They show how long it takes for the car to actually pay off that upfront carbon debt. Marko Gernuks, Head of Life Cycle Optimization notes: “You quickly realize that compared to a Golf diesel, the e-Golf has a greater carbon footprint in terms of production, but wait: After 125,000 kilometers [77,600 miles] on the road, it surpasses its brother and has a lower carbon footprint.”
According to United States Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, Americans now drive an average of 13,476 miles per year, so it takes 5.75 years to pay off the additional carbon debt.
Yes, the air will be cleaner and the car will last longer and we will be burning far less fossil fuel in the meantime. Electric cars are wonderful. And VW is going to try to reduce the upfront carbon of making batteries the way Tesla has been dealing with this; they found that "green power for producing batteries significantly reduces the environmental impact." They are also going to plan for recycling the batteries. Gernuks notes: “The goal is to optimize the process and to use salvaged raw materials to further reduce the carbon footprint connected with manufacturing of batteries.” It will only get better.
We should not be looking at electric cars as a solution to the problem; we have to look at getting rid of cars if we want to have a hope of holding to 1.5 degrees of global warming. There's just not enough room left in the carbon budget to build them all.
