Hacker News Reader

Comment by danbruc | Hacker News Reader

It seems like increasing adoption of electric vehicles would do a lot more to solve this problem.

Only if you do not get the electricity from burning coal and only if you can manufacture the cars in a way that the reduced emissions over their lifetimes are not offset by additional emissions during manufacturing and decommissioning.

Some more numbers for comparison, 2 Mt are 5.1% of Germany's passenger car motorway traffic emissions, 1.4% of Germany's transportation emissions, 0.27% of Germany's total emissions.

View on HN

> only if you can manufacture the car in a way that the reduced emissions over its lifetime are not offset by additional emissions during manufacturing and decommissioning.

This is a really bad faith argument I hear, a real eye roller. It never advances the conversation, it is a proverbial “just asking questions.”

Why bad faith? You, your friends and the things you read never bring this up about electric trains and busses. If a Tesla doesn’t amortize by some napkin analysis, neither would an electric bus by that same exact analysis - just because someone somewhere doesn’t like Tesla, doesn’t mean there’s any truth to “electric car emissions don’t amortize.” Just because some article online somewhere says electric busses do and Teslas don’t also doesn’t make it true.

The worst thing the environmental activist community could do is lose Tesla as an ally. Nobody is going to give a fuck about some cobalt mines somewhere, as horrible as they are, or whatever more substantive grievance it is, if we have to endure another 20 years of excess emissions because environmentally conscious people second guess the purchasing of electric cars.

It is a simple fact that using electric cars is no good if you get the electricity from fossil fuels. And I remember reading that at least some electric cars are not reducing greenhouse emissions even if they are charged with non-fossil electricity. If one does not solve those two issues then we are better of continuing to driving with combustion engines. Also I said not a single word about Tesla.

No it's not true. E2e emissions are still lower

> It is a simple fact that using electric cars is no good if you get the electricity from fossil fuels.

Source? Where did you pull that from? An entire power plant dedicated to maximizing power generation efficiency is somehow equally efficient to a car engine that fits in like a cubic meter?

> And I remember reading that at least some electric cars are not reducing greenhouse emissions even if they are charged with non-fossil electricity.

I'd suggest trying to find a link for this too, because people need to be aware of it if it's true.

Just because it might be "in bad faith" doesn't make the argument wrong. A lot of subsidies are being pumped into EVs on the assumption that they're a net benefit to CO2 goals. If they are not, or if it is only true for specific models, then that needs to be accounted for.

> If a Tesla doesn’t amortize by some napkin analysis, neither would an electric bus

That's not a given, these are two quite different vehicles with quite different usage scenarios. A Tesla might not actually get a lot of mileage in its lifetime, whereas a commercial bus would get as much mileage as possible.

Having said that, even if it were true that electric buses also are a net negative on emissions, then the obvious answer would be that we shouldn't subsidize those either.

The argument is also just plain wrong though. Even if 100% of the power generation is from coal, it's still more efficient compared to individual petrol engines in cars. Large stationary constant (ish) speed fossil fuel generators will be more efficient than a bunch of little non constant speed petrol engines in cars.

That's not the argument though. Batteries require a lot of resources to produce, to the point where production of an EV can create more emissions than a comparable gasoline vehicle. If such an EV then fails to offset these emissions during its lifetime, it was a net negative.

Tesla's goal is to build cars that last for a million miles. Electric motor technology is already there and they are also working on making the other parts of the car last a similar length of time. Also notice how the new model S looks very similar to the old model S. Having old cars look like the newer version is also part of getting people to use cars for a million miles/

> Tesla's goal is to build cars that last for a million miles.

The average American drives 13,500 miles per year. Are you sure their goal is to have our grandchildren drive our old Teslas?

If they get automatic driving, you will be able to rent them out via a Uber like service (although I think Tesla's terms of service for their full self driving software package states you can only rent out your car using a system owned by Tesla). I'm sure a large number of people would do this while they were at work or overnight. Especially if it covered most of the cost of owning the car. With this scenario you could get to a million mile in a decade pretty easily.

PS. I'd love to own my grandparent's GTO, Cadallics, etc..

Also after transmission loss, storage loss, losing the 'free' cabin heat and everything? I was under the impression it would at best be a wash.

Regardless, I see your point, and it's easier to switch one big coal plant than try to convince a million people to buy a new car. Better get those cars trickled in and work on the generation side in parallel. Just curious if this fun fact is really true.

I actually think your argument is pretty bad faith.

You are, on nothing but assumption alone, assuming you know this persons intentions, you know their opinions, where they got them, and other people just like them with their opinions.

Then you go on to ignore their actual argument completely, and say, essentially "who gives a fuck if we have another 20 years excess emissions if people end up in cars"

Well, presumably the OP does, because he was making a point as to why it is questionable that EVs are good for the environment.

You basically insulted his character and his argument by ad hominem, then said "who even gives a fuck? I just want everyone to own a Tesla!"

> Only if you do not get the electricity from burning coal

And you mostly don't

> only if you can manufacture the cars in a way that the reduced emissions over their lifetimes are not offset by additional emissions during manufacturing and decommissioning

Luckily you can

> Luckily you can

At present, you can't guarantee that. EVs require more emissions during production, which must be offset during their lifetime. An unfavorable scenario would be having a lot of EVs that go under-used because of a trend towards less commuting. If you're planning to do very little driving, an ICE vehicle may well be better than an EV.

I don't think fossil fuels will be economical for much longer. Per area, solar panels are cheaper than window glass. Costs are now down to $2 per watt. A decade ago it was $7 per watt. Lithium batteries are 1/10th the price they were in 2010. These trends seem to be continuing, and faster than experts project. For example: in 2015 a study looked at past estimates of battery prices versus observed prices.[1] They found that analysts were consistently pessimistic about cost reductions. They tried to correct for this pessimism and made the following prediction:

> ...battery pack costs may in some cases be as low as US$300 per kilowatt-hour today, and could reach US$200 by 2020. This cost development is notably cheaper and faster decreasing than I and many others expected.

The actual cost in 2020 was $137 per kWh.[2]

1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/04/will-falling-battery-...

2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/883118/global-lithium-io...

The emissions required to produce batteries are what puts EVs at an immediate disadvantage against ICEs the day they roll out of the factory. You then install a bunch of solar panels, which require their own batteries to store the energy that you'll use to charge your EV in the evening.

Before you proceed, please calculate how many miles you will need to drive to offset those emissions, compared to just using an ICE. You might save us all a lot of trouble.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com