The Environmental Impact of Manufacturing

and Production of Electric Cars vs Internal

Combustion Engine Cars
Jake Lock
24 February, 2018
 The introduction of electric cars and their benefits over traditional internal combustion engines

seem like an answer to our limited resource problem, and a seems like an answer to one of the major

ways we pollute the Earth with greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, the answer is not as simple as

changing what we drive. The manufacturers might say they are zero emission, that is true if you take it

from the tail pipe. But that is not how it works you must factor in the production and where the car gets

its power from. IF there is a coal powerplant that is charging your car you end up producing more

pollutants. Another factor is that electric cars use more metals and other limited resources than a typical

car with an internal combustion engine. Just like normal cars electric vehicles do need services and after

around one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand miles you need to replace the batteries in the

car. This means more need of lithium-ion batteries. Lithium is a rare metal that is highly reactive and

used in many electronics from your smart phone to the new Tesla Roadster. The idea of electric cars

might be better than the actual thing until we find better ways to create the cars than internal

combustion engine cars.

Let’s start with a quick reason why manufacturers use lithium-ion batteries compared to other

metals or materials. The reasons are the characteristics or lithium. It’s the lightest and has a greater

electrochemical potential out of all the other metal. These benefits create a powerful battery that can

be used in vehicles so the power to weight ratio is worth it. Another reason is the low maintenance

compared to other metals and chemicals. (Notter, Gauch, Widmer, Wăger, Stamp, Zah, Althaus, 2010, p.

6550). With knowing why manufactures use lithium as a battery is a good first step before looking at

the environmental impact.

The batteries are a key element to seeing the environmental impact electric vehicles or EV’s

have. Lithium-ion batteries unfortunately do not last forever, and you do need to see the life cycle of

batteries. The batteries do have quite substantial life that lasts multiple years depending on of course on

how much the user uses their vehicle. The production of the batteries includes the gathering of raw
materials which include lithium of course, and other metals from copper to aluminum, but also, they are

covered in a chemical called N-methyl-2-pyrrolidine, or NMP. As this is included in the production and

manufacturing of the EV’s the area of emissions will be put in production. This figure underneath is a

flow chart that is simplified from Hawkins, Gausen, and Strømman p. 999 (2012) with a bigger view from

the very start to the end of life of the vehicle with both electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles

(HEV), since both do use lithium-ion batteries.

Understanding the flow chart, you can see the very end is the actual use of the vehicles, with

what we can say production is all the way to final assembly. We’ll say that the part we are worried about

is from manufacturing to final assembly. Part of that is to coat the batteries in NMP. As stated by

Zackrisson, Avellán, and Orlenius (2010) “NMP is volatile, flammable, expensive, easily absorbed by the

skin and suspected to cause reproductive damage (Posner, 2009).” So NMP is a dangerous chemical that

is also burned off that creates CO2 emissions. (Zackrisson, Avellán, Orlenius 2010 p. 1521). We can

compare the burden of the EV’s and the lithium battery on the environment. The figure below from
Notter, Gauch, Widmer, Wăger, Stamp, Zah, and Althaus, 2010 p. 6552 shows the impact of the overall

production and use of the car you can see that for BEV (battery electric vehicles) do have a higher

impact from production, the overall use is less than that of ICEV (internal combustion engine vehicle).

Unfortunately, since there are so many factors with this issue it doesn’t look at the use of different of

means of getting the electricity, I.E. coal, wind, hydroelectric, or natural gas. The graph does include the

maintenance of roads and other issues that are the same for both, showing a larger view. That doesn’t

mean we can’t look at the production section of the vehicles. Clearly in all the four impact assessment

methods, BEV’s are more impactful than ICEV’s in the production phase but all together EV’s do better

in the long run.

We can focus even more on just the production of vehicles. This research came from the

manufacturing process from China. This is a localized research because different countries do have

different regulations for the production and manufacturing of ICEV’s and EV’s. The data includes two

different types of lithium-ion batteries. LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) and Li(NiCoMn)O2 (lithium

manganese cobalt oxide). Comparing the CO2 produced from the production of the cars, we can better
compare the environmental impact. By breaking down the emissions from production to certain parts

of each vehicle you can tell what parts produce the most. The table and graph to better visualize below

provided by Qiao, Zhao, Liu, Jiang, and Hao (2017 p. 3588-3589) show that EV’s using either battery

(NCM for Li(NiCoMn)O2 and LFP for LiFePO4) produces a lot more CO2 than a ICEV.
 This data shows that the production of EV’s is higher but mostly from the batteries and from the

special components that EV’s require. With this information you can easily tell what is better for the

environment from the start of its life. This doesn’t mean that EV’s will never be a better choice as a view

from the production of emissions. The current situation isn’t yes this is better than that or no, since

technologies are changing all the time and better means of manufacturing are being created. At the

current time, ICEV’s are a better choice with the production. EV’s are far away by CO2 emissions by 60%

compared to ICEV’s per vehicle, which does add up after multiple vehicles are produced. With time this

number can be reduced to nearly the same or even less than ICEV’s, the main hurdle will be the lithium-

ion batteries and creating a cleaner way to manufacture them. The answer for the argument ends up

being in a grey zone, yes, the production/manufacturing does create more CO2 than traditional internal

combustion engines, but with the graph from Notter, Gauch, Widmer, Wăger, Stamp, Zah, and Althaus

shows more than just production and you see that EV’s do have less of a negative environmental impact

than ICEV’s. In closing EV’s do have a more harmful impact than ICEV’s but that does not mean we

should give up on electric cars.

Bibliography
Orlenius, J., Avellán, L., & Zackrisson, M. (2010). Life Cycle Assessment of Lithium-ion Batteries
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doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j/jclepro.2010.06.004.

Qiao, Q., Zhao, F., Liu, Z., Jiang, S., & Hao, H. (2017). Comparative Study on Life Cycle CO2
Emissions from the Production of Electric and Conventional Vehicles in China. Energia Procedia, 105,
3584-3595. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.827

Hawkins, T. R., Gausen, O. M., & Strømman, A. H. (2012). Environmental impacts of hybrid and
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Notter, D. A., Gauch, M., Widmer, R., Wăger, P., Stamp, A., Zah, R., & Althaus, H. (2010).
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