Tuesday I asked a frequent commenter and staunch electric vehicle advocate whether he ever questioned the ethics of building an EV that can save one owner 400 gallons of gas per year while using enough batteries to build ten Prius-class hybrids that could save their owners a combined total of 1,600 gallons of gas per year. I then spent an hour in stunned silence as the critical importance of that question crystallized in my mind. I didn’t get a responsive answer from the commenter, but I did get one of those rare moments of clarity when everything suddenly falls into place.
For years the mainstream media, scientists, elected officials and promoters have written and spoken ad nauseum about how a new generation of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, will liberate America from the tyranny of imported oil. The problem is the promises are based on flawed assumptions and utterly false. At their best, PHEVs and EVs are all sizzle and no steak when it comes to national energy independence. At their worst, they are deep cover saboteurs that will undermine America’s drive for energy independence while stridently claiming to be part of the solution.
On par with asking if replacing gas guzzlers with new vehicles is a net positive if you consider the resources required to build that new car.
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“The whole switch from petroleum to electric needs to be planned out and then executed with long term dedication in mind.” /// Don’t you believe in the free market?
What kind of plan do you contemplate?
Here’s a plan==make as many EV as you can to provide the motivation for the infrastructure to follow.
Did computers need a plan?
What has ever been planned???
Doens’t even “sound good” much less withstand any scrutiny.
#30 My and others shared annoyance is that the enviro-nuts WAY oversimplify the situation and demand action NOW with no TRUE thought to the future. The whole switch from petroleum to electric needs to be planned out and then executed with long term dedication in mind. There is no solution out there at the moment that can simply be “turned on” and then all the “bad” gas powered cars go away.
First, your “enviro-nut” reference about them oversimplifying is cute but false. There whole notion of an all electric society and dedication is all about the future. Instead of despising, you should appreciate them for doing something 99.999% of the rest of fat ass Americans don’t do.
Second, nobody is suggesting throwing a magic switch and making fossil fuel burning go away.
This stupid shit comment is exactly the rhetoric thrown in to avoid advancing the agenda of a cleaner energy society with less dependence on foreign sources.
Shame on you for participating in this important discussion with such a diatribe of foolish innuendos.
Too late! Obama has already decided that electric is the way to go, so no one wants to see your stupid facts.
Electric is green is the approved message, and no dumb guy who opposed one of Dear Leader’s picks (Kundra) is going to have any influence.
Dear Leader knows what’s best, so get in line or else!
Changing from 1 form of FUEL to another isnt the best solution.
And the NEWS that I can fill my car up with $1 worth of electrical power and go ANYWHERE is wrong.
On a SIDE note. you should read the Regulations and requirements to put up ANY electrical facility. Designed and written by the Electric corps. Do remember the ELECTRIC CORPS DIDNT build the power plants they only DISTRIBUTE the power created and sell it to OTHERS corps.
Power plants are NOT known for their efficiency. Many are using tech from 60-100 years old. Coal fired, Oil burning, Aluminum processing plants, as well as the DAMS and solar and wind plants, all do something Interesting to the environment they are in.
One person told me that Solar take up to much space to be effective. And I asked him how much land was disturbed when a dam was install from the water BEHIND the dam. How many rivers and how much Farm land, how many FISH were Displaced(?) when the was put into operation. Ruined fishing stocks and wild life feeding areas. Hundreds of miles and more.
Wind energy, needs to be fixed. Birds and Bats are finding an End to their lives because of the wind mills. Solar is interesting, but it also could have some Strange END results. IF’ used in the Condensed fashion I have seen Setup, I think is NOT a good thing. The major draw back to them is Mirrors/SAND/motors dont really do good with each other.
I REALLY think there are other alternatives, THAT we as NON-scientists, havnt even looked at or RE-considered.
Here’s my fart in the wind contribution (again):
It should be mandatory that all new vehicles (regardless of mode of propulsion) come with a prominent instant MPG display. I’ve had a couple of cars with this feature, and although they’re not 100% accurate, they are a HUGE incentive to conserve fuel. I can imagine several reasons why the manufacturers would be reluctant to do it, but we shouldn’t give them a choice.
Pfffffffft.
The D-to-D raised a lot of awareness, and that’s good. The only flaw was the lifespan of hybrids.
Just because the NIMH battery, costing only 2k$ to replace (in 2009), last only 10 years, doesn’t mean the entire hybrid car is scrap metal after 10 years.
If anything, the upkeep on hybrids cost less money, and the D-to-D should have compared a GM Grand AM to a Prius, and the Hummer to the Ford Escape Hybrid. As a more fair comparison.
IMHO the best system is a series Hybrid like the Volt, but GM botched the job by concentrating too much on the HV battery pack and less on the gas motor assist.
The gas motor should have been a turbine that can run at 95% efficiency and provides enough torque & RPM to power a generator to provide sufficient AMPs.
The added bonus – the most cool sounding car on the planet – like 1970’s sci-fi vehicules.
Instead GM is relying on dirt cheap V4 that is big & heavy.
For the Volt I would have halved the battery pack, and thus the weight, and used a rotary or turbine gas powered generator that’s at least 80% efficient.
For heating and cooling, an electric heat pump instead of turning on the gas motor and using waste heat.
Yea, I totally agree. Lets not do a single thing about conservation or saving. Screw the R&D the would have come out of it as well. We certainly don’t want any improvements or innovation from this sector. I mean, seriously look and wind and solar. There has been so little interest and money invested that they’re not going anywhere. Scrap those too while we’re at it.
Oh, we might as well scrap medicine and technology too because they ALL do have waste going into the end product. Name a product? And since most of you seem to be into this, scrap that TV, that microwave, that chair, the photo frame of your lovely moronic family, and so forth and just DO NOTHING.
This guy’s math makes no sense to me. Really, I want to understand it, but I don’t can’t figure what he means by having the prius save like 5000 gallons of a gas a year and the leaf only save 800. Huh?
Kudos to the guy for putting his disclaimer about being an exec for a lead acid battery company, but he should have put it at the beginning. I mean if a business channel were to interview him, they wouldn’t talk to him for five minutes and THEN point out he’s an exec at a lead battery company, they’d state it up front to we could evaluate what he had to say accordingly as he was saying it…
I can’t speak for the east coast, but up here in the northwest, we get like 90 percent of our energy from the turbines on the dams of the Columbia River. So all of those arguments about “coal powered cars” versus “gas powered cars” should probably take that into consideration a bit. Also, it seems to me as we develop better solar solutions and wind solutions (and figure out ways to store the energy for use at night, etc), then the whole “coal powered car” paradigm seems to lessen.
And you Obama haters. My God. Please just give it a frickin rest. please.
#35 Dumbass said: “You know, coal, oil, nuclear. There’s not enough hydroelectric to be able to cover the demand and the most hilarious for me is eolic, which is now under the gun from the same people that backed it: enviroloonatics.
Why do you DIG DIG DIG tunnel vision A-holes continue to suggest that the use of clean energy is an all or nothing proposition?
#37 good point, too many people get 20MPG with cars capable of doing 30MPG, because they drive by over-compensation.
Like rushing to a red light…basically driving too fast and braking too often, instead of leaving a distance on the highway.
Heavy foot = lousy MPG. Instant MPG notification would help drivers.
You can buy a ScanGage II and use it with any modern fuel-injection car, and it gives you this information. It’s THERE already, just missing a display.
#40 has to be a typo, I only use 960 LITERS of gasoline per year to do some 12k miles.
(5.0L per 100km…or 47MPG)
If it’s based on 20k miles per year, 500/800 gallons would make sense, however that seems a bit high to me.
#40 that’s economy for 32 Prii’s, based on 48KHW energy units.
He’s trying for a common denominator, however, the Prius uses excess gas motor mechanical energy for physically moving the car.
# 14 bobbo, obviously not a scientist said,
“#10–Diesel==I thought dioxins were used to bleach paper==hence all the grocery bags are recycled brown paper==ie, zero dioxins.
While always appropriate to sound the alarm, shouldn’t your information be less than 15 years old?”
When you are buying groceries we can safely assume that you never buy anything that comes in paper then.
Thanks Mark —
Well in his effort to provide a common denominator, he’s confused me. For me, the common denominator would be how much energy is used per vehicle. If the average new car uses 436 gallons of gas, and an electric uses zero gas but a certain amount of energy generated elsewhere, I want to see THAT comparison. And here in Seattle, that energy will be from the Columbia River, which at least doesn’t generate electricity by burning coal.
To me, the biggest argument against the electric push is the unknown enviro impact of creating a disposing of all of the batteries. Of course they guy who wrote the article didn’t really address this because while he doesn’t like lithium batteries, he’s obviously all for lead batteries…
Oh, and rereading the guy’s piece, I had to laugh reading this part: I then spent an hour in stunned silence as the critical importance of that question crystallized in my mind. I didn’t get a responsive answer from the commenter, but I did get one of those rare moments of clarity when everything suddenly falls into place.”
It’s important to note the “critically important question” that “stunned him into silence” was his own question. This reminds me of the story the Rob Schneider tells about working on a movie with Steven Seagal. Seagal comes out of his trailer looking very animated. He tell’s Schneider “I just read the greatest movie script ever written.” “Oh wow,” said Schneider. “Who uh, who wrote it?.”
“I did,” said Seagal, apparently then stunning himself into an hour of silence…
Battery technology will continue to improve, the technology to derive electricity from natural sources will continue to improve as well as the will to do so.
Oil will get progressively more expensive as we use the last of it up.
So picture yourself at the end of the “oil era” and then ask if developing and promoting electric cars (as we are doing now) was a good idea.
#35 – pedro – As renewable as what’s used to generate electricity. You know, coal, oil, nuclear.
Uranium is clean and will last us until other clean energy sources have picked up. Yes, there’s a waste product, but it can be dealt with.
There’s not enough hydroelectric to be able to cover the demand…
Who said it would? Your thinking is so limited… Start reading tech articles… you might pick up something…
No matter how hard you try… You still suck, Hoover.
This reminds me of an old diddy I used to hear on the radio:
Our cars make a lot of pollution
Makes the air hard to breathe I’ll admit.
But think if we all still rode horses,
All the streets woudl be knee deep in ( I forget the rest )
It does raise a good point. Are we simply changing one polluting energy source of for another? It depends on how well our electric companies treat its custoemrs and the enviornment.
Read “Beyond Fossil Fools” by Joe Shuster.
Breeder reactors are the key. Today 90%+ of the nuclear fuel turns in to waste. With breeders you can get that way way lower, and even go back and refine the waste we are storing today to use as fuel.
“Hydrogen” is bogus. That definitely does not make economic sense to pursue.
Batteries are going to evolve…the Chinese will likely kick the US’s ass in battery technology in the next decade.
And electric car engines have more torque than gas…take diesel trains for example…not to mention Tesla motors.
I’m UTTERLY certain that as EVs threaten to become a mainstream reality. More and more Oil Industry wags will crawl out of the woodwork, with their madeup, massaged, and hyperbolized statistics, of how this new technology will doom us all. But then they probably said the same thing when the horse drawn carriages were first threaten by the “horseless” models. Not because of any environmental issues, though. More like how all the horse dealers would suffer.But it got all the horse poop off the streets. And shifted the blame for accidents from “the horse ran amok”, to “it’s the driver’s fault”.
And as for EV safety issues. If you’ve ever seen a number of people fry inside a gas fueled vehicle. Then you might change your mind about the odd chance of a couple of electric batteries failing, but still allowing the passengers to escape un-incinerated! There has to be a better way, than hauling around a tank of toxic, flammable, and potentially explosive fuel, everywhere. Batteries can be built safer. But I seriously doubt gasoline will ever be made safer.
And for those that think that gasoline is just fine. Then why don’t your Laptop, cellphone, shaver or toothbrush, work on gas? Or for that matter, most of the things you have in your house. Frig, diskwasher, clothes washer, Tv, can opener, microwave oven, toaster, stereo, ceiling lights and fans? I had a gas powered generator since 1999 (“Y2K” scare). And never used it. My sister uses one, mainly to keep her sump pump running when the power get knocked out. But a battery powered pump would have worked better. Without all the attended hooking up hassles.
This article is just a Luddite’s view of cars. Possibly fueled by a healthy monetary contribution from Oil industry and/or major automakers. Who will all need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21th century, before they give up touting the gas engine’s merits. Expect them to pull more tricks (lies) out of their black bag, to defend why gas vehicles beat electrics.
#51 – Glenn E. – I’m UTTERLY certain that as EVs threaten to become a mainstream reality. More and more Oil Industry wags will crawl out of the woodwork, with their madeup, massaged, and hyperbolized statistics, of how this new technology will doom us all.
Sounds like the Republican reaction to Obama’s health care plan…
# 50 killer,
Your absolutely right. Nuclear is the way to go.
More people die each week/year from black lung, dangerous working conditions, asthma from breathing coal pollution (like mercury poisoning, acid rain, …) then ever did from anything nuclear in this country.
This irrational fear of anything nuclear is killing people, PERIOD!!
I think the more basic point is who will pay considerably more up front for a electric car? We here a price for GM’s Volt coming in at 40 grand.
That’s double the say a hybrid sedan. Even if you argue the savings down the road. The questions arise like maintenance, resale value, insurance and so on. Non of these issues to my understanding have been addressed as yet. Another concern of mine is the basic fact that a electric vehicle may have reduced performance in colder climates. As we all know with batteries of any type. The colder it get’s the less charge a battery has. If for some reason you car depletes its charge what then are you to do. These are questions that need valid answers. Most consumer’s will not see the value in a electric car. In fact many do not even like the hybrids. But at least with a hybrid you have a alternative for power.
Their are a lot of technologies out there that can work,but will they work in a society like the US is a big question.
#54 – pedro
There you go again… static thinking. You believe that everyone will have an electric car and electricity infrastructure won’t be upgraded accordingly.
If you were there when the car industry was in its infancy, you would have said something like “There not enough gas stations in place. Silly car enthusiasts. Horse and buggy is the way to go.”
Good try, Hoover.
You guys think big oil is screwing us, just wait until the electric companies get ahold of us…
#58 – BigBoyBC
Which is easiest to produce… oil or electricity?
Jägermeister is right on the spot on the “chicken/egg” aspect of all this. Comically though, electric cars were around first as far as being around in large numbers first. Only when gasoline was cheaply available was the ICE to displace electrics.
The real answer to the batteries issue is to skip batteries all together. The benefits of the developments in super and ultra capacitors will, if commercialized, skip all of the issues that exist at the moment and in all aspects.
I like the idea of hybrids as a general rule and perhaps should have said that at the start so that it did not seem like I was a “DIG/DRILL” nutter or something. However, hybrids are only a stopgap/real-world development platform. What they offer us is the ability to quickly switch to an EV setup ONLY when a suitable energy storage and release technology is available. At the moment, there is nothing. Super/Ultra Capacitors and perhaps the new crystalline Li-Ion battery technology will be the fit. NiMH and traditional Li-Ion are not.
I do like the idea of a turbine powered car that runs the engine at really high efficiency and then puts all that effort into electrics. You build the car with a “buffer” battery pack so that the turbine only has to run when current draw is really high or when the battery pack is close to full discharge. Doing this would allow for the power-train to be totally electric and then the complexity of the dual-drive power-train is then eliminated.
Properly designed, such a car could also be laid out so that when a better capacitor or battery system was available, the turbine and fuel tank could be removed and replaced with batteries/capacitors and a charging system.
57, jason..
HOW about a different DESIGN of power dam.
Rather then BUILD 1 GIANT monster that Affects a WHOLE eco-system..
HOW about Short ones that just TOP the water, or even Run UNDER water with the Ebbs and flows of the rivers.
The idea behind LARGE dams was 1 CENTRAL location..why not spread them around.
Its the same thought that CAN go with SOLAR..why setup a LARGE AREA when you can plant on in Every City block or even EVERY yard in the South west USA.
Problem we have is that a PLOT of land isnt a PLOT anymore. we make them Smaller and smaller..it SUCKS.
I saw a development in portland that was VERY cool. Take all the home around a block and make SMALLER yards, leaving the BACK yards as an open playground, for use by everyone. and ALL the homes around it can monitor it. IF this was in the SW states, 1 sterling Solar setup could power all the homes and still give Room to play.
The REAL problem with power, is storage. Its made and then MUST be used. We have little or NO storage ability.
#52, jAG, & gLENN,
Sounds like the Republican reaction to Obama’s health care plan…
Same script and actors. Only difference is the name on the cover.
#62 – Mr. Fusion
How true!
#63 – Hoover
Argue your points… at the end of the day, you just another Luddite. Keep the status quo… a true right-winger.
Well if you use coal power generated electricity you can save the money spent on imported fuel but they aren’t going to do that and alternative energy sources are still costly and not completely dependable. The only solution for that now is, at the least, a back up system based on fossil fuels.