Comments on: Carbon Footprint of Electric Car Depends on Where you Live

By: RaphaelR

RaphaelR — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:58:52 +0000

I’m glad to see someone looking seriously at the environmental and carbon consequences of plug-in hybrid electric cars; it is a very interesting and challenging topic. Are we actually building a more sustainable planet? We all want the answer to be yes, and it can be very exciting to assume electric cars will be the perfect answer. But as with most matters in energy, the devil is in the details, and the details are often complex! The environmental company, Carbon Lighthouse, conducted an in-depth quantitative analysis on this topic:

http://www.carbonlighthouse.com/2011/08/the-coal-powered-electric-car-part-i/
http://www.carbonlighthouse.com/2011/08/the-coal-powered-electric-car-part-i-2/
http://www.carbonlighthouse.com/2011/08/%E2%88%AB-the-coal-powered-electric-car-part-iii/

By: admin

admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 18:48:52 +0000

Good point. I think the cost savings argument is going to be more effective than carbon savings argument for most people anyways. $12k over 100k miles is a big difference.

By: Clint

Clint — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 18:42:07 +0000

In reply to admin.

I wasn’t implying that you were attacking the elctric car. I was, through sarcasm, showing that the Bill Marsh’s analysis was likely very, very incomplete. Not only that but he also uses a per tank (or full-charge) cost estimate, to show a smaller difference in dollars saved.

If he did something like this:

$0.02/mile * 100K miles = $3,000
$0.15/mile * 100K miles = $15,000

He would have shown how drastic this could be on people’s budget, once EV’s reach economies of scale.

He also didn’t compare a vehicle that gets on 20 MPG. But, I digress…

By: admin

admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 18:33:41 +0000

In reply to Clint. The New York Times analysis doesn't go into detail but if the transport is included, it would be in the 17.7. The analysis doesn't include these other items. We're in no way trying to attack electric cars (especially if they're powered by clean sources), we were mainly surprised that the carbon footprint didn't come out better than it did.

By: Clint

Clint — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 18:23:15 +0000

So, which part of the Altima carbon footprint takes into account the mileage required to transport gasoline to filling stations, nationwide? Is it the 72.8 lbs or 17.7 lbs? What about the footprint of all of the hummers, jeeps, tanks and jets flying over the Middle East to protect oil prices from fluctuating and affecting our entire economy?