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I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped | Rowan Atkinson
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2023
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Environment
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Well if that's the main concern:
The battery degradation problems are way overblown. The original leaf cars had issues and that's about it. Taxi services are using Teslas without any problems. I know of one that specializes in taking people from LA to Vegas and they've got cars with batteries in them with more than a million miles on them.
Supposing that the battery really did quit after 10 years and that everything else about cars lasts 30 years, wouldn't you just replace the battery twice? The only difference between an ICE car and a BEV car is the motor and drivetrain, so arguably everything else should last just as long in the BEV as the ICE. Add in that the drivetrain for a BEV contains fewer moving parts and wear points...
It's just a nonsense argument on multiple fronts. He's talking out his ass without looking at any actual data. I've attached a graph here comparing the lifetime emissions of a BEV and ICEV and it's just plainly obvious there's no contest. You can find it and the relevant study at the link provided. The massive error bars on the emissions from electricity to power it is because different grids have different CO~2~ per kWh ratings thanks to different power sources. But notice that even the worst grids (nearly 100% coal) put a BEV on par with an ICE vehicle.
I honestly think he didn't do his homework before writing this. I honestly think he had a couple of facts in his head, put them together, realized there could be a problem, and didn't bother to check if his hunch was right.
Good points. I agree. Rowan seems to be far off here.
I wonder when we'll learn, looking back, what the longevity of EVs is in practice. I don't have data but I expect to be the same or even better than ICEs. There's just so much more which can break in an ICE car, and which owners might choose not to fix.
Well now I'm just confused as to the point in sharing, since you provided no criticism of the article. It implied you thought it was a reasonable argument.
Well sharing it was always going to be a bit interesting since it was Rowan Atkinson, but I also believed what I've read previously about EVs being disappointingly "un-green" vehicles when battery manufacturing was taken into account. So yeah I thought it was a reasonable argument. I'm happy to have been corrected.
Ah gotcha, yeah this is an argument that comes up every once in a while where well-meaning people accidently do the comparison wrong or just fail to dig deeper.
There was actually a point in time where owning an electric vehicle in West Virginia was actually less energy efficient to drive than a regular gas car. Their grid was comically dirty and EVs were just getting started.
Kinda neat to learn Rowan has an engineering degree, I could have sworn he went to school for acting.