Introduction + Looking for links on EV vs. ICE CO2 footprint

[Assaf]

Hi all,

My name is Assaf. Our family has leased a 2012 Leaf for the past 11 months, but I joined the forum only last week.

Serendipity led us towards an EV last summer. Our only car was a 2001 Sante Fe. While we didn't drive it a lot, it does <15 MPG in-city. We were sick of that (mostly for environmental reasons), and besides the car was slowly dying. We started hesitating between a used Prius (while keeping the Santa Fe for long missions e.g. camping (we're a family of 5 plus a mid-size dog) - or getting a larger hybrid SUV. Meanwhile my wife saw a couple of EVs at local street fairs (including a rare Coda which the owners drove from California themselves) and met their super-enthusiastic owners. I still didn't guess that soon I'll become one of those going around and EVangelizing.

Long story short, in late August on a whim, after doing far less research than I've done on much smaller purchases, we went and leased a blue Leaf on an end-of-month sale. It's been nearly a year, and I've only become more and more obsessed with EVs as time goes on. We don't drive that much (close to 4k miles now), but vs. the Santa Fe we already saved some 270 gallons and nearly $1k on gas (we still kept the Santa Fe for those camping trips etc., but now the burden on it is minimal). Very quickly we discovered that for our needs trickle-charge alone is good enough.

Ok, here's what this post is really about. While our EV experience is fairly light and non-savvy, I have become somewhat on an EV blogger. I blog mostly at Daily Kos, the largest independent liberal blogging site with about 500,000 members and many more non-member readers (my page: assaf.dailykos.com). My readership is above-average although not huge. However, occasionally one posts a popular story that gets read by thousands, most of them people in support of environmental causes but not EV drivers themselves. My EV stories tend to be rather popular, and like everywhere else there is increased interest and entusiasm about EVs on that site. In short: an ideal target audience for education about EVs.

I have a few future posts already planned, and would like to solicit information and insight about them from this forum. The next one might be "Myths and misconceptions about Electric Vehicles". The biggest myth I'd like to kill in that post is that EVs are environmentally no better than ICE cars. I already know a fair bit about that, but would appreciate more links and information sources, especially from independent professional and academic sources.

In particular, the new boogie-man in anti-EV town is "life-cycle analysis". Presumably that's a huge skeleton in the EV closet. I'm not buying it, and have read the recent EPA review document that puts it in a more realistic perspective. What I'm curious about is whether anyone has done a serious ICE "life-cycle analysis" including of course the life-cycle wells-to-wheels CO2 impact of using gas/diesel. I believe such an analysis could be the nail in the coffin of the "EVs are not green" myth. Is anyone aware of such analyses being published?

Thanks and have a great Sunday!

Assaf

 

[Boomer23]

Hello and welcome. Thanks for your EV and enviro advocacy.

Use the search function and search for "environmental cost LEAF vs ICE".
You'll find a thread with lots of useful links to lifecycle analysis studies. Use caution in interpreting the study results. Some EV bashers have cherry-picked studies that base their info on huge electric motors rather than the small ones we use in EVs. Others base their EV usage data on the average CO2 impact of the whole US grid, though most EVs are located in areas where there is lots of hydro, nat gas and renewable energy. In addition, since annual mileage driven is significant in the calcs, some bashers have quoted erroneously short annual driving miles for EVs.

After reading some of the studies and speaking with cohorts, notably tbleakne on this forum, I've gotten the impression that the energy use impact of manufacturing EVs is greater than that of making -an equivalent ICE car, but not by as much as some would have you believe. Some of the greater impact is from the greater use of aluminum, which is energy intensive to produce.

The bottom line appears to be that the extra energy impact from EV construction is offset by the lower impact of the usage phase, given about 10k miles per year.

 

[Assaf]

Thanks Boomer23!

Yes, I've been around blogosphere and acadamic (and pseudo-academic) writing long enough to recognize fallacies when I see them, and in the anti-EV camp those fallacies are laid on thick.

I will look into the threads you recommend. AFAIK the missing link in terms of info, is an honest wells-to-wheels analysis of gas/diesel footprint.
Right now it seems the accepted consensus in "life-cycle analysis" is to go out of one's way to account for every gCO2 expended into an EV start to end of life (including of course the grid's impact) - while *not* doing the same for an ICE car. This is the corner I want to cover in my post. I hope to find some links in those threads!

 

[Boomer23]

Of course, consider also that many EV drivers have home solar, or a few even wind powered systems, so the use phase energy usage argument is far better for those EVs. And at least EVs are ABLE to use renewables at any point in their lifecycle, while ICEs are not able to do so. And of course you are familiar with the argument that the public grid can get cleaner over time, while oil won't.

With US market LEAFs being built in Tennessee, the manufacturing power source is more readily identified than Japan sourced LEAFs. I haven't seen any info about the source of that plant's power, but doesn't Tennessee have a lot of hydro? By the way, the aluminum content on the 2013 LEAF is way down from the earlier cars due to steel doors replacing the aluminum ones on the older cars, so that should reduce the manufacturing energy use impact.

Another big factor in the lifecycle calcs is the assumption of when a replacement battery pack will be required. For the LEAF, this will vary considerably by the region of use, with hot summer regions needing battery replacement much sooner, and cool summer regions possibly not needing replacement ever in a ten year span. EVs with TMS will need fewer replacements than cars like LEAF, but TMS is energy consuming, so no free lunch there. The bashers also forget to include battery pack recycling as a mitigator of replacement battery energy impact.

Tesla Model S is a big target for the bashers for many reasons, but given its large battery pack and extensive use of Aluminum, it takes a greater number of use phase miles to offset the manufacturing phase energy use cost. It's also less efficient to operate than a smaller, lighter EV.

 

[madhaus]

Hi Assaf! You might remember me from Daily Kos as well. I haven't blogged about EVs but pipe up in the comments when the subject comes up. I've had my LEAF since December 2011 and we got solar installed in April 2012. Those fake lifecycle studies drive me up the wall. There's the one from Norway which was paid for by oil money, there's that opinon piece in IEEE recently that is being passed off as a factual study, and there's one more. Grrrr.

Anyway, good to see you here.

 

[Assaf]

Hi Assaf! You might remember me from Daily Kos as well. I haven't blogged about EVs but pipe up in the comments when the subject comes up. I've had my LEAF since December 2011 and we got solar installed in April 2012. Those fake lifecycle studies drive me up the wall. There's the one from Norway which was paid for by oil money, there's that opinon piece in IEEE recently that is being passed off as a factual study, and there's one more. Grrrr.

Anyway, good to see you here.

Thanks Madhaus for the greetings! Yes, these are the type of studies I would like to counter in that blog post. Will have to find the time for it though...

 

[WetEV]

there's that opinon piece in IEEE recently that is being passed off as a factual study

Best reply for the IEEE opinion piece is the IEEE opinion piece in 2001 that argues that gasoline hybrids would never pay off, unless gasoline exceeded $0.94 per liter. That's about $3.55 per gallon. We will never see that, of course. :lol:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/advanced-cars/are-hybrid-vehicles-worth-it" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[GRA]

Try this link at Green Car Congress:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/lifecycle_analysis/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[GRA]

Try this link at Green Car Congress:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/lifecycle_analysis/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lots of peer-reviewed reports there, covering all aspects of transportation.