Electric Cars? Not So Fast! – Maybe it’s Time to
Rethink Some of Our Preconceived Notions about Reducing Oil Consumption
Recently
I wrote a post on the Keystone XL pipeline. It took quite a bit of research. I read many articles written by people on both sides of the
issue. One thing I noticed was
that a good percentage of the people who opposed the construction of the
pipeline, said that we would be better off decreasing our oil consumption
rather than increasing our oil production. They say it like it is an indisputable fact and a foregone
conclusion. The sentiment is often
thrown in at the end of an argument against oil production, consumption, or
transport, but is it correct?
Sometimes
an idea gets repeated so often, that we forget to question if it is actually
true. Should we be focused upon
reducing our oil consumption? If
so, how? There are lots of ways to
do it, but will we actually be better off if we pursue them? Let’s look at some of the most common
ideas for reducing demand for oil.
Use less – Simple as that.
No need to wait for advancements in technology, nothing to buy,
everybody just do their part and use less oil. There are some problems with that though. First of all, how do you get people to
comply? Liberals are way ahead of
us on that one. Just tax ‘em. The liberal cure all for
everything.
Obviously if gas is more expensive,
people will use less, but what won’t they be doing because of it? Joy riding makes up a very small
percentage of driving. If people
are in their cars, they’re probably going some place to do something and that
something usually involves spending money. Back when I watched the main stream media, it seemed like
every Christmas season they would report doom and gloom for the retailers, (Of course that was back during the
Bush Administration) saying sales were expected to be down one or two
percent. My point here is, one or
two percent is a significant amount for some parts of our economy. Having people cut down on their driving
by say, 10 percent or more, can’t help but have a negative influence on
consumer spending simply because they would be staying home more. It could be like having a disappointing
Christmas shopping season all year, every year.
Also if we choose to reduce our oil
consumption via increasing fuel taxes, it means less money for businesses to
invest and hire people. Between
the drain on economic activity from increased taxes and decreased consumer
spending, one must think twice before pulling the “decrease oil consumption
lever”. I’m not saying that it is
absolutely not a good idea; I’m just saying that it is not as though it
wouldn’t have any negative consequences.
Electric Cars – To be fair, I have to admit my bias here. I have been against electric cars since
the first time I ever heard a set of dual pipes with glass packs when I was
about eight years old. That being
said, most everything pro-electric car you’ll ever read or hear comes from
people who are equally biased in the other direction, for whatever reason. Here is the most fair, objective, and
unbiased analysis of electric cars that I have ever read. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/mpg-for-electric-cars/
I didn’t just put that link there
to show that I spent some time doing research. Click on it and
read it! I guarantee that
it will be worth your time. If you
think electric cars are a good idea, there’s a good chance it will change your
mind. If you think electric cars
are lame, it will give you all the ammunition you need to win any argument on
the subject.
“OK, I read the linked article.”
(Some of) you are saying, “What can you possibly add to it?” Plenty. That article makes an assessment of electric cars from a
mathematical standpoint. I’m going
to point out their real world shortcomings and why for practical matters, they
are never going to play any large part in reducing our oil consumption.
There are only two markets for
electric cars. 1) The guy who
wants to prove to everyone who doesn’t already know, that he is the biggest
weenie in town, and 2) urban and semi-urban fleet vehicles. Why?
Back in the late 80’s and early
90’s, I was a salesman at a Chevrolet dealership. Those were the final days for carburetors on new vehicles
and many customers were buying their first fuel-injected cars. Although some old school hot-rodders
may disagree with me, electronic fuel injection was the best thing that ever
happened to passenger cars. It did
what many people considered impossible up until that time. It increased power, gas mileage, and decreased emissions simultaneously.
A four cylinder fuel-injected car
of the early 90’s could out-perform a similarly sized V-6 carbureted model from
the early 80’s, and could hold its own against many V-8 from that era, but
customers weren’t having it. Not
even a test drive could convince them to step down to a lowly four
cylinder. We sold about 200 cars a
month, and the vast majority of cars we sold, with the exception of the
smallest models (Cavalier) were
V-6’s and V-8’s. Most of our customers
had a perception of four cylinder engines being weak and not durable, and no
factory rated horsepower claims or warranties were going to convince them
otherwise.
What I’m trying to say is that the perception of power was more important
in customers minds than any actual horsepower figures, and that is still true
today. When it comes to electric
cars, their gasoline-powered counterparts not only have a greater perceived
power, they in general, have a greater actual power, much greater. Now if it was that difficult to
convince a customer to switch from a 6 to a 4, imagine how hard it will be to
get them to switch from gas to electric.
Nearly impossible.
You might think that perceived
power is just a cultural thing and with the passage of time, attitudes will
change and sales of electric cars will substantially increase, but I’m here to
tell you that they won’t. It is
true that there are many other criteria used to evaluate automobiles besides
horsepower. Unfortunately for the
electric car, it doesn’t do well in almost any of them.
I mentioned that there is a market
for electric cars as fleet service vehicles, but the reasons for this are the
same reasons that they are in general, poor choices for passenger cars. Let’s look at the area where electric
vehicles shine the brightest – forklifts.
The indoor warehouse is the ideal
place for an electric forklift.
They have zero emissions (which is extra important indoors) and the
heavy batteries are actually a benefit.
Forklifts need to be extra heavy in order to counter-balance the loads
they lift and carry. A warehouse
environment is also great for electric vehicles because they are out of the
weather and floors are level.
There are generally no or very slight inclines, but the biggest reason
that electric fork lifts are ideal for indoor warehouse use is a deal-breaker
for electric power when it comes to being practical for a passenger car. What do I mean?
What’s everybody’s favorite time at
work? Quittin’ time! Just like with the employees, the end
of the day means for the electric forklifts that it’s time to recharge. This can take up to eight hours. We have some forklifts where I work
that can recharge in a matter of a couple of hours, but that is really not that
big of an advantage. A business
that shuts down every night has 12 hours or more of recharge time available,
and a business that runs 24 hours per day must still have to deal with two hour
recharge time. If this means
buying an extra truck, the faster recharge time doesn’t give you much of an
advantage over the eight-hour recharge time.
The demands of the family car are
nothing like the demands of a forklift which usually operates on a routine
schedule. The time that will be
spent charging and using a forklift are known in advance and usually don’t vary
much. Now consider the family
car. One of the most important
factors one considers when buying a car besides power is reliability. Most people equate reliability with not
breaking down, but there is more to it than that. Reliability means being ready for action at a moments
notice. Now imagine that you get
that call in the middle of the night – your son’s in jail, your mother’s
seriously ill, your sister’s husband left her, or any family emergency – do you
really want to have to tell your loved ones that you can’t make it because your
electric car is still on the charger?
What if your kid’s sick? I
guess you could wait for your car to charge. It’s gonna be pretty hard to take her to the hospital on
your bike.
An automobile must face a whole
host of conditions that the forklift never encounters – steep hills, rough
roads, long distances, hours and hours of continuous operation, rain, snow, and
worst of all – cold. A battery
loses a significant amount of capacity as temperature decreases which decreases
the range of an electric car.
While we are talking about low temperatures, what about heat? The heater in a gasoline powered uses
waste heat from the engines cooling system – essentially free heat, but
electric cars don’t produce much waste heat, so heating the passenger
compartment becomes a problem.
Besides heat, air conditioning, rear window defrosters, headlights, or
anything else that uses electrical power can significantly reduce the range of
an electric car.
Gas-electric hybrids don’t have
many of the problems of pure electric vehicle and are almost ideal for city
driving. Just bear in mind that
the fuel economy advantage of hybrids over traditional gasoline powered cars
starts to disappear as you do more and more highway driving to the point where
they are not worth the additional cost.
When one takes into consideration the added complexity of a hybrid
vehicle, it is easy to understand why traditional gasoline powered cars will be
the dominant form of private transportation for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, but what about the
environment? Electric cars don’t
pollute right? We could be saving
the environment and reducing our oil consumption at the same time. I’m sorry to disappoint you but
electric cars fail there too. They
might be able to reduce our oil consumption, but they won’t reduce our fossil
fuel consumption and they are certainly not going to save the environment. (You didn’t read the linked article did
you? Well here’s what I thought was the most important part)
In order to deliver 30 kWh to
your house to fully charge the Leaf’s 24 kWh battery bank, for
example—incorporating the charge efficiency this time, the source of electricity becomes a highly relevant factor.
Two-thirds of our electricity comes from fossil fuel plants, typically
converting 35% of the fossil fuel thermal energy into electricity. Only 90% of
this makes it through the transmission system, on average. If your electricity
comes from a fossil fuel plant, the 30 kWh delivered to your house took
about 95 kWh of fossil fuel energy. The 73 miles the Leaf travels on a
full charge now puts it at an energy efficiency of 130 kWh/100-mi. The MPG
equivalent number is 28 MPG. From a carbon-dioxide standpoint, you’d be
better off burning the fossil fuel directly in your car.
When a lot of people think of
electric cars, they think of windmills and solar energy. What they should be thinking of is
steam-powered locomotives.
Electric cars ultimately use the same source of power (coal) and for the
most part, use technology that is only slightly more modern. They had electric powered cars since
the earliest days of the automobile and much of the reasons that they didn’t
win out back then are the reasons that they are not going to ever be very
popular now or in the near future.
Alternative and renewable energy – Believe it or not, I’m a big fan
of alternative and renewable energy.
One of my goals is to one day, build my own wind turbine from
scratch. It’s totally doable. Check it out. http://otherpower.com/ I don’t have any
problem with renewable energy. I
do however; have a problem with the government subsidizing it, or anything else
for that matter. Subsidizing is a
bad idea because it prevents us from finding if something can stand on its
own. To be profitable in the free
market, should be just as important to a wind farm as how much energy the
turbines produce. If the
government wants to help the renewable energy industry, it should tell the
people that are trying to stand in the way of it’s development to bug off. If some form of renewable energy power
plant can be built through private investment, a few protestors should not be
able to prevent its construction.
I think the private sector should be able to develop renewable energy
sources to their maximum potential but even that happens, it will only decrease
our oil consumption by a few percent and it’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Should we really be focusing on
reducing our oil consumption rather than increasing our oil production? Not yet, not now. Reducing oil consumption is a worthy
long or mid term goal, but we need to do everything we can to jumpstart our
economy now. Not by some bogus
stimulus package, which turns out, to be just a multi-billion dollar government
give away, but by real investment that produces real wealth without putting any
further burden on the taxpayers. Nothing
has the potential to do that like taking advantage of the resources we have
right here at home along with reaping any benefits Canadian oil production may
provide us, like building the Keystone XL pipeline.
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