Unfortunately that article is confused nonsense.

It suggests that making an ICE car is roughly equal to the running in terms of carbon.

In reality manufacturing is about 10%, disposal 5% and the other 85% from running it e.g. fuel and maintenance.

It then suggests that keeping an old car is better because if you keep the car for twice as long then the emissions are half per mile, but you don't scrap functional cars you sell them onto someone else. This causes a cascade with the oldest and most polluting cars being scrapped.

> In reality manufacturing is about 10%, disposal 5% and the other 85% from running it e.g. fuel and maintenance

I imagine this depends hugely on the kind of vehicle?

Our small [petrol] car cost the equivalent of $10k on the road, including all taxes. It has a tiny engine, four seats, and limited luggage space. It's fairly fuel-efficient (at least when I'm driving).

I've also recently driven a BMW 5 series (booked the cheapest "compact manual" as an airport rental vehicle, got that instead - win!) List price around 10x that of our little car. Nicer ride, of course. Bigger luggage space. Five seats.

Presumably in terms of carbon the BMW's manufacturing costs vastly exceed that of small cars, but is the carbon manufacturing cost linear with either its fuel efficiency or with its price?

You can look up a range of individual cars and compare here:

https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/details?cars=34797;36030;34...

The tool also lets you set various assumptions like miles driven per year to see how they affect things.