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The emissions of producing the vehicles should be tallied as well along with emissions for electric production. For a company at scale as amazon, they are a ma

The emissions of producing the vehicles should be tallied as well along with emissions for electric production. For a company at scale as amazon, they are a major consumer of equipment and the sourcing of that equipment is also a corporate operation.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths Draw attention to https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myth2 https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myt... specifically the lifecycle green house gas chart.
- nashashmi 3y ago
  That is good news all around. But we need to also realize when you have as many as 100,000 trucks, battery failures and battery replacements are nearly 1000 times a year. Those costs add up to the ghg. It might be definitely less than ICE Cars but if your goal is to offset, then this is a cost to offset too.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Additional citation: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/battery-recycling-shatters-the-myth-of-ev-battery-waste https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/battery-r... | https://archive.today/dT7Rw https://archive.today/dT7Rw ("Battery Recycling Shatters the Myth of Electric-Vehicle Waste") (breakeven is 15k miles with Redwood's recycling)
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Any failed or end of life batteries will be feedstock for the recycling stream. To drive down lifecycle green house gas emissions, there should of course be focus on using clean energy through the process whenever possible. We are building an enormous energy storage manufacturing and deployment flywheel, improvement should be continuous as the Machine is built. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/
vel0city 3y ago
I imagine they break-even in GHG emissions in most places in the US within a year or two of ownership. These trucks will likely be in service for over a decade. Last-mile delivery trucks get absolutely horrible mileage, constantly having to accelerate and brake all day long with a large amount of mass.
audunw 3y ago
Then you also need to factor in the recycling opportunity for the production. An EV may have fairly high CO2 emissions during production, but much of that is associated with mining of metals/minerals. Those are generally recyclable. Large scale commercial recycling of EV batteries is already happening. So those CO2 emissions are not for just one vehicle. It’s for many vehicles far into the future. The CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels will never benefit anything but the one vehicle it’s propelling forward. You’ve also gotta keep in mind that the mining and industrial transportation sector is also being decarbonised, sometimes with the same EV technology that EV cars are made with. Electric mining dump trucks is now a reality. Keep the long term picture in mind: we actually have a very viable pathway to eliminate whatever minor CO2 emissions are associated with EVs by just pouring more investments and R&D into EV technology.
jeffbee 3y ago
You are not the first person to think this thought. It is standard greenhouse gas inventory methodology. Quoting from Amazon's GHG report: """Transportation activities generate carbon emissions through the combustion of fossil fuels when vehicles are driven, the manufacturing of vehicles, and the supply chain for fuels. The emissions model for transportation covers emissions associated with “well-to-wheels” impacts (e.g.,extracting, refining, distributing, and consuming transportation fuels) and “vehicle” impacts (e.g., manufacturing, maintaining, and disposing of vehicles). These impacts are reported as emissions factors based on grams of CO₂e per kilometer basis."""
w0m 3y ago
VW put out a report on the topic a few years back. Tldr; for consumer vehicles, break even point for emissions was roughly 40k miles in the EU, and 50k in the US. After that it was a ~net positive vs equivalent gasoline model. For commercial use cases where 50k miles can be done many times over in a single year (and expected vehicular lifecycle is much much longer), it should be pure gravy.
jlv2 3y ago
When making the comparison, don't forget to tally the effects and emmisions of drilling, pumping, refining, and delivering oil and gasoline to the point-of-sale.
- triceratops 3y ago
  And all the oil spills and methane gas leaks.
  - nashashmi 3y ago
    These are not by design. They are by chance.
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      Methane leaks are often by design when it's an oil well. That's why you need to enforce flaring (burning the methane and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere) because that's better than simply venting the methane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_venting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_venting > Gas venting, more specifically known as natural-gas venting or methane venting, is the intentional and controlled release of gases containing alkane hydrocarbons - predominately methane - into Earth's atmosphere. It is a widely used method for disposal of unwanted gases which are produced during the extraction of coal and crude oil. Such gases may lack value when they are not recyclable into the production process, have no export route to consumer markets, or are surplus to near-term demand.
    - triceratops 3y ago
      That doesn't matter. They happen and they have an effect.
- nashashmi 3y ago
  Yes. All of these are things that should be tallied if we are only looking for ghg contributions.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

toomuchtodo 3y ago

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths Draw attention to https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myth2 https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myt... specifically the lifecycle green house gas chart.

nashashmi 3y ago
That is good news all around. But we need to also realize when you have as many as 100,000 trucks, battery failures and battery replacements are nearly 1000 times a year. Those costs add up to the ghg. It might be definitely less than ICE Cars but if your goal is to offset, then this is a cost to offset too.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Additional citation: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/battery-recycling-shatters-the-myth-of-ev-battery-waste https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/battery-r... | https://archive.today/dT7Rw https://archive.today/dT7Rw ("Battery Recycling Shatters the Myth of Electric-Vehicle Waste") (breakeven is 15k miles with Redwood's recycling)
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Any failed or end of life batteries will be feedstock for the recycling stream. To drive down lifecycle green house gas emissions, there should of course be focus on using clean energy through the process whenever possible. We are building an enormous energy storage manufacturing and deployment flywheel, improvement should be continuous as the Machine is built. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/recycle-with-us/

vel0city 3y ago

I imagine they break-even in GHG emissions in most places in the US within a year or two of ownership. These trucks will likely be in service for over a decade. Last-mile delivery trucks get absolutely horrible mileage, constantly having to accelerate and brake all day long with a large amount of mass.

audunw 3y ago

Then you also need to factor in the recycling opportunity for the production. An EV may have fairly high CO2 emissions during production, but much of that is associated with mining of metals/minerals. Those are generally recyclable. Large scale commercial recycling of EV batteries is already happening. So those CO2 emissions are not for just one vehicle. It’s for many vehicles far into the future. The CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels will never benefit anything but the one vehicle it’s propelling forward. You’ve also gotta keep in mind that the mining and industrial transportation sector is also being decarbonised, sometimes with the same EV technology that EV cars are made with. Electric mining dump trucks is now a reality. Keep the long term picture in mind: we actually have a very viable pathway to eliminate whatever minor CO2 emissions are associated with EVs by just pouring more investments and R&D into EV technology.

jeffbee 3y ago

You are not the first person to think this thought. It is standard greenhouse gas inventory methodology. Quoting from Amazon's GHG report: """Transportation activities generate carbon emissions through the combustion of fossil fuels when vehicles are driven, the manufacturing of vehicles, and the supply chain for fuels. The emissions model for transportation covers emissions associated with “well-to-wheels” impacts (e.g.,extracting, refining, distributing, and consuming transportation fuels) and “vehicle” impacts (e.g., manufacturing, maintaining, and disposing of vehicles). These impacts are reported as emissions factors based on grams of CO₂e per kilometer basis."""

w0m 3y ago

VW put out a report on the topic a few years back. Tldr; for consumer vehicles, break even point for emissions was roughly 40k miles in the EU, and 50k in the US. After that it was a ~net positive vs equivalent gasoline model. For commercial use cases where 50k miles can be done many times over in a single year (and expected vehicular lifecycle is much much longer), it should be pure gravy.

jlv2 3y ago

When making the comparison, don't forget to tally the effects and emmisions of drilling, pumping, refining, and delivering oil and gasoline to the point-of-sale.

triceratops 3y ago
And all the oil spills and methane gas leaks.
- nashashmi 3y ago
  These are not by design. They are by chance.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Methane leaks are often by design when it's an oil well. That's why you need to enforce flaring (burning the methane and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere) because that's better than simply venting the methane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_venting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_venting > Gas venting, more specifically known as natural-gas venting or methane venting, is the intentional and controlled release of gases containing alkane hydrocarbons - predominately methane - into Earth's atmosphere. It is a widely used method for disposal of unwanted gases which are produced during the extraction of coal and crude oil. Such gases may lack value when they are not recyclable into the production process, have no export route to consumer markets, or are surplus to near-term demand.
  - triceratops 3y ago
    That doesn't matter. They happen and they have an effect.
nashashmi 3y ago
Yes. All of these are things that should be tallied if we are only looking for ghg contributions.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]