Mazda Says Its Upcoming Gas-Powered Cars Will Emit Less CO2 Than Electric Cars

cartechboy writes: "One of the arguments for electric cars is that we are reducing greenhouse gases and emitting less CO2 than vehicles with an internal combustion engine. But Mazda says its next-generation SkyActiv engines will be so efficient, they'll emit less CO2 than an electric car. In fact, the automaker goes so far as to say these new engines will be cleaner to run than electric cars. Is it possible? Yes, but it's all about the details. It'll depend on the test cycles for each region. Vehicles are tested differently in Europe than in the U.S., and that variation could make all the difference when it comes to these types of claims. At the end of the day whether future Mazdas with gasoline-powered engines are cleaner than electric cars or not, every little bit in the effort to reduce our carbon emissions per mile is a step in the right direction, right?"

Comments

Do electric cars actually produce CO2?

[kruach aum]

Or do they mean in the "yeah but guess where that electricity comes from, a coal-burning plant" sense?

Re:Do electric cars actually produce CO2?

[rtb61]

Well no, technically by far the best generator of electricity is sewerage digester methane plants. The sewerage must be broken and this produces a lot of methane (basically natural gas) in the process, this can break down naturally but in the interim it is a very bad green house gas. So by capturing that methane and burning it, it reduces the green house impact of it. Now if your digester is an anaerobic base you can pump the carbon dioxide back into the system, the heat will benefit growth and a proportion of the carbon dioxide will be captured. So you have eliminated a problem and as a bonus generated energy. All that is need now is very large scale sewerage digester, optimum bioengineering organisms to ensure maximum production of methane and all methane produced is captured and destroyed to produce energy. The waste produced should be high pressure steam sterilised (waste heat from plant) and sold as fertiliser. Waste water should be run through aerobic beds and any residual production of methane should be captured and used with residual water used in controlled irrigation, say an orchard with below ground piping. See, much, much better than nuclear. It is always better to think outside of the box and try to solve more than one problem at a time, especially you should avoid solutions than create other problems.

Mazda is not open

[bzipitidoo]

Mazda abuses copyright to stop 3rd parties from publishing manuals. Can't get a Haynes or Chilton manual for any Mazda newer than about 1995. When I learned this about them, I decided never to own another Mazda.

They aren't the only automaker doing that. I don't know which other ones are pulling that stunt, but I'll certainly check before buying a particular brand.

Re:My electric is hydro/nuclear

[tri44id]

In Texas, where we have to take the wind turbines offline at night, but the wind is still blowing, and we have a "deregulated" electricity market, TXU energy will give you electricity for free. http://blog.txu.com/free-energy-charges-at-night Mazda is going to have to buy a lifetime worth of carbon credits, and give me free gas as well, to beat that.

Re:Ummm....

[robot256]

This MYTH has been debunked:

"A study by M.A. Weiss et al., published in a 2000 report from the MIT Energy Laboratory, On the Road in 2020: A Lifecycle Analysis of New Automotive Technologies, calculated that fully 75 percent of a vehicle’s lifetime carbon emissions come from the fuel it burns, and another 19 percent was due to the extraction and refining of that fuel. The raw materials making up the vehicle added another 4 percent, and just 2 percent of lifetime carbon was due to manufacturing and assembly. In other words, you'll save a lot more energy if you junk your old car and buy a much more efficient new one."

And as everyone in this thread knows, energy == emissions for all practical purposes...

Simple way to test...

[SJ]

Get two hermetically sealed rooms. One with this new Mazda, and one with an all-electric car. Both cars are on roller ramps. Just to be fair, the Mazda can have it's air-intake piped in from outside.

Then grab the CEO of Mazda and give him this choice of 'driving' 20 miles in either the Mazda or the electric car.

Simple... Effective.

Re:That's a whopper. think for 60 seconds.

[thegarbz]

You're ignoring how most refineries are set up. You're absolutely right, we don't pay retail rates for electricity. In fact we generate our own using on site combined cycle power plants usually with heat recovery steam raising plant attached to the exhaust. We generate our own electricity for a fraction of the cost of retail electricity, we even generate excess and then export it to the surrounding suburbs offsetting their normal energy source which is brown coal.

The end result has the refinery I work at actually getting carbon credits for our energy consumption as we're not only not generating a lot of CO2 due to energy use, but we're also offsetting the carbon footprint of the surrounding town.

Oh by the way you're only telling half the story. It costs us closer to 2kW to create a gallon of gasoline, but it would be more fair to ask what it costs to process a barrel of oil (about 9kW), since that same energy that goes into creating your 2kW of gasoline also creates Jet fuel, diesel, LPG, bunker, as well as various polymers used in chemical plants.

You are dramatically overstating the carbon footprint of refining in the case of the refinery where I work, and we're often criticized for our lack of efficiency so I'm going to assume that there are even better examples out there.