Sorry, Sparky

[Unkotare]

Could be a lot of folks driving electric cars are proud of themselves for saving the planet, but the truth is electric cars don't necessarily do a damn thing for the environment.

 

[elektra]

Electric Cars, a novelty for the rich, require there own filling station, so the infrastructure to support electric cars is 1000's of times larger than a car that shares a gas station with 10's of thousands of cars.

 

[Wuwei]

The cost of practically all large consumer goods are mostly in materials and labor. You might think that a mineral such as copper is an exception. That's not true. Copper used to be cheap because huge, almost pure ingots were in the ground, but today they are gone and the price of copper is driven by mining huge pits with huge trucks spiraling down to be filled with ore that contain only 1% copper. That ore has to be driven back out of the pit to a factory that crushes the rock to get the minuscule amount of copper. All that takes energy and more energy. So the price of copper and other metals is driven by energy. There is less and less labor costs because of automation.

So when you pay a premium for an electric car, you are paying up front for the extra energy that goes into the more exotic materials used in electric car manufacturing. The car will be more energy efficient, but it takes several years to amortize that extra cost in manufacturing. If you keep the car a long time you will eventually break even (if the car doesn't break down first.)

The above is an oversimplification but it is big factor in the energy economy of an electric car.

 

[Granny]

This is NOT this Granny ... but I would probably be in much the same shape.

Watch Granny Freak Out While Driving A Tesla on Autopilot - Inside Edition

 

[Crick]

Could be a lot of folks driving electric cars are proud of themselves for saving the planet, but the truth is electric cars don't necessarily do a damn thing for the environment.

A vehicle that effectively gets, say, 100 mpg, IS better for the planet than one that gets 14.

 

[elektra]

Could be a lot of folks driving electric cars are proud of themselves for saving the planet, but the truth is electric cars don't necessarily do a damn thing for the environment.

A vehicle that effectively gets, say, 100 mpg, IS better for the planet than one that gets 14.

Sure, but the discussion is about electric cars.

Which car gets 14 mpg? Or which get 100 mpg? I guess to further the argument of electric cars, work, it is best to lie a little more.

 

[Wuwei]

The cost of practically all large consumer goods are mostly in materials and labor.

Correction I meant to say energy and labor. But I later clarified it by equating the cost of materials to energy.

One further note. A gasoline engine requires an efficient conversion of energy to motion right under the hood. This conversion is done by thousands of cars in slow moving traffic. In electric cars, the conversion of energy is largely done at a central plant, and that can be a more efficient conversion than pistons and exploding gas. The emission and pollution standards of a gasoline engine have to be built in the car (remember VW and their diesel engines), but with electric cars, it has to be built in a central plant. That would take the onus of compliance away from the vehicle manufacture.

I think in principle electric cars would be a better choice if the energy required to build them were significantly reduced, but that hasn't quite happened yet.

 

[Unkotare]

Electric Cars Are Not Necessarily Clean

 

[jc456]

Could be a lot of folks driving electric cars are proud of themselves for saving the planet, but the truth is electric cars don't necessarily do a damn thing for the environment.

A vehicle that effectively gets, say, 100 mpg, IS better for the planet than one that gets 14.

and?