Interesting article here!...
With The Tesla Model S, Elon Musk Has Created A Nice Fossil Fuel Car - Forbes
With The Tesla Model S, Elon Musk Has Created A Nice Fossil Fuel Car - Forbes
That should read "the $7500 to $10000 the government confiscated from my neighbors...The $7500 to $10000 government incentive money....
California, where Tesla manufactures, does not have significant coal power. Or at least Teslas are stamped, formed, welded, coil wound, painted, and bolted together in California. I don't know where Tesla sources its aluminum, which is energy intensive to make, but a lot of aluminum is smelted by cheap hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest. That industry was developed to support a certain Seattle airplane manufacturer.Kermit, I think you're looking at the wrong details. The article discusses many important issues, such as the significant energy used to construct the Tesla materials and battery.
Most of this is just flat out wrong. I work in the oil industry and I am no proponent of electric cars really......but this is absurdMyth about Electric cars:
1. Electricity is clean energy.
2. Electricity is more efficient.
If I can prove above that the obvious conclusion is that Electric cars are another liberal myth that hits our collective pocketbook and distracts us from real issues at hand.
1. Electricity is clean
a. It would be if it was produced from Hydro, solar, wind or nuclear (?)... and I am stretching the truth as much as I can here. Hydro dams damage the environment in uncountable ways. Large scale solar or wind is yet to be proven and its environmental impact is unceratain. Nuclear has well known problems and probably should not be on this list. (When I was a kid I thought few nations could have nuclear, since there are few geologically and environmentally stable places on this planet where mother nature would not be able to release the radiation. Little did I know that Japanese built a bunch of nukes right on the most active fault! Kids do not know anything anyway.)
b. As was pointed out here most of the energy is generated by fossil fuel. Gas is fossil fuel, too, in case you have nto checked. It produces a little more steram that COx, but that is all.
c. Li batteries are not an environmental disaster waiting to happen. Li is not all that safe for humans. The elecrelite and the substrate is a nasty fluoro-carbon.
d. Fossil fuel will run out. Not in our lifetime or our grand-kids lifetime. There is a difference in what is called proven reserves and actual reserves.
e. What about the other 95% of the world which continues to burn fossil fuel at ever increasing rates with no regulation....
2. The electric car seems to be a more efficient way to deliver motive power.
a. This appears to be true. Fossil plant efficiency is 55%, transmission is 95% and electric motor is 90% to 99%. Compared to 20% efficiency for gasoline this looks correct. Ooops! One step missing. What happens when you charge those batteries. Do they get hot? The charging process is veeeeery inefficient, it wastes 50% of the energy. It is better to run a Diesel car it si 45% efficient.
b. Electric car wastes less energy when idling. This is correct. Besides converting 20% of the fuel's energy to power, gasoline car wastes a lot of gas just sitting at trtaffic lights. This is why hybrids make sense, they solve this energy delivery problem. There is a simpler solution Diesel, again. Diesel motor consumes very little gas at idle, just enough to turn the accessories.
Therefore, a better answer is a Diesel car. 50% energy conversion efficeincy at all speeds (no throttle). Mr. Diesel was a genious. The technology exists. Thedistribution netwoirk is widely avaialble.
Electric cars just put a lot of our $$ into politician's cronies pockets. in other countries this would be called corruption or irresponsible management of public funds, at best. Here we think it is something we must do.
Anton