It takes more electricity to run a gas car than an EV...

Interesting article by a Mini-E driver, via Autoblog Green:

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/14/how-gas-cars-use-more-electricity-to-go-100-miles-than-evs-do/

"If we simply count the electricity used to make the gasoline that gets burned in a normal vehicle, you need more juice than you do to move an EV the same distance. Of course, then you need to factor in the actual gasoline used (and the resulting CO2 emissions). Plus, don't forget, it takes a bunch of water to refine gasoline. Put this all together and you've got one hell of an energy efficiency argument in favor of plug-in vehicles."

Great answer to the "trading a tail pipe for a smoke stack" argument.

Cool. Shared on FB.

Cool. So at 5mpkWh, I am getting 40 miles per negative gallon. That is, 40 miles for every gallon of gas we don't produce.

I searched a little and found this article that sheds a little light on where the 8kWh/g figure comes from (6kWh + guess on transport costs):
http://solarchargeddriving.com/news...ectricity-than-evs.html#.Tpl7e39zw3Y.facebook

When I got my LEAF, I looked closely at my LADWP electric bill for the first time, and I noticed I had the option of choosing to have a percentage of my power come from "green" sources. Since I am not ready to install solar yet, I like this option. You pay a little more for the power, but I also figure it is an investment in green energy. Vote with my money and all that.

http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp001924.jsp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How do the green electrons know to go only to your house??? :lol:

Frankly, knowing the LADWP, it appears to be more of a scam than anything else to me...

JustinC said:

When I got my LEAF, I looked closely at my LADWP electric bill for the first time, and I noticed I had the option of choosing to have a percentage of my power come from "green" sources. Since I am not ready to install solar yet, I like this option. You pay a little more for the power, but I also figure it is an investment in green energy. Vote with my money and all that.

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TomT said:

How do the green electrons know to go only to your house??? :lol:

Frankly, knowing the LADWP, it appears to be more of a scam than anything else to me...

JustinC said:

When I got my LEAF, I looked closely at my LADWP electric bill for the first time, and I noticed I had the option of choosing to have a percentage of my power come from "green" sources. Since I am not ready to install solar yet, I like this option. You pay a little more for the power, but I also figure it is an investment in green energy. Vote with my money and all that.

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+1

And I will add my local PG&E to that list.

JustinC said:

Interesting article by a Mini-E driver, via Autoblog Green:
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/14/how-gas-cars-use-more-electricity-to-go-100-miles-than-evs-do/
"If we simply count the electricity used to make the gasoline that gets burned in a normal vehicle, you need more juice than you do to move an EV the same distance."

Click to expand...

Regrettably, not everything in Autoblog Green is reliable, and this statement is not true. See the following discussions earlier on this board:
Gas vs Electric... material for discussion
7.5 kWh of electricity to produce a gallon of gasoline?

Look, I am as strong an advocate for electric vehicles as you are likely to find anywhere, but it doesn't help our cause to use bad science. That will result in people dismissing us as simply spreading FUD. If you want to talk about the amount of energy required to produce a gallon of gasoline, fine. We have a strong argument there. But, please, don't make these false claims about how much electricity it takes.

Ray

I don't think that just because not all the energy comes in the form of electricity makes it invalid. I found the Argonne paper describing how they arrived at 85-90% and this is intended to be well-to-pump efficiency and includes energy from sources such as LPG and hydrogen. Either of which can be readily converted to electricity. Presumably if they didn't have access to either they would have to consume an equivalent amount of electrical energy to perform the process (i.e. electrolysis to generate hydrogen, etc). So I think the argument holds.

planet4ever said:

JustinC said:

Interesting article by a Mini-E driver, via Autoblog Green:
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/14/how-gas-cars-use-more-electricity-to-go-100-miles-than-evs-do/
"If we simply count the electricity used to make the gasoline that gets burned in a normal vehicle, you need more juice than you do to move an EV the same distance."

Click to expand...

Regrettably, not everything in Autoblog Green is reliable, and this statement is not true. See the following discussions earlier on this board:
Gas vs Electric... material for discussion
7.5 kWh of electricity to produce a gallon of gasoline?

Look, I am as strong an advocate for electric vehicles as you are likely to find anywhere, but it doesn't help our cause to use bad science. That will result in people dismissing us as simply spreading FUD. If you want to talk about the amount of energy required to produce a gallon of gasoline, fine. We have a strong argument there. But, please, don't make these false claims about how much electricity it takes.

Ray

Click to expand...

I've continued to ruminate on this, and you can take it even further. The refining process (crude->gasoline) is 80-85% efficient. ICE efficiency is 20-25%. Thermal power generation is 40-50% efficient. EV efficiency is 75-80%. Ground to wheels:

ICE = 80-85% * 20-25% = 15-20%
EV = 40-50% * 75-80% = 30-40%

So, we could theoretically double the energy efficiency of the transportation sector by using crude oil to produce electricity instead of refining it into gasoline. Although gasoline has a very high energy density, internal combustion engines are horribly inefficient. GM could double the (gas) MPG rating of the Volt by replacing the ICE generator with a Stirling engine.