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Cars are like horses: people will soon realise EVs are just better, claims VW boss
(www.autoexpress.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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I like electric cars, they're not for me I personally hate modern cars looks, computerisation, screens, and lack of any discernible personality, but the more people who own EVs, the longer I will be able to keep running my ICE car.
I do realise I'm a luddite, but I see vehicles as more than just a tool for travelling from one point to another- which EVs are great for- and more of a symphony of engineering to create something that has a distinct personality, every engine drives slightly differently and I think that is much more engaging than what is possible with EVs. (I do think the fake gear changes in cars like the Ioniq 5n are a bit silly as they're not necessary)
I don't know actual numbers but my physics teacher said that he'd worked out that his car which had almost 400,000 miles on it had just about created the same amount of CO2 emissions in its use as it had in its creation but regardless of whether he was correct I think there's something to be said for not constantly replacing cars and keeping existing ones running as long as possible, there's a lot of materials that go into producing a car that are at best environmentally expensive to recycle.
this number is so far off that it makes me doubt your whole story...
quick estimate: if we assume your teacher had a rather new car with good fuel economy (6l/100km) and was using only the least polluting fuel (e85 with 15% ethanol that produces some 1.6kg of co2 per liter) we would have to assume it was a really heavy car made entirely out of the stainless steel (1500kg of the most poluting steel that produces over 6kg of co2 per kg of steel, other materials have comparatively small contribution) to come anywhere close... about 10 tons of co2 from car production and from burning the fuel.
from these crazy assumptions you can easily see that most normal vehicles under normal circumstances will produce way more (like order of magnitude more) of co2 by driving than is produced by making them. for example a smaller car made from 600kg of normal steel (1.8kg of co2 per kg of steel) and fuel efficiency of 8l/100km (still very good) will produce more co2 than was produced in its own production after roughly 5000 miles of driving and is just adding after that...