Coal-burning countries make electric-car batteries

Beneath the hoods of millions of the clean electric cars rolling onto the world’s roads in the next few years will be a dirty battery.

Every major automaker has plans for electric vehicles to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, yet their manufacturers are, by and large, making lithium-ion batteries in places with some of the most polluting electrical grids in the world.

By 2021, capacity will exist to build batteries for more than 10 million autos running on 60-kilowatt-hour packs, according to data from Bloomberg NEF. Most of the supply will come from places such as China, Thailand, Germany and Poland that rely on non-renewable sources such as coal for electricity.

Munich-based automotive consultancy Berylls Strategy Advisors argues that for now, drivers in Germany or Poland might still be better off with an efficient diesel engine.

The findings, among the more bearish ones around, show that while electric cars are emission-free on the road, they still discharge a lot of the carbon dioxide that conventional cars do.

Just to build each car battery — weighing upwards of 1,100 pounds for SUVs — would emit up to 74 percent more C02 than producing an efficient conventional car if the battery is made in a factory powered by fossil fuels in a place such as Germany, according to Berylls’ findings.

Yet regulators haven’t set out clear guidelines on acceptable carbon emissions over the life cycle of electric cars, even as the likes of China, France and the U.K. move toward banning combustion engines.

“It will come down to where is the battery made, how is it made, and even where do we get our electric power from,” said Henrik Fisker, CEO and chairman of Fisker Inc., a Californiabased developer of electric vehicles.