So, Really: Just How Much Fuel Do Electric Vehicles “Burn”?
Intro
I keep hearing how great electric vehicles are. “They’ll save the planet!” proponents say. “They’re the wave of the future!” And I think we’ve all seen or heard the “equivalent of 100+ MPG” claims made by some electric vehicle manufacturers (and the EPA).
But I haven’t seen one simple question answered: just how much E10 gasoline (or E10 gasoline equivalent, since generation typically uses other fuels) did someone have to burn to charge that electric vehicle’s battery? Because despite what some people seem to think, electricity doesn’t appear “by magic” at the wall socket. Like anything else it has to be produced, then delivered to where it will be used. And for an electric vehicle, it also has to be temporarily stored in a battery before it can be used. So accurately determining the “equivalent MPG” – in terms of just how much E10 gasoline (or its energy equivalent in other fuel) was burned for each mile driven – for an electric vehicle can be problematic.
In contrast, figuring out the fuel efficiency for a conventional or hybrid automobile is straightforward (so long as it isn’t a “plug-in” hybrid). You keep track of how much fuel you use and how far you drive; then you divide distance by fuel consumed to get your miles per gallon.
Still: it would be nice to be able to calculate the same for an electric vehicle – that is, to figure out just how much E10 gasoline equivalent was used to generate the electricity needed for the vehicle to go a given distance. And given a couple of pieces of information, you can do that. You really only need to know the same two things that you do for a conventional vehicle: how far you went, and how much energy was consumed. From there, you can work backwards to determine – within fairly close limits – how much E10 gasoline equivalent fuel had to be burned to support that drive.
So I’ll take a stab at doing that for a particular model of electric vehicle, the Chevy Bolt. What follows is a bit longish, and yes – there’s math involved. But it turns out that in this case it’s generally fairly simple math. (smile)
First, however, a bit of background on the electric grid. I’ll try to keep this as simple and brief as possible.
Background
The electric grid, simply put, connects power producers to consumers. It transports electrical power, routing it from where it’s generated to where it’s consumed. The total power consumed at any given time is termed the grid’s load.
The electric grid operates largely on a “produce as needed” basis. For both technical and economic reasons, large-scale storage of electrical power is simply not a viable option.
Sidebar: As an example, per energy density data given in Source 2 below, lithium-ion batteries (an excellent and relatively high-energy-density current technology battery) top out at storing about 0.786 kWh per liter of volume. Doing the math, that means storage of the daily output of a single 400MWe power plant – which isn’t a particularly large power plant – for future use would require a lithium-ion battery array forming a cube with sides a minimum of roughly 75 ft 7 in long, and probably much longer when internal supporting structure and interconnections are accounted for. The reliability and maintainability of any such battery array would virtually certainly also be problematic.
California’s current electrical generation capacity is approximately 80,000 MWe – so such a hypothetical battery array could store at most roughly 1/2000th, or 0.5%, of one day’s worth of California’s electric generation capacity.) You’d thus need 2000 of them to store one day’s worth of capacity – or allowing for those down for maintenance or otherwise offline, likely around 100 of them to store one hour of CA’s generating capacity.
Further: since batteries store DC and the power grid is AC, using them would also represent a net energy loss. Why? Because to use them, you’d have to convert AC to DC to charge, then reconvert DC to AC when you used the power. You’re looking at a substantial loss for each conversion – likely between 5% and 10% for each.
However, consumers don’t consume – nor do utilities produce – a constant amount of power 24/7/365. Why? Because in the US, the daily load typically follows a “twin peaks” curve – one peak during the 6AM to 10AM time frame, and a second during the 5PM to 10PM time frame. The midday load is typically lower than either peak (but still substantially higher than the daily low); that daily low occurs during the early morning hours (1AM to 5AM).
The minimum amount of load required 24/7/365 is defined by this early morning low. It’s termed the grid’s “baseload” (Source 8), and is typically generated by large, fairly efficient power plants that operate continuously – and which typically take long periods of time to start up or shut down. Since many of them take hours to days to start up and shut down, these plants sometimes are forced to operate at part-load (or even idle) if demand is abnormally low. Such part-load operation is not efficient; these plants work best when working close to their design capacity. Examples include nuclear plants, coal-fired thermal plants, and many combined cycle plants (while the turbine portion of a combined-cycle plant can get up to speed quickly, depending on capacity and design the secondary cycle of a combined-cycle plant can take a while to get going from cold shutdown).
For the rest of the day, the electrical grid must provide more power than the baseload to its customers. This additional power required over and above baseload is generally termed “peak load” or “peaking power” (Source 9); it’s typically provided by either smaller plants with relatively quick startup/shutdown times, by renewable power sources (wind, hydro, or solar), or by transmission of power from areas with a local capacity excess to areas needing the power (which can result in substantial transmission losses and often much be purchased from other utilities). These plants tend to be either expensive in terms of operating costs (when fossil fueled, such as single-stage gas turbines or large diesel power plants) or sporadically and unpredictably unavailable (wind, solar). Even hydro’s ability to meet peak demand can be limited by drought, min/max flow requirements, or other environmental regulation.
As you might have guessed, forecasting and satisfying peak load is a major challenge for utility companies.
Finally, roughly 85% of generating plants are are based on some form of heat engine – and varying types have varying thermal efficiencies. (In simple terms, a generating plant’s thermal efficiency is the fraction of the plant’s heat energy input – typically from burning some form of fuel – that’s converted into electrical energy.) Among fossil fuel plants, the Wikipedia article linked as Source 10 indicates that combined cycle plants are typically between 55% and 60% efficient. Source 10 also indicates that single stage plants such as single stage gas turbines, coal/oil fired plants (if any of the latter are still in operation), and various types of biomass/landfill gas/waste incineration plants are usually around 37% efficient. (For reasons I discuss later, I’m excluding nuclear or renewable generation other than biomass/waste gas/waste incineration.) Those efficiencies are under optimum conditions – typically at or near design capacity. Operate them under lower load and the efficiency generally goes down, sometimes dramatically.
Data
So, where can we get the data to answer the original question about the true fuel efficiency of electric vehicles? It turns out an electric vehicle blog provided that about 3 months ago. They did two range tests on the 2020 Chevy Bolt – an electric-only vehicle with a 66kWh battery pack. I’m only going to discuss one of the tests; the numbers the two tests produced were within 1.8% of each other with respect to the amount of energy consumed by the Bolt per mile. You can read about the test at the link for Source 1 below if you like.
Unfortunately, the article didn’t attempt to actually calculate how much energy (in terms of E10 gasoline equivalent) was consumed to charge the vehicle’s battery prior to test. However, the information in the article – along with other information readily available concerning power transmission losses, generation efficiency, electric vehicle charger efficiency, and how power plants are used by utilities – does allow us to determine that value.
As the article indicates, the Bolt was driven 218.1 miles at a near-constant 70 MPH. It consumed 64 kWh of stored electrical energy while doing so. Simple math means that the Bolt consumed just over 0.293kWh per mile.
So, what does that equate to in terms of E10 gasoline? Glad you asked.
E10 Gasoline Equivalent Calculation Details
It turns out that Wikipedia has a page concerning the energy density of various compounds, materials, and devices (Source 2). One of those compounds is E10 gasoline – e.g. gasoline with 10% ethanol by volume, which is the fuel most commonly used today in automobile engines. That page lists the energy content of E10 as 9.2167 kWh/liter – which is roughly 34.839 kWh/gallon.
Holy schmoley! That means the Bolt used the energy equivalent of about 1.76 gallons of E10 gasoline! It got the equivalent of over 166MPG!
Um, no it didn’t. Because that’s only part of the story.
That’s the amount of electrical energy provided from the Bolt’s battery while driving 218.1 miles. But that electrical energy didn’t appear in the battery by magic. The above E10 gasoline equivalent figure does not account for the energy used to produce that electricity; the energy lost while transporting that electricity to the vehicle; or for the energy lost while getting that electrical energy from the wall socket into the battery. Each of those steps impose a significant energy penalty.
Let’s look at charging the battery first.
Auto batteries are DC; the power grid is AC. Thus AC-to-DC conversion is required to charge the battery from grid power.
No AC-to-DC conversion is 100% efficient. Source 3 below indicates that in 2014, a typical electric vehicle battery charger was between 84% and 90% efficient. While charger technology has improved, I’m pretty sure it hasn’t improved hugely in the last 5 or 6 years (the 2020 Bolt’s charger would almost certainly have been designed no later than 2018). So to account for any improved technology let’s assume that the Bolt’s charger is 92% efficient vice between 84% to 90% efficient. That may well be too much of an improvement, but we’ll go with it anyway.
Doing the math to correct for that loss, that means you need the equivalent of (1/0.92) x 1.76 = 1.91+ gallons of E10 gasoline. And that’s only the start of the corrections.
Next, let’s correct for transmission line losses.
On average, per Source 4 approximately 5% of the power supplied by generating plants to the US electric grid is lost during transmission. That means we need to divide the E10 gasoline equivalent figure calculated above by 0.95 to correct for those losses – which in turn means that the Bolt now needs the energy equivalent of 2.014+ gallons of E10 gasoline. Perhaps not coincidentally, using this figure in calculating highway MPG equivalence would yield 108.27 MPG – which is almost exactly the EPA’s “highway MPGe” of 108MPGe for the Bolt.
However, even though the EPA seems to quit here, this isn’t the true end of the story. And the biggie is yet to come.
Outside of a thunderstorm, electricity doesn’t just “happen”; it has to be generated. This generally is done by a process involving the production of heat – e.g., burning some form of fuel. (As I noted previously, I’m excluding nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar. Later in the article I’ll discuss why.) So now let’s account for actually generating the electricity required.
All forms of heat engine are less than 100% efficient; theoretically they cannot ever be 100% efficient. And here, it gets a bit more complicated; we have three cases. Which case is appropriate depends on which type of power plant produced the electricity consumed by the electric vehicle.
Case 1: the electricity was produced by a single-stage generating plant. That means to find out how much fuel (in terms of the equivalent amount of E10 gasoline) was burned to produce the electricity in question, you need to account for the 37% typical efficiency of a single-stage generating plant. Or, in other words: divide the equivalent E10 gasoline of 2.014+ gallons previously calculated by 0.37 – yielding the energy equivalent of 5.444+ gallons of E10 gasoline. That’s how much heat energy that single-stage plant required, in terms of E10 gasoline equivalence, to produce that electrical energy. It got that heat energy by burning some form of hydrocarbon fuel.
In this case, that means to go 218.1 miles at 70 MPH the Bolt “burned” – indirectly, at a remote generating plant vice on-board – fuel having the same energy content as a conventional vehicle getting just under 40.06 MPG would have used. Good? Yes, obviously. But it’s less than 40% of that “108 MPG” equivalent that the EPA claims for the vehicle.
Case 2: the electricity was produced by a combined cycle plant. Here, I’ll assume 58% as the plant’s efficiency (just above the midpoint of the typical range for combined cycle plants). Using the 2.014+ equivalent fuel previously calculated that accounts for charger and transmission losses, that yields the need to use the energy equivalent of 3.473+ gallons of E10 gasoline to charge the Bolt. Or, in other words, generating that electricity required the combined cycle plant to burn fuel having the same amount of energy as a conventional or hybrid auto getting almost 62.8 MPG would have used. Yes, that’s excellent. But again: it’s also nowhere close to 108 MPG, either.
Case 3: we have no idea where the electricity came from. For this case, I’ll use the average efficiency for US fossil fuel generation plants. Sources 6 and 7 give the information necessary to calculate that – and it works out to just over 47.83% thermal efficiency (just under 51.59% of US fossil fuel plants now appear to be combined cycle plants; I assumed 58% efficiency for those and 37% efficiency for the others). In that case, burning the energy equivalent of just over 4.211 gallons of E10 gasoline is required. That in turn means the electric vehicle burned – indirectly at whatever combination of plants generated the electricity used to charge said electric vehicle – the same amount of fuel (in terms of energy content) as a conventional vehicle getting about 51.8 MPG. Again: that’s very good, but also nowhere even close to 108 MPG.
Why No Nuclear, Solar, Wind, and Hydro
Above, I didn’t include nuclear or wind, solar, or hydro as sources. Why? That’s a fair question.
There’s a reason I didn’t include them. Or, more precisely, there are two reasons.
Reason 1: time of day considerations. This is why I excluded nuclear power.
Nuclear power generates approximately 20% of US electricity. However, nuclear plants take literally days to start up and shut down. That means electricity generated using nuclear power is produced and used virtually exclusively to meet part of the US electric grid’s baseload – e.g., that constant load present 24/7/365.
This in turn means that every watt of nuclear power available is already “spoken fore” before the first electric vehicle is ever charged. Electric vehicles will thus be charged using peak load generation assets. (Remember: any additional electricity used over and above baseload must perforce be generated by sources other than those providing the baseload.)
That’s significant for another reason, too. Human nature says that the overwhelming majority people aren’t going to get out of bed at 1 AM each and every day to go plug in their electric vehicle every day (or, alternatively, rig a timer to ensure it doesn’t start charging until then – assuming they can even find a timer that will handle the required load and/or one that handles 240VAC). Rather, they’re going to charge their electric vehicle either during the day at work (if they have a charging station available there) – or they’ll plug it in when they get home, probably between 6 PM and 8PM.
Assuming only a 2 to 4 hour partial charge is required daily to “top off” the battery (a full charge for the Bolt takes about 9 hrs), that means the vast majority of electric vehicle owners will be doing virtually all of their charging during peak load hours. This in turns means they’ll be using electricity generated by sources other than nuclear power plants – and won’t be increasing the grid’s baseload.
Bottom line: unless someone charges their electric vehicle exclusively between the hours of 1AM and 5AM, that means they aren’t using any nuclear power to charge it for two different reasons. They’re using peak load power, not baseload power.
Reason 2: inherent limitations of wind, solar, and hydro. Even though wind, solar, and (to some extent) hydro are all generated primarily during peak load hours (1AM to 6AM is generally the calmest part of the day – and it’s generally pretty dark then, too), as California is finding out the hard way these types of power are simply not always available when needed. Even under optimal conditions, solar isn’t available for much of the evening portion of peak load and can also be substantially degraded by weather conditions. Wind power is similarly dependent on the weather. Even hydro is often limited by minimum/maximum water discharge requirements, droughts, required reservoir levels, or other environmental considerations.
So even if you have these sources available, you still have to have the capability to generate enough power by quick reacting conventional means to satisfy maximum demand – which means replacing their output if required. Otherwise you risk having power shortages and rolling blackouts.
Why? Because other than hydro, you simply can’t count on these sources always being available when needed. And even hydro may be unavailable (or only partially available) due to regulatory or environmental restrictions.
Since those sources may or may not be available at any given time (and some are known to be unavailable during part of peak load hours), accounting for them grossly complicates the analysis. I thus didn’t include them in the analysis above. Collectively, they (solar/wind/hydro) account for about 15% of US total electric generation capacity. If someone wants to re-do my analysis above using the energy from that combination of sources while also using appropriate availability figures and other data to account for the known and average times those three sources aren’t available, be my guest. That would change the numbers some in an electric vehicle’s favor. But it won’t change them radically; my guess would be somewhere around 10% when known unavailability periods and historical availability data are taken into account.
Finally, before someone asks: no, I’m NOT comparing apples and oranges here. Rather, the EPA (and electric vehicle vendors) are the ones doing that. And given the EPA’s obsession with “all things green”, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that’s being done intentionally.
The EPA appears to be making their comparison starting at point of consumer purchase – e.g., considering the purchase of electricity equivalent to the purchase of gasoline. What that ignores is the fact that in general, producing electricity means using some type of fuel – and if you’re talking other than baseload hours, between 80% and 90% of the time that means burning carbon-based fuel. Their method of calculating an “effective MPG” for electric vehicles appears to ignore that fact entirely, treating the electricity used to charge an electric vehicle’s battery as if it were produced by pixie dust or unicorn smiles.
A more honest comparison – and one that is a true apples-to-apples comparison – is to compare the energy content of the fuel used to generate the power needed for two different vehicles to travel the same distance (per mile, for example), regardless of where that fuel is consumed. “Plug-in hybrids” excepted, a conventional or hybrid vehicle generates that power on-board with its engine; an electric vehicle depends on some external remote generator to charge its batteries or it goes nowhere. But in either case, in general today some type of fuel is burned to generate that energy. (And spare me the “fuel transportation losses” argument, please. Just like gas stations, power plants must have their fuel delivered to them too. That’s a wash.)
A Real-World Comparison
Electric vehicles are indeed energy efficient; the equivalent of between 40 to 63 MPG at 70 MPH for 3 hours is nothing to sneeze at. If you never drive anywhere that’s more than 90 to 100 miles away from your home, an electric vehicle like the Chevy Bolt might even serve your needs fairly well – provided you don’t have to go anywhere for 9 hours after you get back, of course. If that’s your “thing”, go ahead and buy one. Just don’t ask me to help subsidize your choice to buy an electric vehicle with my tax dollars.
But don’t buy one thinking that you’re single-handedly doing something major to “save the planet”. Generally, driving that electric vehicle will still require burning a fair amount of carbon-based fuel; that combustion will simply take place at a power plant vice at your vehicle. And it’s also additional fuel that the power plant wouldn’t otherwise have burned if you hadn’t used it. Remember, electricity doesn’t appear by magic; pixies and unicorns don’t exist.
When things are calculated honestly, you haven’t really reduced the amount of fuel burned to support your driving all that much, if any. All you did was move the source of combustion to a remote location.
What you’ve done is buy a fuel-efficient vehicle – but in reality it’s nowhere near the “100+ MPG equivalent” vehicle that the EPA misleadingly claims it to be. When you actually do the math and account for the fuel used to generate the electricity needed to charge the battery, for the Chevy Bolt it’s more like 40 to 63 MPG. And if you’re charging that Bolt anytime except between about 1AM and 5AM, it’s probably far closer to 40 MPG than 60 MPG. Why? Because in charging it, you’re using incremental power generated during peak load hours – and since none of that incremental power is nuclear, there’s a very good chance that the power you’re using to charge your electric vehicle is being generated by a quick-response single-stage power plant with 37% efficiency.
In fact, an electric vehicle in reality is not much if any more energy efficient than some vehicles costing $10k less that don’t have an electric vehicle’s drawbacks. And depending on the actual source of the electricity used to charge it, it can actually be less fuel efficient.
Here’s a real-world example: within the past year, someone I know well purchased a new hybrid vehicle (no, not the “plug-in” variety – just a normal hybrid). That vehicle’s owner has taken it on at least three 1,000+ mile trips.
At a fairly constant 70 MPH on the highway on reasonably level roads, that hybrid vehicle gets about 41 MPG. (The Bolt test referenced above was done mostly on the NJ Turnpike which as I recall is also fairly level, so that’s a fair comparison.) At a constant 60 MPH on reasonably level highways, it gets a bit over 47 MPG (1,200+ mile trip average).
I’ve personally checked those numbers by doing the MPG calculations myself manually using a calculator from fuel consumed and miles driven data recorded by the owner during the trips. My hand calculations were very close to the MPG info reported by the vehicle’s onboard computer; any deviation was likely due to the presence or absence of a smallish “air pocket” in the fuel tank after the end-of-trip fueling.
That vehicle has a one-way range of between 500 and 600+ miles on a full tank of gasoline (about 500 at 70MPH, and 600+ at 60MPH). Plus, getting enough fuel to drive another 250 miles – or another 500 miles, for that matter – takes 10 minutes or less vice 9 hours.
And here’s the best part: that vehicle cost about $10k less than the list price of the base model 2020 Chevy Bolt EV. (smile)
—–
Sources:
1 – Chevy Bolt Range Test: https://insideevs.com/reviews/423144/chevy-bolt-ev-70-mph-range-test/
2 – Wikipedia Article on Energy Density: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
3 – EV Battery Charger Efficiency: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7046253
4 – Average Power Transmission Loss Data: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=105&t=3
5 – Car & Driver Chevy Bolt Review: https://www.caranddriver.com/chevrolet/bolt-ev
6 – Fraction of Natural Gas Electric Generating Plants that are Combined Cycle: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39012
7 – US Electricity by Source Data: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
8 – Baseload Explained: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Baseload_power
9 – Peaking Power Explained: https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Peaking_power
10 – Wikipedia article on Fossil Fuel Power Plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station
Source for image used in article: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43295
Category: Economy, Global Warming, Reality Check, Science and Technology
“Cow farts are bad, badder than math.”
AOC
In my case, I use 93 octane and add lead, octane booster and anti
ethanol with a splash of Marvel Oil.
Reason 1: 390 cu. 4bbl Holly dual pumper mech secodaries.
Reason 2: You can’t get Sunnoco 260 anymore.
Reason 3: Fucking hippies.
Reason 4: Because.
So if it takes so much more energy to charge electric cars then
what I am doing makes all their save the planet efforts moot in
addition to what you describe.
Give me good fuel and I won’t have to pollute so much.
Rich exhaust with a hint of tetra makes following a muscle car an olfactory delight*!
*providing you’re an actual American and not someone who just pays taxes.
If a lady wore a perfume based on 100 octane fuel and tire smoke, I’d look like Joe Biden sniffing her neck.
It was 112 octane when I graduated high school and drove a
64 Belvedere with a 426 wedge head and 4 sp hurst mystery shifter.
It was a “sleeper” with wide ovals and no chrome anywhere.
Little ol lady car.
My Main Men!!! ^THIS^ (‘beans) and ^WORD^ (-Dog) And we all remember/pine away for Ammaco Premium White Gas (is that rayciss?) Homeboy down the road from me has a little country store with tanks and he sells the equivalent in a non e 98 octane. It is a little more spendy initially but Big Red, Sassy, Little Josey, The Ark, and all the mowers love it. More MPG, no carbon or gunk build up and have yet to clean injectors or carb bowls. And I don’t drive a Prius.
420 miles to Baby Girls House, used to make that drive 5 or more times a year. 1200 plus to Sis in NE and up to 2K to Brother in Dakota. How many charging stops will be needed for those runs?
Hondo, I can’t believe I read the whole thing. Thanks…I think?
“Give me good fuel and I won’t have to pollute so much.”
I love the smell of old-school avgas in the morning!
The old formula diesel used during Vietnam Times triggers my ptsd.
#2 Diesel and a Detroit Diesel 16V149T (the T stands for turbo). Damn engine would take a 100% block load in a single step, little burp and immediately recover. Be ready to take load in under 10 seconds with electric start; take on load in under 5 seconds with air start. The sound (and smell) of freedom. 1500 HP @ 1800 rpm, forever and ever, Amen!
It was the sweet smell of Sulpher.
Modern diesel fuel smells like stale gasoline.
I noticed a brand new house in my neighborhood is covered in solar panels. If you’re serious enough about saving the environment to put $30k in solar on your roof, then buying a brand new house in a place that used to be a farm shouldn’t be at the top of your list.
You should never mount anything on a roof.
Same goes for chimneys.
Hell, how ya gonna fit an acre of panels on a house anyway?
As the stank-ass hippies would whine, “Cuz muh feels!”
I’m refinancing my house. FIRST question asked, “Are there solar panels on it?”
Yeah.
I’m considering solar for my house, but only with an isolation switch. Why? Because fuck SDG&E, their extortionate rates, and their penchant for putting the money I pay them into the pocket of Gavin Nuisance, that’s why
I’ve been driving a Prius as my commuter car for 8 years now. It is a gas motor with an electric assist, no plug in. Vehicle charges through regenerative braking. I drive 180 miles round trip each day so when gas went through the roof in the spring of 2012 I had to make a change in my daily driver. 377000+ miles later it’s still going. Some people; like me, drive hybrids for one simple reason gas mileage. I’m still getting 48+ MPG and don’t have the worries of charging or range anxiety.
When vehicle shopping in 2006 I had a wad of cash (8 months of back BAH for an E-5 in Hawai’i). This was in the era of $5/gallon gas…
I did the calculations on a used compact Toyota or a used Prius, pay in cash vs loan, long term maintenance, efficiency, etc.
The compact 4 banger w/o batteries won, even when discounting finance costs to zero.
And I wasn’t driving an f’ing Prius.
(How about the toxic sh*tstorm that batteries produce, during manufacturing and oopsies…)
Here’s the right link:
A buddy of mine bought a prius a while back. He added a custom bumper sticker that says “Fuck the environment, I’m saving gas money!”
I have a Ford Fusion hybrid non plugin type and have averaged 42MPG over the life of the vehicle. It runs on 87 octaneE10, will run on E15 and is very comfortable to drive or ride in.
I didn’t buy it to save the environment I bought it to save my wallet. Its a long way to empty and I’m not giving up size, comfort, or ride quality. It isn’t a performance car, but it is suitable for me.
2017 Kia Forte. Mine is a six speed, my buddy’s an auto. He only gets 38 mpg, I get 40. Cars cost less than $20k (mine only $14k after some hard negotiating etc.). At 40mpg plus paying less up front, I’m miles ahead. Oh, and that 40mpg is based on average highway speeds of 75-80.
Why are you trying to hard to be a useful fool for the fossil fuel industry?
These “studies” attempting to prove electric cars are not less polluting than gas vehicles always use bullshit slight of hand with the data.
This has been studied to death by actual research.
Yes, electric cars are cleaner even when factoring in costs of electricity production using fossil fuels and all the other nonsense that the fossil fuel industry And their dipshit tools keeps trying to bring up to argue otherwise.
And the gap between how clean electric cars are and gasoline vehicles are is growing.
And if you ever drive a Tesla you will no longer give a damn if they are cleaner. You will just want one.
Full electric vehicles are incredible to drive. I own a WRX STI and even a model 3 blows the doors off it. And the ride is serenely comfortable and quiet.
Your reply above is little more than a hissy fit which you appear to be throwing because someone presented an argument that you don’t like – and which is solid. If you believe there’s an error in the article above, please be specific in identifying that error. If you can’t, do us all a favor and spare us the histronics.
The data used above is all publicly available and can be found in the sources indicated, and I’ve double-checked the math. And yes, I have the requisite background to write the above article. In civilian life, I worked for roughly 15 years as an engineer before moving into senior technical management.
Now, do you have anything productive to add, Commissar Wumao (五毛)?
I bet that Major Moonbat gorges on his cult propaganda the same way these Tasmanian Devils gorge themselves on animal flesh. Enjoy, and this is a 180 video meaning that you can put your pointer on the screen while playing to look around, enjoy!!
The weakness in Hondo’s calculations?
He left out the virtue-signaling factor…
He’s simply acting like a hurt child throwing a temper tantrum because he’s just been told that Santa Claus isn’t real, PT. Unfortunately, that behavior describes much of the environmental movement to a “T”. Along with much of the political Left, for that matter.
FWIW: I have no heartburn with people choosing to buy electric vehicles; they’re clean during operation and they’re actually quite fuel-efficient. But they are NOT “completely green”, either during manufacture or operation. I also have heartburn with being forced to subsidize, via my taxes, someone else’s choice to buy one in various ways.
And I REALLY get p!ssed at the EPA for baldfaced lying about electric vehicles’ “equivalent” fuel economy. “108 MPG equivalent highway” MY AZZ. As I note in the article above, that’s only true if 100% of the electricity used to charge an electric vehicle is generated by processes using zero carbon-based fuel – e.g., by the equivalent of pixie dust and unicorn smiles.
In reality, the vast majority of the electricity used to charge electric vehicles today is generated by burning carbon-based fuel of one form or another. Unless we start building a sh!tload of new nuclear plants, that’s not going to change anytime soon. And given the time of day when the vast majority of electric vehicles will get recharged, it may not change even then.
“…unless we start building a sh!tload of new nuclear plants…”
Which need to start YEARS ago! Here in CT, Millstone’s Unit 3 is the ‘youngest’ reactor at 34. It took 12 years for it to go from permit to first criticality. It’s operating permit expires in 2025.
Not just an ‘oops’, a BIG F’ING OOPS.
Given the way things are going up here with the Public Utilities Regulatory “Authority” [read: state workers’ union shakedown mechanism for reallocations to the general fund (read: general fund = state workers’ pension fund)] no sane company will build a power generation unit, nuclear or otherwise, without subsidies. Quite frankly, I’ve seen the ‘planning’ the state ‘helps’ these companies with, Stalin would be proud.
It goes beyond that.
In a deregulated industry (it really isn’t but pretend it is) no IOU (investor owned utility) wants to put money into any project with a 40 year ROI. Hell, 5 years is hard enough. And building even a dual unit AP-1000 site will take 10-15 years and cost upwards of $15-20B. Nobody wants to incur that sort of burden, even with federal loan guarantees.
1000 MW gas plant, OTOH? 18-24 months, $1.2-1.5B? Where do I sign?
Solar and wind farms? Tax subsidies? Yes, please! Where would you like them? Of course! 20-25 percent availability versus 93 percent for nuclear? Who cares!
Well. CA is finding out.
Jesus wept.
We really are doomed.
F**k it, I’ve got an ax and candles.
Anyone know where to get a good copper bottom still?
Roh-Dog, this ol’ boy might be able to hook you up?
His Pappy and Grandpappy would know how to hook you up; the “character” in the song was more about the wacky tobacky!
My point eggxactly Pappy; He ain’t using it anymore, prolly make R-D a good price on it. It was only the Big Black Dodge that crashed and burned, the still is “still” there.
Here’s one option..
https://vengeancestills.com/
Dang! That’s getting bookmarked!!
Thanks
Hondo, ol’ Poe’s such an unwoke, politically-incorrect dinosaur he drives a like-new, nine-year-old, full-sized V-8 Cadillac DTS with only 40,000 miles. I had two Caddies until recently when I sold the 2005 De Ville (also pristine) to a friend.
Growing up in Oklahoma and spending much of my life in West and South Texas and New Mexico where long drives are routine, I’ve always owned big, comfortable automobiles: Cadillacs, Lincolns, Chryslers, Oldsmobiles, etc., that used to be known as touring models
My all-time favorite was Old Blue, a big, long, 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville convertible which I bought off the show room floor and kept 25 years. I gave it to my nephew, now an E-7 in the 82d who restores cars and still has it 20 years later.
Like many people who have lived in the wide-open spaces of the Southwest with their realistically high speed limits, I look at the virtue-signalers driving their little roller skates as self-righteous, masochistic morons.
If you choose a small vehicle for economy, that’s one thing–when you do it to make a political statement, you’re a grandstanding fool in this old man’s view.
Do I believe in environmental protections like emissions controls? You bet–but having visited other areas of the world where they clearly do not, I view that as a largely symbolic gesture on a global scale, although it certainly has helped reduce urban air pollution in this country.
Here ya go, Lars, I’m handing you a golden opportunity to denounce my dinosaur dipshit ways. Meanwhile I’ll just keep smiling smugly at your self-righteous virtue signaling.
“WRX STI”
That “Subaru Sunday” jingle was the worst brain worm ever.
Lezbaru!… Why does that not surprise me? Probably has one of those annoying coffee can mufflers on it too…
HEY Major Moonbat, what about the metals used in the manufacture of those pwecious cars that is strip mined in third world countries? I bet little Oojumbuwa and his grade school aged friends thank you for their sweatshop employment so you and your crowd can feel special! As for me, I’ll stick with my 4WD Pickup that has a V8 engine!!!
Look at a lithium mine and tell me this is an environmentally good way forward.
I enjoy my lithium-ion batteries, but I don’t pretend that they’re environmentally friendly. Lead acid batteries are far, far easier to recycle. Most lithium batteries are tossed in the trash.
Dont forget that the batteries aren’t manufactured in the same countries that the lithium is mined in, so more transport costs, then the completed batteries are transported to where the cars are manufactured, then the cars are shipped overseas to the US…
Also consider the mining of the required cobalt. More grim third-world stuff.
And holding the reigns in their blood-stained hands? The ChiComs.
Which explains some of the folks advocating for much more.
Oops. We were not supposed to notice.
Captured photo of Lars behind the wheel:
https://www.hotcars.com/20-russian-cars-that-were-built-to-crumble/
We have two electric vehicles at work, very handy and convenient. But they’re actually coal powered in my area. There ain’t no such thing as green energy. There will always be an environmental impact. It’s a blatant lie to claim otherwise.
“this has been studied to death by actual reseach”
Pointy Head is is not referring to the Cambridge research, the MIT research, the Cal-Poly research, or the EPA research.
No, he is referring to the research done by the women’s study department at Michigan which “proved” that electric cars run on magical unicorn fairy dust, and men are all evil unless they are stupid tools of the Marxist left.
The name of the study was “I want my free electric car now; waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”
No Lars, the carbon footprint of electric cars, solar panels, and foolish soy drinking leftist “men” is well documented.
That YOU are unaware of the facts is typical.
How does it feel to be a tool of politicians enriching themselves at taxpayer expense? Oh, wait, you endorse that as a Biden supporter, don’t you.
Foolish Tool.
Don’t overlook how the ChiComs profit greatly on this stuff. Kinda explains the enthusiasm, eh?
Dear Dipshit,
You know you’re about as useful as a turn signal on a BMW, don’t you?
Physics teaches us that the fewer points of conversion, the more energy efficient an engine (Carnot or otherwise) will be.
Getting “trons” to your battery in your vehicle requires several steps. Generator losses. Step up and step down transformer losses. Line losses.
Starting to get the picture?
Now let’s look at the environmental costs. Cerium. Cadmium. Nickel. Potassium. And a whole slew of stuff the state of CA gets itself in the vapors over, cept when it comes to controlling the little people, of course.
Case in point. Ever driven I-15 from LA to Vegas? Near the CA/NV border (that last hill before you make the sweeping left and then down to state line) is a place called Mountain Pass. Not much there to speak of, except a Cerium mine and processing facility. Only one thing–it never opened. By the time my father had finished the project in the late 90s, Molycorp/Chevron shut it down because the enviroweenies got their panties in a wad, not to mention that these guys in China undercut the price–which is easy when you have no such thing as MSHA, pay your people shit, etc.
Now consider not only the enviro issues of making this stuff, but disposal, or, if possible, recycling (hint: not really.) Whut??? Heavy metals! Soil leaching! Groundwater contamination!! Say it ain’t fuckin so!
Yeah, multiply that by several orders of magnitude.
He’s going to argue his point with electrical engineers, a debate which he is ill-equipped to have. The one thing you didn’t bring up, but Hondo did touch on, is that converting DC made by solar and wind to AC is complex and expensive. What didn’t get mentioned is the impact on power quality. That chopped DC sort of acts like AC, with a big penalty in power quality, especially 3rd order harmonics. Now you need to consider things like 200% rated neutrals, excessive heat from these harmonics (which is wasted energy), and failure of the power electronics that make this happen, which happens often enough to be planning factor with these systems. But what do I know, I’ve only worked on electrical systems in 43 states and multiple foreign countries (military and civilian life).
Started to explain below. One of the reasons those inverters drag efficiency down is because of the LC filter circuits that TRY to smooth out harmonics, but never really get THD below 10 percent, which modern electronics HATE.
And working with and for utilities nationwide for the last quarter century, nothing keeps linemen, relay techs, and ECC transmission and distribution operators up at night like THOUSANDS of micro-generation systems tied into the grid, any one if which could potentially backfeed into a system and really fuck up someone’s day.
If it ain’t a big chunk of iron rotating in accordance with f = (n * rpm)/120, I don’t want anything to do with it! Smooth as silk, beautiful sine waves as far as the oscilloscope can see. Hell, my personal favorite in terms of electrical apparatus is making a comeback, the synchronous condenser! Smooth power factor correction and voltage support without the voltage spikes from switched capacitors and infinitely controllable.
There were a couple still on the SCE system when I first started there.
Amazing how the field current direction can make a machine go from pumping out VARs to “eating” them.
My current employer is retrofitting decommissioned generators and converting them to synchronous condensers. The nice thing is that with modern controls, if you need 1127.3 leading KVARS, you’ll get 1127.3 leading KVARS. Ramp it up smoothly with no voltage spikes or other undesirable power anomalies like ferro-resonance.
Nice to see some “enlightened” electrical types here.
KVARS, power factors, harmonic distortion, lead and lag
and my favorite topic field current.
If you need more power (Watts), add more diesel fuel
but….if you need more VARS add more field current.
That was the most significant point that helped me
to understand what is really going on.
My home backup is a four cylinder Kubota diesel
driving a 10KW Onan. The wave form is super clean
and handles a 3KW ssb amplifier nicely.
The house is electric heat (love it) and the genset
can handle that as well. I can turn off the electric
water heater remotly as needed to manage the load.
And I run it on home heating oil (no tax) which is
just #2 diesel with red dye anyway.
But yeah, anti gel is needed in the winter to ensure
starting until the return warms the tank.
Lars pulled the same shit with me on the topic of wildland fire back when he was still calling himself Cuntholio.
I bet he was fun to work for in the Army (/sarc).
I missed that one. Arguing with a firefighter about firefighting? 👌 Got it.
This has been an -electric and -illuminating- thread.
I’ll see myself out.
But seriously, thanks for all you do.
General Engineering and Calc Based Physics took an desire to play with electron right outta my soul.
I was bored to tears by differential equations and fluid thermodynamics. Senior year I traded my chem E / chem Majors for MOS 11B and was -much- happier.
Going broke saved me. Oh, very much!
I jumped around fields a bit after that, college and profession, and have made a longish career out of IT
Strange indeed. But with the constant change and gee-whiz industry I support, I am never bored.
Question, Dipshit.
Does your POS have a 15,000+ pound towing capacity?
Thanks for playing.
And here we go….
I knew data going against hugging trees would bring him out.
Remover folks! Today is Saturday, a day typically reserved for that hallowed tradition of mowing the lawn! Do your part to keep the American Shale Oil Industry ALIVE! The members of The Fossil Fuel Unabashed Consumer Kindly Letting Autos (and other gas-powered equipment) Run Selflessly respectfully request you idle run your equipment for at least an extra hour, before and after your activities! And if the commie neighbors complain, pour gasoline their lawn in the shape of a phallus!! (Fire optional)
Here at F2UCKLA(&og-pe)RS we need not remind you to say your Hail Fords, Our Koch Brothers and face Cushing OK to prostrate 5 times a day, we are a cult (apparently), warnings are not given!
Have an oily day!
In the beginning is price … in the end there is cost.
My personal vehicle is a 2005 Honda Fit, with manual transmission. It is achieving 33-37 mpg, with about 215,000 miles on the odometer. The $15,000 price was paid off ten years ago. Insurance is down to state minimums (no comprehensive, no collision, just pure liability in case I hit something or somebody).
With gas at $1.87 per gallon here, I’m paying 5.67 cents per mile. I can drive 500 miles to go visit my family in Florida for about $30.00 in gasoline. I can drive at 70 mph for about four hours (280 miles), totally refuel (and get a cup of coffee, and make a toilet stop) in 20-25 minutes. Within four more hours be at my destination. When I arrive, another 10 minutes at a gas station, and I’m primed for another 300 miles.
And that’s with air conditioning or heating on all the way. Heat for a gas car is a free “waste product,” while for an electric car it’s an additional load on the battery. Air conditioning is a load on either type of car. Do the EPA estimates for electric cars add air conditioning and heating loads to their figures?
Let’s see any Tesla, or other electric vehicle, match those numbers.
Missing from all figures I have seen is the cost of replacing the car battery at the end of it’s useful life (or do the owners just plan on buying a new car?) And all published figures for electric cars I have seen are for new, off the showroom models. What is the efficiency after five, ten, fifteen years? For my Honda, it hasn’t dropped 1 mpg over 15 years.
I’d like to see an “all up” cost of ownership over 15 years for a Tesla.
‘I’d like to see an “all up” cost of ownership over 15 years for a Tesla.’
Logic dictates it’s handily more, factor in the higher up fronts and loss of opportunity re compounding interest on the initial savings.
Batteries ain’t good for cars save limited and specific uses.
‘Do you Fit?’, great marketing slogan, damn fine utilitarian vic.
Fire dept costs for putting out the burning Tesla vary by location.
As well as the HAZMAT Disposal fees as well, I’m sure.
Had a colleague at my previous place of employment who had to do exactly that with a Prius, Charles. If I recall correctly, it cost him about $7500.
Also if I recall correctly, he and his wife had owned the car 10+ years when he had to do that. So a 10-year lifespan may be about right.
Not all are that expensive. Honda uses a different tack in their hybrids (smaller battery except in plug-in hybrids). I’ve heard their hybrid batteries supposedly cost around $3000 to replace.
“A good carbon footprint is two equal strips of rubber”
Mickey Thompson
What the virtue signaling Progs/leftists fail to consider and take into account is the carbon footprint of the carbon/fossil fuels used to mine the minerals and create the materials used making those huge battery packs. Plus, I don’t think Tesla’s battery plant runs on Unicorn farts (which Progs likely believe is totally green energy).
If everyone in the country had electric vehicles, there would be rolling brownouts daily. Plus, how would batteries power the trucks, trains and planes to operate the nation’s transportation system? Bet A. Ocrazio-Cuntez can’t answer that question.
Fun fact, a standard modern day locomotive is (and has been for more than 50 years), technically a hybrid… They’re diesel electric, a large diesel engine produces power that’s converted to DC to run electric motors which actually drive the wheels
Most of the older ones today are 600VDC for traction while a number use AC Traction Motors. The big Diesel Electric locomotive breakthrough came about in 1939 when EMD, the Electro motive Division of General Motors debuted their EMD 103 Demonstrator Locomotive Set, four 1,350 units in an A-B-B-A configuration delivering 5400HP total. Before that most Railroads had a “Diesels are fine as long as you don’t overload ’em” attitude and the savings on using diesels were quickly seen by the railroads using the demonstrators, the AT&SF being one of the first major customers. The AT&SF had to send unit trains of tank cars full of water to their high desert locations to keep steam locos watered, but the use of diesels negated that along with them being far cheaper to maintain.
I knew that with all the train-o-philes on this site that someone would have the “rest of the story”..
Well, it’s kind of gone back and forth. The original diesel electrics had DC generators and DC traction motors, next generations had 3-phase AC generators (alternators) with rectifiers to run the DC traction motors. Now, you have the 3-phase alternator feeding a variable frequency drive, which converts the AC to DC then “chops” the DC into pulses that accelerate/decelerate an AC induction motor. This allows the use of a less expensive motor with lower maintenance requirements (no brushes to adjust/replace or commutator to undercut/rebuild/replace). The reason DC motors lasted so long in this application is that speed control was easy to do, it just required a rheostat to adjust the field voltage/current, whereas an induction motor would only run at a single speed which was a function of the line frequency. This changed once variable frequency drives were developed.
And let’s not forget those train engine electric generators run on diesel fuel. No dino juice and the train is a no go.
Remover folks! Today is Saturday, a day typically reserved for that hallowed tradition of mowing the lawn! Do your part to keep the American Shale Oil Industry ALIVE! The members of The Fossil Fuel Unabashed Consumer Kindly Letting Autos (and other gas-powered equipment) Run Selflessly respectfully request you idle run your equipment for at least an extra hour, before and after your activities! And if the commie neighbors complain, pour gasoline on their lawn in the shape of a phallus!! (Fire optional)
Here at F2UCKLA(&og-pe)RS we need not remind you to say your Hail Fords, Our Koch Brothers and face Cushing OK to prostrate 5 times a day, we are a cult (apparently)…warnings are not given!
Don’t be caught slippin’!
Have an oily day!
(Praise the benevolent Mods! We good?)
“Let he who is without oil toss the first rod”
We may have some gearbox problems but I doubt if any of us will blow any trannies.
Well strip my gears and call me shiftless.
😉
It’s all fun and games…until you crack your rear end.
I MISS the Good Old Days when the term “blowing a tranny” simply meant that you were having major car trouble!
“Let he who is without oil toss the first rod”
Lubrication 3:16
I hate to burst your bubble, API, but most new gas burner cars now have only one “drive” gear. There are no more gears shifting in the transmission unless you order a car with a stick shift – which is, yes, still available, up to a 6-speed transmission.
Would I go back to a stick shift? Only if I had no other choice.
I still double clutch manual transmissons because it’s cool.
Upshift gets a little stab of throttle but downshifting makes
a small car sound like an old B-61 Mack. In my dreams.
No, all new cars with auto transmissions don’t have gearless CVT’s. Most have geared automatic transmissions. My Vette has an 8 speed auto.
“By my deeds I honor Him, V8!”
https://youtu.be/8YrWse-qOsA
Are we awaited in Valhalla?
Wow! I coulda had a V8!
QUOTE:
What the virtue signaling Progs/leftists fail to consider and take into account is the carbon footprint of the carbon/fossil fuels used to mine the minerals and create the materials used making those huge battery packs.
END QUOTE (Thanks RGR769)
Or as it has been said before, “Electric cars are not free of pollution …
they just move the pollution to the power plants”
and as noted, there is still a pollution overhead to the batteries themselves.
They move the pollution to third-world countries and the profits to the ChiComs.
And even solar (photovoltaic) systems have issues.
A good rule of thumb for home inverter systems is about 78 percent efficient from the input to output of the inverter. Even in utility applications, that figure is barely above 80 percent.
So stank-ass hippie who just paid $30k for a 10kw system are already down to 7800 watts. And considering an average 5 hours per day, you could (in theory) put 40kwh on the grid, minus what you use.
In June. December? Figure 20 percent of that (or less), enough to run a coffee pot. Maybe. So your effective ROI for that system is not the 8-10 years claimed, but closer to 20-30 years, IOW, right about the time everything wears out.
Which makes me happy that Mrs. A Proud infidel®™ and I settled for a Generac propane-powered generator system for A Proud Infidel®™ Manor for when the power goes out, FOSSIL FUELS RULE!!!
Honestly, I think even those are a waste of money.
First, you’d have to run off propane or NG. (Disclosure: I don’t.)
Even if you did, those systems, while convenient, ain’t cheap. IIRC, a 20kw system installed with cold weather kit can run upwards of $10k (5 for generator, 5 for install.)
I just said hell with it and have a 7500 watt gas generator that plugs into a transfer switch. Runs well pump, furnace, microwave, fridge, and a few outlets. If you don’t mind cold showers and hitting the laundromat, not a bad deal. And I’ve had power outages that lasted two WEEKS.
We decided to go ahead with that in case of a lengthy storm outage, the system we bought will power the entire house, water well and all and we’ve already used it. After thirty seconds of no power, it starts itself and switches over and when the grid power comes back on, the transition is seamless! I was set on using a diesel generator, but diesel fuel is vulnerable to bacterial contamination while propane isn’t.
And up here, diesel fuel can and does gel.
Adding a small fraction of kerosene should cure that quite nicely. Did in my diesel VW I owned for years, anyway (VW said that 10% kerosene or regular-grade gasoline could be used if winterized fuel wasn’t available, but I never liked using gasoline due to increased hazard).
An inverter running an air conditioner would be a disaster.
Power companies hate air conditioners because the meter on
the building is a watthour meter and does not read reactive
power which air conditioners need.
You pay for Watts. They pay for Vars.
They do switch in capacitor banks during heat waves though
in an attempt to bring the line back to unity.
I wanted to wait for the dust to settle. There are several corrections that need to be made. I have owned a Chevrolet Bolt for two years now. Bought the 2019 brand new. How much of South Carolina’s electricity is produced by nuclear power? 58 percent South Carolina’s four nuclear power plants supplied about 58 percent of the state’s net electricity generation (2017 figure). All carbon-free electricity. Defending the use of ICE cars that waste 70% of the gas put into them instead of using it to pushing the thing down the road is just…silly. We have peak and off peak rates. Our Bolt is driven daily by the Soviet to and from work. We only charge the Bolt once a Week and our charger is set to do this from 10pm to 6am Sunday night into early Monday morning. The bulk of most daily commuters driving is far below 70 mph. The Soviet takes 20-30 minutes to drive to work and only about 10 of those miles are at 70…on a good day. Unlike ICE (internal combustion engine) cars, the Bolt excels at slow to moderate speeds. Drive a Bolt at an average of 45mph and you will get right at 300 miles instead of the 218 stated above on the same amount of power. Owners have gone up to 400 miles on that same amount of charge driving at 35mph average with no ac/lights or accessories on. Why? Just to do it I guess. I have driven it from Charleston SC to Erie PA and back. Left Erie and did not stop to charge until Hagerstown MD. Coming down the mountains from Breezewood the car added miles, about 65 miles of range due to regenerative charging. In city driving, all the energy from an ICE car is lost when you stop. Much of it is recaptured in the Bolt since you almost never use the brakes to brake, it is done by the electric motor putting charge back into the battery. Off Peak we pay about $0.075 per kwh. We use about 45 kwh per charge. Thats about… Read more »
Not a fair comparison Dave. As smoking hot and electrifying as the Soviet is, PLUS her magnetic personality, that Bolt will be fully charged just by her sitting in it.
Hell, just seeing her picture has that effect on most of us.
If that were actually true, it would be like having my own oil well.
😆 😆 😆
Five rebuttal points, Dave: 1. The data I had for the Bolt was from a highway range test. I didn’t address around-town efficiency. Unlike most conventional vehicles, hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles typically get better mileage around town than on the highway (lower wind resistance). So yes: an electric vehicle is even more fuel efficient around town than on the highway. So is a hybrid. Bringing up the fact that either is more efficient around town thus falls into the “true but irrelevant” category. Above, I was specifically addressing highway fuel efficiency. 2. The same is true about regenerative braking. Hybrids use that as well, and it adds to their efficiency. 3. If you’re charging from 10P-6A, that’s great; you’re one of the few actually using some baseload power to charge your electric vehicle. However, even then between 37% and 50% of your charging is done with non-baseload power (baseload is defined by daily minimum period, typically from around midnight or 1AM to 5AM); nuclear is used almost exclusively for meeting baseload 24/7/365. That means 37% to 50% of your charging is very likely being done with fossil-fuel generated power – and maybe more depending on whether your local utility’s baseload is partially generated by coal- or gas-fired plants with efficiencies of between 37% and 58%. 4. If your area is getting 58% of its power from nuclear sources, that’s great; I truly wish everywhere in the US was. Unfortunately, that’s not the case virtually everywhere else in the country. The US national average is only 20% of electricity is generated by nuclear power. That means on average nationwide only about 1/3 of baseload (somewhere around 60% of peak nationally, if I recall correctly) is generated by nuclear power; the rest is generated by fossil fuel plants. 5. Finally, producing gasoline does NOT use a “massive amount of electricity”. The annual consumption of electricity supplied by the electric grid by petroleum refining has averaged around 48 MWh annually over the last 6 years. In contrast, 2019 US electrical generation was 4,117 billion kWh. That means that petroleum refining uses a… Read more »
“producing gasoline does NOT use a “massive amount of electricity”
Propane is a byproduct (waste product) of refining gasoline.
They used to burn it off in tall stacks as it was collected.
Was not until the fifties it became a marketable fuel for
rural heating and cooking where NG was not available.
So it should free right? Nope, it is now tied to the price of gasoline.
Don’t forget aromatics are used as vase stock for synthetic lubricants.
Kinda like the whale oil industry, nothing goes to waste.
Make Whaling Great Again!
(I can see New London from here)
The Yugo was way before it’s time.
Yes, it was. As I recall, Idiocracy was set about 500 years in the future. (smile)
Hahahaha!
That hood ornament tho…
I’ll just continue to drive my Dodge Ram 1500 Big Horn…
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