4 ms·

For electric cars though, you make more money as a carmaker if their batteries are smaller, which happens when your consumption is lower, so it encourages slick

For electric cars though, you make more money as a carmaker if their batteries are smaller, which happens when your consumption is lower, so it encourages slicker designs, unlike ICE cars where somehow Americans still think 20mpg is acceptable in 2021, and the carmaker makes as much money or more selling you a 20 or a 50mpg car.

tenpies 5y ago
Unfortunately, and also "Led by Tesla" - the EV metrics that people have been trained to look for are now: range, 0-60 times, and such. Things like weight, battery capacity, or chemistry - all which have the largest impact on emissions - are ignored. In fact, judging by the chemistries that Tesla is now exporting from China, there will be a very serious effort to hide battery chemistry as much as possible.
- njarboe 5y ago
  The biggest emission reduction is when a person switches from using an ICE car to a EV car. Getting the price of a new EV car to be below a similar ICE car will cause that to happen very quickly. These new battery chemistries using iron instead of nickel are a key to reducing price and will lead to much quicker overall emission reductions. Also price is a close proxy for total energy. A ton of iron (~$200 a ton) surely takes a lot less energy to produce than a ton of nickel (~$20,000 a ton). I have no idea how much less but I would guess somewhere between 10 and 50 times less.
  - tenpies 5y ago
    > The biggest emission reduction is when a person switches from using an ICE car to a EV car. Not at all. The biggest emission reduction is when a person doesn't buy a new car at all. The greenest car is always the car that won't be made, regardless of propulsion system. A Tesla Model 3 is actually a more polluting vehicle than a Toyota Corolla up until the breakeven point of 21,000 KM (and change). [1] And that's assuming a US energy grid. If that same Tesla Model 3 is being driven in say, China, the Toyota Corolla is greener than the Model 3 until the 125,000 KM mark because the energy grid powering that Tesla is so absurdly dirty that just straight up burning fuel in an ICE is better basically for all its life. What we really need to move away from is the "well if everyone just gets a Tesla, the ice caps will un-melt". That's a great Musk-enrichment plan, but still awful for the environment. The energy grids powering the EVs are not going to go green anywhere near as fast as if we focused our efforts on mass transit and better urban planning. The issue with the battery chemistries is just a cherry on the fake-green sundae. You are correct in that those batteries may reduce emissions, but the trade off is increased weight (so you're just really shifting emissions around throughout the lifecycle) and a crushing loss in efficiency in cold weather climates. There is a reason why these are coming up during a time of scarcity. You don't switch back to battery technology from decades ago due to progress, you switch because key materials are not scarce and make it impossible for you to keep up the production necessary to prop your stock price. --- [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d...
    - njarboe 5y ago
      The biggest emission reduction would be if every person committed suicide today, so you can always reduce emissions more with more radical plans until you get to that point. Using nuclear power and wind with electric vehicles gets you pretty low environmental pollution for society's personal transportation needs. I think it would be easier to green the electric grid than to make everyone in America use mass transit and rebuild our cities. Model 3 bodies are designed for a million mile lifespan and the batteries for around 300-500 thousand miles. 125,000km (~80,000 miles) is no where near its expected lifespan. The batteries are warranted to 120,000 miles. We'll see how they actually wear out, but I believe Elon Musk actually wants to help humans impact the environment less while still improving the human condition. Building cars to last instead of planned obsolescence would be in alignment with that goal. People should really move to where they don't need heating if they want to reduce their carbon footprint. That would do more than any mass transit scheme.

tenpies 5y ago

Unfortunately, and also "Led by Tesla" - the EV metrics that people have been trained to look for are now: range, 0-60 times, and such. Things like weight, battery capacity, or chemistry - all which have the largest impact on emissions - are ignored. In fact, judging by the chemistries that Tesla is now exporting from China, there will be a very serious effort to hide battery chemistry as much as possible.

njarboe 5y ago
The biggest emission reduction is when a person switches from using an ICE car to a EV car. Getting the price of a new EV car to be below a similar ICE car will cause that to happen very quickly. These new battery chemistries using iron instead of nickel are a key to reducing price and will lead to much quicker overall emission reductions. Also price is a close proxy for total energy. A ton of iron (~$200 a ton) surely takes a lot less energy to produce than a ton of nickel (~$20,000 a ton). I have no idea how much less but I would guess somewhere between 10 and 50 times less.
- tenpies 5y ago
  > The biggest emission reduction is when a person switches from using an ICE car to a EV car. Not at all. The biggest emission reduction is when a person doesn't buy a new car at all. The greenest car is always the car that won't be made, regardless of propulsion system. A Tesla Model 3 is actually a more polluting vehicle than a Toyota Corolla up until the breakeven point of 21,000 KM (and change). [1] And that's assuming a US energy grid. If that same Tesla Model 3 is being driven in say, China, the Toyota Corolla is greener than the Model 3 until the 125,000 KM mark because the energy grid powering that Tesla is so absurdly dirty that just straight up burning fuel in an ICE is better basically for all its life. What we really need to move away from is the "well if everyone just gets a Tesla, the ice caps will un-melt". That's a great Musk-enrichment plan, but still awful for the environment. The energy grids powering the EVs are not going to go green anywhere near as fast as if we focused our efforts on mass transit and better urban planning. The issue with the battery chemistries is just a cherry on the fake-green sundae. You are correct in that those batteries may reduce emissions, but the trade off is increased weight (so you're just really shifting emissions around throughout the lifecycle) and a crushing loss in efficiency in cold weather climates. There is a reason why these are coming up during a time of scarcity. You don't switch back to battery technology from decades ago due to progress, you switch because key materials are not scarce and make it impossible for you to keep up the production necessary to prop your stock price. --- [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d...
  - njarboe 5y ago
    The biggest emission reduction would be if every person committed suicide today, so you can always reduce emissions more with more radical plans until you get to that point. Using nuclear power and wind with electric vehicles gets you pretty low environmental pollution for society's personal transportation needs. I think it would be easier to green the electric grid than to make everyone in America use mass transit and rebuild our cities. Model 3 bodies are designed for a million mile lifespan and the batteries for around 300-500 thousand miles. 125,000km (~80,000 miles) is no where near its expected lifespan. The batteries are warranted to 120,000 miles. We'll see how they actually wear out, but I believe Elon Musk actually wants to help humans impact the environment less while still improving the human condition. Building cars to last instead of planned obsolescence would be in alignment with that goal. People should really move to where they don't need heating if they want to reduce their carbon footprint. That would do more than any mass transit scheme.