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Chart: EVs are definitely cleaner than gas cars over their lifetime

It’s time to put the questions to rest: Drivers quickly cut their emissions footprint by going electric, and EVs are only getting cleaner.

The key metric here is the break-even point, which measures how long someone needs to drive an EV before its lifetime emissions sink below those of a comparable combustion-engine vehicle. The findings also underscore the climate benefits of onshoring electric-vehicle production, a trend that picked up with help from the Inflation Reduction Act’s domestic manufacturing subsidies. A typical EV made in China today takes 118,000 kilometers of driving to break even with emissions from a comparable gas car because the grid there is still so coal-dependent.

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