[Closed] Electric cars. Are the owners righteously smug?

It is never eco to buy a new car. If your neighbour was that worried they would have bought an old car.

To some extent it's virtue signalling. Electric cars and high efficiency petrol cars are about equal for CO2 as generating electricity uses CO2.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2011/jan/17/electric-car-emissions

Does your neighbour take long haul holidays? If so ask him what his travel CO2 footprint is the next time he's banging on about his car.

None of us who own cars can really be smug, because the way we currently use them causes a lot of problems, regardless of whether they are electric or internal combustion. The really important question is how we change the current situation and reduce the economic, social and environmental cost of personal transport.

Is extracting the necessary gubbins for making batteries in the first place and recycling afterwards worse than oil drilling etc etc.

Think about the extraction and distribution activities required for every litre of petrol you put in - that's quite a lot.

I'd also suspect that whilst making batteries is quite energy and resource intensive, making the rest of the electric car is quite a bit easier. Think of all the moving parts that have to be manufactured, the fancy metals required to make them, the distribution network of the parts of the parts of the parts.

The other thing to consider is usage cycles - in the govt tests the equivalent CO2 of an electric car is something like 40g/km IIRC. However the gap is probably much closer when cruising on the motorway and much greater when chugging around town where the electric car probably is far greener. So it depends on what driving is being done too.

Also where you live - different countries have different renewable mix in their generation. Plus it's changing all the time - in ten years' time the mix will be different.

On top of all that, buy buying an electric car you are helping fund their development, and promote their adoption.

Go stand on the corner of a junction with traffic lights in any town at rush hour; it's noisy, it stinks, and breathing it all in is bad for your health.

He has every right to be smug, in my opinion...

Think about the extraction and distribution activities required for every litre of petrol you put in - that's quite a lot.

Set against the supply of leccy in order to charge your leccy-mobile (especially here in the UK) plenty of hydrocarbons will still be burned, it's just out of sight in a power station... You're still basically guzzling fossil fuels, it's really just pretend environmentalism. If you [i]really[/i] cared about emissions you simply wouldn't own any form of motor vehicle...

in the govt tests the equivalent CO2 of an electric car is something like 40g/km IIRC.

I take it this is based on average CO2 emissions per kWh of leccy used by the car? Does it factor in the whole energy supply chain? You know all the emissions that take place overseas extracting and transporting coal and gas to then sell to us, to then burn for electricity?

So really the environmental impact of running one of these cars is mostly down to the countries electricity generation mix? And the UK ain't going to improve that any time soon...

One electric car does not mean a a sustainable, low impact life is being led.
It may help. But it doesn't fix everything.

Assuming we need to get around, a preferred situation is a clean mode of transport (electric cars etc), powered by a clean source (solar panels etc). Both of these need development and adoption.

A move to electric vehicles is not the entire solution, but it is a good part of it.

And the UK ain't going to improve that any time soon...

I seem to remember an article (Which I have never re-found, alas) that posited the idea that an old Land Rover is the most environmentally friendly car.

The logic was as follows - Old, so manufacturing emissions spread over a long period of time. Recycled, something like 70% of all Landies are still going, the rest have been scavenged for parts, so more recycling! And, more tenuously, there was something about the good work that's come out of Landies, Red Cross, etc.

The first two elements were quite convincing to me. Production of a new car, especially the battery element, is perhaps the least "green" part of a car's life.

Even considering the Transmission losses from generating station to the charging point , electric cars are degrees more thermally efficient than any internal combustion engine

It's about NOx and particulate with EVs as much as CO2 apparently.

(Spent the afternoon in an electric bus meeting)

Electricity generation in the UK is changing and fossil fuels are on the way out, gradually!
Once we have enough electric cars plugged into smart meters we will be able to store renewable energy and supply it back to the grid in peak demand, then recharge overnight.

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Should add, that after 10 years of being a fuel efficient petrol owner (Audi A2) I have just made the switch to EV and am amazed!

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powered by a clean source (solar panels etc). Both of these need development and adoption.

😆

Last I heard solar and wind barely break even on both costs and CO2, tidal has some promise but it seems to be under-invested and forgotten about... Meanwhile we're throwing fistfuls of cash at Gazprom, and melting icecaps...

If the intermediate term goal (next ~50 years is actually to cut and then keep CO2 emissions low, and people aren't willing to actually cut back on energy consumption (which we're basically not in the UK) then the best available and most practical technology today is nuclear power generation... But we're busy dropping a bollock on that front too...

Looking at total lifecycle impact then there is no way an electric car is more environmentally friendly. However it's not as easy as that. A bigger issue in my mind - in the short term at least, is air quality. Poor air quality mainly due to diesel engines are thought to be responsible for hastening or causing upto 190k deaths a year. So far global warming hasn't killed anyone yet, so air quality is a far more lethal thing today. Obviously we can't ignore global warming so it probably is better to start weaning people onto electric cars now even though the electricity they're running off is not totally clean and then we're at least dealing with the air quality issue and as we clean up our electricity then we will see the benefit instantly.

Isn't the i8 a hybrid with a petrol engine as well?

Electric cars. Are the owners righteously smug?

Here's the answer.

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Park Smug Alert
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70% of landrovers are still on the road, ain't because all the series 1 2's and 3's are still chugging round, it's because 70% of land rovers were built in the last 10 years...

@wobbliscott : If you think global warming has not killed anyone yet then have a look at the war in Darfur which was driven by water shortages. There are regions of the world that are going to suffer lots of desertification over the coming few decades driven by climate change. And yes, before the inevitable denial comes in, the climate has always changed and areas that were once ocean are now your back garden, but the PACE of change in the past 100 years is driven by fossil fuels and population growth.

@CHB, we have i3's at work- they are unbelievable!

They go like a stabbed rat.

Sadly due to sponsorship we have to give them up and go Mitsubishi.....

In twisted Monty Python style, is that a Brown Rat (Ratus Norvegicus) or Black Rat (Ratus Ratus). Don't even get me started on European Swallows.

and people aren't willing to actually cut back on energy consumption (which we're basically not in the UK)

Horatio - no the i3 is a low distance battery powered car.

This is their more fun battery powered car, with a nice petrol engine. The 2 together make it very nippy!

[img] [/img]

i 3 is the full electric

i 8 is a petrol electric hybrid sports car that is trying to birth a porshe out the back.

FunkyDunc

Horatio - no the i3 is a low distance battery powered car

There are two i3's - one is battery only, one has battery plus a petrol scooter engine to top up the battery if required. The i8 is a £100k supercar with a battery and a 1.5l petrol engine.

Electric car owners are smug bastards as it takes 10 folk working on minimum wages to pay enough tax/NI to the govt to cover the cost of the subsidy. 🙂

Dunno but I had a Honda hybrid thing for a few days as a courtesy car a while back. Took it to Brighton and went shopping in the North Laines. Felt proper smug. Does that help?

According to that graph we're back at 1980's level of consumption?

Don't start confusing us with facts!

Let's not forget reducing fossil fuel electricity generation is the easy bit. Most energy use is other sectors like transport and heating etc. Though interestingly despite all the green noise the percentage of electricity from low carbon sources in the G20 countries is still around the same as in 1985. All the new wind and solar etc has just replaced reduced nuclear.

[img] [/img]

http://euanmearns.com/electricity-and-energy-in-the-g20/#more-15181

Horatio - no the i3 is a low distance battery powered car

he said i[b]8[/b].

And as above, there is a range extened i3 which also has a little scooter engine to charge the battery. The i8 has a larger engine.

As soon as a small electric car is available for around £10K and can do around 200 miles on a charge they will start replacing a lot of small petrol cars I would imagine.

However at the moment they cost a lot more than petrol equivalent (to the point I would never get my money back on petrol savings over 5+ years) and I would need a second car for any trips that cover more than 80 miles which would defeat the point of having one.

At the moment they are middle class fancies rather than real alternatives.

Electric vehicle owners are right to be smug from an air quality point of view. The kind of short hop urban travel they are good at is also the kind that petrol/diesel vehicles emit most particulates and NOx. The Nissan Leaf van (Env100) is great for urban delivery driving where there is a lot of stop / drop / start. I think it's about £15k which makes it possible for fleet use.

I met a guy who ran his Tesla off solar panels on his roof and reckoned he got 16,000 miles of low CO2 travel per year. He was right to be smug.

If you want cheap access to electric vehicles, car clubs are introducing them so you can rent by the hour. 22% of the fleet in Scotland and growing in England. Obviously they're not everywhere yet. [url= http://www.carplus.org.uk ]Find a car club. [/url]

Manufacturing and electricity generating environmental impacts aside I would think most people with an i8 probably have the petrol engine going a fair amount anyway so I wouldn't say it's a particularly eco friendly car.

"Go stand on the corner of a junction with traffic lights in any town at rush hour; it's noisy, it stinks, and breathing it all in is bad for your health."

But Jeremy Clarkson reckons electric cars are shit? So, they must be, right?

And herein lies the problem. Until very recently, electric vehicles have been seen as inferior, in terms of performance and desirability. A fact not helped by the massively powerful oil lobbies. The development of electric vehicles has been stifled/hindered so much, we are decades behind where we actually could be. Only now, are people really starting to realise we need to get away from using fossil fuels to power our transport. Too little, too late, in many ways.

I've noticed a massive increase in the use of electric/hybrid vehicles of all types, in town. From buses, to little delivery vans, to e-bikes, to things like the i8 and Tesla cars. So, change is happening. But people still need to learn to be less selfish. As for the ultimate environmental impact of the production of electric power systems; petrol engines have become much, much more efficient over the last century. And look at lighting; LEDs are now far more efficient than filament bulbs that we all used to use. So, if we imagine a similar rate of progress, it's not hard to envisage production becoming much less environmentally damaging, whereas petrol/diesel engines will always pollute.

I love my current Golf GTE. Give it back in 2 weeks when I swap jobs though. I got it for the low company car tax and also the fact it's rather rapid. 🙂

Not sure the i8 is green as it has a 1.5l petrol engine and auto car claimed a real use mpg of 40-50, a lot better than it's direct rivals, but hardly earth shattering that's around what you'd get out of a 1.4 TSI VW Golf. Ok you can run it on electric only but it has a max range of ~16 miles on a full charge, so it would be greener to cycle or walk!

[quote=FunkyDunc ]This is their more fun battery powered car, with a nice petrol engine. The 2 together make it very nippy!

Oh, do you have a 330e then? Hadn't seen you mention it. 😉

Not that I drive in to work very often, but there's definitely something to make you smug here as an electric car driver -
-there are car parking places reserved for e-cars
-the reserved spaces are all nearer to the buildings than other spaces
-all reserved spaces have a charging point
You park your car in a special spot and get to "fill up" for free! They must feel nearly as smug as the fella who rides past them on his bike as they queue at the security gate!

I've got a Leaf on lease and it works out the same for me as getting the train to work. Cause I can charge it at work it costs me nothing to run. I probably couldn't afford a new Leaf but will be looking to get a Zoe when the lease runs out. I'm a Sustainability Officer so I'm fairly smug but depressed anyway. There are always going to be the embodied costs of car and battery manufacture but both have good recycling/reuse options and less 'engine' parts to wear out.

The big win for me is the absence of tailgate emissions from both a greenhouse gas and health perspective. Air quality is a serious issue and on this alone they're a winner. Oh yeah and the acceleration. Leaving boy racers standing at the traffic lights is always fun. 1 nil for the Greenie against the Petrol head. Then they catch up.

With advances in home battery storage we are reaching that point where some proportion of renewable electricity will be produced at home and used to charge battery packs for use in the home or the car. Sales are already rising fast and once range increases by about 50% and the charging infrastructure becomes more widespread and standardised I think a tipping point will be reached.

They must feel nearly as smug as the fella who rides past them on his bike

I would need a second car for any trips that cover more than 80 miles which would defeat the point of having one

"Go stand on the corner of a junction with traffic lights in any town at rush hour; it's noisy, it stinks, and breathing it all in is bad for your health."

Stand beside a nuclear power fuel rod. Thats not good for your health either, but if thats whats powering your electric car is it any better really?

lots of families have 2 cars, i'd wager in most cases 1 of which only does short distance urban stuff, pretty big market there I'd say. But yeah too expensive at the moment, when you can get one 2nd hand for less than the price of a decent bike we'll get one

All down to costs for me I'm afraid. No-one doing sensible mileage is going to spend double the price on a car that they are not going to get the benefits back on. Plus the worry of selling on in the future.

too expensive at the moment, when you can get one 2nd hand for less than the price of a decent bike we'll get one

Equally, you're not the market for a new internal combustion powered car either. The people to buy them are the ones that would have bought a Focus, but instead bought a Leaf, not those that would be buying 5+ year old cars.

Nissan leaf starts at £17k, focus at £16k, nothing in it really.

Leaf? Zoe? What happened to when cars had [i]proper[/i] names, like Fiesta, Escort, Razzle, Readers' Wives, etc?

Yes, No, Maybe.

As everyone knows EV shift the pollution from small scale to large scale - a power station is more efficient than any vehicle and there are also renewable solutions that reduce the environmental impact all great, but none of this is 'guilt free'.

EVs require lots of rare metals like lithium for their batteries, these are one of those things that you can't really be sure of their environmental impact because they're mined in China - Chinese Manufacturing Companies generally couldn't give 2 shits about the Environment - Lithium mining usually involves taking millions of tonnes of soil and rock, removing the >1% which is lithium, and returning the rest so toxic it cannot be used for anything else, but because it doesn't happen in the west it's not widely reported - I read recently that China has finally signed up to the world treaty on Environment, I doubt they'll actually do anything meaningful about it.

It doesn't matter if your Car is an EV, Hybrid, Petrol or Diesel, a HUGE amount of energy, water and resources goes into it's production - that really is where the waste is - despite improved processes and quality control meaning cars don't just rust to bits anymore the average lift-cycle of cars is going down, they're more complex and expensive than ever to maintain and easier to buy - there's also a degree of in-built redundancy - car makers really built cars to last 100k miles or 10 years, whichever comes first - then they're scraped and whilst they're recycled (one positive of the automotive industry as it has always recycled it's products) you can't get the energy back.

IMHO if your major driver is the environment buy a car, any car really, but one that suits your needs, properly maintain it and keep it as long as is possible, even if that means uneconomic repairs and I think that's where EVs fall down - the batteries have a short life-cycle, even the fancy Tesla ones - I don't think people are going to get 20-30 years out of any EV car, which you can if you want with a ICE car.

Stand beside a nuclear power fuel rod. Thats not good for your health either, but if thats whats powering your electric car is it any better really?

That is BS on two fronts. The biggest proportion of electricity production is from gas and renewables produces more electricity than nuclear currently.

How many people stand beside a fuel rod? Oxford Street is at times the one of the most polluted if not the most polluted places in the World due to air quality failings. FACT.

The people to buy them are the ones that would have bought a Focus,

Don't think so. Due to range issues, the people most suited to a Leaf would be those who buy a small second car for town use. That's usually not a Focus, at least not around here, it seems to be an Aygo or similar. They cost £9k new so almost half the price of a Leaf - and second hand are at least half that again. How much are used Leafs? I want one - cannot afford one.

Stand beside a nuclear power fuel rod.

That's not likely to happen though for obvious reasons. However people spend a lot of time on busy streets, in fact some people live on them. Clear difference.

"[s]Chinese[/s] Manufacturing Companies generally couldn't give 2 shits about the Environment"

China needs outside assistance to exploit it's natural resources. Plenty of nasty Western corporations with their fingers in that pie.

"I read recently that China has finally signed up to the world treaty on Environment, I doubt they'll actually do anything meaningful about it."

Western imperialism has ****ed up much of the Middle East. It's ok to instigate massive environmental catastrophes, as long as their not on your own doorstep.

Having just sold a Discovery 4 and signed a lease for a Golf GTE, I shall feel slightly better about myself when using a vehicle.

EVs require lots of rare metals like lithium for their batteries, these are one of those things that you can't really be sure of their environmental impact because they're mined in China

I didn't think China was the biggest producer of litium. A quick google says:

[i]The three largest lithium producers are the Chile-based Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM), American FMC Lithium (FMC), which controls the ominously-named Hombre Muerte mine in Argentina, and Albermarle (ALB), which recently acquired competitor Rockwood.[/i]

Oxford Street? Most polluted place in the world.

Might fail the highest number of local regulations. But that's about it.

Pjay If your main think is the environment then DON'T buy a car. Structure your life so you don't need one. Thats the greenest.

Car use is inherently energy inefficient. Electric cars only benefit is to move the pollution out of crowded cities

Levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution on Oxford Street are the “highest in the world”, according to an air quality scientist at King’s College London (KCL).

Researchers from the university set up a monitoring station on Oxford Street in the capital, which found a peak level of nitrogen dioxide at 463mg3 (microgrammes per cubic metre).

Boris Johnson has been forced to accept that London’s Oxford Street has some of the worst air pollution in the world.

In an exchange of letters with the Environment Audit Committee (EAC) of MPs, the mayor said he now accepts scientific evidence from Britain’s leading air research group that the street has some of the world’s highest recorded levels of nitrogen dioxide.

The mayor of London had said in a Twitter exchange in July that it was a “ludicrous urban myth” that Britain’s premier shopping street was one of the world’s most polluted thoroughfares, saying that the capital’s air quality was “better than Paris and other European cities”.

I was quite serious about buying a Leaf, we also have solar panels which makes the recharging cost even more attractive when the sun does eventually shine.

However, the high initial cost of the car is off putting. The battery will lose its efficiency over time and shorten the already low maximum mileage on a full charge.

I wanted it to be a long term ownership, but the range and battery efficiency just keeps reducing over the ownership of the vehicle.

You end up with a car that cost £20K, and starts off with limited mileage usage and just gets worse as the years go by.

In the end it just makes it a very expensive method of travelling just locally.

Maybe the next five years will see cost and battery performance improvements.

You end up with a car that cost £20K, and starts off with limited mileage usage and just gets worse as the years go by.

True, but the average commute in the UK is <10miles ([url= http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/distance-travelled-to-work/2011-census-analysis---distance-travelled-to-work.html ]source[/url]), and even the leaf will do 120-150miles so you're good upto about 40-50 miles each way even as the battery degrades (and isn't the battery leased anyway so it's replaced when it drops by a certain percentage?).

Yes but as we've discussed over and over again people don't want to have a car that can ONLY do those short commutes. Unless it's a second commuter car, in which case it has to be cheap.

Leaf range is more like 80 miles with a brand new battery in real time driving.

This gets worse with age, temperature dropping and any extended motorway driving greater than 60 miles per hour.

I'd love to buy one, just doesn't make sense at the moment.

This gets worse with age, temperature dropping and any extended motorway driving greater than 60 miles per hour.

Think how much second hand value is going to be on a car in a few years that'll do 40 miles real world?

The battery will be replaced. Aren't the batteries themselves on lease even if you buy the car?

I had a drive in an i8. It was weird, felt like a normal car, (did it back to back with an Audi R8 and McLaren 12C, they didn't) but it was ****ing quick when you put your foot down. It lacked a bit of ceremony though. I really want to want one. But I'm just not sure.

I3.... Nah! Be interested to try a Tesla.

Re: the OP, no room for smugness for anyone driving a car I don't think!

Projected lifespan of the battery is ten years, but it's going to cost four grand to replace (unless they do some kind of scheme to help). In ten years you could have done let's say 80k miles, because this car isn't going to be chewing up motorway miles. Wiki suggests cost per mile of fuel in the UK is 1p as opposed to 10p in petrol terms, which makes a saving of just over £7k. So you're still ahead even with those figures. Also - I'd bet servicing is much cheaper, if you need it at all. At dealer rates you'd be looking at what, £150 per year at least on a comparable car.

Anyway, to answer the OP, found this on Wiki (my bold):

In February 2014, the Automotive Science Group (ASG) published the result of a study conducted to assess the life-cycle of over 1,300 automobiles across nine categories sold in North America. The study found that among advanced automotive technologies, the Nissan Leaf holds the smallest life-cycle environmental footprint of any model year 2014 automobile available in the North American market with minimum four-person occupancy. [b]The study concluded that the increased environmental impacts of manufacturing the battery electric technology is more than offset with increased environmental performance during operational life.[/b] For the assessment, the study used the average electricity mix of the U.S. grid in 2014

Which answers the question nicely.

Lots of conjecture about the relative merits of electric and petrol vehicles in this thread.

If anyone wants to find some well documented numbers, read this
[url= http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf ]sustainable energy without the hot air[/url]

£4K replacement battery on a 10 year old car isn't my idea of fun.

During those 10 years the range keeps decreasing also.

In 10 years time the battery technology will have moved on a long way.

The car would be obsolete really with no value the anyone.

£4K replacement battery on a 10 year old car isn't my idea of fun.

Just put the money you save on fuel in a bank account.

40 mile range will be very useful for someone with a 10 mile commute, so it'll still have value.

Wiki suggests cost per mile of fuel in the UK is 1p as opposed to 10p in petrol terms, which makes a saving of just over £7k.

1p per mile sounds low to me. I see figures quoted around 3 miles per Kwh. My house leccy costs 10p per Kwh. So 3 miles for 10p or around 3.33p per mile.

Or 1.75p if you have an off peak meter according to Nissan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Fuel_economy

If we want the roads in the near-ish future to be carrying nice quiet, clean electric vehicles then a step on that journey is people driving around now in early versions using the electricity generation options we have now.

We're not going to get there in a single step, and if we let perfect be the enemy of good (or whatever the saying is) then we won't take any steps.

The point about the best thing to do being to get a 2nd hand car and run it till it dies is well made but doesn't help with where the next generation is going to come from.

I'm always glad to see one because I reckon it's a sign of things moving in the right direction 🙂

We've got a leaf as our one and only car, it works well. We rarely do journeys more than 50miles a day and when we do it's usually to family and friends, we either charge at theirs or on route.

The cost of the car via a PCP worked out the same as keeping our 10year old multipla on the road so it was no brainer.

Throw in the fact that we now pay £20 a month on fuel instead of £100+ is ideal.

I am smug, but because we're saving money rather than the environment. It's the wife that's smug due to the eco side..

Some people are smug. Some people unknowingly employ psychological projection.

The 'righteous' part is a little more tricky.

'Smug' because 'car' (for whatever reason) is always hilarious IMO

The main problem again is the set up, it's really easy to dismiss things for any reasons but it still leaves the problem of millions of people needing a huge amount of energy to transport around a large metal box containing 1 person. As much as people want to deny it the internal combustion engine must die. Apart from the pollution it relies on a finite resource to make it go. that finite resource can also be used to make thousands of other much more useful things.

Of course buying a new car is not the lowest environmental impact but it's a start. Buying a 3l petrol car certainly isn't environmentally responsible.

The entire concept of car ownership has issues to be dealt with

Yes but as we've discussed over and over again people don't want to have a car that can ONLY do those short commutes. Unless it's a second commuter car, in which case it has to be cheap.

As a generation or era we are the first to be liberated by the car, it's done so much to change the world we all live in that it's hard to let go of that. the freedom comes at a price though.

The other problem is image
[img] [/img]
We aspire to this
[img] [/img]
Because you don't sell cars based on the reality

The cost of the car via a PCP worked out the same as keeping our 10year old multipla on the road so it was no brainer.

Throw in the fact that we now pay £20 a month on fuel instead of £100+ is ideal.

This is where you need to do the sums.

The PCP (+deposit) on a petrol car half the price plus the petrol takes a long car to add up to the Leaf cost. This is still discounting the fact that a car that can do 80 miles in one go is next to useless for a lot of people. Over the last 2 weeks I have made 3 trips over 80 miles so they are not for me.
To have one as a second car is worse than just having one petrol car as you gave brought another car into the world....

As I said above, make an electric car for very near the price of same petrol equivalent and also have a range of around 200 miles and I think we would start to see more new electric cars than petrol.

This is still discounting the fact that a car that can do 80 miles in one go is next to useless for a lot of people.

Average commuting distances:

The average distance2 commuted to work in England and Wales increased from 13.4 km in 2001 to 15.0 km in 2011. This is estimated using only workers making a regular commute3 between their enumeration address and their workplace address.

On average workers resident in the East of England (17 km) had the longest commutes while working residents in London had the shortest commutes (11 km).