A huge benefit of electric cars is removing pollution from cities; this seems to be forgotten.
Surely if the pollution is killing thousands of people a year this is an issue.
Surely if the pollution is killing thousands of people a year this is an issue.
I would wear a gas mask to work, but they're no use.
BTW a large source of ozone in the Bay Area and LA (both of which have big problems with it) is emissions from internal combustion vehicles.
So, overall, electric vehicles are a big decrease in ozone in the inhabited areas of the West Coast.
Perhaps an Atmospheric Chemist can support this?
And by then there will be a market for commercial charging stations, if they are necessary.
As my mother pointed out, going electric is removing money from the pockets of the Saudi so-called 'royal family', thereby reducing their capacity to buy bombs and weapons from Western arms companies.
The death toll in Yemen is allegedly 10000 and every motorist with an old fashioned car is currently funding that, albeit by proxy.
Although I guess it's negligible to gas exhaust.
Aerosolized tire particulates are mostly a problem in tunnels, where they keep getting thrown up into the air by passing vehicles and recirculating.
They move the pollution from a tailpipe feet away from people to a large smoke stack specially optimized to lower the effect on air quality in the immediate area.
Dismissing any solution that doesn't 100% fix everything is a great way to never accomplish anything.
The comment above was referring to local pollution in cities (which directly kills thousands through diseases related to particulates in that pollution). Relocating that pollution does solve that problem.
(PH)EVs also produce much less particulate pollution from brake dust due to the use of regen to brake (which is why they can go several times the normal replacement interval for brake pads).
The creation of pollution is a separate problem from the location of that pollution. Yes, EVs don't magically prevent the creation of pollution, but they can severely limit the creation of pollution in population centers, where they have the most immediate effect.
When the majority of pollution is coming from large trucks anyway, will swapping a few cars even matter?
Do you have a source for most pollution coming from large trucks?
Lithium batteries still can't approach 10% of gasoline's energy density, so gasoline is mandatory for trucks, and will be until yet another new battery technology is not only discovered and brought to market, but mass-produced to the point that we have a battery-pollution problem.
> the low standards for pollution controls
Why don't they increase the standards? If people are dying there must be public outrage. Does Universal Healthcare cover pollution injuries?
> European governments being willing to ignore automakers who break the rules.
Are people protesting or working to change their governmental leadership? Or are they content to see their loved ones perish? If diesel cars are such a problem, why not outlaw these? Then only outlaws will drive them.
Do you have a source for particulates killing children in cities?
Too bad that correct number to look at is entire power system energy density (engine+fuel+transmission). Electric engines are a lot lighter so batteries do not need to have same energy density.
> Why don't they increase the standards? If people are dying there must be public outrage.
Your expectation of public outrage happening doesn't mean it happens. Even if people are dying.
> Do you have a source for particulates killing children in cities?
For Europe's special problem with diesel cars, try Googling [europe air pollution diesel]. It brings up a bunch of good news articles.
Lithium batteries don't have to approach gasoline energy density to handle local deliveries. Also, these trucks don't use gasoline, they are diesel.
Again, where is your source for "the majority of pollution is coming from large trucks"?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/21/diesel-c...
> It found that heavy-duty vehicles tested in Germany and Finland emitted about 210mg NOx per kilometre driven, less than half the 500mg/km pumped out by modern diesel cars that meet the highest “Euro 6” standard. However, the buses and trucks have larger engines and burn more diesel per kilometre, meaning that cars produce 10 times more NOx per litre of fuel
That is atrocious - that a single car could pollute 4x more than a large truck or bus - and it's a side of the VW emissions scandal which never occurred to me.
How did independent emissions testing not catch this - or were OBDII outputs simply accepted as accurate? The Seattle region used to have mandatory emissions testing by an independent agency, where they probe the tailpipe. This was recently ended. Were VW cars programmed to fool this testing too?
Also, what does this have to do with the VW scandal?
Your own article explains why the cars generate more NOx per mile. They are held to lower standards than the trucks and busses after those were "reigned in" in 2011. It's not some kind of defeat device, the cars are still within regulation
The entire point of the VW scandal is that their cars pollute way more than they tested. Their diesels especially - the same diesels that have been popular in Europe for decades are the ones polluting the most. And their apparent low emissions was a passive way of fighting electric cars.
And this is still all NOx emissions, not total emissions.
And this whole tangent really has nothing to do with the original point. If anything is emphasizes the benefits of moving pollution generation for cars to centralized points out of the hands of the manufacturers
You can't move non-existent pollution. It hasn't occurred yet, so there's no "movement". Electric cars create pollution displaced from the location the car is used in.
Electric cars can be (and are) charged with power generated with low pollution methods (solar, wind, water turbine...), while a gasoline, or worse, diesel powered car, will always pollute. Additionally, e-cars are more power efficient, even after subtracting line and charging heat losses.
Coal burning power plants are a problem on their own (e.g. high mercury emissions), so those should be shut down entirely IMO, and not be used to cover e-car power demands. They are problematic anyway because they can not change their output much, making them inflexible for modern requirements.
I making the pedantic point that saying "electric cars move the pollution" is technically inaccurate. It is better to say "electric cars pollute in places physically displaced from where they are used".
You seem to be oblivious to the fact that electric cars are replacing cars powered by an internal combustion engine.
If you replace an IC engine with an electric motor then that source of pollution is removed, don't you agree?
Furthermore, electric cars typically get their power from the national power grid, which generates power in a much more efficient way than your typical IC engine.
On top of that, nowadays any power grid is being supplied by sources other fossil fuels. This shift away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources is being spearheaded by the European Union and reflected by their national action plans. This already resulted in some EU member-states breaking green energy records such as:
* covering around 35% of their national power generation from renewable sources
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-green...
* running the entire country over 4 days straight on renewable energy alone
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/portugal...
This is the energy production that is powering electric vehicles.