EVs vs ICEs

[Randy]

I forgot which thread we were discussing electric cars so I just decided to make a new one.

Anyway this just showed up in my news feed

Electric shock: A new study found that EVs were more expensive to fuel than gas-powered cars at the end of 2022 — here are 3 easy ways to save cash no matter what you drive

Is it time to pull the plug?

finance.yahoo.com

 

[StevenC]

Last year petrol here cost about $10 per US gallon for a few months.

The USA has comedic fuel prices compared to the rest of the world.

 

[tedtan]

The issues with electric cars are that batteries are very dirty to produce and electricity isn’t always all that clean to produce either (a lot of US power plants are coal powered, for example).

Moving to cleaner electricity production is a no brainer, but I don’t have an answer for producing effective batteries cleaner.

 

[Crash Dandicoot]

Why not both? Hydrogen retrofitted ICE with a hybrid EV powertrain



Slap that in the Hyundai N Vision 74 instead of the hydrogen fuel cell and you have the coolest shit in the world

 

[Crungy]

The only thing I have to add is that Yahoo news story comment sections are the toilet of the internet.

 

[spudmunkey]

Not really a "shock" to anyone actually paying attention to EVs. If you're getting an EV specifically to save money, unless it was specifically to roll the dice on short term gains, it's not an informed move. If for no other reason that there's no road taxes applied to energy for EVs like there is on gasoline, and it's just a matter of time before that happens, either by reporting milage or meters on chargers.

We have two cars: an EV and an ICE vehicle. Both are 2015 gray 4-door compact hatchbacks (VW e-Golf and a Mazda 3 GT) and we've had them from new, since summer of 2015. The only reason we drive the ICE as often as we do is because when we drive it too infrequently, the battery goes dead (ironically). And, the few times we drive further than the EV's range...but it does feel like a waste sometimes to insure this second vehicle for those infrequent times. If our EV car had maybe 120 mile range instead of the 80 it does, we'd hardly ever use the Mazda and would probably sell it. We're fortunate enough to be able to charge at home, and being able to leave every morning with a full "tank" is why that would be possible for us.

Are EVs for everyone? No. Have they come leaps and bounds since 2015? Absolutely. Will battery tech continue to improve by 2035 (when ICE car sales are aimed to be halted in California)? Definitely. Will charging be able to be fast enough that it won't matter if apartment dwellers can't charge at home? I'm optimistic. Will US energy generation and storage be improved enough in 12 years? I'm less optimistic. I expect California's "ban" to be kicked down the road a few years as we get closer, but I do think it was the right move, and somebody had to be first.

 

[spudmunkey]

Why not both? Hydrogen retrofitted ICE with a hybrid EV powertrain

View attachment 120760

Slap that in the Hyundai N Vision 74 instead of the hydrogen fuel cell and you have the coolest shit in the world

View attachment 120761

It's worth pointing out an interesting statistic: of all passenger vehicles, hybrids are about 3x more likely to catch fire than both ICE and EVs combined, per equalized sales. EVs are the least likely, and per mile driven, their fires kill 2-3x fewer people then ICE cars.

 

[StevenC]

The issues with electric cars are that batteries are very dirty to produce and electricity isn’t always all that clean to produce either (a lot of US power plants are coal powered, for example).

Moving to cleaner electricity production is a no brainer, but I don’t have an answer for producing effective batteries cleaner.

It is better for everyone if we burn all the fossil fuels in one place than burning them at millions of places near people.

Why not both? Hydrogen retrofitted ICE with a hybrid EV powertrain

View attachment 120760

Slap that in the Hyundai N Vision 74 instead of the hydrogen fuel cell and you have the coolest shit in the world

View attachment 120761

I was on the hydrogen train for a bit, but the problem is it's just a worse solution to the problem because hydrogen fuel takes a lot of electricity to produce and is therefore much more carbon intensive than the same energy from a battery.

Even processes that produce hydrogen incidentally aren't super useful for fuel cells, so even if we had, say, loads of fission reactors that produce it we'd still have to waste energy preparing it.

--

The correct answer is to build lots of fission reactors and replace your ICE car with an electric car, but only when you need an upgrade.

 

[jaxadam]

 

[Crash Dandicoot]

It's worth pointing out an interesting statistic: all vehicles, hybrids are about 3x more likely to catch fire than both ICE and EVs combined, per 100,000 sales. EVs are the least likely, Nd per mile driven, kill 2-3x fewer people then ICE cars.

I was on the hydrogen train for a bit, but the problem is it's just a worse solution to the problem because hydrogen fuel takes a lot of electricity to produce and is therefore much more carbon intensive than the same energy from a battery.

I should point out for clarity: my position is not one regarding emissions or driver safety, but for racecars. You both have valid points, but gotta go fast

 

[spudmunkey]

It is better for everyone if we burn all the fossil fuels in one place than burning them at millions of places near people.

I was on the hydrogen train for a bit, but the problem is it's just a worse solution to the problem because hydrogen fuel takes a lot of electricity to produce and is therefore much more carbon intensive than the same energy from a battery.

Even processes that produce hydrogen incidentally aren't super useful for fuel cells, so even if we had, say, loads of fission reactors that produce it we'd still have to waste energy preparing it.

--

The correct answer is to build lots of fission reactors and replace your ICE car with an electric car, but only when you need an upgrade.

Until fusion, the key to weaning off non-renewables is storage. I do think infrastructure-scale storage with Lithium ion is absolutely a terrible way to go about it. But until we can store enough "intermittent energy" to supply all off-peak demand, we'll depend on things like coal, fission, natural gas.

The trouble with fission is that we're decades away from a single new plant starting up. By then, it's entirely possible that the increased investments in wind, etc will have made up a compelling chunk of the energy portfolio.

The main driver of EVs is that there's a significant-enough chunk of the scientific community that sees human-geberated CO² as a civilization-endangering Sword Of Damacles, that many other environmental concerns are being shifted to the back burner, to curb these greenhouse gasses. If limiting CO² is your main goal, then Lithium mining, brine/seawater pollution, cobalt mining, are all "collateral damage" in this battle. Many see these as necessary evil to prevent cataclysmic disaster (or at least slow it down) and maybe the actions are irrational. Some folks (Wyoming state legislature, for example) are equally as (or more so) loony on the other side, holding the "Man has dominion over God's earth" mentality and simping for the oil industry. The truth and best courses of action are likely in that gradient in the middle.

 

[Randy]

The truth and best courses of action are likely in that gradient in the middle.

What does an "in the middle" solution look like?

 

[spudmunkey]

What does an "in the middle" solution look like?

I admit, "in the middle" wasn't entirely accurate as it makes it sound like the "answer" is at 50%, but that's not what I believe.

I do think we're in deep shit, and need to act quickly, but I think converting homes and buildings to renewable energy is a higher priority than vehicles, and that piece of the puzzle is more easily served by local, decentralized generation from renewable sources, and non-"battery" battery storage.

I think jumping to EV's with current tech is premature, but the "next gen" batteries never would come without the current landscape and tech, so...yeah, it's complicated, and I don't know what the answer is.

We love our EV and glad we have ours. We've been to two gas stations in almost 8 years with it, and it was to use the bathroom. I wish we would have put solar on our roof when we re-did it, but we already had all gas appliances. Though since then we've had to replace every one of them, and could have gone electric... I do try to correct misconceptions about EVs to doubters with illegitimate reasons to be against them...but there are legitimate reasons to be against them (slave/child labor, other environmental damages, cost, some have legit range ichallenges, etc).

 

[StevenC]

Until fusion

Fusion is a fantasy and fission can save the world.

It's going to be decades later whether we build reactors or not, and we still won't have fusion, so we should build the reactors. The best estimate for fusion producing energy for the grid is next century.

Energy storage sucks outside of massive projects that also take decades to build, so wind and solar will never save us because they have such a high carbon footprint.

Our options are building fission reactors, or dramatically changing the way we consume energy to the point that life is unrecognisable to how it is today.

 

[Glades]

We should all be concerned about the environment, but we should also be concerned about Slavery. Cobalt production is not sustainable without slave labor (artisanal mining). We should not be OK with slavery in 2022.

 

[StevenC]

We should all be concerned about the environment, but we should also be concerned about Slavery. Cobalt production is not sustainable without slave labor (artisanal mining). We should not be OK with slavery in 2022.

Agreed, let's end the system that turns labour into profit for investors.

 

[Glades]

Agreed, let's end the system that turns labour into profit for investors.

I believe we should move away from fossil fuels, and come together as a society on a 100 year plan on how to do so. But I'm not willing to entertain the funding of these mercenary mining companies in Africa, exploiting people through what is modern slavery, or the complete obliteration of habitats and water quality in developing countries. We need to bring awareness. Would Americans still buy their EVs if they knew how the lithium and cobalt were mined?

 

[StevenC]

I believe we should move away from fossil fuels, and come together as a society on a 100 year plan on how to do so. But I'm not willing to entertain the funding of these mercenary mining companies in Africa, exploiting people through what is modern slavery, or the complete obliteration of habitats and water quality in developing countries. We need to bring awareness. Would Americans still buy their EVs if they knew how the lithium and cobalt were mined?

You are so close

 

[bostjan]

Maybe the information in the article is somehow technically correct, but not in the way it's presented.

There are lots of valid questions about EV's. But the statement in the headline is misleading, and however they are going about trying to justify that in the article is obviously (from just looking at how they argue) misleading as they are try to obfuscate the facts by not comparing like things.

I mean, you can do the mathematics for yourself. It obviously is highly dependent on the vehicles you are comparing. But a pretty efficient ICE probably does save you money over a nice Tesla. Your average sportscar versus the tesla, I doubt it. It's hard to compare apples to apples, but take the Chevy Bolt. 260 miles off of 65 kWhr is about 4 mi/kWhr. If electricity is 16 cents/kWhr, that's 4 cents per mile. If gas is $3.60/gal, that'd be equivalent to 90 mi/gal. I know of no such vehicle.... So, I'm calling bullshit on this.

That said...

We are not there yet with EV's, and it might not ever work. There were too many assumptions that have gone into getting us to this point, and there are a ton of risks involved. We don't have the answer yet as to whether pushing EVs was a good idea or not. Economically, replacing the battery could be very expensive - OR - hear me out - maybe not. I say that because the generation of EVs getting pushed hard aren't yet anywhere near old enough to need new batteries yet. This answer will have to wait another 5 or so years before we start to know anything.

Will the electric grid be able to handle widespread EV culture? Not in its current (no pun intended) state - will it by the time the government requires it? No way to tell the future, but it's looking shaky at the moment.

Electricity prices higher than gas prices per mile? You're dreaming if you think so. As far as powering an EV to go from A to B, it's a no-brainer at a fraction of the cost. Maintenance is a huge problem, though, as I've found out first hand living in fucking Green Acres, Vermont, where even the dealer where I bought the silly thing just stare at it with their heads cocked to the side when something goes wrong. Again, once these are widespread, this could be easily solved through widespread experience, but, if you are one of the first, you are going to get hosed on repairs. But, and I would strongly suggest that this is the bigger point here, modern ICE cars are suffering from exactly the same problems. Because manufacturers don't want the end user to fuck with anything anymore, they've made cars totally unserviceable. So, whether you get the new eMustang or you get the new Bronco, if something breaks, you're going to have to hand Ford Motor Company your wallet for a thorough draining.

Listen, in theory, an electric vehicle should be simpler to service than an ICE. Honestly. Fewer moving parts, fewer things to leak, fewer pumps... brakes are more complicated, but the motor is far simpler. But I guarantee that in practice, this won't be the case, and it boils down to the basic strategy of the automotive industry in the 21st century of locking anyone other than the dealership from servicing anything.

Hydrogen power? Forget about it. Seriously. Anyone suggesting it has never worked with hydrogen gas before. Sure, you can pack hydrogen into carbon nanotubes or other solid state batteries, but you still get less usable energy density than lithium batteries. Also, hydrogen is not, I repeat NOT, a naturally occurring gas on planet Earth. It has to be made by expending electrical or chemical energy from something else, and the process is not as cheap as the general population has been led to believe. And even the best hydrogen storage methods are not very good. Hydrogen is the lightest gas in existence, and, by far, the most difficult-to-contain permanent gas. You know those big steel bottles of hydrogen used in industrial processes. I work with those, and about 10% of the bottles we receive where I work are empty on receipt. That means that the gas in them was there when the bottle was checked in at the distribution center and then leaked out before it could make it to the end user. Several of the gadgets I've worked on used fuel cells, and they work okay, but there are tons of issues and special concerns with them that readers of "popular science" or whatever know nothing about. The proton acceptor can dry out, sometimes they leak under the slightest vacuum, and, worst of all, sometimes they just inexplicably die. So, burning hydrogen gas will never work on a large consumer scale, because distribution is far too unreliable, and using fancy technology to keep the gas in a pseudo-gaseous or solute state isn't going to work out due to expense.

Yeah, I know that Mitsubishi and others keep talking about hydrogen. They've been talking about it since 2002-3, and yes, some of these problems have been acknowledged by them, but I don't see any major progress.

So, we'll be left with a large number of ICE vehicles, probably a large minority of EVs, and then perhaps a plethora of weird one-off vehicles in the future, like hydrogen cars and biomass and stuff.

I think the government is jumping the starting gun with EV's and putting too many eggs in one basket.

Time will tell.

 

[Glades]

Never understood why in the US, there such aversion to CNG. It is cheaper than gasoline, and much cleaner burning. In countries like Argentina, it is available at every gas station, and gasoline cars can be converted to take a CNG tank.