Right now they have to carry around far too much weight and bulk in batteries, and take far too long to charge, and the batteries don't have a long enough lifespan.
Right now this whole effort feels performative. Its greenwashing.
Some day it will likely become very practical, but that day is not today.
> The social cost of carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) measures the monetized value of the damages to society caused by an incremental metric tonne of CO2 emissions and is a key metric informing climate policy. Used by governments and other decision-makers in benefit–cost analysis for over a decade, SC-CO2 estimates draw on climate science, economics, demography and other disciplines. However, a 2017 report by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine1 (NASEM) highlighted that current SC-CO2 estimates no longer reflect the latest research. The report provided a series of recommendations for improving the scientific basis, transparency and uncertainty characterization of SC-CO2 estimates. Here we show that improved probabilistic socioeconomic projections, climate models, damage functions, and discounting methods that collectively reflect theoretically consistent valuation of risk, substantially increase estimates of the SC-CO2. Our preferred mean SC-CO2 estimate is $185 per tonne of CO2 ($44–$413 per tCO2: 5%–95% range, 2020 US dollars) at a near-term risk-free discount rate of 2%, a value 3.6 times higher than the US government’s current value of $51 per tCO2. Our estimates incorporate updated scientific understanding throughout all components of SC-CO2 estimation in the new open-source Greenhouse Gas Impact Value Estimator (GIVE) model, in a manner fully responsive to the near-term NASEM recommendations. Our higher SC-CO2 values, compared with estimates currently used in policy evaluation, substantially increase the estimated benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation and thereby increase the expected net benefits of more stringent climate policies.
EDIT: I stand corrected wrt which emissions DEF and DPF mitigate. I rarely interact with diesel propulsion systems.
Wow. Back of the envelope math suggests that driving a typical passenger car 1000 miles should carry a tax of ~$75, which would be no small burden. At 40 mpg, gasoline cost for such a trip is less than $200 in most of the U.S. right now.
Edit: actually if you assume 40 mpg the social cost of emissions is closer to $40.
(Of course in practice you'd want to handle this as a tax on gasoline purchases, but that would need to be implemented federally to be effective, probably.)
Assuming that tax money is being used effectively (lol), the negative externality could completely disappear with the right tax level. You could even turn driving into a positive externality if the tax is high enough, while still polluting.
Does that sound right to you?
Incidentally, 2023 Bolt specs [2] indicate an efficiency of about 4 miles per kWh, and the EPA reference above states a typical US grid efficiency of 4.17 × 10^-4 metric tons CO2/kWh. This gives us 15.38 km per kg CO2. So ~105 kg of CO2 would be released by driving a Bolt for 1000 miles on typical grid sources. [3]
I'm surprised to learn the US grid is this inefficient. In theory, an ICE car with an efficiency of 85 mpg would emit less CO2 than an electric car. Obviously that's not reachable at this point, but a hybrid like a Prius that can hit 57 mpg cuts it a lot closer than I would've thought.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...
[2] https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/b...
[3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000+miles+%2F+%28259+m...
Edit to add: That $185 is in 2020 USD, which is $223.26 in current USD. [1]
1. Trends in generation/grid investment will change such that the EV transition _can_ happen.
2. The EV mandate will get walked back before much of anything changes.
3. The EV mandate will _start_ to get implemented, slowly, begin making things terrible proportionally to how far it has progressed, then, when things reach some (pre-total collapse) level of badness, get reversed, and things will go back to normal-ish after having wasted a bunch of money and having made some things somewhat worse.
4. And, I suppose for completeness, I should include the possibility of: nothing changes, nothing gets rolled back, and the grid utterly collapses under the overwhelming burden and the CA economy goes up in smoke and fire.
I do not think that last one has a significant chance of occurring. I think the most likely options are 3 and 2, followed somewhat distantly by 1, and much, _much_ more distantly by 4. If trend lines seem to point towards utter calamity, and any of the trend lines are under human control, the safe assumption is that something will change before total calamity.
Spread over the month, that's 9.87GWh per day, or 411MW. California produces around 500GWh each day, so we need a 2% increase. (Or, equivalently, a 2% decrease elsewhere.)
[1] https://kentico.portoflosangeles.org/getmedia/452bad8c-4e16-...
It is also hard to buy the argument that there is a shortage of batteries when there are other Tesla vehicles sitting unpurchased. Why miss a Semi sale when there is slack demand for Model 3/Y? Probably because actually delivering more of them is just a future liability.
There are many people who say that the technology is not appropriate, and these are mainly based on two claims: firstly, that electric propulsion will not be more environmentally friendly whilst the electricity is still produced from fossil fuels, and secondly that existing electric trucks are less reliable than their diesel counterparts. Neither of these are reasons to abandon overhead lines on an efficiency basis, though - the concept is sound.
That seems very low and not really worth it. Does it really make that little difference?
That only takes into account electricity production, though - these countries might still import large amounts of oil and gas for burning, such as Germany, or simply buy their electricity from other countries.
That's why electric Semis are heavily subsidized by the IRA - in order to incentivize the economies of scale needed to spur innovation in the space.
It's a similar move to the PEV industry and Obama's, California's, and Texas' subsidies for it in the 2008-12 period establishing that market in North America.
Really, the funding should go more directly to general battery RnD - not eSemis specifically.
"The iPhone is too slow for the web, the screen is too small, and it's too expensive. This is a waste of time" (About the iPhone 1).
"This Gemini program is a silly waste of time, and will never get to the moon".
"The MacBook Air is really underperformant and too expensive" (The first one).
and so on.
Things improve over time, but only when someone is willing to actually make them. Try stuff. Learn lessons. Improve the technology, drive the price down and make iterative improvements.
We need electric semis. Are the version 1.0 ones being made now fantastic in every way? no. Will they get better over time, of course.
In 20 years we'll look back and say damn I'm glad companies were willing to try new stuff and advance technology so that things could actually get better.
I really do want electric vehicles to get better, but that doesn't change the fact that they objectively do suck right now.
And to be clear, they objectively suck, by nearly any measure, for a consumer. They break down more often [1], cost more to fix, they have shitty range, they take forever to charge, they're more expensive. Yes, you get to have a smug feeling of superiority for pretending to save the planet with electric cars, I guess that's worth something, but that doesn't undo the rest of the problems.
Until electric vehicles stop being crappy, corporations simply aren't going to use them, and they can hardly be blamed for it. I do think they'll get better, I think they'll get longer ranges and faster charging and the mechanical problems will get sorted out, but I don't think that pretending the problems aren't a real makes them go away.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-vehicles-consumer-repo... This one keeps bothering me because people keep saying that electric cars "cost more to fix but they're so much more reliable so it almost doesn't matter!!!!", when that's objectively not true, at least not yet.
Of course, some products will be a success and some will flop, but the successes can only happen so long as someone keeps trying and keeps improving it.
> I really do want electric vehicles to get better
Then you should be happy companies are trying to improve them. This is a good thing that Tesla (and others) are trying to make the semi work. It may eventually result in better outcomes for you, vs the alternative where nobody tries and it is guaranteed that nothing gets better.
> They break down more often [1], cost more to fix, they have shitty range, they take forever to charge, they're more expensive.
last week Consumer Reports listed Tesla as the lowest cost of 10 year ownership of any brand.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-maintenance/the-cos...
No argument here, I just was questioning the assertions because, and maybe I misread it, it seemed like you were suggesting the success was implied, which I disagreed with.
> Then you should be happy companies are trying to improve them. This is a good thing that Tesla (and others) are trying to make the semi work. It may eventually result in better outcomes for you, vs the alternative where nobody tries and it is guaranteed that nothing gets better.
Yes, I am glad companies are trying to fix them, but I don't blame other companies for not using them in their current state. They simply do not solve the problems that current corporations have to deal with for the reasons I listed.
What bothers me is that a lot of the electric car advocates seem to look at the future at the expense of the present. It's like saying "Everyone should use the Apple 1 computer right now because the Apple II will probably be better", and I don't really think that parses. Yes, it's good that Tesla and other companies are running the necessary experiments to make these things not suck, but that doesn't really change anything.
> last week Consumer Reports listed Tesla as the lowest cost of 10 year ownership of any brand.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers corrected for the Cybertruck launch.
Also, I don't know how that squares with the thing I linked that indicates that as of December of last year Teslas were considerably less reliable than Lexus, Toyota, Buick, and Honda [1]. Consumer Reports is generally pretty good but I suspect that they're measuring different numbers for each article. It doesn't seem clear-cut to me.
[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s... Transitively linked in my previous post but figured I'd put a direct link.
I thought the German experiments of allowing the trucks to charge while driving with overhead charging wires was clever and could be a potential solution to this, since then you wouldn't have to waste any time waiting for the truck to charge, but it looks like the infrastructure for that might be too expensive to justify that.
Nobody wants to talk about the fact that just shipping less unnecessary shit would do tremendously more for the environment than the greenest tech available, in the same way it initially made such big waves during the early days of the pandemic. Like, imagine how much CO2 would be saved if we just shut down essential oils tomorrow. The whole thing, the entire industry, because it's flagrantly bullshit. I'm not even saying it's an industry that produces a ton of CO2, I'm just saying it's an industry that produces CO2 while accomplishing nothing useful.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54511743
Ammonia has no carbon atoms in it, just hydrogen and nitrogen which are abundant. It can be synthesized using the Haber process, and electrolysis, all energy inputs can be green. On the con side, its energy density isn't as good as fuel oil (half as energy dense). It needs to be compressed to stay liquid (like LNG). Also it's a poisonous gas. Could be corrosive to certain metals too. Maybe those issues can be worked around though.
Should that occur, electric semis are no more danger than a regular semi.
My point is that we ought to wait until that's actually the case.