Is It Better for the Planet to Keep an Old Gas Car Than Buy an EV?

Campbell, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, didn’t know the answer, so he set out to find it. Turns out the old adage that the greenest car is the one in your driveway is a myth. In fact, his study, published today in the journal Science, finds that swapping even a two-year-old gas car for an EV leads to a lifetime emissions savings of roughly 50 percent.

Not everyone can afford to ditch a nearly new car, of course. It’s simply the most extreme example of the broader point his study revealed: The emissions saved by driving an EV very quickly compensate for the planet-warming gases generated by building it. Campbell said that finding consistently surprises his students, and goes against his own instincts.

I like to repair things and keep them going, he said. But we found there is a big advantage to retiring the gas vehicles early. Campbell designed the study to give internal combustion vehicles every possible advantage.