Honda and JPL create a new type of battery that could be the future of EVs

[Brooksie359]

8 hours ago, corrado33 said:

Hahahhaha... no. Maybe absolutely brand new plants but those are far... far from the norm.

 

Site your sources.

 

Here's mine. Directly from the US government themselves. In case you don't know, to convert a heat rate into an efficiency, you divide the equivalent Btu content of a kWh of electricity (3,412 Btu) by the heat rate. The heat rate for natural gas in 2015 was  ~8000 Btu. That gives it an efficiency of ~42%. A bit higher than I said, sure, but not all of your electricity is coming from natural gas, so you can't take that figure as your start point. Coal is only ~31% efficient. A good "average" efficiency of all power sources in the US is ~35%, hence why I stated that number.  

 

Then you have electrical losses in the power lines.... then electrical losses in the charger (it gets warm right?) then electrical losses in the car itself (THEORETICALLY DC motors are ~80% efficient... and that's at OPTIMAL conditions, do YOU drive your electric car at optimal conditions?) Add all those inefficiencies up and in the end, electric cars use as much or more energy to get where they're going than gas powered cars do. This will remain true UNTIL electric cars can be charged fully by renewable energy. 

 

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32572

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html my source is the same. There are alot of combined cycle power plants which have somewhere near the 50% efficiency mark. Also internal combustion engines are far from efficient with even some of the most efficient ones have only 42%. You also have to take into account the amount renewable energy that alot of power grids run off of. I know where I live it's a rather large percentage. 

[corrado33]

2 hours ago, ATFink said:

Don't forget it takes ~6kWh of electricity to refine one gallon of gas. Type of hydrocabon being processed, efficiency of plant, and transportortaion distance will obviously vary, so 6kWh is just an average.

 

As for the greenhouse gases comparison, that depends on the local grid. In most regions in the US (except West Virginia) the amount of CO2 production from driving a gasoline car is MUCH greater than driving an EV. Of course this doesn't take into account CO2 production from producing the batteries of EVS.

 

This video from Engineering Explained may help explain the current state of EVs carbon footprint with respect gasoline vehicles throughout each vehicle's lifetime taking local grid efficiency into account:

 

Wow a video sponsored by Formula E... an electric car racing series... finds that electric cars are good for some people, not even all people. Definitely not biased or anything.

 

I will say one thing about that video. He assumed that if you lived in a state with lots of renewables (mostly solar at this point) that it'd make the time for the EV to produce fewer CO2 emissions than a ICE go down. However, as I mentioned earlier, the very large majority of electric cars will be plugged in overnight where.... you guessed it.... the electricity will be produced via coal or natural gas. And as you can see, in the case of west Virginia, it'd take somewhere near ~20 years for the EV to produce fewer CO2 emissions than a gasoline powered car. So if you re do the calculations taking that into consideration, then you get that EVs would only produce fewer CO2 emissions in maybe 1 or 2 states.... that's it. And what's even funnier is that in the states where solar power is useful (aka the southern half of the US), the days are much shorter than places where solar isn't useful (aka the upper half of the US). 

 

So thank you for posting that video, it really helped illustrate my point. 

 

He also concluded that a purely EV is NOT a good fit for the majority of US states, until renewable power is more commonplace... which is... literally identical to what I said before.... 

 

As I said before. We're NOT there yet. AND freaking NONE of these studies have taken into account the efficiency of the car itself OR the charger. 

[asus killer]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

which is why there is an "so long as" in my post,  if we do move forward with the better technologies then the current use of coal becomes a stop gap measure rather than a mainstay.

 

 

I think you miss my point,  technology needs to advance to a stage where it can continue advancing without the current support of coal,  if you take away power sources before you have a viable working alternative to coal then you are shooting yourself in the foot.  Also, if we don't buy into the whole electric car/alternative power thing then it will take longer to develop because governments are not funding it enough and private enterprise can only fund so much (they expect a return on investments). 

 

I realise that last sentence runs on a bit, but the long and short of it is that if consumer doesn't make the change then nothing will happen, and if it does, it will happen very slowly.

You re aussie you know this better then most, we should have already stopped using coal long ago.

Im pissed over climate change i confess but i also dont want a long discussion about this.

If you sell anyone the dream of a clean car people will used it without limiting themselves, thats wrong and thats all i have to say. A electric car in the us today is worst for the environment then a petrol one.

Of course lets no go into gas is cheap they are all buying gigantic suv's. 

[Mihle]

@corrado33, but even if a place only has coal, if they start switching that to green in 2 years at a fast rate, its best to already have started to switch to electric cars right now.

 

Also, in cities, the emission from cars that people breathe in is really bad for you. Electric cars move that our from the city.

[ATFink]

17 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Wow a video sponsored by Formula E... an electric car racing series... finds that electric cars are good for some people, not even all people. Definitely not biased or anything.

 

- snip -

How about instead of being snarky shit you read the sources and refute the methods/data? Engineering Explained is actually a reputable source, but forget that, Greg was in contact with formula E! Everything must be wrong! Right? /s

 

You just straight up assumed the math was wrong and applied it as a blanket statement. I posted the video because I was attempting to save myself time and not explain the concepts or data. That was lazy. Now we must be more nitty gritty.

Quote

- snip -

 

I will say one thing about that video. He assumed that if you lived in a state with lots of renewables (mostly solar at this point) that it'd make the time for the EV to produce fewer CO2 emissions than a ICE go down. However, as I mentioned earlier, the very large majority of electric cars will be plugged in overnight where.... you guessed it.... the electricity will be produced via coal or natural gas. And as you can see, in the case of west Virginia, it'd take somewhere near ~20 years for the EV to produce fewer CO2 emissions than a gasoline powered car. So if you re do the calculations taking that into consideration, then you get that EVs would only produce fewer CO2 emissions in maybe 1 or 2 states.... that's it.

 

- snip -

How did you come to that one to two state conclusion? Regardless, all of what you mentioned was already taken into account with the studies Greg referenced. You're wrong. Here's a write up about the worst case scenario:

http://www.thegwpf.com/new-study-large-co2-emissions-from-batteries-of-electric-cars/

Here is the study that write up referenced:

http://www.energimyndigheten.se/forskning-och-innovation/forskning/transporter/

 

I believe you're being intentionally misleading. Greg provided data for the best and worst case state average scenarios and then showed a map for which states would be cleaner to drive gas, hybrid, plug in hybrid, or full EV. That map

shows that half of the states in the US would produce less carbon emissions if full EVs were used. NO states showed full gas cars being the cleanest options. You assumed the worst case scenario (100 kWh battery in most polluting state) and then added a fudge factor (20 years instead of 17 years) on the already existing fudge against EVs (it assumed equal CO2 production for EV cars w/o batteries vs total combustion vehicle, then added battery CO2 production on top of EV frame) and assumed this estimate that incorporates outlier information and then some was the datum. You based that "1 or 2 state" estimate as if worst case data was the norm and not worst case scenario. That is not scientific, that is either stupid or an intentional lie on your part.

Quote

- snip -

 

And what's even funnier is that in the states where solar power is useful (aka the southern half of the US), the days are much shorter than places where solar isn't useful (aka the upper half of the US).

 

- snip -

You're wrong if you're saying what I think you're saying, but hey! I'm actually somewhat of an expert on solar energy! Expand if you want a very basic lesson.

Spoiler

Help me out here. I think I'm deciphering your statement incorrectly. Are you saying the lower half of the US (closer to equator) has less average direct sunlight hours/year than the northern US? If that's what you're saying you are wrong. Here is a formula to help:

Sorry I was too lazy to derive the formula myself. You'll have to do a summation of this formula for every day of the year (d), then divide by that by the total number of days (365) and you'll get a very close approximation of direct sunlight hours per year based on latitude. This formula does not take atmospheric refraction at sunrise/sunset into account, so it may be short by ~0.1% or so (greater variance above arctic circle since the sun sits close to horizon all day for several days of the year).

 

Run an excel function of what I described above for a degree of latitude close to the equator and then try it close to the poles. Tell me your findings. (hint: it's the opposite of your claim)

 

If you don't want to do that here's a google image. The area under each curve represents direct sunlight hours per year of that curve:

 

Take the area under each curve to find total number of direct sunlight hours per year at each given latitude.

 

NOTE: The above graph accounts for dark hours as well, so multiply insolation by two and look across x axis to approximate total solar insolation average for any day of the year based on latitude.

 

You literally have to go above the arctic circle to find a place where there are full day(s) without sunlight, so unless you live above 66.6 degrees latitude you will not experience major sunlight losses due to lack of sunrise. There will be a +/-23.4 degrees incidence angle at the two least direct points of the year for fixed panels (summer and winter solstice) and you'll lose 8.225% of direct beam light when looking at a fixed azimuth at noon on those days (again between -66.6 and 66.6 degrees latitude). Of course in the northern hemisphere fall and winter have shorter days, but total energy production of those short days are offset by the longer summer and spring days.

The average angle of incidence of the sun throughout a one year cycle with respect to Earth's surface does require fixed solar panels to be tilted at an angle equal to the degree of latitude - w (w accounts for lost incidence when solar azimuth is off from due North/South axis) in order to receive optimal sunlight accounting for Azimuth. That tilt fixes most of the lost direct incidence from seasonal sunlight variation. Here is a map to show you the tilt reduction from degree of latitude for optimal direct sunlight for fixed panels in the US:

That being said, you must consider not only direct light (direct sunlight on panel), but also diffuse light (light saturation in atmosphere) and reflected light (reflected from any source... you can get a slight understanding of this from viewing nVidia's demonstrations of RTX on/off scenes... yes that is approximately the degree at which  reflected light really impacts solar absorption/reflection) and add these factors together to find total solar insolation. These formulas may help:

The direct incidence usually accounts for ~80% of total solar insolation/day. Direct sunlight is ~1000W/m^2 EVERYWHERE on Earth's surface when measuring with an incidence angle of 0 degrees.

 

2 hours ago, corrado33 said:

He also concluded that a purely EV is NOT a good fit for the majority of US states, until renewable power is more commonplace... which is... literally identical to what I said before...

No, he concluded EVs weren't any worse for the environment than gasoline cars in the US in the worst cases and that EVs are superior in the vast majority of cases. Clean your mind and your ears. Here is a time stamp:

 

3 hours ago, corrado33 said:

As I said before. We're NOT there yet. AND freaking NONE of these studies have taken into account the efficiency of the car itself OR the charger. 

If by "not there yet" you mean there's lots of room to improve EVs and renewable energy, I agree.

 

When looking at renewable energy you look at outlet power and the efficiencies up to that point since regardless of the source the same electrical power is coming out of the wall.

 

When looking cars of course you take charging efficiency into account, and yes every competent study incorporates charging loss. It's about a 5% loss but varies depending on the vehicle when charging with AC. Not negligible, but close to it. You're right about DC fast charging having larger losses. Fortunately most EV charging occurs with level 2 chargers in the home, so very little DC fast charging losses. The efficiency of the car is known just by looking at how far it can drive based on the amount of energy pulled from the wall. We know DC must convert back to AC in some EVs, but that's accounted for in the vehicle rated range. Double counting the energy lost in conversion is not honest when range and battery size are already known.

 

You also failed to acknowledge this from my last response:

Quote

Don't forget it takes ~6kWh of electricity to refine one gallon of gas. Type of hydrocabon being processed, efficiency of plant, and transportation distance will obviously vary, so 6kWh is just an average.

6 kWh of electricity (usually from dedicated coal fired plants on-site) to process one gallon of gas. Transmit it to a house and put it in an EV and you get ~5.7 kWh of energy, or about 19.5 miles of range in a Tesla Model S. That's before the gas is even burned and about the equivalent distance a similarly sized luxury sedan gets per gallon of gas. Basically a model S can run on the amount of energy it takes to even process the amount of fuel for a similar combustion vehicle to drive the same distance before the combustion vehicle ever even burns a single drop of gas.

 

So you are absolutely wrong about the running CO2 production of EVs.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

You re aussie you know this better then most, we should have already stopped using coal long ago.

Im pissed over climate change i confess but i also dont want a long discussion about this.

If you sell anyone the dream of a clean car people will used it without limiting themselves, thats wrong and thats all i have to say. A electric car in the us today is worst for the environment then a petrol one.

Of course lets no go into gas is cheap they are all buying gigantic suv's. 

Yes but in order to stop using coal we need an equal to it first.  The reason it gets dragged out and people argue and bicker rather than doing something  is because everyone wants someone else to pay for it.   People either think the government should pay for it, or that no one should because they don't accept  climate change.   carbon taxes don't work because they are so small people don't mind paying for convenience. Coal is cheap so you have to virtually offer people free power guarantees on fusion energy if you want them to vote for a government who will make it the number one priority.   I don't see how selling them a car that uses power is a bad thing.  There not going to suddenly start driving places they don't need to go because they think it isn't doing any harm, in fact with range anxiety they'll probably drive less.

 

[ATFink]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

- snip -

A electric car in the us today is worst for the environment then a petrol one.

- snip -

This statement is so false it's incredible. Where are you finding this? I don't mean this to insult you, lots of people claim the same thing. What literature are you reading that claims this?

[Mihle]

51 minutes ago, ATFink said:

This statement is so false it's incredible. Where are you finding this? I don't mean this to insult you, lots of people claim the same thing. What literature are you reading that claims this?

They are probably reading some article from 10 years ago on a news site that isn't really based real research articles at all, but just "this person said this".

 

Or something.

[Nicnac]

Well I'm a firm advocate of more EVAs instead of EVs concerning space tech  

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, ATFink said:

This statement is so false it's incredible. Where are you finding this? I don't mean this to insult you, lots of people claim the same thing. What literature are you reading that claims this?

 

17 minutes ago, Mihle said:

They are probably reading some article from 10 years ago on a news site that isn't really based real research articles at all, but just "this person said this".

 

Or something.

I'm pretty sure there's bad information on both sides of the debate, unfortunately its a side effect of media and personal ideals.   How green they are depends on the point at which you stop comparing the data.  If you stop at consumption it's one thing, if you compare cost of making batteries versus refining petrol its another, if you go a bit further and compare mining costs it changes again.  The issue is people like to pretend somethings are not important so they just ignore it to further their preference rather than accept the facts.   At the end of the day its just another form of transport that is evolving and getting better, I can't think of a good reason to be opposed to improving a tech that has the potential to shit all over ICE in every metric. 

 

 

Also this is interesting:

 

https://www.energy.gov/timeline/timeline-history-electric-car

[HomeBoi]

On 12/11/2018 at 1:04 AM, emosun said:

yeah like a gas car with a large tank

actually just put a large tank on a gas car and have the future now

Well i see a person here wanting a 2000 km tesla for example, and after a quick google i find that there is jaguar capable of doing 731 miles or 1176 km on 1 tank, and yes thats impressive and way more than any EV, but man when do we ever drive that far in one sitting with no brake? C'mon i mean you would need a food and toilet break ..

[asus killer]

2 hours ago, ATFink said:

This statement is so false it's incredible. Where are you finding this? I don't mean this to insult you, lots of people claim the same thing. What literature are you reading that claims this?

30% of electricity in the US comes from coal, and there's no worst polluter then coal. If your shinny new tesla had a smoke stack like the hold trains you'd get it, but that's how a tesla is powered, partially (and 30% is a lot) just like a coal powered train. Your better off with a sensible small petrol car. 

There is no going past the facts

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

30% of electricity in the US comes from coal, and there's no worst polluter then coal. If your shinny new tesla had a smoke stack like the hold trains you'd get it, but that's how a tesla is powered, partially (and 30% is a lot) just like a coal powered train. Your better off with a sensible small petrol car. 

There is no going past the facts

You are factually wrong.
With EU electricity production composition, electric car is greener after having driven about 50k km.

That is not with a Tesla, but with something like VW E-Golf or Nissian leaf I belive compared to the closest thing you find. (for example VW Golf).
EU electricity production composition is 48,7% from combustible fuel (oil, gass and coal, dont know how much is coal) while US is 62,9%. (29,9% coal)
That means the number of km is higher in US, but its still something like 60k km or something.
(Coal pollute more than oil and gass, so might be higher if EU have more oil and gass rather than coal)

Tesla will make the number higher.
But with twice the battery capacity of the cars that was compared, would still only make it 80k km on EU electricity production composition.

How did I get to 80k km? The same paper I saw, if on Norwegian electricity production composition, that is 100% renewable, it was 30k km.
That means the electricity production of the 50k km was 20k km, so 30x2 + 20 = 80k km. In the US it would probably be more like 90k km or something.

Most cars live to drive 150k++ km, and multiple electric car manufacturers have a 160k/8 year warranty for having more than 70%(some 75%) capacity.

Sadly I cant find back to the exact paper. The only other paper I find have higher numbers, but those are based on Germany electricity production composition, and that is considerably worse than EU or even US, as its 59,8 non renewable, but 39% or something Coal. (Coal is worse than natural gas or oil)

Electric cars in cities also make it so you do not breathe in the emissions a petrol and especially diesel car produces. A lot of people die before they should have because of pollution from cars in cities every year.

TL;DR,
No, in EU, Electric cars are greener after 50k km, in US it would be probably something like 60k km.
Electric cars make so people in cities dont breathe in pollution, and therefore many can not die before they should have because pollution, as they do now with so many petrol, and especially diesel cars.

[asus killer]

5 minutes ago, Mihle said:

You are factually wrong.
With EU electricity production composition, electric car is greener after having driven about 50k km.

That is not with a Tesla, but with something like VW E-Golf or Nissian leaf I belive compared to the closest thing you find. (for example VW Golf).
EU electricity production composition is 48,7% from combustible fuel (oil, gass and coal, dont know how much is coal) while US is 62,9%. (29,9% coal)
That means the number of km is higher in US, but its still something like 60k km or something.
(Coal pollute more than oil and gass, so might be higher if EU have more oil and gass rather than coal)

Tesla will make the number higher.
But with twice the battery capacity of the cars that was compared, would still only make it 80k km on EU electricity production composition.

How did I get to 80k km? The same paper I saw, if on Norwegian electricity production composition, that is 100% renewable, it was 30k km.
That means the electricity production of the 50k km was 20k km, so 30x2 + 20 = 80k km. In the US it would probably be more like 90k km or something.

Most cars live to drive 150k++ km, and multiple electric car manufacturers have a 160k/8 year warranty for having more than 70%(some 75%) capacity.

TL;DR,
No, in EU, Electric cars are greener after 50k km, in US it would be probably something like 60k km.

there is problems when you compare them like that, a study on what burning coal does:

https://www.lung.org/assets/documents/healthy-air/toxic-air-report.pdf

this should actually be no surprise we know what coal does ever since the industrial revolution

 

just to quote some part:

Hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants include: • Acid gases, such as hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride; • Benzene, toluene and other compounds; • Dioxins and furans; • Formaldehyde; • Lead, arsenic, and other metals; • Mercury; • Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH); and • Radioactive materials, like radium and uranium.2,3

 

is this what is "greener"? so in my opinion using coal is much worst then burning petrol, not even going into all the mining issues or more energy needed to transport

[Mihle]

27 minutes ago, asus killer said:

there is problems when you compare them like that, a study on what burning coal does:

https://www.lung.org/assets/documents/healthy-air/toxic-air-report.pdf

this should actually be no surprise we know what coal does ever since the industrial revolution

 

just to quote some part:

Hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants include: • Acid gases, such as hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride; • Benzene, toluene and other compounds; • Dioxins and furans; • Formaldehyde; • Lead, arsenic, and other metals; • Mercury; • Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH); and • Radioactive materials, like radium and uranium.2,3

 

is this what is "greener"? so in my opinion using coal is much worst then burning petrol, not even going into all the mining issues or more energy needed to transport

This is not about coal Vs petrol, it's about petrol Vs electric.

 

Coal  or natural gas powerplants often are not that close to where people live, cars is right in the cities where people live, and they breathe it in. Normal Petrol is better on this point than diesel (but produces more CO2), thats why some countries spesifically bans diesel cars in city centers on cold days with very little wind.

 

Nuclear >Natural gas burning > coal ofc.

 

As long as government do what they should do, and US get a president that isn't stupid, there will become less and less coal power plants in the western countries.

[Trik'Stari]

Fluoride..... in batteries?

 

Spoiler

Edit: Spoilered for those with shoddy internet. Like myself.

 

All joking aside, neat?

[justpoet]

So, I'm not going to quote everything, but I'll touch on a few things here.

1) I THINK/HOPE that the comment about daytime wasn't in regards to "total daytime through the year", but rather that when people get home after commuting home, it is often dark enough for solar to not be producing well unless you're closer to a pole.  This is true (when I get home in the summer, I have 3 or so good solar hours left, which can charge most cars in that time frame at least most of the way), but also has the counter argument of the other half of the year assuring that solar isn't producing (right now it gets dark a bit over an hour before I get home), so ends up in a similar wash of not changing the equation on a macro level, only on a personal finance level if you have both personal owned solar and an eCar.

2) Power Plants come in all various capacities and fuel types.  A lot of the coal power plant smoke stack outputs are actually scrubbed these days to remove or help much of that.  It is still one of the worst fuel sources in terms of raw pollutants, but it is nowhere near as bad as old studies would state.

3) Grid delivery sucks.  This is really where the largest issue is in the US.  The reason is in large part because of transmission lines and how far power goes before you get it.  Even if there is a power plant nearby (we have a nearby biomass plant where I live), chances are your power is coming from another place across the country or in our case from Canada (our area buys a lot from Canadian hydro production as well).  All of those long transmissions lose a LOT.  Note: (Inter)National grid delivery is also why #1 only matters from a personal perspective, not a national or continental perspective.

4) Charging efficiency is generally stated as "roughly 80%" when most formulas reference it.  However, this is like saying "most computer power supplies are 80% efficient".  As an engineer that has also done a lot of work with batteries and electric drive systems and chargers (though on a much smaller scale than full size EVs), we are often seeing GOOD chargers in the 90%+ efficiency range now, and they keep getting better.

5) Battery cycle efficiency is usually left out of the equations, but needs to also be talked about.  Generally this only gets mentioned for folks that are going off grid and talking about their battery systems.  For example, a Tesla PowerWall is nice and slick, but is actually not as good as many other newer products on the market in this space, in that aspect.  In short, how much power do you need to put into the battery to get X power back out of the battery.  The more efficient the storage system, the better.  This continues to get better as more research is done, but in general the more efficient batteries have problems delivering to higher amp/watt loads (such as cars), so this can be significant in some cases (especially those that are high performance).

6) Electric motors have gotten a LOT more efficient in recent years.  Tesla wouldn't have been able to do what it did without this, and they continue to get better.  The biggest jump came with brushless motors (3 phase from generic DC), but again this tech continues to improve.

 

TLDR of above:  There are a LOT of areas that can still garner a LOT of improvements.  That includes every step of the way from how PV panels and batteries are made and "recycled" all the way through the delivery of power.  One of the best ways to reduce electrical loss of a grid is to generate power more closely, which personal PV/Wind/hydro can all do now in fairly effective ways.  Like everything else in the system, none of it is perfect, but in all aspects, we can take advantage of what is there now (provided there is enough range for you), and reap the benefits of any other portion of the system being upgraded later as it happens too.

 

 

EV (when available) vs fuel comes down to personal finances for most people, with a very small % of people willing to spend more to get something "green".  If they already are a 2 car household (1 of which is for commuting), then EV makes good sense for a lot of people from the financial perspective, but only long term unless they also have personal solar (which is another long term gain for significant up front cost).  Most people aren't long term investment capable though, as unfortunately the statistics show something like 80% of people live paycheck to paycheck, so the up front cost is more important to the majority than a long term savings or something matching their ideology.  One could normally argue that scaling up production would help drive costs down and make this better, and that works for MOST of the elements involved.  Unfortunately, until we have a new battery tech, it doesn't actually help for Lithium/Cobalt based packs, as there is a limited output capability of those, and we're seeing worse batteries today in many things outside of cell phones/laptops/cars than a few years ago since we're now using stuff that was discarded as not pure enough a few years ago.  As scale goes up, right now batteries actually become more expensive based on the cost of materials that become more scarce.  Companies like Tesla are actively working to shift their batteries to have lower % of those materials in them, and have done a bit of that for the model 3 and batteries going forward, but that takes time as well, and is just one company.

 

 

Personally, I'd love to be in an EV, and it would make sense for me financially with significant enough range (100 miles in cold/hot conditions depending on year, including climate control), especially considering I'll be adding solar soon.  Unfortunately, many of the vehicle models I would consider at a similar price point to fuel are only available on the other side of the country due to limited production ability (and they won't sell to other states, I tried), so I'd be left with something like a Tesla that doesn't make financial sense because they've gone luxury and only put the range into more expensive vehicles.  So, gas it is until tech marches forward a bit more, which I look forward to it doing.  In the meantime, I'll be adding solar and wind to my place over time, which will help everybody via grid fed sustainable power and position myself for an even better financial picture towards EV later.

[asus killer]

4 hours ago, Mihle said:

This is not about coal Vs petrol, it's about petrol Vs electric.

 

Coal  or natural gas powerplants often are not that close to where people live, cars is right in the cities where people live, and they breathe it in. Normal Petrol is better on this point than diesel (but produces more CO2), thats why some countries spesifically bans diesel cars in city centers on cold days with very little wind.

 

Nuclear >Natural gas burning > coal ofc.

 

As long as government do what they should do, and US get a president that isn't stupid, there will become less and less coal power plants in the western countries.

Rich countries have no excuse, they should have stopped burning coal long ago. Still its not just the US even if Trump makes it more insane

[Coaxialgamer]

One thing i rarely see being discussed is the effect of EVs on the general population.

Most discuss the carbon footprint of either technology, which is fine, but consider this :

 

Traditional vehicles running on diesel or gas release their exhaust in their immediate environment. Strides have been made to reduce the toxicity of this exhaust, but you're still dealing with largely toxic fumes, not to mention sub-micron particles that get into your lungs.

In larger cities, this can become a serious problem. Every year here in Paris, air pollution during the summer gets so high that your eyes start to sting. People are advised to stay indoors and limit physical activity due to the air not being clean. This frequently happens in larger cities, in large part due to the number of vehicles in circulation. 

Airborne pollution like this kills people. In the developed world it might be limited to people with pre-existing breathing problems, but the WHO estimates roughly 4.2 million premature deaths caused by airborne pollution. This has both a human cost and a very real economic cost, as people are rushed to hospital or put on medication.

 

One big advantage of producing the power for EVs at a central power plant is that said power plant can be placed far from any major population centers, greatly reducing pollution within our city centers.

[yian88]

except this tech on paper will die like all the others and we will be stuck with lithium EV's overpriced for the next 10-15 years.

[ATFink]

9 hours ago, asus killer said:

30% of electricity in the US comes from coal, and there's no worst polluter then coal. If your shinny new tesla had a smoke stack like the hold trains you'd get it, but that's how a tesla is powered, partially (and 30% is a lot) just like a coal powered train. Your better off with a sensible small petrol car. 

There is no going past the facts

You're right, there is "no going past the facts" and you're forgetting a lot of "the facts." Yeah if you take the final refined product and burn it the gasoline will produce less CO2 per mile than a coal powered EV from coal extraction to the wheels on the EV turning, but you're forgetting the fact that there is an incredible amount of energy used to process gasoline. This How It's Made video does a good job of explaining how gasoline is made.

Where do you think the energy used to process gasoline at refineries comes from? The distillation of crude in a fractionating column to separate it into its usable components requires a lot of heat energy. What do you think the furnaces that heat the fractionating tower run on (Hint: it's not nuclear... try coal)? A lot of gasoline (shorter molecules) originally comes from longer carbon chains through cracking the molecule with a lot of heat and pressure + a fluid catalyst, then the cracked hydrocarbons are seperated from the spent catalyst and put back into the fractionating tower to separate. Then the spent fluid catalyst is processed back to its original form to be reused. This produces more gasoline with less waste products, but requires a LOT of energy as well.

 

Even if an EV was run on 100% coal generated electricity it would still produce the same or less operating CO2 than an equivalent combustion vehicle from mining of the fuel(s) to driving the vehicle because the amount of energy it takes to process a gallon of gasoline from a crude oil to gasoline is 4-6 kWh depending on what gasoline is being sent to what state. That can be enough to drive most EVs the equivalent distance of a gallon of gas in an equivalent combustion vehicle before its fuel is even burned. AGAIN, you're ignoring the entire processing pipeline for fossil fuels and need to consider that. That 4-6 kWh figure doesn't even count energy used in extraction or transportation of crude oil to the refinery or the finished products at the refineries to whatever destinations they will go to.

 

As for your comment about EVs driving like smokestacks, that is location dependent. Even with all of the above considered the flip side of your statement is that 70% of electricity in the US comes from cleaner sources then coal. Most regions do not use coal at all anymore.

 

I hope consider some of these facts.

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

Rich countries have no excuse, they should have stopped burning coal long ago. Still its not just the US even if Trump makes it more insane

Yes. Germany for example, industry capital of Europe, still have lot of coal. 

[ATFink]

1 hour ago, Coaxialgamer said:

- snip -

 

One big advantage of producing the power for EVs at a central power plant is that said power plant can be placed far from any major population centers, greatly reducing pollution within our city centers.

This is a positive side effect of central processing, but unfortunately the processing is not always done far away from city centers. Just look up images of the refineries on the Mississippi river coastline about a 1/4 mile from Baton Rouge, Louisiana (I drive by the refineries every time I go to my family in Louisiana).

Clearly you can see Baton Rouge at the top of the photo and the refineries begin at the bottom. Not bad huh? Lets turn the camera shall we:

Here's another view:

Here's an aerial photo:

I highlighted heavy industry in yellow and circled the farmland with a red outline. City is labeled by Google maps. Yeah, unfortunately the benefit of a large facility processing potentially dangerous materials far away does not always happen. Corruption decided lining politician's pockets and reducing shipping expenses was more important than developing an urban environment people would actually want to live in.