How EVs compare to gas cars on emissions over their total lifespan

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Give up A5! LOL

Sorry Chuck, I'm not a quitter. I don't give up until I accomplish whatever I set out to do.
For example, do you remember that time I set a goal to teach you that science is not something that requires belief? Any lesser man would have given up a long time before on such a daunting mission with such a determined adversary. But I never gave up, and look eventually you learned that one simple concept and quit using that as an argument in every post.
My next mission was to convince you to communicate like an adult, instead of using lol in every sentence. While you have had some recent relapses, I have almost succeeded. Because I never gave up. Even when you seemed to be completely hopeless.

We've been working on the CO2 residence time for a few years now, with those two successes under my belt, I'm not going to give up now. We can do this.

[chuckChuck]

Give up A5! LOL

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Good to know. But you are worried we are going to run out of CO2 in the future? LOL

You might be too, if you had the slightest idea of what the residence time of CO2 actually is. But as you proven time and again, you can't even narrow it down to less than a range of millions of years.
How would you know if you should be worried?
Or did you find the answer recently and you are just baiting me for the opportunity to share it?

[chuckChuck]

Good to know. But you are worried we are going to run out of CO2 in the future? LOL

[AlbertaFarmer5]

You don't make plans for the future A5? How do you plan for the next crop? Your retirement?

I don't plan to plant a crop which only exists on paper, using equipment that hasn't been invented yet, for a market which doesn't exist, hoping that someone invents them all just in time.

[chuckChuck]

You don't make plans for the future A5? How do you plan for the next crop? Your retirement?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Chuck, why do your responses so often involve the future.
What about those of us who live in the present?

[chuckChuck]

EVs will be more reliable than gas cars, but they’re having some teething issues


([url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/matt-bubbers/[/url])

Matt Bubbers ([url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/matt-bubbers/[/url])
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published 5 hours ago

If you’re among the millions of Canadians considering ditching your gas guzzler for an electric vehicle, a recent survey by Consumer Reports that prompted headlines like this one ([url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-electric-vehicles-less-reliable-on-average-than-conventional-cars-and/[/url]) – “Electric vehicles less reliable on average than conventional cars and trucks”– may have you reconsidering that switch.

But it would be a mistake, I think, to read that headline and dismiss battery-powered cars as unreliable or somehow flawed. That’s simply not the case. There’s a lot more to the findings than the headlines would suggest, and they’re worth digging into, if only to understand why the reliability issue isn’t black and white.

“It is disingenuous to say that electric vehicles are less reliable, inherently, than combustion engine vehicles,” Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “It’s [also] disingenuous to look at the market and say that EVs – right now – are just as reliable as internal combustion engines because they’re not, but the reasons are nuanced and complicated,” he added.

Consumer Reports, a U.S.-based non-profit, compiles its annual reliability rankings from owner surveys, safety data and in-house testing. This year’s survey includes data on more than 330,000 vehicles. It’s a great resources for car shoppers, but only if they understand the results.

This year’s report prompted a predictable barrage of similar headlines that don’t look good for EVs. In addition to the one above, others included: “Electric vehicles have almost 80% more problems than gas-powered ones,” from CBS ([url]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-vehicles-consumer-reports-reliability-report/);[/url] “Electric Cars Are Far Less Reliable,” from Road & Track ([url]https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a45986810/electric-cars-are-far-less-reliable-according-to-consumer-reports/)magazine;[/url] and “EVs struggle with reliability due to charging, battery issues,” from Reuters ([url]https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/evs-struggle-with-reliability-due-charging-battery-issues-consumer-reports-2023-11-29/[/url]).

The negative headlines couldn’t come along at a worse time for EVs. High interest rates and the fact gas prices have come down from 2022′s scary $2-a-litre highs mean battery-powered cars don’t make as much financial sense as they did 12 months ago.

But as Fisher has explained in interviews with multiple news outlets, the reliability gap between EVs and gas-powered cars is fundamentally a teething problem. In other words, it’s a byproduct of the fact the EVs are still an emerging technology.

Of course, as a consumer, if you’d rather not endure the inconvenience with those teething issues – even if they’re covered under warranty – that’s perfectly reasonable. Just wait a few years to buy an EV until carmakers have worked out the bugs.

Based on the trends he’s seeing in Consumer Reports’ data, Fisher expects EVs will probably close the reliability gap and become even more reliable than gas-powered vehicles, “in the next several years.”

“That [reliability] gap is closing, and will continue to close as the automakers have either more experience making EVs, or some of the newer automakers just have more experience making vehicles in general,” Fisher said. “I would even go as far to say that, in the future, I would actually expect to see a reversal” with EVs becoming the more reliable cars.

The reliability problems stem from newness, more than anything. Upstart brands such as Rivian and Lucid are new at making cars. “They’re having issues that have, quite frankly, been resolved years ago by traditional automakers; just making sure the door handles work and the doors close properly,” Fisher said.

The survey found the reverse is true for long-running automakers like Ford and General Motors, which are very good at making functioning door handles but aren’t as experienced at making battery controllers, software or other EV-specific parts. “[Older automakers] are really just right now getting into mass-producing the batteries and the other electronics that are required,” he said.

None of those issues, he said, stem from any inherent weakness in electric powertrains.

In fact, batteries have so far proven to be very reliable. A large-scale study ([url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/drive/article-worried-about-ev-battery-life-research-shows-they-could-outlive-the/[/url]) published earlier this year by Seattle-based battery analysis company Recurrent Motors Inc., looked at 15,000 EVs on the road in the United States and found that lithium-ion batteries are holding up extremely well. Only 1.5 per cent of the vehicles studied had to have their batteries replaced outside of a recall, and most of those replacements were covered under warranties. Among EVs that had been driven more than 160,000 kilometres, the study found the majority still had at least 90 per cent of their original range left.

The other big issue hurting EVs in Consumer Reports’ reliability rankings this year is the fact that so many EVs on the road today are high-end luxury vehicles. That means they’re the first vehicles to be equipped with cutting-edge gadgets, touchscreens or software features, and that means, as Fisher said, they’re going to have more reliability problems. Again, the real issue at play here is one of newness, something that will be solved over time (assuming, that is, more technology trickles down from the luxury market and becomes mainstream).

In other words, this year’s Consumer Reports results could also have run under the headlines “Expensive Luxury Cars Less Reliable Than Mainstream Models” or “New Vehicles Less Reliable than Older Models.”

“If we went out with the title, ‘Mainstream Vehicles are More Reliable,’ I don’t think you’d be talking to me. To be honest, I think that’s a title that we ran about 23 years ago,” Fisher said.

Despite their teething issues, EVs still cost less to maintain. In 2020, Consumer Reports found that “EVs cut repair and maintenance costs by 50 per cent over similar gas cars.”

The results of that study still hold true, Fisher said. If you buy an EV today, you may have to take it in for repairs a little more than you’d like, but it’ll still be cheaper to maintain, and fuel, than a gas burner.

[Hamloc]

My favourite headline of the day on The Financial Post: “Live news: Hertz to sell 20,000 EVs in shift back to gas powered cars.”

From the article: “In October, Hertz chief executive Stephen Scherr said the company would scale back on EVs, which had made up 11 per cent of its total fleet. Teslas represented 80 per cent of that. He said EVs come with higher repair costs compared to the rest of its cars, which has hurt the bottom line. EV’s will be slower than our prior expectations.”

Interesting how different the real world is than the BS fed to us by government!!

Wow , what an awesome pic !