[HN Gopher] American EVs reduced gasoline consumption by just 0....
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American EVs reduced gasoline consumption by just 0.54% in 2021
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 35 points
Date : 2022-12-19 21:28 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| Anything optional + opt-in doesn't get used.
|
| Mandate EVs, and suddenly the industry will respond.
|
| The status quo finances oppressive regimes, the Holocene
| extinction event, and climatic omnicide.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Anyone who mandates EVs will be tarred and feathered.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| If car companies want to be relevant in 10 years, manufacturing
| EVs isn't optional. Others will be happy to take their
| customers by selling EVs.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Mandating EVs has already happened in the EU and California.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| For a technology that went mainstream, figuratively speaking,
| about ten minutes ago, this seems like a big deal.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Americans would probably do a far better job at reducing gasoline
| consumption by driving reasonably sized cars.
| ISL wrote:
| On a log-plot, that's a whole lot more than we had a decade ago.
| Approaching 1% and doubling every few years seems like a
| wonderful trend.
| bink wrote:
| > According to Argonne National Lab, between 2010 and the end of
| 2021, the US had bought more than 2.1 million plug-in vehicles,
| including 1.3 million battery EVs. That sounds like a very
| impressive number, but bear in mind that's out of a total
| national vehicle pool of nearly 276 million cars and trucks
|
| That seems pretty straight forward. It's not that EVs aren't
| helping reduce carbon emissions, it's that they still make up a
| tiny fraction of the overall travel miles in the US.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Seriously. 0.3% percent of new cars in 10 years are electric or
| partially electric and drove gas usage down by 0.5%? Seems like
| a victory.
| timeon wrote:
| But is that really relevant in the end? Is CO2 decreasing?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| use by ~0.1% (of US output)
| thrill wrote:
| That "news" article could have easily spun it the other way
| and said EVs have double the influence on gas usage.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| IMO tech pessimism sells these days in a way that optimism
| doesn't, so places like Ars and The Verge lean into it.
| TSiege wrote:
| Could be hybrids accounting for the rest
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| That's not a little bit.
| ashwal wrote:
| This is much more than I would have guessed!
|
| Considering how recent ~any level of EV mass manufacturing is
| v.s. the total stock and new purchases of ICE cars, a material
| dent seems rather impressive?
|
| Why we always gotta be so cynical -\\_(tsu)_/-
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Cynicism sells apparently.
| dgllghr wrote:
| EVs have also been targeting a very specific segment of the
| market, which is not the most gas guzzling segment. Once EVs
| really move into the big SUV, pickup truck, delivery vehicle, and
| 18-wheeler segments, the gasoline consumption reduction will be
| much more significant compared to the % of vehicles on the road
| that are electric.
| ars wrote:
| City buses are where EV is needed the most IMO.
|
| The stop and go constantly, barely on the freeway, and this is
| the kind of driving where EV shines.
|
| And they bletch tons of diesel exhaust on city streets. (Unlike
| trucks which are mostly in remote areas.)
|
| They also all return to a depot, so there's a good place for
| them to recharge. The only issue I can see is if there's enough
| time for them to sit and recharge. But I think it should work
| out with some good scheduling, since obviously there's much
| less service at night.
|
| > 18-wheeler segments
|
| That's not going to work so well. Don't they sleep in their
| trucks on the side of the road? 18 wheeler cabs are almost
| always on the move, there's not really a lot of time for them
| to sit and recharge. I expect 18 wheelers to be one of the last
| segments to go electric.
|
| They will only go electric when every truck stop has rows of
| fast chargers (so they can sleep and charge), and there's as
| many chargers as gas stations. This will take a long time.
| martinald wrote:
| One of the limiting factors for electrifying bus fleets
| (apart from the additional cost of the buses themselves) is
| getting enough power to the depots from the grid. Each bus
| can take 100kW easily for a few hours, so a depot with 50
| buses requires a 5MW connection, which is a lot if there
| isn't spare capacity on the grid near it.
|
| A short term problem for sure but it is causing enormous
| problems in London (grid is really streched even for new
| residential towers, so adding a multiMW connection for depots
| is not trivial whatsoever).
| pornel wrote:
| Buses are pretty bad in absolute terms, but they're much
| cleaner on per-person basis (even taking into account they
| have low occupancy at times.)
|
| Anyway, still it'd be nice to electrify them all, at least
| for air quality and noise.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Mounting large enough batteries for bus EVs is a challenge.
| Batteries are already a challenge on consumer EVs, but buses
| are an order of magnitude larger, and generally energy
| required to propel a vehicle forward is more than linear in
| the weight of a vehicle. Right now most implementations are
| in trolley buses that use batteries to compensate for
| portions of the line that don't have power. I imagine this
| will change soon but currently most buses that are not
| powered by gas are using hydrogen fuel cells due to energy
| requirements.
| dver wrote:
| https://www.proterra.com/
|
| Work here, we're building them everyday!
| pornel wrote:
| BYD already has a massive fleet of BEV busses in China.
| gmac wrote:
| Really? A local bus company here in the UK now has an all-
| electric fleet: https://thebiglemon.com/
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Many newer EVs in the US are big SUVs (Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq)
| and Amazon is rolling out its new fleet of Rivian delivery
| trucks. Agreed, once more SUVs and gas guzzler equivalents have
| EV options it'll make a bigger impact. When my partner and I
| were choosing an EV, we had a hard time choosing a non-Tesla
| non-SUV model. (We weren't opposed to the Tesla for Musk
| reasons, simply that it was a capital cost we weren't willing
| to spend for the amount of driving we do.)
|
| LA recently bought its first electric firefighting apparatus!
| [1] is a marketing video talking about it.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AafguE0KZk
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Those are not large SUVs. Rivian R1S and the E Hummer are
| probably closest to a large SUV in the market now
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I consider, and have read online, that the E Hummer and R1S
| are pickup trucks.
| dawnerd wrote:
| R1T is the truck. R1S uses the same platform but is a
| full size suv.
| chaostheory wrote:
| I feel that the other segments of the population don't realize
| the non-environmental benefits of EVs like not wasting your
| time at a gas station (including the drive), or wasting time at
| a mechanic or doing maintenance yourself. From my experience,
| maintenance is an oil change every 2 years. The caveat is that
| every 10 years you need to change the battery for which the
| service is not yet very standard.
|
| I would also imagine that in the event of a disaster that we
| can restore electricity much faster than being able to deliver
| gasoline to all gas stations
| dantheman wrote:
| Don't forget about cleaner air from regenerative breaking vs
| normal break pads.
| timeon wrote:
| When people tolerate wasting time in heavy traffic (which
| they do, since they choose to participate next day as well),
| wasted time in gas station is probably nothing for them.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I'm mostly a pedestrian and cyclist and I'd love the quieter
| streets. EVs make a streetscape so much quieter, it's
| fantastic. Also echo what the sibling comment says about
| exhaust and brake dust.
| TinyRick wrote:
| This is optimistic news, but I'm curious if worldwide gasoline
| consumption increased or decreased. Unfortunately Mother Nature
| does not recognize countries, so if the reductions by some
| countries are offset by increases in other countries, the overall
| emissions may be the same or worse.
| sharkster711 wrote:
| That's a lot in just one year
| outside1234 wrote:
| Have you seen how big the other cars are now?
|
| Its like half the country has decided to buy EVs and the other
| half to buy a semi truck (and then complain about gas prices).
| ok123456 wrote:
| Now factor in the environmental factors of making the batteries
| and disposing of them, and account for fossil fuels used to
| generate power.
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