eevBLAB #63: How Affordable Are Electric Cars?

[MadScientist]

As an owner of a 30kwh leaf 2016  that now has 185,000km on it , I’d said it’s been a very successful vehicle , charging at home 6 nights a week , for €0.085 per kWh at night rate , and free workplace charging

As for eco arguments, ICE proponents don’t factor in the environmental costs of oil production, and the damage that’s caused by massive oils spills, so factoring in issues with electricity production is equally nonsense. All you can compare is the point source environmental emissions. I have no control over anything else. Hence EVs WiLL reduce urban pollution , irrespective  of the global position and it’s the local pollution that’s largely the health issue.

On a cost to me basis , insurance is lower then equivalent ice , motor tax is on the lowest band , there have been a cheap servicing , no faults , and the savings over my previous petrol car ( which was a small car) was such that it paid for the new  car ( and I got the benefit of driving a new car with all the mod cons)

EVs don’t make sense for low mileage users , or people that have to rely on paid for third party charging and yes they are  relatively expensive , however my leaf was not significantly dearer after the 10k rebate was applied. Again the sustainability of the tax position into the future is irrelevant. I can’t predict or know the future makeup of the tax system , the subsidy , etc and it’s just idle speculation as to what taxation and gov policy may bring. All you can do if deal with the here and now

For me , it’s a nicer drive , hence both my wife and tend to do long journeys in it .

Yes EVs arnt  currently for everyone , the car choice  is restricted and they get expensive fast, but if they fall within the zone, ie significant mileage , but within the cars range, it works very well.

Leafs have been on the road here since late 2010, I know several people with 7 year old versions quite happily motoring around.

I’ve owned all sorts of cars , and some of them equally cost a fortune to repair , I had a range rover that went through 2 gearboxes out of warranty , that’s was 6K a pop each time !!

A car no matter what is a wasting asset. It’s also for most people also a partial lifestyle choice , so absolute affordability is a rather ridiculous concept as few people buy cars on such a basis anyway. If it was we’d all be driving Fiat 500s

[EEVblog]

As for eco arguments, ICE proponents don’t factor in the environmental costs of oil production

http://www.lithiummine.com/lithium-mining-and-environmental-impact

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

As for eco arguments, ICE proponents don’t factor in the environmental costs of oil production, and the damage that’s caused by massive oils spills, so factoring in issues with electricity production is equally nonsense.

Not so fast my friend, because electricity generation burns fossil fuels too, ergo the environmental costs of FF extraction and distribution apply as well, but with extra well to wheel steps in the case of EVs, because once you've got the fossil fuels burnt (1) and converted into (heat +) mechanical energy (which is the last step in the case of ICEs), you still have to transform it (=> losses) into something else (electricity), feed it into the grid for distribution (=> more losses), convert it to DC (=> more losses) to store in a battery (=> more losses) to finally transform it back (with more losses) into mechanical energy again, in the EV.

And, when in the winters you use the heater, that energy in the case of ICEs comes at no additional expense whatsoever, 100% gratis from step (1), but EVs have to suck it all from the battery, at more than 2x the total energy cost compared to ICEs. By the way a decent cabin heater may well suck up to 6 kW => more than 12kW of additional power is the cost for EVs (*). Eco-conscious EV users should never turn it on! 

(*) 6 kW thrown away at step (1) + 6kW+ losses due to extra W2W steps, sucked from the battery.

[nctnico]

Not just that but fossil fuel power plants also produce a lot of nasty stuff like NOx and SO2. These emissions are the ones which are bad for our health!

Emission limits for power plants are much more relaxed compared to ICE cars. When run from the electricity mix in the Netherlands the average EV is barely meeting the EURO6 limit for NOx. This is without taking the emissions caused during production of the EV into account. If you care about your health and the environment then a hybrid is by far the best choice given the current situation. EVs are dead anyway. China is already moving towards Hydrogen quickly due to the emissions for electricity generation, shortage of battery materials and range limits.

[orion242]

That aside.

What's the EV battery recycle program look like?  The green aspect seems the weakest argument IMO.  If they cannot outlast, or the typical maintenance parts are a nightmare, its a nothing burger if the input is not squeaky clean which its almost never.

I buy used and don't normally find the maintenance costs discharge an ICE till 200K miles or more.  The one exceptional battery case with documentation, flunked batteries 3x @ ~150K.  That really changes the cost vs benefit calc on buying an EV IMO.

Lack of fast chargers so I don't have to piss around for hours, another huge problem.

[linux-works]

EVs are dead anyway. China is already moving towards Hydrogen quickly due to the emissions for electricity generation, shortage of battery materials and range limits.

what fantasy world do you live in?

china gov is flip flopping and while they did fund all their local EV companies (I work for one of them, fwiw), the 'switch' of the goverment's favor toward alternate fuels can easily switch back again.  they are a random element that can't be counted on, for incentive backing - we've seen this and know it.  but that does not mean EV is being de-emphasized.  the market is growing, the ice market is shrinking and especially in china where the pollution is so high, they MUST switch away from petrol based engines.  they really have no choice and they know it; that's why so much EV work is being done in china and by china based companies who are in the US.

[mikeselectricstuff]

That aside.

What's the EV battery recycle program look like? 

AIUI ,pretty non-existent at the moment as there aren't enough end-of-life batteries to recycle - they're lasting longer than expected, and getting re-purposed for renewables storage or broken into modules to repair other batteries.

[linux-works]

topgear article on battery swapping in china:

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/big-reads/power-shift-battery-swapping-our-way-across-china

time will tell if batt swap is a success or not.

[nctnico]

EVs are dead anyway. China is already moving towards Hydrogen quickly due to the emissions for electricity generation, shortage of battery materials and range limits.

china gov is flip flopping and while they did fund all their local EV companies (I work for one of them, fwiw), the 'switch' of the goverment's favor toward alternate fuels can easily switch back again.  they are a random element that can't be counted on, for incentive backing - we've seen this and know it.  but that does not mean EV is being de-emphasized.  the market is growing, the ice market is shrinking and especially in china where the pollution is so high, they MUST switch away from petrol based engines. 

But oddly enough a hybrid ICE (euro6) beats an EV running from fossil fuels hands down if you look at CO2 and harmfull pollution. So if you want to reduce pollution an EV is not the best choice. If you are not convinced then look up NOx and SO2 emissions in China from electricity production. Also the CO2 savings are highly debatable. Just run the numbers and you'll see an EV only makes sense if you can produce & power it from near 100% hydro, solar, wind or nuclear directly (IOW: without CO2 emission rights trading). Otherwise an EV will cause more pollution and damage to the environment overall. Ofcourse the 'EV boat' still has momentum but I recon the chances are 80% that EVs will be abandoned in the next 10 years. That may seem strong now but people also called me crazy when I told them diesels would be banned in the near future. And see where we are now...

[coppice]

china gov is flip flopping and while they did fund all their local EV companies (I work for one of them, fwiw), the 'switch' of the goverment's favor toward alternate fuels can easily switch back again.  they are a random element that can't be counted on, for incentive backing - we've seen this and know it.  but that does not mean EV is being de-emphasized.  the market is growing, the ice market is shrinking and especially in china where the pollution is so high, they MUST switch away from petrol based engines.  they really have no choice and they know it; that's why so much EV work is being done in china and by china based companies who are in the US.

Incentives are always a complex issue, that need to adapt as the market develops, because people will always game the rules. Places like Beijing have both pollution and congestion issues they need to solve. EVs help with the city pollution, but are just as big a congestion issue as any other kind of car. So, they have a balancing game they need to play, encouraging both a reduction in the growth of car numbers, and a reduction in car pollution. They will obviously need to alter various incentives and quotas, as people learn the games they can play.

[coppice]

If you are not convinced then look up NOx and SO2 emissions in China from electricity production.

NOx and SOx aerosols are really bad in cities, but in the general atmosphere they are part of the aerosol mix that is dimming the sun and limiting temperature rises. Until atmospheric CO2 can be substantially reduced, it would be dangerous to cause a big drop in these dimming aerosols. What we need is to keep high concentrations of them away from people's lungs. EVs for cities are mostly powered by plants well away from the cities, so they have real benefits even if they are only NOx/SOx neutral.

[nctnico]

If you are not convinced then look up NOx and SO2 emissions in China from electricity production.

NOx and SOx aerosols are really bad in cities, but in the general atmosphere they are part of the aerosol mix that is dimming the sun and limiting temperature rises. Until atmospheric CO2 can be substantially reduced, it would be dangerous to cause a big drop in these dimming aerosols. What we need is to keep high concentrations of them away from people's lungs. EVs for cities are mostly powered by plants well away from the cities, so they have real benefits even if they are only NOx/SOx neutral.

This reasoning doesn't fly. Emitting many times more pollution a few kilometers away doesn't make it better. Actually it makes the air quality worse for a lot more people. In the EU (IOW large parts of Europe) fuel is free from Sulfur so ICE based transport doesn't emit SO2. But power plants to generate electricity do. For example: in the Netherlands the power plants alone emit about 73000 metric tonnes of Sulfur into the air annually. In which world is that better?

[thm_w]

As for eco arguments, ICE proponents don’t factor in the environmental costs of oil production

http://www.lithiummine.com/lithium-mining-and-environmental-impact

Leaf has about 4kg of lithium. Approximately 120MJ energy is used to mine this. Or the equivalent energy in 4 liters of gas.
An average car might last 8 years and 240,000 km.
Over this time it will consume 16,800 liters of gas (~7L/100km). Add to that the inefficiency of the refinery (90%) and the energy costs of pulling it from the ground (?).

Not to mention the lithium can be recycled at the end of the vehicles life.
Its not even comparable.

edit: of course in your case the electric car will use coal/gas via electricity generation, in my case it will not.

[nctnico]

As for eco arguments, ICE proponents don’t factor in the environmental costs of oil production

http://www.lithiummine.com/lithium-mining-and-environmental-impact

Leaf has about 4kg of lithium. Approximately 120MJ energy is used to mine this. Or the equivalent energy in 4 liters of gas.
An average car might last 8 years and 240,000 km.
Over this time it will consume 16,800 liters of gas (~7L/100km). Add to that the inefficiency of the refinery (90%) and the energy costs of pulling it from the ground (?).

Not to mention the lithium can be recycled at the end of the vehicles life.
Its not even comparable.

Because you are using the wrong numbers. Every well-to-wheel analysis shows that producing an EV emits at least twice the amount of CO2 compared to an equivalent ICE car. And most of the extra CO2 comes from producing the battery. This puts an EV behind an efficient ICE based car. Compared to an efficient ICE car like a diesel or a hybrid the EV won't make up for the extra CO2 emitted during it's production (based on the CO2 emissions from the average electricity mix). Take the higher emission limits of the typical fossil fuel power plants into account and an EV is even a step back.

I already ran all the numbers and EVs are a solution looking for a problem. It is a total dead end from every angle you look at it given the current state and near future state of technology and energy production.

[thm_w]

Not so fast my friend, because electricity generation burns fossil fuels too, ergo the environmental costs of FF extraction and distribution apply as well, but with extra well to wheel steps in the case of EVs, because once you've got the fossil fuels burnt (1) and converted into (heat +) mechanical energy (which is the last step in the case of ICEs), you still have to transform it (=> losses) into something else (electricity), feed it into the grid for distribution (=> more losses), convert it to DC (=> more losses) to store in a battery (=> more losses) to finally transform it back (with more losses) into mechanical energy again, in the EV.

And, when in the winters you use the heater, that energy in the case of ICEs comes at no additional expense whatsoever, 100% gratis from step (1), but EVs have to suck it all from the battery, at more than 2x the total energy cost compared to ICEs. By the way a decent cabin heater may well suck up to 6 kW => more than 12kW of additional power is the cost for EVs (*). Eco-conscious EV users should never turn it on! 

(*) 6 kW thrown away at step (1) + 6kW+ losses due to extra W2W steps, sucked from the battery.

You haven't used any actual numbers, other than the heater, because you have no hard data to back up your argument.

I'll assume hes in England, because I didn't see a country specified:
- Put on a jacket instead of heating the car, its not that cold.
- 25% of their electricity comes from renewable sources. So you've already cut fossil fuel usage by 25%, even if the electric car somehow used as much energy as an ICE (hint, it does not).



Efficiencies:
Gas plant efficiency can be as high as 60%.
An ICE vehicle is about 20% efficient (gas -> motion).
An electric car is about 70% efficient (battery -> motion).

Worse case we are talking 26% for electric vs 20% for the ICE (https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/fuel-cell4.htm). If the plant is 60% efficient (40% was used in that article, eg coal), and 25% of the countries electricity comes from renewable sources, we are talking more in the realm of 50% for the electric and 20% for the ICE.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/10/electric-car-myth-buster-efficiency/

[thm_w]

Because you are using the wrong numbers. Every well-to-wheel analysis shows that producing an EV emits at least twice the amount of CO2 compared to an equivalent ICE car. And most of the extra CO2 comes from producing the battery. This puts an EV behind an efficient ICE based car. Compared to an efficient ICE car like a diesel or a hybrid the EV won't make up for the extra CO2 emitted during it's production (based on the CO2 emissions from the average electricity mix). Take the higher emission limits of the typical fossil fuel power plants into account and an EV is even a step back.

I already ran all the numbers and EVs are a solution looking for a problem. It is a total dead end from every angle you look at it given the current state and near future state of technology and energy production.

At no point did I mention building the car, I was simply discussing the energy use of mining the lithium, which was what was quoted. 
Fossil fuel power plants are more efficient than vehicle engines, by about 3x, there is no question of that.

Either way I don't care because my energy does not come from a fossil fuel power plant.

[nctnico]

At no point did I mention building the car, I was simply discussing the energy use of mining the lithium, which was what was quoted. 
Fossil fuel power plants are more efficient than vehicle engines, by about 3x, there is no question of that.

And yet an EV loses by about 2 times when powered from a coal power plant. An efficient ICE based car emits around 100 grams of CO2 per km. An EV powered from a coal power plant sits over 200 grams of CO2 per km (a typical coal power plant emits 1000 grams of CO2 per kWh). At (a conservative) 200Wh/km an EV sits at 200 grams of CO2. Please explain again how power plants are more efficient?

And you should care how your EV is made. The chances are high that your net CO2 emission is still more compared to an efficient ICE based car due to the enormous amount of energy needed to produce your car.

[thm_w]

And yet an EV loses by about 2 times when powered from a coal power plant. An efficient ICE based car emits around 100 grams of CO2 per km. An EV powered from a coal power plant sits over 200 grams of CO2 per km (a typical coal power plant emits 1000 grams of CO2 per kWh). At (a conservative) 200Wh/km an EV sits at 200 grams of CO2. Please explain again how power plants are more efficient?

And you should care how your EV is made. The chances are high that your net CO2 emission is still more compared to an efficient ICE based car due to the enormous amount of energy needed to produce your car.

At no point did I mention coal plant efficiency, and no you cannot drive an ICE car on coal. Yet somehow you shift the discussion there because you realize you've hit a dead end.
Coal is terrible, we are comparing GAS in a vehicle to GAS in a power plant.

Typical thermal efficiency for utility-scale electrical generators is around 37% for coal and oil-fired plants,[6] and 56 – 60% (LEV) for combined-cycle gas-fired plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station

[coppice]

If you are not convinced then look up NOx and SO2 emissions in China from electricity production.

NOx and SOx aerosols are really bad in cities, but in the general atmosphere they are part of the aerosol mix that is dimming the sun and limiting temperature rises. Until atmospheric CO2 can be substantially reduced, it would be dangerous to cause a big drop in these dimming aerosols. What we need is to keep high concentrations of them away from people's lungs. EVs for cities are mostly powered by plants well away from the cities, so they have real benefits even if they are only NOx/SOx neutral.

This reasoning doesn't fly. Emitting many times more pollution a few kilometers away doesn't make it better. Actually it makes the air quality worse for a lot more people. In the EU (IOW large parts of Europe) fuel is free from Sulfur so ICE based transport doesn't emit SO2. But power plants to generate electricity do. For example: in the Netherlands the power plants alone emit about 73000 metric tonnes of Sulfur into the air annually. In which world is that better?

Reasoning has little to do with it. When Volvo launched the V90 and S90 in 2016 the British government was go keen on the low CO2 output of diesel cars, Volvo didn't even offer a gasoline version in the UK. A year later the government started turning anti-diesel, because NOx output in the cities was the concern of the day, so things have moved heavily towards gasoline cars. This rather ignores that most of the gasoline powered cars are now turbocharged, run hotter, and produce more NOx than older gasoline cars, and might not be much cleaner than diesel. Some UK cities recently decided they want to ban diesel cars from their centres in 2021, even the latest and cleanest ones. That knee jerk reaction gives very little time for people who recently bought a new diesel car to take reasonable replacement action. There is no plan. Just a lot of inconsistent emotional reactions that are the biggest threat we face.

That 73k tonnes of sulphur going into the air each year, which you referred to,  is helping to dim the sun, and reduce the effects of CO2, so its not all bad.

[Fungus]

And yet an EV loses by about 2 times when powered from a coal power plant.

Maybe, but coal is on the way out so it's not a reason to halt development of electric cars.

[nctnico]

And yet an EV loses by about 2 times when powered from a coal power plant.

Maybe, but coal is on the way out so it's not a reason to halt development of electric cars.

Coal (and fossil fuels in general) will die later than electric cars. And natural gas isn't much better when looking at NOx output. Natural gas also contains Sulfur which 'burns' to SO2. The way things are looking the 20's will very likely be the decade of the demise of the electric cars.

Just ask yourself why Toyota still hasn't announced their own electric car yet (besides a 3 wheeler motorcycle similar to the Renault Twizy) . Toyota says they are making electric cars but if you read carefully you'll see that they mean hydrogen + electric motor or ICE + electric motor (hybrid) and have no plans to diverge from that path. Toyota is also the only car manufacturer which has managed to reduce to CO2 emissions of the average car they sold in the EU.

[linux-works]

electric cars won't go away until there is something better to replace them.

if you have driven an electric, you know about the immense torque those cars tend to have.

SO MUCH FUN!

no transmission gear changes, no redline, passing power that only supercars used to have.

e-cars are not going away, dude.  they are only going to go up.

betting against electric is the dumb move.  ALL the car companies are winding down on gas engine development.  that is a fact.

[nctnico]

betting against electric is the dumb move.

And yet Toyota is doing exactly that!

The real problem is that many car manufacturers (especially the ones in Europe) where under the impression that they could:
A) bully & scam their way out of stricter emissions regulations for NOx and CO2
B) manufacture and sell enough electric cars to compensate for CO2 emissions.

Neither is happening. The 'sticking their heads in the sand / too-big-to-fail' trick didn't work. So in a knee-yerk reaction they claim to make electric cars to safe face but the reality is that in Europe the number of electric cars sold is still extremely low and there aren't enough materials to make electric cars anyway. The only way out is hybrid. Toyota has realised this in time and the rest will follow shortly. Just look at how many hybrid models are announced. There is no other option within the given time frame. Based on the average CO2 emissions of the cars sold in Europe in 2019 the car manufacturers together face a projected fine of about 35 billion euro for 2020 (VW alone is good for 9 billion euro) if they don't lower the CO2 emissions of the average car they sell in 2020. Toyota has to pay the lowest (projected) amount of all.

By the time batteries and infrastructure are good enough 3rd and 4th generation bio-fuels have bridged the gap and hydrogen has already caught up. Germany and China have already accellerated building hydrogen infrastructure; it makes no sense to invest in an electric charging infrastructure in parallel (hydrogen infrastructure is also much cheaper).

[lpickup]

Coal (and fossil fuels in general) will die later than electric cars.

Really, then why is coal on a drastic downward trend while electric cars are on an upward trend?

Especially when you actually look at 2019.  For example, you like to base your thesis on a report from ADAC (which by the way, like our AAA in the US has very strong ties to the oil industry, so is it really any surprise that their research is biased in favor of oil consuming cars?) which illustrates how EVs in Germany, because the German grid is so heavily coal-based, apparently do no better than gas and diesels.  That report was supposedly based on 2018 "data" (more on that later).  But take a look at what happened to coal consumption in Germany in 2019:

Or how about the UK:

Or the US, where we have a president who apparently is actively trying to prop up coal.  The result?  A 19% decline in 2019:
America’s Coal Consumption Entered Free Fall in 2019
Australia:


Sure, China and India still make up the lion's share of world coal consumption, so EVs in those areas are perhaps not as clean as in other parts of the world, but even they seem to have turned the corner.

Coal is dying. 
EVs are ramping:

2019 make take a bit of a hit in the uptake of EVs (mainly due to economic slowdown in China)

It is a brave statement to make that you expect coal to outlive (in any significant fashion) EVs and relies significantly on false statements such as "limited raw materials", assuming that the grid never gets any cleaner than it is today, and using cherry picked data that can easily be shown to be wrong.  For example, the CO2/kWh in Germany from your ADAC report quotes a figure of 580gCO2/kWh as calculated by the Federal Environment Agency (although no link is provided), whereas this report by the same agency shows a figure of 489gCO2/kWh: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/coal-task-force-postponed-yet-again-source-fracking-commission/co2-emissions-kilowatt-hour-down-36-percent-between-1990-and-2017-germany (the provided link to the German report is broken, but here is the fixed one:
 https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/1410/publikationen/2018-05-04_climate-change_11-2018_strommix-2018_0.pdf)

And of course the statement that hydrogen infrastructure is somehow cheaper than electric infrastructure seems completely absurd. 

[nctnico]

Just wait and see what happens. Especially when the markets for EVs are no longer artificially maintained/created by subsidies and tax incentives.

On a large scale EV sales are still a drop in the bucket. It is like Windows phone versus Android. A 50% increase for Windows phone may seem like a lot but with a marginal market share it still amounts to nothing. Don't get fooled by big numbers without the big picture.

And yes, hydrogen infrastructure is cheaper. Look it up yourself; it is about 4 times cheaper according to a German study. Not to mention convenient range and quick fueling.