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This. We bought a small EV a little over a year ago, and I expect our personal gasoline reduction is close to 50% -- easily more than half our trips are now in
by codepoet80 4y ago
This. We bought a small EV a little over a year ago, and I expect our personal gasoline reduction is close to 50% -- easily more than half our trips are now in the EV. However, the grid in our area is primarily coal-based, so I'm aware we're just shifting. I've begun my own solar charging project to address that, but its expensive and will take multiple years to get ROI, and is clearly not for everyone.
My thesis is diversification -- having 100% of the average family's transportation needs dependent on gasoline creates (or creates potential for) lots of problems. Frankly the infrastructure is not there (in my area) for everyone to go 100% EV, but I'm in favor of experimentation and diversification.
- ThrowawayIP 4y agoYou are shifting the reduced amount of energy that your car consumes. So even with a coal-based grid, it is a net-positive. The MPGe rating is a great indication of this.
- bdamm 4y agoIf you took the gasoline that powers one car and put it in a power plant that powered EVs, you could power maybe 4 or 5 EVs with that gasoline. So even that is a net positive. Why? Because converting gasoline to electricity in a large-scale plant is far more efficient than converting gasoline to motion in little engines scattered about in the environment. Once the power is available as electricity, the downstream losses are really quite small (10%? 5%?) compared to the downstream losses for gasoline - 85% just in the car itself, and that's not even including delivering the gasoline to the gas station or the energy required to pump it into the car etc.