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xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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I feel like this is directed towards ICE vs EV cars. If that's the case, it's sort of frustrating.
EVs have some very real drawbacks. Even if those drawbacks are solvable problems, they are still problems right now. Pushing this narrative that EVs are universally better or that the biggest hurdle to adoption is irrational consumer sentiment will just make people feel gaslit. It'll also make people more hesitant to adopt later on, because they'll be skeptical of positive reviews that are honest.
ok, what are those drawbacks?
Battery cost pushing up vehicle cost, battery replacement cost, battery weight, low battery energy density, batteries that only last half of a car lifespan of 20 years.
We need much better batteries.
For now, plug in Hybrids are a good way to avoid many of these problems.
I agree. ICE vehicles usually have more range, fuel is basically available everywhere, they take minutes to fill, and generally have a cheaper initial cost.
In addition to that, ICE cars, though needing more maintenance, have repair shops in just about every village, town, city.... often several of them.
I feel like EVs are a bit of a glass cannon when it comes to anything that might go wrong with them. Whatever goes wrong is very likely to cause the vehicle to stop operation entirely. Most ICE cars will either just keep working when something is wrong, or at worst go into a limp mode, allowing you to get to a repair shop to have the vehicle repaired.
I understand why EVs are the way they are, high voltage electricity is no joke, but then you need a tow truck to get to the service center that's likely much further away.
EVs are great, don't get me wrong, but if you're planning for the worst case and/or failure cases, ICE vehicles just fail more gradually, frequently giving you some leeway to take care of the problem well before the vehicle completely stops working.
EVs are also a major issue for firefighters. Lithium ion battery fires following an accident are ridiculously hard to put out and present a significant safety hazard in confined spaces, like tunnels or narrow streets. It takes close to 6 times the water to control EV vehicle fires.
And while it's a more minor issue, EVs are heavier than ICE vehicles in the same class, which causes more road wear and more tire wear (and more micro plastics to enter the environment).
And, I guess, finally, there's no established break-even point for carbon emissions over ICE vehicles. The estimates provided in the literature vary wildly--from 13,000 miles to 94,000.
I love the technology, but I hope solid state batteries become a viable option for EVs.
I’ll buy more tire wear and microplastics, but argue the reduction in carbon emissions still makes it a better choice. However I don’t think there’s a noticeable difference in road wear. We’ve all heard the claim that road wear increases dramatically with weight, but compared to large trucks, EVs are still in the category of “close to zero”
I once read an article that I wish I kept, that addressed this (for US) by calculating per state, based on each state’s typical energy portfolio. While you’d really need your local energy portfolio, state level really improved accuracy and gave something you could use.
West Virginia and Wyoming really stood out. As the two states still getting most of their electricity from coal the break-even is further out - I think it was as long as 14 years typical driving. Don’t buy an EV yet if you live in those states, unless you have solar.
Several states with more renewables or nuclear, had break-even as low as 2 years typical driving.
For most of us, the breakeven is low enough to consider the switch. It’s important to remember that electricity generation is getting cleaner all the time, even in Wyoming, so it’s quite likely the break-even point will move toward you over the years of owning a vehicle
Easy solution is to move to Indiana. Our environment means that almost every day from November through April, the temperatures will be in the 30s-50s in the day and 10-20 at night, so the pavement is constantly cracking. Combine that with the lack of investment in infrastructure (Indy literally has a ban on new streetlights and stop lights going back to the 80s) and it doesn't matter how heavy the car is, the pavement will be just as broken.
By this logic, we would have never moved from horses... which may have actually been a good thing hehehe
Trying to convince people not to burn gas will make them feel gaslit lmao
Those drawbacks are endlessly discussed online, to a ridiculous degree. Nothing is universally better, but EVs are almost as close as it gets. If there weren't several whole industries dead set on preventing adoption they would have been adopted much quicker.