> Things aren't really that unclear or case to case either.
Of course its case by case. A 3.2lt Maserati Quattroporte is obviously going to have a lower MPG than a 1lt Vauxhall Corsa. And that’s without taking any into account the types of road you drive on and the exact year of build of the car.
> A person buying a tiny IC car will not suddenly decide to buy a 7 ton Hummer EV where suddenly their carbon footprint is much higher.
I never suggested they would. But also not every model of ICE vehicle will have an exactly equivalent model of EV. In fact I ran into the exact problem myself. And I did look.
> So there really is nothing really that important other than mileage.
And this is where your lack of experience with cars is apparent. I don’t mean to be snarky but I’ve given numerous examples and you’re still sticking firm to this fallacy that there isn’t much variation in cars.
> EVs are clearly better in every use case, as long as we're talking about the environment.
It wasn’t just about the environment. I did also talk about cost too. In that post you “read carefully” in fact.
This is why I’ve been getting a little snarky. You claim to read my comments but then completely ignore everything I’ve said and draw your own strawman arguments instead. Presumably a knee jerk reaction because you’ve incorrectly labeled me as a petrolhead.
> And lastly first hand experience in driving and owning a car is not helpful in determining carbon footprint.
It is very helpful because you start to understand that even the same car can have different fuel consumption characteristics depending on who’s driving it, on what type of roads, and the length of those journeys. Let alone the wildly different characteristics of different cars even in the same class of vehicle.
You don’t seem to understand that different engine sizes matter. The weight of the car matters. The gear ratios (automatic) or how you shift gears (manual). The roads (do you need to shift gears a lot or cruise at a constant speed?). Even how heavily you break can have a massive impact on fuel consumption. Wheel sizes, tyres, road surfaces. Is your local area flat or hilly? Do you drive longer or shorter distances? Does your car have a stop-start engine? Or hybrid? How many cylinders? Turbo injection? Etc.
There simply isn’t a standard. So if you then take averages you’re going to find that all those sporty ICE cars will massively skew the results against those small European cars. And the people who buy EV for environmental reasons are more likely to be buying a small ICE vehicle if EVs weren’t an option.
You seem to think all cars are roughly equivalent and that demonstrates just how little you actually know on this subject.
> As the grid decarbonizes, this will be even less.
I agree. Which is why I also said that in my original comment. The one you “read carefully”.
> More EVs please
I agree. I was never arguing against EVs. I was just saying that EVs seem to suffer a lot from greenwashing when actually there’s still a long way for them to go before they live up to the claims people make about them.
It’s still a young industry though so that will change. But people like yourself need to understand that doesn’t mean EVs are the silver bullet. What we really need is better types of fuel. EVs are a step in the right direction but it still largely just pushes the problem upstream. We still need to clean up electricity production even with EVs.