For decades, politicians and pundits have told American consumers that affordable electric vehicles are just around the corner. Well, the wait is over. New EVs, such as the Chevy Bolt, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Kona Electric and the Tesla Model 3 have all been hailed as Earth-saving alternatives to traditional combustion cars. Sales figures show that many Americans are jumping at the opportunity to purchase accessibly priced, long-range EVs. The share of the overall car market EVs occupy increased from 4% in 2020 to 14% in 2022, and is expected to reach 18% in 2023.
But are these improvements moving the needle on climate change? Not quite.
We don’t need electric cars to mitigate the effects of rising global temperatures. There’s no need for new technology to fight climate change: not more efficient and cheaper batteries, not carbon capture machines, not more powerful solar panels. What the U.S. needs is a cultural transformation.
Cars are synonymous with American culture. Looking back at the origin of this nexus helps us understand why. The United States rose out of the Great Depression, in part, because it was drawn into World War II. The nation’s industrial output expanded dramatically to combat the Axis powers, and when peace came, U.S. politicians wanted to keep the industrial juggernaut running at full steam. The automobile played a central role.
Congress offered the auto industry far more financial support than public mass transportation, and with the Highway Act of 1956, millions of Americans moved to the suburbs and needed cars to commute to their jobs in the city. The country came to see cars as “cool,” and soon, they became a staple of our lifestyle. Seventy years later, the U.S. has more cars than it has licensed drivers. With only 4% of the world’s population, the United States is home to nearly 20% of all cars, and is responsible for more than a quarter of all historical carbon emissions.
So, if cars are so rooted in the American lifestyle, why aren’t EVs a viable solution? EVs do not emit carbon dioxide on the road, but the carbon footprint of manufacturing an EV is significantly higher than the carbon footprint for a conventional vehicle. Production of the average EV releases 15% to 68% more carbon than that of a combustion vehicle of the same size. But if both cars are used for their average lifespan of eleven years, a conventional car will emit twice the total carbon of an electric car.
This is not a comforting fact. To limit the rise of global temperatures to between 1.5 degrees Celsius to 2 degrees Celsius — the goal of the Paris Climate Accords — each person on the planet can emit no more than 1.5 metric tons of CO2 per year. A new gas car with a production footprint of 22 metric tons of CO2, which many EVs exceed, could remain undriven for 10-years, and still significantly exceed the cap of 1.5 metric tons per year we’re encouraging people to abide by.
The transition to EVs will not be quick enough or impactful enough to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, which is why a cultural change is necessary. Americans should use other modes of transportation, such as biking, walking or taking the subway, bus or train. Subways are 76% more efficient than automobiles in terms of passenger miles per gasoline gallon equivalent; transit rail is two times more efficient by the same metric. While convincing people to ditch their automobiles for public transportation will be difficult, it shouldn’t be. In the U.S., car-related incidents are the leading cause of death for people aged one to 54, and owning, maintaining and insuring a car in the U.S. can cost upwards of $10,000 per year, which is a significant chunk of the average American’s income of $75,000.
Fortunately, other countries have set an example that the United States can follow. In 1972, oil accounted for 92% of gross energy consumption in Copenhagen, Denmark. But the Danish government sought to make Copenhagen more sustainable and invested more than $800 million into road redesigns and bicycle infrastructure. Today, 49% of all people in the city bike to work or school. A majority of the buses and even some ferries in the city are electric, and more than half of the city’s energy comes from renewable sources, making it one of the most sustainable places in the world. Americans would be wise to learn from the Danish, and lobby their politicians to invest in mass transportation, high speed rail and other green initiatives that will ensure the longevity and stability of our environment.
We don’t need to wait for Elon Musk to release a $25,000 Tesla with 300 miles of range before transforming our broken transportation system. What the United States needs are policies that encourage a shift away from the use of automobiles and towards other, more efficient forms of transport. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world has until 2030 to slash emissions in half, and until 2050 to become net-zero to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Time is running out.
Ethan Bittner is an Opinion Columnist. He can be reached at ebittner@umich.edu.