Thread by @AukeHoekstra

A new 'policy brief' for the Victorian Government in Australia has convinced them to create a road tax for EVs.

It wrongfully claims EVs emit more CO2.

If you follow me you know that's not true so I guess I have to do another debunk.

It's written by a group of architects and urban designers dreaming of a city with less cars who are apparently afraid that electric vehicles (EVs) will delay phasing out gas guzzlers.

My problem: they spread misinformation about EVs.
fionapatten.com.au/news/electric-…

They claim a full life cycle analysis (LCA) shows EVs emit more CO2 based on Hawkins et al from 2012 (!).

I know this study well. I'm even credited in the correction you find when you search for the article. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ji…

Anybody still using the numbers from this study in 2021 is either spreading falsehoods or doesn't know what he or she is talking about on this topic. Either way you should be ashamed as a scientist in my opinion. We simply have a LOT of research since then.

Most importantly we have scaled up factories that produce more batteries and EVs using less energy. That's not an opinion. That's simply a fact that you should know when you publish anything on CO2 emissions of EVs. See my pinned thread or sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

In my pinned thread you find many matchups but I also gave input to this cool tool that's pretty up to date and allows you to play around with different electricity mixes. transportenvironment.org/what-we-do/ele…

Then we have the even more glaring misinformation in the form of a graph that suggests EVs driving in Australia will forever emit roughly the same per kilometre as gas guzzlers. This conference proceeding from 2016 is riddled with errors.
ap-st01.ext.exlibrisgroup.com/61RMIT_INST/up…

The line I drew is curved because in an LCA you have to look at the entire lifetime (cradle to grave) and the electricity mix in Australia is estimated to get cleaner as more solar power and wind comes online.
(But EVs also emit a lot less if you take the current AU mix forever.)

I'm not going to spend too much time on a coference proceeding but one example: it assumes EVs transfer 59-62% of input energy into propulsion. Right now it's around 80% (incl. (un)charging the battery). Also you don't replace batteries after 7 years. Etc.

Then the policy brief calculates that EVs are cheaper per km and therefore should be taxed more. But EVs are still more expensive to buy due to the batteries. So that would require a subsidy when you buy them. That's oddly lacking from the clueless policy brief.

Also: EVs are cheaper per km because they use LESS energy. So you are punishing efficiency. To me that's always a bit like taxing someone for buying solar panels and thus paying less for electricity. Or taxing people for smoking less.

And I'm not promoting cars here. Not at all. I'm just saying we should not spread misinformation (the word 'lies' sounds harsh and assumes competency) about the effects of replacing a combustion engine with an electric one.

That cars incur costs in cities is a point well taken. It's the part of the policy brief that is actually their area of expertise. But it would be fairer and more logical to base the road user charge on something causing the problem. Other countries take km travelled and weight.

To summarize: road user charges for all vehicles are certainly defensible. The rest of this policy brief is misinformation against electric vehicles by architects that are clueless about them. I think this video is still spot on.

https://twitter.com/thejuicemedia/status/1385860761851817984

I keep having discussions with the lead author claiming CO2 was just an unimportant part of the brief and his sources were perfect. I have a diametrically opposed opinion as the picture shows and is explained here:

https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1397830306284150784?s=20

(Sorry if my irritation shows through.)