Poll: Do you have, or plan to get, an electric car?

[day_trippr]

Hole Lee Cow.
When I was 16 one could buy a pretty good half ton pickup truck, brand new - WITH TIRES - for under two grand.

I am clearly hella old...

 

[Bilsch]

Hole Lee Cow.
When I was 16 one could buy a pretty good half ton pickup truck, brand new - WITH TIRES - for under two grand.

I am clearly hella old...

And a six pack was $2.50
Happy days.

 

[brewingmeister]

Not sure how to answer the pole as I know a new ev would never be in my future nor would a used ev. Who buys a used battery?

Now, if an old ugly busted pickup truck pulls up next to you and just happens to be real quit while it smokes your ass. Well, maybe I've gone ev.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I didn't vote in the poll, because there's a good chance my next vehicle purchase will be EV... But the time horizon is ~6-7 years out before I'll be purchasing again.

Right now my daily driver is a Ford Flex because I've got a wife, three kids, and an 80+ lb dog. That car is a 2014 (bought used in 2017), and my goal is to keep it until my eldest goes to college (he's about to enter 7th grade).

If I was buying today, I wouldn't yet go EV. They're still too expensive, there are very few options (Tesla + who?), and the charging infrastructure isn't there yet. And since I rent, I don't want to pay to put a charger in my garage and I know my landlord won't do it.

6-7 years from now I think all of those problems will be solved. We'll have compelling EV options from a half dozen manufacturers at least, the prices should get more reasonable, and the charging infrastructure will be more ubiquitous. And I should be a homeowner again by that time, so I can put a charger in my house (and potentially solar, depending how things go in that industry).

So I see the advantages going forward, but the industry isn't quite ready yet, which is good because I'm not quite ready yet.

 

[ehall]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakd...rets-of-clean-electric-vehicles/#1853c23f650b

 

[Bilsch]

Funny how there have so been many hit pieces against EV’s funded by the oil industry lately. Think they might be getting worried?

 

[bleme]

Funny how there have so been many hit pieces against EV’s funded by the oil industry lately. Think they might be getting worried?

This is an argumentum ad hominem fallacy and doesn't address any of the facts in the article. Try again. Better yet, move it to the debate forum.

 

[Bilsch]

This is an argumentum ad hominem fallacy and doesn't address any of the facts in the article. Try again. Better yet, move it to the debate forum.

Fair enough. How is this?
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-numbers-are-in-and-evs-are-cleaner-than-ever

 

[kh54s10]

I may some day but the cost is still too high and the total effect on being green is not as good as they say. It takes a lot of electric use to make up for the carbon footprint of producing the car and charging it. Then there is the problem of the batteries. What do you do with the toxic waste of spent batteries.

 

[Bilsch]

I may some day but the cost is still too high and the total effect on being green is not as good as they say. It takes a lot of electric use to make up for the carbon footprint of producing the car and charging it. Then there is the problem of the batteries. What do you do with the toxic waste of spent batteries.

That is just not true. An electric vehicles total life cycle emissions are much less then ICE cars. The batteries once spent contain the exact same materials they started with, in the same form and are fully recyclable. The damage being caused to the earth from burning oil is what is killing us and yet people worry about batteries.

 

[bleme]

Fair enough. How is this?

That is certainly a step in the right direction, but it is still hard to compare to the Forbes article. I could only find one 'fact' that they disagree about though. Forbes states that an EV requires 16,000 more pounds of CO2 (114%) to manufacture than an ICE vehicle does, citing a 2012 peer-reviewed Yale study. UCS states that it is only 15%, and only cites themselves. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen an article written by scientists to be so lacking in citations.

UCS adds a lot of 'spin' to their data. For instance, when talking about how efficient EV's are, they use the lowest range, most efficient model, but when talking about ICE gas mileage, they average in low efficiency trucks and vans (which have no EV alternative) to bring the average down.

It is refreshing that they state their bias right in their motto while Forbes bias is much harder to discern.

Personally, I love the idea of EV's. I started reading everything I could find on Tesla before they even produced their first car. But I've never spent more than $3500 on a car, and don't plan to change that any time soon, so I'm guessing it will be a long while before I actually own one.

That is just not true. An electric vehicles total life cycle emissions are much less then ICE cars. The batteries once spent contain the exact same materials they started with, in the same form and are fully recyclable. The damage being caused to the earth from burning oil is what is killing us and yet people worry about batteries.

The UCS article you posted cited their own 2015 article which stated:

Optimizing EV production and the disposal or reuse of batteries could further increase their environmental benefits.

That doesn't sound like the batteries are being fully recycled to me.

 

[Bilsch]

Personally, I love the idea of EV's. I started reading everything I could find on Tesla before they even produced their first car. But I've never spent more than $3500 on a car, and don't plan to change that any time soon, so I'm guessing it will be a long while before I actually own one.


The UCS article you posted cited their own 2015 article which stated:

That doesn't sound like the batteries are being fully recycled to me.

That article is getting dated. Tesla and BMW have since set up their own battery recycling centers. For the time being though very few are actually being taken apart for recycling, but instead are sent for use in grid storage projects where the slightly degraded capacity does not matter. Anytime an EV hits the junk yard, the batteries are the first thing to get sold to people making their own home power storage. That is one big reason there are low numbers of these units that turn up as waste.

But even if that were not the case and all the batteries were chucked into the landfill, that pollution would be a tiny fraction of a minuscule fraction of the pollutants spewing out each day from oil burning.

 

[ehall]

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2020/07/31/sustainability-and-three-seconds-to-60/
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2020/07/27/not-affordable-enough/
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019/11/29/electric-cars-cost-more-than-too-much/
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2018/11/28/gm-kills-the-electric-car/
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2017/10/06/electric-car-putsch/
stuff to think about...

 

[Bilsch]

stuff to think about...

"Eric Peters
Libertarian Car Guy and refugee from DC. Vulture of the Western World. Author of Automotive Atrocities and Road Hogs. Face Diaper Refusenik."

Yes, certainly stuff to think about.

 

[bleme]

I found a 2005 Prius for $1500 on Craigslist. Something was wrong with the battery so it only ran on gas, so that probably doesn't count...

 

[kh54s10]

That is just not true. An electric vehicles total life cycle emissions are much less then ICE cars. The batteries once spent contain the exact same materials they started with, in the same form and are fully recyclable. The damage being caused to the earth from burning oil is what is killing us and yet people worry about batteries.

You are totally misinformed..... Electric vehicles are recharged off the electric grid. At least 80% is still produced with coal, oil or natural gas. So there is a lot of carbon footprint there. Batteries contain lithium..... It is a hazardous waste that is not easily disposed of and not recyclable.....

 

[Bilsch]

You are totally misinformed..... Electric vehicles are recharged off the electric grid. At least 80% is still produced with coal, oil or natural gas. So there is a lot of carbon footprint there. Batteries contain lithium..... It is a hazardous waste that is not easily disposed of and not recyclable.....

I have to wonder where you get your information because most of this is easy to find out from multiple sources with a few minutes googling. Here, for instance, is a government website that documents pretty plainly where our electricity comes from. 61% is from dead dinosaurs and not 80% also since powering an EV from even the dirtiest electricity is twice as clean as burning the fuel directly in the car.. I'd say thats a pretty amazing step forward from internal combustion.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
As for lithium batteries being haz .. are you saying that oil, it's fractioned products, chemicals used in its refining and the gasses that come from your tail pipe are not hazardous and or somehow less of a problem then EV waste?

In case you wondered how they handle the spent batteries from EV's that are not reused in stationary power.. It's taken to a facility that freezes the cells to make them safe then shreds and separates the remainder into chemicals that go right back into new batteries or other products. The stuff that is in there is worth money, lots of money and they don't toss it away.

 

[Kent88]

https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2018/11/28/gm-kills-the-electric-car/

I heard this argument a few times when I bought my Volt, "Why are you buying one? They can't be that good if Chevy is discontinuing them". Thing is, when the Volt was killed, so were other GM cars, like the Impala. This wasn't necessarily a problem with the Volt itself, but likely a problem with cars. People are buying Crossovers and SUVs.

As for batteries, I have a buddy who is a big EV / renewable energies enthusiast who follows this stuff better than I do. A year or two ago he got all excited because he found that when EV batteries were no longer road worthy they could still be used in other applications. I'm not going to look around for info myself, but re-purposing EV batteries makes sense.

https://www.nrel.gov/transportation/battery-second-use-analysis.html
That was just one of the first results I got googling.

Experts are working on how to recycle EV batteries when they completely fail. Sure, it is expensive now, but that'll change as they learn more about it and then scale up the process.

I do like to think that I've reduced my carbon footprint with this car, but I've accepted that most of my power likely comes from a coal power plant. I figure that I've diversified my fuel source, I can run by solar, wind, coal, natural gas, so it frees up gasoline for the people who need it, because I don't need to be burning gasoline to go to the grocery store. I'll save the gasoline for the work vehicles, or the ones that are towing. I grew up on a farm, I still have family in production agriculture. Electric tractors aren't right around the corner.

I enjoy the free charging station at my grocery store, and I appreciate that I don't have to mess with gas pumps which is beneficial because I'm not buying near as much junk food as I used to (saving money and eating healthier) and I don't have to touch a potentially covid infected gasoline dispenser. I do an overwhelming majority of my charging in my garage, and public charger plug-ins are a lot easier to wipe off with a disinfecting wipe than gasoline dispensers.

And I'll look forward to installing solar panels at my house one day, so I can feel like I'm charging with clean solar energy.

 

[kh54s10]

I have to wonder where you get your information because most of this is easy to find out from multiple sources with a few minutes googling. Here, for instance, is a government website that documents pretty plainly where our electricity comes from. 61% is from dead dinosaurs and not 80% also since powering an EV from even the dirtiest electricity is twice as clean as burning the fuel directly in the car.. I'd say thats a pretty amazing step forward from internal combustion.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php
As for lithium batteries being haz .. are you saying that oil, it's fractioned products, chemicals used in its refining and the gasses that come from your tail pipe are not hazardous and or somehow less of a problem then EV waste?

In case you wondered how they handle the spent batteries from EV's that are not reused in stationary power.. It's taken to a facility that freezes the cells to make them safe then shreds and separates the remainder into chemicals that go right back into new batteries or other products. The stuff that is in there is worth money, lots of money and they don't toss it away.

Better read you own link. It shows that renewable energy only accounts for 17% . Oh I left out nuclear..... So my 80% was actually low.

As for lithium batteries I have read that they cannot recycle enough that it doesn't become a hazardous waste problem.

Then you totally discount the carbon footprint that occurs during the production of the car.

Yes fossil fuels are dirty. But electric vehicles are not as environmentally friendly as it is made out to be.

 

[Bilsch]

Better read you own link. It shows that renewable energy only accounts for 17% . Oh I left out nuclear..... So my 80% was actually low.
As for lithium batteries I have read that they cannot recycle enough that it doesn't become a hazardous waste problem.
Then you totally discount the carbon footprint that occurs during the production of the car.
Yes fossil fuels are dirty. But electric vehicles are not as environmentally friendly as it is made out to be.

Haha not so fast. Here is the exact quote of what you said:
"You are totally misinformed..... Electric vehicles are recharged off the electric grid. At least 80% is still produced with coal, oil or natural gas."
Nice try though with the nuclear thing.

Yea I also read that about lithium batteries not being recyclable.. in 2015. Things change, technology advances and we move forward. Well some of us anyway.

 

[MayBrew]

I dont see myself in a fully electrical car, maybe a hybrid (not that I'll have a choice)

 

[AzOr]

The carbon footprint of the manufacturing or production of the vehicle is a wash if you’re comparing ICE to EV.

 

[bleme]

The carbon footprint of the manufacturing or production of the vehicle is a wash if you’re comparing ICE to EV.

According to a peer reviewed study by Yale, the manufacture of an EV was more than double the carbon of an ICE vehicle. However, EV's won't become mainstream until they can sell to people who don't care about carbon at all.

 

[Bilsch]

According to a peer reviewed study by Yale, the manufacture of an EV was more than double the carbon of an ICE vehicle. However, EV's won't become mainstream until they can sell to people who don't care about carbon at all.

This study was from 2012 and it’s really old news now. This industry moves fast so those numbers are useless.

 

[AzOr]

There was a lot of resistance when this conversion happened as well.

 

[Bilsch]

I’m sure there more than a few who preferred their gas lit horse and carriage ride while insisting that, over their dead body, would they ever buy a car.

There were an estimated 20 million horses in March 1915 in the United States.[36] A USDA census in 1959 showed the horse population had dropped to 4.5 million.

 

[bleme]

But they ended up buying those lights and cars because they became more efficient and convenient, not because some pseudo-religion told them that they had to.

 

[Bilsch]

But they ended up buying those lights and cars because they became more efficient and convenient, not because some pseudo-religion told them that they had to.

Oh no.. you mean to tell me for these last 3 years I’ve only imagined not going to the gas station or auto repair shop? And I’m only hallucinating about the money I’m saving? Damn man... why’d you have to go and ruin my fantasy reality.

 

[bleme]

And how much a month do you pay for that privileged? I bet it's a whole lot more than the $80/mo I spend on gas and the $1400/yr I spend on maintenance. EV's will eventually get there but currently their biggest supporters ignore all the data that doesn't fit their agenda and base their decisions on faith, feelings and fear.

 

[Kent88]

Only speaking for myself, my electric bill hasn't increased by too much since I started charging at my house. The free charger at the grocery store helps. I bought my car gently used, so someone else absorbed the initial depreciation. Put a decent down-payment on it, so monthly payments aren't bad. Haven't spent a dime on maintenance since I bought it last fall.

I want to put a fast charger in my garage someday. My electricity supplier claims that they'll chip in a few hundred towards the installation. There is also some kind of program that encourages EVs to charge overnight, at times of low demand.