Electric vehicles’ benefits to reducing carbon emission compared to regular gas powered cars are virtually non-existent. A new report in USA Today points out that, contrary to popular views perpetuated by “green” activists, electric cars cost taxpayers a fortune and do little to cut CO2. After all, an electric car “shifts emissions to electricity production, with most coming from fossil fuels (meaning coal).
For example, over a Nissan Leaf’s 90,000-mile lifetime it will emit about 31 metric tons of CO2. That’s based on emissions from its production, electricity consumption at average U.S. fuel mix and its ultimate scrapping. USA Today reports that a comparable diesel Mercedes CDI A160 “over a similar lifetime will emit 3 tons more across its production, diesel consumption and ultimate scrapping.” Similarly, a top-line Tesla car will emit about 44 tons with a similar Audi A7 Quattro coming in at 5 tons less.
The electric car preforms slightly better in both match-ups. However, it’s not enough to make a difference especially when one considers the cost of electric cars (via tax breaks) to taxpayers. USA Today,
Avoiding 3 tons of CO2 would cost less than $27 on Europe’s emissions trading market. The annual benefit is about the cost of a cup of coffee. Yet U.S. taxpayers spend up to $7,500 in tax breaks for less than $27 of climate benefits. That’s a bad deal.
Moreover, according to new research from the National Academy of Science, coal-fired power pollutes a lot more than gasoline cars closer to home. In other words, the idea that electric cars lower air pollution because the coal emissions on which they depend are far away from city centers where most people live and damage from air pollution hits hardest is—simply put—ridiculous in the bigger picture.
Yet, despite the evidence, Jay Inslee still wants to spend a few million taxpayer dollars attempting to get more electric vehicles on the road through a scheme that’s already proven ineffective. Our green governor would like to extend the tax breaks for purchases of electric vehicles, which is set to expire this year. And, he would also like taxpayers to subsidize the installation of rapid-charging stations for private firms to operate and the ferry fares and tolls of electric car drivers.
As Shift reported, the incentives are unnecessary, favor mainly the wealthy, and are costly to the state’s taxpayers. Additionally, many of these incentives have failed in other states. Now we know that not only are the incentives of achieving the goal (more electric cars on the road) detrimental to taxpayers, but the goal itself is useless for reducing carbon emissions.
They were ok as slot cars……….
I’m guessing I’ve landed on an oil company lobbyist sponsored page here…. We’re talking about Washington here, right? Where do you get your misinformation? Washington produces some of cleanest power in the US. An electric vehicle uses less power than it takes to GENERATE the same gallon of gas for the average 20 mpg SUV clogging the roads in WASHINGTON. Then there is the fuel and co2 expended to get the gas to the gas stations, then the cars burn the gas and generate co2. Now, you want to talk subsidies, there are billions of taxpayer $$$’s going to oil companies as subsidies, far more than the rebates and tax breaks extended to EV drivers. Without the continued subsidies, what would the TRUE price of gas be? $10/$12/gal? Let the price run up that far and see how many folks abandon thier gas burning rig for something CLEAN.
You are correct we are talking about Washington. We would produce some of the “cleanest” power in the nation but according to our governor hydropower isn’t “green.” The energy produced in this state varies from utility to utility but averages about 40% hydro, 30% coal, 20% natural gas And 10% everything else. And those big bad oil companies? They average about $0.07 profit per gallon sold. The federal government gets $0.184 per gallon in tax. The state of Washington makes %0.375 per gallon of gas sold. Now tell me, who is more likely to want you to buy gasoline? Those dirty oil lobbyists or big government? Electric vehicles aren’t as clean as people think they are. Not only are they powered by coal, but what do you do with those batteries after they run their course?
Where you guys get the coal from? WA disbanded the coal mine and doesn’t allow freight train carrying coal across the State, unless it changed.
Ah, nothing like seeing enviros reacting to data that challenges their religious belief in EVs.
Sure, hydropower is “cleaner” than fossil fuel-generated electricity, but only so much cleaner. And envirofundamentalists want to limit further hydro projects in BC and other places, because of impacts on salmon, etc. Not to begin the lather they get into growing nuclear power, or even wind farming, if it blocks their views or might kill some migrating raptors.
EVs will only begin to be a reasonable alternative for the majority of drivers when battery technology gives them a driving range and load capacity comparable to high-efficiency hybrid/gasoline/diesel/natural gas; until then, I and most other drivers have NO use for cars that can barely get from Seattle to Tacoma and back before requiring lengthy recharging.
And envirofundamentalists want to limit further hydro projects in BC and other places, because of impacts on salmon, etc. Not to begin the lather they get into growing nuclear power, or even wind farming, if it blocks their views or might kill some migrating raptors
That’s called “looking at the big picture,” and we don’t apologize for doing it.
EVs will only begin to be a reasonable alternative for the majority of drivers when battery technology gives them a driving range and load capacity comparable to high-efficiency hybrid/gasoline/diesel/natural gas; until then, I and most other drivers have NO use for cars that can barely get from Seattle to Tacoma and back before requiring lengthy recharging.
Of course. What will better drive the need for the extensive research and development of better mobile devices for energy storage — more electric cars, or fewer?
One hundred years ago, you would have had great trouble getting “from Seattle to Tacoma and back” via automobile in one day, due to poor roads alone. Horse and buggy can tolerate rutted tracks; cars need smooth, hard surfaces. The extensive pavement laid down over the past hundred years was a huge public subsidy to private automobiles, which we gladly paid for the benefits it provided. Now, we should pay a similar subsidy for electric cars, because that will pay large, long-term benefits as well.
Speaking of “looking at the big picture,” that’s what a critical look at EVs or other panaceas is intended to be. I’m not saying that EVs are completely without merit. But the hype for them and other forms of “green” transportation and power generation overlooks inconvenient facts, like the carbon emissions that go into building EVs, generating the juice in most states and countries to charge them, and other downstream costs (such as battery disposal). Ethanol sounded wonderful until one looks at the costs of production and crappy return in terms of energy per unit, to say nothing of the subsidies needed.
If you haven’t read Bjorn Lomborg (The Skeptical Enviromentalist), do so.
The idea that any one technology is a “panacea” is nowhere found in the extensive literature, both technical and popular, that I have ever read on the topic of energy efficiency. Engineering is all about trade-offs, compromises, and limitations, not “silver bullet” thinking.
…like the carbon emissions that go into building EVs, generating the juice in most states and countries to charge them, and other downstream costs (such as battery disposal).
Those are all valid concerns. This post didn’t engage rational concerns; it used an ecological fallacy, a bait-and-switch sales technique, and it ignored the industrial realities of mass production. If the case against EVs was really that good, why these inherent dishonesties in argument?
To power gasoline-powered vehicles, we pay huge amounts of money to regimes which export as much Islamic extremism as they do oil. We then haul the oil half-way around the world, refine it, and truck it to a huge number of distribution points. That’s all very costly, in many ways, and we should be looking at a range of replacement solutions. Posts like this one do nothing for our national interest.
“I’m guessing I’ve landed on an oil company lobbyist sponsored page here…. ” You cannot ass u me that it is a oil company sponsored page, because it doesn’t say what you want to hear it doesn’t mean anything that you think.
Bullshit. Who’s paying you? Texaco? Shell? API?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfTiRNzbSko&feature=youtu.be
This shiftwa site is so full of lies and half-truths. Why don’t they disclose who their major donors are? Anyone want to bet on the filthy fossil fuels industry or the Koch suckers?
Aww someone doesn’t like the lefty assholes in Wa. being exposed.
Because everything on YouTube is real. You No-Mind.
We produce hydro power, but if you look into that fact, we send a large chunk of hydro power to California…most of the power produced & consumed in the Puget Sound region is produced at the oil refineries in Skagit & Whatcom counties, and the paper mills in Kelso, WA. Also, Hanford produces a VERY LARGE amount of electricity…That is produced by nuclear means, which is pretty clean, but very dirty in the as far as the waste is concerned. Also the wind farms near Ellensburg produce a chunk of electricity, but think about the resources consumed to build those…all the welding involved, created massive amounts of emissions…there is no real clear clean winner…it’s all about us as individuals cutting back on our personal consumption….so in the end, to assume that an electric car is more eco friendly than a gas consuming vehicle is misleading….yes it is while being driven, but when you charge it at night, you are offsetting the gas pump emissions….and the factories that build both kinds of vehicles use the exact same resources to build them, and destroy them, so no advantage there….
This is one of the funniest posts yet. The mangling of science and engineering is truly amazing. Decades of denial toward evolution and global warming have given the American right wing amazing skills of obfuscation, misdirection, ignorance, and blatant lying.
First, we have the national example applied to the state of Washington. Statisticians call this the ecological (!) fallacy — the belief that any member of a population must exhibit exactly the average value(s) for the overall population. As other commenters have noted, Washington state’s energy profile differs considerably from the country’s profile as a whole; Washington has much hydro, wind, and nuclear power. Once constructed, hydro-power, wind power, and nuclear power have *no* emissions of any kind.
(The local right wing might recall the “ecological fallacy” from our disputed Governor’s election of 2004. The losers argued in court that felons who voted in liberal-leaning districts had voted exactly as had their neighbors with legitimate votes. Judge Bridges correctly noted this was an example of the “ecological fallacy,” and noted that other evidence of how felons voted showed their votes were not skewed towards liberal candidates.)
Next, we have the classic bait-and-switch sale tactic. The first paragraph talks of “regular gas powered cars…”, but the second paragraph cites a diesel automobile — diesel engines have better fuel economy, and thus lower emissions, than gasoline-powered engines. Continuing the false comparison, a high-end diesel automobile is compared against an ordinary electric vehicle.
We end with the coal-to-electric comparison, again not proper in the case of Washington state.
If this post wasn’t sponsored by an oil company, the author missed a great revenue opportunity.
Your decomposition of the ecological fallacy is correct, yet misguided. The state of Washington does produce a significant amount of hydropower but in the last few years we have seen that more and more of this power is being sent out of state. The main reason for this is that because we can charge more out of state where it is still considered “green” and “renewable” whereas in this state it is not. You talk about how we as a state produce significant wind power, which is just flat out wrong. Our state ranks 27th in average wind speed. Not conducive to producing power from the wind. We do rank in the top 10 (7th) in total wind capacity installed but without constant high speed winds the turbines we do have never come close to reaching peak production. Add to this the fact that the wind blows the most during the spring when the temperature on the west side of the state is less than the temperature on the east side creating a pressure difference causing the wind to blow. Hydropower also peaks in the spring when the snow start to melt and our rivers crest. Guess what, it is not possible to store energy rendering wind almost useless. With all the wind turbines we have in this state wind power still only counted for less than 7% of our total energy production as a state. Wind costs on average about 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Coal is around 2 cents per kilowatt hour. Do you want you energy bill to increase by a factor of 5? I know I don’t.
As far as your argument about comparing gas to diesel, you are correct that is a fault of the author, not the whole right wing.
Finally, just a side note as far as the gubernatorial election of 2004 is concerned, it is amazing how when more dead people vote democrat each recount eventually the democratic candidate will win one. Crazy!
Jerry — my point about the “ecological fallacy” was that the author assumed the profile of Washington state’s energy supplies were the same as the country as a whole. That assumption is dead flat wrong, and as a result, the entire post is dishonest garbage. (If you haven’t seen the wind turbines across Eastern Washington, I suggest you tour that region via air, as I have many times.)
As far as your argument about comparing gas to diesel, you are correct that is a fault of the author, not the whole right wing.
That sleazy bait-and-switch is pretty well indicative of a widespread attitude towards science exhibited by the American right wing, brought by chronic denials of evolution and climate change.
Finally, you people really need to review Judge Bridges’ ruling, which describes how felons voted for Rossi, and then admit that you lost. Really, that was a decade ago.
I have seen the wind turbines across central Washington, in fact, as an electrical engineer employed by Puget Sound Energy I have gotten tours and physically been inside those turbines. Our energy profile in the state of Washington would be greener without those wind turbines than it is with them. They are expensive, inefficient, and peak at the wrong times. Nationally 40-60% of our energy profile is coal depending on the time of year. That number does indeed drop in this state, to 25-40% depending on the time of year. And it could drop even more if we had competent politicians in Olympia that knew something about energy.
The difference between right wingers and left wingers is not that one denies evolution and climate change, but that the right wing looks at the bigger picture. Evolution is real. Does it disprove creationism? No it does not. So if it doesn’t deny why can’t we have discussions on both? Why can we only teach evolutionism? Why not teach everything and let people decide what they want to believe themselves? How about we be more open to other views? Climate change is happening. The right wing doesn’t deny this fact. The right wing denies that we need to spend money and take away economic gain because of it. The world is a living breathing changing organism. The climate will change regardless of what we do. Species will go extinct. The world will evolve. How much CO2 we dump into the atmosphere is not something we need to pass legislation on.
And it was a decade ago, you were the one who brought it up originally.
“competent politicians”. Guess that’s not going to happen.
Nationally 40-60% of our energy profile is coal depending on the time of year. That number does indeed drop in this state, to 25-40% depending on the time of year.
Thank you for confirming that the basic premise of this post is wrong.
They are expensive, inefficient, and peak at the wrong times.
Compared to what? An internal combustion engine in an automobile? An electric car, powered by electricity harvested from a wind turbine, is far more efficient than a gasoline-powered motor. Gasoline has a much more expensive path to the tank than does electricity to the car battery, and the heat engine itself has a tiny fraction of the electric motor’s efficiency.
… but that the right wing looks at the bigger picture.
No, you didn’t. You made a simplistic comparison. Where in your analysis was the cost of extracting the crude oil, the cost of transporting it to a refinery, the cost of refining it, and the cost of transporting the gasoline to a large number of stations? All of that needs to be counted into the overall cost (in dollars and in carbon emissions) of operating the gasoline-powered internal-combustion motor.
That number does indeed drop in this state, to 25-40% depending on the time of year.
Didn’t WA get rid of coal mining company? Did the Chinese buy it by any chance? Also, I thought WA doesn’t allow trains transporting coal through the State. So where do they get the coal from?
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In order to get CO2 reduced is to eliminate cows because of their methane fluctuance, factories all the world, all people because we are a mathane fluctuance machines.
See, you were doing ok then you got worked up again, it’s this kinda talk that makes everybody dislike you.
Jerry says your misguided, which is a nice way of saying you know absolutely nothing about the subject.
Not worth a detailed fact checking, but a cautionary note to those who read that this post. Washington has a much greener grid than the country as a whole, so the statements that hold true about the rest of the country do not hold true here. I’d also suggest to Shift that recognizing our grid as clean, and promoting using more of it is as a pro local economy and pro environment solution, more effectively retorts the need for cap and trade or carbon tax – which would cause real economic harm.
Looks like Eric took a Right turn…….
one thing mentioned is europs so called carbon credits on link was a show on how 9 billion euros have been stolen from the system by organized crime, and many credits purchased often by individuals who think they were helping when the credits were investigated they were from a water filter scam who based it on if people who did not boil water would use the filter instead but in reality they cannot afford to boil there water and they do not use the filters either. and they showed windmills in china twisting in the wind with no power lines connected and they may not even have a generator inside. and the conclusion of the story net result no co2 reduction and less nuke plants and many more coal plants since there cheap to build and run. in another story the off shore win dfarm in Germany has failed power was too much for the infrastructure and it damaged the transmission plants making the power unusable after many euros and it will cost millions or billions more investments in major power plans need to be both good engineering, planing and execution with market value since the ethanol debacle which raised the cost of food to people who can least afford it. electric cars should succeed or fail in the marketplace not tax money