How many tons of air polutant coal does it take to generate enough electricity to power a battery powered vehicle 40 miles? 40 miles seems to be the max range of these vehicles.
That is a good question. I wonder if the power grid could handle all electric cars charging at this point. Then I think increased demand = increased cost. Then I think there is not one I could take 2 kids and a dog in, much less a 4x8 sheet of plywood. and it is the car america wants?
We’ve done this before…EVs are over 90% efficient and pollute dramatically less from even coal fired electric generation and indirect pollution compared to that of ICs and millions of individual pollution producers.
Secondly, people seem to think that all of a sudden, everyone will go out and buy an EV tomorrow placing a sudden load on our generation capacity. Demand will start slowly and generation will easily keep pace especially where the majority of charging occurs during off peak hours. Many, I’m sure not you, who keep raising these questions aren’t doing the research, just watch Fox network alone or don’t believe in our capacity to adjust.
You need to look at THe BIG picture. It’s OUR coal we are burning, we don’t have to import it. Today’s coal-fired plants are equipped with stack scrubbers and are very clean…Cap & Trade will push electric generation towards wind, solar and nuclear, not coal…
Any move back towards the “good ol’ days” will send oil prices soaring once again. The days of driving 2-ton trucks to the supermarket are over. The production of IC powered vehicles will not stop for many years. No one is going to force you to buy an electric car if you don’t want one.
I have heard this before, the argument that internal combustion engines (IC) are inefficient compared to electric vehicles (EV) but I never hear supporting numbers. How many BTU’s does it take to charge an EV vs. the BTU’s consumed by an IC for the same relative range limitation of the EV. What does 90% efficient mean? Does that mean for X amount of BTU’s We achieve X number of miles compared to ICs? Why do I never hear EV supporters mention the limitations? EV’s have limited carrying capacity should that limitation be entered into the equation? Ultimately the goal of EV’s is to become the main form of transportation. If eventually that happens the off peak argument would be mute. If the entire country had to plug their car in at night then that may become the peak time not the off peak time. Even if it did not draw enough to equal day time consumption it will still require additional coal consumption to charge the countries EV?s. The oil based world is not the answer but we have to look at all the alternatives with a much more critical eye than was given to IC?s. I for one would welcome EV?s powered by solar collectors but find the arguments concerning efficiencies of EV?s unsupported. I also feel that any alternative vehicles must be a one for one replacement not a vehicle with so many limitations as to render it useful only to one who is willing to sacrifice the freedom of a vehicle that needs only a pit stop at a gas station to go the next 40 miles. One day EV?s may get there but that day is a ways off.
Not sure “dramatically less.” What exact emissions are you counting? Perhaps just airborne ones?
Petroleum never sliced off a monutain at its kness.
Petoleum never made the streams run orange with acid.
Petroleum didn’t contribute to the Mercury problem in fish.
Petroleum never undermined a house.
For balance of trade issues, I’m glad there’ll be “coal cars with a 50-mi exhaust pipe.” For enivonmental issues? Not so much.
Did anybody catch the news earlier in the week that T.Boone (not the blues musican) had to pretty much shelve his “Pickens Plan” ? he cited “problems getting the electricity from the wind turbine to the grid” I am not so sold on the reason for the scale back.
Great cars, but we have to be willing to give up a lot of luxuries like dogs, children and plywood. I don’t want to give up the plywood.
Most electric motors are approx 80% efficient. Motors not running at full load are notoriously inefficient. (Don’t get old! I have forgotten all the terms I learned while studying electricity.) I don’t recall all the losses in the transformers. No idea just how efficient a battery is. Just charging that battery has losses… extended trickle charge for instance. I2R losses (I squared R) in transmission and the many forms of transformation in the distribution of that electricity. It does not just magically appear at the wall outlet.
You didn’t figure in the losses in strip mining that coal, not the transportation to the coal pile at the generation plant. Think of all the air polution involved there.
The G-Wiz Electric car. Is It time to get rid of your SUV for one of these little gems? http://auto.howstuffworks.com/g-wiz-electric-car.htm/printable
Yeah, but check out THESE electric cars!
No compromise here!
Can your credit score carry that load? Very few can…
Except they start at $50,000,00 with extremely expensive batteries that will need replacing.
Don’t need kids or dogs! Plywood won’t fit in my MX-5! I’ll rent Lowe’s 1 ton pick-up for $20.00 for my fifteen minute drive for the plywood…
lol.
Point I was trying to make is those electric vehicles are not as “green” as the promoters would like you to believe!
I could easily get the loan, but then I wouldn’t be able to make the payments!
But I wish I had the cash to spare. Tesla is making me really enthusiastic about the viability (including marketability) of EVs, and these are indisputably gorgeous vehicles. And their prices are right in line with gas-operated vehicles of comparable luxury and performance.
I don’t feel electrics will “replace” anything now, SUVs included. They will fill a nitch with there limited range as commuter vehicles and as third cars that will have a substantial influence on overall oil consumption. From present day on, the practical use will be dictated by improved battery technology and charging strategies as they are made available. No one will buy an electric car just to be “inconvenienced” by it’s use over present day cars.
It’s not a big debate here…just be open to change at a slow rational rate, that may never affect your pocket book or car choices. Electric motors are better in almost every respect to the IC and it’s time to incorporate them into our personal transportation system…slowly over time. Look at the Hylander Hybrid with no drive shaft to the rear for it’s AWD function, just a third electric motor.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have a sedan you could just “snap” an electric motor into the trunk when bad weather were forecast, just to have an AWD option when needed, then remove it when not. Newer motors may be so light, they just go along for the ride til needed…and so on.
That’s one step in the kind of moderate change I’m talking about.
As well as using some sort of energy to generate the electricity for a battery vehicle, some type of energy has to be used to heat the vehicle in the winter. The Citicar which was produced in the early 1970’s had a propane heater. The byproduct of burning propane is water and carbon dioxide–a greeenhouse gas. My campus has a delivery vehicle that is battery powered. The driver told me that it is heated in the winter by electrical power drawn from the battery, but it isn’t very effective.
I almost bought a used Citicar for $700 in the early 1980’s. It needed a new battery pack, so I would have had at least $1200 in the car. I was going to get an electric meter to measure the kw hours consumed and compare the cost for my two mile commute each way with a conventional gasoline powered car. However, the safety factor of the Citicar bothered me. I don’t bicycle the distance because of having to use a heavily traveled street. Furthermore, there are no sidewalks, so walking isn’t feasible.
I would believe that if battery powered vehicles (not just hybrids, but plug in models) become popular the demand will soon tax the grid and require additional capacity. I would guess, but I am not sure, that the demand will not be even throughout the day so more capacity will be required per unit of energy (it is possible that the opposite may be true and it might smooth the demand. In either case more capacity will be required and if it does require high peak demand, then there will be additional cost for capacity that is not needed all day.
Tons? I think not. It takes about 11 pounds of coal to move a Tesla 40 miles.
Good figure; today’s coal plants are very clean in terms of SO2, particulates and other pollutants. Oil field production from small production (stripper)wells, as found in many parts of the US, causes a lot more air pollution.
The CO2 generated by burning coal vs burning gasoline favors coal because of the twice as efficient conversion into useful power. Gas engine are very inefficient at low and part load; DC electric motors, like the one on my high efficiency furnace, are very efficient at all speeds.
Los Angeles would smell and look a lot better if all its cars were electric and powered by electricity generated in the Nevada desert.