Hacker News Reader

Comment by pedalpete | Hacker News Reader

A few things that should probably be taken into a account as we move to an electrified future is

1) what is the carbon footprint of an EV vehicle when we are recycling batteries

2) what is the carbon footprint of an EV as we increase efficiency/range

3) what is the carbon footprint of an ICE as they increase range

The reason this might be interesting is that EVs, I believe, are still in their infancy and are likely to continue to see considerable jumps in efficiency.

ICE vehicles are not seeing these efficiency gains at the same rate. The technology is fairly stale. However ICE cars are getting more powerful. With a 2l 4 cylinder engine now getting 200+ hp, which I think would have been unimaginable a decade ago.

So where do these developments run in the future?

View on HN

Most cars are still sold without turbocharging. We are nowhere near maximizing combustion vehicles. That 100hp/l is somewhat in contradiction to your arguement.

The wide array of technologies for injection and burn efficiency are still largely unadopted as well.

The replacement costs of batteries at ~5-8 years of ownership are always conviently absent from the comparison between EV and combustion. No surprise.

EV are not in their infancy either, the first EVs are from over a hundred years ago and there have been models available since the 90s from major manufacturers

I'm trying NOT to make an argument, but to be even handed, and what do we need to understand about how these technologies will change.

I think in Australia it is difficult to find a non-turbo charged car. I was amazed when I moved here that everything is a 2l turbo 4 cylinder.

EVs aren't new, but there hasn't been considerable investment over the last 100 years. All the investment has happened in the last 20. Battery technology wasn't good enough until recently to justify investment in more efficient electric motors, etc.

Similarly, I think the improvements we are seeing in combustion engines is that they haven't had competition for 100 years, aside from one car company vs another. Now they have something that completely changes the game, and it is amazing to see how well that industry has responded from a performance standpoint.

Those are all good questions, but the answers are already well-understood EV’s already win on all of those metrics, hands down, even in parts of the US with lots of coal power plants, including CO2 emitted during manufacturing:

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/driving-cleaner

Reply on news.ycombinator.com