California cities ban new gas stations in battle to combat climate change

Even if everyone filled up this way, the policy would still be counter productive. Since gas stations are less common, instead of being able to fill up when you are at e.g. 1/4 of a tank, you fill up when you are at 1/2 a tank. You spend more energy visiting gas stations (idling, decelerating) and use more energy carrying more fuel.

Yeah, I live in Germany close to the Polish and I know several people who drive to Poland once or twice every two weeks to tank up, fill a container or two, and maybe throw cigarettes and alcohol into the mix for good measure. One guy even takes his camper van with a fridge so he can stock up on meat too. The prices are that much cheaper that it's worth it for many people.

> Do people ever have to really travel for a gas station?

I don't know anyone who has a gas station in his back yard.

I need to travel at least 1 km to get gas.

Lmao hell yeah dude I fill up in the hood it’s way cheaper than filling up in Palo Alto.

You misunderstand my comment. To be useful for policy, the studies need to assess the _actual policy_. The reference you provided merely shows that new EVs are on average producing less GHG than new ICE cars. This is a separate question to whether this policy (banning new gas stations) will reduce GHG.

For example, you would also need to include opportunity costs of the policy in question (e.g. less energy is used to run an existing ICE vehicle than to manufacture new EVs) and estimates for the downsides (how much extra driving this will cause). Not to mention the chance that this policy does not affect EV adoption, and thus wastes resources better used building renewables (or any other good policy).

The report also has the downside that the data and code are not open access. Couple that with the fact that it comes from a political organization and I doubt the reliability of their analysis for policy. It's too easy to tweak assumptions to fit your preconceptions, and their assumptions are not published.

For example they mention some values as assuming 95% renewable penetration. They fail to mention how much additional GHG will need to be emitted to build and run grid scale storage which is required at such high % of renewables. There are huge differences in estimates of this cost from different institutions, so it is critical to know which values they used. The fact that they do not present these estimates as a range or confidence interval is a red flag that their analysis is biased.

I have read a lot of papers like this, your assumption that I haven't is unfair. I like EVs but I dislike the reflexive assumption from proponents that they are good in all circumstances and any policy supporting them is good policy.