U.S. Battery, Plug-in Car Push Costs Exceed Rewards, Study Says

No, this argument assumes status quo wrt to vehicle choice, only run on coal instead of oil.

 

Hill do you have a coal chut into your leaf, or might there be less than 100% coal fueling your BEV?

 

you wishin' I did? ... so it'd stoke the rationalization that (I've heard you try before, that) EV's are not cleaner? or is the question in hopes that we're doing the coal chut, and thus most other EV'rs don't break with the status quo either? You'd be SHOCKED how many folks driving EV's also go solar. Sorry, no coal chute here;



... and we car pool, on top of that. Best to try the devil's advocate elsewhere. See, the BETTER question is, "is there a coal shute feeding YOUR grid?" ...which then in turn, runs YOUR gasoline refinery? See, I wouldn't have ever asked your question ... to you or others, if you hadn't opened the door ... IE, let others do the best they can do & maybe after you do better than all of 'em ... maybe THEN you can start giving others the 3rd degree. but again, in the mean time, let others do the best they can, in stead of adding to the FUD. The FUD should go to GAS. Gassers can't make their own fuel - and they certainly can't make the electric power needed in order to refine the fuel that's necessary, just to make the gas.


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Bang for buck: Forget EV range and today’s plug-in tax credits according to study - Hybrid Cars and Plug-in Vehicles - Hybridcarblog

 

I loved one of the comments to this article - pointing out the study began a year ago - before any PHEV's or EV's were even out! Yep these are the same geniuses that 'proved' gas electric hybrid costs exceed rewards. They must really think folks have short memories in order to keep puting out 'proof' articles like this. They keep writing it, and drivers keep proving them wrong, and the numbers of drivers keep going up. Must be a lot of dumb drivers.


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The researchers normally use computer simulation or pre-production plugin models.

 

EPA follows SAE J1711 standard that uses J2841 to get the utility factor.

If assumption is made, it is the 33.7 kWh of electricity being equivalent to a gallon of gasoline. That assumes generating electricity is 100% efficient.

 

Yes - when in fact, the more cost factors one includes that offset energy's positive btu's (energy/research for new fields - test wells - electritity for oil well pumping - shipping it around the world - energy for refining - driving it to the stations - military's energy cost to 'keep it coming' ... etc) some say those are a 1/3 profit/deduction to energy/btu return on investment. And as more and more of the old mega fields drop deaper and deaper past their peak production years, the 1/3 btu 'profit' gets you an even lower yield. Subtract all the btu's you nesd to create a gallon of gas, & your remaining btu's of energy may be less than 24kWh's. How much less? No one can say with percision, because the input values continue to change ... for ever becoming larger values.

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Assumption that Well to Pump equals "Well" to Plug was made. Majority of today's electricity came from fossil fuel and a tiny fraction from renewable.

So for majority, it should be Fossil Well -> Refinery -> Power Plant -> Plug.

Below graph shows that if clean hydro electricity is used (best scenario), plugins can be cleaner than Regular hybrids. However, if Coal is used, the value of life cycle air emissions and oil displacement benefits will be in the negative. On average electricity, any plugin is still better than conventional non-hybrid.

 

This is the exact reason we have a Prius AND a Volt... Cause when sitting in traffic for long periods, or driving at slow speeds for long distances (like on base) the Prius mileage drops substantially once the battery is depleted.... The Volt is excellent in these situations, and has far more range than I really need, but we also use it to make quick trips to the store and all if need be. The Prius on the other hand is far better for long distance driving (we burned 2 gallons in our Volt so far, and the gas mileage was horrible, over 70 something miles the average on the screen was 56mpg)... So it really depends on how you use the cars. I do agree that the government should not be shelling out a bunch of money in tax credits for this stuff. You have to wonder though if the cars would be bought, or even looked at though without it? For me peronally it is more of a novelty thing, but for someone just looking at the cost aspect of it these vehicles would not make any sense at the moment.

Would like to get a solar panel array to charge the car eventually so it truly could be a green car... To me the Volt is more of a sports car and fun to drive, so I use it as such. Especially since my short driving distance allows me to burn excess battery power without worry..

 

My home burned 330 kwh of coal based electricity this month, and I expect it to drop to 180 kwh next month after a renovation. Net net, I will burn 100 kwh of coal equivalent less. I asked my wife if she thought it reasonable to use the pollution savings to fuel a PIP.

First she said "of course," (she wants the car) but after some more thought she said "no, the first does not justify the second. "

 

That figure is dropped from the new window stickers and isn't posted on the Volt's fueleconomy.gov entry. Likely because of the assumptions being too general.

 

And because people read MPG(e) as MPG, and go buy a Prius. LOL