I'll just put this here. A new Rivian owner thinking about going to a Tacoma.

I’m not assuming the environmental impacts are equal. I completely disagree with that statement.

If you disregard environmental impacts and the shifting of the global power base and purely focus on HP per $, then yes, EV’s are “better”.

On a larger scope, just look at where this “value for $” focus has got us with domestic manufacturing.

 

What's wrong with LifePo4 batteries?

 

My belief is you are correct.

I can think of no other reason we would be concurrently pursuing two agendas (“move to EV” and “no domestic mining”) which are completely in opposition with each other. It makes no logical sense unless there was a larger agenda at play behind the scenes.

Maybe I’m full of tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, but from an engineering perspective it just doesn’t make sense.

 

You think EV's have more of an environmental impact than an ICE?

 

Yes.

It is my opinion the benefits the relatively minuscule number of EV’s have on the global environment are outweighed by the negative environmental impact of their manufacturing global supply chain.

Looking more broadly, according to the EPA https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions 28% of greenhouse gases are related to fossil fuels used for transportation. 25% are related to fossil fuels used to generate electricity.

Shifting from ICE to EV without modification of our electricity grid (switch to nuclear for example) would simply shift the small percentage of greenhouse gas emissions source from transportation to electricity generation.

 

That would be incorrect

 

What study/data has drawn you to that conclusion? everything I see always shows ICE having more of an impact, linked a few studies below.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6973130/
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10992
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statis...s-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle

Here is an overview of the 2021 life cycle emissions of medium-sized electric, hybrid and ICE vehicles in each stage of their life cycles, using tCO2e. These numbers consider a use phase of 16 years and a distance of 240,000 km:

 

I see your point but your failing to think about other externalities related to ICE the way you are thinking of them as related to EV's. You make a good point that a major externality for EV's is how your power is actually produced, now apply that same deep thinking logic to ICE. How many 18 wheelers have to drive every single day on the road to fill up 10's of thousands of gas stations (that would no longer be necessary). How much power do those gas stations utilize? How much impact (both roadway damage and pollution) is caused by those 18 wheelers that would no longer be necessary? Etc.

These are just some examples that never really get quantified in the studies but I would levy would make the actual external cost even higher for ICE than is being currently computed.

Think about how inefficient it is to produce fuel from crude oil, put it in a tanker, drive to a "pool" to drop it, and then have everyone drive to the "pool" to get their energy VS. produced directly at source and sent directly to your home. Then the ICE engine itself is only able to utilize 12% of the actual potential energy of the gasoline, wasting over 60% of the energy as heat that isn't recaptured. 100 years of refinement into the ICE motor and it's still just a shitty glorified space heater that also happens to move vehicles, not the other way around.

 

As I stated earlier, I think EV’s are interesting, but I think there is significant manipulation going on behind the scenes.

If we had:
1) domestic / environmentally safe mineral mining operations
2) electricity grid modernization (switch to nuclear power generation)
3) robust post-consumer recycling for EV batteries and vehicle components

then I would fully endorse the move to EV.

As a side note, there is a startup (that received a $2 billion dollar loan from the US) for EV battery recycling. In this model, the cobalt recovered from these recycled batteries will be considered “domestically sourced” as “urban mined”. It is an interesting concept, but definitely needs to mature a bit before being ready for mass utilization.

 

I think all of the above will come, seeing as how EV cars are in their infancy compared to ICE vehicles. The first Tesla model S only hit the road in 2012.

Lithium salt mines are already environmentally safe to mine, not sure if your aware but we literally just pump water into the salt and up comes lithium to the top. here is a picture, please compare to a strip mine:




Also, there is already EV battery recycling plants that have opened this year, Ascend in GA comes to mind. They are able to process an amount equal to 70,000 electric vehicle batteries per year at their single plant. Of course tons more will open as investors already see the writing on the wall.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...-recycling-facility-in-georgia-301786245.html


Also again all of this missing for the forest for the trees in the fact that 600hp/70MPGE shits all over 270HP/25MPG, and that's environmental impact aside which the EV also wins in. The only place EV's are lacking today is towing range under load, that's it.

 

Chase Merrill is about the kind of name i'd expect for a 24 year old that can afford an $85k vehicle.

 

They have been pushing miles driven tax for years, which is mostly likely they will do once EVs go mainstream. Which will be easily trackable via the vehicles gps.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/706793


https://jalopnik.com/mileage-taxes-will-probably-punish-ev-owners-and-that-1846476616

 

My biggest issue with EV's is the Douchebags that keep trying to defend the tech and justify it to people who live such different lives in places that it doesnt make sense.

 

Did he ever get a Toyota? Maybe he's waiting for a Trail Hunter 4tg gen. Maybe he saw the new LC 250. Chase can probably afford a 3rd gen to hold over until the 24s show up, is he driving the R1S until an allocation can be found? The story had so much potential and went nowhere.

 

Although lithium mining could be better it still is nowhere near as toxic as oil and the effects. With over 200 oil spills since 1980 alone the environmental impacts of lithium will be hard pressed to be worse than oil, and that's just based upon spills.
Cobalt is another disgusting process however ev batteries are rapidly moving away from cobalt. It is worth remembering that cobalt is heavily used in processing oil into gasoline.
The first sodium batteries have now just hit the market. Although likely not ready for ev usage we should see rapid development in this technology just due to the high cost of lithium.
Bottom line oil is a far more dirty process, not only do you have the spills you also have the dirty shipping around the world, the tens of thousands of miles of pipelines, etc. And what we do with this is burn the stuff and then go get more again. Yes, lithium and other materials will have their own transport emissions however unlike oil those materials are captured and can be resued or recycled.

The grid issues are used as fear tactics. Technically the grid has enough capacity as of today and the issues much reported are one, localized, and two driven by a variety of factors. More than that the grid is a commeralized system and demand is one of the biggest items that will drive modernization.
If you run the math we need at MOST a 50% increase in grid capacity to support EVERY ground vehicle being electric (something that by every account is 50 years away)

Ev batteries are recycled today and are in very high demand. The important thing to remember is that reuse is far more important than recycling and there is a very large market for used ev batteries today. Beyond reuse is recycling and ev batteries are being recycled today. As they are a very large source of materials and the materials are in high demand (and recycled lithium is reportedly better than new stuff) ev batteries will be far easier to recycle than other lithium batteries (ev batteries are only a small portion of the lithium market).

As far as the market goes remember that economics 101 will tell you that more players in the market REDUCES wealth isolation. Yes, there are tech companies that are investing in this technology, but more investors serves to distribute that wealth more than less investors. Compared to oil the ev market is FAR more distributed.

 

Can recycled lithium be used to manufacture new sodium batteries?

 

My biggest issue with anti-EV people is that they espouse the same regurgitated no actual original thought talking points that are blatantly false. They sound like ignorant luddites that would have also talked down desktop computers and handheld smart phones when they were in their infancy.

The tech wouldn't need to be "defended" if ignorant people didn't state the same dumb shit over and over about it.

 

I live to close to salt water and potential storm serge flooding to consider an BEV. One of the issues of building communities at or below sea level.

What plan does the EV industry have for would be buyers of electric vehicles that live below sea level?

I'd say move, but if you're a waterman that isn't practical.

 

My biggest issue is the people who have to announce to the world that an EV doesn’t fit their lives right now as if anyone told them it does.

 

Do ICE cars not receive flood damage during storm surge?