Maybe EVs are not a comprehensive climate solution??
Okay? Don’t blame the ev, this is a strange framing to use
The proliferation of a new technology typically doesn’t start from poor people.
It starts from fanatics first. I built my first EV. It was crap, I cut it apart and sold the metal (environmental footprint: awful). Then I built my second EV. It drove around 10 000 km, but had to be retired due to metal fatigue (enviromental footprint: neutral at best, lesson learned: big).
I bought my third EV on a crashed vehicle auction. New front axle, stretching the frame back to correct dimensions… I drive it every day, but it’s a crap car that I’d not recommend to my worst enemy. :) Environmental footprint: positive, I can produce fuel for myself from April to October. But if the same vehicle would be used by someone who doesn’t produce (or buy) renewable power, the footprint would be less positive.
Anticipating the demise of my factory-made electric microcar, I am however building another EV. Again the footprint is negative, but I need information about how to easily manufacture one, and obtaining information has a cost in resources. :(
Meanwhile, of course, truly rich folks buy fancy and electronics-laden self-driving EVs which some then proceed to crash or mishandle due to lack of clue. People are like that and it will stick out in statistics.
IMHO: if they hadn’t bought an EV, they’d have bought another kind of status symbol and would have used it even more wastefully. What matters more is what the average person can and will do. And how do we influence the auto makers to produce less resource-intensive vehicles?
they use more electricity, which is most often produced at a coal-burning plan
Cool. So we can completely discount this paper because it is clearly a giant lie.
This, the researchers note, is because wealthier people in general have a bigger carbon footprint—they use more electricity, which is most often produced at a coal-burning plant,
Blatantly untrue.
Even without that obvious lie: Well, rich people driving ICE cars would have an even bigger footprint. What point is this trying to make?
I think the study analyzed the footprint of the person, not the vehicle:
In this new study, the research team investigated whether consumers who purchase and drive such vehicles have a smaller carbon footprint than other consumers
The merits of electric vehicles are irrelevant to their study - and their study is irrelevant to the merits of electric vehicles.
So maybe they’re not lying (or maybe they are, if they made a direct claim about the power mix of the Finnish grid), but they’re definitely far from barking under the correct tree. They’re barking in a different forest, not of transport economy, but of wealth and consumption. :)
Technically, it’s not wrong that worldwide the largest method of electricity generation is coal, but it does tend to be far smaller and shrinking in the richer western nations with lots of EV’s people are probably thinking of, even before getting to the whole electricity is on track to be made carbon neutral a lot sooner than gasoline thing.
I’m actually very impressed that Finland managed to avoid the ‘clean LNG’ that North America got sold on, good work.
This paper takes it’s data from a survey in Finland, so I believe it should use the Finnish power mix in it’s conclusions or at least compare to it.
Also, even using 100% coal power an EV emits less CO2 than an ICE car over the same distance. It comes down to rich people emitting more CO2 in general, which was known, and I don’t see the need for the focus on EVs. Smells like click bait conservatives are gonna abuse in their BS “EVs have higher emissions than ICEs” arguments. OP already made that mistake.
Edit: The article title is click bait. The actual research paper is titled
But can it drive to Lapland? A comparison of electric vehicle owners with the general population for identification of attitudes, concerns and barriers related to electric vehicle adoption in Finland
which makes more sense.
Ya, if the article is using Finish survey data than it’s definitely ridiculous to talk about it being powered by coal, I had assumed that given the article’s presentation they were at least looking at gobal statistics.
Given the the title of the paper they got this from, if they are not getting paid by an oil company somewhere already they really should work on collecting the free money for the work they are already doing.
Before reading, I’m expecting:
- focussing only on the production emissions
- pretending only coal powered electricity exists
- anecdotal evidence
After reading:
focussing only on the production emissions- pretending only coal powered electricity exists
- anecdotal evidence
- misdirection
The argument is “rich people consume more”. Which is true, and their emissions are higher because of it. Driving electric is still better than gas though.
Electric cars are better than gas, but the extensive car infrastructure needed to sustain cars remains the same. The real solution is having viable alternatives to driving to reduce the need for car use altogether.
It’s not an instant solution, obviously. I have been cooking and heating electric at home for years. For most of the first year, that was coal powered electricity.
A friend of mine made that same argument as you. “But our power is coal, you’re just throwing away money”. Well, a year later, we have green power and gas is hella expensive.
Now he’s complaining about gas prices.
Don’t be him, think more than one step ahead.