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Comment by treypitt | Hacker News Reader

Shifting to hybrid or full EVs was laudable five or ten years ago, increasingly less so since then. Neither producers nor consumers in the auto market care about LCA's that look at REMs and battery impact. Plus you're only as clean as your electric grid.

The only solution to the climate catastrophe was a massive change in the economy, supply chain, and western consumer culture. Hybrid car technology was a viable wedge or mitigating factor five or ten years ago. Now our only option is to adapt

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> Plus you're only as clean as your electric grid.

"The Zwickau plant is supplied with electricity by Volkswagen Kraftwerks GmbH. For a few years now, this company has been offering pure green electricity sourced from hydroelectric power plants, wind farms, and solar parks. This green electricity is TÜV-certified. Even though it costs a little more, Volkswagen Sachsen (with the Zwickau, Dresden, and Chemnitz sites) has been using this green electricity since April 2017. “It is completely CO2-neutral“"

https://electrek.co/2019/07/22/vw-zwickau-factory-electric-c...

VW Kraftwerk operates a coal plant in Wolfsburg and also burns waste oil https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heizkraftwerk_Wolfsburg_West

That doesn't contradict the claim I cited: VW Kraftwerk offers a product based on "pure green electricity" (they didn't say they do that exclusively) and apparently Zwickau is buying that product, not the oil based one used in Wolfsburg.

That doesn't account for the energy used to charge the cars during their lifetime, though.

Thankfully, in general the United States energy grid is getting less CO2-intensive.

That's outside the car makers' control.

The public charging stations in my town (in Germany) are powered (hooked up to our common electricity network, but in terms of energy bought for them) using hydro power from a nearby river.

Any car owner could use their own generator using coal or oil to power their private charging point though. Generally speaking the only remedy to that is to make CO2 intensive power cost prohibitive. Our government decided just today to attach a CO2 tax to sales of energy sources with CO2 residues, so let's see how that develops.

Car makers don’t need to control it. Market forces are making the grid cleaner with options that blow dirty power away financially.

yes, this is a huge concern. If these cars are powered by coal or other dirty energies it doesn't make sense. Most charger networks here are powered 100% by renewables though

It still makes some sense. Granted coal rich sources will definitely make the transition worse. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/19/electric-car-well-to-wh...

Lifetime emissions for EVs beat ICE cars in 2-5 years [citation needed]

The only feasible way to have cars and trucks in a zero-net-emission economy is to make them electric. Unless you want to scrap all cars and trucks, the electric versions must eventually be developed and mass-produced.

Yep and that is why used gas car prices are going to be in a free fall very soon.

Used car prices are practically always in freefall. You can expect a car to depreciate by over 60% in a decade, even more if it's driven often. I don't expect this to radically change. As demand for gassers lowers, so will the rate of new gassers being purchased, and equilibrium will be kept. As for the really old gas cars on the road- those will maintain their value because we are a long way away from electric cars being competitive on a sub $5000 price point.

Freefall is a metaphor here. The way you define it, maybe it's already happening, fine. Let's grant you that the fact that freefall happens is a given. The rate of freefall can still change, drastically.

In California you can lease a Leaf for $95 / month after subsidies. That actually is pretty competitive with a sub $5000 price point on a competing ICE car that would require the purchase of gasoline.

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