I like taking the Metro here in LA to get to Downtown/Hollywood :(
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Electric Cars Are Better For The Environment Than A 50 MPG Gasoline Car: Report
- Thread starter Ryno23
- Start date
By the time we run out of lithium, there will be new battery tech that uses something else
We're expected to not run out of lithium for another 100 years in worst case scenario
I like riding public transportation more than I like driving a car. End of story.
hahaha this is not true at all. I used to drive commute and love that I haven't had to for almost 8 years now. Due to parking, stress, traffic, and having to focus on the act of driving, I vastly prefer public transportation. The only exception is on a pure joyride and even that is barely an exception. Scenic trains equal the same beauty as roadtrips but I can spend more time taking in the scenery. Unless I'm tearing up the autobahn, public trans is better in every way for me.
To provide a different data point in EVs & renting, I rent, have moved buildings, and haven't had a problem since going electric. One place had EV charging spots in the garage you could reserve for $15 more/month than a regular spot. My current one they're community shared but free to charge. I get that it's location dependent that it's such a non-issue for me (I'm in the Seattle area), but when a market hits a critical mass it becomes an amenity you need to offer to not lose potential renters.
If you have an ICE car, drive it till it dies. Get the production costs in terms of impact out of it.
Obviously this depends on the age of the car, but if you can keep your car going till the halfway point of this decade, you'll very much be looking at an EV that is cost competitive with your average new ICE vehicle. This also isn't accounting for the likelihood of government subsidies or government intervention in accelerating EV adoption.
For people who want a deep dive on this topic.
Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change
Electric vehicles (EVs) are an important part of meeting global goals on climate change. They feature prominently in mitigation pathways that limit warming to well-below 2C or 1.5C, which would be inline with the Paris Agreement’s targets.www.carbonbrief.org
My ICE cars will never die.
Though yeah, keeping a car longer can help offset a bit of production impact of new cars.
It would be nice for a better replacement to come along soon. Personally I think that the rate of adoption is dependent on the advancement of battery technology. Electric cars still need to get cheaper, and charging time should hopefully get shorter. At least those are the things I care about.
Charging infrastructure is great where I live so I haven't had any issue charging since i got an EV even without my own private charging point/parking spot, it's worth it if you can make it work.
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All you need, really is a socket on your parking spot. Sure, this will require some changes, but considering electric lines are literally everywhere in our buildings, it's not a major hurdle requiring tons of money. Given a unified standard for EV chargers, and a simple way of accounting what you use back to you, I don't see why a lot of private parking can't be upgraded to include chargers.
I don't expect this to happen in the near future, but with some regulations and incentives I could see this coming to many towns and cities around the world eventually.
Well, glad a study helps push back against the narrative I keep getting of folks telling me EVs aren't actually helping the environment because electricity is powered by coal and upping electricity intake from recharging threatens to cause coal burning to increase enough to cause even more damage. I have personally felt like that couldn't have been that significant of an uptick in coal burning for electricity (even in areas that are very dependent on coal burning energy production) to outweigh standard vehicle emissions.
I want an EV really bad but I'm living that apartment life like people mentioned early on, and my salary can't buy an EV of high enough quality to allow me to visit my widowed mom 200 miles away in a single bound, though I could manage with a recharge stop on, say, a Nissan Leaf?
My brother got a Nissan Leaf but he lives in a completely different state, in a higher-density city with a lot less necessary travel needs, and his housing situation (though a rental) seems to be a bit more progressive with providing tenants with charging station access. Wish I could pull that off myself.
Also, but a lot less important when we're talking fate of mankind, I do kinda wish more EVs looked aesthetically nice. It doesn't make me hate any of them but it almost feels like they're deterring adoption with some really ugly design choices. Tesla is the only mainstream EV automaker that I really enjoy the aesthetics of (yes, even the divisive front facia). But again, this is super minor — I'd rock an ugly little Leaf like my brother if it was reasonably in my lifestyle means. I really hope there's a ton of development on charging stations and it becomes really saturated in my area — looks like it's expanding at a pretty nice pace but it's not enough saturation to make planning a drive relatively thoughtless yet.
I want an EV really bad but I'm living that apartment life like people mentioned early on, and my salary can't buy an EV of high enough quality to allow me to visit my widowed mom 200 miles away in a single bound, though I could manage with a recharge stop on, say, a Nissan Leaf?
My brother got a Nissan Leaf but he lives in a completely different state, in a higher-density city with a lot less necessary travel needs, and his housing situation (though a rental) seems to be a bit more progressive with providing tenants with charging station access. Wish I could pull that off myself.
Also, but a lot less important when we're talking fate of mankind, I do kinda wish more EVs looked aesthetically nice. It doesn't make me hate any of them but it almost feels like they're deterring adoption with some really ugly design choices. Tesla is the only mainstream EV automaker that I really enjoy the aesthetics of (yes, even the divisive front facia). But again, this is super minor — I'd rock an ugly little Leaf like my brother if it was reasonably in my lifestyle means. I really hope there's a ton of development on charging stations and it becomes really saturated in my area — looks like it's expanding at a pretty nice pace but it's not enough saturation to make planning a drive relatively thoughtless yet.
Yeah, this is seriously the first thing any anti-electric vehicle person asks me and these studies never include it. I'm guessing because they're assuming that if a person is considering an EV, they're buying a new car and therefore the manufacturing costs should be negligible between a gas car and an EV.
Except it doesn't tell us the valuable information of whether it is more sustainable to upgrade or stay with your current vehicle. If I have a 24 year old car that gets like 14 mpg, is it better to get a newer, more efficient car with all those manufacturing emissions or stick with the car that is already here? My stupid gut says that additional consumption is going to be worse in the long run because you have the manufacturing emissions from the new car and then you've also still got the old car that will probably still be driven by someone else. But then again, my gut is stupid and doesn't have data.
I recently switched from a petrol car to a hybrid - mainly because, as of right now, there isn't really an affordable, AWD, mid-size family SUV with an all-battery electric powertrain. I expect that situation to change pretty rapidly, though, and I'll be surprised if I ever lease or buy an ICE car again after this one.
I do admit that I'm in a lucky position, though. I have off-road parking where I could install a charging point; I drive a manageable amount of miles each week with incredibly rare (maybe twice a year) longer drives; and I run my own business, so I stand to benefit from the UK's super-low company car tax rates on pure EVs when I do make the jump.
For the time being, though, I'm going to have to be satisfied with going from 38mpg (imperial) to around 50mpg. At the very least I'll be spending less on fuel and polluting marginally less than before.
I do admit that I'm in a lucky position, though. I have off-road parking where I could install a charging point; I drive a manageable amount of miles each week with incredibly rare (maybe twice a year) longer drives; and I run my own business, so I stand to benefit from the UK's super-low company car tax rates on pure EVs when I do make the jump.
For the time being, though, I'm going to have to be satisfied with going from 38mpg (imperial) to around 50mpg. At the very least I'll be spending less on fuel and polluting marginally less than before.
Now fast forward those models to renewable solar type energy sources and watch those numbers and comparisons drop like stones. I get they need to do real world calculations at the moment but it is shortsighting the long term vision and goals of EV and renewables.
Why is everyone assuming in this thread that most EV users charge from 0% to 100% every day?
The cars are not your damn cellphone. You end the day with way more battery than 0%. You don't take 30 minutes per day to charge.
Slow charge during the night solves most users problems.
The cars are not your damn cellphone. You end the day with way more battery than 0%. You don't take 30 minutes per day to charge.
Slow charge during the night solves most users problems.
I really do want an electric car eventually, but in the segments I'm looking, they're expensive, more importantly the charging situation is still iffy.
I live in an apartment (upper floors) so it isn't like I can just charge it at my home, add to that I do a fair amount of long distance driving, thus having to plan around charging, which often times can take well over an hour, is just a big inconvenience, especially vs the petrol equivalent where you can fuel up almost anywhere and in about 5 mins. Ultimately, where I live the infrastructure isn't quite there yet.
I live in an apartment (upper floors) so it isn't like I can just charge it at my home, add to that I do a fair amount of long distance driving, thus having to plan around charging, which often times can take well over an hour, is just a big inconvenience, especially vs the petrol equivalent where you can fuel up almost anywhere and in about 5 mins. Ultimately, where I live the infrastructure isn't quite there yet.
I'm a little surprised BMW moved away from the range extender. That seems a logical progression between plug-in hybrid and full EV. You lose a lot of complexity and engine size for a full ICE, but can support longer ranges with smaller batteries with a generator.
Uhh, isn't a range extender just a plug in hybrid?
(I mean, you can get off into the weeds on whether or not the engine drives the wheels directly, but ultimately you get EV range and then you get gas powered range, what's the difference really)
range extender is a small two stroke motorcycle engine that just charges the battery, and the car reduces performance to drive at the rate of electricity generation. Much simpler - no dual drive, no gearbox etc.
Yep these numbers will improve overtime for electric vehicles. They will never improve for ice cars
From an emissions point of view, though, they're pretty similar - i.e. poison in the long-term in Europe, where manufacturers get fined according to the average CO2 output of their entire range, and where there's likely to be a shelf-life on how long they can claim stupid 100mpg "ideal" figures for cars that combine petrol and electricity in some way. Whether it's a range extender or a plug-in hybrid, it's still only a stop-gap on the way to full battery EVs.
Don't get me wrong: practically speaking I understand the benefits of both plug-in hybrids and range extenders. I'd have opted for one of the former if it had made economic sense, but because we fairly regularly drive beyond the theoretical 30-mile range of most PHEVs - after which they wind up being less efficient than a petrol car because of the added weight of the uncharged battery.
Precisely. All cars have an environmental impact from manufacturing, but regardless where the electricity comes from, EVs don't make use of the never ending cycle of drilling or fracking, refinement, storage, delivery and dispensation that goes into every single drop of gasoline or diesel consumed by an ICE throughout its life. The impact of ICEs is not limited to the individual car's emissions.
Keep an eye out for the future.
ICE vehicles have been produced in Mass quantities for 100 years now which is why they are at the price they are at now. There is really only a couple EVs that can even be considered to be mass produced and it has only been a few years. As volume increases, prices will drop substantially. It's already arguably cheaper to own a comparable EV over the lifespan of the car. Soon it will reach parity with the purchase price of comparable vehicles.
Meh. Still not viable for a massive chunk of the population.
People can be shills and dismiss people when they point out the inconvenience of having to make a special trip to charge for 30-60 minutes for everyone who lives in an apt or condo where chargers aren't available, but people will not settle for that inconvenience. Time is too valuable.
I also think ranges are still a bit too short unless you live in the northeast corridor. People drive between metro's fairly regularly and adding an hour to the commute for a charge stop or two is a not insignificant inconvenience.
That said, I will jump on board when range, price, and infrastructure hit a critical mass. Until them I will continue to drive my hybrid.
People can be shills and dismiss people when they point out the inconvenience of having to make a special trip to charge for 30-60 minutes for everyone who lives in an apt or condo where chargers aren't available, but people will not settle for that inconvenience. Time is too valuable.
I also think ranges are still a bit too short unless you live in the northeast corridor. People drive between metro's fairly regularly and adding an hour to the commute for a charge stop or two is a not insignificant inconvenience.
That said, I will jump on board when range, price, and infrastructure hit a critical mass. Until them I will continue to drive my hybrid.
If your local charging infrastructure is still at a stage where you need to make a 30-60 minute special trip just to charge then you definitely shouldn't be getting an EV, that's insanity.
Consider an EV when you either have your own parking space, nearby (<5 min walk) readily available charging stations, a fast charging station along your daily commute, or charging options at your workplace. If you have none of those then don't get an EV.
I have no private parking and as such no options to reliably charge at home. But I can charge at my workplace, I have a fast charging station <5min from my house, and several normal public charging spots within 500m from my home. I only got an EV after sitting down and taking a moment to seriously consider what my frequent charging patterns would/could be.
Even if electric cars throughout the chain were as polluting as normal combustion cars the single facts of centralizing the smog produced into energy plants instead than the streets we walk on and them being whisper quiet would be enough to warrant a worldwide switch
Not just that, but a bigger push for green energy and thorium/salt reactors would be amazing
Not to mention that electric cars are not fundamentally dependant on fossil fuel, the electricity that drives them might come from non-green sources now but once the source of energy is fully renewable then so is the energy that drives the car.
Already just about sold on a Tesla model 3 performance and likely to purchase one within a year from now. No more dead dino fuel for me
Fun talk guys, great answers to my honest question. Instead of insulting me, maybe provide said data. I drive less than six miles to get to work because I chose a logical place to live. The full product lifecycle emissions are important to my own situation.
You can recover the lithium from used batteries as well.
Hydrogen is made from burning fossil fuels, which is better hmmmm.
You'd be surprised how misinformed a lot of people are. Information like this needs to be hammered home again and again to try and counteract the huge misconceptions a lot of people have about EV's
Review of the new Mini Cooper EV in the local paper, some choice quotes:
:format(webp)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/autos/opinion/2020/01/31/with-the-mini-electric-youll-have-fun-driving-it/_1kenzie_mini_electric_lf_34.jpg)
Opinion | With the MINI Electric, you’ll have fun driving it
Jim Kenzie reviews new MINI electric.
.
People are being intentionally misinformed.
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Yeah exactly this too. The number of deaths and serious illnesses from vehicle emissions is absolutely staggering to the point I can't believe there isn't really any outrage or movement around it. People just accept it
I am not sure really how they work, but if its as simple as plugging it in. As soon as that is more available around me I would happily get one.
The next car in our household will be an EV. That should be around 3 years from now. Are there any expectations of major breakthroughs either Technology or pricing in that time frame. At the very least Tesla should have a much smother manufacturing process by then right?
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They are having a battery day in April were it is speculated that they will finally show their next gen batteries. But if you look at the specs/cost of the Cybertruck is 100% obvious that it is planned to use them... It's the same price as a Model 3 with the same range or better that just simply wouldn't be possible without some type of breakthrough. The new Roadster as well with its 600+ mile range.
Relevant to thread:
2021 CO2 targets would generate €34 billion euros in penalty payments within Europe - JATO
If nothing changes, from 2021, manufacturers selling cars in Europe would have to pay an excess CO2 emissions premium of €33.6 billion.
www.jato.com
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Yea I'm just waiting for something that's similar is size to an Honda Accord in the 25k-30k range. I have a toddler and a baby so I can squeeze out some more time on my Fiesta until then. Tesla Model 3 would work just hard to justify that cost when I can get a newly used hybrid for 20k or so.
In terms of emissions they do.
EVs need more CO2 to make them but they make that up due to 0 emissions produced while driving.
I think it can be within 6 months on a clean grid.
Buying a used EV is best, as the CO2 emissions to build it were already produced.
Btw there are so many electric vehicles in LA now tha the free charging spots are always being hogged by people. I wish they would start charging them a nominal fee so I can use them when I actually need them.
If you are a mall operator, you should be installing them everywhere in your parking garage and lot. People absolutely will change their behavior to charge their cars and spend time in your malls. And most of the time the people who have electric cars are a bit more well to do so they spend money$$$.
If you are a mall operator, you should be installing them everywhere in your parking garage and lot. People absolutely will change their behavior to charge their cars and spend time in your malls. And most of the time the people who have electric cars are a bit more well to do so they spend money$$$.
Burning fossil fuels is not a pre-requisite to obtaining hydrogen. It just requires energy.
Compare that to the growing environmental impact of obtaining lithium. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact
I was really upset that I had to buy a car a few months ago, but my townhouse and parking spot aren't in a position that overnight charging is possible. My wife and I want to sell and move as soon as we can, so this is one thing that's on our list of requirements with our next house so we can transfer to EVs.