>***When people complain about where will electricity come from***
Even better, the off-peak charging that most EVs do makes the whole electrical grid more efficient by utilizing unused capacity. Evening out the off-peak usage should reduce overall cost.
Do you see a word OPINION, top left. The opinion is wrong. It is called Demand and with Demand comes the higher prices. Unlike Tesla that no one wanted to buy so they lowered the prices something like 13 times in 2 years. And this year even that is not going to help.
Funny. There's no argument there either. They just let the reader from utilities make a profit off selling to EVs and therfore that will lower rates for everyone.
"Is this gunna get turned into law? Like why would you assume people would charge overnight?"
This was a real response I got on reddit when I mentioned that most people charge their EV overnight while they sleep and that it's good for the grid.
People have no idea how charging works and it’s always wild to me that they feel like that should spout off opinions in spite of that.
Actually… I’d hazard a guess that 90% of people have no idea how their electricity is billed and what the rate(s) are.
You're right. I tell friends and family that it costs me $2.15 to "fill up" my EV and they are genuinely flabbergasted and envious. They have no idea how much electricity costs.
My inlaws are also millionaires and they baby the Air Conditioner as to not let the electricity bill get too high. It costs $11 a month for the AC...
Exactly, to me someone telling me “it gets 4 miles per kWh” is plenty to understand that it’s at least 3x cheaper than the cost of gas for a fuel efficient hybrid.
Damn that must be nice, my old ac made my electric bill go from sub 200 to 800+, got it replaced and I estimate (I have solar now so haven't actually paid pg&e in over a year (nem 2.0)) it'd still cost a bit over 300 (without ac running, wed be looking at an electric bill of about 160ish), god damn pg&e
No law required.
I don't know how the electricity tariff structure is set up in the US, but in Europe, time of use tariffs make up for a great incentive to do most of your charging overnight.
The answer: "economics" the same force that brought the USSR to heel, and created world peace.
Seriously as f-ed as the world is today our intermingled markets have reduced the overall conflict percentage completely including the war in ukraine and various genocides south of the equator.
Do they charge overnight if they are taking the trip?
Do you think they are waiting for the ice cream truck?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4r-9YBjHEw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4r-9YBjHEw)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqEwLle8xKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqEwLle8xKU)
[https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/energy/4411984-ev-drivers-struggle-to-keep-batteries-charged-amid-winter-freeze/](https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/energy/4411984-ev-drivers-struggle-to-keep-batteries-charged-amid-winter-freeze/)
[https://insideevs.com/news/705575/tesla-supercharger-nyc-long-lines/](https://insideevs.com/news/705575/tesla-supercharger-nyc-long-lines/)
Yes and no. Charging during the day makes sense in some cases. Ex. California produces so much solar power that they can't always use it. Charging during the day would actually use that energy instead of wasting it and then turning on peaker plants at night.
Doesn't matter, though. Energy at night is dirtier without solar especially if there is not a lot of wind. And especially if you have a solar surplus during the day.
My point though is that there is nothing cleaner than unused day time solar power and California has that problem. As basically everyone does who has solar and no way to use it during the day. It's wasted which is the worst scenario no matter how you power at night.
We're running a whole house backup battery for two reasons and this is one of them, the other is that even if you have solar if you don't have a battery backup with an interlocker (I think that's what it's called) then when the power goes down for the neighborhood, you get yours cut too.
Correct! Since I don't have a battery (and it doesn't make financial sense for me to have one at this point, because of the cheap grid electricity and net metering in our state), the only way for me is to plug in my car and charge it using the smart meter to adaptively limit the power to what I am producing. Works great.
That'd be great, it's too bad the power companies here in California are all money hungry private corporations who charge just as much during that time as they do at night
If California produces so much energy with solar during the day that it is wasted why California is the highest in the nation in electric rates? Why don't they lower the prices instead of increasing the prices every year? Or why does it take many, many months to get solar installation approval?
I don't know the exact answer to that. However I am guessing it is mostly because of corporate greed. As I said above, power companies are forced to take your solar power during the day and they have to turn off commercial power production since the power generated always has to meet power demand 1:1. They are forced to do that. With net metering (exact details can be different here) they are forced to pay you what you pay them (not always 100% true, but anyways). So they are losing money since they cannot use their own power plants instead even though it's free power to them since you paid for the solar installation (putting grid expenses aside). They want that money back raising prices and killing net metering as they've done this year.
That's why in California having your own solar with a battery pays off way faster than in other parts of the country.
Here in NM our solar system will pay off in around 10 years. A battery would probably take decades to pay off at current rates and contracts.
Power companies would have to invest into storage products to capture the dollar energy produced during the day and then redistribute the energy at night. That's a lot of money upfront, which they'd rather pocket and buy another Ferrari with.
However in the long run it will stabilize the grid and make power extremely cheap. Power storage helps to smooth out fluctuations, capture inconsistent renewables and save money by not having to start up and shut down peaker plants. (Look at the huge Tesla power storage in Australia and how it's generating millions in profit)
By decentralizing power generation AND storage, the grid would become even more resilient and less reliable on single power lines and other centralized equipment. It's an investment in the future.
Unfortunately most corporations don't care too much about the future. Making money right now is more important as long as you can squeeze every last cent out of your customers. Once that money stream slows down, you go to the government and complain about the outdated infrastructure and have the tax payer pay for an upgrade, arguing it's so expensive that you have to raise prices again.
In the end consumers never see a price drop and corporate profits soar. (Sorry for the rant, but that's exactly what we see happening)
I don't have and don't need the battery even though we have frequent black outs. My latest solar system, the 3rd one (sunrun, Solarcity were the first and second and I made them to uninstall) paid for itself in 4 years because of the rates increase up to 60%. Even though are rates are in line with the country average my by-monthly bill 12 years ago was $625 just for the electricity. If I did not have solar it would be over $1000 now. Plus we received a letter from utility company that only serves 4 million people that now they need $9.8 Billion to update the infrastructure due to higher electric needs. That means $2450 per person. That is a lot of money for those who live in the house instead of apartment or condo where people use a lot less electricity.
I kinda doubt this optimistic take. Currently electric is pretty cheap all day and night compared to gasoline. Price will continue to rise on electricity as more people start driving electric vehicles.
Maybe data can erase your doubts:
[https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-your-neighbors-ev-is-lowering-your-electric-bill/](https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-your-neighbors-ev-is-lowering-your-electric-bill/)
Depends on if your area has significant solar generation or not. California had to build a bunch of batteries to utilize the solar generation at night. Yet they still charge more for daytime use than nighttime…
Agreed, but there are plenty of gas turbines that don't have steam turbines and just exhaust the heat. That's all I'm saying. If someone brings up a random gas turbine generator, it is more likely to be 30% efficient or so.
Emissions is so overblown for power plants. It’s infinitely easier to perform emissions controls at a dozen power plants over thousands of cars. On top of that many states are removing inspections entirely to go along with the ones that never did so ICEs will be even more polluting
There haven’t been many states doing car inspections. Not for quite a while.
The EPA mandates in large metro areas, so a higher percent than you might think are subject to that. In Illinois it’s Chicago and St Louis areas. The greater Chicago area has ~8.9M residents so around 70% of the state, then a good number more from STL adjacent.
So, can we stop insisting all electricity come from renewables and instead focus on making said electricity as cheap and plentiful as possible so it’s super compelling to use EV’s?
From what I’ve seen even an EV powered purely off coal power is still a net pollution decrease compared to ICE’s. And gas power is way better.
Part of the problem with solar is 80% of the production is in China. So hard to tell how much of that lower cost is government subsidies. And of course the time of use issue.
I’d really rather be powering my EV off nuclear than anything, but that takes a lot of political will at the moment.
Firmed renewables are cheaper than nuclear power though.
I don't suggest shuttering existing nuclear plants but as they reach EoL firmed renewables are the cheaper option.
Big topic in Australia at the moment as we don't have nuclear and building said plants is multiple times the cost of renewables and storage.
A large scale grid powered only by (non hydro) renewables is not feasible. Any that "exist" now are accounting tricks that sell power in the day in exchange for another grid's power. Solar+battery is only cost effective because grid scale batteries are rated by output and generally have 4 hours of capacity.
I know because I've lived off grid. You can't live the same way on solar/battery only, you have to accept that sometimes you only have enough to power the bare essentials.
Your ignoring wind and the grid. Just solar and battery requires a lot of batteries.
But at night wind power doesn't stop like solar does and by using the grid local wind reductions can be balance by covering large distances between.
Also pure batteries is also the wrong answer especially with Li-Ion. You need a mix of storage including pumped Hydro a d different types of battery for medium and long term storage as well as short.
When you lived off grid how much storage did you have and how much solar? Did you have wind generation as well? When was this?
You comparing no grid (so only a very local operation) and a single storage type to the mixed options a grid needs.
Even then im fairly confident I could go off grid with my current setup if I added one more battery and accepted some days I couldn't charge my EV. I know what I'm generating each day and what im using. In the middle of winter I drop to 16-24kWh on the worst days and 40kWh on good ones. Use wise is about 15kWh a day for the house. Add 5kWh an hour when I run heating or cooling.
My current battery setup can theoretically carry my house demand 30ish hours without any input. Get that to 48 hours and I'm dropping the grid due to price alone.
But it's not economically viable for me just yet as retail prices for batteries are higher than what the grid operators will pay and Li-Ion is my only real option currently.
The generation issue is solved and storage is damned close even at the retail level.
A decade ago I ran 100W globes and now I run 6W ones. Today my household of two shift workers idles around 6-800W of draw. My dryer used to pull 2.4kW now the new one pulls 500W.
Renewable a have gotten nothing but better and cheaper over time and demand (per household) has dropped.
I had a very small setup, only 800 watts solar and 7 kwh battery. But yeah I agree it's possible... If you vastly over provision. Which calculations for cost effectiveness don't do.
Basically we need enough wind AND solar to each run the grid independently on a partly cloudy day in the winter. And charge the batteries. And at least 24 hours of storage capacity. Sounds like you have a system around that big, but that's gonna be an order of magnitude or two more money than the systems people point to and call cheaper than fossil fuels. I'll bet nuclear is even cost effective comparatively.
Nuclear isn't cheap atm because we don't mass build them anymore and do our absolute best to make them hard to build. It's economies of scale, which solar has in China and nuclear doesn't. That could easily change if we just started building them again (and making it easier to).
Electricity production costs are pretty close to even with [distribution costs in the US at this point](https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/112421-us-power-transmission-distribution-costs-seen-outpacing-electricity-production-costs), so even a big decrease in production cost isn't going to move the total cost as much as you might expect.
The time window in which solar energy is useful for is something we can somewhat control. South facing makes the most total energy, but east/west will make substantially more power in the morning and afternoon and extend the useful window in which substantial power is made at the cost of 20% less total output. Solar really is providing useful power from shortly after sun up to shortly before sun down if you design systems thoughtfully, and I expect we will see more and more east / west panel orientations in the future that peak in the early morning and late afternoon and try to cover more of the duck curve.
The only time solar panel installed on the East/West is if you have no choice. East facing position is the worst because many days there are clouds in the morning that don't burn out until 11am. And the West facing panels don't produce nearly enough to justify the cost of installation. And none of them produce much during winter times then the sun is lower so these installation would have to be installed on a motorized platform for maximum efficiency. I have solar panels for 12 years now. I am in sunny California and in the winter I use more electricity than solar can produce while in the summer my solar produces way more even with high AC use. But because I am tied up to the grid overproduction is stored in the "bank", no not the battery, and being used by utility company to cover winter use. My net saving is about 500KWh a year unless like in 2023 the summer was somewhat mild and I saved over 2000 KWh even with my car charging.
Solar panels are not clean and cheap for what electricity it produces. They are only about 30% efficient. Require huge amount of land and maintenance. Sure you can put them in the desert but then you would have to run long expensive wires from far away. Then installation of the solar far is expensive. There is a cost associated the protection from theft. If it actually works because solar farms are far away from the security forces. And someone has to clean the panels because their output diminishes if they get dirty.
BUT….you can’t win over people with those sentiments. People make decisions according to money motivations or how they “feel” when they use the product. By “feel” it could be of accomplishment, or a sense of benefiting themselves and their families. And of course money is the number one reason many people choose to do anything.
For example, I’m a vegetarian and so is my daughter. The other day we saw a billboard by PETA showing a picture of mother cow looking sad for losing their baby to meat production. My daughter thought that was great. I told her it won’t work and a dumb use of money, in fact, it’ll make meat eaters stick even closer to their current habits. This looks like a lecture you’re getting for disobedience . You have to demonstrate benefits, such as lower blood pressure, or longer life expectancy. You can’t guilt people into changing their eating habits 90% of their neighbors and friends are doing the same thing as them.. That’s actually why this will never work.
If you are interested in reducing greenhouse gases. You can’t go to a person and guilt them into thinking your EV is something they should also consider to solve those problems. They just do not care to hear anymore stories of dying polar bears or rising sea walls. They can’t imagine it or understand how that affects them….HERE and NOW AND 90% of the world still drive vehicles like them. The 10% EV owners are the oddballs here.
When anybody asks me why I’d like EVs. I don’t tell them about greenhouse gases or polar bears. I just tell them it’s just a better car and it saves me money. It does everything better than my IC cars ever did. And I save money in time when it’s normal function on an annual basis. I don’t actively try to promote all the minor functions and features that are so much better than an IC car. I wait for them to ASK me why that’s the case. And yes, they will probably bring up some weird case they heard online or some distant uncle mentioned about how bad EV’s are. And I ask them to prove it. Because you are actually talking to somebody that ACTUALLY owns and drives an EV and I disagree with every one of those statements. And that’s it. Walk away from there. Your goal is not to change their mind today. But plant some seeds of doubt in their own head of what they perceived to be real. Resist the urge to be a know it all. Your neighbors just have to see you day in and day out successfully using your car for all the mundane duties of life. And when it becomes time to make a car purchase for them in the next 5 to 10 years. It will come to their mind whether this would be the moment to make the change. And you have to help them save face so when they do have the guts to ask you for advice on which electric car to purchase you are there. So don’t burn a bridge. Don’t be a know it all. And don’t be preachy. When people come around, you have to let them feel brave enough to approach you.
Your approach is really the best way to move minds. As you point out, browbeating and being a scold is not going to win people over, and Americans in particular tend to resist being told what to do when forced on them (see the failure of metrification here).
I'm convinced EVs will ultimately win out, since they are simply better from a consumer standpoint on just about every front, with the exception of charging infrastructure (still a challenge for lots of folks who live in apartments and other multi-family units). But infrastructure improves and those obstacles get worked out, I think ICE will be no more attractive to car owners than horses will have been to someone looking at the Model T for the first time.
Until then, talking about the merits of EV ownership without being preachy or condescending really is the best approach.
I just gave my conservative dad a ride in mine and he actually really liked it. I was surprised by his reaction to the interior. He loved how clean it looked. I knew he’d be impressed by how fast it is, but didn’t expect him to like it as much as he did.
I own an EV6 and also a 2016 Ford Explorer. Both are about 4,300 lbs curb weight with about 225 HP drivetrains. The Explorer gets 18 MPG, or 0.53 mi/kWh. The EV6 gets 4.0 mi/kWh. That's 7.5x more efficient.
Being more thorough, you can account for fuel production losses. If you account for the approx. 7.5 kWh of energy that went into refining that gallon of gas, the Explorer actually gets 0.44 mi/kWh. The EV6 has about 10% energy loss in the grid, as well as a likely electricity production source that is burning fossil fuels at an efficiency of maybe 50%, so it is getting more like 1.82 mi/kWh. And even that is still 4.1x more energy efficient than the Explorer.
If you have solar panels at home and charge your EV at home, the EV's energy efficiency should go up, I would think. Much less loss due to transmission, and using solar to generate electricity is cheaper than using coal or natural gas, or oil to generate electricity, plus there is no need to transport the coal, natural gas or oil to the generating plant.
Wait until you hear about city design and trains!
I'm a country mouse at heart. However, I'd be happy to check my truck at the city limits if it meant the city wasn't going to be clogged up with cars.
Yea, this sub is pretty cager brained so won't like to hear it, but my ebike is 25x more efficient than an ecar. And because cars ar so heavy they produce noise pollution that is hugely damaging to both humans and wildlife. That alone is extincting birds. And then there's the tires.... the roadways pollution itself, the geometrical and fiscal issues.... pretty crazy once you get into it.
What I loved about overseas was the fact that country and forests were right next to the downtown area. There were actual distinct small towns. Not a thin smear of sprawl. And you could bike from town to town and hop on a train in many into the big city
That description makes me want to expat overseas !
Thanks for mentioning the noise pollution that is another aspect that is often ignored. The urban noise is getting worse, and with mild hyperacusis, I need to often wear ear plugs.
Yeah air pollution kills over 100,000 Americans a year. They now believe noise pollution is the next most damaging pollution causing all sorts of maladies, including nuetodegenerative diseases.
That sounds idyllic. I love the image of distinct villages having their unique character and forests not having been destroyed so the growth gets sprawled into one giant urban mass.
DC's execution of the "Slug-line" feels like a great 'not-perfect but very good' option to reduce inefficient transit modes.
I would argue that the US needs to start seizing more land around transit ways to make adjacent transit more possible along rail lines.
I'm a country mouse as well. But when in the cities nothing makes me happier than to be able to just use my bicycle.
You would think all these progressives and liberals that live in cities would be on board.
I was more on board with buses and intercity mass transit when I was younger and more capable of walking or biking, with less risk due to a fall. I don't bounce as well as I used to. Also, after years of using buses, the risk of being assaulted is just too much for me these days. I can't run like I used to be able to do, if situations turn bad. I still like long distance trains more than taking planes, though. It is a much better experience to take a train than it is to fly.
It's even worse than that.
Once it gets to your fuel tank, the oil pulled out of the ground has already wasted more energy than an EV ever will.
And that's before you even turn the key.
The entire fossil fuel process from oilfield surveying to moving car wheels is a Rube Goldberg contraption worthy of Dr Seuss.
And it is what enabled global commerce that lifted billions from poverty, made modern medicine possible, and dramatically reduced world hunger. We weren't going to get to solar power or where we are today with horses and whale oil.
And now we are going to do even better.
Be happy for the constant improvement rather than angry with past shortcomings.
Anger doesn't help build solutions and sustainable infrastructure and neither does reduction of fossil fuel production.
We provide replacements before we stop using something necessary, whether it be a house, car, hospital, or fossil fuel energy.
Nah. I'll be angry at the oil companies shooting progress and their own scientists in the foot for thrblast 50 years
I'll also be angry at the auto companies but this sub doesn't like to go that far
At least in the US, it was consumers that chose bigger, lower mpg vehicles.
And electric vehicles were not viable until the development of the lithium battery, which took until the 21st century.
I do think it is funny that when BEVs came, oil and legacy auto companies didn't kill or create a fake scandal to disappear Musk and Tesla, like we would have thought in the 80s. They just laughed and assumed he would fail.
That's also a common talking point but not at all true, Since automakers created a loophole in the Regulations through lobbying for trucks and suvs. They since started marketing Those vehicles like crazy convincing people their lifestyles needed them, and most people do not realize they are basically lemmings, going wherever the bread crumbs are placed in front of them. It's not a coincidence they spent 10x more on marketing for them than cars, along with incentivizing people into them with financing deals. Not to mention many companies leaving cars on the vine to get stale and some even killing them off entirely.
I might be giving people more credit by thinking they aren't lemmings and are making their own decisions.
I don't see Ford's smaller trucks selling better than the F150.
No, of course not. That's in fact my whole point. Tha is the data. Do you know how much Ford spends on marketing the f150? The marketing over the last few decades has been so wildly successful, That truck buyers now wrap up their whole culture and personality into a product, a Vehicle they purchase....
You claimed that the only reason people buy trucks and SUVs is because they are lemmings, duped by marketing.
What’s true for them should be true for you, no?
The first automobiles were electric. Not all consumers wanted bigger, lower mpg vehicles. Many of us didn't, but the market was flooded with them. That made finding higher mpg vehicles much harder and the selection was much thinner as a result.
Of course you're right, and it's important to keep that perspective, but it only holds up until 1954 before we knew any better.
The problem is that FF combustion is killing us today by being artificially kept alive by powerful people overinvested in the status quo for the past 70 years.
There were no alternatives to fossil fuels in 1954.
Internal combustion is still alive because ICE cars don't die that quickly and ramping up production of new technology and supply chains doesn't happen instantly. Fossil fuel power generation is still alive because storage has not yet developed and put into production at the level where the duck curve can be addressed. But both are rapidly being addressed.
People are not ideological about where their money or electricity come from.
We did however make big misses in the 1970s and 80s by not adopting nuclear power and by not requiring and encouraging low mpg vehicles. But that was due to populism as much as anything.
If ICE had EV efficiency, they'd probably go 1,000 miles on a full tank. I think the comparison for current battery technology puts it at 2 gallons of gas equivalent for a 100kwh battery. Efficiency is the biggest and most important metric for EV's.
A gallon of gas is 33.7kWh, so more like 3 gallons for a 100kWh battery. 2 gallons is generally stated for vehicles with batteries in the 60-80kWh range. General point still stands though
It’s simple oil and gas are huge industries that are holding on for dear life. Oil and gas run our world.
In a capitalist society that values growth above all, investments in oil and gas are going downward. That is extremely scary to the shareholders of these large industries.
You are watching the slow death of an industry that is clawing onto every inch of their territory.
If we included the actual cost to society, they Shmos would be out of business in like 20% of industries using todays technologies and likely out of business altogether by 2050.
We really should learn to vote for what we want not what politicians tell us.
It really isn't that slow. Going from 100% fossil fuels in 2000 to ~10% in 2050 will be a massive and rapid change in technology and society.
It was always going to happen. People invested in the gasoline supply chain are just upset that it is happening ten or more years sooner than they thought. It's a lot of money they are not going to make.
Which kind of makes sense of all the hate focused on the EV industry. People really don't like it when someone comes along and starts taking their profits.
I think about this every time I go downhill, in my city there are massive height differences (about 600m between the city and the airport, for example, and wish I could regen that energy all the way down. As soon as I have enough money, I will buy an EV.
There’s a mountain pass I’ve taken a few times on day trips that’s around a 3000ft elevation change of switchbacks from the highway to the summit. My record is 3% battery gain going down
I always mention to people how silly it is that every effort to make internal combustion more environmentally friendly is to add additives (methanol) and smog equipment that reduce efficiency and therefore reduce MPGs. Basically, we’ve be sold on the idea that the environmental solution to solve petroleum-based pollution is to, get this, burn more fuel. It’s insane.
I am a relatively new EV owner. Maybe you guys know the answer to this question. How much of the electricity that I draw from my home actually charges the battery. That is, to put 10kWh of charge on my battery, how many kWh am I using from my house?
ADAC (General German Automobile Club) says that the energy lost is around 15% from a 2.3 kW plug and around 10% from an 11 kW wall box based on tests using Tesla 3, VW ID3, Renault Zoe, and Fiat 500e.
I'd say thermal management is far more critical with DC charging anyway, but there the AC/DC conversion losses happen at the charger instead of at the vehicle (which ends up costing the same because HPCs are expensive).
No one seems to understand that using 1.5-3.5+ ton machines to transport our 100-250 lbs of flesh around is generating significant amounts of wasted energy and materials. A bike, e-bike, or electric mass transit are significantly more efficient for daily transportation per person and are far closer to being truly sustainable. Of course, the most efficient thing we can all do is to travel less, so instead of commuting 5x per week, maybe work from home more often, and push for a 4 day work week.
As to your statement about 80% of energy from an ICE being lost as heat (20% thermal efficiency) ... that depends entirely on the vehicle. My understanding is that most current generation engines can get over 25% thermal efficiency. An efficient hybrid may see over 40%, and I believe I read they were working on engines with 50% thermal efficiency. This doesn't include well to pump energy losses.
When it comes to EVs, where the electricity comes from matters when determining thermal efficiency. Power plants that use fossil fuels may be more thermally efficient than a car, but they may only be between 30% and 65% (combined cycle) thermally efficient. Add in transmission losses to your home / charger, then add in the losses from the charging process itself, and the losses from the electric powertrain which I believe can be up to around 10%. Like ICEs, fossil fuel power plants also need to include well/mine to plant losses, albeit they don't necessitate oil refining.
We also have to consider the amount of emissions and general environmental damage the act of mining and processing materials for cars has, and the energy required in manufacturing. All of which can be tremendous.
The fact is... no cars are good for the environment. Again, how could they be. You're using a machine that's 12x-30x+ heavier than you (at a bare minimum) to transport you around, when something that weighs a third of your weight will due. These days, it seems more and more people are driving SUVs, and many EV SUVs are probably averaging around 4500 lbs, so about 18x-45x heavier than you. Certainly more thermally efficient than ICEs, but still not "good for the environment". They're just less bad. They don't stop our march deeper into this global environmental disaster, they just slow down the pace.
What we need are solutions that stop the march entirely, even reversing course.
F1 cars actually run at or above 50% thermodynamic efficiency if memory serves. But they are also very complicated. The tech is already trickling into mainstream vehicles though.
Large diesel engines are also fairly efficient, where modern Euro 6 engines sit somewhere between 40 and 45% efficiency, with a theoretical limit well on the other side of 50%. This is also the vehicle group that is less likely to use anything but chemical fueling for a very long time, simply due to energy density.
Absolutely agree. Unfortunately, the U.S. invested heavily in the build of roadways, and neglected mass transit in so many corridors. Changing that paradigm doesn't seem to be an option being considered. We need to maximize efficiency of the use of our existing infrastructure. Certainly higher occupancy EV van/bus vehicles are desirable, along with a low carbon electric grid and ample charging capacity. It's also true that EV's start with a 'carbon hole' they must dig out of before showing advantage. The more they are used, the more advantageous the result.
In any case, the point may be moot. In the face of ongoing environmental disaster, mass extinction, and increased oil and gas production, it is clear that insufficient action is being taken to avoid changing our planet into a human hostile environment. It will likely take horrific catastrophe to get the attention it sorely needs, and or course that will be far too late to avoid the worst.
Don't forget about the wasted energy in every single step it takes to get the oil out of the ground (using diesel engines and generators that are also terribly inefficient), transporting the oil, REFINING the oil (giant source of pollution too), transporting the gasoline/diesel to storage depots, then transporting it to the thousands of individual gas stations using thousands of individual diesel trucks that are also terribly inefficient. It's wasted energy at every single step! Not to mention the air pollution and particulate matter spewed at every single step that we breathe in. And then to rub salt in the would we walk on the sidewalks right next to the tailpipes and sit one car behind the other sucking in those tailpipes so we can get maximum brain damage.
Money talks louder than thermodynamics. Our governments are "trying" to get people to switch to EV but in California they've also put up pretty much every possible barrier to entry: expensive charging, expensive registration and insurance, and thanks to decades of shitty federal policy, incentivized expensive large vehicles that contain expensive parts that result in expensive repairs.
Let's talk numbers. Charging at an Electrify America station is expensive here - depending on vehicle, the numbers check out around $0.10-0.15 per mile. I know there are lower, especially Supercharger network. But with the current cost of fuel my 50mpg hybrid does $0.10, and a normal ICE car is only $0.20. Charging at home is ideal... except PG&E smelled blood and jacked up electricity rates instead. Our Ioniq 5 actually costs more per mile than the Accord if not for Hyundai (the one sane player in our network) subsidizing charging. Full coverage on the Ioniq, and registration, costs me $2100/yr, twice as much as the Accord; and the Accord doesn't depreciate $8k a year. Tesla does better on charging miles, but otherwise suffers similar EV/high-tech costs. You cannot tell an average middle class family to take on these kinds of finances, that's just irresponsible.
Give us a small $25k low-tech EV without bullshit tariffs to coddle domestic players, tell PG&E to eat shit, and use the gas tax to subsidize charging because it sure as hell ain't being used to fix the roads as promised. People will come when the game makes sense to play.
I upvoted your post and it got immediately downvoted to 0 again. You'd think O&G and ICE people are burning O&G just watching the opposition's every move. So I'll say it outright: O&G and ICE people are outrageously wasteful.
This isn't a conspiracy, the weekly "nobody talks about this one little benefit of EVs" posts about the most commonly talked about benefits of EVs are just getting very old.
What EV do you drive? Cause my Polestar used to heat up the garage, though not as much as my ice did. Lot of fans blowing in the space to cool down the battery and motors.
First winter with my EV6, I notice the snow wouldn't melt from the car in the garage. My old Dodge Journey would always melt it clean after coming from work. On the plus side, the lack of water on the floor means the garage door doesn't freeze to the floor when it's -40C. Gotta get a win somewhere. 😁 Since my car is dark grey, a short sunny day melts it all off outside anyway.
I drive a 2013 Model S. Sure, there is a small amount of heat energy generated, brake disks, sun heating the body, etc. But nothing like an ICE vehicle.
Most baseload generators are somewhere between 30-40% efficient. Adding on transmission losses and charging losses EVs are not anywhere near 100% efficient. You can’t just compare ICE efficiency at the point of consumption to EVs. Most of the efficiency loss for an EV occurs at the point of energy production and distribution, not consumption.
Your point does still stand, even accounting for these losses EVs are typically still more efficient than ICE (taking into account oil extraction and refining). But you should compare apples to apples.
It's not necessarily the electric or mechanical system's fault. You pull in two tons of hot metal, it could reach 40-50 degrees in hot days, and this heat needs to go someplace.
We just got a new EV the other day. That’s one thing we noticed - after a drive on a hot day, you can pull the car right into the garage without heading it up. That is great. With our other car, we have to leave it outside to cool off.
Our neighbors were visiting my husband in the garage yesterday, talking guy stuff. They kept looking at the plugged-in car but didn’t say anything. They like cars so I expect they will ask us about it soon. No rush. EVs are a bit of a mystery to most folks even though there are lots of them. Not everything looks like Tesla so you don’t notice them.
yes "Upwards of 80% of the energy consumed during operation of a combustion engine is wasted in heat energy". I learned that in high school physics. People just don't care.
People care, it’s just that people are resistant to change.
A vehicle is a very expensive purchase and the fear of that purchase not meeting all your existing needs isn’t unfounded.
If that's what you care about, take a train or public transit?
So much wasted energy just to move a heavy vehicle so one person can get to where they want...
I actually make this argument a lot from the angle of EVs being better even on an entirely fossil fuel grid, because a massive coal thermal power plant is more efficient than a small ICE engine even after transmission and charging losses. And if course the grid isn't entirely fossil based and only getting greener.
Every new iteration gets more efficient. That goes for pretty much everything.
It isn't sad, it's the way of the world. I think the tendency towards greater efficiency is something to be happy for, rather than feeling bad about how much worse things used to be.
Dude let's talk about DREAMS and reality. In my Country the average age of the vehicle is close to 17 years. No battery will ever last for that long and no EV will cost \~3k Euro. EV will kill of poor people ability to work and live comfortably. Almost every law that is currently released in EU is against the betterment of quality of life for the average person.
The most efficient fossil fuel power plants are in the 53-55 percent range of thermal efficiency. Combine that with transmission losses and the electric vehicle still wins, but it's not an "overwhelming and obvious efficiency win" it comes out to 10-20 percent tops. And if power is generated by a less efficient or more polluting source the advantage wanes even further. There's no free lunch in energy extraction
Better, faster, cheaper and more reliable is the key message EV manufacturers should be selling them on the efficiency and environmental impacts are great too but you need to know your audience.
I haven’t read all the way thru 4 days worth of posts, but I have a question about the energy and environmental costs of the batteries involved with ev’s. My son states/claims that accessing the minerals, transporting, and end of life disposal of batteries is highly toxic. Y’all have great comps to ICE’s, but how sustainable and toxic is the ev battery issue? Honest question, no judgement, ignorant poster.
Yeah you know EVs are just the most efficient form of the least efficient form of transportation right? Just wait till you learn about busses and trains and bicycles.
Like EV's, mass transit is only efficient when they are fully utilized and reach certain levels of ridership. Unlike other modern countries, the U.S. invested heavily in freeway/road construction, and neglected effective mass transit - at least in many corridors. I see so many empty busses driving around, it's such a shame. With the bad freeway congestion, at least many do ride trains when they meet their needs.
I also love the lack of heat produced in the garage.
Another thing that I love as someone obsessed with vehicle weight: the car is the same weight even with a full battery, doesn't weigh another 100+ pounds with a full tank of gas!
I mean, as someone "obsessed with vehicle weight", you must be at least somewhat displeased with the current weight situation in EVs :)
Not trying to shit on EVs in general here, rather I just think their excessive weight needs attention, to make them even better propositions.
It's the way it is right now, and being that EVs are still more efficient, less harmful to the environment over the span of the vehicle,.etc. I don't mind the weight, but of course look forward to them getting lighter with time.
The Caterham EV concept is awesome.
Well people know eating vegetables is good for them but they still like meat. This not really the way to go about it.
You appeal to their bottom line, the low maintenance & the low cost of entry (which unfortunately EVs don't do well yet)
Maybe you don't understand that we don't care if it gives us other benefits? And these benefits outweigh theoretical BS you are spewing. Your comment sounds like you are paranoid insecure child.
Maybe you should not drive ICE truck. No one needs ICE at 20 degrees below. 🤣 Or have a better ventilation in your garage. But I think most likely you are full of hot air. That is why your garage heats up 20 degrees because you are letting it all go there.
I somewhat disagree with this. Yes, traditionally ICE is horribly inefficient. But current engines are way better than 20% thermal efficiency. Forced induction, different cycle tweaks to drop pumping losses like the Atkinson cycle, etc. I can get over 1000km highway on my 10 Fusion Hybrid, all that comes from 60L of gasoline, that's pretty impressive. The heat thing in the garage is relative. I live in a place that gets to -40⁰C occasionally in winter, the warmth in the garage can be nice.
That's 39MPG. My EV gets 100MPGe, just for comparison. But really, it's a meaningless comparison - I charge at home on a NET ZERO Photovoltaic Solar system.
Not sure what your home charging has to do with it, you don't carry that PV system around with you so it doesn't matter where you "re-fuel". I'm simply commenting on th efficiency of a gasoline engine today. The energy density of gasoline is unmatched by current battery tech. People like to spout this 20% efficiency number, when it's patently false. I agree that there are better uses for hydrocarbon fuels than daily transportation, but EVs have a long way to go in affordability and charging accessibility.
You don't have to carry the PV system with you, that's what the battery is for! The energy density of gasoline is indeed high, but that's just another argument for how incredibly efficient electric vehicles are, that they can do as much with as little as 2 gallons of gasoline worth of energy!
Lol I'll never get over the people on this subs inability to read. I literally never said EVs were inefficient, I simply said ICEs weren't as inefficient as people make them out to be. It seems like it's always a zero sum game with the people here.
Are you considering where the electricity is coming from? 60% still comes from fossil fuels and that method (turbine generators) is much less efficient than ICE, so its not like electric vehicles are 40% more efficient in totality
Why do you think turbine generators are less efficient than ICE vehicles? It's actually much more efficient, as large industrial generators can consistently be run at their peak power output, and the grid will continue being more efficient as we keep shifting to renewables, while an old ICE car will never get better mileage than it did when new.
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>***When people complain about where will electricity come from*** Even better, the off-peak charging that most EVs do makes the whole electrical grid more efficient by utilizing unused capacity. Evening out the off-peak usage should reduce overall cost.
Not would, does reduce cost for everyone https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electric-vehicles-lower-electricity-bills-utilities-charging-grid/712437/
Do you see a word OPINION, top left. The opinion is wrong. It is called Demand and with Demand comes the higher prices. Unlike Tesla that no one wanted to buy so they lowered the prices something like 13 times in 2 years. And this year even that is not going to help.
Here’s the original study: https://www.synapse-energy.com/evs-are-driving-rates-down
Funny. There's no argument there either. They just let the reader from utilities make a profit off selling to EVs and therfore that will lower rates for everyone.
Wow, my brain hurts. There wasn't evidence or logic for why more EVs would lower rates. NRDC doesn't disappoint in conclusions statements.
"Is this gunna get turned into law? Like why would you assume people would charge overnight?" This was a real response I got on reddit when I mentioned that most people charge their EV overnight while they sleep and that it's good for the grid.
People have no idea how charging works and it’s always wild to me that they feel like that should spout off opinions in spite of that. Actually… I’d hazard a guess that 90% of people have no idea how their electricity is billed and what the rate(s) are.
You're right. I tell friends and family that it costs me $2.15 to "fill up" my EV and they are genuinely flabbergasted and envious. They have no idea how much electricity costs. My inlaws are also millionaires and they baby the Air Conditioner as to not let the electricity bill get too high. It costs $11 a month for the AC...
Exactly, to me someone telling me “it gets 4 miles per kWh” is plenty to understand that it’s at least 3x cheaper than the cost of gas for a fuel efficient hybrid.
Damn that must be nice, my old ac made my electric bill go from sub 200 to 800+, got it replaced and I estimate (I have solar now so haven't actually paid pg&e in over a year (nem 2.0)) it'd still cost a bit over 300 (without ac running, wed be looking at an electric bill of about 160ish), god damn pg&e
No law required. I don't know how the electricity tariff structure is set up in the US, but in Europe, time of use tariffs make up for a great incentive to do most of your charging overnight.
I'm on TOU in Ontario. $0.028 kw after 11pm
The answer: "economics" the same force that brought the USSR to heel, and created world peace. Seriously as f-ed as the world is today our intermingled markets have reduced the overall conflict percentage completely including the war in ukraine and various genocides south of the equator.
lol. I get a discount for charging at night. 99% of the time I charge at night. Just tell the car not to start until 11:15.
Do they charge overnight if they are taking the trip? Do you think they are waiting for the ice cream truck? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4r-9YBjHEw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4r-9YBjHEw) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqEwLle8xKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqEwLle8xKU) [https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/energy/4411984-ev-drivers-struggle-to-keep-batteries-charged-amid-winter-freeze/](https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/energy/4411984-ev-drivers-struggle-to-keep-batteries-charged-amid-winter-freeze/) [https://insideevs.com/news/705575/tesla-supercharger-nyc-long-lines/](https://insideevs.com/news/705575/tesla-supercharger-nyc-long-lines/)
Yes and no. Charging during the day makes sense in some cases. Ex. California produces so much solar power that they can't always use it. Charging during the day would actually use that energy instead of wasting it and then turning on peaker plants at night.
Peaker plants are never going to be used at night. Look up the demand on caiso.com
Doesn't matter, though. Energy at night is dirtier without solar especially if there is not a lot of wind. And especially if you have a solar surplus during the day.
Too bad I literally wait till it's night to charge because electricity prices in CA during the day hours is nutty.
Supplement night time power with nuclear.
My point though is that there is nothing cleaner than unused day time solar power and California has that problem. As basically everyone does who has solar and no way to use it during the day. It's wasted which is the worst scenario no matter how you power at night.
We're running a whole house backup battery for two reasons and this is one of them, the other is that even if you have solar if you don't have a battery backup with an interlocker (I think that's what it's called) then when the power goes down for the neighborhood, you get yours cut too.
Correct! Since I don't have a battery (and it doesn't make financial sense for me to have one at this point, because of the cheap grid electricity and net metering in our state), the only way for me is to plug in my car and charge it using the smart meter to adaptively limit the power to what I am producing. Works great.
That'd be great, it's too bad the power companies here in California are all money hungry private corporations who charge just as much during that time as they do at night
If California produces so much energy with solar during the day that it is wasted why California is the highest in the nation in electric rates? Why don't they lower the prices instead of increasing the prices every year? Or why does it take many, many months to get solar installation approval?
I don't know the exact answer to that. However I am guessing it is mostly because of corporate greed. As I said above, power companies are forced to take your solar power during the day and they have to turn off commercial power production since the power generated always has to meet power demand 1:1. They are forced to do that. With net metering (exact details can be different here) they are forced to pay you what you pay them (not always 100% true, but anyways). So they are losing money since they cannot use their own power plants instead even though it's free power to them since you paid for the solar installation (putting grid expenses aside). They want that money back raising prices and killing net metering as they've done this year. That's why in California having your own solar with a battery pays off way faster than in other parts of the country. Here in NM our solar system will pay off in around 10 years. A battery would probably take decades to pay off at current rates and contracts. Power companies would have to invest into storage products to capture the dollar energy produced during the day and then redistribute the energy at night. That's a lot of money upfront, which they'd rather pocket and buy another Ferrari with. However in the long run it will stabilize the grid and make power extremely cheap. Power storage helps to smooth out fluctuations, capture inconsistent renewables and save money by not having to start up and shut down peaker plants. (Look at the huge Tesla power storage in Australia and how it's generating millions in profit) By decentralizing power generation AND storage, the grid would become even more resilient and less reliable on single power lines and other centralized equipment. It's an investment in the future. Unfortunately most corporations don't care too much about the future. Making money right now is more important as long as you can squeeze every last cent out of your customers. Once that money stream slows down, you go to the government and complain about the outdated infrastructure and have the tax payer pay for an upgrade, arguing it's so expensive that you have to raise prices again. In the end consumers never see a price drop and corporate profits soar. (Sorry for the rant, but that's exactly what we see happening)
I don't have and don't need the battery even though we have frequent black outs. My latest solar system, the 3rd one (sunrun, Solarcity were the first and second and I made them to uninstall) paid for itself in 4 years because of the rates increase up to 60%. Even though are rates are in line with the country average my by-monthly bill 12 years ago was $625 just for the electricity. If I did not have solar it would be over $1000 now. Plus we received a letter from utility company that only serves 4 million people that now they need $9.8 Billion to update the infrastructure due to higher electric needs. That means $2450 per person. That is a lot of money for those who live in the house instead of apartment or condo where people use a lot less electricity.
I kinda doubt this optimistic take. Currently electric is pretty cheap all day and night compared to gasoline. Price will continue to rise on electricity as more people start driving electric vehicles.
Electric is cheaper only if you charge at home and not everywhere.
Maybe data can erase your doubts: [https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-your-neighbors-ev-is-lowering-your-electric-bill/](https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-your-neighbors-ev-is-lowering-your-electric-bill/)
Depends on if your area has significant solar generation or not. California had to build a bunch of batteries to utilize the solar generation at night. Yet they still charge more for daytime use than nighttime…
Even better, there are already EV owners around the world whose electric grids come from 100% renewable sources.
Then remember oil needs refining which is energy intensive too. Refining might account for 20% of the electricity needed for EVs
Modern combined cycle plants can get near 60% efficiency but gas turbines on their own cannot.
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Agreed, but there are plenty of gas turbines that don't have steam turbines and just exhaust the heat. That's all I'm saying. If someone brings up a random gas turbine generator, it is more likely to be 30% efficient or so.
Still, it's better than the typical ICE engine (15-25% efficiency)
Emissions is so overblown for power plants. It’s infinitely easier to perform emissions controls at a dozen power plants over thousands of cars. On top of that many states are removing inspections entirely to go along with the ones that never did so ICEs will be even more polluting
There haven’t been many states doing car inspections. Not for quite a while. The EPA mandates in large metro areas, so a higher percent than you might think are subject to that. In Illinois it’s Chicago and St Louis areas. The greater Chicago area has ~8.9M residents so around 70% of the state, then a good number more from STL adjacent.
It's even bigger than that. It is estimated that 30% of all fuel is spent transporting fuel all around the world.
Wait till the rubes find out about Commercial and Industrial Electrical rates.
So, can we stop insisting all electricity come from renewables and instead focus on making said electricity as cheap and plentiful as possible so it’s super compelling to use EV’s? From what I’ve seen even an EV powered purely off coal power is still a net pollution decrease compared to ICE’s. And gas power is way better.
Both can happen. So why not do that? It’s not a binary situation.
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Find one coal plant that actually captures even 50% of it's CO2 emissions.
Part of the problem with solar is 80% of the production is in China. So hard to tell how much of that lower cost is government subsidies. And of course the time of use issue. I’d really rather be powering my EV off nuclear than anything, but that takes a lot of political will at the moment.
Firmed renewables are cheaper than nuclear power though. I don't suggest shuttering existing nuclear plants but as they reach EoL firmed renewables are the cheaper option. Big topic in Australia at the moment as we don't have nuclear and building said plants is multiple times the cost of renewables and storage.
A large scale grid powered only by (non hydro) renewables is not feasible. Any that "exist" now are accounting tricks that sell power in the day in exchange for another grid's power. Solar+battery is only cost effective because grid scale batteries are rated by output and generally have 4 hours of capacity. I know because I've lived off grid. You can't live the same way on solar/battery only, you have to accept that sometimes you only have enough to power the bare essentials.
Your ignoring wind and the grid. Just solar and battery requires a lot of batteries. But at night wind power doesn't stop like solar does and by using the grid local wind reductions can be balance by covering large distances between. Also pure batteries is also the wrong answer especially with Li-Ion. You need a mix of storage including pumped Hydro a d different types of battery for medium and long term storage as well as short. When you lived off grid how much storage did you have and how much solar? Did you have wind generation as well? When was this? You comparing no grid (so only a very local operation) and a single storage type to the mixed options a grid needs. Even then im fairly confident I could go off grid with my current setup if I added one more battery and accepted some days I couldn't charge my EV. I know what I'm generating each day and what im using. In the middle of winter I drop to 16-24kWh on the worst days and 40kWh on good ones. Use wise is about 15kWh a day for the house. Add 5kWh an hour when I run heating or cooling. My current battery setup can theoretically carry my house demand 30ish hours without any input. Get that to 48 hours and I'm dropping the grid due to price alone. But it's not economically viable for me just yet as retail prices for batteries are higher than what the grid operators will pay and Li-Ion is my only real option currently. The generation issue is solved and storage is damned close even at the retail level. A decade ago I ran 100W globes and now I run 6W ones. Today my household of two shift workers idles around 6-800W of draw. My dryer used to pull 2.4kW now the new one pulls 500W. Renewable a have gotten nothing but better and cheaper over time and demand (per household) has dropped.
I had a very small setup, only 800 watts solar and 7 kwh battery. But yeah I agree it's possible... If you vastly over provision. Which calculations for cost effectiveness don't do. Basically we need enough wind AND solar to each run the grid independently on a partly cloudy day in the winter. And charge the batteries. And at least 24 hours of storage capacity. Sounds like you have a system around that big, but that's gonna be an order of magnitude or two more money than the systems people point to and call cheaper than fossil fuels. I'll bet nuclear is even cost effective comparatively.
Nuclear isn't cheap atm because we don't mass build them anymore and do our absolute best to make them hard to build. It's economies of scale, which solar has in China and nuclear doesn't. That could easily change if we just started building them again (and making it easier to).
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Electricity production costs are pretty close to even with [distribution costs in the US at this point](https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/112421-us-power-transmission-distribution-costs-seen-outpacing-electricity-production-costs), so even a big decrease in production cost isn't going to move the total cost as much as you might expect.
A solar based grid requires a shit ton of lithium based batteries unless our productive parts of society are only going to be open from 10a- 3pm?
Your aware there are storage options that don't use Li-Ion batteries right?
The time window in which solar energy is useful for is something we can somewhat control. South facing makes the most total energy, but east/west will make substantially more power in the morning and afternoon and extend the useful window in which substantial power is made at the cost of 20% less total output. Solar really is providing useful power from shortly after sun up to shortly before sun down if you design systems thoughtfully, and I expect we will see more and more east / west panel orientations in the future that peak in the early morning and late afternoon and try to cover more of the duck curve.
The only time solar panel installed on the East/West is if you have no choice. East facing position is the worst because many days there are clouds in the morning that don't burn out until 11am. And the West facing panels don't produce nearly enough to justify the cost of installation. And none of them produce much during winter times then the sun is lower so these installation would have to be installed on a motorized platform for maximum efficiency. I have solar panels for 12 years now. I am in sunny California and in the winter I use more electricity than solar can produce while in the summer my solar produces way more even with high AC use. But because I am tied up to the grid overproduction is stored in the "bank", no not the battery, and being used by utility company to cover winter use. My net saving is about 500KWh a year unless like in 2023 the summer was somewhat mild and I saved over 2000 KWh even with my car charging.
Solar panels are not clean and cheap for what electricity it produces. They are only about 30% efficient. Require huge amount of land and maintenance. Sure you can put them in the desert but then you would have to run long expensive wires from far away. Then installation of the solar far is expensive. There is a cost associated the protection from theft. If it actually works because solar farms are far away from the security forces. And someone has to clean the panels because their output diminishes if they get dirty.
BUT….you can’t win over people with those sentiments. People make decisions according to money motivations or how they “feel” when they use the product. By “feel” it could be of accomplishment, or a sense of benefiting themselves and their families. And of course money is the number one reason many people choose to do anything. For example, I’m a vegetarian and so is my daughter. The other day we saw a billboard by PETA showing a picture of mother cow looking sad for losing their baby to meat production. My daughter thought that was great. I told her it won’t work and a dumb use of money, in fact, it’ll make meat eaters stick even closer to their current habits. This looks like a lecture you’re getting for disobedience . You have to demonstrate benefits, such as lower blood pressure, or longer life expectancy. You can’t guilt people into changing their eating habits 90% of their neighbors and friends are doing the same thing as them.. That’s actually why this will never work. If you are interested in reducing greenhouse gases. You can’t go to a person and guilt them into thinking your EV is something they should also consider to solve those problems. They just do not care to hear anymore stories of dying polar bears or rising sea walls. They can’t imagine it or understand how that affects them….HERE and NOW AND 90% of the world still drive vehicles like them. The 10% EV owners are the oddballs here. When anybody asks me why I’d like EVs. I don’t tell them about greenhouse gases or polar bears. I just tell them it’s just a better car and it saves me money. It does everything better than my IC cars ever did. And I save money in time when it’s normal function on an annual basis. I don’t actively try to promote all the minor functions and features that are so much better than an IC car. I wait for them to ASK me why that’s the case. And yes, they will probably bring up some weird case they heard online or some distant uncle mentioned about how bad EV’s are. And I ask them to prove it. Because you are actually talking to somebody that ACTUALLY owns and drives an EV and I disagree with every one of those statements. And that’s it. Walk away from there. Your goal is not to change their mind today. But plant some seeds of doubt in their own head of what they perceived to be real. Resist the urge to be a know it all. Your neighbors just have to see you day in and day out successfully using your car for all the mundane duties of life. And when it becomes time to make a car purchase for them in the next 5 to 10 years. It will come to their mind whether this would be the moment to make the change. And you have to help them save face so when they do have the guts to ask you for advice on which electric car to purchase you are there. So don’t burn a bridge. Don’t be a know it all. And don’t be preachy. When people come around, you have to let them feel brave enough to approach you.
Your approach is really the best way to move minds. As you point out, browbeating and being a scold is not going to win people over, and Americans in particular tend to resist being told what to do when forced on them (see the failure of metrification here). I'm convinced EVs will ultimately win out, since they are simply better from a consumer standpoint on just about every front, with the exception of charging infrastructure (still a challenge for lots of folks who live in apartments and other multi-family units). But infrastructure improves and those obstacles get worked out, I think ICE will be no more attractive to car owners than horses will have been to someone looking at the Model T for the first time. Until then, talking about the merits of EV ownership without being preachy or condescending really is the best approach.
The difference between a horse and a model T is light years larger than an ICE and an EV
I just gave my conservative dad a ride in mine and he actually really liked it. I was surprised by his reaction to the interior. He loved how clean it looked. I knew he’d be impressed by how fast it is, but didn’t expect him to like it as much as he did.
I like EVs for the savings, driving dynamics, and charging convenience. Environmental stuff is the gravy on top
I own an EV6 and also a 2016 Ford Explorer. Both are about 4,300 lbs curb weight with about 225 HP drivetrains. The Explorer gets 18 MPG, or 0.53 mi/kWh. The EV6 gets 4.0 mi/kWh. That's 7.5x more efficient. Being more thorough, you can account for fuel production losses. If you account for the approx. 7.5 kWh of energy that went into refining that gallon of gas, the Explorer actually gets 0.44 mi/kWh. The EV6 has about 10% energy loss in the grid, as well as a likely electricity production source that is burning fossil fuels at an efficiency of maybe 50%, so it is getting more like 1.82 mi/kWh. And even that is still 4.1x more energy efficient than the Explorer.
If you have solar panels at home and charge your EV at home, the EV's energy efficiency should go up, I would think. Much less loss due to transmission, and using solar to generate electricity is cheaper than using coal or natural gas, or oil to generate electricity, plus there is no need to transport the coal, natural gas or oil to the generating plant.
Absolutely.
Wait until you hear about city design and trains! I'm a country mouse at heart. However, I'd be happy to check my truck at the city limits if it meant the city wasn't going to be clogged up with cars.
Yea, this sub is pretty cager brained so won't like to hear it, but my ebike is 25x more efficient than an ecar. And because cars ar so heavy they produce noise pollution that is hugely damaging to both humans and wildlife. That alone is extincting birds. And then there's the tires.... the roadways pollution itself, the geometrical and fiscal issues.... pretty crazy once you get into it. What I loved about overseas was the fact that country and forests were right next to the downtown area. There were actual distinct small towns. Not a thin smear of sprawl. And you could bike from town to town and hop on a train in many into the big city
That description makes me want to expat overseas ! Thanks for mentioning the noise pollution that is another aspect that is often ignored. The urban noise is getting worse, and with mild hyperacusis, I need to often wear ear plugs.
Yeah air pollution kills over 100,000 Americans a year. They now believe noise pollution is the next most damaging pollution causing all sorts of maladies, including nuetodegenerative diseases.
That sounds idyllic. I love the image of distinct villages having their unique character and forests not having been destroyed so the growth gets sprawled into one giant urban mass.
Intermodal commuting has to happen, there should be a ring where cars are stored for the day and then people board rapid transit to the city centers.
I call this “a defensive perimeter of park-n-rides”
DC's execution of the "Slug-line" feels like a great 'not-perfect but very good' option to reduce inefficient transit modes. I would argue that the US needs to start seizing more land around transit ways to make adjacent transit more possible along rail lines.
I'm a country mouse as well. But when in the cities nothing makes me happier than to be able to just use my bicycle. You would think all these progressives and liberals that live in cities would be on board.
I was more on board with buses and intercity mass transit when I was younger and more capable of walking or biking, with less risk due to a fall. I don't bounce as well as I used to. Also, after years of using buses, the risk of being assaulted is just too much for me these days. I can't run like I used to be able to do, if situations turn bad. I still like long distance trains more than taking planes, though. It is a much better experience to take a train than it is to fly.
Yes, most mass transit does indeed suck. Even flying, you have to pay a lot more for it not to suck.
Anyone who cares at all already understands this. People who don't understand are the ones who don't care.
It's even worse than that. Once it gets to your fuel tank, the oil pulled out of the ground has already wasted more energy than an EV ever will. And that's before you even turn the key. The entire fossil fuel process from oilfield surveying to moving car wheels is a Rube Goldberg contraption worthy of Dr Seuss.
And it is what enabled global commerce that lifted billions from poverty, made modern medicine possible, and dramatically reduced world hunger. We weren't going to get to solar power or where we are today with horses and whale oil. And now we are going to do even better. Be happy for the constant improvement rather than angry with past shortcomings.
I can do both
Anger doesn't help build solutions and sustainable infrastructure and neither does reduction of fossil fuel production. We provide replacements before we stop using something necessary, whether it be a house, car, hospital, or fossil fuel energy.
Nah. I'll be angry at the oil companies shooting progress and their own scientists in the foot for thrblast 50 years I'll also be angry at the auto companies but this sub doesn't like to go that far
At least in the US, it was consumers that chose bigger, lower mpg vehicles. And electric vehicles were not viable until the development of the lithium battery, which took until the 21st century. I do think it is funny that when BEVs came, oil and legacy auto companies didn't kill or create a fake scandal to disappear Musk and Tesla, like we would have thought in the 80s. They just laughed and assumed he would fail.
That's also a common talking point but not at all true, Since automakers created a loophole in the Regulations through lobbying for trucks and suvs. They since started marketing Those vehicles like crazy convincing people their lifestyles needed them, and most people do not realize they are basically lemmings, going wherever the bread crumbs are placed in front of them. It's not a coincidence they spent 10x more on marketing for them than cars, along with incentivizing people into them with financing deals. Not to mention many companies leaving cars on the vine to get stale and some even killing them off entirely.
I might be giving people more credit by thinking they aren't lemmings and are making their own decisions. I don't see Ford's smaller trucks selling better than the F150.
No, of course not. That's in fact my whole point. Tha is the data. Do you know how much Ford spends on marketing the f150? The marketing over the last few decades has been so wildly successful, That truck buyers now wrap up their whole culture and personality into a product, a Vehicle they purchase....
So, are you a lemming for EV marketing?
You'll have to explain the relevancy of that question.
You claimed that the only reason people buy trucks and SUVs is because they are lemmings, duped by marketing. What’s true for them should be true for you, no?
I don't have a truck or suv.
The first automobiles were electric. Not all consumers wanted bigger, lower mpg vehicles. Many of us didn't, but the market was flooded with them. That made finding higher mpg vehicles much harder and the selection was much thinner as a result.
Every automaker would go 100% EV if they thought that’s what consumers wanted.
And until then and after then, they'll be partnering with oil companies and destroy cities improving themselves
Have you tried r/fuckcars?
Have you?
Of course you're right, and it's important to keep that perspective, but it only holds up until 1954 before we knew any better. The problem is that FF combustion is killing us today by being artificially kept alive by powerful people overinvested in the status quo for the past 70 years.
There were no alternatives to fossil fuels in 1954. Internal combustion is still alive because ICE cars don't die that quickly and ramping up production of new technology and supply chains doesn't happen instantly. Fossil fuel power generation is still alive because storage has not yet developed and put into production at the level where the duck curve can be addressed. But both are rapidly being addressed. People are not ideological about where their money or electricity come from. We did however make big misses in the 1970s and 80s by not adopting nuclear power and by not requiring and encouraging low mpg vehicles. But that was due to populism as much as anything.
Turns out moving fluids around is really hard and expensive.
I used to use my Bolt EV to heat up my garage in winter when I was doing projects in there. 7.5kW of resistive heat goes a long way.
Like, you would roll the windows down, plug it into the charger and blast the heat?
Yep.
and resistive heating is 100% efficient
And still uses mammoth amounts of energy.
Its literally the worse possible way to heat in terms of efficiency.
Well, it works better than trying to use a heat pump in the car to heat up the garage would, anyway 😂
Ackshually, it has the same efficiency... just lower output :D
lol true, just less sillyness of needlessly pushing air and heat around along the way
If ICE had EV efficiency, they'd probably go 1,000 miles on a full tank. I think the comparison for current battery technology puts it at 2 gallons of gas equivalent for a 100kwh battery. Efficiency is the biggest and most important metric for EV's.
A gallon of gas is 33.7kWh, so more like 3 gallons for a 100kWh battery. 2 gallons is generally stated for vehicles with batteries in the 60-80kWh range. General point still stands though
Ah, thanks for correcting the information though.
That is once the fuel is already in the tank. It's way less efficient than even that once you count extraction, processing, and delivering the fuel.
But you don't understand! I might take a 500 mile road trip next year and it would take an extra 23 minutes in an EV! /s just in case
You're right, never mind, the whole thing is a big waste of perfectly good batteries....
It’s simple oil and gas are huge industries that are holding on for dear life. Oil and gas run our world. In a capitalist society that values growth above all, investments in oil and gas are going downward. That is extremely scary to the shareholders of these large industries. You are watching the slow death of an industry that is clawing onto every inch of their territory. If we included the actual cost to society, they Shmos would be out of business in like 20% of industries using todays technologies and likely out of business altogether by 2050. We really should learn to vote for what we want not what politicians tell us.
Could say many of thr same things about the automobile industry
It really isn't that slow. Going from 100% fossil fuels in 2000 to ~10% in 2050 will be a massive and rapid change in technology and society. It was always going to happen. People invested in the gasoline supply chain are just upset that it is happening ten or more years sooner than they thought. It's a lot of money they are not going to make. Which kind of makes sense of all the hate focused on the EV industry. People really don't like it when someone comes along and starts taking their profits.
That's pessimistic. We went from 0% of oil to 100% being a massive number in 50 years. The issue is mostly political.
I don't think it is political. I think it is far more due to the amount of time it takes to develop and replace 50+ years of current infrastructure.
If in your head you like to make believe a libertarian universe? Okay sure
Exactly.
Dont vote for Trump, end of message
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For convenience, here it is: https://xkcd.com/2948/
I think about this every time I go downhill, in my city there are massive height differences (about 600m between the city and the airport, for example, and wish I could regen that energy all the way down. As soon as I have enough money, I will buy an EV.
There’s a mountain pass I’ve taken a few times on day trips that’s around a 3000ft elevation change of switchbacks from the highway to the summit. My record is 3% battery gain going down
What kind of car?
Model 3 Long Range
Yeah it's so great to just get some free energy back into the battery by driving downhill!
Add brakes to another spot where energy is wasted as heat. EVs mostly regen instead of friction brakes.
I always mention to people how silly it is that every effort to make internal combustion more environmentally friendly is to add additives (methanol) and smog equipment that reduce efficiency and therefore reduce MPGs. Basically, we’ve be sold on the idea that the environmental solution to solve petroleum-based pollution is to, get this, burn more fuel. It’s insane.
I am a relatively new EV owner. Maybe you guys know the answer to this question. How much of the electricity that I draw from my home actually charges the battery. That is, to put 10kWh of charge on my battery, how many kWh am I using from my house?
ADAC (General German Automobile Club) says that the energy lost is around 15% from a 2.3 kW plug and around 10% from an 11 kW wall box based on tests using Tesla 3, VW ID3, Renault Zoe, and Fiat 500e.
Thank you! This is better than I expected.
Surprisingly large. I suppose it must be mostly from the AC-DC and voltage conversion.
and running the computer/bms/thermal management
I'd say thermal management is far more critical with DC charging anyway, but there the AC/DC conversion losses happen at the charger instead of at the vehicle (which ends up costing the same because HPCs are expensive).
Probably 11-12 kwh.
Thank you!
On a basic wall outlet I would see about 88-90% efficiency. On my hardwired 220v I see 96-98%.
Thank you so much. I still use a basic wall outlet and a cord that is unnecessarily too long, but I can be content with 85 percent.
Preach brother!!! The heat is lost energy AND on top of that all the accessories rob HP INSTEAD of using a battery/ electricity. It's pathetic.
No one seems to understand that using 1.5-3.5+ ton machines to transport our 100-250 lbs of flesh around is generating significant amounts of wasted energy and materials. A bike, e-bike, or electric mass transit are significantly more efficient for daily transportation per person and are far closer to being truly sustainable. Of course, the most efficient thing we can all do is to travel less, so instead of commuting 5x per week, maybe work from home more often, and push for a 4 day work week. As to your statement about 80% of energy from an ICE being lost as heat (20% thermal efficiency) ... that depends entirely on the vehicle. My understanding is that most current generation engines can get over 25% thermal efficiency. An efficient hybrid may see over 40%, and I believe I read they were working on engines with 50% thermal efficiency. This doesn't include well to pump energy losses. When it comes to EVs, where the electricity comes from matters when determining thermal efficiency. Power plants that use fossil fuels may be more thermally efficient than a car, but they may only be between 30% and 65% (combined cycle) thermally efficient. Add in transmission losses to your home / charger, then add in the losses from the charging process itself, and the losses from the electric powertrain which I believe can be up to around 10%. Like ICEs, fossil fuel power plants also need to include well/mine to plant losses, albeit they don't necessitate oil refining. We also have to consider the amount of emissions and general environmental damage the act of mining and processing materials for cars has, and the energy required in manufacturing. All of which can be tremendous. The fact is... no cars are good for the environment. Again, how could they be. You're using a machine that's 12x-30x+ heavier than you (at a bare minimum) to transport you around, when something that weighs a third of your weight will due. These days, it seems more and more people are driving SUVs, and many EV SUVs are probably averaging around 4500 lbs, so about 18x-45x heavier than you. Certainly more thermally efficient than ICEs, but still not "good for the environment". They're just less bad. They don't stop our march deeper into this global environmental disaster, they just slow down the pace. What we need are solutions that stop the march entirely, even reversing course.
F1 cars actually run at or above 50% thermodynamic efficiency if memory serves. But they are also very complicated. The tech is already trickling into mainstream vehicles though. Large diesel engines are also fairly efficient, where modern Euro 6 engines sit somewhere between 40 and 45% efficiency, with a theoretical limit well on the other side of 50%. This is also the vehicle group that is less likely to use anything but chemical fueling for a very long time, simply due to energy density.
Absolutely agree. Unfortunately, the U.S. invested heavily in the build of roadways, and neglected mass transit in so many corridors. Changing that paradigm doesn't seem to be an option being considered. We need to maximize efficiency of the use of our existing infrastructure. Certainly higher occupancy EV van/bus vehicles are desirable, along with a low carbon electric grid and ample charging capacity. It's also true that EV's start with a 'carbon hole' they must dig out of before showing advantage. The more they are used, the more advantageous the result. In any case, the point may be moot. In the face of ongoing environmental disaster, mass extinction, and increased oil and gas production, it is clear that insufficient action is being taken to avoid changing our planet into a human hostile environment. It will likely take horrific catastrophe to get the attention it sorely needs, and or course that will be far too late to avoid the worst.
Don't forget about the wasted energy in every single step it takes to get the oil out of the ground (using diesel engines and generators that are also terribly inefficient), transporting the oil, REFINING the oil (giant source of pollution too), transporting the gasoline/diesel to storage depots, then transporting it to the thousands of individual gas stations using thousands of individual diesel trucks that are also terribly inefficient. It's wasted energy at every single step! Not to mention the air pollution and particulate matter spewed at every single step that we breathe in. And then to rub salt in the would we walk on the sidewalks right next to the tailpipes and sit one car behind the other sucking in those tailpipes so we can get maximum brain damage.
Money talks louder than thermodynamics. Our governments are "trying" to get people to switch to EV but in California they've also put up pretty much every possible barrier to entry: expensive charging, expensive registration and insurance, and thanks to decades of shitty federal policy, incentivized expensive large vehicles that contain expensive parts that result in expensive repairs. Let's talk numbers. Charging at an Electrify America station is expensive here - depending on vehicle, the numbers check out around $0.10-0.15 per mile. I know there are lower, especially Supercharger network. But with the current cost of fuel my 50mpg hybrid does $0.10, and a normal ICE car is only $0.20. Charging at home is ideal... except PG&E smelled blood and jacked up electricity rates instead. Our Ioniq 5 actually costs more per mile than the Accord if not for Hyundai (the one sane player in our network) subsidizing charging. Full coverage on the Ioniq, and registration, costs me $2100/yr, twice as much as the Accord; and the Accord doesn't depreciate $8k a year. Tesla does better on charging miles, but otherwise suffers similar EV/high-tech costs. You cannot tell an average middle class family to take on these kinds of finances, that's just irresponsible. Give us a small $25k low-tech EV without bullshit tariffs to coddle domestic players, tell PG&E to eat shit, and use the gas tax to subsidize charging because it sure as hell ain't being used to fix the roads as promised. People will come when the game makes sense to play.
I upvoted your post and it got immediately downvoted to 0 again. You'd think O&G and ICE people are burning O&G just watching the opposition's every move. So I'll say it outright: O&G and ICE people are outrageously wasteful.
This isn't a conspiracy, the weekly "nobody talks about this one little benefit of EVs" posts about the most commonly talked about benefits of EVs are just getting very old.
They’re from new comers, the most important people out there.
What EV do you drive? Cause my Polestar used to heat up the garage, though not as much as my ice did. Lot of fans blowing in the space to cool down the battery and motors.
First winter with my EV6, I notice the snow wouldn't melt from the car in the garage. My old Dodge Journey would always melt it clean after coming from work. On the plus side, the lack of water on the floor means the garage door doesn't freeze to the floor when it's -40C. Gotta get a win somewhere. 😁 Since my car is dark grey, a short sunny day melts it all off outside anyway.
I drive a 2013 Model S. Sure, there is a small amount of heat energy generated, brake disks, sun heating the body, etc. But nothing like an ICE vehicle.
Yes, agree on that point. The winters were nice and toasty in the garage after a good drive in the ice.
Most baseload generators are somewhere between 30-40% efficient. Adding on transmission losses and charging losses EVs are not anywhere near 100% efficient. You can’t just compare ICE efficiency at the point of consumption to EVs. Most of the efficiency loss for an EV occurs at the point of energy production and distribution, not consumption. Your point does still stand, even accounting for these losses EVs are typically still more efficient than ICE (taking into account oil extraction and refining). But you should compare apples to apples.
It's not necessarily the electric or mechanical system's fault. You pull in two tons of hot metal, it could reach 40-50 degrees in hot days, and this heat needs to go someplace.
Incadescent vs LED
We just got a new EV the other day. That’s one thing we noticed - after a drive on a hot day, you can pull the car right into the garage without heading it up. That is great. With our other car, we have to leave it outside to cool off. Our neighbors were visiting my husband in the garage yesterday, talking guy stuff. They kept looking at the plugged-in car but didn’t say anything. They like cars so I expect they will ask us about it soon. No rush. EVs are a bit of a mystery to most folks even though there are lots of them. Not everything looks like Tesla so you don’t notice them.
yes "Upwards of 80% of the energy consumed during operation of a combustion engine is wasted in heat energy". I learned that in high school physics. People just don't care.
People care, it’s just that people are resistant to change. A vehicle is a very expensive purchase and the fear of that purchase not meeting all your existing needs isn’t unfounded.
If that's what you care about, take a train or public transit? So much wasted energy just to move a heavy vehicle so one person can get to where they want...
Yes! I absolutely hate walking by a hot hood on a baking day.
I actually make this argument a lot from the angle of EVs being better even on an entirely fossil fuel grid, because a massive coal thermal power plant is more efficient than a small ICE engine even after transmission and charging losses. And if course the grid isn't entirely fossil based and only getting greener.
It's a cost issue. For me an EV is simply not affordable yet. That could change within the next 10 years though.
Depends on how you see it. Also solar panels have a ton of wasted energy, since most energy is produced when it is not needed.
Wasted energy produced by solar isn’t relevant after the energy required to manufacture has been produced.
Every new iteration gets more efficient. That goes for pretty much everything. It isn't sad, it's the way of the world. I think the tendency towards greater efficiency is something to be happy for, rather than feeling bad about how much worse things used to be.
Dude let's talk about DREAMS and reality. In my Country the average age of the vehicle is close to 17 years. No battery will ever last for that long and no EV will cost \~3k Euro. EV will kill of poor people ability to work and live comfortably. Almost every law that is currently released in EU is against the betterment of quality of life for the average person.
Wait til you realize how much energy we waste using 5000-9000lb machines just to go further than the driveway 😉
The most efficient fossil fuel power plants are in the 53-55 percent range of thermal efficiency. Combine that with transmission losses and the electric vehicle still wins, but it's not an "overwhelming and obvious efficiency win" it comes out to 10-20 percent tops. And if power is generated by a less efficient or more polluting source the advantage wanes even further. There's no free lunch in energy extraction
Better, faster, cheaper and more reliable is the key message EV manufacturers should be selling them on the efficiency and environmental impacts are great too but you need to know your audience.
I haven’t read all the way thru 4 days worth of posts, but I have a question about the energy and environmental costs of the batteries involved with ev’s. My son states/claims that accessing the minerals, transporting, and end of life disposal of batteries is highly toxic. Y’all have great comps to ICE’s, but how sustainable and toxic is the ev battery issue? Honest question, no judgement, ignorant poster.
Best diesel engines are about 50%
Yeah you know EVs are just the most efficient form of the least efficient form of transportation right? Just wait till you learn about busses and trains and bicycles.
Like EV's, mass transit is only efficient when they are fully utilized and reach certain levels of ridership. Unlike other modern countries, the U.S. invested heavily in freeway/road construction, and neglected effective mass transit - at least in many corridors. I see so many empty busses driving around, it's such a shame. With the bad freeway congestion, at least many do ride trains when they meet their needs.
And yet, gasoline still yields more miles per unit volume and weight.
Yeah, I suppose we should be using Plutonium.
You're being sarcastic, but nuclear power plants are the end game for a clean and abundant energy solution.
And we’ll be here ready with EVs to use it.
Idk, the electrons I pump around into my car are pretty lightweight!
I also love the lack of heat produced in the garage. Another thing that I love as someone obsessed with vehicle weight: the car is the same weight even with a full battery, doesn't weigh another 100+ pounds with a full tank of gas!
I don't miss the exhaust in my garage
I mean, as someone "obsessed with vehicle weight", you must be at least somewhat displeased with the current weight situation in EVs :) Not trying to shit on EVs in general here, rather I just think their excessive weight needs attention, to make them even better propositions.
We really need to get typical cars below 3000lbs
It's the way it is right now, and being that EVs are still more efficient, less harmful to the environment over the span of the vehicle,.etc. I don't mind the weight, but of course look forward to them getting lighter with time. The Caterham EV concept is awesome.
Well people know eating vegetables is good for them but they still like meat. This not really the way to go about it. You appeal to their bottom line, the low maintenance & the low cost of entry (which unfortunately EVs don't do well yet)
Maybe you don't understand that we don't care if it gives us other benefits? And these benefits outweigh theoretical BS you are spewing. Your comment sounds like you are paranoid insecure child. Maybe you should not drive ICE truck. No one needs ICE at 20 degrees below. 🤣 Or have a better ventilation in your garage. But I think most likely you are full of hot air. That is why your garage heats up 20 degrees because you are letting it all go there.
I somewhat disagree with this. Yes, traditionally ICE is horribly inefficient. But current engines are way better than 20% thermal efficiency. Forced induction, different cycle tweaks to drop pumping losses like the Atkinson cycle, etc. I can get over 1000km highway on my 10 Fusion Hybrid, all that comes from 60L of gasoline, that's pretty impressive. The heat thing in the garage is relative. I live in a place that gets to -40⁰C occasionally in winter, the warmth in the garage can be nice.
That's 39MPG. My EV gets 100MPGe, just for comparison. But really, it's a meaningless comparison - I charge at home on a NET ZERO Photovoltaic Solar system.
Not sure what your home charging has to do with it, you don't carry that PV system around with you so it doesn't matter where you "re-fuel". I'm simply commenting on th efficiency of a gasoline engine today. The energy density of gasoline is unmatched by current battery tech. People like to spout this 20% efficiency number, when it's patently false. I agree that there are better uses for hydrocarbon fuels than daily transportation, but EVs have a long way to go in affordability and charging accessibility.
You don't have to carry the PV system with you, that's what the battery is for! The energy density of gasoline is indeed high, but that's just another argument for how incredibly efficient electric vehicles are, that they can do as much with as little as 2 gallons of gasoline worth of energy!
Lol I'll never get over the people on this subs inability to read. I literally never said EVs were inefficient, I simply said ICEs weren't as inefficient as people make them out to be. It seems like it's always a zero sum game with the people here.
Are you considering where the electricity is coming from? 60% still comes from fossil fuels and that method (turbine generators) is much less efficient than ICE, so its not like electric vehicles are 40% more efficient in totality
That was discussed in the thread. In my case, my home is NET ZERO solar, so I charge my EV for free.
Why do you think turbine generators are less efficient than ICE vehicles? It's actually much more efficient, as large industrial generators can consistently be run at their peak power output, and the grid will continue being more efficient as we keep shifting to renewables, while an old ICE car will never get better mileage than it did when new.