It’s not good to do this analysis with figures from the entire U.S., which has a wildly variable mix of electricity sources depending on where you are and what time of day it is. This also obscures the difference between unavoidable C02 emissions from burning gasoline with emissions from industrial processes that may not emit carbon in the future.
In general people are not careful readers, and in my opinion, headlines like this tend to feed cynicism and inaction.
What I see here is enormous opportunity in decarbonizing the processes that lead to high lifecycle emissions for this and other vehicles.
I don't think this is true at all, anyone engaged with this work realizes how much effort is going to be involved in electrifying the vehicle fleet. It's only when you acknowledge that a problem is tractable that you can even begin to answer the question, "what do I do next to make this happen?"
There's tons more that we can be doing now to reduce transportation emissions. Investments in transit and bikes. Locating housing closer to jobs. Blocking highway widening efforts. All other efforts to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Ignoring all those on the belief that it is "tractable" to eventually reach net-zero without them, is exactly the complacency I was talking about! In other areas, reducing energy consumption is identified as a necessary and impactful way to reduce emissions in the short term, and make fully converting the grid to renewable easier in the long term. Why not here?
In general people are not careful readers, and in my opinion, headlines like this tend to feed cynicism and inaction.
What I see here is enormous opportunity in decarbonizing the processes that lead to high lifecycle emissions for this and other vehicles.