Mazda Says Its Upcoming Gas-Powered Cars Will Emit Less CO2 Than Electric Cars 330
cartechboy writes: "One of the arguments for electric cars is that we are reducing greenhouse gases and emitting less CO2 than vehicles with an internal combustion engine. But Mazda says its next-generation SkyActiv engines will be so efficient, they'll emit less CO2 than an electric car. In fact, the automaker goes so far as to say these new engines will be cleaner to run than electric cars. Is it possible? Yes, but it's all about the details. It'll depend on the test cycles for each region. Vehicles are tested differently in Europe than in the U.S., and that variation could make all the difference when it comes to these types of claims. At the end of the day whether future Mazdas with gasoline-powered engines are cleaner than electric cars or not, every little bit in the effort to reduce our carbon emissions per mile is a step in the right direction, right?"
Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or do they mean in the "yeah but guess where that electricity comes from, a coal-burning plant" sense?
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:4, Insightful)
We are more ABLE to drill and pump but it certainly does not make less CO2 or take less energy. Fracking takes far more resources then just drilling and most of the big easy wells are gone. We now drill in deep water which takes phenomenally more power and work then ground based operations.
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If you really needed the shale oil and you didn't have fossil fuels to do the extraction you could run the extraction process using a nuclear plant.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/... [mit.edu]
The last of these ideas would locate a nuclear plant near a deposit of oil shale -- a type of deposit, technically known as kerogen, that has not been used to date as a source of petroleum. Heated steam from a nuclear plant, in enclosed pipes, heats the shale; the resulting oil can be pumped out by conventional means.
At first glance, that might sound like a "dirty" solution, enabling the use of more carbon-emitting fuel. But Forsberg suggests that it's quite the opposite: "When you heat it up, it decomposes into a very nice light crude oil, and natural gas, and char," he explains. The char -- the tarlike residue that needs to be refined out from heavy crude oils -- stays underground, he says.
Today, the heating of the rock is usually accomplished by burning fossil fuels, making the process less efficient. That's where the excess heat from a nuclear plant comes in: By coupling the plant's steam output with a shale-oil well, the oil can be recovered without generating extra emissions. The process also does not need regular heat input: The nuclear plant can operate at a steady rate, providing electricity to the grid when needed, and heating oil shale at times of low electricity demand. This enables the nuclear plant to replace the burning of fossil fuels in producing electricity, further reducing the release of greenhouse gas.
The world's largest oil-shale deposits are concentrated in the western United States. "We lucked out," Forsberg says. "This has the lowest carbon footprint of any source of liquid fossil fuel."
The resource that could be unlocked is enormous, he says: "Some of these deposits would yield a million barrels per acre. There's no place else on Earth like it."
Actually you could view the current extraction process as being a sort of pump priming - right now fossil fuels are used to run things. Counter intuitively it becomes more economic when fossil fuel prices are high. Now if fossil fuel prices fell you could imagine using a nuclear plant to supply the heat. Or, if fossil fuels beca
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To your point it take between 4 ~ 7.5Kwh of electricity for refine 1 gallon of gas. Electric cars can travle about 4 miles per Kwh. That mean that an electric car can travel between 16 ~ 30 miles on the same electricity that it takes to refine 1 gallon of gas. In effect gas cars generate the same amount of CO2 from electricity production per mile as an electic car, but add to the mix all the CO2 generated from drilling, extracting, shipping, refining [the chemical side of the process] and distributing fu
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Agreed. And as the mix of electricity generation continues to get cleaner, every existing electric car currently on the road gets cleaner as well. In the case of Mazda, if we are to believe that their new engines will have a serious impact on emissions we will have to wait 1) until they release a car with the new technology, 2) an average of 5 years for people to trade in their old cars and purchase new cars, and 3) for enough people to actually purchase the new cars with Mazda's new technology. Even if
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Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not for me, I get my power from Nuke plants. it's the most environmentally friendly power source out there. IF the government was not filled with retards and allowed the spent fuel to be used in breeder reactors.
Nuke is better than anything else, it's the morons in DC that make it less than perfect.
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Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Informative)
Breeding means generating more nuclear fuel from stuff that is not fissile material in the first place. For example, in a classic nuclear fuel rod only a few percents of the uranium is of the 235 isotope variety, which is fissile (= radioactive, potentially dangerous and useable as nuclear fuel), the rest is the 238 isotope and is not fissile... but is intead "fertile", because once it gobbles up a passing neutron (= beta radiation), it quickly transmutes into the 239 isotope of plutonium - and this kind of plutonium, in turn, is fissile.
And, fortunately, you can have it so that while the 235 uranium "burns" it produces the right neutrons for the 238 to turn into 239, or "breed" into plutonium. Or breed the fertile 232 thorium into fissile 233 uranium, too. That's the principle of a breeder reactor. And you may use your fresh new fuel to breed yet some more fuel, too, so that potentially, all the uranium and all the thorium in the world may be converted into nuclear fuel - that's called "supergeneration", because then you are not even limited by the tiny amount of starting fissile material anymore.
For every amount of starting fuel you can have various ratios of breeding happening. In fast breeder reactors you can have three or four times more breeding than consuming, so that every unit of fuel spent generates, on the side, three or four units of additional fuel from fertile material. In molten salt thorium reactors this ratio is projected to be 1-on-1 to limit the risks of nuclear proliferation (= using the breeding process to make a lot more fissile material, in order to make weapons).
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well no, technically by far the best generator of electricity is sewerage digester methane plants. The sewerage must be broken and this produces a lot of methane (basically natural gas) in the process, this can break down naturally but in the interim it is a very bad green house gas. So by capturing that methane and burning it, it reduces the green house impact of it. Now if your digester is an anaerobic base you can pump the carbon dioxide back into the system, the heat will benefit growth and a proportion of the carbon dioxide will be captured. So you have eliminated a problem and as a bonus generated energy. All that is need now is very large scale sewerage digester, optimum bioengineering organisms to ensure maximum production of methane and all methane produced is captured and destroyed to produce energy. The waste produced should be high pressure steam sterilised (waste heat from plant) and sold as fertiliser. Waste water should be run through aerobic beds and any residual production of methane should be captured and used with residual water used in controlled irrigation, say an orchard with below ground piping. See, much, much better than nuclear. It is always better to think outside of the box and try to solve more than one problem at a time, especially you should avoid solutions than create other problems.
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You have to admire Jane Fonda. On pretty much any issue if you look at her opinion it tells you what to do. Admittedly you should do the exact opposite of what she says, but someone that is always 100% wrong is just as useful as someone that is always 100% right.
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Well she was right about Vietnam. That was a mistake.
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Hydro destroys river ecosystems. For an extreme example of the effects of damming on waterways, look at France. It's a mass of hydroelectric plants and drinking water reservoirs, and its major rivers have almost all been canalised, with a network of locks and sluices to reduce winter flow to ensure that the water level is high enough for navigation during the summer months. Fish stocks in the French rivers are dangerously low, with the Atlantic Salmon now all but unknown to French anglers.
All human activity
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Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Informative)
The 300 Wh is also the electrical energy stored in the battery (the Tesla S has an 85 kWh battery rated at 300 miles, so that works out to 283 Wh/mile). If you're going to factor in production costs of gasoline, you also need to factor in production costs of electricity. Charging the battery is about 75% efficient. Transmission to the home is about 98% efficient. And coal plants are about 45% efficient. So to produce the 300 Wh/mile the EV uses, the power company actually has to burn 300/(.75*.98*.45) = 907 Wh/mile. Factor in coal mining and transport costs and you're probably up around 1 kW/mile.
So the energy cost to refine gasoline is probably more likely enough to drive the EV only 2-3 miles.
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To give an example from the refinery I work at we process we process a barrel of oil using about 8kWh of electrical power (yes I said 9 above in another post but, rounding error). The barrel yield for how we're set up is about 15 gallons of gasoline per barrel and 19 gallons of diesel (yes that's more than 1 barrel in total, but that's how upgrading refineries work, we get more out in volume than we put in).
Total energy cost is higher as we also use a considerable quantity of natural gas to fire heaters, bu
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:4, Informative)
The figure came from articles like this [greentransportation.info]. The issue is that the 6KWhr/gallon is energy loss and not energy use. Some of that loss is in heat and other waste. If you look at just electricity consumption it is closer to 89Whrs/gallon.
Re:That's a whopper. think for 60 seconds. (Score:4, Interesting)
You're ignoring how most refineries are set up. You're absolutely right, we don't pay retail rates for electricity. In fact we generate our own using on site combined cycle power plants usually with heat recovery steam raising plant attached to the exhaust. We generate our own electricity for a fraction of the cost of retail electricity, we even generate excess and then export it to the surrounding suburbs offsetting their normal energy source which is brown coal.
The end result has the refinery I work at actually getting carbon credits for our energy consumption as we're not only not generating a lot of CO2 due to energy use, but we're also offsetting the carbon footprint of the surrounding town.
Oh by the way you're only telling half the story. It costs us closer to 2kW to create a gallon of gasoline, but it would be more fair to ask what it costs to process a barrel of oil (about 9kW), since that same energy that goes into creating your 2kW of gasoline also creates Jet fuel, diesel, LPG, bunker, as well as various polymers used in chemical plants.
You are dramatically overstating the carbon footprint of refining in the case of the refinery where I work, and we're often criticized for our lack of efficiency so I'm going to assume that there are even better examples out there.
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If that were the case I would point them to the refining process for gasoline.
No citizen, all things Gasoline are perfect.
And ummm, Mazda assumes that the only reason to use an electric car is CO2 reduction?
I want to go electric so that we can quit sending our money to people that hate us, and to use the remaining oil as lubrication, not burn it up.
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting notion, but the devil is in the details. In the NE United States most of the electricity is from coal or gas fired plants, but in the NW United States most of the electricity is hydropower. You can argue that the carbon footprint of the NW electricity is very low, but if you consider the carbon cost of building the dams, the carbon goes up. You have to make assumptions about the expected life of a dam so you can pro-rate the carbon cost. The same issues surround calculating the carbon cost of nuclear generated electricity, but you also have to include carbon coats for transporting, storing, and guarding the nuclear waste for a long time, which involves another assumption. There are also a host of carbon issues relating to power transmission infrastructure. There is a lot of steel in those towers, but some of it is a century old. Do you count it in current carbon calculations?
The bottom line is, the assertion that the Mazda has a lower carbon footprint is more of a marketing claim than an engineering calculation. I suspect the assumptions involved have been made with the primary purpose of supporting the claim rather than meeting some test of reasonableness.
If you ask a question from a marketing context, you get a marketing answer.
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There is a lot of steel in those towers
Of course! It's a modern technique used for carbon sequestration and for which they should be appropriately credited. ;)
(yes, I know that carbon in steel != carbon dioxide, and am choosing to ignore that fact briefly)
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So steelmaking produces CO2, but of course a vast amount less than making concrete.
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But if one truly cares about reduction in carbon emissions, and is not beholden to the electric car as the only solution they will consider, then an extremely low ca
Some CO2 reductions are more equal than others (Score:2)
I agree that every movement towards lower carbon emissions are a good think, but some steps have more long-term potential than others. Consider that the average vehicle has a lifetime of 20+ years on the road, and of course assuming relatively cheap replacement/refurbished batteries are available to give electric vehicles a similar lifespan:
I buy a high-efficiency gasoline vehicle today, and as wear and tear and poor tuning take their toll the carbon-mileage will fall, and it'll keep falling as long as the
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Interesting notion, but the devil is in the details.
And the details have been largely worked out. Studies [greencarreports.com] have found that even on the dirtiest grid in the US modern electric cars match the emissions of a 34mpg car. Since this worst case scenario so rarely happens (the US grid is much cleaner than just coal, and getting cleaner all the time, and many EV owners install solar panels on their homes), Mazda will essentially have to race against the electric grid in trying to clean up their vehicles.
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So my honda civic that I regularly get 44mpg out of is better than the Leaf, Tesla, and Volt.
I am so going to rub this in the face of the hipster at starbucks tomorrow morning.
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You do realize that the US still produces [latimes.com] a significant amount of oil, right? Like 50% of its needs? And that the US is the larger exporter of refined products? And that imported oil would still be refined here in the US thus "creating jobs for Amerikans".
And I'm sure the people of Russia have similar feelings about the US, as do a lot of other countries.
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Wonder about the pollution (not just CO2) from the production (and eventual disposal) of the batteries in EVs.
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Î(TM) would like to see the lifecycle energy consumption of a gasoline, diesel, hybrid and electric vehicle, including the raw material extraction and refining. I would exclude the fuel source extraction and refining energy consumption but maybe you shouldn't, but I'm principally wondering if the energy savings, especially with a hybrid, isn't lost by the battery and eletrical drive components which are dependent on mining in remote locations and/or intensive refining.
There used to be a site that clai
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This has been studied [greencarcongress.com] extensively [ucla.edu] as well [prnewswire.com]. While specific chemistries have their own pollution issues, most EV batteries are made in Japan, Korea and the U.S., with relatively strong pollution controls. There is general agreement that the manufacturing impact is relatively small compared to the operating costs of both electric and gasoline cars.
It's easy to be skeptical of electric vehicles until you realize just how bad even the best gasoline cars are. All those tailpipe emissions are making you and th
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But smog in unpopulated locations (plants) is much easier to live with than smog in the cities.
Joseph Elwell.
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Insightful)
And those levels would likely be better than the wells-to-wheels carbon profile of an electric car running in a coal-heavy country--Poland, for example.
Not only that, but the engines themselves are not yet designed. They are "projected" be available by 2020.
I realize the air is a bit dirty, but still -- That is a long time to hold your breath.
Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also consider how the materials for the batteries are sourced (emissions/energy cost to mine), where they're sourced (emissions/energy cost to ship), how they're put together (emissions from factory, energy cost), and where the entire vehicle is put together (emissions/energy cost to ship batteries to car factory). Is continuing to use older vehicles less and more impactful to the environment?
People who are totally against innovation in this sector tend to think all of these are worse than continuing to rely on dead dinosaur-based fuels. I think we need to push forward and research all options, including reducing individual demand for vehicular use through public transit, better civic planning, automated vehicles (which increase efficiency in the system greatly) among other options.
I'm a car guy and I desperately do not want to see organic fuels disappear because of over use or damage to the environment. I think converting to more efficient travel methods and shrinking work-to-home distances are ultimately the way to go. Having access to fossil fuels in the future will then be reserved mostly for folks who just want to have fun, like owning horses is today. I don't want to see track days go away, or being able to take apart and put back together an almost entirely mechanical engine. There's a certain mechanical hackery to it.
Cars as appliances need to move on from fossil fuels, cars as projects/things to hack shouldn't. If we continue to treat fossil-fuels as infinite and undamaging we're going to lose cars as toys and projects and things to hack. That's sad.
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I'd love to see reduction in the need for private transportation, but I don't see it happening (in the US at least) without a complete redesign of cities. Which is to say it won't happen in existing cities until the necessary public transport/last mile tech is well proven in new/really old cities that are designed to be more pedestrian-centered. And probably not even then until private transportation costs go through the roof - which with electric vehicles coming into their own probably won't ever be the
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I'm a car guy and I desperately do not want to see organic fuels disappear because of over use or damage to the environment.
There is no need to abandon ICEs to achieve carbon neutrality. The answer is biofuels. We already know how to make 1:1 replacements for both diesel and gasoline out of any organic material. But our government is literally complicit in oil company conspiracies to prevent us from having them. Making biodiesel in a carbon-neutral (actually carbon-negative) way depends on being permitted to use BLM lands, which you can do for coal or oil but just try getting green energy permits. Butanol is a 1:1 replacement fo
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You could also take all of the wonderful high-compression ICE l technology that Mazda is doing and put THAT into a Prius, giving us higher efficiency when in gas mode and still getting the benefits of electric power drive, assist, and regenerative braking in stop-and-go traffic.
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Why The honda VX with lean burn will still be better than what mazda and toyota are coming up with. Sadly they are Insanely hard to find any honda with the lean burn option in the USA anymore. Some guys are getting successful with flashing the ECM in the 8th gen with the european program that enables lean burn though. Reports of 2006-2007 Civics getting 50mpg highway by just flashing the ECM and setting the Camber front and rear to 0 degrees.
Re: Do electric cars actually produce CO2? (Score:2)
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Ummm.... (Score:3)
It's not like CO2 is some unwanted and avoidable by-product of burning hydrocarbons in oxygen. It's the main product of combustion, along with water. So the only real way to reduce CO2 emissions per mile is get more miles per gallon of fuel. Is that what they're promising?
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You know what's better than buying a new car with a low emissions engine?
Not buying a new car. The emissions involved in the manufacture and delivery of a new vehicle are roughly equal to your first 30,000 miles of driving. Fixing your old clunker is far more efficient, both cost and emissions wise.
For even better CO2 reduction and fuel cost savings, don't drive the car you have.
Says the guy who's off for a 2 day business trip via jet plane....
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This MYTH has been debunked [greencarreports.com]:
"A study by M.A. Weiss et al., published in a 2000 report from the MIT Energy Laboratory, On the Road in 2020: A Lifecycle Analysis of New Automotive Technologies, calculated that fully 75 percent of a vehicle’s lifetime carbon emissions come from the fuel it burns, and another 19 percent was due to the extraction and refining of that fuel. The raw materials making up the vehicle added another 4 percent, and just 2 percent of lifetime carbon was due to manufacturing and assembly. In other words, you'll save a lot more energy if you junk your old car and buy a much more efficient new one."
And as everyone in this thread knows, energy == emissions for all practical purposes...
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It depends on how much you drive, obviously.
If I drive my 20 MPG (peak around 30 on the freeway) A8 for a couple of hours once a week I'm going to produce less emissions than someone who drives a non-plugin Prius to and from work five days a week.
As always, the commuter lifestyle is the biggest problem with cars.
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The one thing that might have been missed is that the numbers are probably based on IC engine vehicles. The numbers may be very different for EVs as the construction of a battery/electric drive train is very different than an IC drive train. For example, t takes a lot more energy to build a ton of batteries than it takes to build a gas tank.
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There's a crossover point and it's going to depend on a lot of variables.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Informative)
So the only real way to reduce CO2 emissions per mile is get more miles per gallon of fuel.
No. My ~40mpg motorcycle pollutes far more than my ~27mpg car. It's all about how well the engine burns the fuel and handles the emissions before they leave the pipe, not necessarily just the volume of it.
Re:Ummm.... (Score:5, Informative)
CO2 emissions are directly proportional to fuel consumption (for a particular fuel). It's the other emissions - CO, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides etc. that can vary dramatically.
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For every atom of carbon entering your engine (or the car's engine), exactly(*) 1 molecule of CO2 exits you exhaust pipe. Your geek card, please.
You forgot both CO and soot. Your geek card, please.
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CO2 emissions != pollution. CO2 is the final byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion - it is exactly proportional to the amount of fuel consumed, minus the amount of fuel burned incompletely to produce noxious pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrious oxide, and other various byproducts of varying degrees of nastiness.
So yes, your 40 mpg motorcycle (horrible mileage by the way, a crotch-rocket by any chance? Geo Metros do better than that) may well produce more pollution than even a 15 mpg car. BUT it also em
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Mythbusters had an episode on this, with all kinds of charts and graphs comparing CO2 and pollution for different cars and bikes in different situations.
Here are some of the results
http://rideapart.com/2011/10/b... [rideapart.com]
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You have to wonder how well these cars will perform for say, the SUV.
You mean like the CX-5, which bears the "Skyactive" tag and is touted as being efficient, and likely to get these technologies?
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"The EPA rated the CX-5's gas mileage as the best in its class, averaging 26mpg city and 35mpg highway, which Mazda claims is the best mileage of any non-hybrid SUV." From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
My electric is hydro/nuclear (Score:2)
So where is the CO2 coming from? And the coal plants are still running whether I use an electric car or not, so the net total is still higher with gasoline.
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Actually makes sense because they are quick to get back online when you need them. It takes many hours to get a unit of a coal fired power station going from a cold start.
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It might not be such a great deal [vaultelectricity.com];
The attention grabbing headline is “TXU offers free nighttime electricity”. But the fine print will reveal that they are doing this by increasing daytime rates to 50% higher than rates offered by many of their competitors.
Much of the "free" night time energy is being paid for by higher daytime charges.
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I don't use livestock to power my car. It is a horseless carriage...
Hydroelectricity! (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in Québec, with lots of hydroelectricity, I doubt very much that this gasoline engine will emit less CO2 per mile than an all electric vehicle.
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Since hydro is the cheapest energy source, every attempt is made to use as much of it as we can every year. Water spilling over the top of the dam is wasted energ
Hydrogen (Score:2)
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Currently there is not enough platinum in the world to move any significant auto infrastructure to hydrogen fuel cells.
Pick and Choose (Score:3)
John W Campbell clean car test (Score:2)
I suspect that an electric car would pass that test easily; I'm less confident in the Mazda vehicle.
totally missing the point (Score:2)
The reason most people want electric cars has nothing to do with how much CO2 they emit.
Because my solar panels are a source of CO2? (Score:2)
Maybe if the power in your hood comes from coal and crude oil then maybe yes. But many people are Nuclear, Solar, Wind, and Hydro powered. Plus I suspect that people in areas with plenty of green power are more likely to drive an electric car. People in an oil producing area are more likely to not only drive a nor
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If you have your electric car and all the factories and mines involved in its manufacturing connected to solar panels, then any attempt to compare the CO2 as generated by a fossil fueled car is bogus.
If not, a small and efficient gasoline car made from materials that require minimum energy and other pollution to manufacture will most probably be more environmentally friendly overall than a leading electric car. Especially after figuring in pollution other than CO2 and the fact that only a minority of owners
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A major point of electric cars (Score:2)
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Yes, moving the energy production outside of the car is the key point with shifting to electric cars. This way if a more efficient or less polluting energy source is used, all electric cars benefit from its deployment. If a new more efficient dinosaur engine is made, only new buyers benefit -- it does nothing about existing vehicles.
Simple way to test... (Score:4, Interesting)
Get two hermetically sealed rooms. One with this new Mazda, and one with an all-electric car. Both cars are on roller ramps. Just to be fair, the Mazda can have it's air-intake piped in from outside.
Then grab the CEO of Mazda and give him this choice of 'driving' 20 miles in either the Mazda or the electric car.
Simple... Effective.
Efficiency and CO2 emissions... (Score:2)
SkyActiv? What marketeer came up with that? (Score:2)
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Wow. Thanks for the heads up.
nice .sig! Imaginary Property = tyranny over the mind of man Indeed!
Re:Mazda is not open (Score:5, Informative)
Mazda abuses copyright to stop 3rd parties from publishing manuals. Can't get a Haynes or Chilton manual for any Mazda newer than about 1995.
http://www.haynes.com/products... [haynes.com] 2 seconds on Google.. come on, man.
Re:Mazda is not open (Score:4)
Dude, your original claim is complete bullshit (can't get ANY manual), so come on, man up, and admit you were either willfully ignorant or stupid.
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If it bugs you so much, surely you know that most any shop manual published since 1999 is free for the downloading, usually as a .pdf, from the dark corners of the 'net - especially on enthusiast message boards.
Personally, I don't mind paying $99 for the hardcopy version, if it's a car I plan on working on myself.
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Can't get a Haynes or Chilton manual for any Mazda newer than about 1995.
Not only is that false, but why would you want to? Manuals which aren't the factory service manual are universally shit. The old Motors manuals were pretty cool for trucks back in the day, but that's because they had about six moving parts.
The big bitch in wrenching today is secret OBD-II commands. I had to spend $250 on a computer interface to talk to my Audi because all the lesser ones are, well, lesser.
Your best bet is usually to torrent the manufacturer's service software, which is typically deprotected
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...
I didn't see a chiltons but I stopped looking when a simple google search showed a haynes manual for my wifes 2013 cx-5 as the first result so I'm going to call BS on your statement.
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Given how much people want to think about the future, it makes me wonder how they manage to get up in the morning. Weeks of planning go into that, amirite?
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... which cannot be said of your slashdot posts.
I have yet to meet anyone who thinks that a great deal of thought and preparation should go into a Slashdot post.
There's a place for planning and such, but it goes with things which benefit from such planning. Here, the original AC poster made an off-the-cuff remark that using non-renewable energy was bad.
No matter how short-sighted or ignorant humanity is in this regard (and delaying the transition to renewable is not necessarily the short-sighted, ignorant choice, I might add), they will be using r
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So buy a Mazda 3 MPS, which has too much power for a FWD to use, so its electronically limited in 1st and 2nd gear.
A lot of Japanese car companies make most of the car in America, because its one of their only regions that are left hand drive.
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Where I live, the hipsters too cheap to buy Priuses end up with Mazda 3s or VW Jettas... vehicles that are too underpowered to even get to 65 in a reasonable time, causing traffic jams all over freeways.
There may be some Jettas which have small engines which have a hard time getting to freeway speed, but I don't believe that is actually the case. And the Prius definitely has no problem getting up to 65 or 70 quickly. The problem isn't the car, it's the driver. They're driving to keep their little eco-meter in the happy zone, and fuck you. Which is the real reason everyone hates [typical] hybrid drivers.
This is amusing... being too snooty to buy US... and they wonder where the jobs are when they graduate.
Too snooty? Now, nobody is losing jobs because of what I buy because I have never bought a new car and pr
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What do you consider a reasonable time to reach 65 mph? A big truck needs over 1 minute.
Re: In other news... (Score:2)
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If governments can tell you what car to drive and how much CO2 it can emit, why not tell people what they can eat, how much animal protein, and put a methane tax on cows and pigs? All this concern over cars and driving and global warming but eating meat seems to be worse than driving a Hummer. http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
Eating meat may the only thing that can save us: https://www.youtube.com/watch [youtube.com]?... Fight desertification, sequester carbon AND grow good food. The guy in the TED talk points out that this works well in terrible conditions.