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When considered from a purely carbon reduction POV, long range EV like Tesla are actually worse than short range EV+ICE like Volt, Prius Prime, etc. Some reaso

When considered from a purely carbon reduction POV, long range EV like Tesla are actually worse than short range EV+ICE like Volt, Prius Prime, etc. Some reasons: * A PHEV with good EV range (such as 40+miles) will cover most commutes. Also most car trips are short range (such as going to the grocery stors). These could all be pure EV miles. * There is limited worldwide capacity for battery production and battery price is still high. The amount of batteries in a single Tesla could be used for 10 PHEV cars. Perfect is the enemy of good. If a PHEV can get most of its miles as EV and an occasional trip using ICE, the effect on carbon reduction is almost as good as a pure EV with much fewer battery costs. Also the weaknesses of batteries (such as long charge time compared to filling a gas tank) don't matter for a PHEV. And it's a great fit for the current state of EV charging infrastructure. A level 1 charger (regular 120 volt plug) can charge a typical PHEV car from empty to full overnight. It would be much simpler and less costly to get regular 120 volt plugs installed into all parking spots in an apartment compared to trying to get level 2 (240volt) plugs.

Scoundreller 7y ago
Whats so hard about 240v? Or are 15 amp 240v circuits not a thing? Other than the fact that newer residential buildings are sometimes 208v in N. America.
Gravityloss 7y ago
Yes. Looking at the whole market for the next 5 years, plugin hybrids could make a huge emissions reduction.
natch 7y ago
That’s some pretty tortured logic. The time for hybrids was 10, 20 years ago. Now we don’t have much time left to transition. The solution to the battery production capacity problem isn’t going to be to throw up our hands and say “oh well, guess we have to make compromised cars.” The solution is to figure it out and increase battery production radically. 10,000 fold if need be. Nobody is saying it will be easy. Weak solutions with highly polluting smaller engines (yes, small engines pollute much more per mile and even per gallon used) are fine in some cases temporarily for filling some of the gaps but they aren’t going to take us where we need to get to with emission reduction.

Scoundreller 7y ago

Whats so hard about 240v? Or are 15 amp 240v circuits not a thing? Other than the fact that newer residential buildings are sometimes 208v in N. America.

Gravityloss 7y ago

Yes. Looking at the whole market for the next 5 years, plugin hybrids could make a huge emissions reduction.

natch 7y ago

That’s some pretty tortured logic. The time for hybrids was 10, 20 years ago. Now we don’t have much time left to transition. The solution to the battery production capacity problem isn’t going to be to throw up our hands and say “oh well, guess we have to make compromised cars.” The solution is to figure it out and increase battery production radically. 10,000 fold if need be. Nobody is saying it will be easy. Weak solutions with highly polluting smaller engines (yes, small engines pollute much more per mile and even per gallon used) are fine in some cases temporarily for filling some of the gaps but they aren’t going to take us where we need to get to with emission reduction.