Are electric motorcycles really better for the environment?

Are electric motorcycles really better for the environment?

Are electric motorcycles really better for the environment?

Reichmuth, the UCS Senior Vehicles Engineer, recently analyzed two data sets to conclude that the average American electric vehicle driver is responsible for global warming emissions equivalent to driving a car that gets 88 miles per gallon. This is a nearly impossible mileage goal for any mass-produced internal combustion vehicle. (The most efficient gasoline car sold in the United States gets 58 mpg. Factoring in trucks and SUVs, the average new vehicle sold last year got just 21 mpg.)

To get that 88 mpg figure, Reichmuth compared electric vehicle efficiency data with regional emissions data from electric power generation. He concluded: “When you consider all these factors, driving the average electric vehicle is responsible for fewer global warming emissions than the average new gasoline-powered car across the United States. In some parts of the country, driving the average new gasoline car will produce four to seven times the emissions of the average electric vehicle.”

One of the most interesting aspects of this post is a map of the United States that illustrates how widely the “emissions equivalence” of electric vehicles varies from place to place. In New York state, the grid gets almost all of its electricity from hydroelectric dams in Quebec. So an electric vehicle driver in Albany is responsible for the equivalent emissions of a gasoline car that gets 231 mpg.

At the other extreme is Oahu, where virtually all electricity is generated by burning petroleum. An EV driver is responsible for the same emissions as a car that gets 37 mpg (or a Harley in Hawaii ).

There is an area in the upper Midwest where many power plants still burn coal and natural gas. So, in much of Illinois or Wisconsin, charging your electric vehicle results in the same emissions as driving a gasoline car that gets 39 to 40 mpg.

So, in the limited defense of EV skeptics, there are some places where indirect greenhouse gas emissions created by EV drivers compare with direct emissions from very efficient internal combustion cars (or the average motorcycle or scooter ).

That said, 94% of American EV drivers live and commute in regions where using an EV results in fewer emissions than vehicles that get 50 mpg.

California, which has by far the most electric vehicles on the road, also has a grid that produces 50 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric, nuclear, wind and solar power. Those power plants produce no global warming emissions during operation. Frustratingly, this means that those smug EV drivers clogging up the HOV lanes in Los Angeles are actually saving the planet. If you want to claim that your internal combustion car or motorcycle is just as green, you'll need to get 122 mpg! In summary, electric vehicles are responsible for much lower greenhouse gas emissions than almost all cars (or motorcycles, for that matter).

And electric motorbikes?

The Union of Concerned Scientists was not concerned with petrol or electric motorcycles. There are so few in use that we would just be a rounding error in the larger study. But for what it's worth, while electric cars are better for the environment from a greenhouse gas perspective, electric motorcycles are still much better.

The easiest way to compare the energy consumption of EV cars and motorcycles is to look at their respective MPGe ratings. The “Miles Per Gallon equivalent” metric was introduced by the EPA in 2010 to compare the amount of energy consumed between alternative fuel vehicles, as well as to compare alternative fuel vehicles to traditional gas vehicles.

According to the US Department of Energy, the Tesla Model 3 Range Plus is the most efficient electric car commonly available. It features impressive MPGe figures of 148 city/142 highway for a combined figure of 141 MPGe.

But Zero's MPGe claims put Tesla to shame. The SR/F, for example, gets a claimed 430 city/219 highway for 313 MPGe combined.

As a side note, unlike internal combustion vehicles, electric vehicles get higher mileage in the city because they regenerate some electricity when slowing down for stop-and-go situations. On the highway they are simply pushing the air away with no chance of recovering the energy lost due to aerodynamic drag. This is true for both the Tesla and the Zero, although the difference is much more pronounced for the motorcycle. That's because the Tesla Model 3 has a remarkable drag coefficient of just 0,23. I don't have a specific figure for the SR/F but even the most aerodynamic race bike with a rider in full lean has a Cd of around 0,6!

A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows me that in California (where the grid is about 50% carbon neutral and most Zero motorcycles are sold) Mrs. Green on her new SR/F is indirectly responsible for only 7,7% of the greenhouse gas emissions coming out of Joe Blow Cager's tailpipe. According to the Department of Energy, the average motorcycle gets about 44 mpg, so even the average ICE motorcycle is responsible for about six times the emissions of Ms. Green's Zero.

In New York state, where it runs on clean Canadian hydroelectric power, a Zero is responsible for less than 10 percent of the emissions of the average motorcycle. This is an extreme case, but if you scroll down to the map in the blog post , here's a rule of thumb: you can safely double the "EV Emissions as Gasoline MPG Equivalent" figure for any region and assume that's the emissions equivalent for a Zero SR/F in that region. You'll quickly see that in most of the United States, an electric motorcycle produces emissions that can only be matched by a magical internal combustion motorcycle running on unicorn farts.

Even on Oahu, where a Zero is charged with electricity generated by burning diesel fuel, it is responsible for less greenhouse gas output than almost any conventional motorcycle or scooter. An ICE vehicle would have to exceed 70 mpg to come close.

The other positive is that the emissions impact of electric vehicles will continue to improve as the grid itself becomes greener. In 2009, 45 percent of U.S. energy production came from coal. By 2018, that figure had dropped to 28 percent. Over the same period, the share of wind and solar energy increased from 2% to 8%. The effects are not trivial. In just two years, between 2016 and 2018, greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants decreased by five percent.

Not all environmental news is positive

In writing his blog post, Dr. Reichmuth relied on Argonne National Laboratory's sophisticated GREET environmental modeling technique to estimate equivalent emissions for electric vehicles. This is the best model available and takes into account the emissions created during the manufacturing of the vehicles. But the long-term environmental impact of a wholesale shift from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles is fraught with dangers, including some that we can't accurately predict.

If projections of future electric vehicle sales are accurate, battery makers will have to find, mine and refine much larger quantities of lithium, cobalt and other minerals. Lithium is a fairly common resource, but extracting one ton of it uses 500.000 gallons of water.

Most of the world's known cobalt reserves are located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is probably the nation with the most ironic name in the world: an environmental and workers' rights fiasco.

One way to limit the environmental and human costs of barely regulated mining operations would be to recycle lithium-ion batteries. But a recent article in the respected scientific journal Nature outlined the many challenges to doing so safely and affordably.

And it's just the batteries. As more and more electric vehicles need charging, the grid itself will be strained. Decarbonization is great, but the first generation of giant wind turbines has already reached the end of its useful life. According to NPR, more than 20 tons of blade material will need to be disposed of over the next 720.000 years. If you can believe it, there's almost no practical way to recycle those giant fiberglass blades.

I purposely did not end this essay on a negative note. Global warming is just one environmental problem, but it is perhaps the most urgent. For most Americans, commuting by foot or motorcycle is somewhere between impractical and impossible. In many places, public transportation is not an alternative. It helps to understand low-carbon personal transportation options.

There are many factors to consider if you're thinking of buying an electric motorcycle, but at least in terms of emissions, you can breathe easy knowing that they're much greener than any internal combustion vehicle.

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