Off Topic EV discussion

ColoradoDriver

2014 CX-5 Touring AWD - 132k miles
Contributor
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Denver, CO
The market being the way it is right now is probably the only reason you can get away with switching cars so often. 🤣

I forgot where you live, but in California, if you don't retain ownership of the vehicle for 30 consecutive months, you have to reimburse CARB for all or part of the rebate. Might be worth looking into.
Sounds like a California thing to do.
 
Some sort of anti-flip measure, maybe?


EDIT. heh I don't wanna get all political and stupid, but if someone buys an electric car to be "green", the 1st step would probably be to figure out how your local power plant makes electricity. Unless you live on Hawaii's Big Island, or near Niagara Falls or something, chances are it's fossil fuel or nukes, so your emissions would be going from one exhaust pipe to another, much larger one.


Those new Hyundais are kinda cool though. Iconiq or something like that. I saw one parked the other day and did a double take on it.
 
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Well here in Ohio, as well as many states nowadays, many of us are able to choose who we get our electricity from: coal, nuclear and even solar if you can believe that. So... it certainly isn't as hard as it was even 10 years ago to 'be green'.
 
Ours runs on natural gas. PG&E is our only source and they're shady as hell. So shady in fact, that the TV show American Greed did an episode on them.

The Big Island gets geothermal power from the volcano!


EDIT: In case you're bored and want to see some blatant corruption.
 
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Some sort of anti-flip measure, maybe?


EDIT. heh I don't wanna get all political and stupid, but if someone buys an electric car to be "green", the 1st step would probably be to figure out how your local power plant makes electricity. Unless you live on Hawaii's Big Island, or near Niagara Falls or something, chances are it's fossil fuel or nukes, so your emissions would be going from one exhaust pipe to another, much larger one.


Those new Hyundais are kinda cool though. Iconiq or something like that. I saw one parked the other day and did a double take on it.

Here's a study from 2015:

Even when charged by coal sourced electricity, an EV is still better than a gasoline powered car that gets less than 35 MPG. There's a handy map in that study. Fortunately, most areas of the country don't get their electricity from coal. In other, more populous areas, the gasoline powered car would need to achieve anywhere from 43 to 135 miles per gallon to beat an EV on emissions.

That study is also a bit out of date, as natural gas has continued to gain share at the expense of coal, so the numbers have tilted toward EVs even more.

This is interesting to play around with:
 
I'm not sure if that accounts for the strip mining of rare earth elements and the disposal of the batteries? It also seems like what time you're plugged in and how many other EVs are plugged in at that same time would make a difference in power plant emissions.


It's all so convoluted...a needle shaped haystack.
Here in California for example, if the wind comes up (which it does every summer) , our power gets shut down, so I would be out of luck on getting to work. I wonder if Tesla has solar powered charge stations...they probably do now that I think about it.
 
Your question made me curious so I dug through their methodology page, and their emission calculations do not include production or disposal of either electric or gasoline cars. I read something a while ago (older than that) that attempted to include the production and disposal costs, and it makes things less favorable for EVs. As I recall, the extra pollution generated by EV production takes a couple years to overcome in use. I suspect the gasoline "break even" MPG probably comes down into the high 20s if the electricity comes from coal. I will have to see if I can find that other article...

PG&E adds another dimension to the decision. That company has been deferring maintenance on their infrastructure for years, basically because they had zero financial incentive to maintain anything (and also faced no repercussions for letting things fall into disrepair). I spent a few months working for a public utility in Pennsylvania a long time ago and it was an eye opening experience - they don't have to care about keeping costs down and it actually benefits them to be wasteful. The higher their costs of doing business, the higher the rates they can justify and charge....
 
Basically all hydro and small amount of wind here in WA state for volume base producers. While Hanford is still around for that token amount... nuclear generally died out with WPSSS in the early 80s.

Last time I checked around $.08-.09 kWh

IIRC... WA state sells a lot of hydro to CA
 
General EV posts moved to their own thread (y)

A gentle reminder to keep the conversation civil, and keep politics out of this as much as possible. Thanks!
 
General EV posts moved to their own thread (y)

A gentle reminder to keep the conversation civil, and keep politics out of this as much as possible. Thanks!
You didn't learn from the CL forum? Or, do you think Mazda forum members are different? :unsure:
 
You didn't learn from the CL forum? Or, do you think Mazda forum members are different? :unsure:

1. I am not a mod in the CL community.
2. I'd like to think that our members are different. In fact, a couple of newer members have said as much. And I will do what I can to try and keep it that way - that includes gentle reminders like the one above your post.
 
Some sort of anti-flip measure, maybe?


EDIT. heh I don't wanna get all political and stupid, but if someone buys an electric car to be "green", the 1st step would probably be to figure out how your local power plant makes electricity. Unless you live on Hawaii's Big Island, or near Niagara Falls or something, chances are it's fossil fuel or nukes, so your emissions would be going from one exhaust pipe to another, much larger one.


Those new Hyundais are kinda cool though. Iconiq or something like that. I saw one parked the other day and did a double take on it.
This is how I make electricity.
received_792201268856064.jpeg
 
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