Electric Cars Will Kill The Planet

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Think switching to electric cars will make you more smug…errr, I mean “environmentally friendly?” You’d better think again. Electric cars will be the death of us all!

The carbon dioxide emission reductions from these 1 million electrical vehicles in Germany's transportation sector would be only 1 percent, according to the study, and overall national carbon dioxide emissions would only be cut by 0.1 percent. "That is not a very big deal," Raddatz said, adding that "it is not going to help us out of the transportation emission mess."
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On a serious note, is there any reason we couldn’t make an electric car with dual / switching battery packs? You’d have one that operates the car while the other is being charged by the spinning of the wheels. That way, you could charge the car once and forget about it. I’d pay more for a self charging car, wouldn’t you?
 
I thought electric cars weren't only about the emissions, i thoughti it was about removing overall dependence on gasoline...man these assholes change their tune fast when it costs money.

the self charging car is actually a pretty fantastic idea...the only problem is it makes too much sense for the auto industry. i mean....look at it's current state...when is the last time they made a smart decision?
 
Manaknight said:
I thought electric cars weren't only about the emissions, i thoughti it was about removing overall dependence on gasoline...man these assholes change their tune fast when it costs money.
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I thought the same thing too.
 
OK Steve, if you're going to sell perpetual motion, you've got to dress it up a little more. :)
 
Ya, I hope the self-charging car question was a joke..

But something else to think about - how anti-green is it to make the batteries that are going in each of these dual mode vehicles as well?

I'm all for removing our dependence from foreign oil.. but whether electric cars or dual mode vehicles are actually greener than gasoline only is a good question..
 
If you want an answer to whether or not hybrid and electric cars are "greener" just fire up google maps and take a look at some of the cadmium and copper mines in MT, and Canada. Plus the way we manufacture these batteries (read ship pieces all over the planet several times) the benefit is starting to be negated. Right now, you are probably better off with a small turbo diesel. That is until we can get a better battery.
 
Steve said:
On a serious note, is there any reason we couldn’t make an electric car with dual / switching battery packs? You’d have one that operates the car while the other is being charged by the spinning of the wheels. That way, you could charge the car once and forget about it. I’d pay more for a self charging car, wouldn’t you?
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Dear god let that be a joke.
 
The self charging idea isn't too far off the mark.......but keeping it realistic, it could be used for extending the range of the vehicle between charges couldn't it?

Of course you wouldn't be dependent on the oil company anymore, just the battery company.:D
 
Monkey34 said:
The self charging idea isn't too far off the mark.......but keeping it realistic, it could be used for extending the range of the vehicle between charges couldn't it?

Of course you wouldn't be dependent on the oil company anymore, just the battery company.:D
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No. The efficiency from power from the battery to actual movement is below 100%. So if you to take one battery and use it to charge another identical battery you'd actually get less power. To actually charge you'd need 100%+ efficiency. Now powering it when going down hill or braking would be different.
 
Steve said:
On a serious note, is there any reason we couldn’t make an electric car with dual / switching battery packs? You’d have one that operates the car while the other is being charged by the spinning of the wheels. That way, you could charge the car once and forget about it. I’d pay more for a self charging car, wouldn’t you?
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Are you REALLY serious? There's a reason why science tells us that energy conversion is not 100% efficient, otherwise, we would be able to create a perpetual motion machine.
 
Cyrilix said:
Are you REALLY serious? There's a reason why science tells us that energy conversion is not 100% efficient, otherwise, we would be able to create a perpetual motion machine.
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I guess I should've read the comments below first. I'm late to the party, sorry.
 
Yes, I'd pay more for perpetual motion - who wouldn't? ...but all modern electric cars (and hybrids) already do some of that, by using regenerative braking to recharge the batteries. The theory behind the hybrid at least has some merit, since it preserves useful range with less battery capacity vs. all electric (and hence, in theory less manufacturing/transport/disposal impact), and also exploits the efficiency of generating power at point of use, vs. taking the losses to transmit, convert, store, and recover that power later. Regardless of the prime mover (or two of them, in the case of hybrids) though, the only real solution is to drive less. Too bad all the places with the worst traffic have no room to lay train tracks, and all the places where people commute >20 miles have too low of population density to justify it.

...of course perpetual motion would fix all that (except for the added traffic of guilt free driving).
 
There's no way you were serious on your "serious note" there. I got a good laugh though Steve :D
 
Here we go again, with the CO2 scaremongering.

Let's get some figures here, shall we.

Internal Combustion engines are 30% efficient (at best, and that's just going from liquid fuel to motion). Add to that the amount of energy required to refine the fuel, and the amount of energy required to transport the fuel, and you're looking at an efficiency rate of around 10% from "Well to wheel".

Electric vehicles are 80% efficient (from wall to wheel, without regenerative braking). Power lines are 85-90% efficient, and large-scale coal generation is typically 50-70% efficient.

So, even if all your power for your electric car was generated by coal, you would still be creating 1/3rd the amount of CO2 "Well-to-wheel" of an Gasoline (or diesel) car.

CO2 capture/processing at a large-scale generation facility is immensely simpler to implement than trying to capture and store CO2 on each and every vehicle, making it easier to reduce CO2 emissions at "dirty" fossil plants.

Add to that the increase in renewable (and CO2-less) generation systems in the future (Solar, wind, tidal, hydro etc), and your CO2 balance goes way, WAY down.

And if/when they finally put the acres and acres of windy prairie to use (Wind farms, anyone? You can still farm around the 'mills, after all, making the land use double as effective, and double as profitable), countries can switch almost entirely to renewable sources.

Heck, a Photo-Voltaic array on your roof and a small wind turbine on the garage, and you can charge your electric car "For free" every day. And get paid by the power company for the excess.
 
The emissions hasn't gone down because we still burn fossil fuel for electricity. If all of our electricity was made from Solar, Wind, Hydro, Geothermal, Tidal, etc., and all our cars were electric, our emissions level with plummet. That's what we'll have some day.
 
Your talking around $20,000 in solar panels to charge any contemporary electric car over night and have your charge batteries ready again when you get home. That's counting on about 2killowatts of wind power. Which may or may not be sustained. These are conservative estimates.

After all is said and done, between contractors, charge controllers and batteries your looking at $40-45k and you haven't even bought a solar car yet.:eek:
 
I'm all for electric cars and hybrids. They may not be the best solution out there, but they are an evolution.

Evolution is key to moving on, even if electrics and hybrids are stumbling blocks. It may take 20 years to get a decent cheap battery. We may begin to run out of lithium reserves in 50 years, and at that point it will be extremely profitable business to recycle.

Fact is, automotive industry has been fairly stagnant when it comes to propulsion systems. I'm sure more can be extracted from I.C.E. engines, but when a potentially cheaper solution comes along, its time to branch out a little.
 
Germany is retarded. They hate nuclear but almost all the power they buy from France is nuclear. It's like they just don't get it.

+1 for nuclear!
 
Actually reading the article (Rather than just the summary and inflammatory headline), it seems they're basing their numbers on an even greater fallacy: That everyone's going to plug in and charge just as soon as they get home.

The simple way around that is to (As they do in the UK) charge a lower rate for off-peak power (Or a higher rate for peak power, either works). a $5 timeswitch can be sold as a value-add for anyone purchasing an electric car, which then means they can get home, plug in, and overnight, in the time of least demand, their car will be automatically charged. No need for a "Smart grid" infrastructure, though that would negate the problem even further.

With V2G systems, people's plugged-in cars can act as power reserves, so while watching the football (Sorry, soccer. I forgot this is primarily an American audience), rather than having to fire up more dirty generators at half-time to cope with all the electric kettles coming on, they use the cars connected to the grid as a big smoothing capacitor, taking some charge back to smooth out the load, ensuring the owner's requirements are still met (Draining the battery to no more than 75% full, for example, so if they did want to go somewhere, there's no wait).

With people also plugging their vehicles in at work for a slow trickle charge throughout the day, it'll smooth out the demand even further, and employers could optionally use their staff vehicles as a big UPS if there is ever a power failure.
 
Manaknight said:
I thought electric cars weren't only about the emissions, i thoughti it was about removing overall dependence on gasoline...man these assholes change their tune fast when it costs money.

the self charging car is actually a pretty fantastic idea...the only problem is it makes too much sense for the auto industry. i mean....look at it's current state...when is the last time they made a smart decision?
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I always thought it was to remove emissions. That makes sense though to reduce dependency on oil. I would happily buy a self recharging car as well.
 
To followup on Steve's original post, I think a secondary feature would the following: everyone knows that applying the brakes should involve a mechanism that transfers the spare energy back into the batteries. Therefore, the solution is to leave the brakes applied continuously. I suspect that between this braking and the continuous recharge that Steve outlined, we can actually turn the car into a free energy generator :p
 
Magnus said:
OK Steve, if you're going to sell perpetual motion, you've got to dress it up a little more. :)
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I'm sure it's hard to make witty comments about 15+ articles a day year in and out without slipping up every now and again. :D

<3 for Steve!
 
baddog121390 said:
"Germany has voted to phase out nuclear power by 2020"

Brilliant:rolleyes:
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We're right behind them. People are so shit scared of nuclear from watching too many movies it's almost hilarious.
 
Instead of building a self-recharging car... We just just turn all our roads into huge treadmills that collect most of the power, moving against them.
 
Nuclear power is the way to go.

Also, the free energy comment Steve? I swear you need sarcasm tags or something, because I'm just too confused.
 
I doubt civilization will ever completely move to a single solution. Gas got so big because it was the only real practical solution for many decades. Gas use will eventually decline, but it will probably be 50+ years (closer to 100+) before gas usage is the minority. There are simply too many cars (and historic ones) that depend on it.

The best solution is for each region to determine the most efficient local renewable resource. From there they can look into secondary and backup resources. Depending on a single solution is no longer viable unless there is some spectacular breakthrough. And here it is: I give you the dark energy collector... oops it hasn't been invented yet, but you heard it here first. :)

And Steve... wow man. Didn't do well in physics class, eh? My sarcasm meter is busted. :p
 
I guess people feel better about themselves if they cant see the polution there creating. If owners of electric vehicles would just follow the wires from there house to the Coal Burning power plant they might reconsider. But as long as there oblivious that there electric car is responsible for the same amount of CO2 as any other car out there they can feel good about themselves.

But wait...look at all those toxic chemicals churning around in those batteries, wheres that nasty mess going to go when its time to replace them.
 
Steve said:
On a serious note, is there any reason we couldn’t make an electric car with dual / switching battery packs? You’d have one that operates the car while the other is being charged by the spinning of the wheels. That way, you could charge the car once and forget about it. I’d pay more for a self charging car, wouldn’t you?
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QUICK! Call Steorn NOW!
They might be willing to pay you lots of money for your idea.
 
Someone already hit on this, but it bears repeating. Cars and oil arent the only contibutors to greehouse gas production. the move to electric cars is important, and necessary though not in their current form, i think. The Chevy Volt and Honda Clarity are the only two cars i think are moving in the right direction, maybe the Tesla Roadster, but for other reasons. The Honda is faced with manufacturing costs (though you could say that bout the Volt as well, every Volt is basically a one-off, they dont have major manufacturing support set up yet.) and a distinct lack of places to fill your tank with hydrogen. The Volt and every other plug-in electric car is faced with getting their power from a wall socket, which in America at least means Coal power (at least for a giant portion of the population).

The Clarity is a step in the right direction, insofar as a car manufacturer can step. The real solution, in my opinion, is a clean grid (clean coal is not clean) with plug in electric cars. But then what would Exxon-Mobil do??!

And why does noone look at a Prius or electric car and think, thats going to save classic cars, sports cars, or racing cars in general? NASCAR is more popular than anything here, somehow a buncha hydrogen or electric stock cars doesnt have the same appeal.
 
IMHO, cleaner air in the streets is good enough reason for me electric cars, really, who would really miss all those smog even if it were just 1% or 0.1%?, 1% or .1% is still better than nothing..
 
It seems like half of the people get it and half of the people don't. The ones that don't think only about "global warming" and "greenhouse gas emissions", because that's all they hear on the news. There are a lot of other emissions that we don't want from vehicles.
 
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