Toyota Chairman Claims Hybrids Are Cleaner Than EVs

Forbes

19 hours ago

Toyota's chairman Akio Toyoda claims that one electric car causes as much emissions as three hybrids. Let's check this bold statement out.
The question of whether electric cars are more environmentally friendly than cars with combustion engines has long been resolved by scientists, who have concluded that the answer is unquestionably yes. Studies show that air pollution has decreased in cities with high EV adoption rates. However, the same old 'hybrid vs EV' debate keeps coming up, sometimes even from the top executives of the world's biggest automaker.
Akio Toyoda said that nine million electric cars have the same pollution impact as 27 million hybrids in an April interview with Automotive News that went viral recently. According to him, one EV pollutes as much as three hybrids.
The chairman also stated Toyota's goal to lower emissions using what the company refers to as a "multi-pathway" approach, which includes a variety of vehicle powertrains, including hybrids and plug-in hybrids, hydrogen-powered fuel cells, more efficient petrol engines and of course, EVs.
"We have sold some 27 million hybrids. Those hybrids had the same impact as 9 million BEVs [battery EVs] on the road," Toyoda commented. "But if we were to have made 9 million BEVs in Japan, it would have actually increased the carbon emissions, not reduced them. That is because Japan relies on the thermal power plants for electricity.'
Given that fossil fuels have typically been used to generate energy in Japan, it appears that Toyoda was explicitly referring to the emissions produced during production and charging in the country. Nonetheless, the proportion of renewable energy sources in the nation's energy mix has also been increasing recently. However, Toyoda's remarks were seized upon by numerous media sites, who used them as a "damning admission" to disparage EVs in general.
So do EVs actually produce more emissions than hybrids over the course of their lifetimes?
To be sure, comparing EVs to hybrids and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) is more complex than comparing EVs to gas-powered vehicles. Battery consumption, driving habits, and the regional mix of electricity all play a part. But for clarity, let's dissect everything.
Emissions produced during the extraction, refinement, and processing of the basic materials needed in high-voltage batteries are the main argument against EVs. Materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which are used to make EV batteries, must be mined using risky, expensive water-intensive procedures.
Therefore, an EV is already said to be "dirtier" than the typical gasoline or hybrid car when it leaves the factory. It has a larger "carbon debt," which is a term used by researchers to quantify the emissions that cars accumulate before they are even driven.
Depending on the vehicle category, the production of gasoline and hybrid automobiles emits 6 to 9 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, according to a study published in the scientific journal IOP Science. In contrast, EVs emit between 11 and 14 metric tonnes of CO2 before they are delivered to consumers.
However, that is just a portion of the story. Once EVs are on the road, their total "emissions" start to drop quickly and they begin to pay off that carbon debt. Conversely, gasoline and hybrid cars go in the other way, increasing their carbon emissions with time. An EV may be able to pay off the loan completely after a specific amount of miles, where as a gasoline car will not.
Who you ask will determine how long that takes. According to a 2023 study by Argonne National Laboratory, an electric car can take 19,500 miles to mitigate the emissions created during the manufacturing process. Meanwhile, FactCheck.org says that this figure is less than two years of average American driving. According to another study in the journal Nature, carbon reductions start at about 28,000 miles. In any case, EVs eventually become the far cleaner choice over time given how long Americans retain their automobiles.
It is possible however, to come up with scenarios where hybrids are cleaner than electric cars in certain conditions—but those cases are limited.
The electric 6,800-pound Ford F-150 Lightning driving on the open road could be dirtier than a Toyota Prius that's driving at low speed for short distances, frequently recharging its battery, which gets juiced up by the engine and regenerative braking. But when you do a back-to-back comparison, EVs are cleaner than hybrids even when the source of electricity is fossil fuel.
If we look at the Department of Energy's emissions calculator, which weighs up exhaust and grid emissions, a Tesla Model Y produces lower greenhouse gas emissions—149 grams of CO2 per mile—than a Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid—177 grams of CO2 per mile. Looking at another comparison in California, the Model Y, which only produces 80 grams of CO2 per mile is far cleaner than a Prius plug-in hybrid with around 130 grams per mile.
Further reinforcing the EV vs hybrid case, an Institute of Physics (IOP) study also states that EVs break even with their hybrid counterparts in terms of lifecycle CO2 emissions within 2.2 to 2.4 years of operation.
When Akio Toyoda stated that hybrids generate fewer emissions than EVs, he was arguably talking about a set of data in which all these above-mentioned factors were not fully taken into account—where grids are powered by emission-rich fossil fuels and hybrids are driven mostly in low-speed traffic where regenerative braking and the smaller batteries are under heavy load. Whatever his stance, the evidence appears to be there that, over time at least, EVs are cleaner than hybrids.