3 ms·

Once you account for transmission, distribution, charging, and battery inefficiencies, electrics fall to the same range or below ice vehicles. Especially using

Once you account for transmission, distribution, charging, and battery inefficiencies, electrics fall to the same range or below ice vehicles. Especially using fast charging technology. And ironically, using grid renewables decreases relative efficiency, since they require more deployed infrastructure (collection, transmission, etc) per kilowatt-hour generated, since intermittency has to be factored in, as well as the embedded cost of whatever supplies power when the sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing, whether that be hydro, batteries, natural gas peakers, or nuclear.

rektide 5y ago
EIA estimates 5% grid loss. Charge cycles should be >85% efficient i'd hope (battery losses & charger losses) but probably not in all vehicles. Discharge I'd expect even better. Your guestimate sounds way way off to me. I'd also expect significant improvement over time. We're just getting good at GaN fets & SiC fets, which usually have a couple % boost to efficiencies versus classic semiconductor chemistries. Newer lower internal resistance batteries provide more power on demand and heat up less, again boosting efficiency. Where-as with cars we've had a number of historical events pushing us towards efficiency, huge incentives to make trucking or other major industries more efficienct, and yet we've seen dwindling returns on optimization investment: we're already very good at gas. Short of jumping to turbines or other radical leaps. You also havent accounted for energy costs to store, transport/distribute gas, in spite of holding that against electric vehicles. I expect that's probably >15% efficiency loss there too for gas. We could go deeper & assess the energy inputs required to produce these units of power, a gallon of refined low sulfur highway gas versus the kWh produced by solar, nuclear, natural gas, or, heaven forbid coal at the power plant. Again i feel like gas is rapidly losing efficiency marks versus the competiton. Off the cuff I'd expect >3x energy efficiency net.

rektide 5y ago

EIA estimates 5% grid loss. Charge cycles should be >85% efficient i'd hope (battery losses & charger losses) but probably not in all vehicles. Discharge I'd expect even better. Your guestimate sounds way way off to me. I'd also expect significant improvement over time. We're just getting good at GaN fets & SiC fets, which usually have a couple % boost to efficiencies versus classic semiconductor chemistries. Newer lower internal resistance batteries provide more power on demand and heat up less, again boosting efficiency. Where-as with cars we've had a number of historical events pushing us towards efficiency, huge incentives to make trucking or other major industries more efficienct, and yet we've seen dwindling returns on optimization investment: we're already very good at gas. Short of jumping to turbines or other radical leaps. You also havent accounted for energy costs to store, transport/distribute gas, in spite of holding that against electric vehicles. I expect that's probably >15% efficiency loss there too for gas. We could go deeper & assess the energy inputs required to produce these units of power, a gallon of refined low sulfur highway gas versus the kWh produced by solar, nuclear, natural gas, or, heaven forbid coal at the power plant. Again i feel like gas is rapidly losing efficiency marks versus the competiton. Off the cuff I'd expect >3x energy efficiency net.