NOS News•
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Charlotte Klein
editor Economics
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Charlotte Klein
editor Economics
The fact that the Netherlands loves electric cars and bicycles was confirmed last week by figures from the RAI Association and Bovag. 3.4 million e-bikes and more than 350,000 electric cars are now driving around. It is not for nothing that a third of all European charging stations are located in the Netherlands.
The electrification of the vehicle fleet is going fast, certainly in comparison with other European countries. In Europe, all newly sold cars must be emission-free from 2035, but the Netherlands has greater ambitions and is aiming for 2030. “Electric transport helps the Netherlands to achieve its climate goals”, writes the national government.
How clean are electric vehicles really? And what is that climate benefit? Spoiler: climate gains are certainly there, but there are caveats.
1. More than five times as many electric cars in seven years
Government expected that the number of electric cars will increase to 1.9 million by 2030. The infrastructure must also grow: the number of charging points must increase from 55,000 to 1.7 million in seven years.
The government stimulates the purchase of electric cars in various ways. Of subsidy jars for the purchase, exemption from taxes and favorable addition arrangements. However, most benefits will be phased out from 2025.
It has an effect: the number of electric cars is growing, but is still small in the total of about 8.8 million passenger cars. The petrol car is still as popular as ever.
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2. Electric car emits less
Environmental research agency CE Delft has calculated that an average petrol car emits 203 grams of CO2 per kilometer and an electric car 81.5. The CO2 emissions of electric cars do not amount to zero, because they include everything that is released during the production of energy, including what it costs to make a wind turbine.
Incidentally, car emissions have been falling for years, mainly because fuel engines are becoming more efficient. The environmental zones, which should keep polluting cars out of cities, will be expanded in the coming years to further reduce health damage. The electric car is a solution for this: air pollution is virtually zero while driving.
3. Electric cars have started to consume more energy
The emissions from cars are therefore decreasing, but they have started to consume more energy. Cars are getting wider due to safety features and because wider models are popular, a trend that may have come over from America.
This negates part of the climate benefits. Wider cars are heavier and require larger motors or batteries, so they use more energy.
The charts below show declines, but according to Bovag, that’s because small models were popular in some years, which pushed the average.
4. Electric cars pollute more during production
While electric cars are a solution to a local problem such as air pollution, they do leave their mark on the global problem of climate change.
The graph below shows that the production of an electric car has higher CO2 emissions than that of a petrol car. Rare minerals are used for batteries and mining and shipping them has a strong impact on the climate.
This climate burden is mainly present in countries with cobalt mines (Democratic Republic of Congo), lithium (Chile) and battery production (China).
You see the same thing with bicycles: electric bicycles are more polluting than regular bicycles because of the need to charge their batteries.
5. ‘Electric bicycle faster, less effort’
If an electric bicycle is almost twice as polluting as a regular bicycle, but 17 times as clean as a fuel car, the climate benefit depends on use. It turns out that the Dutch mainly use their e-bikes for leisure activities, not for commuting.
The Knowledge Institute for Mobility (KiM) looked into why people buy such a bicycle. This shows that “using the car less” is reason number 5, “good for the environment” comes only at number 11. Research by TU Delft has shown that the electric bicycle mainly replaces the regular bicycle, not the car.
In many cases, the e-bike therefore leads to more energy consumption. However, the range of an electric bicycle is twice as large: with an e-bike, a user covers twice as many kilometers as with a regular bicycle.
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6. No electric bike yet, but…
Climate gain or not, electric bicycles can no longer be ignored. They have been gaining ground on regular bicycles for years: last year, according to the RAI Association, 57 percent of bicycles sold were electric.
That share is expected to increase. According to the KiMresearch Almost 40 percent of those surveyed who did not yet own an e-bike plan to buy one.
The main barrier is price. The Ministry of Infrastructure is looking into the possibility of a purchase subsidy for e-bikes.
What is the climate gain?
The electrification of the vehicle fleet therefore brings climate benefits: the air remains cleaner and the emissions of electric cars throughout their life cycle – provided they are used for a long time – are much lower than those of fuel cars. In terms of mining and production, there is still a lot to gain. How green the electricity is also plays a role.
Electric bicycles are a different story: they can either yield enormous climate gains if they replace a car, or mean a loss for the climate if they are used alongside them. This is often the case in the Netherlands. Incidentally, this article does not discuss the importance of e-bikes for people who travel less easily without such a bicycle.
So there is climate gain from electric vehicles, but with caveats. In the end, the very best for the climate just keeps walking.
