Is keeping my car better for the environment than getting a new one?

Factual Questions
1

I have a 1992 Olds Cutlass Ciera that is my daily driver. I bought it about 5 years ago for $600 bucks, 3.3 liter V6 and an auto tranny. I have driven it across the country, its pretty reliable. Its starting to run a little rough, its time for another tune up. Its got 170,000 miles or so, and still passes emissions testing with flying colors.

The last time I had an emission test done on it, they did it three times because they didn’t believe that the figures they were getting were correct, they were lower than newer cars that they test. After three hours and multiple tests on different cars, they passed it finally and asked me what the hell I did to the car to get the emissions so low. I didn’t do anything, just changed the oil and simple stuff like that.

Its getting time to invest in another tune up, which I do myself since I am an engineer and its pretty simple technology. I am also going to have to put another set of struts on it and redo the air conditioning system. This is going to run me about 500 or so in parts with the tune up and all the components. I am also looking at needing to finally get the transmission rebuilt sooner or later, as the downshift solenoid is starting to crap out and I have to downshift every once in a while manually to get it to return to first. Maybe three times a week. I’m not much for working on automatic transmissions, so that gets farmed out. Probably going to cost a grand.

So I’m looking at $1,500 bucks or so. Not too bad, because I figure that I couldn’t get a $1,500 dollar car and not expect to have to throw money at it right away.

But whats best for the environment? My guess is that its better to maintain the car and keep it going because there is a lot of carbon spent melting down metal to make a new car and all the parts, and all the transportation for all the parts and the car itself to get to the dealer, and then all the carbon spent manufacturing the damn thing. Its not really a money concern, as I could go get a new car and finance it if I had to.

But I don’t know that for sure. If I went out and bought a Prius or something like that, it would take more years and more miles than I drive to break even on the carbon outlay for the new car.

Does anyone have a better idea on whats better for the planet in the long run?

If it matters, the car gets 32 on the highway, like 24 in town. I drive about 15 miles to 20 miles a day.

Thanks for the replies. It will help settle a friendly bet with a coworker who feels that my estimation for the carbon cost of a new car is wrong.

2

Agree with your assessment.
Average 2007 car contains 2700lb (1223kg) of steel, 327lb (148kg) of aluminum and 1117lb (507kg) of Plastic.
Cite :https://www.etf.com/sections/features-and-news/1289-cars-and-metal-metal-and-cars?nopaging=1

Agreed that some of the above can be recycled but most of it won’t get recycled. The plastics will remain for many years to come and the heavy metals may contaminate ground water.

So overall you are better off keeping your old car.

3

How strongly do you feel about using fossil fuel at all?

For myself, I have sworn off gas cars completely, to the point of driving even low-range electric cars on long road trips. I very much realize this is not for everyone. But in case you are interested:

From you OP, I estimate you use 240 gallons of gasoline per year, if you literally meant driving every day (or on average). That’s 5 barrels full of gasoline.

Imagine having those 5 barrels standing in you living room.

You could cut that in half by driving a Prius. A good used Prius seems to be available for maybe $8000.

Or you could cut it to zero by driving an electric car. I offer for your consideration an used BMW i3. These are ridiculously expensive when new but a Google search seems to show them available for about $15000 used. It will easily cover 20 miles of driving range. I single out this model because it is known for “environmentally friendly” production and from my own anecdotal experience wears very well (including the battery). Even a used one should easily last another decade and beyond with very little maintenance.

YMMV!

4

I’d agree with your assessment, esp. when considering a Prius or other battery-laden vehicle. I’ve been reading recently about the cost (monetary, social and environmental) of these lithium-ion batteries. Mining Li requires copious amounts of water, and much of the currently mined lithium comes from the high deserts of South America (Bolivia/Chile). The use of water is not the only environmental impact. My post doesn’t cover the disposal *costs *of these things, either.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/02/lithium-is-fueling-technology-today-at-what-cost/

Additionally, there is concern over cobalt (used in the cathode of Li-ion batts) mining in the Congo. There are no environmental or child-labor laws there; the social impact could be considered as significant.

https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/understanding-role-cobalt-batteries/63068579258429

Additionally, gasoline (Gasoline 46.4 MJ/L) has many times the energy content of a Li-ion cell (Lithium-ion battery 0.36–0.875 MJ/L). However, one could argue that an ICE converts much of that energy to waste/heat as well as powering the vehicle. I can’t find a link to where I first read this density info, so this comes from WikiP.

My research has only been going on for about a week. I’m both intrigued and saddened by what I’m learning.

5

This article says the carbon footprint of manufacturing a car varies from about 6 tons for a sub-compact to 35 tons for a large SUV.

A gallon of gas produces 8.65 kg of CO2. Assuming 26 mpg average and 20 miles per day, the OP’s car is producing about 2.4 tons of CO2 per year. So if the OP upgrades to a new car that gets 36 mpg average, that would be a saving of about 1 ton of CO2 a year. If that took 10 tons CO2 to manufacture, it would take 10 years to break even.

Frankenstein Monster is right though, that at 15-20 miles typical daily driving distance, an electric or plug-in hybrid car may be a good fit for the OP. And I can attest that a good quality Chevy Volt can be had for less than $10,000 and will never use gasoline except on long road trips. Of course, depending on where you live, your electricity may come from burning coal, but even then, you will reduce your per-mile carbon footprint.

6

Not sure if this is the correct thread for a long discussion of environmental pros and cons, but one quick note, I think relevant:

The materials used in an electric car, including by far most of the battery, don’t wear out. After it is “worn out”, all those elements are still there.

It goes without saying that they should be recycled. Insofar as not done today, that should be fixed.

In contrast, the fossil fuels are used up and they are gone. You need to make more and more continuously.

7

I second scr4’s tip of a used Chevy Volt, if you have a way of charging it. I’ll do the daily 20 miles on electricity alone, yet it will work beyond that as a normal car for anyone. Don’t have to be a hardcore electric car enthusiast.

8

This is true, but this needs to be weighed against the huge environmental & social cost of oil production (including damage done by fracking), transport and refining.

Because that’s the cheapest source of cobalt now. But there are others.

This is irrelevant to the discussion of environmental impact. Energy density affects how big the energy storage device in your car is. That’s it.

9

If you have a garage or other way of charging and plug-in electric vehicle, I can recommend a Nissan Leaf, 2013 model or later. (The pre-2013 models had issues with the batteries.) Your 15-20 miles a day is well within the Leaf’s nominal range of 70-100 miles per charge. We had a 2013 for several years, it was my wife’s daily driver, and she loved it. She was very sad when we moved and her longer daily commute made a Leaf impractical.

10

According to this report (PDF link, table at the end), a normal car causes 6 metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions to manufacture, while a normal electric car causes 9 tons.

The latter equals four year’s worth of driving your current car.

Driving the electric car would cause at worst half the amount of emission of your current car, assuming moderately dirty electricity at 500gCO2eq/kWh, or potentially much better depending on what your source of electricity is. All the way down to practically zero if you can use hydro, wind, nuclear and/or solar panels (your own or not).

Driving an electric car for 20 miles takes only 5-6 kWh of electricity. It only takes a tiny solar installation to make that.

11

But we’re not trying to equate the 6 metric tons of a different new ICE car to the 9 of a new electric car, we’re trying to equate the 0 tons of an existing car (that was sunk ages ago) to the 9 metric tons of a new electric car.

I don’t see a lot of reason to rebuild the transmission on such an old car, in this case. the shift lever provides your known workaround. Limp it along until the mechanical parts of the engine wear beyond anything but a rebuild to make it burn efficiently, and then recycle the whole shebang.

12

You, as an individual, have no impact on the environment at all in your decision to purchase new or keep what you have. Manufacturers sell every car they make, and they’re all put into service. No one at the factory is going to say, “Hey, Translucent Daydream” bought one, so we better keep the factory open 55 seconds longer!"

If you buy new and scrap your Olds, then at least it won’t remain in service.

If you want to make an impact, you have to gather thousands of people and convince them collectively to stop buying new cars, or start a financial crisis and get millions to collectively stop buying new cars.

So, really, just do what makes you happiest without worrying about environmental impact.

13

We can’t assume zero emissions for the electricity unless the OP lives somewhere with all nuke/renewable generation. But of course in that case you have to consider the upstream emissions from the fuel, not just the combustion emissions.

14

Remember that he will be selling his current vehicle. If it isn’t scrapped (which likely depends on the transmission), odds are good that it will replace someone else’s even worse beater. So the OP will reduce his daily emissions, and so will whoever picks up his current vehicle.

15

Some of us find that reducing our environmental impact makes us happy.

16

(Bolding mine)
This is entirely incorrect. Even with the composition as given above (and I question the “plastic” content given there), at least 2/3 will be recycled. Likely more than that. So in fact most will be recycled.

It’s been a while since I was in that industry, but even a decade ago, the typical path for an obsolete car was: First it goes to a parts yard. Certain parts will get pulled to use in other, similar cars. High value recyclables get pulled manually. (Catalytic converters, aluminum rims etc). The hulk, stripped to whatever extent, is flattened and shipped to a shredder. There it is smashed into fist-sized pieces. These are then separated - by magnet, by hand, by fluids, by eddy-current technology. Anything metallic is recovered for recycling. There is some use for the waste, but much of it indeed gets landfilled. I seem to recall waste percentages in the high teens, but could be wrong. I have to believe recovery and use percentages have if anything improved since then.

17

I agree with the point about an individual’s actions having no major effect. But the market force of people collectively purchasing electric vehicles also puts pressure on energy infrastructure changes. i.e. the more electric car owners, the more need of electric charging, the greater the political pressure to have green energy production.

18

While I agree, I wasn’t comparing ICE and electric. There’s a lot of pollution and waste as a result of building a vehicle, whether or not it’s a Tesla or an F-350 diesel. One might think that moving from and old Olds to a Tesla is a no-brainer as a means to improve his impact on the environment. Given the impact on the environment caused by simply building that Model 3, though, it might be argued that it’s better to keep the Olds.

My point is, it doesn’t matter. Someone’s going to buy that Model 3, and choosing not to buy it won’t have any impact at all on the environment.

19

There’s a contradiction here. The person is obviously one of those 1000s who’ve been convinced by others to be a better consumer environment-wise. Telling them to do what makes them happiest is undoing the convincing. That’s not something you want to do. There’s also the fact that the first step to convincing others should be to set an example to others.

20

Whereabouts do you live? A story currently doing the rounds is that electric cars have a severely reduced range in low temperatures.