Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

Good neighbours: an EV charging solution for owners with no driveway

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/good-neighbours-ev-charging-solution-owners-no-driveway

Ectophile

JKenH said:

Chinese Nio electric cars on sale in Europe this year

https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/02/27/chinese-nio-electric-cars-europe/

The strange thing is that Nio seem to be pushing the battery leasing model, just as the last manufacturer in Europe has abandoned it.  Nobody wants to buy a used car with a leased battery.  And if the used market is weak, it makes the financing of new cars more difficult as their residual value at the end of the credit period is lower.

Martyn1981

Hardly a shock, but always nice to see support/confirmation.

Fossil fuel cars make 'hundreds of times' more waste than electric cars

Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents, according to a study that adds to evidence that the move away from petrol and diesel cars will bring large net environmental benefits.

Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) seen by the Guardian. A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.

silverwhistle

Here before me again!:-)   The bit I thought significant in terms of the argument for and against was this:

The accelerating move to electric vehicles will entail environmental costs. Higher battery production will require more mining of minerals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.

However, T&E argued that the cost of oil extraction for fuel represents a much greater environmental toll. The report pointed to a “double standard” used when assessing the relative merits of electric and fossil fuel vehicles, which takes the use of oil for granted.

How often have we seen only one of these paragraphs in the discussion?

EricMears

Martyn1981 said:

Hardly a shock, but always nice to see support/confirmation.

Fossil fuel cars make 'hundreds of times' more waste than electric cars

Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents, according to a study that adds to evidence that the move away from petrol and diesel cars will bring large net environmental benefits.

Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) seen by the Guardian. A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.

To be scrupulously fair,  if we're going to count the litres of oil used by an ICE car,  we ought also count the (rather smaller) amounts of 'our share' of the oil/coal/gas etc used to generate the electricity used to power the EV.  Or, if the 17,000 litres of oil is purely that used to produce the ICE vehicle (incidentally,  does that figure relate to one car or the grand total of all cars produced or something else again ?)  ,  it's hard to believe there wouldn't be quite a lot of oil used to produce the parts of an EV that are common to FFVs.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that there aren't huge environmental advantages  to EVs,  just that this sloppy bit of reporting doesn't give an accurate understanding.

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.

A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.

That’s quite an interesting statistic. Is it correct?  Both would use a similar amount of resources for the bodies, interiors, suspension, wheels etc so where does the 300 times greater manufacturing cost come from? 

Edit: Sorry about the formatting but the text didn’t copy in the quote. 

JKenH

EricMears said:

Martyn1981 said:

Hardly a shock, but always nice to see support/confirmation.

Fossil fuel cars make 'hundreds of times' more waste than electric cars

Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents, according to a study that adds to evidence that the move away from petrol and diesel cars will bring large net environmental benefits.

Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) seen by the Guardian. A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.

To be scrupulously fair,  if we're going to count the litres of oil used by an ICE car,  we ought also count the (rather smaller) amounts of 'our share' of the oil/coal/gas etc used to generate the electricity used to power the EV.  Or, if the 17,000 litres of oil is purely that used to produce the ICE vehicle (incidentally,  does that figure relate to one car or the grand total of all cars produced or something else again ?)  ,  it's hard to believe there wouldn't be quite a lot of oil used to produce the parts of an EV that are common to FFVs.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that there aren't huge environmental advantages  to EVs,  just that this sloppy bit of reporting doesn't give an accurate understanding.

Perhaps we should also count the cost of building the power stations and wind turbines to produce the extra electricity to power our electric cars. 😉

michaels

Ectophile said:

JKenH said:

Chinese Nio electric cars on sale in Europe this year

https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/02/27/chinese-nio-electric-cars-europe/

The strange thing is that Nio seem to be pushing the battery leasing model, just as the last manufacturer in Europe has abandoned it.  Nobody wants to buy a used car with a leased battery.  And if the used market is weak, it makes the financing of new cars more difficult as their residual value at the end of the credit period is lower.

Are they bringing their battery swap model which is really slightly different to straight battery leasing for cost/warranty reasons?  This model is popular in China not just because it is faster than the fastest charging but also it works well where there is no home charging available - ie European and Chinese cities compared to American suburbs.

silverwhistle

JKenH said:

Perhaps we should also count the cost of building the power stations and wind turbines to produce the extra electricity to power our electric cars. 😉

Nah, we'll just use the spare power not used in the oil refineries and transporting the petrol. I'm just off down the allotment for a little while. When I get back I'll probably shove the car on the granny charger again: with this glorious weather my solar panels are easily covering my mileage and as it's going to be good again tomorrow I might even do a battery balance.

Martyn1981

JKenH said:

EricMears said:

Martyn1981 said:

Hardly a shock, but always nice to see support/confirmation.

Fossil fuel cars make 'hundreds of times' more waste than electric cars

Fossil fuel cars waste hundreds of times more raw material than their battery electric equivalents, according to a study that adds to evidence that the move away from petrol and diesel cars will bring large net environmental benefits.

Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) seen by the Guardian. A calculation of the resources used to make cars relative to their weight shows it is at least 300 times greater for oil-fuelled cars.

To be scrupulously fair,  if we're going to count the litres of oil used by an ICE car,  we ought also count the (rather smaller) amounts of 'our share' of the oil/coal/gas etc used to generate the electricity used to power the EV.  Or, if the 17,000 litres of oil is purely that used to produce the ICE vehicle (incidentally,  does that figure relate to one car or the grand total of all cars produced or something else again ?)  ,  it's hard to believe there wouldn't be quite a lot of oil used to produce the parts of an EV that are common to FFVs.

I'm not for a minute suggesting that there aren't huge environmental advantages  to EVs,  just that this sloppy bit of reporting doesn't give an accurate understanding.

Perhaps we should also count the cost of building the power stations and wind turbines to produce the extra electricity to power our electric cars. 😉

Yes we should. Plus of course the oil exploration, extractions (rigs etc), oil tankers, refineries, road tankers too.