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Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings of Electric Cars

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by samlal, Apr 16, 2012.

  1. samlal

    samlal New Member

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    Finally some articles on Emission and Cost savings of Electric/Hybrid cars

    Coverage in mainstream media MSNBC : Advantages vary based on where you live. Emissions depend on how your electricity is generated which the cost is based on on how much you have to pay for electricity.

    Original report from UCS : Electric cars produce lower global warming emissions and cost significantly less to fuel than the average compact gasoline-powered vehicle.
     
  2. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    lol and I did laugh out loud.

    Talk about the bleeding obvious.

    The advantages vary on where you live, emissions depend on how your electricity is generated and the cost is based on what you pay? ha ha ha

    And the grass is green, the sky is blue and politicians lie.

    Tell me something I don't already know :)
     
  3. giora

    giora Senior Member

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    Also from the report:
    55% of Americans are living in regions where the Pruis is greener than a BEV like the Leaf!

    This report is already being discussed in this thread

    Maybe moderators can combine them?
     
  4. ProximalSuns

    ProximalSuns Senior Member

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    And the EV has lower emissions even in the worst case scenario of all the electricity coming from the dirtiest of plants, coal fired plants.

    In our areas we can purchase cleaner electricity, wind generated mostly in which case the study noted the EV vehicle would have virtually no emissions.

    I'm hoping in three years I can purchase a hybrid hat gets 100 miles on electricity. Volt and Prius plug-ins at 50 and 10 mile ranges now so 100 in three years doesn't seem unreasonable.
     
  5. spwolf

    spwolf Senior Member

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    technology does not move that fast.
     
  6. giora

    giora Senior Member

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    In purchasing wind generated electricity (granted you get what you are paying for) you are an electricity producer and your action makes your local grid a bit greener.
    In charging a BEV you are an electricity consumer and you consume it from your local grid (which is a bit greener by your action as a producer).
    Regional grid clealiness is what matters to consumers.
    At least, this is how I see it.
     
  7. Keiichi

    Keiichi Active Member

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    Actually Technology progresses at different rates for different reasons. When you look at the Automotive Technology, its advances takes more than a year for improvements and it has been around close to 100 years. Computer technology has surged in the last 20 years from using magnetic media requiring large amounts of surface area to store kilobytes and vacuum tubes to solid state devices the size of coins storing gigabytes of information and solid state transistors.
     
  8. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    It would be nice if things were this simple, but they are not.

    The main problem with equating buying green power with producing green power, is that most utilities I have checked only promise to supply the customer with green power. If green power is already on the grid and has not been specifically allocated to customers, then additional green power is not produced. The 'green' payment ends up just redistributing the resource present.
     
  9. ProximalSuns

    ProximalSuns Senior Member

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    Correct. It moves much faster. 100 mile range Prius-Plug-In in three years is likely a done deed already.
     
  10. massparanoia

    massparanoia Active Member

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    Considering there were EV's in the 1960's that had a 60 mile range, somehow I doubt we will see a 100 mile PiP in three years. But it would be nice. It would also be nice if I could buy one for $25000 without having to rely on some sort of tax subsidy. And please don't say something along the lines of "well gas is subsidized".... :blah:
     
  11. ProximalSuns

    ProximalSuns Senior Member

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    Volvo Unveils Plug-in Hybrid Diesel V60: 124 MPG, 30 Electric Miles, AWD, 0-60 in 6.9 Sec

    Hitting the road now.

    2015 and 100 miles electric evolution look doable.
     
  12. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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  13. massparanoia

    massparanoia Active Member

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  14. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Be aware that includes 20% sales tax/vat but even then, it's a LOT of money.

    There is also a £5,000 government grant available reducing the price to £42,000, but that's BMW 5 series money, for what is a small Volvo.
     
  15. ItsNotAboutTheMoney

    ItsNotAboutTheMoney EditProfOptInfoCustomUser Title

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    Oh, if it were true. I think it's been something like 10% improvements in lilthium per year but I'd expect that rate to slow down over time.

    Both energy density and cost are big blockers on EV. 100 mile Prius would have to be a BEV just because there isn't enough room for the battery. If energy density improved to allow an affordable 100 miles AER in a PiP, I'd likely go for the 300 mile LEAF instead.
     
  16. ProximalSuns

    ProximalSuns Senior Member

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    Prius Three 2010 50 mpg.
    Volvo X40 2012 124 mpg.

    Moore's law is jealous.
     
  17. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    And the mpg rating on the Volvo AFTER the HV has run out is what? ;)


    They don't tell you that part. :rolleyes:
     
  18. ProximalSuns

    ProximalSuns Senior Member

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    But about the same as the $60K RX450 Lexus hybrid. You'd want to compare similar cars. Luxury, AWD hybrid SUV's.

    The sneaky bastards put it in the second paragraph. Who reads that far on the internet?

    HYBRID Mode: This is the car's default mode upon start-up in which both the rear-wheel drive electric motor and the front-wheel drive 215 horsepower turbodiesel engine work together. In this mode Volvo claims the car can return 124 miles per gallon and emit less than 49 grams of CO2 per kilometer.
     
  19. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    That wasn't my question. Anyhow, it's impossible to get 124 mpg after the EV side has run out. A production car that size with 215 bhp cannot get 49g/km 124 mpg US as a non plug in hybrid. Those figures are the official figures using the 30 mile EV charge over the 50 mile Euro test route.

    Once the 30 mile range has expired I want to know what MPG's a 215 bhp car gets. I bet it'll be about 40 mpg.

    The Volt has a Euro rating of about 49g/km 124 mpg US but only gets about 40 mpg once it's EV side is used up.

    I accept that if you drive less than 30 miles you can drive around not using any petrol, and that if you drive 50 miles a day you get 124 mpg US, but what if you were not able to plug it in for a month, what mpg does it get then?

    I'm sceptical of these combined EV & petrol mpg's. I could say my Prius gets 200 mpg when I go down a hill - just what happens when I have to go back up again?
     
  20. drinnovation

    drinnovation EREV for EVER!

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    From Fuely:
    Prius 2001 42.5
    Prius 2002: 41.8
    Prius 2003: 41.7
    Prius 2004: 45.1
    Prius 2005 44.6
    Prius 2006 44.7
    Prius 2007 45.7
    prius 2008 45.2
    prius 2009 45.2
    Prius 2010 47.1
    Prius 2011 47.9
    prius 2012 49.1


    Moore's law does not apply, if it did, doubling every 18 months would mean from 2001 to 2012 we would have seen MPG going from 40 to 10240.

    2011 Chevy Volt 110mpg (real world milage Computed from 237 cars from voltstats.net, over 3.3Million miles).

    2012 Chevy Volt 131 mpg (real world milage over 592 drivers covering 2.4Million Miles



    Volvo's only interesting features/advance is that its awd SUV and diesel.
    Does not seem like a breakthrough in MPG, but like the volt, its the next generation of technology.