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First Volt owner has driven 12K miles in 2 years, burned 26 gallons of gas
- wmeredith 14y agoHow many tons of coal did they burn?
- parfe 14y agoAssuming 2460 kwh/ton of coal, and 36kwh per 100 miles of driving this driver burned 1.7561 tons of coal. Assuming he drove a gas powered Honda civic instead he would have burned 375 gallons of gasoline (12000 / 32 combined MPG). One ton of coal releases 2.86 tons of C02. One gallon of gasoline releases 19.64 pounds of C02. Driving the electric vechile released 5.022 tons of C02. Driving the gas civic would have released 3.68 tons of C02. All numbers shamelessly cribbed from whatever google result seemed nice.
- pejoculant 14y agoHowever the driver lives in New Jersey, where only 10% of the power comes from coal (as of 2005). There, I find that it is only 0.713 lbs of CO2 per kwh, so he'd only be releasing about 1.5 tons of CO2. CO2 data from here: http://www.miloslick.com/EnergyLogger_files/State_Electricity_and_Emissions_Rates.pdf http://www.miloslick.com/EnergyLogger_files/State_Electricit...
- hatberet 14y agoTesla has a cute map of electricity generation by state: http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric#electricity http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric#electricity It looks like there isn't any state where driving an electric actually produces more CO2 than driving a gas car. And that's before you include the CO2 generated from refining oil (which requires a fair amount of electricity).
- cjensen 14y agoThat's a great map except they fail to state the MPG of the "Gas Car" they are comparing too. Given the numbers in that, I'd be willing to bet a Prius outperforms the Electric in some of the worst states. Edit: Assumption is stated as 22mpg at the bottom of the page. That's fair if you are comparing the Model S to a similar luxury car. It also means the Prius wins in a lot of states.
- hatberet 14y ago> It also means the Prius wins in a lot of states. That's true. But I think Tesla is trying to sell the Model S to people who would otherwise buy a similar luxury car. There are a not-insignificant number of people in the world who just hate the Prius because it sacrifices handling, performance, and interior finish for the sake of fuel-efficiency. If Tesla builds and sells a car that those people like, isn't it still a net win? People who like hybrid Priuses can still buy them.
- cowkingdeluxe 14y agoYup. Electric cars are one half of the puzzle. Moving away from coal and towards other sources are the other half. It's good that one half of the puzzle is mostly complete, as the electric car seems to be here for good. I think moving energy sources away from coal will be the more difficult and time consuming task.
- DannoHung 14y ago> All numbers shamelessly cribbed from whatever google result supported my thesis. FTFY
- parfe 14y agoWhat thesis would that be? Feel free to go do your own calculation and contribute anything at all.
- whyenot 14y agoSnark like this is annoying and doesn't contribute in any way to the conversation. If you don't agree with someone's numbers, then take a few minutes and critique their data or do a little of your own research and post your findings. It's a lot more interesting and a more successful way to get your point across.
- tzs 14y agoOn the other hand, one could in theory outfit the coal plant with equipment to capture much of that carbon and prevent it from being released into the atmosphere. That's much harder to do for the car, because you only have a limited budget for space and weight to attach things to the car.
- JL2010 14y agoWhile I wouldn't exactly phrase it like that, it is an important question to ask: Where did he do most of his charging and how does the electric utility in that area produce their electricity?
- roflc0ptic 14y agoShh, we have to ignore all environmental externalities other than CO2 emissions caused by burning petroleum products. Otherwise we would have to face the fact that our lifestyles are directly at odds with the health of the planet we live on. Industrial civilization is engaged in a war against entropy which it is destined to lose.
- mikeash 14y agoLife is engaged in a war against entropy which it is destined to lose.
- roflc0ptic 14y agoSure, but my statement sort of has an implied time scale (e.g. a human time scale), and your implied time scale is cosmological. Maintaining the rational economic system that we live under requires immense energy inputs, and while it obviously can't be sustained for the next trillion years, it also can't be sustained for the next hundred.
- tyree732 14y agoI've recently switched to having all of my energy come from renewable resources, it isn't all that difficult to do at this point.
- roflc0ptic 14y agoHow do you define renewable?
- herge 14y agoWell, if you care about the green house impact of his use of his car, it's pretty good. Driving a regular car 12k miles will net you about 4.6 tons of CO2. His 36 gallons of gas, plus his electricity consumption if we assume that he uses about 36 kwh/100 miles and that he lives in New Jersey (as per http://media.gm.com/media/intl/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/intl/en/2010/CHEVROLET/12_15_airline_pilot_takes_chevrolet_volt.html http://media.gm.com/media/intl/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html...), which does not just burn coal for electricity production, we can expect him to have emanated ~1/3 ton of CO2 with his Chevy Volt over that period. So a good 15 times better.
- flagnog 14y agois there some way to make sure the gas doesn't go bad? Or a way to drain the tank?
- rrmm 14y agoIt'll automatically try to burn gas when it gets too old. http://ask.cars.com/2011/07/will-the-volts-gasoline-stay-fresh-if-the-engine-isnt-used.html http://ask.cars.com/2011/07/will-the-volts-gasoline-stay-fre...
- vonmoltke 14y agoYou could use a fuel stabilizer, like STA-BIL[1]. They are commonly used when storing gasoline for long periods. [1] http://www.goldeagle.com/brands/stabil/ http://www.goldeagle.com/brands/stabil/
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- iyulaev 14y agoEh, people worry about this but in my experience with storing vehicles is that it's really not that much of a problem. I put a motorcycle away for 1 year with zero prep. Next year, fired it up, ran the gas through (it seemed a little sluggish but nothing that can't be attributed to placebo), and filled it up fresh. And that's on a carburetor motorcycle with transistorized ignition, which is going to be much more finicky than a modern fuel-injected car with computer-controlled ignition.
- xradionut 14y agoTry that with an E15 fuel blend.
- justin66 14y agoThere's also the issue of temperature. I'd be a little concerned about keeping a tankful of some summer gasoline blend (I'm sorry I don't know what any of the antigelling chemical additives are called) over the winter someplace really cold. On the other hand, I really believe that engineers working in Detroit of all places would have considered this.
- whalesalad 14y agoVery cool. It would be nice to see a breakdown of where the energy he received while plugged-in at home came from. I think it's great that we are reducing our dependence on fossil fuel, but at the end of the day if the energy to power that car is being generated by dirtier or more costly ways... it doesn't really matter.
- josefresco 14y agoIt does because instead of directly burning said fossil fuel, you are indirectly burning it. This abstraction if you will allows change or improvement to the source of the electricity in a way that you cannot do with gasoline.
- hadem 14y agoCan you further explain? Maybe I misunderstood you but if the power plant generating the electricity is equal to the automobiles burning the fuel, in the end, isn't it a wash? Similar to hybrid cars. They are better for the environment but that isn't that offset by the production of the batteries needed for the hybrid engine?
- w1ntermute 14y ago> if the power plant generating the electricity is equal to the automobiles burning the fuel, in the end, isn't it a wash? No. By abstracting the source of the energy, we can make one change in the method of power generation and immediately make a large number of electric cars "clean". So if we replace a coal plant with a nuclear or hydroelectric or solar plant, then everyone charging their electric cars with energy from that plant will suddenly be using clean energy. This isn't possible with the millions of gas cars out there, because they are only capable of using gas.
- schiffern 14y ago>Similar to hybrid cars. They are better for the environment but that isn't that offset by the production of the batteries needed for the hybrid engine? No. The oft-cited "Dust to Dust" report has been thoroughly debunked: http://grist.org/article/dust-to-dumb/ http://grist.org/article/dust-to-dumb/ For just one example, they assume (with no real justification) that a Hummer will last 300k miles and a Prius just 100k. Invalidating that single assumption flips the result, and it's not the only one. There's a false equivocacy going on in our heads when we fall victim to this kind of misinformation. "One advantage vs. one disadvantage. They must cancel out!" This is why it's important to do quantitative analysis. In reality, the addition of a battery and motor only adds about 10% to the embodied energy and disposal impact of a car, which itself is dwarfed by the fuel burned in its lifetime (by about 3:1). The interesting question for me is: why do people worry about the Nickel in their car's battery but not in their car's steel-alloy frame?
- islon 14y agofor those who don't live in USA 12k miles -> 19312.1 kms 26 gallons -> 98.4207 liters
- dmix 14y agoAlso compared to a 2012 Honda Civic which has 39 miles/gallon. The volt had 459 miles/gallon.
- clientbiller 14y agoNow how much does a tesla burn after 12k miles...?
- seany 14y agoHe must not live in a location where he needs to drive that much. I'm sure I'm a bit of an outlier, but I've driven 30k miles in the last 11 months... 12k in 2 years is practically unfathomable to me.
- dalke 14y agoAccording to the DOT, a male 55-64 averages 15,859 miles per year. The average for the US, all ages, both sexes, is 13,476. I can't find a distribution for those numbers to say how much of an outlier you are. Anyway, if you had read the article you would see that he also drive his wife's car for long distances and as a retired airline pilot he gets free air travel. He was picked not for being representative but because he was the first.
- nvmc 14y agoTwelve thousand soul suckingly boring miles. I know hybrids are the future, but I'm happy for the future to wait until I die.
- SeanLuke 14y agoA Volt is not a Prius.