Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePrince
“Zero emission” is also quite misleading, it’s zero tailpipe emissions because the manufacturing process of the vehicle is considerably more carbon intensive than ICE vehicles. That’s not to mention that much of the power generation required for the electricity to power the cars also comes from fossil fuels, or even the manufacturing process of the renewables used to generate the electricity (solar panels, wind turbines, etc.)
It generally takes a couple years of driving the EV to offset the additional carbon emissions generated by the initial manufacturing process. That also doesn’t consider the environmental and social issues with the mining process required for the construction of batteries, solar panels, etc.
Like you say, overall it’s more of a feel good thing, and while it does make a difference and I do think EVs are great vehicles for the daily driver, the impact is lower than what people generally think.
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Agreed on the current carbon cost to make the cars, which is why it is so important that money is being put into battery technology. If they can move the batteries away from Lithium and toward solid-state or sodium-ion then that would reduce the impact for creating the vehicles.
As for the charging, I used to think the answer was to centralize the energy generation and then transition it from fossil fuels to something cleaner (Fission?). But now I am starting to think that the better play is to decentralize power generation and just put solar panels on everyone's homes. (Enmax currently has internal rules that they want to max out at 10-15% of homes being allowed to have solar)
With the new advancements in solar technology (Perovskite solar cells), the cost and carbon impact to make solar panels will drop dramatically while the efficiency and energy capture will increase. These are exciting discoveries that are being worked on around the world while Alberta (and Canada) are focused on oil and pipelines.
There are a lot of moving parts but you can start to see how things are going to get better dramatically faster as a few technologies move from the lab to mass production. Then the question becomes, how quickly does the fossil fuel industry crater when alternative technologies are cheaper, more efficient, and have almost no pollution??
Side note: with how innovative Canadians and Albertans are, I really wish we could be bragging about making these discoveries here instead of waiting for Japan and Europe to do it.