Are Electric Cars Bad for the Environment? - Going Zero Waste
5030 this article addresses some false myths out there about EV's that impact all of us.
Propaganda. Innuendo. Spin. Same sort of fluff you find on VOX and Huffington Post. Its written in the style of an infomercial or a Baptist sermon. Preaching to the true believers, not written to make a good argument.
One fact that jumped out at me about the 20% efficiency of gas engines and that peaks at 38% in some Toyota small engines.
I burnt 36 gallons of gas in the 2010 F-150 with the 5.4L engine to go look at, drive and get the 2016 Leaf home (3300 pounds). Let us call it 25% efficient. That meant I used 9 gallons to do the work and dumped 27 gallons into the air for us all to breath. Who would go pour 27 gallons of gas out on the ground?
EV's are more like 85% efficient with energy.
As a retired mechanical engineer I say, "So what? They are fearmongering the ignorant." What matters is the cost of getting the job done. No man works for free, this makes Capitalist resource allocation the fairest and most accurate measure of resource consumption on Earth. At every step of the way everyone involved demands to be paid a fair price for their time, effort, investments, and resources contributed.
Consider gasoline at $2.50/gallon. That is 1/3rd of an hour of a minimum wage employee to produce. Does that put in perspective just how few resources are consumed? I don't know of any minimum wage employee who could make 3 gallons of gasoline an hour, or do anything close to 3 gallons of work. You know oil workers are paid 10x or more than that. Its an amazing value.
Now consider you couldn't even drive your new LEAF home, it had to be trailered. Didn't really have to be trailered but
you made the economic and environmental decision to burn 36 gallons of gasoline
for your convenience.
Quick search suggests your 30 kWh battery will charge from low battery warning to 80% in 30 minutes at a 50 kW CHAdeMO charger. LBW is about 20 miles? 80% of 107 miles is 86, so 66 miles of range in 30 minutes. So if CHAdeMO charging was available at optimal positions and starting with a full charge you could have got home with 2 stops of 30 minutes each. Best you could hope for realistically was 3 stops because the chargers are probably not optimally spaced and not on your direct route.
Walmart in Paducah is the nearest CHAdeMO to Murray. Cost is $1.00 plus $0.21/minute for less than 75 kW rate. LEAF charges at 50 kW on CHAdeMO. That will be $7.30 for 30 minutes for 66 miles. That is cost equivalent of 22 MPG at $2.50/gallon. "But remember you are saving the Earth!"
Guessing your 2016 LEAF cost about $13,000. The LEAF is notorious for battery degradation due to lack of thermal management. Conversely a Tesla battery is bathed in propylene glycol coolant and has electric heaters. Seems the 30 kWh is worse than the 24:
Nissan LEAF 3 -kWh Battery Degrades More Rapidly Than 24-kWh Pack
Consider the article and see if like me the ethics of ICE usage may become harder to breath.
The author clearly has no technical background and writes of things she does not know. Repeats disproven claims. Hey, if copper mining is so bad then how about the wiring in your house? The electric motor in your clothes washer? One obvious thing she misses is how copper, cobalt, lithium, etc, are not consumed. They are perfectly recyclable.
I grew up on poor dirt farms and spent the summers in the tobacco patch to help keep a roof over our family's heads. Over the years I came to understand my redneck thoughts on energy usage was not in the best interest of my kids who are now 22.
EV's are not perfect but they may be better than wasting up to 80% of the gas that we buy. The ICE is on its way out over time so EV's need to be understood and made more safe for the environment.
You do not waste gasoline if you use it for something useful. Its basic engineering. "This is what you get from gasoline." Unless you can use gasoline for something which is more useful then your use is not wasted. You drove an F-150 and wasted gasoline that could have been used in a Prius at 50 MPG. But you don't have a Prius. And you couldn't realistically tow the LEAF with a Prius. However I know a man who bought an airplane and towed it several hundred miles home with his Prius.
Disclaimer: I have been a Tesla owner for 6 years. Its a heck of a lot of fun but it is not saving the Earth. It represents $100,000 of consumption that will never be recovered vs the Prius it replaced. I put $100k in somebodys' pockets who will spend it no different than the petroleum worker will spend what I pay for gasoline.
I have free lifetime use of Tesla Superchargers. I can drive across the country for the cost of food, lodging, and tire rubber. My Tesla doesn't have to stop to charge during a 200 mile drive, but quickest way here to there is to stop with 30-40 miles remaining every 100-140 miles and only charge to reach the next Supercharger. Battery charges much faster when it is low than full (which is 265 miles).
