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Electric cars will not save people money or help the environment. With all the extra parts and more batteries needed in electric cars it increases manufacturing pollution. And when the batteries go bad on electric cars they are very expensive to replace.
You don't have to worry about gas but you also pay twice as much or more upfront to buy the car vs a gas powered one. Then you have limited charging stations across the country and add the cost to have a dedicated circuit installed at your home and increased electric bills.
I don't see one benefit of buying an electric car.
And, no, you're not 'using more energy'. A power-plant mass-producing energy via coal does so much more efficiently than does a single internal-combustion engine. Thus, the energy extraction from the fossil fuel is significantly more efficient when scaled up, while the pollution released is less (an additional contributing factor here is that it is possible to apply a much better by-product processing/filtration system on a large static building than on a small mobile vehicle).
Exactly right on both counts. Today's average EVs already use less than half the energy per mile that the most efficient ICE vehicles achieve, and they are rapidly improving.
And the amount of CO2 produced per mile by an EV, even if charged from a coal-fired plant is a fraction of that produced by an ICE vehicle. The more EVs that replace ICE cars the less total air pollution we'll have. One big "tailpipe" can be controlled far better than thousands of individual tailpipes.
We had a debate over this topic. I have been getting very interested in tesla and actually feel as though this is a revolution of some kind. I told him it'd be great when we no longer depend on oil from Arab nations. Less politics, less hatred, better future.
His reply was "but where does the electricity come from?" It comes from coal which is an even worse fossil fuel than oil". So in a way you are using more energy than any fossil fuel run vehicle. I didn't say anything.
He's a wise man,that's probably why he a landlord and you're a renter.
Electrics waste a lot of energy and contribute more to the greenhouse effect than gasoline since the electricity is generated using coal or natural gas. The EPA data just measures the impact at the pump, not all the way from the source of the energy in the ground or sea. A lot of energy is lost just going from the power station to the charging station. Coal and natural gas contribute more to the greenhouse effect because of the higher level of CO2 and CH4 emissions, respectively. Electricity generated using natural gas may be the worst of all because of the high amount of leakage of gas at the wells. Even after the wells are capped, they keep leaking methane into the air and the groundwater for decades.
Electrics waste a lot of energy and contribute more to the greenhouse effect than gasoline since the electricity is generated using coal or natural gas. The EPA data just measures the impact at the pump, not all the way from the source of the energy in the ground or sea. A lot of energy is lost just going from the power station to the charging station. Coal and natural gas contribute more to the greenhouse effect because of the higher level of CO2 and CH4 emissions, respectively. Electricity generated using natural gas may be the worst of all because of the high amount of leakage of gas at the wells. Even after the wells are capped, they keep leaking methane into the air and the groundwater for decades.
This is a failed argument, because if I charge my car at my house using my solar panels how have I added to the carbon footprint?
Electric cars will not save people money or help the environment. With all the extra parts and more batteries needed in electric cars it increases manufacturing pollution.
You haven't really read anything factual about this, have you? An ICE drivetrain with engine and transmission contains hundreds of parts, many of them moving, some of them reciprocating, quite a number of them of them wearing and eventually needing adjustment or replacement. An electric vehicle motor has one moving part, and only a couple of points of wear, at the bearings. In a similar fashion the EV transmission has a single gear, because the entire speed range is all generated within the motor, and with the bonus of having 100% of the torque available from 0 mph.
This is why the Tesla S, a relatively heavy 5 passenger luxury sedan, can do 0 - 60 mph faster than a Porsche 911.
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And when the batteries go bad on electric cars they are very expensive to replace.
Yes, but 1) the cost is dropping rapidly, and 2) they last a long time. Tesla currently has an 8 year warranty on their batteries.
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You don't have to worry about gas but you also pay twice as much or more upfront to buy the car vs a gas powered one.
Costs are coming down rapidly, and comparable cars are nowhere near that far apart. Several EV models are now available on $200/month leases, which can wind up costing less than competitive ICE cars because of the far lower cost for energy.
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Then you have limited charging stations across the country and add the cost to have a dedicated circuit installed at your home and increased electric bills.
The charging stations for Tesla are rolling out fairly quickly. They say that by end of the year 98% of Americans will live within 100 miles of a Supercharger. And that's just for starters.
And the cost per mile with an EV is less than half what it is in an ICE car.
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I don't see one benefit of buying an electric car.
Well, it may not fit your lifestyle, but sorry, you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see the obvious benefits available, such as...
Charging up your car overnight at home so you start each morning with a "full tank" is one of the benefits. Not having to sit in line to fill up at gas station means a lot to a lot of people. One of the regular posters on another forum commented that with his plug-in hybrid, which he drives every day, but has an ICE engine for backup power on a longer trip, he hasn't been to a gas station in over 4 months.
It's a zero-emissions vehicle, meaning it emits no polluting gases in operation, which is not only good for the environment, but gets you perks in certain places. For example, in Los Angeles it can get you a sticker that allows you to use multi-occupant lanes (HOV) with onle 1 person in the car, park in ZEV parking spaces, and more.
There, that's a start. You should read up on them... they are the coming thing, as the saying goes. :OK:
I own guns and just applied for a Utah CCW and I would buy a prius if I could get a used one for a similar price as a used civic. I want good gas mileage... the plan would be civic or prius then a used beater truck for snow and hauling...
like civics because everything to maintain the car... plugs, tranny fluid, etc is easy to access. No removing the wheels to get to the battery or silly stuff like that.
If electric cars are charged by renewables then they do make sense. If you can charge one from solar panels on your house then great. Except you're probably at work when all the solar power is available.
If an electric car is powered off the grid it starts to make less sense depending on how much of the grid's power is derived from renewables. An internal combustion engine is around 25% efficient (depends on compression ratio and other things). But the potential energy of the fuel is harvested right there and converted to mechanical energy to drive the wheels.
A power plant running on fossil fuels might be 30-55% efficient at converting the potential energy of its fuel to mechanical energy. That in turn has to be converted to electricity in a generator, with incurred losses due to inefficiency. That electricity then has to run down potentially hundreds of miles of utility lines, again at a loss due to inefficiency. At the home that electricity has to be used to charge the EV batteries, again incurring losses due to charging inefficiencies. When the EV is running the stored energy in the battery has to be converted back to electricity, again incurring losses due to discharge inefficiencies. Then lastly the electricity has to be converted to mechanical energy in the electric motor(s) to drive the wheels, once again incurring losses due to inefficiency of the electric motor.
If you are charging your EV from 100% renewable energy then maybe you can just ignore all the inefficiencies. But in today's world, if you're powering off the grid, an EV does not make much sense when a comprehensive energy balance is taken into account. Personally I doubt that grid power will ever be made up of more than 20-25% renewable energy, it is just too hard and expensive to harvest. Btw, solar panels use plastic substrates (fossil fuels), so when the cells wear out in 15 years give or take, unless the panel is re-worked then all that plastic is headed for landfills.
I did a rough calculation one time to see how much area would be required to provide all of the power consumed in the U.S. via solar panels. I was very conservative, assuming the panels made power 24 hours a day and were always pointed right at the sun. I came up with an area of about half the state of Arizona. In reality it would probably be 3-4 times as large to account for things I ignored. Maybe the tortoises could use night vision goggles in all the shade created by that solar farm.
I am pretty sure that less then 10% of fuel used in the U.S. is imported at this point, and a lot of that comes from places like Venezuela etc. Our dependence on the middle East for oil is about to come to an end I think.
I am starting to like hybrids. The Porsches and Audis at Le Mans this year were amazing with about a third of their power coming from regenerated energy. F1 is on that path too, though somewhat limited by only being RWD. This only helps in stop and go driving of course. It always cracks me up to see Prius drivers flying down the 405 in the diamond lane at 80 mpg thinking they are saving the planet, when at that point all they are doing is driving an under-power internal combustion powered car with a very small frontal area. If you are not braking, regen is pointless.
Folks should have a read of this article, "Unclean at Any Speed":
You haven't really read anything factual about this, have you? An ICE drivetrain with engine and transmission contains hundreds of parts, many of them moving, some of them reciprocating, quite a number of them of them wearing and eventually needing adjustment or replacement. An electric vehicle motor has one moving part, and only a couple of points of wear, at the bearings. In a similar fashion the EV transmission has a single gear, because the entire speed range is all generated within the motor, and with the bonus of having 100% of the torque available from 0 mph.
This is why the Tesla S, a relatively heavy 5 passenger luxury sedan, can do 0 - 60 mph faster than a Porsche 911.
Yes, but 1) the cost is dropping rapidly, and 2) they last a long time. Tesla currently has an 8 year warranty on their batteries.
Costs are coming down rapidly, and comparable cars are nowhere near that far apart. Several EV models are now available on $200/month leases, which can wind up costing less than competitive ICE cars because of the far lower cost for energy.
The charging stations for Tesla are rolling out fairly quickly. They say that by end of the year 98% of Americans will live within 100 miles of a Supercharger. And that's just for starters.
And the cost per mile with an EV is less than half what it is in an ICE car.
Well, it may not fit your lifestyle, but sorry, you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see the obvious benefits available, such as...
Charging up your car overnight at home so you start each morning with a "full tank" is one of the benefits. Not having to sit in line to fill up at gas station means a lot to a lot of people. One of the regular posters on another forum commented that with his plug-in hybrid, which he drives every day, but has an ICE engine for backup power on a longer trip, he hasn't been to a gas station in over 4 months.
It's a zero-emissions vehicle, meaning it emits no polluting gases in operation, which is not only good for the environment, but gets you perks in certain places. For example, in Los Angeles it can get you a sticker that allows you to use multi-occupant lanes (HOV) with onle 1 person in the car, park in ZEV parking spaces, and more.
There, that's a start. You should read up on them... they are the coming thing, as the saying goes. :OK:
Not deaf, dumb, or blind thank you... "cost are coming down" when they do then come back with your electric car wisdom.
Building all these places to charge them, all the energy used to mine the iron and lithium won't impact the environment? Then what if electric cars become the norm and we have 100 million of them on the road you think that won't put a large strain on the environment?
We already have the infrastructure to gas up vehicles we don't have to build anything extra. We have the factories tooled and have been building combustion engines for over 100 years now. We have the factories that know how to make the parts efficiently. Electric cars is a fairly new thing and there will be constant revisions to how they operate. And with that comes retooling and adapting to new technology which uses resources like anything else.
So instead of digging for oil... mining for lithium and iron and building the infrastructure to recharge electric vehicles is more environmentally friendly?...
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