“The electric car was born today in Europe,” said Spanish Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian in early February during an informal ministerial meeting with his European counterparts. He also gloated of regional support and anticipated endorsement of the Spanish plan in a March 1 meeting.

Those plans quickly fizzled. Not only was the decision postponed at least until May, but skeptics questioned the wisdom of banking too much on the electric car.

The argument, which united the oil industry and environmental groups on the same side of the debate, is simple: electric cars will not be more climate-friendly than fossil fuel ones for well over a decade, but their mass distribution will surely be costly and could make Europe more dependent on foreign energy sources.

Few doubt battery-powered motors will play a role in remodeling the future transport sector, especially in OECD countries. But a growing number of critics are demanding that policymakers rethink their support and bank instead on technologies that will be better able to lower carbon dioxide emissions.

By 2020, Europe has committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% when compared to 1990 levels. The only sector that continues to increase emissions is the transport sector, making it a priority for the 27-member block, and for Spain particularly, which has pushed an agreement on electric cars to the top of its priority list. But environmentalists and the oil industry, along with several EU governments led by the UK, are demanding that a bigger role be given to hydrogen and future generation biofuel technologies that don’t use food sources because of the inherent risks of electric cars.

Those issues are prominent in two recently published studies comparing the well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions of electric and internal combustion cars using different energy sources. Both studies analyze total emissions starting with upstream extraction of natural gas, coal or petroleum, through power generation, to energy lost during transfers, all the way to car batteries.

The first report, prepared by CE Delft, a consultancy, was commissioned by environmental groups Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth Europe, and Transport and Environment. The second was prepared by Ea Energy Analyses, also a consultancy, and commissioned by the Danish Petroleum Association.

The results vary on the assumptions each study uses. The more optimistic environmental study assumes an ideal energy mix in the future with lots of renewable sources and clean coal, as well as significant technological improvements, successful implementation of carbon trade schemes, and rational consumers that would not trigger peak surges in demand.

The report from Ea Energy Analyses assumes heavy reliance on natural gas and coal, along with discreet breakthroughs in car batteries, and a less-flexible power supply that would require lots more installed capacity. Neither highlights the potential of electric cars utilizing nuclear power.

Regardless, both reach the same conclusion: the ability of electric cars to reduce greenhouse emissions depends entirely on the energy source used to charge them, and their ability to significantly lower emissions is at least a decade away. In contrast, mass distribution of electric cars in Europe could lead to massive infrastructure investments, accompanied by increase demand of other fossil fuels, namely of the Russian natural gas that Europe already heavily depends on.

In the Greenpeace study, electric cars using an average energy mix would be less than half that of internal combustion ones. The study doesn’t differentiate between diesel and gasoline, nor is it clear how the average mix is determined. “Electric and plug-in vehicles are more energy efficient, less polluting and enable the use of many forms of different primary energy sources, including renewables. However, some of the claims are rather unrealistic under current conditions in the transport and electricity market,” the environmental report concedes.

In the other study, it turns out hybrid cars are just as green as fully electric cars, and diesel motors only emit 8 percent more carbon dioxide than fully electric, while gasoline ones emit almost 33 percent more. That trend will not change for the next 15 years.

Well-to-Wheels Carbon Dioxide Emissions For Various Vehicle Fuels

Source: Ea Energy

The debate thus is about timing. Countries that use smaller amounts of renewable energy, like the UK and the Czech Republic, do not want to further deepen these problems by endorsing mass distribution of electric cars. In contrast, countries like Germany and Spain, with a big renewable energy share, and France, with most of its electricity generated through nuclear power, are all in favor.

Now the EU Commission has to come up with a strategy by the next ministerial meeting in May, which will then have to be supported by EU leaders, and then overcome the EU Parliament’s objections. Countries want to wash-down the Spanish proposal to support a greener transport sector, including electric cars, thus leaving open future EU support to other technologies, which include motor efficiency from fossil fuels.

Whatever happens, the electric car is facing reality in Europe and promoters of the vehicles will have to convince policymakers that their cars can significantly reduce emissions, without increasing dependence on foreign energy sources.