In his Washington Post column Charles Lane looks at the scorecard for electric cars:
Mass adoption of electric cars, however, cannot occur unless they can do everything gas-powered vehicles can do — including the ability to go hundreds of miles before refueling, and refueling easily — at a comparable total cost of ownership. Otherwise, electric cars will be a niche product for upper-income folks. And government subsidies for them will be a regressive transfer of social resources in return for little climate benefit, given that the U.S. power grid the cars draw from is 64 percent fueled by coal and gas.
Nothing happened in the past decade to undermine this basic critique. Government, both federal and state, subsidized electric-car sales and production to the tune of several billion dollars, yet as of March 2019, there were 1.18 million electric vehicles on the road in the United States — less than one-half of 1 percent of the total. Households earning $100,000 or more per year own two-thirds of EVs, with many of the owners benefiting from a $7,500 federal tax credit.
It’s actually worse than that. It’s hard to believe that, absent the billions in subsidies, as many EVs would have been sold as have. And 60% of those subsidies are going to the top quintile of income earners. It’s welfare for the prosperous.
To add insult to injury we still have little evidence that manufacturers can boost production of EVs to the levels necessary to achieve proponents’ goals. The Volt has been discontinued. Toyota is selling fewer Priuses now than it did a few years ago. Tesla is producing more vehicles every year but its production is still minuscule.
I’ve not heard much about the Rivian EV with its manufacturing plant in Normal, IL (they purchased the former Mitsubishi plant). I think it is supposed to start production next year, and one thing that seems different is that one of their main anticipated clients is going to be to make Amazon delivery trucks. I’ve always suspected that the commercial sector would have a lot more immediate and potentially sustainable use for advanced technologies.
Also, see tank turns!
Transportation consumes about 28% of total energy usage in the US, almost all of it oil. Total electricity consumption is about the same. However, about 2/3 or so of generated electricity is lost in transmission. So, to go to an all-electric fleet would require quadrupling (4x) the present electrical generating capacity, and also quadrupling its transmission capacity.
A note on EV “fuel” efficiency. The EPA sticker on electric cars claims an gasoline-equivalent mileage of about 95 mpg. However, that number is based on the electric charge drawn from the battery. It does not account for the source of the charge. When the source (and transmission) are included, the true gasoline-equivalent milage is about 35 mpg. That’s quite good, although many gasoline and diesel cars get better mileage.
That is precisely what renewable fans are missing and why renewables will remain niche sources. You can’t move it. Not only would we need to rebuild our power grid we’d need some major scientific breakthroughs. That’s a lot of handwaving.
Mentioning diesel brings up a point I think I’ve mentioned in the past. With the frauds of VW and other European diesel automakers I don’t know what mileage diesel is getting any more. And, if Germany, France, etc. are calculating their reductions in emissions based on inputs have they recalculated using what we know now? They might actually have increased their emissions over the last decade for all we know.
My Panamera gets 22mpg, but I only drive it about 15,000 mpyear. At 35 mpg for one of those death boxes, driven 25,000 mpy (not outrageous for a commuter) the gas consumption is functionally equivalent. Down here in FL, or any growth area, the Ford F150’s of the world are hugely popular. The trades. 17mpg and heavy use. They might have twice the gas consumption. Don’t even think about heavy trucks. And the much hated SUV is about like my car.
The point is that driving habits and what the vehicle is designed to do are much more important than these virtue signaling efforts. We’d be better to figure out how to not have cars crawling along the Eisenhower or Damned Ryan, single drivers, driving for ice cream or a gallon of milk or working one day a week from home than fooling around with electrics.
Look at Drew doing his grandpa Simpson imitation. (Stay off his lawn.) The technology is still pretty new. It needs infrastructure. The electric grid needs fixing anyway.
Steve
I think there’s actually a good point lurking in that comment. The Jevons paradox is likely to frustrate the intentions of the proponents of EVs.
IMO reducing the need for travel would do more to reduce emissions than EVs.
steve can’t help himself. After all, he’s got nothing. He thinks he can just deftly recast the argument. Maybe his BS works in his circles. Not with thinking people.
Look. Everyone’s an environmentalist until the solutions present themselves as not relevant to their real goals (ie adopt nuclear), or cause them personal cost (restricted travel, high gas price, my ginormous SUV etc). Its all hypocritical virtue signaling for all but the very few nutjobs. If you want anti-US, no growth or just a tax source you ignore China and India and propose the environuts solutions. If you really believe in AGW you go for nuclear solutions first and foremost, and then figure out how to modify consumption behavior in a way that doesn’t disembowel the US citizenry.
Not much of that going around.
Game-changers needed to make electric cars more than just subsidized toys for affluent virtue signalers, some of which I have posted on other threads:
Reasonably cost-effective fusion power generation. Even if fusion generation is a multiple or two more costly to generate than other types of generation, the enormous resultant reduction in destructive resource extraction will make up for that.
Room temperature or even dry ice level superconductors. As pointed out above, we lose the majority of our power generated before it reaches the consumer.
Cheap energy storage. We’re reaching the end of what can be done with traditional batteries, and they just don’t cut it for mass power storage. Carbon nannotube capacitors may be a solution a couple of decades down the road.
If I could get away with it I might buy a hybrid, they at least don’t require coal to provide replacement power. Never ever will buy an electric car under current circumstances.
““The word written on parchment will last a thousand years,†Thrithemius boasted. “The printed word is on paper … The most you can expect a book of paper to survive is two hundred years.â€
““Printed books will never be the equivalent of handwritten codices, especially since printed books are often deficient in spelling and appearance.”
1492 rant against the printing press. The good part? His critique of the printing press was delivered via the printing press. So rest assured that you join a long line of people who predicted the failure of technological change.
Look, it is still early in the development of EVs. No one knows for sure how they end up, but they have made pretty good progress so far. Pronouncements now that they will never work is just bizarre. Jevons paradox could be a worry, bbut I dont think people suddenly start driving twice as much.
It is also concerning g when people start fixating on only one possible solution. Nuclear might bee a part of the answer, but we should remember that to date no one has trialed one of the small nuclear generators that we are so sure will work so well. Especially since we have documented success already with other forms of energy. Solar energy is still pretty new when used on scale, as is wind. In many places they arena the cheapest form of energy available. Gas plants have been shut down so they dont need to run continuously on back up. My guess is that we are best off with a combination of technologies with winners being chosen for different situations.
I think wind probably ends up cheapest overall, but limited to certain areas. Solar the most easy to set up and portable with the lead need for technical expertise. You use it to decrease the need for long transmission lines in areas where it works. The smaller nuclear plants we hope will work can also relieve the need for a massive grid upgrade, but i suspect they are harder to maintain (time will tell and I could be wrong) so probably need at least medium sized communities to support. Hydro where it works and maybe we put some effort into conservation.
Steve
Wind and solar generate power intermittently. A feature, not a bug. Without adequate power storage (currently we’d need gigantic water reservoirs or square miles of batteries) backup generators are necessary to ensure continuous power supply. Backup generators cannot be turned off and on with a switch, fossil fuel generators take hours to ramp up, so they need to be continuously on idle ready to ramp up. So there goes your cost effectiveness.
EVs:
I share all the reservations expressed above but am uncomfortable betting against Elon Musk.
I keep wondering what I’m not seeing. 🤔