New EV Myths and Facts Page

I'd feel better about this site if it had less spin.
Current hybrids *are* conventional, in the sense that all energy comes from petrol. So in the CO2 entry a less ambiguous statement might read "EVs of similar size to non-hybrid petrol cars are likely to produce less CO2/mile in combined cycle driving." Even this statement should be circumspect since the calcs do not well reflect cold winter driving wherein EVs take a proportionally greater hit to fuel economy because of the added cabin heating drain.

Second, NRDC is a reasonable source to cite, but the national labs are better.

For the record: No one has ever confused me with a right winger of any stripe, and my environmental interests are considerable.

 

I find the whole concept of a 'conservative media outlet' - or a 'liberal media outlet' - to be disturbing. Did you know that there are countries with truthful reporting laws, where telling lies on air or in print is illegal? "The news" consists of facts and reporting of real events, not political BS. What a concept. Of course, such a thing in the US would probably be considered a 'barrier to trade', and somebody would get sued for infringing on another's right to make a profit.

 

lol. I've gotten over the disturbing. There are other outlets, but almost all is corporate biased That is why the democratization of news on the internet a good things.

Its illegal here too I'm not sure what country does a great job. Its likely you have access to their news on the web. Most of the anti-ev stuff is part of the editorial portion of these 24hour news networks or magazines. Forbes which was included with an anti plug in piece has had both pro and anti plug-in editorials. They even had one blasting fox news.

lol, congress seems to want these polerizing news outlets. They seem to often want to infringe on free speach, but never seem concerned about the truth.
OK back to the topic. I thought this was a good piece, but others may think it is distorted by the green media.

 

On the contrary: It's the gas cars that waste energy by spewing out heat. In cold weather, a little of that heat is recovered to warm the cabin. An EV only produces heat when it's wanted for warming the cabin.

As I mentioned in another thread, my EV costs about 2 1/4 cents per mile for the electricity to run in the winter, driving it hard, accelerating at a level that only a Porsche or similarly-powerful (and wasteful) car can match, and running the heat high enough to keep the cabin toasty warm. That includes energy used for propulsion and cabin heating as well as for cooling the battery pack during driving and charging.

My Prius, OTOH, costs about 7 cents per mile for gas, in ideal weather and driving conditions on the highway in comfortable summer weather. And that's the most efficient gasoline car on the road, in summer, compared to an electric high-performance sports car in winter.

And that does not even include the economic, political, and environmental effects of gasoline, vs. my state's clean hydro electric grid.

The most efficient production gasoline car on the road uses two or three times as much energy per mile as the highest-performance production electric sports car on the road. Now compare apples to apples, say Leaf to Prius or Tesla to Porsche, and the difference is staggering. EV wins every time. Only the cost of batteries and the limited range and infant public charging infrastructure hold back EV acceptance, and most people think they need far more range than they really do.

 

I can't get past the first point. What the authors here are trying to say is, if we compare Volt to a big American car, then CO2 is less for a Volt even on coal....
My calcs: maybe, in summer only, and I certainly don't feel true compared to say Prius. I saw a version of this argument on the Electrification Coalition website a couple months ago.

 

A car's ICE is a combined heat&power plant anytime it is cold outside; the EV's power plant (if the energy is sourced from fossil fuel) is proportional to the CHP contribution on the grid, which in the US is negligible.

 

My question is what is the motivation of the "conservative media" to campaign against EVs? I understand low-information individuals not understanding EVs and range anxiety and admit they are certainly at this point not for everyone. But what big money interests are anti-EV?

The first and most obvious that comes to mind is "big oil", I can understand them not wanting to loss market share. But in reality most big oil companies are really big ENERGY companies with investments in coal, natural gas, energy generation and even wind and solar.

Second would be the big three auto companies, but people are not going to stop driving, their just switching fuel. If anything it creates a new auto niche market and the average EV will cost more than the average gas burner.

The retail gas station? Well somewhat true, but what better location for recharging infrastructure than existing gas stations.
Plus many of the urban gas stations are sitting on real estate that
is worth more than the income from selling petro.

Fourth on my list is auto repair shops and parts dealers, because an EV is infinitely simpler and lower maintenance than a Infernal Combustion Engine. This one is true, we will spend way less on repairs and parts. So why is the conservative media so indebted to the neighborhood mechanic that they would be campaigning against progress?

Did the conservative media also campaign against the introduction of the ICE? Were they then in the pocket of the horse and buggy lobby?

 

It's OK to call them "ignorant" since they will think you are referring to someone else!

 

Duplicate Post

 

They didn't need a "Myths versus Facts" internet page when people stopped using hay as their primary transportation fuel source, or whale oil as their primary lighting source.
I think that EVs will come into their own, but you're going to have to allow for the technology and infrastructure to evolve at its own pace.
EVs make a lot of sense to many folks. Others are put off by just a little bit more than the self-righteous screeching from the EV crowd.
I can't use one myself, and I live nine miles from work, AND I can charge at work, AND I could probably afford the price of one of the entry level EVs…if I wanted to go more deeply into debt to buy one, that is.

Call me in a few years.
There will be advances in charging, storage, and range. EV's will be cheap enough to be "everybody's car."

....or something else will come along. Fuel cells, portable fusion generators, who knows?

THEN....you won't need all of the cheerleading, lust like people don't need to be whacked over the head to realize that an ICE powered vehicle (at present) is just about the best way to go for the 99-percenters out here.
Especially if it's a Prius.

YMMV.

 

...P.S.: re: "The CO2 myth" - Prius Chat is the only possible source of the myth that I know of. My calcs posted here was Volt gets as low as 12.5 MPG fossil fuel equivalents on 100% coal basis, this was based on Consumer Reports (Mar/April 2011) first look at Volt was getting 2 mi/KWhr in winter. In other words, Volt burning up to 4x more coal by weight than a Prius burns gaso at 50 MPG in winter.

Of course, no one is @ 100% elec coal and winter is worse case. So I usually qualified/adjusted the numbers accordingly. I wrote to both Consumer Reports and US EPA to say the EPA 100 MPGe number is extremely misleading, based on these calcs. Never heard back.

 

They didn't need a "Myths versus Facts" internet page when people stopped using hay as their primary transportation fuel source, or whale oil as their primary lighting source.
I think that EVs will come into their own, but you're going to have to allow for the technology and infrastructure to evolve at its own pace.
EVs make a lot of sense to many folks. Others are put off by just a little bit more than the self-righteous screeching from the EV crowd.
I can't use one myself, and I live nine miles from work, AND I can charge at work, AND I could probably afford the price of one of the entry level EVs…if I wanted to go more deeply into debt to buy one, that is.

Call me in a few years.
There will be advances in charging, storage, and range. EV's will be cheap enough to be "everybody's car."

....or something else will come along. Fuel cells, portable fusion generators, who knows?

THEN....you won't need all of the cheerleading, just like people don't need to be whacked over the head to realize that an ICE powered vehicle (at present) is just about the best way to go for the 99-percenters out here.
Especially if it's a Prius.

YMMV.

 

Ah, if only they could evolve at their own pace. My kingdom for a level playing field! The entrenchment of fossil fuels is staggering - if the funding were the least bit equal, dinocars would have been extinct eons ago.

 

Well priuschat is not the only source, there are plenty of other people who have done bad analyses to support the CO2 myth, e.g.
Electric cars 'could increase carbon emissions' - Telegraph



If you want to use Consume Reports, which is very agressive and not very scientific or repeatable, their milage for 2011 Prius IV was 32 city. If you used CR reports and sent them to the EPA.. they probably had a good laugh.

I've not see your calcs (can you point to the thread.. search seems broken), but your statement " In other words, Volt burning up to 4x more coal by weight than a Prius burns gaso at 50 MPG in winter. " shows a lack of understanding on how one does energy computations. You need to work either in CO2 output (if looking at carbon emissions) or BTU (or some consistent energy space) computations for energy.

 

An important point is that the mass media are not about news or facts, and not always about serving some entrenched interest. They are about making money, which they do by selling advertising, which they charge for proportionally to their viewership. So it's about ratings. It's about sensationalism. It's about storytelling, and usually fictional storytelling.

The EV bashing is simply because some producer thinks it will boost ratings.

Though a segment of the religious right is opposed to environmentalism on religious grounds. If god put the oil and coal here for us to use them, then conservationism and environmentalism are anti-god. (Not all religious people take this view, but it is common among fundamentalists. -- A competing view in liberal religions is that we are stewards of the Earth and god wants us to leave it in as good a condition as we found it. But such views get little traction in the conservative circles that own much of the media.)

 

I'm not saying this is a definitive answer, or an answer at all.

But could this be a lot less political and a lot simpler than we are speculating?

Could the fear mongering found coming from "conservative" news outlets be as simple as the age old truth that people tend to fear change?

Things are changing, and since almost the popular inception and acceptance of commercial automobiles, for decades and decades, a vehicle meant you owned and operated a fossil fuel burning machine. Simply? An internal combustion engine.

The change is Leaf, Volt, to an extent Plug In Prius...are changing that reality, on however small or specific a scale. And my guess is that scares some people.

As noted above, change always happens at it's own pace. And is often greeted unfairly or with distrust.

Regardless of the spin, some outlets might be embracing and some people might be believing? I think this change is inevitable.

 

Approx. 1 year ago I started a Enviro thread called Coal Power Volt vs. Gaso Power Prius. Then someone else started a similar thread. Many good posts and info from the group here. My calcs evolved as comments came in and after Consumer Reports gave me some real world Volt numbers.

I would be open to your review, recently I realized the EPA Power Profile site shows that coal burning creates relatively low CO2 yield. The implication is either they are wrong or I am. But no one questioned my Volt numbers, instead most of the EVangelists here have commented the key EV goal is to stop use of oil, even if it means using equal or little more coal.

There was a great Motor Trend article posted earlier in the year. It showed the states where Prius vs. Leaf vs. Volt produced more CO2. It was fairly consistent with my calcs: if you live in a high %coal region then Prius may be less CO2 than Volt or Leaf.

What I feel the Electrification Coalition is doing is comparing Volt to non-Prius vehicles and claiming better CO2 on coal which is true but its apples vs. oranges on car size. We should really compare Volt to Prius c even then the Prius c may be more spacious than a Volt. Not sure there.

 

I feel the media has been kind to EV, even conservative media. The EV lobby is being very aggressive and political to keep EV as the selected "winner" in Congress's game of picking winners and losers. Today two new USA nuke plants were approved for construction in Georgia. Previously, Keystone pipleline cancelled by Obama admin. These are election-year decisions related to EV.

 

How about comparing two high-performance sports cars for CO2 emissions: Tesla Roadster vs. Porsche 911? I'll bet the Tesla is much lower even on 100% coal from the oldest coal-fired plants.