ETCgreen anti-EV FUD

[qwk]

This is what happens when you get someone that has an investment in a competing field. Nothing but spin, with "rabbit out of a hat" math.

 

[JRP3]

It is not a matter of "dangerous" when an article is accurate - it is honest.

It's poorly researched garbage full of misconceptions.

 

[qwk]

It's poorly researched garbage full of misconceptions.

Even this is a compliment..

 

[dsm363]

Talk about long pointless articles. I would think etcbiodiesel would be a better name for them. I'm not against biodiesel at all but their concerted effort to trash every other form of transportation is not productive.

 

[JRP3]

The US electric grid will not support a complete replacement of ICE vehicles with EV's and plug-in hybrids today or probably in 20 years. While some studies are suggesting there is sufficient capacity available from our power plants, it is the distribution grid capacity to the houses, commercial buildings, service stations, etc., that would require the multi-$T upgrades.

False. Night time charging can handle the fastest possible rollout of EV's.

The cost of operating an EV per mile is the highest of any alternative solution - by a factor range of 3 to 6 compared to a comparable advanced diesel vehicle for example.

False. For vehicles in a similar price range EV's are cheaper to operate.

We have research statistics to estimate the average number of minutes a US citizen spends in a car per day and 31 minutes/day was a common conclusion. The concept that people would consciously make the decision to deplete the supply of critical rare earth and heavy metal minerals needed for wind turbine manufacturing and other renewable technologies to manufacturer a vehicle that they only drive for 31 minutes per day for a 7 year life cycle does not seem like a responsible trade-off. Such a turbine, in a good wind resource, with the same amount of minerals is likely to generate Green Energy for 10-14 hours per day for 30 years. A comparable advanced diesel vehicle requires far less minerals and heavy metals. For more information about this mineral usage issue please review the article:

False. EV's do not need large volumes of rare earths at all. Tesla uses no rare earths in their motors, and most lithium battery chemistries do not use rare earths.

All batteries experience energy loss even when sitting idle - unused. This is common knowledge and common experience.

False. LiFePO4 cells have no noticeable self discharge over month long time periods.

I could go on and on but you get the idea, the article is full of garbage.

 

[bonnie]

You guys really should stop feeding it.

 

[vfx]

Can I keep him mom?

 

[JRP3]

It's hungry for knowledge :wink:

 

[bonnie]

-eye roll- okay okay OKAY, but I'm not cleaning up after it.

 

[JRP3]

I can't stop.

Energy distribution on the electrical grid typically has a double digit line loss between the power plant and the home. This inefficiency needs to be calculated into the true energy cost of operating these electrified cars regardless of whether the car owner is paying for the line loss. This is far from Green.

False. T&D for the grid is around 7%, of course the customer pays for it.

Advanced battery technologies have the very real potential of exploding in a collision. To protect our fellow drivers and emergency response service personnel, all vehicles that contain these battery technologies need to be well labeled with large warning stickers on all surfaces that the vehicle contains a battery that may explode in a collision or if the jaws of life are used in the wrong place.]

False. Of the thousands of EV's on the road not a single one has ever exploded, let alone even caught fire, in an accident. The Volt battery in NHSTA testing never exploded.

In a serious vehicle accident, fluids are leaked - and in some cases sprayed - out on the road, road sides, on other vehicles, on drivers, on passengers, ... The chemistry of a lithium battery is rated as "low-toxic" which still requires a licensed HAZMAT cleanup. Actually, the current battery in the Prius is rated "high-toxic" and is extremely dangerous. In comparison, an advanced diesel vehicle in the future will use B100 biodiesel which is rated non-toxic (1/10th as toxic as table salt) and can be hosed off with just water with no ill-effects. Over the coming years, antifreeze will again be sourced from glycerin (99.9% pure) as it was before WWII, so future diesel vehicles will be far less toxic than EV's and plug-in hybrids.

False. Lithium batteries have little to no free liquid in them. A Prius does not use lithium batteries but NiMH. No records exist of the thousands of Prius's in accidents spilling battery chemicals or causing hazardous spills. Lithium cells pose even less of a risk.

Replacing liquid fueled vehicles with electric powered vehicles directly increases the most health impacting emission particulates into the air and our oceans - heavy metals from coal burning power plants. So while the over-all volume of emissions from EV's is lower than gasoline and petroleum diesel vehicles, US power plants are primarily coal powered (please do not argue the majority is now NG - while the NG capacity may be in place, actual energy generation is still primarily from coal) and so an increase in electricity generation for EV's is worse from a health perspective than emissions from 2nd generation feedstock sourced biodiesel powered vehicles by 3 orders of magnitude (the emissions of one EV that is recharged from a coal powered plant have a greater negative health impact than thousands of advanced diesel vehicles burning B100). Very simply, until EV's are only charged from renewable sources, they will be the direct catalyst for the health issues and deaths of many more people.

False. Coal is only 45% of the US grid. It's also much easier to capture emissions from a single generating plant than millions of ICE vehicles. Further, it is more efficient to simply burn biomass in a large generating plant to charge EV's than to process and refine it into fuel to burn in inefficient ICE vehicles.

OK, I'm done this time, for real.

 

[etcgreen]

This is not "honest" today's Tesla could fill on this trip in less than 7,5 hours."

I believe your calculation is suggesting that there would be a 220V/high amp charger available at exactly where one would need to charge on this 700 mile trip? This is not a reasonable expectation today nor likely 20 years from now. Liquid refueling stations are not available where you need them either - which also effects travel time and the number of refueling stops one must make. In the case of a diesel - many diesels - 700 miles is the range from a single tank and it only required 6-8 minutes to load that energy source into the vehicle.

 

[JRP3]

Who cares? Effectively a 700 mile trip is an event that most people never take, and the ones who do might do it once a year. Rent a car, take a train, or fly. Don't buy a vehicle for the less than .01% of use, buy it for the 99.99% of use.

 

[etcgreen]

So soybeans or other biodiesel crops, fall out of the sky? How about all of the energy that is used to manufacture the equipment, diesel/gasoline used in order to harvest it/transport it to the plant. Then more resources for the equipment used to get it to the filling point, and then the equipment used to dispense the stuff. Oh and dispensing biodiesel also uses electricity. Where is this info on your site?

You seem to be passionate about EV's - OK, we like EV's for limited applications if they are powered by renewable energy sources. Your questions and statements do not reflect even a basic understanding of 2nd generation feedstock or their life cycle. Most concerning, your comments do not reflect an understanding of source minerals, processing or energy conversion for either solution. EV's have an extremely high loss factor for energy conversion to move people and goods. The older the battery, the higher this loss becomes.

BioFuels - Emerging Technology Corporation, Green Division

 

[etcgreen]

Who cares? Effectively a 700 mile trip is an event that most people never take, and the ones who do might do it once a year. Rent a car, take a train, or fly. Don't buy a vehicle for the less than .01% of use, buy it for the 99.99% of use.

In a recent Edmunds poll, 97% of car buyers do not agree with your perspective on this issue.

 

[vfx]

This is not "honest" today's Tesla could fill on this trip in less than 7,5 hours."

I believe your calculation is suggesting that there would be a 220V/high amp charger available at exactly where one would need to charge on this 700 mile trip? This is not a reasonable expectation today nor likely 20 years from now. Liquid refueling stations are not available where you need them either - which also effects travel time and the number of refueling stops one must make. In the case of a diesel - many diesels - 700 miles is the range from a single tank and it only required 6-8 minutes to load that energy source into the vehicle.

You said "Fast Charging" There are plenty of these high powered plugs up and down the west coast and Teslas have been using them for interstate travel for years. You seem to think that a car has to be empty to charge and that it always has to be completely filled. That 7.5 hours can be done in 3 or 6 parts. Depending on how good the nearby restaurant is.

When I'm not on your imaginary trip, the other 364 days I'm filling while I sleep when power is 5 times cheaper than imported liquid fuel. And I've timed it. 10 seconds to plug in and 5 to unplug. 1.5 hours a year in my garage. Less than the 2.5 hours a year you stand at a pungent gasoline station.

My EV friends with solar fill for free. And no plants died in making sunshine.

 

[JRP3]

97% of car buyers won't care about 700 mile trips they never take when fuel prices keep rising.

 

[Robert.Boston]

@etcgreen: I'm always willing to let good technologies emerge on their merits. EVs will not serve every transportation role; for example, long-range trucking is not promising territory for EVs. But trashing EVs to promote biodiesel serves no purpose, especially when so many of your arguments are wrong.

To touch on a few highlights of the Post-Mortem that I think are in error or misleading:

• The US electric grid will not support a complete replacement of ICE vehicles with EV's and plug-in hybrids today or probably in 20 years. While some studies are suggesting there is sufficient capacity available from our power plants, it is the distribution grid capacity to the houses, commercial buildings, service stations, etc., that would require the multi-$T upgrades.

First, I know of no study that shows any issue with the generation or transmission system that EVs could cause; FERC Commissioner Spitzer took the opposite view, the EVs could act as storage and spinning reserves to help balance the bulk electric system. Re distribution, what's your source on this? I consult with 12 of the top 20 utilities in the country, and none of them have raised this issue, at least at this level of investment. Millions, yes. Not trillions. Home charging of EVs pull no more power than an electric oven or electric clothes dryers; these have not caused the distribution companies to panic, nor should EVs. I have a forthcoming paper in the Electricity Journal on this topic.​

• The cost of operating an EV per mile is the highest of any alternative solution - by a factor range of 3 to 6 compared to a comparable advanced diesel vehicle for example.

Source? This pseudo-statistic is clearly wrong on its face. A Model S has a price similar to a MB E350 BluTech, which is a "comparable advanced diesel vehicle." The Tesla's fuel cost per hundred miles, though, will be approximately 1/3 (using 300 W/mile for the Tesla @$0.15/kWh, against 26.5mpg for the MB @ $4/gal.) (btw, since about 90% of EV charging occurs at home, I've used a representative retail rate.) That puts the Tesla cheaper out the door and cheaper to operate.​

• the decision to deplete the supply of critical rare earth and heavy metal minerals needed for wind turbine manufacturing and other renewable technologies to manufacturer a vehicle that they only drive for 31 minutes per day for a 7 year life cycle does not seem like a responsible trade-off.

Tesla uses no rare earth or heavy metal minerals in the Model S. In contrast, a typical ICE uses several in their catalytic converters. Moreover, "rare earths" aren't actually all that rare, absolutely. There are supplies in the U.S. and Canada that have not been tapped because of slightly better economics in China.​

• EV's and Hybrids are a financial gamble past 100K miles (currently, the Volt, Leaf and Tesla warranties end at 100K miles ...). ... Consider the replacement costs of the various subsystems for these vehicles include $3K-$28K batteries, $9K-$15K transmissions, $5K-$9K on-board computers, $4K-$7K electric motors/generators, $2K-$6K replacement of regenerative braking systems, etc. This will sorely impact the resale value of these cars once the general public understands these risks.

The Tesla Model S battery warranty is 8 years, unlimited mileage. Tesla does not have a transmission; Tesla does not use regenerative brakes, but relies solely on the engine for this. All other components are functionally identical to existing automobiles, e.g. the suspension and brakes. Electric motors such as Tesla uses have been in use for over 100 years, and their wear and maintenance costs are low and well-understood. Moreover, they are far simpler and less failure-prone than any combustion engine, including diesel.​

• EV manufacturers consider a "fast charge" of just 90 Kwh to be 3-5 hours.

Tesla's Supercharger adds 60 kWh in approximately 30 minutes. This is slower than fueling with liquids, but after having driven for 4-5 hours, wise drivers should take a break and eat anyway. Admittedly, the Supercharger network is being built out still; the cost of doing so, however, is far lower than the cost of adding new tanks and new pumps to distribute biofuels, which not all current vehicles can use. Furthermore, offsetting this timing issue, is the simple fact that an EV owner can spend 10 seconds plugging in his car at home each night and wake up with a full "tank", while one is forced to go to gas stations to buy liquids.​

• EV owners on the road and even at home to some degree are at the mercy of the other devices drawing power and other EV's being recharged from the same power distribution unit (PDU) at the same time. EV recharging stations will not be engineered for 100% rated delivery at 100% load usage - the capitalization would be too expensive. Rather, the maximum amps that can be delivered to a single vehicle will be effected by the number of cars being recharged at the same time from the same transmission circuit.

This is mere speculation, and wrong in good measure. I know of no commercial EV chargers that down-rate their charging rate based on other usage. There are 14 of these in my office parking garage, and they all are wired to run at full charge. At home, if you run too many appliances at once, you'll trip the breaker; this is true with EVSE, as well. You also need to get your terminology right -- you're either wrong about concerns for the "transmission circuit" or more likely you are referring to a "distribution circuit." Transmission gear runs at at least 69.5kV and is at no risk of being overloaded by some EVs charging.​

• a significant percentage of all the electricity they are paying for in their daily charges is simply dissipating away.

This whole paragraph confuses and conflates at least three concepts. (1) If you charge a battery and leave it sit, the charge dissipates. Yes, but measured over weeks or months. Presumably one drives more often than this. (2) Over time, the maximum storage capacity of a battery degrades. Yes, instead of having a full charge at 85kWh, the battery might now top out at 80kWh (or even 70kWh, if it's been heavily cycled). But this does not mean (3) that if you put in 1kWh, you only get out 0.7kWh, whereas you used to get 0.9kWh. The efficiency of storage in the battery isn't much affected. I don't know whether this paragraph reflects deep misunderstanding about battery technology or willful misrepresentation, but it doesn't speak well of ETC in either case.​

• Energy distribution on the electrical grid typically has a double digit line loss between the power plant and the home. This inefficiency needs to be calculated into the true energy cost of operating these electrified cars regardless of whether the car owner is paying for the line loss.

Simply put, no. Total distribution losses are approximately 5 percent. Moreover, because the utility grosses up the cost of metered power to reflect these losses, this inefficiency is already calculated into the true cost of electric power.​

• Advanced battery technologies have the very real potential of exploding in a collision.

You link to the Chevy Volt incident. Nothing exploded; there was a small fire weeks after government researchers simulated extreme crash conditions and then failed to undertake basic safety measures. Also, are you asserting that biodiesel vehicles are immune from fire hazard after a crash?​

• Replacing liquid fueled vehicles with electric powered vehicles directly increases the most health impacting emission particulates into the air and our oceans - heavy metals from coal burning power plants.

Although this has been an issue in the past, new EPA regulations on power plants require full control of emissions of heavy metals, which will also reduce emissions of other particulates. Moreover, 35% of the U.S. electric output is from zero-emissions sources; this fraction is increasing steadily.​

• o apply this "worst case mode" model to an EV and plug-in hybrid as convention would require, the emissions of an EV are based on the energy generation source. Since EV's are mobile, their emissions per this EPA methodology must only be rated as if the electricity generated for that EV (not limited to the electricity delivered) is sourced from the worst emitting coal plant in the U.S..

Your lobbying efforts to elicit a nonsensical standard for measuring environmental impact undermine any gloss you attempt that your work is neutral. What possible meaning would such a "worst case" scenario have for public policy?​

• When a plug-in Hybrid's battery runs low, the liquid fuel engine kicks in and at that point, that engine has to also move hundreds of pounds of dead battery.

Yes, Tesla agrees with you that hybrids systems are inefficient, which is why its cars are pure electric, so that they don't have to haul around hundres of pounds of unneeded combustion engine and ancillary parts.​

• The purchase of an EV or plug-in hybrid without purchasing a high capacity charger makes little sense in that a full charge from complete depletion from a 110V regular outlet is over 24 hours for some of these vehicles.

Tesla includes the charger in the car, so all the buyer has to do is to plug it into a standard NEMA 14-50 outlet to regain approximately 31 miles each hour. As you point out earlier, the average American spends 31 minutes driving per day, so even if driving at an average speed of 60 mph, recharging can occur in an hour. Full charging of a 300-mile range battery would be easily done overnight, all at energy rates readily available in typical households.​

You know, I'm just going to stop there -- it's getting late, and you haven't made your point. ETC demeans itself and its clients' goals by running down other alternative transportation fuels. EVs are not the enemy of biodiesel; they have different market roles, and will likely both have a large and profitable role in the future. Both industries are competing against fossil fuels; aim your vitriol there.

 

[bonnie]

Seriously, you're all trying to educate someone who has no intention of listening to anything he isn't saying himself ... it doesn't matter what you say, his mind is made up. I suspect he's delighted he's gotten you all on his hook, is entertained by this, and is feeling totally self-righteous about his position. Pffffytt. I've seen plenty of people come to this forum with lack of facts & be willing to learn. etcgreen is not one of those people.

 

[Norbert]

And even if it did matter: the number of stops does not make a difference. The time necessary for recharging depends only on the total distance traveled. Furthermore, regarding "in 20 years": in the US, there are now between 100,000 and 150,000 gas stations. Since EV charging stations are far less expensive, there can easily be a multiple of that in 20 years. Though that number won't be necessary given one can charge at home in most cases. Tesla's "Superchargers" (90 kW), starting this year, will allow a charge time of less than 2 hours for a Model S on a 700 mile trip, not much more than the length of rest/lunch/dinner stops one might take on a non-business trip in any case.

 

[ElSupreme]

He is still going so am I.

"Wow that article is bad. My favorite is that they imply that it takes 630kWh to drive 700 miles in an EV. Not 2,200 miles."

While there are certainly variables based on different vehicles, these numbers were derived from an actual real-world test of a Mini Cooper E.

Really did you tow your diesel behind it and drive it with the parking brake on? The EPA sticker says 33/36 kWh per 100 miles. So it should only use 231/252kWh. 630kWh would give you 1,750 miles to 1,900 miles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mini_E_Monroney_lable_2008.jpg

"Oh and the $9k-$15k transmission replacement after 100k miles. That is rich too. Specially when all the EVs they mention are single speed."

Actually, your statement here is twisting the original communication. Have you evaluated the replacement cost of a Prius Hybrid Plug-in transmission? For most EV's, the "transmission" has been replaced by sensor arrays and computers controlling independent motors. Have you evaluated the cost of replacing this I/O control system on a Tesla?

AC induction motors really don't need complex feedback systems. You give it a frequency and its rotational speed is directly proportional. You only really need a simple ticker on an axle to make sure stuff is still moving. It's actually simpler than an ICE. The Toyota Hybrid is an ICE car. Of course it has a transmission. And I expect my 100%d solid state non-moving electronics to last quite some time. Longer than piston rings. My Tesla has a single motor. [/QUOTE]

"And I always hate that Bio-Fuel hacks never account to how we are going to grow the Biomass. My milk is already expensive enough. Ethanol is making our food prices absurd."

Actually, our website contains a great deal of information about how the world IS growing the 2nd generation feedstock for biodiesel. We are on the same page regarding 1st generation feedstock for biodiesel and ethanol.

Yeah he agrees! Oh wait he doesn't. It doesn't matter if you are growing Corn or whatever crap you are growing. You are creating competition and demand on farmland and farmers. Increasing the cost of food. If we are going to use farmland for energy production we should put down some wind turbines. They don't take up farmland, and produce clean energy.

Bio-Mass is about the least efficient (on the verge of being energy negative) form of solar power out there. The only redeeming factor is it makes an energy dense liquid that works in pretty much any current automobile. We aren't going to find a 'clean' energy source for our current vehicles. We are going to make vehicles for our new 'clean' energy sources.

Sorry I'll stop feeding the trolls.