They’re not very green. All they do is move the emissions to a different location.
The electric car might be great in a couple of decades but as a way to tackle global warming now it does virtually nothing. The real challenge is to get green energy that is cheaper than fossil fuels. That requires heavy investment in green research and development. Spending instead on subsidizing electric cars is putting the cart before the horse, and an inconvenient and expensive cart at that.
It’s not about the economics. It’s about feelings, which are of course the highest value.
It would be a relatively good solution to short distance travel as long as the electricity was supplied by nuclear-powered source. But we have tried that and the same people that killed that are trying to jam electric cars into our lives. So we will create more pollution, move less efficiently, and generally be more annoyed so that they can incorrectly state that they are helping to make things better. And the willing press will swallow all of it and smile and ask for more.
Musk has replied to this criticism by saying that electric cars consume less energy. So even if you produced your electricity with coal or gas, you would still be consuming less energy with an electric car than a car that runs on gas.
Was he talking about just the operation of the car or does that include the energy to make it?
The article talks about both. I’m not sure what Musk was talking about, but I don’t see that it makes much difference.
A few percentage points of increased efficiency for centralized power plants versus individual ICEs is not a game changer.
Furthermore, the writer seems to have only considered the Nissan Leaf. I doubt that he would get the same numbers with a Tesla.
I’m not sure how much the Tesla’s numbers would differ. The Leaf’s battery and Tesla’s battery are both lithium ion, and the energy required to build the car is dominated by the battery. In the Tesla’s case, since the battery is bigger the energy requirement would likely be bigger. Tesla usually restricts how much the battery can be charged or discharged, I don’t know if the Leaf has the same limits–maybe the Leaf goes through its battery faster.
Wikipedia gives the energy usage of the Leaf as .212 kWh/km, that of the Tesla Roadster as .135 kWh/km. Pretty significant difference, but if the Roadster requires more energy per vehicle to manufacture it starts off further in debt.
Why are you talking about the Roadster?
Would you rather I looked up the Model S? I’ve at least ridden in a Roadster, I have no experience whatsoever with the sedan. I imagine its numbers aren’t as good as the Roadsters. It comes with a few different battery pack options, so it doesn’t need to start in quite as deep of a hole as the Roadster.
The real challenge is to get green energy that is cheaper than fossil fuels. That requires heavy investment in green research and development.
Someone should inform him about the existence of nuclear power, which is as green as one could want – by any sane definition of “green” – and cheap and safe right now.
I am all for electric vehicles if they are powered by nuclear power plants. Otherwise, it is a waste of time and resources.
Some parts of the country get a substancial amount of their electricity from hydroelectric dams. That’s a clean and reliable source of renewable energy. Of course, there are those trying to tear down the dams. They don’t want hydro power. They’re scared of nuclear power. They hate coal powerplants. Those 3 provide about 70-75% of our electricity. They think they can power the country with solar panels and wind turbines. Poor deluded fools.
New nuclear is unfortunately not cheap. The DOE has been offering billions in loan guarantees, and even that hasn’t been enough to generate much investment.
Greater government involvement in coal will make nuclear more appealing by comparison. Of course, it’s a race to the bottom.
All they do is move the emissions to a different location.
Umm.. fantastic? That alone seems like a good reason to do it.
Just get rid of the government subsidies (on both electric cars and oil).
Lack of adoption has very little to do with technology and very much to do with personal preferences. Inexpensive and small electric cars with reasonable power and range are available today. They are made and used in India and Pakistan. SMART has an electric version of their auto. The real problem is that the majority of American buyers don’t want little cars that make no noise and are boring to drive.
Sorry, but that’s silly. The technology is and always has been the problem with electric cars; they sucked when our ancestors dumped them over a hundred yeras ago after ICE cars became viable, and they still suck after a century of technological improvements.
Most North American drivers have requirements such as not having to stop for three hours of charging on a five hundred mile drive, being able to use a heater in the winter and AC in the summer, not losing half their range below zero degrees, and never being further than a single ‘charge’ of fuel from a place where they can fill up. Oh, and not costing twice as much as a similar ICE car and having half the affordable lifespan.
Electric car technology is a long, long way from meeting those needs.
I agree.. it’s certainly a niche product right now and probably will be for quite a long time. That said, they can’t make enough of ’em. So good luck to them.
The electric cars available today are what I call “sunshine cars”. They can work well for a limited range in good weather. However, they have such severe limitations that most people would need to own another vehicle to meet their other needs, such as a trip longer than 100 miles or carrying anything more substancial than a toothbrush.
I drive a Prius, not because I’m “saving the planet” or other such nonsense. No, I drive it because it meets my needs and gets really good gas mileage. I’ve driven it as much as 900 miles in a single day and have driven it over 600 miles many times. Show me the electric car that can do that. If the Prius didn’t meet my needs, I wouldn’t have bought it. I have no desire to buy a “sunshine car” (and associated charging equipment) plus another vehicle for the rest of my needs.
I have a modest proposal to save 5 percent on gasoline usage, right off the top. Encourage car service people to inspect brake caliper sliding pins.
Everyone complains that they “can’t get the EPA gas mileage”, and the “official numbers” get adjusted downwards from the “raw number” every few years to make people feel better about their cars.
But you can get the EPA numbers, the higher “raw numbers.” If you drive a constant 55 MPH on an average level road with calm winds you will get close to the Highway number; if you set out on a 70 deg day and drive 10 miles in traffic at an average 20 MPH, you will get the City number. OK, OK, a small “adjustment” for alcohol in the gas.
Back to my story. My age 17 Taurus is not getting those numbers as measured on my Scan Gauge. On one trip on an urban highway at 55 MPH, it was getting 29 MPG when it had been getting about 35 on that run. So I measured the brake disk temperatures with one of those remote gauges — one wheel was cold whereas the other three wheels were warm. I jacked up the car and tried turning each wheel — the cold wheel turned freely but the other three wheels had about 10 pounds of resistance each measured with one of those fish-weight spring scales.
30 pounds of extra resistance can easily account for the gas mileage change based on the models I have for car resistance and engine fuel consumption.
So I lifted the car, removed one tire, and checked out one disk brake. The caliper was dragging. When I unbolted the caliper, I found the lower slider pin to be jammed. The wheel rotated a little more freely, but there was still some resistance — is the wheel bearing now shot?
So here is what I think happens. The lower slider pin rusts from the road salt and jams. This increases the brake drag and the brakes heat up and warp the rotors, making the brakes pulse. The heat also melts the grease wrecking the wheel bearing. None of this gets caught early because brake pads last so long no one services the brakes on a regular basis — my pads have 190,000 miles and they still have plenty of wear left.
It is not like I don’t take the car in every 5-10 K miles for tire rotations and “also check the brakes” — “pads are good, your brakes are OK.”
So with the average age of the US auto fleet at 10 years, there must be a lot of people out there with silent brake problems like this, lot of cars burning extra gas that people just write off to an aging car. So maybe Mr. Obama was correct all this time about “get a tune-up”, but he didn’t tell people which part of the car to check.
So for the rusting of a lower caliper pin, the brake was lost. For the jamming of the brake the wheel bearing was lost. For the running-dry-of-grease of the wheel bearing the gas mileage was lost. For the loss of the gas mileage the price of gas was lost. For the high price of gas, jobs were lost. All for a rusted brake caliper lower guide pin . . .