Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Published without comment on our mostly coal-fired and highly subsidized electric car fleet … well, to be fair, I suppose that is a comment …
My best regards to all,
w.
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So 3.2% of car sales are green things?
But just think of how much better those 3.2% of car buyers feel than the rest of the Neanderthals.
(I wonder if the percent lines up with the percent of the Elites who want to tell us how to live our lives versus those of us who just want the freedom to live our own lives?)
PS Does that include the Tesla Elon Musk sent to Mars but is heading for an asteroid instead?
Mods,
I made a typo in my email address.
(Sorry)
This just in earlier today on Tesla shutting down production for a week or more to fix failed production line.
Elon Musk admits he screwed up production line with too many robots.
Also, China just removed a trade/manufacturing barrier to production of auto’s including EV’s. Tesla expected to move to China to manufacture the Model 3 in numbers they promised, away from USA. I am sure that will make Uncle Sam grumpy.
http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2018/04/17/tesla-suspending-model-3-production-for-several-days-to-address-production-bottlenecks.html
I would love to see what would happen to those numbers if the subsidies and mandates were ever removed.
No need to wait, Mark, just look at Hong Kong …
w
I wonder what that would look like if you took San Francisco and Los Angeles out of the data.
…flat line
If and when California adds more and more EV’s the grid will fail spectacularly. They and most of our neighboring states have done very little improve the grid and they’re tapering off fossil energy production and relying more and more on solar and wind. Peak use is right after work for few hours and solar is long gone . At times in the summer it is dangerously close to overloading the system. Imagine plugging in a few million EV’s? The fireworks could be amazing.
A battery is a bomb that releases its energy in a controlled way.
The barrier to explosion lessens as you get to higher energy density and faster charging.
Storing power in batteries generated by inefficient generators (solar/wind) is a very silly idea.
I wonder what EV and hybrid sales would look like with NO subsidies at any level from manufacturing to purchase and use and also no taxes on gasoline and diesel. I believe it would actually spurn innovation in EVs, hybrids, and battery technology.
As EVs grow as a share of cars, there will be alternative taxation, most likely in the form of a mileage charge.
What will happen, I wonder, when the greens finally discover the challenge of toxic battery chemical disposal.
I mean, what in the heck are we going to do with all those dead batteries?
Bury them in Nevada?
Recycling automotive lead acid batteries is a mature industry. The lithium ion recycling efforts will follow the same predictable pathways.
Not unless someone actually starts buying these white elephants.
But they’re all showing upward trends! Declare success and move on!
By the way. Has anyone calculated the load on our electricity infrastructure?
If all these green vehicles spend all night sucking up electric milk, will we have enough coal and nuclear fired power to supply all the necessary electricity?
Will our transmission lines be able to handle the added load?
Last time I ran the numbers, a 100% EV fleet would require a 25% increase in US electricity generation relative to current output.
More like 19%. But that’s not going to happen for many decades. There’ll be plenty of time to prepare.
Jake,
Please show your work to derive that figure. Thanks!
The average U.S. vehicle is driven 15,000 miles per year. The average PEV consumes 30 kWh per 100 miles. This works out to 4,500 kWh/yr per PEV.
The IEA says that we need to put 600 million PEV’s on the road by 2040 to save the world from Gorebal Warming. 600 million PEV’s would consume 2.7 million GWh/yr of electricity. This is equivalent to 62% of the average total U.S. electricity generation from 2010-2016.
There are about 263.6 million passenger vehicles in the U.S. If the entire U.S. fleet was converted to PEV’s, it would consume the equivalent of 27% of our current annual electricity generation:
Adding 27% to the load while degrading the reliability of the grid with wind & solar… You literally can’t make this up.
@ur momisugly Chimp, I will do that if I get some more requests. It’s going to be laborious, and I don’t want to go through all the trouble for just one person. But I did do the work.
For starters, there are 185 million cars. Light trucks don’t count, at least for now and probably for a long time, because of battery limitations that are not likely to be overcome to the degree that they will be converted. Run that through your calculations, and you’ll arrive at about 19% if the entire fleet were converted — which will not happen for a very long time, if for no other reason than the time it takes to turn over the fleet.
Most people, pro and con, operate on pre-existing prejudices and emotions, and don’t bother to dive into the details. The electric opportunity is, at least for the time being and likely for quite a while, centered on urban commuter cars and plug-in hybrids.
Oh, and something else: The average car is driven 13,000 miles a year, not 15,000. The average BEV is driven 9,000 miles a year. The numbers simply are not what you imagine them to be, and any conversion will be slower than everyone thinks, and take place segment by segment as opposed to in one fell swoop.
The conversion will absolutely be slower than “everyone” thinks.
In the table I provided 185 million vehicles would be close to 19%.
However, there is no reason that most light duty trucks could be PEV’s if battery and charging technology improves the way “futurists” say they will.
Right now, it’s what it is. The future is always not what people imagine it to be.
David,
Thanks! Electric trucks would require even more power.
Jake,
IMO Mark has also requested to see your calculations. As suggested before, why not send a query to “Submit story”?
Almost matches the Aussie calculation David, which was 132% increase required of the nation’s electricity to support 100% EVs. Calculations on JoNova website.
Please… oh please… can someone post an energy comparison for gasoline, natural gas, coal, solar, wind etc? There was some doubt about the comparison shown above. OK. Can the technical types on this thread figure one out?
I’ve used energy per gallon in joules before.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/25/nuclear-power-subsidies-threaten-wind-and-solar-power-proof-that-truth-is-stranger-than-fiction/
https://www.masterresource.org/general-problems/wind-not-power-ii/
Thanks Dave.
I also remembered BP has a chart showing showing energy production in barrels of oil equivalent.
BP’s annual statisitical energy review tabulates energy production in “million tons of oil equivalent”. That’s the source of these data…
Could you be more specific on the comparison you are looking for? I have done a bunch of personal research on parts of it, but I honestly don’t know exactly what you’re interested in.
Gee I thought all those Democrat protesters of carbon must have one of these little beauties. Oh I forgot, virtue signaling doesnt have to cost much. Like planting a tree to cover your air trip, a bumper sticker with Go Progressives on your Hummer should do the trick.
You could have added that our ancestors had electric cars a hundred and fifty years ago, but abandoned them for ICE cars as soon as they were available. It’s not a new tech like smartphones, it’s a very old tech with lipstick slapped all over it.
ICE cars were available but small statured folk were unhappy that they had to be cranked to get them started. Then the electric starter came and EVs became an historical footnote.
John F. Hultquist April 17, 2018 at 9:56 pm
ICE cars were available but small statured folk were unhappy that they had to be cranked to get them started. Then the electric starter came and EVs became an historical footnote.
Actually the manual starters were dangerous, in the early days of the automobile it was the number one cause of injury, the kickback often broke arms. Leland who ran Cadillac caused the development and introduction of the electric starter in response to the death of a friend. After they introduced it the featured women as drivers in their adverts, made possible by the new starter.
Burning natural gas to produce electricity to charge a battery to power a vehicle isn’t cost effective….It’s almost as stupid as raising corn (a carbohydrate) richly fertilized with natural gas products to produce a hydrocarbon “substitute”. Why not burn the natural gas to directly power our vehicles? It’s a lot easier to expand our natural gas delivery system than our electric grid….forget about expensive, heavy batteries and use compressed natural gas (CNG).
Natural gas powered vehicles have even less range than the new electrics. Using natural gas to make electricity is highly efficient with the new combined cycle generators. If we were to replace all the coal plants with natural gas, we’d see a big jump in efficiency, including of electric cars.
Electric cars are of no value in terms of CO2 emissions if the energy to charge them comes from fossil fuel. Government needs to step in and supply solar powered charging stations for all owners of electric cars. I want to do my part but I cannot afford an electric car so I want government to step in and provide me with a free electric car and a home solar charging system that will operate off grid and will include batteries so that I can use the car during the day and have it charged up at night. I want the car to have roof solar panels so that some charging will take place while the car is outside during the day. If government supplies me with such a transportation system free of charge, I will make use of it.
Only 60% of U.S. power is generated by fossil fuels. The rest comes from nukes (20%), hyrdo (7%), wind (7%), and a mish-mash of others like solar, geothermal, “biomass,” municipal waste, and even diesel. Here are the numbers:
http://tinyurl.com/uselecgen
Thirty percent comes from coal, 31.7% from natural gas and 0.9% from other fossil fuel sources, for a total of almost 63%. Take away the subsidies from wind and solar, and their share would plummet.
Without more nuclear power, no way can we run our fleet of cars and trucks, boats and ships on electricity alone, not to mention aircraft.
From your link for 2017, Million Kilowatthours:
Coal Petroleum Natural Gas Other Gases
1,207,901 21,091 1,272,864 14,159
Nuclear, Hydroelectric Pumped Storage, Conventional Hydroelectric Power
804,950 -6,495 300,045
Wood Waste Geothermal Solar Wind
43,284 20,773 15,976 52,958 254,254
Total
4,014,804
For 7.6% from solar and wind, vs 20.1% nuclear. Have to increase solar and wind 8.3-fold to replace fossil fuels, but there still wouldn’t be enough power when and where the load were needed.
Not gonna happen. Ever.
Hydro and wind are too big by a factor of 10.
Never say never, but I agree that an all-renewable system won’t happen in this century. The only way I think I could be wrong would be if there was such a breakthrough in PV panels that costs declined so much that things like pumped storage became viable. I don’t see that happening.
Storage is the key to solar and wind, because of the intermittency issue. Batteries show no sign of dropping in cost to the degree that they can (in combination with wind and solar) outcompete the dominant nuke/fossil combo, and I’m not seeing it with solar either.
You should not read me as a renewables zombie. Quite the contrary, unless we get some heretofore invisible technology leap.
OK, for “ever” read “in this century”.
But IMO “renewables” will not replace fossil fuels. Something else, such as fusion, or other technologies now unknown will do so. Thus solving the storage issue won’t be needed. There could be a breakthrough in batteries, but the world’s navies have been working on that since 1888, with little to no luck.
I’ll say never.
The public will never put up with sacrificing the amount of land that will be needed to support 100% renewable power generation.
Remember you can’t build just enough generation to cover what we are going to need. Giving the vagaries of the sun and wind, you need to build 5 to 10 times more capacity, so that there is enough generation somewhere.
Then remember that since by the time you build this much, all of the best sites are going to be taken, so second and third order sites will have to be developed. Which means even more most be built.
Then since most of the best sites are not where people happen to live, you have to factor in huge transmission losses getting the power where it needs to go.
Which once again increases the actual amount of generation capacity that has to be built, into even less optimal sites.
The cost is going to be staggering, both environmentally and economically.
It will never work, it will never happen.
Where I live the local nuclear plant has been decommissioned and there is no way to increase hydroelectric power. Any additional demand that I put on the grid will have to be made up by using more fossil fuel. So along with the free electric car I will need an off grid solar power system to charge up the batteries in order for me to help reduce the use of fossil fuels.
I hear about these “coal fired electric cars”.
Nice phrase.
Has anyone calculated how much CO2 is produced by a coal fired electric plant to power an electric car for 100 miles?
It’s worthwhile to understand what the mix of fuels are used to make electricity in the United States. Here’s the data from the Dept of Energy:
http://tinyurl.com/uselecgen
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states
Gotta say that a hybrid car is much more interesting than a non-hybrid. I drive a Prius — which is somewhat embarrassing because of all of the virtue signaling that goes on with Prius purchases — and what a blast: an internal combustion engine and two motor-generators, combined with a huge battery. Brakes last forever (regenerative braking), no starter, no alternator, simple “transmission”, great gas mileage, quiet (silent at a stop), A/C works when the engine’s stopped, … and it’s fun to drive.
So let’s not be hybrid haters and virtue signalers of our own. No subsidy for non-plugins, no excessive electricity demand. Let those who enjoy it have fun, even if some of them mistakenly think it makes them a better person.
No subsidies. Period.
It really is interesting how so many people are only against subsidies that benefit other people.
480 miles on 10.4 gallons of diesel. Sprightly acceleration with potential for wheel spin in the first three forward gears, cold air conditioning in the summer AND all the heat one needs in near arctic conditions. Comfort and affordable. Plus the car easily cruises at speeds exceeding even the Texas Autobahn limit (85 MPH) with reduction in mileage to 38 MPG.
I can get from central Texas to Wichita KS on a single fillup. Then it is a 15 minute stop to replenish the concentrated stored solar energy elixir, micturate and grab a snack.
Central planning always fails. I guess it’s better that it fail early rather than late.
I guess I wouldn’t mind a hybrid with few/small/light batteries for acceleration. You could make it kind of a game, have a quick-charge gauge, and when the gauge is full you can engage in a little illegal street racing.
I mean, you will have that extra power for merging or something like that. For safety. It’s a safety thing.
Central planning doesn’t always fail if it’s done right. If it always failed, we wouldn’t have the highway network, the flood control dams, the hydro dams, the railroads, the telecomminications network, or the semiconductor industry, to name a few.
None of the things you list came from central planning.
Some of the interstate highway system came from government directives, but local and state roads didn’t and they are by far the biggest component of the highway system.
It takes central planning to note that a flood control dam is needed, and build one? You have a really weird notion of what central planning is.
The same goes for hydro dams. How much “central planning” is needed for an engineer to determine where a good place to build one would be?
The railroads were built by private companies, absolutely no central planning there.
The telecommunications network was built by private companies.
The semiconductor industry is 100% private.
“to name a few”????
I’m still waiting for you to name one.
The semiconductor industry in the U.S. wouldn’t exist but for the gov’t-sanctioned telecommunications monopoly that existed from the early 20th Century until AT&T was broken up in the 1980s, and for the U.S. missile program. This has been long documented.
Going back much further, the federal government subsidized first the canals in the 1800s, then the first roads, then the railroads, then the telegraph lines, then the highways, then the telephone system, then the flood control dams, then the hydro dams, then the aircraft industry, then the semiconductor industry, then space travel, then the Internet. Not to mention medical research, which is still massively subsidized as we speak, and mechanized agriculture, and mass access to higher
The combination of ideology and naivete here is laughable. Look, kids, this isn’t to say that all subsidies are sensible, or without serious flaws in their execution. But still: grow up.
Jake,
Semiconductors grew out of WWII radar research, not the telecommunications industry. The transistor was indeed developed at Bell Labs, however a monopoly permitted by the government is not the same as a subsidy, IMO. Nor should defense spending be considered a subsidy.
The Erie Canal (completed 1825) was financed by New York through selling bonds, not the federal government. IMO bonds also don’t count as a subsidy.
The Cumberland Road (approved 1806) was the first “internal improvement” with federal backing. After completion, maintenance costs were transferred to the states.
I guess you could consider the interstate highway system a subsidy for truckers, to the detriment of railroads. But then the national government did encourage RR building by giving the companies land along their routes.
The record of subsidies for solar and wind power is dismal to abysmal. Same for encouraging EVs. At best a waste and at worst squandering money and political payola. If “renewables” and EVs aren’t economical, the government shouldn’t be encouraging them. It’s misallocation of resources on a huge scale. EVs may eventually have some valid application, but so long as they need subsidies, that day hasn’t yet arrived.
Jake J April 18, 2018 at 12:19 pm Edit
Jake, it seems that to some extent you are conflating central planning and subsidies.
The Interstate Highway System was built under the directive of Eisenhower. During WWII it became apparent to Ike that the US highway system was not adequate for moving troops and war materiel. So when he became President, he ordered that a modern highway system get built. That was war planning, which almost always is central planning. Note also that the Interstate Highway system benefits everyone, not just one small segment of the population.
The Hoover Dam was paid for by a $140 million dollar Federal loan that was finally paid back in 1987. It was repaid from the profits of the dam. So it was neither central planning nor a subsidy.
The problem is not with central planning of something static and long-lasting like a road network or a dam. The problem is when the government starts getting involved in a) anything fast-moving and dynamic, or b) picking “winners” and giving them money, like say Solyndra, Elon Musk, or the like …
The best description of the first issue I know of is that of Matt Ridley, who pointed out that something over a million people in London go out to buy lunch every day, with nobody knowing what anyone will want to have for lunch, and capitalism and the free market ensures that they all get satisfied.
Now, can you imagine being appointed as the London Lunch Commissar under a central planning system and designing a centrally planned lunch system to do that? Specifying all of the different food shipments to different locations and the like? You’d have an ulcer in a few days, and likely commit seppuku in a week.
Best to you,
w.
JakeJ, are you delusional, or are you merely being paid to look dumb.
During the day of the so called telecommunications monopoly, Ma Bell was still using mostly relays and mechanical switches.
While missiles did use electronics, the private demand for them was 100’s of times greater.
What you declare to be “documentation” rarely qualifies as documentation.
Yes, the government did subsidize some of the canals and roads that were being built.
That doesn’t qualify as central planning.
Ditto for everything else on you list. You seem to be taking the insane position that if the government has any involvement, that proves it couldn’t have happened unless the government was involved.
Speaking of growing up, you need that more than anyone else here.
The problem with cars is that if you can only afford one, it has to be a tradeoff. Most of the time the car carries only one person, but you have to have extra seats for those other times and you have to have luggage space for those times you have to carry something. And you want safety. So you buy a car that is bigger than what you need most of the time. To carry around a couple hundred pounds of driver, you have a car than weighs a couple thousand pounds or so. That’s not very efficient. Making it electric does not change that. If you want to be a righteous environmentalist you have to get rid of a couple of wheels. Unless it rains.
EV’s. Sound good in theory, less so in practice! Having been in two very different areas where vehicles are used, a lot, I can safely say, that EV’s do not have the capacity or ability to replace conventional transport!
Firstly, the transport industry. Often times, these vehicles are required to travel huge distances without refuelling. When I was driving interstate, I could drive from Melbourne, to Brisbane, and about 200 k’s return, and top up with enough fuel to get me back to Melbourne! Another issue, is that to get range, batteries are notoriously heavy, severely restricting the carrying capacity of a transport vehicle. Transport operators are looking at ways to maximise the carrying capacity of their trucks, not reduce it!
I have also been a member of a police force. Our patrol and divisional vehicles run around the clock! They may also be required to travel at high speed, or an extended distance for operational purposes, at the drop of a hat. If push came to shove, you could refuel in a matter of minutes, and continue. Try that in an EV!
So, in my estimation, the shortcomings of range, weight, and battery recharge times are huge obstacles that need to be overcome to allow EV’s to be readily acceptable to Joe Public.
These shortcomings will not be readily overcome in the near future.
They are nothing more than niche vehicles.
Electric vehicles are currently a niche for the reasons you mention. However, it’s a large potential niche, especially for plug-in hybrids. >95% of the personal passenger miles driven in the U.S. are in metro areas, where the average daily use is 30 miles. The newest EVs, i.e., the Chevy Bolt, make a lot of sense as urban commuter cars, and plug-in hybrids, i.e., the Chevy Volt and the newest Priuses, offer all-electric commuting and a gas engine for road trips.
What an incredible belch of Luddism. sorry guys
For goodness sake, HOW MANY times on here do we hear that ‘technology’ is gonna solve the future -agri-tech for food, computer-tech = ‘stuff’ made from sand, energy-tech.
And how many times do we see this: “Who knows what energy sources we will be using in the future”
Get real.
Electric cars are the way to go. Only ONE moving part with no metal-on-metal frictions. No oil. No seals. Very basic bearings. All solid state electrics.
Replacing the ‘engine’ in an electric car will be as easy as changing the wheel.
By example:
A few years ago I came upon a UK someone railing about a destroyed (manual) gearbox in his Japanese car.
The new part (a 5-speed manual box) cost him £800 plus another £800 for fitting then 20% tax on top of that.
He went digging and found that that gearbox started out as a chunk of metal going into a factory in Northern England. It emerged, fully manufactured, fully machined, fully functional, with a guarantee and with all costs covered including profit at a cost of £80. Eighty quid. Not 800 that he paid for it.
All tax, salaries, overheads, raw materials everything covered at £80.
Remember that.
Recently I went looking for a new motor and did my research on the all electric Renault Zoe.
I cold-called a dealer who was advertising a 2nd hand car.
I genuinely think he wouldn’t have sold me that car had I had him at gunpoint and was throwing a blizzard of cash at him.
He Did Not Have A Good Word for the vehicle he was supposedly the main-dealer for
The gearbox example says why….
PS Complete brand new engines could be had for £250 – cost from the parts dealer= £2,500 and fitting?…. You guessed.
Seemingly here in the UK, Vauxhall are at this very moment sacking/firing every last one of their dealers and are aiming to re-hire only 50% of them.
Why.
Because modern cars are soooooo reliable now, very little servicing and garage work is now needed. They are shedding that overhead of spare-parts – actual metal on shelves and grease monkeys in the shed next door.
And that is Vauxhall – the reliability joke of UK motoring.
At that rate, Volkswagen-Audi, BMW and Honda etc etc will be dumping 90% of their dealers!
Bring in electric cars and will the figure be 99%……….. Remember, only one moving part in an electric car.
Yes batteries are the sticking point but they ain’t too far away.
When I looked at the Renault, if the battery cost could be halved then the electric car ‘had it’
And 10 or 12 years ago, a battery for a notebook PC came in at £100+
Now the same battery can be had for £12. Taking inflation into account is that one-tenth of the cost 10 years ago.
Lets try less Luddism and less pessimism – or is pessimism contagious off Warmists.
And would you believe the cure could be soooo simple – just add 15grams of saturated fat to every meal you eat.
(and DO try to contain yourself to 3 meals per day initially. You’ll discover that 2 is actually more than enough)
That applies to everyone, Warmists especially.
Electrics and batteries are old technologies. Technologies that have already failed.
Using government money to force a return to a failed technology is not smart.
@MarkW, every diesel locomotive runs on electricity. The diesel engines power a generator, which turns the wheels. Electric motive power is not a failed technology. Other way around. It’s more of a challenge to put it into passenger cars, but it’s happening. Oh, and it’s 2 to 2-1/2 times as energy efficient as diesel or gas.
Jake,
No it is not more efficient if the electrical energy comes from fossil fuels. Even nuclear, hydro, solar and wind have costs and inefficiencies that have to be factored into the price of electricity.
Sorry, but I’ve done very detailed work on the issue. At the current mix of U.S. generation, an EV is about twice as efficient as an equivalent diesel vehicle and about 2-1/2x as efficient as a gas vehicle. This accounts for all the conversions from the refinery onward, and incorporates conversion factors for coal, nuclear, and natural gas, along with conversions within each type of engine, including electricity transmission losses and losses between the plug and the wheels within an EV.
You don’t know me at all, but I am a fanatic about getting numbers right. Forget about the bogus AGW crap. I’m talking about energy efficiency. One thing that falls out is that, as natural gas replaces coal as the top fossil-fuel input for electricity generation, EV efficiency compared to gasoline and diesel rises, because natural gas conversion efficiency is 2x that of coal and nuclear. It’s really quite remarkable.
My support for EVs is entirely based on this. I am as old school as it gets about it: “waste not, want not.” If you can go 2 to 2-1/2 times as far on a unit of energy in an EV, that alone is reason enough to want more EVs. You’ll just have to try to trust me when I say this isn’t any kind of virtue-signaling.
It’d be good if either a) one of Anthony Watts’s regulars would address the issue directly, in which case I’d offer all the details, or b) Watts would pop in here and indicate his interest, and allow me to write something for this site. I am not, not, not some goofy EVangelist. I’ve done this strictly by the numbers and am fully capable of showing my work, with links to real references. I just don’t want to do it for one commenter in the middle of a thread.
Jake,
Use the “Submit story” link to send our host a query and short outline of your proposed post.
Jake, Trains because of the need for high torque at low RPM.
2 1/2 times more efficient? So your claiming that hybrids get over 100mpg????
Are you completely delusional? Or just paid to spout nonsense?
For someone who’s a fanatic for getting the numbers right, you sure do have a problem getting your numbers right.
Additionally, your absolute refusal to show your work is also telling.
I can easily show my work, as I did in a different post here. But some commenters here are stoutly fact-resistant, so I see no point in doing more work for you.
[quote]2 1/2 times more efficient? So your claiming that hybrids get over 100mpg????[/quote]
Electric motive power in a car is about 2-1/2 times more efficient than gasoline. In fact, when the energy content of gasoline is converted to electrical terms, the typical EV gets 100-120 equivalent mpg. My first-generation Think City EV gets 108 “mpg-e” on average across an entire year, ranging from 95 mpg-e in the winter to 123 mpg-e in the summer.
Later generations of EVs are showing some improvement in the numbers. Tesla’s EVs do worse because they have more powerful motors.
MarkW April 18, 2018 at 3:04 pm
Jake, Trains because of the need for high torque at low RPM.
2 1/2 times more efficient? So your claiming that hybrids get over 100mpg????
Are you completely delusional? Or just paid to spout nonsense?
No he didn’t claim that, try reading what he wrote!
Jake, like all of your facts, your claims for EV efficiency are totally bogus. You are ignoring the 50% or greater loss in electricity between power plant and electric motor.
Phil. as always, you are a day late and several dollars short.
Most cars get 30 to 50 mpg, so if an EV was 2 1/2 times as efficient, they would 2.5 times that.
MarkW April 19, 2018 at 2:43 pm
Jake, like all of your facts, your claims for EV efficiency are totally bogus. You are ignoring the 50% or greater loss in electricity between power plant and electric motor.
Transmission losses are not close to 50%.
Phil. as always, you are a day late and several dollars short.
Most cars get 30 to 50 mpg, so if an EV was 2 1/2 times as efficient, they would 2.5 times that.
Yes they would, however what I objected to was your claim that hybrids would have to be over 100mpg based on your misreading of the original post. Most cars in the US don’t get ’30 to 50 mpg’ either, the average is about 25mpg.
Like wind turbines, the electric car industry is great at manipulating it’s public image, but ultimately brings little to the table.
I’m not even opposed to electric cars, reducing pollutants is just common sense for our own sake.
Still, until we get a break-through in energy storage & recharging rates, electric cars will always be the sub-optimal cousin to the combustion engine’s efficiency.
Oh WUWT. Always pretending that global warming is somehow American warming, and that what happens in the US is relevant to what the rest of the world is doing *sigh*
Exactly who is your flippant remark aimed at? Anyone from the western hemisphere is American — or didn’t you know that?
I’ll assume you’re being sarcastic, but just to be sure:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere
If global warming isn’t happening here, why should we assume it’s happening anywhere else?
If electric cars are a failure here, why should we assume that they work better somewhere else?
If you can’t think here, why should we assume you are any smarter on other blogs?
ehhhhh data? China is gearing up to ban non-electric cars, as are plenty of european countries (mine included). China + EU combined is a market way bigger than the US.
https://qz.com/1169690/shenzhen-in-china-has-16359-electric-buses-more-than-americas-biggest-citiess-conventional-bus-fleet/
So electrics are so, the wave of the future, that the only way for them to succeed is to ban all competition to them.
China says a lot of things that never happen.
As to Europe, it’s politicians have all but destroyed it economically already, what’s one more nail in that coffin.
hmm I’m living in europe, biggest problem we have in my country is that the economy is running too hot. More jobs than people. But enjoy your steady diet of fake news MarkW 😉
Benben,
Which country is that? Even with its bogus unemployment stats, most EU members have high rates:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/
And a lot of “jobs” are make-work government projects.
Chimp, maybe he works for the government. They never have an unemployment problem.
Mark,
True. You have really to want to get fired by the government. Repeat flagrant, violent felonies before droves of witnesses might just barely qualify.
Why do campers and RV-ers buy gas powered generators instead of many more batteries? Asking for an idiot friend of mine.