Re:Enough with The "Electric Cars Pollute More" Bullshit Alr...
by mpweiher on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @12:57PM
(#19789666)
While the WSJ take may have presented a somewhat one-sided take on the findings, those findings do exist and his presentation is just as one-sided. For example, his comparison to his Tesla is a vehicle with 384 grams of CO2/mile.
Well, that's probably a gasoline powered SUV or truck in the US.
In Germany, you typically have smaller cars, much smaller engines and, well, Diesels, which these days easily manage around 5l / 100km, and that's in the range of 120 g of CO2/100km. So definitely competitive with the Tesla and with those small differences, differences in production become more relevant.
The studies I saw indicated that when driven long distances, Diesels are (still?) somewhat more efficient than EVs. Over short distances, EVs are better, but then you typically aren't driving a lot, so the extra production costs may not be amortised over the life of the vehicle.
The best case for EVs are vehicles that are constantly moving, but only small distances with lots of stop-and-go. So public transit, taxis, etc.
That said, I'd still prefer an EV if possible: quieter, fewer/no emissions at point of use (so less concentration of emissions in the cities), amazing torque, fewer parts, etc. And once we go fully nuclear/fusion it becomes a real no-brainer.
And electric propulsion for airplanes is also really interesting: short power bursts possible without much weight penalty for cruise, cost, reliability, noise (big issue in Germany, the only country in the world where people can see airplane "noise")
Well, that's probably a gasoline powered SUV or truck in the US.
In Germany, you typically have smaller cars, much smaller engines and, well, Diesels, which these days easily manage around 5l / 100km, and that's in the range of 120 g of CO2/100km. So definitely competitive with the Tesla and with those small differences, differences in production become more relevant.
The studies I saw indicated that when driven long distances, Diesels are (still?) somewhat more efficient than EVs. Over short distances, EVs are better, but then you typically aren't driving a lot, so the extra production costs may not be amortised over the life of the vehicle.
The best case for EVs are vehicles that are constantly moving, but only small distances with lots of stop-and-go. So public transit, taxis, etc.
That said, I'd still prefer an EV if possible: quieter, fewer/no emissions at point of use (so less concentration of emissions in the cities), amazing torque, fewer parts, etc. And once we go fully nuclear/fusion it becomes a real no-brainer.
And electric propulsion for airplanes is also really interesting: short power bursts possible without much weight penalty for cruise, cost, reliability, noise (big issue in Germany, the only country in the world where people can see airplane "noise")