Currently, $1 (retail price) of gasoline delivers more joules of energy than any of the competition. The rise of fracking has made nat gas a contender, but gasoline is still dominates.
Most comparisons to electric vehicles are actually a comparison of a car that runs on gas vs a car that runs on coal, guess which one wins?
Sources: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electrici...
You can reduce the emissions by adding technology to process the combustion products to clean them up before emitting them, but you are limited by the fact that your cleanup technology has to be small enough and light weight enough to include with the car.
If you burn that same fuel remotely to make electricity, and use that electricity to power the car, now the pollution is being emitted at a fixed location.
We can pick that location to minimize the harm from the pollution that is emitted, and we can use far more effective cleanup technology at a fixed plant than we can on a vehicle.
I'm not entirely sure how accurate my knowledge is though, it's based on a few sort of tangential comments that connected some other data points I know, and not from any one source I can cite.
Also, the impression I got was this ignores things like leaking oil, which isn't measured by my state's emissions test. So I'm not trying to make claims about overall pollution effects between gas and electric.
At least for Europe, this is not true. Electricity source varies by country, but it's in general a mix of 30%-50% nuclear, the rest is thermal or renewable. For thermal power-plants, the large majority are natural gas. Renewable percentage varies wildly between countries, but breaching the 50% barrier on a given year is no longer newsworthy.
> Most comparisons to electric vehicles are actually a comparison of a car that runs on gas vs a car that runs on coal, guess which one wins?
Very true, but it depends on your energy provider to these actual numbers. For instance, if I were to buy an electric today and plug it in; 48% of it would be powered by coal, 12% wind, 1% hydro and solar, 7% nuclear, and 32% natural gas and oil (no idea on how much is NG vs oil). Efficiency in production of renewable resources and social pressure would bring this number down.
Or, if money were no object, an array of solar panels (and that price is dropping every year) could easily power my garage and all the things inside it. No coal, no emissions.
#1 Electricity delivers far more energy per dollar, especially off-peak. Local EV owners are complaining on social media that they're averaging five cents per mile in the below zero temps we've been having. Using offpeak energy and good weather, costs can drop below one cent a mile. At $3/gallon and 25 mpg, that would be 12 cents a mile in a typical gas vehicle.
#2 Coal is dying. Dropping natural gas and solar prices are killing it. Electric autos get cleaner as the grid does.
#3 Even if you got lots of energy per unit of gasoline, simply refining one gallon of gasoline uses enough power an electric car can travel >15 miles on the refining energy alone.
The $1 gasoline is poured into a horrendously complex, noisy, brittle, contrived piece of technological megadebt.
Electricity goes to one motor per wheel it needs to drive. In 1912 and in 2018.
As ugly as a gas engine is it does offer quick refueling, long range, and low cost. It's just more practical, especially with turn of the century technology.
Both 19th/20th and 20th/21st according to the sales numbers
I do fully expect we will have these problems licked before the next turn of the century.
There is typically a trade-off between maintenance and replacement. Piston engines require on-going maintenance, but can last a really long time. Electric motors require almost no maintenance but need to be rebuilt/replaced more often.
Electric motors, power electronics, and simple reduction gears can last 5-10 times longer.
One of the few times I felt "mind blown".
70k of the EV miles I've put on have been with 93.3% non-fossil fuel based sources[1]. If you're in the PNW EVs are a clear win both from fuel sources and the fact that it costs me $6/300mi at $0.07/kWh.
Looks like it went to the wrong thread when HN hiccuped.