Are Electric Vehicles Viable in 2021?

From 2035, the EU have proposed an effective ban on new fossil-fuel cars.

The EU have proposed a 55% cut in CO₂ emissions by 2030 and a 100% cut by 2035 ^euproposal. This means that new fossil-fuel (and hybrid) cars would be unable to be sold within the EU, effectively limiting the market to only sell electric vehicles (EVs). But are these cars actually practical and viable to own and run?

1. Are electric vehicles actually better for the environment?

Electric cars still produce CO₂ emissions: they have manufacture and transport requirements, and that's even before the emissions produced by generating the electricity they need to run. With all of that taken into consideration, are they even better for the environment? Does it depend on the energy production methods being used?

Breakdown of CO₂-equivalent emissions

Sources: eurostat, ipcc, batteryEmissions, vehicleEmissions, batteryCapacity, natureUpstream

This chart shows that, on average, electric cars produce less than 50% of the emissions of conventional vehicles, considering the vehicle and battery manufacture emissions, upstream emissions (fuel and electricity production) and the vehicle exhaust emissions.

Poland and Iceland have been chosen as two extremes of carbon-based energy production, with Poland using 11.4% renewable energy and producing 507 grams of CO₂-equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated (gCO₂/kWh), and Iceland using 99.99% renewable energy and producing 28 gCO₂/kWh. As can be seen, even with a high-carbon energy grid like Poland's, the emissions produced are still significantly lower than a conventional vehicle.

2. Are electric vehicles more expensive to run than conventional vehicles?

Vehicle running cost per km over time

Sources: carfuel, fuelprices, energybills

Somewhat surprisingly, electric vehicles are much cheaper to run per km than conventional vehicles (around 30% of the cost). And whilst this has risen slightly over the last 10 years due to rising enery prices, it still has a long way to go before it catches up with the carbon-based fuels.

What about their much higher cost-to-buy?

On average, electric cars cost around £49,000 wheras petrol and diesel cars cost around £17,000 and £27,000 respectively.

Vehicle purchase and running cost per km over time

Sources: carfuel, fuelprices, energybills, evdatabase, vauxhall, popularDiesel, vwGolf, evBatteryLife, conventionalLife

With this cost factored in across the average lifetime of each vehicle type (100,000mi = 160,934km) ^{evBatteryLife, conventionalLife}, the electric vehicles still come out cheaper. And although they are catching up towards 2021 and the future, the price of electric vehicles will likely drop in the future as they become more mainstream and their manufacture efficiency and distribution is improved.

3. How far can electric vehicles batteries travel on a charge?

Current EV batteries can travel an average of 327km on a single charge ^evdatabase. That's the distance from Southampton to Leeds!

Why not find out how far you can travel from your home town? You might be surprised!
Select a city on the map to start:

Sources: evdatabase, chargepoints, cities, mapgeo

Conclusion

Electric vehicles are more viable than ever before. They are much better for the environment than conventional vehicles, and cheaper to run, even when you factor in the higher inital cost. Production costs and battery capacities are likely to improve in the near future, and you can already travel 1/3 of the length of the UK on a single battery charge, with more than 17,000 locations with chargepoints for those longer journeys.