How much difference do electric cars actually make?
I’m talking the fully electric type here people – such as the G Wiz. Not the the hybrid kind like the Lexus-es.
Please include arguments for or against the use of electric cars
I’m talking the fully electric type here people – such as the G Wiz. Not the the hybrid kind like the Lexus-es.
Please include arguments for or against the use of electric cars
A car is a car the choice is yours.
They run quieter
They fail at the most inconvenient time
until all electricity is nuclear or solar they make no difference at all
I myself am not that fond of them.
cons;
1)They take a long time to charge.
2)They generally don’t last a long time.
3)For long journeys you cant just ‘top up’ on power.
Pros;
1)They are quieter.
2)Supposedly greener (dunno how that works tho unless you are guaranteedd a nuclear power plant as your electricity source).
For:
1) far more efficient
2) no air pollution at use (eg inside cities next to people’s lungs!)
3) can use non-liquid fuels. Like coal, uranium, wind, sun etc at power stations.
Cons:
1) expensive
2) currently short range; we’re years away from sufficient range
3) energy intensive to make (Although over the lifetime, probably better off).
In the UK, if we magically swapped to electric cars that were as efficient as the Chevrolet Volt is in electric mode, and we expanded our national power grid at exactly its current ratio of power sources (mix of coal, gas & nuclear with ~5% renewables), then CO2 emissions from cars in use would drop by 50%+.
Our future grid looks likely to have a lot more renewables and nuclear, and carbon capture on the coal plants. This would mean electric cars should be almost 90% less polluting than current cars by that time. (2030-2040 at a guess).
Where is the power coming from? 100′s of miles away from a coal burning plant? Coal power is a little more efficient than a gasoline engine IF it’s being burnt at peak demand times. Otherwise it’s mostly being wasted because they have to burn coal all the time to keep the boilers hot weather or not power is being produced. Add to that the 10% or so loss of power over the electric lines. Coal isn’t any better than gasoline and emmits more CO2/unit of energy than gasoline.
Hydro, wind, solar or Nuke power is better than gasoline, but it still usually has to go over power lines for long distances.
Make your own power at home with micro hydro, wind or solar and electric cars are much better than petro vehicles.
They’re huge. You charge them off-peak, so they are using power that the plants have to generate *anyway* because they have to be spun-up, as Thor discusses. However Thor suggests they’ll need to build NEW plants, and that’s not so, they’ll happily use spinning reserve from those plants not easily shut down. The government has studied this at length, and additional power plants will not be needed if 70% of Americans get electrics. This also means new power lines will not be needed. However smart grid technology will help a lot in management.
The distance people drive ordinarily is well within the range of existing batteries. Plug-in hybrid “drag along your own Honda generator” technology will make range unlimited and make them as versatile as normal cars, but with much snappier acceleration, better handling and much longer life.
Consider the upsides to electric in the future. Lithium Metal-Air Batteries could store up to 10 times current battery capacity according to new recent breakthroughs in battery technology. These batteries are also much lighter than normal lithium batteries too! Thus the Tesla roadster that has a range of 250 miles would have a range of 2500 miles.
Another breakthrough out of MIT where they made a lithium battery that charges 100 times faster than current lithium batteries. Not only does it charge faster but it releases the energy faster. Faster energy release means a faster car. Considering the Tesla Roadster can go over 130 mph, this may mean we’ll have some very fast EV cars.
Yet, another breakthrough out of Stanford in battery technology shows that you can take your lithium battery and get rid of all of the metallic components and replace them with paper, thus drastically reducing the weight and probably the cost too. The quality of the battery is not compromised at all and actually has a longer lifespan.
Considering the fact that Tesla Motors is creating a new sedan that gets 300 miles per charge and will cost $50k, and people are lining up to buy them already. The prices of these cars aren’t going to be going up. If any of these new battery technologies come to fruition and are used in cars, we aren’t going to want to go back to hydrocarbons any time soon.
I also found an article that shows that we won’t run out of lithium in the foreseeable future.
Electric cars (EVs) have a lot of benefits:
1. Coal power plants experience efficiency of scale (look it up)
2. Almost all EVs are charged at night when power generated from coal power plants is wasted because nobody needs it.
3. EVs move the pollution from the city (where people want fresh air) to the middle of nowhere.
4. Consider the fact that most of the coal used in North America is domestic.
5. In Canada for example 60% of electricity is made from hydro, so yes it would make a big difference.
6. Consider the emmisions for transporting oil from Saudi Arabia versus coal from that coal mine 50 km away next to the railway line.
7. We won’t be powered on coal forever.
The negative sides?
1. The batteries are kind of heavy.
2. Small range (although the 60 mile range is good enough for almost everybody, and to solve the range problem, buy a generator and use it when driving long distances)
3. Batteries aren’t exactly the greenest thing on earth (although flywheel energy storage will solve the problem once people learn about it)
By the way for all the people that think nuclear is a good thing, REALITY CHECK, more emissions are produced in mining and transporting uranium than using coal, and we are leaving that nuclear waste to our kids.
Hydrogen is also a stupid thing, as producing it and stuffing it into the containers is very energy INEFFICIENT. Another thing is it is not safe. No matter how hard you try, you can not make the most volatile substance on earth safe!
And for all the ignorant people out there thinking EVs are stupid, look it up, it is the best option available. The only thing better is rapid transit which is still electric vehicles (I`m talking about a subway, streetcar, etc.)