I often hear people saying “But where does the electricity for the EV come from? Driving an EV is not better than driving a diesel.”
They have to realize that the thiny ICE in your car is optimised for weight, and has an efficiency of 30-35%. So about ⅔ of the fossil fuel is turned into heat and blown out of the exhaust. Compare that to the turbine in a coal or gas plant, which can archive up to 90% efficiency.
And don’t forget that an EV is an investment, which will likely still be on the road in 20 years time. The electricity mix at the moment is still rather fossil fuel heavy, but this will change completely within the next 10 years.
Edit: not 90% but 40% efficiency. See comments below
Compare that to the turbine in a coal or gas plant, which can archive up to 90% efficiency.
Nope, you might have seen 90+% efficiency when talking about steam power plants, but that’s the efficiency of the generator(converting the mechanical energy of the the rotating turbogenerator to electricity). You have to multiply with the efficiency of the turbine(converting the energy of the heated gases into the mechanical energy) and there the efficiency is much lower, ~40% for a coal fired and maybe <60% for a gas combined cycle.
Yeah. Power plants are nowhere near 90% efficient.
It’s worth emphasizing, though, that they’re still way, way more efficient than car engines are.
Also, regenerative breaking saves a lot of energy. Basically, instead of using the motor to increase the cars speed, you use it as a generator to recharge the battery.
Huh, that makes a lot of sense actually. Thanks for correcting!
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Not to mention that a grid doesn’t have to be a coal or gas plant. Lots of houses have solar charging now, for example.
Last time I looked (a few years ago), a 100% coal powered EV had similar emissions to a 60mpg car.
I doubt anywhere will still be coal powered in a decade, with how fast plants are closing. But that EV will still be there on its 3rd owner.
Different countries and states obviously have different electricity source mixes.
Here in the UK, coal accounts for around 1% of electricity. Natural gas is about 35%, biomass about 5%, and the rest is various clean renewables (wind, solar, hydro) or nuclear.
So although charging an EV is by no means fossil-fuel-free, it’s considerably less fossil-fuel than an ICE car.
So although charging an EV is by no means fossil-fuel-free, it’s considerably less fossil-fuel than an ICE car.
That was my point. Even in the worst case it’s comparable to 60mpg… No ICE gets 60mpg. And in a decade it’ll be even better.
We need a professional copy editor on this comment.
Why?
The Thiny ICE? Also, your archiving is 90% efficient?
Give me a small 4dr sedan with crank windows, manual mirrors, pleather seats, tape player, shitty heat/ac, room for just 4 ppl (barely) and electric for $12-15k. They will fly off the shelves.
Instead let’s build 7 passenger SUVs with a massive ass IPad, that drives itself into other cars, and fetch key fobs.
Give me a small 4dr sedan with crank windows, manual mirrors, pleather seats, tape player, shitty heat/ac, room for just 4 ppl (barely) and electric for $12-15k. They will fly off the shelves.
I don’t think they will though. At least in the US. I currently drive the gas version of this vehicle, a 5 speed Ford Fiesta, and the majority of other drivers on the road seem offended that I’m there with them. I set my cruise control ~7mph over the speed limit everywhere I go (almost all highway driving) and I’ll have people speed up when I switch lanes to go around them because they had been driving slower than me for miles previously. I’m used to seeing nothing but bro-dozer oversized grills out of my rear hatch window. Police could just use me as a mobile speed trap for all the people who feel the need to zoom around me despite always going just below the ‘probably won’t get pulled over’ speed. When I’m turning left at a light and I need to end up in the right-most lane I have to switch quickly to keep the person behind me from flooring it and trying to go around me in the slow lane.
Meanwhile I have low cost to replace tires, low insurance rates and get 40mpg regardless of how or where I drive it.
I definitely understand. In North Carolina we have Carolina lifted trucks. It’s were the back of the truck is lower than the front. Illegal? Yes. Enforced? No. A real child plowing machine (never thought I would have to write that statement before).
There is a sect of the population that needs to grow the fuck up and stop worrying about their dick size or how tall they are. We need to have a more realistic view when buying things. Do I need a $100k truck with mud tires and a 12" lift just to pick up the kids from daycare and get groceries? No
It’s amazing how much a difference there was in road manners when I was driving a mustang vs. a rav4. It was quite literally stress free, suddenly there were no jackasses on the road.
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Oh, same. We have multiple vehicles and I only experience this when driving the Fiesta. It’s almost like people are mad that you have chosen a vehicle based on logic and reasoning over id.
Also, in my town at least, this phenomenon seems to have gotten perceptibly worse over the past 6-8 years. People are just angrier all the time in general I think.
I am the guy that passed you doing 75 on our beltway that’s 55 (singing I just can’t drive… 55!) 😉
I mentioned this because lately, I’ve almost been mowed over a few times, and I usually drive right, until I can’t. I don’t change lanes rapidly or in multiples, no texting, but I’ve been passed by people changing multiple lanes and shoulders, always on phones, etc.
People are angrier
Dude, I don’t disagree. Maybe they feel too busy, hate RTO, don’t know.
It’s very aggressive lately.
I compare my daily commute to the chariot races in Ben Hur. It absolutely wasn’t this way pre COVID.
I dunno, I feel like it’s mostly just people being people. We have a truck and a sporty little hatchback and people are just as apt to drive like assholes around both cars, despite my husband and I both also being the “drive just enough above the speed limit that we probably won’t get a ticket” drivers, and otherwise adhering almost exactly to road laws the way only mildly obsessive neurodivergents can. I think people either just don’t know road laws or don’t care about them and get pissed when other people do and “impede” their oh-so-important trip.
I understand all those requirements except the tape player. I don’t why anyone would need that? In fact they’d probably just add additional cost as I imagine getting brand new tape decks would be hard to source now.
1: Dont get between a man and his mix tapes.
2: Analog tech like that was modular, upgradeable and repairable. It also implies a sense of ownership of the vehicle, instead of the system we have now where people have less control over the things they purchase.
Im very much in this same mindset. Will happily drive my car into the ground over the next decade or so and only then start looking. Hopefully there is an electric or hybrid that meets what I would consider low standards, minimal internal displays, an outdated media console and none of that smart-device shit. And before the “you will own nothing and be happy” crowd chimes in, there are some of us who like to own our tools, and thats what a car is, a tool.
That’s due to battery prices. You can’t pay $25,000 for a battery, put it in a shitbox and sell it for $30,000 because nobody’s going to buy a $30,000 car with the features and quality of a $5,000 car. Batteries can only be maybe a third of the cost of a car, so everyone’s been targeting the top of the market with expensive EVs.
The good news is, battery prices are continuing to plummet each year. When you have $2,000 batteries, $12,000 cars are doable.
Bullshit. You can easily get a battery for less than $25,000. The Tesla model 3 is a 50KWh pack and is $14000 to replace and likely costs way less to make.
If you were really skilled you could buy 50KWh worth of cells for less than $10000.
The reason the batteries are more is because you have SUVs and Trucks that need twice the amount of cells for about the same range because they’re not aerodynamic
The math still stands even with those numbers
Dacia Spring
Sign me up for that. As long as it passes US safety standards, then I want on.
You could probably buy an old junker with no engine, an EV crate engine kit, and pay someone to install it, and still come out under the cost of a new EV, or even recent used one.
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Depends. Quick scan puts it at about $AU20 grand just for electrification, which is already a good ways towards the cost of a new one.
With that kind of money, you could reasonably buy a secondhand EV, like a Leaf ($AU16 grand), and swap out the battery on top ($AU10 grand), and come out around the same kind of price. Might even come out on top, just by virtue of the EV having systems and gauges that were designed around it being an EV that could be reused.
At 26 grand, you’re approaching the 38 grand that a Dolphin costs. And that’ll get you a brand new vehicle, bigger battery, CCS2 and a manufacturer’s warranty.
Yes, but then it wouldn’t be an electric Karmann Ghia, which is the prettiest thing on the planet.
Thanks for that name drop, I now a have my dream car.
The bolt can be found for 10-14k used easily
I recently paid about $40k for a small trunk. I would’ve paid more for an electric small truck but none exists.
I have a chest of drawers that I’d like to sell you.
And I have an armoire
The increase in energy consumption globally is still bigger than the increase of energy production from renewables. When this happens, hopefully soon, we will start seing reductions in fossil fuel, and especially oil, cosumption. The adoption of EVs will increase further as soon as bettery cosy falls further, wich is expected in the next few years due to increased supply of lithium and thecnologiasl breakthroughs in EV energy mangement
Lets cross our fingers
Can’t wait for that!
EVs will become more and more cheap, infrastructure will increase and everybody will benefit from that.
Soon, internal combustion cars will become an old, stupid thing of the past.
How many EVs will it take for fuel prices to start decreasing? Or do prices only react to increased demand 🙃
They’ll lower production to introduce artificial scarcity.
Which is amazing news for the planet, they’re greedy though so they’ll probably try and keep it cheap enough to keep people using and maximize profit.
It’s going to be interesting when a large enough portion of cars on the road are electric that gas stations start to lose enough business to thin out.
They’ll lower production to introduce artificial scarcity.
Just like they have done many times in the past.
Oil is not produced at maximum rate since the 70ies - which is good. (OPEC) We technically could produce much more and cheaper - but not for long.
Yeah for the record I think it’s a good thing, but wanted to point out how the supply/demand system so often finds ways to keep screwing the consumer when demand reduces.
Doesn’t less demand mean cheaper gas? That sure hasn’t happened here.
Maybe it didn’t go up as fast because of it
Less supply does the opposite
Haha less demand means “refinery upgrades”.
If you’re in America, wait until closer to the election
It’s a Democrat in, they’ll want to wait until after the election so they can try get the anti climate party in instead
Edit - do people not get that I’m saying oil companies favor the gop or do you all disagree?
We’ve contributed to that. We got a PHEV (not a pure electric) that we probably put gas in once a month whereas before it was probably every 2 weeks to 10 days in a normal car.
EVs are awesome.
Got myself a fully electric car, and yeah… Never looking back. I keep it charged for maybe five bucks a month most of the time, with the only exceptions being when I’m taking it on a longer trip. It gets 250 miles per charge on average, which is plenty as far as I’m concerned. Charging on the go is more expensive of course, but still a lot cheaper than filling a gas tank.
I’ve had mine for 4 years. A few months back I started traveling with it. I average about 230-250 miles per charge for around 15-18$. That’s a charge every 3.5 hours or so. Sometimes, you can find hotels that let you charge for free overnight, too.
That’s the best. I went to a sporting event last year and parked a couple blocks from the arena. The cost to charge and park was less than parking at the closest parking garage.
For many people they actually represent a better experience. If you mostly use the car below the range of the battery in your local area and can charge at home then you mostly eliminate the need to travel to fill up stations. Its kind of nice to not have to put petrol into the vehicle every week and have to deal with it being near empty and being forced to refill. It just gets charged cheaply overnight on greener power.
The modern EVs get a lot of range in a 15-30 minute charge too. The reality is a 250 mile EV requires one stop to drive for 8-10 hours. Most people aren’t going to do that without a break in the middle. Even if you were going to go non-stop compared to an ICE its only another 30 minutes of journey time extra and it will cost you less to do it. So long as there are enough charge points, and these days their typically are in a lot of countries, then its not really a massive problem.
In many ways they are more convenient on most peoples average usage and the range anxiety goes away when you realise what we are really talking about in terms of long journeys and how long charging in practice will add.
Dude you’ve got the numbers completely wrong. I drive a “modern ev with a 250mile range” and in reality I will stop after 2-3 hours when doing long trips in the winter.
Manufacturer stated EV range is a joke. 5-6 hours of driving at best with one stop, not 8-10 lol.
Yes, those official (bullshit) ranges are not for highway speeds nor winter weather.
I live in Germany, but drive 1000+ kms to my hometown in Eastern Europe around Christmas (and often Easter and summer), going 160-180 kmph where allowed. I would have to stop to charge around every 2 hrs, spend time waiting for (fast) charging, and have a tortured battery after a few trips. As we have a dog, flying is not possible, so we do have to drive.
So even if an EV fits 90% of my driving days, due to this 10% I need an ICE car. I’m not happy about it, as I like driving EVs, and could charge at my work for free. I could of course also get 2 cars, one small EV for city driving during the year, and an ICE for the long trips, but that’s just too much money.
I also checked PHEV, but that version of my car would have a 20 liter smaller tank, 100+ liter smaller trunk, and more weight - so not really an option for the long trips.
One interesting option for EVs is are the battery swap stations for NIO, now all over Germany - you lease your battery, and can swap it instead of charging at stations, takes 5 minutes.
Could you not just rent a car for those 2-3 times a year you need an ICE? Seems like it’d still be cheaper. Especially with free charging at work.
I’ve got a dog and those charging stops every two hours are exactly the right distance to walk him a few meters. If I have to stop anyway the car might as well charge.
What if you just got like 6 large dogs, and instead of keeping them in the car, you kept them on the outside attached to the car. If the dogs need to walk, why not just walk the car? Then you don’t need electricity or gas.
You sound like someone which understands the problem. Also I would argue driving is still significantly less emitting than the commercial jet so please remember that when you do the trip next time. ICE car is the correct mode of transport for 1000km trip with a dog, the good boy is probably happier too
The overall number of ICE cars has still only increased and global CO2 emissions are higher than they have ever been. Electric cars literally mean fuck-all.
Well fuck, since you put it that way, we should just give the fuck up! My next vehicle is going to be a massive SUV, with 10 mpg!
Right? So many people don’t understand the phrase “perfect is the enemy of good”.
“Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.”
But in this case, EV’s are neither perfect nor good. They’re “better” but they’re still unsustainable.
More effecient transportation is the solution. Ideally walking or cycling with transit for longer trips. Unfortnately we will probably never live in a society without private vehicle ownership but we should be able to build one where private ownership is optional.
That requires walkable cities
Hard agree. Kick 90% of the cars out and make places people actually want to live in instead
Society without private vehicle ownership is a pipe dream and in my opinion not even worth striving for. The way to solve issues like this is not to go from one extreme to another. There’s a ton of people who reluctantly own cars because it’s the only feasible way of getting around because the alternatives are too inconvenient or dangerous. Make it easier for these people to live without a car and they gladly will. This includes a huge portion of people living in cities which is where most people live anyway. If you try to solve the issue by blanket banning private car ownership you just now made life much harder for a ton of people. The issue is not owning cars. It’s building our infrastructure in a way that you have to own one. If one lives on the country side far away from everything then it makes much more sense to let them get around by car instead of building a public transport infrastructure there that will only have a few people using it.
Then give up. You’re a waste of oxygen and a shitty source of CO2 if you can’t understand the benefit of transportation electrification.
Edit: based upon your post history you are anti Trump. This post that you made is pro Trump. Fucking edit it brah.
China out-emits the whole West combined. Where the West decreased emissions, China increased.
You are right, it’s simple numbers, scientific fact, pity so much downvotes, people should check recent data rather than get stuck with old concepts from 1990s (when climate politics began).
Considering a lot of goods the west buys are made or travel via China, that makes sense. We didn’t drop our emissions, we just shifted it to China.
Now go look at the stats of emission per capita and get back to me.
China doesn’t have the same GDP per capita. A lot of people in China still live the farm life in rural areas.
Emissions per capita of China have been higher than the european average for about a decade now.
Whole west != Europe.
Nice try though
lopq’s original comment is correct for ‘whole west’ too. the second part is also true per capita. By the way europe also has a lot more people than united states, it’s not irrelevant.
Firstly, US is not the only country with higher emissions per capita outside of europe. If you wanted to say a truthy but mostly irrelevant statement in this context you succeeded, but remember Canada Australia and New Zealand are also western. Note the grey area of South Korea & Japan.
Secondly I’m assuming you googled “population of Europe” and then falsely counted Russia and Turkey as western. Also there are grey areas of Belarus, Greece, Ukraine and other “European” counties without strong historic western culture.
With that in mind population difference is closer than you think, assuming you wanted to focus on that. Although that’s not the point, getting sidetracked is all too common on this site.
I really cba to do the math on emissions, because I know neither of us has done accurately. If I was getting paid, maybe I would spend a few weeks on it, research properly heavily considering Chinese emissions which are spent making and shipping goods for the west. Paying off our emissions to other counties is a cop out and we all know it.
Im sorry, but Greece doesn’t have a strong history of western culture? I agree with the rest of your post but that is a mad claim to make. There’s a strong argument that “European” culture is essentially a hangover from the Roman empire, which itself essentially copied Greek culture wholesale.
As it happens I’ve been calculating per capita emissions for 28 years, since COP2. You can see my model here.
No I certainly don’t include Russia nor Turkey, although europe is more than EU. Korea is indeed notable. Regarding what they call ‘consumption emissions’, you can get such data from Global Carbon Project, on that I’m less an expert but my hunch is that industry emissions are dominated by heavy products like steel and cement for construction (made with help of gigatons of coal), rather than light consumer goods for export. Over-construction is the root of the problem, global emissions will peak (maybe now) as that bubble bursts.
China is making a lot of moves towards efficiency, their train network for example is outstanding and they’ve invested huge sums in renewables. Plus it’s silly comparing effects of different sized populations,
The average Chinese person uses far less energy than the average American, about 10.1 tons of carbon pollution annually compared to 17.6 tons in the U.S., according to analyses from the Rhodium Group.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/climate/us-china-climate-issues.html
Yes they invested enormously in high-speed train lines. But look on satellite image around those train stations, new city blocks have massive roads everywhere, 5 lanes in each direction, plus in parallel another set of toll roads. Even if those roads were empty , the cement and steel for all that has contributed enormous quantity of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Chinese emissions per capita are higher than european average for many years now, however they always pick the worst country in the world for comparison statistics.
