Electric Vehicles Can Meet Drivers' Needs Enough To Replace 90 Percent of Vehicles Now On The Road (phys.org)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Phys.Org: Researchers at MIT have just completed the most comprehensive study yet to address whether or not existing electric vehicles could bring about a meaningful reduction in the greenhouse-gas emissions that are causing global climate change. Yes, they can. The study was published today in the journal Nature Energy. Phys.Org reports: "'Roughly 90 percent of the personal vehicles on the road daily could be replaced by a low-cost electric vehicle available on the market today, even if the cars can only charge overnight,' Trancik says, 'which would more than meet near-term U.S. climate targets for personal vehicle travel.' Overall, when accounting for the emissions today from the power plants that provide the electricity, this would lead to an approximately 30 percent reduction in emissions from transportation. The team spent four years on the project, which included developing a way of integrating two huge datasets: one highly detailed set of second-by-second driving behavior based on GPS data, and another broader, more comprehensive set of national data based on travel surveys. Together, the two datasets encompass millions of trips made by drivers all around the country. By working out formulas to integrate the different sets of information and thereby track one-second-resolution drive cycles, the MIT researchers were able to demonstrate that the daily energy requirements of some 90 percent of personal cars on the road in the U.S. could be met by today's EVs, with their current ranges, at an overall cost to their owners -- including both purchase and operating costs -- that would be no greater than that of conventional internal-combustion vehicles."

Comments

Re:Driving yes, but charging?

[whoever57]

How about all the people that live in apartments with first come first serve parking? Or people that park in the street? Or way down the street?

Where I live, lots of people charge at work, often free.

Re:But What About the Other 10% ????

[PopeRatzo]

Do they have an electric vehicle that can carry lumber and sheets of plywood from the hardware store?

If you're going to buy a Ford F-450 for the once every few years you need lumber and sheets of plywood at your house, it would be cheaper just to have it delivered.

Lumber yards do deliver, you know.

Re:Driving yes, but charging?'

[catchblue22]

The Tesla Model S90D has a range of 302 miles. That is an up-market car, but when the Tesla Model 3 comes out, it will have a base range of more than 200 miles, and will certainly have options for increased range with a larger battery. The Model 3 is set to cost $35000 base.

As for batteries, the life of the batteries is actually quite good, if the battery packs have a cooling system. Heat kills lithium ion batteries, so if you keep them cool they last a long time (btw. don't buy a Nissan Leaf...last I heard, they don't have battery cooling). Tesla makes their own batteries, and they are aiming for the batteries to last the life of the car. I have heard of Tesla Model S cars with 250000 km on the original battery.

As for hydrogen, please not this again. Read this or this. TL/DR: From a physics point of view, hydrogen is fundamentally inefficient. It is difficult to compress, store, and transport. It is also made from fossil fuels as a bi-product, which is one reason why the idea doesn't seem to want to die, in spite of having problems that CANNOT ever be solved...the fossil fuel industry is pushing it.

Re:Driving yes, but charging?

[smallfries]

No - the headline is misstating the paper.

According to the abstract at Nature it is 90% of "vehicle days". 90% of vehicles would be a much stronger result. Because it is vehicle-days you cannot assume how they are distributed across the owners of vehicles. There is a post much higher up that calls it right: "electric cars would fail their owners 10% of the time: 36.5 days a year".