Environmentalist on NPR assails EVs as worse than ICEs, calls for walking and biking

[Dan5]

Yes, his rebuttal is ridiculous. I guess he never heard of a company called Apple, or Sony, or dare I say GM (you know the place Ozzie used to work for)

I remember days when GM had 3 lines, Chevy, Pontiac, and Cadillac. The cars were built on the same frame, had the same engines, but the Pontiac was a tad more than the Chevy, and the Cadillac was a tad more than the Pontiac. keep in mind the only difference was the nameplate and some minor tweaks.

 

[rage_777]

There are people who feel cars are a problem no matter what the fuel. I meet a lot of them in Berkeley. Go looking for a charge station in Berkeley. Good luck. A city that should have lots has next to none. For the liberal bay area, Berkeley is the worst for EVs. The 'stop' signs have 'driving' painted below the 'stop'. Just as the ICE advocates may slam EV's, the anti-driving contingent also slams EV's I think because they don't want cars at all and EV's have a chance to perpetuate that evil. Berkeley is aggressive for ticketing parking, missing front plates, expired plates, and whatever.

So how exactly did they get their belongings from their homes to their dorm rooms? I know a couple of peoples parents that have kids at Berkeley, and I doubt they complain when their parents drive up from LA to Berkeley. They might be some of the biggest hypocrites in the world at Berkeley. Of course if my kids were to get a scholarship offer from Berkeley, I would still let them go. :wink:

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Another rebuttal to Ozzie's first article:

A Rebuttal: EVs are Clean at Every Speed - IEEE Spectrum

John Voelcker's rebuttal to Ozzie:

Electric Vehicles Need More Study, Less Emotion - IEEE Spectrum

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

So how exactly did they get their belongings from their homes to their dorm rooms? I know a couple of peoples parents that have kids at Berkeley, and I doubt they complain when their parents drive up from LA to Berkeley. They might be some of the biggest hypocrites in the world at Berkeley. Of course if my kids were to get a scholarship offer from Berkeley, I would still let them go. :wink:

I of course agree that Berkeley should have made at least a sufficient effort to support EV’s (if that is lacking).

Just a thought though:

IMHO there’s a distinction between hypocrisy, and trying to make a difference, or trying to improve oneself for the better, and sometimes falling short at such an honest attempt (as in moving house with a car and trailer for instance, in case that really counts as such a shortcoming).

Also: I can’t really see how someone is to blame for a parent’s action…

However: Don’t know whether that applies to the population at Berkeley or not…

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Interesting that Zehner's rebuttal is getting a lot more flak (read the comments) than his original article. In his rebuttal he peddles a ridiculous 'price tag' theory, that if an item A has a higher price tag than item B, then A has to be more dirty with higher carbon footprint. He says Solar panels have a poor ROI than power through coal plants, so solar is more dirtier.

How do these guys end up writing in IEEE Spectrum ?

Ok, it seems like Mr. Zehner got a lot, or even most, of his facts wrong, and made numerous bad arguments.

This is unfortunate, because its seems like his better argument, that communities should be designed or retrofitted so that cars aren't necessary for many tasks, has merit. I like my car, and I need it if I want to visit family and friends where it isn't practical or even possible to take public transit. However, if I need to buy some milk or send a package at the post office, I don't exactly want to get in my car for that mundane task.

 

[vfx]

Has anyone pointed out the the manufacturing of and auto - even an EV is less than 8 percent of the total carbon footprint over it's lifetime?

 

[evme]

There are people who feel cars are a problem no matter what the fuel. I meet a lot of them in Berkeley. Go looking for a charge station in Berkeley. Good luck. A city that should have lots has next to none. For the liberal bay area, Berkeley is the worst for EVs. The 'stop' signs have 'driving' painted below the 'stop'. Just as the ICE advocates may slam EV's, the anti-driving contingent also slams EV's I think because they don't want cars at all and EV's have a chance to perpetuate that evil. Berkeley is aggressive for ticketing parking, missing front plates, expired plates, and whatever.

I think people sometimes lose track of what is important. Would it be awesome that we have more mass transit options, sure. But it is important not to forget reality that mass transportation can't replace every car on the road no matter what. And EVs are a step in the right direction. Even if it is not 100% what they want, it is hard to deny it being a step in the right direction. Having them attack EVs is counter productive to their own cause. So it is important to remind those people that they are not going to convert people fullytomass transportation, but it is easier to convert people to EVs for those people who need cars and mass transportation for those that don't.

In the future we may not even need to own our own cars,the cars would be driven by computers and when we would just pay a monthly fee and a car would always be available the moment we step out. With that car being shared by multiple people with it being self driven.

 

[jerry33]

In the future we may not even need to own our own cars,the cars would be driven by computers and when we would just pay a monthly fee and a car would always be available the moment we step out. With that car being shared by multiple people with it being self driven.

Given that grocery stores now supply anti-bacterial wipes for shopping carts because some folks are so paranoid about germs I'm not sure how well the car sharing process would go over.

 

[evme]

Given that grocery stores now supply anti-bacterial wipes for shopping carts because some folks are so paranoid about germs I'm not sure how well the car sharing process would go over.

People drive in taxis and limos just fine. Plus, it is nothing the anti-bacterial surfaces can't fix. With advancements in technology, the car may be even cleaned every day/pit stop by robots.

 

[Dan5]

I would suggest people write to the IEEE editors and explain how economics actually works.

Here's my letter

Dear editors,

His rebuttal boggles the mind and makes engineers look like they are financial idiots. I am ashamed to consider myself an engineer and you should be ashamed to publish such a primitive theory concerning his "price tag predicament". More or less his premise, is that it costs more, therefore it must use more resources. This is the most ridiculous economic statement in history and he does not even comprehend rudimentary economic theories.

I'm certain you understand economics, but in case you are rusty, here is a basic economic principles



Widgets and cogs, both can be used in product X, product X has a certain market per year. This is what we call in economics inelastic demand.

Cars, as a whole, in particular have a high inelastic quality. Sure, individual models exhibit a degree of elastic demand, but the industry as a whole does not. Cars, food, refrigerators, all of these things people need in a modern society. Per capita, essentially the same amount of cars are sold per year, give or take a percentage or 2.

Let's go back to the widget and cogs example.


I invent a widget which can be used in place of a cog.

My widgets make it easier to make Product X, making the widget uses slightly more raw materials, but it avoids alot of other energy usage in making Product X.
There is a thriving cog business and has been producing cogs for 100 yrs.

I set up a factory, spend alot of capital, and make my widgets. Now, i have to make my money back, I took the risk, maybe my widget company fails, maybe not, but I need a decent ROI or else it's not even worth it and I may as well worth for the cog company. My widgets may be more expensive, but it saves the company making Product X alot of time/money.

Now, that causes pressure on the cog industry (negotiations- hey if you want us to use the cogs, you have to cut use a better deal).

Lets say there are cog makers, some making more profit than others, this causes the most inefficient cog maker, the one who does not utilize the resources as well as the others to go bankrupt.

Profit and resource utilization is a function of inefficiency in terms if business. more efficient= more profit, less efficient, less profit. Everything going into the widget/cog is a resource; time, money, labor, raw materials, etc. If your resources are not managed efficiently, there is less profit; less profit means your company is susceptible to other competitors.

As an example, for the cog makes, a few of them could be trashing the scrap metal, while the others could be recycling it, now that it an efficiency hit. For my hypothetical widget factory, i learned best practices from the cog factories and recycle (more profit). Maybe the cog factory is an old 1900 building, they exhausted their resources around the area and have to get some special metal shipped from China, while I set up my widget factory next to my raw material supplier. Maybe the cog factory was built in Camden, NJ (high murder rate city) and the workers commute from 30 miles away. With my widget factory, maybe I set it up on the outskirts of some NH town, within walking distance for most of the workers; that's quality of life and increases efficiency.


Therefore it is the opposite of what Ozzie Zehner is saying. A new entrant into the market, when there is highly inelastic demand, such as cars, displaces an older less efficient player. Are EVs replacing regular cars, yes, they are, therefore his whole premise fails.


Ozzie Zehner assumes the following for his economic theory to work
1. Snapshot economy (all manufacturing capacity has already been built and will never decay or need any replacement, any new manufacturing capacity is ONLY counted against EVs)

2. No preexisting competitors

3. No improvements in efficiency or upgrades or if there is an upgrade to the manufacturing plant, it evens out

4. Profit is being plowed back in and the company is obtaining new sales hand over fist and not taking sales away from competitors

I hope for future articles of his you run these by industry experts, or at least read and validate his work (he cited papers in his previous article that were debunked and had to redo their LCAs) because these make your magazine look bad and make engineers in general look bad.