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Burning Gas Pollutes So Much, Dirty EV Battery Manufacturing Evens Out In About 2 Years
(www.jalopnik.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
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Burning gas is so extremely bad that even throwing away your old ICE car and buying a new electric car is better than driving the ICE car until it „falls apart“. This was the research finding in Switzerland, but this result was so unwelcome that the research got hidden away. https://www.republik.ch/2025/06/11/amtliche-selbstzensur
But most people wouldn’t send their old car to the scrap heap, they would sell it on the secondary market to someone else (or a dealer, who would auction it into the secondary market). The old car would then continue to burn gas for likely many more years, until it “falls apart” anyway.
Stepping back, your old car may be the first in a chain of older (or more falling-apart) vehicles getting traded out, all the way down to one that really does get fully retired, or replacing one that was totaled in a collision. So choosing to keep it deprives someone else of its availability and thereby drives up used prices slightly.
For any study of this type of net effect, the authors need to pick a boundary for what gets considered. How many secondary market transactions do you study in that replacement chain, and what do those buyers substitute when the original ICE vehicle is not replaced with an EV? How far do you go in the pollution and other supply chain effects of manufacturing a new vehicle? I didn’t read a machine translation of your Swiss link, so I don’t know where the study authors drew the bounds, but I suspect it’s easy to choose and defend framing that supports either conclusion.
In my personal calculation, I can only see one step down the used chain, wherein my old vehicle would continue to be driven by someone else, so replacing it with an EV wouldn’t make a substantial difference. I love my old car with no surveillance, so I’m in no hurry to switch even though I’ll presumably buy an EV eventually.
Ultimately this is just one more example that that’s no ethical consumption within capitalism.
Everytime you bring it up, you get a whole lot of people with gasoline powered cars getting very angry. Sure batteries are not 'perfect', but they are a whole lot better in almost every way compared to gasoline powered vehicles.
The anger is less about how bad EV's are and more about being expected to buy a hilariously expensive EV when someone has a perfectly functional car. Make them cheaper and people will buy them, because other than the environmental aspect EV's just require less maintenance overall, making them cheaper to run.
I’d rather spend $100k converting an old ICE car to electric than give the auto industry another dime. The surveillance crap is literally a life or death decision for me. I have a 20y/o ice car I’ll likely have to convert, so no one try your dumb “new car math” with me.
If any fuckers want to make what I’m doing illegal, people will die.
Yes THERE is the issue that everyone seems to forget about new cars. I have a project car that I'm thinking will become an EV when it needs an engine because it will be so much easier to deal with. And it won't call home to the feds every day.
Old muscle cars converted to EV I think are so cool. There was a show that converted an old K10 truck and hid the batteries in the bed tool box.
A 80s station wagon, a Country Squire, or 70s luxury cruiser like a Cadillac or Lincoln would be awesome.
EVs, or just newer cars in general, are just so boring and cramped. Not to mention all the connection and surveillance concerns.
Literally no one expects that of you. We just want the bootlickers to stfu and stop being part of the problem.
The difference between the cheapest EV and cheapest ICE is 7k currently, the savings on gas cover it.
The price difference between the car I have and an EV is considerably more than 7K. Also, 7K is quite a lot.
That's new, there is also used. But the fact is you can't compare it to your junker since, like I said, no one is asking you to switch right away.
The 7k seems like a lot but it isn't since you get it back quickly with the savings on maintenance and gas.
Except the comment I originally replied to literally said it was better for the environment to trade in my car rather than drive it until it dies.
Yes it is, and that's a step to take if you can, but no one is saying you are a bad guy if you don't.
It's being an oil industry mouthpieces that is the problem.
oh wow I didn't know that!
would make sense to give more a lot incentives for EV buying if so!
I wish they weren’t so expensive though.
IMO the biggest incentive of all is that the battery exists for the life of the vehicle and can be recycled at the end (the lithium inside does not disappear!), vs the gas which is literally burning money away.
They are getting a lot cheaper overall. The EV Bolt is less than $4k more than a Camry. In expensive places like California, or with gas as high as it is, you can quickly make back that additional cost and get ahead over time, especially if you are able to charge from home. And TBH the Bolt isn't that bad of a car, and get's great distance per charge.
That and there's only so much gas, once we burn it all up it'll take millions of years to replenish. Yea, you could say the same about battery materials, but those get reused for what a decade before they start to degrade? And the actual energy is free once we have the means to harvest it (wind, solar etc are all "free" infinite energy so long as we have the panels and turbines)
Umm, AFAIK, we actually can't make more oil, so there isn't going to be any more gas, just work harder to find what's left. We absolutely should be moving to alternative energies to power civilization.
When I say millions of years I mean the plankton and our decomposing bodies will eventually make some oil, but by then our planet will be gone anyways lol. I'm sure human civilization won't make it to see any more oil produced
Pretty sure the conditions on the planet when oil/coal formed were substantially different from today. In particular, there are now various organisms which feed on the decaying matter that's at the start of that process. These organisms eat that matter and emit CO2 as they live and breathe, returning the carbon to the air instead of burying underground.
Socialize losses, privatize gains. I don't want my tax money incentivizing some rich asshole to buy an EV. Nobody that needs help buying a car can even consider an EV, their too expensive. The cheapest ev u can buy in USA is 30k, the cheapest ICE is 22k. And people that need help buying cars can't afford either. Only middle class + people are buying these things, and they don't need poor people's tax money to subsidize their purchase from a private corp. I'm all for evs but let's be honest the people buying them DONT need help buying them. Id rather see my tax money go toward renewable infrastructure or research on batteries and such! We can't keep relying on the private industry to fund research, in technology or in medicine or any science imo. But that's just my angry fist wagging opinion as somebody who refuses to spend more than 3k on a car because I'm not made of money. I'm not exactly poor, I'm a home owner under 30 and make around 60-70k a year depending on OT and bonuses. But if I went and got a loan on a Chevy bolt for 30k I would not be able to make my mortgage payments even with subsidies, so why should somebody who makes more get help buying a new car? Horseshit
There’s more reason to incentives than to “help people who can’t afford new”
EVs are inevitable, but we need to be encouraging a faster transition for environmental reasons. But the incentives were at least as much about trying to save legacy manufacturers as they were about encouraging consumers down that path.
Note that as soon as the US stopped incentives, legacy manufacturers withdrew from the EV market. Some were just reaching price parity, such as Chevy Equinox, but the few remaining choices will never have the volume to be profitable. Now they’re heavily protected, at the cost of less choice and much higher prices for all Americans, but that can’t last forever and they appear to be digging their own graves
While I agree with you, roll back of regulations has also contributed. For example the hemi was going to get killed but now their coming back, diesel emissions have lightened up, and epa no longer cares about the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and repealed it. There has been a LOT of factors this administration has changed that made EV less appealing and shifted us back to high pollution combustion and shitty refrigerants. I'm not convinced ev subsidies are the way forward, we need better renewable infrastructure to properly fuel our EVs and i think that should be funded by our tax dollars rather than hoping that if more people have evs more private corps will build the infrastructure for it. That's like encouraging building trains without any tracks to ride on! Plus renewable infrastructure isn't just for evs, that will help make all our homes greener too!
Have you never heard of financing? I make $50,000 a year and bought a used EV. The only reason I was able to was because of rebates offered by IL-EPA. If not for the rebate, I'd still be driving an ICE vehicle and paying $50/wk on gasoline.
I have heard of financing. My buddy is currently on his way to paying 32k for a 15k car lmfao. The bank already owns my house, they don't need to own my transportation too. I spend 40 or so a week on gas during the winter, but in the summer I ride motorcycles every day so my fuel cost is 12-20 a week for 8 or so months of the year! No car payment is going to be cheaper than the transport I own cash right now, simple as that. I have too many bills and shits too expensive to incur another monthly payment!
This isn't exactly correct or truthful. A new EV Bolt is only $4k more than a new Camry, and that difference is quickly made up from the gas saving, especially when gas is $4+ a gallon.
And when you want to accelerate adoption of something, you incentivize it. The US already spends $40+ billion in direct subsidies for oil (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/5-hidden-ways-the-government-rigs-the-market-in-favor-of-fossil-fuels/) Imagine instead of giving that to oil companies, you used that to accelerate the development of EV's and their roll out.
A comparison of subsidized oil would better be served by having the government subsidize clean energy production and infrastructure. It's not like the government is handing out subsidies to buy gas cars 🤷♂️
The government is doing that already (IRA law, although a lot of that was pulled back by the current administration). And like oil had, you would need continuous investment, which hasn't happened, so a discounting program to incentivize purchasing seems like the best of both worlds. It seemed pretty effective as well at kicking off early adoption, which was then hampered by inflation, high prices, and government divesting from EV investment.
I'd recommend buying used over new. Before Iran war bolts were going for $12k
That's still 4 times more than I have spent on my last 12 cars with exception of one crazy nice Audi I had that ran me 7500 lol. And I regret spending that much on a car, despite loving the 400hp fire breathing V8 under the hood. I honestly mainly drive motorcycles, which has been the cheapest way for me to reduce my carbon footprint. I get over 50 mpg on my cruiser and near 80 on my dual sport, and both my motorcycles + my Subaru + my jeep all cost less than one POS chevy bolt LOL. I understand I'm a special case because I work on my vehicles so it's very cheap for me to own a beater, if I didnt have the ability to make all my own repairs and have shop cost on parts and stuff i might consider an EV more strongly but its just way too expensive for now even factoring in what i spend on fuel and repairs.
I mean.. why not? I'd like if every rich guy had an EV instead of ICE. Less pollution is less pollution
They have the money to buy an EV, rich people don't need my tax money to subsidize their purchase. If the EV is that much less appealing than an ice car, then the EV is not ready for market yet! Subsidizing their purchase of a quasi luxury barge that happens to be electric is just giving money to the elite class on both ends at the expense of the proletariat. Encourage the production of affordable, cheap even EVs and infrastructure not 50k+ leather wrapped battery packs on tires lol
"rich people" in your mind is who, exactly? Here in Canada only cars below a certain MSRP qualify for subsidies, so "luxury barges" are not subsidized. Also, a $50K car is not luxury anymore, have you seen car prices recently? New ICE cars are expensive as hell too!