The “greenest” electric car on the market

What is a green score?
Greenest EVs in South Africa
Mini Cooper SE – 49.3/100
BMW i4 M50 – 44.8/100
BMW iX xDrive50 – 44.4/100
Volvo XC40 P8 Recharge – 41.2/100
Jaguar I-Pace – 40.9/100
Audi e-tron GT quattro – 39.4/100
Porsche Taycan – 39/100
Porsche Taycan 4S – 37.7/100
Porsche Taycan 4 Cross Turismo – 36.7/100
Porsche Taycan 4S Cross Turismo – 36.6/100
Porsche Taycan Turbo – 35.8/100
Porsche Taycan Turbo S – 34.5/100
Porsche Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo – 34.4/100
Audi e-tron 55 – 33.8/100
Audi e-tron S Sportback quattro – 31.5/100

The “greenest” electric vehicle (EV) you can buy in South Africa right now is none other than the cheapest one, the Mini Cooper SE at a starting price of R723,000.

This EV has a “green score” of 49.3 out of 100, indicating that it makes extremely efficient use of its 32.6kWh battery and that its development had a smaller environmental impact than most other vehicles of its kind.

This was revealed in Bloomberg Green’s latest electric car ratings report, which details how the newest EVs on the market affect the environment around them.

What is a green score?

Bloomberg’s green score was developed to find a fair and accurate “proxy for climate costs that could be applied evenly from one car to another,” said the company.

This calculation measures an electric car’s efficiency compared to its battery size. In other words, how well a particular EV uses its resources when considering the environmental impact of producing it.

Driving efficiency counts for 70% of the overall green score whereas battery size is responsible for the remaining 30%.

However, the estimation does not take into account the carbon cost of putting the entire EV together and shipping it to whichever country it needs to go as there are far too many, as well as overlapping variables to do so.

The maximum green score that an EV can then get is 100. The calculation also leaves room for improvement meaning no battery-powered cars that are currently for sale have achieved a perfect score yet.

The highest scorer was the Lucid Air with 71.1/100, but this model is on the far end of the price spectrum in the markets where it’s being sold, and South Africa isn’t one of them.

Theoretically, an EV will also be able to score above 100, but this is only expected to happen further down the line when they are as abundant on the roads as their petrol and diesel cousins.

Greenest EVs in South Africa

Out of the more than 50 EVs listed in the green ratings report, at least 15 are on sale in South Africa.

The data used to determine the green scores of these vehicles were taken from models sold in the United States as of 10 June 2022 – such as the prices and charging speeds – and as a result, not all the EVs in the domestic market are featured on the list.

The relevant battery-powered vehicles that are available in South Africa, along with their green scores as stated in the Bloomberg report, are detailed below.