Because ‘you never know’ what kind of expertise might be found in the forum, I thought I’d ask a question about the ‘carbon footprint’ of electric vehicles. While the vehicle itself may not emit carbon-oxygen gases as it travels down the road, how much of a bottom-line ‘carbon footprint’ was made in creating the electricity to power the vehicle compared to a high-efficiency hydrocarbon powered vehicle?

Some electricity is generated without much of a ‘carbon footprint’, but a fair portion is … what’s the ratio? (Related topic - consider nuclear waste in addition to ‘carbon footprint’)

For electricity generation, we start with either water flow (kinetic energy) or heat. If we start with heat, we then convert to kinetic energy before continuing. If my thinking is correct this process follows: kinetic to electric (some loss), electric transmission, distribution, and transformation to what the batteries will receive (some losses), electric to chemical in the batteries charging (some loss), chemical to electric as the batteries are used (some loss), and finally electric to kinetic (some loss) as the vehicle is put in motion. If the vehicle has regenerative braking, we may get some energy back in stop-and-go traffic, but for long-distance driving the recovery may be negligible.

By the time all is said and done, if I move a vehicle down the road for a thousand miles with an on-board gasoline or diesel engine of relatively good efficiency versus moving the same vehicle the same distance with all-electric power (partially generated by processes that produce a ‘carbon footprint’ and have several stages of conversion losses), how much do I gain or lose relative to ‘carbon footprint’?