Tell me again why I'm supposed to like electric cars

[maxwellwedge]

remember when gas was "cheap"?  there has never been a "gas shortage" just the control of inventory by those producing it, then the taxes started, then the people producing most of what we use, read CANADIANS, decide to keep raising the prices.  yes OPEC sets the price but you don't hear the canadians arguing about either

Huh?

We pay way more for gas than you do. How is $5.00 per Gallon? How much are you paying? And the Canadian people don't own the oil......Big Oil owns the oil.

[Ghoste]

Big Oil being US companies perchance?    In any case, you don't hear the American oil companies whine when OPEC hikes theprice either.  For that matter, Wall Street investors coming on the high side of the commodity speculation are usually okay with it too.  OPEC just makes a good easily identified target.
As for being a minority when it comes to electric car love, I'm sure the millions of gasoline powered auto purchasers last year are in full agreement that the hundreds of people who bought electric cars were the ones who made the better decision.

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/chevy-volt-and-nissan-leaf-sales-figures

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/nissan-leaf-sales-rise-in-january

http://www.auto-industry-news.co.cc/automotive-news-update/volt-sales-are-kicking-the-leafs-butt.html

http://gm-volt.com/2011/01/03/volt-beats-leaf-in-december-sales-but-will-350-lease-deal-end/


Of course I've also long maintained that the majority aren't automatically right just because they are the majority but I still wanted to make the other point.

[69_500]

Ghoste your safe. There is not a single logical reason fo one to like the electric cars. Its plain and simple.

[mauve66]

of course he does have that ELECTRIC green car in his avatar................. maybe he's just not ready to come out of the closet....................

[Ghoste]

Technically it was Citron Yella.

[mauve66]

tomato/tomata   

[twodko]

Potato/Patata

[bull]

Let's call the whole thing off.

[A383Wing]

Let's call the whole thing off.

you got my vote 

[defiance]

I've shown the math behind the economics: unless electricity prices go WAY up (around double the INCREASE in gas prices - meaning if gas goes up 50%, electricity would have to double), an electric car will save money for pretty much anyone who is not harmed by the limitations (making it a perfect fit for nearly any two-car family: one gas, one electric).  But a repeated concern has been that the environmental impact is deceptive.  And there's some validity to that, definitely; the Marketing certainly doesn't address several points. 

The big ones I can think of are pollution impacts "upstream" (mostly coal pollutants), and battery disposal.  I think one that hasn't been mentioned could also impact the 'independence' angle: sources of chemicals needed for the batteries.

So I've been doing some digging, and here's what I've found:



First, on the upstream impacts.  The ACEEE claims to do that in their yearly environmental impact rankings.  They state that, "Of course, the generation and distribution of the electricity used to charge the battery — and the resultant emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants — are not reflected in [comparing gas prices to electricity prices]. Taking those losses into account, as well as the corresponding refining and distribution losses associated with gasoline, the electric vehicle's energy and emissions advantage over the hybrid vehicle is reduced, but not eliminated."

Based on the emissions of production, supply, and operation combined, they still gave the Nissan leaf a tie for top spot this year (tied with a civic GX - a natural gas vehicle), with a ranking of 54 on their arbitrary scale.  The top spots in compacts had a number of hybrids that were extremely close as well, and the top pure gas vehicles were the chevy cruze eco (ranking 49) and ford fiesta SFE (ranking 50). 

So based on their findings, the environmental angle is, to some extent, true - a pure electric is beating every gas vehicle on the market right now.  But on the other hand, not by much - There are hybrids just 1-2 points behind and pure gasoline cars just a couple more points down, and natural gas is right there with electric.

So yeah, it's overblown.  But I guess being one of the best on the market - whether by 1 point or 20 - isn't too bad though



Now what about the batteries.  Two issues come to mind here: manufacture and disposal.  Let's address disposal first. 

First point - no chemicals in lithium-ion batteries are toxic.  These aren't like nickel-cadmium, and they don't actually contain any metallic lithium.  Nothing you want to grind up and mix in your drinking water, obviously, but not toxic.  Still, toxic or not, we don't want a bunch of them stacking up in landfills, right?  Well, someone here stated that there was no process in place for recycling them.  That's simply not true.  http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/recycling_batteries  Companies have been recycling lithium ion batteries for years- mostly tech companies with laptop batteries.  The process is well defined and relatively inexpensive - and high-gain.  A recycled lithium-ion battery results in quite a valuable return for the recycler.  Also, some of the companies that have a history recycling lithium batteries in smaller applications are already gearing up their EV battery recycling capabilities (example toxco), so they'll be ready to cash in as soon ast there are some of them to recycle.  Also, umicore http://www.batteryrecycling.umicore.com/ claims "...recycling rates are above 90% for lithium ion batteries...".  Not sure whether the US recyclers are quite that efficient or not, but I'd bet they're close. 

The last point is the one that concerns me personally, lithium supply.  Right now, there are only a few suppliers of lithium - bolivia, chile, china, and Afghanistan is joining the party now.  There are untapped supplies in many locations, but the question is, is it enough.  Some analysts have claimed the untapped supply in Chile alone is plenty, but it's a matter of contention.  Still, current supplies are certainly abundant, several recent finds have shored up expectations dramatically, and with recycling yeilding 90% there's not likely to ever really be a shortage.




Anyway, so that's not really my reason for going for an electric, but several people had mentioned concerns, so I figured I'd let you know what I found.

[twodko]

Let's call the whole thing off.

you got my vote 

My vote too!

[dkn1997]

We pay .08/KWH (If I read it right)  all I really know is that around here we pay the highest or close to to the highest electric rates in the country.  Hatred of the electric company is in our DNA.  I Loathe NATIONAL GRID as my parents loathed LILCO before me.  On principle alone, I can't sign onto an electric car.  Most people on Long Island, whether it's cost effective or not,  would laugh in your face if you walked up to them and said "electric car" 

Electric is already 200/month balanced billing natural gas not included in that. (I do have central A/C in summer)  I probably spend 4-500/month on fuel for our two cars so even if my electric bill doubled for two electric cars, I'd be ahead...Still... I hate the GD power company lol.. 

[aussiemuscle]

remember when gas was "cheap"?  there has never been a "gas shortage" just the control of inventory by those producing it, then the taxes started, then the people producing most of what we use, read CANADIANS, decide to keep raising the prices.  yes OPEC sets the price but you don't hear the canadians arguing about either

If your country (whatever it is) doesn't pay the price OPEC wants, then they will shut down your supply and you'll be effd. yes they do set the price, but it's pretty hard to get away from it.

[twodko]

Word.

[lisiecki1]

The last point is the one that concerns me personally, lithium supply.  Right now, there are only a few suppliers of lithium - bolivia, chile, china, and Afghanistan is joining the party now.  There are untapped supplies in many locations, but the question is, is it enough.  Some analysts have claimed the untapped supply in Chile alone is plenty, but it's a matter of contention.  Still, current supplies are certainly abundant, several recent finds have shored up expectations dramatically, and with recycling yeilding 90% there's not likely to ever really be a shortage.




Anyway, so that's not really my reason for going for an electric, but several people had mentioned concerns, so I figured I'd let you know what I found.

Great post!  If I'm reading this correctly though, it would seem we would be getting off of "foreign oil" and getting onto the "foreign lithium" train?

[defiance]

Yes, exactly - I meant to point that out but I got sidetracked and forgot to put that on there

Estimates put about 400g of lithium per kw/h in a lithium-ion battery.  That's around 9600g per car. 
Prices per gram of lithium are hard to find, but it looks like around 70 cents per gram.  Given that Nissan has stated that $9000 was way too high for the cost of their batteries, that sounds like a very high estimate - but even if it's right, that's $7000 per car for 10yrs.  Compared to 10yrs of gas for a car, that's a small fraction. 

Also, we actually do have some significant lithium deposits in the US, but they're currently not being mined - right now it's less expensive to just buy from Bolivia/China/Chile, and soon Afghanistan. 

But yes, our own deposits are small in comparison. 



Having said that, the real problem is still lithium supply.  Some of the stuff I've found says the supplies we have would build 10s of billions of cars, others put the supply at sub-billion.  So it's possible the supplies aren't enough to support a worldwide electric car fleet.  Obviously that's not an immediate concern, but I think it makes sense to think in that kind of term, so that's a very valid reason for concern.

[SRT-440]

I'd pay a $50 a gallon before I'd drive an electric car..if I couldn't do that, I'd hook a horse to the front of my car. (then they'd tax me for how much my horse took a sh*t)

[elacruze]

<sigh>

Batteries are a short-term interim solution. They are already dead as a power source for transportation.

[1969chargerrtse]

With the direction gas is going the first 40 miles on pure electric are sounding real nice for me.  Volt anyone?

[Ghoste]

You haven't bought one yet?

[1969chargerrtse]

You haven't bought one yet?

Ha ha.  I can't afford a Volt or an Amp or much of anything else.  Not looking forward to high gas prices again when I'm getting ready to pull the 8 mpg Charger out soon.

[maxwellwedge]

Pretty soon you will have thieves siphoning electricity out of these things.

[Ghoste]

You should sell the Charger then and you will be able to buy a Volt and you won't have to worry about gas mileage anymore.  Two problems solved.

[jeryst]

You guys are all forgetting something in your gas vs electric cost comparisons: Taxes.

Right now, a huge part of the cost of gas, is taxes (local,state,federal, etc). As electric starts to gain popularity, the government will start losing revenue from taxes on gas. As a result , they will find some way to tax the electric that is used for automobiles, to replace the diminishing fuel taxes on gasoline. Look at off-road diesel and on-road diesel. Big difference in price. Dont get caught mixing household kerosene in with your diesel fuel. Big fine.

The government will do whatever it has to to protect/increase road taxes on fuels. I think that what will happen, is that once electric cars start to become popular, the government will come out with some type of special plug that attaches to a seperate meter, or they will require a meter to be included in the vehicle, that you will have to pay a fee on, or they will just make you turn in your mileage, and bill you for that.

Believe me, they are not going to lose that money, so electric will become much more expensive if you are using it for transportation.

[A383Wing]

that has already been talked about on the news lately.... since electric vehicles use no gas, they want to tax these cars an extra $100 or more a year to be able to drive on the same roads as gas powered cars.

now...what about those bicyclists? they use the same roads...why are they not licensed and taxed?