Mazda says EVs with large battery packs are worse for the environment than diesel cars

[midian182]

A hot potato: It’s generally accepted that electric vehicles are better for the environment than their diesel alternatives, but Mazda argues that’s not always the case. The company says its MX-30 crossover comes with a 35.5kWh battery because it’s “responsibly” sized, meaning the pack’s overall CO2 emissions are comparable to a diesel Mazda 3 compact hatchback.

When Mazda unveiled the MX-30 crossover at the Tokyo Motor Show in October, it revealed the EV’s 35.5kWh lithium-ion battery. That gives it a range of about 200 km (124 miles)—substantially lower than EVs such as the Tesla Model S and its 100kWh battery, which allows a range of around 600km (373 miles). Even the similarly priced Hyundai Kona EV manages 289km (179 miles) on its 39kWh pack.

Speaking to Automotive News, Mazda’s European research director, Christian Schultze, said it chose the battery pack size for environmental reasons. He says its overall CO2 lifetime footprint, which includes manufacturing and energy consumption, is similar to a diesel Mazda compact, and that’s even when replacing the battery after 100,000 miles.

Mazda says using a 95kWh battery pack like the one found in the Tesla would mean much higher overall CO2 emissions due to its larger size and greater energy consumption. And the problem would be made worse when the pack needs replacing.

Mazda shared a graph to try and illustrate its point. It says the green line represents a 95kWh EV.

It’s worth noting that numerous studies show EVs produce less CO2 emissions over their lifetimes than diesel vehicles, and Mazda based its figures on European electricity generation averages from 2016. For some people, however, the claim of a more environmentally friendly EV could outweigh its low range.

In other Mazda news, the company last week issued a recall for 35,000 fourth-generation Mazda3 vehicles over their faulty emergency brake system.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/83351-mazda-evs-large-battery-packs-worse-environment-than.html

 

[Lounds]

What bs. Mazda are only making the car to appease markets which requires an EV in their options.

 

[bexwhitt]

What bs. Mazda are only making the car to appease markets which requires an EV in their options.

In the EU car makers are required to meet 95g/km of CO2, over their car range so that means EV's are an easy way of meeting that target. They don't like EVs because if engineered right they just run and run with minimal servicing which cost them money. There is a reason Mazda use electronic servicing records and if you had a book to stamp you are more likely to go independent.

 

[Porkous]

Although not all people like IC engines. Electric engines are with higher appeal due the idea (at least it appears to me that way) that is cleaner, and less dependent on finite resources. It is scary that so many people buy a car and are dependable on petrol, which is something we cannot produce ourselves as species afaik.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

What bs. Mazda are only making the car to appease markets which requires an EV in their options.

Oh knowledgeable one, would you care to bestow us with the secret knowledge you have acquired that disproves Mazda's claims? Lord knows us bug eating pod dwellers could only dream that a superior being such as yourself could devulge such information.

Although not all people like IC engines. Electric engines are with higher appeal due the idea (at least it appears to me that way) that is cleaner, and less dependent on finite resources. It is scary that so many people buy a car and are dependable on petrol, which is something we cannot produce ourselves as species afaik.

Ahem, rare earth meatals? Ever heard of them? You know, the rare earth metals used in the construction of electric motors? How about the cobalt and nickle used to make the batteries? Those are not unlimited either.

 

[Uncle Al]

So it appears that we need a car that functions on wind power ..... yeah ..... that's the ticket .....

 

[VitalyT]

To summarize, batteries use plenty of rare earth elements, and they are second to nuclear waste when it comes to their disposal. So much for green technology. Thank you Mazda for being honest!

 

[Porkous]

Oh knowledgeable one, would you care to bestow us with the secret knowledge you have acquired that disproves Mazda's claims? Lord knows us bug eating pod dwellers could only dream that a superior being such as yourself could devulge such information.


Ahem, rare earth meatals? Ever heard of them? You know, the rare earth metals used in the construction of electric motors? How about the cobalt and nickle used to make the batteries? Those are not unlimited either.

I know what you mean, an example of production line of a facility for electric engines:

The amount of work put into electric engines, can define the next generation of industries which evolve along. We anyway pollute the planet, and we will keep doing that (sad story) for long time; so you can think as those rare earth minerals being gathered at one point or another, in time, but at least has to be put to good use.

Personally, I meant that the feeling of security is way better knowing the car won't rely on finite resources once is out on the road. Only the battery would need to be changed maybe in 10 years, and by then the engine would still work. While on IC engines you'd have to throw away the whole car probably... once EV becomes mainstream.

Electricity is much cleaner than petrol, in a sense. Many industries rely on it, to proliferate, continuing to branch from it. For example, coal was used for steam engines, but now they use it at coal power plants, and along, they can create hot water. Think about it, electricity can be much easily managed and distributed. Maybe anyway we need lots of batteries? To store excess energy, and maybe, export it as well?

 

[ShagnWagn]

The article link pages are blocked for me. Perhaps they are comparing it to their new technology of diesel - diesel gas? The Skyactive-x compression ignition. These engines are very fuel efficient I've read.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27750433/mazda-skyactiv-x-engine-europe-mpg/

 

[koblongata]

Oh knowledgeable one, would you care to bestow us with the secret knowledge you have acquired that disproves Mazda's claims? Lord knows us bug eating pod dwellers could only dream that a superior being such as yourself could devulge such information.


Ahem, rare earth meatals? Ever heard of them? You know, the rare earth metals used in the construction of electric motors? How about the cobalt and nickle used to make the batteries? Those are not unlimited either.

Lithium batteries are "Close Loop Recyclable", current recycle tech can already recycle 80%, though not cheap enough, numerous companies are working (Tesla of course, BMW, Hyundai too, and many others) on that, when it is scaled up, it will be cheap enough to not depending on mining. The problem so far is that EV batteries last so long, most are still out there, and have a high chance to be turned into battery energy storage when retired from a vehicle, that's few decades.

[edit] And I think the thing is you should trust future technology, we found ways to replace fossil oil and coals for better, cleaner environment, they are lithium cobalt and solar wind..etc. There will be new, better tech, maybe better battery composition maybe nuclear fusion replacing/improve upon them too someday.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

The graph has an obvious flaw. They assume you replace the battery of a vehicle after x number of kilometers regardless of battery size. However battery replacement is directly dependent on x number of cycles, not km. With a larger battery, the km per cycle is higher meaning the battery size directly affects how many km the battery lasts.

I have an 85kWh battery in my vehicle and I’ve driven 95k mi, which is just shy of 160k km. My vehicle currently has 92% of its original capacity (244 mi of range out of 265 mi originally). It would be stupid to replace the battery right now. If we assume a linear degradation (which it actually isn’t), then it takes ~250k mi of driving before getting to 80% battery capacity of 212 mi.

 

[bviktor]

BEVs are dumb in any case. I just explained this in a few days old article, not gonna do it again. FCV is the only viable AND scalable next step, as of now.

 

[yeeeeman]

That is true, but then again can and will be improved in the future. What Mazda compares is a 100+ years old tech perfected to the max compared to 20 years (first 10 were a bit slow) of electric tech developments. Sure, we had electric cars in the 1900s but there was never a focus on making a good electric car until Tesla Roadster came.
Batteries can be recycled. The fact that they are not being recycled is not a problem with current tech. Batteries will evolve into better variants, with no dependency on rare earth materials or bad stuff. It just takes time to research, test and bring up such a tech, but it will come eventually.
Electric motors again, can be reused, recycled. There are already electric motors that use no magnets. They have different characteristics, but they exist.
I think there is a continous push from coal/petrol industry to make electric cars look dirty, but people with at least one neuron in their head can think for themselves and judge the situation. In any case, electric cars have the capability, with enough improvement and research to be clean, 100% clean. Petrol powered cars won't be clean, never ever. But again, they also can be improved in many ways, they can CNG to pollute even less. They can use hydrogen. The idea is that there are already a lot of technical solutions for all the problems we have. What stands in our way is money and greed. That is what we should work on improving...

 

[Danny101]

The future is electric

 

[toooooot]

That is true, but then again can and will be improved in the future. What Mazda compares is a 100+ years old tech perfected to the max compared to 20 years (first 10 were a bit slow) of electric tech developments. Sure, we had electric cars in the 1900s but there was never a focus on making a good electric car until Tesla Roadster came.
Batteries can be recycled. The fact that they are not being recycled is not a problem with current tech. Batteries will evolve into better variants, with no dependency on rare earth materials or bad stuff. It just takes time to research, test and bring up such a tech, but it will come eventually.
Electric motors again, can be reused, recycled. There are already electric motors that use no magnets. They have different characteristics, but they exist.
I think there is a continous push from coal/petrol industry to make electric cars look dirty, but people with at least one neuron in their head can think for themselves and judge the situation. In any case, electric cars have the capability, with enough improvement and research to be clean, 100% clean. Petrol powered cars won't be clean, never ever. But again, they also can be improved in many ways, they can CNG to pollute even less. They can use hydrogen. The idea is that there are already a lot of technical solutions for all the problems we have. What stands in our way is money and greed. That is what we should work on improving...

Lets sum it up: today electric carts are hardly safer for environment than gasoline cras when we ad dall the variables.
But there is a potential gasoline engine simply doesnt have. Electricity can be created by wind, batteries one day may be made of stuff that is reusable and fully recyclable, unlike gasoline. Gasoline cant be recycled...
And last of all, lets finally show big fat middle finger to all the psychopathic ****s who start wars and torture and kill thousands of people only because their land has oil. Lets get to the point were civilized world can give them a chance to lose their easy money and make their people think and work to get out of poverty rather than live on oil money and continue to bring misery to their own people and countries around them.

 

[scavengerspc]

We recycle oil, tires, plastics and even the steel used to build cars.
We will all know to recycle the EV battery. Pretty much all of us already do.

And the "energy needed to charge them" argument died years ago.

Mazda is full of bull

 

[QuantumPhysics]

In the short run, EV may be more energy intensive, but in the long run, they are better for the environment so long as we shift energy production from fossil fuel to alternatives.

 

[ShagnWagn]

Lets sum it up: today electric carts are hardly safer for environment than gasoline cras when we ad dall the variables.
But there is a potential gasoline engine simply doesnt have. Electricity can be created by wind, batteries one day may be made of stuff that is reusable and fully recyclable, unlike gasoline. Gasoline cant be recycled...
And last of all, lets finally show big fat middle finger to all the psychopathic ****s who start wars and torture and kill thousands of people only because their land has oil. Lets get to the point were civilized world can give them a chance to lose their easy money and make their people think and work to get out of poverty rather than live on oil money and continue to bring misery to their own people and countries around them.

If the necessary material to manufacture is inclusive to a few countries then we will most likely have the same situation, it will just shift to another country. There is a problem known as the human condition. Where there is a lot of money to be made, evil will prevail. History is replete with examples.

It has been arguable that wind and solar can actually pay itself off. As of now, there are reports on both sides that they use more energy and resources to create and maintain than they recover or not. I've researched solar for my house and it would take 15+ years just to pay itself off. By then, it will be worn out and need to be replaced again. You can't use the argument it will get more efficient in the future as they have been promising that for decades.

 

[DaveBG]

They assume this with changing the battery after 160 000kms... this is bullshit. Tesla batteries already last 300-500k km, and they will soon announce the new battery that lasts 1 600 000km. Also from their graph is visible that they assume charging comes from fossils which will not be the case soon.

 

[scavengerspc]

They assume this with changing the battery after 160 000kms... this is bullshit. Tesla batteries already last 300-500k km, and they will soon announce the new battery that lasts 1 600 000km. Also from their graph is visible that they assume charging comes from fossils which will not be the case soon.

Excellent point. Power from coal is down to around 27% already. There are of course other fossil fuels but coal is by far the highest pollutant.

 

[Lounds]

Oh knowledgeable one, would you care to bestow us with the secret knowledge you have acquired that disproves Mazda's claims? Lord knows us bug eating pod dwellers could only dream that a superior being such as yourself could devulge such information.


Ahem, rare earth meatals? Ever heard of them? You know, the rare earth metals used in the construction of electric motors? How about the cobalt and nickle used to make the batteries? Those are not unlimited either.

There's more colbolt used in the smart phone batteries than EV's, most have already switch the manufacturing processes, colbolt isn't a necessity for EV batteries. I suggest you listen or watch the fully charged showed on YouTube or Google, they fact check stuff all the time and always point out if they're wrong. So yeah I'm not the knowledgeable one they are and the amazing team they have.

 

[Lounds]

BEVs are dumb in any case. I just explained this in a few days old article, not gonna do it again. FCV is the only viable AND scalable next step, as of now.

So if you only have to travel to work and your round trip is less than 50 miles and you could charge the BEV off solar or wind power, heck even solar with a battery and then transfer those kWh generated back into the BEV. FCV makes more sense for bigger vehicles that require long distances of travel, such as lorry's, trains, boats. There's nothing wrong with having a BEV for a daily driver, but I guess you must drive more than 200 miles at once.

 

[captaincranky]

So it appears that we need a car that functions on wind power ..... yeah ..... that's the ticket .....

You mean like this, but with wheels:

 

[captaincranky]

The article link pages are blocked for me. Perhaps they are comparing it to their new technology of diesel - diesel gas? The Skyactive-x compression ignition. These engines are very fuel efficient I've read.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27750433/mazda-skyactiv-x-engine-europe-mpg/

The "Skyactive-X" is a cute new term, and I don'y know how it differs from current or past technology, but every diesel is, by its design, "compression ignition"

In fact, the engines in trucks either to have ether injection, or ether has to be sprayed into the air intake to enable starting in cold weather. (You know, the infamous, "starting fluid", with which people use to blow the cylinder heads off their standard gasoline ICEs. (although that might be an old wives tale, since I've never actually seen it happen))

All of this is qualified of course, with old information, since I haven't been a truck mechanic for about 40 years or so..

 

[captaincranky]

Although not all people like IC engines. Electric engines are with higher appeal due the idea (at least it appears to me that way) that is cleaner, and less dependent on finite resources.

The truth of the matter is lithium is a "finite resource" in and of itself. Stars can't produce lithium in the fusion sequence. It goes hydrogen (1 periodic table), to helium (2), and then to carbon (6), in a process called "the tri-alpha cycle".

Which means elements (3), lithium, (4) beryllium, and (5) boron, have to be produced by a supernova. That makes lithium a "finite resource".

It is scary that so many people buy a car and are dependable on petrol, which is something we cannot produce ourselves as species afaik.

We actually can, or at least might, if enough of us and the plant life around us dies, and are compressed into crude oil. That's going to take quite awhile though.