Electric Cars - The Pros And Cons

[jwhouk]

It all started with this, over in the Car Advice thread:

If I would have had a spare $125k laying around a few years ago, a Tesla Roadster would have been MINE.

Little did I know what a comment about a car I had dreamed of owning would result in.

Okay, we've got this one going - let's discuss.

[Fairportfan]

Umm... yea. You just cited a user edited page (i.e. Wikipedia). Creditability = 0. Particularly when you can still order them on the Tesla website.

Perhaps, had you read that Wikipedia segment, rather than merely reflexively disdaining it, you would have noticed the statements

The next generation is expected to be introduced in 2014 and will not be based on the Lotus gliders but instead on a shortened version of the architecture developed for the Tesla Model S.[19] Featuring new options and enhanced components, the 2012 Tesla Roadster is being sold in limited numbers only in Europe, Asia and Australia.

And had you actually, like, i dunno, looked at the Tesla website's "Roadster" page:



you might have noticed that the Roadster is



Going to the "Buy" page, i see the following lineup of cars:



Clicking on the little link at the bottom, i find that the Roadster is also not offered in Canada, but is in Great Britain.

This tends to support the accuracy of the Wikipedia article.

Quoting a Reuters business article from 2010:

Lotus deal to bridge Tesla Roadster production gap
Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:30pm EDT

Electric carmaker Tesla Motors has extended its agreement with British automaker Lotus to help bridge a gap in the production and sales of its only car, the Roadster.

Tesla, which registered for an initial public offering worth $100 million in January, is facing a year or more of a shutdown of production of the sports car after 2011, due to tooling changes at an unnamed supplier.

Lotus provides the Silicon Valley-based automaker with "gliders," or partially assembled vehicles without the electric powertrain, and the new agreement will help keep Roadsters in Tesla showrooms for longer than it had previously planned.

The earlier deal with Lotus, for 1,700 gliders, was set to expire in March 2011. With the extension, Lotus will provide at least 2,400 of the partially assembled vehicles.

The agreement has been extended until December 2011, which will help it fulfill orders placed between 2011 and 2012, Tesla said in an amended Securities and Exchange Commission filing posted on Monday.

A next-generation Roadster is not expected until at least a year after the launch of its lower-priced Model S sedan, which is due to be in production in 2012, Tesla has said.

And, about the new Roadster (Tesla is trying very hard to finesse the airbag issue), i find the following November 2011 piece at Edmunds Auto Observer:

Despite earlier reports that Tesla Motors would stop selling its electric Roadster in the United States around the end September, the company still has “a couple dozen” of the $109,000 two-seat EVs available for U.S. sales and expects to launch a replacement sports car sometime in 2014. Tesla had said in a regulatory filing in June that it was discontinuing U.S. sales of the Roadster this year to focus its energies on production of the upcoming Tesla Model S all-electric sedan. The company said at the time that Roadster sales would continue in Europe and Asia until supplies run out sometime in 2012. Tesla had also noted that production of European and Asian versions of the iconic electric sports car, which is based on a heavily modified Lotus Elise platform, would continue under contract with Lotus Group until a total of 2,500 had been built.

The promise of a replacement for the discontinued Roadster is not new – Tesla chief Elon Musk said last year that the company would launch a new sports car as soon as 2013, following the mid-2012 introduction of its $57,400 (base) Model S. The battery-electric sedan is aimed at competing in the luxury-performance segment against cars like the BMW 5 Series. He reiterated in a recent interview with Britain’s AutoCar magazine that that a new sports car is coming but said the launch won’t be until 2014. The new car is to be based on a version of the Tesla-developed all-aluminum Model S platform. Musk also repeated Tesla’s plans to build a convertible version of the Model S and to launch a third line of Tesla EVs, the ‘X” cars, that will be positioned in the upscale compact segment.

Gotta say, stopping selling cars in the US to concentrate on designing a new car, while continuing production until your contract with a Major Supplier,which also, incidentally, builds your cars at its plant, runs out and selling them in countries that (coincidentally) don't have the same safety rules. doesn't really seem to me to make a lot of sense.

So the Wikipedia article is (as is usual for well-referenced articles on non-controversial subjects - which are subject to malicious editing) essentially correct.

[bmonk]

One of the disadvantages of a pure electric car--or any car charged off the grid--is that it mostly just moves the pollution from here to there. Unless we can get green electricity, the power taken from the grid is not free. In fact, it reduces efficiency even further than, say, a hybrid, which has only one transition between power forms, and no transmission losses.

When they claim "zero emissions" for a vehicle, I just laugh--unless they are charging it off their personal wind turbine.

[Dave11]

One of the disadvantages of a pure electric car--or any car charged off the grid--is that it mostly just moves the pollution from here to there. Unless we can get green electricity, the power taken from the grid is not free. In fact, it reduces efficiency even further than, say, a hybrid, which has only one transition between power forms, and no transmission losses.

When they claim "zero emissions" for a vehicle, I just laugh--unless they are charging it off their personal wind turbine.

I'm not a power-grid person, so I may be wrong (and if so, please let me know and I'll welcome the new knowledge), but I was under the impression that the fuel being burned to produce power in a power plant is not dependent on the load at any particular moment in time - essentially that the fuel being used for electricity generation is going to be used whether the power is or is not used. That's the rationale I've seen behind going from paper towels to electric hand dryers (which always makes me annoyed, but that's a different soapbox). If that's the case, then electric cars do reduce the user's carbon footprint.

[Fairportfan]

One of the disadvantages of a pure electric car--or any car charged off the grid--is that it mostly just moves the pollution from here to there. Unless we can get green electricity, the power taken from the grid is not free. In fact, it reduces efficiency even further than, say, a hybrid, which has only one transition between power forms, and no transmission losses.

When they claim "zero emissions" for a vehicle, I just laugh--unless they are charging it off their personal wind turbine.

I'm not a power-grid person, so I may be wrong (and if so, please let me know and I'll welcome the new knowledge), but I was under the impression that the fuel being burned to produce power in a power plant is not dependent on the load at any particular moment in time - essentially that the fuel being used for electricity generation is going to be used whether the power is or is not used. That's the rationale I've seen behind going from paper towels to electric hand dryers (which always makes me annoyed, but that's a different soapbox). If that's the case, then electric cars do reduce the user's carbon footprint.

I might be wrong, but i find it unlikely that this could be true.

The load being fed must impact the amount of fuel being used, since the amount of energy taken from the turbines will vary with load, and the amount of steam needed to keep those turbines spinning under heavy load will vary with that.

I don't (really) see how it could be any other way.

[Dave]

One of the disadvantages of a pure electric car--or any car charged off the grid--is that it mostly just moves the pollution from here to there. Unless we can get green electricity, the power taken from the grid is not free. In fact, it reduces efficiency even further than, say, a hybrid, which has only one transition between power forms, and no transmission losses.

When they claim "zero emissions" for a vehicle, I just laugh--unless they are charging it off their personal wind turbine.

I'm not a power-grid person, so I may be wrong (and if so, please let me know and I'll welcome the new knowledge), but I was under the impression that the fuel being burned to produce power in a power plant is not dependent on the load at any particular moment in time - essentially that the fuel being used for electricity generation is going to be used whether the power is or is not used. That's the rationale I've seen behind going from paper towels to electric hand dryers (which always makes me annoyed, but that's a different soapbox). If that's the case, then electric cars do reduce the user's carbon footprint.

I believe your understanding is incorrect.

Power plants do have to be developed to meet the peak power demand. However, when the load is less than peak, most power generation systems can and do start shutting down individual generators (thus saving fuel) or routing the power to storage systems (e.g. pumped hydroelectric) so that it can be drawn upon during times of higher peak load.

In a mixed-supply system (e.g. a mix of nuclear, coal, gas, hydroelectric, solar) there are going to be some generation systems which "prefer" to run at a relatively constant generation rate... e.g. hydroelectric and nuclear. There are others which are very supply-variable (e.g. wind, solar). And, there are those which can be switched on and off relatively quickly (e.g. gas-fired turbines and boilers, fuel cells, etc.). These latter tend to be used to help handle the higher peak loads, while other systems (e.g. nuclear) provide a more steady flow of power. If the load drops low enough (e.g. at night) that all of the "peak generation" systems are shut down, and there's still extra power available, then it may be routed to storage (hydro-pump), or sold to industries that use a lot of juice and can operate at off-peak times (e.g. aluminum refining).

In some cases, the cost of producing "peak" power is significantly higher than the cost of producing "steady" power... the fuel may be more expensive, and the overhead cost of running the peak-power plants has to be amortized across a relatively small number of operating hours per year.

Generating electric power to charge electric cars has both advantages and disadvantages, energy-wise, compared to the use of gasoline. There's definitely quite a bit of energy lost in the electric transmission process (heating of the wires and transformers), in the inverter/charger systems, and in the car battery, and this reduces the efficiency of the process. On the other hand, it's possible to generate the electricity using energy sources other than (mostly imported) oil... nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas (of which there's something of a glut at the moment), coal (burned as-is or gassified), etc. And, it's possible that the centralized power generation may in some cases create less pollution, mile-for-mile, than occurs as a result of petroleum distillation and burning as gasoline.

[shadowinthelight]

In fact, it reduces efficiency even further than, say, a hybrid, which has only one transition between power forms, and no transmission losses.

By one transition point, I assume you mean the engine burning of fuel to produce the kinetic energy to propel the car. If you are trying to calculate total loss then this is wrong. (I don't know the particulars of natural gas so let's assume the much more common gasoline/deisel) Fuel has to be trucked to the station by a vehicle which is surely another combustion engine. Before that, energy has to be spent to refine that fuel. And before that, energy is used getting the petroleum from the ground. This makes at least four points of energy loss in the chain with any vehicle that burns fuel.

[bmonk]

In fact, it reduces efficiency even further than, say, a hybrid, which has only one transition between power forms, and no transmission losses.

By one transition point, I assume you mean the engine burning of fuel to produce the kinetic energy to propel the car. If you are trying to calculate total loss then this is wrong. (I don't know the particulars of natural gas so let's assume the much more common gasoline/deisel) Fuel has to be trucked to the station by a vehicle which is surely another combustion engine. Before that, energy has to be spent to refine that fuel. And before that, energy is used getting the petroleum from the ground. This makes at least four points of energy loss in the chain with any vehicle that burns fuel.

True--like the people I'm critiquing, I forgot about those. It's easy to do.

But getting the coal to the power plant, although highly efficient (trains mostly) is not perfect either. Other forms--solar, wind, nuclear--not so much.

[jwhouk]

The difference between Electric and Gasoline powered cars is at the endpoint. Where the production of the fuel to make the vehicles operate are different - gas has drilling, refining, and shipping; whereas electric has mining/burning or mining/fission as primary production means - the actual operation of the vehicles are drastically different. Even the most environmentally friendly gas-powered car still gives off CO2 emissions, where a pure-electric gives off none.

As was pointed out by me, in daily use by most Americans the range of an electric car is acceptable. Just like you plug in your cell phone or iPhone every night when you get home, so too with your electric when you're at home (or even at work). It'd actually be possible, with the right circumstances, to have your car always fully charged every time you get in to go to or from work.

The Roadster was admitted by Musk and company as being a proof-of-concept vehicle. The thing is, I've seen a lot of reports by Roadster owners that the "fun car" that they bought for ridiculous money actually turned out to be their everyday car - because it worked better that way.

In my case, give me an electric vehicle that has enough storage space where I can put groceries and/or humans in the back, and with enough clearance (and HEAT!) where I won't have an issue with the lovely winters up here, and didn't cost so much that I couldn't justify the initial purchase price, and I'd snap it up.

It's that last thing, of course, that is the drawback with electrics - the startup costs. People see "$75k for a sedan? Really?" and blanch at the cost.

[NOTDilbert]

One of the advantages of moving electrical generation from the vehicle to the grid is that polution control works better scaling up to a large stationary facility, rather than scaling down to a portable power generator. Auto engines could be almost as clean as a fossil fuel plant....depending on the choice of fuel burned at the plant/in the vehicle. Also, the portable polution scrubber hooked to the car might require its own permanently hitched trailer.

I think the new electrics are a good start. But, the IC engine has had a century of inovation behind it - we may not see equivalent electrics 'til we've studied on it for an equivalent time (in man-hours).

I think about - another decade, maybe fifteen years.

[Fairportfan]

In fact, it reduces efficiency even further than, say, a hybrid, which has only one transition between power forms, and no transmission losses.

By one transition point, I assume you mean the engine burning of fuel to produce the kinetic energy to propel the car. If you are trying to calculate total loss then this is wrong. (I don't know the particulars of natural gas so let's assume the much more common gasoline/deisel) Fuel has to be trucked to the station by a vehicle which is surely another combustion engine. Before that, energy has to be spent to refine that fuel. And before that, energy is used getting the petroleum from the ground. This makes at least four points of energy loss in the chain with any vehicle that burns fuel.

Nope.

All of those In one form or another) also apply to fossil fuel power plants.

And there are more transitions than that in a plug-in electric or hybrid: the electricity is stepped up and down several times in the course of transmission. Each of those is less than 100% efficient.

Then it has to be converted to DC and at an appropriate voltage: less that 100% efficient.

Then the battery has to be charged: less than 100% efficient

Then the energy has to be pulled back out of the battery: less than 100%

The energy has to be converted to mechanical power in the motor: Less than 100%

I strongly suspect that the multiple conversions in the supply system mean that the power plant produces more pollution than the gasoline engine would to drive that car.

Fairly certainly no less.

Just somewhere all the "green"types" can't see it while they proudly drive their "zero emissions" cars.

Somewhere that would, in fact, be less polluted than this makes it.

[shadowinthelight]

That's a lot of assumptions. Here's a calculation with numbers from this page.

Here is how the efficiency calculation plays out (thanks to Grose). Start with a natural gas power plant running at 60 percent efficiency. Figure that 7 percent of the power gets lost in transmission. So the power coming to a residential outlet is about 55% efficient.

Now figure that 95 percent of the electricity makes it into the lithium battery – overall efficiency drops to 53 percent.

The final piece of the calculation is the car’s electric motor, which runs 90 percent efficient. The overall efficiency of an electric car is therefore 48 percent.

The efficiency of an automobile running on gasoline is 25 percent. A significant difference!

Working in the favor of electric cars is an energy efficient engine

The efficiency of an electric car drops to 32 percent if it relies on energy coming from a less efficient coal-fired plant (only 40 percent efficient).

And it seems they are being generous. Other sources I've read say the average gasoline car is only 20% efficient.

[Fairportfan]

And it seems they are being generous. Other sources I've read say the average gasoline car is only 20% efficient.

Perhaps.

But the pollution produced by a coal-fired plant is often nastier than that produced by a modern gasoline engine (more heavy metals in the fly ash), and have you ever read what they do to groundwater?

And coal plants are a lot more common than natural gas plants.

And the efficiency quoted for an IC engine is average efficiency - bearing in mind that an IC engine in a car sitting at idle is running at zero efficiency.

The maximum theoretical efficiency of an IC engine pushes up near 40%.

So include an auto-start system that stops the engine when you may be sitting idling for extended periods and starts it automatically when you're ready to move out. It's been done, and it works.

You're at the point where the overall efficiency of the system is not significantly different.

But the problem is that the EV concentrates ALL the pollution in one place - and it's a nastier type of pollution.

Heavy metals in fly ash.

Spoil ponds that contain literally deadly concentrations of heavy metals that leach into groundwater.

And the coal pile outside the plant emits more radiation than a nuclear power plant.

But people don't trust it.

[Jabberwonky]

And the coal pile outside the plant emits more radiation than a nuclear power plant.

But it's a genteel Victorian radiation.

[shadowinthelight]

I totally agree that the initial use of fossil fuels is still a problem. But it is a problem with both alternatives, not just electric. That is why we need to do more to develop alternative and renewable energy sources. Converting wastes into biodiesel is one. More can be done with wind but it has obvious limits. Nuclear has very low pollution up front but the waste storage is a major problem and so is the scarcity and control of nuclear fuel materials. Solar majorly sucks as an alternative right now due to low efficiency but as technology improves there is potential for great gains.

[jwhouk]

We have a really nice biomass plant under construction here in Central WI. After decades of having the smell of paper mills permeating the air up here, the smell of degrading, rotting logs creating fuel to power generators won't even make anyone flinch. Oh, and we also have this thing running through Central Wisconsin - it's called, nicely enough, the "Wisconsin River". Dammed up enough to produce hydro power, even if that's like about 10-15% of the overall power output for WPS and associated power companies up here.

[Julie]

As was pointed out by me, in daily use by most Americans the range of an electric car is acceptable. Just like you plug in your cell phone or iPhone every night when you get home, so too with your electric when you're at home (or even at work). It'd actually be possible, with the right circumstances, to have your car always fully charged every time you get in to go to or from work.

I see a problem for people living in apartments like I do (for now). There's not exactly an easy way to plug-in your car when you don't even have a regular parking space every evening. Maybe electric could be a viable solution for people with garages...or forward thinking complexes that have electric car plug-in stations (like my grocery store has).

One of the advantages of moving electrical generation from the vehicle to the grid is that polution control works better scaling up to a large stationary facility, rather than scaling down to a portable power generator. Auto engines could be almost as clean as a fossil fuel plant....depending on the choice of fuel burned at the plant/in the vehicle. Also, the portable polution scrubber hooked to the car might require its own permanently hitched trailer.

I think the new electrics are a good start. But, the IC engine has had a century of inovation behind it - we may not see equivalent electrics 'til we've studied on it for an equivalent time (in man-hours).

I think about - another decade, maybe fifteen years.

My thoughts exactly!

[Atomic]

It's fun watching all the efficiency debates, but I suggest that it's ultimately irrelevant. The market for moral purists and first adopters is very, very thin. The question, and probably the only question, is utility.

The automobile gave people freedom to move away from the bus routes, trains stations, subway stops, and ferry docks. And, it gave people time - more so than horses, bicycles, and walking. The liberty to go when and where you want to is why private, motorized transportation is so popular!

Given that sole focus, the question now hinges on the "When" issue. I can put 300 miles back in the tank of a liquid fueled vehicle in less than 5 minutes, credit card swipe included. Electric cars need a full night. Will there be a motel at the end of my driving day, where I want it, and before I run out of juice? And even if I refill the tank of my hybrid to go the extra 250 miles after the battery quits at 50, is it then worth the extra expense of having/maintaining a more specialized vehicle for my regular needs when I expect to take a 200 mile trip to the shore, visit the relatives, and go sight-seeing several times a year? And haul my trailer?

Energy balance and carbon footprint aside, it all hinges on utility: the cost-benefit ratio for what I want to do and when I want to do it. That will drive the decision on "How".

[Julie]

It's fun watching all the efficiency debates, but I suggest that it's ultimately irrelevant. The market for moral purists and first adopters is very, very thin. The question, and probably the only question, is utility.

The automobile gave people freedom to move away from the bus routes, trains stations, subway stops, and ferry docks. And, it gave people time - more so than horses, bicycles, and walking. The liberty to go when and where you want to is why private, motorized transportation is so popular!

Given that sole focus, the question now hinges on the "When" issue. I can put 300 miles back in the tank of a liquid fueled vehicle in less than 5 minutes, credit card swipe included. Electric cars need a full night. Will there be a motel at the end of my driving day, where I want it, and before I run out of juice? And even if I refill the tank of my hybrid to go the extra 250 miles after the battery quits at 50, is it then worth the extra expense of having/maintaining a more specialized vehicle for my regular needs when I expect to take a 200 mile trip to the shore, visit the relatives, and go sight-seeing several times a year? And haul my trailer?

Energy balance and carbon footprint aside, it all hinges on utility: the cost-benefit ratio for what I want to do and when I want to do it. That will drive the decision on "How".

That's actually a very good point...and something I've discussed with my husband when we noticed that some stores and other companies were making an effort to provide plug-in stations to electric cars. If we ever did get an electric car, we both agreed we'd still have one of our two vehicles be a fuel-efficient IC car so we could go on road-trips without having to worry about the "How far can I go before I have to stop and plug-in for the night?" situation. We may look into a hybrid at some point to see if we can have a kind of "best of both worlds," but that's entirely because of the growing expense of putting gas in our tanks. With the cost of fuel/gallon still high (why is it that no one seems angry about this anymore?), it's getting ridiculously expensive to fill up my little Mazda...and I live in Dallas (where gas prices are far from the highest in the nation), use regular unleaded, and get 30 miles/gallon during my regular city driving. I hate to think how expensive it is for people who have to use premium on a larger tank with bad gas mileage.

[Atomic]

<snip> With the cost of fuel/gallon still high (why is it that no one seems angry about this anymore?), it's getting ridiculously expensive to fill up my little Mazda...and I live in Dallas (where gas prices are far from the highest in the nation), use regular unleaded, and get 30 miles/gallon during my regular city driving. I hate to think how expensive it is for people who have to use premium on a larger tank with bad gas mileage.

The wrong party is in office for the media to care.