Robert Llewellyn Tests the Nissan Leaf

Wish I hadn't seen it as it's got me thinking about electric cars again and whether it would be viable for my job. Hmmmm. £24,000 for the Leaf and £20,500 for a new Prius, but I spend £3,500 a year on fuel with the Prius against approx £350 for electric if I got a Leaf (maybe less if I could convince the local council to install a charger).

So would the loss of longer fares and/or a more restrictive mileage mix for my job be offset by the reduced petrol and servicing costs? I know I've done the math on this before but I'm almost sure it could work. Or could it?

 

GC,

Read the LEAF CO2 thread that CHogan posted for details.
In general it should be pretty straightforward to realize that if the fossil fuel feed stocks are equivalent in GHG/btu and the powerplant efficiencies are in the same ballpark, one is not going to be dramatically better than the other in terms of GHG emissions. In fact, the energy cycle with more conversion losses is going to be inferior.

Here is a nice primer of CO2 emissions in an electric energy life cycle.
WtW analysis from the US Argonne National Lab

Lastly, from an article by the same Argonne group published this summer, I pulled out a graphic that is dense with information and very telling. Find the purple box that defines the Prius (called HV.) All the electric alternatives but one (mostly sourced by Natural Gas) lead to *more* GHG. EV is seen right on the Y axis and is worse than a Prius for an average US grid mix. However, we know that actual GHG for EV is worse than average grid, as the other data lines show.

I have noticed that many people do not understand why average grid CO2 emissions/energy cannot be used to extrapolate EV emissions burden. The short answer is that putting another electric appliance on the grid does not make the wind blow stronger, lead to more abundant water flow, shine the sun brighter, or crank up the nuclear plant. It does however increase delivery of gas and coal to the power plants.

 

Can you stand a little more, GC ?
Wikipedia has this to say: