[bal00ns]

"Electric cars aren't green" is a myth spread by a few op-ed pieces written in the LA Times and WSJ. The production of a battery is a tiny constant in comparison to the lifelong use of fossil fuels.

Electric vehicles become more environmentally friendly as grid power becomes more renewable, and grid power is becoming more renewable every day. When you invest in an electric vehicle you're investing in the future of renewable energy.

[cwal37]

Specifically, there was a hit-job white paper (I think it was from a marketing firm, can't remember the title) published in the past 5-10 years arguing that Hummers were more eco-friendly than a Prius.

The paper was thoroughly debunked, but it got a lot of media traction initially. That sort of headline sticks in the back of someone's mind, particularly if they never follow up on it.

EDIT: Right, it was called Dust to Dust. Here's a pretty simple rebuttal from Slate(2008): http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_l...

And yeah, it was a "market research" firm. I feel confident saying I write with a closer attention to facts and accurate calculations on my personal blog than their "business" did in the report.

[morsch]

> When you invest in an electric vehicle you're investing in the future of renewable energy.

Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. Renewable energy doesn't need electric cars to take off, buying an electric car is not an investment in renewable energy in any real meaningful way. In the meantime, the US grid is currently 12.x% renewable, so you're running on 85+% non-renewable (2012). Not to mention the fact that running all those vehicles off electric would mean adding a huge amount of capacity.[0]

So yeah, powerful electric vehicles that enable you to continue to drive around like mad people while actually feeling smug about it is terrible for the environment. Buying non-powerful, non-oversized cars and using them a little bit (or a lot!) less is. We're much better of using the renewable electricity we manage to generate in other ways.

[0] To elaborate, electric power makes up about 40% of the total energy budget of the US, transportation makes up about 28% (2008 figures).

[bal00ns]

> the US grid is currently 12.x% renewable

Overall US power consumption has gone from 8.9% renewables 10 years ago to ~12.2% today. Vehicles that use fossil fuels as their primary source of energy will always make very little use of renewable energy. Electric vehicles have the potential to use solely renewable energy, which is the direction grid power is heading.

So should we invest in electric vehicles now, or should we use fossil fuels sparingly and settle with transportation that's unable to tap into renewables?

EDIT: 8.9% in 2002

[morsch]

Where are those numbers from? Wikipedia[0] states 8.90% in 2002 to 12.22% in 2012. (Edit: I see we're agreed on that.) Again, that's percent of the total electrical energy generation, not the entire energy budget, which is much higher.

I'm fairly optimistic that we'll end up using electrical vehicles down the road. But it's a long way off from becoming a sensible alternative; it'll take a long time to satisfy the current electrical energy requirements by renewables, and adding the transport budget essentially doubles the amount required.

And people are deluding themselves if they think they're being environmentally responsible by driving around a Model S. Maybe if you buy a Model S and don't drive it.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_...

[bal00ns]

> But it's a long way off from becoming a sensible alternative

Electric vehicles aren't going to flood the market overnight, just as renewable energy isn't going to suddenly become our primary source of energy. These things take time and money. The more traction we give them, the more attainable they will become.

Environmental responsibility isn't possible when you ignore hard facts about the future. By the time I reach old age there will be 2 billion more people on this planet. They are capable of much more damage than we are.

[danhak]

The main win to me is that electric power is fuel-agnostic. Transitioning to electric mobility means our energy infrastructure can shift to different fuel sources at its own pace, independent of the transportation infrastructure.

[mncolinlee]

All of this rhetoric is completely besides the point as several studies show. Even in West Virginia, the most coal-heavy energy market in America, pure electric vehicles today produce less greenhouse gases than the average gasoline vehicle due to the efficiency of electric motors and the use of surplus offpeak energy. In almost all markets, it beats a Toyota Prius.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/smart-transportation-so...

http://www.automotivescience.com/press/4582462907

[morsch]

Shrug. Now we've moved from "good for the environment" to between better than an average American car (i.e. appalling) and about as good as a hybrid vehicle[0]. Which really isn't all that exiting. Again, you'd be doing something good by driving less; but that's typically not what people do next after buying a sports car.

[stcredzero]

No environmental strategy that asks people to make do with less is ever going to win. Take a look at what's happening in the BRIC countries and then try to tell me it's going to work.

People want more and will figure out how to get more. It's doing that sustainably that will save us. Kind of the whole point of the Tesla S.

[mncolinlee]

If you read my comment and understood it fully, you'd notice that in most states, a pure electric vehicle is NOT "about as good as a hybrid vehicle", but cleaner than the cleanest hybrid. Electric vehicles are also getting cleaner with the electric grid while non-plugin hybrids have made no progress in over a decade.

Keep in mind that producing one gallon of gasoline uses more electricity than it takes to drive the same distance in an electric car as that gallon would take you in a gas car.

[fiachamp]

Even with non-renewable energy sources, creating the power at a massive GE Turbine is more efficient than a gasoline engine. Internal combustion engines are ~30% efficient in converting fuel to energy releasing the rest of the energy as heat. GE Turbines used at 100+megawatt powerplants are 60% efficient. Same fuel source, twice as efficient. So even if we're not using wind and solar, electric is better for the environment.

GG GLHF

[morsch]

Conveniently ignoring the efficiency losses involved in electrical mobility. But whatever -- I'm not saying buy an equivalent gasoline vehicle and drive around. I'm saying buy a much smaller car and drive less. Or don't, but don't pretend you're driving around a sports car for the environment.

[arrrg]

Much of those 28% are locked into using fossil fuel. Electric cars are about enabling switching to renewable sources of energy down the line, not right now. It’s about large scale infrastructure change, it’s about the difference between changing millions of small things or only a few large things. It’s about where renewable energy will likely come from in the future.

[pyrocat]

I think the unstated assumption was

> When you invest in an electric vehicle [instead of a fossil fuel vehicle that you would drive the same amount] you're investing in the future of renewable energy

[wpietri]

Really? An environmental analyst friend of mine refers to electrics as "coal-powered cars". E.g., Consumers Power in the midwest:

http://www.consumersenergy.com/uploadedFiles/CEWEB/OUR_ENVIR...

I think you're going to have to keep your electric car for a few decades for rewnewables to dominate that.