Thread by @AukeHoekstra

@MLiebreich @Joost57437492 Everybody (well maybe 12 people so far) is asking me to debunk this article in the times. The problem: I don't know which study they are talking about. Can twitter help
thetimes.co.uk/article/electr…

Polestar published some numbers on it's study in september polestar.com/dato-assets/11…
and if I look at the @thetimes article they copy the numbers from that study. I briefly talk about that comparison here:

https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1306277069530296322?s=20

Main problems with this Polestar study:

1) The XC40 of parent company Volvo uses 45% more petrol than Polestar assumes if you take reality instead of WLTP.

2) The Polestar itself (not the battery) already emits 3 tonnes more. (Build next to a coal plant?)

3) They assume the EV will drive on the same electricity mix over its lifetime. This happens often but it's not how you do an LCA. In an LCA you look at the entire lifetime from cradle to grave. So that means that you take the greening mix over the lifetime into account.

But what I don't understand is this talk about eGolf and about Bosh, Honda, Aston Martin and McLaren. These companies are different from Polestar/Volvo (and notorious for wanting to delay the introduction of electric vehicles.)

Does anybody know what study?

But still: even if you take a list of erroneous worst case assumptions that favour the ICE over the EV, the EV still emits a third less, and that's assuming todays mix. Properly looking over the entire lifetime it's less than half in the EU and ~1/3rd in the UK.

Info from a tweep: EV and ICE car in this comparison are both based on the same CMA platform:

https://twitter.com/MattiKahra/status/1332269292532998145?s=20

So how can it be that you take an ICE car, replace the drivetrain with a lighter (electric) one, you ADD 3 tonnes of emissions instead of REDUCING emissions?