Guest essay by Eric Worrall
British sales of Electric and Hybrid cars have surged in the last year. But there might be more than green conscience driving the rise in sales.
According to GoUltraLow;
Last year over 28,000 electric cars were registered across the country. That’s more than the combined totals of electric cars sold every year since 2010, and marks a phenomenal 94% annual rise compared to the previous year.
Plug-in power is fast becoming a mainstream option for drivers alongside petrol and diesel, and EV popularity shows no sign of slowing.
We saw every region in the UK record improve year-on-year registrations for plug-in cars. Ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs) proved to be the most popular in the South East of England, closely followed by the South West and the West Midlands.
Read more: https://www.goultralow.com/blog/electric-cars-on-the-road-to-phenomenal-growth/
Why are electric cars becoming so popular in the UK? Apart from the obvious, a rise in government fleet procurement of electric cars, part of the reason is likely that the government is flooding the market with significant taxpayer funded incentives, to encourage commuters to switch to electric.
- The price of gasoline in Britain is horrendous, averaging around £1 / litre ($5.40 / gallon). This creates a tremendous price advantage for electric cars; according to the UK Government, fuel for a typical petrol car costs £12.50 / 100 miles, vs around £2 / 100 miles for an electric car.
- Lots of government grants to cities which embrace electric car technology, such as a recent £40 million grant for cities which embrace electric car recharging technology.
- A waiver for the notorious British “congestion charges” – tolls paid for entering some city centres.
- Poor public transport infrastructure. Unsafe, crowded, unreliable, expensive. Even with the cost of parking in London, the cost of buying and driving an electric car is likely comparable to the cost of commuting by train.
Whether the popularity of electric will last is anyone’s guess. Britain has a dangerously overloaded electric grid. If the majority of electric car owners recharge using off-peak power, this won’t be an issue – but if a significant number of drivers choose to charge during peak time, the surge in demand could cause the grid to fail.
There might also be some long term safety issues. Quite apart for the unfortunate apparent tendency for car batteries in some models to catch fire, Britain occasionally experiences severe blizzards which strand drivers on snow covered roads. A stranded petrol car can keep burning fuel, and can keep the car interior safe and warm for many hours. An electric car, not so much – especially if the battery starts to freeze.
And of course, there is the cost of replacing the batteries. The batteries in electric cars are a significant proportion of the cost of the cars. If they only last a few years, replacing them will become a significant issue.
Don’t get me wrong, I would likely be seriously considering going electric, if I was still commuting into London every day. People are making a rational decision, based on the available options, even if the options have been significantly engineered by government policy incentives.
There are some unanswered questions. As electric cars become more popular, how long will the generous government incentives last? Who is paying for those incentives – maybe poor people, who can’t afford to buy an electric car? As with any scheme sustained by the whim of politicians, the surge in demand for electric cars, could disappear as quickly as it appeared.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Part of the reason for this promotion of electric vehicles is that Professor David Mackay, a government scientific advisor, wrote an advisory document saying that electric cars were 5x more efficient than fossil fueled cars. So the government (and the newspapers) think that electric cars are saving energy and emissions. But this is nonsense, of course, because electric cars are LESS efficient than a standard diesel car. So I wrote to the good professor and got a written retraction to a Sunday Times article, which said:
Quote:
Ralph Ellis has mentioned your article and his correspondence with you (pasted below). I’d like to confirm that Mr Ellis is right to assert that what I wrote appears to have been misinterpreted. I apologise for the lack of clarity on my part.
……
The best fossil fuel vehicles are in the 100 g range so if we compare the best fossils with the typical electric car, they are level pegging today … I hope this helps, and again apologies if the exposition in my book was not sufficiently clear.
Endquote
But even this retraction was disingenuous, because there is no ‘level pegging’ here. Electric vehicles are ultra-lightweight specialist products, rather than steel-framed production-line vehicles, and no account has been taken of cabin-heater usage in the winter or battery degradation over time
More crucially, the claim of 5x efficiency has never been withdrawn from the advisory document to Parliament. So as far as the gormless imbeciles in Parliament are concerned, electric vehicles are still efficient and worth subsidising. So much of the current waste of money is down to Professor Mackay, who should be forced to pay back this wastage from his salary and assets.
Ralph
Totally false. A recent MIT study concluded that EVs use 50% _less_ energy that their internal combustion counterparts [1], irrespective of fuel source.
You are also forgetting that at least 6 kWh of electricity is used to refine 1 US gallon of gas. This energy alone would take a Nissan Leaf 17.64 miles.
Let’s talk facts.
[1] Wheel to Well Analysis of EVs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008.
Max S.:
You say, “Let’s talk facts.” Well, yes, let’s.
You talk about energy consumption of oil refineries but not the generating efficiency and the line losses of electricity supply. Generating efficiency is typically less than 50% in the UK.
You say,
That does not make sense. Different fuel sources provide different generating efficiencies. For example, in the UK (the above essay is about EVs in the UK) hydropower is ~95% efficient while coal-fired power is ~45% efficient; see here. Therefore, the assertion of “irrespective of fuel source” is wrong.
In reality, the “fuel source” of an EV is grid-supplied electricity. And UK generating efficiency is less than 50%.
Generously assuming UK generating efficiency is 50%
and
EVs use 50% _less_ energy than their internal combustion counterparts
then
EVs and their internal combustion counterparts use the same source fuel energy.
And that ignores line losses.
Richard
@richardscourtney
And those generating and grid inefficiencies affect the refineries in exactly the same way.
The fact is that the electricity alone spent refining a 45 litres of unleaded for my VW would take a Nissan Leaf 318km (at the rated consumption of 0.212 kWh per km).
I would be interested to read any published studies concluding that EVs are less efficient that their internal combustion engine counterparts.
Totally false. A recent MIT study concluded that EVs use 50% _less_ energy that their internal combustion counterparts [1], irrespective of fuel source.
____________________________________
Did you read that report?
http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf
The 50% vehicle is a HEV, or hybrid, not an electric car. A hybrid can be more efficient, but only when going through town – which is where this figure comes from. On a long journey, a hybrid simply becomes a fossil fueled car, no different to my diesel.
The car for comparison is the BEV, or battery vehicle. But there are problems in the comparison here. The diesel is an American diesel, which were designed sometime during the Neolithic era. European turbo diesels are more efficient – 55 mpg regularly from my large turbo-diesel in mixed driving (UK gallon). The best European diesels are in the 85 g/km CO2 range, not 120 g/km. Adding 16 g/km for refining and transport (WTT) = 101 g/km. But the electric vehicle is a super lightweight composite product, with no cabin heating taken into consideration, and still produces 115 g/km. We are not exactly comparing like with like here.
And while diesel fuel may have some transport and refining costs (well to tank costs WTT), coal and gas power stations also have incurred costs of transport and processing (well to power station costs WTPS). And these have not been added to the graph here, so the comparison is invalid. And the processing of our new Drax power station – Europe’s largest power station – has very high costs for processing and transporting all the forests of America to the UK. Let us assume that those WTPS costs are 8 g/km, or half of the diesel’s 16 g/km WTT costs.
The bottom line here is if manufacturers made a super-lightweight diesel – the equivalent of a new composite-plastic EV – it would be producing about:
75 g/km plus 16 g/km WTT equals 91 g/km.
While the EV is producing:
115 g/km plus 8 g/km WTPS equals 123 g/km.
So the diesel is more efficient.
R
Max S.:
I pointed out – and explained – that you had posted a blatant falsehood (i.e. “irrespective of fuel source”) and your reply ignores that but provides another falsehood; viz.
Generating efficiency consumes 50% of the fuel used to generate electricity.
Oil refineries do NOT consume 50% of the energy in the crude they process.
It is clear that you are merely another troll attempt to disrupt serious discussion by posting nonsense.
Richard
@richardscourtney The study concludes that:
The study does not mention the fuel source, therefore my argument still holds true. Looking at the energy contained within a fuel — from the time it is extracted from the well to when it is finally used to propel a vehicle — the study concludes that EVs use 50% less energy.
Agreed, refining oil does not take 50% of the energy content of the initial product. However, it does take significant amounts of electricity (~6 kWh per gallon of gas). This electricity is delivered by the national grid and is therefore subject to the same losses as that which is used to recharge an electric car. This is my point.
The fact is: the electricity used only to refine 1 gallon of gas, is able to propel an EV ~18 miles. Why is this being ignored?
Please link me to some published science which concludes that internal combustion vehicles are more efficient (looking at their entire lifecycle) than their EV counterparts. I would be interested to read more.
>>Please link me to some published science which concludes
>>that internal combustion vehicles are more efficient.
Take a look at Professor Mackays report to Parliament I mentioned (see link below). He made the claim of electric car efficiency, much as you did, but then was forced to apologise to the Sunday Times for his error. He then admitted that electric cars and diesel cars are about the same, as per his letter quoted above. (And even this admission was disingenuous).
http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html
And try replying to my last post. Even the report you highlighted demonstrates that diesel cars are more efficient than EVs. Do you contend my calculation?
R
@ralfellis Ironically, the VW XL1 is a plug-in hybrid vehicle with a 5.5 kWh lithium-ion battery, not pure diesel. In addition, production was limited to 250 cars, while the Nissan Leaf passed 250 000 cumulative sales in December 2015. Hardly comparable.
Unfortunately the efficiency limits of the internal combustion engine have been reached. The laws of thermodynamics are non-negotiable. Over the medium to long term, EVs are the only sensible option.
Max S.:
You are floundering in your attempts to distract from the facts that
(i) you have provided falsehoods
and
(ii) I have pointed out two of those falsehoods.
Your excuse says
Which is it?
(a) “The study does not mention the fuel source”
or
(b) “Looking at the energy contained within a fuel — from the time it is extracted from the well to when it is finally used to propel a vehicle — the study concludes that EVs use 50% less energy.”
Your “argument” is nonsense. It required ‘doublethink’. And it is untrue for the reasons I explained.
Please stop posting falsehoods.
Richard
@richardscourtney In that case, ignore my previous comments.
The fact is that a 2015 report from the UCSUSA titled “Cleaner Cars from the Cradle to Grave” concluded that [1]:
If you have any published science which concludes the contrary, please post it.
[1] http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-full-report.pdf
Max S.:
I ‘called you to account’ for posting two falsehoods and you attempted to excuse that by posting another falsehood, so I pointed out that your excuse cannot be true and requested of you
Your response to my request does not apologise for your falsehoods but returns us to your original falsehood by saying
I ignore nothing, and I absolutely refuse to ignore you having already posted three falsehoods so nothing you say can be trusted.
Importantly I did provide a link to “published science” together with an explanation of how it PROVES “the contrary”. That was my first post to you and is here.
Richard
@richardscourtney You provided a link to an article detailing the efficiency of different power sources, then continued to give your own analysis.
You then presented a straw man argument, diverting the focus of the argument: that EVs are more efficient than their internal combustion counterparts.
This is what the science says. I’ll ask again: if you know of other published articles which show the opposite, I’d love to read them.
Max S.:
Having been shown to spout falsehoods you now make another claim and it, too, is spurious.
You say to me
Yes, I “gave my own analysis” by saying
.I did NOT provide a “straw man”: I answered your untrue assertion that “EVs use 50% _less_ energy that their internal combustion counterparts, irrespective of fuel source”
My rebuttal of your falsehood included “analysis” of UK electricity generation that stated truism; i.e. electricity is generated from the energy of fuels with energy losses from electricity generating efficiency and from electricity distribution (line losses).
The paper you cite uses the word “energy” for electricity. But the fuel source of the electricity is the fuel used to generate the electricity and UK generating efficiency is less than 50% with 10% of the electricity consumed by line losses. Therefore, using your assertion of “EVs use 50% _less_ energy (i.e. electricity) than their internal combustion counterparts (actual energy use)” means EVs use MORE energy from fuels than their internal combustion counterparts.
I provided a link to the data I used. I cannot provide a citation for a peer reviewed paper for the truism because it is a truism. Similarly, I cannot provide a citation for a peer reviewed paper that says night is darker than day. These truisms are true, but much peer reviewed publication is junk.
Clearly, you like to use junk as excuse for your demonstrated falsehoods.
Richard
Repeating a lie over and over again won’t make it true.
@ralfellis Your calculations assume that EVs need to be powered from fossil fuels, this is not the case. As the grid gets cleaner, so too do EVs. Conversely, diesel vehicles stay incredibly dirty. In addition, the actual CO2 output of diesel vehicles is grossly understated, as detailed in the 2015 report which concluded that [1]:
Furthermore, a 2015 report UCSUSA titled “Cleaner Cars from the Cradle to Grave” found that:
I would be interested to see some published reports showing the opposite (i.e. small diesel vehicles are more efficient than EVs), instead of “back of the napkin” calculations.
[1] http://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/TE_Mind_the_Gap_2015_FINAL.pdf
[2] http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions#.Vqc07_FOXXQ
>>Your calculations assume that EVs need to be powered
>>from fossil fuels, this is not the case.
Sure. If you promise to never recharge your EV when the wind is calm and the sky is dark, I shall agree with you. But if you are looking for a practical vehicle, you are going to be using fossil fuels (and American forests). And Prof Mackay took the level of renewables and nuclear into his calculations.
.
>>I would be interested to see some published reports showing
>>the opposite (i.e. small diesel vehicles are more efficient than EVs)
Sure. The world’s most efficient car is a diesel – the VW L1. It does 285 mpg, which equates to about 20 g/km CO2. Far more efficient than any electric vehicle powered by the grid could ever be. The VW L1 is a speciality vehicle, and so a good equivalent of the speciality EVs on the market.
http://gas2.org/2008/03/12/the-worlds-most-fuel-efficient-car-285-mpg-not-a-hybrid
http://gas2.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/vw1liter1.jpg
@ralfellis Ironically, the VW XL1 is a plug-in hybrid vehicle with a 5.5 kWh lithium-ion battery, not pure diesel. In addition, production was limited to 250 cars, while the Nissan Leaf passed 250 000 cumulative sales in December 2015. Hardly comparable.
Unfortunately the efficiency limits of the internal combustion engine have been reached. The laws of thermodynamics are non-negotiable. Over the medium to long term, EVs are the only sensible option.
Do you ever read the links, or do you just look at the pretty pictures?? In this case the title of the article is a give-away, and it says:
The World’s Most Fuel Efficient Car: 285 MPG, Not A Hybrid
Is that clear enough for you, or do you want my five year old nephew to explain it?
http://gas2.org/2008/03/12/the-worlds-most-fuel-efficient-car-285-mpg-not-a-hybrid
Heck, my old ’92 Civic VX, with 250k miles on the clock, gets 40 mpg around town, and 55 on the highway. And I paid $500 for it. What does a Prius get on the highway (or, put another way, “around town” if you happen to live in LA or commute 70 miles each way in the Bay Area)?
No need to lose your cool, @ralfellis.
VW’s site clearly states that [1]:
While Wikipedia states [2]:
There’s absolutely no other information about the “all diesel” version, other than the link you provided.
Safe to say it never even reached production. But we’ll conveniently ignore that fact.
[1] http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/about-us/futures/xl1
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car#cite_note-gas2.org-4
And then, when you don’t make it to the recharging point…
When a Tesla battery does reach total discharge, it cannot be recovered and must be entirely replaced. Unlike a normal car battery, the best-case replacement cost of the Tesla battery is currently at least $32,000, not including labor and taxes that can add thousands more to the cost.
http://jalopnik.com/5887265/tesla-motors-devastating-design-problem
It’s not just Teslas who suffer from this, either.
Many years ago I lived in a small town in downstate Illinois. One dark night after visiting friends in Peoria I drove about 60 miles on the interstate to get home. It was 26 degrees Fahrenheit BELOW zero. And of course my lights and heater were on the whole way.
Two weeks ago I drove home from my sister’s house just north of Chicago and it was five degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It was dark and the roads were poorly lighted and so of course my car’s lights were on and I had the heater cranked up the whole way as high it would go. And I was listening to the CD player.
Boy I’m sure glad I don’t have an electric car!
Along the same line. Be glad your not driving across in southern AZ in an electric car with the air conditioner on.
Government subsidies, like ones for electric cars, influence the market that would otherwise exist without the government’s intervention via subsidies. The government influence hampers production in general business areas unrelated to what is being subsidized because it introduces incremental increased uncertainty of what the real market situation is (without subsidies); thus the overall general business is incrementally inhibited from investing in business due to the increased uncertainties. Net effect on the overall economy by subsidies is depression of the economy.
But, some profit temporarily at the expense of the depression of the overall economy.
John
In other words “broken window econ” along with “cronyism”
old construction worker,
Yes, I think it is the “broken window” fallacy if you take the “broken window economic fallacy**” as only seeing the short term economic effect of government intervention while ignoring the long term economic effect.
As to “cronyism”, I think that is not an economic issue. It is a moral issue; moral because seeking benefit from government intervention in the free market is morally seeking government’s use of force to achieve your business goals. The use of force in such a manner is a moral issue.
“broken window economic fallacy**” – thanks to Henry Hazlitt for his ideas in his book “Economics in One Lesson”.
John
Eric, you said:
“Who is paying for those incentives – maybe poor people, who can’t afford to buy an electric car?”
It is wrong to deprive ANYBODY of his property and his relative wealth is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.
If you can’t defend rights, per se, you have already granted that you have none worth defending.
So get this right- nobody really gives a flying boojum about anonymous poor folk, unborn babbies and nobody’s need has anything to do with stealing from somebody else.
You play with marxist argument- you lose to marxist argument.
You grant that need is some kind of virtue-, you yield to ‘need trumps rights’.
If you can’t address the only thing that matters, you lose by default.
It’s guaranteed.
What wins is ‘rights’. Rights got fags teaching your kids it’s okay to be gay.
Rights is what got affirmative action and ebonics.
Rights is what liberated the USA from British rule.
Rights is the ONLY argument that has any moral weight.
Rights wins the day. Every other argument is a loser.
I’m not sure if this is too foreign a concept to a Brit but there may be some Americans who remember what rights are.
gnomish:
You say
Correction:
So get this right- selfish ‘bar stewards’ like gnomish don’t give a flying boojum about anonymous poor folk
Richard
I notice you have nothing to say about my rights, do you?
See how that works? Glorifying altruism is the gospel of the trougher, as I’m sure you understand deep in your bones. But it ends where my rights begin. Beg for yourself or beg for dead babies- I don’t care. You have no claim on me. You have nothing to offer me. You get nothing and you’ll like it. Embrace your impotence.
gnomish on January 25, 2016 at 4:44 pm
– – – – – – – – –
gnomish,
You are waxing eloquent. : ) I love it.
The authoritarians merely give their preferred people more rights than their non-preferred people, it is what makes them authoritarians. Might over other’s rights is their idea of their own right.
John
I read your comments, too, John. I wish your site were running, cuz that might be a more suitable place for psychoepistemological investigations.
While I have poor Richard on the ropes, though, let me put the boots to him.
Richard – the hallmark of any form of socialism is the twin gospel of altruism and collectivism.
They all preach that the highest moral virtue is self sacrifice for the sake of supernatural spirits, neighbors on earth, the fatherland – the name of the altar doesn’t matter.
Those who propose that the altar be ‘polar bears’ or ‘poor folk’ are just branding human sacrifice.
But you won’t stop trying to run the socialist con because it’s your means of survival.
gnomish,
Well, I have concluded that a site like mine would need a small team to make it go. I haven’t got my small team yet. But there is hope.
John
You could end up waiting a long time if you don’t just start the fire yourself.
My ‘best by’ date is past, eh. It’ll happen to you, too.
In other articles the courtneys have gone on and on about how taking money from people the govt doesn’t like and giving it to people who support the govt actually increases total freedom.
Gnomish, do I have a RIGHT to steal all your money ??
How could there can be such a thing as a right to violate rights, Marcus?
You aren’t really gonna try to rationalize that, are you?
Marcus on January 25, 2016 at 5:00 pm
– – – – – – – – – –
Marcus,
Well, what is the essence of : collectives; social ownership of the fruits of peoples labor and of the means of production; altruism; egalitarian; authoritarianism?
Arguably, one could view their essence to be contained the famous anti human rights claim of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809 – 1865) that “all property is theft”.
John
Punch drunk, is about all you get, dude.
But knock yourself out. 🙂
Does what you’re saying actually make sense to you?
According to the socialists, if you need someone else’s money, then you do have a right to steal it.
gnomish:
Thanks for the laughs. You say
No, anonymous fool, you are using that rope to hang yourself.
And your whinging about your “rights” to deprive whomever you want is very, very funny. Only you cares about the ‘rights’ of a selfish ‘bar steward’ who proclaims he/she/they/it cares nothing for the poor.
Richard
Punch drunk, is about all you get, dude.
But knock yourself out. 🙂
Does what you’re saying actually make sense to you?
gnomish:
I am enjoying you demonstrating that you need to make nothing to make a fool of yourself.
Your shadow boxing lands no punches on anybody. Remember, I only posted a correction to one of your most outlandish pieces of nonsense.
And the ‘wind-up merchant’, JohnWho, (i.e. a supported of the IPCC as a ‘scientific’ organisation) has been encouraging more of your nonsense.
In case any onlookers have forgotten what has induced your tantrums which are providing so many laughs, it was this.
Richard
John Who:
I owe you an apology which I freely give.
John Whitman, not you, is the ‘wind-up merchant’, who is a supporter of the IPCC as a ‘scientific’ organisation and has been encouraging gnomish to make a fool of himself.
Sorry for this severe error. I should not have posted while laughing so much.
Richard
You’re not laughing, Richard. You’re spitting mad and quite incoherent.
I recommend you pick at your wound a bit more to make it bleed because I care.
gnomish,
Let’s reflect on the chronological scenario that played out in the thread you started with your original stand-alone ‘rights’ comment to Eric Worrall (that I just quoted above).
a) First you were criticized by a commenter about your original stand-alone comment.
b) Naturally, you responded critically to the critical commenter.
c) Then I commented to you about your eloquence in your critical response to the critical commenter {see b) above}. I added my take on rights that could be viewed as supporting your position.
d) Then you and the critical commenter exchanged another round of comments.
e) Then critical commenter finally admonishes you for being encouraged by my comment to you {see c) above}.
Analysis & Discussion: The critical commenter {see e) above} is using condescending verbiage and shifts to assuming a stern paternalistic stance as rhetorical devices; thus the dialog breaks and is reduced into emotional one-ups-man-ship. It looks like sayonara to reason.
Lesson to be learned, enjoy this “ c’est la vie “ moment in the constant dialog on protection of individual freedom via rights.
John
A little semantic analysis will abstract some clues from which we can abstract much more info than the speaker intended to communicate.
For example, somebody who has been wounded feels the need to disguise his vulnerability by misdirection.
The defensive dishonesty of ‘i’m laughing so hard’ is the equivalent of a cry of pain.
What causes this pain? Exposing things that a person wishes to hide from himself.
What kind of person wishes to hide things from himself?
Only a phony.
MarkW:
You are as deluded as gnomish when you say
No. The “courtneys” have never said any such thing. And that is why you don’t provide a quote to suppoet your falsehood.
Anyway, if that falsehood were true then it would not be relevant to my having correcting a falsehood posted by gnomish.
Richard
John Whitman:
Congratulations on your ‘pot stirring’ that is keeping gnomish – and now MarkW – ‘frothing at the mouth’.
I am not sure I can take more of these laughs.
As you say, I have been using “condescending verbiage” to an anonymous fool: how does one not?
But contrary to your claim, at no time have I assumed “a stern paternalistic stance”: I have been ‘laughing my socks off’ at the floundering of the fool whose stupidity you have been so cruelly encouraging.
You are now trying to pretend you have not been encouraging gnomish to spout twaddle about “rights” instead of addressing my factual point that corrected a falsehood generated by his selfishness. I did not mention “rights” (of the child, or of animals, or as defined by the UN, or etc.) although I did reject the twaddle about his “rights” expressed by gnomish in an attempt by gnomish to evade my correction of his falsehood. That rejection was when I wrote
I again remind that the right-wing ire has been aroused by this
Richard
ooh- more yelps of pain
and that was just the tercio de varas.
“A little semantic analysis will abstract some clues from which we can abstract much more info than the speaker intended to communicate.”
Indeed, gnomish.
In your case, we can readily deduce that you have brown eyes, for example.
richardscourtney,
Your comment gave me a moment of recollecting typical experiences I have all day long for a couple days every week when my wife and I provide daycare for my 3.5 year old grandson and my 1.5 year old granddaughter. I assume the stern paternalistic stance constantly during those times.
Following is an example of a typical exchange where I assume a stern paternalistic stance with my grandson and granddaughter as the play/interact with each other. I will give them the pseudonyms Jason and Barbara.
Jason says, “Barbie, watch this! (he proceeds to do something naughty and/or dangerous for someone her age).
Barbie tries to do it, enjoying immensely and with pride copying her beloved older brother.
Grandpa (me – the paternal grownup one) intercedes sternly and says to Jason “Jason, don’t encourage your baby sister to do that. You know better.
Jason says, “Ohhhh” he whines and pouts “Grandpa why? Why, Grandpa? Why? ( repeats ‘why’ a couple of dozen more times . . .)
Barbie starts to cry because serious faced Grandpa stopped her fun of copying help older brother Jason.
So, richardscourtney, see? You were acting like you are Grandpa and I am Jason and gnomish is Jason’s younger sibling.
It made me smile while writing that because it gave me pause to think of the wonderful grandkids I have and how precious they are.
John
again that careless mixing of marx and that rich vs poor saga.
Marx dealt with ‘working 5, 6 days a week – can I make a living on it’.
That rich vs poor tale maybe mingles with ‘social needs’:
– if you don’t cope with social needs you have pest and cholera in your country, ebola and encephalities.
– you enforce criminalism in your country up to riots, which sure impacts youre rights.
The pirates in Eritrea ‘have’ the right, the access on heavy weapons – after all Eritrea is a failed state.
The rich masters of the pirates have their green, beachsited residences in democratic Kenia, the poor terror refugees are concentrated in camps in the desert.
Both Kenia and Eritrea loose more than they win.
____
I’m not interested in convincing you, makes no difference.
Just bored of that unintelligible marxist/stalinist meme. Thrashing a highly informative thread.
Hans
I have a question for the commenters here who think EV’s are better, more efficient, etc.
Why should the rest of us subsidize them if they’re that good?
If THEY want them, THEY should pay for them !! 100% ..
Nobody bought electric cars in the UK because of Jeremy Clarkson. The BBC took him off the air back in May and this is the result.
OK, does anybody have a credible number for the kW-h to refine one gallon of gas? Our electric enthusiast says 6. Any takers?
It’s credible. It would be ~ $0.30/gal based on refinery cogeneration.
That figure takes every watt that is consumed by a refinery and divides it by the total number of gallons of gasoline produced. Totally ignoring all the other things a refinery produces.
Of course they also ignore the fact that power stations use lots of electricity on site.
Electric cars are a good solution to a non-existent problem. The electric car needs electricity generated somewhere else, and that has to be delivered to the plugs. Many new coal, gas, or nuclear plants will need to be built to provide the electricity or back up the solar cells or turbines? Batteries don’t last long and are expensive to replace, and have to be disposed of: or recycled, Electric cars are limited in range and in Australia driving 1,000 km. a day is not unusual, except in an electric car.
Somewhere out there -somewhere – there’s a car with a face on the front of it. Where the headlights are its got two big bright white round eyes with little black dots for the pupils. And, below and between the eyes, where the grill is its got a big smiling mouth with thick grinning red lips. It’s facing and looking at a road crossing a very steep hill in front of it. It’s a very steep hill. And, this car wants to get over that hill. And, it’s saying to itself, “I think I can; I think I can; I think I can.”
This car is an electric car. And it’s said “I think I can” at least several million times to date. You see, that’s because it’s been saying “I think I can” for a very long time: for over a hundred years by now.
And there’s been people looking for this optimistic, achievement oriented, electric car that “thinks it can.” In fact, they’ve been trying to find this car for a very long time; for over a hundred years by now.
And, just like the car, these people looking for, hoping to find it keep chanting, “We think we can; we think we can; we think we can.”
I live in a city that has an extensive electric supply designed to eliminate batteries & recharging stations from the equation.
Electric vehicles designed for overhead supply already exist, so it’s just a matter of putting some old technology to use on a larger scale.
Tom Judd,
Torque in a series-wound electric motor is proportional to the square of current. When the armature isn’t moving and current is applied, only the windings of the motor provide resistance to current, and so current and torque are at maximum when the motor is at rest.
And that is why most diesel locomotives use electric traction motors to drive the wheels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_locomotive#Diesel-electric
A couple of torquing points…
► “Diesel-mechanical propulsion is limited by the difficulty of building a reasonably sized transmission capable of coping with the power and torque required to move a heavy train.”
► “As will be seen in the following discussion, the [diesel-electric] propulsion system is designed to produce maximum traction motor torque at start-up, which explains why modern locomotives are capable of starting trains weighing in excess of 15,000 tons, even on ascending grades”
The diesel-electric engine was chuffing along ‘til he came to a great big hill
He said “I must chuff, chuff, chuff ’til I reach the top,
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”
And he chuffed right over the hill!
(No batteries required.)
Don’t forget diesel-hydraulic (Western class – UK). But true, diesel-electric won that battle.
Nice post. Some neat things can be done w/diesel-electric locomotives, like a “slug”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_%28railroad%29
Yeah see these all the time in Australia. We also have what could be described as multiple freight trains coupled together. So there is a lead locomotive (Loco), with a driver, with say 500m of wagons behind it. Last wagon another loco hooked up, with 500m of wagons and so on. I am sure you get the picture. All controlled from the lead loco. Can’t seem to find a picture…shame.
Here are the UK new registration numbers for 2015 …
http://www.smmt.co.uk/2016/01/record-year-for-new-car-market-as-registrations-hit-2-6-million-in-2015/
Of 180,077 new vehicles registered, 5,806 were “alternative fuelled”. 3.2% of market share, up from 2.6% in 2014. Given the VW situation, big deal!
Those are the 6 month to December figures, sorry about that. The “year to date” figures are:
2,663,503 new cars registered, 72,775 of which were “alternative fuelled” including hybrids. 2.8% of market share, up from 2.1% in 2014.
In a place like Britain where your never more than 60 miles from the ocean, you can get away with electric cars. In the N.A. midwest, these smart cars are a good substitute for cow tipping.
Eric…the motorways here in UK have fast become large car parks. The M25 is notorious particularly at Heathrow. The M1 was terrible last summer with multiple road works on both sides. It don’t take much to stop the traffic here. And the hard shoulders are being widely used. Too many people I’d say…oh, why is that?
There is a large electric transport system in London…the underground. But..too many things rely on access to London. Other Cities going the same way.
They need to have many train stations just off the motorways I think because its all going to ratsh8t. And you normally have to drive past London to get south -ish.,,add in the EU junk.
Electric cars are rather pointless because they don’t relieve the significant problems…as above.
I recall once, ooh back in the early 1990’s when the M25 was fair new. Travelling on the M3 in to towards London the M3 runs over the M25. I recall seeing red and white lights in all 6 lanes on the M3 and all 8 lanes on the M25 as far as the eye could see.
The M25 pretty much became a parking lot the day it was opened.
– Unsafe, crowded, unreliable, unexplainable expensive public transport
– Gas $5.40
– Waiver of Tolls
– Live in a small country, travel distances limited
– Government subsidies
Yeah under those conditions I would consider an electric car
Add:
– Desire to display piousness.
…or is that Prius-ness
I once worked with a sales engineer who bought the then new Prius mostly to impress his Seattle area clients. “Image is everything.”
Anybody who owns an electric golf cart will tell you battery replacements are a huge cost in comparison to the value of the vehicle. I wonder if there is a statistic of how many hybrids are traded in because the battery putzed?
This is tokenism. No-one in the UK, who spends and hour or two hours on the motorways of the UK in their daily commute to work will use one of these. No-one I know of anyway! Sure, pootle about the town getting a pint of milk and the Sunday papers. But serious stuff? Nah! My step-father still has his Honda Accord and it’s 17 years old. Still the same car, same body no rust, same engine.
There was a time when electrically powered road transport was predominant before gas/petrol powered vehicles took over. Why would that be? Stone age. Bronze age. Steel age. Me thinks people discovered a better, more efficient, technology…and developed it! Oil!
Attached is an article that covers the el. vs. gas issue in the US. Since it was published, gasoline prices halved.
Comparing Electric and Gasoline Cars
by Stan Jakuba
This article is about the pros and cons of ownership an electric Nissan Leaf and a gasoline Honda Civic. It addresses the respective energy and “fuel” expenses, the amount of pollution generated in manufacturing and use of either car, the grid demand for charging vehicle batteries and the availability of electricity from renewable sources. Data are based on a real-life usage and include the effects of variables such as local climate and the cost of electricity vs. gasoline. Although the numbers are not applicable universally (driving conditions and prices change from region to region and from time to time) the method presented here enables evaluating numerically the impact of those changes.
Let’s start the comparison by investigating the driving distance on “full” battery or tank. As with all vehicles, that distance is influenced by drivers’ skill, but with electric cars there is, in addition, the ambient temperature dependence; it impacts their driving range far more than cars with internal combustion engines. Concerning the Nissan Leaf, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) published the average driving range of the Leaf models vs. ambient temperature1 as shown next.
The chart illustrates the variability often overlooked in judging the achievable battery range in, say, Texas vs. Wisconsin. Other conditions being equal, ambient temperature decrease alone can cut the range from the best 122 km to 75 km. Already at the beginning of this treatise we can see that comparisons will be tricky and not easily generalized.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined in its tests that the average Nissan Leaf consumed 19 kWh/100 km which is 0.68 megajoules per kilometre (MJ/km). That is the average record of several drivers, but it is not clear if that number includes also related effects, such as the self-draining from the battery when not in use, heating the passenger compartment in cold weather, and the influence of the speed of charging on the efficiency of charging. The charging loss amounts to 5 % at slow charging and up to 40 % for the rapid one. To account for it properly, the car electricity consumption should refer to the electricity flow from the “wall” outlet to the charger, not just from the battery to the motor and auxiliaries. We estimate a 20 % penalty for those three losses on average which then changes the energy number to 0.85 MJ/km. When considering the 33 % efficiency in electricity generation from fossil fuels, the major source of electricity, the overall number grows to 2.5 MJ/km.
My Honda Civic, a bigger but lighter car than the Leaf, and not designed for the extra low friction of electric or hybrid cars, has been getting 39 mls/gal which is 2.0 MJ/km. Gasoline refining and its distribution burn about 15 % of the energy in the fossil fuel, a consideration that raises the number to 2.3 MJ/km. But since I drive in the style of a driver who “does not need brakes,” I looked up the dealer advertised numbers as more “average” and found 36 mpg. That mileage brings the number to 2.5 MJ/km.
By coincidence those final numbers for both cars are exactly the same. This closeness confirms the obvious: If the origin of the energy for powering either car is based on fossil fuels burning, the energy consumed per distance cannot differ much if the cars are similar.
The Leaf is heavier than the Civic by about 450 lb due to, mainly, the battery. The difference is equivalent to carrying extra two or three husky men vs. the average 40 lb (1/2 tank) of gasoline in the Civic. Measurements by SAE, charted below, show the percentage increase in energy consumption due to the increased weight of road vehicles.2 The percentage disadvantage of the extra 200 kg for the Leaf is apparent.
Accepting the energy consumption similarity, let’s now focus on how costly one unit of energy is in electricity vs. one in gasoline. An overall comparison here is more complicated because the cost of electrical energy varies greatly from region to region, more than gasoline prices do. A valid comparison must be accompanied by more details.
Focusing on my region, the northeastern U.S., the residential rate is 0.1 $/kWh for generation and the same for delivery, or 0.2 $/kWh total. Thus the electricity costs 0.055 $/MJ. The cost per road distance is then 0.055 x 0.85 = 0.047 $/km. (Those analysts that account for just the generation cost rather than the whole bill miss a half of the cost.)
Now to the Civic: At 3.50 $/gal price of gasoline (10 % alcohol), and at the above listed dealer mileage, the cost is 0.050 $/km.
The conclusion: Again, both cars’ “mileage” cost is close in this specific case. Should, however, gasoline prices keep dropping as seems to be the case in the later part of 2014, the Civic will be proportionally cheaper to operate. At 1.75 $/gal price, for example, the Civic would travel at half the energy cost of the Leaf. Or twice as far. But there is more to this.
About one third of the price for gasoline at the pump is attributed to the federal, state and other taxes (the exact amount again differs from one location to another). That tax is near zero for electricity. Should electric cars become ubiquitous with time, electricity will then be taxed to yield equal revenue resulting in a unit of electricity costing proportionally more. Similarly, at present, 95 % of electricity is generated by the cheapest methods in the U.S. – by burning fossil fuels, hydro, and nuclear reaction. Should it originate from renewables such as wind, solar, and geothermal, it would cost three to eight times more.
To finish the cost comparison, the dealer price for the Leaf is 20 % higher than for the Civic, similar models. However, the present day federal and state subsidies, credits, etc. for el. cars reverse the percentage in favor of the Leaf by about equal percentage. Finally, there is the cost of the charging station in one’s garage that, however, may last for several generations of “Leafs.” Overall, the arguments in these three paragraphs indicate higher expenses to the Leaf owner that would be higher yet in a market-driven economy.
After all this information, it is, unfortunately, still up to the reader to decide which car type is better under his/her circumstances (such as having free electricity at the place of work) while also considering that conditions will change with time. No generally applicable guideline exists; the author hopes that this is apparent from above, and that published comparisons will be thus viewed with suspicion unless they are accompanied by all the above-listed variables including the consideration for the impact of the driver’s habit such as the proverbial “lead foot” or “pedal to the metal.”
Emissions
Generally speaking, el. cars relocate emissions from the exhaust pipes to the stacks of fossil fuel burning power-plants (for the renewable energy option read on). A British study (unverified) found that a mid-size electric car would produce 23 Mg of CO2 over its lifetime, compared with 24 Mg for a similar petrol car. Emissions from manufacturing electric cars, however, are more than 50 % higher for their light metal contents and for the batteries being made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed.
Electric cars are also expected to need a replacement battery. Once the emissions from producing the second battery are added in, the total CO2 from producing an electric car rises to 12.6 Mg, compared with 5.6 Mg for a petrol car. Disposal produces double the emissions because of the energy consumed in recovering and recycling metals in the battery.
Grid electricity demand
As a side issue, let’s examine how much more electricity would be needed in the U.S. should all the cars (200 million of them) be the electric Leafs and driven as today for 15 000 km annually. Charging them would draw 80 GW based on the earlier MJ/km number. But not everybody will be satisfied driving a small car so the overall consumption will be higher, say 110 GW.
To put that number into perspective, the present average electricity draw of the whole country amounts to 450 GW3. This four times higher wattage powers everything: from ranges and air conditioners to trains, factories, hospitals and cities. The time table for adding the 25 % to the generating and grid capacity is unknown as estimates vary greatly.
What is the role of renewables in all of this? So far, the amount of electricity flow from wind, geothermal and solar reached 22 GW, and that after 40 years of subsidized construction. Two other renewables, hydro and wood, had been generating more power than the former three combined but their yield has been stagnant or declining for decades and there is no new domestic capacity to develop. The other renewables, those not-listed here, contribute insignificant net amounts with no prospect for a worthwhile gain.
The following chart4 illustrates the electricity obtained from all the significant non-carbon sources since 1890.
As shown, the energy contributions of geothermal and solar (both PV & CSP) are nearly invisible on the scale of the two predominating sources, hydro and nuclear. Just the improvement in the existing nuclear plants yielded thousands times more electricity than geo and solar. That efficiency gain also just about matches the output from the wind turbine generators. It is apparent that the combined output of solar and geo resides in the error range of the pictured total.
The insignificance of the yield from the three “modern” renewables is even more apparent comparing the earlier 22 GW with the 450 GW of total U.S. electricity consumption (5 %) and 3400 GW of our primary energy consumption (0.6 %).
A personal note:
Writing this, it was not my intention to promote or condemn electrical cars. Personally, I thought that electrical vehicles, in cities for deliveries, airport shuttling, etc., would be common today, and thus free those places from the incessant noise and air pollution from gasoline and diesel vehicles. I based these thoughts on the belief that nuclear-made electricity would have been abundant and cheap today. It is also happens to be “green.” We had it available in the U.S. since 1950s. Instead, we are burning hydrocarbons that are needed where no alternatives exist such as for medicines, plastics and steel making.
I drove electrical delivery vehicles in summer jobs and have been involved with R&D of non-polluting propulsion such as battery, fuel-cell and steam powered cars for decades. That research was focused on ordinary passenger cars rather than on the above mentioned short-haul vehicles. Interestingly, those misguided, futile projects were supported by Government grants with the result that millions of people are still tormented waiting at airport terminals and living in inner cities amid unnecessary noise and air pollution. In this respect the Tesla car is an example of misappropriated funds for it cannot alleviate the traffic nuisance problems to a measurable degree.
In conclusion:
Between the two examined cars, electric propulsion offers no appreciable savings in energy, money or emissions over gasoline cars under the conditions described. Electricity supply from the “modern” renewable sources covers but an insignificant portion of the road vehicles demand. The numerical method in this article enables readers to update the numbers as differences in the listed variables occur with time and/or they try compare other cars.
Editor’s note: Since the time this manuscript was received, the price of gasoline dropped over a dollar per gallon. At $2.50, the dollar range for Civic increases by almost a third. Readers are expected to understand that, today, the “fuel” cost comparison weights in favor of the Civic as a result.
References:
1 Automotive Engineering, 2014 Oct, pg 12
2 Automotive Engineering, 2005 May, pg 87
3 All references to energy consumption/production are from the statistics of the Department. Of Energy, Information Administration, Annual Energy Review (eia.doe.gov). Electricity data specifically are from Tables 7.2
4 Created by Prof. Dennis Brownridge from EIA data
Stan Jakuba, 2015 Jan 11
West Hartford, CT
[Thank you. .mod]
All electric cars would be even further from reality if Toyota had not sat on its hands with the same small battery in the Prius hybrid. Annual improvements and battery size options for customers would have dominated the car market by now it they had been more aggressive. But no, and here we sit with just some styling changes in the Prius line.
The EU has limited the fleet-wide exhaust of CO2 to 130 g/km. That means that now cars must not burn more than 5.5 l gas or 4.9 l diesel per 100 kilometer (42.77 or 48 mpg). From 2021 on the limit will be 95 g/km which „constrains“ fuel-consumption to no more than about 3.8 liter/kilometer (3.58 – 4) = 62 mpg (65.7 – 58.8).
In the real world this can not be done. The EU therefore gives you some leeway if you produce electric cars or similar „green“ things on the side. You build e-cars – you may burn more gas per mile for all other cars in your line-up.
This is the reason for making expensive and often unusable e-cars.
Burning 1 liter of diesel produces 2.65 kg CO2, burning 1 l of gas makes 2,37 kg – as a rule of thumb one assumes 2.5 kg. 1 gallon (3.785 l) thus produces 9.46 kg CO2.
CO2-emission in g/km = fuel-consumption in l/100km * 25, or,
fuel-consumption in l/100km = CO2-emission in g/km / 25
After all, what was the tea party good for –
the right on luxurios tea?
The poor can drink tea of water cooked with some herbs from the garden; men can mix with rum or cheap moonshine.
The rich maybe prefer Bourbon, Scotch: anyway the antibacteria problem is solved.
The social need therefor is access on cheap energy – no ‘right’ talks afforded until this point, no pseudo academic juristic discussion, no uninformed pseudo political based on popular slogans.
/ everbody may excuse a mere rant. Hans
encephalities / encephalic meningities. My fault.
Anyway: let EPA + them gods sort them out.
as in the EU, as in the US:
the homeless, the kids:
thats wohlstandsverwahrlosung.
The kids have the advantage of joining I.S., feeling alive torturing other kids to death.
Prevents disparaged focus.