming to 1.5C.
Yet, perhaps counterintuitively, it would still be a net benefit for the atmosphere to retire an “old banger” early in favour of an EV, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Despite the bump in CO2 from manufacturing an electric car and its battery, a new EV would start cutting emissions after 20,000-32,000 miles in the UK (32,000-50,000km), per the chart below.
This means that an average UK driver replacing an “old banger” would pay off the carbon debt from buying a new EV within around four years, with the exact timelines depending on the fuel efficiency of the car being scrapped, annual mileage and the battery size of the new EV.
(The Sunday Times letter-writer driving a 36-year old Mercedes only 5,000 miles a year would start cutting emissions with a new Tesla Model Y after five years.)
FALSE: ‘EVs simply displace carbon emissions from roads to distant power stations’
A common refrain from those arguing that EVs are “nowhere near as green as you think”, in the words of climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark in the Daily Mail, is that “driving an electric car simply displaces carbon emissions from roads to distant power stations”.
This argument is often misleadingly used to suggest that EVs are powered wholly or mainly on fossil fuels – with the implication that they are, therefore, unlikely to cut emissions. Clark says:
“If all the electricity used to power a car comes from coal – China and Poland, for example, have large numbers of coal power stations – you would need to drive 78,700 miles before your electric car’s carbon ‘budget’ broke even.”
First, there are no countries in the world that generate all of their electricity from coal. In China, the share of coal power was 61% in 2022, down 14 percentage points in a decade, with the equivalent figures in Poland being 69% and a reduction of 15 points.
Second, Carbon Brief analysis shows EVs would pay off their carbon debt in China and Poland after 22,000 miles (35,000km) and 18,000 miles (28,000km), respectively.
An academic analysis of EVs in China found they already cut carbon emissions by 40% relative to combustion-engine cars in 2020, with a further 43% reduction possible by 2030.
In general, EVs cut carbon emissions significantly, even if they mainly run on coal- or gas-fired electricity, as the chart below shows. In coal-heavy Poland, an EV would cut lifecycle emissions by two-fifths, Carbon Brief analysis shows, rising to two-thirds in the UK and four-fifths in Norway.
In its latest assessment report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) spelled this out, but added that EVs already cut emissions in almost all cases. It said:
“The extent to which EV deployment can decrease emissions by replacing internal combustion engine-based vehicles depends on the generation mix of the electric grid although, even with current grids, EVs reduce emissions in almost all cases.”
The IPCC went on to note that investments in EVs are “convertible” into low-carbon assets, even in countries with very carbon-intensive electricity:
“Today’s investments in electric vehicles in settings where electricity is produced with fossil fuels is an example of convertible investments – they will be decarbonised once electricity production has switched to renewable energies.”
The reason that EVs can cut emissions, even when running on fossil-heavy electricity, is that they are roughly four times more energy efficient than combustion-engine cars.
MOSTLY FALSE: ‘Electric cars are not green machines’
As noted above, many attacks on the climate benefits of EVs are completely false. Yet it is also the case that there is a non-trivial carbon footprint associated with the production and use of EVs.
For some commentators, this is an opportunity to make the perfect the enemy of the good, with a recent Daily Mail headline stating: “Electric cars are NOT green machines.”
When an EV bought in the UK today would cut emissions by two-thirds, relative to a combustion-engine car, it is obvious which is the “greener” choice.
Yet with a lifecycle carbon footprint of 20 or even 30tCO2, depending on lifetime mileage, location and the size of the EV battery, there is clearly scope for EVs to become lower-carbon in the future.
This is already expected to happen to some extent – as already noted – as electricity grids are decarbonised around the world. But mining, battery manufacturing and the production of steel, aluminium and other components all add to EVs’ footprint overall.
The IPCC says, with high confidence, that EVs running on low-carbon electricity “offer the largest decarbonisation potential for land-based transport, on a lifecycle basis”. But it also notes:
“Further efforts to reduce the GHG footprint of battery production…are essential for maximising the mitigation potential of BEVs [battery EVs].”
In other words, EVs are central to decarbonising road transport, but more needs to be done to ensure their production and use has the lowest-possible emissions.
The Daily Mail draws a different conclusion, continuing its headline by stating falsely:
“The environmental benefit of EVs may never be felt as their production creates up to 70% more emissions than petrol equivalents.”
While it is true that the production of EVs creates more CO2 than petrol equivalents – the US Argonne National Laboratory puts manufacturing-phase emissions at some 30-100% higher, depending on battery size – this carbon debt is paid off quickly. (See: FALSE: ‘An EV has to travel 50,000+ miles to break even.’) As a result, EVs still cut carbon significantly overall.
Moreover, the Argonne analysis says EVs’ production-phase disadvantage will shrink significantly by 2030-2035, falling to 5-50%, as supply chains become lower-carbon and more efficient.
It also notes the potential for steel decarbonisation to be a “major source of opportunity for emissions reduction” in the future – for example, using “green steel” produced without burning coal.
INCOMPLETE: ‘Electric vehicles alone can’t solve climate change’
Among all the myths about EVs, it can be easy to lose sight of one important point, summarised in the headline of a recent Bloomberg editorial: “Electric vehicles alone can’t solve climate change.”
On the one hand, this statement is trivially true, in the sense that it could equally be applied to any individual climate solution. On the other hand, this statement is also incomplete.
No serious strategy for decarbonising road transport – let alone the entire global economy – could rely on EVs alone. But this is hardly a reason to push back on the adoption of EVs.
On the contrary, the IPCC concludes that EVs are “likely crucial”. Its latest report says:
“Widespread electrification of the transport sector is likely crucial for reducing transport emissions.”
Indeed, the IPCC finds that EVs – along with other zero-carbon fuels – likely have the single-largest potential to cut transport emissions. Moreover, it puts the carbon-cutting potential of these technologies ahead of changes to urban infrastructure and behaviour.
The IPCC says EVs and other technological changes can contribute an estimated 50% of emissions cuts in the land transport sector by 2050, with a range of 30-70%. It says:
“Technology adoption, particularly banning combustion and diesel engines and 100% EV targets (and other zero-carbon fuels, especially in freight) and efficient lightweight cars, can contribute to between 30% and 70% of GHG emissions reduction from land transport in 2050, with 50% as our central estimate.”
This is well ahead of the potential from changes in urban infrastructure (30%, range 20-50%), behavioural change (5%, range up to 15%) and active travel (2-10%), according to the IPCC.
As a result, the IPCC concludes with high confidence that:
“Several end uses, such as passenger transportation (light-duty electric vehicles, two and three wheelers, buses, rail)…are likely to be electrified in net-zero energy systems.”
Nevertheless, the IPCC makes clear that other options for cutting transport emissions are an important part of the solution for reaching net-zero emissions globally.
On urban infrastructure, the IPCC says:
“Infrastructure use (specifically urban planning and shared pooled mobility) has about 20-50% (on average) potential in land transport GHG emissions reduction, especially via redirecting the ongoing design of existing infrastructures in developing countries, and with 30% as our central estimate.”
On behaviour change, the IPCC says:
“[S]ocio-cultural factors can contribute up to 15% to land transport GHG emissions reduction by 2050, with 5% as our central estimate. Active mobility, such as walking and cycling, has 2-10% potential in GHG emissions reduction.”
(At a household level, the IPCC cites findings showing that “liv[ing] car-free” is the single-most effective individual action, with the potential to cut emissions by around 2tCO2 per person per year. Shifting from a combustion-engine car to an EV would have a similar impact, it notes.)
Overall, it is clear from the IPCC report that EVs are “crucial” to decarbonising transport, but also that they cannot do the job alone. In addition, EVs will only reach their full carbon-cutting potential if electricity systems and manufacturing supply chains are also decarbonised.
FALSE: ‘EVs are [low-mileage] runabouts…[that] take a long time to pay off their carbon debt’
In a July 2023 article for the Daily Mail, climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark falsely claims that EVs will take a long time to pay off their “carbon debt” of manufacturing, because they are mostly “used as runabouts in towns and cities”.
He asserts, without evidence, that the mileage of EVs is low due to “their limited range”. A cursory glance at real-world data shows these claims to be false.
New EVs in the UK drive an average of 9,435 miles per year in the first three years of their life, according to analysis of MOT data from the RAC Foundation. This is well above the average for UK cars overall and 26% further than the average new petrol car, the analysis finds.
(The figures also show new diesels covering 12,496 miles per year. However, diesel cars are rapidly becoming less popular, accounting for less than 4% of sales in 2023 to date.)
Figures from Norway paint a similar picture. EVs now drive more miles each year, on average, than petrol or diesel cars, according to the latest official figures discussed by BloombergNEF head of transport Colin McKerracher in an article for Bloomberg. He writes:
“This effect shouldn’t be surprising; people like to use more of things that are cheaper. But it wasn’t always received wisdom in the market. A few years ago, some oil energy outlooks assumed not only that EV adoption would be muted, but that each EV would on average travel less than a comparable internal combustion vehicle. This now looks like a very shaky assumption…at BNEF, we’re expecting this same effect to start showing up in the data of more countries in the years ahead.”
FALSE: ‘Synthetic petrol could displace electric vehicles’
In early 2023, an EU rule banning the sale of new combustion-engine cars from 2035 was delayed by several weeks after Germany insisted on an exemption for cars running on “e-fuels”.
Sometimes referred to as “synthetic fuels”, they are made by combining CO2 with hydrogen and can be used in existing combustion-engines. If they are made with low-carbon hydrogen, synthetic fuels can have a low carbon footprint overall.
These apparent advantages have persuaded some politicians and commentators to argue for their widespread use, with some going so far as to suggest they could “stop electric cars in their tracks”.
For example, in a since-corrected comment for the Guardian, comedian Rowan Atkinson argued that “a sensible thing to do would be to speed up the development of synthetic fuel”.
In March 2023, the UK parliamentary select committee on transport also argued in favour of using synthetic fuels, in a report that received positive media coverage, stating:
“[D]rop-in sustainable fuels enables us to address the existing fleet and minimise cost (and carbon emissions) through the use of existing infrastructure. It would also enable more socially equitable access to carbon reduction technologies for everyday transport as it would not be necessary to buy a new electric car and have access to charging infrastructure.”
The recent interest in synthetic fuels has been co-opted by those seeking to delay the UK government’s pledged ban on sales of new combustion-engine cars.
Such calls, including lobbying from the UK’s fuel producers, were rejected by the government on the basis that synthetic fuels are “expensive”, “not proven” and contribute to air pollution.
Synthetic fuels are indeed costly. They are ”up to three times more expensive than conventional fossil fuels”, according to the IPCC, and “expensive…even in the long run”, says the IEA.
They are also very inefficient to produce. Carbon Brief analysis shows it would take at least five times as much electricity to run cars on e-fuels as for EVs.
EVs running on renewables also have significantly lower CO2 emissions than cars burning e-fuels made from the same source of power, according to lifecycle analysis for the UK government.
(According to NGO Transport & Environment, lifecycle emissions from an EV in 2030 would be 53% lower than for a combustion-engine car running on e-fuels.)
These issues make it vanishingly unlikely that synthetic fuels will “displace” EVs, let alone “stop electric cars in their tracks”. The IPCC explains that synthetic fuels will be relatively scarce and expensive, with their use focused on harder-to-abate sectors such as aviation. It says:
“Given these high costs and limited scales, the adoption of synthetic fuels will likely focus on the aviation, shipping and long-distance road transport segments, where decarbonisation by electrification is more challenging.”
Indeed, the head of German airline Lufthansa recently pushed back against the use of synthetic fuels for cars. Referring to moves by luxury carmaker Porsche to get exemptions from combustion engine bans based on e-fuels, he said:
“With no technology in sight to replace fuels, we really need all the sustainable aviation fuel in the world…[Porsche chief executive] Oliver [Blume] can maybe have some for his 911, but we really need the volumes.”
Mercedes-Benz chief executive Ola Källenius, at least, has acknowledged this reality, stating: “As for carbon-reduced fuels…aviation will need them.”
A 2021 briefing from Transport and Environment concluded bluntly: “E-fools: why e-fuels in cars make no economic or environmental sense.”
A June 2023 article for the Evening Standard was titled, “Synthetic petrol could displace electric vehicles” – but went on to undermine its own headline. The piece asked: “Could e-fuels completely derail attempts to phase out the internal combustion engine?” It then answered: “[T]here’s no suggestion e-fuels are a credible like-for-like replacement for today’s petrol use.”
FALSE: ‘Hydrogen cars are more sustainable than EVs’
Hydrogen cars are another favourite of those disputing the benefits of EVs. In his Guardian article criticising EVs, for example, Rowan Atkinson said hydrogen was an “interesting alternative fuel”.
Elsewhere, a recent feature in the Times is titled: “Hydrogen cars were the future once – might they be again?” Going a step further is an article from “sustainable living” website the Ethos, which claims falsely that “hydrogen cars are more sustainable than EVs”
In a since-deleted article for the Daily Express, the founder of a firm hoping to make hydrogen from waste plastic writes glowingly of its potential and says that EVs are “destined to go the way of the dodo”.
The evidence, however, paints a very different picture, both in terms of the prospects for hydrogen versus electrified transport and when it comes to their relative sustainability.
There were only 72,000 hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles on the planet at the end of 2022, against 26m EVs, according to the IEA. This means there were already 360 times more EVs than hydrogen vehicles at the end of 2022, as shown in the figure below.
With EV sales set to climb by 40% to 14m units in 2023 and hydrogen vehicle sales