Zhao

^ I think that poster was more talking about developing nations with questionable grids. I think I agree with their logic if that was the case. But EV's don't make sense for developing nations; they require rich people problem solving to be applied to their ownership.

Also, in first world countries I can't see how decentralized cottage power generation is better for the environment than centralized large scale power plants. The amount of waste just from replacing small components in micro home brew power generation and storage has gotta be huge. Scaling up everything generally gets more efficient when it comes to resources. 100 10 acre farms or 1 1000 acre farm? 1000 homes with 1000 wells and pumps, or 1000 homes with one pumping station and pipes to all? 1000 water wheels on a river, or 1 massive dam?

wizee

I was referring more to Underblu's comments regarding freedom and mobility. If you want the freedom that comes from living off-grid, or mobility in a post-apocalyptic world, it's easier to generate electricity yourself to charge an EV than it is to make fuel yourself. From a national standpoint too, it's easier for most countries to become energy independent by generating their own power than producing their own fuel.

Underblu

When the state mandates a policy it is by it’s nature for political reasons. Call it creating utopia, the common good, battling climate change, whatever you like but it is absolutely politically driven. The alternative to that is the free market where people get to choose between ICE and EV, gas or electric stoves, burgers made of beef or mashed bugs. If EVs are so much better, they will eventually be adopted in far greater numbers and replace most ICE vehicles even without draconian state measures. That’s how that works.

greatfox315

I totally agree that the free market must ultimately decide. Unfortunately human emotion comes into play (fear) and prevents people from trying anything new even if it is indeed vastly better than the current option. This is where nudging and gradual policy shift by governments can help get over this initial “activation energy hump” before word spreads and EVs take over naturally. I honestly think we are very close to that point. Certainly in California, we’ve already passed that point and people prefer EVs to ICE cars for transportation, by and large. The rest of the country is not far behind.

wizee

There absolutely is political nudging happening in this direction, because of climate change and also a desire to improve urban air quality. Transportation makes up around 14% of global and 27% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Of that transport related portion, 57% comes from personal cars. So thus, while decarbonising personal vehicles won’t solve climate change on its own, it would still be a major piece of the puzzle along with other industries like power generation, steel manufacturing, concrete, etc. While current EV manufacturing is carbon intensive (and has a higher carbon footprint than ICE car manufacturing), the resource extraction and manufacturing processes can be decarbonized by cleaner energy sources. However, burning petroleum pumped out of the ground cannot be made carbon neutral. I’m also interested in e-fuels, though they don’t solve urban air quality concerns that many cities have.

Electric cars are currently expensive, even with subsidies. The average North American can buy an economy car for $25k, while its EV equivalent is around $40k. Without a massive scale of manufacturing over an extended period, prices won’t come down. That’s the main reason why people need to be nudged into EVs. For most people, if they could afford an EV and it were comparably priced to the ICE equivalent, they would be better served by it than by an ICE car. There is a lot of fear/uncertainty/doubt that people have about EVs, and a small segment of the population also needs to regularly do things that current EVs are not well suited to (like long distance towing or sustained track driving). For most people in most common applications, EVs are just better (quieter, smoother, more reliable, less maintenance, instant response, lower centre of gravity giving better handling and ride quality, much cheaper to charge than ICE cars are to fuel).

We also need improvement in EV charging infrastructure to make road tripping in non-Tesla EVs reliable and comfortable. The easiest way to do that is by increasing the amount of EVs on the road and letting the free market fix charging. Increasing the amount of EVs out there needs a government nudge to accelerate the process. The effects of climate change have been quite noticeable, even in the time scale of our own lives. We can’t afford to delay decarbonization by decades in the name of the free market.

MT45

A balanced look at all sides of both types of energy is required as well.
It’s not an easy “either - or” decision when you review the facts critically
Fossil fuel does not = environmental damage (but sometimes, yes)
and
Electric does not = perfect alternative green energy (in some use cases, yes)

The below articles cast a critical eye on how EVs are built for instance but subsidies and an unbalanced message would have you think that EVs are “a perfect solution”
I picked a wide variety of conservative and liberal news orgs - message is the same

Hunt for the blood diamond of batteries …
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/w...a-mulimbi.html

Like slave and master, DRC miners …
https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...-electric-cars

Congo, child labor and your electric car …
https://www.ft.com/content/c6909812-...6-a4640c9feebb

Blood batteries drive Americas …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...39c_story.html

How modern day slavery in the Congo …
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...siddharth-kara

wizee

The mining for minerals that batteries use is certainly a source of environmental damage. Newer battery chemistries are working to reduce cobalt content, and lithium is quite abundant. As for working conditions for miners, that’s a matter of due diligence for buyers and legislating worker safety and pay standards in countries with poor conditions.

Lithium battery recycling is another area where work is needed. Right now, the industry is in its infancy, and very few EV-sized batteries have needed to be discarded/recycled. There’s a lot of talk about reuse, though what I see is often anecdotal stories. A fair amount of engineering is needed to repurpose a battery from a specific car (including interfacing with its battery management system) as EV batteries aren’t standardized in shape or interface, and reused old batteries may carry safety risks. With the limited about of actual battery recycling happening right now, the electrodes are often separated and have metals (like cobalt) recovered, but the electrolyte (containing Lithium) is usually discarded rather than recycled. This is because Lithium is cheap and plentiful, and it’s cheaper to mine more than it is to recycle the electrolyte.

Nonetheless, at least in principle, when it comes to climate change impacts, carbon neutral EVs should be possible, while carbon neutral ICE cars are impossible if running on oil pumped out of the ground (but possible with eFuels).

9elheven

Since some are saying in this thread that there is a need to decarbonize, I am countering that assertion here. Perhaps moderators will step in to squelch this; until then, you who assert this will get a rebuttal from me. As one who has worked in the atmospheric science arena for close to 40 years, and studied this issue of global warming / climate change closely since the mid 1980s by reading atmospheric science journals and attending lectures at relevant scientific labs, I strongly disagree with the assertion that so-called (and mis-named) greenhouse gasses are contributing to climate change to any dangerous degree, or even a strong one. In my opinion, there is no climate crisis and there is no need to stop using oil, coal, and natural gas. We have plenty for 1 to 2 centuries. Thousands of credible scientists around the world agree (see Clintel). Unfortunately, the theory of global warming has been co-opted by nefarious political entities to invoke the necessity of revolutionary change. Global temperatures have been warming since the Little Ice Age, the depths of which were in the 1600s. To say absent proof that, since 1950, CO2 has usurped the role of natural warming that began in the 18th century is just junk science. There are very obviously cycles within cycles within cycles of varying frequency and amplitude; they are natural cycles which are phasing or anti-phasing at different times. Global temperatures increased in the early 20th century, decreased in the mid 20th century, and increased again in the late 20th and very early 21st century. This 60-70 year cycle, in turn, nests within the longer-period and higher-amplitude cycle of temperature change of the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period, the Middle Ages Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age. Most recently, global temperatures have actually paused their warming in the past decade. There is no climate weirding. Storms have occurred for millennia. EF5 tornadoes happen. They happened in MS last night, they occurred in MO and IL in the 1920s, in the 19th century, and earlier. Strong and violent tornadoes are not increasing in frequency, nor are strong hurricanes. Sea level has been rising linearly for hundreds of years, not accelerating. Anybody can say that there will be a disaster 100 or 200 years from now, but the climate models that are used as proof to predict this are deeply flawed, as they do not contain the necessary inputs to the climate system. The inputs aren't even known. To say that natural warming has been taken over by human-caused warming is actually anti-science. The burden of proof is on those who assert that to prove it, not just assert it. If those of you who believe that humans are causing climate change to a disruptive or cataclysmic degree would only become students of meteorological and climate history, you would see that the climate change (nee global warming) theory is just an untestable hypothesis which has lost credibility. I refer you to actual scientists such as Dr. Richard Lindzen from MIT, Dr. Judith Curry, and Dr. William Happer of Princeton. The atmosphere over the U.S has become much cleaner during the past 50 years with the implementation of the Clean Air Act. The atmosphere could certainly return to pre-industrial levels globally, but then the quality of life for humans would return to pre-industrial levels also. Who, then, should die to get to this level? If you believe that we can supply our electrical needs solely by solar panels and wind turbines, you're deluding yourself. Credible forecasters foresee so-called fossil fuels growing over the next several decades, not diminishing. And, let's ask the marine wildlife off the U.S. East Coast how that wind turbine location research is going for them. There's not enough raw materials to replace the ICE vehicles with EVs. There's not enough electrical generation and storage to supply EVs, as well as what we already need. The price of trying to do so will be many many trillions of Dollars, Euros, and Pounds. The price of electricity in Germany, where they have *****-nilly gone down this path, is 3 times our U.S. average, and on the way to being 4 to 5 times as expensive, if it can even be supplied. Of course, our U.S. electricity prices will "necessarily skyrocket" as well. All to solve a non-problem. CO2 was 250 ppmbv in the 18th century, and is 420 ppmbv now; it has been as high as 15,000 ppmbv in the far-ago past, and we did not have a run-away climate. There is no need to de-carbonize; there is no climate crisis. Unfortunately, decades of indoctrination by government, academia, the media, and even entertainment/culture has induced people to believe that the sky is falling. I urge you to do your own research, as I have done.

Montaver

Your citing these CLINTEL guys as credible?

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32HG6HR

Seems like a stretch.

Zhao

Wall of text but good read. Honestly though, I'm not really qualified to do my own research and best I can do is an semi informed semi ignorant guess.

People who should be impartial are fully willing to lie to achieve a goal for a government/company/ideology and publish junk, backed up by others like themselves. We learned with covid this is a fact that.

9elheven

Any organization that includes Will Happer is good enough for the likes of me. And anybody.

patdonahue

As an aside for some that are more knowledgeable than this poster:
We have been sending probes to Mars for like 50 years. Is there any evidence that the climate on Mars has changed in the last 50 years? I always wondered about that-no Porsches up there AFAIK.
When I was in college a guy named Paul Ehrlich wrote the book The Population Bomb, we are still feeding more people than ever. Various luminaries including the new King have been telling us that we have 20 years max to save the oceans for the last 50 years or to do this or that as we are on the cusp of THE END. I was told in 1985 that world oil production had peaked. Seems none of these predictions have worked out. It is too bad that everything one eats, drives or cooks has become political. Too easy to balkanize people.
As I said in an earlier post Porsche seems to have a plan B with all the Wunder EV talk. They spent a lot of money on that e-fuels plant I doubt even Porsche would spend that type of coin just to keep the 911 on ICE.

ausgang

Regardless of where one's views land on this controversial topic, it is troubling to consider that a great many people are being told there is a global climate crisis which is serious enough to affect their liberties and perhaps their mortality. However, it's not serious enough for the same leaders to properly engage with Brazil, Russia, India, and China ('BRIC') and others. Acting unilaterally is out of step with the message. Meeting from time to time to promise this or that reduction -- while not engaging with the 'non-participants' -- seems a cruel joke. Given the rhetoric, is not the single most important task that of engagement no matter how challenging and sensitive? For just one example, what point is there for the U.S. to switch nearly all of its steel production over to EAF when China is adding enough BOF furnaces to its capacity to eliminate all the gains made here?

For those who like to glimpse into possible break-throughs in the energy sector, take a look into the Japanese research work in ammonia-assisted hydrogen production methods to produce a dense transportable energy source that could take a lot of pressure off the renewables sector challenges with storage and distribution of energy. (Let's not forget Japan was instrumental in developing the technology that made LNG practical and popular --- back when no one else seemed interested.) Storage and distribution may not be sexy to politiicians, but they account for much of the real cost of energy. Just look at the breakdown on your next bill -- and those costs are for an (aging) existing system organized around centralized production with hub and spoke distribution.

981KMAN

Many Thanks for a great laugh with the "Certainly in California, we’ve already passed that point and people prefer EVs to ICE cars for transportation, by and large. The rest of the country is not far behind." statement. I needed a good laugh this Monday Morning.....

Well, having family who has lived in California for 50 years (north of San Fran) we can all say that any state which has a full Website just to monitor and report the Power Grid Status has issues. California ISO

Some areas in California have Rolling Black-Out in the summer: ABC News Cal Rolling Blackouts And the California State ISO is asking its citizens to NOT CHARGE their EV's because the Power Grid can't handle it California asks residents not to charge electric vehicles

Or from Forbes: California is facing a widespread Electricity Shortage

EVs maybe coming in California, yet currently most EVs are in the mega affluent areas, and they do have a useful purpose to reduce the choking smog in densely populated areas like LA. Although EV's have a major issue that very few proponents are discussing, and that is the weak California Power Grid and the significant $$$ it will take to build the electrical distribution to support the huge demand that EVs are just starting to place on the grid. Several posts in this thread have already shows us the electrical generation reality.

I "foresee" that California will probably change its mandates and delay forced EV sales as more EVs place higher stress on their electrical grid and more problems arise. EVs will have their place and benefits, yet forced adoption is never the solution. And I doubt that "the rest of the Country" will prefer EVs over ICEs for a few decades, with some areas (think rural) will probably never go EV in its current technology, as EVs just don't meet the vehicle needs of those areas.

Time will tell how the EV pendulum swings.....

GTSPYDER23

There are many issues surrounding EVs, but for mass market adoption, there are two primary issues 1) cost, and 2) charging network. I know. I work in the industry...

Regarding cost, solid state batteries are coming in a few years. When this occurs, the price of an EV Toyota Camry will be less than the equivalent ICE Toyota Camry. This will be a game-changer.

Regarding charging networks, most EV users will finally understand that they mostly use a car for daily comminuting which is well within the EV range, and solid state batteries will 1) increase range, 2) decrease cost, 3) lighter and 4) charge faster. Plus, the federal government is currently vastly increasing the chargers along the interstate highway system over the next few years, which will nicely tie in with solid state battery introduction.

When these two issues are solved, you will see massive EV adoption.

For the record, even though I work in the EV industry, I still love my Spyder that I just bought! And, I will not personally buy an EV until the issues above are solved, which will happen in 2-4 years.