EV 914 Options

[raynekat]

Looks a bit "Rube Goldberg-ish" to me, but creative for sure.

starting at 4:07 on the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY2RPSUyIrc

The guy on the EV skateboard is nuts!

[bbrock]

In 2015, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report finding that EV have lower cradle to grave emission than gasoline cars even when run on dirty electricity. EV do have a higher carbon footprint to produce compared conventional ICE, but over the life of the vehicle, reduced tailpipe emissions more than make up for it.

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/elect...le-ev-emissions

Lithium batteries CAN be recycled, it just often isn't.

https://waste-management-world.com/a/in-dep...energy-clean-up

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-bus...thium-recycling

Of course EV are not perfect and will present many new challenges. Is any technology a perfect solution for the problem it is intended to solve? Why do we make perfect the enemy of the good? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Another thought... I wonder how many total engineer-hours have been devoted to gasoline vs EV vehicles since their humble beginnings around the turn of the 20th century? I'm guessing it will be some time before the cumulative effort spent on perfecting EV power plants matches that of combustion engines.

[Superhawk996]

In 2015, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report finding that EV have lower cradle to grave emission than gasoline cars even when run on dirty electricity. EV do have a higher carbon footprint to produce compared conventional ICE, but over the life of the vehicle, reduced tailpipe emissions more than make up for it.

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/elect...le-ev-emissions


Of course EV are not perfect and will present many new challenges. Is any technology a perfect solution for the problem it is intended to solve? Why do we make perfect the enemy of the good? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

I love the spirited debate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Like most reports, the Union of Concerned Scientists report has a definite bias toward EV's. Better than most for sure, but, the bias is there none the less with some carefully chosen assumptions at best or deceitful assumptions at worst.


Let's start with the assumption that a Nissan Leaf will only require or use 1 battery in it's lifetime - this clearly isn't the case based on field performance. See the previous eBay ad I posted for the Leaf, the owner admits the battery is shot and range has been negatively impacted. Vehicle had 50K miles and range had been reduced to 40 miles. Using the study life cycle of 179,200 miles, Nissan Leaf's will definately need more than one battery in their lifetime. Maybe 3 or 4! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/av-943.gif)



Let's take a look at how fuel economy was compared for Gas vs. EV's.



These are suspiciously low and are from MY15 vehicles Why not include any Hybrids that offer excellent Fuel Economy and aren't tethered to EV chargers for long trips? Hybrids are a wonderful middle ground between Gas and EV and a far better choice for the average consumer.




They also used a strange assumption on the large car side. Is anyone is really considering a Hyundai Equus or a Chrysler 300 vs. Telsa? Seems to me that the Hyundai was thrown in there to drag down the average MPG. Over a 179,200 mile vehicle life assumption, the fact that they put the Hyundai Equus in there will add up to an disadvantage to the gas vehicles. In all fairness, if they really wanted to push down the numbers for the large gas cars, they could have chosen the Chrysler 300 with the V8 Hemi or a Hellcat and they didn't. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)







But allow me to push back on your statement:
Why do we make perfect the enemy of the good? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

I honestly don't think we are. EV's will continue to propagate if for no reason other than forced Government mandates that you will have no choice on. People are not yet choosing them in mass for a lot of different reasons. Even you mentioned that an EV will not be your next car. Why wait? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

There are lots of good reasons to wait, particularly in your neck of the woods. As far as I could tell, the study referenced makes no accounting for diminished battery range in cold weather, the need for more EV charges per mile, and the increased contribution to overall EV emissions in cold climates.

I do a lot of winter testing of vehicles and I assure you that every time I've gone out to an EV on a cold morning 0F or below, the battery is not fully charged (EV's have to use battery power to warm the pack just to get it to charge) and once under way, the range diminishes much faster than the optimistic projection of the instruments due to need to heat the cabin, defrost the window, and the increased parasitic drag of driving though snow.

Overall a great study and well footnoted. Much better than most where they seem to carefully omit their methodology. I would like to look into the footnotes a bit more and encourage others to really dig into any study or report and understand what is being reported Good or Bad.

[bbrock]

I love the spirited debate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Like most reports, the Union of Concerned Scientists report has a definite bias toward EV's. Better than most for sure, but, the bias is there none the less with some carefully chosen assumptions at best or deceitful assumptions at worst.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/av-943.gif) Okay, let's dig in. Starting off by claiming bias is a classic tactic for casting doubt. Sure, all science is biased. It's conducted by people and we can't deny we have biases. Good science and the reports produced from it tries to be as objective as possible so as not to allow the bias to dictate conclusions. You provide a couple examples of bias but I'm not sold. Let's look at those.

Let's start with the assumption that a Nissan Leaf will only require or use 1 battery in it's lifetime - this clearly isn't the case based on field performance. See the previous eBay ad I posted for the Leaf, the owner admits the battery is shot and range has been negatively impacted. Vehicle had 50K miles and range had been reduced to 40 miles. Using the study life cycle of 179,200 miles, Nissan Leaf's will definately need more than one battery in their lifetime. Maybe 3 or 4! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/av-943.gif)

You are cherry picking here. You can't extrapolate an ad from someone selling their lemon or abused car to represent the average for the entire technology. As you know, there are many factors that influence the lifespan of a lithium battery. Who knows the story on that particular car or how representative it is of ALL EV vehicles?

What we need are data on actual observed battery longevity. Unfortunately, these are a bit elusive. Without spending too much time on it, the best I found was this article that cites an independent study that found the Tesla Model S lost about 5% capacity after 50,000 miles on the road; Tesla's own data indicating the Model S batteries retained 80% capacity after over 500,000 miles, and a statement from Nissan that they " having to swap out only a small number of batteries in its Leaf EV, despite selling many thousands of units during its last eight years in production." The Leaf battery warranty was 10 years or 100,000 miles.

https://www.carfax.com/blog/how-long-does-t...an-electric-car

Also, you misread the report. The study life cycle was 179,000 for combustion vehicles, but only 135,000 miles for the EV cars - acknowledging the limited (but at the time of the report, uknown) lifespan of the batteries. None of the above supports the idea that an EV would require 2-3 batteries during the report life cycle.

Let's take a look at how fuel economy was compared for Gas vs. EV's.

These are suspiciously low and are from MY15 vehicles Why not include any Hybrids that offer excellent Fuel Economy and aren't tethered to EV chargers for long trips? Hybrids are a wonderful middle ground between Gas and EV and a far better choice for the average consumer.

I'm totally confused by this (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) These numbers look pretty typical for 2015 to me (which was the year of the report). Our last new car purchase was in 2007 for a mid-sized car in this class. We really wanted something that would get north of 30 mpg highway but the only models that got that mileage at the time were so poorly built, we probably would have replaced it already. The best we could do was 29 mpg. I really don't understand why you think those fuel economies are low.

They didn't include hybrids because they are not in the scope of the study which was to compare cradle to grave carbon footprints of EV vs. ICE cars. I think it would be interesting to see the same analysis on hybrids, but without also including manufacturing and end of life numbers, it would not be appropriate to toss them into the comparison of operating emissions.

They also used a strange assumption on the large car side. Is anyone is really considering a Hyundai Equus or a Chrysler 300 vs. Telsa? Seems to me that the Hyundai was thrown in there to drag down the average MPG. Over a 179,200 mile vehicle life assumption, the fact that they put the Hyundai Equus in there will add up to an disadvantage to the gas vehicles. In all fairness, if they really wanted to push down the numbers for the large gas cars, they could have chosen the Chrysler 300 with the V8 Hemi or a Hellcat and they didn't. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif)

Again, I don't understand the criticism here. They were standardizing as best they could on curb weight and vehicle footprint to get as close to an apples to apples comparison as they could. I'm sure there are other ways to make the comparison, but this seems like a reasonable approach to me.

But allow me to push back on your statement:
Why do we make perfect the enemy of the good? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

I honestly don't think we are. EV's will continue to propagate if for no reason other than forced Government mandates that you will have no choice on. People are not yet choosing them in mass for a lot of different reasons. Even you mentioned that an EV will not be your next car. Why wait? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

You are conflating a couple things here. The perfect being the enemy of the good statement was intended as a broader statement of the tendency to attack new technologies intended to address a societal problem by focusing on the flaws rather than judging overall whether it moves us closer to the desired outcome. IMO, EV technology looks very promising considering the short time development has been seriously focused on building them into a viable alternative to ICE vehicles. I don't get the naysayers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

As to why I don't buy an EV on the next purchase, it's because I agree with you about consumer choice. If I could afford a Tesla, I would own one because it checks all of the technical boxes for us. I just don't make a Tesla salary. I'm guessing by the time we replace our next vehicle, the price point for that level of technology will be in our grasp. There is a high chance our next car will be a hybrid though. We really wanted one the last time, but they just weren't making small SUV hybrids at the time and we probably couldn't have afforded one if we did. I'm hoping this time will be different.

There are lots of good reasons to wait, particularly in your neck of the woods. As far as I could tell, the study referenced makes no accounting for diminished battery range in cold weather, the need for more EV charges per mile, and the increased contribution to overall EV emissions in cold climates.

I do a lot of winter testing of vehicles and I assure you that every time I've gone out to an EV on a cold morning 0F or below, the battery is not fully charged (EV's have to use battery power to warm the pack just to get it to charge) and once under way, the range diminishes much faster than the optimistic projection of the instruments due to need to heat the cabin, defrost the window, and the increased parasitic drag of driving though snow.

I agree that an adjustment for climate would improve the report. Given that at the time, they had to extrapolate just to estimate longevity, it was probably beyond their capacity. In our case, the majority of our electricity is hydro so I doubt it would change the conclusion for us. It might in heavy coal areas though where the EV benefit is marginal.

As far as general driveability, I doubt even our frigid climate would be much of an issue. It's not like ICEs are 100% reliable or operate optimally when our temps dip below -20. That's why we have heated garages, and we wouldn't need a full charge to get home after work. Tesla installed charging infrastructure in this region well ahead of the demand and we have charging stations less than 100 miles apart along Interstate routes even through the backwater places. They've already shown that building the charging infrastructure is doable.

Overall a great study and well footnoted. Much better than most where they seem to carefully omit their methodology. I would like to look into the footnotes a bit more and encourage others to really dig into any study or report and understand what is being reported Good or Bad.

No report like this is perfect (I know because I've written a few myself), but this is the best I've come across to answer the question of life cycle emissions/carbon footprint. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)