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> don't forget the entire global shipping system which brings that fuel to you. You have missed my point entirely. If your local electric generation is the sam
by georgyo 5y ago
> don't forget the entire global shipping system which brings that fuel to you.
You have missed my point entirely. If your local electric generation is the same source as your car. You have not saved anything.
To reiterate again, if your local electric generation is green then things are going to be better for the environment. But if your local power plant is coal then an electric car is worse. Your car is indirectly burning coal to move. And the delivery and storage of that coal generated electric has lots of losses on the journey.
- acdha 5y agoIt's still not that simple. Internal-combustion engines are extremely inefficient (and pollute more since they're harder to monitor and not reliably professionally maintained) and there's a lot more waste involved at every point of that process. You also have factors like regenerative braking to further complicate the comparison. The other big factor to think about is the relative emissions profile of the shipping system which brings that fuel to you specifically where you live. It's true electric power has transmissions loses but those very considerably as a function of distance and it doesn't require the same power to be shipped multiple times. Shipping oil in a tanker with high-pollution marine Diesel engines is going to be different than piping it to a refinery or having a modern freight train haul either coal or oil, refineries aren't exactly low-pollution, and gas also requires a considerable amount of pollution shipping it to thousands of fuel stations (with electric power, at least a lot of the environmental impact is focused in one location).