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Any tax on vehicles (I think) should be based on mileage and use regardless of what you drive, can’t be that difficult to work out considering most of us have to have an MOT every year that records mileage. If you use it a lot you pay more, simple. Rich Santa Cruz owners in their 3 ton EV monster trucks breaking up the roads doing 30k miles a year should pay more than the old lady in her old Nissan Micra at £250 a year in a village in Kent going to Tescos once a week.
Oh we've had a "mileage based tax" on the books for ages, its called fuel duty except successive governments stalled it for fear of permanently angry pricks in Hi-Viz vests "protesting" by blocking forecourts and main roads. These days they attack ULEZ cameras so we should probably pop a couple of percent on while they're distracted...
In all honesty I can't see the controversy over EV owners paying a bit more VED now, would it actually stop people buying the things? Will people be chopping their Teslas back in for ICE Audis again?
My point was actually something different. If you are saying that every user should be counted as contributing 100% to has burning, then my question is who is using all that green energy? Not EV owners (in your argument). Not cooks. Not factories. So who? You end up with a contradiction.
I am not saying anything at all about how we should count individuals contributions. A bunch of green eneregy gets generated, which is usually less than the total amount people want. So we burn gas to make up the shortfall. If anyone used less electricity, it doesnt matter who, we would burn less gas.
Everyone's marginal generation comes from gas. There is no contradiction.
Its like tax. Say I have a personal allowance, then pay 20% over and above that. My overall average tax rate is 10%, but my marginal rate is 20%. I could arbitrarily assign which hours of which days I assigned to which tax rate, but it wouldnt matter, cutting out any given hour would always mean a 20% marginal tax rate. This will continue to be true until I fall back below the personal allowance threshold. There is no contradiction.
At any given moment, our renewable and nuclear genaration is the grid's personal allowance, and if we are to generate more than that, it has to come from gas. There is no point allocating which person is using which unit of electricity.
Everyone’s marginal generation comes from gas.
What's marginal generation?
There is no point allocating which person is using which unit of electricity.
But that is what you are doing when you propose that it's EVs that are using the non-renewable part. Why is it my EV and not someone's E bike or hair straighteners etc?
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/electricity-market
The marginal producer of electricity in the UK is most often gas because it is one of the most expensive sources, so is chosen last in the ‘merit order’ on the spot market. But it serves a vital role because gas-fired power stations can be easily switched on and off at short notice to make sure that supply balances to meet demand. Renewable energy sources, on the other hand, are unpredictable due to changes in weather, while nuclear energy provides a fairly constant source of power that is difficult to turn on and off.
Any additional unit demanded, (or unit not used) is allocated to gas because that is the marginal generation. It doesnt matter whether it is an EV being charged or someones hair straighteners.
Just like how if I had not worked on any given day last year, I would have avoided paying 20% tax on that day, even though my average tax rate was 10%.
What’s marginal generation?But that is what you are doing when you propose that it’s EVs that are using the non-renewable part. Why is it my EV and not someone’s E bike or hair straighteners etc?
Assuming that for the whole time any of those devices were in use there was gas being burned, 100% of the demand they were requiring was met by gas. So all your examples were marginal use. In the extreme scenario where everyone turned off their electrical devices (so no gas is being burned) and you were charging, the additional (marginal) load is being met with renewables.
It's a bit like voting. Voting makes a difference, and if everyone votes one way a change happens. But your individual vote in a single direction makes no difference at all
Assuming that for the whole time any of those devices were in use there was gas being burned, 100% of the demand they were requiring was met by gas. So all your examples were marginal use
No. Gas is marginal generation, but it's not allocated to any particular use, so no-ones usage is marginal. You cannot say that everyone's usage is responsible for marginal generation being used because it's not. Only 43% is. So you can't say my car is charging with 100% gas and my dishwasher isn't. And you can't say everyone's energy usage is 100% gas because it's not.
You can't single out my car for the fossil fuel half of the output and your PC or whatever as the renewable half.
Molgrips. I don't pay 20% tax overall on average, I pay 10%. But on every single day of last year, if I had not worked that day, I would not have paid 20% tax on that day. Every single day has a marginal tax rate of 20%, until I cut out so many days that I fall below the personal allowance.
Say we generate 500kwh of electricity via renewables. That is fixed because that's how sunny and windy it is today. Gas is used to make up the shortfall, say that happens to be 100kwh. If we had required 1kwh less, we would have chosen to only generate 99 kWh from gas. It wouldn't matter which of the 600kwh of electricity we had not needed, and so the marginal generation for all of those 600kwh was gas, unless we cut out 100kwh or more, in which case the marginal power is from renewables.
Seems fair that VED and the luxury car tax is coming in. Obviously these are used to incentivise behaviour and totally agree that a decently scaled VED of size, weight and emissions would help.
EV motoring has been pretty cheap for the last few years - was certainly a factor when I got mine. Current car is definitely too big for my needs and I'll be back in smaller vehicle at the end of the lease. Taxes to push more people into this approach will help.
To put it another way, suppose that tomorrow we all used 1% less electricity. Do you think our solar and wind generation would fall by 1%?
Worth remembering that charging a car isn't 'additional demand'. It's displacing energy demand from one source (petrol, diesel) to another (electricity). While of course reducing that demand is important, it's also worth displacing the demand that remains from higher carbon to lower carbon generation. In the case of vehicles moving from an at most 30% efficient ICE to an at least 70% electric motor is already such a huge win that burning gas to power an EV still represents less CO2 per mile than an ICE.
The French scheme with the Renault Five is interesting… not just using the car battery to shift energy demand in the home, but across the local grid as a whole. Those cars on that scheme will help doubly when it comes to shifting energy use to renewables… they’ll end up meaning that less fossil fuels as a whole will be burnt than if they didn’t exist… they won’t just mean less compared to using an ICE car… but less than if no car was at those households. That’s mind boggling and totally unintuitive.
[ simple version … V2G (vehicle to grid) uses all those car batteries as a distributed storage system for the grid, not just for each home, allowing peak to off peak demand shifting both for the grid and for energy generation ]
This is the awesome bit about EVs, and I dont understand why is it not widespread already. A fully charged EV could power a household for a few days. Or many households for a few hours. Pimping out your EV's battery to the national grid will be a vital way to redistribute energy between periods of high and low renewable generation. As others have pointed out, EV batteries are enormous compared to powerwalls and other household batteries.
It needs a lot of very different organisations to work together… in France that can be pushed forward faster by the government because of its stakes in multiple key industries. Let me find a short English version of how it will all hang together…
That suggests it working in some form in the UK very soon as well. Not aware of how/who/when.
Octopus already on it, albeit with a very limited number of cars:
https://octopus.energy/power-pack/
has to be the way forward though!
I thought one of the issues with gas fired power stations is you can't turn them off and on quickly so they usually form the base load and it's often wind that gets turned off when demand drops as you can feather the blades pretty easily. Pretty sure renewable suppliers can get paid not produce, another plus with renewables over traditional generation. We still have loads of oppprtunity for more renewables, its grid connection and nimbism thats holding things up, not the technology or lack of suitable locations.
Seems fair that VED and the luxury car tax is coming in. Obviously these are used to incentivise behaviour and totally agree that a decently scaled VED of size, weight and emissions would help
This - it's absolutely never about money needed for the (because tax doesn't pay for anything) exchequer. It's about taxation for incentivising (or de-) behaviour. And as usually things are the wrong way around - because it should be incentivised currently.
The writing was on the wall when grants started to disappear. I remember the 5K manufacturing grant and grant for the charge points of 250.
When interest rates come down (not looking good currently as May was considered the first real possibility back in January) then lease cars may become favourable again. You pay no VED there.
Without huge State push EVs are looking a bit of a mess (and I say that as a leaser of 2 vehicles.)
Handing this over to the private sector is and was a massive mistake, and has totally ruined any sort of joined up thinking. The maintenance of charge points alone is enough to boil your blood.
I'm lucky and I always can charge at home but the whole thing is begging for state capital.
Over to Labour for this one probably. (Don't hold your breath.)
"I thought one of the issues with gas fired power stations is you can’t turn them off and on quickly so they usually form the base load"
No, this is completely wrong, gas turbines are very fast to switch on and off.
Coal was base load but it's been completely phased out decades ahead of expectations. Nuclear is the only really steady power source now, and that's basically because the infrastructure is so expensive that they have to run full speed to be anywhere close to affordable. We could easily shut them down but they'd still cost billions and they'd look even more stupid than they already do.
I've just watched a Top Gear report of an electric G-Wagen.
GBP180k, weighs over 3 tonnes, range of 280 miles from a 116kwH battery. It can't tow anything as apparently its too heavy already. Depreciation probably horrendous over 3 yrs.
Perfect for in town and the skool runs.
VW E-Up. 36kwh, range 180miles, weighs 1.3 tonnes.
Perfect for in town and the skool runs.
Yer pays yer money etc etc but it's nuts if they are on teh same vehicle tax band.
it’s nuts if they are on teh same vehicle tax band.
I think this is it.
There needs to be a progressive approach to vehicle taxation, 'rewarding' efficiency and 'essentia' and progressing towards costing a lot to be 'inefficient' and 'excessive'.
VW E-Up. 36kwh, range 180miles, weighs 1.3 tonnes.
Even this weight is nuts! Something that small should be much lighter.
As an EV owner I'm fine with moving onto the standard VED rate, I do think they need to adjust the Expensive Car Supplement though - not so much to incentivise people to switch to EVs but to not penalise them for doing so. An EV will generally be around £10-15k more for an equivalent spec. to an ICE due to the battery cost so it either needs to be raised to £50k before it triggers for EVs or if that's too much hassle to admin raise it to £50-55k for all cars and introduce another band at say £80k that's a higher charge again to make up for the lost revenue.
Something that small should be much lighter.
An ICE VW UP still weighs a tonne. Modern cars have taken on a lot of extra weight to keep us safe (when inside them).
Anyway, sounds like many of us are up for vehicle weight being one of the considerations when calculating car related taxation. Would be interesting to see how that would play out in the media if a political party adopted it as a proposal.
Works for me, I’d make it so the ‘ordinary’ driving licence allows you drive say; up to a 1.5lt 4 door, maybe 2 tonnes, after that you want more engine? more people? you take an annual [paid for] test and pay more tax. You want a 4×4? prove that you live on a farm, or in the highlands, I’d ban the sale of things like Range Rovers or Q7s etc anyway, and make max curb rate weight rules for everything else.
Is that because YOU don't need anything bigger/larger etc etc?
My 4x4 is a saloon, I live rural and no one clears the road passing our house of snow, nor grits it - winter tyres go on in Oct to be taken off in May.
Ramping up car taxes and abolish stamp duty to encourage people to co-locate near their employment would be beneficial to everyone.
Folk don't work for the same employer for ever, this isn't the 60's. And what about when you get laid off, only look for work in your local area or expected to move and then what about the next time? For the record I've been laid off 6 times, and expecting it again this year.
@Fueled I understand the concept you are describing. But I don't think it's useful to attempt to use this concept for carbon accounting where EVs are concerned. The mistake you are making is assuming that EVs that are responsible for extra demand and not everything else. This is just creative accounting, and you seem to be using it to burst the bubble of EV evangelists. Similar to the accusations that EV fans think they are 'saving the planet'. Whilst there may be some people who think along those lines, I am certainly not under any illusions that anything I do is 'saving the planet'; but I do know that the choices I make can affect my overall impact.
The French scheme with the Renault Five is interesting… not just using the car battery to shift energy demand in the home, but across the local grid as a whole.
This was mooted right from the start of the current EV market. Nissan, being one of the first developers, used the CHAdeMO connector on their cars which was always bi-directional, however it became the Betamax of charging standards and even they have been forced to drop it. Just as that has happened, Octopus have finally announced the commercial availability of a bi-directional home charger that you can use today to convert your Leaf into battery storage - hence the earlier comment. I'm not sure how this is feasible with a CCS connector, it seems Renault have developed something that may be proprietary. But yes, it's a brilliant idea.
An EV will generally be around £10-15k more for an equivalent spec. to an ICE due to the battery cost
I don't think this is the case any more. Manufacturers are obfuscating this by filling EVs with gadgets so you end up comparing them with top spec ICE models. Which isn't necessarily wrong. The main problem is that the cheapest ICEs are a lot cheaper than the cheapest EVs; but like-for-like there's not a huge amount in it.
Cheapest iD3 is £35k, cheapest Golf is £27k. But the Golf has a bog standard 112 bhp petrol engine with a manual transmission, whereas the iD3 has 200bhp and is effectively automatic. If you bump that petrol Golf up to 150bhp and make it automatic then it becomes £31k and the difference is down to £4k. But - you are getting these things on the iD3 whether you want them or not. So is it actually a fair comparison? If you want the things then it is, but not if you don't.
An ICE VW UP still weighs a tonne.
Yes, proves the point. Nearly 30% more is nuts, imagine how efficient EVs would be with weight parity. Iirc our Zoe weighs more than our golf estate.
I'd love to be able to use the car as a battery for the house. During the sunnier months we'd never need to import and in the winter our entire import would be during lowest demand periods.
Light, strong, cheap – pick TWO
In this case all 3, the ICE version.
@molgrips comparing the headline power is flawed. The id3 is 200bhp and I bet 2t. The golf is 112bhp and probably 1.3. not so much difference in the bhp/t figures.
imagine how efficient EVs would be with weight parity.
If you have regenerative braking makes almost no difference. Once a mass is moving it doesn't need any energy to keep it moving. There is an immaterial amount more tyre drag from the additional weight, but the extra energy required to accelerate the car is mostly recovered during deceleration.
If you have regenerative braking makes almost no difference. Once a mass is moving it doesn’t need any energy to keep it moving.
Drag says otherwise and regen while good does not reclaim that much if the input energy. So yes less mass less energy available to reclaim but at the same time significantly less used to accelerate it in the first place.
My Seat Mii (ICE version) has a kerb weight of 865kg. Same vehicle as the VW Up! and well under a tonne.
The Mii Electric is 1235kg. I suspect if just searching for VW Up weight the results are a range that covers both ICE and electric.
No, the weight range for the current ICE UP straddles the tonne mark, without the EV being included.
The EV is, as said, 30% more again.
New cars are heavy. Their EV variants heavier still. And in all its forms, that's still a light car compared to what's selling in big numbers new right now. Qashqai's weigh 30% more again.
I suppose one of the reasons you might be a bit hacked off if you have a newish EV is that existing low taxes on diesels (many of which fiddled their emissions reports) have remained unchanged, but it doesn't seem to be a problem to do this to EV drivers.
Personal suspicion is that over the next few months there will be a lot more anti-EV legislation pushed through or announced as the government try to appeal to their target demographic of grey-haired climate deniers.
That's a huge range of weights and I cant think of any spec differences that would account for > 135kg.
@Molgrips I think we have to agree to disagree. I've run out of analogies or ways to explain it. For every additional EV plugged into the grid to get 1kwh of charge, one additional kwh has to be generated by burning gas. The same is true for every additional pair of hair straighteners, or every additional lightbuld. We already use more electricty than we generate via renewables, so the additional has to come from gas. This will be true until our renewable generation is large enough to not need topping up with gas.
It isn't creative accounting and I am not trying to disparage EVs. It is just an often overlooked fact.
@molgrips comparing the headline power is flawed. The id3 is 200bhp and I bet 2t. The golf is 112bhp and probably 1.3. not so much difference in the bhp/t figures.
The Golf Match with 115 ps has a 0-60 time of 9.9s versus 7.4s for the iD3, so regardless of the bhp/t the iD3 is a lot quicker. Even the 150ps version does it in 8.6s. But whether or not this constitutes like for like depends on if you care.
I’ve run out of analogies or ways to explain it.
I fully understand your point. I just don't think you can use that reasoning to make the claim that EVs are 100% fossil fuelled; because by allocating fossil generation to EVs you are at the same time allocating renewable generation to other things that could just as easily not be plugged in.
For every additional EV plugged into the grid to get 1kwh of charge, one additional kwh has to be generated by burning gas.
You agree that a percentage of electricity is produced from renewables, right? So who is using that "green" electricity?
Even if they are (they aren't) the switch away from ICE to electric powered solely by energy produced solely by gas (no such thing available) then you're still reducing emissions by a significant amount. It's not worth the argument. Reduce emissions by 25%... or by 60%... or perhaps even by 100%... all these scenarios suggest that any new car you buy should be electric if emission are a concern (and they should be). If the worst case you can cherry pick is a 25% reduction... it's a no brainer. If you're buying new.
Can we agree that while the charging of all the EVs currently in existence today might be partly powered by renewables, each new EV added to the cohort will be powered by gas? Or, equivalently, owing to the addition of this new EV, the proportion of EV charging done by using renewables will decrease?
and regen while good does not reclaim that much if the input energy.
Regen is (currently) able to reclaim >60% of the brake energy in normal driving and stick it back in the battery.
The limitation is usually overheating the battery and safety/stability limitations.
Some investigation into use of alternative battery design is underway that will allow more energy from regen to go back into storage.
You agree that a percentage of electricity is produced from renewables, right? So who is using that “green” electricity?
We all are. We have used the whole lot of it, and we cant squeeze out any more. Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
each new EV added to the cohort will be powered by gas? Or, equivalently, owing to the addition of this new EV, the proportion of EV charging done by using renewables will decrease?
No, because renewable production in future will increase as future cars are bought.
You're cherry picking again. We can look at increases in EV ownership in the future, but not while discounting how our energy production will also be changing in future.
Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
But you keep doing that.
As we move to more renewables, energy consumption that can be shifted away from peak times will be absolutely key. EV cars fit into that well. We need smart white goods that do it more as well. I'm currently just setting mine off with a timed delay to operate at usually low demand times... but we should crack on with all new white goods being smart enough to run themselves when demand is low and renewable generation high.
Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
Bingo !!!
I have been talking about the marginal generation of additional power, not allocating our existing production or consumption.
I completely agree that we will produce more renewable power in the future, and if we produce enough to not need to top it up with gas, then this problem will go away.
I fully understand your point. I just don’t think you can use that reasoning to make the claim that EVs are 100% fossil fuelled; because by allocating fossil generation to EVs you are at the same time allocating renewable generation to other things that could just as easily not be plugged in.
ok, lets work an example - numbers themselves are a bit made up to be round numbers, to simplify things, but are approximately right
lets say you have a 100kwh car that charges using a 10kw charger at home, overnight, from empty to full (ignoring charging losses etc).
That night, there is 1 GW of demand on the grid. That is being made up of 80% renewables, and 20% gas. The gas costs 200g co2 per 1kwh produced. The entire output of the grid (1000mw) is covered by using 200mw from gas, producing 40000000g of Co2 per hour (40 tonnes) - of the course of the 10 hour night this is [b]400 tonnes[/b] of co2.
using the "average mix" maths, the overall mix of the grid is 80% renewable, and so for every 10kwh of electricity produced the grid is producing 400g co2 - so charging your car from empty to full emits [b]4kg co2[/b] by those maths
however, what actually happens when you plug your car in is instead of there being 1gw of demand on the grid, there's now 1.00001 GW of demand - 10kw more than there was before. The grid can't turn up the renewable production of electricity as its always maxxed out, all the time, so instead it has to meet 100% of that extra 10kw by turning gas up a little bit. Instead of the grid producing 800mw from renewables and 200mw from gas, its producing 800mw from renewables and 200.01mw from gas. This is a small amount, but it means the total co2 output of the grid is now 40,002,000g ([b]40.002 tonnes[/b]) of Co2 per hour, and 400.02 tonnes of CO2 over the course of the night. You plugging your car in has been met 100% through fossil fuels, at [b]a cost of 20kg of co2[/b] being produced that would not have been produced otherwise.
This is the same cost as me turning my computer on, and would be the same saving if someone didn't have their emersion heater on. All of the marginal load is met through gas
There are very rare occasions (once or twice per year) where this isn't the case and all of our load is met by renewables and things have to just be "turned down" to avoid over-producing, in those instances, yes, your load is met by renewables but otherwise its 100% fossil fuel.
As more renewables are added to the grid - the mix will change (from say 80% renewable to 90% in the course of a night) - and the number of incidences where everything is met by renewables will rise, a tiny bit, but its still negligable. What charging an ev overnight will do is increase the night time grid base load and make it more attractive to install more wind farms, but that's likekly to happen anyway
If you actually want to produce less CO2 rather than greenwash, an EV is a good start (as it produces less CO2, even when powered by fossil fuels, than an ICE car), but it'd make more difference to spend £10k less on a fuel efficient car and £10k on solar panels (no battery, that's just gaming the system) than it would to spend £10k more on an EV, or better still change your lifestyle to consume less
Regen is (currently) able to reclaim >60% of the brake energy in normal driving and stick it back in the battery.
Key bit being 'of the brake energy' which is very different to the energy required to get the vehicle to speed and then maintain it at that speed? That figure will not then include the losses converting that stored energy back to motion. It also assumes the driver can drive in such a way that regen is doing the breaking rather than the friction brakes.
Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
Yes some energy companies try to do this by selling you a product that says all your energy comes from renewables. It doesn't, they might buy sufficient renewable energy to cover your usage over time but at any given moment in time you'll be using a mix.
ok, lets work an example – numbers themselves are a bit made up to be round numbers, to simplify things, but are approximately right
That was a lot of words to restate Fueled's case. Now tell us why the same argument doesn't apply to every single electrical appliance in the country.
Now tell us why the same argument doesn’t apply to every single electrical appliance in the country.
It does apply to every electrical appliance! Every unit of electricity we don't use is a unit less than has to be generated by gas. Until we stop having to use gas. Gas is the difference between renewable supply and overall demand (a bit simplistic but basically true).
That was a lot of words to restate Fueled’s case. Now tell us why the same argument doesn’t apply to every single electrical appliance in the country.
yep, it does apply to them all. Turning off your immersion heater saves gas being burned, turning on your tv causes gas to be burned, which is why its the marginal load. If you got [i]everybody[/i] to turn off their tv, to the point that the load was being 100% met through renewables, adding an extra ev would be 100% met through renewables, otherwise its 100% met through fossil.
It does!
So every electrical appliance is 100% fueled by gas?
Every unit of electricity we don’t use is a unit less than has to be generated by gas. Until we stop having to use gas. Gas is the difference between renewable supply and overall demand
Self evidently. In a static world. But that doesn't mean that moly's EV is 100% powered by gas. When he plugs in his car he doesn't get 100% gas-sourced electricity. He says "shove up, I'm 'avin' a piece o' that renewable pie, you lot budge over" (TBF I have never heard molgrips speak, and I doubt he talks like that, but you get the idea.) So him plugging in is the same as you not turning off your immersion, or tj insisting on eating hot food.
And when Moly gets a piece of the renewable pie, everyone else has less renewable pie, and so has to have a little bit more gas pie. And so the gas pie has to be made a little bit bigger, because the renewable pie is a fixed size, until we build more renewables.
The gas pie had to be made bigger by the exact amount that Moly needed to charge his/her EV.
When he plugs in his car he doesn’t get 100% gas-sourced electricity
go through the example I produced and show where it doesn't involve 20kg of Co2 being produced. The mix comes from a variety of sources, granted, but the impact is 100% gas. Trying to claim that the co2 impact of plugging in is 4kg is nonsense.
Again... even if it was true... switching from burning petrol or diesel in your car.... to using electricity instead... even if that is 100% gas generated electricity (which we don't have)... STILL reduces emissions significantly. So, if you're buying a new car... buy a lower emissions one.
Kelvin - I don't think anyone is disputing that.
Do you understand the difference between a marginal tax rate and an average tax rate?
No, I was hoping for a big strong man to explain it to me. Using simple words, of course.
switching from burning petrol or diesel in your car…. to using electricity instead… even if that is 100% gas generated electricity (which we don’t have)… STILL reduces emissions significantly. So, if you’re buying a new car… buy a lower emissions one.
This is true but its a small effect compared to what is needed. So use a car less. Build your life around not having one. Use a bike, an ebike or a small scooter. all options with far less CO2 production.
I live in Scotland, we produce per capita more renewable electricity than elsewhere in the UK, so based on how generators are charged more to add electricity onto the grid the further they are away from London, surely MORE of the electricity I use is from non-fossil fuel generators than you folk in the South?
Key bit being ‘of the brake energy’ which is very different to the energy required to get the vehicle to speed and then maintain it at that speed? That figure will not then include the losses converting that stored energy back to motion. It also assumes the driver can drive in such a way that regen is doing the breaking rather than the friction brakes.
Yes, all cars require energy to overcome drag and to accelerate, it's the same amount of wheel torque irrelevant of how it's generated. Benefit with EV is the efficiency from battery to wheel. It's massively higher than fuel tank to wheel. (Roughly 35% Vs 90% from what i can remember). Downside with EV is the weight increase. But that's been a thing in automotive for a couple of decades, at least.
Most cars have brake blending, so it doesn't matter how you slow down, using the brake pedal still activates the motor braking before the friction brakes come in to play. If you're regularly overcoming the amount of braking that the motors can provide, you should probably get some driving lessons.
The marginal use argument is an interesting one and I can see the argument. If I currently consume x kw of power in a day then some percentage of that comes from renewables and some from fossil fuels, but the amount from renewables can’t be increased. So, if I now add y kw of demand for my new EV that extra bit comes from fossil fuels. Makes sense, but there are at least a couple of issues with that argument.
One, it assumes that the EV was the optional bit. Want if I buy an EV but also reduce my demand elsewhere?
Two, it assumes that there are no periods during the day where renewables can supply 100% of the demand on the grid. If there are (or will be in future) then charging EVs is probably a good way to use that extra capacity.
It’s an interesting discussion and useful to remind people that just switching to an EV may not be doing as much good as they think. But it doesn’t change the fundamentals. It’s a good idea to switch from ICE cars to EVs for personal transportation. It’s a good idea to increase the amount of energy generated by renewables and it’s a good idea to reduce your overall demand for energy. The latter is probably the most important but all three are part of the solution.
Two, it assumes that there are no periods during the day where renewables can supply 100% of the demand on the grid. If there are (or will be in future) then charging EVs is probably a good way to use that extra capacity.
it is a decent use, but the total impact is still not co2-free. This "spare" electricity is today stored by pumping water uphill, then released by letting the water flow back downhill, in massive resovoirs. This isn't 100% efficient (approx 90%) - but it means that the 100kwh that are "spare" at midnight could either go into your car, or could offset 90kwh of gas-produced electricity later in the day, when demand is higher. It would only be if we had such long periods of renewable-only production that the resovoirs were completely full that we can really claim the ev use is truely co2-free
It would only be if we had such long periods of renewable-only production that the resovoirs were completely full that we can really claim the ev use is truely co2-free
No you cannot. EVs still have a CO2 cost in building and disposing of them and all electricity has a CO2 cost in generating it - again the building and disposing of the generators - mainly in the concrete used in construiction and the fuel burnt in building the generators
You can only ever state lower or low CO2.
Don't be fooled by the greenwash
No you cannot. EVs still have a CO2 cost in building and disposing of them and all electricity has a CO2 cost in generating it – again the building and disposing of the generators – mainly in the concrete used in construiction and the fuel burnt in building the generators
Not denying any of that, however I was stating that the use of the EV (by the time it exists the co2 from making it is a sunk cost) is co2 free, which I think it is
The gas pie had to be made bigger by the exact amount that Moly needed to charge his/her EV.
Why is it my EV and not your dishwasher?
If you actually want to produce less CO2 rather than greenwash, an EV is a good start (as it produces less CO2, even when powered by fossil fuels, than an ICE car), but it’d make more difference to spend £10k less on a fuel efficient car and £10k on solar panels (no battery, that’s just gaming the system) than it would to spend £10k more on an EV,
It certainly would. And some of that solar energy might go to power someone's EV... or not, depending on how you want to paint it. However, I didn't spend anywhere near £10k extra on an EV, nor do most people. Thanks to zero BIK, the government is actually funding the extra in what I guess is the majority of cases.
Can we agree that while the charging of all the EVs currently in existence today might be partly powered by renewables, each new EV added to the cohort will be powered by gas?
No
Or, equivalently, owing to the addition of this new EV, the proportion of EV charging done by using renewables will decrease?
Yes, because those things are only equivalent until you start pointing fingers at EVs being 100% fossil powered. The extra fossil fuel generation goes against EVERONE's electricity usage, not just EVs. Because why would it? Are you suggesting road transport is discretionary? Well, so are lots of things.
each new EV added to the cohort will be powered by gas?
But you need to remember that at the same time as EV ownership is going up, renewable generation is also going up AND overall consumption is going down.
Why is it my EV and not your dishwasher?
It's both. Go through the example above and demonstrate how the car doesn't add 20kg co2 to the atmosphere if you think we are wrong
however I was stating that the use of the EV (by the time it exists the co2 from making it is a sunk cost) is co2 free, which I think it is
No its not. Even renewable energy has a CO2 cost. Small perhaps but its still there.
It’s both.
Is it? Why JUST the EV and the dishwasher using 100% fossil fuels? Where do you draw the line? How do you decide which things are powered by renewable and which by gas?
The grid can’t turn up the renewable production of electricity as its always maxxed out
No, but my car can wait to charge until the most renewable power is available. It doesn't start charging as soon as I plug it in. You know this, right?
Why is it my EV and not your dishwasher?
Every time I turn on my dishwasher, the additional power required, compared to a parallel universe where I had not turned it on, is generated 100% by gas.
only equivalent until you start pointing fingers at EVs being 100% fossil powered.
I'm not pointing fingers at EVs. As repeatedly said, it applies to (almost) all electricity consumption.
No, but my car can wait to charge until the most renewable power is available. It doesn’t start charging as soon as I plug it in. You know this, right?
It makes no difference whether the overall grid is 20% or 60% renewable, if it is having to be topped up by gas, then any additional marginal generation will be 100% gas.
I’m not pointing fingers at EVs.
It looked like it - but if that's not the case I've no idea what you are arguing for. We know that some energy is renewable and some isn't. I guess if you thought we didn't know that, it might explain why you keep explaining it.
I thought that the original allegation was that EVs are 100% fossil fuel powered - but this is clearly not the case. At the moment, ANY increased electricity consupmtion drives up fossil fuel consumption - EV or not - so it is not very useful to single out EVs being bad, especially as there is currently a campaign to discredit them.
However let's just highlight that smart EV charging can reduce fossil fuel consumption compared to the same static load.
Every time I turn on my dishwasher, the additional power required, compared to a parallel universe where I had not turned it on, is generated 100% by gas.
Hang on... if this applies to everything we all turn on, whatever the time, whatever the energy mix... who's using all the renewable energy? What's the point in increasing renewable energy production if we're all using gas only generated energy every time we turn anything on? You're still making no sense to me, sorry.
I'm talking about marginal demand and generation. The additional difference resulting from turning something on compared to a parallel universe where it was not turned on. The additional power having to be generated almost always comes 100% from an increase in gas power production.
You are talking about overall demand and overall generation. That's all of the energy generated across the entire grid, and everything consuming it. That might be 50% renewable and 50% gas, or more, or less, depending on the weather and time of day.
I'm sorry I can't think of any better way to explain.
Everything can be turned off/on.
It's like saying that my energy consumption is made up of a mix of generation sources, but the energy required by a new born baby is all sourced from gas.
If you really want to treat new items different to old items... then cars are arguably a special case... because they store energy... so can be used to spread load away from peak times... unlike ovens etc.. and even, in the near future, supply energy back to the grid at peak times... reducing the need to use gas.
“I thought one of the issues with gas fired power stations is you can’t turn them off and on quickly so they usually form the base load”
No, this is completely wrong, gas turbines are very fast to switch on and off.
It's actually both. In the UK we still have base load plants fuelled by gas which churn away constantly producing electricity relatively cheaply, never turned off except for maintenance perhaps. We also have "peaker plants" fuelled by gas which spin up very quickly at peak times (ie 4pm-7pm) and can be shut off very quickly when peak demand reduces, this is expensive to do and hence the high prices (for the likes of Agile Octopus) at times like 4pm-7pm.
The additional difference resulting from turning something on compared to a parallel universe where it was not turned on. The additional power having to be generated almost always comes 100% from an increase in gas power production.
Yes we know. I however was talking about EVs
I’m sorry I can’t think of any better way to explain.
You don't have to. We understand this very well, we did from the beginning. What we are objecting to is using this to claim that EVs are 100% fossil fuel powered. It makes no sense to suggest this in practical terms, it's false accounting.
1) EVs require an increase in electricity generation over not having an EV
2) most of the time this increase can only be met by burning fossil fuels
EVs produce less CO2 than an ICE but the number is not zero. You can argue its the average generation mix that should be counted or the increased fossil fuel that should be counted.
I am comparing EV with no car - hence I believe it should be the extra fossil fuel that is counted.
This is why EVs are greenwash - they allow folk to pretend they can continue with driving in the same way and save the planet and thus distract from the fact the only thing that will actually work is major lifestyle change and in the case of personal transport this means an end to moving people around in 2 tonne metal boxes
What we are objecting to is using this to claim that EVs are 100% fossil fuel powered.
Any time the grid is needing to be topped up by gas, the marginal power use of each EV charge, just like the marginal power use of any electrical device being turned on, is 100% fossil fuel.
So just like turning on any electrical device, each time I plug in an EV to charge, the additional power required to charge it, compared to a parallel universe where is not plugged in to charge, will need to be generated 100% by burning more gas.
That remains true whether the grid is powered by 20% renewable or 80% renewable. Because renewables cannot be turned up to meet additional demand. It only stops being true when we have excess renewables.