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Waiting for “Perfection” Won’t jump-start the EV movement

The pessimists are at it again.  Last week Reuters ran a story suggesting electric cars still have a long way to go before they’re the “perfect solution” to our country’s transportation-related pollution woes.

Why wait for the perfect solution when a good solution with the room to grow into the perfect solution is already here?

The Reuters story quotes Jared Cohon, the chair of a National Research Council report dubbed “Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use,” as saying, “For electric vehicles to become a major green alternative, the power fuel mix has to move away from coal, or cleaner coal technologies have to be developed.”

We don’t dispute that the use of cleaner technologies is better, but what is missing from Reuters’ assessment is the fact that this ball is already rolling.  In California, for instance, only about 18% of the total electricity system power comes from coal plants and nearly 82% comes from a combination of large hydro, natural gas, nuclear, and renewable sources.  Today, coal-fired plants contribute less than 50% of the Nation’s electric power.

Even if the fuel production process for a gas car versus an electric car (refinement of gasoline and production of electricity) are net neutral in terms of total carbon emissions produced, we think driving an electric car is still a better option.   The total greenhouse gases created from charging and driving a battery electric car are less than those created from fueling and driving a gas engine car because electric motors are inherently much more efficient than internal combustion engines.  You see, the CODA electric motor is about 95% efficient while the typical internal combustion engine is about 20% efficient.   With only 20% efficiency, most of the gasoline burned in an internal combustion engine vehicle is emitted from the tailpipe rather than used as propulsion energy.  Less efficiency means more pollution.

So, while there is room to improve the level of upstream greenhouse gas emissions created when generating electricity, electric vehicles are still the cleaner solution.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 6:46 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. posted by Jeremy G March 26, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    It makes a great deal of economic sense for large fleet operators, particularly those in urban settings, to begin acquiring and operating large fleets of electric vehicles, because they can do math, and have the access to capital that justifies paying an up-front premium for a vehicle that will yeild a signifigant long-term savings. And let’s face it – if you’re going to park an electric vehicle – and you are, probably something like 14-16 hours a day, plus weekends – there’s a very real incentive for operators to intall solar arrays and wind generation onsite at their parking compounds, along with some battery storage, to recharge their vehicles and drive down their operating costs. This is amortizable, cost-effective, and will reduce emmissions from conventional electrical grid generation. Pretty good ‘win’ all-around. And if that’s not enough to drive electric vehicle adoption, just wait until people start treating the oil industry like they did the tobacco industry. Municipalities and States have legislated smoking in public buildings, and even restaurant patios ,out of existence, yet still allow people to idle in V-8 cars, right beside those same restaurant patios? There’s a cardiovascular penalty to all of us, that equates to a pack-a-day of circulatory impairment for urban dwellers, from breathing car exhaust. As EV’s gain a foothold, municipalities will likely start creating ZEV zones, prohibiting gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles in parts of urban cores. I for one, can’t wait to walk downtown without choking on exhaust fumes.

 
 

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