I admit that I copied and pasted this from another individual far more insightful than myself but you'll have to admit that the writer's point is well made.
Enjoy!
You copy/pasted from a spin artist.
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I'm an engineer & I love the electric vehicle technology.
However, I have been troubled for a longtime by the fact that the electrical energy to keep the batteries charged has to come from the grid and that means more power generation and a huge increase in the distribution infrastructure.
Whether generated from coal, gas, oil, wind or sun, installed generation capacity is limited.
A friend sent me the following that says it very well.
You should all take a look at this short article.
If electric cars do not use gasoline, they will not participate in paying the tax on every gallon of gas that is sold for automobiles, which was enacted years ago to help maintain our roads and bridges.
The electric cars will use the roads and not pay for their upkeep!
Government taxes any darn thing they please, any darn way they please. Alabama just imposted a $200 annual fee on EVs which in lieu of gasoline taxes is equivalent to 21,000 miles at 30 MPG. Much higher tax on EV than the average ICE. Alabama is among the highest. $100 is common.
In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car: Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it . This is the first article I've ever seen and tells the story pretty much as I expected it to.
"This is what I wanted to hear so it must be true!"
Electricity has to be one of the least efficient ways to power things, yet they're being shoved down our throats. Glad somebody finally put engineering and math to paper.
As a retired engineer I claim B.S. on you. The (biased) EPA fabricated "MPGe" to express the spectacular efficiency of an EV on those such as yourself who see big numbers and are impressed. Is based on one US gallon of gasoline being 115,000 BTU, 33.70 kWh, or 121.3 MJ. My inefficient Tesla Model S 83 is EPA rated 93 MPGe.
Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent - Wikipedia
I much prefer MPG$ based on the cost of electricity and the cost of gasoline. With fluctuating gasoline prices my Tesla runs from 60 to 100 MPGe. Have previously posted the math here.
At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro Executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious.
If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you have to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service On our small street (approximately 25 homes), The electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.
Around here a small apartment gets 100A. Small home gets 200A. Many get 400A. All pre-EV era.
A Tesla will charge off anything from 120V 15A to 240V 80A. Many Model 3s are limited to 240V 32A. Mine is currently on 120V 15A (drawing 12A) because that is where I chose to park today in my driveway. Also have a 240V 50A circuit for charging at 40A is the maximum my car will accept from AC.
This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our "genius" elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an 'OOPS...!' and a shrug.
The right time to charge an EV is at night when utilities discount surplus power. For some in California electricity costs $0.25/kWh during the day but many pay only $0.05/kWh or less at night.
If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.
Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine. Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the
16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles."
It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging Time) would be 20 mph. According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned , so I looked up what I pay for electricity.
I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.
The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So the Canadian Government wants loyal Canadians not to do the math, but simply pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.
I recognize parts of that from Eric Bolling, formerly of Fox News.
The GM Volt is a Government Compliance Car. Is not an EV, it is a PHEV, Plug-Hybrid Electric Vehicle with a token battery. It is a government compromise this is all you need car. It is the kind of automobile we would get if the government designed automobiles.
No one pays $1.16/kWh for electricity. Not even New Yorkers where the rates max out at $0.28.
And NONE of this discusses the disposal cost of the batteries once they are used up and need to be replaced!!!
No one discusses "disposal" of steel or aluminum used in ICE vehicles because the recyclers pay for scrap vehicles and still make money off the deal. Just as done for lead-acid batteries, a used lithium battery is richer in lithium than freshly mined ore. However unlike lead-acid a lithium battery is safe to throw in the dump. Just read the disposal information on your laptop or cellphone. Or DeWalt drill. NiCAD can not go in the trash but lithium can.
