this is the key point, if you are going to compare compare apples to apples. I mean you can always keep making EVs bigger and thus more inefficient till you have total cost & environmental toll parity with some smaller car.
Though its unlikely that somebody who was going to buy a regular hummer was going to opt for a malibu & nevermind the price. a good starting point may be comparing cars with Total cost of ownership parity & that too when both cars are past initial production ramp.
my cynical brain says the truth is much simpler, fossil industry they wants a stream of these type of articles so they can keep the illusion of 'just as bad' alive for buyers on the fence. that is until then next fossil friendly administration shows.
Yes that seems to be the takeaway from Transport Evolved on another recent “study” that compared EVs to ICE cars on tire particulate emissions.
(And for what it's worth, I don't think Tesla should get a free pass here. Tesla Model S's generally weigh about 4,000 to 5,000 pounds, which is awfully heavy for a Sedan. They just don't look heavy, so people don't think about it.)
I'm in favor of EVs generally, but I think the would would get along just fine if there wasn't an electric Hummer.
Most of this is a red herring.
But you'd get a huge electric battery for boon-docking it, running AC, etc and you get a large surface for solar panels. You might even be able to have enough solar to be able drive for a day to a new local, and then park for a few days to recharge and then drive again. ;)
I bet they'd sell pretty well and still be better environmentally than the RV's that get 5mpg.
Most existing class As are between 12000 and 30000 lbs. We are taking a 40' RV, so go to the top end of that. The F150 lightning and the Rivian both with around 8500 lbs and do about 50 kwh/100 miles on 135 kwh batteries, so a theoretical RV would likely need (very roughly) 3-4x truck equivalents of weight to maintain similar range characteristics (taking a little jump here, but most of that truck weight is battery and you still need to put an RV on top). The likely power requirements are 150-200 kwh/100 miles and 400-500 kwh of battery.
The means that, at the 6.8- 13.6 KW of solar panels are adding maybe a few miles an hour to range. Not impossible to boondock it and charge over the time, but going from 10% to 85 is going to take you a good chunk of the week under pretty optimal conditions.
Alas it doesn't seem sustainable to self-charge for most. Not many people probably want to take half a week to re-charge for every few hundred miles they go.
Then again maybe for some it'd "add to the journey". It would still seem cool to do it all. If you were in a spot for a month, then you'd get a free "drive" afterwards. And the ability to boondock with effectively unlimited battery storage would be awesome.
Cost is a problem. Batteries are expensive - I saw $132/kwh as a low point, so at least $60k just for batteries, and maybe $3-6k for the solar stuff. That's half the cost of a low end class A already.
Charging even at normal stations will also be interesting. Will you be able to plug in to multiple chargers at once? If not, even most "fast" chargers are going to take hours.
> That's half the cost of a low end class A already.
Yah I'd think an electric RV would have to target the crowd already spending $300k+ RVs. That'd overlap with the plush lifestyle folks above. Eventually a second hand market would emerge. Perhaps it'd ironically appeal to say remote oil rig workers (ok, maybe just the foremen) and such who sometimes have cash to burn.
Though including a smallish but high efficiency NG/LPG generator could supplement the battery range enough to significantly save on cost / weight. It'd also cover for say really bad solar spells, or after driving all day and boondocking, etc.
A 20 kWh NG/LPG generator ($6-10k) running for 8 hours would yield ~160 kWh. That'd extend the range of a 340 kWh (4x Model S's) battery to match that of a 500 kWh battery. It'd also only require about ~30-35 gallons of NG costing about $30-40 for the entire 8 hours of driving.
> Charging even at normal stations will also be interesting. Will you be able to plug in to multiple chargers at once? If not, even most "fast" chargers are going to take hours.
Ooft, good point! Maybe there will be more of those semi-truck capable Tesla super chargers. Still, it's an RV! Plug in for a few hours and eat lunch, take a nap, etc.
(Which tbh I think will happen more as we near 100% green energy - you'll still end up with special cases where the energy density and portability benefits of storing energy as bonds in hydrocarbons still makes sense and justifies paying a higher cost for such synthetic fuel!)
But with how everything is going with solar, batteries, and nuclear, I suspect that the invisible hand of the free market is going to make the default "I want to make 1-7 people go about 70mph for 0-4 hours" vehicle be an EV, rather than doing complicated and expensive chemistry to make renewable hydrocarbons.
So, it is like you said: It is already cleaner, and will get even cleaner as the grid improves.
Thank you for the heads-up! I stand corrected :)
-----
Sources...
Breakeven points: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifeti...
State-by-comparisons between electric, hybrid, and gas: https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
Are there diminishing returns if you are a company working on a million mile battery since virtually no vehicles will make it that far?
I am speaking as someone who has had three cars totaled before 100,000 miles (none of which were my fault!)
The fact it carries over to vehicles is just a bonus.
Besides the salvage value of a battery pack would be huge, so I suspect a battery would be about the last piece of a car to end up on the scrap heap.
The market for batteries pulled from wrecks is hot! For my own personal interest I wish it wasn't so I could batteries for cheap.
Lots of commercial vehicles make it to a million miles. Those are the ones that will want the longest lived batteries.
The main problem is the number of full capacity cycling a battery cell can do can change widely based in how it is used. So it depends on how it is integrated into a car and how the car is being used. A typical Li-Ion cell will last a few hundred cycles if cycled completely at a high rate without proper thermal control. But this number can easily be multiplied by 10 with proper thermal management, not charging it to max voltage and doing shallower cycling. If you want to give a number for a final product, you are bound to make assumptions on how it will be used. And at this point you just have an equivalence between distance driven and cycling count.
Also, age has less impact than cycling count in the context of a properly designed battery pack. The two main factors for battery degradation are time spent at high temperature and high state of charge, and cycling count (with speed and depth being the key elements). EV manufacturers are keeping a buffer for that purpose and their batteries do not spend a lot of time at high state of charge where the chemical degradation is more effective.
If you want to factor in manufacturing emissions, you would have to do so for both. Unlike the manufacturing process for the battery, fuel refining is not a one time thing, but part of the emissions associated with operating the vehicle.
But if https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac... is a good benchmark, we can probably assume the battery's manufacturing process releases between 3120kg and 15,680kg of co2, though that does describe a tesla model 3 battery and I don't know how similar it would be. For the sake of expedient math, I'll average them and say it emits 9,000kg of co2.
If we assume a lifespan of 200k miles, no part replacements, and no change in co2 costs/mile for EVs, then the total emissions would be:
~68,200kg for the EV (341g/mile) + the battery = 77,200kg total
~177,800kg for the non-EV (889g/mile), not including the manufacturing emissions associated with the ICE
Ultimately it's not an insignificant amount of co2, but in context it is actually pretty unimportant. It turns 341g/mile into 386g/mile. Of course, it's incorrect to assume an EV will have static "emissions" since they all come from the production of electricity, and given current trends it would be fair to assume those numbers will trend downwards. Gasoline, however, can probably be expected to have fairly static emissions over the life of the vehicle, likely actually getting worse as parts wear.
I am under the impression that battery trains do not last anything like that long - am I misinformed?
Doesn't change the maths much, but curious
So not 200,000miles. But definitely covering the average usage pattern.
And not all will last that long, but the majority will. And potentially the worst case is just degradation - I.e. 200km range instead of 400km range, so still quite useful for a variety of use cases even outside of cars.
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/09/20190927-dahn.html Dahn’s “million-mile battery” detailed in open-access paper in JES
The one thing about a Hummer EV with a huge battery is it can be used for work requiring towing large payloads. With large tow jobs, the thing that matters most for range is the kWhs of the battery of the vehicle, so it’s somewhat justified to have such a big and heavy vehicle.
The Malibu is a cheap sedan.
Base prive of the Hummer EV is 5x the Malibu ($23k vs $108k)
Is it? Not all hummer drivers are Arnold Swartz. what if the main buyers are just folks who want the largest electric cars? It's possible this mainly cannibalizes Tesla Model X sales more than gas Hummers.
I haven't seen studies for who buys what but until there is we're all just making wild assumptions about consumer demand.
For the record, I'm not saying this is awful or hurts more than it helps. My main point is brands offer more EV options shouldn't defacto be applauded.
Even renewable capacity creates CO2 when it's made. So does the grid. So does maintaining these things. And so does drilling for oil, & shipping it around the world, processing it, and shipping it again.
> That way car companies are incentivized (even more) to maximize miles per kWh.
As long as battery charging times are so slow, IMO car companies already have a ton of incentive to make their EVs efficient, as range is a big differentiator and batteries are such a large cost component. I suspect there isn't a lot more efficiency that would be gotten out of a change to incentive structure.
> Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles. And if everybody drove subcompacts or other hyper efficient gasoline cars then we’d have less of a problem anyway. But not everyone is doing that. And a lot of people don’t want to.
This is a big source of waste and inefficiency though. People just needing to commute by themselves from A to B and buying pickup trucks or large sedans with poor efficiency, then whining whenever energy costs shoot up.
As a taxpayer, I would much rather if my taxes subsidized programs that encouraged people to be more frugal with their vehicle type choices.
Weight is an okay stand-in for that metric, but isn't perfect (there are ways to distribute load on the road using the wheels that reduce wear, and there are design features like a low hood or even external airbags that could be used to reduce fatalities to pedestrians and other vehicles).
But we shouldn't go there until we've all but eliminated fossil fuels from our roads.
A gallon of propane emits about 0kg of additional CO2, if you consider that it's just going to get flared off as waste gas anyway, and we need to refine lots of oil to make the plastics to make electric cars.
Why are you still wasting time running things on petrol when propane is better in just about every way?
I have no idea where this leaves us.
Not if it's coal. 1 kWh from a coal power plant generates 820-940 grams of CO2 (down from 1130g [5])
The EV Hummer actually gets ~631g CO2/mile - nearly twice that of the Malibu - if your electricity comes from a coal plant.
60% of the USA's power comes from coal, oil and gas. [6]
In many parts of the country, going to EV does not substantially reduce CO2 emissions nor save money. We have a very long way to go until we can say that EV is always better for the environment than ICE.
CO2 emissions from energy generation are now higher than they've ever been in history. More coal is being burned lately due to higher natural gas prices. And as emerging markets have more need for electricity, they are ramping up more non-renewable power production facilities, because gas, oil and coal are cheaper/easier/more available. [1] [2]
(aside: the EIA considers electricity generation "from biomass [..] to be carbon neutral" [3], which is bonkers. Biomass co-firing generates 740g CO2, non-cofiring 240g [4])
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel [2] https://newatlas.com/environment/energy-related-co2-emission... [3] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 [4] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and... [5] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-co2-i... [6] https://app.electricitymap.org/map
This is a meaningless point as you can make this argument about literally anything. Please point to the person you think is making a purchasing decision where it’s heads = Chevy Malibu, tails = Hummer EV.
An H1 Hummer gets 10 mpg rated, but at the performance levels listed for the EV it would be substantially lower. So an equivalent performance gas H1 Hummer would have four, five or more times the emissions of a Chevy Malibu.
Your position is irrational. I’m really looking forward to urban gas stations being deleted and replace with nice things that don’t contribute to childhood cancers.
Efficient natural gas plants can actually do pretty well, about the same as the 372g/kWh grid average. Almost no oil (or petro coke, etc) is burned for electricity. I think less than a tenth of the amount of electricity from solar (solar is currently somewhere around 5% to about 4.2%, depending on how you count "now", i.e. annualized amount based on the last month of data in April with seasonal effects taken out... or the more conservative 12 months rolling average).
This is a key point so many people miss.
Perfect World: We reduce our emissions.
Good World: We transition our infrastructure to things that can be decarbonized in the future. That Hummer EV could theoretically run on completely renewable energy (once other changes are made) the Malibu will never.
Edit: fixed units
We can agree on that. But also, a 7000 lb Hummer would as well.
Stupid.
This page [1] says biodiesel emits 2,661 grams of carbon dioxide per gallon. Let’s say a 1988 F250 gets 15 mpg => 2,661 g/gal * 1/15 gal/mile = 177.4 gram CO2/mile.
Pretty cool it’s less than both the Chevy Malibu and Hummer but wonder how it compares to other petrol cars - it is just proportional to fuel economy but im not gonna run the numbers. In my head a pure gasser car would need to get above about 40mpg of petroleum fuel to emit less grams of CO2 than a 15mpg vehicle running pure biodiesel.
TLDR biodiesel is what’s up if you can’t afford an ev (and still has its place if you can). Pure petroleum diesel still barely emits more co2 than gasoline anyway [2]
Disclaimer: only comparing carbon dioxide and not other greenhouse gas emissions
Edit: i'm seeing some numbers around that the average human exhalation per day is emits 1 kg of CO2, for reference. [3]
[1]: https://impactful.ninja/the-carbon-footprint-of-biodiesel/
[2]: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/Gas%20_v%20_Diesel_%...
[3]: https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-much-does-huma...
The problem is the fossil fuel that is concentrated carbon from millions of years of plants and now just adds to the CO2 in the atmosphere without a corresponding mechanism to take it out again.
If we create gasoline by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere there isn't a CO2 problem with using it for fuel. Processes exist, but all have some (major) inefficiency issues.
Edit/Note: I’m in the US and typically seek out data for the North American region. Maybe palm oil biodiesel is a bigger thing in other parts of the world (Africa, Europe, Asia?) - not sure. Would be intrigued if there is data supporting it either way. The US dataset below has “no data” explicitly stated for palm oils.
[1]: https://www.eia.gov/biofuels/biodiesel/production/table3.pdf
Of course it is because the capitalist state prioritizes shareholders over stakeholders.
Of course you are!
And we're allowed to think what we will of you, should you choose to do that.
It's not an "inconvenient truth", it's outdated information, basically a lie at this point. No one's bothering building new coal plants any more. People ARE building new nuclear plants (Vogtle, etc, not counting the small modular reactors). Nuclear produces about 18-19% of US electricity, nearly as much as coal. Solar is about 4-5% of US electricity (including solar behind-the-meter), hydro is 6-7%. Wind is 10%, geothermal about 0.4%. Wood and biomass waste (including landfill gas, etc) is about 1.3% total. Total renewables and nuclear produce over 40% of US electricity, twice that of coal.
Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... and https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
So like I said, (and I just checked my utility for these numbers and updated them for accuracy) where I live—EVs are presently being fueled by 86% coal (however, during peak demand periods, natural gas fueled turbines will come online and change the mix to 61%/25% coal/natural gas), and 14% solar. That is 86% of EV power coming from non-renewable fossil fuels with most of that fuel being coal. That’s not a lie, it simply is what it is.
If other areas are doing better with renewables, great. Here, EVs are running on mostly coal.
Only 21% of US electricity comes from coal, and likely less than that in areas with the highest percentage of EVs. The future (which is what the Hummer EV will do its driving in) will also have far less than that. So yeah, calling them "coal powered" is dishonest to the point of being a lie.
I would suggest instead of doubling down despite not knowing where I am, consider that in certain places within the US that the general mix of energy sources that you have provided could be different. Additionally, is it possible that in certain places within the US that energy sources like nuclear, wind, and hydro are simply not available to the consumers there? Also, is it possible that in those locations with the absence of effective renewable energy sources, that those areas might choose to rely on fossil fuels as their primary source of energy?
I could say nearly every EV roaming around Hawaii is 69% gas powered. I could say nearly every EV roaming around South Carolina is 60% nuclear powered. I could say nearly every EV roaming around West Virginia is 89% fossil fuel powered. I could say nearly every EV roaming around Washington state is 69% hydroelectric powered.
All of those statements are accurate and all are completely different. According to you, they are all lies, because my statement is a lie.
Yes power generation in many parts of the world still produces lots of CO2. We all know that. You're not more clever than the rest of us for pointing it out.
But to decarbonize we have to address both cars and power generation. It's okay for us to talk about electric vehicles in isolation. These problems can be dealt with independently.
Every time there's talk about EVs some smartass is saying "it's pointless cause we're burning coal to power them". Such an attitude of "nothing is worth it unless we fix everything at once" once promotes apathy and inaction, and is just plain annoying.
Weird. I thought such an attitude would promote nuclear. Obviously.
No we don't, that will increase inflation is basically a tax on poor people to pay for rich people to buy new vehicle
The EV Tax credit needs to do away completely, EV can either compete with ICE in the market or they cant, government should not be picking winners or losers.
>>Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles.
Not until batter tech improves, I am interested in an EV truck, none of them have the towing range that makes them practical for a weekend trip to the dock with your boat, or a camping trip. One of the Youtube channels I watch just did a head to head with a ICE truck against the Ford Lightening, they did not get 80 miles with the truck before they ran out of charge pulling a normal sized trailer, that is with the Truck claiming a 150 or so mile range at the start of the trip. TERRIBLE towing miles.
Current batteries may be good for a car like the Model 3 and Model S, or the Mach E, but it is TERRIBLE for large SUV's or Trucks that are made for towing
One of the governments jobs is to make sure externalities are accounted for, and ICEs should not get a free ride by not dealing with their pollution.
There are many things that do not make sense on the open market, unless we can collectively agree to tip the scales in the direction it should go for a better society, till the "market" can manage it on it's own.
We clearly differ as to what the role of government is, because I do not believe that is one of the governments job at all.
Government is simply the organization of the natural right of lawful defense to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each. Nothing more, nothing less
Given the federal tax credit is US Law, I would also like you to point to where in the US Constitution is the power granted to the federal government to "make sure externalities are accounted" I missed that provision in my copy of the Constitution
>>There are many things that do not make sense on the open market
I am sure we are going to disagree widely here as well, as I am very much an Adam Smith invisible hand adherent
…which they are doing by encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles. Lotta property is gonna go underwater, the less carbon we emit today, the less needs defending tomorrow.
And managing externalities fits because public things (like the air we breathe) are something we all have a right to, and one person shouldn't be allowed to fuck that up for everyone else unilaterally.
If you believe in protecting individuals and natural rights you have to reserve the power to prevent individuals from interfering with them. I would wager money that you do believe the government should do this to some extent (murder, say, or dumping toxins in your water supply), so it's not some question of principle, just of where you draw the line.
Murder, or Dumping toxins is not on the same vein as CO2 emissions not even close, for former as a theoretical harm that may occur over 100+ years if technology and human behavior does not change naturally something not supported by history
Murder and Dumping toxins has a direct instant harm caused with immediate effect, if you can not see the difference then I am not sure how to continue the conversation
The ICE ecosystem already benefits from large involvement of the government in securing fuel supplies. The EV ecosystem also benefits from large involvement of the government in electricity production and distribution. Both sectors benefit hugely from government involvement in road building and maintenance.
The whole transportation industry, and infrastructure in general, is very much not an "invisible hand" sector... More like layer upon layer of government involvement. I think you'd probably disagree with a lot of people who've voted in some form for these things.
Should be a tax on ICE vehicles rather than EV credits. The former is not inflationary and charges directly for the externality.
But what we need is a full carbon tax of about $250/tonne of CO2 (eventually), as that's approximately the fully accounted social cost and is also about the long-term cost to suck the CO2 out of the air and store it. Then there wouldn't be any need to subsidize anything except for the usual industrial policy/tech dev reasons as the externalities would be priced in.
So even if the Truck is only used for towing 2 times a year, you will never get most truck owners to buy one with a 80mile towing range
Maybe this saves having to rent a car for the occasion...
Even then. Friend of mine busted his daily commute SUV before a long road trip. Ended up renting a much more fuel efficient sedan. Could not believe how little gas he used on the way. Maybe next time he'll rent again.
Trucks in the US are a stupid status booster for most people. Once you start seeing cars as a box to safely get you, your passengers and your cargo from point A to point B for a decent amount of time and money, and stop thinking about how what you drive makes you look, not a whole lot of trucks make sense anymore.
You may choose rent, but why do you feel like your choice is the one EVERYONE should be forced into?
I was only talking about my own opinion here, dude. Perhaps a little less assumption next time.
Like I said, wait a few years. Used to hear the same disparaging comments about digital cameras. Ten years later film cameras barely exist. Battery tech has moved a bit slower, but has made incredible strides in twenty. We're almost there, just a matter of time.
As I said a in my opening comment, there should be neither and like the Film vs Digital the market should work itself out
The comments in this thread is people pushing back claiming the market can not do that and the government must step in with its coercive force to tip the scales.
Government action by it very nature is force.
A gallon of gasoline emits about 11.8 kg of CO2 if you include refining. https://innovationorigins.com/en/producing-gasoline-and-dies...
One kilowatt-hour of electricity currently emits about 372grams of CO2, a number that has dropped from 500 grams in 2012.
A new Chevy Malibu gets 32.5mpg combined. Hummer EV gets 47mpge combined, or about 1.394 miles per kWh.
363gCO2 per mile for the Malibu, 267gCO2/mile for the Hummer.
I don’t think using hyper-specific region specific metrics makes a lot of sense considering the grid is all connected. (At least, the East Coast and Midwest, Texas doing its own thing, and then the west Coast.) in any case, the grid is getting lower emissions over time and could go MUCH lower than current (maybe half or less) over the full life of any new vehicle.
Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles. And if everybody drove subcompacts or other hyper efficient gasoline cars then we’d have less of a problem anyway. But not everyone is doing that. And a lot of people don’t want to. From a political economy standpoint then this is still a huge net win. Every new car and truck needs to at least have a plug in it within the next 5 to 10 years, and then we can start penalizing larger and heavier vehicles more directly.
EDIT: what we should do is expand the EV tax credit. GM no longer qualifies as they used theirs up, like Tesla. Mostly just foreign EV makers qualify, which cannot be the real intention of lawmakers when they made the law.
We can use the EV credit as a tool for improving efficiency. Instead of subsidizing per kWh of battery, we subsidize per mile of range. The first 50 miles of range (ie to be a plug in hybrid, but need at least 6.6kW charging speed) are incentivized at $100/mile of range. The next 200 miles of range $25/mile (under the condition of 100kW fast charging capability).
That way car companies are incentivized (even more) to maximize miles per kWh. Small, hyper-efficient EVs will be disproportionately credited. For a given kWh of battery, you’ll make more EV credit money as a carmaker putting it in a small, very efficient car than a big Hummer. But unless we renew the EV credit (and make it per kWh), there isn’t this (additional) incentive.