Going Green: Plug-In Hybrids Make More Sense Than Pure EVs For Most Americans
PHEVs are much more affordable, solve range anxiety, and greatly reduce environmental damage
Like it or not electric vehicles are coming. California and 11 other states have banned the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines ( ICE) after the year 2035. A majority of automobile manufacturers have stopped investing in and/or plan to stop production of ICE vehicles.
The United States has now crossed 6% in total EV market share, working toward its goal of a 50% share by 2030.
Our last Pure Science article, Climate Change Guide for Skeptics, discussed that while anthropogenic climate change does not pose an immediate or existential threat to humanity as many claim, it is real, and it will have an increasing impact on the environment and future generations, and in particular to people in the 3rd world, who will be less able to adapt to a warmer planet with higher seas.
Given that, it seems prudent to consider ways that we can reduce CO2 emissions without harming the economy or creating burdens that many citizens would reject. Changes to the energy sources and technology used in transportation seem like a natural target given that 27% of the US CO2 emission is caused by the transportation sector.
Some pertinent questions are:
Do electric vehicles reduce CO2 emissions? And if so, by how much?
Can US infrastructure support widespread conversion to EVs?
Do plug-in hybrids offer a better alternative to battery only EVs (BEVs)?
The first question, on whether or not electric vehicles reduce CO2 emissions is complicated: it depends on how the cars are used and compared to what?
Tesla’s 2021 Impact Report claims that over a full lifecycle, including automobile and energy source production, Tesla BEVs produce only 43% as much CO2 as an ICE vehicle (ONLY 30 TONS of CO2 versus 70 tons, for ICEs).
But this comparison is with a premium luxury ICE vehicle that gets around 25 mpg. Is that a fair comparison?
I believe a more appropriate comparison is with other high efficiency motor vehicles that are currently available. Volkswagen, which is committed to reducing its carbon emissions footprint, has compared the CO2 emissions of its Golf Diesel with its e-Golf over the projected life of the cars in the graph below.
Volkswagen analysis shows that their BEV requires significantly more energy and thus CO2 emissions to produce the vehicle (11.5 tons vs 5 tons), but after 125,000 km (77,700 mi) the reduced emissions during the use phase of the BEV results in net CO2 reduction. After 200,000 km the reduction in CO2 emissions by the BEV is less than 15%. As an aside here, it's worth noting that if Germany had not abandoned nuclear powered electricity, which does not produce CO2, the comparison would have shown much greater advantage of the BEV.
Thus we can conclude EVs reduce CO2 emissions if the EV mileage reaches at least 6 digits even with todays fossil fuel heavy electric power mixture. The EV advantage will only improve in the future with a greater mix of renewables and nuclear power.
Can US infrastructure support widespread conversion to EVs?
BEVs face significant challenges with regard to infrastructure. The most fundamental hurdle is that only ⅓ of Americans have a personal garage for charging. It is somewhere between extremely expensive and technologically impossible to add personal charging stations in many multifamily residential buildings. As a result most charging of electric vehicles will have to be done at public stations.
This creates a huge problem because the full charging time of a BEV is typically 5 to 10 hours on the common Level 2 chargers and even 30 minutes at Tesla superchargers, which is anywhere from 10 to 100 times longer than the 3 to 5 minutes required to fill the gas tank of a car. Thus, unless the average number of personal driving miles per year drops significantly, an electric vehicle dominated future will require an astronomical number of public charging stations, likely >5 million public charging spots (given that there are an estimated 500,000 gas pumps in the US) !!! The cost to install a Level 2 public charger is often >$10,000 per port and the much more desirable superchargers >$100,000. Thus the cost for the charging stations alone (ignoring electric grid capacity increases) will be trillions of dollars.
Do plug-in hybrids offer a better alternative to BEVs (in the real world)?
The answer in many cases is YES - if we are only deciding based on environmental and economic factors (Tesla wins the wow, driving performance and cool factors hands down).
Let’s compare the RAV 4 Prime, which starts at $41,590 with the Tesla Model 3 Long Range, which has an MSRP OF $59,190.
The RAV4 Prime has an 18.1 kWh battery that allows it to go 42 miles on battery power only. For many of us that don't take daily trips longer than 42 miles this car allows for all the advantages of an electric vehicle with a battery only around one-fifth the size of the Model 3 Long Range battery (80.5 kWh), with a corresponding 80% reduction in the CO2 emitted to make the battery.
The much smaller battery also greatly reduces the environmental strain required to mine and refine many of the scarce resources in the battery including Cobalt and Lithium.
But most importantly, the RAV4 Prime has a critical advantage in that it can travel long distances and rely on the existing gasoline filling stations with quick and readily available energy fill ups. Not only does this advantage alleviate the “range anxiety” of BEVs for planned long trips, but is a necessity in some emergency situations. When a major hurricane threatens to crash into the heavily populated coastline of Florida (where I live) hundreds of thousands of cars simultaneously head inland and north. The Tesla owners in FL will be evacuating in their OTHER ICE car, which they can refuel easily as they look for shelter.
The full environmental advantage of electric vehicles can only be attained if new EVs are purchased instead of ICE vehicles and not as an additional car - thus for many 1 car families, hybrids like the RAV4 are not only economical and more rational choice than a BEV, but also more Green.
EV Policies
In a rational world, governments would not be trying to pick winning and losing technologies and companies. The upside-down logic and misplaced financial incentives of US government policies towards EVs are well described by Holman Jenkins in this WSJ commentary. Current government subsidies end up primarily going to the rich, driving the EV market towards more opulent, less CO2 reducing, models.
If CO2 reduction were really the desired goal, rational government policies would rely on free market forces with carbon taxes introduced to compensate for the External Costs associated with CO2 emissions that are not included in the product market prices. In such a very imagined rational world, the higher price of fossil fuels and non-subsidized prices of BEVs would result in a lot more PHEVs and a lot fewer BEVs.
Well said Dr. Coleman. I agree.
The rapid forced change will be a disaster in emergency situations and our current electrical grid can't support the additional load. Too much, too fast.
Very interesting! I think a plug in hybrid will definitely be the car for me when I get a new one!