How clean are electric cars?

There's been a fair bit of mindless chatter recently that EVs don't actually reduce CO2 emissions.  Prolly started and funded by legacy petrol-car manufacturers who are losing market share.  It's piffle.

 From Transport and Environment 

How much CO2 can electric cars really save compared to diesel and petrol cars? To answer this question we have developed a tool that compiles all the most up-to-date data on CO2 emissions linked to the use of an electric, diesel or petrol car.

We have taken into account all possible criteria, such as the amount of CO2 emitted when electricity is produced or fuel is burnt, as well as the carbon impact of resource extraction for batteries or of building a power plant.

We find out that electric cars in Europe emit, on average, more than 3 times less CO2 than equivalent petrol cars.

In the worst case scenario, an electric car with a battery produced in China and driven in Poland still emits 37% less CO2 than petrol. And in the best case scenario, an electric car with a battery produced in Sweden and driven in Sweden can emit 83% less than petrol.

We also see that electric cars bought in 2030 will reduce CO2 emissions four-fold thanks to an EU grid relying more and more on renewables.

Despite their green credentials, HEVs’ and PHEVs’ lifecycle emissions are much closer to polluting conventional petrol cars than to BEVs. The results show that HEVs only achieve a 21% reduction in LCA emissions compared to an equivalent petrol car while PHEV improvements are limited to 26%.

[You can find the tool here]

Source: The T & E app; petrol car vs EV, with standard EU27 battery production, and driving in the EU27.