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Volvo released a study [1] which states that an electric Volvo C40 needs to be driven for 68,300 miles before it reaches a CO2 break-even compared to an ICE XC4

Volvo released a study [1] which states that an electric Volvo C40 needs to be driven for 68,300 miles before it reaches a CO2 break-even compared to an ICE XC40. This assumes no replacement of any battery cells before reaching the ~68k miles. Can someone explain to me why there is so little public discussion to what extent electric and hybrid vehicles actually help to reduce our global carbon footprint? [1] https://www.carscoops.com/2021/11/volvo-says-manufacturing-an-electric-car-generates-70-percent-more-emissions-than-its-petrol-equivalent/ https://www.carscoops.com/2021/11/volvo-says-manufacturing-a...

j_walter 4y ago
Because that would make people not feel as good about "doing their part". No one likes to think about where all that Lithium came from and the not so great humanitarian practices surrounding those mines. Many people just like to think they are "being green" and "battling climate change" with a purchase of a Tesla or Rivian...when really it takes a LOT more than that.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  There is little individuals can do, short of adopting better habits and investing in funds that finance renewable build-out. The amount they can invest is typically very limited. We are at the mercy of the people who influence investment of multi-billion-dollar funds, in industry and in government. Supporting candidates who can direct subsidies to actually useful renewable build out could have outsized impact. Each dollar diverted from building out renewables to almost anything else, nukes particularly included, brings climate catastrophe nearer.
  - j_walter 4y ago
    The problem is we need to listen to people who understand how to make things actually happen. Politicians push electric cars without understanding the strain that will put on the grid as it currently sits. They push banning coal and NG power plans without making sure there are alternatives available (just wind and/or solar is not sufficient by themselves). All we hear is "we need electric cars to avoid climate change"...without addressing the huge amounts of other changes that are needed.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Increased demand for power to charge cars will drive demand for build-out of clean generating capacity. Decreased use of petrol-powered cars makes voters less sensitive to gas prices, thus desperately needed carbon taxes, and more interested in cheaper, thus renewable, electrical generation. The current US president is lately hustling eliminating tax on gasoline, instead, in an almost certainly doomed bid to fend off loss of majority in the upcoming congressional election. A big gas tax with monthly cash payouts to people with average and below incomes (i.e. most voters) would go over better.
      - j_walter 4y ago
        >Increased demand for power to charge cars will drive demand for build-out of clean generating capacity This doesn't happen overnight and we already can forecast the need. Power generation projects (transmission on top of generation) has to be planned for many years in advance.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        The best time for that was years ago. The second best is right now.
    - swatcoder 4y ago
      > All we hear is "we need electric cars to avoid climate change"...without addressing the huge amounts of other changes that are needed. That’s not something I’ve experienced. It might be a sign that you’re not looking at the same sources of information as the rest of us.
      - j_walter 4y ago
        https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-greenhouse-gases/ZEV https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-g... https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-greenhouse-gases/Investing-in-cleaner-transportation/Grant-funded-projects https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-g... None of the "Climate change" acts on the WA government website address where the electricity will be coming from for all of the zero emissions cars. In fact the only item I can find where they talk about sustainable energy...the goals were for 2020. https://results.wa.gov/measuring-progress/archived-outcome-measures/goal-3-sustainable-energy-clean-environment-goal-map https://results.wa.gov/measuring-progress/archived-outcome-m...
sueders101 4y ago
Your article states 68,300 figure is using average global energy supply at the time. As grid decarbonization happens that break even point can be reduced to as little as 30,000 according to the article(pure renewable scenario). It's not an overnight fix, but it's a clear improvement.
- marsokod 4y ago
  Not only that, but Volvo is procuring their batteries in China and the footprint for battery production is deeply impacted by the carbon intensity of the grid where it is produced. So using a Volvo is already close to a worst case for the battery production. Any reduction in this can have a big effect. The EV here is 10.7tons more intensive to build, and the battery counts for 7 tons.
ncmncm 4y ago
The more renewable generation capacity gets built, the smaller the CO2 footprint of things made in factories served by it. At some point, almost everything will have no carbon footprint. So, if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, invest in building out renewables. Everything downstream of it will automatically contribute less to the terrifyingly fast approaching climate catastrophe. It seems just barely possible that the catastrophe can be averted before global civilization collapses. Humans would survive that, but not solar panel, chip, or car factories.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Why would civilization collapse? Do you mean that major countries will collapse?
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Global civilization is intimately interconnected. Any serious upset would wipe out the industries most dependent upon it. The first to go would be everything high-tech -- chips, aircraft, cars. New car manufacturies like in the 20th century might be got up from the scraps. But mass starvation would ensue, leading to huge wars that probably would quickly turn nuclear. The most likely proximate causes of collapse would be ocean ecosystem collapse caused by acidification, eliminating the current protein source billions of people depend on, or mass migration from newly uninhabitable areas. We see hints of both already.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
Presumably the calculation would be similar for Teslas. In which case my 2015 Model S reached break-even three years ago. It has done 108 thousand miles and the battery seems to have as much capacity as when it was new. What discussion does there need to be? Your own example demonstrates that the EV version is better than the ICE version as far as total CO2 emissions are concerned. Or are you implying that the average life span of modern cars is less than 68k miles? "According to a report from Consumer Reports, the common lifespan of a car is still estimated to be about eight years or 150,000 miles" https://cascadecollision.com/blog/what-is-the-average-life-of-a-car/ https://cascadecollision.com/blog/what-is-the-average-life-o...
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
  > Your own example demonstrates that the EV version is better than the ICE version Better doesn't make it worth it. There are all sorts of tradeoffs involved . Governments are asking their citizens a lot in terms of sacrifice. If it doesn't move the needle significantly it means tons of quality of life lost given the scale of this experiment. Exactly like COVID lockdowns. Were they worth it? It's still contentious. Given the scale of the costs of lockdowns "contentious" won't cut it. It should be more like "thank God we did it". The feeling should be at the equivalent of when the Cuban Missile Crisis ended. I don't know about you but I most certanely don't feel that. I feel the contentious nature of lockdowns but endured the certain and ample consequences of all of that.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Civilization not collapsing would be a big benefit, but one hard to count. It would be worth a very great deal of present inconvenience and discomfort. That would only be perceptible much later. But like "Y2K", all the work that went into averting catastrophe looks wasted afterward. With plenty of people available to insist no catastrophe looms, it is hard to get people to do anything. About the only lever we have access to, pre-catastrophe, is that renewables are vastly cheaper than everything else we are using to generate power. We can only pray it will prove enough. So, things that make influential people more sensitive to electricity prices and less sensitive to gasoline prices help.
ace2358 4y ago
Pretty silly issue no? What’s the carbon break even point of an ICE car? If our energy generation and manufacturing technology matures for 50 years, how long would it take to break even then? Do you have any idea how far ICE cars have come over the past 50 years on efficiency and pollution? If we give up at the start of any new technology because it doesn’t instantly solve problems we wouldn’t have anything to show for ourselves. Progress starts with making things somewhat worse first, then iterating. If it’s between 70k miles to break even or and infinite amount for an ICE I’d still take the electric Volvo. Also, I expect my cars to last 300k - 500k KM.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  Yup. Volvo is pointing out that the car breaks even within roughly the first lease period of 2-3 years. The average age of a car on the roads in the US is currently four times that. Electric vehicles tend to be more reliable, because of their dramatically simpler powertrains. Plus, every year, more and more energy comes from lower carbon sources. It's really frustrating that dialog on improvements in drivetrain systems is still regularly hampered by the same arguments we saw back when the first generation prius came out. Same with solar. There's always someone shouting about how they "take forever to pay back." Reality: one to three years, and their "lifetime" is 20-30. And "lifetime" means "time until they are producing less than 80% of their nameplate rating", not "time until they are useless."
  - robomartin 4y ago
    > Reality: one to three years, and their "lifetime" is 20-30. No, that’s a fantasy. My 13 kW system will probably take 10 years, maybe more. A good friend of mine, with a similar system as mine but a few years older has already had three (quality, name brand) panels fail (the regulators). Most of my neighbors with the ~4 kW systems they were leasing to people years ago say it was a complete waste of time. Also, have you seen what power companies are doing with rates? Peak electricity is up to $0.65 per kWh. Good luck breaking even if you install solar under these conditions. When I did my system rates were less than half what they are today. I love solar, or I would not have made the investment. However, there’s the reality of solar and the fantasy or dream of solar. Most people don’t understand the realities of the technology and think of it as magical free power. That, it is not. Not even close. I can show you horrible looking power output graphs of what happens when a cloud flies by…which happens a lot. You can easily lose 50% of your output for an hour. And, like my neighbors, if you have a small system, you are getting screwed at $0.65 per kWh.
abc_lisper 4y ago
https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better-for-the-environment/ https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better...
askafriend 4y ago
Zoom out. The idea is that if you can get all vehicles onto the electrical grid, then you can transition these vehicles almost instantly to use better and better sources of energy as technology evolves. This is because you can change the composition of the electrical grid (it can be powered by wind, water, solar, nuclear, etc). It makes the energy source fungible as the grid becomes the delivery mechanism. Once vehicles are hooked up to this electrical infrastructure, we gain a lot of leverage as a society to move collectively in a better direction. With ICE, there is only 1 viable fuel source - gasoline. Once an ICE car is built, you cannot transition it to be powered by anything else. Squabbling about carbon break-even points of individual car purchases is missing the forest for the trees IMO.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Not much convinced: we have different kind of nearly-identical ICEs vehicles burning a certain range of chemicals like: petrol, diesel, alcohol, gazogene, synfuel of various kind (from ammonia derivates to modern biodisel) to liquefied petroleum gases and methane. For EVs we have just variation of lithium battery tech on board and few classic ways to produce electricity to recharge them. It's not different. The different part is in performance terms and in scalability terms. Can we produce AND RECYCLE batteries for any personal vehicles and eVTOL? I doubt and I'm not alone. Articles like https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vny5/glorified-electric-golf-carts-for-all https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vny5/glorified-electric-go... or https://www.motorious.com/articles/features-3/uk-eliminating-car-ownership/ https://www.motorious.com/articles/features-3/uk-eliminating... seems to confirm what we are really heading: most will live in cities like [1] essentially traveling only locally by feet, bicycles and wired public transports (rails, metro etc), very few will live well outside moving like https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-report.pdf https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... it might sound "a dream" but try too look WHO ARE the dreamers and what they actually do... Oh, BTW we always talk about personal vehicles and homes, nothing about industry, transports etc... What the vision for them? New sailing tall vessels like [2] are no less dreams with little practical usage, H₂ propelled airplanes etc are on the same level. That part is CONSTANTLY omitted in Green discussions like the new geothermal heat pump can born in the house backyard. Sure additive manufacturing is a promising revolution but so far is not much more than a promise. Sure the dream of fusion reactors, perhaps small enough to be embedded in homes, cars etc would be a game-changer but so far what's on the table? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... witch means on the advertisement side https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/34827717.html https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/34827717.html / https://youtu.be/p-9X8Z2kJt8 https://youtu.be/p-9X8Z2kJt8 and on the practical implementation side https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/19/why-greeces-expensive-new-migrant-camps-are-outraging-ngos https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/19/why-greeces-ex... [2] https://www.decadeofwindpropulsion.org/ https://www.decadeofwindpropulsion.org/ or https://safety4sea.com/new-wing-sail-technology-to-be-launched/ https://safety4sea.com/new-wing-sail-technology-to-be-launch... or https://gcaptain.com/construction-worlds-largest-cargo-sailing-ship-moves-step-closer-reality/ https://gcaptain.com/construction-worlds-largest-cargo-saili... etc https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/oceanbird-ro-ro-embarking-on-a-new-era-of-wind-propulsion/ https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/oceanbird-ro-ro-embarki...
Vvector 4y ago
That's a big distortion of the article. You left out the first line of the paragraph "When using the average global energy supply...". That is calculating the CO2 from coal and gas plants to generate the electricity. The very next paragraph says that when recharging on renewables, "the breakeven is just over 30,000 miles (48,280 km)". That's under three years for most people. We are not there yet, but great progress is being made.
spoonjim 4y ago
... and? A car lasts a hell of a lot longer than 68,300 miles.
anonygler 4y ago
It's worth noting that this likely assumes the batteries are newly manufactured. Lithium batteries can be recycled and reused many times.
darkteflon 4y ago
As a resident of any modern city, the reduction in _tailpipe_ emissions alone would make it worth it in terms of a cleaner local environment, even if there were no reduction in absolute emissions which - as many commenters have pointed out - depends in large part on your generation mix.
- clouddrover 4y ago
  Maybe. EVs still generate non-exhaust emissions: https://jalopnik.com/emissions-from-tire-wear-are-a-whole-lot-worse-than-we-1849023188 https://jalopnik.com/emissions-from-tire-wear-are-a-whole-lo... https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/gaining-traction-losing-tread https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/gaining-traction-los... https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-...
  - darkteflon 4y ago
    Okay, but clearly ICE vehicles do those things too. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to eschew electrification of vehicle drivetrains just because you can’t yet solve tire wear pollution. I’m very much in the “let’s design our cities for people and bicycles” camp, but if people have to drive, I’d certainly prefer not to have my kids breathing the by-products of combusting hydrocarbons all day every day.
    - clouddrover 4y ago
      Your kids will be breathing in non-exhaust emissions all day every day: > "Non-exhaust emissions (NEE) are particles released into the air from brake wear, tyre wear, road surface wear and resuspension of road dust during on-road vehicle usage. No legislation is in place to limit or reduce NEE, but they cause a great deal of concern for air quality. > "NEEs are currently believed to constitute the majority of primary particulate matter from road transport, 60 percent of PM2.5 and 73 percent of PM10 – and in its 2019 report ‘Non-Exhaust Emissions from Road Traffic’ by the UK Government’s Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG), it recommended that NEE are immediately recognised as a source of ambient concentrations of airborne particulate matter, even for vehicles with zero exhaust emissions of particles – such as EVs." As ever, there are no easy answers. Everything costs.
kkfx 4y ago
You'll find no official explanation because "the public" mostly act as Gustave Le Bon (psychology of the crowd) and Eduard Bernays (propaganda) have observed in the recent past. Neoliberal economy have cyclic crisis solved with wars, big wars, whose target is stealing someone else richness and justify the mess with the ongoing war situation. We are at the beginning of such cycle. EVs probably serve a purpose: if you buy it and you have followed the new deal so far, you'll suffer less: living in an insulated, airtight modern home, with perhaps p.v. and lithium storage, and EV etc you can surpass frequent electricity and gas supply disruptions, you have enough space to store water, food in freezer etc to cope with irregular wartime-alike supply deficit, you'll be less touched by stagflation etc if you are also wealthy enough at the right time you might be able to buy for very little price valuable assets than in a sooner future became far more valued on the market. The "carbon footprint" is that. A way to justify social score, covid pass was the first general-public test, it have durability issues, people do not accept them longer, while they are trained to scan Qr codes for anything, like Chinese ones, so the next will be carbon score: if you have followed the new deal your score will be good, so you'll live well, others will not. It's just a kind of common misunderstanding: Green New Deal for many means spring-grass-green new deal, for the Earth, actually it means dollar-green-new-deal and the climate target is the neoliberals chiefs climate, economical and social one. Global carbon footprint is the same: a tool to classify people by census and obeisance. Try to re-read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... how can be achieved such scenario? How can be made McKinsey work-lager-factories like https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/how-we-help-clients/capital-excellence/cities https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/how-w... ? You can't simply made them: people will revolt. But if they are forced to accept them for economical reasons, like they can't afford living like before, because of war, resource scarcity, grasshoppers invasion etc... Those who have followed anyway will get a future like https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-report.pdf https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... so they have not much reasons to complaint, those in modern prisons can't complaint... Voilà the 2030 scenario built.

j_walter 4y ago

Because that would make people not feel as good about "doing their part". No one likes to think about where all that Lithium came from and the not so great humanitarian practices surrounding those mines. Many people just like to think they are "being green" and "battling climate change" with a purchase of a Tesla or Rivian...when really it takes a LOT more than that.

ncmncm 4y ago
There is little individuals can do, short of adopting better habits and investing in funds that finance renewable build-out. The amount they can invest is typically very limited. We are at the mercy of the people who influence investment of multi-billion-dollar funds, in industry and in government. Supporting candidates who can direct subsidies to actually useful renewable build out could have outsized impact. Each dollar diverted from building out renewables to almost anything else, nukes particularly included, brings climate catastrophe nearer.
- j_walter 4y ago
  The problem is we need to listen to people who understand how to make things actually happen. Politicians push electric cars without understanding the strain that will put on the grid as it currently sits. They push banning coal and NG power plans without making sure there are alternatives available (just wind and/or solar is not sufficient by themselves). All we hear is "we need electric cars to avoid climate change"...without addressing the huge amounts of other changes that are needed.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Increased demand for power to charge cars will drive demand for build-out of clean generating capacity. Decreased use of petrol-powered cars makes voters less sensitive to gas prices, thus desperately needed carbon taxes, and more interested in cheaper, thus renewable, electrical generation. The current US president is lately hustling eliminating tax on gasoline, instead, in an almost certainly doomed bid to fend off loss of majority in the upcoming congressional election. A big gas tax with monthly cash payouts to people with average and below incomes (i.e. most voters) would go over better.
    - j_walter 4y ago
      >Increased demand for power to charge cars will drive demand for build-out of clean generating capacity This doesn't happen overnight and we already can forecast the need. Power generation projects (transmission on top of generation) has to be planned for many years in advance.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        The best time for that was years ago. The second best is right now.
  - swatcoder 4y ago
    > All we hear is "we need electric cars to avoid climate change"...without addressing the huge amounts of other changes that are needed. That’s not something I’ve experienced. It might be a sign that you’re not looking at the same sources of information as the rest of us.
    - j_walter 4y ago
      https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-greenhouse-gases/ZEV https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-g... https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-greenhouse-gases/Investing-in-cleaner-transportation/Grant-funded-projects https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Climate-change/Reducing-g... None of the "Climate change" acts on the WA government website address where the electricity will be coming from for all of the zero emissions cars. In fact the only item I can find where they talk about sustainable energy...the goals were for 2020. https://results.wa.gov/measuring-progress/archived-outcome-measures/goal-3-sustainable-energy-clean-environment-goal-map https://results.wa.gov/measuring-progress/archived-outcome-m...

sueders101 4y ago

Your article states 68,300 figure is using average global energy supply at the time. As grid decarbonization happens that break even point can be reduced to as little as 30,000 according to the article(pure renewable scenario). It's not an overnight fix, but it's a clear improvement.

marsokod 4y ago
Not only that, but Volvo is procuring their batteries in China and the footprint for battery production is deeply impacted by the carbon intensity of the grid where it is produced. So using a Volvo is already close to a worst case for the battery production. Any reduction in this can have a big effect. The EV here is 10.7tons more intensive to build, and the battery counts for 7 tons.

ncmncm 4y ago

The more renewable generation capacity gets built, the smaller the CO2 footprint of things made in factories served by it. At some point, almost everything will have no carbon footprint. So, if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, invest in building out renewables. Everything downstream of it will automatically contribute less to the terrifyingly fast approaching climate catastrophe. It seems just barely possible that the catastrophe can be averted before global civilization collapses. Humans would survive that, but not solar panel, chip, or car factories.

kzrdude 4y ago
Why would civilization collapse? Do you mean that major countries will collapse?
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Global civilization is intimately interconnected. Any serious upset would wipe out the industries most dependent upon it. The first to go would be everything high-tech -- chips, aircraft, cars. New car manufacturies like in the 20th century might be got up from the scraps. But mass starvation would ensue, leading to huge wars that probably would quickly turn nuclear. The most likely proximate causes of collapse would be ocean ecosystem collapse caused by acidification, eliminating the current protein source billions of people depend on, or mass migration from newly uninhabitable areas. We see hints of both already.

kwhitefoot 4y ago

Presumably the calculation would be similar for Teslas. In which case my 2015 Model S reached break-even three years ago. It has done 108 thousand miles and the battery seems to have as much capacity as when it was new. What discussion does there need to be? Your own example demonstrates that the EV version is better than the ICE version as far as total CO2 emissions are concerned. Or are you implying that the average life span of modern cars is less than 68k miles? "According to a report from Consumer Reports, the common lifespan of a car is still estimated to be about eight years or 150,000 miles" https://cascadecollision.com/blog/what-is-the-average-life-of-a-car/ https://cascadecollision.com/blog/what-is-the-average-life-o...

Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
> Your own example demonstrates that the EV version is better than the ICE version Better doesn't make it worth it. There are all sorts of tradeoffs involved . Governments are asking their citizens a lot in terms of sacrifice. If it doesn't move the needle significantly it means tons of quality of life lost given the scale of this experiment. Exactly like COVID lockdowns. Were they worth it? It's still contentious. Given the scale of the costs of lockdowns "contentious" won't cut it. It should be more like "thank God we did it". The feeling should be at the equivalent of when the Cuban Missile Crisis ended. I don't know about you but I most certanely don't feel that. I feel the contentious nature of lockdowns but endured the certain and ample consequences of all of that.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Civilization not collapsing would be a big benefit, but one hard to count. It would be worth a very great deal of present inconvenience and discomfort. That would only be perceptible much later. But like "Y2K", all the work that went into averting catastrophe looks wasted afterward. With plenty of people available to insist no catastrophe looms, it is hard to get people to do anything. About the only lever we have access to, pre-catastrophe, is that renewables are vastly cheaper than everything else we are using to generate power. We can only pray it will prove enough. So, things that make influential people more sensitive to electricity prices and less sensitive to gasoline prices help.

ace2358 4y ago

Pretty silly issue no? What’s the carbon break even point of an ICE car? If our energy generation and manufacturing technology matures for 50 years, how long would it take to break even then? Do you have any idea how far ICE cars have come over the past 50 years on efficiency and pollution? If we give up at the start of any new technology because it doesn’t instantly solve problems we wouldn’t have anything to show for ourselves. Progress starts with making things somewhat worse first, then iterating. If it’s between 70k miles to break even or and infinite amount for an ICE I’d still take the electric Volvo. Also, I expect my cars to last 300k - 500k KM.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
Yup. Volvo is pointing out that the car breaks even within roughly the first lease period of 2-3 years. The average age of a car on the roads in the US is currently four times that. Electric vehicles tend to be more reliable, because of their dramatically simpler powertrains. Plus, every year, more and more energy comes from lower carbon sources. It's really frustrating that dialog on improvements in drivetrain systems is still regularly hampered by the same arguments we saw back when the first generation prius came out. Same with solar. There's always someone shouting about how they "take forever to pay back." Reality: one to three years, and their "lifetime" is 20-30. And "lifetime" means "time until they are producing less than 80% of their nameplate rating", not "time until they are useless."
- robomartin 4y ago
  > Reality: one to three years, and their "lifetime" is 20-30. No, that’s a fantasy. My 13 kW system will probably take 10 years, maybe more. A good friend of mine, with a similar system as mine but a few years older has already had three (quality, name brand) panels fail (the regulators). Most of my neighbors with the ~4 kW systems they were leasing to people years ago say it was a complete waste of time. Also, have you seen what power companies are doing with rates? Peak electricity is up to $0.65 per kWh. Good luck breaking even if you install solar under these conditions. When I did my system rates were less than half what they are today. I love solar, or I would not have made the investment. However, there’s the reality of solar and the fantasy or dream of solar. Most people don’t understand the realities of the technology and think of it as magical free power. That, it is not. Not even close. I can show you horrible looking power output graphs of what happens when a cloud flies by…which happens a lot. You can easily lose 50% of your output for an hour. And, like my neighbors, if you have a small system, you are getting screwed at $0.65 per kWh.

abc_lisper 4y ago

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better-for-the-environment/ https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better...

askafriend 4y ago

Zoom out. The idea is that if you can get all vehicles onto the electrical grid, then you can transition these vehicles almost instantly to use better and better sources of energy as technology evolves. This is because you can change the composition of the electrical grid (it can be powered by wind, water, solar, nuclear, etc). It makes the energy source fungible as the grid becomes the delivery mechanism. Once vehicles are hooked up to this electrical infrastructure, we gain a lot of leverage as a society to move collectively in a better direction. With ICE, there is only 1 viable fuel source - gasoline. Once an ICE car is built, you cannot transition it to be powered by anything else. Squabbling about carbon break-even points of individual car purchases is missing the forest for the trees IMO.

kkfx 4y ago
Not much convinced: we have different kind of nearly-identical ICEs vehicles burning a certain range of chemicals like: petrol, diesel, alcohol, gazogene, synfuel of various kind (from ammonia derivates to modern biodisel) to liquefied petroleum gases and methane. For EVs we have just variation of lithium battery tech on board and few classic ways to produce electricity to recharge them. It's not different. The different part is in performance terms and in scalability terms. Can we produce AND RECYCLE batteries for any personal vehicles and eVTOL? I doubt and I'm not alone. Articles like https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vny5/glorified-electric-golf-carts-for-all https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vny5/glorified-electric-go... or https://www.motorious.com/articles/features-3/uk-eliminating-car-ownership/ https://www.motorious.com/articles/features-3/uk-eliminating... seems to confirm what we are really heading: most will live in cities like [1] essentially traveling only locally by feet, bicycles and wired public transports (rails, metro etc), very few will live well outside moving like https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-report.pdf https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... it might sound "a dream" but try too look WHO ARE the dreamers and what they actually do... Oh, BTW we always talk about personal vehicles and homes, nothing about industry, transports etc... What the vision for them? New sailing tall vessels like [2] are no less dreams with little practical usage, H₂ propelled airplanes etc are on the same level. That part is CONSTANTLY omitted in Green discussions like the new geothermal heat pump can born in the house backyard. Sure additive manufacturing is a promising revolution but so far is not much more than a promise. Sure the dream of fusion reactors, perhaps small enough to be embedded in homes, cars etc would be a game-changer but so far what's on the table? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... witch means on the advertisement side https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/34827717.html https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/34827717.html / https://youtu.be/p-9X8Z2kJt8 https://youtu.be/p-9X8Z2kJt8 and on the practical implementation side https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/19/why-greeces-expensive-new-migrant-camps-are-outraging-ngos https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/19/why-greeces-ex... [2] https://www.decadeofwindpropulsion.org/ https://www.decadeofwindpropulsion.org/ or https://safety4sea.com/new-wing-sail-technology-to-be-launched/ https://safety4sea.com/new-wing-sail-technology-to-be-launch... or https://gcaptain.com/construction-worlds-largest-cargo-sailing-ship-moves-step-closer-reality/ https://gcaptain.com/construction-worlds-largest-cargo-saili... etc https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/oceanbird-ro-ro-embarking-on-a-new-era-of-wind-propulsion/ https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/oceanbird-ro-ro-embarki...

Vvector 4y ago

That's a big distortion of the article. You left out the first line of the paragraph "When using the average global energy supply...". That is calculating the CO2 from coal and gas plants to generate the electricity. The very next paragraph says that when recharging on renewables, "the breakeven is just over 30,000 miles (48,280 km)". That's under three years for most people. We are not there yet, but great progress is being made.

spoonjim 4y ago

... and? A car lasts a hell of a lot longer than 68,300 miles.

anonygler 4y ago

It's worth noting that this likely assumes the batteries are newly manufactured. Lithium batteries can be recycled and reused many times.

darkteflon 4y ago

As a resident of any modern city, the reduction in _tailpipe_ emissions alone would make it worth it in terms of a cleaner local environment, even if there were no reduction in absolute emissions which - as many commenters have pointed out - depends in large part on your generation mix.

clouddrover 4y ago
Maybe. EVs still generate non-exhaust emissions: https://jalopnik.com/emissions-from-tire-wear-are-a-whole-lot-worse-than-we-1849023188 https://jalopnik.com/emissions-from-tire-wear-are-a-whole-lo... https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/gaining-traction-losing-tread https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/gaining-traction-los... https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-...
- darkteflon 4y ago
  Okay, but clearly ICE vehicles do those things too. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to eschew electrification of vehicle drivetrains just because you can’t yet solve tire wear pollution. I’m very much in the “let’s design our cities for people and bicycles” camp, but if people have to drive, I’d certainly prefer not to have my kids breathing the by-products of combusting hydrocarbons all day every day.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    Your kids will be breathing in non-exhaust emissions all day every day: > "Non-exhaust emissions (NEE) are particles released into the air from brake wear, tyre wear, road surface wear and resuspension of road dust during on-road vehicle usage. No legislation is in place to limit or reduce NEE, but they cause a great deal of concern for air quality. > "NEEs are currently believed to constitute the majority of primary particulate matter from road transport, 60 percent of PM2.5 and 73 percent of PM10 – and in its 2019 report ‘Non-Exhaust Emissions from Road Traffic’ by the UK Government’s Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG), it recommended that NEE are immediately recognised as a source of ambient concentrations of airborne particulate matter, even for vehicles with zero exhaust emissions of particles – such as EVs." As ever, there are no easy answers. Everything costs.

kkfx 4y ago

You'll find no official explanation because "the public" mostly act as Gustave Le Bon (psychology of the crowd) and Eduard Bernays (propaganda) have observed in the recent past. Neoliberal economy have cyclic crisis solved with wars, big wars, whose target is stealing someone else richness and justify the mess with the ongoing war situation. We are at the beginning of such cycle. EVs probably serve a purpose: if you buy it and you have followed the new deal so far, you'll suffer less: living in an insulated, airtight modern home, with perhaps p.v. and lithium storage, and EV etc you can surpass frequent electricity and gas supply disruptions, you have enough space to store water, food in freezer etc to cope with irregular wartime-alike supply deficit, you'll be less touched by stagflation etc if you are also wealthy enough at the right time you might be able to buy for very little price valuable assets than in a sooner future became far more valued on the market. The "carbon footprint" is that. A way to justify social score, covid pass was the first general-public test, it have durability issues, people do not accept them longer, while they are trained to scan Qr codes for anything, like Chinese ones, so the next will be carbon score: if you have followed the new deal your score will be good, so you'll live well, others will not. It's just a kind of common misunderstanding: Green New Deal for many means spring-grass-green new deal, for the Earth, actually it means dollar-green-new-deal and the climate target is the neoliberals chiefs climate, economical and social one. Global carbon footprint is the same: a tool to classify people by census and obeisance. Try to re-read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... how can be achieved such scenario? How can be made McKinsey work-lager-factories like https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/how-we-help-clients/capital-excellence/cities https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/how-w... ? You can't simply made them: people will revolt. But if they are forced to accept them for economical reasons, like they can't afford living like before, because of war, resource scarcity, grasshoppers invasion etc... Those who have followed anyway will get a future like https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-report.pdf https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... so they have not much reasons to complaint, those in modern prisons can't complaint... Voilà the 2030 scenario built.