22 ms·

9,000-pound electric Hummer shows we can’t ignore efficiency of EVs

• alkonaut 4y ago
  Regulators must indeed consider EV efficiency and manufacturing emissions, but most importantly the national average of CO2 per kWh must be pushed much closer to zero for developed nations too.
• blinded 4y ago
  lol saw one of these on the road a few weeks ago. to each their own but its so ugly
  • andrepd 4y ago
    Ugly I can live with. The problem is being more polluting and more deadly...
• steveBK123 4y ago
  On the one hand - bad for an EV. On the other hand - yes a big giant EV truck may be less efficient than a sedan. The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans. We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to buy big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling polluters. The more form factors are available in EV flavor, and the more price points they can hit.. the better.
  • CalRobert 4y ago
    If they want to buy big trucks, we need to consider those trucks' negative externalities. A bigger, faster, heavier, and more deadly vehicle, imposes costs on everyone around it.
    • lotsofpulp 4y ago
      That is the point. You are showing you are in a position to impose costs on everyone around you, especially with a Hummer.
    • xerxex 4y ago
      People are selfish. I keep hearing communism is a nice idea but fails in practice. Well, unchecked capitalism is a nice idea until the world collapses.
      • lliamander 4y ago
      • akomtu 4y ago
        Capitalism is well suitable to people at their current level, which is about developing a strong ego with intelligence and clear boundaries. Communism was appropriate in the past, when people had weak notion of self, is not appropriate now, and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less. "I think my nature was always one that strove to yield itself to the great whole of which it was such a small part - and by yielding itself, to draw back into it the sustenance of life." - a pretty good allegory on the essense of communism done right.
        • albatross13 4y ago
          > and will be appropriate in the future when people want to give more and take less ..5000 years later... > people still suck > lol guys communism will work eventually just trust me bro, it's not the system it's the people that make up the system
          • akomtu 4y ago
            Way more than 5000 years. People don't change that quickly.
            • albatross13 4y ago
              Lol, touche. I hope for all our sake that you are eventually correct, though I fear we'll be extinct before that's ever the case
            • pawsforthought 4y ago
    • lliamander 4y ago
      Aren't those negative externalities already factored into things like the cost of fuel and liability insurance?
      • my_usernam3 4y ago
        And registration! I have a large truck for only occasional dirt bike trips and I pay up A LOT of money to the government for it.
    • lvass 4y ago
      I too only buy food that reached my town via horseback. Who cares about how useful trucks are when they could kill people?
      • plankers 4y ago
        nobody here is talking about freight vehicles
        • lvass 4y ago
          What are pick-ups used for, then? In my country they're mostly owned by farmers.
          • deleted 4y ago
            [deleted]
          • _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
            Around here they're used to drop kids off at elementary schools.
          • corrral 4y ago
            They're popular in the US: 1) As status symbols (because they're expensive, and because their "truck = freedom" advertising has been very successful) that still read as blue-collar / "red"; and, 2) Explicitly because of their size—they're perceived (pretty accurately) as being far more likely to "win" a crash than a smaller car, and they also put you up high, so you have better visibility. Not sure if the latter actually translates to more safety, but it's certainly perceived to. This is also a big reason SUVs sell well. There may be some related "I like to intimidate other drivers" factor here, too (not my uncharitable guess, as I've heard it seriously expressed by truck owners, and I'm also not saying this is extremely common—but it's common enough that I've encountered it several times). For that last part, see again: status symbol. Some portion of the population owns trucks for the same reasons people own trucks in other rich countries, but that's not the reason they're unusually popular here. It's largely a form of class & political signaling ("I'm in your tribe, and also not poor") coupled with some tragedy-of-the-commons personal/family safety concerns. [EDIT] 3) Aspirational purchases and poor cost/benefit analysis. Think: the lettuce you buy then don't eat before it goes bad. "I really want to get into [x activity that is easier with a truck] and I need to buy a vehicle of some kind, so I should get a truck" -> buys truck -> does not actually use truck-specific functionality anywhere near enough to justify purchase vs. use of paid services or rentals.
    • toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Insurers aren’t properly internalizing the liability costs and therefore are pricing premiums too low for the risk these vehicles create. Maybe judgements need to be higher for deaths and injuries caused by overweight vehicles? I don’t have enough context to say. If they’re significantly more dangerous, it should be priced accordingly (based on claims data).
      • lliamander 4y ago
        They would certainly be leaving a lot of money on the table if that were true.
        • toomuchtodo 4y ago
          Right, if big vehicles are more dangerous, where is that uninternalized cost being squeezed out if not the vehicle owner’s premium.
          • slg 4y ago
            Who says more dangerous equals more expensive? Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person.
            • kube-system 4y ago
              Or more commonly, someone who drives a compact car drunk habitually through a dangerous neighborhood is higher risk than a high-income person with a good driving record who drives a heavy car in a quiet suburb. The people who cause the most insurance losses are often people who really don't have their lives together. They're driving cheap pieces of junk and wrecking them frequently.
            • lliamander 4y ago
              > Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs required to treat a severely injured person. Maybe, but I am rather skeptical of this claim being true under most circumstances. And even if it is true that the payout from insurance is bigger in the case of injury than death, there's potentially lost revenue if the insured goes to jail.
    • Swizec 4y ago
      If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars. That’s why they’re not. This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty.
      • lliamander 4y ago
        > If those externalities were priced correctly, people would stop buying big cars. That isn't what it means to "price externalities correctly". Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality. That doesn't stop people who are willing and able to pay the price from doing so. > This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for us. And it won’t be pretty. This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out. Rising energy prices would naturally create the market pressure needed to find alternatives. It's the kind of problem firms would see coming a long way off and prepare for.
        • Swizec 4y ago
          > Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the cost of the externality My argument is that current fuel and energy prices do not cover all externalities. And I'm suggesting that maybe they should. > This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort out. Yes and that doesn't work very well when fuel, roads, and the car industry are heavily subsidized in an effort to make car culture more affordable. Part of the problem is that knowing the true price of relevant externalities is currently difficult or impossible. We'll find out eventually one way or another. Through the price of habitable real estate and lower crop yields if nothing else.
    • LordDragonfang 4y ago
      Not only only we not pricing in those externalities, the current regulations are structured in a way that actively incentivizes bigger vehicles, above and beyond consumer preferences: https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-are-fuel-economy-regulations-to-blame https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-ar...
  • jeffbee 4y ago
    This is not because of some innate character of Americans, it is because of specific state policies and subsidies. Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state. The Model 3, Camry, Civic, and Corolla all outsell any pickup truck in California.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • jjulius 4y ago
      >Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in that state. I'd be cautious about blaming it all on fuel prices. I'd argue that the increased wealth of California residents relative to the rest of the country also plays a part in why a vehicle that is too expensive for most people made it so high on that list in California.
      • thfuran 4y ago
        Trucks aren't especially cheap.
        • jjulius 4y ago
          2022 Ford F-150 XL: $30,870[0] Tesla Model 3: $46,990[1] [0]https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-attribute-modselect-f150 https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-attribut... [1]https://www.tesla.com/model3/design https://www.tesla.com/model3/design
          • jeffbee 4y ago
            Not sure what you were trying to cherry-pick there, but in general trucks cost more than cars, and this has been the case for decades. The recent new record highs for average new light vehicle price has been largely driven by a continued shift toward trucks and away from cars. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-january-11-2021-average-new-light-truck-price-2019-was-43-higher https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-janu...
  • rascul 4y ago
    > The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans. I see more sedans on the road than any other type of vehicle. Crossovers I see almost as much, though.
    • jjulius 4y ago
      >Nationally, 80% of the top 10 sellers are either trucks or SUVs (Honda Civic and Toyota Camry are the exceptions). https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/ https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/
      • abeppu 4y ago
        I'm more confused by how this seems to be a recent phenomenon. A decade ago non-trucks and light trucks were on roughly even footing, but after about 2015 the distribution shifts meaningfully towards light trucks. What made Americans want trucks more? https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-sales-since-1951/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-...
        • kube-system 4y ago
          "Light truck" is a problematic term in the US -- it can be defined in multiple ways, often exacerbated by automakers desire to get around fuel economy requirements. Assuming that "light truck" in this context includes SUVs, that may correlated with the introduction of sub-compact SUVs into the US which have been extremely popular with drivers who are intimidated by driving large vehicles and like the confidence of sitting higher than in a traditional car. Many of these are basically just hatchbacks with some stying tweaks a couple inches of extra height. So it may not necessarily be "Americans wanting trucks" that you're seeing in that data, but instead "Automakers styling their vehicles slightly differently, calling it an SUV, and avoiding fines for violating CAFE standards"
        • WorldMaker 4y ago
          Some of it is supply: the manufacturers build more and the dealers find ways to sell them. Those marketing efforts drive what average people "want". (That's the role of marketing.) Some of it is a brinksmanship snowball: If I'm safer in a bigger vehicle when more other people are driving bigger vehicles, I need a bigger vehicle. Some of is budgets: There are a lot of sub-factors here, but one key viewpoint is that there are two very strong markets with very different goals. The new buyer is looking at marketing, and swayed by fashion trends, on average more likely to trade in for the "newest model" for aesthetic or fashion reasons on a regular basis. The used buyer is more budget/maintenance driven, more likely to use a car for utilitarian purposes than treat it as a fashion symbol, more likely to drive the car for longer. Car companies are selling to that first buyer and what they (think) they want, they don't care about the used car market because they don't get their cut of the used car market. There are arguably a lot more used buyers and car companies don't care what they want. To some extent they take what they can get after the "fashionistas" get bored and don't express their wants all that directly. Some of it is maintenance: The average maintenance life for sedans still seems to be much higher than trucks/SUVs. Longer maintenance life is longer life in the used markets and longer life on the road. It's anecdotal data, but have you ever car watched and tried to estimate the average model year of the cars that pass you by? To me SUVs and Trucks almost always look at most five years old, but you'll see all sorts of 10, 15, 20 year old sedans. I think those last two points are especially important asterisk to that "Americans don't buy sedans" from the anecdotal perspective of what you see on the road: Americans don't buy new sedans regularly. Sedans seem to last 20 years on "average". Sedans are rarely "fashionable". Sedan buyers favor good long maintenance life. It was the "lesson" of the 80s wave when Japanese manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It was again the "lesson" of the late 00s wave when Korean manufacturers proved Americans were desperate for reliable, easily maintained sedans and compacts. It seems like a "lesson" doomed to repeat roughly every 20 years as old ones age out of the used market. (I think the current EV manufacturers are ignoring/forgetting the "lesson" at their own peril. It could be someone new and fresh like the Chinese this time taking advantage of the used market's huge desire for reliable, easily maintained EV sedans and compacts.)
  • NoLinkToMe 4y ago
    > We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to buy big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling polluters. Yes, or perhaps regulate these tanks that are a disaster for human life in all the years past 2150 (i.e., a time people born in the next twenty years will live to experience)... I mean, I can't just bring a gigantic 500 kilo suitcase on an airplane. There's costs associated to the airplane and other passengers, and thus doing this is priced such that nobody does this for fun or mere convenience, but rather only very rarely out of necessity. In fact, only on the rare occasion when the costs are worth paying because the value is equal or higher than the price. There's rules & conditions to using certain services and infrastructure like an airplane. Roads aren't any different, we just happen to accept rules & conditions that are ridiculously imbalanced, aren't pricing in the costs, and are disastrous on a whole range of categories: from climate change, to environmental pollution, to human health and safety, congestion and geopolitical issues around oil dependence.
    • lesuorac 4y ago
      Personally know a few people who drives trucks solely because they have wider seats so they fit comfortably in the vehicle.
      • pawsforthought 4y ago
        Are these people obese? I don’t judge. It’s sad really, the way corporate interests have so profoundly shaped the fabric of North American cities towards car dependence, and hijacked our proclivity for calorific foods to the point of widespread overconsumption.
        • matwood 4y ago
          I'm a taller guy with wide shoulders. Not obese at all. Most cars are uncomfortable to me because the bucket seats aren't wide enough. I own an 2007 Tundra and it's the most comfortable vehicle I've driven. It's also the smallest truck that can tow my boat. I don't think corporate interest shaped my desire for an old truck and even older boat, but who knows.
  • greenthrow 4y ago
    The ubiquity of SUVs is a phenomenon of the last 30 years. I remember when it started taking off in the 90s. It's not an eternal thing that can't be changed.
    • steveBK123 4y ago
      Sure, but the idea that we are going to both legislate away ICE and legislate away SUVs in one go.. and not get destroyed in the voting both next cycle is... dubious. If you live in norther climates there are some advantages to SUVs/crossovers in terms of ground clearance. Winter, even with AWD and winter tires can be a problem in my sedan when I bottom out at every poorly plowed intersection. Sedans are also a PITA as soon as you want to haul both people AND stuff at once. Or anything with a dimension wider than 3 feet. SUVs do offer benefits in terms of semi-regular things normies do like moving your kids in/out of college 4x/year with the semester system, taking your family on road trips instead of flying (which is way more polluting!), hauling large dogs, Costco runs, etc. People with various sorts of outdoors enthusiasm also may use them to haul, roof rack or tow more outdoorsy gear. Not everything other people prefer is because they are bad people who are evil and need to be stopped. I'd be curious how exactly you'd legislate away SUVs now that the genie is out of the bottle. What's an SUV, whats a cross over, whats a commercial vehicle, etc. If you go by weight, plenty of sedans violate worse than small SUVs.. In fact if you go by weight class you may ban EVs and allow ICE!
      • yonaguska 4y ago
        I'm the moron that used to do Costco runs on a motorcycle. And that usually included balancing toilet rolls and a pizza on the tank.
      • greenthrow 4y ago
        I live in Michigan. I can do Costco runs in my Nissan Leaf. Families got by fine in the 50s through the 80s without needing to have SUVs.
  • tootie 4y ago
    This is the thing that drives me nuts. Remember the anti-SUV mania of the 90s? It completely failed and SUV consumption skyrocketed and people stopped buying minivans and station wagons. The absolute least, smallest, simplest thing an ordinary consumer can do to decrease emissions is to just buy a smaller car and people just did the opposite. You're right that our only choice is to meet consumers where they are it just makes it such an uphill battle. Everyone complains that elected leaders and corporations are not doing anything to fight climate and it's almost entirely because people are telling them not to.
    • jrapdx3 4y ago
      Yeah, that's how I remember it too. Back then I wondered why some people I knew bought SUVs even though they were only needing to commute to/from work. In the early 2000's my own situation changed, I was needing to haul relatively heavy/bulky items. I acquired a Honda Pilot because of its rated 1300 lb payload, better than a small pickup. After a while that need ended, but I kept the Pilot and still drive it. However since then it's used <3000 mi/year, a good thing with price of fuel being what it is now. The Pilot was/is built on the same platform as the Honda minivan, albeit with slightly modified drive train. Pilot and minivan have essentially identical mileage ratings. So with these models switching from minivan to "SUV" makes no difference in fuel usage. Can't disagree that old-style "station wagons" were more fuel-efficient than minivans and similar size vehicles. However, station-wagons seem to have disappeared from the scene at least to my observation. Out of fashion I suppose. And from the fuel usage point of view that's unfortunate. EVs are the future but expense factors will keep ICE in the picture for some years to come. Do you suppose the current increased fuel prices will inspire a resurgence of smaller vehicles for routine transportation? In the interim that would be a good thing.
      • steveBK123 4y ago
        Exactly - its minivan to SUV swaps mostly. And its the same vehicle under the hood. Increased safety standards, crumple zones and side curtain air bags add some girth.. Station wagons I think also partially fell out of fashion because you can't do a 3 row wagon safely anymore as there's no way the rear facing vomit seats are going to survive modern safety tests. Also don't forget how ginormous modern kids seats are in cars, and how many more years kids are legally supposed to sit in safety seats compared to when we grew up. Few sedans are comfortably able to take 2 of these kid seats and still leave you with room for much cargo or a 3rd adult (grandma or grandpa) at the same time. The market for 7 seaters (of which 4-5 may be occupied at any one time) is fairly large.
• balls187 4y ago
  I would be curious so see how the Hummer EV compares not based on national average, but in a markets where electricity is not produced via fossil fuels, and in a market where electricity is produced via fossil fuels. Engineering Explained covered this in part, in his video asking whether or not it is better for the environment to keep your current (presumably ICE) car, or buy a new EV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k&t=24s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k&t=24s
• micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Kind of a weird comparison considering the Malibu is 1/3 of the weight. It's certainly more efficient than a Chevy Malibu at moving 9,000lbs around. I'm not sure how Americans can undo the colossal car arms race... taxes based on weight? I believe there are actually tax breaks aimed at businesses with vehicles over a certain weight, which seems backwards.
  • __derek__ 4y ago
    > I'm not sure how Americans can undo the colossal car arms race... taxes based on weight? Yup. The Urban Institute recently proposed doing just that.[1] [1]: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/us-could-taxing-heavy-cars-be-first-step-toward-reducing-pedestrian-fatalities https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/us-could-taxing-heavy-cars-...
  • cogman10 4y ago
    Taxes should be based on weight, particularly because road damage is primarily driven by vehicle weight. (by a cubed factor) We current subsidize, to a LARGE extent, goods shipped via semi truck. A large portion of the damage done to infrastructure is from shipping. The solution? Trains. Whatever we can do to get more goods shipped by rail or ships the better. Those are the most CO^2 and infrastructure efficient ways to move goods. Even better if some day in the future we get those trains powered by electricity.
    • jazzyjackson 4y ago
      Yes, USA royally mixed up their incentives (unless their goal was "sell more diesel"...) by taxing the railroads too much and the semi-trucks too little (guess which industry represents a larger voting bloc) Shout-out to India, they have grade-separated electrified freight corridors, 5 lanes wide in some places, running double stacked container trains at 100kmh, no noise no pollution, it's a sight to behold https://youtu.be/l3Fx1A-dbYg https://youtu.be/l3Fx1A-dbYg
      • cogman10 4y ago
        The goal was to "sell more cars"... which.. yeah, had the desired effect. We went from decently planned cities, good public transit, and a thriving rail industry in the 1940s to... what we have today. All because we prioritized cars and home ownership :(. It's depressing watching old TV/cartoons from that era. Midsize to largish cities had electric trolleys and elevated trains for commuters. While there were cars, they weren't necessities for pretty much anyone. It's why today the older larger cities seem to suck for cars, because that's not how people got around when they were built.
• j_walter 4y ago
  Sure...when 60% of the grid is powered via fossil fuels. If that number hits 80% or 90% then what. How about Hummer EV vs. H2? What if someone pays for completely green energy from their electric company? Also...why not include the Hummer EV on your fancy graphs??? Comparing with the H1 does nothing since that was a military vehicle that wasn't really meant to be for consumers. That is also a 20+ year old vehicle at this point.
  • formvoltron 4y ago
    Where is it 80 or 90% fossil?
    • thehappypm 4y ago
      West Virginia?
• twobitshifter 4y ago
  > The CO2 calculations are based on the national average, but electric grid emissions vary considerably across the country. Keep this in mind. If you live in VT you’re at 0. If you live in TX or FL maybe don’t bother. https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/excel/electricity.xlsx https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/excel/electr...
  • formvoltron 4y ago
    Maine 20% fossil I believe. Or just buy some panels.
    • orangepurple 4y ago
      Is panel production energy intensive or toxic these days?
      • thinkcontext 4y ago
        Energy used in manufacture is paid back early in the panel's life. This article from 2018 gives a range of 1-4 years, things will have only improved since then. Most panels come with a warranty of 20 years at 90% of original output, so they come out way ahead. Its disappointing to see this myth repeated over and over again, you should examine the political motivations of the sources that are telling you how dirty panels are. There are externalities to their manufacture but any who tries to convince you they are worse than fossil fuels is being deceptive. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/03/solar-power-can-pay-easily/ https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/03/solar-power-can-pay-eas...
    • prescriptivist 4y ago
      OP is talking about CO2 emissions. 20% of Maines electricity generation is fossil but the vast majority of that is natural gas, which they get from New Brunswick (as does NH).
  • legitster 4y ago
    But it's a shared market for power - this feels like arguing about which side the bucket you are drawing water from.
• trhway 4y ago
  Moving the contractor's fleet of F-150 and the likes into EV is a good thing. With that background Hummers is just a noise not worth the bandwidth we are spending discussing it. Instead, muster some empathy and compassion for and have a pity on the guys who feel the need for such a car.
• legitster 4y ago
  If I was worried about this offsetting purchases of Chevy Malibus, then maybe yeah? But they are still going to produce significantly less CO2 than their actual competition. In the long run, manufacturers making all of their halo cars ostentatious EVs is a good thing. Offroad car bros are not one wholesome lecture away from switching to a bicycle. Let's let car makers make electric cars cool and then focus on actually providing better sources of electricity.
  • elil17 4y ago
    They aren’t a wholesome lecture away, but they are a law, tax, or regulation away. Removing tax loopholes for large cars, tightening emissions standards, and perhaps adding extra licensing requirements for oversized vehicles could reduce the environmental hazard and the safety hazard these vehicles create.
    • throwaway894345 4y ago
      I doubt it because I don’t think most status car buyers are particularly cost-sensitive and moreover passing said legislation is easier said than done (and regulations are likely to be overturned whenever the presidency changes parties). So far “sexy” has done a whole lot more to convert people to EVs than regulation (and I say this as a staunch proponent of carbon tax/pricing).
      • elihu 4y ago
        I think that requiring a CDL to drive a 9,000 pound vehicle with a 3 second 0-60 time would be enough to deter most potential buyers unless they were really motivated. Getting the license would be an actual inconvenience, not something you can just throw money at.
        • bluGill 4y ago
          CDL may also lower the legal BAC to .03, which would be a problem for many people. I only know one person to mention that and he had the full class A license (it was his turn to drive home so his wife was drinking and he refused even one drink even though they were planning to stay for more than the hour it takes for alcohol to clear the bloodstream because he refused to risk his license)
• mbgerring 4y ago
  It’s not good to do this analysis with figures from the entire U.S., which has a wildly variable mix of electricity sources depending on where you are and what time of day it is. This also obscures the difference between unavoidable C02 emissions from burning gasoline with emissions from industrial processes that may not emit carbon in the future. In general people are not careful readers, and in my opinion, headlines like this tend to feed cynicism and inaction. What I see here is enormous opportunity in decarbonizing the processes that lead to high lifecycle emissions for this and other vehicles.
  • seoaeu 4y ago
    On the contrary, thinking that merely switching to EVs is enough to combat the climate change leads to complacency.
    • mbgerring 4y ago
      I don't think this is true at all, anyone engaged with this work realizes how much effort is going to be involved in electrifying the vehicle fleet. It's only when you acknowledge that a problem is tractable that you can even begin to answer the question, "what do I do next to make this happen?"
      • seoaeu 4y ago
        There's tons more that we can be doing now to reduce transportation emissions. Investments in transit and bikes. Locating housing closer to jobs. Blocking highway widening efforts. All other efforts to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Ignoring all those on the belief that it is "tractable" to eventually reach net-zero without them, is exactly the complacency I was talking about! In other areas, reducing energy consumption is identified as a necessary and impactful way to reduce emissions in the short term, and make fully converting the grid to renewable easier in the long term. Why not here?
• mint2 4y ago
  “ Comparing larger vehicles, the original Hummer H1 emits 889 grams of CO2 per mile and the new Hummer EV causes 341 grams, demonstrating that behemoth EVs can still be worse for the environment than smaller, conventional vehicles” So 1/3 the emissions of a normal hummer… I don’t think the normal hummer owner is going to ever switch to a sedan so that seems like a major improvement
  • lbrito 4y ago
    Here's an alternative: don't allow the normal hummer owner to get a new one because they're terrible for everyone else. That's one of the reasons what governments were made for.
    • mint2 4y ago
      Unfortunately half of our government is against any common sense regulations or rules. Mass shootings are becoming a daily occurrence that happens in no other first world country but instead the gop has spent the last decades trying to weaken what little gun regulations there are. Enough of The public seems totally okay with that, and would absolutely go batshit if they perceived someone as wanting to ban trucks. Tell me in that climate how the government does it’s job? People keep electing government officials who are expressly against what you’re suggesting.
  • afavour 4y ago
    Arguably that’s why you need legislation to more strongly dissuade buying a ridiculous car like that via taxes or whatever. If you leave it to individual choice there will always be plenty of people who don’t care about the costs they’re imposing on others.
    • ReptileMan 4y ago
      The US has huge variety of terrain, climate and road quality. Hummer has it's use cases.
      • 4y ago
• semenko 4y ago
  Carbon costs per-vehicle can be calculated based on your local grid power source, duration of ownership, and more: https://www.carboncounter.com/ https://www.carboncounter.com/ -- be sure to click the "Customize" tab If your annual driving distance is low (<5,000 miles) and your grid is relatively dirty (e.g. the midwest [SRMW] grid), a range of EVs have more CO2 emissions/mile than conventional internal combustion vehicles. (This is a project from the MIT Tranick lab / http://trancik.mit.edu/ http://trancik.mit.edu/)
  • throwaway894345 4y ago
    Is the midwest grid particularly dirty? I’m pretty sure Iowa is like ~60% wind and a good chunk of Illinois is nuclear.
    • thinkcontext 4y ago
      SERC Midwest (parts of IL and MO) is the dirtiest in the lower 48. EPA EGRID has the data. https://www.epa.gov/egrid https://www.epa.gov/egrid or there's a map https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/plug-in-or-gas-up-why-driving-on-electricity-is-better-than-gasoline/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/plug-in-or-gas-up-why...
      • throwaway894345 4y ago
        Seems like the overwhelming majority of the midwest is outperforming Missouri/Illinois, but yeah, that region is performing poorly. I’m also disappointed that the second link didn’t include the emissions in the manufacture of the vehicle itself, which will be higher for EVs than gasoline cars, but from what I’ve read[0] the lifetime emissions of an EV are far far lower (breakeven point is about 10-15kmi). [0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifeti...
  • barbazoo 4y ago
    > If your annual driving distance is low and your grid is relatively dirty, a range of EVs have more CO2 emissions/mile than conventional internal combustion vehicles. Right now. I'm sure you know but the beauty of this is that those cars' emissions can be reduced without changing anything about the car simply by changing the fuel used to generate electricity which can (and has to) happen in the future.
• Arnt 4y ago
  Can't you choose power source in the US? Where I live, the city supplies the power network but I can choose between dozens of electricity providers. AIUI there are several for any taste or opinion. Running one of those cars without CO₂ emissions would be as simple as picking a suitable provider and charging the battery for >15 minutes at a time (the statistical model that governs power allocation is based on 15-minute time units). Is the article author dense or is this kind of competitive electricity provision unknown in the US?
  • thinkcontext 4y ago
    You can in around a dozen states. Very few individuals opt to do so. https://www.electricchoice.com/ https://www.electricchoice.com/
  • piperswe 4y ago
    In most areas of the US there is a monopoly on most utilities, with a few exceptions (e.g. Houston)
• elif 4y ago
  Using average CO2 per watt for grid power is incredibly deceptive. (Sensible) electric car owners charge their vehicles over night, not at "average time" due to EV-specific utility rates available in 28 states. Overnight CO2 emissions have significantly higher concentration of renewable and nuclear power than peak demand power.
  • jbdoug 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure the base load (which what you're drawing from off of peak hours) is largely produced by fossil fuel generation because those sources don't have the variability of renewables (I don't think a lot of solar is being produced at night...).
    • elif 4y ago
      Solar is a terrible reference for renewable as the US has 4x as much wind and hydro power as solar, which makes up barely 1% of generation. Nuclear makes up 9.6%. These 3 are clear base load because they don't turn off.
      • jbdoug 4y ago
        Yeah it seems like, in Boston at least, grid carbon intensity peaks between 12 and 8pm and is at its lowest around 4am. It's probably on a case by case basis though -- if you live in an area that still burns a lot of coal, your base load is likely to be pretty dirty (though of course in that case it probably doesn't matter when you charge your car, unless there happens to be a lot of solar as well).
        • elif 4y ago
          My state (ga) has 25% nuclear and a peak load of 70 units compared to 30 overnight. So napkin math says half of my car energy is nuclear.
          • jbdoug 4y ago
• Robotbeat 4y ago
  They’re using optimistic numbers for gasoline and pessimistic numbers for electric. A gallon of gasoline emits about 11.8 kg of CO2 if you include refining. https://innovationorigins.com/en/producing-gasoline-and-diesel-emits-more-co2-than-we-thought/ https://innovationorigins.com/en/producing-gasoline-and-dies... One kilowatt-hour of electricity currently emits about 372grams of CO2, a number that has dropped from 500 grams in 2012. A new Chevy Malibu gets 32.5mpg combined. Hummer EV gets 47mpge combined, or about 1.394 miles per kWh. 363gCO2 per mile for the Malibu, 267gCO2/mile for the Hummer. I don’t think using hyper-specific region specific metrics makes a lot of sense considering the grid is all connected. (At least, the East Coast and Midwest, Texas doing its own thing, and then the west Coast.) in any case, the grid is getting lower emissions over time and could go MUCH lower than current (maybe half or less) over the full life of any new vehicle. Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles. And if everybody drove subcompacts or other hyper efficient gasoline cars then we’d have less of a problem anyway. But not everyone is doing that. And a lot of people don’t want to. From a political economy standpoint then this is still a huge net win. Every new car and truck needs to at least have a plug in it within the next 5 to 10 years, and then we can start penalizing larger and heavier vehicles more directly. EDIT: what we should do is expand the EV tax credit. GM no longer qualifies as they used theirs up, like Tesla. Mostly just foreign EV makers qualify, which cannot be the real intention of lawmakers when they made the law. We can use the EV credit as a tool for improving efficiency. Instead of subsidizing per kWh of battery, we subsidize per mile of range. The first 50 miles of range (ie to be a plug in hybrid, but need at least 6.6kW charging speed) are incentivized at $100/mile of range. The next 200 miles of range $25/mile (under the condition of 100kW fast charging capability). That way car companies are incentivized (even more) to maximize miles per kWh. Small, hyper-efficient EVs will be disproportionately credited. For a given kWh of battery, you’ll make more EV credit money as a carmaker putting it in a small, very efficient car than a big Hummer. But unless we renew the EV credit (and make it per kWh), there isn’t this (additional) incentive.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • cheschire 4y ago
    If you’re going to factor in the refining process for the fuel, wouldn’t it make sense to factor in the refining and manufacturing process for the battery?
• 01100011 4y ago
  Remember, vehicles over 6,000 lbs qualify for immediate business tax deductions(vs depreciating it over many years) because they're treated as heavy equipment. https://nypost.com/2022/03/02/tax-deductions-of-the-rich-g-wagons-wine-dinners-guard-dogs/ https://nypost.com/2022/03/02/tax-deductions-of-the-rich-g-w...
  • chmod600 4y ago
    Why isn't heavy equipment depreciated?
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      It's a tax policy designed to stimulate economic activity. (I'm not saying it's good vs bad, just that that seems to be the overall design. If you want to spur investment in new tractors [and employment at John Deere], make tractors eligible for section 179 expensing in the first year, which helps the businesses cash flow [and the government still gets its tax money in later years, when the deduction is $0 for that vehicle instead of a portion as it would be if spread out over multiple years])
  • occz 4y ago
    That should probably be repealed.
• Dig1t 4y ago
  I think it's misguided to regulate like this, there's a natural incentive for efficiency in electric vehicles (more range, better battery life, consumers want this). People buying a mega car like this very likely COULD want it for a practical use case, trucks are tools as well as transportation and many people legitimately use their trucks for actual work in the US. I think the real problem here is the efficiency of the local grid. If I buy an array of solar panels and use it to charge my car, it doesn't matter at all how efficient my car is, grams of CO2 emitted is basically 0. We should really focus on regulating and improving the efficiency of grids across the US, investing in renewables and nuclear. This is the biggest benefit of electric vehicles anyway, the fact that it pushes the burden of efficiency from every consumer who owns a car to the much smaller set of infrastructure providers.
  • colordrops 4y ago
    Totally agree. I and two other friends have Teslas and enough solar to cover our charging needs, and I don't believe I'm some crazy anomaly. Also, all else being equal, an large electric vehicle at least has the potential to use low-CO2 energy, and the grid provides a better place to optimize CO2 output and renewable usage.
  • akira2501 4y ago
    > If I buy an array of solar panels and use it to charge my car, it doesn't matter at all how efficient my car is, grams of CO2 emitted is basically 0. There are metrics which relate the amount of CO2 emitted to manufacture a panel vs the total amount of electricity it goes on to generate, and they are not 0. They're significantly lower than coal fire power plants, but not zero... and can vary greatly depending on where in the world you actually install that panel. > improving the efficiency of grids across the US What is currently inefficient about them? > the much smaller set of infrastructure providers Who all hold government granted monopolies on their infrastructure. I'm not absurdly hopeful this will automatically turn into a win for the consumer.
    • Dig1t 4y ago
      >There are metrics which relate the amount of CO2 emitted to manufacture a panel vs the total amount of electricity it goes on to generate, and they are not 0 Yes, fair enough. Making pretty much _anything_ contributes to CO2 in some way and this argument easily devolves into one where we're saying we should just limit all human activity, and I'd say that that way of thinking is regressive. If you can generate your own electricity this pushes the burden of emissions to the manufacturer of the panels, which is a good thing because panels are tech that improves over time. > What is currently inefficient about them? Yeah I misspoke, what I meant to say is we should focus on reducing the emissions that they create while generating electricity. i.e. improving efficiency if you consider CO2/Watt generated to be your units. This is done by switching to renewables + nuclear. >Who all hold government granted monopolies on their infrastructure. I'm not absurdly hopeful this will automatically turn into a win for the consumer. This I disagree with, I think a smaller number of government-granted monopolies are much easier to control/regulate than every single US consumer.
• Der_Einzige 4y ago
  This is dependent on the area where it's driven. A 9K lb hummer EV driven exclusively in the PNW will find that most electricity is generated by renewables (mainly hydroelectric) power, but the same car driven in WV will have significantly higher CO2 emissions...
• seltzered_ 4y ago
  Some historical fun, around 2008 there were various articles analyzing whether a Gas-powered Hummer H2 had less embodied co2 emissions than a Toyota Prius: https://slate.com/technology/2008/03/is-it-possible-that-a-hummer-s-better-for-the-environment-than-a-prius-is.html https://slate.com/technology/2008/03/is-it-possible-that-a-h... (google and you'll find a number of other articles)
• elahieh 4y ago
  I'm amused by the "grams per mile" emissions measure - if you're going to mix SI and imperial, why not "ounces per kilometre"?
  • xbar 4y ago
    I am going to play this game for the next week. Thanks!
• melling 4y ago
  Two steps forward, one step back. It’s like people complaining a decade ago that the electricity was from coal, which is now 20% of US electricity. Although, globally we’re still at 40% coal power generation. What’s important is that the technology is developed, improved, then improved again until it finally becomes a viable technology.
• bl_valance 4y ago
  The shear weight of EVs compared to combustion engine vehicles scare me as a pedestrian/motorcyclist. I think this one is like twice the weight of the H3/H2.
• occz 4y ago
  SUVs should be banned, or taxed the point of economic non-viability. The fact that such a deadly category of vehicle, on top of being much less energy efficient, is being allowed to take over the market, is completely inane.
  • tayistay 4y ago
    If anyone's wondering how they're deadly, it's that pedestrians tend to fare much worse when being hit by them vs a sedan.
    • WorldMaker 4y ago
      An SUV is also more deadly to every other class of driver on the road. Even sedan drivers are more likely to die in an accident involving an SUV than any other accident class. (It's a deadly brinksmanship. The safest people in an SUV wreck are the generally ones in the SUV and everyone else is at a disadvantage.) But even that's not entirely true that people inside the SUV are safe because you can also look up the history of "rollover deaths". In an accident an SUV is a big immovable object, right until it isn't anymore and then it's a very heavy thing with a weird center of gravity. If an SUV tips over somehow in a collision, or worse rolls over itself more than once, that often has spelled death for the SUV's occupants. There's been more safety measures and center of gravity balancing and rollover cages added to SUVs since the height of rollover deaths in the 1990s, but the brinksmanship of "the safest option is to be inside the SUV" moving "everyone" to SUVs for their own skin, increases the likelihood of SUV versus SUV accidents and the return of rollover death statistics.
  • parineum 4y ago
    Think about all the things you own for which there is a more efficient or safer version.
  • trident5000 4y ago
    Its not that insane that SUV's exist you're just extremely controlling and hyperbolic.
• CarbonCycles 4y ago
  I don't understand the purpose of this article...it's making multiple comparisons but in a way that seems intentionally biased to incite discourse? It's also hard to ignore that electric motors provide almost near instantaneous torque on demand...talk about a major wooooooo factor that's hard to say no to.
  • fma 4y ago
    Yeah felt the same. Not sure who ACEEE is...are they getting paid by Tesla to write this hut piece since their cyber truck isn't out? Or Ford who doesn't have a large EV show truck? Theows away their credibility and I'm sure the blog post was vetted before going up. Someone who has $100k for a truck isn't going to go for a Malibu...they would have gotten an Escalade or another behemoth. The Hummer EV was created to dispel the myth that EVs can only for tree huggers. Different people have different lifestyles and if they are going for a more eco friendly vehicle than their gas equivalent that should be celebrated.
• xbar 4y ago
  Seems like a market problem.
• tonymet 4y ago
  Odd that they omit fabrication emissions of a 9000 lb vehicle, with tons of lithium, aluminum, steel, plastic and the implied water impact, from the emissions. If a tesla requires ~ 9 years to offset its fabrication, this beast needs 18.
• tonymet 4y ago
  Passenger transit emissions are about 10% of CO2 overall, so you're not going to make much of a dent
• csours 4y ago
  Disclosure: I work for GM; what follows is SOLELY MY OWN OPINION. I would be surprised if there are ever more than 50,000 Hummer SUV and Trucks made in a single year. For comparison, a decent year for the Malibu would be 300,000. My perception of the Hummer EV is that it is meant to be a halo vehicle that gets people excited and in showrooms. You don't have to love it, but someone will. Also, as other commentors have pointed out - these will largely be purchased by people who have other large SUVs. And you can't roll coal in an EV! I don't really like how ridiculously big these things have gotten either (solely my own opinion). I'd rather have a truck the size of the old Chevy S-10 or old Ford Ranger or current Ford Maverick.
• arb-spreads 4y ago
  This WSJ analysis is quite good - an EV has about half the carbon emissions relative to a comparable car after 200k miles. [https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better-for-the-environment/ https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better...] Naturally, an EV that is much more massive than a regular car will have more emissions, use more materials to manufacture, and tear up roads quicker. Ironically, there are tax incentives towards purchasing large vehicles which destroy roads quicker. Even if all vehicles were electric, overall emissions wouldn't budge much. [https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector] >80% of global emissions are from fossil fuels, mainly oil, coal, and gas. [https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix] Electric vehicles require more materials to produce and require significant grid infrastructure, which is mainly powered by fossil fuels. A carbon tax is one of the only realistic policies that could help lower carbon. There has been minimal progress in developed countries, and even less in developing ones. Sweden has the highest carbon tax at nearly 150/ton, and 1/3rd the emissions per person relative to the United States. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/483590/prices-of-implemented-carbon-pricing-instruments-worldwide-by-select-country/#:~:text=As%20of%20April%202021%2C%20Sweden,carbon%20tax%20back%20in%201990 https://www.statista.com/statistics/483590/prices-of-impleme....] Switzerland is similar. [https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...]
  • nightski 4y ago
    Isn't Sweden much more compact than the U.S.? Are the countries really comparable at all in size, density, standard of living and many other factors? I visited Sweden in high school on a student exchange, many years ago, and almost no one had a car. Everyone walked and it was a tiny town. Meals were very simple - bread, cheese and little to no meat. The family I stayed with and the town in general was quite poor and lived a simple life (with lots of drugs & alcohol). Of course things could of changed dramatically since then. I'm curious how does the carbon tax not just inflate prices across the board?
    • arb-spreads 4y ago
      Sweden has similar density to the US. Both countries have >80% of the population living in urban areas. Same goes for standard of living, with slightly lower GDP in Sweden and slightly higher quality of life. Higher prices are one of the best ways to reduce consumption. Imagine of clothes were suddenly taxed at 100% - people would presumably purchase less clothing.
• bsder 4y ago
  This article completely ignores the fact that changing a zillion distributed point sources of pollution and concentrating that into a much smaller number of industrial facility pollution sources makes tackling the pollution problem HUGELY simpler. Yes, we need laws about the efficiency of these cars. However, just switching to electric is a huge benefit even if there is no net decrease in emissions over combustion engine cars.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Railsify 4y ago
  The best part of this is that you have to drive a Tesla 400k+ miles to totally offset the carbon it takes to manufacturer the vehicle and to generate the electricity to operate it. You probably have to drive this hummer 800k+ miles to offset the carbon to manufacture and operate.
• kazinator 4y ago
  > Regulators Must Address EV Efficiency ... but keep their hands off the issue of fossil fuels powering much of the grid!
• tengbretson 4y ago
  Who cares? Car companies will likely need to enter the EV space by starting with offerings in their highest margin categories to ensure they have the wiggle room to develop new technologies or methods of production and still hit a price point acceptable to customers. The actual practicality of the specific car is secondary to this.
• josephcsible 4y ago
  If you charge an EV with cleanly generated electricity like solar or nuclear, then why does it matter in the slightest how inefficient it is?
• jpgvm 4y ago
  Model 3 absolutely crushing in efficiency for its price. What is interesting is also the Lucid hanging up there despite all the extra weight. Suggests either aero or drivetrain advantage at play.
• Xixi 4y ago
  I think this article is missing the elephant in the room by putting too much emphasis on efficiency: the biggest issue with EVs is in the manufacturing, and the reason why I often hear Tesla and other big EVs referred to as tools to ease one’s conscience, but certainly not long-term (or even medium-term) solutions to global warming. My figures are from Switzerland [1], so assume the Swiss grid (mostly hydroelectric and nuclear, so about as good as it gets). Using the same car, to ease the comparison: Peugeot 208 (ICE) vs Peugeot e-208 (BEV). Manufacturing takes 9.0 tCO2eq for the ICE version, 15.9 tCO2eq for the BEV version. Over the lifespan of the car (200,000 km): 42.0 tCO2eq for the ICE version against 22.7 tCO2eq for the BEV version. So as expected the BEV version wins: it breaks even at about 50,000 km. But note that it's "only" cutting emissions in half. And that's on the Swiss grid. Of course it's better than nothing, but unless manufacturing costs (in terms of GHG emissions) are massively reduced, it's a dead end. This is for a rather tiny BEV without much range, looking at Tesla Model 3 Long Range: 21.4 tCO2eq for manufacturing, 29.0 tCO2eq over 200,000km. Nearly 70% of the emissions of a Peugeot 208 ICE over the lifespan of the vehicle. And again that's with a nearly optimal grid in terms of emissions. I'm not even sure a coal powered Model 3 would break even with a Peugeot 208 (ICE). To give some perspective, to stabilize the climate we basically each have a 2.0 tCO2eq / year quota, of which currently about 1.0 tCO2eq is eaten by public services (infrastructure, hospitals, police, firefighters, etc.), rough estimation for France, YMMV depending on where you live. How to reconcile this with a car that emits 21.4 tCO2eq just for manufacturing, I don't know. [1] https://www.tcs.ch/fr/tests-conseils/conseils/achat-vente-vehicule/recherche-auto-comparaison.php https://www.tcs.ch/fr/tests-conseils/conseils/achat-vente-ve...
• Ralo 4y ago
  I've wondered for a while, why don't EV vehicles use transmissions? I understand they don't need them but wouldn't it make the motor even more efficient? Any ICE vehicles goal would be to put the lowest gearing (over drive) you can, without eating all of it's "passing power", nor dropping the RPMs too low. The lower the gear, the lower the engine needs to spin to keep that speed. The catch being, you need lots of torque to spin that gear, which electric motors have plenty of. It just seems like you can easily sacrifice your horsepower for some more efficient highway speeds.
  • simondotau 4y ago
    One of the reasons is that a gearbox capable of withstanding the torque from an electric motor would need to be rather heavy. I suspect that if there are any efficiency gains to be had, they’d be offset by the increased mass and transmission losses. Not to mention the increased parts cost, manufacturing complexity and packaging challenges.
    • Ralo 4y ago
      That is true, but I've also read that F1 (electric series?) was using transmissions at first and some stuck with them, while some didnt. Although, F1 has unlimited budget. Im sure using lower power motors would allow the usage of transmission and maintain enough power to be a daily commuter.
  • dagmx 4y ago
    Some have multiple gear ratios e.g I believe the taycan does, so that it can have different ratios for different speed ranges?
    • Ralo 4y ago
      I'd imagine the top end being where you need the gearing. If you can cut the rpm in half while on a road trip that's double(?) mileage? Im sure it isn't that cut and dry though, they probably did plenty of experiments.
• MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  Realistically shit is going to hit the climate fan in the next 50 years so bad that even Americans will be driving tiny EVs. And they will count themselves lucky.
• hedora 4y ago
  OK; there are a few issues with the article and the other comments. I suggest using this to estimate a particular vehicle's footprint in a given US geographic region: https://evtool.ucsusa.org/ https://evtool.ucsusa.org/ Also, note that grid electricity's carbon intensity is extremely time dependent. Here is 2021 data for California: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/classic/fuels/lcfs/fuelpathways/comments/tier2/2021_elec_update.pdf https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/classic/fuels/lcf...
• fomine3 4y ago
  Such huge BEV also needs big battery. Since EV production is now constrained by battery supply, saving battery usage is also important. One Hummer battery would be equivalent to almost four Model 3. Replacing a ICE Hummer to a EV hummer vs replacing four ICE Camry or BMW 3 to four Model 3s, which is better?
• forgotmypw17 4y ago
  I find it strange that the article doesn't mention the Hummer's exact weight. Is it really exactly 9,000 pounds, or is it about 9,000, or is it over 9,000?
• pengaru 4y ago
  If absurdities like 9,000lb EV hummers is what it's gonna take to substantially accelerate EV adoption across the national fleet, I don't personally care. We'll have a far easier time generating clean electricity from stationary grid-tied power plants than getting the fleet to stop spewing co2 sans electrification. Worst case we build a bunch of modern nuclear plants, just get the damn combustion engines physically decoupled from all the automobiles already.
• ehnto 4y ago
  Full EV is obviously the dream, but I have been interested in cars like the e-power Nissan Note which is a series hybrid. Same concept as a diesel electric train essentially. The car is mechanically an EV, but with a small 3 cylinder engine used to charge the (much smaller than usual) battery. Sounds insane at face value, but the the setup is far more efficient than a regular ICE setup, getting 1000-1300km range out of a 45litre tank. In a country like Australia where I can be city driving one week but still need to do 1500km journeys to go see family, this is a truly attractive stop-gap and they also end up being far cheaper to buy. They fill a very big niche for people who need an efficient car but don't have plugin capabilities or need more range but can't afford a full EV, or maybe a full EV doesn't work for them.