More About the Fits and Starts in Electric Transportation

An esteemed colleague comments on my post called Fits and Starts in Electric Transportation:

 I hope we can agree Craig that the only long term solution is to have electrified transportation powered by renewable energy.  I choose to be a part of that transition by having a BEV and PHEV and PV….I hear what you’re saying about coal usage. Coal-generated electricity is going away or humankind is going away, so I focus on the solution, which I would say is clearly PV.  How can your title (“Fits and Starts”) describe the curve shown here (all plug-ins)?

Yes.  We agree on the important stuff.  EVs are the long-term solution, which is why I support them now—even during a time when their eco-characteristics aren’t generally good—at least here in the U.S.  Having said that, those characteristics will become good; they must become good.  As you say so artfully: “Coal-generated electricity is going away or humankind is going away.”

This is where the emphasis needs to be, which is why things like The Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign is so important; it’s brought the truth on the subject to tens of millions of Americans who otherwise would have remained clueless on the subject.

I differ on your viewpoints of the stats for EV sales, for two reasons.

First, you point to a cumulative graph, which, of course is rising, as far more EVs are being put into service than are coming out of service each month.  But that’s not really revelatory.  The worldwide cumulative graph of incandescent light bulbs is probably rising too, even though a far more important concept is that present-day lighting sales greatly favor CFLs and LEDs.  Here’s the actual monthly sales graph of all plug-ins.  Yes, it’s rising, but it shows a far more accurate depiction of what’s going on.  And it’s not even valid to infer from this graph that true consumer demand is rising, as there are far more entrants in the EV field now than there were in 2010, the incentives are different, etc.

Second, for some reason the people who keep the stats on EVs include garden-variety hybrids, e.g., the Prius, which are really electric in name only.  Yes, there’s a battery in there, but 100% of the energy used to propel the car comes from gasoline.  Also, it’s hard to know how to count plug-in hybrids. What percentage of their energy came from gasoline?  We can only guess.  If you want a graph that has any meaning here, you have to look at battery EVs, almost all of which are the Tesla and the LEAF, sales curves are linked here.   They’re rising, but slowly.  Note also that they’re 40,000 out of 15 million, or 0.3%

Again, the current EV adoption curve is the small stuff; it can change at any minute, and I believe it will.

The big picture is that a) EVs are in the process of replacing internal combustion engines, b) coal is going away, and c) the people who care about this stuff are working their hardest to ensure that a) and b) become the case as soon as possible.