Tesla uses 1/6 the energy compared to gasoline

[nate704]

EVs and ICEs, they all pollute and killing the planet. Let's just walk.

 

[mswlogo]

I'm getting some pushback on Tesla, people saying "well.... where is that energy coming from when you plug it in to charge it that energy has to come from somewhere", you know the usual you've probably heard it a million times. Its not good enough to say to the FUDsters that it only uses 1/3 of the energy that gasoline uses. So I set out to do the calculations and have them handy when it comes up in a conversation. (1/3 was the figure given by by Tesla back 2006).

Given:
115000 BTU per gallon of gasoline = 33.7 Kwh per gallon
Model Y long range gets 27 Kwh per 100 miles
Model Y long range has a 75 Kwh battery
Equivalent Gasoline car. Lexus RX350 and others get about 20 mpg

Calculation for 300 mile range:
gasoline Kwh over 300 miles
Kwh = 300 mi /20 mi per gal = 15 gal
15 gal at 33.7 Kwh = 505 Kwh

Model Y 27 Kwh per 100 miles
300 mile / 100 = 3
3 * 27Kwh per 100 miles = 81 Kwh

505 kWh for gasoline to 81 Khw for Tesla is about six times more energy.

I know there are a lot of other factors too, energy to get the gasoline, pump oil out of the ground, ship the oil, convert oil to gasoline. transport the gasoline. on and on.

Your thinking is a bit flawed.

You applied all losses on the ICE but none on the EV.

You have charging losses.
You have transmission losses.
You have conversion from fossil fuel to kw losses.

Most electricity comes from fossil fuels. It is still more efficient because a turbine is way more efficient than an ICE. But some of that is lost in charging and transmission. Turbine is also better at pollution than ICE.

Granted Electricity can also come from Wind, Solar, Hydro and Nuclear. Until most electricity comes from renewable the electric maybe 2x better, at best. No way it’s near 6x.

Try pouring your gallon of gas into a turbine and transmit that power 50 miles to your EV and then get that into your battery. Vs a gallon into an ICE gas tank and see which takes you further.

 

[Calliope]

even in areas that use "dirty" power, EVs do have one advantage

Oh, I think they have more than one advantage but I just pointed it out as another complication in the equation.

 

[mangrove79]

This whole conversion to electricity to gas to KwH is mostly confusing. I tell people that electrics are a fourth as expensive to drive. That's where it counts, at the wallet. Just comparing power usage doesn't factor in the oil and filter changes we DON'T have, nor the trips to the gas station. I ask how many people have a gas station in their garage. Answer? None.

There was also that crime wave a couple of years back when organized rings would steal the catalytic converters from people's driveways to get their hands on the super-precious metals like rhodium and platinum. Don't know if that's still a thing now, but just glad my MY doesn't need anything like that.

 

[nate704]

There was also that crime wave a couple of years back when organized rings would steal the catalytic converters from people's driveways to get their hands on the super-precious metals like rhodium and platinum. Don't know if that's still a thing now, but just glad my MY doesn't need anything like that.

Watching news lately? Crime in general is all time high including the catalytic converter theft which is minor comparing to other crimes surging.

 

[mangrove79]

Watching news lately? Crime in general is all time high including the catalytic converter theft which is minor comparing to other crimes surging.

All news are depressing now so not much, honestly. I am aware that gun violence is at an all-time high with mass shootings literally every week, but can't do much about that. Are there other crime waves targeting ICE outside of the converters, or against EVs?

 

[STS-134]

Watching news lately? Crime in general is all time high including the catalytic converter theft which is minor comparing to other crimes surging.

Crime was much, much higher in the 1980s if you look at the statistics. But back then, since there weren't cameras everywhere, you didn't have videos of this stuff. Plus almost no one had internet access and those who did couldn't use it to upload videos to social media, so some people have the perception is that crime is at an all time high because they see it on social media and almost in real time.

Fortunately, Tesla vehicles are some of the best protected and hardest to steal from. They really should protect the back windows though. If the alarms went off every time someone smashed those small rear windows, those windows wouldn't be targeted by thieves.

 

[nate704]

All news are depressing now so not much, honestly. I am aware that gun violence is at an all-time high with mass shootings literally every week, but can't do much about that. Are there other crime waves targeting ICE outside of the converters, or against EVs?

FYI, gun violence is not all time high.

So, back to topic, car jacking, car break-ins,

 

[nate704]

Crime was much, much higher in the 1980s if you look at the statistics. But back then, since there weren't cameras everywhere, you didn't have videos of this stuff. Plus almost no one had internet access and those who did couldn't use it to upload videos to social media, so some people have the perception is that crime is at an all time high because they see it on social media and almost in real time.

My entire family and wife' entire family along with other NYC residents say otherwise. It is NOT just perception. please come back to reality.

 

[STS-134]

My entire family and wife' entire family along with other NYC residents say otherwise. It is NOT just perception. please come back to reality.

Look at the statistics and do not trust your intuition. Humans suck at analyzing statistics and trying to do this stuff intuitively often gets you burned. Our perception of danger is based on how often we encounter/see something, and in the old days, this worked reasonably well. If you saw 5 people get eaten by bears with your own eyes, then that probably means bears present a fairly big danger to you. But social media gives us the ability to "see" stuff that isn't at all common, and warps our perceptions.

Plus, personal experiences are too small of a sample size to make any estimation of trends from. My father had his BMW broken into three times in less than 5 years as thieves tried to get the Blaupunkt radio (I didn't even know what Blaupunkt was until he told me; apparently this was a popular and expensive car audio brand back then). The third time the car was broken into, he was the one laughing because after the radio was stolen the second time, he never installed the replacement and just kept it in the garage. The idiot thieves didn't bother to check that there was actually a radio in there before breaking the windows to get to the radio. When did this happen? 1970s. He never had a car broken into in the 1980s though, which is when crime actually peaked.

 

[mswlogo]

This whole conversion to electricity to gas to KwH is mostly confusing. I tell people that electrics are a fourth as expensive to drive. That's where it counts, at the wallet. Just comparing power usage doesn't factor in the oil and filter changes we DON'T have, nor the trips to the gas station. I ask how many people have a gas station in their garage. Answer? None. "Them thangs are dangerous!" But we CAN just use a simple outlet, any kind, and fill our cars. I used to live out in the country, and it was an eight-mile drive to the gas station, but my garage outlet was sitting just at the back corner of my car. There's no comparison.

Whenever someone pulls out the line about pollution up the stream, I can point to gas production, which has MORE pollution upstream. They can't win.

That depends on where you live and the cost of electricity vs gasoline. Where I live it's about 2/3 as expensive to run an efficient EV. The only Model Tesla that really pays is a Model 3 RWD and you keep it for 100K miles and cross your fingers it doesn't break when out of warranty. With All the other Tesla's the premium on cost will never get covered by fuel savings. Even if electricity was free. Even on Tesla's web site it shows $4300.00 savings in fuel (which I'm sure it on the optimistic side) on a Model 3 AWD at $56K (7.6% savings). But it shows a fuel savings of $6800 on a Model 3 RWD at $47K (14.4% savings). That's the only model that puts a serious dent in cost to own. It shows $5500 fuel savings on a Model S at $100K (5.5% savings, I pay more for taxes).

 

[nate704]

Look at the statistics and do not trust your intuition. Humans suck at analyzing statistics and trying to do this stuff intuitively often gets you burned. Our perception of danger is based on how often we encounter/see something, and in the old days, this worked reasonably well. If you saw 5 people get eaten by bears with your own eyes, then that probably means bears present a fairly big danger to you. But social media gives us the ability to "see" stuff that isn't at all common, and warps our perceptions.

Plus, personal experiences are too small of a sample size to make any estimation of trends from. My father had his BMW broken into three times in less than 5 years as thieves tried to get the Blaupunkt radio (I didn't even know what Blaupunkt was until he told me; apparently this was a popular and expensive car audio brand back then). The third time the car was broken into, he was the one laughing because after the radio was stolen the second time, he never installed the replacement and just kept it in the garage. The idiot thieves didn't bother to check that there was actually a radio in there before breaking the windows to get to the radio. When did this happen? 1970s. He never had a car broken into in the 1980s though, which is when crime actually peaked.

When CA Governor says it’s big problem, it’s not perception or personal experience anymore.

 

[SageBrush]

"It's not nearly that simple" I suspected that, and am glad someone came forth with the explanation of why its not that simple. "it takes more than 1 kWh worth of heat to generate 1 kWh worth of electricity" does not support the one third the energy claim by Tesla in the beginning. I've not seen that claim lately.

I use 1/3 to not over-estimate

The general idea is that ICE vehicles are about 25% thermo efficient, while EV are about 80 - 90%
It gets complicated after that depending on the source energy, so consider two extremes:

1. ICE fueled by tar sands
1a. EV fueled by clean energy
Even a trumper Republican should be able to figure that one for themselves

2. ICE fueled by tar sands
2a. EV fueled by NG**/Coal
About 18 Kg of CO2 are exhausted into the atmosphere from mining through combustion for every gallon of petrol. Using the fleet average of 25 mpg, that works out to 18,000/25 = 720 grams CO2 per mile
In the case of EV, about 1 Kg of CO2 are exhausted for every kWh put on the grid. About 7% is wasted in transmission and EV efficiency is ~ 85% so the math works out to be 1000/(0.93*0.85) = 1,265 grams CO2 per kWh. EVs manage 3 - 4 miles per kWh so the pollution here is in the range of 420 - 316 grams per mile.


** The notion that NG is 'cleaner' than coal is true for EPA criteria pollutants but not for CO2 due to methane leaks upstream

 

[mngoalie]

I'm in the process of getting a Y. Personally, I don't care about the environmental impact of things. I'm buying it for the technology. I'm a geek and love high tech toys

 

[SageBrush]

2. ICE fueled by tar sands
2a. EV fueled by NG**/Coal
About 18 Kg of CO2 are exhausted into the atmosphere from mining through combustion for every gallon of petrol. Using the fleet average of 25 mpg, that works out to 18,000/25 = 720 grams CO2 per mile

Regarding tar sands, a 2017 GREET analysis is the latest and best I know of. It came up with 632 Kg CO2 WtW per barrel, which works out to 600 grams CO2 per US fleet mile. This matches up pretty closely with generic efficiency calculations comparisons.

 

[kelpcar]

Your thinking is a bit flawed.

You applied all losses on the ICE but none on the EV.

You have charging losses.
You have transmission losses.
You have conversion from fossil fuel to kw losses.

Most electricity comes from fossil fuels. It is still more efficient because a turbine is way more efficient than an ICE. But some of that is lost in charging and transmission. Turbine is also better at pollution than ICE.

Granted Electricity can also come from Wind, Solar, Hydro and Nuclear. Until most electricity comes from renewable the electric maybe 2x better, at best. No way it’s near 6x.

Try pouring your gallon of gas into a turbine and transmit that power 50 miles to your EV and then get that into your battery. Vs a gallon into an ICE gas tank and see which takes you further.

But in actuality, he did not apply all ICE losses. The inefficiency of the engine is just the last step in the ground to gas tank process. Refining that gallon of gas takes at least 6KWh worth of energy, which my YP with me driving would go 19 miles on, before I even started to use the gas. And I've seen far more negative claims for that cost than 6. That gas has to then be transported to the gas station as well. And then going back further, you have the extraction effort and transport of the crude, though now you have to start doing some comparisons to lithium extraction to keep it honest.

I think it's a losing battle to engage the cavemen of the internet. You can try to go on cost instead, though that is highly variable. But I know that for power supplied by my rooftop solar, I'm paying 3.4 cents per mile. For a typical ICE vehicle, that means 90-95cent gallon of gas. That value means something to people. OTOH, superchargers can move that as high as $3.40, which doesn't look nearly so compelling. So to make it easy, just say my car is faster. Video game fast.

 

[Tha_Ape]

FYI, Lexus RX is not the same class as MY.
RAV4, CRV, CX-5 are the same compact suv/cuv which get around 27 city, 35 highway

Yea, I always go off 40mpg... takes that argument off the table. I say 40mpg and gas is $3/gal. Tilt everything in the gas cars favor and the Tesla STILL comes out way ahead.

40mpg and $3/gal is $0.08/mi
300Wh/mi and $0.12/kWh (by me) is $0.04/mi

In reality, I get ~240Wh/mi on average and sometimes charge for free.

 

[SageBrush]

Refining that gallon of gas takes at least 6KWh worth of energy, which my YP with me driving would go 19 miles on

I liked your post, but this sentence is wrong. Your EV can travel 19 miles on 6 kWh of electricity, while the refining takes 6 kWh of heat energy.

---
I honestly find this discussion to be a blind alley. I think the only useful conclusion is that EVs can be clean if fueled with clean energy, and should be fueled with clean energy. So everybody should drive an EV and not an ICE, AND either build personal PV and/or vote and adocate for accelerated clean energy.

Clean energy and transport using clean energy is the only thing that matters.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

Yep. This is totally true. Teslas run around with the equivalent of a 4 gallon gas tank, and they just use (and reuse) it really efficiently.

This also explains why inclement weather is such a challenge. It's no big deal if you burn 1 gallon of fuel keeping your IC car warm in the winter, but that energy use is 25% of the range on an EV.

 

[STS-134]

Yep. This is totally true. Teslas run around with the equivalent of a 4 gallon gas tank, and they just use (and reuse) it really efficiently.

This also explains why inclement weather is such a challenge. It's no big deal if you burn 1 gallon of fuel keeping your IC car warm in the winter, but that energy use is 25% of the range on an EV.

That's why heat pumps are important. And while PTC heaters are dumb on EVs, you should see what the PTC heater they put into my PHEV does to the EV range...I guess they just expect you to use the ICE whenever it gets cold?