China’s EV revolution showcases the power that state actors have when an industry is a matter of national security.
China has marginal domestic O&G reserves, so moving off of O&G is incredibly important for Chinese interests.
And since the oil and gas companies in China are nationalized, they will follow along with the government’s plans rather than obstruct or bribe their way as with for-profit private oil and gas companies in many western countries.
Woah hold the phone, you’re telling me there’s a way to build society OTHER than by explicitly rewarding greed and exploitation‽
It is a similar story in Saudi Arabia and many Arab countries. The oil and gas is nationally owned, and the revenues are being used to finance a massive welfare state as well as the transition away from fossil fuels.
I think saudi Arabia moving away from fossil fuels isnt really true considering their (ODSP) is a plan to hook the 3rd world on said fossil fuels.
Developing countries need cheap energy
So, solar and wind? Both cheaper than fossil fuels at this point.
Then no one will buy the oil Saudi Arabia is selling if that’s true
But if we were really serious about sustainability, wouldnt it be better to not get more of the world hooked and fossil fuels in that way.
Which is not me saying everyone should be driving EVs, because fuck cars.
Oil isn’t just used for cars. A lot of countries use diesel trains on routes where electrification isn’t feasible for various reasons. Here’s a modern diesel train https://youtu.be/tFoljwX6o90
They also don’t seem to have many standards either. Specs and reviews I’ve seen seem to jump generations within a few months. I think my favorite ridiculous spec was the ability to use two fast chargers (one on either side of the car since it has two plugs) to pump some 300 miles in 5-10 minutes. It’s wild to read about the stuff they’re doing.
Is there any safety reason to not be able to have two plugs? I could see that being something we could do to renovate western gas stations for EVs in order to facilitate the transition. Just have two plugs side by side so Jim-bob could get his 300 miles in 10 minutes with electric just lol he does with his diesel now
Definitely heat, and a design to handle it. Ford has an issue with some Mach-E’s that the power junction would weld itself shut if you used the DC fast charger and floored the car shortly after. Once that happened it bricks the car and you gotta replace the part.
All EVs still require coal or oil for the electricity. And that doesn’t even factor in mining for the metals to make these things.
EV are okay but they’re not a solution to our resource consumption problem.
Edit: imagine being mad at the truth lol?
You seem to be forgetting that wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power exist.
Not to mention that, even with coal generating the energy for the cars, EVs still have lower lifetime emissions than any ICE car.
But there is still the precious metal mining which often is diesel engines.
The point is regardless of what we use it is a bandaid to the issue. That issue being over mining our very limited resources
You’re right. Let’s do nothing instead.
It’s not sustainable why are you mad at me for the reality of the situation. The capitalists are selling you on this being a cure all your anger should be with them
What do you suggest, then? Go back to horses and buggies? I’ve yet to see, in all of your whining, one fucking suggestion as to how we correct the issue. Society will collapse before we voluntarily throw ourselves back to the dark ages. Isn’t a person on Earth living in a modern society, yourself included if you really think about it, that would agree to that.
Yo fuck off I brought up a point about EV shut up lol
Nobody here is saying it’s a cure all. It’s a step in the right direction. It’s better than doing nothing and continuing on the course we’ve been on. Do you think an “all or nothing” approach has any chance of working?
And I’m not saying don’t do it? Do you think it is all or nothing? I’m just bringing up the fact that EV isn’t really that great
Diesel engines have nothing to do with what we were talking about.
And even if you want to call it a “band-aid”, that’s still better than letting the wound continue to bleed. It slows us down and gives us a chance to course correct, rather than barrelling ahead over the cliff at full speed.
The wound will still bleed our society is not sustainable.
the diesil trucks will also be replaced with sustainably powered ev machines too. think more than 12 months ahead.
lol okay in 12 months I’ll google to see if we are still using diesel.
Spoiler: we will be
you are an absolute donkey mate.
I agree with you, but I urge you to spell it out a bit more. We still need to transport lots of goods across large distances, from distinct areas where an industry perhaps cannot be moved closer, eliminating the long distance transport.
More importantly, we do have options for recycling lithium from expended cells, not a zero-carbon process, but definitely better than continued mining.
Look, real talk: I think there very genuinely may be too many humans for this planet to naturally sustain. Even within society there are hints, in spite of the powers that be’s attempts at obfuscation. Look how many bullshit jobs there are. Late stage capitalism is a lot more than a bogeyman from what I can see.
What are your thoughts?
Except that many places are majority renewables for electricity
That use plastics and rare metals and glass all of which aren’t infinite resources.
Two decades from now we will still be struggling with a climate crisis and these “solutions” aren’t solutions
Glass? That is in no way a rare resource. We have alternatives to plastic and alternative battery architectures are being developed from multiple quarters. It’s true that these still have environmental impact but it’s still a huge improvement over ICE vehicles.
Fully agree I only mention glass because it is viewed as an infinitely recyclable material but it really isn’t. We live on a silicate rich planet but even then there is a limit and these are the conversations we need to normalize before we do this same thing to ourselves again with our mass consumption of all resources
For China specifically and at the present time this is true, but China is investing heavily into solar and other renewables that will shift its energy mix dramatically in the coming years. Not to mention that even now, it’s still a net benefit to centralize that fossil fuel consumption into plants that can burn it more efficiently and with better pollution controls than are feasible on cars.
What? I charge my EV using the solar panels on my roof. I sell what extra I don’t use myself to the electrical company. I mean sure, I bet the delivery truck ran on diesel and so on, but that’s not what you said.
It’s worth noting that this is not being done for environmental reasons (more half of all coal pollution comes from China), but for strategic reasons as China has limited access to oil near it’s borders.
I mean, that’s a pretty good reason. I’m not too concerned why they do a good thing, as long as it’s done.
Not to mention that they are the world’s biggest manufacturing power, so whatever they make for themselves will likely also benefit the rest of the world.
If they really wanna make me pro China, make ME energy independent!
Cheap solar panels Cheap batteries Cheap ebikes Cheap ecars
That would cover half my yearly expenses!!
Electric cars aren’t a “good thing” though.
You might get up votes if you accompanied a controversial opinion with a reasoned argument. However, making only broad, unsubstantiated statements is a waste of bandwidth and everyone’s time.
You might get up votes if you accompanied a controversial opinion with a reasoned argument.
Ultimately I agree that they should include the argument, but adding a reasoned argument has very little affect on the use of the vote buttons as “agree/disagree.”
China is also the world leader in sustainable public transportation solutions
They’re a “better than ICE cars” thing. I’ll take whatever improvements I can get
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I assume you mean that they’re not a positive for our environment, even so they’re much better for our local environment, which is still one better than petrol and diesel cars imo.
When coupled with electric buses and high speed trains, they’re plenty fine. We’re not going to reach a level of infrastructure anytime soon where all travel can be accomplished through public infrastructure, even in China where they have ten times the public transport infrastructure of the US.
Electric cars by themselves aren’t a good thing, as in, the USian belief in “an electric car for every person” is insane and if they convince even half the world of it we’re going to destroy the other half mining minerals, but using electric cars to supplement sustainable infrastructure and support areas yet without access to public transit is a necessary step on the path towards sustainability.
An EV running on a coal fired grid still has less emissions that a prius. Facts dont care about your feelings.
Could you please run us through your maths? I’m legit curious.
An ICE is only, at most, 35% efficient. In contrast to lithium batteries and electric motors, which is more like 90% efficient. Electricity produced from the dirtiest coal plants that exist, used in an EV, is more efficient and, thus, more environmentally conscious, than burning gasoline in an ICE.
Coal power plant efficiency is less than 40%. You’d also not get 90% of the outlet on the wheels. There is also a lot of loss on the grid, but there is also on the production of fuel. The two pollute almost the same.
Burning coal however is a lot worse for the air quality.
It’s the put the pollution somewhere else policy so that cities are more liveable. It was hurting China’s reputation and too many rich Chinese were going overseas and siphoning away the economy (and still are).
I’d like to prefix this all by pointing out that coal is absolutely terrible to use in several ways.
However: most thermal plants get about 45% efficiency, based on using very high steam temperatures. We all know that the theoretical max efficiency for a thermal process is limited by the Carnot cycle, which explicitly depends on the difference in temperature between the working fluid and the surroundings.
I’d also like to point out an important point: carbon plants are not constricted by the need to keep the engine lightweight, we can capture most fly ash and other process exhaust.
I again, do not care to bring such an arcane tech back online, it’s terrible to mine, process and use. Just remember there’s a bit more to all of this that engineers have indeed thought of.
E: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196890415007657
The coal plants are not 100% efficient though. In fact they’re probably in the realm of 40%
Yup, and that’s ignoring the loss in transforming and transporting the energy across the grid, and in the chemistry of the battery itself through charges and discharges. Energy density of batteries is also a fraction of that of petrol, so every EV is also carrying around a lot of extra weight.
What about the billions of cells that must be produced and replaced as the scale grown unto millions and millions of cars? And all the mining of rare earth elements it requires?
It turns out that the lithium is very recyclable. The process of disassembly is what’s tricky, but one of Tesla’s pre-musk founders is working specifically on this problem.
We can already do it. Mining is (for now) cheaper. Something legislation, applied carefully, can resolve.
I don’t know if their statement is universally true, but the EPA’s fuel economy / total emissions calculator seems to show it for what I’ve put in. You can put in a Prius or random EV and see how they compare.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myth1
My guess would be the efficiency of coal power plants (35%) and electricity transmission (90%) + battery charging of an EV (80%) would be more than efficiency of transporting oil in ships (50%) , then in an ICE truck (40%) to fuel pumps and then finally the efficiency of the ICE car (40%).
I picked the numbers from internet, but they seem plausible.
A Prius will definitely pollute less than the typical SUV electric cars on a coal grid.
Cause:
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Efficiency of coal power plant and all losses are as bad as ICE cars. The EVs do thermal->mechanical->electrical->grid->battery->wheels and if you count them all up, is not better than an EV
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Prius is designed for low drag unlike an SUV
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Prius had regenerative braking like an EV
But just the numbers:
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Prius is rated at 94g/kg
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Coal 950g/kwh
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Volvo c40 0.2kwh/km or 190g/km even without losses
I took Volvo cause they published a report with a good compare ev and ICE https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/market-assets/intl/applications/dotcom/pdf/c40/volvo-c40-recharge-lca-report.pdf
Even with the current EU energy mix, it takes 77’000 km to be better than ICE, so arguably better. On coal electricity, they are worse. And this is comparing equally sized cars, a Prius will do better.
Regardless of the accuracy of your numbers - If you fix the ICE cars as they wear out, replacing them with BEV as the energy grid retires coal plants or goes to a higher percentage of renewables, they get cleaner. ICE cars will be as dirty tomorrow as they are today.
That is true. I do think we should retire pure ICE cars as soon as possible. If you need to do long distances, a hybrid that could be converted might be a good intermediate solution. If you only need a car sporadically, a car sharing platform with electric cars is a good solution. These already exist in big eu cities. Ofc good and adorable public transport is nr 1.
Decreasing the amount of cars would decrease emissions short and long term more than the current shift to EV and would make shifting easier as there are just fewer to replace.
Sorry sorry. Where are you getting the “all losses are equivalent to ice engine inefficiency”?
I don’t expect you to be an ME/EE, but there’s a lot of variables in that calculation, I’d just like to clarify for everyone here what you mean.
I put very minimal calculation which at least puts it around the same order and linked a report by Volvo where they try to count the whole cycle of a car with the emissions of the production and transport of used parts and fuels.
On current electricity mix, an electric car is only slightly better on a CO2 emissions. With only renewables, it can be 2x better.
But the statement that in China it’s at least better than a Prius is just wrong. Until renewables take a serious share of the grid, a smaller well engineered hybrid is not worse.
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Is it worth mentioning? Why?
Just wanted to add some perspective. There’s a narrative lately that China is a champion of the green movement, which is absurd
It’s no less absurd than the opposite narrative, that China is some kind of climate villain.
The reality is China is on the right track, but not there yet. I’m somewhat optimistic.
Pretty reasonable narrative tbh. China’s CO2 emmissions plateleued last month and have even started to fall, and they’re targeting zero emissions by 2060. They’ve also started spearheading cleaner energy this month with the first 4th gen nuclear reactor.
And of course the news in this post.
What a ridiculous distinction. Do you really think this narrative difference in motivation is noteworthy? What is scarcity if not an environmental consideration? What is lack of sustainability if not an environmental consideration?
It’s being done because it leads to a sustainable equilibrium of their social system. Whether that meets your standards of rhetorical “intentionality” to meet the criteria for “environmentalism” is meaningless.
Car engines are immensely inefficient and car charging is a load that’s easy to load-balance for renewables (dynamic pricing see: Tesla)
Yup! EVs and renewables are broadly good things. Just wanted to give some added perspective :)
Great argument for a green transition in many places, such as Europe, India and Japan. Dependence on fossil fuels is a big weakness.
Paywalled.
Now do coal
Also worth mentioning that it’s not just cars, but public transit and city planning.
As a Saudi I’m happy with this development. The future of cars is electric.
But at what cost?
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Maybe it’s crazy idea but… China?
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I mean it’s pretty common knowledge that China is the biggest rare earth metals producer in the world. It’s also well known that the batteries they produces are pretty bad for environment. And it’s also known that Chinese EVs are still better for climate change than oil. It’s all been covered many many times. Are you following any news?
The batteries are also recyclable, which should make the equation even simpler.
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The number I’m seeing is up to 95% recyclable. That’s preeetttty much the entire battery. Are you talking about something else?
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The mines are also in China. What’s your point? Why are you asking obvious question?
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Google is your friend. Not a useful one these days, but a friend regardless.
You will have to look that up I guess.
I’m genuinely curious
No you’re not. Nobody says that unless they’re trolling.
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“Every car you start driving with electricity, you’re not driving with oil,” said Robert Brecha, a professor of sustainability at the University of Dayton in Ohio
The journalist has to have a personal grudge against him. That d’oh quotation makes him seem dumber than my dog.
And it’s not even necessarily true: it takes a certain mileage to offset the extra CO2 that an electric vehicle requires for its manufacturing (mostly batteries), which directly depends on the grid’s carbon intensity. If you recharge your EV from a coal or oil plant, you are still burning coal and oil.
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