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Comment by martin1975 | Hacker News Reader

martin1975

This should be a boon for China's air quality if they start to mandate EVs and ban fossil fuel vehicles. They are suffering from major, major pollution that makes 70's LAX smog look like child's play

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I'm not sure EVs are going to make a difference unless they move from coal plants to something else.

Coal plants are more efficient than internal combustion engines.

At generating energy? Yes. At emissions per watt? Not necessarily. Coal is much, much dirtier fuel than gasoline.

Metropolitan emissions per mile would be the important metric, since gasoline in cars is at most ~30% efficient, and coal plants can be built away from the city.

Modern Chinese coal plants are also more efficient than older US plants. I think after the next year or so of closures of old plants in China that China's least efficient plant will be better than the most efficient one in the US

Plus they are built outside cities, so it moves the pollution to a less population dense area

As is customary in these discussions, the "Long Tailpipe" falacy has been raised again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe

http://www.casteyanqui.com/ev/longtailpipe/

Mr Musk's criticism of it is in here https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j... Section starting "Power Plant Emissions aka “The Long Tailpipe”"

Taking that Wikipedia link at face value, an EV running on Chinese power has emissions equivalent to a 30 mpg vehicle, ie. 7.8l/100km.

Maybe today, but not where they're heading

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40341833

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-19/china-add...

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/china-eclipses-...

Sure. And that's great. But even at a record pace, that's (according to the articles) 1% of their total electrical energy covered by solar. Of course, solar is a tiny part of China's total regenerative capability; both hydro and wind power make up much more.

I don't have the numbers for China, but in Germany the power usage for transportation[0] is roughly as large as the electrical power. So whatever progress they're making, they need double of that if they want to power their cars.

[0] I don't remember off hand whether air and water are included

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