It’s worth reiterating the author’s short point about the future of EVs. ICE vehicles have been refined for decades now and no technological leap has been found that increases their efficiency. EVs have a greater amount of foreseeable improvements from improvements in battery tech to improvements in the recycling and reusing of the batteries.
It is a worthy investment to steer more money to EV production due to the simple fact that the stagnating effect innovation was not gonna go away. We should save petrochemicals for actual long term usage or actual critical uses like air travel.
It would be absolutely devastating for our future development if a major chunk of our fossil fuels was quite literally wasted on routine traffic when we could be using it to create novel materials out of it in 200 years’ time.
There's been significant improvements in ICE efficiency in recent decades. Some of the biggest leaps include turbo charging, variable valve control and electronic fuel injection and there's still a lot more scope.
The car I drove in HS, 30 years ago got 25mpg. My current car, very similarly sized, gets 27mpg. Sure, I can merge on a freeway 4 seconds faster but the vast majority of efficiency improvements have not gone towards reducing our oil dependence.
Your new car likely weighs much more? The modern market demands a driving experience that's like sitting in our home - complete with huge sofa like seats, air conditioning, touch screen TVs, cameras and thousands of sensors. They can either cater to that or go out of business.
Carting around two tons of unnecessary random tech toys and the kitchen sink is inefficient regardless of the energy source. That's a separate problem.
So instead of realizing gains in efficiency, cars were simultaneously made less efficient to realize gains in safety and comfort. The end result is still cars that are about the same as what they were decades ago.
how does it matter? are we supposed to keep downsizing/downgrading from the high school cars just to make up for all these trends that we didn't choose?
Oh there's no doubt my modern car is objectively better in numerous ways. That said, we could be doing a lot more to optimize for fuel economy but the market doesn't seem to want that.
Honestly, not sure. But I believe hybrids only represented around 3% of cars in 2013? So unlikely to be a big effect. Especially when you consider how much bigger cars are now, and how much more they weigh.
You are clearly ignorant to the technical capabilities & efficiencies of IC.
Why argue a case when you have not informed yourself of the opposing view?
There is currently not enough copper or trace minerals (nor operational capability of mines) available for replacement of current vehicles in the US with EVs.
There is not adequate power infrastructure for charging EVs.
There is not adequate power generation for EVs.
What you are trading is the ability of most people to own and operate their own vehicle.
That's too much energy for the poors to have at their disposal.
Keep that in mind while you make uninformed arguments.
California is mandating that all new cars be either EV or plug in hybrids by 2035; which is 12 years in the future. I am aware of no plans to outlaw existing vehicles. A typical consumer car lasts between 10-15 years, so we are talking about ~2045 until California starts finishing its EV transition (likely far longer to reach 100%, as some holdouts will keep gas cars alive longer). That is enough time to build up the capacity to support it. And if it turns out to not be enough time, we don't need to abandon EVs, we just need to push back the timeline.
One problem emerging with EV, at least in the US, is that they don't seem to be economically sustainable at a price affordable by the middle-class. Useful vehicles cost >$50K, and a reliable fast-charging network seems to be feasible only as a loss-leader for a high-margin luxury manufacturer (Tesla).
No fuel savings in the world can justify paying extra $20K for a car.
As measured by dollars per mile, you'll pay 1/3 or even 1/4 as much money to fuel an EV as an ICE car.
This assumes you recharge at home. If you recharge only at Level 3 (fast) chargers it costs more but it's still much cheaper than gasoline.
Routine maintenance is also cheaper for EVs.
I'm willing to pay a one-time premium for a car that costs substantially less to drive (not to mention being a lot more fun), so I'm a counterexample of one.
And I'm not sure why you think Tesla's supercharging network is a loss leader. They charge around 25-39 cents per kwh, and Tesla probably pays around 10 cents per kwh for that electricity. That doesn't sound like a loss leader to me.
My ICE vehicle averages 30 mpg. We drive ~12K miles/year. At $3.5/gallon, fuel will cost 12000/303.5 = $1,400/year.
An EV can average 4 miles/kwh. Let's say I go on 4 road trips each 500 miles (charging at $0.35/kwh), and other times I charge at home where I pay $0.15/kwh. This yields $570/year, so savings of $830/year.
My ICE was purchased new with a 10-year warranty, and so far has been very reliable (fortunately). Maintenance involved oil changes and brakes, averaging $120/year. But EV will have more frequent tire replacements and higher insurance premiums, so let's call it a wash.
My ICE costs now ~$20K new. An EV with the same mobility* (500 miles of range with a reliable refueling network) is either the expensive Teslas or Lucid Air, costing $60-100K more. Even the cheapest Tesla, the Model 3 will cost ~$40K for the long range.
Even if the EV charged for free, it will take decades to recoup the upfront purchase price. Even for the cheapest EV, which does not provide the same mobility, it will take ~10 years.
Depreciation could differ, but since I will always need a car, it doesn't matter - any money I pay for a car will always be locked in it so not usable for other things.
If the cost of buying the land, installing the equipment, and maintaining it (thieves come and cut away the copper cables, for example) were all free, then this would be a valid argument that the charging stations turn a profit.
In other words, you can't ignore fixed costs and cost of capital. If you take out a loan to buy $8 billion worth of land and deploy chargers there (about how much Tesla's network cost) - say 40,000 chargers, so a fully loaded cost of 200K per charger (land + equipment). At a 5% rate, that charger would need to generate a profit of $10K per year, but at a rate of 10% it would need to earn $20K per year.
Average electricity costs are 14 center per kwh, but in California or the Northeast, it's closer to 20 cents. Let's say Tesla makes 10 cents per kwh profit by adding 10 cents to their local costs, so it would need to sell 100,000 kwh per charger per year to break even at a 5% cost of capital, and 200,000 kwh at a 10% rate. This assumes zero maintenance, labor, or operational costs.
Assuming L3 chargers operate at 200 kw that means operating 500 hours each year at a 5% rate, or 1,000 hours each year at a 10% cost of capital. That's certainly doable, except you are not supposed to use L3 to regularly charge your car, as it kills the battery. This is why Tesla has been opening up the charging stations to other manufacturers -- it wants as many people to use their chargers as possible, even as it tells people to please not use L3 charging except in rare circumstances. In other words, the biggest factor limiting the viability of this system is whether they can get enough cars to regularly use what is supposed to be an emergency charging system.
We can also do the reverse calculation, and let's say the superchargers are humming at being used 8 hours each day 365 days per year, so ~3000 hours. That's a gross margin of $60,000. Subtract out the cost of capital -- say $10-20,000 and you are left with $40-50K of operational costs. That's money spent on labor, replacing worn parts, paying local taxes, etc. If each car is supposed to be supercharged only 20 hours a year, (road trip or emergency use case), then you'd need a fleet of 120 million cars to use the existing network of 40,000 chargers sufficiently to generate that 8 hours per day usage.
Again, a tough call. Obviously if you tweak these assumptions, you'll get different answers, but I did this to illustrate the types of trade offs needed beyond just looking at the energy spreads. My guess is that's it's too early to tell whether this pencils out for Tesla or not, but the key limiting factor is going to be the size of the fleet using the chargers rather than the electricity spreads. IMO this is a big bet on growth.
AFAIK the Chevy Bolt does not support fast charging (like Tesla or Hyundai Ioniq). This makes it a different product to an ICE with respect to mobility.
50kW DC fast charging is still ”fast” charging, please educate yourself better on EV capabilities.
Tesla and Hyundai support faster fast charge rates than the Bolt. This does not disqualify the car from being useful to most folks who would otherwise consider an ICE car.
I don't think it's realistic to expect middle class families to double their investment in what is probably their second most expensive purchase because it's good for the environment. Prices are going to have be driven down before electric vehicles see wider adoption.
I don’t like these comparisons because they’re super reductionist about what “The Environment” is supposed to be. Apparently the only form of pollution is CO2. There are lots of types of pollution and secondary effects from manufacturing that are worse than CO2.
Industrial mining activities leach chemicals into the soil, cause lead and mercury contamination, groundwater contamination, habitat destruction, and so on. Using dirty coal plants to power assembly lines puts smog into the air, ruining people’s quality of life, causes lung cancer and birth defects. The list of secondary effects is a mile long. On the other hand, driving a used car might produce more CO2 (Which the author is alluding to as being dirtier after X years of ownership) but has none of these secondary effects.
> driving a used car might produce more CO2 (Which the author is alluding to as being dirtier after X years of ownership) but has none of these secondary effects.
You're comparing a new EV to a used ICE car. Brand new ICE cars have similar pollution to brand new EVs. Sure, second-hand cars are better. Second-hand everything is better for the planet. But the world is full of people who will continue to buy brand new cars off the production line, and for those people, an EV is ultimately cleaner.
And for you and me, there are second-hand EVs out there which are even cleaner again than a second-hand ICE that continues to pollute with every mile it drives.
>Industrial mining activities leach chemicals into the soil, cause lead and mercury contamination, groundwater contamination, habitat destruction, and so on.
And the alternative is oil drilling and fracking. Not only co2 emissions. Oil production is an extremely dirty process itself, and oil spills aren’t uncommon.
It’s pretty laughable that you frame it as though oil is only about co2 emissions. Reading your comment makes one wonder why you left out the “windmills kill birds” comment. Not to mention in a lot of places coal is being phased out entirely, in my state coal is a fairly small component of the energy mix.
The largest of American mines are no longer even owned by US companies!
That may not be a concern to many, but keep in mind that for the entirety of mining in the US, these companies have had devastating effect on the ecology and local resources, such as water (possibly the single greatest commodity in the future dystopia of earth).
Public transport just doesn't scale, neither does cycling.
- You can't have a bus/train stop everywhere, being serviced multiple times a day when many of those locations would be visited by one or two people.
- Bicycles are a fun toy, not serious transport. They are very slow and have a severely limited range for even the fittest of individuals
Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means "attacking imaginary enemies", originating from Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote.
such a weird article. i didn't know we were being propagandized to death with anti-EV articles. i thought it was just the opposite.
the headline of the NYT article he cites seems insightful and correct, and does not support his assertion of anti-EV bias or "lies".
that said, i do believe enough that, due to Jevons Paradox, we're all doomed -- with or without EVs -- as long as we allow the existing oil to come out of the ground.
I have a lot of family and friends that, between them, have told me every single one of the things in the article. I've also heard about more outlandish things about EVs. People believe memes.
Modern gas powered auto engines are a marvel of engineering, so I can understand why some enthusiasts are sad they are going the way of the Dodo bird. Skilled workers to design and build gas engines will eventually be hard to find. But cheer up, there's a lot of opportunity for them to build rocket engines.
Couple of things have to be solved for EV’s: battery recycling, power transmission and power generation infrastructure. There’s only so much of the funky metals in batteries and we can’t just use it once. Switching from chemical to electrical energy will take a significant investment that the nimby’s and the conservatives have to permit. And we need more amps without burning carbon.
There has to be some help transitioning “everybody” from ice to Ev. That’s way easier than pulling and making the power. But this, too, must be paid. I hope the political will is there.
Battery recycling is coming. Several groups are working on it, but it will not get beyond the prototype stage for several years yet mainly because there are relatively few batteries available to recycle. EVs have only existed in their modern form for about 10 years and very few batteries are at end of life yet. The volumes are starting to pickup as non-Tesla manufacturers ramp up production. Maybe in another 10 years enough of the early generation will have aged out and some of the new cohort will have wrecked and need to be recycled. Until then, this is not a significant problem to worry about.
I'd add to that:
- Sensitivity to environmental conditions (current batteries only really work well at around room temperature, which isn't realistic real world outside)
- Energy density (huge weight of the thing vs. the energy it has)
I heard that California's electric grid could not handle charging them all at once. They had to say don't charge your EV. It takes a lot of lithium to make batteries for the EVs. Which ruins the environment. Might as well drive a gas powered car until they can fix the problems with EVs.
Was that intended as irony? Those are exactly the kind of arguments the article is debunking - so I think we'd at least need to see references...
Clearly the grid in Cali couldn't handle charging all the EVs if every ICE vehicle on the road today was magically replaced with an EV, but that will take decades to happen, during which the grid will be built up.
You(we) are already paying right now by delaying, deferring and not acting. We are all paying in terms of environmental climate and all the consequences of that, to the environment, human health and yes, the economy too.
You have too much faith in PG&E and SDGE. They have, through politics, gained long term contracts, increased prices, plenty of profit yet maintenance is still poor and flex alerts are frequent. And are squeezing the benefit of solar to customers that bear to cost to benefit themselves.
PG&E is a monopoly that went through multiple bankruptcies. I'm grateful that they are not completely dead and there is still power, but this is about as far from a free-market goldmine as it gets.
> You've probably heard it all, too: A Prius is worse for the planet than a Hummer. EVs are coal-powered cars. Electric cars produce more CO2 than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Lithium mining is uniquely bad for the environment. Cobalt mining relies largely on slave labor, if not child slave labor. Actually, that last part is sadly true. But the rest? Lies.
Later:
> Sure, more EVs will mean more batteries, but unlike gasoline, which always has to be burned, battery production can become (and is becoming) greener. Another way to look at it is the energy required to produce an average EV's battery is equivalent to about 74 gallons of gas.
Throwing a load on a system at max is a bad thing. Switzerland is trying to make preparations: https://www.electrive.com/2022/12/02/switzerland-rumoured-to.... There’s only so much power out there right now and it’s often “elsewhere” than the major population centres (or mountain fastnesses).
It’s way overblown as air conditioning was a larger issue for the electric grid than EV’s will be. Average demand for an 15k mile per year EV is only 430 watts, and people don’t all fast charge them at the same instant. Generally people charge when costs are low because demand is low to save money.
Meanwhile everyone’s AC is going full blast at noon on a hot summer day meanwhile EV’s generally charge when rates are cheap.
There’s a units problem, as googling this finds : Generally, electric cars charged at home use about 7,200 watts (W) of electricity, which can vary depending on the mode and home charger. Most electric car chargers use between 32 and 40 amps, and connect to a 240 volt outlet in your home's breaker box.
That’s peak not average, 7,200 W is only while actually charging. EV only need about one and a half hours at that rate per day and can be scheduled for low demand periods.
7,200 W * 1.5 hour/day = 7.2 kW * 1.5h * 4 miles per kW hour * 365 days ~= 15,768 miles per year.
I'm not sure if you're trying to tell a joke or not. The amount of effort you took to explain the post says you aren't joking, but choosing the average as the number you base your case on says you are.
That confusion you feel stems from a misunderstanding about the electrical grid.
Hundreds of millions of people aren’t all living in lockstep and many of them are trying to save money using demand pricing. A family might go on a long trip and use fast charging, but every family in the country isn’t going to be going on a trip that same weekend and try to charge at the same second.
right, but everyone within a region commutes at roughly the same time, had roughly the same weekend schedule, etc. etc.
There was that story a couple years ago about England's electrical grid and specific localities being stressed because apparently all of England would turn on their teapots at the same time after a TV show ended.
EV’s aren’t microwaves, you can plug in to the grid at 7PM and not start charging until 2AM. So yes, demand isn’t absolutely constant but it turns out it’s even better than constant as demand for EV charging decreases when other sources peak.
Some people charge at home, others at the office, and some exclusively at fast chargers.
I think the important thing is lost. Average is useless for determining if a grid (and it is not THE grid, since localities have bottlenecks) can support a load in time. Maybe it can, but the on statistic given as evidence is an average, which doesn't help explain anything one way OR the other.
Also, I'm not sure I can get behind the logic about peak times either way until we discuss how rolling blackouts would affect this.
It probably sounds like I have a side in this, but I do not. I do not currently own an EV, but that is due to up front costs (I do not even buy ICE cars new, the prices are insane for an asset that only depreciates). My daily commute makes me want to own one, actually. However, I do have an interest in making sure we are not saying flamboyant things like "electric cars cause less indirect pollution" without making even an attempt to quantify it, or saying unhelpful things about how the average load of an EV relates to whether a grid can support a lot of them.
The system is very rarely at max. So rare it made headlines. They asked people to conserve power anyway they could for a few hours. The other 8755 hours in the year you can do whatever you'd like.
I charged just fine to my normal 90% battery every day of that heat wave. Turns out that it's cheaper to charge overnight, so why would I charge during the peak anyway?
It is a worthy investment to steer more money to EV production due to the simple fact that the stagnating effect innovation was not gonna go away. We should save petrochemicals for actual long term usage or actual critical uses like air travel.
It would be absolutely devastating for our future development if a major chunk of our fossil fuels was quite literally wasted on routine traffic when we could be using it to create novel materials out of it in 200 years’ time.