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.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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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
Definitely heat, and a design to handle it. Ford has an issue with some Mach-E’s that the power junction would weld itself shut if you used the DC fast charger and floored the car shortly after. Once that happened it bricks the car and you gotta replace the part.
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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.
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.
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.
If they really wanna make me pro China, make ME energy independent!
Cheap solar panels Cheap batteries Cheap ebikes Cheap ecars
That would cover half my yearly expenses!!
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An EV running on a coal fired grid still has less emissions that a prius. Facts dont care about your feelings.
Could you please run us through your maths? I'm legit curious.
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.
Coal power plant efficiency is less than 40%. You'd also not get 90% of the outlet on the wheels. There is also a lot of loss on the grid, but there is also on the production of fuel. The two pollute almost the same.
Burning coal however is a lot worse for the air quality.
It's the put the pollution somewhere else policy so that cities are more liveable. It was hurting China's reputation and too many rich Chinese were going overseas and siphoning away the economy (and still are).
I'd like to prefix this all by pointing out that coal is absolutely terrible to use in several ways.
However: most thermal plants get about 45% efficiency, based on using very high steam temperatures. We all know that the theoretical max efficiency for a thermal process is limited by the Carnot cycle, which explicitly depends on the difference in temperature between the working fluid and the surroundings.
I'd also like to point out an important point: carbon plants are not constricted by the need to keep the engine lightweight, we can capture most fly ash and other process exhaust.
I again, do not care to bring such an arcane tech back online, it's terrible to mine, process and use. Just remember there's a bit more to all of this that engineers have indeed thought of.
E: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196890415007657
What about the billions of cells that must be produced and replaced as the scale grown unto millions and millions of cars? And all the mining of rare earth elements it requires?
It turns out that the lithium is very recyclable. The process of disassembly is what's tricky, but one of Tesla's pre-musk founders is working specifically on this problem.
We can already do it. Mining is (for now) cheaper. Something legislation, applied carefully, can resolve.
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.
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.
That is true. I do think we should retire pure ICE cars as soon as possible. If you need to do long distances, a hybrid that could be converted might be a good intermediate solution. If you only need a car sporadically, a car sharing platform with electric cars is a good solution. These already exist in big eu cities. Ofc good and adorable public transport is nr 1.
Decreasing the amount of cars would decrease emissions short and long term more than the current shift to EV and would make shifting easier as there are just fewer to replace.
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.
I put very minimal calculation which at least puts it around the same order and linked a report by Volvo where they try to count the whole cycle of a car with the emissions of the production and transport of used parts and fuels.
On current electricity mix, an electric car is only slightly better on a CO2 emissions. With only renewables, it can be 2x better.
But the statement that in China it's at least better than a Prius is just wrong. Until renewables take a serious share of the grid, a smaller well engineered hybrid is not worse.
Car engines are immensely inefficient and car charging is a load that's easy to load-balance for renewables (dynamic pricing see: Tesla)
Yup! EVs and renewables are broadly good things. Just wanted to give some added perspective :)
Now do coal
Paywalled.
Where are the batteries coming from?
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