Fits and Starts in Electric Transportation
The electric vehicle industry is slogging along with lack-luster consumer demand. At issue are a) the inconvenience of having to plan one’s trips more carefully and limiting their length, given the slow growth of fast-charging stations, b) the fact that, at this point, EVs are almost always charged by burning more coal, rendering their environmental benefit dubious at best, c) the improvement in the eco-friendliness of some petroleum-driven cars, and d) the short-term drop in the prices of gasoline and diesel.
On top of that, check out the problem a reader reports below. Fortunately, it’s one that very few EV owners will experience, but that doesn’t make this guy’s story any less painful:
We bought a THINK! CITY car as the Indiana assembly plant was liquidating but with the assurance that parts would be available for years. The car has handled great and except for a small glitch performed everything as expected till recently it began to refuse to accept a full charge or sometimes any charge at all. Talking to the former factory tech I learned that this is probably the CPU in the charge regulator and that they are no longer made or stocked. Such is the plight of the early adopters sometimes.
Well, you certainly have a good temperament given the circumstances. I feel for you.
I know it’s little consolation, but yours was a mistake that anyone could have made. The THINK! CITY was sold all over Europe and Scandinavia for several years, and there was no reason to think the company would withdraw its support.
I feel far less sorry for the customers of some of the other early entrants in the EV market, especially CODA. Anyone gullible enough to believe the company’s story that it would be around for even a few months (not to mention years/decades) to make good on its warranty and provide parts, in my estimation, deserved exactly what they got. The car was unattractive (see photo—the design resembles a bottom-end Ford from the 1980s), dismally unimpressive to drive, outrageously expensive (30% more than the Nissan Leaf), and backed by a company that was obviously bleeding what little money they had, compared to Nissan, the third largest automaker on the planet). What could possibly go wrong?
Having said all this, I support the EV concept generally. In fact, here are eight reasons to be bullish on electric transportation:
1) The world is in the process of replacing petroleum distillates as fuel for transportation. We are finding that the numerous costs (extraction, shipping to remote refineries, military protection, terrorism, environmental damage, etc.) are becoming unacceptably large, and are getting worse.
2) The world will soon focus on one or two alternate fuels; we will not evolve a great number of different approaches, e.g., hydrogen, CNG, propane, dimethyl ether (DME), etc., as the cost of scaling production and delivering all these different fuels is prohibitive.
3) The ubiquity of electricity goes a long way to solving the problems associated with the delivery of this type of alternative fuel.
4) Almost all large auto OEMs have made commitments in the direction of electric vehicles.
5) A growing number of EVs are being charged with distributed generation, especially PV arrays.
6) As more EVs are plugged into the grid, the more benefit they can provide in terms of absorbing off-peak power and providing ancillary services. Also, grid operators can use the flexibility by which EVs can be charged to integrate more renewables into the grid mix in their real-time decision making.
7) All 230 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads can be replaced with a 14% increase in the generation of electrical power (due to the huge delta in efficiency associated with charging and discharging batteries vs. burning hydrocarbons). About 30% of the total energy in the US is consumed by transportation, almost all of which is chemical energy in gasoline and diesel. Because the average efficiency of converting the chemical energy of these hydrocarbons to kinetic energy is only about 20%, we require four times as much total energy to start with than we would if we were employing a process that was 80% efficient, e.g., converting electrical to kinetic energy by charging and discharging batteries.
8) The presence of EVs and the implementation of smart grid are mutually re-enforcing.
Again, I feel for your plight, but history will show you were on the right side of this concept.
Craig,
I obviously agree with a lot of this – as we’ve hashed this out ad nausium over the past several years.
But I still think you are being too bullish overall for EV’s. The next year and a half of suppressed oil prices will prove to be another winnowing period for EV concepts. It’s likely that only Tesla and the ultra-luxury competitors might remain in the market by 2016, since their customer base reliably has multiple extra cars and has no problem buying an additional car with limited range possibilities, and (more importantly) their customer base doesn’t give a hoot about the overall economics of the purchase.
But the Leaf, the Prius plug-in, the Volt, etc… are all probably going to be canceled as lost causes.
I for one am glad, because we both know that you are being EXTREMELY generous with the “dubious at best” categorization of the environmental impacts of using coal to power our transportation. It’s a significant worsening in terms of overall environmental impact, which is why I’ve waged my private campaign of tilting at windmills – er… EV’s…
🙂
That may not be true in 20-30 years, but it’s true today, and its true for all EV’s sold today.
As for your 8 points…
1. I don’t believe the world is replacing petroleum with anything other than efficiency – which I am a HUGE fan of. But mass transportation, telecommuting, and much more efficient fleet economies for both cars and trucks have all served to slow the growth in global petroleum demand. But make no mistake, that demand is still growing. The 115,000 or so EV’s sold internationally make up ~0.6% of the total market, and that’s with completely absurd government subsidies spurring interest. YOY sales growth for the international EV sector was ~18% in the past year, so if that trend were to continue… in 10 years we might see EV’s represent 3% of the total vehicles sold. I suspect that the growth rate will be less than 18% over the next 10 years.
2. The world seems to be cycling through these alternate fuels… They become fads, they become proven disappointments, then they become discarded for the next fad, until the rest are all discarded again and the first one rises back to the top again. I’ll happily admit that EV’s are hundredsfold more viable than hydrogen and algae concepts; and are dozensfold more viable than DME, CNG, etc… But they are not yet viable. So eventually they’ll be tossed aside and the next concept will get another turn… and it will fail. In the end, it’s just hard to get anywhere near the energy density – in mass or volume – as you can achieve with liquid hydrocarbons. That is a very big deal.
3. This is true, as long as EV’s remain a small portion of the market. Last mile issues will become significant if EV’s penetrate too deeply into society, but they are certainly no threat now, nor will they likely become a threat as long as they remain focused within ultra-wealthy neighborhoods where the transmission capacity vastly exceeds current needs. But I have a friend who works in “cubeland”, and his company issued a proclamation that no-one can use personal fans in their cubicle – because the building’s electrical wiring cannot handle the load. It’s absurd to state that a modern building cannot handle having a fan plugged in… but once you have a bunch of cubicles (houses) with core energy demands – computers and phones and whatnot (housing baseload demand)… then you plug in a few new demand loads… even if those demand loads seem trivial, they can be more than the wiring can handle.
4. Yes, but most of them have made large commitments into CNG, hydrogen, flex-fuel, DME, even solar-powered transportation. They’ve all tried everything, and discarded it as soon as the government incentives stopped.
5. I would say that a large number of EV owners have chosen to offset their environmental burden they incurred by switching to EV’s. I commend those that have attempted to offset the burden of their choice, but if we phrase it more correctly then we can properly consider the choice of the EV as the burden, and the choice of the solar array as an offset mechanism. If we looked at it like that, one could easily see that we could also choose to offset a hydrocarbon based vehicle with a solar array… The solar array is a good thing, the EV is a burden.
6. The V2G concept really doesn’t have any merit. It’s been tirelessly promoted but there’s nothing there. Essentially, in order for V2G to work, a person would have to sacrifice some of the precious flexibility of their range to the grid for the dubious good of grid stabilization. The massive liquid sodium battery fields purchased by the grid managers to help with instantaneous cycling reserves cost ~$300/kWh. Often, that is too much of a price for the value added to the grid, and grid managers don’t choose to make that call. A Tesla S, on the other hand, costs ~$1180/kWh of battery capacity, and presumably there would only ever be a small percentage of the capacity that the driver would choose to sacrifice for grid management purposes at any given time. (A Nissan Leaf costs ~$1250/kWh, Chevy Volt costs ~$2150+/kWh, plug-in-Prius costs $6800/kWh, etc..) It’s just not logical to think that a Leaf driver would choose to allot 25% of his/her driving range to the vague noble cause of “grid stability” without receiving compensation that would far exceed what the grid managers would pay for just building another giant liquid sodium battery field.
7. Really? Let’s analyze the math here a little…. So the average driver drives ~40 miles/day, which for an EV would take ~16 kWh. Excluding the energy required for heat, and the energy lost during idle when the temperature is cold, the 200 million drivers in America would require 3.2 billion kWh/d, or 1.168 PWh/yr. Once you add in line losses (6%), in-home wiring losses (4%), charging losses (10%), and idle losses (1%), you’ve climbed to 1.45 PWh. America’s total generation last year was ~4.1 PWh. That’s not 14%, that’s ~35%. The rest of the world might work out a little better because countries like China have massive industries using electricity and still have a majority of their citizens riding bikes and/or walking… but that won’t be true in the future. The third world is attempting to become like America, so evaluating the future planet should probably be based on our lifestyle, not theirs.
8. I truly wish this were so. But to my knowledge there is no incentive whatsoever on a federal basis, and there’s very few states that have any incentives, to encourage smart-charging capabilities. It’s just an added expense that very VERY few of the EV drivers choose to invest in. If the subsidies were based on the smart-charger, not the dumb car, then I would have far less problems with the concept. But most people plug their cars in and the charger draws maximum power at a fixed rate for many hours, then tapers off to finish the charging and maintain the charge. You’ve been a part of the EV community for some time Craig… honestly: How many of your friends that have EV’s have a smart-charger in their garage? How many of them have smart controllers for their home loads? This is something similar to solar but just not as “sexy”… The car is a burden, this other thing – for which there’s no stipulation it must be purchased in conjunction with the car – is an entirely different thing which offsets some of the burden of the car… but people can purchase it or not, it’s not connected to the purchase of the car.
🙂
You know that I’m still a friend and a fan, and I still have great respect for the awesome job you’ve done in tirelessly promoting alternative energy… but I believe you’re still almost wholly misguided in your affection for EV’s. I think for the next several decades there will be a net negative environmental impact, and they’re absorbing investment that is attempting to help the environment, meaning – in my eyes – that they both carry the burden for their own negative impact and the opportunity cost of the money not invested into efficiency, wind, solar, geothermal, aforestation, and other clearly positive (for the environment) investment venues. So we’re still on different sides of the fence on this issue.
🙂
Yes, I’ve come to understand that we’re on different sides of the fence on this. 🙂
Re: #7, I wrongly extrapolated the “whole world” transportation stats from the skewed situation in the U.S. I’ve made the change to the article above.
Craig,
The response to your change in #7 is this: We agree that most of the power used to charge EV’s eventually is satisfied via coal, with the remaining power mostly natural gas.
A person choosing an EV who presumably makes such a choice with some concern for the environment. Such a person would not – by nature – be making a choice between an EV and a giant super-powered SUV, and such a person would obviously not be making a choice between an EV and a 15-year-old clunker, or an ultra-cheap poor quality vehicle which just by nature gets poor efficiency. The “average” efficiency of the vehicles on the road are weighed down by some extremely poor performing options that would not be considered by an EV buyer.
An EV buyer would either buy an efficient hybrid or a high-performing luxury car. These get between 33% and 38% efficiency in converting hydrocarbons to kinetic energy, and hybrids also take advantage of brake recovery, while most luxury vehicles have stop/start idle elimination.
But in terms of raw efficiency, your target is 33% – 38%.
For coal, the average power plant efficiency in America is 31%. Line losses are 6%, in-house wiring losses can be 3-5%, charging losses are 10%, idle losses are 1%, and the electric motor efficiency is ~95%. So average net efficiency is ~23.7%.
I can assure you that losses due to extraction, transportation, refining, and distribution for oil is FAR less than the losses due to mountaintop removal, mining, pulverization, and transportation of coal. This is inherently true both due to the difference in dealing with liquids vs solids, and the difference between the energy density of coal vs petroleum hydrocarbons.
For NG, the average power plant efficiency is 40%, which would make the net efficiency of the EV energy conversion ~30.6%. This doesn’t take into consideration the line leakages of methane distribution, which absolutely and assuredly exceed the refining losses of petroleum.
All told, switching the 30% of our energy used for transportation from petroleum to electricity may end up being net positive, but the early EV buyers are making choices that are almost certainly resulting in more energy used for transportation, not less.
All the talk about refueling and we say that our technology will refuel without emitting carbon dioxide nor air derived nitrogen oxide. Yes our technology can do this at a reasonable per KW price. Anyone interested in joining our patented technology can contact us.
It is interesting to me that EV subsidies are often discussed as the only reason EV cars exist. I completely agree that that is true, however, it is only true because the per mile subsidy that gasoline cars are given are substantially larger. Those subsidies are in the form of gas company subsidies, additional health care burden, environmental degradation and military action needed to protect that vital resource. Why is it we can look at the “big picture” for EV’s but not gasoline powered vehicles?
As a Canadian living in Ontario, our electricity is produced mainly from nuclear and hydro plants such that the pollution from an electric car is about 90% less than the equivalent gasoline powered car making it the first choice in reducing climate change. To finance the additional cost of electric over gas, the fuel costs are about 80% less such that the purchaser is cash flow positive from day one. Also, as a senior driving a ten year old Prius, I am ready to get a SMART electric and am hopeful the millennial generation will make the right choices.
I guess we all know that there are losses in the delivery of electricity to the batteries in my car. I would assume that it takes some energy to get the crude oil from the ground, transport it to a refinery, convert it to gasoline, transport it to a gas station and for me to get it to my cars tank. So comparing an EV and including system losses with a gasoline vehicle excluding system losses is misleading. Average coal plant may be 31% efficient, but electricity comes from many sources. Electricity from hydro, wind and solar really don’t need to account for production efficiency. Nuclear is perhaps in the same boat. If I charge my EV from one of those sources my overall efficiency is 3 to 4 times better than the worst case number of 23.7% and the system losses for gasoline cars likely bring the efficiency quote down by a factor of 3 to 4. In the pacific NW an EV is about 75% efficient and my gasoline car is likely 10% efficient. If we avoid the trap using averages should we at least be encouraging EV use in Washington state (seven fold efficiency advantage) even if we are more sceptical of encouraging EV’s in WV (three fold efficiency advantage).
I replaced my Volvo V70 with an EV and went from 20 mpg to 4 miles/kWh. I drive 60 miles every day, that was 3 gallons per day ($9 per day (subsidized)). Now I use 15 kWh per day ($1.50 per day (not subsidized)). Most estimates for the taxpayer subsidy on gas are at least $4 a gallon. At that rate after two years the subsidy on gas will exceed the Federal subsidy on EV’s offered to most (not all) EV buyers. Even in the most generous states, within a year of paying off the federal EV subsidy, the state EV subsidy will also be exceeded by the federal gas subsidy.
Rebel Nichols,
Craig and I have been discussing the charging source of new marginal demand loads for years, so when I was talking to him I had skipped over all of this… But when you introduce a new load to a system, that load can only be met by spare capacity.
Think of it like this: When you unplug your vehicle, you don’t suppose that they reduce rainfall, tamp back their nuclear reactors, slow the winds, or throw blankets over the solar panels… That’s absurd. When you unplug a load, they tamp back a local gas peaker.
In the same vein, when you introduce new loads, they don’t increase rainfall to provide an additional portion of energy to make up 8% of your charging load, or ramp up nuclear power to make up an additional 19% of your charging load… the winds don’t blow harder and they don’t run around pulling blankets off of solar panels. They increase the torque resistance marginally at a fossil power plant and begin adjusting the fuel consumption.
Hydropower, nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal… This is all utilized at as close to 100% as can be managed. When new loads are introduced, the new demand is met by increased fossil fuel consumption. This is true whether the fossil fuels are 5% of the grid mix or 95% of the grid mix.
For a gradual overnight increase in demand load (charging your car) the most attractive option for the power companies will be to turn down the coal plant a little less each night, and thus increase the baseload energy generation. This reduces labor and wear on the coal power plant, and coal is the cheapest energy source… so they LOVE long-duration loads in the evening or at night, as they can improve their overall costs by adding more coal to the grid.
That’s your power source.
As for the losses of extracting, transporting, refining oil and distributing petroleum products… that’s ~12% on average for all other than ultra-deep earth (Brazil), ultra-heavy crude (Venezuela) and tar sands (Canada)… But since we’re analyzing last marginal demand, I wouldn’t mind if you increased that to ~20%, since the last marginal stuff is presumably the most expensive oil which would not be processed by taking an ICE off the road.
The reason I didn’t include these losses is because no-one has an average energy loss of mining, pulverizing, and delivering coal – whether from strip mining or mountaintop removal – but we know that coal has a much lower energy density than oil, and coal is solid rather than liquid (solid matter is dozensfold more energy intensive to transport, it all must be by train rather than pipeline).
The exercise is not really worth wasting much time on, because coal is so much worse of a pollutant than refined petroleum products in all respects.
Interesting. Here in the pacific NW your assumptions about coal could lead you down the wrong path. My utility for example uses less than 2% coal and less than 1% nat gas. While they don’t turn down the rain, they must reduce the flow through the dam. So for me, using your numbers, the EV efficiency is around 75% and virtually no CO2 or other toxic fumes were produced. Gas, on the other hand, is likely less than 20% average efficiency and produces 20 lbs CO2 per gallon burned and various and sundry toxic fumes. I’m not sure how you account for the destruction of nature required to extract tar sand oil and the continual spills.
Certainly the less coal that is mined the better for the environment – there is no way to make clean coal.
I have seen many references to the amount of electricity it takes to produce a gallon of gas. I know it is difficult to calculate since much of the electricity is produced by burning some or the lighter distillates. But I have seen estimates of around 5 kWh (enough to propel my EV 20 miles), but I really don’t know. If that is correct, just diverting the electricity from making gasoline to propelling my car means I could get 80% of the power I need without increasing electricity production at all.
Rebel Nichols,
I appreciate that some regions are far cleaner than others… but the grid is interconnected at large, and in the end the renewable sources are still 100% utilized.
While you are correct that they manage some load following by increasing or reducing flow through the dams, the total amount of hydroelectric power that is produced is based on rainfall. If they restrict flow at some points, they can increase flow at others (during the summer peak season when water levels are generally at their lowest). But you aren’t increasing or reducing hydroelectric power by changing demand loads.
What you ARE doing, is changing the amount of energy that is exported. If you consume more energy in the Pacific NW, then you have less clean energy to export to California… which means they must purchase more energy from Wyoming and Nevada… and that’s where some plant manager is going to be reducing the turn-down ratio for their coal plants at night.
It’s a harsh reality, but in the end new loads MUST be met with spare capacity, and the fuel choice will be made based on economics, not environmentalism.
I’ve devoted my adult life to reducing the amount of coal we use… Spent literally years (measured in minutes) volunteering, advocating, lobbying, etc… Any reduction in load is going to represent a decrease in fossil fuel sourced power. Any smoothing of the load will result in less reliance on inefficient peakers that have too-little smokestack scrubbing controls, and any reduction in baseload will result in less coal being burned. The inverse is true as well, which is why I oppose and am horrified by subsidies for electric vehicles. Until these precepts are no longer true, EV’s do far more damage than ICE’s.
As for the electricity required to refine a gallon of gasoline. That is entirely untrue propaganda.
The numbers are this: In 2013 American refineries used 46 TWh of electricity. They consumed 897 bcf of NG, and they used 20 kT of coal. For this, they refined 6.97 billion bbl of petroleum products. So if you just amortize the electricity used into the gallons of petroleum product, you get 0.16 kWh (which I assume would power your EV ~1500 ft). However… this includes all products, not just gasoline. If you wished to claim there was no benefit to society from all other products, and only chose to credit gasoline, there was 3.37 billion bbl, amortizing out to ~0.32 kWh/gallon.
HOWEVER, among the products produced by refineries were 300 million bbl of petroleum coke, which was then burned to produce ~13.4 TWh of electricity, and another 13.4 TWh of electricity was produced from diesel generators… So the net electricity consumption from petroleum refineries was only ~17 TWh…
In short… there’s not much electricity consumed to produce a gallon of gasoline.
So what you are saying is that changes in electrical demand are basically changes in the amount of coal burned. Since the burning of coal has the highest CO2 per BTU anything that increases coal burning is net bad. That is why the focus is on overall efficiency. Arguments have been made that ICE car’s efficiency is similar to EV car’s efficiency. Is it possible that tar sand or shale oil is so much more energy intensive to extract compared to traditional oil sources that it is worst that coal? Is there value in developing BEV technology since it is not possible to eliminate emissions from ICE cars?
Rebel Nichols,
I think there’s always value in developing efficiency. There may – at some point and for some cases (such as islands like Hawaii) – be a benefit for electric transportation. The number of cases where that may be a factor might easily increase in the coming decades.
My problem is simple: In almost all cases today, an EV is going to be far more environmentally damaging than an ICEV of similar performance (it’s not fair to compare a Leaf to a 3-ton monster SUV… but a Leaf does far more damage than a Prius and even more damage than an Accord or similar… That kind of thing).
That being a given – that an EV is almost always going to be more environmentally damaging than its ICEV counterpart – it is nothing short of evil that we are using taxpayer funds to bribe people to purchase EV’s rather than purchasing ICEV’s. It’s just sick. I recognize that the Bush administration had a line in the tax code incentivizing people to purchase ultra-large SUV’s, and I opposed that – on the ground that it was evil – as well. It’s just sick. There is no possible political ideology wherein it could be justified to use taxpayer subsidies to bribe people to increase the harm that they do to the environment.
If EV’s were funded by their enthusiasts, rather than being funded by taxpayers – which include me – I’d treat them exactly as I treat SUV’s. A worse-for-the-planet option that some people prefer and make their own choice to buy. As it stands, EV’s represent one of the most disgusting policies operating in the U.S. today.
Glenn,
It’s not just the “Get a Free Hummer” tax break from a few years ago there are far more destructive tax laws but they are more insidious. We subsidize oil companies, increase our military expenditure protecting oil shipping lanes for the entire world, we pay much of the cost of spill clean up and how do you calculate the additional health care costs we bear. Those subsidies encourage larger cars, more powerful cars and discourages public transportation. The amount of environmental damage caused by ICEV subsidies dwarfs the effect of EV subsidies. EV subsidies help get society ready for a day when we finally get our act together and minimize the use of coal and NG for electrical production.
As the Think! owner mentioned above I feel a few comments are in order. I am in the third home that I have added PV to, one off grid and two grid tied. I believe you are both underestimating how much lower solar panel costs will contribute to greater numbers of home owners adding solar. Also having a neighbor with solar will certainly do a lot more to increase your belief than just reading about it.
Here on Hawaii Island both gas and electricity are very high priced so we have a natural head start in solar adoption, 20% of residential now. While people running their homes on coal are not likely to think of an electric car, once you have solar power delivered free to your home daily it is only natural that you want a car that runs on it. In our case we doubled our solar array to provide for our EV driving needs. Quit worrying about the costs of driving a coal charged EV. That will be rare. Last year our Island had an EV gathering in Hilo where I surveyed about 12 of the EV owners present as to their source of power. They were about 1/3 off grid solar and 2/3’s grid tied solar. Zero % charged solely from the grid.
I do agree with you on one thing, Glen, V2G will never happen because why would a EV owner want to drain their battery (costing cycle life) leaving them with the possibility that it would not be recharged when they needed it?
Rico,
Actually, in the case of Hawaii – or all islands for that matter – we agree. Hawaii’s electric power is derived from diesel generators, and you’re situated well into the tropics. So the net cost of a solar array plus ~15-20 kWh of battery storage will likely have a lower net LCOE than using the electric power from the grid whenever oil is trading above ~$100/bbl.
Your case is not similar to the mainland U.S. case, however. Our grid energy in SC costs me ~$0.10/kWh, delivered. To attempt to replace that with a solar array plus battery storage would result in more than tripling my base energy costs. Also, due to the fact that Hawaii’s grid energy comes from diesel, an electric vehicle running off the grid would be burning diesel. The higher efficiency of the massive generators would be offset by the transmission and charging losses, but your net environmental impact would more or less break even with driving an efficient ICEV if you powered your car off the grid…
In your case most of my comments above probably don’t apply.
When will the HYDROGEN ECONOMY , German are working hard and introduce car run by hydrogen , their fuel is water and air , NASA launch their rocket with hydrogen energy , the space lab is the size of 2 football field full of eletronic equipment scientific ,,the astronaut coffee is made with the water exhaust from their ful cell .
Electric cars have been slow to take off, in part because of the relatively high capital cost of electric cars versus conventional. This is starting to change as battery cost is dropping quite rapidly and the quality of batteries is improving i.e. increasing energy density, cycle efficiency, and cycle life.
In Europe, the relative economics of IC v Electric cars is somewhat different due to the tax treatment of gasoline and diesel.
The UK situation
Electric vehicles currently attract a $7,500 first registration subsidy.
In the UK, we are currently paying around $6.50 per US gallon which is the lowest price we have seen for nearly a decade. A daily 40 mile commute in a fairly efficient IC car will cost around $6 to $8 in fuel per day, or something like $1,610 per year assuming 230 working days a year and ignoring any mileage on weekends or holidays. By contrast, the daily cost of the same commute using 14 kWh of grid electricity (11 to 12 kWh from the battery, the other 2 to 3 kWh from cycling losses and AC to DC conversion) will be around $3.00 if charged on standard rates, or around $2.00 if charged on off peak rate at night.
Annual fuel cost saving is around $850 a year if charging on standard tariff, or $1,100 per year for night charging. (Industrial fleet customers charging off peak at commercial premises can save even more)
For those commuting into central London and needing a car (Most people are able to use public transport), there is an $18 a day congestion charge applied to IC vehicles but not to electric vehicles so that such users can save a further $4,140 per year due to exemption from the congestion charge.
For fleet customers who’s staff use company cars, electric company cars attract far lower “benefit in kind” taxes so saving the staff several $ thousand per annum off their tax bill. .
Electric vehicles also have far lower servicing costs (The Tesla has only 6 parts which by design are routinely replaced during the life of the car – 4 tyres and 2 wiper blades).
As costs drop, and range increases, electric vehicles are becoming much more cost effective .
In regards to emissions, according to DEFRA the government department responsible for monitoring the emissions of UK power generation, average emissions are now around 480 g of CO2 equivalent per kWh of electricity supplied in the UK (this is dropping year by year). In this basis, net emissions are at this point around 170 g per mile – quite similar to the emissions of a Toyota Prius. The difference is that the Toyota Prius will continue to have the same emission profile throughout its life, whilst that of the electric vehicle will decrease year by year as more low carbon power generation joins the UK power grid.
Not mentioned in the article is one major advantage of electric vehicles versus IC, and that is in terms of local pollution in cities. By some estimates, the UK sees around 27,000 premature deaths a year due to poor urban air quality, a large proportion of which is down to IC vehicles. This is around 10 times the number killed in vehicular accidents. Electric vehicles can play an important role in reducing the problem of poor urban air quality especially if widely adopted for public transport and local delivery vehicles.
Finally, a comment about China.
China has recently adopted a target of 5 million electric vehicles on its roads by 2020, and requires 30% of government vehicles to be either electric or alternative (cleaner) fuel, and is investing heavily in charging stations. (We all know what happens when the Chinese government puts its political will behind an idea). True, Chinese consumers are yet to be convinced, however as soon as it makes economic sense to the end user, and begins to become trendy, adoption is likely to be swift especially considering the truly appalling air quality in Chinese cities. (I could even see IC vehicles being heavily restricted in the central areas of some Chinese cities before much longer!).
Gary,
The cost of fuel in the U.K. is based on taxes which provide for your health care. Your government is effectively taxing the rest of the country more to provide you with free health care if you drive an EV. The same goes for the eliminated congestion charge. An EV driver would contribute to congestion the same as an ICEV driver… By eliminating the fee for EV drivers, you’re eliminating an incentive for car pooling from some people and thus worsening congestion – and you’re further subsidizing EV sales.
Subsidies represent false economic benefits. The UK expenses for health care won’t change because a person drives an EV (if anything, they’ll worsen because of the worse environmental impact of EV’s – specifically in the dramatic increased emissions of NOx, SO2, Pb, Cd, As, Hg, and PAH’s)… so society is just shouldering some of the burden from a few… But that only works as long as the few are truly few. In America, our $7500/vehicle federal subsidy is currently costing a little less than a billion dollars per year, which we can handle. But if the fantasy of increased EV penetration were ever to take place, and we instead were seeing 16 million EV’s sold per year (a little less than our total vehicle sales volume), then the costs would be 120 billion/year, or the equivalent of increasing the income tax rate for every bracket for all citizens by 4%.
Clearly that is not something that would work, and it’s not something that SHOULD work if the result is worsened emissions.
You might consider how much your own subsidies might look if they conflated to the total UK market. The real economics should be considered using the base cost of the vehicles and the unsubsidized and untaxed cost of the fuels. Everything else is just shifting the burden, not eliminating it.
Glenn, I accept that electric vehicles are at this point heavily subsidised in the UK, and that the tax on transport fossil fuels is in part cross subsidising a variety of social services. Part of that tax is however levied on the basis of “polluter pays” with the revenue partly used to cover societal costs associated with pollution. I also accept that there may be a perverse incentive to use private rather than public transport for those with electric vehicles.
In regards to the “higher” pollution associated with EV, I would say that in the case of the UK, with our current electricity mix, EV related CO2 equivalent emissions are broadly similar to those of hybrids such as the Prius, and lower than the fleet average of vehicles on UK roads. Other pollutants such as NOx, SO2 etc are likely to be lower for large central power stations where extensive pollution control is applied to large point sources giving better clean up that is achieved by an IC vehicle (especially during the first mile). There is also a difference between the impact of pollutants in sparsely populated areas v heavily built up city locations where far more people are affected.
Regarding the supposed liability of 120 billion for the US if everyone went electric (or 15 billion for the UK with 2 million vehicles a year), this would never happen, It would take around 8 years of annual doubling of the EV market before EVs become the majority of new vehicles, a prospect which appears at this point highly unlikely. During that time, batteries will become cheaper, more reliable, and more energy dense, and scale up of the EV industry will bring economies of scale to all parts of the vehicle.
From 2010 to 2014, the price of lithium based batteries per kWh has nearly halved.from over $900/kWh to around $500/kWh. If this rate of cost reduction continues for another 5 years, the cost of the battery system on a Nissan Leaf will drop by around $6,000 (assuming the same capacity) with additional savings on other parts of the vehicle. At this rate, EVs will compete directly with IC vehicles on initial cost around 2019 to 2020 and will no longer require a subsidy. This day may come earlier if there is a breakthrough at scale in Zinc Air batteries which could possibly give 300 to 400 miles range at around $160 per kWh. with several times the energy density of current lithium batteries.
Gary,
It seems that you – like David below – are banking on transformative economic changes in the battery world. As I replied to David, I would be happy to change some of my stances if the real world conditions change. But I won’t force someone to pay for technology today based on the entirely uncertain hope that a future technology might come along to render today’s purchases obsolete.
That doesn’t make any sense.
As to your comment concerning “grid mix”, see my reply to Rebel Nichols above. There are almost no real-world situation in which new demand loads are not met by spare fossil capacity.
Craig,
You have posted:
“An EV buyer would either buy an efficient hybrid or a high-performing luxury car. These get between 33% and 38% efficiency in converting hydrocarbons to kinetic energy, and hybrids also take advantage of brake recovery, while most luxury vehicles have stop/start idle elimination.”
It is true that an engine can be as efficient as you have stated, but the efficiency of an engine depends greatly upon operating conditions. The highest efficiency normally occurs at or near full throttle with the engine running at approximately the speed at which it produces its maximum torque. That is a condition which is seldom realized in actual vehicle operation. I’d guess that, depending on driving conditions, an Otto-cycle engine in a car would be doing well to average 20% efficiency. In slow city traffic, the efficiency would be far lower because the engine would be loafing.
Ideally, an engine would operate continuously at a moderate speed, perhaps 3500 rpm for a modern engine, and at full throttle. Of course that is impossible under most driving conditions with a conventional drive train. However, it would be possible to design a hybrid car so that the engine would always be operated under ideal conditions. When the batteries became almost discharged, the engine would be started and run under ideal conditions until the battery was charged, then it would be shut off. Of course there would then be losses in the generator, motor, battery, and electronic components.
There is considerable room for efficiency improvements in hybrid cars. Ultracapacitors are more efficient than batteries, especially when being charged or discharged under heavy current conditions, but they have very limited energy capacity. It would be possible to combine ultra capacitors with batteries in a way to improve efficiency, but the electronics would be more complicated and total costs would be higher. Even so, I’d guess that that will eventually be done.
Meanwhile, transmissions with more ratios have made it possible to run engines closer to deal conditions. In top gear, engines can be run much more slowly and when more power is required, a lower gear can be selected. Upshifts can occur at lower engine speeds without losing power because the ratios are closer together. Of course that requires more gear shifting, but it does result in greater efficiency.
It will be interesting to see how vehicle technology changes as the quest for greater efficiency continues.
Frank,
It was me who posted that, not Craig.
🙂
If you look at the Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) plots for given vehicles, you’ll find that most of them have maximum efficiency in the 2000-3500 RPM regime. Revving the engine to max usually results in a dramatic drop in efficiency. That said, the greatest gain from the hybrid engine concept is the elimination of the low-torque off-the-line start from the engine. The engine is shut off while the electric motor (with full torque at zero mph) accelerates off the line, and the engine then kicks in at maximum efficiency (~230 g/kWh).
I personally would like to see a company come out with a slight improvement on that design: I’d like to see 4 electric motors mounted in the wheel bases, with a high-efficiency engine that has no function other than an electric generator. No transmission, no axles or drive-train. Just a ~40 kW generator, a 2 kWh battery, and four 12 kW motors (one on each wheel). The use of 4 motors would dramatically improve brake recovery, and the elimination of drivetrains would improve net efficiency.
As long as no plug is allowed anywhere near such a car, and it had a high quality catalytic converter, that would be by far the most environmentally friendly vehicle on the road. It would also be much cheaper than any EV or plug-in-hybrid concept (it might be slightly more expensive than low-end serial hybrid concepts).
But, it’s not sexy and it’s not subsidized… so we aren’t designing cars in that direction.
Well, the BMW i3 REx is very close to what you describe.
Rebel Nichols,
I think the BMW i3 REx is a very good step in the right direction. It has a plug – which of course I’m not a fan of – and it has only one electric motor with drivetrains and axles… but the nature of the engine as a pure generator and the propulsion purely driven by electric motor is certainly a great step forward.
But you’re right… things are moving in the right direction there. I need to focus my lament more specifically on travesties like the Volt.
Glenn you silver tongued devil!
“it’s just hard to get anywhere near the energy density – in mass or volume – as you can achieve with liquid hydrocarbons. That is a very big deal. ”
volumetric energy density in Mj/l: (from wikipedia)
“gasoline – 32.4
Lithium Ion – 0.9-2.63 Laptop computers, mobile devices, some modern electric vehicles”
So if we give the advantage to you in our calculations and assign gasoline 32 mj/l and 1 mj/l to Lithium batteries then you have a ratio of 32:1
All else being equal I should be able to go 32 times as far on a the energy stored in a liter of gasoline, than I can travel on energy stored in 1 liter of lithium ion batteries…..
I’ll admit…it looks daunting at first glance!
However you neglect to factor in the conversion of that energy to useful work….we’ll call this “useable energy”
So from my bud wiki again….
“Most steel engines have a thermodynamic limit of 37%. Even when aided with turbochargers and stock efficiency aids, most engines retain an average efficiency of about 18%-20%.[12] Rocket engine efficiencies are much better, up to 70%, because they operate at very high temperatures and pressures and can have very high expansion ratios.[13] Electric motors are better still, at around 85-90% efficiency or more, but they rely on an external power source (often another heat engine at a power plant subject to similar thermodynamic efficiency limits).”
And giving the advantage to ICE at 20% efficient, and penalize the electric again choosing the low end of 85%…
We take 20% of 32 mj/l and get 6.4 mj/l…………..85% of 1 mj/l and get 0.85 mj/l of “useable” energy…..
our ratio is now at only 6.4:0.85 or about 7.5 to 1
Now batteries are improving, energy densities are going up, footprints are going down…..
What are you going use as an argument when some of the metal air chemistries come on line like zinc-air with (5.328–35.21 MJ/L)?
From Wiki again……
“Fluidic Energy’s fielded commercial products are built around a rechargeable zinc-air battery technology developed initially at Arizona State University, with continued development at the company since its founding in 2007.”
“As of 2014, it appears that Fluidic Energy is the only company selling commercial rechargeable zinc-air battery systems”
Regards Craig…..
David
David,
If the situation changes, then obviously my stance will change. I will remain opposed to subsidies for EV’s as long as they remain with significantly worse environmental impact than similarly sized ICE’s.
But I would like to point out that you only covered a portion of the energy density issue. The battery pack on a vehicle is not just the high performance cell, it’s also the casing, the cooling structure, the wiring, the frame, and the additional frame enhancements needed elsewhere in the car to accommodate the pack weight. The actual volume of an 85 kWh battery pack for a Tesla S looks to be something ~0.15m2… and comes in at ~550 kg. The curb weight of the vehicle is 2100+ kg.
The efficiency of a vehicle is a combination of the efficiency of the engine or motor and the amount of power it takes to accelerate the thing. You have a LONG way to go… but I’ll change my stance if conditions change. I won’t try to sell something now based on what I believe might be available to purchase later.
I planing to buy an electric in the next few years but i also putting on PV panels in the next few years power it
Craig,
The premise of your article, relies on 8 points the majority of which, too be kind, either inaccurate, or just wishful thinking !
I make no apology for my enthusiasm for EV’s. For the last 17 years, I have been the principal financier, and director of a company that sells, built, leases, EV’s for speciality markets.
I’m also an enthusiastic advocate for inclusion in corporate fleets, as many EV’s EREV’s, PHEV’s as Hybrids, as is practicable.
In the UK I have owned as my personal vehicle for the last 4 years an all-electric Liberty Electric Range Rover. The is vehicle has proved equal to any challenge, and an eminently practical vehicle for day to day needs. In Australia, the Chevy, Volt has proved a great car, and as a fleet vehicle the Voltec technology has proved excellent. Likewise we replaced one of our London BMW 7 series ‘ customer courtesy cars’ , with a Tesla P85, and so far the vehicle has performed satisfactorily.
However, your article ignores the limitations of the current status of EV transport, while including long discounted myths, most of which seem to obsess only US commentators.
1) The oil industry has undergone a dramatic technical revolution over the last six years, making oil vastly more affordable, and plentiful, completely overthrowing those hysterical “peak oil theories” so popular only a few years ago.
Nor has “terrorism ” got anything to do with the oil industry ! Terrorism, exists in all sorts of forms, some of which is created by citizens of oil rich nations, but mostly by small groups of misogynists, with delusions of grandeur. The fact that the USA policy of uncritical support of Israel, has naturally made the US a target for extremist groups in the US, has very little to do with oil. It just happens that some of Israel’s neighbours are oil rich. ( But the largest supplier of oil to US, is Canada).
The recent discoveries of Hydro-carbon reserves in New Zealand, may prove greater than Saudi Arabia, now that advanced technology can exploit the reserves economically.
The biggest two problems facing EV technology, is (1) the lack of ESD (Electric Storage Device) capacity. and to a lesser degree, (2) Economic disruption.
EV’s simply lack the capacity to replace most forms of road transport. The number of owners able to utilise the advantages of EV technology, is very limited by the circumstances of those individuals, and the willingness for Governments to provide heavy incentives.
Hopefully, ESD technology will improve over the next few years.
For governments, HFCV’s and Hydrogen technology, is far more promising than electric. H2 technology, is not only not disruptive to the existing status quo, but promises a massive economic creation of wealth to struggling economies !
This is the reason why corporations like Toyota, Honda, BMW, Daimler, Hyundai, Mazda, Shell, Linde-Air, Exxon, Chevron, etc, are investing heavily in H2 technology.
HFCV technology, has the added advantage of being able to be applied to a far wider range of vehicles, and suits every usage.
I don’t believe that any one “technology” can, or will, replace fossil fuels transport energy, in the foreseeable future. For many decades, the will be a range of different technologies available, each occupying different niches.
When it comes to EV’s being green or not, from what I’ve read both Craig and Glenn are right.
Glenn is correct in that an EV has a greater energy and GHG cost in manufacture than a gas burning vehicle and if the electricity used to to power the EV is from coal, it causes greater environmental damage. Under certain circumstances, the EV is the worst polluting vehicle.
However, Craig is right also. The EV has the path to be the cleanest alternative. When the energy to power an EV is from solar or wind, the EV is the least polluting vehicle on the market. The deficit from manufacture of a Battery EV can be made up for in 2-3 years of operation when compared with the GHG produced from manufacture and operation of gas-burning vehicles. On the US west coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California, several studies show that the Battery EV is the cleaner alternative when using grid power. In addition, local CCA’s (Community Choice Aggregation) such as Marin Clean Energy and Sonoma Clean Power allow residents to purchase 100% solar and/or wind power for their home and EV.
I’m with Craig in being bullish on EVs. I believe gas burning technology is an ecological dead end – there are no improvements planned to actually eliminate the toxic fumes generated by coal, gasoline, natural gas, or other combustion based technology. EV’s powered by electricity generated from renewable, non-fuel burning sources have the best, if not only, path to zero emissions. Once we figure out how to pack 2-3 gallons of gas worth of power in a battery at a reasonable cost and weight, the gas burning vehicle is gone.
Richard,
Grid mix is not a valid way to analyze the electricity impact. All renewable options and nuclear power are utilized at maximum capacity. There’s no more there to draw upon. Plugging in an EV doesn’t make it rain more, or make the sun shine brighter, or change Plank’s constant so we can get more out of the nuclear reactor…. That’s not where an incremental load increase will come from.
When you increase demand, then that new demand must be met by fossil fuel sourced power. That is the only power source with spare capacity, which means that will always be the only power source available to fill incremental load increases.
Whenever you’re comparing the environmental impact of EV’s vs ICEV’s, you’re effectively modeling a concept in which you subtract some last marginal incremental amount of gasoline demand from the global market,and then add some last marginal incremental load to a local electric grid. In so doing, you will never use grid mix. It will be some combination of NG and coal, with coal being preferentially selected due to cost.
I do not believe that this is a completely accurate assessment. True, in “real time” fossil fuel plant may be ramped up to support EV charging, however it is also true that a substantial proportion of EV buyers buy a package including a solar array. Whilst it is the case that a person buying a conventional car could also buy a solar array, the frequency with which this happens is far less than with EV – where a number of suppliers offer discounted solar packages alongside the vehicle.
Also it depends on the local situation – the Norwegian mainland generates around 99% renewable power with the vast majority hydro power. It is in the process of substantially increasing its wind power generation which will allow it to continue to meet its needs even with >10% of new cars being EV.
Any area with a primarily hydro powered grid can add wind or solar to support EV introduction using wind or solar to defer hydro generation when the wind blows or the sun shines. Hydro cancels out the inconvenience of intermittent generation as it is both dispachable and intermittent (You can’t run at 100% capacity factor, as you would run your reservoirs dry)
Gary,
Norway actually has something like ~115% of their energy generated by renewable energy. They do this by selling energy to the rest of Europe as well. When people in Norway plug in an EV, then coal power plant in Germany is going to be increasing the torque on one of its turbines ever-so-slightly to compensate for the reduction in low-cost renewable energy their local grid was buying from Norway…
Unless the grid is isolated, then the localized generation data doesn’t matter. The function always works out the same.
Glenn,
Your post confused me at first, but I think I understand.
IF you do not increase renewable energy power generation, THEN adding an EV does increase the amount of fossil fuels used. I can agree that there would be an incremental increase in the amount of NG and coal usage in that case. Though an EV would be cleaner than an average ICEV if NG is used, but dirtier if Coal is used.
BUT a static grid scenario is not what is actually happening.
In the western United States specifically and the US in general, the amount of renewable energy in the grid is increasing. The amount of coal generation has been level or decreasing in the 21st century and the number of coal plant closures is higher than US Dept. of Energy predicted. In California, PV Solar has blown past grid parity at the retail level and the increase in Solar and Wind generation has shifted peak energy usage from mid-day to late afternoon (when solar generation decreases and before wind generation begins to increase) Some 30% of those who purchase an EV have recently added or plan to add Solar PV to their home.
The combined effect of increased renewable generation and decreased gasoline usage with EVs gives us all an incremental decrease is NG and Coal usage.
Richard,
You’re on the edge of understanding here. Let’s look at two scenarios and see if this helps:
Scenario 1: Grid mix consists of 19% nuclear, 8% hydroelectric, 4% wind, 0.2% solar, 38% coal, 30% NG, and trace amounts of other stuff.
In this scenario, the 31.2% of the grid energy supplied by carbon neutral sources are utilized at maximum, and there is plenty of spare capacity in the fossil sources. So, when you add a new incremental load to the system, fossil fuel will be ramped up to meet that load – based on the cheapest option for the demand load structure (so if the load is a predictably/constant long overnight charge, it will be met by coal, and if its short or intermittent load it will be met by NG).
Scenario 2: Grid mix consists of 25% nuclear, 30% hydroelectric, 15% wind, 1.5% solar, 12% coal, and 16% NG, with trace amounts of other sources.
In this scenario, the 83.5% of the grid energy supplied by carbon neutral sources are utilized at maximum, and there is plenty of spare capacity in the fossil sources (far moreso than the first scenario). So, when you add a new incremental load to the system, fossil fuel will be ramped up to meet that load – based on the cheapest option for the demand load structure (so if the load is a predictably/constant long overnight charge, it will be met by coal, and if its short or intermittent load it will be met by NG).
As you can see, the introduction of new carbon neutral loads don’t change the nature of how new iterative demands are met.
When a person gets a new EV, that’s a burden. They may then purchase a new solar panel array to serve as an offset to the EV burden. But in all cases the EV is a net negative impact to the system while the solar panels are a net positive to the system. The solar panels don’t make the EV “good”, they just offset it. They would likewise serve to offset the burden of an ICEV.
Glenn,
Thanks for the clarification. Let’s see if I understand your argument. For any individual EV purchase, the grid will not change and, all other things being equal, the incremental electric demand will be met by fossil fuels, not additional renewables. I see where your coming from, but don’t agree to your allocation of marginal usage 100% to the EV rather than the grid mix. Here’s why.
For the purpose of this discussion, I’ll break the GHG emissions into two parts well-to-pump(WTP) and pump/plug-to-wheel(PTW). In terms of PTW, the EV is clearly the cleaner alternative, with zero GHG emissions versus an average ICE (24mpg) with 349 gCO2e/mile (I’ll shorten this to g/m). The average WTP for ICE is 91 g/m for a total of 440g/m. For the average EV, the coal g/m is 419, NG is 182, renewable is 1. Using US mix it’s 223g/m and CA mix its 130. Comparing the average ICE to any electrical source, the EV wins as the better alternative. However, let’s compare a high mileage ICE to the EV. In that case upping the mileage 50% to 36mpg means decreasing the g/m by 50% to 220g/m. In that case, EV’s using coal generated power are worse than High Mileage ICE’s. The EV is about the same as the high-mileage ICE for US mix, but better when using the CA mix, NG generated electricity, or renewable generated electricity.
So an EV would have to be powered by coal generated electricity to be worse for the environment. If you assign an EV as an incremental load, then it would probably be using electricity generated by coal. I reject assigning the EV to incremental load for several reasons.
First, the EV’s energy usage may already be figured into the grid size. I have several friends with 10 year old EV’s and their demand is no longer marginal, but included in baseline grid calculation. It stands to reason that if the grid is oversized or sized to fit total demand, then the EV can be assigned the average mix of power rather than the marginal cost.
Second, if demand is reduced by the amount the EV consumes, the marginal cost cannot be assigned to coal, but should be allocated to the grid mix.
Third, if renewable supply is increased to match EV demand, then the EV is not a marginal demand. For example, if I buy an EV and an off-grid solar carport with batteries that generates 120% of the power my EV needs, the EV generates 1g/m in GHG. Should I attach the carport to the grid to sell the extra 20%, the grid doesn’t suddenly need to fire up a coal plant and the EV doesn’t become bad.
Fourth, there’s a benefit for me and my family to have the poison gas generator out of my home. True, I could put in an oversized solar panel and give that electricity to the grid and it would offset the overall GHG emissions of an ICE, but the ICE would still be exhausting in my garage, yard, and neighborhood. I live in an area that is a net exporter of renewable electricity, why would I want to import a poison gas generating vehicle if I can have a zero emission one?
Comparing high mileage ICE cars to EVs and using the worst possible electricity generating scenario may make you feel good about your ICE car, but it isn’t a fair or realistic comparison.
PS. I got my gCO2e/mile numbers from the Department of Energy/Argonne National Laboratory website at https://greet.es.anl.gov/results
Richard,
We are going to have to agree to disagree. I have no interest trying to prove that some idiot driving a large SUV is going to best the performance of an EV. That’s not interesting to me one way or another – both options are repulsive.
If you believe that an EV purchaser would otherwise choose a 24 mpg vehicle you are free to think that. You are probably wrong.
As to whether or not an EV is or is not an incremental load, we are comparing the idea of a person buying an EV or a person buying an ICEV. In both cases that involves incremental loads. That more or less defines incremental loads, loads last added or removed from the system. You can scramble to try to claim that these loads in some way get preferential treatment and “deserve” to be credited with renewable energy… but those arguments are – to be blunt – perfectly asinine. If you were to scrap an EV tomorrow, there would not be one mWh less renewable energy generated onto the grid for its loss. If you were to plug in another EV tomorrow, there would not be one mWh or additional renewable energy generated due to the sudden introduction of an EV load. So if you’re comparing the idea of a world with one additional EV and one less ICEV; or a world with one additional ICEV and one less EV… and the total number of renewable energy generated changes in either scenario… then your comparison is bogus. You’re just lying to yourself to make yourself feel better.
I compare efficient modern vehicles to EV’s because that’s the realistic options that a potential EV buyer would be considering. I use fossil mix because I live in a real world and believe that numbers used in comparisons should be valid in order to find the truth rather than carefully selected BS in order to paint a fantasy that I want to be true. I’m sorry that that is apparently a bridge too far for most EV advocates.
P.S. The numbers you’re using here aren’t worth anything whatsoever. Even a rudimentary-level review of them should show that to be true.
The average plug-in vehicle in America gets ~2.8 – 3.0 miles/kWh. (I assume you won’t contest this).
The average coal emission at the power plant (if you just look at CO2 and forget about all of the other bad stuff) is ~1000 kg-CO2/MWh. That’s 1 kg/kWh, or 357 g-CO2/mile. So in order to accept these numbers you used for coal… I have to accept that the total losses in line transmission, home wiring, charging, and idle losses are only 17%. That’s a bit of a stretch, since charging losses alone can exceed 17% if fast chargers are employed… but overall that’s quibbling. I assumed 6% transmission losses (national average), 3-4% home wiring losses, 1% idle losses, and 10% charging losses. I’m specifically overgenerous in these calculations so that my methodology cannot be honestly criticized. So the difference between your numbers and mine at this point is only ~3% losses.
But your numbers also assume that there’s no energy expended nor any pollution involved with blowing up a mountaintop, mining out the ore veins and removing the base rock, pulverizing the coal, loading it into trains, transporting it a few hundred miles, then moving it from the train to the conveyor belt to transport it to the power plant burner. This portion of the emissions load from coal is quite hard for me to just magically wish away.
Similarly… the number for NG is fantastic! NG averages 513 g-CO2/MWh at the power plant. That’s U.S. average emissions for NG power. To get 182 g-CO2/mile, you have to assume that when the electron impulses generated by NG are used by an EV, there’s magically ZERO line losses, ZERO home wiring losses, ZERO charging losses, ZERO idle losses… and there’s apparently no longer any methane leaks in the NG pipeline infrastructure in America…
That’s all great news!
It’s bald-faced nonsense… but it would be great news if you were willing to believe it.
Finally, the number for oil is apparently 8.376 kg-CO2/gallon. If you just took a center-weight of C8 (summer blends) for your gasoline and ran through the stoicheomtetry, you’d get 8.21 kg-CO2/gallon burned. That means that – according to these numbers, the total losses involved with exploration, drilling, pumping, transporting, refining, and then distributing petroleum products works out to only 163 g-CO2/gallon!
While I clearly have concluded that ICEV’s are less damaging than EV’s… I use more than 20-times that emissions assumption for life-cycle emissions not including combustion. *shrug*
The fact that many respectable groups are willing to publish poorly considered garbage in hasty reports prepared to support EV nonsense is sad. But it doesn’t change the fact that in the real world EV’s will result in higher pollution levels than ICEV’s. The numbers are complex, but for those who are willing to really slog through the details the results are irrefutable.
Glenn,
Very quick response, but I think we agree more than we disagree.
I think we can agree that an EV owner can immediately eliminate local, plug-to-wheel emissions with the purchase of the EV. I think we also can agree that if the purchase is the only event and grid power is used, the well-to-plug emissions go up and can even exceed the plug-to-wheel emissions saved. Indeed any marginal increase in demand will be powered by coal in the short term, whether it be an extra lightbulb, an additional freezer, an EV, or a new housing complex. In that context, I can agree that simply purchasing an EV with no further action on anyone’s part is worse in terms of GHG production overall.
If we agree that something must be done to offset the additional demand created by an EV, such as conservation, additional renewable generation, or creation of a non-grid tied solution, then we’re in accord.
I’ll agree that 24mpg is not the best mileage for overall cost comparison of most EV’s to ICE vehicles. That is why I included halving the GHG generation number for the ICE vehicle to represent better gas mileage.
24mpg is typical for sedans, not SUVs or Trucks, which average around 19mpg. Take a look at the Lexus, BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes, or even the Ford sedans for 2014-15. The Taurus gets an EPA mpg rating of 19 city/29 highway/23 combined. You could use 24mpg for comparison with a Tesla if that’s what you’re buying.
I did take the Department of Energy numbers at face value. They do have a lot of data and seemed to include a lot of factors in the well-to-pump calculation, some of which you mentioned. If you can recommend a source for better numbers than the DOE, then I’d be glad for the reference.
Your average mileage of 2.8-3.0 miles/kwh for EVs seems a bit low. 2.8 m/kwh is the EPA value for the Tesla, but the Leaf, Focus, BMWi3 and others have an EPA average around 3.4 m/kwh – 28-29 miles/100 kwh. My actual mileage in 2-1/2 years of driving a Nissan Leaf is 4.1m/kwh, mainly because of constant use of ECO mode and low percentage of highway driving. Are you factoring some losses not in the EPA figures? Should those be included in the well-to-plug figures rather than plug-to-wheel?
I’m interested in eliminating GHG and toxic fumes from the air and don’t see a path to do that with ICE vehicles. To use an analogy, I’m not willing to say we can’t quit smoking so the best we can do is use filtered cigarettes. We need to quit entirely. The most promising technology for eventual elimination looks to be the EV. I’ll agree to disagree with you on your conclusion that EV’s are bad and should be avoided.
Richard,
I hope that you can find this reply.
This thread is getting increasingly hard to find your way around in.
🙂
I do think that we largely are in accord with much of this. I’ve noted many times that I have great respect for those who buy solar power systems for their home in order to offset the burden of their EV.
My problem is that I have equal respect for those who buy solar panels to offset their ICEV. Or those that just invest in wind farms in the Midwest, or in aforestation projects in Africa and Brazil… The atmosphere doesn’t really make a distinction: In both cases, there is a burden, and in both cases there is a purchased offset for that burden.
I just think that coal is the biggest issue. It’s the first target. On a per energy basis coal is MUCH worse than petroleum… so targeting petroleum with the known issue of a slight bump in coal usage feels very wrong to me.
I will state that Emile Rocher discusses the tar sands below, and in direct comparison to tar sands there are some cases where a high-efficiency coal plant powering an efficient EV would indeed do less damage… so I’ll admit that my absolutes aren’t absolute.
I haven’t found a good source for emissions. I’ve used EIA and EPA data to calculate average net emissions based on generation, and I’ve used EIA data recording production vs sales to calculate losses for electricity and leakage for CH4 (I generally use the 20-year GWP offered by the EPA for the leaked methane).
But I have not seen ONE SINGLE SOURCE offering an estimated emissions profile from mountaintop-to-power plant for coal…nor have I seen a good source offering emissions data for drilling, collecting, filtering/separating, and distributing NG. I simply cannot find either.
I have found numerous great resources on the life-cycle emissions for petroleum. I would suggest googling the following:
“An Evaluation of the Extraction, Transport and Refining of Imported Crude Oils and the Impact on Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions”
It’s extraordinary work from the NETL.
I recognize there are offerings that have higher efficiency for EV in America… most of these options are not purchased.
For the first 11 months of 2014, the following plug-in options have been purchased:
30.2k Nissan Leafs – 3.35 miles/kWh
18.8k Chevy Volts – 2.85 miles/kWh
17.3k Tesla Ss – 2.63 miles/kWh
13.2k Toyota Prius PHEV – 3.45 miles/kWh
10.8k Ford Fusion Energi – 2.70 miles/kWh
7.8k Ford C-Max Energi – 2.70 miles/kWh
6.1k BMW i3 – 3.45 miles/kWh
2.2k Smart ED – 3.13 miles/kWh
1.7k Fiat 500e – 3.45 miles/kWh
1.3k Cadalac ELR – 2.44 miles/kWh
1.2k Toyota Rav4 – 2.27 miles/kWh
1.1k Chevy Spark – 3.57 miles/kWh
0.9k Porsche Panomera-S – 1.92 miles/kWh
0.8k Mercedes B class ED – 2.5 miles/kWh
0.6k BMW i8 – 2.33 miles/kWh
The rest have sold less than 500 total this year… and we have to stop somewhere.
The average of this list is 3.02 miles/kWh I was eyeballing the sales list and and remembering in my head the mileage data last time… and I sort-of guestimated. I should have used the high end rather than the low end of my guestimate.
🙂
But of course – I have a severe problem with how the EPA estimates mileage, since it assumes no losses for heating (since heating for an ICEV is simply utilizing engine waste heat), and it assumes no losses for a vehicle sitting idle, where those losses should be at least 1% for a typical case… But I do use official numbers when they’re respectable enough… so I should have used the high end of my guestimate.
😉
Glenn,
Thanks, I got your response and will look into the references you gave.
Richard
Glenn,
What are your thoughts on heating with a heat pump versus heating with oil, nat gas or propane?
Rebel,
It depends on the efficiency of the heat pump, and where you live.
I think that in all cases costs should serve to make propane and heating oil non-starters if you’re discussing a new build. If you already have a propane or heating oil system, you’d probably pay them back relatively quickly by switching to NG or electricity.
In terms of the environment… I would say that unless you rarely see temperatures dip below ~40 F, it’s going to be better for the environment to use NG or a geothermal heat pump (but that’s only a good option if you have a LOT of heated square footage)… but if you live in an older city that has leaky NG pipes (like NYC or Boson), then you probably want to avoid NG.
Before getting too deep into the minutiae, we can start by acknowledging that a comparison model should assume only NG and coal as electricity sources, for the same reason we’d use that for our comparison of EV vs ICEV. So, if we assumed ~20% NG and ~80% coal (we do most heating at night), and we assume the NG leakage for the power company’s pipelines is equal to the U.S. average, and we use a 20-year GWP for methane, we’ll get a carbon load for the electricity of ~1300 kg-CO2e/MWh. We’ll assign a COP of ~3.0 (just picking a number, as we don’t know the outside temp nor the make/model of the heat pump here).
So, the heat pump using electricity in these conditions, to add 100 kWh of heat to a house would result in the emissions of ~43.3 kg-CO2e. Not to mention all of the bad stuff associated with coal (the Pb, Cd, As, Hg, PAH’s, etc…)
If we assume ~1% of the gas leaks on its way to your house (and again choose a 20-year GWP), burning natural gas to add 100 kWh of heat to your home would result in ~27.7 kg-CO2e.
In order to make the heat pump a better environmental bargain just by looking at CO2e, then the COP of the system has to be above ~4.2, which means it really cannot be very cold. Or you must assume a lower coal portion of the heating, which means you open your doors a lot during the daytime in winter and have an incredibly efficient thermal envelope. But an easy rule of thumb is the colder it gets outside, the less effective a heat pump will be compared to gas (which always provides heat at ~100%). If the outside temperature were 10 F, nothing other than a geothermal heat pump could get you better than a COP of ~2-2.5. At that point, you’d have to deal with defrosting so much it might be better to use the heating strip.
For most people in the U.S. outside of Florida and Hawaii, NG, heating oil, or propane are the most environmentally friendly options.
Hi Rebel, I know you asked Glenn, but have you looked at CHP heating systems running on natural gas? There are two generic options – an “external combustion” sterling engine or a fuel cell.
For the former
http://www.baxi.co.uk/renewables/combined-heat-and-power.htm
for the latter
http://www.fuelcellresidential.com/
These offer a substantial emission reduction as compared to grid electricity by using a low carbon fuel, and providing hot water and space heating using heat that a conventional power station would throw away.
Gary, while technically offering a slight overall improvement in the efficiency of your household during winter, this would be a significantly lower efficiency during the summer. It’s offering ~5.5 kW of electricity and ~15 kW of heat output. That’s a <27% efficient generator. The average NG generator is 40% efficient – which is what someone using AC in the summer is primarily going to rely on.
Furthermore, you're paying a large up-front cost for an inefficient generator of an uncertain longevity, only to inefficiently convert NG purchased at residential prices rather than NG purchased at power plant contract prices to energy. You would dramatically increase the cost of electricity for your house for little net gain and overall household efficiency. It might be useful to get a small unit to heat water for a water heater… as that heat would have a reliable year-round demand… but again you'd be paying a very high price for that efficiency gain.
Fascinating discussion, Here are some realities from our experience with a Ford Focus electric and 5.5 grid tied PV system in Alberta, Canada, the home of Tar Sands.
Natural gas is produced from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fraction in the formations under where we live. It is refined locally and shipped by pipeline about 1,000 km to the north where, combined with mostly fresh water is used to produce tar sands oil in a process called SAG D or steam assisted gravity drainage, where natural gas boilers heat the formations to liquify the tar to allow it to be pumped to the surface. This liquified emulsion requires substantial further upgrading before it can even be refined , and shipped back via pipelines thousands of miles , usually with the addition of lighter refined liquid hydrocarbons like condensate so it can be pumped. Then from the refinery shipped by diesel truck to filling stations where electricity is used to pump into gas tanks.
Getting an accurate fix on the total inputs of electricity and natural gas per gallon of gasoline or diesel in the complex process is not easy but there are environmental impacts all along the chain. The evidence is strong that these high grade energy sources, put directly into a well designed EV would carry us as far as the gallon of gas at the end of the chain.
We have a fairly efficient home, using an average of 14 kw hr/day . The grid tied PV system produces more than we use on an annual basis- enough surplus to run the Ford about 8,000 miles / year which is about what we drive it as it is our first choice car , backed up by an old, rarely used Jetta diesel. Our total annual electrical bill has been reduced by about $800 . We are paid 7.3 c/ kwhr for exports into the grid , while the average wholesale price last year into the power pool ( what the coal burners get) was over 13 c/ kw hr. We were getting 15 c until the big utilities whined enough to have that reduced despite all the advantages distributed power provides , peaking automatically during periods of peak demand for air conditioning.
Using our own production ,fuel cost is about 1.3 c/ km (2 c/ mile) Drawing from the grid , its about 2.3 c/km. Of course we try not to do that since we are penalized for supporting the grid during peak daytime demand and drawing off it at off peak times .
Of course critics will say there is a net draw during the winter when the sun is weaker but the fix to that is a small domestic natural gas driven co-gen system now built by Honda that has an electrical efficiency of 26% and an overall efficiency of 92%. Small fuel cells would be even more efficient. At the current cost of natural gas , charging the Ford with such a unit would result in a fuel cost of 2 c/ km and heating the house would be free. Total invested in the car and PV system was $34,000 Can. plus a bit of installation labor.
Of course there is are down sides to this , utility profits could be threatened, ( if we were paid a fair price, our annual electric bill would be zero) big oil would have competition and their profits would suffer and the auto dealers would have less service work. The only real service required on the Ford before 100,000 miles is rotating tires. If there are EV critics who see some downside in this for the consumer, I would be curious to hear what they are.
I have read all of the above comments with great interest and I agree with most. However, the alternate sources mentioned all require going to the grid and stringing wire to transmit. As I mentioned before our technology permits the generation of heat and power without emitting carbon dioxide nor air derived nitrogen oxide nor stringing to the grid. Have questions contact nsreef@cs,com