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Comment by IneffablePigeon | Hacker News Reader

EVs emit less carbon even when powered by a fossil fuel dominated grid. The power plant is more efficient than your car, and often uses LNG rather than petrol or diesel, and there are still some renewables in almost any grid. In addition, air pollution close to where you live will be lower. In addition, the grid can be decarbonised over time and your car will become greener as it does.

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All of this is true, but it's not the main reason why EVs have taken off. Electricity generation is very flexible. You can use coal, gas, oil, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and so on. Every country has something.

However, not every country has oil or gas. In fact, only a minority does. China is investing in EVs to avoid being dependent on energy imports. Many other countries are following. Russia and the US being laggards in EV adoption isn't really surprising.

The convenience to me of being able to refuel anywhere quickly, plus the dubious carbon savings, plus the immediate discount on the car purchase (without any subsidies), makes it a moral purchase rather than a practical one. I am not very impressed by the benefits.

I like how EVs accelerate faster. Otherwise it would make my life way more inconvenient, which I surmise is a major blocker for most potential EV purchasers

I guess it depends on your driving habits and homecharging situation, but after a year with my EV, I wouldn't go back if God came down and personally told me that every EV resulted in a baby seal being clubbed. Among the many advantages, never having to go to a gas station is so much better.

Yeah that was my experience (not the seal clubbing) with my Model X in Europe in 2019. Great for the daily commute, never had to hit a gas station but on longer trips it's more planning. Sales of Teslas definitely increased faster than the charging network expanded, so while I never had to wait in 2019, the situation was different in 2022. Now I'm back at 13mpg and similar bhp. Still have good memories of the Tesla but in the states distances are longer and I just can't haul an RV with an EV. Even small trailers have quite the range impact.

Why is going to a gas station difficult? I’m far more concerned about needing to charge in a pinch than needing to find a gas station

It's not difficult, but it's something extra. Now I just plug my car in the garage and it's always charged. Plus it drives so so much better (constant torque at any speed feels amazing, you can control the car very precisely), and doesn't stink and make noise.

I wouldn't go back either, even with the occasional 20-minute charge break on a very long trip.

If you can charge at home overnight, then your "tank" is full every morning. The logistics are a bit more complicated for long distance road trips though.

There are no gas stations on my route. I'd need to specifically drive to one.

And the one closest to my commute has a massive queue _every_ time.

I just rather drive home, plug in and the battery will be at 80-100% next morning, depending on how much I drove that day.

You must be the rare person with no gas stations near your entire commute!

That's what I get for living in a small town :)

The gas stations are on the main road that passes through the town, I don't use it for my commute, I literally have to go out of my way to hit a gas station - which is owned by my uncle (small town, I know)

Being able to charge nightly (when needed) at home has been a game changer for us. No more waiting in line at Costco or "we need to fill up the car before X". Car is always fully charged.

Plus for us at least, because we have a very low KwH _night_ rate, our EV is 10x cheaper to run than our ICE. It's a significant difference.

And that's not counting the environmental concerns.

Multi-day trips are another story. But we take very few of those.

While a power plant is more efficient than my car, transmission reduces that efficiency sigificantly (I think here in the UK transmission accounts for 40%-50% of usage, although I may be misremembering).

Does that affect the calculation at all?

EDIT: I was totally wrong - it's more like 7%. Still interested whether that affects the calculation, although it's much less likely to!

You might be recalling that 40-60% of the fossil fuel is wasted as heat when generating the electricity, before transmission.

Since cars are more like 80% waste heat, it still works out better to generate the electricity and feed it to EVs.

And when burned in bigger plants the waste heat can be used to heat up homes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

Wikipedia says 7.7% distribution loss.

That is a lot lower than I remember! I'll try and find my source for that.

EDIT: I can't find that source, and I found a load of sources around 7%. Thanks for the correction.

Do you know whether the transmission costs of electricity are higher than that of transporting gas or lng, and whether that's a factor here?

Does this factor in the environmental impact of the battery lifecycle in those EVs?

Usually, yes. The break even point depends on how clean your energy source is but 15-40k km is about where they even out even considering batteries. Remember if you live somewhere like Norway or Scotland where it’s dark for 6 months, it’s also very very bright for the other 6 months.

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