Audi’s new electric-car factory goes green

YOU’VE HEARD THE story: Exchange your old-fashioned internal combustion engine for an electric one, and change the world. Turns out it’s more complicated than that. While driving an electric car generally saves on emissions, building one is way more energy-intensive than building a regular gasoline-based vehicle. It’s costly, energy-wise, to procure and process lithium for batteries and to create complex, lightweight materials, like carbon fiber, that help EVs extend their range. One analysis from the science advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists found that manufacturing an electric vehicle results in about 15 percent to 68 percent more emissions, depending on the size of the vehicle and its battery capacity.

Solar cells nearly blanket the facility’s multiple structures
 and reduce the plant’s total grid-based electricity consumption
 by 95 per cent.

That same study found that EVs make up for the emissions disparity once they hit the road, but corporate minds—and eco-watchdogs—are eager to close the gap. Which is why Audi is touting advances in its new E-tron electric SUV facility in Brussels, Belgium: the first factory churning out premium, high-volume electric vehicles to be certified as carbon-neutral by the European Commission. The E-tron launched into full-scale production there last September.

Read the story from Wired by Eric Adams - “Audi’s new electric-car factory goes green.”