HN Explorer

Ask HN: What is the most environmentally friendly car to use?

3 points by reducesuffering ↗ HN
Consider someone that needs to use a car for some things. They can bike, walk, and use public transport as much as possible, but still use a car. It's trivial to find out what cars have the least emissions, but what type of car would it be if you consider the total lifetime environmental impact, and the second-order affects from the used market that occur because of one's choice? How would a total environmental impact metric be measured (combination of all CO2 emitted, rare metals mined, etc)? How would you find the details involved in the calculating the metric?

The priority is understanding it for average use, not as much the case where the car sits most of the time with little emissions at ~500 miles (800 km) / year.

From perusing HN over the years, my inclination was towards an old, low emissions hybrid like a Prius. I realized this was more of a gut feeling and wanted to understand it better based on hard numbers and what metrics are most environmentally concerning.

Is it a used, high-mileage, low-emissions hybrid? Used BEV? New BEV?

5 comments

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ReptileMan
Without giving details on how much and for what the car will be used it is impossible to answer.
reducesuffering
Consider an equivalent amount of money spent (say $50k), where any money not going towards the car is donated to eliminating environmental problems (like 5k Prius and $45k spent sequestering CO2 at current prices). Car would be used for average developed-world use: commuting, groceries, random trips, ~15k miles / year.

Should I further elaborate that in the question?

Skaven
The impact of co2 is a smokescreen. Destroying grounds and mining for minerals for electric batteries can impact the world much more then a million kilometers driven with a gas gozzling super truck.

Co2 of electric energy and heat production overshadows cars by an insane amount.

Considering micro particles from the tires, a diverse range of oils, wiper fluids, particles from the brakes and recycling of all control boards, plastics and foams, they are more concerning than co2 output. At least to me. Causing an accident and having your car burning out would ruin all previous considerations, no matter what type of car.

Having a car that breaks down often, that is technological to involved for proper repair, like hybrids and evs, will wreck all previous considerations. You will plug out components and put new in, effectively producing involved trash and buying your car again over time. You can of course be lucky, or you can buy the ongoing repair problem.

So basically the cheapest car, considering all costs, including repairs and recycling and governmental taxes, would be the best in the long run. This is hart to predict and everyone has that problem, when deciding on a car to buy.

Taking any old giant diesel Mercedes limousine, that is already run for 30 years, for a 1000$ upgrading it to lpg or ethanol and using it for another 30 years, could be argued to be far more environmental friendly than any new electric car or hybrid.

If direct co2 output is your only metric, it will be the cheapest electric car you can find. Just don't crash it or drive it in way that causes lots of repairs.

kazinator
Let us begin with the observation that an entire star had to explode to produce the heavy elements like iron, needed for key structural parts of the automobile. If we can shake off that guilt, we can move on to the minor issues, like energy use for mining the ore, smelting and such.
mister_hn
Old Priuses might need a battery replacement, which affects the environment itself and your pocket (it might costs you $10k).