Hey guys I felt this was an important video for us to make, and I'm really glad you guys like it. We've covered a lot of different cars on this channel and talked to a lot of owners, and the one thing that unites them all is the desire for MO POWAH BABEH! So no matter how your car makes its power, you're welcome in the Donut community. - Nolan

dude really stood in front of a green screen just so they could make him stand in front of a blue one

"turning gas into noise. Im going to get that tattooed on me someday." may i recommend the lower back area?

I'd like to see a part B with the end stage of the vehicles. The recycling of the batteries the recycling of the gas motor versiand just would be interesting

Excellent breakdown of the pros and cons of EVs. One big issue I see with them is that they’re still not affordable enough for most people even with a tax credit. And on top of that a lot of people don’t have access to charging because they live in an apartment. Someday it’ll get there when the technology matures but not yet.

I just realised that my friends presentation for school is the exact same, word-for-word, as this video. Lol

Hey Nolan, make the hour long episode, we aren’t busy we’re locked in our houses...

Why did you calculate the cost of drilling oil but not the mining of coal for power plants or mining of aluminum for wind turbines or processing of silicone for solar panels?

Hoping Porsche is successful with their alternate fuel source so we can keep engines for longer

Y’all at Donut need to get this guy a higher frame rate camera.

“ICE engine” Internal combustion engine engine.

Lots of pretty good info. I seemed to have missed if you added the impact of the oil extraction and refining to the ICE cars (over all or per gallon). From what I have read, that adds about another 5ish pounds of CO2 per gallon that is burned,... or another 2500 lbs a year. (haven't addressed any oils, or other fluids in ICE or their disposal or production either :))

Loved the video and the detail. Would prefer citations from your sources in the video (just a visual reference or in the bio would be good). Thanks for the content

Nolan: Ugh those frickin chargers James: MOW POWA BABEHH

"I know you're busy" Busy being jobless and just watching youtube all day long.

Well done. A couple of things to add...companies like Redwood Materials are recyling over 90% of battery materials today. Also, LPF chemistry batteries are becoming more popular. They use lithium but not cobalt, which addresses the concern about child labor for at least that metal.

Great video man! One thing we have to consider here is that EV production technology is still in it's infancy. The process will get more efficient as the economy of scale gets larger. Also, our power grid is something that will get better over time also. On the other hand, you can't just take oil out of the air and put it back in the ground. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it's stuck in the carbon cycle.

Nolan: “that’s if they drive the national average of 11,800 miles per year.” Me: laughs and cries in 30k plus a year...

0:02 damn it sounded like Nolan was about to spit some fire for a second there

A subject you did not cover in this video was the lifespan of an EV battery versus the lifespan of an internal combustion engine.

Watching this 2 years later and I have a few comments: I think you did a really good job looking at this from an unbiased perspective, however I think you missed out on a couple important points. 1. The batteries on EVs wear out. These batteries will need to get replaced multiple times throughout the life of an EV. Judging by the fact that the majority of EV emissions come from the battery manufacturing process, I feel like accounting for this would change the numbers a lot. These batteries don't last nearly as long as reliable gasoline engines, which can run for hundreds of thousands of miles with no issues. 2. The power grid concern you denoted as a myth actually has a lot of merit. There was a recent heatwave in California. Because of this,home owners tend to use more electricity on air conditioning. This alone was enough for the state of California to request their residents not to charge their EVs because they couldn't provide enough power to do so. They also requested residents to set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher in order to conserve power. This is ridiculously hot and not at all a reasonable request.

Remove both, use horses again

Nolan: those freaking Chargers Also Nolan: nothing matches a V8 turning gas into noise 😂

Funny thing about your electric grid point. Overall the US might be fine but some localities will have issues. CA recently was telling people to refrain from charging their cars to prevent blackouts.

9:08 is plain out wrong or misleading. In 2020, a well renowned institute in my country did a complicated calculation for average CO2 emmision per kilometers. They found out that in my country, where 70% of our electricity depends on burning coal and gas, CO2 emission per mileage is only 5~10% better for EVs than Combustion engine cars. Making compensation for larger emission in manufacturing almost impossible (>25years) Where the maintenance for EVs at certain mileage are just over 3x more polluting, making EVs basicallya big ass lie in my country.

Nolan: I know you're busy *100k views in 2 hours Everyone: Yeah not really that busy

Finally, something educational and entertaining to do for school

No matter which is less damaging to the environment, a brand new EV or a brand new ICE car, I still firmly belive that the MOST enviromental thing you can do as a car owner and driver, is keep an old car running for as long as possible, the production of new cars is responsible for quite a large chunk of the emissions no matter how you spin it!

Whilst looking into this have you looked at the comparison of the impact of a new EV produced this year versus keeping a 10 or 15 year old ICE on the road - I would imagine (but don't have the figures) keeping a well maintained existing ICE car on the road is far better then the production of a new car

Nolan: "I know you're busy---" Me: I clicked on this video because the opposite is the case

Living in countryside: annoying rooster cuckling Living in city: Dodge chargers ramming the engine

Hey Donut Media. I’m doing research for this exact topic for school, and was just wondering if I you had the sources that you used for your information?

I think he needs to redo myth #2 because Cali and Texas are having grid problems to the point that, they are telling you not to charge your car.

8:39 that's a nuclear power plant and the gas coming off the top is just steam. Nuclear reactors are incredibly clean energy.

Imagine this was the first Donut video someone ever watched and saw a shirtless guy saying ‘mow pawa babhe’ they would have no idea 😂

I work at dams in the pacific northwest. Saw a tesla plugged into a welding receptacle on the down stream side. Doesn't get cleaner than that haha

Whats the efficiency of the energy transfer from power plant to car battery? I heard its 50%.

Day 1: Asking donut media to do an up to speed for Toyota Century.

Can we give this man props for how he explains things. He makes it so easy to understand what he’s talking about!

Very well researched and present video. Kudos

Well made, very informative!

“ I know you’re busy and ya ain’t got time for that” Thicc boi we all at home rn

We need sail cars.Sail cars are the future. No powah baby!!!! 😂😂😂

Wow, things have really changed over the three years since this video was made.

"The power grid could handle it if 25% of cars were electric tomorrow." I'd like to see the source for that, considering that the electric grid in some places already can't handle the current load. Rolling blackouts are common in California, and starting to happen in other states as well.

When do we get nuclear-powered muscle cars

People: Co2 emissions; Carbon footprintm child labour Cars: V10 go brrrtrtrttt Nyaaaaooooommmm

Can you put a link to a graph that shows those numbers? I would love a visual of one Vs the other.

Did you know you also use cobolt in making og gasoline? How much cobalt has been used in arms lifetime vs ev?

6:15 props to the editors for making the music perfectly sync with the video it was a satisfying detail lol

Nice video. I just wanted to add a couple notes for clarification. I work in the utility industry. There are two issues with the power generation and supply for EVs. One is simply we don't have the capacity. I know you said this was incorrect in the video, but the US power grid only has roughly a 10% surplus during peak load. And that surplus is not tangible across the entire grid at any one given time. While it would support a sudden spike in EVs, the grid would be in stretched pretty thin in some areas with high population densities and those areas could experience "brown" or "dirty" power outages. These already occur on occasions when the system is stressed by unusual weather conditions such as those seen in California and New York in the past. There is another related issue. Coal fired or liquefaction plants converted to natural gas are dependent on volume and that volume delivery is directly associated with environmental events. In the middle of the winter, during a severe cold snap, a generation plant my need to dip into the reserve to feed the electrical system, but is unable to because they are not able to get the volume due to the residential customers, high volume and distribution operators drawing down the gas supply before it reaches the power plant. This occurred in the midwest in 2021. The volume of gas available was not enough to supply the demand and the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and parts of Texas had to cycle scheduled blackouts to get the grid back into a stable state. The generation company was forced to mass purchase natural gas that was in storage in order to meet demand at a much higher cost per mmcf. (We knew some folks in OKC that recieved power bills between $3k and $5k for a single month of power, but luckily president Trump issued a state of emergency that allowed the government to subsidize the cost.) Secondly, your recap didn't take into account the infrastructure itself. Transporting the amount of power needed to supply the move to electrical power has been discussed for years, and no one has a sure fire bullet as to what will be needed, and upgrading the current infrastructure could in itself take decades. It's also not economically feasable to upgrade the grid in one step even if you have a good understanding of the future demand because the cost to meet expected demand far exceeds the amount of money the vast majority of operators are capable to generate. I'm not saying that it is an impossible endeavor, just a lot of guys hacking at calculators in a closet trying to get a decent idea as to how much load they will be expecting, and a heck of a lot of money for infrastructure upgrades. Honestly the current EV infrastructure is not much more than those gravity hand gas pumps you find in third world countries at the moment. Imagine what the electrical grid would be required to handle if every gas station you know of only had charging ports. We're talking in the trillions for infrastructure upgrades when we can't even keep our bridges maintained properly. Then there's the lack of taxes for road use ... Third note. Most of the oil that comes into the country is from Brazil. The reason we import is because Brazil has what we call heavy crude. The crude found in Texas, Oklahoma and even Alaska is a lighter grade that takes less refinement, but doesn't have the value of Brazilian crude which is more suitable for producing a broader range of products per volume. I also found your figures a little high there, but I'm only familiar with onshore wells. Most wells, even frack wells can produce for years with hardly any emissions. More emissions are generated off the coast of California and Florida daily in naturally occurring releases. Things decompose, gas and oil are created. It's a natural process regardless of what the environmentalists want to say. I'm not saying that our dependance is a good thing, but I find a lot of times that these numbers are heavily skewed, or in the case of power generation, white lies to draw new avenues for revenue generation. Clarkson did some research on the creation, processing and shipping of lithium batteries used in the Prius. His findings were that the shipping and environmental impact of creating, shipping and assembly in conjunction with use and eventual disposal, generated an equivalent or higher level of emissions over the life of the vehicle then an equivalent gas powered low emission car. I know this was specific to a certain car, but it's also something that should be considered. Does a battery that's shipped 9k miles by a diesel ship create less pollution than a gas powered VW beetle? I can't answer that question honestly. Forth note. Have you ever looked into how we deal with pollution created from creating solar cells and the disposal of wind turbine blades? It should also be considered, especially turbine blades, since well, we can't recycle them in any way and they are piling up. Hydro power, while the cleanest, really causes numerous other issues with the environment. There is no sure fire way to generate electricity today with minimal environmental impact. Those wave generators are interesting though. Just remember, Newton was right ;) Thinking about combustion engines and electrical cars. A plain old metal oil burner can pretty much be recycled from top to bottom. Many of these new EVs are using exotic materials that can't be simply ground down and remelted. We simply don't have a way to deal with the materials currently. Would going to EVs truly solve our problem? Who creates more emissions, a person that buys a fairly low emission oil burner and drives it 200k miles, or a person that buys a new EV every couple of years? If you want to lesson the impact on the environment then there would need to be a stipulation on how long you would be required to retain that EV or have a buyback program to ensure the vehicle remained in service long enough to meet some desired degree of acceptable pollution. We would also need to formally tax, and tax heavily, the power utilized in the charging process to pay for emergency services, roads and infrastructure. There are also other things that people don't consider what about possible electrical shock for police, fire and EMTs? What about training firefighters to deal with the battery cells and the special equipment they will need. If a battery cell is ruptured it could set off a chain reaction that can't be extinguished for days. Top Gear's Richard Hammonds wreck with the Rimnac is a good example. It burned, self reignited and was extinguished continuously for 5 days. An EV fire is a scary thing and currently there are not enough fire departments with the training and equipment to deal with resin, exotic material and large scale lithium battery fires. At any rate, I think that the video was well put together and thought out. I definitely can't fault you for missed points because this is a massive undertaking that we are forcing into motion. I imagine I'll be long gone before everything is sorted out, but I have found the whole thing intriguing to watch. A good friend once said to me "we are all in it together". As I get older I realize just how correct he was when he said it.

i know one thing that can save combustion engines, Biofuels, these are way cleaner to make than regular gas and has nearly no impact on poweroutput, and there is stuff out there that can be mixed with fuel to further make combustion more efficient

This was super well done! Thanks for doing it 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Nolan: *damn charger* Me when I see a charger: *REV IT*

Here in California our power grid can’t keep up with our air conditioners.

9:08 Without forgetting that you are comparing a very powerful electric car with a compact car. Imagine if you compared the Taycan with an Cayenne Turbo GT or this Mitsubishi with a BMW i3 or BYD Seagull

Great video definitely helped me with the thoughts about EV versus ICE. Although the power grid side of the argument I am still unsure about.

Great explanations. However, at 8:42 in the video, what you showed as emissions from an electric power plant was actually steam from the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. This steam is no radioactive, but rather it is isolated from any radiation. A lot of people mistakenly show cooling tower steam as scary "smoke" when in fact it is quite the opposite, as nuclear power plants emit very low CO2. They are the type of power plant we should want more of until this nuclear fusion power is figured out.

Thanks 4 this,your knowledge is very appreciated 👍

Do you include battery lifecycle and change in this after dies?

I’m curious where hybrid or diesel cars sit in all of this.

"i know you're busy" yeah. busy searching for videos to watch on youtube

best with the line chart graph to understand the emission part too.. and batteries life for each EV can last max of 5 yrs (avg 4 yrs) ? every time there is a replacement, will this be extra emission?

I appreciate this a lot. I feel like every person I talked to about this has only watched half of the video and made their opinion up.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED IM DOING A SCHOOL PROJECCT MO POWAAHH BABEYY edit: holy crap thanks for the likes !

This video explains CLEARLY and more satisfying to watch than any other videos that I've watched so far related to this matter! Kudos!

Concise and informative. Thanks a million for educating me for this important topic!

Love these educational videos! 💪🏾

“The average car in the US goes through about 500 gallons of gas per year” *Laughs in 5.7 hemi*

Day 113 of asking James to do an Up to speed on his Dad

Nice overview! Also, fueling an EV from coal still results in fewer overall emissions, if you value moving the source of pollution away from city centers. This could save approx 100,000 lives per year.

Old video, but a good one. I learned something new today, thanks man.

* depressed Hemi noises*

"such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric" BOO free my boy nuclear power!

How much electricity is used getting up the oil, processing it?

One other thing to consider is the ability to charge vehicles at home, many homes cannot actually generate enough power to charge vehicles and the cost of upgrading the central power at a private residence is high enough that there are going to be people that cannot afford to switch to an electric vehicle. I would also be curious to see comparisons on how far electric cars can travel vs how far an ICE engine can go. Also length of charge time vs how much time it takes to fill a gas tank is something to consider. I am seeing a lot of things coming out about EV semi's and delivery vehicles and many drivers that I have talked to are worried that it will be impossible to finish a delivery route in an EV. I would be curious to see if you all can find more definitive information on some of these points because all of my sources are biased and not 100% accurate.

"this could've been an hour long video" -me, and everybody else on Coronacation: yeah. Thanks for cheaping out

I am literally writing a term paper on this right now.

Love the content love the video's, keep up the great work! 👍

Your math is wrong. The average EV breakeven point is more like 1.5 years for short range EV, and 5 years for long range EV. You also didn't take into account battery replacement especially for short range EVs, who will be far more affected by battery degradation. Battery warranties typically last for 8 to 10 years. 2nd hand EVs will need their batteries replaced sooner than later.

Solid State batteries...that should revolutionize energy storage for years to come.

Man, this is the best video at the best time. Im actually doing a school project about this exact topic. Thx for clearance😂

Thanks, great video, truly informative.

From where did you take this information

James: *tattoos Dodge* Noaln: FRICKING CHARGERS!

Great video! One quibble: please try not to show nuclear cooling towers when you talk about emissions. All that’s coming out of there is water vapor….

“As time goes on the environmental impact of production will go down…I hope”… I can say the same thing about gas engines.

What about battery longevity and the co2 involved in putting a new one in and getting rid of the old one ? You even mentioned the recycling process and didn't include it in the calculation ?

Seriously loved this video, glad we can finally put this argument to rest.

If I have to drive an EV to work so I can drive my SS on the weekend I’m fine with that. I like the idea of EV’s but not the limitations.

Also the rare earth elements that are mined have to be purified but this leaves radioactive material behind like Uranium.

You forgot to mention one very important thing: recycling and pollution. stockpiling of EV batteries means that these will either corrode and poison ground waters or start burning - every year there are many typical landfill fires, just because there is too much garbage and someone wants it to disappear. When this happens there will be no way to put that fire down - right now only fast way to extinguish EV burning is to submerge it in water. absolutely undoable on a landfill. Also about electric grid overload: Yes, 25% of energy being used to charge EVs is acceptable. But problem is that EVs are being charged mostly at the same time (evening). THere are university studies on this and as I recall maximum number of EVs that should not cause any trouble was in range 2-5% of all cars in US. In EU it might get even worse, as at the same time heat pumps are starting to be a must for new houses and in winter PV produces barely any energy - if you and your neighbors charge EV and heat home at the same time, your town might get into trouble.

Video released one month before Tesla’s announcement of the zero cobalt/one million mile battery.

8:08 RAMCHARGERS!!!

Can you do a video on the charging infrastructure and when it makes sence to switch? In my area there is not much charging and a lot of apartments where you can’t charge. My friend had to return his. I also live in a van and would like to switch to the electric sprinter van but it’s just not doable atm with infrastructure. Also maybe talk about winter effects on electric cars. Iv seen a lot about how in northern nh where I live they can’t handle the winter months

People who have a progressbar on their sponsorships should have a guaranteed place in heaven

*Nolan:* I know your busy, you ain't got time for that *Me:* laughs in quarantine

Nolan: I know you’re busy Me under quarantine: 😐 what the f??

Even if not better for the envirment , they can't do not have monopoly on the price of the "fuel" that goes in it, and thats also inportant.

The power grid can handle it! *Lives in California confused