Guest post by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
Last Friday, President Obama once again pitched electric cars during his presentation at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. At one point, he called for an end to gasoline-powered vehicles, “…but the only way to really break this cycle of spiking gas prices…is to shift our cars entirely―our cars and trucks―off oil.” The President has a remarkable faith in the value of electric cars, but this trust is not well supported by science or economics.
The very same day, Henrik Fisker, the chairman and co-founder of Fisker Automotive, announced he would be leaving his company over issues regarding “business strategy.” In 2011, Fisker Automotive introduced the Karma, a luxury plug-in electric car with a $100,000 price tag. The Karma was named “Luxury Car of the Year” in 2011 by BBC Top Gear magazine.
In 2010, the US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded a $529 million loan to Fisker Automotive for the development and production of hybrid electric cars. Former Energy Secretary Stephen Chu praised Fisker, “Not only will the Fisker projects contribute to cleaner air and reduced carbon emissions, these plug-in hybrid cars will help put American ingenuity at the forefront of automotive design and production.”
But lately things have not been so rosy for Fisker Automotive. Last year the DOE froze the loan after Fisker had received $193 million. The firm’s battery supplier, A123 Systems, declared bankruptcy in October of last year, after also receiving a DOE loan of $249 million. The Karma was recalled several times and Fisker has not manufactured a car in six months.
Plug-in electric vehicle (EV) sales are growing, boosted by government incentives and a consumer desire to purchase environmentally-friendly vehicles. EV purchasers receive a $7,500 tax credit from the US government and ability to drive in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane of most freeways. Charging stations are being installed in California, Nevada, Texas, and other states, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
Global EV sales are still a tiny part of the market. President Obama set a goal in 2008 to “put a million plug-in hybrid cars…on the road by 2015.” But US electric sales last year were only about 53,000 units. About 120,000 EVs were sold worldwide in 2012, only 0.15 percent of the 82-million global car market.
While President Obama would like to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles, such vehicles still provide major advantages for consumers. Pound-for-pound, the energy stored in the chemical bonds of gasoline is about 100 times the energy stored in today’s Lithium-ion batteries. This translates into about a ten-to-one advantage in driving range for gasoline vehicles.
If electric cars succeed, look for magazine lounges at charging stations. Gasoline fill-ups require two to three minutes for small cars and four to five minutes for SUVs. The best 440-volt commercial charging stations require a driver to charge an EV for 30 minutes or more.
Electric car owners who drive every day are in for a surprise. Their battery pack will need to be replaced. Batteries are based on a chemical imbalance, a separation of charge that produces the electrical potential. The day an electric leaves the showroom, chemical reactions are at work to remove the charge from your lithium-ion battery. Faster charging, frequent charging, warmer temperatures, and storage at full charge degrade the battery more quickly. Either the owner or the manufacturer will need to pay $10,000 for a battery replacement about year four or five.
But can’t an EV purchaser take pride that his car reduces global warming? Well, not really. A study last year by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found that, for a vehicle with a 100,000 kilometer lifetime (when batteries would need replacement), EV environmental impacts were “indistinguishable from those of a diesel vehicle.” The reason is that manufacture of an EV emits about double the carbon dioxide required to manufacture a diesel or gasoline car, primarily to build the metal batteries of the electric.
The study also found that “EVs exhibit the potential for significant increases in human toxicity, freshwater eco-toxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and metal depletion impacts, largely emanating from the vehicle supply chain.” In other words, production of electric car batteries may become a major source of pollution. Suppose we go slowly on promoting electric cars, Mr. President?
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
Well my Silicon Valley neighborhood, just got a major face lift. We are a fairly diverse bunch, and have diverse fads.
So the two houses acros the street from mine are rentals, and look like a couple of nice houses. I’m thinking that the same out of town landlord owns both; at least when renovations are going on, they happen at both houses imultaneously, and the two have merged front lawns, and the same leaf blower entrepeneur tends both properties. They must rent fairly steeply, because the occupant turnover rate is quite brisk. They mostly seem to be rented (briefly) by 3rd worlders, who seem to preferentially drive ten year old dark green or black Toyota Corollas. No idea why. that is just the pattern. So the most recent tenants, have moved on, so the workmen are doing some spring cleaning. Both look like well kept up places; and make the neighborhood look much better than my side of the street does. I get self conscious with a driveway full or red, white and blue Subarus..
Well I don’t know if I have acquired a new owner across the street, or just new Tenants; but we just got supercharged. Sitting at the curb across from me, is now a nice light grey TESLA, one of those $130,000 jobs; no licence plates yet. The maybe proud owner seems to be Asian and looks quite businesslike.
I wonder about leaving that machine out in the street, but both garages are getting a paint job, and the tradesmen park their trucks in both of the driveways; so I’n not sure yet, which house the TESLA belongs to, but one of the two houses, is sporting a Boone & Crocket record set of Solar Panels. By my count, it is a 28 pointer. Now I don’t see any sign of any silicon wafer array appearance, so I’m guessing they are one of the thin film II-VI types of panels, so it is likely a Solar City or equivalent setup.
So I’m guessing that the car goes with the antlers.
Now the Tesla looks very nice; but I can’t say it is $130k worth of nice.
But we;come to the neighborhood, who-ever.
So I went the other way; LED lighting throughout; much cheaper than the Solar City thing.
Now I always thought that Tesla, was the champion of AC; so what’s with the Solar PV, and the battery car.
Per Wikipedia, the lithium-ion watt-hrs/kg should be 201 instead of 120 in the bar chart.
Unless in the near future they come up with some Dilithium Crystals (Star Trek), we will be burning fossil fuels in vehicles for many decades, if not centuries to come. It all comes to energy density and convenience. Let’s imagine for a moment there is an electric car of equal practicality (i.e. range, recharging time) to a gasoline powered car … Energy density of gasoline is about 36MJ/liter. A 60 liters tank (2,160MJ of energy) is typically refilled in about 5 minutes. Now, let’s see what does it take to charge a battery with the same amount of energy, within the same time …
2,160MJ/600sec=7.2 MW
At 480V, the current would be a whooping 15,000 Amps !!! No one short of a highly trained electrician is legally allowed to switch this. For a comparison, your biggest (main) breaker in your house is 50 Amps, and that’s for a good reason. This thing sparks, and you turn into ashes instantly. I can also imagine what would a typical electric charging station, counterpart of an average gas station look like. Each and every one would require a nuclear power plant to provide all the power.
Oh, .. another thing. Those thinking of swapping batteries is a solution, have to bear in mind that EVs are essentially batteries on wheels. You are better off swapping vehicles altogether.
Go ahead, tell the whole story. That’s only part of it. Virginia is also proposing to do away with the gas tax entirely and go to an increase on sales tax. Why? Because even though there are more vehicles registered in Virginia than ever before doing more miles than ever before, the gas tax revenue is down and declining. Why? Because we’re doing exactly what we were supposed to do as a result of their “social engineering”. We’ve become monumentally more fuel efficient.
They just can’t figure out what to do without the projected revenue. Let’s disregard the fact that the Virginia Department of Transportation – not long ago – shut down Interstate highway visitor centers as a cost saving measure because they were out of cash; only to find out that (because of their poor accounting) they actually had over a billion dollars of unspent money. No, I didn’t spell that wrong. Over a billion dollars.
In the grand scheme of things, Virginia is actually a fairly well run state. But it never occurs to them (or any other state of the union for that matter) to address the real problem. Why does building or improving infrastructure cost so much? I’m watching a much needed improvement to a commuter rail station go up in nearby Halethorpe, Maryland. The cost? 21 million dollars. Twenty-One MILLION Dollars$$$$$. It will take 2 years to complete. Now, this isn’t Grand Central or anything. It’s two covered raised concrete platforms, some stairs, ramps, two elevators, and a pedestrian bridge. Granted, not cheap. But 21 million? Seriously? And it takes 2 years to build? In the private sectors that under 8 million and gets done in 4 months. THAT’S the problem.
The solution? It comes, from (of all places) California. I recall that, after the Northbridge earthquakes many vital bridges and overpasses were damaged. So California came up with a unique plan. The contracts were written so that a bonus was paid – a HUGE bonus – for every day before a set completion date a rebuilding project was early. Despite paying enormous bonuses, California actually saved money and vital infrastructure was rebuilt in record time. No short cutting of safety either. Those rebuilt structures have already survived subsequent earthquakes of equal magnitude.
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-06/news/mn-42778_1_santa-monica-freeway
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/california-freeway-rebuilt-in-a-new-york-minute/
Sorry for the off topic rant, but there is a parallel. It’s a blind indulgence in an ideology rather than truly seeking to address a problem. It’s the politically correct but morally incorrect act of pressing an agenda instead of seeking a solution. It’s the effort put behind what your political cronies want pushed without any regard to the inevitable unintended consequences.
There, see. That dovetails rather nicely. Not as off topic as I thought I was.
FYI:
“Annual battery pack production in Smyrna (starting in 2012): 200,000
Annual Nissan Leaf vehicle production in Smyrna: 150,000
Number of battery modules in a Nissan Leaf: 48
Number of cells per module: 4
Weight of pack: 300 kilograms (660 pounds)
Amount of lithium in the pack: 4 grams
Weight of the Nissan Leaf: Approx. 3,500 pounds
Amount of DOE loan for new facility and retooling: $1.4 billion
Anticipated number of jobs created: 1,300”
Over 1 million $ per job
How stupid does the administration think we are?
How easy is it to replace a 660 lb batter pack? That’s much more than the weight of an engine
Also it is stupid to spend $$ on demonstrated technology until the battery is developed.
Spend the $$ on battery research before you spend a fortune to demonstrate the easy part that does not need demonstration.
When will the electric car owners pay their fair share of road tax which is up to 25% of conventional fossil fuels cost?
Why do I have to subsidize some else’s fetish?
Billions of private invested dollars have developed the infrastructure over a long period. Do they have a clue as to the cost to duplicate it? Why must I subsidize the electric fueling stations.
Oil companies contribute huge amounts of dollars to the US treasury in the form of taxes, royalties, and lease sales, How will this shortfall be replaced after they are put out of business?
Finally some of the greatest minds have failed for over 50 years to develop a practical auto battery.
Has anyone pause to think it is impossible due to the laws of chemistry and physics or that it may take many more decades? Since when did wildly throwing $$$ at a problem guarantee success
Sheer madness from Washington!!!
Catcracking,
“How stupid does the administration think we are?”
You do not want to know the answer to that question.
There’s a reason the eco-loons are called watermelons. Their ideological nightmares aren’t possible without other people’s money.
Our foreign oil comes from Venezuela, Nigeria, and Canada, mostly. Little of it (under 20%?) is from the ME. And even if it were, there were other motivations for the 2nd Gulf War.
Nissan’s electric revolution isn’t happeningL
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-20/in-ghosn-we-trust-tested-as-nissan-electric-push-falters.html
Carlos Ghosn laid a $5 billion bet in 2009 that the world’s next Ford Model T would be electric, and that Nissan Motor Co. (7201) would lead a revolution embraced by nations such as Denmark. Three years later, sales of Leaf plug- in vehicles in the Nordic country: 73.
Nissan’s chief executive officer has long fronted a campaign to convince the world that by the end of the decade, 1 in 10 cars sold will be electric. Customers haven’t bought in, as prices remain high and charging stations are few and far between. Sales for 2012 were half their target in the U.S.
Ghosn’s response has been to double down. Last week, he put his chief operating officer directly in charge of electric cars, elevating the Leaf’s importance for the future of Japan’s second-biggest carmaker. With Nissan sales falling short in the U.S. and China, some investors say they’d prefer the CEO focus on more immediate concerns.
……………
As the European Union’s debt crisis and the U.S. economy’s struggle to escape recession pinched budgets, countries like Denmark haven’t responded to Ghosn’s zeal with the investment in infrastructure needed to stoke consumer interest.
Prices remain high. According to Nissan’s U.S. website, a Leaf starts from $21,300 after federal tax rebates, comparable to the price of an Altima, which is roomier and has 70 percent more horsepower. In Denmark, Nissan’s site advertises a leaf for just over 268,000 krone, or more than $46,400.
Speaking of Fisker… If I remember correctly, Consumer Reports did a road test of one of their cars a while back. The test car died after less than 1000 miles.
Well I got to meet (welll actually just see), and yell across the road to my new Tesla driver neighbor. Seems like a very nice chap; culd be Northern European. And yes he does go with the solar roof. And he does park the vehicle on the street while some workmen, ae finishing up on the house. I’m guessing a new owner, and not a renter.
Apple is buying into Sunyvale and doing major expansions here.
A problem I see with electrics, is that when the gas tank is finally empty, it still weighs as much as when it was full. I have no idea what KW a TESLA is.
I apologize if this has already been posted but it is on topic
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324128504578346913994914472-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMDEyNDAyWj.html?mod=wsj_valettop_email
By Bjorn Lomborg
Green cars have a dirty little secret.
“A 2012 comprehensive life-cycle analysis in Journal of Industrial Ecology shows that almost half the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an electric car come from the energy used to produce the car, especially the battery. The mining of lithium, for instance, is a less than green activity. By contrast, the manufacture of a gas-powered car accounts for 17% of its lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions. When an electric car rolls off the production line, it has already been responsible for 30,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emission. The amount for making a conventional car: 14,000 pounds.”
Here’s the solution! ; )-
We should all get rid of our cars just carpool with our neighbors in ‘community vans’ (paid for by the government of course). The (electric) vans could ONLY be driven by TSA government employees during specific hours of the day ( subject to union breaks and no travel on government holidays of course). Then it will become rationed (like health care will soon be) to 1 van per 20 households!
Welcome to Obama’s dream…and our nightmare
What is the point of posting again and again the energy content of gasoline, diesel, etc versus that of batteries, when inevitably most of the energy from gasoline/diesel must be ejected out the tail pipe (80% in most cars on the road today), and most of the energy from the admittedly paltry batteries goes directly into moving the vehicle?
“By Bjorn Lomborg
Green cars have a dirty little secret.”
Lomborg’s article is entirely based on the Norwegian report he cites, and that report is severely flawed. That report uses a model of an electric car to add up all its components. Readers here will be well aware of the possible flaws in models. For example, the report reaches for some ‘nominal’ mass of an electric motor+inverter in its model of the Nissan Leaf which happens to be 300 kg. The actual mass of that motor is ~50 kg. The model of the gasoline vehicle used for comparison omits all kinds of components – oil and fuel pumps, lead acid starter battery, alternator, on and on.
Really, did anyone with any experience under the hood of any vehicle actually think the manufacture of the same steel chassis,body,tires,windows, doors, etc, but with a 25 kWh battery and electric motor slapped on would somehow require *twice* the CO2/energy of a comparable gasoline powered vehicle?
Falstaff,
What kind of electric car do you own?
Falstaff says:
March 22, 2013 at 3:56 pm
“Really, did anyone with any experience under the hood of any vehicle actually think the manufacture of the same steel chassis,body,tires,windows, doors, etc, but with a 25 kWh battery and electric motor slapped on would somehow require *twice* the CO2/energy of a comparable gasoline powered vehicle?”
Me, for sure. How heavy is a 25 kWh Li Ion battery; I’d wager… at 200 Wh/kg… 125 kg.
Given that such a car costs about 25000 EUR compared to 10000 EUR for a comparably sized normal car (not comparing the performance; that would be unfair), it makes sense to assume that at least twice the energy went into making it. A replacement battery costs about 10,000 EUR, so it looks much like that lump of Li Ion is what consumed that extra energy in the manufacture.
Or did you think one can make a 125 kg Li Ion battery without expending some serious energy?
Falstaff says:
March 22, 2013 at 3:45 pm
“What is the point of posting again and again the energy content of gasoline, diesel, etc versus that of batteries, when inevitably most of the energy from gasoline/diesel must be ejected out the tail pipe (80% in most cars on the road today), and most of the energy from the admittedly paltry batteries goes directly into moving the vehicle?”
Modern Diesel engines achieve up to 54% efficiency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine#Power_and_fuel_economy
Maybe your knowledge of ICE’s is outdated.
@DirkH. Your diesel link refers to hundred MW constant rpm diesels used at power plants and in shipping. No combustion engine of any kind gets anywhere near 50% average efficiency over the driving cycle for automobiles.
Anyway, there’s no need to hunt down great whale exceptions when we can know the average. We know the average fuel efficiency per mile is ~25 mpg for cars now on the road, i.e. ~5 MJ per mile. The power required to push the average jalopy along level road at a constant 60 mph is 19 KW (drag and rolling resistance), 1.1 MJ per mile, or 78% of energy tossed out the tailpipe, and that at constant speed, not stop and go which makes things worse for combustion engines.
@DirkH
“Given that such a car costs about 25000 EUR compared to 10000 EUR for a comparably sized normal car (not comparing the performance; that would be unfair), it makes sense to assume that at least twice the energy went into making it. ”
I doubt you really believe that, given the prevalence of expensive baubles we all see every day where the energy to build represents a small fraction of the cost. See for instance, the $68 million price of a 22 ton (empty) Gulfstream 5 jet compared to the $80K for tractor-trailer rig of the same mass. You think the Gulfstream required 850 times the energy of the tractor-trailers forged steel versus the riveted aluminum the G5.
For the average driver, electric cars are too expensive, they take too long to charge, and the range is insufficient – so far. But it is ridiculous to propose some 200 kg of electric motor and battery requires *twice* the energy of the propulsion system in an ICE: half ton steel engine block with hundreds of parts + exhaust manifold + fuel system + air intake system + large transmission + large radiator + oil pump + water pump + fuel pump + emissions controls, on an on and on.
@DB Stealey:
That would be an SUV, 6 cylinder and minivan. No plugs, just gas caps.
RE: SAMURAI: (March 19, 2013 at 11:39 am)
The way around these problems are: Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs), which would make power generation about two orders of magnitude cheaper than wind/solar 2) next generation batteries capable of much quicker charging times and roughly 3 times the range.
It looks to me like we may have enough natural uranium on hand so that uranium (U233) breeding thorium reactors may not be required until the next half millennium. Thorium is not a fuel; it is a source of uranium (U233)–after a neutron capture converts natural thorium (Th232) to unstable (Th233), which quickly becomes Protactinium (Pa233) and that more slowly beta-decays into uranium (U233), which is real the fissile reactor fuel.
Canadian Dr. David LeBlanc has pointed out that the real advantage, here, is the low-pressure, liquid-fueled reactor design, which has all those advantages often touted as the advantages of ‘thorium’ reactors, including transuaranic waste annihilation. He states that Oak Ridge was working under a mandate to design a fissile-uranium breeding thorium reactor based on a false premise, at the time, that natural uranium was soon to be depleted. He also indicates that Liquid Fueled Uranium Reactors are potentially so efficient that they would need less than one sixth the fuel required by today’s solid fuel reactors and could easily tolerate uranium prices as high as $500 per kg.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/12/im-on-al-gores-radar-for-showing-a-path-forward/#comment-1255087
The Singing Corporate Comedian says:
March 22, 2013 at 1:59 pm
It’s called public transportation.
It never gets a kick start until users get a interest to opt for such cars. Everything is in the hands of the users, so please them with some good features that is better than the regular cars.