While EVs won’t solve all of the problems associated with car use – from traffic congestion through to our increasingly sedentary lifestyles – they are an essential part of tackling the climate emergency.
In its latest report, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said, with “high confidence”, that EVs have lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional cars. The IPCC said that electric vehicles not only “offer the greatest low-carbon potential for land-based transport”, but their use would save money. (Despite elevated electricity prices, EVs are still much cheaper to run than petrol cars in the UK.)
Indeed, without a widespread shift to EVs, there is no plausible route to meeting the UK’s legally binding target of net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 – and the same is true globally.
The question is not how shall we meet net zero by 2050. It’s whether we should try to meet net zero by 2050.
To alleviate any narrative stress here the answer is “No”.
I find it interesting that the mechanism is getting more blatant now; “Ok Sir Kneel, thanks for saying I’m going to get even more subsidies! Is £1,500,000 enough or do you want a bit more?”
Is there anyone who still believes this crap anymore?
One essential component of solving the “climate emergency” surely must be to provide some evidence that such an emergency is actually happening…
Shonky computer models designed to fit “facts” to pre-ordained conclusions are not “evidence”. Ditto comparing today’s with regularly “adjusted” historical temperatures. The raw and satellite numbers don’t seem to indicate that the sky is showing the slightest chance of falling.
“EVs have lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional cars.”
Depends on how the electricity is generated and of course ignores any emisions that occur during thgeir production in excess of that of ICE cars
“The IPCC said that electric vehicles not only “offer the greatest low-carbon potential for land-based transport”, but their use would save money. (Despite elevated electricity prices, EVs are still much cheaper to run than petrol cars in the UK.)”
I see little evidence that EVs are cheaper to run unless one is deliberately excluding the capital purchase cost (and subsidies) and the finite lifespan of the battery, and the cost of upgrading electrical distribution systems, provision of residential charging points and charging networks across the country – all presumably completely unsustainable as they are being provided for one purpose only and have no transferable use or benefit for anything else
Humpty Dumpty strikes again
But the IPCC is a political body, not a scientific body. So quoting the IPCC on matters that are scientific doesn’t prove anything.
Entertaining to notice the huge rise of electricity prices in Oz. It is of course claimed here that EV’s are the way to go.
@Boganboy
I don’t think you’ll get far.
“EVs have lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional cars”
Every time I see one of these smug little signs on the back of a milk-float or an electric bus, you know, “Zero Emissions” etc etc, I feel that in the interests of honesty the sign should read “Emissions elsewhere”.
And of course, over the lifetime of the vehicle including manufacture and disposal, EV’s cause more emissions than proper cars, quite apart from all the perfectly true things Starfish mentions above.
Rowan Atkinson weighed in on this recently
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/03/electric-vehicles-early-adopter-petrol-car-ev-environment-rowan-atkinson
One would hope the tables are starting to turn. However, I now see there is a plethora of fact checkers and debunkers all over it
And if I had read the article, I would have realised this was one of above mentioned fact checkers
Gunker
Every time I read an article advocating the use of hydrogen fuel, I wonder how they’re going to store it.
The best solution I’ve ever heard of is to combine it with carbon.
I wouldn’t trust the opinion of an Intergovernmental Panel on Washing Behind Your Ears never mind this mob of grifters.
. . . the UK’s legally binding target of net zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 . . .
They love this important sounding “legally binding” bollocks. Prior to 2019, the Climate Change Act 2008 made it “legally binding” to reduce emissions by 80% compared to 1990 levels by 2050. But that particular legal bind simply evaporated when parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019, which brought in “Net Zero”. So all Parliament has to do is pass the Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2025 (Sod This For A Box Of Soldiers) and the whole thing can go away. All nice and legal like.
(Despite elevated electricity prices, EVs are still much cheaper to run than petrol cars in the UK.)
My petrol car cost me £1000, which is costing me £20 a month over five years. How much does an electric car cost?
PJF said:
“They love this important sounding “legally binding” bollocks.”
Only when it’s something they like. Try them on a legally binding immigration cap and see how quickly they change.
(Actually that might be fun as a first stage; make emissions targets per head of population…)
starfish,
“I see little evidence that EVs are cheaper to run unless one is deliberately excluding the capital purchase cost (and subsidies) and the finite lifespan of the battery, and the cost of upgrading electrical distribution systems, provision of residential charging points and charging networks across the country – all presumably completely unsustainable as they are being provided for one purpose only and have no transferable use or benefit for anything else”
I saw a video where someone calculated that you’d have to do a 30 mile commute in an electric mini to save money. The problem there is, who wants to do a 30 mile (or more) commute in a mini? You want something a bit bigger than that which is nice and smooth on the road.
The big thing to me is how easy it is to do work or get deliveries without driving. Saves me a load of time, and it’s much greener for someone to come around with a van or drop off in a locker I can walk to. I mostly share a car with my daughter but if I didn’t I would get just pay for the odd cab. Spending £30-40K on a car just seems mad to me.
Seems that the majority of EV owners to date are two car families. They’ve one car they need and one that is nice to have, and use whichever for long and short trips as appropriate with what type of parking is available at the other end and what congestion zones are crossed being considered.
People with one car need a vehicle they can use for both and are getting a bit pissed imv.
Related.
In news absolutely nobody foresaw the BBC asks us:
“Solar panels – an eco-disaster waiting to happen?”
In contravention of Betteridges’ law of headlines, yes and yes you were warned but we were dismissed as right wing climate deniers.
“EVs are still much cheaper to run than petrol cars in the UK”
And as I have commented before, this is also only true because of the tax treatment. If petrol attracted no duty (and hence no VAT on duty…) and VAT was charged at 5%, the cost per mile is almost identical…
EVs depend upon the marginal electricity producer. When it is (and it often is) a coal-fired power station then they are less green than a 1950s Ford, let alone a Morris Minor.
@boganboy
I was very interested to read about the Gerry trains that run on hydrogen. Difficult to get the actual details, but they talk about 2 t of hydrogen but I wouldn’t put any credence in their numbers as they put this conversion in “130-kilogram (287-ounce).”
https://www.dw.com/en/german-railway-firm-ushers-in-new-era-for-hydrogen-trains/a-64070343#:~:text=hydrogen%20trains%20trial-,Deutsche%20Bahn%2C%20Siemens%20launch%20hydrogen%20trains%20trial,on%20German%20local%20rail%20networks.
Nice. Headline an article “fact check” then fill it with unsubstantiated bollocks.
The left-wing legacy media obsession for “fact checking” should really be called “opinion checking”.
‘I was very interested to read about the Gerry trains that run on hydrogen.’
Thanks Gunker. I see they still use ‘gray’ hydrogen. Though no doubt they’ll build enough windmills eventually to run them on the green stuff.
Of course, if they’d kept the nukes running, it’d be green already.
Gunker
I saw a docu on telly on this very subject a few years back. I mentioned it in several posts in the dim and distant past.
The H2 has to be stored at 900bar – which is a lot, in fact I’d go as far as to describe it as a literal hydrogen bomb.
I don’t really know, but there are experts here on this subject who can tell me, but wouldn’t they have to keep a powerful pump going to keep this pressure up ?
If you think train derailments are bad now wait until they are full of hydrogen.
Was waiting for a bus the other day when a car came past with ‘hydrogen test vehicle’ sticker on it, thanks to an errant cyclist it had to swerve and nearly collided with a bus, made me wonder what happens in a busy built up area when one of these vehicles has a nasty accident
Pointed out this before. Petrol has an energy density about 4 times that of TNT. What stops it exploding is it needs oxygen to burn. In any normal petrol fire, the burning is limited by the quantity of oxygen that can come in contact with the petrol vapour. Despite what you see on films, cars exploding in car crashes is pretty rare. Not to be tried at home (or at least not your home) but the most likely result of throwing a lighted match into a full petrol tank is the match going out. It’s an almost empty tank might explode. To get the bang you need a specific mix of fuel vapour & air.
Get a hydrogen excursion, that’ll be at very high pressure & stirring up & mixing with the air it’s passing through. You ask anyone who works with gasses, like welders. The extraordinary precautions they take with handling them & the equipment. And you’re going to give that to some ditzy woman who expects the world to always work the way she wants it to?
Ben Rich wrote a book titled “Skunk Works” making a similar point bis.
Running jets on H2 sounded good so his team spent a few years trialling it. Then after an explosion in the corner of a California airstrip they had chosen deliberately for its remoteness abandoned it as it couldn’t be stored safely. The book mentions the studies from pre-WW1 and WW2 in Germany that they looked at extensively – the hun had reached the same conclusion decades earlier, just too damned dangerous to store.
Sensible people the huns.
If the World’s number 1 and 2 richest economies of all time couldn’t figure it out, what chance the rest of us.
Petrol has an energy density about 4 times that of TNT. What stops it exploding is it needs oxygen to burn.
Which is how the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB aka Mother Of All Bombs) delivers a blast equivalent to 47t TNT from a 10t bomb. A small explosive creates a cloud of mixed fuel and air and then a secondary explosive sets it off.
“the cost of upgrading electrical distribution systems, provision of residential charging points”
This is moot when all the cars are self driving and drive off to charge themselves at some central location.
See, I think electric cars and self driving and renewable energy are all cool tech. That doesn’t mean I think it should be subsidised and legislated into existence, though. It needs to compete with the old tech. Then we don’t have to argue about its merits. The market will find them, or not.
Rob Fisher
Since this hasn’t happened yet, we might as well keep on using our petrol powered stuff until someone makes it work.
Outside Oz of course. I’m damned if I want those self-driving things running around the place until the tech is absolutely perfect.