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China, Europe Drive Shift To Electric Cars as US Lags (reuters.com)
Electric cars will pick up critical momentum in 2017, many in the auto industry believe - just not in North America. Tighter emissions rules in China and Europe leave global carmakers and some consumers with little choice but to embrace plug-in vehicles, fuelling an investment surge, said industry executives gathered in Detroit this past week for the city's annual auto show. From a report: "Car electrification is an irreversible trend," said Jacques Aschenbroich, chief executive of auto supplier Valeo, which has expanded sales by 50 percent in five years with a focus on electric, hybrid, connected and self-driving cars. In Europe, green cars benefit increasingly from subsidies, tax breaks and other perks, while combustion engines face mounting penalties including driving and parking restrictions. China, struggling with catastrophic pollution levels in major cities, is aggressively pushing plug-in vehicles. Its carrot-and-stick approach combines tens of billions in investment and research funding with subsidies, and regulations designed to discourage driving fossil-fueled cars in big cities. The road ahead for electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States, however, could have more hairpin curves.
Have you actually calculated the amount of CO2 released per distance traveled for a car powered by gasoline, versus one powered by electricity from a coal plant? If so, I'd be genuinely interested in comparing notes. If not, please sit down and do a quick calculation before claiming electric cars "tend to be far more polluting."
Here's my (admittedly rough) calculation:
Gasoline:
Approximately 9.5 L/100km (average for 2015 model year)
times 2.31 kg CO2 emitted per L gasoline burned
= 21.9 kg CO2 per 100 km traveled
Electric:
17.9 kWh/100km (for the 70 kWh Tesla Model S)
divided by 80% wall charger efficiency (Tesla claims 95%, some users report 80%)
times 0.527 kg CO2 per kWh (EPA average, includes line losses)
= 11.8 kg CO2 per 100 km traveled
Mind you, we're unfairly penalizing the electric car here because we're counting transmission losses over the power grid, whereas we're only counting the emissions from the gasoline already in the tank. A fairer comparison would take into account the carbon involved with gasoline distribution, but that goes beyond something I can easily estimate.
I'll admit I'm not factoring in the environmental impact of battery manufacturing. (I suspect it isn't as bad as the anti-EV crowd claim, since lithium isn't a heavy metal.) Perhaps someone more informed than me can speak to the overall impact of manufacturing an electric versus gasoline car... I'd be interested in reading their insights.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
The existence of people who have that driving pattern was never a question. The issue is whether the percentage of people who rarely if ever commute beyond their own metropolitan areas is great enough that a shift to the majority of the population driving electric cars is economically and practically feasible. Pointing out that counterexamples exist to a trend in an attempt to question the existence or magnitude of the trend is fallacious and dishonest.