Electric Cars Will Save Us — NOT!

Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report that found–surprise, surprise–electric cars aren’t all that green (at least from a climate view) if the electricity used to recharge the cars comes from burning fossil fuels. Yet, in a Colbert-like manner, a colleague of one of the report’s authors asks in a blog post if electric cars are “a good choice or the best choice for lowering global warming emissions?”

As the New York Times points out in its coverage of the report, driving a Nissan Leaf in Denver produces about the same emissions as driving a 33-mph gasoline-powered car. The report doesn’t look at the life-cycle costs, nor does it look at the marginal cost of new electricity.

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Based on research from MIT, the Antiplanner has little doubt that auto manufacturers will be able to meet Obama’s new fuel-economy standards with only minor increases in the cost of new cars. Under those standards, the average new car sold in 2025 will get nearly 55 miles per gallon. If the auto fleet continues to turn over every 18 years, then by 2030 the average car on the road will get 38 miles per gallon, considerably better than a Nissan Leaf in places that rely on fossil fuels to generate most of their electricity.

Considering the high initial cost of electric cars, and the low environmental benefits except in places (mainly on the Pacific Coast) that get most of their electricity from non-fossil-fuel sources, the cost per ton of reduced carbon emissions from using electric vehicles is likely to be quite high. It will be far more cost-effective to continue to use gasoline- and Diesel-powered cars, but make them lighter, more streamlined, and otherwise more fuel-efficient.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

46 Responses to Electric Cars Will Save Us — NOT!

  1. Andrew says:

    I agree. Electric cars are an attempt to prop up the exurbs and suburbs in the face of declining oil. So wouldn’t it be smart to start figuring out what we will do after oil extraction runs too low for our needs since anyone with a brain can see hundreds of millions of electric cars is not going to happen?

    Or do you think there is an infinite supply of black gold on our finite planet?

    Or do you just not give a crap about generations after your own?

    • metrosucks says:

      I agree with a small part of your post, but this doesn’t make much sense:

      Electric cars are an attempt to prop up the exurbs and suburbs in the face of declining oil

      I think most electric car drivers are more likely to be found in the Pearl District (ie, downtown), not the suburbs.

      Besides Andrew, our civilization is completely, utterly, dependent on and based on fossil fuels. Nothing can replace infinitely useful black gold! When/if there is no oil, where are the plastics and metals for your light rail/glorified electric golf cart going to come from? Where’s the fuel for the power plant going to come from?

      • C. P. Zilliacus says:

        I think most electric car drivers are more likely to be found in the Pearl District (ie, downtown), not the suburbs.

        Absolutely correct. The range of these vehicles is limited and will not serve the needs of exurban commuters very well.

        • Andrew says:

          My point is that motorized vehicles are a necessary part of the existence of the ridiculous unwalkable suburbs and exurbs. Without cars (and thus without petrofuels), these places would collapse instantaneously due to unlivability.

          You can snark all you want about it, but people in small towns and cities do not need cars the way suburbanites and exurbanites do. Cars are the necessary ingredient of that lifestyle, but not of civilization.

          I personally think it is wonderful when I go weeks on end without entering the metallic beast sitting out in front of my house. I am not paying tribue from my income to the oil and auto companies, although I am quite happy to collect dividend payments on their profits made off the likes of you to. Thank you!

          And I do not live in the Pearl District. I live in a small walkable suburban town served by commuter rail where the is an active committement to keeping things on a human scale.

          And my town is certainly civilized and filled with all the conveniences of modernity. Your assertions are pretty baseless in that regard that without a surfeit of fossil fuels, we would not have civilization.

          As far as rail vehicles go, smelting of metal is certainly capable of being done with electricity (as is done in electric arc furnaces and aluminum and copper smelters). I don’t see the need for plastics. Most anything using plastic is perfectly capable of being replaced with wood. Plastics could always be ade from renewable sources like various vegetable oils. We certainly built trains and trolleys well before the blowout at Spindletop ushered in the age of oil.

    • paulscott says:

      Sorry I’m so late to this party, but after reading the comments, I feel I need to correct some misinformation.

      I drive an EV, have been for almost a decade. I use solar generated electricity to power both my house and car. My electric bill averages a mere $100 per year for both.

      Those who want to bash EVs because of the “long tailpipe” theory of pollution from a distant smokestack clearly haven’t taken the steps to eliminate the same dirty energy from their home’s use. If you are serious about being a good steward of the environment, that should be your first move. Once you’ve either installed solar on your roof, or signed up for your utility’s renewable energy program, then your home and car will be pollution-free, well-to-wheels.

      The whole question of suburbs vs. cities is more of an over-population issue than anything else. We clearly need to redesign our communities around a nodal design to eliminate much of the driving. But no matter now successful we are at improving mass trans and biking options, there will still be millions of Americans driving cars. We need to be real about that. Given this reality, the cars that are driven should use renewable electricity instead of petrol.

  2. Dan says:

    Huh. I would have wagered that the O’Tooles of the world would have liked electric cars, because…well…they are cars. Perhaps because they are not propelled by drilled fossil fuel?

    DS

  3. Neal Meyer says:

    Andrew said:

    I agree. Electric cars are an attempt to prop up the exurbs and suburbs in the face of declining oil. So wouldn’t it be smart to start figuring out what we will do after oil extraction runs too low for our needs since anyone with a brain can see hundreds of millions of electric cars is not going to happen?

    Or do you think there is an infinite supply of black gold on our finite planet?

    Or do you just not give a crap about generations after your own?

    Actually Andrew, there’s some strong evidence out there that many people discount the distant future, and are being entirely rational in doing so. That’s not to say that people don’t care about their children, their grandchildren, or their friends, but it seems that many people do seem to grasp that there’s only so much they can do in this world, and therefore decide to leave the future for future inhabitants to deal with.

    That in turn leads to the philosophical question of what is to guide decision making? You can rely on billions of people making many billions of individual decisions via spontaneous order, or you can rely on the experts, the visionaries, and central planners, who spend their lives shouting commands at the present and at the future, because they know exactly what’s going to happen, right?

  4. Adam says:

    I find it interesting that the Antiplanner discusses the marginal cost of new electricity, but doesn’t mention the marginal cost of new liquid fossil fuels. I also find it interesting that the Antiplanner is willing to assume future increases in efficiency for liquid-fuel vehicles, but makes no such assumption for electric vehicles. I also find it interesting that the Antiplanner looks only at the worst-case scenario for electric generation, but then compares that against the best-case scenario for liquid fuel vehicles. I further find it interesting that the Antiplanner assumes that making liquid fuel cars lighter and more streamlined will result in efficiency gains, but makes no such assumption on behalf of electric vehicles.

    Do you suppose that perhaps I have uncovered a pattern in the Antiplanner’s approach to this problem?

  5. HeadedWest says:

    “I also find it interesting that the Antiplanner is willing to assume future increases in efficiency for liquid-fuel vehicles, but makes no such assumption for electric vehicles.”

    The battery pack in an all-electic Ford Focus weighs over 600 pounds and costs in the range of $12000 to $15000 dollars. Battery technology is pretty much basic chemistry, and there just isn’t all that much potential for radical improvement.

    That said, I also doubt that 55 mpg is possible unless we’re driving cars constructed with that stuff that egg cartons are made of.

    • Andrew says:

      I get infinity miles per gallon on my commuter rail train powered by hydropower which I access on both ends with my own foot power.

      I know, oh the huge manatee! People walking! And riding in common vehicles!

  6. metrosucks says:

    Well, do you think I have possibly discovered a pattern in your approach to the problem?

    1. Electric cars are already lighter and smaller than comparable gas-powered models, and then become heavier once batteries are loaded. How do you propose one solves this issue? I see manufacturers trying to add more battery to electric cars, not less. And it turns out that 75 miles of range isn’t really all that much.

    2. Electric cars already use efficient AC motors for the most part. Where are the new gains in efficiency going to happen, and how?

    What we really see here is that electric cars are already nearly at their pinnacle, but ICE-powered cars have a long way to go before reaching maximum efficiency and power output. Electric cars are a joke and are attractive to one, greenies who like them as a fashion accessory/statement, and two, misguided enthusiasts who have swallowed the kool aid and think we’re all going to be driving the equivalent of supercharged electric golf carts in twenty years.

    • metrosucks says:

      This post is meant as a reply to “Adam”, not HeadedWest.

      • Adam says:

        How do you know that electric cars are “already nearly at their pinnacle” any more so than the traditional ICE vehicle? The reason electrics fell out of fashion (yes, they were in more common use than ICE’s around the turn of the century) was and is primarily a function of range. That’s a very valid concern, and is why we have hybrid vehicles like the Prius and Volt, that try to take advantage of the efficiency of an electric motor, but without the stored energy limitation. But it is very difficult to predict what advances there might be in this or any kind of technology. That’s why it is ridiculous to assume leaps and bounds of progress in one kind, and absolutely no gain in the other.

        Personally, I hope for huge gains in both types, but only time will tell. Until then, your crystal ball isn’t any better than mine.

        • metrosucks says:

          Let’s see. 100 years ago: average range of the electric car was 75 miles. Today: average range of the electric car is 75 miles. Please tell me what miracle battery technology will emerge that will at least DOUBLE storing capacity and range.

          There’s a reason the electric car went out of fashion; it’s a terrible idea for most uses. With all respects, please disconnect your from whatever greenie website you are getting propaganda from, and look outside!

        • Adam says:

          100 years ago, the average range of an electric car was nowhere near 75 miles, and the average speed wasn’t exactly impressive, either. In 1902, the relatively popular production Wood’s Phaeton had a range of about 18 miles and a top speed of 14 mph. Research on battery-electrics for passenger use all but ended by WWI, and still very significant progress has been made, to the point now where a production model Nissan Leaf has a top speed of 90 mph and a rated range of 73 miles – enough for 95% of the daily driving needs for the average consumer. Not that I’m endorsing any particular electric vehicle, that one just seems to be the most popular production model these days. It seems like a pretty significant improvement over the Phaeton. Does it replace an unlimited range vehicle? No. Perhaps it never will.

          But I don’t see any credible evidence to suggest that the limits have been reached.

        • metrosucks says:

          Well Adam, the Leaf costs $40,000; there’s a huge problem right there before we get to the other problems.

          So for $40,000, where are all the huge benefits one should get? I don’t see them. Not burning fuel in the car isn’t a big one; modern engines are very clean. The battery WILL have a definitive lifespan…are you going to be very happy when your Leaf’s range is 40 miles and the replacement battery is $10,000? And what about if Obama wins a second term and succeeds in driving up the price of electricity dramatically, as he said he’d like to? Suddenly your electric car isn’t so cheap after all.

          And yes, you have a point, most old electrics cars had very limited ranges of up to 30-40miles, but there were models with ranges of up to 75 miles. When you compare this to the huge increases in gas mileage made for ICE cars, it’s laughable.

  7. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report that found–surprise, surprise–electric cars aren’t all that green (at least from a climate view) if the electricity used to recharge the cars comes from burning fossil fuels. Yet, in a Colbert-like manner, a colleague of one of the report’s authors asks in a blog post if electric cars are “a good choice or the best choice for lowering global warming emissions?”

    Excellent point above – unless the marginal increase in consumed electric power is coming from zero emission generating stations (nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind or solar), then there’s little difference between a current fossil fuel-powered vehicle and an electric.

    But it’s important to note (as I have before) that the “clean electric” trains much promoted by the “anti-auto vanguard” are not all that clean if they consume electric power generated at dirty coal-fired electric generating stations.

    Beyond the source of the power, there’s also the matter of electric transmission infrastructure. Many of the same groups that oppose private automobiles and highways are equally opposed to new or upgraded high-voltage electric transmission lines.

  8. Sandy Teal says:

    I think the environmentalists blew it when they hyped electric cars so much. Cars that cost $50,000 without subsidies are not going to change anything significantly. But the oil-hate is just too deep in environmental groups.

    What would make a huge impact would be $8,000 two-door cars that get 50+ mpg. Look around next time you drive and count how many cars have more than one person in them — probably less than 10%.

    If you applied the same subsidy to small cars as they do to electric cars, they would literally be free. That would sure change oil use in a hurry.

    • Jardinero1 says:

      Hello Sandy,

      I am not so sure that the subsidy would make the cars cheaper to the buyer or merely jack up the price of the car for the buyer to the benefit of the seller.

      My son and I were comparing issues of Home Power magazine. We were looking specifically at the annual roundup on home windpower systems to compare prices on systems from one year to the next.

      It was really an eye-opener to compare the prices on systems the year before the $7500 tax credit was implemented and prices the year after the $7500 tax credit was implemented. Prices on all systems had risen five to seven thousand dollars the year after the tax credit was implemented. Every single seller took advantage of the credit to raise their prices. The consumer benefited not at all. I doubt that demand has risen much at all.

  9. FrancisKing says:

    Antiplanner wrote:

    “Driving a Nissan Leaf in Denver produces about the same emissions as driving a 33-mph gasoline-powered car”.

    The report he quotes from said:

    “Put another way, for 45 percent of the United States population, an E.V. will generate lower levels of greenhouse gases than a gasoline-engine vehicle capable of 50 m.p.g. in combined city-highway driving. Cities in this group include the predictable — Seattle, for example — as well as the less obvious, like Buffalo or New Orleans.

    About 37 percent of Americans live in regions where a Leaf’s greenhouse gas emissions would equate to a gasoline-powered vehicle rated at 41 to 50 m.p.g.”

    So, that’s at least 45%+37% = 82% of Americans with better levels of CO2 emissions than the 33mph car which is the benchmark. Which sounds different from the impression that Antiplanner was trying to give.

    This also misses the renewable vehicle on the block – the bicycle, which produces zero CO2, zero emissions, and is so lightweight that it can easily be grade-separated. Grade-separation for motorised vehicles requires massive concrete structures to take the whole possible range of vehicles that will use it, making the result expensive and ugly (and the raised vehicles radiate noise over the entire area).

    • werdnagreb says:

      Good points! And additionally, areas that are highly dependent on coal for electricity production typically have an excess supply in the evenings since coal plants take a long time to power up or down. This means that charging vehicles over night when parked in the garage would take advantage of electricity that would otherwise be largely wasted.

  10. bennett says:

    Regardless of exactly how much nasty stuff is pumped into the atmosphere in order to charge a Leaf, I’m still put off by the “Zero Emission Vehicle” sticker put on the back.

    Also, according to the report link it’s clear that electric cars, on average, do better per mile than gasoline propelled cars. So by stating “about the same,” Mr. O’Toole actually means “a little better.” I’m not sure why he stoops to deliberate obfuscation on this topic. You don’t usually see a car bashing post round here.

    • metrosucks says:

      Well, I think the problem is that these cars are being promoted as the salvation to the ICE, and that’s obviously never going to happen. I agree about the “Zero Emission Vehicle” sticker putting one off. It’s like a badge of honor for the typical owner, that lets them look down their noses at the rest of us. Of course, my vehicle (subaru) has the even more preposterous “partial zero emission vehicle” sticker on it….someone didn’t do their math when thinking that one up!

      • bennett says:

        The only people promoting electric cars on a biblical level are the people that manufacture them. SUV’s and pick-ups are promoted as the best way to American style story book freedom by those that manufacture them. AXE body spray is promoted as the only way to get chicks by those that make it.

        Most environmentalist see it as a minor step in a slightly better direction. (See the links in the post. NY Times, MIT, etc… not exactly the libertarian bastions of gia-hate).

        Also, see Mr. O’Toole’s post re: driverless tech, and get back to me about “salvation.”

        • metrosucks says:

          OK Bennett you sort of have a point there. But, Randal is one guy talking about the benefits of driverless cars.

          On the other hand, everyone from multiple environmental organizations to corporations, to the President, has promoted electric cars.

          And for the record, I do think that driverless technology will greatly improve our commutes on freeways.

  11. metrosucks says:

    Also, see Mr. O’Toole’s post re: driverless tech, and get back to me about “salvation.”

    True, but that is one man’s opinion. Not something being flogged by manufacturers, government officials, and dozens of other groups/people.

  12. Frank says:

    electric cars are “a good choice or the best choice for lowering global warming emissions?”

    Global warming emissions. What a hoot. First, Liberals eat up the WWF report that falsely claimed Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035. That’s revised to something like 2350. Now we’ve learned that in the last ten years, Himalayan glaciers have actually GROWN, as they also have in the PNW and Alaska.

    Given the last decade in the PNW, I say please increase global warming emissions.

    PS

    srsly Dan, STFU. No need for you to use a Danism or an appeal to ridicule here.

    • Dan says:

      Now we’ve learned that in the last ten years, Himalayan glaciers have actually GROWN, as they also have in the PNW and Alaska

      You know those headlines you choose to believe? They are deceptive. They are crafted to deceive the gullible. The gullible who need to believe man isn’t changing earth’s climate.

      Ah, well. Almost all of the planet understands reality. Too bad our politics isn’t courageous enough to actually fight the fossil interests and do something.

      DS

  13. LazyReader says:

    How green is any consumer product. The ultimate hypocracy of environmental concern are products that give people the mindset of benevolence. Last month Justin Bieber received a 2012 Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid for his 18th birthday, but like any teenager with tons of disposable income, Beiber has modified his $102,000 present by completely covering the car in chrome. Now to anyone who knows exactly how chrome or chromium products are manufactured (in a way that is not really environmentally benign). You would condemn the idea of a chrome plated car. However in the real world of course we need the chromium. Without chromium, we’d have no stainless steel for structural materials or surgical tools and we swallow our green shame in the name of healing the sick and injured. So yes we’re willing to do some environmental harm if it means a successful transplant or repairing injuries or resetting a broken bone so they can walk again. Does the act of an electric car compensate for the toxicity involved in chrome making; in essence a trade off. If a hybrid car gets better gas mileage, what happens if you drive more miles; your encouraged to drive more thinking that what your doing is better for the environment. Maybe a person who cant afford a hybrid is more likely to use a bicycle which uses no gas or justify the expenditure for a car that may or may not be used so often.

    • Dan says:

      The ultimate hypocracy of environmental concern are products that give people the mindset of benevolence.

      Thank Madison Ave for duping billions to consume products they don’t need, but are told make them feel better. And no need to conflate some boy with millions of other people who couldn’t identify a song of his with a gun to their heads.

      DS

      • metrosucks says:

        Thank Madison Ave for duping billions to consume products they don’t need

        And who are you to tell people what they do and don’t need? Typical planner elitist “I know better” attitude. Madison Ave didn’t tell Bieber to get a Fisker hybrid, and it didn’t tell his parents to give him one. No, I think the Sierra Club or some other enviro website is a little more at fault here.

  14. Craigh says:

    people in small towns and cities do not need cars the way suburbanites and exurbanites do

    You, obviously, don’t live in a small town or city. These days, most of us (at least, in the northeast) have to drive to a large town or city to work. In other words, we need cars exactly the way suburbanites and exurbanites do. We are all exurbanites now.

  15. Dan says:

    people in small towns and cities do not need cars the way suburbanites and exurbanites do

    Small-town denizens have very high carbon footprints, in large part due to transportation. That’s how it works.

    DS

    • metrosucks says:

      Hey Danny Boy, can you explain the following?

      What is a carbon footprint?

      How does a carbon footprint relate to the effect a person has on the environment?

      Pwetty pwease use small words that a ignorant like me can understand. You see, unlike you, who almost got a master’s degree, I merely almost got an associates.

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