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Can we finally just admit that increased emissions standards are putting lipstick on a pig? ICE vehicles will never be clean energy. We need to be investing mo

Can we finally just admit that increased emissions standards are putting lipstick on a pig? ICE vehicles will never be clean energy. We need to be investing more in the transition to EVs and improving electricity generation in general.

syshum 8y ago
You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc... Further the current electrical grid can not support a full migration to EV, we can barely support summer time loads in some area with A/C Running, if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric grid.
- pofilat 8y ago
  EVs use regional power, including hydro, solar, and wind. A significant improvement over gasoline. EVs charge mostly at night, so the balance out daytime A/C use to produce a more stable power draw.
  - syshum 8y ago
    Something on the order to 10% of my power comes from "renewable" sources in my region. over 50% is still coal here. There is a push to change that, but it comes at the expense if raising electrical rates (which we have some of the lowest as well) and that harms poor people. It is hyperbolic but it is worth considering how many people you are willing to sacrifice today for lowering emissions? Every time you increase energy costs that is increasing costs on the people that least can afford it, they then have to choose between food (which also increases), and heat, or hot water, or Air Conditioning... >>>EVs charge mostly at night That is the use case today, when they make up a low part of the overall fleet... I doubt that will maintain as their percentages increase and people that do not have Salary 9-5 jobs start using EV's
    - floatrock 8y ago
      A "coal-powered car" in the most coal-heavy electrical grids gets the equivalent of 39 MPG in terms of emissions, and that's the worst-case grids around Wisconsin and Illinois/Missouri. Places with high renewable penetration can get >100mpg. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-get-cleaner https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electri... So the worst case EV's are better than the smallest, most efficient ICE subcompacts. And you can flip the map on that post between 2009 and 2016 numbers. You can see things are getting cleaner. They're getting cleaner because renewables are out-competing dirty coal. Yes, most of it is gas displacing coal (gas is marginally cleaner), but there are cases of renewables/storage outcompeting gas in terms of price. It's not a hidden agenda -- it's pure competitive economics.
- ycnewbienomore 8y ago
  Looks like you had the parotted playbook response ready, as false as it is.
  - dang 8y ago
    Since you're no newbie, you know that you can't attack others like that here. We've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
- jasonlotito 8y ago
  > You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc... Clean when compared to an ICE in a car, yes. e.g. If we can reduce a bad thing by 90%, your argument is that there is still 10% of that bad thing, and therefore we should not adopt the solution. That's a silly argument to make. > if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric grid. Since that literally can't happen, it's a non-issue.
  - prolepunk 8y ago
    Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine. The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18%. Coal plants with secondary steam turbines can be as efficient as 50% extracting energy from the same amount of hydrocarbons. Electric cars can have efficiency of 60% to 90%, so if tomorrow we replace all the gas cars with electric cars powered from coal power plants, we still be better off; then to that all the effort and energy that it takes to get oil from the ground, refine it and then get it to the gas tank of car, whereas in electric car its all power line transmission losses. Coal is still bad, and there are much better alternatives like solar, wind and nuclear and natural gas; where solar wind and nuclear take no hydrocarbons, natural gas doesn't emit all the nasty things that coal plants do.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine. The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18% I'm not saying a coal power plant isn't more efficient but this is a one sided fanboy comparison if there ever was one. What's the efficiency of the coal power plant after it's been used to charge up a battery and then discharged to power a car (i.e "at the wheel")? The fact that it's being used to drive a car around is the dominant term in the efficiency equation, not the form factor of the hydrocarbons. You did touch on supply chain but lithium batteries have some pretty nasty environmental impacts. I'm not sure whether they're better or worse than supplying liquid fuel.
- jlv2 8y ago
  > You believe EV is "clean" ... > Further the current electrical grid can not support ... Oh no, please don't go into that well-debunked FUD. (I am biased on this: I've both a Nissan LEAF and a Tesla S and have done almost 60K miles of pure EV driving in the last 4 years. Over the last 3 years, our solar PV system has provided 95% of the electricity we've used, including charging the cars).
pofilat 8y ago
Increasing emmissions standards make EVs more attractive. The incentives are aligned.
gascan 8y ago
I, for one, am happy we have had 50 years of steadily tightening emissions standards, rather than sitting on our hands since 1965 waiting for EV to kick in. ICE may very well one day be fully outmoded, but that day is not here yet, so in the meantime...
eurticket 8y ago
Maybe that was the point all along, implementing such strict measures to ensure the incentive for manufacturers to create more EVs.

syshum 8y ago

You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc... Further the current electrical grid can not support a full migration to EV, we can barely support summer time loads in some area with A/C Running, if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric grid.

pofilat 8y ago
EVs use regional power, including hydro, solar, and wind. A significant improvement over gasoline. EVs charge mostly at night, so the balance out daytime A/C use to produce a more stable power draw.
- syshum 8y ago
  Something on the order to 10% of my power comes from "renewable" sources in my region. over 50% is still coal here. There is a push to change that, but it comes at the expense if raising electrical rates (which we have some of the lowest as well) and that harms poor people. It is hyperbolic but it is worth considering how many people you are willing to sacrifice today for lowering emissions? Every time you increase energy costs that is increasing costs on the people that least can afford it, they then have to choose between food (which also increases), and heat, or hot water, or Air Conditioning... >>>EVs charge mostly at night That is the use case today, when they make up a low part of the overall fleet... I doubt that will maintain as their percentages increase and people that do not have Salary 9-5 jobs start using EV's
  - floatrock 8y ago
    A "coal-powered car" in the most coal-heavy electrical grids gets the equivalent of 39 MPG in terms of emissions, and that's the worst-case grids around Wisconsin and Illinois/Missouri. Places with high renewable penetration can get >100mpg. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-get-cleaner https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electri... So the worst case EV's are better than the smallest, most efficient ICE subcompacts. And you can flip the map on that post between 2009 and 2016 numbers. You can see things are getting cleaner. They're getting cleaner because renewables are out-competing dirty coal. Yes, most of it is gas displacing coal (gas is marginally cleaner), but there are cases of renewables/storage outcompeting gas in terms of price. It's not a hidden agenda -- it's pure competitive economics.
ycnewbienomore 8y ago
Looks like you had the parotted playbook response ready, as false as it is.
- dang 8y ago
  Since you're no newbie, you know that you can't attack others like that here. We've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
jasonlotito 8y ago
> You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc... Clean when compared to an ICE in a car, yes. e.g. If we can reduce a bad thing by 90%, your argument is that there is still 10% of that bad thing, and therefore we should not adopt the solution. That's a silly argument to make. > if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric grid. Since that literally can't happen, it's a non-issue.
- prolepunk 8y ago
  Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine. The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18%. Coal plants with secondary steam turbines can be as efficient as 50% extracting energy from the same amount of hydrocarbons. Electric cars can have efficiency of 60% to 90%, so if tomorrow we replace all the gas cars with electric cars powered from coal power plants, we still be better off; then to that all the effort and energy that it takes to get oil from the ground, refine it and then get it to the gas tank of car, whereas in electric car its all power line transmission losses. Coal is still bad, and there are much better alternatives like solar, wind and nuclear and natural gas; where solar wind and nuclear take no hydrocarbons, natural gas doesn't emit all the nasty things that coal plants do.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >Not to mention that coal plants are way more efficient than ICE engine. The average efficiency at the wheel of a car is 18% I'm not saying a coal power plant isn't more efficient but this is a one sided fanboy comparison if there ever was one. What's the efficiency of the coal power plant after it's been used to charge up a battery and then discharged to power a car (i.e "at the wheel")? The fact that it's being used to drive a car around is the dominant term in the efficiency equation, not the form factor of the hydrocarbons. You did touch on supply chain but lithium batteries have some pretty nasty environmental impacts. I'm not sure whether they're better or worse than supplying liquid fuel.
jlv2 8y ago
> You believe EV is "clean" ... > Further the current electrical grid can not support ... Oh no, please don't go into that well-debunked FUD. (I am biased on this: I've both a Nissan LEAF and a Tesla S and have done almost 60K miles of pure EV driving in the last 4 years. Over the last 3 years, our solar PV system has provided 95% of the electricity we've used, including charging the cars).

pofilat 8y ago

Increasing emmissions standards make EVs more attractive. The incentives are aligned.

gascan 8y ago

I, for one, am happy we have had 50 years of steadily tightening emissions standards, rather than sitting on our hands since 1965 waiting for EV to kick in. ICE may very well one day be fully outmoded, but that day is not here yet, so in the meantime...

eurticket 8y ago

Maybe that was the point all along, implementing such strict measures to ensure the incentive for manufacturers to create more EVs.