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Shifting Gears: From EV Myths to Science Backed Facts

By Lyndsay Gehring and Julie Topf

Society is facing a crossroads in 2024: either ensure global emissions rates fall by nine percent every year until 2030, or overshoot the 1.5 degree warming limit and face the ramifications. One of the most crucial areas for decarbonization is the transportation sector, which is responsible for approximately 15% of global emissions. In order to secure our planet’s stable climate future, key clean transportation technologies need to be swiftly adopted and embraced around the world. This embrace of clean energy implementation relies on the widespread public and political support of new energy technologies. However, support for electric vehicles (EVs) is threatened by coordinated misinformation and disinformation campaigns that perpetuate myths across society to prevent the energy transition from being realized at the pace required. The surest modality for ‘busting’ these myths is through concise science communication from experts who can provide fact-based, evidence-backed information to advance progress toward a clean energy future.

Expert groups, such as the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, are dedicated to providing decision-makers with the science and technical expertise they need to accelerate the energy transition by actively dispelling myths using the latest data and information available. In a recent publication, Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles, the Sabin Center dispels pervasive myths about solar, wind, and electric vehicles as perpetuated by rampant misinformation and disinformation campaigns. The CEET has similarly worked to bust myths about the energy transition, participating in events, working with UN agencies and international organizations, and publishing a series of technical briefs, the newest forthcoming of which is a detailed catalog of transportation decarbonization that aims to support science-based policymaking in the sector at a global scale.

This work will be highlighted at this year's UN High-Level Political Forum, where the Sabin Center, SDSN, and other partners, will co-host a hybrid side event featuring engineers focused on debunking common misconceptions about key decarbonization technologies. In light of these events and the upcoming publication of the CEET's newest brief on transportation, we've pulled together three major myths about EVs from the Sabin Center’s US-focused report and provided additional reading and global trends to prove them wrong and demonstrate the importance of making science-based decisions.

Three myths about electric vehicles (EVs) and why they are wrong

Myth #1: “Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change”

Debunk:

EVs can have less overall lifecycle emissions than gas powered vehicles, even when taking into account the emissions that are released in the manufacturing and charging of electric vehicles. Additionally, EVs are inherently more efficient than combustion engine vehicles, converting over 77% of electrical energy to power at the wheels as compared to only 12%-30% of energy in gasoline-powered vehicles. This is the main reason why EVs will remain more climate-friendly than cars with internal combustion engines even if technological advances might allow for the production of “net-zero” synthetic fuels to power cars with combustion engines in the future (Rebutting 33 False Claims About Wind, Solar, and Electric Vehicles, 2024).

Trends:

  • On average, gasoline cars can emit more than 350 grams of CO2 per mile over their lifecycle, while fully battery vehicles only emit 200 grams (MIT Climate Portal, 2022).
  • Electric cars have reached up to 17 million globally, accounting for more than one in five cars sold worldwide (IEA, 2024).
  • Every other car sold in 2035 is set to be electric based on today’s climate, energy, and industrial policy settings (IEA, 2024).

Further Reading:

Myth #2: “Electric vehicles will cost the United States many automobile industry jobs”

Debunk:

According to a 2022 study, manufacturing battery EV powertrain components is more labor intensive than manufacturing powertrain components for internal combustion engine vehicles, which overall suggests the potential for industry expansion, not industry degrowth. In the US, from 2015-2023, there were over 179,000 US jobs created related to EVs and EV batteries (Rebutting 33 False Claims About Wind, Solar, and Electric Vehicles, 2024).

Trends:

  • EV sales are expected to reach 62 million units annually by 2050, with a total global EV stock of 700 million (Wood Mackenzie, 2021).
  • European Commission officials predict EVs will lead to major job growth across the EU, with up to 4 million battery-related new jobs being created by 2025 following the establishment of the European Battery Alliance (Deutsche Welle, 2024).
  • By 2032, over 160,000 jobs are forecasted to be created by the EV charging infrastructure buildout in the United States (ICCT, 2024).

Further Reading:

Myth #3: “Electric vehicles are impractical due to range limitations”

Debunk:

The majority of EVs can travel roughly 200 miles after a single charge. Despite the fact that combustion vehicles typically have higher range than EVs, the range of the standard EV can meet the daily needs of the majority of US vehicle owners. The average range of EVs continues to increase with the emergence of new technologies, with EV ranges increasing from an average of 145 miles in 2016 to approximately 217 miles in 2021 (Rebutting 33 False Claims About Wind, Solar, and Electric Vehicles, 2024).

Trends:

Further Reading:

Want to learn more about common misconceptions of the energy transition? Join the Council of Engineers on the Energy Transition (CEET) on July 11 for an official HLPF Side Event at Columbia University. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fpay3tW2SXyV9l3SdE3iNw#/registration