Featured Why the auto industry is in trouble

Likewise with catalytic converters (1975 model year), closed-loop fuel systems (1981), etc.

 

I find it very hard to stop burning fuels to power our transportations needs, because there is no single viable solution. BEVs and FCVs can "decarbonize", but both will depend on primary sources being renewable. The other solutions are...half solutions, meaning ICE powered vehicles have its share of responsibility. Hybrid cars pose a good way of saving fuel, PHEV even more. Prius itself (3 million sold, some 2 million operating) has saved the equivalent of dozens/hundreds of thousand BEV cars on the road, technically speaking.

 

You're right. There isn't a solution available, today, that would supply all the energy required to meet our transportation needs using sustainable (renewable) energy sources. We would need much more solar, geothermal, hydro, and wind as well as a place to store the energy when the sun isn't shining, the wind isn't blowing and the water isn't flowing, but I believe there are solutions to those problems. I don't think there are solutions to the problems associated with burning fossil fuels to power the transportation sector.

BEVs and FCEV (perhaps) can be fueled with "decarbonized", renewable energy. As far as that goes, one could "unburn" CO2 and water to produce gasoline for a Prius, but that would be even more energy intensive, "well to wheel" than producing hydrogen for a fuel cell and hydrogen for a fuel cell is probably too energy demanding to make it a viable approach as it is.

Some companies are working to build a set of solutions that allow us to capture solar energy, store it in batteries or other storage systems, and use it to meet our energy needs. I can't think of any company, besides Tesla, that is working on energy capture (solar), storage, and transportation in one more or less integrated approach, but I suspect that others will follow, if it works out for Tesla.

Most electrical utilities in the US are retiring coal fired plants and replacing them with other lower carbon producing electrical generation systems or, better still, with utility level solar or wind energy. I believe other countries in the world are doing much better than the U.S. in embracing renewable energy sources. Utilities in Portugal, as I suspect you know, supplied electricity to the entire country for 107 consecutive hours using renewable energy alone. So, there are ways to produce carbon free energy... we just need more countries like Portugal.

 

this doesn't have to be class warfare, we're all in this together.

 

Actually, there is a very viable solution. It's called > $10/gallon gas.

 

The "first drive" reviews of the Bolt claim it is excellent.

 

Haven't worked with $8 in Europe so far...

 

$8 gas Didn't seem to work too bad - it put much of their folk onto a much better system of public transportation then we seem to even be willing to contemplate.

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$8 gas moved europe to diesel, smaller cars, and fewer miles. Percentage commute on public transportation in Europe is actually down. Most of the attitudes and infrastructure differences between europe and the US were in place by 1960

 

Incorporate the EU taxation conversion factor. If it is $8/gal in the USA, it would be much higher in Europe.

 

To be fair, in Germany at least the taxation of diesel was apparently intentionally set lower than gasoline by the government to induce drivers to move to diesels for at least the last 20 years or so.

 

government induced lung cancer.

 

The Prius, and other hybrids without a plug, are still ICE powered cars. The electricity they use for propulsion was utlimately made by burning some fuel in its ICE less efficiently than burning the fuel at a power plant.

In terms of moving from place to place, hybrids can be a big step up over non-hybrids in reducing fuel use. But without a plug, they will never be efficient enough to allow the 100% shifting of the fuel used in their ICE from non-renewable sources to renewable ones. A hybrid fleet without electric grid input would still require too much fuel for renewable fuels to be made sustainably and be economically acceptable.

 

duno - haven't been to fhop for maybe 2yrs - but it sure seems we're not together in there

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I was thinking of the 50% to 60% thermal efficiency of a natural gas fired turbine. Combined cycle for heating, such would be 95% or higher.

While some of the electricity of a hybrid is generated from braking energy that is normally thrown away, the ICE of the current Prius peaks 40% thermal efficiency.

 

Although that is good data its the wrong data.
What are we building -
Wind adds the most electric generation capacity in 2015, followed by natural gas and solar - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

In 2015 new capacity was 41% wind 26% solar and 30% natural gas. In 2014 gas was 44%, wind 26%, solar 27%. What about coal? Well more coal was retired than was built and I would expect that to accelerate. The same goes for petroleum.

Now this new gas is mainly 58%+ efficient unless it is cycling bellow 40%, and has around a 70% utilization. Why would it cycle low? well to react to all that wind and coal of course. If we use 35% utilization for wind and 20% for solar in 2014 we get 68% of new power generated was natural gas, and just about all the other new power was renewable.

Now the model S 70D gets about 102 mpge when we multiply out @44% natural gas ignoring all the renewable and that the new stuff is closer to 54% efficient we get 45 mpge natural gas well head to wheel or about the same as oil in a prius eco 56 x 84% (oil to gas) = 47 mpge oil well to wheel. If we use the new grid natural gas/wind/solar the tesla is much lower impact. If we use old coal steam power plants the tesla is much worse.

Its a tough nut to crack. Do we count mainly the 60 year old power plants to fuel the cars, or what we are building today. Further complicating the hybrid is cleaner for the future language, is in many states like california and texas power is already lower in ghg, and these states have most of the plug-ins.

What are the bad states? Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri as for having over 60% coal and a lot of coal burned.