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Something I learned a while ago that stuck with me is that it takes roughly the same electricity to refine oil to gasoline as an EV uses to drive the distance t
by danpalmer 1y ago
Something I learned a while ago that stuck with me is that it takes roughly the same electricity to refine oil to gasoline as an EV uses to drive the distance that gasoline would get you, and that only accounts for refining, not transport and storage of that gasoline, loss due to evaporation, etc.
In other words, you can pretty much ignore where the electricity comes from and EVs are still better than gas cars for the environment.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoEVs reduce climate pollution, but by how much? New U-M research has the answer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45110270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45110270 - September 2025 Across the US, EVs beat hybrids and gas in life cycle emissions study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45016172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45016172 - August 2025 Vehicle Lifecycle Emissions Calculator - https://vehicle-emissions-calculator.vercel.app/ https://vehicle-emissions-calculator.vercel.app/
- tptacek 1y agoI assume the big issue isn't electrical production at all, but rather the resource, energy, and waste costs of producing new EVs.
- fnordpiglet 1y agoEVs are generally more wasteful to produce but their efficiency covers the excess in 1-2 years of operations, and can operate without meaningful maintaining for 200-300k+ miles and 15-20 years. There are no obvious upsides to ICE beyond political ideology.
- tptacek 1y agoRight I'm not making an argument about EVs generally either way, just saying that the cost of the energy used to propel them on the road wasn't the controversy. For a lot of us, the question isn't "new EV vs. new ICE"; it's "new EV vs. current gen ICE".
- danpalmer 1y agoI think the cost of energy to propel them was a common push-back. I've heard "the grid is dirty so EVs are dirty" from many people, and my point is that the grid composition essentially cancels out with oil refining, at which point EVs are "free" (to operate) while ICE vehicles still have to burn the fuel. As for carbon intensity in production, I'd be interested to see a clear apples-to-apples comparison. High end products tend to have more emissions associated with them because they take more time, materials, transport, they're lower volume, higher waste etc. EVs have historically been high-end cars, or at least upper-mid market and up, there have been very few cheap EVs until recently, so if you compare the average ICEV to the average BEV, I'd expect the ICEV to be a lower end car, and possibly lower emissions by default as a result. Batteries will drag up emissions, but I'm not sure I've seen truly fair numbers on this.
- bluGill 1y agoThe oil in a wind turbine would power a generator with the same output for about 10 hours.
- solid_fuel 1y agoAnd is the oil in a wind turbine consumed after 10 hours?
- bluGill 1y agoRight. There is a lot of lube oil which you could burn in a generator.