Nissan EV is about to be officially announced!

To be fair, the original statement did define a 'leaf' getting its energy strictly from coal generated electricity. I do think that statement was a bit off and it was good that someone debunked it.
However, it is also a very valid point that in the USA almost no one gets all their electricity from coal. Most of mine comes from solar, wind and some from natural gas, nuclear, and yes, a bit from coal.
I look at the environmental and national security factors as far more important than the savings of money. However, that is certainly nice icing on the cake

 

I was implicitly talking about solar generated electricity.

May be not always be true with the current state of things. See Ken@Japan’s post. (I consider the Prius to be a gas powered vehicle).

 

Well I haven't followed the entire discussion but the distances in the US are so large that the Leaf would only make sense as a secondary family vehicle for city and suburban drives.

I do see that in the future you will have electricity rather than gas stations that will offer multiple 220V outlets and would profit from the electricity and the coffee you buy inside

 

I did my math using numbers from the link you supplied.
I believe the 2.0lbs/kWh coal fired electricity at generation site.
We see approx 7% transmission and distribution losses to consumption site plus 10% charge-discharge loss.
The CO2 emission, 0.48lbs/mile coal powered EV, becomes worse.

I can't see the CO2 emission data there.

Ken@Japan

 

So, the official Nissan web site states "NO decision" was made whether batteries will be leases or not ... but if "someone said that someone else said it'll be leased" ... then that's the gospel. ok.

 

Yes .. sort of ... but the US grid is not 100% coal, which is why calcars states: the Prius is dirtier than using the US grid in an EV vehicle.

The simple question of which fuel has more CO2 per joule-- coal or petrol -- well in general the answer is coal.

What is the efficiency of charging the traction battery in a PHEV ? The little data I have seen from our PHEV owners makes we think it is poor. OTOH, the production of petrol takes energy, too. It gets complicated.

 

Again, I just commented to the following hampdenwireless's post.

Ken@Japan

 

Ken, that statement does seem accurate though.
The statement doesn't say coal powered EVs are CLEANER or even AS CLEAN, it says 'almost as clean'.
It does concede that the coal powered EV isn't as clean as the cleanest cars on the road.

 

Carlos Tavares, Nissan's executive vice-president for product planning and design, has said Nissan will sell the car and lease the battery. That is a far cry from "someone said that someone else said it'll be leased".

 

Yes, and its your math! When Nissan says the car goes 100 miles on X amount of electricity they are including the charge/discharge loss already.

I don't see how any of this says I am not correct, and according the super detailed well to wheel studies electric cars are on average MUCH cleaner then a Prius when you take the entire well to wheel energy cycle into account.

http://www.jhfc.jp/data/seminar_report/04/pdf/06_h17seminar_e.pdf

Go to the near end of the report make sure you are looking at the well to wheel data, not the tank to wheel etc.

 

Doesn't CARB and ARB force manufacturers to warranty any emissions critical component for a minimum period of time?

For example, in CARB states, hybrid components (including the battery) must be warranted for 10 years / 150k miles. The rest of the country has a 8 year / 100k mile warranty.

Why would the battery in an EV by any different? I think there are some exceptions for low volume manufacturers, but I don't think that Nissan qualifies...

 

Ken's calculation assumes a hypothetical EV running on energy generated by 100% coal, but no state in the US and no country in Europe or Japan for that matter produces energy from 100% coal or even close to 100%, so the point is moot. California for example, doesn't use any significant amount of energy sources from coal to speak of (<1%). That's a significant example because it's the most populous state and the car capital of the world.

Personally, I can't wait to trade in my hybrid for a Prius plug-in!

 

I'm not surprised that Nissan doesn't want to give specifics when production in still more than 1 year away.

I'm curious what ICE car Nissan is using as their benchmark when they say the total cost will be comparable to a conventional car. My guess is that it will be closer to V6 Altima then a Versa. (Edmund's true cost to own puts the cost of owning a V6 Altima at $0.60 per mile)

I would also expect that the battery lease alone will run at least $150 a month.

It will be interesting to see how Nissan decides to proceed considering they are the first mainstream manufacturer to announce they will be selling an EV.

 

I wish that were true, but it appears that CA gets about 18% of it's energy from coal [1].

Major sources of electricity in CA:

Natural Gas 46%
Coal 18%
Nuclear 14%
Large Hydro 11%
Renewable 11%

Renewables are further broken down:
Geothermal 4.5%
Wind 2.4%
Biomass 2.1%
Small hydro 1.4%
Solar 0.24%

That said, over a third of the electricity used in CA is basically CO2 free (nuclear, hydro and other renewables) leaving gas and coal as the major CO2 sources for electricity in CA. The goal is to get the Renewables category up to 33% by 2020 [2]. I'm hoping that the increase in Renewables will largely eliminate coal from the power mix.

[1] Total Electricity System Power
[2] 33% Renewables by 2020

 

You don't consider Mitsubishi or Subaru mainstream?

 

No offense the fans of these companies but no, I don't consider them mainstream. At least not in the US. Mitsubishi only managed to sell a total of 97,257 vehicles in 2008. Subaru was only slightly ahead at 187,699.

I'm glad to see both these companies developing EV's but I don't see either making a large impact on the US market. I also don't recall either of these companies committing to selling EV's to individuals.

 

Well, I don't care if they make a large impact (although I think they will) as long as they sell me one

 

I would love to purchase a Mitsubishi iMiEV as well. However, they haven't announced even a tentative date as to when it might be sold in the US. Some of the articles I've read state that the iMiEV was not designed to meet US crash standards and it would need to be redesigned to be both longer and wider to do so. I'm not holding my breath.