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How Much Does It Cost to Charge an Electric Vehicle? (A comparison at home and on the road, with gasoline)
(www.caranddriver.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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EV home charging is cheap, but it costs us the environement: using utility electricity generated from ~~coal~~ non renewables sources (fossil, nuclear) plants (so is supercharging)
Gasoline comes from oil. Electricity comes from coal. Or oil. Or natural gas. Or nuclear. Or hydro. Or wind. Or solar. Or hamsters running on wheels. The renewable options are there and they're only becoming more prevalent.
Also, power plants scale much better at producing large amounts of energy more efficiently than a bunch of tiny little engines make a car go. So sure, coal plays a part in feeding an electric car, but if you're going to advocate against it anyway you're missing the bigger picture.
If there are any hamsterologists here I'd very much like to see the math on hamster charging of EVs please
i ll edit my comment to 'fossil and non renewables (nuclear)' instead of 'coal'. if u check my comment history, i am really just parroting the same idea for a while now, and decided to choose the word coal, albeit inaccurate, just to get my point through..
So you realise that you're parroting the same thing all over the place and you know it's probably not accurate? Here's a challenge for you - approach this topic like something you've not researched before without your existing opinions and try and reach an answer as to whether electric cars are better or worse for the environment by being as scientific and objective as possible.
Because I keep coming across comments similar to yours, I have taken that same challenge myself to make sure I'm on the right track and there was a lack of compelling sources suggesting that electric cars are worse for the environment.
I invite everyone with the alternative view to the same challenge.
I have seen your comments before. They show you lack a basic understanding of EV charging and when you get called out over basic points like "most people don't need to charge their full battery capacity every night" you ignore it.
At least you made this reply.
:/
If only it were possible to generate power without burning coal.
Only 8 states in the USA still generate the majority of the their electricity from coal. Its none of the big populated ones.
Coal use continues to decline in the USA while renewables continue to increase:
source
the rest is whether: nuclear, or fossil, which all are finite and non renewables. only a small fraction are renewables
Not true. Near 50% for CA. One of the largest stars in the USA.
2022, renewable resources, including hydroelectric power and small-scale, customer-sited solar power, accounted for 49% of California's in-state electricity generation. Natural gas fueled another 42%. Nuclear power supplied almost all the rest.
https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CA#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20renewable%20resources%2C%20including,California's%20in%2Dstate%20electricity%20generation.
The world doesn't revolve only around CA. what about the rest of the world, where EVs are used ?
Well here’s the data for my country:
According to official data, Scotland broke previous records by generating 35.3TWh of renewable electricity in 2022, marking a 28.1% increase from 2021 and 9.8% from 2020.
This amount of electricity could power all households in Scotland for over three years.
Link ?
Do you understand how much effort you're putting into being "right" rather than having an actual discussion?
For context, you started with "EV is bad because it uses coal", implying that it is worse than ICE vehicles (somehow).
Then you had to change it to "EV is bad because it uses non-renewable energy."
Then you had to change it to "EV is bad because it uses non-renewable energy and renewable energy, but not really much renewable energy."
Then you had to change it to "EV is bad because outside of California, which doesn't count (for some reason), it uses non-renewable energy and renewable energy, but not really much renewable energy."
Now that someone is pointing out that other places besides California use significant amounts of renewable energy, your argument has become "I only will accept arguments that provide citations, even though my own various, shifting arguments, have provided none."
This is in no way a good look for you.
Give us a chart instead.
The gas you burn in a car is 100% carbon-based. The energy in your home is usually not. It's a mix of carbon-based and renewables. Also, your local coal plant is much more energy-efficient than your engine which probably hasn't been tuned up in years.
Even if you have an EV charging on a shitty coal power plant, it's still vastly more efficient than putting a small, personal power plant in a car and carrying around gasoline to burn. A modern EV uses the equivalent of about 3 gallons of gas to go 300 miles.
And has a lot more torque, is quieter, doesn’t need to turn off, etc. It amazes me how much resistance there is to EVs when they’re superior in a lot of ways. Not all, but they’re making huge strides quickly.
Personally, I can’t wait to see the end of big oil’s iron grip on transportation. They’ve lied to us all for decades and gotten away with it for far too long. It’s time they pay up.
I think big oil is behind a lot of the resistance to EVs in a subtle way. For example, my conservative neighbor the other day was complaining about the weight of EVs compared to ICE cars, and how they're damaging the roads. That sort of talking point doesn't just arise naturally. I'm sure it was a coordinated messaging push by ICE car manufacturers and oils and gas stake holders, ultimately aiming at reduced EV adoption and a reduction in taxes on gasoline.
Maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist, but my bullshit alarm went off immediately at the idea of those types of ideas popping into the public consciousness organically.
If they're so concerned about vehicle weight, I'm sure they're driving a compact car instead of a truck or SUV, right?
No, they've got a Tahoe and two F-150s.
Even if 100% of EV charging was by burning oil/coal, the power plants still manage this with greater efficiency than the internal combustion engine on your car. That means that even at it's worst, it's still way more environmentally friendly to drive an EV.
This argument makes no sense. ICE cars have no option other than fossil fuels. Charging at home the electricity will at least be from some renewable sources, and the percentage is always increasing.
Not to mention that even coal power plants generate energy at far cleaner rates than ICE.
Not all countries use legacy energy sources. Iceland is 100% renewables (hydroelectric and geothermal) and Quebec is 100% hydroelectric...
You are aware that internal combustion engines also use non-renewables at a much lower efficiency than grid-scale use of non-renewables, right?
Were you aware that only ~1/3 the energy from combustion is harnessed for propulsion in a traditional ICE?
probably even 1/4..an EV charged from fossil electricity saves only 33% on emissions compared to a fossil car. personally if i am paying 40k$ for an EV i am expecting my purchase to act as a contribution to safeguard the environement, not only to save on repair costs and mileage, but thats my personal preference.. a Tesla costs 40k$ at least, while a 40kwh nissan leaf costs 30k$, and there s no in-between, EVs are a pass for me for now but thats my opinion.
Or, stated more honestly, an EV deriving electricity from even fossil-based grid-scale generation uses roughly half the raw combustables as an ICE with the added benefit of emission scrubbing.
We are fortunate, then, that this is already the case.
I'm not sure how you've determined they should be a pass - if you're comparing like to like and comparing to new ICE vehicles of similar capability, there's no reason not to go EV for most people.
But sure, it is a matter of preference.
I'm glad you've pointed out that we haven't solved every single problem at the same time. We never would have known without this blazing insight.
My solar panels beg to differ.
Unless you have a dedicated source of renewable energy that does not feed excess back into the grid, all the electricity you use has the exact same mix of fossil and renewable as the grid you're connected to.
That is an argument for improving the fuel sources used by the grid, not an argument against switching to things that can physically be powered by renewables.
Megapacks can be used to phase out fossil plants and avoid excess electricity, thus growing the share of renewable sources in the energy mix. a 4Mwh Megapack costs about 1.4M$, ie 350$ per kwh
Heroic effort to shoe-horn in some irrelevant Musk spam.
:/
Wait so the NZ government is lying to me about our renewable energy sources? And my home solar panels are just faking the energy production? Or did you forget the world is more than just that place you live in?