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You would find it very hard, if not impossible, to run an ICE car at 40% efficient for normal driving. The same can not be said for a coal plant. So if the coal
by olfox 9y ago
You would find it very hard, if not impossible, to run an ICE car at 40% efficient for normal driving. The same can not be said for a coal plant. So if the coal plant averages 35% and the ICE car averages 25%, that leaves some room for a coal-driven electric car to be more efficient. The conversion from grid power to mechanical power only needs to be over 70% efficient. If anything, that sounds easy to beat. Any counters?
- jfoucher 9y agoI we say all three of: charging, motor controller and motor are about 90% efficient, that's already 72% efficiency from grid power to mechanical. So maybe not that easy.
- olfox 9y agoWhile a 90% efficient motor is quite good, a 90% controller and a 90% charger is not. I would expect them to be closer to 95%. But I have to back down from easy, according to [1], some Tesla owners charge their vehicles at 80% efficiency and not the ideal 92-98%. I imagined that would be a problem at those energy levels, apparently not! Anyhow, there is nothing inherently worse about fueling a central ICE to pump out electricity to EVs than directly fueling an ICE car. Larger ICEs tend to be more efficient, especially so for diesels. If you add the savings by the regenerative charging enabled by electric motors, it becomes even more favorable to electrify cars. We need a lot of batteries though! [1] https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/charging-efficiency-0 https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/charging-efficiency-0
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoWhat about refinement costs to turn oil into gasoline in the first place? That takes energy as well, and creates pollution. So we have a loss before we even get to the ICE.