Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 49 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

Brian P said:
That's a load of bunk. Don't believe anything you read on Breitbart.
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Glad someone said it.

Geezus, I can't believe some people just take garbage spouted from websites that are already known to be sensationalistic at best (and borderline insane, at worst) and blindly accept it as fact. Use some freakin' critical thinking people - always look for the other side of the story, and fact check things...especially if the information is coming from a questionable slanted source.

Here's the REAL story on that Swedish study.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/no-tesla-batteries-are-not-a-global-warming-disaster
 
Breitbart's own numbers don't even stand up to scrutiny within their own article.

Lead statement: "The car batteries used in a Tesla generate as much CO2 as driving a gasoline-powered car for eight years. And that’s before they even come off the production line."

Later: 150 - 200 kg CO2 per kWh of storage capacity. Let's be optimistic and use the lower number and show that even that number is not in agreement with their lead statement.

150 kg CO2 per kWh means in a 100 kWh battery there would (supposedly) be 15,000 kg CO2 emitted. (Not 17-and-change tons - 15 tons.)

Translate to gasoline burned. CO2 contains oxygen - lots of it. CO2 weighs about 3 times as much as the hydrocarbon that led to it. So that 15,000 kg of CO2 meant 5,000 kg of gasoline - about 6,000 litres.

A normal somewhat-big-ish car will use 10 litres per 100 km, so that would have been good for 60,000 km of driving.

For the average driver that's not 8 years of driving ... it's 3 years of driving.

I suspect that whoever made that lead statement, forgot that a tonne of CO2 does not correspond to a tonne of hydrocarbon burned.

If they made that simple error without fact checking and double checking, what other errors did they make?
 
Brian P said:
If they made that simple error without fact checking and double checking, what other errors did they make?
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A lot of people reading Breitbart are not interested in facts, they're interested in confirmation bias.

Ditto a lot of "The Rebel" readers who treat everything that windbag Ezra spouts as fact, because again, it confirms their opinions.

Ditto again almost anyone who watches/listens to Infowars and it's resident whackjob Alex Jones.
 
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Seems to me another flaw of the comparison is they counted the CO2 footprint of producing and distributing the electricity, but didn't include the same for production and distribution of gasoline.
 
PrivatePilot said:
A lot of people reading Breitbart are not interested in facts, they're interested in confirmation bias.
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Bold statement after posting a link to 'greentechmedia'

.... no confirmation bias there?

Anyway, I went over the summary of that Swedish study

Based on the assessment of the posed questions, our conclusions are that the currently available
data are usually not transparent enough to draw detailed conclusions about the battery’s
production emissions. There is, regardless, a good indication of the total emissions from the
production, but this should be viewed in light of there being a small number of electric vehicles
being produced compared to the total number of vehicles. The potential effects of scale up are not
included in the assessments. Primary data for production, especially production of different pack
sizes, is therefore interesting for future work.

This report also concludes that there is no fixed answer to the question of the battery’s
environmental impact. There is great potential to influence the future impact by legislative actions,
especially in the area of recycling. Today there is no economic incentive for recycling of lithium-ion
batteries, but by placing the correct requirements on the end of life handling we can create this
incentive. Coupling this type of actions with support for technology development both in battery
production processes and battery recycling can ensure a sustainable electric vehicle fleet.

The review of the available life cycle assessments also highlighted that there is a need for
improving the primary data used in the studies, as there is little new data being presented.
Additionally, the studies are often not transparent in their data choices and modelling
assumptions, leading to a situation where comparing results becomes very difficult.

Regardless of this, the review found a number of critical factors for determining differences in the
results. The assumptions regarding manufacturing were shown to have the greatest variation and
impact on the total result. In order to improve our understanding of the environmental impact of
the battery production we need more than LCA results. We need more clear technical descriptions
of each production step and where they are performed so that the emissions found in the reviewed
life cycles assessments can be defined into different stages. Not until we have a clear definition of
stages can we assess where the energy consumption and emissions are largest, or what actions that
can help lower the impact.
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Not exactly cut and dry, despite the blog headline. FWIW, I'm not arguing one way or another, but I don't believe the possibility of potential battery related environmental issues should be discounted simply because 'not fossil fuel'


Edit for Sunny.... I'm currently awaiting yet another replacement battery for Honda's woeful IMA
 
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Neil_V said:
Bold statement after posting a link to 'greentechmedia'

Not exactly cut and dry, despite the blog headline. FWIW, I'm not arguing one way or another, but I don't believe the possibility of potential battery related environmental issues should be discounted simply because 'not fossil fuel'
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A fair argument, but at least the article I linked to has some factual information based on reality. I agree it's not perfectly rosy either (which IMHO lends credence to the article) but it's based on reality a hell of a lot more than the Breitbart junk, that's for sure.

Brians response above is a cherry on top for proof of the fact the Breitbart article is slanted junk.[/quote]

Neil_V said:
Edit for Sunny.... I'm currently awaiting yet another replacement battery for Honda's woeful IMA
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:lmao:

On that note, I was checking stats this morning. Current tank of gas on the Volt is just under 1100KM, will probably end up at about 1150KM total when my wife buys gas after coming home from work this evening. Considering the tank is only 30L, I'm damn happy with that, especially considering she used to typically fill the 300 twice per week with twice as much gas.
 
Legitimate research studies always contain a discussion about the limitations of the study, known uncertainties, etc. The CO2 impact of an EV depends strongly on how materials are sourced and where the electricity comes from. It's known that, other factors being equal, there is more impact from manufacturing an EV than a conventional car. But it isn't drastically different. The main life cycle impact is from where the electricity to charge it comes from. Even if that source is coal, it's still more efficient. Here, it's largely nuclear.
 
Filled up today. My numbers I posted this morning were a little off, but here's the stats: 10 days since last fill up (so we are down to basically 3 visits to the gas station a month), 1041KM covered on that tank, car took 29.28L of gas for a calculated fuel economy of 2.81L/100KM.

Still disappointed that the workplace charging station hasn't happened yet (we'd be under 1L/100KM, going around 2250-2500KM per tank, and only visiting the gas station once a month), but hey, still pulling down some rightly awesome fuel economy figures even though my wife is using the engine every day for the return trip from Peterborough.
 
Typical workplace in my experience. Unless it's a crisis, it doesn't get done. And most crises are manufactured by management, they just call them 'strategic plans'.
 
Happy Canada day folks.

So last night I left my brothers place in Erin with a full charge. GF in the passenger seat we headed home. I had to take her home first about 12 kms east of where I live in North York, and then back-track west on Sheppard Ave to my place after I dropped her off.

I amazingly did the entire trip on electric only :happy2:



That's 87.7 KM's on the battery only.

....and just to make it even more amazing.



I have another 2km's left of battery range left. I most likely could have gone 90kms which is pretty amazing.

Now full disclosure, it wasn't the fastest drive home from Erin. :laughing9: I basically had the cruise set to the speed limit, and occasionally when no one was behind me, just under the limit. If it wasn't for the other motorists on the road this would be totally doable. However, just like the problem with people not moving over from the left lane to let cars pass, a lot of people seem to not like a car doing the speed limit in the right-most lane.
Every now and then I'd look in my rear view mirror and mutter 'Just go around ya moron." :???:
 
Looking good...my wife was on her way to a 70+KM all electric range today (all in town running around) but came home with about 60 on the clock and many left showing.
 
I wonder about the long term results if everyone went electric. Right now there is free fuel at work for some because it's politically correct.

If all 1500 employees of the Acme Rhubarb Company show up in EV's will Acme pick up the tab for chargers and free fuel?

If Ontario electricity rates went to prices that matched the disaster we call OPG etc what would be the real costs per Km?

In other words, what would a Kw of electricity cost if we had to in seven years make our electricity supply stable and debt free. That includes the cost of buying off the stupid guarantees given to wind and solar power producers. Basically a pipe dream. Too much smoke and mirrors for me.

Throw in no government incentives to buy electric.

If everyone in the condo or on the block put in massive chargers our distribution systems would need massive upgrades. Throw in those costs.

The Nissan Leaf website suggests $2,000.00 to install the home charger. Government rebate may apply. In other words, send the bill to your kids.
 
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The cost to install a level 2 charger at home is nowhere near that IF you're savvy - chargers can be had for a few hundred bucks on Amazon and getting an electrician in (if you not handy, I did my own) to run the 220V wire to the garage is maybe $400-$500 for most 30-40A circuits.

There is, of course, no need to install a level 2 charger at all as you can use a level 1 instead, albeit slower. Practical for a Volt, not so much for a Bolt or Tesla, obviously.

Yes, if you just call the first guy you find on Google and tell him money is no object, or you want a top of the line charger, like all things, it's going to cost more, but $2000 is crazy.

As for cost per KM, right now we are driving around on the equivalent of around $0.15-$0.20/L gas. Even if the price of electricity tripled we'd still be winning, and I don't see the price of electricity tripling anytime soon.

The argument about the effects of massive uptake and public chargers is a fair one, but not *all* those public chargers are free - some are charged at break even prices, and some are profit centers for businesses and such supplying the power. When the inevitable mass updatake happens I expect to see more public charging stations shift to pay per use, with even a profit margin in there for the station owner, which is fair enough. Even when this happens EV owners still win as the typical cost is still <50% of the cost of gas, and it's win-win for the station owner as well as they're more or less running a little "gas station" in their parking lot and making some coin along the way for little or no effort. Right now this exact scenario exists, but the chargers are set to charge nothing instead as it attracts customers. The Oshawa Centre (mall) is a great example - they have a bank of "Flo" charging stations that CAN charge fees based on whatever they config them for, but instead they are free in order to attract EV owners, and their cash.

And ultimately, we come full circle to the reality that most EV owners charge at home, so your own driveway is your own personal "Gas station" - it doesn't get much more convenient, especially when the price on the pump is $0.20/L equivalent, no? ;)

The argument about the grid not being able to hand it is false - look at the IESO website and see how much capacity goes unused during the overnight hours - there's an argument to be made that it could actually be a huge BENEFIT to our energy system for that energy to be consumed and earning profit vs paying other provinces and US states $6 billion dollars to take our overnight surpluses off our hands. Most EV owners charge at night at home because of the lower price of electricity, that $6B could actually end up in OPG's coffers (meaning indirectly less out of your own pockets down the road) - daytime charging is left to essential charging only, or typically, public stations where it doesn't matter, and the resulting load is very small compared to incentivized overnight charging at home.
 
All good points PP.

I'd like to add that I do NOT have a level 2 charger and rely on normal 120v outlets to charge, and installing a Level 2 charger shouldn't be nearly as much as the $2,000 mentioned.

I met an older fella with a Leaf and he was telling me about his charging station. The only one in Erin, he has it at the side of his Industrial building. He put it up on Plugshare and it's free for anyone to come and use because as he says "The cost of the electricity is nothing." He also mentioned installing it was very easy and he bought a used Level 2 charger off Kijiji like PP did for a song.

Though Noobie48 it is an interesting thought to wonder what it would be like if the majority of motorists had EV vehicles but from what I can see from the publics view on them, from people on forums, and people I speak to in person, it's not going to be in our lifetime. (maybe for the younger generation)
 
First Model 3 reaches the market this Friday they're saying.

100 cars in August, more than 1,500 in September and 20,000 per month in December..so they plan.

It's going to be an interesting 6 months!
 
It will be interesting for a lot longer than 6 months .... try like 10 years. It is just barely the beginning of something most people cannot even fathom yet .....
 
mxs said:
It will be interesting for a lot longer than 6 months .... try like 10 years. It is just barely the beginning of something most people cannot even fathom yet .....
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In the short term what interests me is if Tesla can actually sell what they will be producing – 20,000 cars per month will stack up very quickly if they're not actually being delivered to customers. I don't think they'll have any issue at all moving 20K/month for the first year or so (since rumour is they have around 500,000 deposits) but beyond that, well...20K/units a month will stack up quickly if people aren't buying en masse.

I know there's all those people with deposits placed for 3's, but they are refundable. When push starts to arrive at shove and their place in line nears, it will be interesting to see how many of those easily-refundable deposits actually translate to sales, especially if the roll out hits speed bumps in the next 6-12 months - all of the possible caveats I mentioned (limited parts and service facilities) as well as the fact the 3 is hardly "tried and tested" yet beyond a handful of early test models, well...there's my interest.

I hope Tesla does well with this as it will indeed revolutionize the industry IF the car turns out to be an actual good car. Unfortunately if it turns into a nightmare (build quality, service woes, or a high rate of problems) it could actually do far more damage to the EV industry than positive.

It will also be interesting to see how the Bolt fares in the next 12-18 months. People that are all hyped about the Model 3 but are now being told that even if they put down a reservation tomorrow they won't see their car until "late 2018" (Which could easily stretch into 2019 if there are problems) might be tempted to look elsewhere if GM decides to begin advertising the Bolt heavily in an effort to poach customers - that refunded $1000 Tesla deposit would make a nice Bolt downpayment. ;) They are very similar aside from the body style, and the Bolt actually has slightly more range as well which could be used as a selling point. Yes, it's not a Tesla and the brand does carry more cachet vs Chevrolet, no question, but the delays, and especially any unforeseen problems with the 3 could sully things for them in that regard.

Interesting indeed.
 
I hope Tesla gets the Model 3 roll out right, but I went for the Bolt because I couldn't wait until late 2018 "at the earliest". Not that waiting 3 to 6 months for a Bolt is that great either, but if I had been able to pull the trigger a month earlier I would have it already. GM is really irritating potential buyers with the way they have been handling the Bolt deliveries. 6000+ units sitting on dealer lots in 3 states, but god help you if you aren't in one of those states and want one.
 
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