New report suggests EV’s are out of reach for the average American, and broad adoption will actually cause an increase in traditional air pollution
It asks whether the internal combustion engine is on its way out. It soon will be, according to advocates for “zero-emissions vehicle” (ZEV) technologies, especially battery-powered electric vehicles. They claim that ZEVs will offer superior performance, lower cost, and, most importantly, “emissions-free” driving.
Sound too good to be true? That’s because it is, according to a new report published by the Manhattan Institute. Dr. Jonathan Lesser, the author of “Short Circuit: The High Cost of Electric Vehicles,” argues that critics of the internal combustion engine fail to consider just how clean and efficient new cars are.
Using a recent forecast prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Lesser’s analysis shows that, over the period 2018 – 2050, the electric generating plants that will charge new EVs will emit more air pollution than the same number of new internal combustion engines, even accounting for air pollution from oil refineries that manufacture gasoline.
What’s more, EV subsidies benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. A nationwide survey of EV owners in 2017 found that 56% had household incomes of at least $100,000 and 17% had household incomes of at least $200,000. In 2016. median household income for the US as a whole was less than $58,000.
It’s time to hit the brakes on the government’s drive for electric vehicles.
Short Circuit: The High Cost of Electric Vehicle Subsidies
Abstract
Many claim that “zero-emissions vehicles” (ZEVs), especially battery-powered electric vehicles, should replace most, if not all, cars and trucks powered by gasoline-burning internal combustion engines. The primary rationale is to reduce air pollution and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
To effect this change, governments are spending billions of dollars to subsidize electric vehicles. These subsidies include state and federal tax credits for purchasing ZEVs and programs to subsidize the installation of vehicle-charging infrastructure in businesses, households, and along highways. Several states also have mandated the sale of ZEVs. For example, an executive order signed by California governor Jerry Brown in January requires 5 million ZEVs to be on the state’s roads and highways by 2030.
Will these subsidies and programs accomplish their objectives? And at what cost? A review of the literature finds few cost-benefit studies on these key questions.
KEY FINDINGS
- Broad-based adoption of ZEVs will increase overall emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and particulates, compared with the same number of new internal combustion engines. The simple fact is that, because of stringent emissions standards and low-sulfur gasoline, new gasoline-powered cars and trucks today emit very little pollution, and they will emit even less in the future.
- While new ZEVs will reduce CO2 emissions compared with new internal combustion vehicles, the overall reduction will be less than 1% of total forecast energy-related U.S. CO2 emissions through 2050. That reduction will have no measurable impact on world climate—and thus the economic value of CO2 emissions reductions associated with ZEVs is effectively zero.
- Subsidies for ZEVs and the required infrastructure to support them benefit the higher-income consumers who can afford to purchase them at the expense of lower-income consumers who cannot. In California alone, the total cost of ZEV subsidies, including federal tax credits and state rebates for ZEV purchases, as well as subsidies for private and public charging infrastructure, is likely to exceed $100 billion.
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Coal powered cars.
Unfortunately, greenies believe renewable energy sources will be sufficient to power their electric cars, AND all of civilization.
SR
“Unfortunately, greenies believe renewable energy sources will be sufficient to power their electric cars, AND all of civilization.”
Not such a wacky belief in itself is it ?
Because one day fossil fuels and uranium will run out.
Unless we develop fusion or fast breeder reactors or economic uranium from sea water,
we will have to use solar power of some type.
Just a matter of how long and how to transition.
One HUGE fly in the ointment Jeff – by the time fossil fuels and Uranium run out, so too will all other components necessary to make your solar panels.
Jeff There are breeder fission reactor designs that can supply all of the world’s electrical needs for 100,000 + years.
The main materials in solar panels are aluminum and silicon, both of which are readily available and highly recyclable. Other ingredients may include copper, silver and other metals, in small amounts.
I don’t understand how we will run out of these, especially as they are reusable.
Breeder reactors are not economic now – maybe one day ?
Maybe solar will be cheaper.
I have no idea what the future will hold – hopefully fusion.
“I have no idea what the future will hold>”
Then why claim that there will be a problem?
Jeff said “The main materials in solar panels are aluminum and silicon, both of which are readily available and highly recyclable.”
Aluminum and Silicon along with cement will be the first casualties associated with trying to convert to unsustainable low energy density unreliable energy forms. Do a bit of research, it has already happened in Australia.
Those whom advocate so called “renewables” are largely unaware of what it takes to produce useable materials from raw material resources and are unaware of losses in recycling processes.
Jeff: Silicon and aluminum yes, but not so lithium. Recycled batteries are more expensive than brand new ones.
Even without breeder reactors, we have enough fossil fuel for 500 to 1000 years, at least. Then enough uranium to last for thousands to 10’s of thousands of years beyond that.
Let out great to the 10th power grand children worry about the problem using technology that we haven’t even dreamed of yet.
SR, I think the hard greens advocate for “renewables” because they are insufficient to maintain industrial society. There is a definite desire to force people, or at least the few survivors, to live “the simple life”.
And don’t forget, once the uranium runs out we can just shift to thorium reactors. Much more thorium available than uranium anyways. And some believe we should switch to thorium now for safety and nuclear weapons proliferation issues.
As electric motors become better, electric cars could surpass the capabilities of many traditional vehicles.
That could be beneficial for many, even if you don’t have an emissions fetish.
The problem isn’t that the technology doesn’t have value, its that its being forced before it has true market viability; and that its being promoted as a solution, that it never really has been.
The problem with electric cars isn’t with the motors, it is how to generate, and deliver to the cars, all the electricity that will be needed. For society to move to total EV’s, all the power currently supplied to IC vehicles by petroleum will have to come from the electric grid. To put that power into the grid using renewables will require covering a gozillion acres with wind turbines or solar panels.
SR
Then there’s the obvious problem with solar that everyone wants to recharge their EV at night while they sleep.
No, that’s the problem with the Greenie’s fantasies.
The problem with the cars, is that they are not yet economically viable, at the capability level that most consumers want.
The former problem is unresolvable, the latter needs only standard technological evolution.
joelobryan,
For the typical work commuter there are two driving periods – to work in the morning and home in the evening. If we were to actually build very expensive solar covered parking areas, it would be possible to charge the cars while we were at work. The obvious problems of course are it would be dreadfully expensive to construct, and every summer hail storm would cause massively expensive maintenance issues.
I like the idea of solar panels shading the car park as it would make my car much cooler for the drive home. I am still not sold on the maturity of the technology for mass market production nor for the need to expend the tremendous amount of money required to build the infrastructure. If supply starts to tighten due to depletion of easily acquired oil, then we could look to the infrastructure build-out, but then the market would do it and there would be no need for an all-encompassing government that is the real fantasy for the green machine.
Short of room temperature super conductors, what improvements to electric motors do you believe are possible?
“If we were to actually build very expensive solar covered parking areas, it would be possible to charge the cars while we were at work. The obvious problems of course are it would be dreadfully expensive to construct, and every summer hail storm would cause massively expensive maintenance issues.”
…not to mention that, unlike regular parking garages that have multiple storeys, a solar covered parking area would be on a single level and take up vast amounts of real estate.
Yes you can power the entire plant by covering the entire nation of Spain with solar panels, just one hitch; you will need the crust of seven Earths to mine enough silver to make them.
The Case for the Good Reactor https://spark.adobe.com/page/1nzbgqE9xtUZF/
” If we were to actually build very expensive solar covered parking areas, it would be possible to charge the cars while we were at work.”
Theoretically possible under perfect conditions – a sunny summer day. Not possible during winter at temperate latitudes, unless the area of solar collection is larger than the parking area.
SR
Agreed. Furthermore, the problem with insistence on renewables only, is that in our present consumption of fossil fuels, which came about through storage and conversion of MILLIONS of years of photosynthesis, we are trying to capture DAILY solar power and use it as if it has the capacity to equate to eons of fossil fuel capture.
Electric motors are already over 95% efficient and, if using rare earths, extremely high power to weight.
better batteries are whatt are needed, but better by a factor of 3? Unlikely.
Increasing the energy density is easy. The hard part is to prevent this energy to self-ignite, as available battery design are more like an explosive (containing both fuel and oxidizer) than like a fuel tank.
In any case, a battery doesn’t create energy, So a real generator is needed anyway. So why the hassle to use a battery, when you can directly plug the generator?
PTP,
Electric motors have been around forever, used in first generation of cars. How can you assume that suddenly there will be significant improvements?
No logical reason to believe there will be a dramatic improvement and not wise to make decisions on wild claims. Unfortunately the laws of thermodynamics applies to electric cars as well as gas and diesel.
Electric cars are significantly more capable than they were 10 or 20 years ago, it would be more remarkable if they failed to continue improving.
But such cars will only actually become more marketable, when such improvements are realized, rather than predicted.
They are? Where?
A solution to a problem, CO2 enrichment, that has never been a problem.
Electric motors are already about as good as they can get. Any efficiency improvements are marginal at best.
I think the concept peaked some time ago.
Coal-fired power-pack not included.
Max, you don’t need the elevated part — put it all on-grade for a demolition-derby. 🙂
Funny.
But you shouldn’t hold electric cars, responsible for the watermelon pipedreams of the eco-wackos.
For someone who only does sporadic in town driving, without carrying a large amount of weight, the specific dynamics of an electric car could be quite practical.
The technology simply needs a few more generations of development, before it could also be economical.
You really need to spend some time talking to an electrical engineer.
PTP, the technologies (batteries and electric motors) are old/mature. What that means is small, incremental improvements are the only things possible now. That is in contrast to nuclear (fission) reactor technology, which was literally frozen in the 1970s and still has great potential for improvement (breeding, complete burn-up of so-called nuclear-waste, etc).
If your last sentence was correct PTP, we would be all be driving around in $500 cars and using $50 mobile phones and computers.
Often wondered whether a scaled up, safe and modern version of scalextrics car tracks might not work in real life on main highways and motorways and then just use battery power to drive the local streets.
This would make automatic driving computers a lot easier to safely program as well.
“Often wondered whether a scaled up, safe and modern version of scalextrics car tracks might not work in real life”
They have one of those in Edinburgh. Cost close to $1billion. Another crazy Green pipedream. Only serves one route, and a bus company could have provided the same service for a tiny fraction of the cost. If anything breaks down on the lines, the whole thing is paralyzed until they can shift it. Oh, and they’ve since discovered that the slots containing the rails are deadly to cyclists, they trap the front wheel and throw the rider off. .
.
The even bigger practical problem is the electrical distribution grid in many residential areas of the US cannot support large-scale Tesla style EV adoption by the public without major overhauls and re-circuiting. That includes California, and most especially So.Cal where the demands for AC already put a significant night-time burden on the local distribution grid.
The problem is the sizing of the 14.4/28.8 KVA step-down transformers that deliver 240 VAC over two hot wires to each home. A typical residential transformer in most US neighborhoods is sized to serve 4-6 homes.
Adding an EV like a Tesla with a 240 VAC charging station in the garage is almost the equivalent of adding another house to the transformer. Do that too much and the transformers are going to start tripping off during the hot summer night when all the homes are running AC, and the EV is fast charging at 240 VAC in garage.
There is a complete falacy in that article in most countries (at least one with proper electrical grids) you buy a plan for a maximum given current and power. That current goes thru the utility switchboard which contains their meter and/or circuitbreaker(s). You attempt to draw more than your plan power you trip your power board. If you somehow managed to circumvent the meterbox it would at some point trip the pole fuses out.
The transformer is never going to see an excess load if the utility has done the planning correctly.
You do understand if it wasn’t like that the first time someone “shorted out something” in their home and the circuit tried to pull unlimited current it would blow the pole transformer. I am pretty sure most of us have done it and popped the fuse in the meterbox.
Now if you have a utility that is overselling supply off the grid by a long way and it has to small a transformer then they will quickly work it out and have to replace the transformer with a larger unit. That is only fair they are charging for each customer to be able to draw a certain load in there plan.
For the moment It will only be a problem for rich neighbourhoods. It’s like driving a Ferrari. Those that can have one don’t complain about the maintenance cost.
If you think that the infrastructure is sized so as to allow every user to draw maximum rated power simultaneously you are wrong. It isn’t.
The electric grid is sized with a certain demand in mind.
The idea that you can massively increase the amount that is being demanded without also redesigning the grid is nuts.
How hot the transformer gets depends on how much current is running through it. A massive increase in draw means the transformer is going to spend more of it’s time pushing the maximum it was designed to handle. This means the average temperature goes up, and the average life goes down.
LdB, don’t know where you live. I have lived under eight different electric utilities in my life. Only one was/ is as adaptable as you are describing. I live in a hurricane prone state, in other words we will get tropical cyclones regularly. Only one has properly planned for such catastrophes. Two could barely handle severe summer thunderstorms. The one we live under today goes out at least once a month with no severe weather events. While I think EV are grand the US electric grid local and national needs dramatic upgrades and improvements first. Few utilities are actually upgrading their systems today. Most are just keeping up with basic maintenance.
Smart meters (that constantly relay demand data back to electric companies computers) do not solve the fundamental problem of the inadequate sizing of existing residential transformers.
When a customer has an electrician install a 240VAC-30amp charge station in their garage, it will require about 10 hrs of power draw to fully recharge a 95 kWHr Tesla from 20%. That means it is pulling 7.2 kVa for 10 hrs.
If a 50 kVa transformer is supplying 4 homes, the planned load is 10 kVa/home. It only has a 10kVa reserve because on a hot summer night with everyone running AC, the TVs, refrigs, lights, an 1 or 2 clothes dryers, a house could easily hit 11kVa. Throw in just 2 x 7kVa EV chargers running and the transformer trips off to prevent overload.
Thanks for the correct observation on inadequate infrastructure.
Our 2.5 MWe, ten mile long, underwater power cable is more than thirty years old and gets regular time capacity extensions. It will take a year and millions to just build the new cable, then it must be installed.
We have to notify the power co-op of tankless waterheaters and hot tub heaters.
Thanks Joel — interesting info. But loony-greens aren’t interested in such details.
Yea Hi , There is always change and improvement and there is a company that has come up with a real new motor , 2 stroke can run on gas or diesel and is the most efficient on the market . Called The Achates engine , worth a look up .
The Achates engine resembles a cut-down Deltic. How is that “real new”?
The engine in my car also resembles Diesel original design, more than a century ago. And, for a cause: it IS a so-called diesel. But so many details make it so different from its ancestor…
All the support with OPM should be removed, along with any perks — HOV lanes and so on.
Also, start taxing EVs for miles driven, with proceeds going to highway funds.
For most folks, EVs will be a simple urban car, or the 2nd or 3rd.
For elderly in retirement communities, a case can be made, or not.
The retirement community of Green Valley Arizona, they have special golf cart lanes, and many stores have golf cart parking. Been that way for decades. During the day, the electric golf carts are out in force. If you’re 85 yo and half blind, should you really be driving a 3000 lb car? And golf carts don’t go smashing through walls and store fronts when the accelerator is accidentally pressed instead of the brake.
Excellent comment, Joel! Now all we have to do is get governments to subsidise golf carts instead of full size EVs and see how many greenies sign up for them instead of virtue-signalling with a flashy and expensive Tesla. Umm – not so many?
Don’t you believe it! These golf carts have tremendous acceleration and the 85 year old half blind pensioner can be an accident waiting to happen. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”
Also see what youngsters can do on dodgem cars.
In defence of the more senior (and experienced) citizens who read this blog:
If you are a 20 year old and half-blind with testosterone-fueled bravado, should you really be driving a 3000lb car? And golf carts don’t go smashing through red lights and hooning around the neighbourhood when the accelerator is deliberately pressed rather than the brake.
Until electricity generation by solar/wind surpasses the usage growth any addition to the grid will produce more pollution.
“Despite claims that ZEVs will reduce air pollution, broad- based adoption of ZEVs will increase air pollution and associated environmental costs relative to new internal combustion vehicles. ”
That is not the plan. The main plan is to reduce CO2 emissions with these vehicles.
“The economic value of CO2 emissions reductions associated with ZEVs is effectively zero. ”
So, it costs the same. That’s a feature.
“Subsidies for ZEVs and the required infrastructure to support them benefit the affluent at the expense of the poor.”
This is so stupid, why would we not save the world because it might hurt the poor. But: Do the poor buy new cars? I wonder what a 4 year old Tesla 3 will cost?
‘In California alone, the total cost of ZEV subsidies, including federal tax credits and state rebates for ZEV purchases, as well as subsidies for private and public charging infrastructure, is likely to exceed $100 billion.”
Well, not accounting for your accounting, that is $2500$ per CA citizen over many many years. Big deal.
really,
you seem to be forgetting that California is fast gutting its middle class.
And if you really believe we need to stop burning fossil fuels to “save the world,” then you need professional psychiatric help that is beyond any advice or reference I can deliver.
in your opinion, you forgot add
Not opinion. Scientific fact.
See Key Finding 2 – it’s a 1% reduction in CO2 – an unmeasurable difference in any claimed AGW issue. But that’s OK – we’ll just keep taking a few hundred here, a few hundred there from the poor and middle class!
reallyskeptical
“This is so stupid, why would we not save the world because it might hurt the poor.”
If you’re so environmentally concerned, why not try cooking all your meals using really expensive wood, or less expensive dung. Heat your house with it and make do with a single standpipe for clean water, assuming one has been put in your street, if not, it’s down to your local filthy river with a bucket.
Do that for a year and watch you and your family die from chronic lung disease, with no access to meaningful medical care, not because you can’t afford it, but because there is none.
Multiply that up by everyone in your town r city, then imaging the emissions from your primitive means of heating and cooking facilities, nor have I even included lighting in the equation.
It is estimated that 200,000,000 people in developing countries will die by 2050 because of these appalling living conditions. That’s three times the UK population, dead, in the next 30 years.
And the solution?
Allow them access to coal fired power stations. The very means by which the West prospered, developed infrastructure, health, transport, technology etc.
And for what?
Because you believe in the rapidly diminishing possibility that increased atmospheric CO2 might do humanity some harm?
For the past 40 years it’s done no harm whatsoever, despite all the predictions of doom. Indeed, the only, single, observable effect increased atmospheric CO2 has had in the last 30 years is that the planet has greened by 14%. Two continents of extra vegetation the size of mainland USA according to NASA.
That’s a pretty convincing argument for CO2, as opposed to every other argument against it which fails to demonstrate by observation, not computer models, that CO2 is harmful to humanity.
Sadly, it’s too late for most of those two hundred million people condemned to dying prematurely. Even if we started building fossil fuel power stations now, we couldn’t build them and the associated infrastructure in time to save all but a handful.
Nor do these people want hand out’s, just access to the means by which you probably paid for your home, credit, to be repaid gradually as their societies catch up with the west over the next two or three generations.
I sincerely hope neither you nor your family are ever forced to endure conditions like theirs.
“This is so stupid, why would we not save the world because it might hurt the poor.”
Clearly, you are either ignorant of the situation, or you don’t care for your fellow man, as long as you’re comfortable, which is the hallmark of fascism, in all it’s different flavours.
Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.
Right, that inefficiency and subsidy has no knock-on effect. Becoming more productive and more efficient creates jobs and wealth,, so take a guess at what becoming less productive and less efficient does.
And every murderous tyrant has always said “why we would we not save the world just because it hurts people?” And “save the world”?
And $2,500 per capita? Sure. Add that to all the other $25,000 and look, it’s everything. You want add $2,500 in needless expenditure, then remove $2,500 from somewhere else, since people are already overtaxed.
ReallyClueless steps in it again.
“That is not the plan. The main plan is to reduce CO2 emissions with these vehicles.”
In your world, things always go according to plan????
““The economic value of CO2 emissions reductions associated with ZEVs is effectively zero. ”
So, it costs the same. That’s a feature.”
Either, really clueless didn’t bother to read what he quoted, or he has absolutely no idea what “economic value” means.
Since CO2 is not a pollutant, and not a threat to the environment, if people want to own harmless EVs, why not? Arguing from a “CO2 is pollution” standpoint is simply validating enviro-fantasies.
pochas94
Agreed.
However, the cost of mass conversion is mind boggling. Who pays for it? To date, the consumer has largely selected IC engined vehicles because of their abilities. EV’s have been around since the invention of the car, but market forces dictated they must improve before being acceptable.
All Tesla has done is dress up a technology, barely advanced in over 100 years, in a nice car body.
And the only way the public can be convinced to use them is by being coerced to do so by government. That manifests itself in different ways, from individual subsidies for EV’s, which you and I pay for, to government decree, as in the UK where no new IC engined cars will be sold after 2040, just 20 years away (which is all just a cheat anyway as I understand hybrid cars will be allowed, which manifestly doesn’t spell the end of the IC engine) which taxpayers will be forced to pay for. Then there’s the infrastructure, which the taxpayer will also be forced to pay for.
The problem isn’t EV’s, it’s government intervention, based on the fantasy that CO2 is harmful.
pochas94
I see no problem at all with anyone owning or driving an EV if they want. I just do not want to pay for their car or forego their share of road taxes.
The argument behind demanding subsidies for the electric beasts is that they are going to save the environment.
Showing that they don’t actually help the environment undercuts their only argument.
Housekeeping note: Fix the headline, change “pollition” to “pollution”
(Corrected, Thanks!) MOD
EVs may not be so polluting if they can be charged at off peak times.
“That’s because of the unique structure of the power market, in which demand ebbs and flows minute-by-minute during the day as people flick their lights and appliances on and off. Consumption typically peaks in the evening and morning, and is at its lowest in the middle of the night.
If drivers can charge their vehicles during off-peak times, they may be able to do so without requiring new generation at all. Off-peak hours also coincide with the time when some renewable power sources are at their strongest — at night when the wind blows hardest and during the day when the sun shines brightest.
“You don’t need a whole lot of new generating capacity to electrify a lot of the fleet, provided they’re charged in an efficient way,” McKerracher said.”
http://fortune.com/2018/02/25/why-charging-your-electric-car-at-night-could-save-the-world/
The issue comes when you have a lot of EVs. That “off peak” time disappears, as lots and lots of cars are being charged. Charging an EV can easily suck down 10-20 kW over the course of 6-8 hours at a “slow” rate. That’s up to 3.5 kW per hour – or more. Equivalent to 2-3 homes. So that “off peak” time now becomes 2-3X the peak time. Not good.
Yes but you can’t deny that their ability to be charged at any time does given them the potential to buffer the grid and smooth peaks of generation that would otherwise be hard to use.
I don’t agree with big government subsides for EVs though.
Let the market rule.
What on earth do you mean by 3.5 kW per hour?
“Charging an EV can easily suck down 10-20 kWh over the course of 6-8 hours at a “slow” rate. That’s up to 3.5 kW – or more”
There, fixed it for you.
Actually, a small Leaf as 30 kWh battery, and a Tesla 3 up to 75 kWh. You you need more like 5-8 kW than just 3.5 to fuel her up
@Jeff – no, adding more demand to the grid won’t help. You only have so many hours in a day, and if we’re already limiting “off peak” to 12 hours a day (which is common, per most localities I’ve lived in that have on/off peak billing), having a car that will pull as much more more than your home breaks the grid. You need to scale it up.
@4 Eyes – Assume you do a typical 60 mile round-trip commute. On your 85 kWh Tesla model S, with a 300 mile range, that’s about 17 kW that you need to charge. Longer commute? More power. Now assume your charge rate is for 8 hours (overnight) – you need at least (17 / 8) 2.125 kW pull for 8 hour straight to replace that power. Meaning your car will pull at least – if not more – than your home.
Have two cars, or still use the home overnight for a few things? Now we’ve dramatically increased the pull of the entire house, and the grid’s “peak” time is now when cars are being plugged in to charge, not when the homes quiet down at night.
Right, people don’t all want their cars available at 8am.
And everybody wants their cars available at all times – a dash to the hospital, picking your teenager up at a bad party, going to see your elderly mother when she has a problem.
It’s just fantasy that we will all accept the massive restrictions EVs put on us
According to this paper from NREL…
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/66595.pdf
… there is no way that California can reach 50% solar penetration, even under the favourable and (IMO) unrealistic assumption of EVs being used to store electricity… won’t happen anytime soon.
So… PV at or above 50% is ruled out… only wind is left to the REN accolites.
Using EV’s to store electricity sounds simply stupid to me. Storing electricity means the grid plans on using the storage at some time in the future. How would you like to park your car in the morning, come out after work and find out the battery won’t get you home because the “stored energy” has already been used because the sun didn’t shine that day?
That doesn’t even count how to “backfeed” the energy in your battery into the grid. Is your EV going to have a converter to change the battery voltage back to grid level AC at 30 amps?
Average house uses 24kwhr per day. a Tesla uses 85kwhr, when charging every five days. Do the sums
Looking around my neighborhood, most homes have 2 cars. So that means recharging the cars will use about 141% of the power of the house itself. I hope our grid is over-sized by at least 150%!
This figure of 141% additional capacity required is close to the recent Australian calculation of 132% on the JoNova site and far above the 20-25% figures quoted on WUWT recently. I would like to see an all-in discussion of this subject here.
Don’t forget that electric cars have a marked tendency to catch fire when they crash, and there’s very little you can do to put the fire out. So there’ll be a lot more air pollution that way, too.
The thousands of gasoline car fires are so common they usually don’t make the news.
Jeff
IC engined car fires are invariably caused by electrical faults, or deliberately, occasionally stupidity.
Except gasoline is very difficult to set on fire.
Jeff: Gasoline fires can be put out with chemical foam. No oxygen = no fire. The current battery design by Tesla and others, everything you need to sustain a fire in in the battery. Foam will actually make the fire worse as it acts as an insulator.
The Holy Grail of battery manufacturers is to go to a solid state battery (no liquid) that won’t have the auto-combustion issues. Lots of promises (the latest made from formally defunct Fisker Corp) but so far, nothing delivered on the solid state battery front.
Adjust for market penetration and average age of vehicles.
The real problem with lithium fires is that they are darned hard to put out, and even Tesla recommends that you stand back and let it burn. The problem with this approach is that sometimes they re-ignite, as happened recently in the US where a damaged car had been stored in a yard.
Teslas do. Leaf and Volt? There is no reason why electric cars made by competent auto manufacturers should be as unsafe as Teslas. Musk felt obliged to learn auto design and manufacture on the job, at the expense of the buyers. There are a dozen or so companies around the world who are professionals at this.
Tesla is drive train and electronics designed by pros, and cars to put them in designed by amateurs using manufacturing methods from the eighties of the last century. Amateurs who don’t understand designing in safety. As you often did not, back then.
The Leaf and Volt have much smaller batteries, so they can be better protected in a crash. The bigger the battery, the more likely it is to be damaged in a crash, because it becomes a larger and larger part of the vehicle with less and less metal to protect it. And a damaged battery can catch fire days later in the scrapyard, even if it doesn’t do so at the crash site.
When the Volt was being crash tested, they’d pass the test, then a couple days later burst into flames. As this happened during the design stage, I’m sure it’s been addressed, but it is something ALL EV/Hybrid manufacturers are going to have to deal with.
No, the Volt (and many Tesla’s) are still burning up after crashes.
I assume that this is propaganda from a group with vested interests. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that some of the untruths must have been deliberate. If the US wants to bury its collective head in the sand they are entirely welcome.
Of course today’s EVs are too expensive and have too short a range. Of course there are issues to be fixed in load spreading. They are easily fixed – and are being. What is important about EVs is the rate they are improving (2012 Nissan Leaf – 73 miles EPA range, 2017 151 miles) and getting cheaper (BAIC EC series retail around £22k and costs will continue to fall). Meanwhile the Chinese know exactly what they want:
“China, unabashedly, wants to be the Detroit of electric vehicles,” said Anthony Milewski, a managing director at Pala Investments, a Switzerland-based fund investing in the EV supply chain. “There is no question in my mind that they are going to lead the world in capacity and, eventually, in the technology.” http://www.afr.com/business/energy/electricity/the-detroit-of-electric-vehicles-chinas-battery-maker-catl-takes-on-tesla-20180201-h0s6ys“
John Hardy
Where government subsidies have been withdrawn from EV’s, sales have fallen off a cliff. I believe Hong Kong and Denmark are two cases in point.
I’m afraid I would rather not subsidise a wealthy man to buy himself a Tesla in order to virtue signal.
PS. I can buy a VW Up! for around £12,000. It has a range of 250/300 miles and takes five minutes to refuel.
Which of those three attributes will EV’s improve on any time soon? Certainly not all of them.
I love the hand waving.
Those problems are easily fixed, so don’t worry your pretty little head about them.
PS: Don’t forget my subsidy check.
Seems to me climate change is an issue for only the wealthy. If you have enough time and money, this gives you something to feel good about. You’re making a difference.
What on earth does climate-changery™ have to do with EVs? Why do people insist on pretending these are in the same category? Sorry, rank fear and paranoia of a transition to new propulsion standards over the next 30 years, has nothing to do with ‘climate’. Less hyperbole, more brain.
Climate change is the hook the subsidy farmers have been using to get their hands on other people’s money.
Yes, but the reason for favoring electric vehicles in cities is not to reduce overall pollution, or to reduce CO2 emissions.
The point is to reduce local pollution, in the form of noise, particulates and NO2, where people live and work. So the fact that the pollution for the electric vehicle electricity occurs out of town and in a centralized installation is a positive benefit.
We should have zero pollution cars in cities in the sense that we should have cars which emit no pollution where they are driven. To take an extreme example, even if the generation of electricity to do this led to more emissions at electricity generating plants, we should still do it. This is about making cities pleasanter and healthier places to live and work in, and that means getting ICEs out of them. It also means reducing the number of cars and their speed. But a first step would be to go electric, which would do that as a side effect.
If we went electric, reduced the number of cars, and used the freed up streets for safe and pleasant bikeways and walkways, we’d improve our cities and towns enormously.
I keep being amazed by the passive acceptance of the takeover of living and working spaces by cars – and equally, but the passive acceptance of something like a million deaths a year from traffic accidents.
If this were seriously to be proposed on a blank sheet as a transport infrastructure implementation, it would never even get started. Lets introduce these things called cars, they will kill thousands of people a year, and injure thousands more, they will make the streets noisy and unsafe to cycle on, they will kill many more due to emitting particulates and NO2. Oh, and they will spend most of their time sitting in traffic jams.
It will be great, won’t it?
Say what?
michel
Sure, make sure cities are clean for residents. Meanwhile urbane and rural dwellers pay for it, is that fair?
There is not one functioning power station in the Greater London area (that bounded by the M25) they are all displaced to urban areas for residents to suffer the pollution. Is that also fair?
“and equally, but the passive acceptance of something like a million deaths a year from traffic accidents.” And EV’s will solve this problem will they?
“they will make the streets noisy and unsafe to cycle on” Why are liberals obsessed with cycling? It’s notable that cyclists on London roads decrease dramatically during winter months when its wet and miserable. I wonder if the all jump in their EV’s, which my tax money subsidises.
“Lets introduce these things called cars, they will kill thousands of people a year, and injure thousands more,…..” They’ll transport the bulk of the worlds goods; they’ll facilitate business; they’ll collectively travel millions of miles a day without a death; they’ll cheaply transport people hundreds of miles in a day directly from one destination to another (ever tried to fly the 400 miles from Dartford, Kent to, say, Greenock in Scotland? I can drive it in the same time and at a fraction of the cost with my family, and I have a car at the other end).
“they will kill many more due to emitting particulates and NO2” How about producing some evidence for this. A UK study I’m aware of defined 40,000 premature deaths from particulates and NO2 as those that were days, or even hours earlier than predicted by doctors. So an 85 year old might have missed their 86th birthday by one day. No evidence of that other than a doctors opinion.
You might also note that a considerable amount of particulate pollution is from tyres and brakes, not simply exhaust emissions. How do EV’s deal with that problem?
The alternative is, of course, you could have all the shop stock in London delivered by bicycle. Interesting proposition when it comes to re stocking the shelves of a Tesco supermarket. Or perhaps we could use horses, and swamp the drainage system with shit.
+ 1
There is SELCHP (energy from waste) in Bermondsey (the London Bridge train passes it) that Greenpeace tried to close down of course but I take your point. It and similar efforts are flea bites compared to London’s electricity demand.
http://www.selchp.co.uk/
We’ll make cars so expensive that nobody can afford them. Then the freed up space can be used for bicycles.
How sweet of you.
As to traffic deaths, if you think there are going to be fewer accidents just because people are driving electrics, you’re nuts.
Getting rid of diesels would take care of the noise, particulates and NO2 emissions.
Petrol ICs powering electric motor(s) driving the wheels is a very efficient and clean way of powering automobiles. I don’t understand the fascination EV fans have for using electricity generated miles away vs. in the car since there’s virtually no difference in either emissions or efficiency, unless of course we’re talking about coal power plants. In that case, gasoline hybrids are much cleaner than EVs.
@michel: What about electric cars is going to “reduce the number of cars on the road?” Modern cars are very quiet, produce almost no pollution and the most popular models are trucks and SUVs. None of that would change if they were electric. There is nothing passive about the takeover of cars. They empower people to do things they could otherwise not do, even if (like off-road macho) those things are just fantasy. Purchasing a car is an individual choice, not a government mandate and never should be. In cities where crowding is really bad, cars get smaller. Even in cities like Amsterdam, with lots of bicycles, trams are being torn up because they don’t move people as efficiently as cars. Little cars, in huge variety. Cars are today being made much safer with collision avoidance technology, a problem faced in any case with your imagined alternative technology.
Transportation systems are defined by millions of individual decisions, which is as it should be.
markopanama
Great points.
And what if the price for electricity skyrockets ?
Robertvd
“what if”?
Have you seen my electricity bill? A great chunk taken up with “green” power, in other words, subsidies paid to renewable companies to build 14th Century technology wind turbines.
The greens would have us believe in a renewables utopia where all electricity is provided by sun and wind. The problem is, no one could afford to pay the bills, thereby reducing electricity use and reducing our personal carbon footpr………….Oh, hang on, I get it now! If we all go back to living in caves there will be no need for electricity.
But a lot of premature deaths.
Depends on how the electricity is generated. Wood chip, yeah, thats worse than gasoline, coal, worse too. Natural gas though is very clean (many cars run this as a fuel in fact), but geothermal, surely the best non fossil fuel energy source we have is very clean.
In fact I dont know why we dont go for geothermal i na big way, it is always on, not like wind, waves and the tide, and ~75% of the generating station is the same as nuclear/coal/gas. One you have steam, the turbines and generators are the same regardless of the heat source.
geothermal is useless for a reason: energy flux from Earth core is much less than 1W/m² average. 1000 less than the sun, which is already so dilute…
Very few place can harness some significant power, and even less can do so enough to pay for all the needed work.
That flux value is the average across the globe at the surface. Now you might have noticed that geothermal stations are either at fisures in the surface or drill down to hot rock. Really.
Many people don’t understand heat at all. Or they never think about it. Or about anything.
It’s hot deep in the ground because the ground wastes very little energy (to heat the surface). Otherwise the ground would be always hot. We wouldn’t have to go deep to find heat! The cave of a house would be the hotter place.
The earthquakes caused by the liquid in many of the geothermal generations systems unnerved the people around them. They were small tremors, but real. Then when a natural earthquake that the natural plate tectonics induce happens, the neighbors all complain the geothermal plant caused it and it gets shut down. Remember the catch phrase of the green movement is banana – build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.
Can anybody here explain figure 11 on page 17 in the PDF document?
What I do not understand is: how can the particulate percentage for coal and natural gas be almost the same when electricity generation is about the same and coal is producing about five times more particulate matter, than natural gas do?
If this is an error, would the whole document not be in error?
Evs might work in cities but outside of that they are useless. Imagine travelling 350 miles. Currently, five minutes to fill up, say six hours to drive.
EVs have an average range in winter of 130 miles, and an average charge time of around 6 hours (as battery charging becomes less efficient with use. So charge for six hours, drive for two, charge for six hours, drive for two, charge for six hours, drive for two hours. a 24 hour journey. Even if you ignore the initial charge, it’s a 18 hour journey instead of six Are we really saying that we will triple every long journey? And what do we all do for those six hour charging times? We are going to build accommodation for everybody?
Then think of the charging points you will need every 100 miles or so, rather than every 200 miles or so. A car takes say 5 minutes to fill up. So a station with 8 pumps can fill nearly 100 cars an hour. To charge the equivalent EVs requires 600 “pumps”!
I mean, seriously?.
When the automotive industry began around the end of the 19th century, there were no refueling facilities, no trained mechanics, no facilities at all for the new very disruptive technology that was beginning to replace horses
But most importantly, no subsidies or government intervention or government selecting winners took place.
In fact the opposite was the case with a British law that a man had to walk in front of one of those new fangled snorting, belching back firing automobiles, carrying a red flag so to give warning to horsemen and horse women that their horses could be frightened by the new fangled device.
But the private risk takers and entrepreneurs got cracking and built all those facilities for the new automobiles , the modern versions of which we have the very large benefit of today.
They built all those facilities without government “assistance” , facilities which were financed by the profits they made from building automobiles, from selling fuel and oil and repairing and maintaining and providing spare parts for the increasing number of those automobiles appearing on the rough roads of the times.
The government only got into the act when the politicians wanted to go somewhere in style and found themselves driving to their destination on what was little more than a horse track, totally unsuitable for the speeds of the new automobile.
And so we got government / tax payer funded roads on a grand scale in the developed world and the resulting dramatic increase in commerce and trade created wealthy nations.
Roads in the early days of the automobile were about the only substantial input to the new technology that resulted from government intervention. The rest of all the facilities, factories, refineries, distributorships, maintenance organisations and etc have been financed by far the greatest amount by the profits generated from purchasers, owners and operators of the automobile But now a new generation of snow flakes right through to today.
.
Today there is a whole cohort of snow flake psuedo EV entrepreneurs who want the government aka tax payers to cover their asses completely in case they can’t make the grandiose profits they think they can reef out of the government backed EV industery.
They are a whole gamut of totally parasitical potential and current electrical vehicle [ EV’s ] manufacturers and owners and operatiors who are demanding that the government, the ordinary tax payer pay a substantial subsidy so that they can buildand buy one of these new EV’s for their own personal benefit and use.
They are demanding that the grid be reinforced and a whole continental wide network of charging stations be built at electrical consumers and tax payer’s expense specifically so that they as EV owners can drive where they want to goand without paying for the facilities provided for them.
They are demanding or will be demanding as the power requirements of the growing number of EV’s increases`the building and refurbishing of the national grid to carry the very heavy and time concentrated daily charge up current required to charge up potentially tens of thousands and possibly eventually running into millions of EV’s.
The EV owners and operators will no doubt soon be demanding that the power generators, naturally at the power customers expense but most likely at the tax payers expense, to build new and immensely expensive power generators that will only operate intermittently and very inefficiently only when the EV vehicles require charging en masse in the evenings to supply all the energy for the EV’s operation that today comes in the form of gasoline and diesel fuels.
The EV manufacturers are demanding that the Tax Payer aka Government finance research into new battery technologies to put into the EV’s.
The EV’ manufacturers and owners and operators are demanding that they be given special road access privileges to “encourage” the use of EV’s.
Unlike the petroleum fueled vehicles, they pay no tax on the energy they use or on the EV’s they manufacture and drive so do not contribute in any way towards the maintenance of the very expensive roads and infrastructure required by vehicles of every type and on which the EV owners and operators demand special privileges to drive on .
EV manufacturers, owners and operators probably more so than any other major industrey today are well on the way towards
“Socialising their Costs”
and
“Capitalising their Profits ”
EV manufacturers, owners and operators today are basically totally parasitical on the rest of society, a situation that will before long be recognised by politicals generally who will then level the playing field by demanding very substantial taxes and fees be paid by the EV industry and owners to compensate the state and tax payers for all the specialised facilities that will have to be built to allow EV’s to become something more than the plaything of the very wealthy .
Down through many generations of politicians we all know that politicians and governments almost invariably fail disastrously when trying to pick winners which is what governments are now doing with all the tax payers hard earned they are throwing at the EV industry.
Which is probably a good indicator that the EV industry is just another government backed fad that over time will be overrun by future developments from directions that can never be predicted or forecast and the EV indusry will just fade into another version of the unrealised Steam car potential of the early 20th century.
ROM
100%!
Very nice ROM.
Although i doubt this one: “…a situation that will before long be recognised by politicals generally who will then level the playing field by demanding very substantial taxes and fees be paid by the EV industry and owners…”
My guess is that government will try as long as viable to charge tax payers and ICE users more heavily.
Agree,100 percent.
another point only a foolish person puts all their eggs in one basket, when electricity is interrupted for a week or so, all electric homes are porked.
Having gas stoves and water heaters allows survival. Not have use of car would be suicidal being stuck in a home with no heat, no water, no stove, no transportation.
Would never own an all electric home without a generator. Have been without electricity 3 times in last 3 years due to storms, winds, snow, trees falling on power lines.
Also, a typical gas station is independently owned and operated. Pick a brand of gas. The station owners buy the gas from that company and mark it up to turn a profit. Will an electric charging station be independently owned and operated? Will that owner mark up the cost of the electricity to make a profit to stay in business? Since the electricity comes from the same source within a region how will that work? Will laws have to be changed to allow that? Where is the competition to keep costs down? Just wondering
China was once 100% bicycle. What happened to that? Seems most people dont really like them when given a free choice
If you charge your car at home your monthly electric bill will increase. Since we have laws about not shutting people’s power off because they don’t pay their bill, especially in winter, who will make up for all that revenue when the deadbeats continue to charge their cars but still don’t pay their bill.
SURELY the answer is electric cars with solar panels on their roofs..? We are always told that cars spend 95% of their lives stationary….
Surely you are wrong.
There is not enough surface on a car’s roof and the shape and inclination of the roof is not generally the best one in terms of orientation towards the incoming sun rays.
2 m2 panels at best inclination (like 30-45 degrees) and perfect orientation would generate 300-400 W… not much to charge a 35-100 kWh battery… even if parked all day long.
all depends on the kind of usage you expect. There ARE solar cars powered only by the sun.
Quite not average-car-user-ready, of course
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_car
While individual solar cells are thin and light, the brackets needed to mount them and the coverings needed to protect them from road debris and hail, aren’t.
I suspect that the extra weight and increased cross section created by adding solar panels will eat up most of the extra range those solar panels would have given you.
Psssht. Solar schmolar. The key to cars is to LOOK at what they do! They MOVE, fast! Put a wind turbine on top and you have all the power you need!