New research suggest that swapping your internal combustion engine for an EV is almost always the greener choice.

The new research finds that in order to repay the carbon debt of making a new EV, it must be driven 4,400 miles if it’s a car and 6,700 miles each year if it’s a truck. That’s already well below the 12,500 miles the average driver travels in a year, and the benefits to making the switch are likely to grow.

As the United States increasingly relies on renewables, for example, charging an EV becomes even more environmentally appealing. Campbell and his co-author also point to improvements in battery recycling as a way of reducing the emissions involved with making an electric car.

One hole in this latest study is that it doesn’t consider the cost of going electric. While previous research has shown that EVs come with higher upfront costs but lower operating expenses, it’s a thread that Campbell hopes economists pull on. He would also like to see someone better account for the emissions generated while extracting oil and getting gasoline to the pump, rather than simply the burning. But, for now, he believes the study sends a clear message.

  • budget_biochemist@slrpnk.netEnglish
    7·
    11 days ago

    EV parts are extremely expensive IF you can manage to find them, EVs are designed not to be serviceable

    [citation needed]

    install an external 240-volt outlet just to charge the thing fast enough for me to use it daily

    Assuming you’re in the US,120V mains outlet charging adds about 5-8 km or 3-5 miles of range per hour. If you’re really driving so far every day that an overnight charge won’t cover it, an EV surely would be very appealing due to the immense savings on fuel costs.

    It would take decades of ownership for mine to pay itself off

    Using Australian figures because that’s where I am and what I know - the average petrol car driver here goes 30km per day and spends $124 per week [1] in fuel. To get a 7-year car loan to buy the cheapest EV ($24,000) costs $83 per week[2] (without any trade in considered, which would lower it further) and charging costs are practically negligible (charging off mains power for that 30km per day is only around $1 of electricity).

    In other words, it’s literally cheaper to buy an EV on a loan and drive that than to fill up the tank in the petrol car you already have. People think it takes “decades” to break even without doing the maths, but when you actually work it out buying an EV will save money immediately.

    Edit to add notes:

    [1] According to the Automobile Association affordability dashboard, the average Australian driver paid $93.81 for fuel every week in Q4 2025, when prices were $1.82 per litre. Scaling up for the x1.32 price increase since then, that’s $123.71 per week on petrol for the average driver.

    [2] RACV Green Car loan calculator