China’s EV revolution showcases the power that state actors have when an industry is a matter of national security.
China has marginal domestic O&G reserves, so moving off of O&G is incredibly important for Chinese interests.
And since the oil and gas companies in China are nationalized, they will follow along with the government’s plans rather than obstruct or bribe their way as with for-profit private oil and gas companies in many western countries.
Woah hold the phone, you’re telling me there’s a way to build society OTHER than by explicitly rewarding greed and exploitation‽
It is a similar story in Saudi Arabia and many Arab countries. The oil and gas is nationally owned, and the revenues are being used to finance a massive welfare state as well as the transition away from fossil fuels.
They also don’t seem to have many standards either. Specs and reviews I’ve seen seem to jump generations within a few months. I think my favorite ridiculous spec was the ability to use two fast chargers (one on either side of the car since it has two plugs) to pump some 300 miles in 5-10 minutes. It’s wild to read about the stuff they’re doing.
Is there any safety reason to not be able to have two plugs? I could see that being something we could do to renovate western gas stations for EVs in order to facilitate the transition. Just have two plugs side by side so Jim-bob could get his 300 miles in 10 minutes with electric just lol he does with his diesel now
All EVs still require coal or oil for the electricity. And that doesn’t even factor in mining for the metals to make these things.
EV are okay but they’re not a solution to our resource consumption problem.
Edit: imagine being mad at the truth lol?
You seem to be forgetting that wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power exist.
Not to mention that, even with coal generating the energy for the cars, EVs still have lower lifetime emissions than any ICE car.
But there is still the precious metal mining which often is diesel engines.
The point is regardless of what we use it is a bandaid to the issue. That issue being over mining our very limited resources
That use plastics and rare metals and glass all of which aren’t infinite resources.
Two decades from now we will still be struggling with a climate crisis and these “solutions” aren’t solutions
For China specifically and at the present time this is true, but China is investing heavily into solar and other renewables that will shift its energy mix dramatically in the coming years. Not to mention that even now, it’s still a net benefit to centralize that fossil fuel consumption into plants that can burn it more efficiently and with better pollution controls than are feasible on cars.
Also worth mentioning that it’s not just cars, but public transit and city planning.
Paywalled.
“Every car you start driving with electricity, you’re not driving with oil,” said Robert Brecha, a professor of sustainability at the University of Dayton in Ohio
The journalist has to have a personal grudge against him. That d’oh quotation makes him seem dumber than my dog.
And it’s not even necessarily true: it takes a certain mileage to offset the extra CO2 that an electric vehicle requires for its manufacturing (mostly batteries), which directly depends on the grid’s carbon intensity. If you recharge your EV from a coal or oil plant, you are still burning coal and oil.
It’s worth noting that this is not being done for environmental reasons (more half of all coal pollution comes from China), but for strategic reasons as China has limited access to oil near it’s borders.
What a ridiculous distinction. Do you really think this narrative difference in motivation is noteworthy? What is scarcity if not an environmental consideration? What is lack of sustainability if not an environmental consideration?
It’s being done because it leads to a sustainable equilibrium of their social system. Whether that meets your standards of rhetorical “intentionality” to meet the criteria for “environmentalism” is meaningless.
I mean, that’s a pretty good reason. I’m not too concerned why they do a good thing, as long as it’s done.
You might get up votes if you accompanied a controversial opinion with a reasoned argument. However, making only broad, unsubstantiated statements is a waste of bandwidth and everyone’s time.
When coupled with electric buses and high speed trains, they’re plenty fine. We’re not going to reach a level of infrastructure anytime soon where all travel can be accomplished through public infrastructure, even in China where they have ten times the public transport infrastructure of the US.
Electric cars by themselves aren’t a good thing, as in, the USian belief in “an electric car for every person” is insane and if they convince even half the world of it we’re going to destroy the other half mining minerals, but using electric cars to supplement sustainable infrastructure and support areas yet without access to public transit is a necessary step on the path towards sustainability.
Not to mention that they are the world’s biggest manufacturing power, so whatever they make for themselves will likely also benefit the rest of the world.
An EV running on a coal fired grid still has less emissions that a prius. Facts dont care about your feelings.
An ICE is only, at most, 35% efficient. In contrast to lithium batteries and electric motors, which is more like 90% efficient. Electricity produced from the dirtiest coal plants that exist, used in an EV, is more efficient and, thus, more environmentally conscious, than burning gasoline in an ICE.
My guess would be the efficiency of coal power plants (35%) and electricity transmission (90%) + battery charging of an EV (80%) would be more than efficiency of transporting oil in ships (50%) , then in an ICE truck (40%) to fuel pumps and then finally the efficiency of the ICE car (40%).
I picked the numbers from internet, but they seem plausible.
I don’t know if their statement is universally true, but the EPA’s fuel economy / total emissions calculator seems to show it for what I’ve put in. You can put in a Prius or random EV and see how they compare.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myth1
A Prius will definitely pollute less than the typical SUV electric cars on a coal grid.
Cause:
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Efficiency of coal power plant and all losses are as bad as ICE cars. The EVs do thermal->mechanical->electrical->grid->battery->wheels and if you count them all up, is not better than an EV
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Prius is designed for low drag unlike an SUV
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Prius had regenerative braking like an EV
But just the numbers:
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Prius is rated at 94g/kg
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Coal 950g/kwh
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Volvo c40 0.2kwh/km or 190g/km even without losses
I took Volvo cause they published a report with a good compare ev and ICE https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/market-assets/intl/applications/dotcom/pdf/c40/volvo-c40-recharge-lca-report.pdf
Even with the current EU energy mix, it takes 77’000 km to be better than ICE, so arguably better. On coal electricity, they are worse. And this is comparing equally sized cars, a Prius will do better.
Sorry sorry. Where are you getting the “all losses are equivalent to ice engine inefficiency”?
I don’t expect you to be an ME/EE, but there’s a lot of variables in that calculation, I’d just like to clarify for everyone here what you mean.
Regardless of the accuracy of your numbers - If you fix the ICE cars as they wear out, replacing them with BEV as the energy grid retires coal plants or goes to a higher percentage of renewables, they get cleaner. ICE cars will be as dirty tomorrow as they are today.
Just wanted to add some perspective. There’s a narrative lately that China is a champion of the green movement, which is absurd
Pretty reasonable narrative tbh. China’s CO2 emmissions plateleued last month and have even started to fall, and they’re targeting zero emissions by 2060. They’ve also started spearheading cleaner energy this month with the first 4th gen nuclear reactor.
And of course the news in this post.
Car engines are immensely inefficient and car charging is a load that’s easy to load-balance for renewables (dynamic pricing see: Tesla)
