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>Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles.

this is the key point, if you are going to compare compare apples to apples. I mean you can always keep making EVs bigger and thus more inefficient till you have total cost & environmental toll parity with some smaller car.

Though its unlikely that somebody who was going to buy a regular hummer was going to opt for a malibu & nevermind the price. a good starting point may be comparing cars with Total cost of ownership parity & that too when both cars are past initial production ramp.

my cynical brain says the truth is much simpler, fossil industry they wants a stream of these type of articles so they can keep the illusion of 'just as bad' alive for buyers on the fence. that is until then next fossil friendly administration shows.

> my cynical brain says the truth is much simpler, fossil industry they wants a stream of these type of articles so they can keep the illusion of 'just as bad' alive for buyers on the fence.

Yes that seems to be the takeaway from Transport Evolved on another recent “study” that compared EVs to ICE cars on tire particulate emissions.

https://youtu.be/aar8njoGgNY

Talking of making larger and large EV's, but I've thought for a while that electric RVs would be great. Though I imagine that the Tesla one would(will?) be 500k minimum.

But you'd get a huge electric battery for boon-docking it, running AC, etc and you get a large surface for solar panels. You might even be able to have enough solar to be able drive for a day to a new local, and then park for a few days to recharge and then drive again. ;)

I bet they'd sell pretty well and still be better environmentally than the RV's that get 5mpg.

RV parks are also great places to find level 2 chargers even for non-RV EVs. If you are driving up to Alaska, most of the trip they are basically your only option right now.

I went on a long road trip recently with my Model S and charged up at RV parks where we tent camped. It's $10 more than a non-electric site, but that charge's range is worth about $30 worth of gasoline, so it's an easy win and you can skip the time to supercharge.

RV parks are probably going to start metering electricity if this becomes more commonplace... I imagine charging an EV takes a lot more energy than charging an RV, no?

They will charge by time (like by day as is common now) in most cases, since metering by usage often requires being regulated as a utility.

Are out those ev chargers regulated as utilities then?

Depends on the jurisdiction. In BC Canada at least, it has to be by time.

So I've run some rough numbers on this- solar power a 40 ft class A is 8.5 ft wide, so 340 Sq ft of surface area. It appears that 20 watts per Sq foot is about average, so the rv roof can generate 6.8 KW. Parked you could reasonable set out a solar awning and double that to 13.6 KW.

Most existing class As are between 12000 and 30000 lbs. We are taking a 40' RV, so go to the top end of that. The F150 lightning and the Rivian both with around 8500 lbs and do about 50 kwh/100 miles on 135 kwh batteries, so a theoretical RV would likely need (very roughly) 3-4x truck equivalents of weight to maintain similar range characteristics (taking a little jump here, but most of that truck weight is battery and you still need to put an RV on top). The likely power requirements are 150-200 kwh/100 miles and 400-500 kwh of battery.

The means that, at the 6.8- 13.6 KW of solar panels are adding maybe a few miles an hour to range. Not impossible to boondock it and charge over the time, but going from 10% to 85 is going to take you a good chunk of the week under pretty optimal conditions.

That's awesome! I've not actually run the numbers, but yours sound about right. Though you might be able to add say 2 awnings to triple the regular roof. Of course, that adds weight, etc.

Alas it doesn't seem sustainable to self-charge for most. Not many people probably want to take half a week to re-charge for every few hundred miles they go.

Then again maybe for some it'd "add to the journey". It would still seem cool to do it all. If you were in a spot for a month, then you'd get a free "drive" afterwards. And the ability to boondock with effectively unlimited battery storage would be awesome.

While I don't think a fully self sustaining RV is practical for many use cases, it does open up some interesting possibilities- even with the relatively slow charge is enough to add maybe 30-50 miles of range over a weekend. That should calm range anxiety as there are going to progressively be less and less places more than 60 miles from a charging station.

Cost is a problem. Batteries are expensive - I saw $132/kwh as a low point, so at least $60k just for batteries, and maybe $3-6k for the solar stuff. That's half the cost of a low end class A already.

Charging even at normal stations will also be interesting. Will you be able to plug in to multiple chargers at once? If not, even most "fast" chargers are going to take hours.

I think the "fully self sustaining" would only be embraced by a subset of folks, but it might be a very big draw for them. Though that group doesn't often overlap with those can afford $500k+ rig. Though I think the primary benefit for the group who could afford that would be the built in self-sufficient (or excess!) solar power for daily living. Want to run a microwave, watch TV, and have an AC running while off grid at the lake? No problem and now no annoying generator running.

> That's half the cost of a low end class A already.

Yah I'd think an electric RV would have to target the crowd already spending $300k+ RVs. That'd overlap with the plush lifestyle folks above. Eventually a second hand market would emerge. Perhaps it'd ironically appeal to say remote oil rig workers (ok, maybe just the foremen) and such who sometimes have cash to burn.

Though including a smallish but high efficiency NG/LPG generator could supplement the battery range enough to significantly save on cost / weight. It'd also cover for say really bad solar spells, or after driving all day and boondocking, etc.

A 20 kWh NG/LPG generator ($6-10k) running for 8 hours would yield ~160 kWh. That'd extend the range of a 340 kWh (4x Model S's) battery to match that of a 500 kWh battery. It'd also only require about ~30-35 gallons of NG costing about $30-40 for the entire 8 hours of driving.

> Charging even at normal stations will also be interesting. Will you be able to plug in to multiple chargers at once? If not, even most "fast" chargers are going to take hours.

Ooft, good point! Maybe there will be more of those semi-truck capable Tesla super chargers. Still, it's an RV! Plug in for a few hours and eat lunch, take a nap, etc.

A Hummer H3 is less than 5,000 pounds. The EV Hummer is about 9,000. This is a vehicle that's much heavier than almost anything on the road that isn't a commercial vehicle, including similar ICE vehicles.

(And for what it's worth, I don't think Tesla should get a free pass here. Tesla Model S's generally weigh about 4,000 to 5,000 pounds, which is awfully heavy for a Sedan. They just don't look heavy, so people don't think about it.)

I'm in favor of EVs generally, but I think the would would get along just fine if there wasn't an electric Hummer.

Sure we'd also get along fine if there were no Hummers at all, gas or electric. But some people are going to make Hummers and some people are going to buy them. If the ones they buy are electric that's still a net win.

Sure but they should be taxed heavily based on height. The heavier vehicles are, the more maintenance and faster the roads wear out. That road maintenance need to be financed.

Well, if the amount of green energy doesn't grow fast enough, then switching to EV uses the same dirty carbon based energy, but require more of it.

At 9000 pounds you need a truck driving licence in EU to drive such a beast.

... and it will likely get stuck in all the narrow streets ancient European towns/cities are filled with... a Hummer is too wide to enter many villages

I’m not a huge fan of that large of a vehicle being out on the road either, but realistically, it costs well over 100k, there aren’t going to be that many out on the road any time soon.

Most of this is a red herring.

also I read somewhere that road damage is proportional to fourth power of axle weight. essentially meaning this heavy beast make roads about 16 times worse off for rest of us. to be clear other EVs should not get a free pass here either.

Also worth noting that as the grid goes green, so do all EVs. Not so for combustion engines, unless we somehow switch to synthesizing hydrocarbon fuel from non-sequestered carbon sources.

(Which tbh I think will happen more as we near 100% green energy - you'll still end up with special cases where the energy density and portability benefits of storing energy as bonds in hydrocarbons still makes sense and justifies paying a higher cost for such synthetic fuel!)

But with how everything is going with solar, batteries, and nuclear, I suspect that the invisible hand of the free market is going to make the default "I want to make 1-7 people go about 70mph for 0-4 hours" vehicle be an EV, rather than doing complicated and expensive chemistry to make renewable hydrocarbons.

The grid is nowhere near green and won't be for a long time. Probably not even before the EOL of the existing EVs on the road.

The grid doesn't have to be 100% green for it to be better than everyone burning gas in their cars. An electric car becomes greener as the grid becomes greener, a gas car is just as dirty today as it was last year.

I fact-checked this and it turns out I was completely wrong, and I'm sorry. Even with the current grid mix, a typical all-electric car will on average be greener than a gasoline car after about 15,000 miles. Even if you're in a place where 100% of your electricity comes from coal, the electric would still beat out the gas car after 89,000 miles.

So, it is like you said: It is already cleaner, and will get even cleaner as the grid improves.

Thank you for the heads-up! I stand corrected :)

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Sources...

Breakeven points: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifeti...

State-by-comparisons between electric, hybrid, and gas: https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html

If you’re going to factor in the refining process for the fuel, wouldn’t it make sense to factor in the refining and manufacturing process for the battery?

Yes, it would, but that’s part of making the overall car and it depends on lifetime. As EV batteries can now last 500,000 miles (vs 250,000 miles for first generation long range EVs), that’s not as big of an impact as many assume. (A lot of papers assume really low EV lifetimes, like just 100,000 miles, and no secondary reuse of the battery and they assume really outdated and inefficient numbers for manufacturing the cells.)

Only tangentially related, but I wonder what the expected battery lifetime drops to when you factor in crashes. You mention that the cells might last 500,000 miles but is that really relevant if you're likely to have your car totaled before 200,000?

Are there diminishing returns if you are a company working on a million mile battery since virtually no vehicles will make it that far?

I am speaking as someone who has had three cars totaled before 100,000 miles (none of which were my fault!)

I imagine most of the longevity research is actually being done for the stationary battery market.

The fact it carries over to vehicles is just a bonus.

Besides the salvage value of a battery pack would be huge, so I suspect a battery would be about the last piece of a car to end up on the scrap heap.

The point is that the worst quality studies do assume that the battery ends up on the scrap heap, way before the car itself does.

Totaled EVs are a great source of second-hand battery modules, used either for fixing broken batteries or even for grid storage.

Lots of commercial vehicles make it to a million miles. Those are the ones that will want the longest lived batteries.

> You mention that the cells might last 500,000 miles but is that really relevant if you're likely to have your car totaled

The market for batteries pulled from wrecks is hot! For my own personal interest I wish it wasn't so I could batteries for cheap.

Why are batteries typically measured in miles, rather than years and or recharges? Age and charge cycles are the two hardest things on batteries, not distance traveled. I for example will not drive 500k in my life, but I'm sure the battery is going to have much less capacity and life left in 10 to 20 years regardless.

It depends on what you are talking about. If you are talking about a battery car, then it is better to use a number that makes sense for the end user, and number of charge cycle is not an easy one. If you recharge from 70% to 90% every day, is that a cycle, is that 1/5th of a cycle?

The main problem is the number of full capacity cycling a battery cell can do can change widely based in how it is used. So it depends on how it is integrated into a car and how the car is being used. A typical Li-Ion cell will last a few hundred cycles if cycled completely at a high rate without proper thermal control. But this number can easily be multiplied by 10 with proper thermal management, not charging it to max voltage and doing shallower cycling. If you want to give a number for a final product, you are bound to make assumptions on how it will be used. And at this point you just have an equivalence between distance driven and cycling count.

Also, age has less impact than cycling count in the context of a properly designed battery pack. The two main factors for battery degradation are time spent at high temperature and high state of charge, and cycling count (with speed and depth being the key elements). EV manufacturers are keeping a buffer for that purpose and their batteries do not spend a lot of time at high state of charge where the chemical degradation is more effective.

That would be comparing two completely unrelated things.

If you want to factor in manufacturing emissions, you would have to do so for both. Unlike the manufacturing process for the battery, fuel refining is not a one time thing, but part of the emissions associated with operating the vehicle.

What about emissions required for generating electricity?

That’s already factored in.

Not really because this about emissions per mile driven. It takes energy to refine and deliver energy (both electricity and gasoline) so it makes sense to take that into account when comparing total emissions (comparing local emissions just makes ICE vehicles look bad). If you included the battery pack you would need to include the drivetrain of the ICE vehicle to make it commensurate. At that point it is just a different analysis, a fine analysis to do of course, but a different one.

I think the only thing in question is the co2 cost associated with the creation and consumption of the fuel, not the storage of the fuel or the parts that consume it.

But if https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac... is a good benchmark, we can probably assume the battery's manufacturing process releases between 3120kg and 15,680kg of co2, though that does describe a tesla model 3 battery and I don't know how similar it would be. For the sake of expedient math, I'll average them and say it emits 9,000kg of co2.

If we assume a lifespan of 200k miles, no part replacements, and no change in co2 costs/mile for EVs, then the total emissions would be:

~68,200kg for the EV (341g/mile) + the battery = 77,200kg total

~177,800kg for the non-EV (889g/mile), not including the manufacturing emissions associated with the ICE

Ultimately it's not an insignificant amount of co2, but in context it is actually pretty unimportant. It turns 341g/mile into 386g/mile. Of course, it's incorrect to assume an EV will have static "emissions" since they all come from the production of electricity, and given current trends it would be fair to assume those numbers will trend downwards. Gasoline, however, can probably be expected to have fairly static emissions over the life of the vehicle, likely actually getting worse as parts wear.

> If we assume a lifespan of 200k miles, no part replacements, and no change in co2 costs/mile for EVs

I am under the impression that battery trains do not last anything like that long - am I misinformed?

Doesn't change the maths much, but curious

Most EV manufacturers are offering around 8 year/160,000-200,000km warranties on the batteries.

So not 200,000miles. But definitely covering the average usage pattern.

And not all will last that long, but the majority will. And potentially the worst case is just degradation - I.e. 200km range instead of 400km range, so still quite useful for a variety of use cases even outside of cars.

Yes, current EV batteries (not the old Nissan Leaf ones without active cooling) are projected to last as long as 3 million kilometres: https://youtu.be/7DYknTVskTw?t=325

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/09/20190927-dahn.html Dahn’s “million-mile battery” detailed in open-access paper in JES

Warranty is to some percent of original capacity, like 80 or 90%. Then you have another few hundred thousand miles for the next quantum of degradation.

Also what is the purchase price difference between the these two cars (the malibu versus the hummer)? I'm not American so not really familiar with either but from what I know I assume the average person who would but the ev wouldn't be cross shopping for the malibu. It seems like a bit of a straw man to present the figures for these two cars. It would be better to have what the average model 3 buyer would have otherwise purchased.

Wildly different.

The Malibu is a cheap sedan.

Base prive of the Hummer EV is 5x the Malibu ($23k vs $108k)

Agreed. And the Model 3 (132mpge) and Model Y (124mpge) are FAR more efficient, using less than half the electricity per mile than the Hummer EV (47mpge).

The one thing about a Hummer EV with a huge battery is it can be used for work requiring towing large payloads. With large tow jobs, the thing that matters most for range is the kWhs of the battery of the vehicle, so it’s somewhat justified to have such a big and heavy vehicle.

For Europeans, the Malibu is essentially the Opel Insignia with Chevrolet styling. It was also sold in the US as the Buick Regal with only the front Opel badge replaced by a Buick badge.

> Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles.

Is it? Not all hummer drivers are Arnold Swartz. what if the main buyers are just folks who want the largest electric cars? It's possible this mainly cannibalizes Tesla Model X sales more than gas Hummers.

I haven't seen studies for who buys what but until there is we're all just making wild assumptions about consumer demand.

For the record, I'm not saying this is awful or hurts more than it helps. My main point is brands offer more EV options shouldn't defacto be applauded.

And hypothetically the Hummer EV could go down to 0 kg, if the grid was entirely renewable. Clearly this won't happen, but that should be the goal.

My electric provider in ireland say the power we get is 100% renewable. It can even depend on provider...

Dont forget that there's a lot of embodied energy in everything too.

Even renewable capacity creates CO2 when it's made. So does the grid. So does maintaining these things. And so does drilling for oil, & shipping it around the world, processing it, and shipping it again.

> We can use the EV credit as a tool for improving efficiency. Instead of subsidizing per kWh of battery, we subsidize per mile of range. The first 50 miles of range (ie to be a plug in hybrid, but need at least 6.6kW charging speed) are incentivized at $100/mile of range. The next 200 miles of range $25/mile (under the condition of 100kW fast charging capability).

> That way car companies are incentivized (even more) to maximize miles per kWh.

As long as battery charging times are so slow, IMO car companies already have a ton of incentive to make their EVs efficient, as range is a big differentiator and batteries are such a large cost component. I suspect there isn't a lot more efficiency that would be gotten out of a change to incentive structure.

> Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles. And if everybody drove subcompacts or other hyper efficient gasoline cars then we’d have less of a problem anyway. But not everyone is doing that. And a lot of people don’t want to.

This is a big source of waste and inefficiency though. People just needing to commute by themselves from A to B and buying pickup trucks or large sedans with poor efficiency, then whining whenever energy costs shoot up.

As a taxpayer, I would much rather if my taxes subsidized programs that encouraged people to be more frugal with their vehicle type choices.

Well my personal opinion is these larger vehicles should require a special license to drive. And once we kill gasoline and diesel on our roads, we should tax based on 1) wear and tear on the roads and 2) risk to pedestrians and other vehicles.

Weight is an okay stand-in for that metric, but isn't perfect (there are ways to distribute load on the road using the wheels that reduce wear, and there are design features like a low hood or even external airbags that could be used to reduce fatalities to pedestrians and other vehicles).

But we shouldn't go there until we've all but eliminated fossil fuels from our roads.

You’ll be glad the biggest single consumer tax credit won’t go to buyers of the Hummer then. GM vehicles aren’t eligible for the federal tax rebate anymore

> A gallon of gasoline emits about 11.8 kg of CO2 if you include refining.

A gallon of propane emits about 0kg of additional CO2, if you consider that it's just going to get flared off as waste gas anyway, and we need to refine lots of oil to make the plastics to make electric cars.

Why are you still wasting time running things on petrol when propane is better in just about every way?

Is that equation complete though? The cost of making and disposing of the vehicle should be included, as making batteries and recycling the batteries is supposedly quite energy intensive. However electric motors are simpler, have less parts and require less maintenance.

I have no idea where this leaves us.

Disposing ? They just trow it in the ocean like they do with plastic.

> One kilowatt-hour of electricity currently emits about 372grams of CO2

Not if it's coal. 1 kWh from a coal power plant generates 820-940 grams of CO2 (down from 1130g [5])

The EV Hummer actually gets ~631g CO2/mile - nearly twice that of the Malibu - if your electricity comes from a coal plant.

60% of the USA's power comes from coal, oil and gas. [6]

In many parts of the country, going to EV does not substantially reduce CO2 emissions nor save money. We have a very long way to go until we can say that EV is always better for the environment than ICE.

CO2 emissions from energy generation are now higher than they've ever been in history. More coal is being burned lately due to higher natural gas prices. And as emerging markets have more need for electricity, they are ramping up more non-renewable power production facilities, because gas, oil and coal are cheaper/easier/more available. [1] [2]

(aside: the EIA considers electricity generation "from biomass [..] to be carbon neutral" [3], which is bonkers. Biomass co-firing generates 740g CO2, non-cofiring 240g [4])

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel [2] https://newatlas.com/environment/energy-related-co2-emission... [3] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 [4] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and... [5] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-co2-i... [6] https://app.electricitymap.org/map

Only about 21% of US electricity comes from coal right now, and the number is falling over time.

Efficient natural gas plants can actually do pretty well, about the same as the 372g/kWh grid average. Almost no oil (or petro coke, etc) is burned for electricity. I think less than a tenth of the amount of electricity from solar (solar is currently somewhere around 5% to about 4.2%, depending on how you count "now", i.e. annualized amount based on the last month of data in April with seasonal effects taken out... or the more conservative 12 months rolling average).

> We have a very long way to go until we can say that EV is always better for the environment than ICE.

This is a meaningless point as you can make this argument about literally anything. Please point to the person you think is making a purchasing decision where it’s heads = Chevy Malibu, tails = Hummer EV.

An H1 Hummer gets 10 mpg rated, but at the performance levels listed for the EV it would be substantially lower. So an equivalent performance gas H1 Hummer would have four, five or more times the emissions of a Chevy Malibu.

Your position is irrational. I’m really looking forward to urban gas stations being deleted and replace with nice things that don’t contribute to childhood cancers.

>in any case, the grid is getting lower emissions over time and could go MUCH lower than current

This is a key point so many people miss.

Perfect World: We reduce our emissions.

Good World: We transition our infrastructure to things that can be decarbonized in the future. That Hummer EV could theoretically run on completely renewable energy (once other changes are made) the Malibu will never.

Isn’t the real comparison the CO2/mile of the electric Hummer versus the CO2/mile of a Malibu-weight electric vehicle?

It's better to use mi/kWh. Hummers get 1.3. Small EVs are well above 4.

Edit: fixed units

>Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles.

We can agree on that. But also, a 7000 lb Hummer would as well.

If the stupid EV credit was refundable I'd have taken it into account when looking for a new vehicle; as it is it's pointless to me because my tax liability isn't high enough.

Stupid.

The typical workaround (and it's not ideal, but it's not zero either) is to lease the car, where the finance company can take the credit and return most of it to you in the form of cap cost reduction on the front end of the lease. (Yeah, yeah, it's not as good as money in your pocket, but it's better than a stick in the eye.)

Interesting comment that inspired me to look into the grams of carbon dioxide emitted when running biodiesel fuel:

This page [1] says biodiesel emits 2,661 grams of carbon dioxide per gallon. Let’s say a 1988 F250 gets 15 mpg => 2,661 g/gal * 1/15 gal/mile = 177.4 gram CO2/mile.

Pretty cool it’s less than both the Chevy Malibu and Hummer but wonder how it compares to other petrol cars - it is just proportional to fuel economy but im not gonna run the numbers. In my head a pure gasser car would need to get above about 40mpg of petroleum fuel to emit less grams of CO2 than a 15mpg vehicle running pure biodiesel.

TLDR biodiesel is what’s up if you can’t afford an ev (and still has its place if you can). Pure petroleum diesel still barely emits more co2 than gasoline anyway [2]

Disclaimer: only comparing carbon dioxide and not other greenhouse gas emissions

Edit: i'm seeing some numbers around that the average human exhalation per day is emits 1 kg of CO2, for reference. [3]

[1]: https://impactful.ninja/the-carbon-footprint-of-biodiesel/

[2]: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/Gas%20_v%20_Diesel_%...

[3]: https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-much-does-huma...

The thing with human exhalation is that this CO2 comes from the food we consume and gets captured again when food is produced thus having netzero influence on the actual CO2 in the atmosphere. Same basically applies to biodiesel. Of course that ignores energy spent to produce crops and other issues like fertilizer.

The problem is the fossil fuel that is concentrated carbon from millions of years of plants and now just adds to the CO2 in the atmosphere without a corresponding mechanism to take it out again.

If we create gasoline by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere there isn't a CO2 problem with using it for fuel. Processes exist, but all have some (major) inefficiency issues.

Biodiesel is interesting but if you end up using palm nuts as the oil source and the producers are clear cutting forests to plan palms then the climate story gets muddy.

Indeed, although palm nuts/oil as the result of clear-cutting is a straw man. I do agree, however, biodiesel is quite a varied product. There could be biodiesel made from palm or beef/meat byproducts (tallow), which could in theory come from a clear-cut area. But it would likely constitute a very small volume of biodiesel (compared to soy for example [1]). Soy ain’t perfect either (gmo, mono cropping etc etc) but certainly better than petroleum.

Edit/Note: I’m in the US and typically seek out data for the North American region. Maybe palm oil biodiesel is a bigger thing in other parts of the world (Africa, Europe, Asia?) - not sure. Would be intrigued if there is data supporting it either way. The US dataset below has “no data” explicitly stated for palm oils.

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/biofuels/biodiesel/production/table3.pdf

> Mostly just foreign EV makers qualify, which cannot be the real intention of lawmakers when they made the law.

Of course it is because the capitalist state prioritizes shareholders over stakeholders.

Are we allowed to call these "coal vehicles" yet? They don't make nuclear power plants anymore - so not sure why everyone wants to run more coal plants.

They do make wind and solar plants though. And either way, even with coal feeding a thermal plant as the energy source, it is still more efficient to generate the energy and distribute it to the wheel than it is to refine, transport and burn the fossil fuel the ICE vehicle would use.

> Are we allowed to call these "coal vehicles" yet?

Of course you are!

And we're allowed to think what we will of you, should you choose to do that.

In many places in the US it’s an accurate description for sure, but your getting down voted here because it’s an inconvenient truth. I gave you an upvote, because I appreciate the irony. Where I live it’s an 85% coal, 15% solar vehicle.

The US average is about 21% electricity from coal, a number that's down from over 50% about 20 years ago. And coal is falling over time as well.

It's not an "inconvenient truth", it's outdated information, basically a lie at this point. No one's bothering building new coal plants any more. People ARE building new nuclear plants (Vogtle, etc, not counting the small modular reactors). Nuclear produces about 18-19% of US electricity, nearly as much as coal. Solar is about 4-5% of US electricity (including solar behind-the-meter), hydro is 6-7%. Wind is 10%, geothermal about 0.4%. Wood and biomass waste (including landfill gas, etc) is about 1.3% total. Total renewables and nuclear produce over 40% of US electricity, twice that of coal.

Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... and https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

No offense, but just listing out of all of the US energy sources used across the country does not mean that every individual local area derives all of their energy in the same percentages as you specified. You call the “coal powered vehicles” description a “lie”, but you obfuscate the data by choosing to look at it from a generalization point and low data resolution.

So like I said, (and I just checked my utility for these numbers and updated them for accuracy) where I live—EVs are presently being fueled by 86% coal (however, during peak demand periods, natural gas fueled turbines will come online and change the mix to 61%/25% coal/natural gas), and 14% solar. That is 86% of EV power coming from non-renewable fossil fuels with most of that fuel being coal. That’s not a lie, it simply is what it is.

If other areas are doing better with renewables, great. Here, EVs are running on mostly coal.

The US electric grid is well-connected, certainly regionally. You don't get all your electricity in your state. There's no sense in saying they mostly run on coal. And there's no way to refute your claims since you didn't mention what your location is, so I provided the US average, which is the only thing that makes sense as otherwise it's dishonest cherry-picking... which is precisely what you're doing. It's not "obfuscation" to use the national average!

Only 21% of US electricity comes from coal, and likely less than that in areas with the highest percentage of EVs. The future (which is what the Hummer EV will do its driving in) will also have far less than that. So yeah, calling them "coal powered" is dishonest to the point of being a lie.

All electricity I receive from my utility is generated in my state. My utility has excess capacity and provides energy to other utilities within the state. It provided those numbers as to their mix, that is what they have posted. If you want to dispute them with your general percentages, feel free, but you are not arguing from position of strength.

I would suggest instead of doubling down despite not knowing where I am, consider that in certain places within the US that the general mix of energy sources that you have provided could be different. Additionally, is it possible that in certain places within the US that energy sources like nuclear, wind, and hydro are simply not available to the consumers there? Also, is it possible that in those locations with the absence of effective renewable energy sources, that those areas might choose to rely on fossil fuels as their primary source of energy?

I could say nearly every EV roaming around Hawaii is 69% gas powered. I could say nearly every EV roaming around South Carolina is 60% nuclear powered. I could say nearly every EV roaming around West Virginia is 89% fossil fuel powered. I could say nearly every EV roaming around Washington state is 69% hydroelectric powered.

All of those statements are accurate and all are completely different. According to you, they are all lies, because my statement is a lie.

It's not an inconvenient truth. It's a non sequitur designed to make people think gas vehicles are better or equivalent to EVs.

Yes power generation in many parts of the world still produces lots of CO2. We all know that. You're not more clever than the rest of us for pointing it out.

But to decarbonize we have to address both cars and power generation. It's okay for us to talk about electric vehicles in isolation. These problems can be dealt with independently.

Every time there's talk about EVs some smartass is saying "it's pointless cause we're burning coal to power them". Such an attitude of "nothing is worth it unless we fix everything at once" once promotes apathy and inaction, and is just plain annoying.

"Such an attitude of "nothing is worth it unless we fix everything at once" once promotes apathy and inaction, and is just plain annoying."

Weird. I thought such an attitude would promote nuclear. Obviously.

They make wind and solar and hydro and geothermal too. There's not just a couple bad options.

>>EDIT: what we should do is expand the EV tax credit

No we don't, that will increase inflation is basically a tax on poor people to pay for rich people to buy new vehicle

The EV Tax credit needs to do away completely, EV can either compete with ICE in the market or they cant, government should not be picking winners or losers.

>>Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles.

Not until batter tech improves, I am interested in an EV truck, none of them have the towing range that makes them practical for a weekend trip to the dock with your boat, or a camping trip. One of the Youtube channels I watch just did a head to head with a ICE truck against the Ford Lightening, they did not get 80 miles with the truck before they ran out of charge pulling a normal sized trailer, that is with the Truck claiming a 150 or so mile range at the start of the trip. TERRIBLE towing miles.

Current batteries may be good for a car like the Model 3 and Model S, or the Mach E, but it is TERRIBLE for large SUV's or Trucks that are made for towing

> The EV Tax credit needs to do away completely, EV can either compete with ICE in the market or they cant, government should not be picking winners or losers.

One of the governments jobs is to make sure externalities are accounted for, and ICEs should not get a free ride by not dealing with their pollution.

There are many things that do not make sense on the open market, unless we can collectively agree to tip the scales in the direction it should go for a better society, till the "market" can manage it on it's own.

>>One of the governments jobs is to make sure externalities are accounted

We clearly differ as to what the role of government is, because I do not believe that is one of the governments job at all.

Government is simply the organization of the natural right of lawful defense to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each. Nothing more, nothing less

Given the federal tax credit is US Law, I would also like you to point to where in the US Constitution is the power granted to the federal government to "make sure externalities are accounted" I missed that provision in my copy of the Constitution

>>There are many things that do not make sense on the open market

I am sure we are going to disagree widely here as well, as I am very much an Adam Smith invisible hand adherent

> Government is simply the organization of the natural right of lawful defense to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each. Nothing more, nothing less

…which they are doing by encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles. Lotta property is gonna go underwater, the less carbon we emit today, the less needs defending tomorrow.

Maybe, but there is zero evidence that the Tax Credit does what people claim it does, it seems to me people buying EV are doing so regardless of the Tax Credit, instead is simply is a subsidy for people that can already afford the sticker price anyway, i.e wealthy people.

> I am very much an Adam Smith invisible hand adherent

The ICE ecosystem already benefits from large involvement of the government in securing fuel supplies. The EV ecosystem also benefits from large involvement of the government in electricity production and distribution. Both sectors benefit hugely from government involvement in road building and maintenance.

The whole transportation industry, and infrastructure in general, is very much not an "invisible hand" sector... More like layer upon layer of government involvement. I think you'd probably disagree with a lot of people who've voted in some form for these things.

> Government is simply the organization of the natural right of lawful defense to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each. Nothing more, nothing less

And managing externalities fits because public things (like the air we breathe) are something we all have a right to, and one person shouldn't be allowed to fuck that up for everyone else unilaterally.

If you believe in protecting individuals and natural rights you have to reserve the power to prevent individuals from interfering with them. I would wager money that you do believe the government should do this to some extent (murder, say, or dumping toxins in your water supply), so it's not some question of principle, just of where you draw the line.

The problem here is mere existence is an externality, if you make the claim that government should have the power to curb externalties then the very idea of limited governance ceases to exist, as a government empowered to control externalities has unlimited power, as everything is an exernality include human breath.

Murder, or Dumping toxins is not on the same vein as CO2 emissions not even close, for former as a theoretical harm that may occur over 100+ years if technology and human behavior does not change naturally something not supported by history

Murder and Dumping toxins has a direct instant harm caused with immediate effect, if you can not see the difference then I am not sure how to continue the conversation

> One of the governments jobs is to make sure externalities are accounted for, and ICEs should not get a free ride by not dealing with their pollution.

Should be a tax on ICE vehicles rather than EV credits. The former is not inflationary and charges directly for the externality.

So don't use them for towing, or wait 5-9 years. Towing is not not done by a huge fraction of trucks, in fact most are probably looking pretty in suburban driveways.

While most trucks are not used for towing daily, many truck owner have them for vacations, and other rec uses on top of daily driving, this saves having to have 2 vehicles (or 3)

So even if the Truck is only used for towing 2 times a year, you will never get most truck owners to buy one with a 80mile towing range

Shoot, if that's true I'd rather just rent a truck twice a year and own a vehicle that suits my needs better for the other 363 days of the year.

Good news, we have a free society that allows you the freedom to pick either rent or own...

You may choose rent, but why do you feel like your choice is the one EVERYONE should be forced into?

Is someone forcing you to buy a truck?

Like I said, wait a few years. Used to hear the same disparaging comments about digital cameras. Ten years later film cameras barely exist. Battery tech has moved a bit slower, but has made incredible strides in twenty. We're almost there, just a matter of time.

The entire context of this discussion is about government penalties or subsidies for on ICE or EV..

As I said a in my opening comment, there should be neither and like the Film vs Digital the market should work itself out

The comments in this thread is people pushing back claiming the market can not do that and the government must step in with its coercive force to tip the scales.

Government action by it very nature is force.

Late reply, but why the heck are you assuming that I'm trying to force anyone to do anything? Where in my comment did I say that?

I was only talking about my own opinion here, dude. Perhaps a little less assumption next time.

> this saves having to have 2 vehicles (or 3)

Maybe this saves having to rent a car for the occasion...

Even then. Friend of mine busted his daily commute SUV before a long road trip. Ended up renting a much more fuel efficient sedan. Could not believe how little gas he used on the way. Maybe next time he'll rent again.

Trucks in the US are a stupid status booster for most people. Once you start seeing cars as a box to safely get you, your passengers and your cargo from point A to point B for a decent amount of time and money, and stop thinking about how what you drive makes you look, not a whole lot of trucks make sense anymore.

The EV tax credit doesn't apply at all to the Hummer EV, so you have your wish.

But what we need is a full carbon tax of about $250/tonne of CO2 (eventually), as that's approximately the fully accounted social cost and is also about the long-term cost to suck the CO2 out of the air and store it. Then there wouldn't be any need to subsidize anything except for the usual industrial policy/tech dev reasons as the externalities would be priced in.

I agree to an extent. Pass a carbon tax to take care of the externalities, and let the invisible hand work. Unfortunately most people who are as enamored with the free market as you are would never go for it. So instead we get things like EV tax credits.