Polestar and Rivian urge more drastic climate action

EVs ‘are not enough’: Polestar and Rivian urge more drastic climate action​

EVs “are not enough”: Polestar and Rivian urge more drastic climate action

Eliminating tailpipe emissions is just half the battle.

www.theverge.com

Which is interesting given Rivian's massive trucks and SUVs.

"Despite a massive rollout of new EVs and hybrids in the coming years, the global automotive industry is still “far off track”
on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a way that can meet targets set by the Paris agreement...
Still, most automakers are leading their EV rollouts with large SUVs and trucks — in part because their higher price tags
help finance the EV revolution — even though those vehicles are less environmentally friendly due to their greater charging
needs and additional resources required for production."

I know: this article dates from February this year... Still, it has validity IMO.

Question is: what would be viable alternatives?

 

[voyager]

That's what I thought: a deafening silence descended upon the Tesla community.
Why the concern?

With Global Warming we will have two major kWh consumers in more and more households:
1. airconditionings
2. electric cars to transition to zero emission
(the bigger the EV, the bigger the battery pack)

 

[FireFighterHil]

to lower the temperature 0.5... in a few decades... maybe...

 

[Leytonstone]

With Global Warming we will have two major kWh consumers in more and more households:
1. airconditionings
2. electric cars to transition to zero emission

Electricity use in the UK has trended down for the decade during which EVs went mainstream

Total UK electricity consumption in TWh, aggregate data from all suppliers

Right now the weather here is like Australia, i.e. unseasonably wet and cold. And the 2030 ban on ICE won't happen either because there is no infrastructure in place nor the means to generate the power required to charge 8 million brand new BEVs each year. It's a delusion to think otherwise.

 

[voyager]

Electricity use in the UK has trended down for the decade during which EVs went mainstream


Total UK electricity consumption in TWh, aggregate data from all suppliers

Right now the weather here is like Australia, i.e. unseasonably wet and cold. And the 2030 ban on ICE won't happen either because there is no infrastructure in place nor the means to generate the power required to charge 8 million brand new BEVs each year. It's a delusion to think otherwise.

That's for this summer season, and in the UK. Who knows what will happen next year... and in other counties. There's a scorching heat in Southern Europe.
Anyway, grid companies in the Netherlands have already warned that it will be hard to balance electricity demand and supply in the near future.

 

[Darmie]

Anyway, grid companies in the Netherlands have already warned that it will be hard to balance electricity demand and supply in the near future.

Maybe they see the closing of coal plants to be the issue. Alternatives are not working. I thought there were scrubbers and such that cleaned up coal emissions.
Must be something else going on and what right gives a court to make the final decision?

 

[gotoma8]

Let's not forget that EVs are only effective in climate change if they are powered by clean energy power. I am in WA State where 95% of the electricity is green and renewable. It makes sense here to drive and EV and feel like you are making a difference. On the other spectrum, if you are in the Midwest/NE/SE, etc, where most of the power plants use coal or fossil fuel to convert to electricity, driving an EV does little as it's still dirty energy!

 

[ggr]

Let's not forget that EVs are only effective in climate change if they are powered by clean energy power. I am in WA State where 95% of the electricity is green and renewable. It makes sense here to drive and EV and feel like you are making a difference. On the other spectrum, if you are in the Midwest/NE/SE, etc, where most of the power plants use coal or fossil fuel to convert to electricity, driving an EV does little as it's still dirty energy!

Not so. Power plants are much more efficient than internal combustion engines, so EVs are a win even when coal-fired plants are the energy source.

 

[gotoma8]

Not so. Power plants are much more efficient than internal combustion engines, so EVs are a win even when coal-fired plants are the energy source.

Forbes Article, Well, I was hoping you are correct in that statement above, but according this Forbes' article back in 2019, though the heading is misleading,

"Yes, Electric Cars Are Cleaner, Even When The Power Comes From Coal"​

here's a quick excerpt:

"Under current conditions, driving an electric car is better for the climate than conventional petrol cars in 95% of the world, the study finds.
The only exceptions are countries such as Poland, where the electricity network is still mostly based on coal-fired power generation."

 

[ggr]

Forbes Article, Well, I was hoping you are correct in that statement above, but according this Forbes' article back in 2019, though the heading is misleading,

"Yes, Electric Cars Are Cleaner, Even When The Power Comes From Coal"​

here's a quick excerpt:

"Under current conditions, driving an electric car is better for the climate than conventional petrol cars in 95% of the world, the study finds.
The only exceptions are countries such as Poland, where the electricity network is still mostly based on coal-fired power generation."

I'll fight your single 2019 Forbes article with a 2021 article from ... Forbes:

The Long View: Electric Cars Are Cleaner Than Gas Cars. Period.

Electric cars “have by far the lowest lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions,” says ICCT, the international group that helped uncover Dieselgate.

www.forbes.com

And the Europe-based Transport & Environment was even more emphatic in its LCA analysis. “The potential of electric cars to mitigate CO₂ emissions is crystal clear: on average EVs are close to three times cleaner than diesel and petrol [gas] cars today,” the 2020 report said. “Discussing whether or not coal-fueled electric cars are better or worse for the climate than conventional cars is no longer relevant (EVs are 30 percent cleaner even then).

(My bold.)

 

[gotoma8]

Nice ggr! I am so glad that this is the case! I still love my 2019 AWD M3 for sure!

 

[BigNick]

Question is: what would be viable alternatives?

For many people, a car the size of the 1984-1991 Honda CRX (two* seats and a decently-sized hatchback cargo area) is more than sufficient for a daily, solo commute to work. Such an EV should be able to easily achieve 6 or more miles per kWh.

Maybe a new "Model 2" could be available in this configuration.

* In North America, they were two-seaters. In their native Japan, Europe, and other regions, they had a tiny rear seat making them a 2+2.

 

[EatsShoots]

The fact is most people don’t give a damn about the environment. Lots of virtue signaling but as a society we won’t make the hard choices.

We live in large refrigerators we call houses. We live in areas only hospitable with ac running ten months out of the year.

We get 40+ lbs/year of junk mail, get 200 amazon deliveries a year, etc.

 

[NRVM3]

I'll fight your single 2019 Forbes article with a 2021 article from ... Forbes:

The Long View: Electric Cars Are Cleaner Than Gas Cars. Period.

Electric cars “have by far the lowest lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions,” says ICCT, the international group that helped uncover Dieselgate.

www.forbes.com

(My bold.)

I was skeptical of the coal powered EV producing less CO2 than gas powered equivalents. Then I ran the calculations for myself.

Summary of CO2 emissions per 100km (kg)
Tesla Model 3 Ontario electricity mix 0.9
Tesla Model 3 Natural Gas 8.8
Tesla Model 3 Coal 21.5
Corolla highway driving 18.7
Corolla city driving 26.1

Details is the attached pdf.

After thinking about it does make sense. In an EV you are using the coal very efficiently. In an ICE vehicle the gasoline is used very inefficiently.

Comments welcome. Perhaps comparing to a larger car would have been better. Maybe I slipped a decimal point?

 

[voyager]

Thanks for the comments. All true.
Let's use our imagination. What would be an acceptable Next-Gen EV or post-Tesla electric car? Given the fact that:
1. most car trips consist of 1.2 person (driver)
2. NCAP safety forms sort of a minimum requirement, automatically excluding all micro-cars
3. ditto a certain comfort level
4. the more manifest the Climate Crisis conseqences, the more willingness to change...
especially if that happens to yield substantial cost savings

Interesting is that with around 80 million car sales annually worldwide, convincing 1 out of 900 prospective car buyers
would be enough to have a viable business case. Obviously, commitment of a global brand prerequisite.

Below: if singles, two-car households, greenies and early adopters (of course some overlap) could be interested,
1 in 900 may well become 1 in 90.

 

[OxBrew]

1.47 billion cars globally. 80 million cars sold per year. If we magically were able to make every car sale, new and used EVs it would take 18+ years to swap out all cars.

We can't. We can't do half. Maybe a quarter, on average, if we're generous? That's about 75 years to swap every car to an EV. Humans will be extinct at that rate, if we don't do something else.

The only somewhat feasible path to changing transportation to something that does not kill us in 50 years is to only build EV busses, bikes, and cargo bikes. We need to maximize the battery production capacity of the planet to stop burning oil in 10 years.

We are not going to do that either. Sorry kids, I'm not sure we'll make it 2 more generations. Maybe 1.

F--- big oil, they killed the planet.

 

[voyager]

The only somewhat feasible path to changing transportation to something that does not kill us in 50 years is to only build EV busses, bikes, and cargo bikes. We need to maximize the battery production capacity of the planet to stop burning oil in 10 years.

We are not going to do that either. Sorry kids, I'm not sure we'll make it 2 more generations. Maybe 1.

F--- big oil, they killed the planet.

Saw this cris de coeur:

 

[ThomasD]

How long until we have EVs that meets everyone's wants and needs at any price point new or used?

 

[voyager]

How long until we have EVs that meets everyone's wants and needs at any price point new or used?

Probably never, unless governments will ban ICE cars.
Will not happen in the foreseeable future, and very unlikely this will ever happen in the U.S.

 

[BigNick]

How long until we have EVs that meets everyone's wants and needs at any price point new or used?

Once there is no more crude oil to pump from the ground, or the human race has rendered the planet uninhabitable and we all die off. Whichever comes first.