5 ms·

>New ways of wasting energy in maximum comfort, all around. "Over the course of 267 miles (430 km) and 8 hours, the car used 2.6 miles/kWh (23.7 kWh/100 km), b

by trhway 5y ago

>New ways of wasting energy in maximum comfort, all around. "Over the course of 267 miles (430 km) and 8 hours, the car used 2.6 miles/kWh (23.7 kWh/100 km), bearing in mind that those miles were all driven in Germany and include running at the car's top speed of 140 mph (225 km) on derestricted autobahns." ie. around 100 mpg. It is not even close to "waste", it is saving the planet in maximum comfort.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>It is not even close to "waste", it is saving the planet in maximum comfort. It's less wasteful than the ICE equivalent but in no way can it be described as saving the planet. If you are really serious about saving the planet then you buy a bicycle.
- trhway 5y ago
  >If you are really serious about saving the planet then you buy a bicycle. bicycle is 100miles/kwh. Human body is 25% efficient, so it is just 25 miles/kwh for the energy coming in the food - so for all the bicycle disadvantages (low speed, open to elements, no meaningful cargo capacity) it is only meager 10x difference with that 2+ tons BMW i4 (and only 7x difference with my Prius Plugin). The kwh in human food is much dirty than kwh for electric car, especially when electricity comes from renewables. The food requires tremendous expenditure of energy to produce it as well as it causes tremendous impact on the planet ecosystem due to agriculture.
  - morsch 5y ago
    I think the implied assumption is that you don't spend 6 hours a day riding the bike you just bought. Though conveniently, the obesity rates are high enough that even this wouldn't require an increase in calorie intake in the top polluting countries and would in fact be an overall improvement to national health. And you'd still produce much lower emissions. On a sidenote, >10% of conventional fuel is made via agriculture, and seemingly around 5% of electricity production in the US, 10% in EU28[1]. [1] https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/europa/75143/energiemix https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/europa/751...
jnsaff2 5y ago
That top speed part must have been very short as seen from a recent modelY video keeping that 220ish km/h takes about 110kW of power. As opposed to about 15kW for 90km/h.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
zucker42 5y ago
A fairer comparison would be emissions over the car's lifetime. The electric SUV would still almost certainly come out on top, but it's probably closer than the 100 vs 15 MPG would make it seem.
- thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
  > Battery manufacturing life-cycle emissions debt is quickly paid off. An electric vehicle’s higher emissions during the manufacturing stage are paid off after only 2 years compared to driving an average conventional vehicle, a time frame that drops to about one and a half years if the car is charged using renewable energy. Approximately half of a battery’s emissions come from electricity used in the manufacturing process From https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life-cycle-GHG_ICCT-Briefing_09022018_vF.pdf https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life... The important takeaway is that greener electricity grid will help both the emissions from manufacturing, as well as emissions from usage
WA 5y ago
> It is not even close to "waste", it is saving the planet in maximum comfort. It is 100 % waste and you don't "save" the planet. Saving the planet = no car. Yeah, an EV is less wasteful than an ICE. Just don't think you save the planet.
- trhway 5y ago
  that is a fallacy. Passenger vehicles are responsible for 10% of global emissions - so whether to drop it 4x (100mpg instead of 25mpg) to 2.5% or drop it to 0% wouldn't matter much. And using renewables for electricity we basically drop emissions to the rounding error around 0.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    Using global emissions is a neat trick here, because globally almost everyone can't afford a car.
  - morsch 5y ago
    Emissions will have to be reduced across all sectors, so if you merely manage to drop it to 2.5% of current emissions, that'll be a larger percentage in 2030 and 2050. If the trend continues and more people get more cars and drive them more (saving the world all the while), the share will increase further. Of course an infinite supply of green energy would solve everything, but unfortunately that's not available. We're not supplying enough green electricity to cover current demands, much less enough to cover the roughly doubled demand if we were to shift all transportation to EVs.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
  Plus the break-even for an EV vs ICE car is around the 100,000k mark, if I recall correctly, due to the energy required to build the battery in the EV. So: it’s complicated. It’d take me over ten years to do 100,000 kilometres, so probably the best car is the one I already have.
  - tashbarg 5y ago
morsch 5y ago
This new ice cream is low fat, I can eat as much of it as I want!
gitanovic 5y ago
As other people have pointed out, the efficiency should be calculated over the car lifetime, and including the average efficiency at which the electricity is produced in the areas where the car test was run... Germany produces a LOT of electricity from COAL, so we are replacing benzin and diesel with coal... not very smart in my eyes.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Germany produces a LOT of electricity from renewables as well. If you include nuclear then around 60% of the generated electricity was produced with low CO2 emissions.
lmm 5y ago
100mpg in non-city driving is an improvement over the average driver but not a game-changing one; that's maybe 40% better than a small car, and significantly worse than a light motorbike. When you take into account the increased road wear and space taken up it might even be a net negative on the whole.
leoedin 5y ago
Electricity made from fossil fuels is about 40% efficient (depending on method) - so that 100mpg in the car turns into 40mpg overall. The big benefit electric cars have is obviously that they can use renewable energy to charge, which reduces the carbon intensity of their electricity. But that's not a given - it depends hugely on location.

by trhway 5y ago

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

>It is not even close to "waste", it is saving the planet in maximum comfort. It's less wasteful than the ICE equivalent but in no way can it be described as saving the planet. If you are really serious about saving the planet then you buy a bicycle.

trhway 5y ago
>If you are really serious about saving the planet then you buy a bicycle. bicycle is 100miles/kwh. Human body is 25% efficient, so it is just 25 miles/kwh for the energy coming in the food - so for all the bicycle disadvantages (low speed, open to elements, no meaningful cargo capacity) it is only meager 10x difference with that 2+ tons BMW i4 (and only 7x difference with my Prius Plugin). The kwh in human food is much dirty than kwh for electric car, especially when electricity comes from renewables. The food requires tremendous expenditure of energy to produce it as well as it causes tremendous impact on the planet ecosystem due to agriculture.
- morsch 5y ago
  I think the implied assumption is that you don't spend 6 hours a day riding the bike you just bought. Though conveniently, the obesity rates are high enough that even this wouldn't require an increase in calorie intake in the top polluting countries and would in fact be an overall improvement to national health. And you'd still produce much lower emissions. On a sidenote, >10% of conventional fuel is made via agriculture, and seemingly around 5% of electricity production in the US, 10% in EU28[1]. [1] https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/europa/75143/energiemix https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/europa/751...

jnsaff2 5y ago

That top speed part must have been very short as seen from a recent modelY video keeping that 220ish km/h takes about 110kW of power. As opposed to about 15kW for 90km/h.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

zucker42 5y ago

A fairer comparison would be emissions over the car's lifetime. The electric SUV would still almost certainly come out on top, but it's probably closer than the 100 vs 15 MPG would make it seem.

thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
> Battery manufacturing life-cycle emissions debt is quickly paid off. An electric vehicle’s higher emissions during the manufacturing stage are paid off after only 2 years compared to driving an average conventional vehicle, a time frame that drops to about one and a half years if the car is charged using renewable energy. Approximately half of a battery’s emissions come from electricity used in the manufacturing process From https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life-cycle-GHG_ICCT-Briefing_09022018_vF.pdf https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life... The important takeaway is that greener electricity grid will help both the emissions from manufacturing, as well as emissions from usage

WA 5y ago

> It is not even close to "waste", it is saving the planet in maximum comfort. It is 100 % waste and you don't "save" the planet. Saving the planet = no car. Yeah, an EV is less wasteful than an ICE. Just don't think you save the planet.

trhway 5y ago
that is a fallacy. Passenger vehicles are responsible for 10% of global emissions - so whether to drop it 4x (100mpg instead of 25mpg) to 2.5% or drop it to 0% wouldn't matter much. And using renewables for electricity we basically drop emissions to the rounding error around 0.
- adrianN 5y ago
  Using global emissions is a neat trick here, because globally almost everyone can't afford a car.
- morsch 5y ago
  Emissions will have to be reduced across all sectors, so if you merely manage to drop it to 2.5% of current emissions, that'll be a larger percentage in 2030 and 2050. If the trend continues and more people get more cars and drive them more (saving the world all the while), the share will increase further. Of course an infinite supply of green energy would solve everything, but unfortunately that's not available. We're not supplying enough green electricity to cover current demands, much less enough to cover the roughly doubled demand if we were to shift all transportation to EVs.
TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
Plus the break-even for an EV vs ICE car is around the 100,000k mark, if I recall correctly, due to the energy required to build the battery in the EV. So: it’s complicated. It’d take me over ten years to do 100,000 kilometres, so probably the best car is the one I already have.
- tashbarg 5y ago

morsch 5y ago

This new ice cream is low fat, I can eat as much of it as I want!

gitanovic 5y ago

As other people have pointed out, the efficiency should be calculated over the car lifetime, and including the average efficiency at which the electricity is produced in the areas where the car test was run... Germany produces a LOT of electricity from COAL, so we are replacing benzin and diesel with coal... not very smart in my eyes.

imtringued 5y ago
Germany produces a LOT of electricity from renewables as well. If you include nuclear then around 60% of the generated electricity was produced with low CO2 emissions.

lmm 5y ago

100mpg in non-city driving is an improvement over the average driver but not a game-changing one; that's maybe 40% better than a small car, and significantly worse than a light motorbike. When you take into account the increased road wear and space taken up it might even be a net negative on the whole.

leoedin 5y ago

Electricity made from fossil fuels is about 40% efficient (depending on method) - so that 100mpg in the car turns into 40mpg overall. The big benefit electric cars have is obviously that they can use renewable energy to charge, which reduces the carbon intensity of their electricity. But that's not a given - it depends hugely on location.