Learn More About Gold Coast EV Charger Installations

Affordable Fleet EV Charger Installation Quotes Gold Coast TIPS...

If The Electricity To Power Electric Vehicles Comes From Fossil Fuel, Are They Really Better For The Environment And Do They Really Have A Smaller Carbon Footprint?

Comparison to Petrol/Diesel Cars

Even if all the electricity came from fossil fuel the coal power plants are more efficient at extracting energy than a car is. The Petrol/diesel engine also has severe limitations which means that it wastes energy.

A car requires an engine to operate over a range of speeds, rather than the speed it is most efficient at. An electric car recovers the energy of the car moving when you slow down and re-uses it to move the car. Electric motors are very efficient. Also, you can charge an EV from Solar PV - and many charge stations around the world have Solar PV panels to power them.

The calculation that lets anyone claim that a diesel car (a particularly efficient diesel car) can match an EV is based on the total assumed life cycle for the car. EVs are about to get a huge boost to the expected life cycle making their production CO2 so low per km that this will no longer be anywhere near true.

So worst case - if you buy an EV now then by next year it will pollute less than a very expensive top of the range diesel and in reality, the diesel will result in greater danger from pollution to you the driver and any passengers and other road users and people who live near the main roads than the EV will already because the calculation is based on the CO2 output only.

Petrol and especially diesel cars produce a lot of other pollutants including particulates and nitrogen oxides. The Nitrogen oxide level is usually higher in the cabin of a car than on the road outside. You are poisoning yourself by driving a petrol/diesel car. The diesel particulates also cause a lot of respiratory issues.

With EVs, these levels are lower even with fossil power stations, plus they are further away from the population, and of course that Coal power station is going away anyway, and you can get yourself a Solar PV array for your home and speed the death of the coal power station and charge your EV, or if you are in an apartment then use a charge station that is using green power.

Comparison to Gas Cars

An electric car is more efficient than a gas car for many reasons. Comparing the same vehicle in EV and not EV forms: Hyundai Kona EV 2020: 118 g/km compared to Hyundai Kona 2.0 MPI 2018: 205 g/km

That is when powered from a grid that is very largely coal - and is pretty much the worst-case for EVs. It’s still much better than the equivalent car. Of course, you don’t have to charge a car off of that grid energy mix. There are options such as solar power if you are charging in the daytime. Or using your solar at home to offset the CO2 by supplying the grid during the day.

Or storing the energy from your solar and using it to charge at night. In reality, as long as you generate the amount of power you are using it doesn't matter to the overall CO2 produced if you put it into your car or the grid. You are still reducing the CO2 by the same amount.

You can charge up at charging stations that buy green power and you can also charge up at charging stations that use Solar. For example, the grid in Australia is reducing its CO2 output on a daily basis as more Solar PV is installed.

The number of particulates produced is 60% - and the brake dust is reduced and near eliminated by EVs, which in itself is a reduction in pollution

EVs are reducing their CO2 output even after you buy one. The grid is improving so they all get better and better. Your Gas car will not improve.

As for the emissions for battery manufacturing - that does depend on the country of manufacture and the power mix used there, again though every country is improving its CO2 mix and the largest battery manufacturer (being Tesla) uses renewable energy and not the standard grid mix.

Even China is making huge reductions in their CO2 output as they need to because pollution is a huge problem for them. China is a big market for EVs partly because they want to be able to breathe in the big cities.

And the embedded battery production CO2 is largely from battery manufacture, not mining, etc. this is being done using renewable energy by Tesla.

Also, Tesla now owns a technology that reduces the biggest use of energy in battery cell manufacture. So, the energy used in cell manufacture will drop significantly, and the energy used in the batteries still does not make the EVs worse over their life cycle than regular cars, even before these improvements. Basically, on every front, the EVs now are better environmentally - and are getting better all the time.

Hybrids have been a good transitional technology. Driving a Hybrid makes it quite clear how much nicer an electric motor with region braking is to drive and going back to pure ICE cars is annoying now. We’d certainly want more of the electric part and less of the ICE. The car is so much more responsive, and it is nice when your brake pads hardly get used so don’t get replaced often.

Also yes, it is nicer to not have anywhere near the fumes in the Hybrid, being able to leave the car on if someone is in the car when parked. With an EV that would be even better. To argue that an EV doesn’t make much difference is really silly. At the very least it shifts much of the pollution out of the population centers, it does also reduce it overall.