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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."
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? Overnight charging is not simple for everyone.
A Nissan Leaf has a list price of less than $30k. Nissan had (probably still has) a $4k incentive program and the Federal Government will give you $7.5k. There may be state incentives also. So your out of pocket cost is only about $20k or less, depending on the state incentives.
Depending on your electricity cost, you may spend a lot less on energy for a Leaf than your Yaris.
And the Leaf isn't the cheapest EV around. A Fiat 500 costs even less.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I would love to switch to an electric vehicle, but the reality is that after moving into the city, I might go weeks at a time without touching my car. Also, I tend to make 8 or 10 long-haul trips a year, which wouldn't be feasible in even the best electric vehicles. Yes, I could rent a vehicle for those trips, but then in my situation, I'm renting the vehicle just to drive 500km, park it for a week, then drive the 500km home.
If I wound up in a family situation where we became a two car family, absolutely, an electric vehicle would make sense for one of them. On the other hand, my car (a 10 year old Jetta TDI) is still extremely reliable, and very cheap to operate, and still one of the more efficient vehicles on the road.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
I routinely rent cars for the weekend for less than $30 per day. For that once-every-4-months trip where an electric wouldn't cut it, this seems like a viable solution.
Wake me when they can fit in 90% of drivers' wallets.
Some pros: .
.
- The lack of engine noise definitely reduced my daily commute stress.
- Way better USABLE acceleration means I can easily change lanes anytime (I am sure a race car driver in a comparably priced ICE standard transmission could beat me, but most people are not race car drivers. An ICE car driven at the same routine acceleration would not last very long, runs the risk of going out of control due to the inconsistent torque, and is embarrassingly loud at pitiful speeds. When we occasionally rent an ICE vehicle, I am blown away by how crazily loud a little punch on the pedal is, resulting in an unsatisfactory driving experience in comparison. Having an EV has killed the joy of driving an ICE for me. .
- Guiltless endless A/C when parked.
- For my routine driving, I never have to worry about "stopping to fill up" because I am doing that every night at home.
- Even at these gas prices, electricity + battery is cheaper.
Some cons:
- The endless times I get to hear "resale value sucks for EVs" because an entire industry is unable to factor the $7,500 tax credit new purchases get. .
- Range. . . though Austin, TX has put in a network of supercharges, so not really the case for me anymore. Range never comes up during my usual driving routine, though.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It sounds like they analyzed in terms of vehicle-days, not in terms of owned vehicles. The press "helpfully" converted this into "90% of vehicles" which is inaccurate. Yes, probably 90% of vehicles driven on any given day could be replaced by current EV ranges. But I'd guess probably 95% of vehicles can't be replaced by current EV ranges. See, the vast majority of cars are driven short distances nearly all days. But a few times a year they're called on to drive 200-500 miles in a day, for things like that drive to Grandma's for Thanksgiving, weekend trip to Vegas, etc.
If you applied the same type of analysis to car safety, you'd find that 99.99% of vehicle-days, seat belts don't protect you. And therefore it'd be ok to get rid of seat belts in cars.
The flip side of this is that vehicle-days is a valid metric if you can convince people to rent an ICE car for their few trips a year which exceed an EV's range. People erroneously think they've paid a lump sum for the car when they bought it, so driving it for that one long trip is "free" while they have to pay "extra" money if they rent a car. I've been trying for years to convince people that the cost of a car (as well as most other things) is a rate, not an amount. The cost of fuel, maintenance, and depreciation to operate a car is usually in the ballpark of 40-50 cents/mile (insurance drops out since it's mostly based on time).
So driving 500 miles (round trip) to Grandma's for Thanksgiving actually costs you about $200-$250 of expenses and depreciation. Renting an ICE car for those few long trips is very competitive. And you can use your EV as for the other 95% of days.
Your 98 Ford Escort gets about 20mpg. If you switched to a modern Ford Focus 2016, it would get 30+ mpg.
I don't know about his 98 Escort, but my 93 Escort gets 35-36 mph on the highway and (the much more common scenario) 30 mpg when I'm just driving it a few miles a day from my house to the train station. And over the past decade I've averaged about one big (~ $1000) maintenance bill every couple years.
If you want to use safety as a selling point, you'll have a better argument - but not gas mileage and not overall cost.
#DeleteChrome
Liability insurance is on cars because in some instances the owner can say "It was stolen/borrowed/rented - not my fault."
Most insurance companies offer a discount for more cars than drivers. Shop around.
Nonetheless, legally mandated insurance is a violation of the principle "innocent until proven guilty", and should be ended immefiately.
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You might want to take up classes for reading comprehension. It says that 90% of the cars could be replaced by various EVs that are available today, and it would cover 100% of the driving needs. So 10% of the population would not be met. yet.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There are also externalities to consider with gasoline vs electric cars, less local pollution and lower CO2 emissions. That makes a tax subsidy reasonable since emissions aren't taxed. But also, people that create a market for electric cars now are paving the way for a larger EV market later. So electric car buyers are creating a positive externality as well.
So do you think that you're stating anything that EV owners don't know about or haven't acknowledged? The article states 90%, the EV supporters have generally acknowledged that EVs are not (yet) for everybody.
So you're part of the 10% who aren't ready for EVs. That's fine.
1000km in 13 hours. Let's see. A Tesla model S can have a range of 300 miles. Roughly 500 km. You can get an ~300km of charge in 30 minutes using a supercharger.
So, given that nothing happens instantly, let's say this is moderately in the future and you're looking at a Tesla class vehicle, where the only real difference is that they're now cheaper and superchargers are common.
So, 2 30 minute charges = 600 km, plus 500 km for your morning charge. You'll complete your 1000 km with 100 km to spare.
Figure, oh, 80 km/hour, that's 12.5 hours, plus 1 hour for charging, giving me 13.5 hours for the total trip.
By the way, you are aware that you're supposed to take breaks during the trip, right? Roughly speaking, with the EV you can simply put them with charging - park in the charge spot. 2 sit down meals, which you'd generally want over a 13 hour trip anyways. We're assuming the charge station is close to, if not at, the restaurant. Part of the future thing, and keep in mind that we don't need huge buried or above ground tanks for the EV stations).
Half an hour is enough time for a good meal, but not a relaxed one. Of course, if you hypermile a bit you might be able to get by with only one 1 hour stop(enough for a full charge).
I don't read AC A human right
The oil industry and fossil car industries are desperate that people not realise how convenient it is to have a charger in your garage.
For everyday around town use the home charger is fine. The problem is that it is not really 90% of vehicles that the electric car could replace but a single vehicle 90% of the time (which is still 90% of vehicles on the road at any one time). ~10% of the time we used our car for going on holiday or taking long road trips for other reasons. This, along with the incredibly high price, is what makes an electric car impractical for me. The high price will probably get fixed with time but to go on holiday with the family I need a car with a large range that can be refuelled quickly. While I would love to have an electric car with that capability for around the same price as a petrol driven one that is not something I see happening any time soon.
I get about 33 MPG with my '98, so apparently switching to a modern car would get me worse MPG than I already get? Also, I only drive about 5000 miles a year so it's going to take a while to save much even if there were an MPG advantage.
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It has as much power and speed as I need. Whereas I don't think golf carts can make it onto the freeway, which becomes a problem. I'd be more than happy to consider a little one seater miniature electric car if I could get it for a couple thousand and it'd handle freeway speeds and got at least 60 miles to a charge, but those aren't on sale.
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I grew up in the mid west, where winter temperatures frequently spend weeks in the below zero range - battery efficiency simply doesn't work well enough there... so cross off 1/3 of the country..
WHOA? I live in the mid west currently, and teslas are all over the place. They work just fine in the winter (albeit with slightly less range), but what's going from 320 mile range to 250 mile range when you are only drive ~40 miles?
Hydrogen and electric are the only two vehicle choices that are carbon free. The oil/gas industry does not care which wins, they will supply the energy either way. It is the local governments that care because road infrastructure is largely paid for by fuel taxes. With hydrogen they do not have to change anything because they can tax hydrogen. Everyone going electric will require significant changes to how infrastructure is paid for.
Fuel cells are always a "few years" away, they've been that way for something like three decades now. Mr. Lovins is certainly a charismatic and convincing lecturer. I've seen him speak on YouTube and he's quite the salesman. After seeing other people, just as qualified as Mr. Lovins, counter what he's said I now see just how full of BS he is.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Electric cars won't ever work because I drive 3,000 miles each way to work every day across all the peaks of the Himalayas hauling seven shipping containers filled with concrete. And if an electric car can't do that without me having to stop along the way, it's a useless piece of shit that nobody can ever use for anything. /UsualElectricCarNaysayers
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Let's put it an other way so that 90% doesn't look so good.
They are about 365 days a year. There is 10% time an electric car won't work for you.
So that is being 36.5 days a year (over a full month) of times your electric car will fail you.
And most people will not have the luxury to buy a second car for those extra times.
In short that 90% number is saying that electric car technology and infrastructure isn't quite there yet. But packages in a way to fool people who do not want to dig into numbers.
They still need to work on longer range faster full charging. I would love to see the day where I can choose an electric car... However the technology and infrastructure isn't there yet.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"The power grid is very lightly used at night."
That won't be true once you're charging millions of vehicles overnight. Plus, millions of homes are heated by electricity in the winter. On a cold January night the grid could very easily be overloaded.
Same thing is true during the day in summer. Air conditioning plus millions of vehicles charging at work could stress the grid.
My manual transmission 99 Escort got 33 mpg and did better than my parent's 02 automatic transmission Focus which got 31. Your mpg estimates for a 98 escort is totally bogus. Also the Focus had the same engine as the Escort.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Battery swap stations. Then this all becomes reasonable, and fill actually needs.
New battery technologies, light and robust enough for automotive use, allow recharge of about 80% of capacity in a matter of minutes (presuming you have a charger that powerful).
They're also extremely efficient. (They HAVE to be or the charging rate would melt them into slag.) So they make effective regenerative braking, with most of the energy stored in the battery, practical.
I don't know if the new Tesla plant will be making this. But I expect it will be deployed as an automotive supply within a couple years.
This, along with the logistical problems of "battery swap" solutions (especially in a many-player competitive market), will no doubt kill such schemes before they leave the drawing board.
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