https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/10/the-2023-bmw-i4-is-the-...
If you buy an electric vehicle for short lifetime distance (say, because trip length is limited), you can easily end up producing more CO2 from an electric vehicle than a cheaper ICE vehicle (depending at your location on how a marginal extra kWh is generated due to your marginal extra load on the electricity network).
I would like to see a graph of summed CO2 generated per driver on Yaxis per annum (including annualised fixed manufacturing costs), and distance on Xaxis. Two graphs, one for electric vehicles and one for ICE vehicles. At what distance is the crossover point for the two graphs? Do people with long commutes unsuitable for cheaper electric vehicles overwhelm the CO2 production?
Personally I think our CO2 production per capita is basically proportional to income: very few changes you make actually change the amount of CO2 produced… The CO2 savings with an electric vehicle are approximately proportional to the savings in $, and you then spend those $ on something else like a plane flight! It is actually quite difficult to make a difference — not that we shouldn’t try of course. It is also very hard to get facts versus greenwashing feel good delusions and deception.
Moreover, I don't believe that there is a daily commute that's more than 120 miles each way, and this is well within the capabilities of even reasonably priced electric cars today. If you have a charger at your workplace, you could accommodate even longer trips, however colder weather might make a big dent in the range of most electric cars.
An enormous improvement in efficiency - that experiment has totally changed my driving habits. Knowing that, I can’t believe that I’m basically the slowest car on the road now (going 65, which is the speed limit!). Crazy to think about how much fuel we’re wasting by driving fast
Even at a safe following distance, the already moving air behind a truck lowers your effective speed by 20mph or so, saving 25-50% of the fuel bill. Trucks that have very little ground clearance (eg a big mudguard across the back) work best.
In the extreme case, in an EV, you can end a journey with more battery than you started with if you follow a truck closely (rather too close for safety, and in perfect conditions)
The effect of drafting though is incredible. If you're ever able to get behind a big truck on a bike, it basically becomes effortless to get up to 30mph and stay there. It's quite a thrill (just make sure you have an escape route)
Please either back those numbers up with evidence or remove them for the sake of road safety.
Obviously it's unsafe to do on the public road for a bunch of reasons, but it really shows how good automated vehicle convoys could be for the environment if they can get close enough.
Here is a video of the effects of the same airflow: https://youtu.be/xkbe2NP30Fs
They estimate the savings at insane 20 feet at 20 something. Far from your claimed 100%.
Could it be, that your road is not as flat as you think? That would also explain the necessary braking to not run into the truck, wouldn't it?
But I couldn't agree more: let the machines do that perfectly and safe. Let's reap those sweet 25-50% increase in fuel efficiency.
My gazzguzzler OTOH is not planet-friendly: about 20mpg cruising on the autobahn at 105mph / 170km/h. I plan to dump it one of these days for a (luxury) BEV.
> Crazy to think about how much fuel we’re wasting by driving fast
I agree. I can't help it yet but I'm working on it.
kinetic energy = 1/2 * mass * velocity^2
"Over the course of 267 miles (430 km) and 8 hours, the car used 2.6 miles/kWh (23.7 kWh/100 km), bearing in mind that those miles were all driven in Germany and include running at the car's top speed of 140 mph (225 km) on derestricted autobahns."
ie. around 100 mpg. It is not even close to "waste", it is saving the planet in maximum comfort.
It's less wasteful than the ICE equivalent but in no way can it be described as saving the planet. If you are really serious about saving the planet then you buy a bicycle.
bicycle is 100miles/kwh. Human body is 25% efficient, so it is just 25 miles/kwh for the energy coming in the food - so for all the bicycle disadvantages (low speed, open to elements, no meaningful cargo capacity) it is only meager 10x difference with that 2+ tons BMW i4 (and only 7x difference with my Prius Plugin).
The kwh in human food is much dirty than kwh for electric car, especially when electricity comes from renewables. The food requires tremendous expenditure of energy to produce it as well as it causes tremendous impact on the planet ecosystem due to agriculture.
On a sidenote, >10% of conventional fuel is made via agriculture, and seemingly around 5% of electricity production in the US, 10% in EU28[1].
[1] https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/europa/751...
As opposed to about 15kW for 90km/h.
From https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life...
The important takeaway is that greener electricity grid will help both the emissions from manufacturing, as well as emissions from usage
It is 100 % waste and you don't "save" the planet. Saving the planet = no car. Yeah, an EV is less wasteful than an ICE. Just don't think you save the planet.
Saving the planet = maximum one kid per couple.
Worldwide, we are already close to the replacement rate and projections see us falling below by 2070.
Most of the population growth is actually not "new kids getting born", it's "folks getting older than the generations before".
So, if population growth is your concern, don't tell people to have less kids. Tell them to stop getting so old.
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-popu...
Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You Free is a polemical 2002 novel by American philosopher Ken Wilber, principally designed to explain Wilber's integral theory and to explain his concept of "Boomeritis". Wilber characterizes this as the deadly combination of a modern egalitarian worldview with a deep unquestioned narcissism commonly held by Baby Boomers and their children in the green meme of Spiral Dynamics, as opposed to Wilber's universal integralism.
Do whatever you can. The most effective strategies are often the least interesting.
Of course an infinite supply of green energy would solve everything, but unfortunately that's not available. We're not supplying enough green electricity to cover current demands, much less enough to cover the roughly doubled demand if we were to shift all transportation to EVs.
So: it’s complicated. It’d take me over ten years to do 100,000 kilometres, so probably the best car is the one I already have.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d...
If you include nuclear then around 60% of the generated electricity was produced with low CO2 emissions.
The big benefit electric cars have is obviously that they can use renewable energy to charge, which reduces the carbon intensity of their electricity. But that's not a given - it depends hugely on location.