Smug Alert (Still): Toyota Prius Five

Well, they kind of skipped a few years to Smug Alert, which was made after the Gen 2 was introduced. Also, what people manage to forget about that episode is that it was also critical of the drivers of gas hogs. What we learned that day was hybrids are good cars, but people were unable to find balance in their views. (Especially Randy).

 

JUST KEEP SMUGGING ON PRIUS OWNERS!!!

 

see that's what I don't get - if the electricity from coal that's manufactured for the EV is dirty - then how do they figure that the coal created electricity for running the refinery that makes oil and gas is 'pure' - where do they think refiinery electricity comes from that's delivered to hybrids - the laughter of little children? Plus, they fail to account for EV's charging on their own roof top solar. Not many folks making their own 10w-30 or their own unleaded gas at home. IOW, you find the stats you need to prove what you already believe.

SGH-I717R ? 2

 

...well to answer your question, very little elec/coal is used to make gaso in general. However even I question the OP article neutrality...sounds like a pro-Prius rhetoric...and I like it for that reason...but the overall point here is that EV is not fuel saving, it is fuel switching. Depending on your personal eco-beliefs, switching away from oil via EV may or may not be a good thing.

 

ok - I'll bite. Let's say making gas/oil used just a 'bit' of elect/coal. We pump goo out of the ground / deliver to refinery / refine it / pump-deliver to consumer - and this process - is done in part via elect/coal ... and let's say the process of making gas/oil via elect/coal is done with only 20% elect/coal. Heck - say it's only 10%. You still have to USE elec/coal to make the oil/gas - and then you end up burning it into pollution/exhaust. That additional elec/coal energy is STILL 1% ... or 10% ... or 20% - more power use (or whatever fraction you want to assign) than the EV is requiring. So by what gymnastics can more power use to make fuel, do we end up using less fuel. That sounds like we're entering the rhelm of perpetual motion. I just don't get how that can be.

.

 

The southpark smug alert was about the drivers of the pios, and their awfull attitudes. It looks like LA car's author falls into that smug and stupid catagory.

Than from the bit of a shocker distortion.

A bunch of short sited, narrow minded, dribble. The theme here is that ghg are the only environmental factor worth looking at, and we should all use the most scarce resource because if you buy an BEV you get the average bad grid. Its the same narrow minded ghg focus that has filled europe with more efficient diesels that have still belched out megatons of unhealthy pollution. No thought of diversifying off of the most scarce resource oil, no thoughts of how much browner it will be in 10 years as more gets plundered from oil sands and deep sea drilling and their spills. No though that the grid is getting greener, and in 10 years even by co2, most of those cars might pollute more than a leaf. No thought that most people even in those 10 states can choose greener power for their home and car. Just bad propaganda.

Very true, its about fuel switching. The reason to get a BEV today is not to reduce this years carbon footprint. It is to reduce oil problems and tail pipe pollution. With the tail pipe the prius does a pretty good job. But switching the fleet takes time, and buying BEVs today are a step to reducing tomorrows pollution problems and high fuel costs.

 

Hill, most refining uses energy from the oil and done with mainly nuclear and natural gas electricity, and natural gas itself. The oil sands take great quantities of natural gas - that could be burnt instead to make electricity, or in the picken's plan fuel trucks instead of diesel, and reduce tail pipe emissions. Very little dirrect electricity is used in refining per gallon of gas. People convert this energy to electricity equivalent, and that's the only way to get the big numbers.

Substituting fuel is what BEVs are all about. You seem to be substituting the solar electricity you make on your roof in your leaf, for the gasoline you would have needed to burn in your prius. People even in those 10 heavy coal states can do the same.

 

"

Substituting fuel is what BEVs are all about. You seem to be substituting the solar electricity you make on your roof in your leaf, for the gasoline you would have needed to burn in your prius. People even in those 10 heavy coal states can do the same."​

They can also put up PV regardless of the car in the garage. The the car choice is once again a question of marginal grid use vs petrol. AG can spin until he is blue in the face, but the facts remain the same.​

Trying to justify a dirty EV today based on the promise of a clean EV tomorrow strikes me as silly. Tell me when EV is cleaner, today.​

 

While that may be true up to now, the latest Euro 6 diesels actually have very low emissions in the NEDC. For example, the BMW 320d EDE has lower CO and HC+NOx emissions than the 2012 Euro-spec Prius (

Select a search : Directgov - Car fuel data, CO2 and vehicle tax tools
and
Select a search : Directgov - Car fuel data, CO2 and vehicle tax tools
respectively). The PM emissions are also likely lower, although they're not reported for the Prius.

Don't disagree with your overall point, but just wanted to clarify the megatons of unhealthy pollution from diesels in Europe assertion.

 

New diesels are much much cleaner. I used past tense, filled, as most cars on the road in europe don't have scr and dpf. But I should have clarified further that I was talking about past standards. IIRC euro 6 hits in 2014, between now and then, buyers need to check out if the diesel is "clean", or still uses some of the old designs. I have nothing against the newer cleaner diesels.

With this age of biofuels I like the NMOG - which includes both the non-methane hydrocarbons and organic gases coming from the biofuel - rather than NMHC. This seems more important with gasoline than diesel though.

 

Given how polluting most of our energy supply is right now, it might be some time before electric cars are on the whole better for the environment than a Prius. With enough renewable and clean energy, electric cars would certainly produce less emissions. But an electric car running on electricity from coal-powered plants isn't all that green, unfortunately.

 

The portion of coal power on the grid is already dropping. It was once 50% (the EPA still uses this number in calcs for EVs), but it is at 39% today. And is still dropping. For CO2, EVs are better than a Prius using the US average grid mix. That likely holds true for the other emissions.

 

For other emissions like NOx, not even close. I posted a thread some time ago; IIRC NOx from coal at the power plant is some 35 fold (!!) more than Prius emissions at the tailpipe.

Average emissions is an oxymoron. Every report I have seen from our national labs use marginal emissions to benchmark. It just makes sense, even if it is harder to grasp for the casual reader.

 

I get the fact refineries use their own goo to make the btu's to make gas/oil. So herein lies the great mystery. Refineries seem to have a cleaver way to burn their own product (to then refine into gas/oil) w/out making any pollution! Of course I'm being falitious. In that same vein, we ought to make ALL of our dirty electricity out of refinery goo in stead of coal - since apparently it's pollution free. Heck, apparently, self-manufactured refinery energy may be cleaner than wind power!


SGH-I717R ? 2

 

Absolutely, using old grid numbers, and national numbers distort. The 39% is a bit less than what we really use for a year though, we should wait for an annual figure.

For those that like to distort, they use average coal emissions, but for most states with large amounts of pollution sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are capped, meaning if you add more plug-ins to the grid these numbers don't go up at all. The utilities have to add scrubbers or other anti pollution devices to keep any additional quantities of these pollutants out of the atmosphere. Most EV drivers can choose electricity than is cleaner than the national average.

You got to stop these straw man arguments.

1) Refineries use electricity that is cleaner than the grid
2) Most of that stuff you call electricity is really fractions of the oil or natural gas

• If its natural gas, you can build very low emissions, combined cycle power plants, that are 60% efficient. That is much cleaner than the grid
• If its a fraction of the oil, it is a bad idea from a national resource issue to build large power plants to consume this. Natural gas and wind are better choices

Calling the stuff goo, leads to misunderstandings.

Similarly IGCC + CCS can produce much leaner electricity from coal, but most coal plants are over 30 years old and some extremely high polluting.

 

Emission control should be easier to implement on central, immobile power stations than on a car. Packaging is less of an issue. Plus, it could conceivability be installed or improved on existing plants.

But it's better to just shut the older coal plants down. The mercury and radioisotopes are probably a bigger threat than the NOx to the public and ecosystem at this point.

 

Let's make a deal: shut down the filthy coal plants and then I'll happily agree with you. Until then ... pie in the sky.

 

I hope you like your $800 a month electric bills.

Articles like this do nothing for people's attitudes about our cars. Good thing I drive mine for me and my economy and not them.

 

Hey,

Anyone know which Mythbusters this might have been? I've seen their fuel economy episodes but I don't remember them ever doing something as specific as busting Prius myths. Of course it would be awful close to a commercial.

Anyone have a clue about "an entire day's full of "Myth Busters" episode" or was this just poetic license?

Thanks,
Bob Wilson