Just a reminder that for the most part a car with an electric motor is very much powered by the combustion of fossil fuels. A grid without fossil fuel inputs is still a pipe dream.
Kind of a red herring when even 100% fossil fuel power is far more efficient than a car engine. Many US states are projecting <5% fossil fuel reliance for the grid within 15 years.
But even then, a fossil fuel power plant is more efficient at capturing the energy in the fuel than a car engine. So an electric vehicle still emits less CO2 per mile driven, even when the power used to charge it is entirely generated from fossil fuels.
My “old” 2017 Ford Fiesta weighed around 1100 kg, and could drive around 17 km per liter of gasoline. Gasoline has about 9.5 kWh worth of energy per liter, so that’s 0.55 kWh/km. My new Hyundai Ioniq 5 weighs around 2300 kg (yes about twice as much) and drives 5 km per kWh. So that’s only 0.2 kWh/km. So a car weighing twice as much expends less than half as much energy per km…
Luckily there’s many places around the world where fossil fuels are rapidly being phased out.
Just a reminder that for the most part a car with an electric motor is very much powered by the combustion of fossil fuels. A grid without fossil fuel inputs is still a pipe dream.
Kind of a red herring when even 100% fossil fuel power is far more efficient than a car engine. Many US states are projecting <5% fossil fuel reliance for the grid within 15 years.
Unfortunately true.
But even then, a fossil fuel power plant is more efficient at capturing the energy in the fuel than a car engine. So an electric vehicle still emits less CO2 per mile driven, even when the power used to charge it is entirely generated from fossil fuels.
My “old” 2017 Ford Fiesta weighed around 1100 kg, and could drive around 17 km per liter of gasoline. Gasoline has about 9.5 kWh worth of energy per liter, so that’s 0.55 kWh/km. My new Hyundai Ioniq 5 weighs around 2300 kg (yes about twice as much) and drives 5 km per kWh. So that’s only 0.2 kWh/km. So a car weighing twice as much expends less than half as much energy per km…
Luckily there’s many places around the world where fossil fuels are rapidly being phased out.
For example, Scandinavia, where I live: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuels-share-energy?country=SWE~NOR~FIN~DNK