Oversimplified. Electric car can act as storage for renewable energy. Moreover charging happens at night when a lot of countries experience oversupply of energy (e.g. in Poland electricity is cheaper during night hours).
Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
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Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#22Zero tailpipe emissions is worth far more than you are internalizing.
CO2 is not the only pollutant that matters. NOx and sulfur emissions are arguably worse in term of quality of life in cities.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#23Zero tailpipe emissions is worth far more than you are internalizing. CO2 is not the only pollutant that matters. NOx and sulfur emissions are arguably worse in term of quality of life in cities.
And noise! Not so much from cars, which are reasonably quiet these days. But trucks and motorbikes, especially, can be appallingly loud and make our cities unpleasant places to be.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#24A huge benefit of electric cars is removing pollution from cities; this seems to be forgotten. Surely if the pollution is killing thousands of people a year this is an issue.
Gasses yes, but a large part of the particulates is actually emitted by the tires (through abrasion).
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#25A huge benefit of electric cars is removing pollution from cities; this seems to be forgotten. Surely if the pollution is killing thousands of people a year this is an issue.
It's not forgotten by the authorities! In the SF Bay Area the local air quality council subsidizes electric car chargers. EVs reduce the total pollution and moves what's left out of the prone-to-atmospheric-inversions Bay Area.
CO2 is an issue, but not the only one, I was just annoyed the article didn't mention it.
I would wear a gas mask to work, but they're no use.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#26Even if the CO2 balance would be a close call right now - one needs to take into respect that over the lifetime of an electric car, the electricity production in most places is going to have a much reduced carbon footprint. And of course, electric cars don't produce local pollution and create much less noise. Finally, electrical cars are an important step in producing batteries cheap enough for energy storage applica…
Furthermore, adding more EVs on the roads means more EVs on home charging stations at night and when parked at work during the day. In turn this means more opportunities to develop large scale demand side management for the power grid and therefore make it easier / cheaper to integrate a larger fraction of cheap and low carbon but intermittent renewable energies such as wind and solar.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#27A huge benefit of electric cars is removing pollution from cities; this seems to be forgotten. Surely if the pollution is killing thousands of people a year this is an issue.
Gasses yes, but a large part of the particulates is actually emitted by the tires (through abrasion).
Breaking with regen makes EV use the physical breaks less often as compared to combustion engine vehicles. Using breaks also emits particulates although I am not sure how it compares to the volumes of particulate emissions by combustion engines and tires abrasion.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#28A huge benefit of electric cars is removing pollution from cities; this seems to be forgotten. Surely if the pollution is killing thousands of people a year this is an issue.
Gasses yes, but a large part of the particulates is actually emitted by the tires (through abrasion).
If you have a car with regenerative braking, doesn't that also keep brakepad dust out of the air?
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#29Not to forget that petrol is fueling terrorism. And oil tankers on the oceans are an additional source of massive pollution.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#30Electric vehicles can be charged overnight and at off-peak times, so it's reasonable to assume they use a higher-than-average share of low-carbon energy. For example, around 50% of the UK's electricity production is from low-carbon sources (renewables and nuclear). But a much higher percentage of off-peak power is low-carbon. After midnight, close to 100% of the grid is low-carbon because the gas turbines spin down w…
Yup. There is so much potential for improvement from just flattening out peaks of what we've got already.