Leaf C02 versus Prius C02

You are mistaken on all counts.

#1: The building of clean electric infrastructure is "fueled" by our increasing demand for electricity. Money spent on electricity STAYS IN THE U.S. and creates the demand that draws investment into newer, and therefore cleaner sources.

#2: Oil imported into the U.S. will not be replaced by more oil unless it is sold. If everybody stopped buying gasoline and fossil diesel, the importation of oil would stop. Therefore, it is reasonable to assert that if I cut my gasoline consumption by 100 gallons a year, an equivalent amount of oil (I don't know the production ratio of crude to gasoline) will NOT be imported.

#3: The Chevy Volt is NOT an EV. It's a plug-in hybrid. It will use a little bit of electricity. It will probably end up using more gasoline per total miles driven than a Prius. Bringing the Volt into this conversation is like bringing a Mafia boss into a discussion of pacifism: It only serves as an example of what not to do.

 

Daniel, I continue your numbering scheme --

1. Clean energy is fuel by regulatory action in the US, not consumer demand
2. In a perfect rationed economy, maybe
3. Will vary by owner. Most of the posts I read over at gm-volt from people intent to buy that car expect to drive mostly EV.

 

1. Won't be built if there's no demand.

2. Is it your view that companies will continue to import oil if nobody buys it? The market is not as perfect as some free market extremists think, but one thing it does well is to reduce the supply of a fungible commodity when demand declines.

3. Those Volt buyers (the unlucky FEW who manage to get one of the FEW Volts GM builds) are going to be unpleasantly surprised by how little EV use they actually get. However, they'll have a GM car, which they want, and its under-powered gasoline engine will allow them to drive as far as they like, which is important to them.

 

I think that you are quite likely wrong here. If Joe 6 can put an array on his roof (even leasing it from Solar City) and has a guaranteed power purchase agreement that will fuel his car, I think he'd jump at the chance. In a state like CO with PV rebates that lease will cut his energy bill in half (well, close to it anyways) and he'll be insulated from inflation and demand driven price increases. When people see cost savings like that, they're be all over this.

And as has already been mentioned... developing the EV market is essential environmentally and economically. Furthermore, the EV is pollution free AT THE POINT OF USE. The EPA can't really to anything else because there are too many variables. This is true of petrol cars too. It's too much of an arse ache and the numbers will always be dodgy, so you measure at the point of use.

The grid is getting cleaner... I get all of my energy from wind (not really, but you know what I mean). I may put panels on my roof. That would make the EV clearly cleaner. These options are getting more common and cheaper. I'll wager that in 20 years, home PV arrays, whether owned or leased, will be pretty common place.

Oil is getting dirtier. That's already been discussed.

All of the people pissing on EVs here are using some rather silly arguments that are only getting more absurd with the passage of time. Are EV's perfect, no. Do they have a much better upside than petrol hybrids... definitely.

 

The demand already exists.

It also decreases the price, and demand increases. You think people would be running to the dealerships to buy SUVs again if petrol cost $5/gallon ? Do you doubt price increases in fuel when the recession ends ?

Americans are energy and petrol hogs. As a nation, we consume as much as we can pay for. I challenge you to find a national decrease in petrol consumption attributable to the Prius and not the recession.

 

If there are too many variable, why even give it a value? Just don't rate it. Giving it zero emission is as wrong as giving it the worst possible emission.

For the consumption, they gave MPG equivalent. They used 33.7 kWh per gallon of gasoline as equivalent. Are there power plants that can generate 33.7 kWh of electricity from a gallon of gasoline? It would be equivalent only if we have such power plants.

If the emission is zero, shouldn't the consumption be zero as well? That's the problem with giving the zero emission rating.

I want a well designed EV like Leaf to be successful. Promoting it as zero emission and giving it unrealistic MPG equivalent may result in backlash.

 

I guess we should be glad that the EPA was not formed when horses were the primary mode of travel. Otherwise we would be rating cars in Miles per Bag-Of-Oats. An EV should be given Miles per KWh or something meaningful.....and will be once they become significant in the car market.

And emissions will be deleted, but capacity (range) should be added to the EPA sticker.

 

You'll have to help me with your list here.

#1 - I think we all understand that we don't have 100% NG electricity... but it IS the lion's share of fuel used for the CA mix. What's a more relevant mix of fuel to use for a CA EV? And how accurate would the calculation be for each driver? If you drive a gasoline hybrid, you know where your energy comes from, and have no choice. If you drive an EV you can choose exactly where your power comes from if you wish. And it will be different for each driver. So how do we make your #1 relevant for the Tesla if not using the most-used electricity fuel for the state that hosts the most of these cars?

Next, you call 110 Wh/km for the Tesla an "assumption." In fact you call it an unrealistic assumption. Since this is a real-world measurement, I'm not sure how or why we should correct this in order to make the Tesla look worse than the Prius. Should we use some artificially higher (worse) number? Or the number we get when driving the Tesla at top speed or in a drag race? Think of 110 Wh/km as the EPA rating of the Tesla that can be compared to the 50 mpg EPA rating of the Prius - and then understanding that YMMV. How else can the playing field be leveled?

Honestly, I don't even know what the argument is here... or why we're having it!

 

My thoughts exactly... but that's why I'm reading this while taking a break from my practice.

 

Synopsis of the argument: "CO2 is greater in an EV, than in a Prius".
1) Never mind EV's optimize unused grid power power via "off peak" recharging that would otherwise go to waste.
2) Never mind ICE fuel manufacturing pollutes both when it's burned as fuel, AND when it being manufactured. (only 20% ?? link please)
3) Never mind ICE fuel (the majority) must be imported, and cheep reserves are dwindling.
4) Never mind ICE fuel 'interests' abroad are secured via a trillion dollar military (couched as defending freedom) which has to be maintained abroad because other country's extremists don't want us in their countries.
5) Never mind the trillions of dollars going out (trade deficit) of the U.S. to pay for ICE fuel.
6) Never mind that many people (if not most) may never be convinced that CO2 is even an issue at all, yet collaterally, CO2 lessons as ICE fuel burning lessons.
7) Never mind how much greater the efficiency is in an EV's motor, compared to an ICE - which ultimately reduces (whether it matters or not) CO2.
8) ETC.
So keep it on topic . . . it's all about the CO2 comparison.


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USB -

That's just it! We do NOT give it a value. We are NOT rating it. We only give a value to the tailpipe emissions - just like we do with every gas car for sale today - including the Prius. We ignore the upstream emissions of the gas cars, and we ignore them for the EVs. The Leaf has zero tailpipe emissions, and that is what is reported. Gas cars have tailpipe emissions, and that is what's reported. Where's the mystery?

Whoa! What? That's a bit like asking how much gasoline we can make out of electricity. Energy is the same no matter the form. How efficiently we can convert it from one for to another is very different, and not relevant to equivalency. We can convert the energy units into kWh or calories or joules. This is a mathmatical conversion only, however. If you wish to saddle EV fuel with the terrible efficiency of converting gasoline into electricity, then there's really nothing more to discuss in that area! There's a reason why we don't make our electricity out of gasoline! And there's a reason that the Volt gets pretty crappy mileage when in CS mode. The *physical* conversion from one form of energy to another can really suck. My EV holds less energy than the energy found in one gallon of gasoline, and can drive 100 miles on that "less than a gallon of gasoline equivalent in energy. My EV converts its energy into motive force WAY more efficienty than gasoline can be converted into electricity... or even into direct power to the pavement.

Using GGE numbers is just a way to allow joe sixpack to grasp the meaing - by comparing it to something the masses can understand. Much like the same silliness we do with LED an CF lighting - we talk about it in Wattage equivalents when that too makes no sense in the real world of energy (or photon in this case) conversions.

Again the GGE comparison is a mathmatical conversion only. Not a physical conversion of the fuels.

I really see no other way of realistically doing this. We have forever only counted the tailpipe emissions of vehicles. Never in the EPA numbers have we seen the pollution caused by drilling for oil and refining it into gasoline. So we should compare upstream emissions of EVs with the tailpipe emissions of gasoline cars? Why?

 

Because, if we knew what the full stream emissions really are, we might have to think about it. The hardest thing for us to change is our minds. If we knew what things really cost, that would change *everything*.

 

What is the point of counting emissions at all, if one chooses to only count some of them ? Can CA correct air quality by ignoring power plant emissions ?

I readily grant you that the lifecycle emissions of petrol is not completely accounted for and should be. However, up till now (approximately) all cars used the same energy cycle so just looking at tailpipe emissions was still an apples to apples comparison, but no such thing is true of EV and petrol cars. Upstream energy losses of petrol are in the order of 20%, while they are ~375% for fossil-based electricity.

I like to think of a RAV4 towing a generator as the paragon of EPA "green."

What is the question ?
Emissions per mile ?
Out of pocket cost per mile ?
National cost per mile ?
Petrol use per mile ?

I think the EPA in the past attempted to answer two questions: Relative emissions per mile,and cost per mile. Now that vehicles have much different energy lifecycles, the old way to calculate relative emissions per mile does not make any sense.

 

The EPA sticker does exactly what you are asking. It gives the efficiency in kWh per 100 miles, and it gives the range of the car. It also gives the annual cost based on a standardized number of miles per year and cost per kWh. You'll just have to swallow the fact that pollution is only given for tailpipe emissions, just as pollution for gas cars is only given for tailpipe emissions.

We are having this discussion because some Prius drivers are angry, hurt, feeling guilty, because they used to feel they were driving the most environmental car on the road, and the resurgence of EVs is making them feel like their precious car is just another gas guzzler. Just as Hummer drivers desperately want to feel that their monstrosity is somehow better for the environment than a Prius (because of nickle mining or something), so now some few Prius drivers desperately want to feel that EVs are somehow worse for the environment than the Prius. For a while, lithium mining was the bogeyman, and now they've latched onto the carbon emissions of coal.

The only reason we're having this conversation is so that a few Prius drivers can justify to themselves continuing to burn gasoline.

It would make much more sense for them to just say: "The Leaf is an environmental improvement over the Prius, but I'll let folks who are better situated to drive a 100-mile EV buy the first few to come out, and I'll wait until the range is better and any first-year bugs have been ironed out." There's no shame in that. Hey, I waited for the second year to buy my Zap Xebra.

 

Because there are no emissions at the tailpipe and yes, CA can correct for quality because they don't ignore power plant emissions. There are so many fewer power plants than vehicles that this actually is practical. The carbon content to electricity is falling. Why are you so against EVs at the current time? The EPA mesasures tailpipe emissions... always has. Does that tell the whole story? No. Does it claim to? No. Would it be better if people understood the long tailpipe of both EVs and petrol cars? Yes. Definitely. Is this a perfect world? No. Will compromises have to be made? Yes. Is the EV, given the current state of US power production a compromise? Yes. Does it have a massive upside that hybrid petrol vehicles can never match? Yes. What's the heart of this argument? I don't have a feckin' clue.

 

I am not against them; in fact, I consider them about equal to a Prius since the carbon emissions are about the same if charging is from the grid, and I can accept as rational the argument that although coal is awful, it is local. I have a hard time accepting it because I loathe coal, but I don't consider the argument grossly stooopid.

EV + PV is a match made in heaven. I very much hope to join that crowd. I know Dennis (USB...) is a LEAF fan, and I'll admit that I travelled from my home in the SW to Portand in part to check out and drive the car. I loved it, my wife is witness. So Daniel is plain wrong at least in our cases.

And yet, EVs are not a magic pill for what ails us, and every time I read pie-in-the-sky EV hopes, or outright incorrect information, I feel compelled to add a little fact based reality to the discussion. If someone posted that the Prius gets 100 MPG for every driver I would correct the error as vigorously. I have outlined my objections before to the EV chorus, but in summary:

1. Subsidies of EVs will fail to conserve petrol or fossil fuel: only taxation will work
2. AGW is a *global* problem of extreme magnitude, and therefore CO2 has to be one of the top issues considered in public policy.
3. Coal is filthy
4. Alt energy products that cost more than conventional should not be subsidized. See (1)
5. I want federal resources spent on basic research and clean infrastructure. I do not want resources spent picking tech winners and losers, subsidizing consumption products, or see Alt energy used as a funnel to prop up GM.

Fossil fuels as the backbone of the world's energy structure is a very complex problem. More than anything I oppose simplistic solutions, or attempts to ignore all facets except one bullet point. And since I view the 'energy independence' angle as tripe, I get doubly annoyed at that bullet point.

More than you wanted to read, I imagine. Apologies for what comes close to a rant.

 

Why hold EVs to this but not petrol cars? If you're gonna require EVs do this then you have to do the same for petrol hybrids. The simple fact is that the upstream is wildly variable and depends up on where the car is sold. In the case of EVs, it also depends on the owner's situation: BECAUSE IT'S POSSIBLE FOR THE OWNER TO HARNESS THE ENERGY NECESSARY TO POWER THE CAR. That's definitely not something possible with petrol hybrids. At any rate, the sticker can't account for this and so it doesn't try to. It simply measures emission at the point of use. That's all we can really ask. Is it worthwhile, yes, I think so. It's not the whole story, but it does what it can to tell part of the story.

 

nay worries, mate. I agree on many of your points. Coal is filthy. I like 4 too... though in 80 years we might be complaining about how shitty PV is and why are we subsidizing it... I think it's still worth it, however. Agree about picking winners and losers. We should subsidize/promote all the techs that meet the goals. The market will minnow out the ones that don't cut it.

I'm a big fan of taxing. Research shows that it's really on the only effective way to alter behavior (at least where food is concerned and I think that it probably applies broadly). Unfortunatley, Americans see taxation as a sort of King George II getting at us from beyond the grave thing. As a result, I think subsidies (the carrot) is the only way forward in the US.

 

AHHH HAAAA !!

So . . . it's NOT just all about the CO2 after all then, IS it ! Maybe those whacky Leafs WILL turn out to be more handy than a 50mpg Prius, eh?
:madgrin:

.

 

I have this somewhat vague notion I carry around of fossil_fuel_avoidance/marginal_cost. It is why I support as a matter of public policy public transport more than *any* personal car, Prius more than EV, and Yaris more than Prius.

If people are spending their own cash and want a Prius or an *EV, fine with me. So long as everybody is paying actual externality costs through taxation.