> As do electric vehicles which requires three current grids worth of wires to power them.
Your response doesn't logically match your intended message. It seems like you intend to disagree with the GP, but your response seems to validate the GP's point.
> three current grids worth of wires
Even if we assume it is true (it likely will not be because of home storage), by definition "3 current grids worth of wires" would be paid for by consumers buying electricity.
Consumers buying electric cars are required to buy even more electricity.
As such, with electric cars the externality you're point out is gonna be "paid [disproportionately] by the consumer causing it".
The electric car owners are not thr ones paying the externalities for it either. You can make the case the externalities are smaller but they still exist.
If we do need to triple the grid's copper, that would indeed result in unpaid externalities because of poor mining practices.
Hopefully, the grid doesn't need to triple because of local storage. If it does, hopefully, the recyleability of copper makes the one time cost of mining and refining a smaller externality.
Irrelevant except perhaps for collector cars. For cars that are actually used the manufacturing differences will be swamped by the operational differences.
> Also remind me what is the percentage of clean energy those EVs are consuming?
Again irrelevant, because even if in a particular place now not much electricity comes from clean energy as they shift to more and more clean energy that improves all the EVs in service there. The ICEs in service will be just as dirty then as they are now.
Also, if you do generate electricity from fossil fuels and use that to power cars it can be cleaner than using that fossil fuel directly to power cars. That's because burning it in the car greatly constrains how much equipment you can use to try to reduce or capture the emissions from that burning, because it all has to be small enough and light enough to include in a car.
Burning that fuel instead to power generators that feed the grid doesn't suffer that problem. You can put more elaborate emissions control there than you could on a car.
You'd be surprised.
This electricity needs to be generated, and it will hardly be clean for decades. It also needs to be stored in car batteries. And if the energy is "green", in grid "batteries" - plus all the work needed to support the green energy generation, solar panels, huge grid changes, etc. Both of which are nowhere near available, and it's not even certain they can be supported if EVs go to 100% of cars, neither from a manufacturing capacity wise, nor materials wise. And those need to be disposed too. And they'll need replacement during the car's life.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/cpi-report-today-january-20...
and like:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-...
You can’t fill an ICE gasoline tank at home.
In EU 50% of people are living in apartments. With push on walkable cities this number will grow. So charging at home won't happen for most, it will be niche feature for rich few who has their own house with its own driveway.
> You can’t fill an ICE gasoline tank at home.
Give me funnel, cannister and watch me
The Tesla Model S wasn’t the first EV, but it’s arguably the first commercially available product capable of a “road trip” by any reasonable definition of the term.
I did encounter a few people who had issues charging while I was on those road trips. It seemed like the BMW i3's were the ones most likely to have a charging issue from the cars I saw. A few people were confused about how to get it started. I saw a Tesla drive up to CCS charger trying to figure out how to get their J1772 adapter to work with the CCS cable (hint: it no work). But the vast majority of the people I encountered on my road trips managed to plug in, potentially negotiate payment if needed, charge their car, and go on their way without any issue.
Like lots of things, I think its mostly just that you hear about people sharing their horror stories instead of everyone chirping in every time saying "yup, worked as advertised!" How many people are going to watch and share a video of someone driving up to a CCS dispenser, plug it in, have it charge for ten minutes, and then drive off? Probably not very many. How many people are going to share someone's story about how a charging failure ruined their Christmas?
How many videos do people share of people pulling up to a gas station, pumping gas, putting the handle back, and driving off? How many people share videos of people starting fires at gas stations? I tend to see way more videos of fires at gas stations and crazy collisions with the pumps, I guess that's just what everyone's experiences are at gas stations every day!
Seriously, while YouTube series like OutOfSpec Reviews shares some of the recent failures and challenges with charging infrastructure, they have tons of videos where you see lots of people pulling up to chargers, charging their cars, and going on their way. They even talk about how they go on lots of road trips with their non-Teslas, and seem to have generally good experiences on average. And they're constantly driving and charging their cars at public chargers, most drivers probably will only use DCFC a handful of times a year.