Modern Vespa

I can see how it's a good idea if I was looking at the world through your eyes... Unfortunately, we see the world very differently.

Brains learn things, but that's assuming car drivers have brains. Bold assumption lol.

I get you relating saving money just in case to saving battery range, just in case, but, here's the reality:

- 22% of Americans have no savings.
- 27% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.

I think you're giving the masses wayyyyyyy too much credit. There are a lot of brainless drivers out there. The baby boomers are older than the average new car buyers, and we all know what a good job they did handing down skills and common sense to the next generation lol, so the incoming generation of new car drivers are going to need everything as dumbed down and spoon fed as possible. Don't give them a switch to remember. Give them 25 flashing warnings on a screen. That's the language they understand. Then give them a limp mode when that fails, but make it automatic. People, on average, suck.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
― George Carlin

How is it that half the population is stupider than the average?

Proving the point?

This is exactly the kind of FUD that we were talking about elsewhere on MV -- made-up objections to EV ownership from non-owners.

That's not how averages work 🤦‍♂️

But still a fun quote

Ya missing it mate ...

* Many households already have two cars. If you don't live in a multi car household then an EV is not so clear a decision.

* The garage only needs to be big enough to have the EV in it.

* You can buy an EV for half that price.

* HUGE savings off fuel bills and service costs. Google tells me the average American fuel bill is US$5000 per year. Even if you don't have solar the electricity cost is still a fraction of the cost.

* Oh yeah and it's good to be nice to the planet

I know, right!?!?
It's the MEDIAN, folks.
Half the people are dumber than the median....

But if intelligence is normally distributed through the human population,
the two are the same thing.

Huh. Learned something new today. I had not realized that it was possible to have negative IQ, but apparently it is possible. So, yeah, what you said.

But on average half the time at least half the population is dumberer than the average though.

You just went meta with averages.

How nice actually is it though?

The states are really interesting because there's a huge discrepancies from state to state. You have Vermont that is on 99% renewable energy, and a handful under 10%. Overall only about 1/5 of the USA's power comes from renewable sources.

For us, it's 1/3 of power being from renewable resources for Australia, and about 2/3 of Canada's power comes from renewables.

I think just how nice you're being to the planet depends on where you are in the world.

Sure. Or of course if you have solar at home (popular here in Aus).

It's one of the reasons i feel it's 'horses for courses'.

PS, just googled and "40% of US electricity is now emissions-free" (includes nuclear)
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/40-of-us-electricity-is-now-emissions-free/

Pointing out the obvious, that some places produce power more cleanly than others, is FUD?

Come on, that's a stretch, even for you.

Cool I left that out because my understanding is that nuclear doesn't necessarily fit the "nice to the planet" thing you mentioned.

There's the mining and processing that can cause soil and water contamination, natural habitat disruption, etc. Radioactive waste being produced and then later needing to be stored somewhere. Large quantities of water needed for cooling and the trickle down effects of that in the environment*. And that's assuming we don't go Chernobyl or Fukushima.

Maybe in a way it kind of is similar to the electric vehicle thing, where, if we asked exactly how much better is it? the answer is, it depends.




* Yes, I made a water pun Yes I'm aware it's bad

I'm waiting for the self driving car that parks itself at the lot the next block over, and magically appears fully charged in my driveway when I need it.
Then the garage can be used for its proper purpose: parking scooters storing mountains of junk I can't bring myself to throw away.

I'm defiantly with you on that
I said to my son all this will be yours one day, he replied I'll never get it all in one waste skip dad.

I wasn't promoting nuclear just reporting current status in the US. definitely. that's why I said horses for courses.

And for Australia "Renewables contributed 32% of total electricity generation in 2022".

Fun graphs showing the very very very clear growth trend in renewables
https://www.energy.gov.au/energy-data/australian-energy-statistics/electricity-generation

So with this growth of renewables even if it wasn't great maths today it probably will be great tomorrow

The other spin you could put on that is 78% of Americans actually have a savings, despite the poverty levels and homelessness issue. And a whopping 73% have a savings over $1000. And in those statistics it doesn't separate children and teens or young adults from"Americans". So, all in all, people are doing pretty well, despite what people would have you think about the economy.

And even if you live in an area where only a fraction of electricity is "green energy" isn't it still better using electricity rather than fossil fuels in an ICE which converts 70% of the energy into heat?

And the VAST majority of people drive ICE cars already without running out of fuel on a regular basis. So, I think people - as a rule - are pretty capable of learning how things work.

Hope so. Been to Costa Rica the last two winters in a row. They're a 99% renewable energy country. You pay a little more to vacation down there, but I feel like the country really puts the money into the right initiatives. When you walk around town and talk to the people, they care about that kind of stuff more than I find people here do. They take a lot of pride in it. It's nice. Either way it's burning stuff to make power right?

So the question is, is it better to be burning stuff to make power to send to my house so I can have power to charge my electric vehicle, or is it better that my vehicle burns stuff directly to make power?

The honest answer is, I don't honestly know. Do you? I can't measure how to measure the environmental impact of burning natural gas or burning coal at the generator and sending that power to me to cover 100 miles of vehicle travel distance, versus me jumping in an ICE Civic and just driving 100 miles with the motor doing the burning... As for the economy... 78% of people having more than $1,000 in savings... I'm less optimistic about than you are lol...

If 70% of them have $1,001, the statement could still be true. I think we need to see how many of them have enough that they are on track to be able to comfortably retire to really gage people's financial success on a mass level...

I also think that there is a huge divide between boomers and millenials about the retirement track that they are on, and that could be a whole thread in and of itself.

We just purchased a 2024 Nissan Leaf. The base model was about $30,000 after the state tax rebate; we will get another $3750 back from the federal government when we file our taxes. Basic maintenance inspections are included every 7500 miles for 3 years/36,000 miles. No oil changes - ever - so that's kinda nice. Range is severely limited with the base model (140 miles at best). Cold weather (below 20 degrees F) decreases range significantly to less than 100 miles. None of that bothers me; we also have a Toyota Camry for longer trips. Charging was very slow until we had a level 2 charger installed. Total cost of the level 2 installation will be about $1000 after all the rebates/tax credits. We have solar panels over-producing energy and had a $1600 credit from our electricity provider. An EV seemed like a sensible way to use that credit and our future excess energy production. Plus, the Sienna minivan needed $3000-$4000 of work. Nissan Leaf CHADEMO fast charging is antiquated. The Nissan Leaf (and maybe a Mitsubishi?) are the only new EVs sold in the US still using the CHADEMO fast charging technology. Nissan partnered with the EVGo EV charging company to promote/ maintain the CHADEMO network already in place. We got a $200 EvGo credit with the car. I like the Leaf so far. My biggest potential future concerns are long-term reliability (I keep cars past 150,000 miles - always) and this (hopefully erroneous) perception that if it gets to be -10°F, which happens occasionally in Connecticut, the car will no longer work at all.

I've owned 3 LEAFs and found them to be quite well built and reliable. The one important issue is proper care and use of the battery pack. Use of Fast Charging (i.e. CHAdeMO) raises the battery temperature and very many fast charging events can shorten battery life. Multiple fast charges in one day can overheat the battery and do significant damage. All that tells me it is best to avoid fast charging and charge at home on L2 as much as possible.

I wouldn't worry about all the on-line buzz lately about charging at below freezing temperatures. The widely publicized episode in the Chicago area a few weeks ago was mostly about fast chargers failing at low temperatures, not the vehicles. It also appeared that many owners did not understand the Tesla procedure of preconditioning (warming) the main battery in very cold weather before charging. The LEAF, btw, has a battery warmer which kicks in somewhere below 10 F. And LEAFs perform perfectly well in Norway.

This is the kind of talking point that is commonly used by anti-green activists to spread FUD. I don't think you are intentionally doing so, but I want to point out that you've probably fallen into their clutches by repeating this kind of question.

And it's a bullshit question.

But to answer your question directly: No, absolutely not. Burning "stuff" in a combustion engine is a wholly different energy proposition than burning stuff in a power plant.

For one, there aren't a lot of power plants running on gasoline or even diesel -- that's generally limited to backup generators, at most. Modern power plants run on a variety of sources, but gasoline isn't generally one of them.

The more common power plants (aside from coal and nuclear) run on natural gas, and can achieve efficiencies around 60%. They also have (or at least are capable of having) substantially better pollution controls than you could reasonably fit into an automotive exhaust system.

<< rewind

I was asked this question: My overarching point was: Like I said, I'm no expert on this and wouldn't even know where to begin doing the hard maths, because there's so much to account for.

As you said: Cool. I learned something, thank you... but I still haven't learned enough to answer the question, because well, alright, then what happens?

Whatever is made with 60% efficiency needs to be brought to my house, how much do we lose along the way, then put into my vehicle, how much do we lose along the way, what's my charger's efficiency, my battery's efficiency, what had to happen to make my battery, etc. etc.

I still can't really give a honest and accurate answer either way. I don't know if any of us can.

If only there was some way to find out the answer to these complex questions.

A true electric vehicle should have a alternator so we don't burn fossil fuel and we don't suck electricity off the grid that would solve a few problems except for the electric company's problem of not making enough money along with the petroleum companys.

Help me out here...what would the alternator do?

Pff, generate electricity. Duh.

Without boring anyone with a dull discussion about conservation of energy, isn't regenerative braking the means by which EVs generate electricity from their own momentum?

Soooo, factoring everything in, what's the answer?

I just see a snippet at the top that seems to be about what's happening at the motor level as opposed to the entire path of the power from generation to on the road. Am I missing something?

I step out my door and look at the hills. I see windmills. I can see powerlines.

If I drive to the beach I can't see the oil wells 14,000km away that need a complex infrastructure of pipelines, trucks, enormous ships, refineries and service stations to allow me to put dead dinos in my scooter. I did drive past some oil wells last week but that oil gets exported (in big ships) because it's not suitable for local oil production.

https://www.pcienergysolutions.com/2023/04/17/power-plant-efficiency-coal-natural-gas-nuclear-and-more/#:~:text=Hydro%20plants%20are%20the%20most,loss%20during%20the%20conversion%20process.

Using what for powering it. Perpetual motion? Duh.

I mean, sure -- if you aren't interested in the answer, you're probably not going to dig very deeply for something that challenges your closely-held world view. There are a ton of answers in those links, even if you only spend 5-10 minutes browsing.

But if you really can't be arsed to look, the answer is yes. Electric vehicles have a lower carbon footprint than ICE vehicles when you consider the entirety of production and usage during their lifespan. It's not even close.

EVs have a higher production carbon footprint because of the batteries (and the disposal thereof). But that is more than offset by the efficiency of energy while in use.

This article (which might be behind a paywall, not sure) gives a general overview. But there have been a lot of studies that go into quite a bit more depth than this.

TL;DR: This is not an unanswerable question. People whose careers are based on crunching numbers in complex scenarios love answering questions like this.

They do generate electricity by regen braking, but due to inevitable losses, there is still a net loss. If there were no losses, the cars probably would not need to be charged.

Probably.

And don't forget to put a windmill on your car roof to reclaim those pesky air drag losses.