From a fleet wide perspective the greatest aggregate reduction in vehicle emissions will be achieved when the finite amount of rare minerals like cobalt, lithium & graphite which are constrained either at the mine head or in global processing capacity are allocated to hybrids or plug in hybrids and not pure EVs. This is specially relevant when considering the lifetime emission cycle of pure EVs vs hybrids vs plug in hybrids from production to their operating cycle over 200,000 km. Pure EVs emit more carbon for the first 100,000 km of their life, because of their carbon heavy manufacturing process, and it is only when driven beyond this break even point do they emit less carbon than ICE vehicles. The supply of constrained minerals required for say a 80 kwh battery pack for a pure EV vs a 2 kwh battery pack for a hybrid or a 5 kwh battery pack for a plug in hybrid is why it makes sense to allocate currently scarce minerals to hybrids or plug ins. This will have the fastest impact in achieving an overall reduction in carbon emissions. The actual calculations for this have been detailed in a study which I cannot locate right now. But the reason that pure EVs get all the attention and the subsidies is because they are sexy and have great acceleration and are a cachet for progressive politicians to hang their hats on. From this perspective Toyota's emphasis on hybrids and plug in hybrids is on the money.
Not sure where you took your 100,000 km figure, from Suncor? ![Roll Eyes ::)](https://www.autos.ca/forum/Smileys/CarTalk/rolleyes.gif)
According to this a model 3 needs 21,725 km to offset the carbon emitted during it's production, and that's in the US where 23% of electricity is produced with coal. With clean power like Norway or Quebec, that figures fall to 8,400 miles or 13,440 km.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/
Yes, the figure is 21,725 km for a Model 3 in the US with it's specific electricity generation mix. But further down in this article the break even point is given for countries such as China and Poland which have a higher percentage of electricity generation via coal:
If the electricity to recharge the EV comes entirely from coal, which generates the majority of the power in countries such as China and Poland, you would have to drive 78,700 miles to reach carbon parity with the Corolla, according to the Reuters analysis of data generated by Argonne's model.
78,500 miles is 125,600 km. China is the world's largest car market and the world's largest EV market at about 23 million annual sales vs about 13 million for the US. China also is the world's largest electricity generator with about 2x the capacity of the US and 57% of China's electricity generation is via coal. That means that China generates as much electricity via coal as the entire electricity generation of the US!! Now if you can find a way to erect giant fans around the perimeter of the North American continent and blow the dirty Chinese air back across the Pacific you may have a winner on hand to keep North American air pristine and clean and all the economic sacrifices our fearless leader is asking us to make will be worth it!! But since this is a global problem I would reckon that the global weighted average break even point is about 100,000 km for EVs, less for some countries such as Canada, the US and Norway and more for other countries such as China, India, Poland, South Africa etc., skewed more towards 125,000 km rather than 21,725 km simply due to larger populations, higher auto sales, higher electricity generation and a higher proportion of that electricity generated being via burning coal in those countries.
Further down this same article is another interesting nugget of information:
Some are less positive about EVs.
University of Liege researcher Damien Ernst said in 2019 that the typical EV would have to travel nearly 700,000 km before it emitted less CO2 than a comparable gasoline vehicle. He later revised his figures down.
Now, he estimates the break-even point could be between 67,000 km and 151,000 km. Ernst told Reuters he did not plan to change those findings, which were based on a different set of data and assumptions than in Argonne's model.