Electric Vehicles (Cars, Planes, and Ships)

I don't know who is arguing against public transport. That sounds like a strawman. Public transport is critical, but it can't solve all transportation needs. We need to adopt a variety of approaches to reduce emissions as rapidly as possible across all of society. That includes EVs, electrified public transport, better lighting, heat pumps, and many other things.

It is true that affordability is one of the major bars to widespread EV penetration, but affordability is a consequence of supply, and right now there aren't enough being made for everybody to have one even if they were extremely cheap. We're still in the early part of the adoption curve.

Plug-in hybrids are an intermediate solution and not a great one. A recent study in Europe (PDF) revealed that real-world fuel consumption is three to five times higher than the WLTP ratings indicate. This is presumably because most people don't optimize the use of their battery and instead mainly use the less-efficient gasoline engine.

PHEVs are, frankly, a bad idea. They occupy the worst of both worlds: they let the automakers stick with their existing, comfortable technology while making a show of addressing fuel economy and collecting government incentives. Meanwhile, a vehicle with two power sources can never be as efficient as a vehicle with only one.

I'm not saying not to get a hybrid if that's what you can afford and it fits your lifestyle. I'm saying they aren't as great as they're made out to be. The idea is to get rid of combustion engines entirely, not half-ass it.

Charging infrastructure is the other major obstacle to EV adoption, and governments know this, hence pushes in many nations to increase access. Tesla, which has the best charging network in the world, is opening it up to all vehicles, which is a big plus. Even in the worst case, you can run a cord from an outlet to get a modest amount of range back overnight.

I have a garage, so my plan is to have an electrician install a dedicated circuit. It's a bit of an extra cost but worth it to get faster home charging. For housing that lacks garages, street plugs are needed. This is a public infrastructure issue, dependent on property developers and local governments.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 15th 2024 at 9:00:51 AM

Any solution proposed would fail if not done intelligently. Even getting EVs widely adopted and utilized would fail if it's not done intelligently. If ICEs were outlawed tomorrow and all we are allowed are EVs, it would be stupid, but no one intelligent would say that is a valid critique on the efficacy of electric vehicles. Our entire car-centric infrastructure could be considered a lesson in the corrupt failings of transportation not being done intelligently. We won't get CC under control unless it's done with systemically intelligent changes. Even your earlier idea of changing all our incandescents could not work if not done intelligently (LED lights were available for about over 50 years, it wouldn't be until the 2010s it was widespread manufactured and as of August 2023, are no longer produced in the US and currently make up 50% of our lighting). We still propose them as solutions because getting it done intelligently is part of our assumptions when proposing them. Corrupt politicians doing stupid things because they're corrupt is not an argument against the solution, unless your proposed solution is majorly corruption-proof on top of actually able to solve the problem.

The issue is that the rhetoric surrounding cars and buses comes off as diminishing how vital public transport is. When we bring up the current challenges and rather modest returns of EVs on top of the continued infrastructure spending to maintain cars as the dominant (and in many places only) form of transportation, and that electric buses and trams would have an equitable or greater impact, we're met with derisions of pie-in-the-sky thinking or jeers of going back to the horse-and-buggy. It's like what we're proposing is either regressive in technological nature, or that we are facing economic or political challenges that electric cars also don't also face, like the type of people who poses the greatest political challenge to buses also don't challenge electric cars as well. Plus all the attention to electric cars, which will only be a middle class up solution, is putting excessive attention on individual electric vehicles, when those of lower class or differing needs who are not serviced by such a solution and are placed in the back-of-the-line for attention.

Edited by HeyMikey on Apr 15th 2024 at 6:03:38 AM

The point of it is that going "Well we shouldn't be focusing switching to electric cars, there still bad for the environment" is a flawed stance, likely driven by the you-tube algorithm because I honestly follow those channels too and know whats being said... the points of evidence being.

Were we? I thought we were saying that although electric cars are obviously better and necessary for the purposes of addressing climate change, we shouldn't just assume that this is the climate impact of cars sorted or that they're actually good for the environment, both directly and indirectly because of all the externalities imposed by lots of people needing cars.

Its a mater of how much control one has over the mater. Individual choices like vehicle purchase, using high effeciency home utilities and the like are easy things to implement that only need the end user to agree to do them, at which case they make the purchase and they are done.

How does some one who wants to make the MTA spend its money on more reasonable options like improving the trains over fucking useless turnstiles actualy do so?

The answer is we cant, there a nominated position that we cant even vote for... which itself is already another step removed.

What Imca is saying is valid. Although we shouldn't dismiss publicly funded solutions out of hand just because they have a tendency to be slow, ineffective, and/or corrupt, we should equally not dismiss market-based solutions just because "capitalism bad".

Where climate change and GHG emissions are concerned, we are very much in a "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" situation. We need a global, multi-sector, all-hands-on-deck approach. If that means keeping cars around as a primary transportation source for most people, so be it.

All other things being equal, if there are going to be cars on the road, they may as well use electricity rather than gasoline.

Heck, ripping up and replacing our existing infrastructure to support mass transit will generate an enormous amount of emissions all by itself.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 15th 2024 at 11:57:39 AM

Unless we're subsidizing every electric car and every charging station so that all every car on the road is electric at everyone's tolerated price point, getting an electric car is no more a personal matter than going by public transport or going by bike for vast swathes of the American public. How many people right now, even if they wanted to get an electric car, could do so? I know I can't and I would really like to, but my living arrangements does not allow for a place to charge. My friend couldn't, even though they used to live in a place with a garage that could have charged it, but they can't afford a 40k, a 30k, or even a 20k car. If everyone did, can our grid handle it? Framing one as the market that people can choose and the other as government requiring political capital to expend does not work to me, because both solutions would need increased, intelligently planned government support to make work. Not everyone and their mothers can get an electric car now, like it's everyone buying a new phone. And you don't need to tear up roads to get a bus fleet going, so claiming that as a knock on public transport compared to EVs is a bit dishonest.

Look back to the meta-analysis I cited. How many things are there that anyone can do or are easier to do than using an electric vehicle? Going more plant-based is a personal option. Doing laundry with cold water is a personal option. Changing your LED bulbs is a personal option. Having one less child is a personal option. Reducing your gasoline influence can be a personal option if you plan all your car trips to have them all be one big trip rather than several small ones. Electric cars for a large portion of us, is a government funded systemic solution as much as any fleet of buses or green power plant or grid update or a rail line. And for all our desires to curb emissions by championing personal matters, I don't see never eating beef championed as one of our solutions for personal habits to fight climate change in the AGW/CC topic (I more often see "can't wait until lab grown meat is a thing so my beef habit is environmentally friendly").

Edited by HeyMikey on Apr 15th 2024 at 11:34:07 AM

A person who has to drive 20 miles to work in their $5,000 jalopy is not going to switch to a bicycle, and if there's no [useful] bus service, that's not an option either.

You are conflating different issues. Cheap EVs will happen, but like any new technology they penetrate the market from the top down. There are no new cars at that hypothetical sub-10K price point either; that's what the used market is for, and as more and more EVs are sold, there will be more of them available used.

This is fundamental economics. It has nothing to do with politics.

I've taken mass transit plenty of times. Subway trains are generally okay, but buses — especially if they aren't on frequent routes — are notoriously shit. The "good" ones operate out of park-and-ride facilities, which you need cars to access anyway. I once spent two hours waiting for a bus at a stop when I needed to get home from community college. That's just not tolerable for most people.

(In case it's not clear, I have always lived in the suburbs.)

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 15th 2024 at 2:43:17 PM

It should also be noted that the US bus experience is far from typical for the developed world. I suspect that the bus service I get in a rural English village where services just got reduced massively is better than most American suburbs and some American cities.

We’d love to get an EV, but right now they haven’t penetrated heavily into the second-hand market here, though the charging infrastructure very much has come to my area. My local supermarket has EV charging, my nearest petrol station has EV chargers that they’ll finish installing any day now, my town centre carpark has EV chargers, etc…

Flip side, I don't think more or less 90% of the residences around here could really accommodate charging an EV. No idea how that's going to work out come... what is it, 2030?

Yeah, I'll fully admit that a big reason why I'm able to use my PHEV in EV mode 90% of the time is because my garage, by pure happenstance, had an outlet that was perfectly placed to conveniently charge my vehicle.

Houses that have outdoor parking, unpowered garages, or just garages with badly placed outlets aren't going to be so lucky.

I have an advantage in that I live in the suburbs and have a garage with power outlets. Of course, as I said earlier I'd prefer to have a wall charger installed for $1000 or so than to plug into a 110V outlet and get maybe 20 miles of range in a night. But I also have a local Supercharger station, so it wouldn't be a crazy problem, just not ideal.

Heck, at the moment I don't commute at all. Believe me, I've wrestled with the economic value of buying a $40K car to drive it 1,000 miles per year. My work status is likely to change this year, and my son is graduating and will need his own car (he's getting my current one), so I will finally be able to justify the purchase.

Plus, I just want a Tesla. Sue me.

...

You wanna hear a story of privilege? Teslas have built-in Google Calendar integration. My family uses iCloud's calendar instead. Woe, the trials I face.

Edit: I would expect, as EV penetration increases, new housing and parking developments to include EV charging (at Level 2) as a built-in amenity. Retrofitting them to existing facilities is the tricky part.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 15th 2024 at 5:19:28 AM

Seeing as most residences aren't going to be replaced within the next ten years, I think that one's a tiny bit more important than "new builds with sufficient space will be able to include charging infrastructure". I mean... that's still pretty heavily reliant on US-style suburbia with garages, or integrated parking.

Apartment buildings need parking. (I don't think I need to cite sources.) Installing EV charging there isn't hard; I've seen it retrofitted to lots of them. It's a matter of planning and money, not technology. Ripping out all that parking to install trains and buses... that's going to be a lot more expensive.

Remember, there are three basic charging options for EVs: Do it at home (accessible to a subset of the population), do it at work/retail (accessible anywhere a parking lot is outfitted with charging), use fast-chargers (available most places and expanding rapidly).

Granted that the market is not as mature as for petroleum-based vehicles (for reasons I hope I don't have to explain), a mature EV charging market will have far more options for the typical vehicle owner than the current IC market.

At some point we will include fleet charging when robotaxis start becoming widespread, but that's a different subject.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 15th 2024 at 6:06:23 AM

And of all the blocks of flats around here, I'm pretty sure the parking is split between some on-street stuff, what's literally nothing more than a cleared area nearby, and maybe... one set of external garages? Which may or may not have power, but I'm going to go with no because A) they're not actually adjoining a residential building, and B) I've seen someone running an extension cord out of a third floor window and over to one to power tools.

So, electrifying the parking there is rather unlikely. And that's what a lot of parking solutions are like in the UK, up and down the density scale.

Again, you don't have to charge at home. A subset of owners will primarily use fast-charging stations, in much the same way that they would use gas stations today. This would also be for long trips and people who drive for a living.

Let's say we do a one-to-one substitution: gas pumps for EV fast-chargers. The ability to charge at home/work/school/retail only increases accessibility at that point. A mature EV market will provide more options for drivers, not less.

Unlike renovating parking garages, there are direct economic incentives to providing fast-charging, so there's no need to worry about planning committees "getting around to it".

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 15th 2024 at 6:10:23 AM

And this subset is a very sizeable chunk of the entire population of the UK, which is just what I'm trying to emphasise here. That's definitely going to be a scale problem, because it removes a lot of the passive charging.

Again, you go to the gas pump today if you need fuel. There's no fundamental difference, save that charging takes a bit longer (and is cheaper). You're fussing over a non-issue.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 15th 2024 at 6:13:43 AM

I honestly almost never charge my car at home... I have never saw the point just like I never bothered filling up my petrol powered motorcycle at home when I had that.

My work has a charger, and several of the stores I go to have a charger.... I just plug in the car when I go to one of those.... the only exception I had was during quarantine when that was not an option.

As a bonus, the work charger is free as considered an employee benefit, and is actually in a decent place in the garage.

Edited by Imca on Apr 15th 2024 at 7:30:34 PM

Afraid not chief, electric lighting alone costs 20% of our entire power consumption as a species

lmca, that’s 20% of electricity consumption. Electricity is 20% of all global energy use. That means that electric lighting (much of which is not residential) makes up 4% of all global energy use. 4% is not more than all cars and trucks in the world.

Edited by Galadriel on Apr 15th 2024 at 3:45:21 AM

There is no way that electrical is only 20% of global power use when its used to run almost the entirety of the residential sector, almost the entirety of the commercial sector, and a good chunk of the industrial sector with every thing from arc furnaces to induction welding.

That just doesn't check out.

It also just doesn't work out when exajoule per exajoule we consume more coal then oil.... And last I checked nothing in the transportation sector uses coal any more....

So what industrial process would be using it then?

Edited by Imca on Apr 15th 2024 at 7:59:01 PM

Fuel usesue alone is around triple the energy usage of power generation. The breakdown Wikipedia has says 78% of global energy useage is fuel and 22% is electricity.

I believe that’s both transport fuel and heating fuel. Even in a country like the U.K. only 9% of households use electric heating, 74% are gas heated, 3% oil and 1% unheated.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 15th 2024 at 12:14:45 PM

Heating - including heat for manufacturing. It looks like the IEA shows at least two-thirds of coal being used in manufacturing. (Residential heating is a small share.) From what I’ve heard, that’s one of the thornier problems of decarbonization: nothing aside from fossil fuels gets you enough heat for steel production.

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/share-of-coal-final-consumption-by-sector-2019

Edited by Galadriel on Apr 15th 2024 at 4:12:59 AM

Correct, because of the amount of energy that gets wasted when you use any kind of fuels to make electricity, over half is lost in generation and transmission.

University of Michigan puts transportation specificly, which would include more then just cars but, ships and planes as well at 27% of the US's enegy consumption total

Electric Lighting accounts for 44% of commercial usage, and 20% of industrial usage of energy.... as well as 9% of home usage added together that is 15.7% of energy usage in lighting.

this goverment website that I cant really tell which agency it is from, but it has the government address, puts personal transportation at 54.2% of the transportation sector....... it also backs up the 27% figure, though says its 28% there dataset is 1 year earlier though, and even beyond that there is rounding differences... but there close enough to say that its roughly the same.

0.542 * 28 = 15.2 which is < 15.7.

Even if you want to argue rounding, or minor details on that, for instance as a disclaimer while trying to find data on industrial energy consumption which is fairly obtuse as far as data goes, I saw numbers as low as 10% on industrial lighting usage, which would put automotive at a 3% higher consumption... the fact remains that they are incredibly comparable numbers.... and one of them is much easier to reduce then the other.

Arc Furnaces do work, but they use a lot of power to do so.....

Anecdotal but a friend I know who did book keeping for the natural gas power-plantin Bremen Germany said that the local steel mill used about 1/3rd of his plants output...

Edited by Imca on Apr 15th 2024 at 8:33:53 PM

I know there are concerns about using an industry study from one of the players, but Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 discusses industrial heating and concludes that heat pumps and resistance heating can cover low- to moderate-temperature uses while hydrogen can cover high-temperature ones. That hydrogen would be synthesized via electrolysis.

In the end, the only significant applications that can't be adequately addressed by electrification (without some new tech breakthrough) are long-haul aircraft, rockets, and high-temperature industrial processes. All of those can use synthetic fuels, which are at least carbon-neutral.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 16th 2024 at 10:40:42 AM

Tesla has had to recall (proper physical return recall) nearly 4,000 Cybertruck after it was discovered that the accelerator can become trapped in the trim of the vehicle if pushed particularly hard. Breaks should still work if the accelerator is stuck but that’s obviously in no way a safe vehicle. [1]

Edited by Silasw on Apr 19th 2024 at 8:54:45 PM