“IT’S BETTER IF YOU JUST KEEP YOUR OLD CAR”

The fallacy runs that it’s always best to keep old petrol cars going because it takes a lot of energy to build a car But actually of the energy and CO a petrol car is responsible for in its lifetime roughly four times is in the driving compared with the manufacturing For an EV it’s about three times

So when buying new get one that has the lowest possible CO impact when driving and that’s an electric car Over their lifetime EVs are responsible for far less CO than ICE cars Especially because compared with early EVs many of today’s are built in low CO factories with renewable energy So if you’re one of these people who gets a new car every three or four years and you want to lower your CO go electric Don’t cause another ICE car to be built It’s simple

But what if your existing petrol or diesel car is perfectly satisfactory? Obviously if you cause one less vehicle

of any kind to be manufactured you’re saving CO in the short term But if you drive a lot of miles or your car is thirsty then sell it to someone who drives less Getting an EV would after a very few years move you into credit If it’s efficient and you drive little probably hold on to it for a while

In most areas of life the greenest thing is simply to buy less stuff and keep it for longer But with ICE cars because they emit so much CO in use it’s not always so simple Paul Horrell