Electric cars: how clean depends on the country
An EV's carbon emissions per kilometre depend almost entirely on how its electricity is generated. The same Tesla in France emits ~6× less than the same Tesla in Poland. Here's how every grid stacks up.
How it works
We use a typical EV consumption of 0.18 kWh/km (about right for a Tesla Model 3 / VW ID.3 / Hyundai Kona EV at mixed driving). Multiply by the country's grid carbon intensity and you get the per-km emissions.
For comparison: a typical petrol car emits 0.171 kg CO2e/km tank-to-wheel. So an EV beats petrol any time the grid is below ~950 g CO2/kWh — which is virtually every grid in our data.
EV emissions by country grid
| Country | Grid intensity | EV kg CO2/km | vs petrol |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇳🇴Norway | 30 g/kWh | 0.005 | 3% as much |
| 🇨🇭Switzerland | 44 g/kWh | 0.008 | 5% as much |
| 🇸🇪Sweden | 45 g/kWh | 0.008 | 5% as much |
| 🇫🇷France | 56 g/kWh | 0.010 | 6% as much |
| 🇧🇷Brazil | 105 g/kWh | 0.019 | 11% as much |
| 🇪🇸Spain | 230 g/kWh | 0.041 | 24% as much |
| 🇬🇧United Kingdom | 235 g/kWh | 0.042 | 25% as much |
| 🇮🇹Italy | 257 g/kWh | 0.046 | 27% as much |
| 🇺🇸United States | 369 g/kWh | 0.066 | 39% as much |
| 🇩🇪Germany | 385 g/kWh | 0.069 | 41% as much |
| 🇯🇵Japan | 480 g/kWh | 0.086 | 51% as much |
| 🇦🇺Australia | 510 g/kWh | 0.092 | 54% as much |
| 🇨🇳China | 581 g/kWh | 0.105 | 61% as much |
| 🇮🇳India | 632 g/kWh | 0.114 | 67% as much |
| 🇵🇱Poland | 660 g/kWh | 0.119 | 69% as much |
| 🇿🇦South Africa | 825 g/kWh | 0.148 | 87% as much |
Annual carbon savings
For 12,000 km of driving per year (typical European), switching from a petrol car to an EV saves about 1.987 tCO2e in 🇳🇴 Norway, but only about 0.27 tCO2e in 🇿🇦 South Africa. Same vehicle, same driving pattern, very different climate outcome.
Caveats
- Battery production adds a one-off ~5–10 tCO2 (size-dependent). Most EVs break even against an equivalent ICE within 2 years on a clean grid, 4 years on a dirty grid.
- Marginal vs average grid: charging at night may pull from the cleanest dispatchable capacity in a renewable-heavy grid, or the dirtiest (coal) in a fossil-heavy grid. We use average-grid intensity.
- Home solarcharges an EV with effectively zero marginal emissions. If you have it, the table doesn't describe your situation — you're close to zero.
Sources
- IEA Electricity Information — country grid carbon intensity.
- UK DEFRA conversion factors — ICE per-km factor and EV consumption assumption.