Tom Rowlands, Fleetcor’s managing director, global EV solutions, explores the myths about EVs, the health benefits to users, cost savings to companies and the environmental and noise benefits to the world at large.

Tom Rowlands, Fleetcor’s managing director, global EV solutions

By now, individuals and businesses have largely accepted the necessity of reducing CO2 emissions and one of the ways of doing this is by switching to electric vehicles. Total EV sales increased by 40% in 2022, even while EVs themselves are relatively expensive, and we have seen from our own customers that companies with significant vehicle fleets are increasingly fuelling from EV chargers rather than petrol and diesel.

The benefits to you, your company and the world at large don’t end there though. The fact is, even if CO2 were no longer a problem, there would still be compelling reasons to switch to EVs. Even beyond what companies can save financially – which is considerable – there are a number of powerful benefits that can be unlocked through EV use.

In this article I’ll be exploring some of those benefits and savings, but first let’s look at one of the more pernicious myths about EVs – that they ultimately cause more CO2 emissions than they save.

The EV manufacture myth

For over a decade now the most common objection to the uptake of EVs has been that while they obviously save CO2 while on the road, their manufacture, and particularly the manufacture of their batteries, releases more CO2 than they save.

Like all long-standing myths, this has an element of truth. According to the paper ‘Lifecycle Analysis of UK Road Vehicles’, a standard gasoline vehicle will cause 5.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions during its production, while a battery EV will cause 8.8. Therefore, it seems as though EVs emit significantly more CO2 than standard vehicles, right? The issue comes when we look at the total lifetime CO2 emissions per vehicle: a standard vehicle will emit 24 tonnes during its lifetime (which the study defines as travelling 150,000 kilometres), while an EV will emit 19 (predictably, hybrids are somewhere in the middle with 21). That gap could increase even further: renewable power is making up an increasing percentage of the UK’s energy mix, so the amount of CO2 generated to produce power for EVs will gradually get cleaner.

This doesn’t mean that the manufacture of EVs is entirely without environmental impacts. The creation of lithium batteries is extremely water-intensive and can cause toxic pollution in rivers. The batteries also break down over time and cannot be recycled easily (though this may change in the future).

The other benefits of EVs

Despite having more CO2 per kilogram than petrol, diesel uses more air to burn, so diesel engines end up using less CO2 per kilometre overall. However, CO2 isn’t the only gas emitted by engines, and there are many that are in fact more immediately harmful. Nitrogen dioxide, nitrous oxide and nitric oxide are all produced by both diesel and petrol engines, but whereas a petrol engine’s catalytic convertor will reduce nitrogen pollution by around 30%, diesel vehicles can’t use this technology. This nitrogen pollution significantly increases the chance of respiratory disease and contributes to increased mortality.

Similarly, conventionally fuelled vehicles both produce particulate air pollution – tiny pieces of dust, soot and liquids in the air that can spread for miles around a vehicle. The larger particles can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, but the smaller particles can cause heart disease and cancer.

There are other, even less tangible benefits to switching to EVs. According to a study by the European Environmental Agency, “chronic exposure to environmental noise significantly affects physical and mental health and well-being”. Electric vehicles could be virtually silent, but legally they’re required to emit a sound with a minimum frequency of 56 decibels. A conventional vehicle produces around 62dB when driving at 30mph and 70dB or more over 50mph – a motorbike can be as loud as 166dB. Those differences might not seem like much, but decibel levels ramp up quickly: a fridge runs at about 50dB, while a television or a coffee grinder runs at 70dB – most of us would be able to sleep in a room with a fridge, but few people could sleep well when a TV is on.

Noise has been steadily increasing over time, and noise pollution, as well as pollution in general, disproportionately affects those in urban and more built up areas. This only exacerbates existing problems: those living in poorer neighbourhoods could become less mentally and physically healthy. The costs of this will be borne by everyone. If 68% of the world is living in urban areas, as the UN predicts, then noise could be a serious factor in global suffering – unless the world adopts electric vehicles.

Reasons to switch to EV

Of course, reducing CO2 emissions are still vitally important, hence why so many governments, including the UK’s are making it a priority to reduce emissions.

It isn’t the only reason, and the many other reasons to make the switch are just as compelling.