"Brian, The Life of" (familycar)
01/19/2016 at 16:12 • Filed to: None
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"Brian, The Life of" (familycar)
01/19/2016 at 16:12 • Filed to: None | 4
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I’ve come around to EVs. A few years ago those of us with gasoline in our veins latched onto the idea that electric cars were not actually cleaner than their ICE counterparts because their lack of emissions did not factor in the total picture of how dirty the energy was to obtain that was being used to “fuel” them. This thinking may or may not have had merit then but it sure as shit doesn’t have it now.
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RallyWrench
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 16:16 |
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Yup. I’d be perfectly happy to commute electric if I could fire up a toy on the weekend. If I could swing payments, I’d drive a Golf E right now.
For Sweden
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 16:19 |
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neat
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 16:22 |
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Counterpoint: this article ignores absolutely everything impact-wise other than “global warming pollution” - leaving off the table any number of perfectly legitimate concerns, from heavy metal mining to higher concentrations of some power plant traditional pollutions in this or that area. Further, their “over lifespan” examination is not terribly transparent, and they seem to be overweighting super-short range EVs. In short, even without getting into a discussion of CO2 as pollution qua pollution, their analysis is swimming in fucktardery.
Berang
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 16:22 |
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It’s always been an overly-simple argument that seems to make sense the second one thinks about it, but if anybody looks deeper into it they find that it’s not as big of a deal as they first thought.
It also sort of assumes people don’t live near hydro-power or natural gas fired plants. And it ignores that the exhaust which is created, is created outside of the city, instead trailing around all the streets.
There’s a similar myth about E85 taking more energy/oil to create than it saves - which is based on 1970s data that people just assume is still true today, because obviously there have been no advances in agriculture or science since then.
e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 16:22 |
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While I do support electric cars(I’m trying to get my parents to at least look at a tesla), without a big jump in battery tech they are not the future, or at least not yet. Personally, I would prefer more hybrids or fuel cell cars until we get the empty to full charge time for an electric car down under 10 minutes.
Aaron M - MasoFiST
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/19/2016 at 16:28 |
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Except the heavy metal analysis has been done, and the economic incentive of lithium battery recycling is so high that there’s very little marginal impact on a per-car basis. If you look at macro factors and the increasing size of the lithium market it’s slightly different, but the amount of lithium used in electronics is so much higher that it’s still barely relevant.
Also, as an energy analyst, I can say that leaving out in-place pollution assumptions is perfectly reasonable, because they aren’t affected by the choice being studied. A consumer looking at an electric car now will have virtually no effect on traditional power plant pollution or heavy metal mining.
Mattbob
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 16:30 |
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I did a research paper a few years back about this in college. From what I could find back then, there was hardly any evidence that EVs were worse for the environment in manufacturing and disposal than a normal car. The one study that was always referred to is really terrible science.
Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 16:30 |
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Yep... the ‘long tailpipe’ myth needs to die. But it continues to live because of some who are invested in hydrogen as well as shills for the oil industry... both of which put effort into keeping the myth alive.
The thing that is missing in that report is info on Fuel Cell cars. According to some other reports I read, they’re actually no better than conventional gasoline cars.
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Brian, The Life of
> e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
01/19/2016 at 16:38 |
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Until the Bolt and the Model 3 come out, at least. Range anxiety really kind of goes away when the market is presented with 200-mile range, $30K options. While there were many folks who could not live with a 100-mile range EV (myself included), the vast, vast majority of the drivers in this country do not drive more than 200 miles a day.
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Aaron M - MasoFiST
01/19/2016 at 16:41 |
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Okay, I’ll grant you on the lithium and rare earth that very little *new* mining has to enter the picture for current needs. But, isn’t that recycling in itself going to be at least somewhat dirty? A car’s needs are also enough higher than a laptop that I wonder - even if you’re only selling a tenth the number of cars as laptops, if a car requires a hundred times as much... Also, I know lifespans have improved, but lithium rechargeables don’t really have the *potential* for as long a service life as some other options, which is one reason I call shenanigans.
Broadly, any kind of more massive adoption of electrics has to involve either lead-acid or enough increased demands on current supply I remain skeptical in terms of costs. I don’t think we can put everyone in a lithium car at Prius prices. I question if what they’re talking about has any meaning on anything other than a massive scale, and if a massive scale is self-defeating, so is their thesis.
You’re saying that a large enough increase in electric car usage to have any kind of meaningful impact - since this analysis is looking at CO2 AND ONLY CO2 - would not cause an increase in emission from power plants with a capacity increase to charge them? Oooookay...
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/19/2016 at 16:41 |
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The ‘heavy metal mining’ point is bogus in light of the fact that EVERY car uses materials that require heavy metal mining. The big difference is that during it’s operating life, an EV will use a far smaller volume of fuel and lubricants... even when you look at the share of fuel/lubriants an EV uses indirectly from drawing power from the power grid.
Anyone truly walking the talk where heavy metal mining is concerned won’t get a car in the first place... and instead, would rely on walking, their bicycle, mass transit or some combination of those.
Shane MacGowan's Teeth
> Aaron M - MasoFiST
01/19/2016 at 16:42 |
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So, you’re saying that traditional power plants suddenly absorbing all of the demand that ICE vehicles have been dealing with would be able to handle it without increasing their pollution by an appreciable amount if EV’s take over? I’m pretty sure that’s a jump from “assumption” to “violates the principle of conservation of energy”.
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
01/19/2016 at 16:45 |
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It’s all a tradeoff, I suppose, given you have medium portions of lead in a traditional car and platinum + rare earths, but that’s not the quantity of lead in a Prius or what may be required for more exotic battery production. The platinum thing has had some time to settle out. I guess what I’m saying is that framing things entirely in terms of lifespan CO2 - for a short lifespan and a small EV - a saving of CO2 only does not really impress me. My prioritization matrix is different than UCS’s, and so I imagine is quite a lot of people’s, thus my opinion on what the long tailpipe really means is different.
Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again.
> Shane MacGowan's Teeth
01/19/2016 at 16:49 |
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Efficiency of scale my friend, even a dirty coal plant is cleaner than the equivalent cars it could replace. I love ICE’s and all, but electric cars aren’t the devil anymore.
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Shane MacGowan's Teeth
> Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again.
01/19/2016 at 16:52 |
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I’m not going to argue that- I’m arguing against the idea of leaving out the consideration completely. There is no possible way that you can go from the ICE fleet to EV’s without an increase from power plants. Now, whether that’s a net gain or loss (against the decrease in tailpipes) I don’t know, but assuming power plants will stay flat literally CAN’T be right.
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Aaron M - MasoFiST
> Shane MacGowan's Teeth
01/19/2016 at 17:00 |
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No, I’m saying that any new demand would be accounted for by either renewables or gas based on the outlook for the next 25 years, and neither produce any amount of emissions other than CO2.
And since you asked, charging EVs overnight would increase the load factor of a power system and require significantly less capacity than you think.
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Aaron M - MasoFiST
> Shane MacGowan's Teeth
01/19/2016 at 17:01 |
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Pollution will stay flat; gas plants produce only CO2 and water for emissions, and this analysis already includes CO2.
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e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 17:01 |
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Electric cars, as they exist today, are impractical for anyone that lives in an apartment and does not have a garage. This is purely because you have nowhere to recharge it while you sleep and you cant quickly charge it(think like the amount of time it takes to refuel a gas-powered car). For something like the Model S, its less of an issue, because people that have Model S type money likely also have a garage with a power outlet.
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Aaron M - MasoFiST
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/19/2016 at 17:05 |
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Increased capacity would not produce any emissions other than CO2; we don’t have any power plants on the docket for the next 25-50 years that aren’t either natural gas or renewables. Gas produces essentially no NOx or SOx emissions.
And you may be mistaken about the lifespans, modern lithium ion batteries have a longer number of cycles per cell than pretty much any other battery out there.
As far as costs, skepticism is warranted...but this is an emissions analysis.
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Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again.
> Shane MacGowan's Teeth
01/19/2016 at 17:05 |
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Oh your are right that power will go up, but it will happen in a nice predictable spikes, from 6-9 am and 4-7 pm as people arrive at work and home. predictable means that large generation plants like coal and nuclear can ramp up in preparation, and they will produce a small fraction of the overall pollution that ICE cars would. I realize you are saying it needs to be taken into account, and it should be, but it is honestly a huge difference in both particulate and CO2 emissions.
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/19/2016 at 17:19 |
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“But, isn’t that recycling in itself going to be at least somewhat dirty?”
The same can be said for all regular cars. And in some ways, it’s worse for regular cars given that the lead-acid batteries they have are far more toxic.
“but lithium rechargeables don’t really have the *potential* for as long a service life”
Statements like that is why Telsa has an 8-year unlimited mileage warranty on their battery packs now. And many Tesla Roadsters still have their original packs. Here is some real-world data:
http://www.pluginamerica.org/surveys/batter…
Vehicle #69 on that list has the original battery pack after 4 years and 124,000 miles of driving.
Vehicle #112 on that list still has the original battery pack after 7 years and 41,000 miles.
And the highest-mileage roadster had a battery swap after 200,000km (about 125,000 miles)
And the Tesla Model S’ battery pack is supposed to have a longer life compared to the older Roadster.
“any kind of more massive adoption of electrics has to involve either lead-acid”
Lead-Acid is the WORST battery chemistry for a BEV because they get killed prematurely by deep discharges... much more so than other battery chemistries. Even the old nickel-iron batteries (aka The Edison Battery) is better. Yeah, lead-acid is cheap... but it’s shit for a BEV application.
“I don’t think we can put everyone in a lithium car at Prius Prices”
We don’t need to. Just like we don’t currently put everyone in a gasoline or a diesel car.
“You’re saying that a large enough increase in electric car usage to have any kind of meaningful impact”
He’s correct... mainly because utilities typically have a surplus of power capacity at night... which is when an EV owner would typically charge.
There has to be waaaay more BEVs out there before this reality changes.
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
01/19/2016 at 17:20 |
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“without a big jump in battery tech they are not the future”
Just watch what happens once Tesla’s Gigafactory is at full production in a couple of years...
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Aaron M - MasoFiST
01/19/2016 at 17:24 |
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All good points, and thanks. I didn’t have the inside skinny on planned plants. As to number of cycles per cell with lithium, I was mostly not looking at number of cycles but capacity decay, which as anyone with a laptop knows or should know, is most correlated not with cycles but time at high percentage of charge. I know some improvements are in the pipeline, but when the reality of a lithium ion car means excess capacity and management below full charge or significant capacity loss in a typical service pattern after five to ten years, my reaction is somewhat of furrowed brow.
The reason I brought up costs was mostly from the sense of whether the sum of tradeoffs were worth it to the consumer, and the reason that is important (to me at least) is that we have to consider things from a basis of “things that will actually happen”. Cost is a really big factor in people’s choices, after all. Their long tailpipe is AGW only - a sane person’s “tailpipe” analysis takes into account a little more, though the magnitude of that little more you’ve convinced me is not *as much* as I suspected.
If one is of a mind to weight the AGW impact (or at least the reasonable one, related to adoption rates) as being marginal, waving an analysis in my face (as they have) that under some conditions the AGW gas release per car may be lower.... the point is that there *is* a tailpipe, and a pretty similar one even under favorable shading. Whether other people than me have exaggerated it, I don’t care. If it’s similar in practice to a shift to more gas city cars of lower displacement, then I personally am loath to accept the pure electric as a panacea in any way.
StudyStudyStudy
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 17:28 |
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Seems like it leaves a lot on the table.
“Global warming emissions” generated seems to really shuffle the real impact of creating those batteries, the fact that it is a massive global enterprise of mining, shipping, processing, refining, shipping, packaging, testing, etc just for the batteries alone seems to point towards a lack of accounting for such.
Additionally an ICE can run for a long time, compared to the average lifespan of an EV vehicle. Once the battery starts to degrade the ability to store and maintain the charge is compromised, that means it takes in the same amount of energy and travels less and less. ICE cars are the same in that as rings get worn it may consume more oil, but the process of refreshing the motor does not constitute making the highest contaminating part again, just rings, seals, etc.
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
01/19/2016 at 17:30 |
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You can consider me a crank for thinking that 8 years is still pretty short. Nonetheless, more info is appreciated. Mostly, I dislike the facile and apples-to-kumquats analysis in the link, not the idea of people with BEVs who can actually use them using them. To me, the long tailpipe - as they present it - isn’t a “myth” except in the strong form that total proposed AGW effect for an electric is higher. Which, I don’t personally know anyone saying but I’m sure there are. Regardless - I’m not actually impressed by what their analysis shows.
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
01/19/2016 at 17:41 |
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“Electric cars, as they exist today, are impractical for anyone that lives in an apartment and does not have a garage”
Not exactly true. For example... close to where I live (Toronto area), there are charging stations at:
The local Ikea
The local Chevy dealer
The shopping mall that is closest to me
The local GO train station
At several hotels and parking lots (“Greenlots” brand parking lots) at the airport near me
the parking lot at a theater near me.
But in the future, most apartments will probably also have EV parking spots. And for those that don’t, the way it’s gonna work is you’ll just charge your car while you’re shopping, working, watching a movie at the theatre, staying at a hotel, park your car at the airport when you fly somewhere or take the train downtown (because it’s faster and cheaper).
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/19/2016 at 17:45 |
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“You can consider me a crank for thinking that 8 years is still pretty short.”
It’s long for a warranty. It’s not like you’re forced to replace the battery the second the warranty ends.
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e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
> Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
01/19/2016 at 18:04 |
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Sure, you can go somewhere, wait 30-90 minutes for your battery to fill up, then go back home. Congratulations, you have successfully wasted 20% of your free time for the day on topping off your car. Consider this, there are 24 hours in the day. You spend 8 of them asleep, and 8 of them at work. So we have 8 hours of free time left over. Another hour for your commute to and from work, so now 7. Figure another hour total for eating throughout the day, 30 minutes of getting ready to face the world time, and another 30 minutes of getting ready for bed time. Now we are down to 5 hours. So every 2-3 days I am going to have to blow 20-25% of my free time to charge my car. If you already have to go to one of those places, awesome, you get to kill 2 birds with one stone, but that would be the exception not the rule for me. And God help you if you are forgetful. If you forget to get charged up and hop in your car to drive to work, you are not going to make it in on time.
If you have a garage, its a non-issue, you just hook up when you get home and you are set. But without a garage, its not very feasible.
And sure, some apartments might start including spots for electric cars, but now you have to hope that they either installed enough for everyone, or that the people with electric cars are willing to go back outside in the freezing cold in the middle of winter to move their car out of the charging spot so that you can somehow know that they moved it and park your car in the spot so you can charge it. And your rent is going to go up too, cause they aren’t going to install them for free.
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> StudyStudyStudy
01/19/2016 at 18:08 |
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“Additionally an ICE can run for a long time, compared to the average lifespan of an EV vehicle.”
For that, I give you... Jay Leno’s Baker Electric:
BEV’s can be VERY long-lived. Edison batteries last decades (30-50 years) if they are maintained.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2…
BEVs of the more recent past had batteries that didn’t last because they were using stuff like Lead Acid batteries or poorly designed battery packs using other chemistries.
Lead Acid is not designed for deep discharging. Nickle-Iron, NiCad, NiMH and LiIon are all far better suited to frequent and deeper discharges. Lead Acid is good for standby power or if you just need short bursts of power... like if you need a battery to power a starter motor for a few seconds to start a car.
Many people think Lithium-Ion batteries don’t last because they have laptops and cell phones where the batteries were dead after two years. In reality, that’s largely due to inadequate cooling. Don’t let your laptop or cell phone battery get hot and you’ll extend the life. And don’t let them get too cold either (below 0C or 32F). And don’t let them get down to below a 10% charge.
That’s why Teslas have liquid cooled/heated battery packs. And that’s also why when a Tesla battery pack is depleted, it probably still has at least 10% charge left. It’s just programmed to not let you destroy it.
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Aaron M - MasoFiST
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/19/2016 at 18:16 |
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I mean, I can give you a quick analysis for every other tailpipe pollutant right now. Gasoline cars produce more of them than electric power generation does on average. Diesel vehicles produce a lot more. This is only going to get more pronounced as more coal plants retire. The criticism that “there are more pollutants than CO2" is irrelevant when the marginal amount added through new electric generating capacity is zero, and the marginal amount added through new ICE vehicles is any number larger than zero. The analysis in the link is not facile just because the other questions you ask have already been answered elsewhere.
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
01/19/2016 at 18:23 |
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“Sure, you can go somewhere, wait 30-90 minutes for your battery to fill up,”
Why would you stand around and wait when you could instead get back to work, get your shopping done, see a movie or have a nice time with your mistress who is waiting for you in the hotel room?
You know... she thinks ‘environmental’ guys are hot...
;-)
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e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
> Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
01/19/2016 at 18:34 |
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I go to the movies about once every 2 months or so, I do most of my shopping online because its cheaper, and I don’t work anywhere near a charging station, much less within walking distance.
As for the mistress, no comment. :P
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Aaron M - MasoFiST
01/19/2016 at 18:34 |
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I’ll admit that natural gas has enabled some unusually powerful remedies and a much cleaner landscape overall. Didn’t realize the NOx was that substantially lower than coal, but given the presence of hydrogen sulfide in some nat gas deposits, the level of SO2 was what most surprised me (did some light reading). As to the necessities of axing coal, of course, that’s a discussion for another time.
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Aaron M - MasoFiST
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
01/19/2016 at 19:05 |
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For reasons that actually aren’t directly related to pollution, sour gas deposits (the term for gas with dissolved sulfur compounds) goes through processing to remove most of those compounds. You see post-processing in North Sea gas, less so in fracked wells in the US, though.
All combustion technologies produce some NOx, it’s a matter of what happens to nitrogen in the air at high temperatures. A typical combined cycle gas plant will generate 0.1 grams of NOx per kWh. Given a Tesla’s performance of roughly 2.5 miles per kWh, that’s .04 grams of NOx per mile. An average car produces 0.7 grams per mile and an average SUV produces a gram a mile. The beautiful thing here is that a completely unrestricted subcritical (read: old and inefficient) coal plant puts out about 0.28 grams of NOx per kWh. Using the Tesla metric again, we get a little more than 0.1 grams per mile. So even using literally the dirtiest power plants we have, cars still generate more NOx than power plants.
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Brian, The Life of
> e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
01/19/2016 at 23:48 |
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Well, there currently is not much demand for EV charging at most apartment/condo buildings. That changes quickly as the EV goes downmarket (Bolt and the 3). Landlords/HOAs will respond to stay competitive/maintain property values.
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e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
> Brian, The Life of
01/19/2016 at 23:59 |
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It would only be in demand if people in apartments starting buying EVs, which they wouldn’t because they cant charge them because their apartment complex doesn’t have a charge station. That leads to the apartment complex not building any charge stations because nobody at the apartment complex has an EV. Someone would have to either force the people living at the apartment complex to by an EV or force the apartment complex to build a charging station to break the cycle.
So then the rent goes up because that money has to come from somewhere.
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Brian, The Life of
> e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
01/20/2016 at 00:41 |
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I promise you this will not be an issue once the EV goes downmarket. Shit changes quickly when it needs to. Anyway, I own a house; I could give a shit ;)
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Alexis
> e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
06/01/2016 at 08:13 |
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Now there are companies that work with condo and apartment owners (landlords) to provide charging to their consumers.
Also, since most (+90%) of modern BEVs recharge in 30 minutes then it makes more sense to do the shopping and get a charge.
100 mile 20 minute charging BEVs have proven practical in the last six years to many companies and families, as proven by the year on year sales increases.
That’s not to say that they’re perfect, or there’s no improvements to be made. But they’re ready now, and at the moment they’re around the level of the prototypes that led to the Model T Ford. We’ll see that in the next two years electrics really take off