This is an opinion intended to reassure the French who doubt the real environmental impact of the electric car. A few days before the opening of the Paris Motor Show, which takes place from October 17 to 23, the Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe) puts the dots on the i face criticisms (use of rare earths, access and cost of electrical energy) which could lead motorists to give up switching to electric for their daily journeys.
We must not cut off the momentum of the French when in September, for the first time in France, more new electric vehicles were sold than diesel. But, in this opinion, Ademe also recognizes that the largest electric cars, SUVs and sedans, only really do better than diesels beyond 70,000 to 100,000 kilometers, depending on the model.
“Over its entire lifespan, an electric car driving in France has a carbon impact two to three times lower than that of a similar thermal model, provided that its battery is of reasonable capacity”, says the notice. The battery must therefore have a capacity of less than 60 kWh, or the equivalent of a Peugeot e 208 or a Renault Mégane at most, with ranges of 400 to 450 kilometers. Every electric car starts out with a “carbon debt” – the energy and material expended to build it – two to three times greater than that of a thermal vehicle.
Caution
For the lightest cars, the “city cars”, all this disappears “after about 15,000 kilometers”. For large electric cars, SUV type, given their weight which can go up to 2.5 tons empty, you have to wait 100,000 kilometers. It is therefore advisable to choose a battery suitable for the majority use of the vehicle (home-daily work), by selecting a vehicle model that is as small and light as possible.
Warning from the agency also on plug-in hybrid vehicles. They can be adapted when the driver has to make long distance trips. But Ademe recalls, citing the latest INSEE study, that an average French household only makes three trips per year to more than 200 kilometers from their home. However, hybrid vehicles being much heavier than non-electrified thermal vehicles, they consume much more fuel when they are in thermal mode. Here too, it is therefore necessary to adapt its use well and recharge them very regularly in order to use them in electric mode as much as possible.
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