Are we on the brink of an electric car revolution?

[biffvernon]

Yes, they would have to accept that if humanity is to survive then we have to stop burning fossil fuel, and of course education was just an example - it applies across the board!

[AutomaticEarth]

Travelling far less is a prerequisite as well.

This is key. In my opinion, the top priority of the Department for Transport should be transport mitigation, figuring out how people can do what they need/want to do without travelling as much.

Agree as well. I mainly work from home these days. If I need to travel, it is by train and/or bus, and only customer-facing meetings are allowed. If it's internal, it's Skype or conf call.

In fact, the company I work for tends only to pay out for car travel only if you can produce a receipt for the fuel you use, and it has to be a certain amount.

They will also not fund any air travel, unless under very exceptional circumstances (even if it is quicker and/or more productive).

[emordnilap]

Agree as well. I mainly work from home these days. If I need to travel, it is by train and/or bus, and only customer-facing meetings are allowed. If it's internal, it's Skype or conf call.

In fact, the company I work for tends only to pay out for car travel only if you can produce a receipt for the fuel you use, and it has to be a certain amount.

They will also not fund any air travel, unless under very exceptional circumstances (even if it is quicker and/or more productive).

That's quite an enlightened policy; almost unusual. We have a long way to go in this country (Ireland) before that catches on, sadly. People go to a shop in their FUVs (sometimes still wearing pyjamas) to get a newspaper.

And the health board pays people more mileage expenses to those with bigger cars, which is crazily backwards.

[Lurkalot]

I'm luke-warm on electric cars at best.

For example the Tesla might do 356 Wh/mi. That's 1.3 megajoules of energy per mile.

A litre of diesel has ~32 MJ and will get you some 11 miles, so 2.9 MJ per mile. Makes the electric look efficient? However, remember that to generate the 1.3 MJ of electricity from fossil fuels (and to distribute it) is less than 50% efficient taking the Tesla's 1.3 to at least 2.6 MJ... so same ballpark as the internal combustion engine.

Not going to argue about the figures and agree with the other statements made. I was wondering if anyone has incorporated other data into the figures , energy use from all those tanker lorries for instance , there's an awful lot of infrastructure and energy use involved before a car be it petrol , electric or giant hamster powered even turns a wheel.

[kenneal - lagger]

..... giant hamster powered even turns a wheel.

Think of all the grain you would have to grow and cart about for giant hamster power!

We need to get off the use of steel in cars as well to lighten the load shifted. Could we extract CO2 from the atmosphere to build carbon fibre cars? Now that would be a turn around; taking carbon from the air to build electric cars!

[AutomaticEarth]

Agree as well. I mainly work from home these days. If I need to travel, it is by train and/or bus, and only customer-facing meetings are allowed. If it's internal, it's Skype or conf call.

In fact, the company I work for tends only to pay out for car travel only if you can produce a receipt for the fuel you use, and it has to be a certain amount.

They will also not fund any air travel, unless under very exceptional circumstances (even if it is quicker and/or more productive).

That's quite an enlightened policy; almost unusual. We have a long way to go in this country (Ireland) before that catches on, sadly. People go to a shop in their FUVs (sometimes still wearing pyjamas) to get a newspaper.

And the health board pays people more mileage expenses to those with bigger cars, which is crazily backwards.

I was meant to say in my last post - the parking spaces are really small and the access roads for anyone using access to the car park are tight - to me this seems intentional. It doesn't stop the sales reps in their BMs and Mercs parking across 2 of them though.

There is also talk of putting some charging points.

They also run a free bus service from the railway station to the office every 15 mins, which it quite useful.

[kenneal - lagger]

If the parking spaces were provided to achieve a Planning Permission target they should be a minimum 2.4 wide by 4.8 deep. The planners would have given permission on this basis. If they have put in smaller spaces to achieve the required numbers they have cheated on their planning requirement. If, on the other hand, they have done it for the reason that you suggested it's a good idea if enforced.

Our local authority was taken to task by a local planning consultant, not me, when he was prosecuted for not parking within the designated bay. He measured the bay, along with several others in the town, and found that many of them were smaller than the minimum. He contested the fine and won and has made such a stink about it in the local paper that the LA has had to remeasure all their bays sizes and adjust those that were small. They have lost the not inconsiderable revenue from quite a few bays.

[Adam1]

I'm luke-warm on electric cars at best.

For example the Tesla might do 356 Wh/mi. That's 1.3 megajoules of energy per mile.

A litre of diesel has ~32 MJ and will get you some 11 miles, so 2.9 MJ per mile. Makes the electric look efficient? However, remember that to generate the 1.3 MJ of electricity from fossil fuels (and to distribute it) is less than 50% efficient taking the Tesla's 1.3 to at least 2.6 MJ... so same ballpark as the internal combustion engine.

Electric cars aren't massively energy saving. They can use low carbon energy like nuclear, hydro, wind etc, which is good but it's not as if we are anywhere near running out of high carbon (coal, gas) electricity to displace such that we need to be looking to vehicles.

Electric cars have clear benefits for local air quality. But I think they represent a real risk of locking us into another few decades of mass private ownership of big expensive boxes which spend 90% of their time sitting idle. The car is the problem more than its energy source.



If CO2 is the aim - decarbonise existing grid and super insulate buildings (save gas heating) before looking at electric cars.

If you live in a city then an electric car might be a good idea - but I argue far better public transport to mitigate the car itself would be better than swapping out oil for electric.

I am going to have to dispute the figures. A Tesla is a high performance sports car, akin to a Porsche or a Ferrari in terms of performance. You are comparing it with a 50mpg diesel. Apples and oranges. A Nissan Leaf will comfortably travel a mile on 250Wh - it is perhaps a better comparison to a family diesel.

Post peak, the amount of energy needed to produce a litre of diesel is becoming less and less favourable while, as electricity grids go renewable and from centralised to distributed generation, there is scope for improving the ratio of primary to final energy in the grid.

Otherwise, there a number of points in favour of EVs:

1) Whether a vehicle or not is a separate issue from whether we move away from dependence on private vehicles to car clubs more public transport. The move to electric vehicles is easier I think for city buses than for cars - more space for batteries - shorter range needed. They do lots of stop-starts, which EVs are particularly good at - no idling at bus stops.

2) Electric vehicles are not just about the amount of energy use, important as this is. They are about getting land transport onto renewables.

3) There is a big difference between those two photos - not a visible difference for sure but a real one nevertheless - the tens of thousands of air pollution premature deaths from internal combustion propelled vehicles (ICEs) is something we should be eliminating, even if there were no climate change or peak oil.

4) ICEs are noisier than EVs - don't we want to live in a quieter world?

5) Pure EVs are simpler - no starter motor, engine, gearbox, clutch, exhaust, fuel tank etc - scope for better longevity.

6) There is great synergy between improved and cheaper energy storage for EVs and for the grid - facilitating the move to 100% renewables by addressing intermittancy.

[Little John]

The problem is not that we are not on renewable energy (though we should be for environmental reasons). The problem is the amount of renewable energy available at any one time. There simply wont be enough and so the secondary question of how to power our transportation fleet on it is moot.

[clv101]

I am going to have to dispute the figures. A Tesla is a high performance sports car, akin to a Porsche or a Ferrari in terms of performance. You are comparing it with a 50mpg diesel. Apples and oranges. A Nissan Leaf will comfortably travel a mile on 250Wh - it is perhaps a better comparison to a family diesel.

The Tesla figure I used was a real world figure (from that post I linked to you a few weeks ago). I've no doubt the Leaf is a bit better - but then there are plenty of diesel cars that'll do over 70mpg these days. It's a reasonable ball park figure and doesn't change the argument.

Post peak, the amount of energy needed to produce a litre of diesel is becoming less and less favourable while, as electricity grids go renewable and from centralised to distributed generation, there is scope for improving the ratio of primary to final energy in the grid.

Indeed, while the EROI for diesel is sure to decline it's not obvious that grid electricity isn't going to head the same way - distributed renewable energy is still (and set to remain so for long time) far more expensive (reasonable 1st order proxy for EROI) than oil (before tax).

Otherwise, there a number of points in favour of EVs:

1) Whether a vehicle or not is a separate issue from whether we move away from dependence on private vehicles to car clubs more public transport. The move to electric vehicles is easier I think for city buses than for cars - more space for batteries - shorter range needed. They do lots of stop-starts, which EVs are particularly good at - no idling at bus stops.

Absolutely - I unreservedly support electric mass transit (buses and trains).

2) Electric vehicles are not just about the amount of energy use, important as this is. They are about getting land transport onto renewables.

I think this is a red herring. It's much much harder to get transport onto renewables than it is static energy consumption (electricity and heat). I would therefore argue that we should only think about converting transport onto renewable electricity once we've already got most static use of electricity (and heat!) onto renewables.

3) There is a big difference between those two photos - not a visible difference for sure but a real one nevertheless - the tens of thousands of air pollution premature deaths from internal combustion propelled vehicles (ICEs) is something we should be eliminating, even if there were no climate change or peak oil.

Agreed - but air pollution mostly associated with large urban areas, where I would argue for electrified mass transport. There is also a lot that can be done to clean up the ICE. Much easier to replace all the pre-EURO6 cars with EURO6 compliant engines and that'll make a big difference.

4) ICEs are noisier than EVs - don't we want to live in a quieter world?

Absolutely.

5) Pure EVs are simpler - no starter motor, engine, gearbox, clutch, exhaust, fuel tank etc - scope for better longevity.

Absolutely.

6) There is great synergy between improved and cheaper energy storage for EVs and for the grid - facilitating the move to 100% renewables by addressing intermittancy.

I don't buy this argument. The two solutions are quite different.
EV energy storage is about optimising weight, volume, packaging and charge speed. Static energy storage cares nothing about weight, very little about volume and packaging and is happy to charge slowly. I would be hugely surprised if the same energy storage solution is optimal for both applications. I think Tesla is barking up the wrong tree with the 'Power Wall'.

My key criticism of electric vehicles is that we should be moving our static, grid connected energy consumption to renewables before we seriously address transport. That's where there's a huge about (several decades worth) of low hanging fruit. Once the only fossil fuel use left is in cars, planes and ships we should switch our attention to transport.

[kenneal - lagger]

We have the ridiculous situation at the moment of people turning to electric heating, in the form of heat pumps, at a time when we are facing constraints in electricity production and our houses are abysmally insulated. We are trying to provide for a heat load which is entirely unnecessary using a power supply which is inappropriate for that use, electricity.

We are, to a large extent as has been pointed out above, doing the same with transport. We are planning for the unnecessary using inappropriate technology. Why are we doing this? Because we are using an inappropriate paradigm, economics, to decide on our priorities. Economics and its ugly sister, economic growth, are absolutely useless as they aren't putting costs into the system where those costs should go. Until environmental costs are added into the equation economics is worse than useless because it continuously comes up with the wrong answer.

As long as growth is the driver for all we do, and that is what is behind everything at the moment, we will be making wrong decisions. Until we get some joined up thinking we are lost.

[Little John]

....Economics and its ugly sister, economic growth, are absolutely useless as they aren't putting costs into the system where those costs should go. Until environmental costs are added into the equation economics is worse than useless because it continuously comes up with the wrong answer.....

yes

[biffvernon]

We have the ridiculous situation at the moment of people turning to electric heating, in the form of heat pumps, at a time when we are facing constraints in electricity production and our houses are abysmally insulated. We are trying to provide for a heat load which is entirely unnecessary using a power supply which is inappropriate for that use, electricity.

We are, to a large extent as has been pointed out above, doing the same with transport. We are planning for the unnecessary using inappropriate technology. Why are we doing this? Because we are using an inappropriate paradigm, economics, to decide on our priorities. Economics and its ugly sister, economic growth, are absolutely useless as they aren't putting costs into the system where those costs should go. Until environmental costs are added into the equation economics is worse than useless because it continuously comes up with the wrong answer.

As long as growth is the driver for all we do, and that is what is behind everything at the moment, we will be making wrong decisions. Until we get some joined up thinking we are lost.

Yes, but as one of those people who has turned to electric heating, in the form of heat pumps, I'd point out that the ridiculousness stems from the failure to convert the grid to renewable generation. It could have been done by now and will be done at sometime in the future, albeit too late.

I've been invited to give a talk tomorrow about my ideas for a light weight railway that runs on 100% renewable electricity.

[kenneal - lagger]

It would still be ridiculous to use 15kW to heat a house when 3kw would do nicely for a properly insulated one. By not insulating your house properly you are requiring that five times the generating capacity is installed and maintained! Add that up for a few million houses and it adds to cancerous growth quite nicely.

Reuse, REDUCE, Recycle!

Just because the heat pump in an uninsulated house was the right choice for you, personally, it doesn't mean it is the right choice for the human race.


(Edited - kenneal)

[biffvernon]

Eh? I don't understand. Is there a typo in the numbers? Of course houses should be well insulated! We've certainly put a lot of effort into insulation ours though it comes under the government's 'hard-to-heat' category.