Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

shinytop

JKenH said:

It has been pointed out on another thread just how dirty our electricity generation currently is in the East Midlands, averaging 535gCO2/kWh and that is the average!

If you put your car on to charge here the marginal generation would be coming from coal at 937gCO2\kWh, or around 200gCO2/km. 

https://carbonintensity.org.uk/

The recent electricity generation mix has brought this back into contention but  I was a bit worried about range and lack of fuelling stations. I think I'd be OK using the heater in winter though.

michaels

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

I don't think this will surprise any BEV'ers (is that a thing?) on here, but nice to see the experts suggesting 15yrs+ for BEV batteries. But just as ICEV's get less reliable and take on secondary roles as they age, I think it's reasonable to assume that those ageing BEV's, with some range degradation, will simply make for excellent second cars, young drivers first cars, perhaps even (expensive) gifts from parents to children, when they buy a house or go to college, to help minimise their monthly fuel bills.

In a similar vein, I'm in need of a new car (I had the last one put down) so I've been browsing the virtual pages of AutoTrader for a few weeks.

I'm beginning to see £5k Leafs again, but we're not quite back to the days of £4k ones.

I have been looking for a second leaf to use for v2h and prices are scary, even the rubbish with only 5 or 6 of 12 bars left, not sure if this is only the Japanese ones or some of the UK batteries as well.

Then again our 2015 leaf that cost us 12.3k brand new seems to be worth 8k at 7 years old!

EricMears

JKenH said:

It has been pointed out on another thread just how dirty our electricity generation currently is in the East Midlands, averaging 535gCO2/kWh and that is the average!

If you put your car on to charge here the marginal generation would be coming from coal at 937gCO2\kWh, or around 200gCO2/km. 

https://carbonintensity.org.uk/

No matter how 'dirty' the mains electricity you use might be,  the CO2/mile that results is probably still lower than most ICE vehicles.

And of course the NOx, SOx, particulates, etc.   are all being emitted at high level from a power station chimney (or even trapped before the chimney)  rather than being spewed out at street level.

orrery

JKenH said:

If you put your car on to charge here the marginal generation would be coming from coal at 937gCO2\kWh, or around 200gCO2/km.

it has already been shown that running an EV from electricity generated by coal is cleaner that running an ICE.

So, EV = good, then with more renewables added, EV = better

JKenH

EricMears said:

JKenH said:

It has been pointed out on another thread just how dirty our electricity generation currently is in the East Midlands, averaging 535gCO2/kWh and that is the average!

If you put your car on to charge here the marginal generation would be coming from coal at 937gCO2\kWh, or around 200gCO2/km. 

https://carbonintensity.org.uk/

No matter how 'dirty' the mains electricity you use might be,  the CO2/mile that results is probably still lower than most ICE vehicles.

And of course the NOx, SOx, particulates, etc.   are all being emitted at high level from a power station chimney (or even trapped before the chimney)  rather than being spewed out at street level.

Do I detect a couple of caveats there - ‘probably’ and ‘most’?  It depends on how big and old the cars are. At 200gCO2/mile there are going to be a fair few modern cars that are currently as clean as EVs have been for the last week or so. This isn’t an ICE is better for the environment than EV argument, just a reality check that at times our EVs are not as CO2 friendly as we would hope/like them to be. 

JKenH

orrery said:

JKenH said:

If you put your car on to charge here the marginal generation would be coming from coal at 937gCO2\kWh, or around 200gCO2/km.

it has already been shown that running an EV from electricity generated by coal is cleaner that running an ICE.

So, EV = good, then with more renewables added, EV = better

Possibly that has been shown by those who set out to produce a report that says just that,  such as the environmental lobby group T&E. If that is the starting point you are attempting to prove I am sure you can make whatever assumptions you need to arrive at that conclusion. The true scientific approach is to adopt a position and then set out to disprove it which I doubt would be the intention of any lobby group.

I believe that there have also been studies that show ICE cars emit less CO2 than EVs, even by those who have no axe to grind one way or another. I could probably quote some but won’t as that is not the point I am trying to make.

As I said in my reply to @EricMears I am not arguing that ICE cars emit less CO2 than EVs, merely demonstrating that in certain circumstances CO2 emissions from EVs can be higher than we might have realised to the extent even they exceed the tailpipe CO2 emissions of many modern cars. 

90% of the time (or whatever random % figure one might select) EVs will lead to far less CO2 emissions than even modern ICE cars but they like all of us will have bad days and yesterday in the East Midlands (and possibly elsewhere in the UK) was one of them. 

Coastalwatch

Don't know how this compares to the UK but a milestone passed in the evergrowing trend of EV take up. While Netherlands has less than a third of the population of the UK it's ownership percentage is approx three times as dense so possibly similar in terms of overall EV's owned!

Fastned marks over a million charging sessions in 2021

The Dutch fast-charging provider Fastned recorded 70 per cent more charging transactions at its stations last year, breaking the one million charging transactions mark in one year. Fastned continues to be profitable in its operating business.

This was made possible because of the growing number of electric cars in Europe and the expansion of the charging network: Fastned expanded its fast-charging network by opening 57 new sites in 2021, including the retrofitting of 13 sites acquired from MisterGreen in 2020.

https://www.electrive.com/2022/03/29/fastned-marks-over-a-million-charging-sessions-in-2021/

EricMears

JKenH said:

orrery said:

JKenH said:

If you put your car on to charge here the marginal generation would be coming from coal at 937gCO2\kWh, or around 200gCO2/km.

it has already been shown that running an EV from electricity generated by coal is cleaner that running an ICE.

So, EV = good, then with more renewables added, EV = better

Possibly that has been shown by those who set out to produce a report that says just that,  such as the environmental lobby group T&E. If that is the starting point you are attempting to prove I am sure you can make whatever assumptions you need to arrive at that conclusion. The true scientific approach is to adopt a position and then set out to disprove it which I doubt would be the intention of any lobby group.

I believe that there have also been studies that show ICE cars emit less CO2 than EVs, even by those who have no axe to grind one way or another. I could probably quote some but won’t as that is not the point I am trying to make.

As I said in my reply to @EricMears I am not arguing that ICE cars emit less CO2 than EVs, merely demonstrating that in certain circumstances CO2 emissions from EVs can be higher than we might have realised to the extent even they exceed the tailpipe CO2 emissions of many modern cars. 

90% of the time (or whatever random % figure one might select) EVs will lead to far less CO2 emissions than even modern ICE cars but they like all of us will have bad days and yesterday in the East Midlands (and possibly elsewhere in the UK) was one of them. 

You appear to have overlooked my point that if you're going to accept any noxious gasses being discharged,  it's far better for the environment that they're passed through electrostatic precipitators /or other cleaning devices then discharged a couple of hundred feet above ground than spewed out in densely populated streets.

And why bother to point out that on the occasional isolated day an EV might inadvertently contribute towards CO2 emissions - over the course of a year or longer they'll be 'ahead of the curve',

silverwhistle

Coastalwatch said:

Reckon we could all agree that this a good move and money well spent by our government in helping to reduce pollution in urban areas. When I think back to the days when an evening in a pub meant all clothing had to be discarded and put in the wash. What controversy there was about banning smoking in such premises. Not sure many who remember would wish for a return to such conditions today!

I used to have a shower when I got back instead of before, and moving to Italy in 2006 it was bliss because they had already adopted non-smoking venues. This last Christmas I cycled into town to do some shopping to avoid the traffic and parking issues and I'd forgotten what a horrible stink slow moving traffic produces.

Reducing localised pollution is important, and the further advantage of BEVs is that they get less polluting as the grid mix improves. My old ICE cars never got better, although at least I never had old diesels.

JKenH

EricMears said:

JKenH said:

orrery said:

JKenH said:

If you put your car on to charge here the marginal generation would be coming from coal at 937gCO2\kWh, or around 200gCO2/km.

it has already been shown that running an EV from electricity generated by coal is cleaner that running an ICE.

So, EV = good, then with more renewables added, EV = better

Possibly that has been shown by those who set out to produce a report that says just that,  such as the environmental lobby group T&E. If that is the starting point you are attempting to prove I am sure you can make whatever assumptions you need to arrive at that conclusion. The true scientific approach is to adopt a position and then set out to disprove it which I doubt would be the intention of any lobby group.

I believe that there have also been studies that show ICE cars emit less CO2 than EVs, even by those who have no axe to grind one way or another. I could probably quote some but won’t as that is not the point I am trying to make.

As I said in my reply to @EricMears I am not arguing that ICE cars emit less CO2 than EVs, merely demonstrating that in certain circumstances CO2 emissions from EVs can be higher than we might have realised to the extent even they exceed the tailpipe CO2 emissions of many modern cars. 

90% of the time (or whatever random % figure one might select) EVs will lead to far less CO2 emissions than even modern ICE cars but they like all of us will have bad days and yesterday in the East Midlands (and possibly elsewhere in the UK) was one of them. 

You appear to have overlooked my point that if you're going to accept any noxious gasses being discharged,  it's far better for the environment that they're passed through electrostatic precipitators /or other cleaning devices then discharged a couple of hundred feet above ground than spewed out in densely populated streets.

And why bother to point out that on the occasional isolated day an EV might inadvertently contribute towards CO2 emissions - over the course of a year or longer they'll be 'ahead of the curve',

You raised Nox and Sox. I had posted about CO2 levels. 

It is not inadvertent or an isolated day that EVs contribute to CO2 emissions, they do that every single time we charge them.