Beeb news item on EV sales increase

[RJSATLBA]

Just published today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29034483

 

[jackt]

It appears the commenters from the peanut seats at the Maily Fail are in full force. :lol:

 

[nowtta60]

I can no longer look at Web2.0 comments on news articles because the level of people's knowledge and their willingness to comment on stuff seems inversely proportional. If people can't be bothered to read up what the space capacity is on the grid at night, the mix of generation capacity, the average daily driving requirements, or that EV cars come with sound emitters, then they should KEEP THEIR DAMN MOUTH SHUT until they have satisfied they know some facts worth sharing, not just repeat tosh for ever. The new one was the guy posting if you do the maths you'll find EVs are more polluting and cost more to run. Maybe if you use imaginary or complex numbers and ignore parts of the supply chain on ICE vehicles. Whatever.

I don't go round posting on science articles about repairing cardio vascular cellular structure saying things like "well what do you expect if the patient eats chocolate".

I prefer the old days when if the journalist made an incorrect assumption you'd write a letter to the editor and it would appear in the corrections page sometimes. These days official "news" sites are just full of rubbish from idiots. Thank god the world is run by engineers and not the plebs.

 

[Chrisn]

If an article is written in a way that a majority of readers are confused and/or will jump to false conclusions, then blame the author not the audience. Stories written for a general audience about EVs should address common misconceptions either in-line or via link to sidebar information.

 

[ultraturtle]

... the guy posting if you do the maths you'll find EVs are more polluting ...

Sad fact of that post is that it is largely true if you are talking about EVs as or less efficient than the Honda FIT EV (>90% of them) compared to ICE vehicles like the Prius in most of the USA with relatively dirty grid power.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/a-roadmap-to-climate-friendly-cars-2013-16318

 

[MarkN]

... the guy posting if you do the maths you'll find EVs are more polluting ...

Sad fact of that post is that it is largely true if you are talking about EVs as or less efficient than the Honda FIT EV (>90% of them) compared to ICE vehicles like the Prius in most of the USA with relatively dirty grid power.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/a-roadmap-to-climate-friendly-cars-2013-16318

This should be taken with a grain of salt, especially with regards to the i3:

• The i3's production carbon footprint is hopefully lower than any other electric car since the plant making the carbon fiber uses hydro power and the assembly plant uses wind power.

• The i3 is more efficient to drive than any other electric car.

• The U.S. power grid is continuing to shift away from coal. So for an i3 I buy today the carbon footprint five years from now will probably be lower than it is today. A Prius I buy today isn't going to get any better, and will probably get worse as oil production gets dirtier, e.g. increased production from tar sands.

• The paper ignores the value of used electric car batteries. A lot of people expect they will be put to use for short-term electricity storage to smooth out grid loads.

Another flaw I see (unrelated to electric versus hybrid) is that they assume any plug-in hybrid will be used with a 50:50 electic:gasoline split. Surely the plug-in Prius with its tiny all-electric range is driven less on battery power than the Volt.