That means fewer greenhouse gas emissions, right? Well, yes and no. Again, it depends.

What kind of emissions are we talking about?

Sorry, but we’ve got to do a little basic math. Hang in there.

To find the total emissions of a vehicle, we must consider its entire life cycle, said Ashley Nunes, a researcher at Harvard’s Department of Economics. That means combining the emissions churned out by manufacturing the vehicle, transporting it to consumers, manufacturing the fuel, burning the fuel and scrapping the thing when it’s finished.

Nunes assumes a 180,000-mile life span for a given vehicle and the figures break down like this:

An internal combustion engine generates about 370 grams of carbon dioxide emissions for every mile driven. That’s 66.6 million grams over the course of 180,000 miles, or 66,600 kilograms, which equals 73.4 tons of emissions over the car’s full life.

A hybrid generates 270 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, roughly 53.6 tons in its life.

A plug-in hybrid generates 230 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, about 45.6 tons in its life.

An EV generates 195 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, about 38.7 tons in its life.

Wait, you say, why aren’t the emissions for EVs lower? Well, building the thing creates emissions in the first place but the resources inside its batteries — like lithium— are also fairly energy-intensive to mine, refine and transform into something usable.

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