Comments by "Archangel17" (@MDP1702) on "Engineering Explained"
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@robinbinder8658 Which country might that be? Because a country with a lot of renewable can't have EV's that are less green than ICE cars, unless you compare a very inefficient and large EV with a very efficient and small ICE (and even then it should be close).
Even Poland with +-67% coal production at this moment would have 161g/mile (so 175g seems high). Ofcourse not only renewable share matters (for example Poland uses 18% renewable atm), but also the rest of the mix. Coal is really bad in terms of pollution, gas is already a lot better (+-1/3rd less pollution) and things like nuclear and renewables is where EV's shine ( coals is 20 times worse than solar, 80 times worse than wind and nuclear).
In the EU EV cars aren't better when charged with coal, with gas turbines they are slightly better, but almost equal these days (better emission regulations) and thus are more or less equivalent to or sllightly worse than a gas car at end of life. When you don't use coal and have a large share of renewables/nuclear (30%+), it shouldn't even be close. Currently based on the overall EU grid composition, an EV would do around 73g/mile and of which around 54% is caused by coal, being phased out in the next 1-2 decades, no plans for new coal plants for so far I know, and 40% from gas power plants, which also should be phased out over the next 2-3 decades.
In the US however ICE cars are overall that inefficient (in terms of emissions) that even coal powered EV's are better. According to the EPA the average passenger car emits 404 g/mile in the US (even higher than I expected, must be the number of trucks). Fully coal-powered EV's would emit between 190 to 325 (for EV vans, inefficient EV's)
Considering that the grid will get greener every year and coal should (at least in many countries) dissapear more and more (in europe completely by 2035-2040 depending on the country) as well as gas power plants in the long run (20-30 years), EV's will get much cleaner, and on average are already cleaner.
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@robinbinder8658 Poland doesn't come so high, since they also import a lot of renewable power, overall Poland these days rarely comes above 530g/kWh. And seeing a good EV (like a Tesla model 3) can do around 4,2 miles per kWh, that makes 126g/mile, or even if we use the 730g/kWh, it comes down to 173g/mile. Again, this is mostly due to Polands reliance on coal, which will dissapear in the next 2 decades, making EV's by far the greener choice.
An efficient EV does between 15 and 20 kWh/100km, however the average is ticked up by inefficient large EV's and electric vans. I guess the energy mix in your country still makes an ICE car still viable for the next 2 years (still don't know which country and I am really interested to know which country has lots of renewable, but still does 530g/kWh), though I am surprised an old ass car does only 120g/mile.
Just to be clear, I am speaking in a theoretical sense, I am not saying anyone should abandon their old car and buy an EV (I still drive a 14 year old car, though likely not for much longer due to repair costs), that wouldn't even be possible now just due to a lack of EV's, the current price and charging infrastructure.
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