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Comment by crca | Hacker News Reader

Here’s a comprehensive study from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cl...

The numbers in this report compare the emissions cost of a new BEV to that of a new ICE. But I don't see anyone seriously arguing that people should buy new ICE's; rather, the claim seems to be that people should keep modern ICEs on the road as long as possible before replacing them (with something better than an ICE). This analysis says it takes 19,000 miles of driving to make the acquisition of a BEV emissions-neutral compared to buying a new ICE; how many miles do you have to drive to make it neutral compared to holding on to your Honda?

It's questionable whether keeping your car longer seriously affects how many new cars get made. If you buy a new car and sell it in three years then somebody else can buy it. If you keep it for six years then the person who would have bought it still needs a car for those three years, so now they have to buy a new car in your place. Selling your completely functioning car just puts it in the hands of someone else. What really takes them off the road is wrecks and unjustifiably expensive repairs.

So how long your car lasts isn't really a question of how long you personally own it, it's a question of whether you maintain it well so that it stays on the road for the next guy and don't get into a wreck.

If you can afford to do it, it would actually help to buy a new electric car, keep it for only a short period of time and then sell it and buy another new one. Because then you're the one buying new cars and you're choosing a BEV, and every one you sell into the used market is someone who then doesn't have to buy a new car that might have been ICE.

That... doesn't sound right to me. Cars are manufactured in numbers to satisfy demand. Buying new cars fuels demand. We'd all like new cars --- we like new everything! --- but this sounds like rationalizing.

Sure, they'll make as many cars as people will buy. And if you were buying new cars and crashing them, that would cause them to have to make more new cars. But if you're buying new cars and then selling them, your demand is offset by you satisfying the demand from the person who bought your old car.

If everybody did that then it wouldn't work -- nobody would be buying the used cars. But there are more than enough people who would never do that anyway because they can't afford it, that it's a gain for all the people who can afford it to do it.

And, of course, the substitution isn't perfect, so if 95% of new cars were already electric then this might not be worth it. The benefit comes from you choosing a new BEV when someone else might have chosen a new ICE. But when existing new sales are much less than half BEV, making the better choice can easily outweigh the imperfect substitution.

I'd heard similar complaints to GP about embodied energy, but not for electric vehicles. Only with HEVs and ULEVs, which are far more complicated than either of their competitors. It's no wonder they'd have higher embedded energy footprints.

> Under the average U.S. electricity grid mix, we found that producing a midsize, midrange (84 miles per charge) BEV typically adds a little over 1 ton of emissions to the total manufacturing emissions, resulting in 15 percent greater emissions than in manufacturing a similar gasoline vehicle. However, replacing gasoline use with electricity re-duces overall emissions by 51 percent over the life of the car.

This has steam coming out of my ears, and I agree with the goal they set for themselves. I haaaAAAAaaate when scientists pull tone-deaf shit like this. It's why I ran away from theory into applied as fast as my legs could carry me. Nobody is gonna drive an 84 mile range vehicle. The market has shouted this from the rooftop and if Concerned Scientist have not heard this, then they're nowhere near as smart as they want everyone to think they are. Use real numbers and spare us your white tower bullshit. A competitive car will have 2.5x times that range. That probably lowers that lifetime number into the high 3X%'s which is not as compelling but also not lying.

Lying to prove a point is the worst kind of lying, because when your detractors catch you in it then the unconvinced have confirmation bias against your original premise. Cut that shit out. For everybody's sake.

35% lifetime emissions reduction is not a slam dunk. Many more additional efforts (read: lifestyle changes) will have to go along with that improvement. And that's nearly as hard a pill to swallow as a car that only gets 84 miles per charge brand new.

I don't understand your comment. You're complaining about lying but the one who is lying is you.

1. The phrase "265-mile-range BEV" appears 9 times in the document. That's not 2.5x times that range. It's more than 3.1 times the range of the small BEV.

2. The document never mentions a 35% emissions reduction. On page 21 (or 31) you can see a chart showing a 51% CO2 reduction for the 84 mile BEV and a 53% reduction for the 265 mile BEV.

Reading further: the increased embodied energy for the Leaf is one tone of carbon. The Tesla is six tons.

The fact that the Tesla retains the same emission reduction is because it’s a much larger vehicle. The same sedan would burn much more gas. So what I’d want to know is what’s the footprint of the 2019 extended range Leaf? 2 tons? Five? What’s the lifetime efficiency profile there?

(Also I didn’t realize that power in the Midwest was quite that dirty. That’s nuts and it drags the profile down for everyone else. Apparently EVs in the West are a slam dunk, and also on parts of the eastern seaboard. Iowa? Not much of an improvement)

This is in the report.. the 84mi EV is a Nissan Leaf. That was a very popular EV for 2015 (the year of the report). People definitely did and still do drive it. It's one of the best selling EVs every year.

I would suggest reading the report a little more closely.. It also has numbers for a 265mi Model S... so you don't need to make up estimates for such an EV.. it's in the report.

The 2017 Nissan Leaf had a range of 107 miles. The 2018 and 2019 Have an EPA mileage of 150 miles. The 2019 also has a large battery version with a range of 226 miles.

It's the 2015 leaf that had a 84mi range... it was a step up from 2014's 75mi range. The 2011 version had a 73mi range.

The Leaf was the best selling EV from 2011-2014 and in 2016. It lost out to the Model S in 2015 by 10%. 400k Leafs sold (bestselling EV of all time)... Tesla is just now starting to surpass that number.

Obviously a report from 2015 wouldn't include Leafs from the future.

Is that the one that was massively revised about a month ago, where all the 'worst-case' assumptions for ev production related emissions were dramatically reduced?

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