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.
I like old cars, but the point is there will be a point at which getting a car that is as uncomplicated as a 1990s Japanese sedan will end. In 20 years time you’d have to deal with all sorts of electric and software issues.
It used to be that you could just take out the cassette player and insert a Bluetooth radio, for instance. In modern cars everything is integrated software and it sure as hell won’t be maintained by car manufacturers after 10 years at most.
Modern fossil fuel cars are unfortunately no different…
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
But you can buy an old fossil fuel car.
Well you could probably buy this old electric car too!
For now. In twenty years time the current fleet of newish cars will be the old junk.
My family drives 20 year old cars daily.
I like old cars, but the point is there will be a point at which getting a car that is as uncomplicated as a 1990s Japanese sedan will end. In 20 years time you’d have to deal with all sorts of electric and software issues.
It used to be that you could just take out the cassette player and insert a Bluetooth radio, for instance. In modern cars everything is integrated software and it sure as hell won’t be maintained by car manufacturers after 10 years at most.
There are old fossils?
They’re all old, silly