If you don't drive an all-electric car, most would consider you an Earth-hater.

Where does electricity come from?

Where did the energy to mine the materials, mold metals and plastics, ship them to factories, manufacture the parts, assemble them into a car and ship them to dealers come from?

You're still an Earth-hater, just less of one.

Car is still powered by batteries which are horrible for the environment.

Car is still made of plastics, which are horrible for the environment.

The electricity that these vehicles use is provided (in most cases) by either coal or nuclear power, both of which are horrible for the environment.

WRONG, FOOL!!!

Walk

Run

Everywhere

And yet "most" don't drive all electric cars.

The flaw with electric cars is that they don't make economic sense, nor do they fill a need. So only those that derive self worth from affiliation are motivated enough to purchase them.

Let's not forget oil is one of the ingredients used to make tires as well. So, no, electric cars are not going to save the earth. As of now, they are for rich people who think they are better than everyone else. Maybe when they are much cheaper and can drive more than 70 miles on a charge, they will catch on.

Environmentalists never gave me "green praise" when I chose to live 6 blocks from work and walked every day. The guy who drives his Prius across town to work, now he's saving the planet.

So if I don't drive a car at all, I am an earth hater?

I commute by running. That trumps all-electric by far.

There is a net benefit to the environment for electric vehicles, but it depends on how many miles you get out of the life of the vehicle and where you live since some locations have electric that is generated more "cleanly" than other locations. In most locations in the US there is an overall reduction in emissions from electric vehicle use, but not everywhere. From some analysis I've read if you drive an electric vehicle for more than 75K miles the net benefit starts to really increase.

But...I don't drive any car. So I'm an Earth-hater?

HOstess wrote:

If you don't drive an all-electric car, most would consider you an Earth-hater.

Honestly, I don't give a sh*t what they think.

Libs, I seriously was thinking about getting an all-electric car. Then I read it would be worse for the environment for me (living on the East coast) to have an all-electric car than a gas one.

Thoughts?

http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/06/where-electric-vehicles-actually-cause-more-pollution-than-gas-cars/397136/?

rojo wrote:

Libs, I seriously was thinking about getting an all-electric car. Then I read it would be worse for the environment for me (living on the East coast) to have an all-electric car than a gas one.

Thoughts?

http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/06/where-electric-vehicles-actually-cause-more-pollution-than-gas-cars/397136/?

The researchers obvious error is considering the delivery-grid for electric (power plants), but not for gasoline (oil refineries, oil tankers, etc.). Electric plants also have other considerations that should be considered to make all things equal.

The new Chevy Volt looks pretty good.

Would it be more environmentally friendly to drive my 2003 Camry into the ground before getting another car? 170k miles. I feel like I could drive it another 20 years. So until I'm 50. It's so boring though.

Coal Bin wrote:

rojo wrote:

Libs, I seriously was thinking about getting an all-electric car. Then I read it would be worse for the environment for me (living on the East coast) to have an all-electric car than a gas one.

Thoughts?

http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/06/where-electric-vehicles-actually-cause-more-pollution-than-gas-cars/397136/?

The researchers obvious error is considering the delivery-grid for electric (power plants), but not for gasoline (oil refineries, oil tankers, etc.). Electric plants also have other considerations that should be considered to make all things equal.

Another error is that gasoline cars do not need to be fuelled by Saudi Arabian crude. They can be fuelled by green bio-diesel or bio-gasoline. A car fuelled by bio-diesel would be much better for the environment than an electric car.

Blah Blah Blah wrote:

Coal Bin wrote:

The researchers obvious error is considering the delivery-grid for electric (power plants), but not for gasoline (oil refineries, oil tankers, etc.). Electric plants also have other considerations that should be considered to make all things equal.

Another error is that gasoline cars do not need to be fuelled by Saudi Arabian crude. They can be fuelled by green bio-diesel or bio-gasoline. A car fuelled by bio-diesel would be much better for the environment than an electric car.

There is not enough land, and not enough fried food joints, to fuel the needs of gasoline cars. Driving around and smelling french-fries, and fried-chicken all day long?

skiclimber wrote:

The new Chevy Volt looks pretty good.

Would it be more environmentally friendly to drive my 2003 Camry into the ground before getting another car? 170k miles. I feel like I could drive it another 20 years. So until I'm 50. It's so boring though.

Some years ago I read that half of the energy the average car uses is used in the manufacturing process. I can't recall where I read that but it was someplace that I regarded as pretty credible. If true, then yes, the longer you keep a car the less energy will be expended in replacing it.

The main criticism of the Holland etal study is that it uses 2008 figures for power generation. Since then there has been a large shift from coal power generation (about 50% down to less then 40% currently) with an increase in natural gas (+7%) and renewables (+3%) making up the difference. With their stated caveats it is a credible study, but power generation is evolving at a fairly rapid pace and will likely continue to do so over the next few decades.

It should also be noted that their results are from comparing similar electric and internal combustion vehicles, so the study doesn't justify passing on a Nissan Leaf and going with an F350 instead.

The numbers I've seen are that roughly 10 to 20% of lifetime energy cost of a conventional car is in mining through manufacturing. The numbers are higher for hybrids and electric vehicles. That said, if I had a Camry I'd drive it into the ground.