No, the Tesla Model S Doesn't Pollute More Than an SUV 559
thecarchik writes "In an exhaustive 6,500-word article on the financial website Seeking Alpha, analyst Nathan Weiss lays out a case that the latest Tesla Model S actually has higher effective emissions than most large SUVs of both the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and smog-producing pollutants like sulfur dioxide. This is absolutely false. Virtually all electric car advocates agree that when toting up the environmental pros and cons of electric cars, it's only fair to include powerplant emissions. When this has been done previously, the numbers have still favored electric cars. The Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, concluded in a 2012 report (PDF), 'Electric vehicles charged on the power grid have lower global warming emissions than the average gasoline-based vehicle sold today.' Working through every one of Weiss' conclusions may show a higher emissions rate than Tesla's published numbers, but in no way does a Model S pollute the amounts even close to an SUV."
Same as last time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Same as last time (Score:5, Funny)
A Prius is so efficient that you can't even feel yourself pressing the gas pedal, unfortunately the speedometer doesn't either.
Re:Same as last time (Score:4, Informative)
I drive a 2010 Prius. The power is quite acceptable. I actually spun my wheels the other day on wet roads when starting hard from a light. I am able to accelerate safely on freeways, and I can easily cruise at 85 mph if I want (though the fuel economy obviously drops). The other day, I gave the accelerator a kick to get across a changing yellow, and the acceleration was quite good.
The main thing you have to get used to in a Prius is that the engine speed is dependent almost completely on how hard you press the accelerator, and not on how fast the wheels are spinning. This means that you don't get that same increasing engine pitch on accelerating that you do on cars without a continuously variable transmission. This might give some the impression that acceleration isn't taking place, until you look at your speedometer and realize you are going quite fast. I have gotten used to it now, and it seems natural to me.
The main thing that sold me on the Prius, apart from the fuel economy (which has been 50+mpg by the way) is the durability. I spoke with a cab driver in my area who drove his 2008 Prius for 500000 miles without any significant problems...only brakes and similar things. No new battery. No engine troubles. Nothing. He said he would still be driving it if there weren't regulations on the age of taxis in our area.
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...once PWR mode is enabled.
At which point all efficiency goes out the windo...err...tailpipe.
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Not true. With a good foot, you can have decent fuel economy in PWR mode.
It takes self-training, though. You obviously can't slam your foot down and expect 50 MPG.
That being said, I use ECO normally and PWR when people get stupid and I need to distance myself from mustangs or ricers.
Re:Same as last time (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. With a good foot, you can have decent fuel economy in PWR mode.
It takes self-training, though. You obviously can't slam your foot down and expect 50 MPG.
That being said, I use ECO normally and PWR when people get stupid and I need to distance myself from mustangs or ricers.
Driving with a light foot is the same as keeping ECO on... and as shitty as mustangs are your prius isn't distancing away from them unless you just happen to be speeding and they happen to be driving within limit.
What kind of discussion is this anyway, where people try to argue that a Prius with 134 hp combined feels "reasonably fast" when compared to having 300hp?? what the fuck? 130hp is plenty to move normal sedan in traffic outside of autobahns but what the fuck do you have to be sniffing out of the tailpipes to try to compare the experience as equivalent as having over DOUBLE THE HORSEPOWER ? ? ? that's like some fella coming in with a ps3 and saying that "essentially it's as fast as a 3ghz 8 core intel with 16 gigabytes because it doesn't need to run an OS". you'd fucking get laughed at.
and don't even begin with the "but oooh electric motors have so much torque it goes like the wind"
not that the prius has anything to do with this article anyways since very few people are charging their prius's, coal power or not. it's a fuel efficient car which is just fine since most people use it with gas.
(plug in cars would lose all their appeal if their electricity was taxed at the same level as fuel for cars is by the way).
Juxtaposition! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Same as last time (Score:5, Insightful)
Small fuel efficient cars have a huge problematic bug , that has never been worked out. They're dangerous, hard to spot, slow to get out of the way
As evidenced by your own statement it's the huge speeding behemoths that are actually the ones causing the accidents, even if it's those around them that suffer the consequences ... and yet you claim it's the small cars that should be removed from the road?
Re:Same as last time (Score:5, Funny)
This is absolutely true. In my 2012 plugin Prius, if I drive to work in power mode at 75 mph I only get about 50 mpg, and my exhaust emissions jump up to almost 40% of a normal vehicle if I lead-foot it the whole time.
And frankly the car's just not very powerful; the tiny 4-cylinder and mid-sized electric motor can only do 0-60 mph in 10.9 seconds, and it takes 18.5 to turn a quarter mile. In fact the original Prius is actually only slightly more powerful than the original Chevrolet Corvette, which we all know was a totally pussy car no real manly man ever drove.
Also, it does not have wings, ponies, or an automatic martini mixer, which obviously means it's a total crap car. But sadly it's what I've had to settle for... because after twelve years of driving a 2002 Prius, I only saved enough money on gasoline costs to buy this lame thing. I really wanted a 6000 SUX, with reclining leather seats, but the city refused to pay for it.
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The original '53 Vette was a dog, and was panned as such. It had a two-speed automatic transmission, for goodness sakes. It sold so poorly that they only made a few 1955 models (with the V-8) to make sure that they could sell out of the '54s. The 1956 is the first one that most people would actually recognize as a Corvette, and it had an amazing amount of power for the time.
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I still don't understand how you Americans manage to get such little power out of such massive engines... :P
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It's not speedy. Maybe it's not as slow as people like to joke but it is not speedy.
Re:Same as last time (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not correct. Prius uses electronic throttle control. This means that the gas pedal is only used to signal your intention. Do not attempt to finely control the engine - it won't work at least because the ICE is not directly connected to that pedal.
If I want to quickly merge onto a road I can press the gas pedal all the way to the floor. It only commands full power. The tires may lose traction momentarily as you do that, on a clean and dry road surface and with new Michelin tires (and certainly they will squeal if you use stock Goodyear tires.) This is quite sufficient for the intended use of the car. If you want to smoke tires all the time, get yourself a car that is designed for that.
For best fuel economy it is recommended to accelerate briskly - apparently as you do. This is because the ICE operates optimally in that mode. After the acceleration is completed the car needs very little power to maintain speed, and then you release the throttle. The efficiency bar jumps to about 50 mpg at that time. If the speed is under 42 mph the ICE may shut down completely and you will proceed in pseudo-EV mode.
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That sounds about right. I've always thought that a diesel would be best for a hybrid. A 2 cylinder diesel to drive a generator that runs an electric motor. That way the diesel could run at a constant RPM as it would not be directly connected to the drive train. This would allow maximum efficiency and the diesel could shut down when the batteries were charged and only kick back on as the batteries dropped to a certain level. I guess there is some reason why they don't do it that way but I don't know wh
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It's not as bad as haters love to say it is. 0-60 in under 10 seconds in "power" mode puts it ahead of most fuel economy cars and ungimped sedans.
Well, it's definitely not "horribly slow", but it's also not "speedy" in the sense of "faster than I would expect a car of that size to be". From what I understand, the Prius has like 130-140hp and does like 10s 0-60? A 122hp Volkswagen Golf does 0-60 in 9.3 and a 140hp one does 0-60 in 8.4. So the Prius is "comparable", but definitely a bit slower than a similarly-sized standard car, most likely due to the weight (standard Prius 1440-1500 kg, while the 140hp Golf is 1268kg).
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the newer model Prii
WTF?
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When the Prius first got popular the same thing was said about it. Was soon proved false.
Indeed. The massive environmental impact of the battery pack was part of that criticism, but this is also where electric cars win, if one is being honest about the numbers and don't have a anti-electric car axe to grind: The NiMH battery pack of early hybrids is pretty much 100% recyclable. Li-ion and Li-po etc isn't properly 100% recycled at the moment but that's a infrastructure problem - theoretically 100% recyclable. (I would imagine some years down the track used battery packs would be quite valuable s
Re:Same as last time (Score:4, Insightful)
Things to consider (Score:3)
When the Prius first got popular the same thing was said about it. Was soon proved false.
Now that everyone has finishes wanking on about which car is the fastest, I feel there are some relevant points here that are often ignored or misunderstood. Firstly this was not proved false about the Prius. In New Zealand Toyota was taken to court and lost a false advertising suit because of their emissions claims. Not because the emissions of the power stations were not taken into account, but because their tail pipe emission figures were much higher than they claimed.
As to the Tesla, I was one of the
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"No technological breakthrough at all"? Battery technology has been getting quite a lot better recent years.
"there is ample evidence that this will occur considerably sooner than non-hybrid (and non-electric) vehicles, just due to the higher maintenance and repair costs of hybrid vehicles that poor people won't be able to pay"? Again, really? I would rather expect there is /less/ that can break on an electric car, as they are quite a lot simpler (not so sure about hybrids due to the complex transmission sys
Re:Same as last time? Well, nope. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only reason we have hybrid passenger cars (as well as electric cars) is because the government agreed to pay part of the cost. And the only reason to do that is to hide the total cost.
There is a conspiracy, but it's not what you think. The conspiracy isn't about pollution; it's about money.
I suppose we have competing conspiracies, then. The total cost is hidden for any kind of vehicle. Gas companies are incredibly subsidized. Road maintenance is subsidized. Car manufacturers (gasoline, hybrid, and electric) are subsidized the world over.
I'm not sure I see Tesla's success as a conspiracy, unless everything ever has been a conspiracy.
Re:Same as last time? Well, nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
The concept of the battery-powered electric car has been tossed around for 100+ years, and it always failed on the marketplace until very recently.
What suddenly changed?
Batteries got better. Fuel got more expensive. And people started caring about the environment.
There was no major technological breakthrough at all
Tesla runs on lithium-ion batteries. Prius uses NiMH. You don't realise that they are better than the lead-acid batteries that used to go into electric vehicles?
There's no Moore's law for batteries. But vehicular battery technology does make incremental improvements every year. On top of the occasional entirely new battery technology.
The only reason we have hybrid passenger cars (as well as electric cars) is because the government agreed to pay part of the cost. And the only reason to do that is to hide the total cost.
The government LENT Tesla a big sum of money to be paid back over 10 years. They paid it back in about a year.
Re:Same as last time? Well, nope. (Score:4, Informative)
Batteries - even the old lead acid kind - are recycled as a rule and not as an exception.
Re:Same as last time? Well, nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
And what about the manufacturing "price" of those heavy metal batteries? What impact does that have on the environment? What about the disposal of those heavy metal batteries? My guess is that some child in china is going to have cancer from those things just like they get it now from our electronics waste.
Interestingly Weiss's article damning the Tesla includes the carbon 'cost' of battery production, but interestingly omits the carbon 'cost' of building a petrol engine.
He also includes the carbon 'cost' of electricity production, but omits the carbon 'cost' of petrol production.
"According to a 2000 report from the MIT Energy Lab, gasoline production accounts for 19 percent of the total lifetime CO2 emissions of a typical car. Actually driving the car accounts for about 75 percent of its lifetime carbon output.
Thus the carbon footprint of fuel production adds about 25 percent to a gas car's nominal CO2 emissions number."
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1084440_does-the-tesla-model-s-electric-car-pollute-more-than-an-suv/page-4 [greencarreports.com]
Re:Same as last time? Well, nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
The true cradle-to-grave costs of hybrid cars is not yet known. It will not be until they begin to hit the junkyards in large numbers--and there is ample evidence that this will occur considerably sooner than non-hybrid (and non-electric) vehicles, just due to the higher maintenance and repair costs of hybrid vehicles that poor people won't be able to pay (assuming that the manufacturer even continues to make key replacement parts, which they may not).
Jesus. People keep talking about this, and reliability / maintenance cost (eg: "expensive battery replacements") as a huge unknown. The Prius has been available in the US since 2000. That's 13 years. If they were being junked sooner than non-hybrids, we'd know by now.
Re:Irrelevant - private cars are not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to have jumped from 15% to "no measurable impact", through some arbitrary divisions, that are irrelevant because ALL categories of vehicles are being targeted for efficiency improvements.
I don't see Tesla Buses coming any time soon
Allow me to help you out with your myopia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bus [wikipedia.org]
Why, if changing the entire world fleet of personal cars into electircal vehicles will have no measurable impact on CO2 emissions, are all the environmental nuts yacking about this?
Frankly, because they are more intelligent and have more insight than you.
The electricity is free excess capacity (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of ways to solve our commuting problem, and a combination of more walkable neighborhoods, bike-only transportation paths, better mass transit, and a more intelligent use of fossil fuels by eliminating the wasteful combination of millions of poorly maintained individual ICEs and our gas-powered supply chain. Even dumping the fuel in a less refined form during a process to make other petroleum based products would be preferable, because you'd be approaching 70-80% efficiency of energy conversion instead of the rather pathetic 30-40% of car ICEs.
That's the worst case scenario. We could follow Germany's lead and begin a serious effort to increase renewable capacity by using a combination of wind, geothermal, solar (panel and heat plants), hydro, and efficiency improvements. They powered half of their entire country on renewables last summer. Are you saying we can't do the same?
Incidentally, I don't know what is so popular about bitching endlessly as a response to any attempt to modernize the United States. It's the 21st Century. If it were 1900, you'd be arguing that electricity wasn't as safe as kerosene. It's time to join the rest of the world and stop hanging on to these meaningless bits of quickly aging tradition. Who cares if my car runs on electricity instead of gas? If it gets me to work and home five ways a week and to dinner on the weekends and we could build them in American factories and provide more jobs by converting gas stations into electric stations and at the same time probably solve the smog/asthma problems plaguing major metropolitan areas, what is the problem?
Re: (Score:3)
I don't see Tesla Buses coming any time soon
You don't? Well, OK, they aren't made by Tesla but electric buses have been running in San Francsico for decades. Neat thing about buses: they run a set route so you can power them from overhead wires and not even have to carry batteries. Hybrid buses are common in the South Bay, where densities do not support the infrastructure for electric buses.
Buses are generally way ahead of private cars in terms of propulsive technology. A lot of buses around here run on compressed natural gas. A decade ago there
Re:They still miss the whole picture (Score:4, Informative)
Who would want to drive a hummer? It is a trailer trash Cadillac.
Second, you might want to check your facts. There was an advert-disguised-as-study a few years ago claiming something like this. It was BS.
Third non radioactive rare-earths are actually plentiful. It is like conservatives who aren't particularly conservative. Don't know why, maybe they just like the name.
Ps
A hummer will burn about 1300kg more gasoline per year than a prius. A prius weighs about 1300 kg.
Butthurt much? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tesla shorts, not Ford investors. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mainstream automobile industry is considered a long-term dead-money play.
Tesla stock was very heavily shorted by hedge funds. They are hurting now. And yes they'd say anything, and pay anybody to say anything to keep their money from going down the drain.
They were convinced 100% that shorting Tesla was a guaranteed win---in significant measure because they really believed their right-wing ideology. They thought that Tesla was a short-term dead-money play.
Remember the mostly slanted NYT article? Why, when everything else has been very positive? Because NYC's the financial capital. Who might be susceptible to pressure or lucre? People in the financial industry or in New York close to the financial industry.
Re:Tesla shorts, not Ford investors. (Score:5, Informative)
They have a very thorough section here: http://www.teslamotors.com/true-cost-of-ownership [teslamotors.com] including how long you spend at the gas station and tax incentives. I still think for about 70k (their cheapest car seemingly) they may be in more of a premium market kind of like the land rover.
Re:Tesla shorts, not Ford investors. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Tesla shorts, not Ford investors. (Score:4, Interesting)
Mistake #1: Betting against Elon Musk.
This is so true. If I saw Elon Musk moving into an industry I was involved with more directly, I would either try to send a resume off to his new company or start thinking about how to become a major competitor with Musk providing very stiff competition in hopes that my company could survive the fall-out.
Toyota saw that with Tesla and decided to invest into Tesla instead. That is also sort of the reason why Tesla has the old NUMMI plant.
Re: (Score:2)
That was silly by the hedge funds. Tesla has tripled my money so far, and I expect it to do very very well in the next few years.
Let's compare the two (Score:5, Insightful)
* Can you power a Tesla Model S with non-polluting renewable energy?
* Can you power a gasoline SUV with non-polluting renewable energy?
One should think about those two questions for a moment before saying that the Tesla pollutes more than an SUV.
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Speaking as someone in the biorenewables industry.
Why is it that people working in the biofuel industry are the most poorly informed when it comes to biofuels? I suppose you think ethanol production is carbon-neutral.
it makes selling the idea easier. nobody likes to say that their work is government sponsored busywork...
now though I think you can buy 1.5 suv's and lifetime of gas for them for the price of a tesla?
Re:Let's compare the two (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
* Can you power a Tesla Model S with non-polluting renewable energy?
* Can you power a gasoline SUV with non-polluting renewable energy?
One should think about those two questions for a moment before saying that the Tesla pollutes more than an SUV.
I'm not going to let your facts get in the way of my insanity!
Re: (Score:3)
You're comparing apples to oranges here. A nickel mine might not be the most environmentally friendly thing in the world, but what about drilling for oil? Is that giant spill in the gulf a couple years ago really better for the environment than mining for nickel?
Re:Let's compare the two (Score:4, Insightful)
True, the various wars in places like Iraq should be factored into the picture as well.
How much did those cost again?
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http://rodinialithium.com/lithium/lithium_mining/ [rodinialithium.com]
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Remember the three "R" arrows of the recyclin
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hydrogen is renewable.
Only by expending more energy to crack it off of whatever it was previously attached to than you'll get back by burning it again, at which point you may as well just shove those electrons into the battery on a Tesla anyway and save yourself the trouble of trying to transport diatomic hydrogen around.
Re: (Score:3)
The point is, hydrogen isn't any more of a fuel than lithium in a battery is. They're both just energy storage media.
Gasoline is a fuel, because I can take a barrel of oil out of the ground, consume some of it to repay the energy used to pump it out, consume some of it to refine the remainder into gasoline, and end up getting more energy out of burning the rest than I had at the beginning of the process.
There's no above-unity mechanism to get free hydrogen into a motor vehicle, certainly not one that works
A so-called "Hydrogen Economy" is petroleum fueled (Score:5, Insightful)
Hydrogen is not a power source, it's an energy storage medium.
You use up power to isolate and store hydrogen (useful amounts of free hydrogen do not occur in nature) and then when you burn the hydrogen you get some of the energy back, with little or no pollution (other than a little water vapor). It's a slightly lossy process, just like any other energy storage method (batteries, water pumped uphill, compressed gas, etc.) and not a very attractive one for most purposes.
Raw hydrogen, being very small and light compared to other atoms, is difficult and costly to store. It migrates through most materials, you have to use exotic sealants and methods. It also has an extremely wide explosive/ignition mix range with air; compared to gasoline almost any concentration of hydrogen will ignite or explode very easily. So hydrogen carrying systems have to be built with a higher level of quality control to achieve the same level of safety as gasoline vehicles, and if you try to burn hydrogen in an engine designed for gasoline it will typically pre-ignite and perform extremely poorly, if it doesn't just blow the intake manifold right off.
Proponents and oil company shills like to brag about its high energy density, purposely misleading the public by calculating energy density per unit mass instead of by unit volume. In the Real World [tm] a vehicle can't carry around an infinitely large hydrogen storage vessel, so energy density per unit volume is what matters when you're talking hydrogen as a vehicle fuel. Here's the numbers:
Cryogenically stored liquid hydrogen = 2,600 Wh/l
Hydrogen gas at around 2,000 psi = 405 Wh/l
Liquid gasoline at room temperature = 9,000 Wh/l
Any line of reasoning that assumes hydrogen is a power source - rather than just a storage medium with very poor energy density - is unfortunately based on a flawed premise. Regular electric batteries outperform hydrogen rather significantly at pretty much every metric that's important when we're talking about individually piloted vehicles.
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Facts don't deter FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
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The whole argument is silly anyway. All that matters to most people is how much it costs to operate and expense to purchase. Once you add it all up it's too expensive to operate EVs. I like the idea but the reality is that EVs are still ahead of their time. The expense of battery replacement is a real deal killer too. The only thing that would make me want one is if I could charge it at work on my employer's dime.
what about the batteries? (Score:2, Interesting)
I haven't read TFA of course, but does it include the lifetime environmental impact of the battery packs? (mining through disposal) That's what usually has me skeptical of today's electric vehicles.
MadCow.
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No idea about the manufacturing side, but Tesla recycles their batteries [teslamotors.com] as efficiently as possible.
Re:what about the batteries? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this particularly or uniquely bad vs the lifetime environmental impact of steel and mining of metallurgical and power coal and oil? Are we going to count the much lower amount of engine oil used? How about the pollution from the trucks delivering gasoline? And the refineries? And the tanker ships?
Are we going to count the hills removed in West Virginia?
What about catalytic converters, oil? (Score:3)
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Yes, it includes the batteries through their entire life cycle.
Bad comparison anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
Better would be to compare the S model to a typical current-model gas-powered sedan.
True, it likely does not pollute more than an SUV, but what about a Chevy Impala?
Assumptions of traditional energy advocates (Score:3, Funny)
Haters gonna hate (Score:5, Insightful)
Question: What is the payback period on a Tesla Roadster?
I've been asked these questions a number of times. The Electrical car hater beams, as he has clearly won the argument.
Fair enough - since the question was asked - "What is the payback period on a Bugatti, or Corvette, or even a Kia Soul or Toyota Corolla? "
Or even my Motorcycle, for that matter. I don't drive my motorcycle because of some great payback, I drive it because I want to.
Efficiency (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Efficiency (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure how significant the average transmission loss is
According to the local power company, transmission losses have averaged 9.3% over the last 5 years.
http://www.saskpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2012_saskpower_annual_report.pdf [saskpower.com] - PDF page 119
Doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you want to reduce CO2 emissions, it's a two-step process. First you have to get electric cars (or other alternative), then you need to get better power plants. If one of these steps happens before the other, it doesn't make it less good.
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When we started using oil, we were producing it all domestically as well. So now we're going to convert to coal, because we have enough of it... right now...
We could very well get stuck on coal, then a century from now, we're importing it from China because we don't have enough supply to meet electrical demand. That's more of a worst-case scenario, but it seems too many people are ignorant of the history of oil production.
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
And if you want to reduce CO2 emissions, it's a two-step process. First you have to get electric cars
Not true. Electrical cars will not reduce CO2 emissions with a reliably measurable amount. 2-3% theoretical percentage points at most.
then you need to get better power plants
This is where you start. This is where you work hard, and once you have solved this, you have solved the CO2 emission problem. Nothing else really matters. Go nuclear and we're all OK. It's safe (yes, it is) and it is quite clean (except for the mines). It is not renewable though, so it is a stop-gap measure.
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Why the anti-electric car meme? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, what do people have against them?
I think they're the coolest thing out there, and they provide a way to stop importing oil from the Muslims.
It's well known that central electricity production is significantly more efficient that a bunch of separate internal combustion engines.
But why the hate? I know the NYT has a vendetta against the electric car - they're a bunch of scumbags. But why do normal people hate them?
Re:Why the anti-electric car meme? (Score:4, Interesting)
Associations, tribalism (Score:5, Insightful)
There are studies that show "conservatives" here in the USA will buy CFL bulbs on their own (if they think) but as soon as you label them "green" or with other labels and slogans that have been associated as belonging to the enemy tribe, they will fuck themselves just to not have anything to do with the opposing tribe.
If you want things to get better you have to avoid terms associated by propagandists with tribalism and negative emotions. If you want the only have your tribe benefit and feel extra smug - then you continue to use the terms even after they've been ruined by propagandists knowing that the other tribe will harm itself in it's hatred of you. Depends on what kind of person you are. Me, I'm no Christian or Buddhist so I like to load things up knowing the fools will screw themselves.
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There are studies that show "conservatives" here in the USA will buy CFL bulbs on their own (if they think) but as soon as you label them "green" or with other labels and slogans that have been associated as belonging to the enemy tribe, they will fuck themselves just to not have anything to do with the opposing tribe.
Ooh, how I would love to see a citation for that one...
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http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/04/30/do-green-products-turn-off-conservative-customers/ [wsj.com]
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> Read the article again. It certainly does not say conservatives "...will fuck themselves just to not have anything to do with the opposing tribe."
You are right, that OP was exaggerating. But your hypothesis about "green" being associated with inferior products is reading more into the study than was there - just like the OP did with his claims.
Re:Associations, tribalism (Score:5, Informative)
There are studies that show "conservatives" here in the USA will buy CFL bulbs on their own (if they think) but as soon as you label them "green" or with other labels and slogans that have been associated as belonging to the enemy tribe, they will fuck themselves just to not have anything to do with the opposing tribe.
Ooh, how I would love to see a citation for that one...
http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/news_events/news-releases/rick-larrick-energy-efficient-products/#.UYARyMqcWUN [duke.edu]
QED
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(Google search: conservatives stigma 'green' environmentalism hate CFL )
No clue it's validity, but...like most opinions.. someone somewhere will have done a study supporting it, regardless how ludicrous it seems.
Personal anecdote- when CFLs were first coming out I've watched people mutter 'fuck the environment' when seeing CLFs on the shelf, but they were cheapskates, not actually political about it
Re:Associations, tribalism (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a true conservative. As such I do things that make sense to me. When I saw a CFL bulb in Lowes back in the 90's I bought one for the light in my shed. I often left the light on all night and the incandescent bulbs didn't last very long. After reading the package and seeing the projected lifetime I decided to try it. After about 6 months of surviving never being turned off I started to replace all my bulbs that burned out with CFL bulbs. I didn't do it because they were "green" but because it made sense. While I believe you are correct about many "right wingers" hating on CFL's because they are labeled green I see this behavior from lefties too. Many buy anything labeled green regardless if their is any actual valid reason to do so. Lots of people are so caught up in their obsession with political viewpoints that they lose any perspective. Just because a leftie came up with a good idea is no reason for me to reject it. By the way, that original CFL lasted 7 years.
Brand Association, I think. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
There are two groups that hate EVs.
First you have the green haters. They love to rage against their favourite straw man, the lunatic raving enviro-mentalist who wants everyone to return to a pre-industrial agrarian lifestyle. Anything which doesn't burn fossil fuel and spew pollution is just a part of their scheme to replace all modern conveniences with inferior "eco" versions.
The second group is the petrol heads. They want a big, powerful and noisy car that makes them feel manly. I understand these guys a
Jealousy (Score:2)
Because they can't afford them?
No seriously, envy is quite often a strong source of dislike in such situations.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, what do people have against them?
Lots of things; kinda depends on who you're talking to/about.
For me, I wasn't a fan at first because, well, let's face it - the early electric(ish) cars of the 21st Century (i.e., original Prius, whatever that Honda abortion was called) sucked, and boy did they suck hard. Lots of weird little electrical demons, crazy high price tags, and really nothing more than a status symbol for self-important douche bags who developed a 'my shit don't stink' attitude because, for some reason, they thought a 30 MPGe hybr
Re: (Score:2)
I have no hate for EVs. I don't want one but I don't mind your buying one. I don't think the technology is really there yet. Maybe in a few years when battery tech improves I'll revisit the idea. In the meantime I like the fact that early adopters are paving the way. Thanks.
Yes, it does. (Score:2)
The problem is that most of our electricity is produced through coal burning plants. That's a very messy form of production, and many of these plants have been grandfathered in and their owners intentionally avoid upgrading them because of the costs of 'greening up' their emissions. Coal plants belch out more radiation every few months than the entire Three Mile Island disaster. They're pumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, way more than if the equivalent MW was produced through gas or diesel.
Re: (Score:2)
Economies of scale. A container ship is even more efficient than a train as far as emissions go.
But only if you are trying to move as much mass as possible. I can guarantee that a car wins if your goal is to move a single person.
Re: (Score:2)
Bad to use Three Mile Island as a standard for your argument, it produced entirely negligible amounts of contamination outside the plant.
You are somewhat incorrect about transportation, 65% of crude oil consumption by transportation is for personal vehicles in the USA
Re: (Score:2)
And if we really want to talk about the "greenest" form of transportation: Diesel turbine locomotives has every other form of transport beat by a landslide. And they've been "hybrid" since the 70s; Most of them are direct-drive electric motors and use turbines and a large bank of batteries to store juice, yet are big enough to use recombinant turbines, which are very efficient in their own right.
... and that's why every time I see a new electric-hybrid car come out, the only thing I can ever think is "oh, look, they hooked everything up backwards again."
Is there any legitimate, scientific/engineering reason why hybrid cars aren't set up the same way as hybrid trains (i.e., fossil fuel engine ONLY charges batteries, electric motors turn the wheels)?
Same people claiming global warming is false. (Score:4, Funny)
But if Global Warming does not exist, why do you care if an electric car pollutes more than a regular one?
Re: (Score:2)
increasing ocean acidity of carbonic acid damages plankton exoskeletons. pollution causes human health problems. acid rain damages infrastructure, eats paint off cars, and harms plants.
Factor in emissions from fossil fuel generation (Score:3)
Do these same analysis factor in the emissions caused by the mining of oil, refining it and trucking it to the gas stations? Not usually... That's not fair to count emissions from electricity generation but then only compare it to tailpipe emissions of gasoline.
Cyclists breath hard and emit more C02 (NOT) (Score:2)
Some local politician tried to peg cycists as big CO2 emitters compared to cars as cyclists breath hard when cycling.
Is it gasoline people or car worshippers, hard to tell, but somehow they see the current system as optimal and everything else as worse. I don't know why people latch onto the current system as optimal, but they do.
How much better are bikes?
https://www.eta.co.uk/2011/12/13/co2-emissions-from-cycling-revealed/ [eta.co.uk]
According to the report cycling is responsible for CO2 emissions of 21g per km. The r
the typical Tesla driver... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it "fair" to include the power plant CO2 emissions? Sure, why not...but understand that such is a worst case scenario, and does not necessarily represent the norm. Also, note there is zero effective method for being clean with an SUV, whereas with an electric you do at least have the option of getting solar, if you don't already have it. At the very least, you can choose to pay higher electric rates by choosing to buy renewable energy (most markets allow for this option).
Big takeway: freelance writers make bucks (Score:2)
How does a freelance writer afford a $100k+ electric car?
Fancy Number Fakery - Lying with Statistics (Score:3)
'Electric vehicles charged on the power grid have lower global warming emissions than the average gasoline-based vehicle sold today.'
Well there's your problem. They're comparing the best (electric vehicles) against the AVERAGE for gasoline. This is bogus biasing.
Instead they should compare the BEST electric against the BEST gasoline. That would be scientific.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Did you read what you quoted? Do you think skeptics would *disagree* that powerplant emissions should be included?
Re:Kind of a biased group? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like they say... Only Nixon could go to China. Regardless of the merits of their arguments, these guys ain't Nixon. Wake me when the electric car skeptics agree.
Why on earth would electric car skeptics object to the inclusion of powerplant emissions in the calculation of the total footprint of electric cars???
- Jesper
Re:Kind of a biased group? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Kind of a biased group? (Score:4, Interesting)
The concern with the stated metrics is not that the electric powerplant emissions being included, but that "total footprint" includes all the way back to coal mining techniques while the total footprint of gasoline vehicles stops at the gas tank.
That's exactly what I came to say. If they are going to factor in the total cost of producing the electricity that runs the vehicle, then they need to compare that with a gas vehicle where they also include the environmental cost to extract the oil, transport the oil to a refinery, refine the oil into gasoline, transport the gas to a distributor, and then worry about the emissions of the actual vehicle consuming the fuel. Likewise, if they want to factor in the cost to manufacture the batteries and motors, then they also need to factor in the cost to manufacture the engines. It's not a meaningful comparison otherwise.
Re: (Score:2)
That's something they will never do. Why? There's no money in it [slashdot.org].
Re:Kind of a biased group? (Score:4, Insightful)
Regardless of the merits of their arguments ...
Translation: I don't care if they're right or wrong.
Wake me when the electric car skeptics agree.
Wake me when the Flat Earth Society [theflatearthsociety.org] disbands. You're never going to convince the "skeptics", and if by some miracle you did, they wouldn't be skeptics anymore.
Re:Kind of a biased group? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Some of us electric drivers also take pleasure in using solar panels to charge our (overly expensive) e-vehicles so we can wallow in the pleasure of driving for free ;)
Yea, about how long does it take for those cheap, chincy Chinese solar panels to charge your batteries? 6 months or so?
OK, weak attempts at comedy aside, I actually like the idea of supplementing electric car charging with renewables like solar and wind. Just wish the tech would hurry up and reach a point where it's feasible to operate our vehicles in such a manner (get on it, science bitches!).
Re: (Score:2)
Why don't they put that at the beginning, saves reading time
But even if on such a financial page it says "the author holds no shares in <company X>", cynical me can't help thinking:
"I'm sure you're telling the truth that you have no shares, but the rich guy who paid you to write this article, probably does! (or is shorting it)"
Re: (Score:2)
Why does it seem like there might be some kind of concerted effort to denounce Tesla?
Because you're paranoid... and apparently too dense to realize that Top Gear is a fucking comedy show (and, as it turns out, were actually quite impressed with the Roadster, save the incredibly short amount of track time they got with it; that's right, I Watched The Fucking Episode).