China's electric cars are actually pretty dirty

Consumers bought more than 300,000 last year, expect 5 million on the road by 2020

Could China, the world’s largest automobile market, help address the threat of global warming if it went completely electric? 

The answer isn’t as obvious as it seems. China has been making great strides toward electrification. Electric vehicle sales are booming: Consumers bought more than 300,000 last year, and more than 5 million are expected to be on the road by 2020. 

Encouraging as that may be, though, the move away from conventional cars and trucks won’t immediately reduce the country’s carbon emissions. On the contrary, the production of electric vehicles in China actually produces more greenhouse gases and consumes more overall energy. In the short run, China’s moves could make greenhouse emissions go up, not down.

Electric vehicles seem environmentally benign. But the reality is more complex. Their manufacture entails energy-intensive mining of rare elements, such as the lithium required for their batteries. 

Developed nations get the best results, because they tend to generate electricity using cleaner sources. 

The real challenge to reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be in developing nations — especially China, which is likely to dominate the global auto market for decades to come. Unfortunately, the structure of China’s industrial economy will make it difficult. One recent study by Chinese engineers estimated that electric vehicles generate about a 50 percent increase in both greenhouse gas emissions and total energy consumption over their life cycle. The manufacture of the lithium-ion battery alone accounts for 13 per cent of the energy consumption and 20 per cent of the emissions.

The most promising ways to make electric vehicles better have little to do with the vehicles themselves. Energy infrastructure matters more. In China, electricity production still relies quite heavily on high-carbon sources including coal. Hence, both the manufacturing of the batteries and the operation of the vehicle produce more pollution than they would elsewhere.