EVs indirectly pollute, and the Tesla Model S appears to result in greater effective CO2 emissions than an SUV
Guest post by Nathan Weiss
The EPA tells us 51% of total CO2 emissions result from motor vehicle use. As a result, many environmentally-aware consumers buy hybrid and electric vehicles, including the Tesla Model S, in an effort to reduce their CO2 emissions. One can easily picture these consumers exclaiming “wealthy Republicans are destroying the planet!” when they find their Prius driving next to a ‘one percenter’ in a BMW.
According to the EPA, the Toyota Prius V generates 212g of tailpipe CO2 emissions per mile driven, while BMW offers a host of vehicles that generate less than 140g of CO2 per km (225g per mile) driven. In fact, there are now quite a few new vehicles on the road that emit between 240g and 280g of CO2 per mile driven, including the Chevy Cruze and the base model Honda Civic. Hop into a Honda Civic hybrid and your tailpipe CO2 emissions fall to just 202g per mile. So where does the Tesla Model S stand in terms of effective CO2 emissions?
Tesla Motors implies that the Model S sedan effectively emits 176g of CO2 per mile driven, although we believe the power consumption estimate Tesla uses for these calculations – 300 miles per 85 kWh consumed – is unrealistic. Furthermore, unlike gasoline-powered vehicles, electric vehicles utilizing lithium-based batteries suffer charging inefficiencies of roughly 10% to 20% and often consume meaningful amounts of energy when they sit idle – especially in cold weather. If we incorporate charging and idle losses, using data provided by Model S owners, we calculate that the effective CO2 emissions of an average Model S are roughly 394 g per mile. It gets worse: Other research shows the massive amounts of energy needed to create an 85 kWh lithium-ion battery results in effective CO2 emissions of 153g per mile over the life of a Model S battery, based on our assumptions. When the CO2 emitted during the production of the battery pack are incorporated, we believe the total effective CO2 emissions of an 85 kWh Model S sedan are 547g per mile – considerably more than a large SUV, such as a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which emits 443g per mile!
Despite the substantial effective CO2 emissions of the Model S sedan, Tesla received $465 mln of low-interest loans from the DOE and the $82,000 average list price luxury sedan benefits from a $7,500 Federal tax credit, as well as various state and local incentives – including a $2,500 tax credit in the state of California. In addition, government environmental credit schemes required other auto makers to pay Tesla more than $40 mln in 2012 to “offset” the emissions of their gasoline engine-equipped vehicles with credits from the more heavily polluting Model S.
More:
http://www.uniteconomics.com/files/Tesla_Motors_Is_the_Model_S_Green.pdf
.. I’ll take “Noted Neurosurgeons” for $200 Alex…
*ding*
Who is Dr. Ben Carson?
.
All of the above also ignores the the fact that transmitting electricity hundreds of miles, via countless transformers, is a very inefficient way of meeting the high energy needs of transport, heating and hot water supply. Losses down the line account for between 30% and 50% of that generated, with a further 10% in the vehicle, excluding friction losses in transmission and drive systems.
Electrics are the way to go! You get preferential parking next to the door at Ikea, free electric power by others (at least in Vancouver mandated recharging stations) and endless subsidies for the roads and services you use, all financed by the gasoline taxes other motorists pay for you.
Watts (pardon) not to like?
george e. smith asks why use a 3-phase motor and not a brushless dc motor?
Well, the 3-phase motor used in the Tesla *is* a brushless DC motor. It just happens to employ 3 field coils instead of two (4-quadrant arrangement) or more.
There is a reason why 3-phase is used in power transmission: it results in the least use of materials for transmitting continuous power. Because of the 120 degree phase current rotation in three conductors, there is always current flowing through at least two conductors, so there is always transfer of power to the load.
A two phase motor has similar benefits to continuous power transmission as the three phase motor, but it requires four conductors to realize instead of just three. In fact, any phase arrangement other than three requires more than three conductors to realize.
The 3-phase “inverter” in the Tesla is simply a big version of the ordinary automotive alternator. Its called an inverter because it turns mechanical rotation into 3-phase AC current. It is easy to turn that current into DC by using some high current capacity rectifiers.
-BillR
george e. smith says:
April 10, 2013 at 12:01 pm
I had a rotary converter some 50 years ago. It was a double ended dynamo. You drove one end with a/c and picked dc off of the other end of the isolated rotating armature. Power the other end with dc and you could pick of a/c and the opposite end. Sadly I had to throw it as part of a deal with my wife on one of our many house moves.
Betapug says:
April 10, 2013 at 1:26 pm
How about renewing the batteries after 3 yrs at a cost of $6000 !!!!
I’m not going to argue about how energetically efficient electromobiles are – they are not very efficient. However the comparison provided here is not very fair.
The “effective CO2” comes from current average CO2 production per unit of energy – where? In the US? Or is it average world value? If you charge your car from a nuclear reactor, you make zero CO2 emissions, for instance. So the relative CO2 emissions depends on where do you charge your car or what technology is at present used to generate that electricity. If you charge your car in France, you are definitely generating less CO2 than e.g. in China.
Moreover, if you calculate how much CO2 is generated on making the battery, you should also calculate how much CO2-expensive is making of a normal car motor and add that up to its account, too.
There’s just no good way to compare these two.
The good thing about electric cars is – they don’t generate pollution (and I don’t mean CO2 here) at the place where they are used. And that’s a blessing for cities and any crowded areas in general.
What would those numbers be in a country that was nearing a 0-emissions grid?(for both production and longterm use)
What would they be for the SUV then?
That’s the point of driving electrics and hybrids; because the tech CAN limit or erase emissions in the longterm, not because they are zero emissions vehicles today.
Is the Tesla Model S Green? – NO
To call car running on a battery is misuse of the Tesla’s name.
The car should be renamed ‘Gaston’ after Frenchman Gaston Planté, the inventor of rechargeable battery.
http://www.teslasociety.com/index.html
They are super fun to drive/ride in – acceleration is amazing. If you are a speed junkie, they are pretty awesome. The original sportster model is even quicker
Actually, the following link, from the report (page 9), shows that a 24 kWh EV results in 91g of CO2 per KM over the life, 43g per KM for an traditional (ICE) vehicle – then calculates the effective CO2 emissions from the manufacture of JUST the battery, not the entire car.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x/pdf
I have often wondered, in my naïve layperson capacity, why GM didn’t continue to make Chevrolet Geo Metros. I have two: a 1991 station wagon, now off-white, that cost $7,000 new and still gets 52-55 miles per gallon of regular gas (possibly a bit less with the ethanol), and a 2000 mostly red runabout ($11,000 used with 17 miles on it) that gets 42-48 mpg. Both are still good cars, though the 91 is looking well used by this time. It seems to me that, if we had the technology in 1991 to get 55 mpg in a nice car, it is a crying shame to expend so much time, energy, money, and resource capital to produce more expensive vehicles that don’t do as well. I may get the 91 Geo painted one day soon; we’ll see how it does the next 22 years.
What about the use of rare-earth minerals in lithium-ion batteries? How green is that? And how do you foster energy independence when China controls so much of the rare-earth minerals market and has signaled their intentions to reduce the export of the raw rare-earth minerals ore and instead use the ore to manufacture the end-products in country instead? That is, instead of being able to buy the raw ore or refined minerals, China is going to build the batteries and export those instead. How exactly is that green?
My simple calculation is as follows.
Add up the total real cost of a product, including all subsidies it has gained.
See how much coal this money would buy.
That is a fair ball park measure of the CO2 produced by the existence of this product.
Ryan says:
April 10, 2013 at 1:35 pm
“What would those numbers be in a country that was nearing a 0-emissions grid?(for both production and longterm use)
What would they be for the SUV then?
That’s the point of driving electrics and hybrids; because the tech CAN limit or erase emissions in the longterm, not because they are zero emissions vehicles today.”
First of all, that magical country would of course have no problem at all synthesizing some hydrocarbons from CO2 and H20, so the net emissions of the SUV would be zero.
Second, that magical country does not yet exist. To make solar panels and wind turbines you need rather large amounts of energy; that energy comes from fuels and from Chinese coal power plants.
Theoretically, you could make them with the output of already existing solar panels and wind turbines, given you install huge batteries in the factories of course so that the machines don’t stop all the time; but as you now use energy for the production that is probably 10 times as expensive, your next generation of wind turbines and solar panels would also get 10 times more expensive and so on (that’s the reason nobody does it that way).
That leaves you with nuclear energy. Good luck with that. The Greens will make your life hell; if there’s anything that can be used even better than demonizing a trace gas that is necessary for all life to politicize the population, it’s nuclear. For the moment it still kinda works for the French, but they have other problems anyway, amongst them a huge heap of unsellable EV’s.
I’m actually a real fan of electric cars – but I’m waiting for the one with the lead box in the boot, which doesn’t need to be refuelled for 20 years.
“In addition, government environmental credit schemes required other auto makers to pay Tesla more than $40 mln in 2012 to “offset” the emissions of their gasoline engine-equipped vehicles with credits from the more heavily polluting Model S.”
I couldn’t figure out what Elon Musk, who is a very smart guy, was doing with this. Now I see the scam. Get paid by your competitors because the government holds a gun to their heads to get them to fork over. Nice.
For the folks asking about politicians with science degrees, Angela Merkel.Ph.D. Physics. It doesn’t matter. She is closing the German nukes because of the high probability of tsunamis in Bavaria. /sarc off.
A large proportion of the electorate is regarded by politicians as being utterly stupid. They are right but will do anything to get re-elected.
“in a nice car” re Geo Metro
I expect you are in a very small minority in this sentiment. Cars are about so much more than transportation and MPG.
No AGW religious zealot will believe these numbers. Driving a hybrid or electric car is a simple way for the econuts to displace their guilt. Why they are self-loathing and what they feel guilty about I have no idea.
Wow, that Tesla is quite a stylish looking
electriccoal-powered automobile. I prefer gasoline-powered ones though. Anyway, here is some earlier news about theirelectriccoal-powered competition …http://www.techspot.com/news/52023-revived-detroit-electric-to-unveil-tesla-roadster-rival-on-april-3.html
According to Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph, the whole point of electric cars is that when they are connected to a home in the EU with a Smart Meter, any surplus energy from windmills is used to charge the car, but any deficit of energy drains the battery to put energy in the National Grid.
In other words the night time temperature falls, the demand for power increases, so the electricity you used at 8pm to charge up your car is then drained from your car battery to put back in the National Grid.
I do not fully understand how DC power can be turned into AC power and how failure to get to work due to no charge in your car battery can help the EU economy. However I also cannot understand how, chemical energy, to heat energy, to kinetic energy is less efficient than chemical energy to heat energy to electrical energy to kinetic energy?
If all the energy is derived from wind or the sun it all makes sense, but energy from the wind and sun only contributes about 3% of the total energy consumption of the EU, UK and USA. Fossil fuel will reign supreme for may years to come.
Will renewables take over?
I very much doubt it.
Will the Earth heat up due to an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere of 80 molecules per 1,000,000?
I doubt that even more!
Will the b******t continue from climate “scientists”?
Without a doubt………………………………….. until the funds dry up!
Jim Smothers says:
April 10, 2013 at 10:40 am
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Jim
The Citroen was a great car, but the most innovative car of the last century was the Lancia Lambda. That was the brith of the modern motor car as we would recognise it today..
It was the first car to have
(i) unitary construction (almost every car has such construction whereby the bodyshell is effectively teh chasis) leading to a light but stronger vehicle.
(ii) a trasmission tunnel that lowered the centre of gravity rather than having the body built up high, thereby greatly improving road holding by the reduction of roll
(iii) to have independent front suspension (all cars now have independant front suspension)
(iv) whilst not a first, it was one of the few cars to have brakes on all 4 wheels.
It also had a narrow angle v engine which gave a compact engine and allowed much more passenger space length for length of car.
Electric cars will only be green when people can charge them via solar, off grid. Wind of course is no good since wind requires nearly 100% backup by conventional generation which puts out CO2.
My Dad had an electric some 25 years ago. It was not very practical because of its limited range. However, since it was a novelty whenever he went out to a restaurant or to a pub, they would run out an extension lead so that he could re-charge his car whilst eating. Just as well since in the winter especially at night, the car would lose performance after about 20 miles (my Dad lived in a hilly part of the country and there was a noticable drop off in climbing up hill).
Ryan says:
April 10, 2013 at 1:35 pm
What would those numbers be in a country that was nearing a 0-emissions grid?(for both production and longterm use)
What would they be for the SUV then?
That’s the point of driving electrics and hybrids; because the tech CAN limit or erase emissions in the longterm, not because they are zero emissions vehicles today.
You should work out the power requirements for all the electric cars on the roads and how that would be met. Remember that is power over and above what is currently (sic) supplied to homes and businesses. In the UK which is trying to become your ‘mythical country’ there are warnings of rolling blackouts as the ‘green’ power systems are not capable and never will be of just supporting the existing demand. Now imagine a medium size town where everyone is trying to charge up their cars for tomorrow’s commute. Now multiply that up for every town and city in that mythical country. The power grids themselves do not have the capacity let alone the generation capacity.
The idea is not scalable.
Not only that of course the world is already approaching ‘peak lithium’. So someone will have to invent a new high energy capacity battery.
If Tesla’s CO2 per mile is as bad as this, and the Tesla Corporation knew it, then Tesla committed a fraud when it didn’t pay the CO2 penalty. And if the numbers were behind receiving the subsidy/incentive, then there is another fraud. Plus conspiracy to defraud at the highest levels.