Personally I don't think we should. Sorry if I implied that.
As long as coal is powering the electricity in the cars, what exactly is helping the environment?
As long as coal is powering the electricity in the cars, what exactly is helping the environment?
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2021.07.28/main.svg
The electric car you buy today will steadily get greener over it's lifetime. The gas car will not.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-...
As for the recent ice storm, my EV had no problems charging here in Texas.
And what if you were one of the unfortunate people who lost power for 5 days and had an EV? If it wasn't charged enough to go to a charging station that might have power...what do you do?
I am honestly curious: how in the world did gas pumps freeze? Are gas pumps actually built differently in the north?
Pumps need power to, you know, pump. They don't just magically dispense gas and handle payments. Most gas stations around me could not operate and were closed as they did not have electricity to operate.
> And what if you were one of the unfortunate people who lost power for 5 days and had an EV? If it wasn't charged enough to go to a charging station that might have power...what do you do?
Lots of people didn't have gas in their cars, or they ran out, and, well, the gas pumps didn't have power, so they couldn't pump the gas, so their cars were dead. If they didn't have enough gas to drive far enough to a station that did have power, wouldn't they be in the same situation as that EV owner?
In the end my experience in that winter storm would have been the same if I had a gas car or an electric. I'd only have the range I had when the lights went out. I don't store a lot of gas at home, not any amount that would make an appreciable difference in range.
Pointing to things like that winter storm as some example of day to day life is extreme. It was a pretty big outlier, one that I agree Texas (and the rest of the US, see NY 2022) needs to be ready to happen more often. But acting like that's just normal day to day life is a bit absurd. What if the city gets flooded every day from massive hurricanes like with Katrina? EVs sure wouldn't be great then! What of the town has massive tornadoes ripping through like Joplin? EVs sure wouldn't be helpful in that environment!
If over the next 5 years every single family home in Texas swapped an ICE for an EV, the "grid" would probably absorb it without much issue. There's already so much spare capacity prices go negative most evenings.
On top of that, because of the efficiency of my car and the plants running, I get the equivalent energy usage of about 100MPG for an ICE.
The break even emissions on my car including manufacturing given this kind of mix is within a few years. If I drive the car for 5+ years (most likely), it'll be way lower emissions than my ICE driving for 5+ years. Meanwhile in the next 5+ years, chances are the mix of renewables will increase. Maybe even nuclear. Chances are the coal plants will close soon though.
1) I am jealous you live somewhere where nuclear is an option. In most states in the US, nuclear power is decreasing.
2) Natural gas isn't any better than coal.
3) Coal won't go away as long as conservatives are in power in the house - they love coal.
4) I think ICE vs Electric greatly depends on how much you use your car. I drive maybe once or twice a week, only city - I am going to be constantly having to charge my car since the battery will go dead if you leave it unplugged in cold weather (Michigan). A tank of gas lasts me for like 3 months. There is no way EV would be better for the environment.
Doesn't matter what politicians think. As long as they don't start giving coal away or pure subsidies for it, if coal keeps being more expensive than natural gas, its share will keep going down. The force of the market decides.
And, yes, natural gas while it has its issues is still better than coal. Even with the leakages, which theoretically could be fixed. Coal causes a bigger nuclear issue than nuclear power plants. There's so many ways in which natural gas is better than coal, but I do agree natural gas still has climate change impacts and is ultimately non-renewable and not sustainable for much longer timescales.
As for your car, you may not drive it many miles. But you're going to sell it eventually I'd imagine. And then that person is going to probably drive an average usage on it. So that car is probably still going to end up hitting its break even point unless you only end up driving it 10,000mi and then crush it after you're done with it.
Even in San Francisco, which has pretty clean air (being right by the bay), it was really remarkable during the early, lock-down part of the pandemic how much nicer the air was without the car emissions. Especially noticable when biking.