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What part of it is a lie? It's only a lie if you have been indoctrinated by EPA because of hegemonial car politics in the US favouring gas. Diesel still is mor

What part of it is a lie? It's only a lie if you have been indoctrinated by EPA because of hegemonial car politics in the US favouring gas. Diesel still is more efficient than electro taking the whole supply chain into account. The lack of efficiency of e-vehicles is only justified if you have a "I do not care about efficiency" power source = the sun. And even in that case its questionable if the required ressources to produce, distribute and refurbish batteries will ever outcompete the production ressource requirements of carbon fuel. Not to speak about that you can pour every diesel in every car, this is not true for car batteries.

sideshowb 6y ago
Electric beats diesel even on the current UK grid mix which still heavily relies on natural gas. This is far from "not caring about efficiency". It just turns out a centralized big turbine plus electrical distribution is more efficient than ICE in every vehicle.
- jhoechtl 6y ago
  I fully understand the thermodynamics of ICEs and that every electric motor in a car is easily more efficient in converting power into torque. However the efficiency of converting sun into electricity is around 35%. While driving your car carries a heavy battery of 100es of kilogramms which can only store 1/3 of energy per volume compared to eg. Diesel. So in my calculation the net efficiency of diesel is higher.
  - theluketaylor 6y ago
    Every study that looks at total carbon emissions for a vehicle's lifespan, including manufacturing batteries for EVs and drilling/transporting the oil for ICE (whether gas or diesel) has EV coming out on top. The first year the ICE wins quite handily, but the EV chips away over time and after 3-4 years (depending on the local grid and driving habits) is a net carbon reduction. Plus the ICE vehicle is the cleanest it will ever be on delivery day. Even with modern catalytic converters and engine management ICE vehicles will start to use more fuel and emit more particulates over its lifespan. EVs get cleaner as the green decarbonizes. Then take into account that ICE worst case scenario for carbon emissions is around town, stop and go traffic, which is what most passenger cars spend their lives doing. It also happens to be the EV best case, since region braking makes the most out of the available energy.
  - brrt 6y ago
    I don't understand what measure of efficiency you are trying to use, in which Diesel would end up being better. In environmental discussions that measure is usually something of grams-of-CO2-equivalent emitted per km. One oddity is that the usually communicated figure is only that emittted 'at the tailpipe', which is obviously zero for full electrics. Often people try to compensate by taking the kWh-per-km figure and multiplying by the CO2-per-kWh figure for their environment. This is however still misleading if compared with the tailpipe CO2 for an ICE, because the production of gasoline or diesel are also fairly CO2-intensive. The official term of use is well-to-wheel efficiency or emissions; there is no doubt at all that electric vehicles beat ICE vehicles easily, basically on account of the ICE being relatively inefficient because of size/performance constraints. Obviously the actually interesting figure of merit is the lifetime emissions (and the 'useful work' gained from those emissions) and while methods and tools to compute this exist computing this in a reasonable way means making a lot of assumptions (such as the miles-per-lifetime), assumptions that will be easily attacked on internet fora, and assumptions that can easily be tweaked to show what you want to show. The reality is that (full) electric vehicles are practical and efficient for most of the population today, if not in the very near future, and that it's hard to imagine that the current dependency on oil will last very long. Ten years is a long time.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    I think you forgot that plants are not magic and they suffer from the same "sun to energy" inefficiency problems.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rich_sasha 6y ago
I'm hopeful that electric cars are the saviour, and don't know of any reasons to think otherwise. It's more that last time we had the eco-friendly saviour of Diesel Cars given to us, it was also rosy, until it wasn't. For example, British cities have way-too-high levels of NO2 pollution, and this is usually attributed to diesels. And not nice to live through, truth be told.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  Britain has great difficulties making any restrictions on motor vehicles. Only London has any significant restrictions. Look at the map [1] where many mid-sized German, Dutch and some Italian towns restrict old/polluting cars from being used. Meanwhile, British cities talk a lot, but delay any implementation until the following year. Fuel duty has stayed the same for 10 years, but public transport fares have risen every year. [1] https://urbanaccessregulations.eu/userhome/map https://urbanaccessregulations.eu/userhome/map
Aunche 6y ago
The lie was cheating on their emissions test that was estimated to haves 5000 premature deaths a year. Of course, the EU hegemon would rather enforce vague definitions of "competition" on American tech companies. Renault, which cheated on emissions got a $5 billion bailout instead.
simias 6y ago
Local air pollution caused by Diesel engines is a real issue in many European cities where Diesel was embraced. The big picture matters of course, but you can't discard smaller scale issues either. Diesel engines are usually significantly louder too.

sideshowb 6y ago

Electric beats diesel even on the current UK grid mix which still heavily relies on natural gas. This is far from "not caring about efficiency". It just turns out a centralized big turbine plus electrical distribution is more efficient than ICE in every vehicle.

jhoechtl 6y ago
I fully understand the thermodynamics of ICEs and that every electric motor in a car is easily more efficient in converting power into torque. However the efficiency of converting sun into electricity is around 35%. While driving your car carries a heavy battery of 100es of kilogramms which can only store 1/3 of energy per volume compared to eg. Diesel. So in my calculation the net efficiency of diesel is higher.
- theluketaylor 6y ago
  Every study that looks at total carbon emissions for a vehicle's lifespan, including manufacturing batteries for EVs and drilling/transporting the oil for ICE (whether gas or diesel) has EV coming out on top. The first year the ICE wins quite handily, but the EV chips away over time and after 3-4 years (depending on the local grid and driving habits) is a net carbon reduction. Plus the ICE vehicle is the cleanest it will ever be on delivery day. Even with modern catalytic converters and engine management ICE vehicles will start to use more fuel and emit more particulates over its lifespan. EVs get cleaner as the green decarbonizes. Then take into account that ICE worst case scenario for carbon emissions is around town, stop and go traffic, which is what most passenger cars spend their lives doing. It also happens to be the EV best case, since region braking makes the most out of the available energy.
- brrt 6y ago
  I don't understand what measure of efficiency you are trying to use, in which Diesel would end up being better. In environmental discussions that measure is usually something of grams-of-CO2-equivalent emitted per km. One oddity is that the usually communicated figure is only that emittted 'at the tailpipe', which is obviously zero for full electrics. Often people try to compensate by taking the kWh-per-km figure and multiplying by the CO2-per-kWh figure for their environment. This is however still misleading if compared with the tailpipe CO2 for an ICE, because the production of gasoline or diesel are also fairly CO2-intensive. The official term of use is well-to-wheel efficiency or emissions; there is no doubt at all that electric vehicles beat ICE vehicles easily, basically on account of the ICE being relatively inefficient because of size/performance constraints. Obviously the actually interesting figure of merit is the lifetime emissions (and the 'useful work' gained from those emissions) and while methods and tools to compute this exist computing this in a reasonable way means making a lot of assumptions (such as the miles-per-lifetime), assumptions that will be easily attacked on internet fora, and assumptions that can easily be tweaked to show what you want to show. The reality is that (full) electric vehicles are practical and efficient for most of the population today, if not in the very near future, and that it's hard to imagine that the current dependency on oil will last very long. Ten years is a long time.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I think you forgot that plants are not magic and they suffer from the same "sun to energy" inefficiency problems.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rich_sasha 6y ago

I'm hopeful that electric cars are the saviour, and don't know of any reasons to think otherwise. It's more that last time we had the eco-friendly saviour of Diesel Cars given to us, it was also rosy, until it wasn't. For example, British cities have way-too-high levels of NO2 pollution, and this is usually attributed to diesels. And not nice to live through, truth be told.

Symbiote 6y ago
Britain has great difficulties making any restrictions on motor vehicles. Only London has any significant restrictions. Look at the map [1] where many mid-sized German, Dutch and some Italian towns restrict old/polluting cars from being used. Meanwhile, British cities talk a lot, but delay any implementation until the following year. Fuel duty has stayed the same for 10 years, but public transport fares have risen every year. [1] https://urbanaccessregulations.eu/userhome/map https://urbanaccessregulations.eu/userhome/map

Aunche 6y ago

The lie was cheating on their emissions test that was estimated to haves 5000 premature deaths a year. Of course, the EU hegemon would rather enforce vague definitions of "competition" on American tech companies. Renault, which cheated on emissions got a $5 billion bailout instead.

simias 6y ago

Local air pollution caused by Diesel engines is a real issue in many European cities where Diesel was embraced. The big picture matters of course, but you can't discard smaller scale issues either. Diesel engines are usually significantly louder too.