4 ms·

Electric trucks and vans cut pollution faster than cars

1 points by a_w 9y ago

warrenm 9y ago
Duh? Seth Godin talked about this (OK, not the "electric" part, but the consuming fuel part) 8 years ago: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/not-so-good-at-math.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/not-so-good-.... Elaborated upon at https://gillesarbour.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/a-little-math-from-seth-godin-for-a-change https://gillesarbour.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/a-little-math-... and https://antipaucity.com/2009/08/23/want-to-reduce-gas-consumption/#.WXtojNMrLgo https://antipaucity.com/2009/08/23/want-to-reduce-gas-consum... at least. You always get the best "bang for your buck" as a percentage improvement, not a numerical improvement. Sometimes the numerical improvement is also the better percentage improvement. But not always (nor, even, often). It's the same math that makes going 10 MPH faster less and less important to shaving time off your trip the faster your starting speed was. For example, say you need to drive 420 miles. At 10 MPH (a casual bike rider's speed), it will take you 42 hours to go 420 miles. Add 10 MPH, doubling your speed to 20 MPH (about the average driving speed in NYC), and it now only takes you 21 hours to travel 420 miles. Add another 10 MPH, increasing your speed by 50% to 30 MPH, and it take 14 hours to travel. Same numerical improvement in speed, but the percentage is lower, so the impact is less. Let's bump by another 10 MPH, 1/3, to 40 MPH. Your time drops to 10.5 hours. An improvement, no doubt, but not nearly so impactful. (The quick way to calculate this is for every 1/X speed improvement, you get a 1/(X+1) reduction in time (for the same distance). Adding 1/5 to your speed going from 50 to 60 drops your time by 1/6 (from an hour - for 50 miles - to 50 minutes, for example).) An average tractor-trailer gets 5-7 MPG (http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_mpg_of_a_tractor_trailer http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_mpg_of_a_tracto...). So to go 400 miles, they're going to use 60-80 gallons of fuel. If you can improve mileage to 9-10 MPG, they'll use 40-45 gallons of fuel - a reduction in fuel consumption of 25-50% (or, an improvement in distance per gallon of 33-100%). So if you swap-in electric vehicles for vehicles which consume the most fuel, you'll see the biggest immediate impact. And transportation businesses (and manufacturers aiming at the transportation sector) are going to be where the biggest improvement always happen: they have the best economic incentive to cut their costs, and have the biggest pockets to do the research and development to make it happen.

1 points by a_w 9y ago

Duh? Seth Godin talked about this (OK, not the "electric" part, but the consuming fuel part) 8 years ago: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/not-so-good-at-math.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/08/not-so-good-.... Elaborated upon at https://gillesarbour.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/a-little-math-from-seth-godin-for-a-change https://gillesarbour.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/a-little-math-... and https://antipaucity.com/2009/08/23/want-to-reduce-gas-consumption/#.WXtojNMrLgo https://antipaucity.com/2009/08/23/want-to-reduce-gas-consum... at least. You always get the best "bang for your buck" as a percentage improvement, not a numerical improvement. Sometimes the numerical improvement is also the better percentage improvement. But not always (nor, even, often). It's the same math that makes going 10 MPH faster less and less important to shaving time off your trip the faster your starting speed was. For example, say you need to drive 420 miles. At 10 MPH (a casual bike rider's speed), it will take you 42 hours to go 420 miles. Add 10 MPH, doubling your speed to 20 MPH (about the average driving speed in NYC), and it now only takes you 21 hours to travel 420 miles. Add another 10 MPH, increasing your speed by 50% to 30 MPH, and it take 14 hours to travel. Same numerical improvement in speed, but the percentage is lower, so the impact is less. Let's bump by another 10 MPH, 1/3, to 40 MPH. Your time drops to 10.5 hours. An improvement, no doubt, but not nearly so impactful. (The quick way to calculate this is for every 1/X speed improvement, you get a 1/(X+1) reduction in time (for the same distance). Adding 1/5 to your speed going from 50 to 60 drops your time by 1/6 (from an hour - for 50 miles - to 50 minutes, for example).) An average tractor-trailer gets 5-7 MPG (http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_mpg_of_a_tractor_trailer http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_mpg_of_a_tracto...). So to go 400 miles, they're going to use 60-80 gallons of fuel. If you can improve mileage to 9-10 MPG, they'll use 40-45 gallons of fuel - a reduction in fuel consumption of 25-50% (or, an improvement in distance per gallon of 33-100%). So if you swap-in electric vehicles for vehicles which consume the most fuel, you'll see the biggest immediate impact. And transportation businesses (and manufacturers aiming at the transportation sector) are going to be where the biggest improvement always happen: they have the best economic incentive to cut their costs, and have the biggest pockets to do the research and development to make it happen.