The people who use the lanes, by and large, don't need them[1], and simultaneously, California subsidizes and encourages electric car driving while having, by far, the absolute worst electrical infrastructure in the country, with no real plan to improve it[2]
Don't worry, somehow, they are saving the environment in all this, despite the fact that most cars these days probably put out less emissions than a family that ate too many beans.
[1] They are pretty much rich people lanes. None of the very large number of day laborers, etc, could afford an electric car (and there are no electric trucks they could use), but also probably spend significantly more away from their families than people who do use them.
[2] Yes, the math says that if everyone in california drove an electric car, we'd be in trouble. Even if they only charge off peak. The same is even more true of the US, I did the math out in an earlier HN post, IIRC it comes out to something ridiculous like double or triple all current residential electric usage on a yearly basis.
First, this comparison is wrong. Cars generate roughly 5,000 liters of of CO2 per gallon. A human passes about one liter of gas per day, maybe two.
But even if you were right, what's the point of this comparison? We can eliminate the CO2 emissions from cars, but we can't do that to people, and we really need to cut these emissions a lot, or the earth will cook.
https://ollilaasanen.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/humans-cows-me... Humans pass 1L per day
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t... Cars generate ~9kg CO2/gallon
http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight/substanc... CO2 is 1.8 grams per liter
That is a typical passenger vehicle, which is also quite old. Not a current vehicle. SEe the calculations, which explicitly states: "This is representative of the light duty passenger vehicle fleet as a whole, including both new and existing vehicles. "
I'm kind of uninterested in participating in this global hate fest further, but let me quantify this for real for you:
I have a lab certified co and co2 monitor i use as part of a supplied air system (For spraying wood coatings that contain isocyanate).
If i take a car from the late 80's or early 90's, put it in the garage with the monitor, and start it, the monitor will go off in few minutes telling me it's unsafe.
If i take a car produced today, and put it in the garage, and start it, it takes many hours before that happens. In fact, depending how well sealed the garage is, it won't happen at all.
(as an aside, this also means it's become much harder for people to commit car based suicide unless they have a very well sealed car, etc)
So i'm going to go with "This statistic is true but grossly misleading". It tells you nothing about what converting a newer car to an electric car does in terms of emissions.
Worse, given that it is mostly caused by existing vehicles, and even there, it is mostly caused precisely by the vehicles this subsidizing will do nothing to replace. It is precisely the people i talked about you need to get to drive electric cars. Not the rich people driving very up to date low-emissions vehicles anyway.
So you can cite this kind of stuff all you want. It doesn't make the plan of rich people lanes any better for the environment.
(Which is why people go for these very silly proxy and indirect support arguments to make themselves feel better).
"But even if you were right, what's the point of this comparison? We can eliminate the CO2 emissions from cars, but we can't do that to people, and we really need to cut these emissions a lot, or the earth will cook. "
I actually completely agree, but that's completely irrelevant to giving special treatment in HOV lanes to people who mostly owned cars that were not the problem anyway!
IE you'd be much better off saying "if you trade in your car from 1970 for an electric car, you get a sticker", instead of "if you trade your 2016 PZEV for a 2017 tesla, you get a sticker".
It's fair to say that removing 50 million vehicles is equal to removing one container ship in terms of sulphur dioxide, or other pollutants, though
his point was that hov lane is elitist, only to help car companies and rich ppl. not to fight pollution.
instead you researched if not eating beans would offset your hummer co2. geez.
In NYC, we get uncomfortably close to peak electrical capacity on hot summer days, to the point where the utilities beg us to reduce consumption (e.g., e-mails at work saying the power company is asking us to turn off computers and lights that we aren't using). Even at night, people are running their air conditioners full blast. When we've maxed out the nuclear and gas power plants, we fire up the dirty, old oil-fired power plants as the generators of last resort.
I can't imagine NYC being able to convert a significant number of cars to electric with the existing power infrastructure.
But it's probably still a net win if that extra electricity is going to power electric cars, because a power plant is more efficient than thousands of internal combustion engines.
See: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-li...
For the record, I'm excited for the Model 3, and would buy a Model S if I could afford it.
That said, the claim in that reference is problematic for many reasons, which I didn't notice were addressed: 1) Thermal efficiency in a vehicle is converted directly to mechanical energy. A power plant must convert thermal energy into electrical energy (losses involved), transmit it long distances across an energy grid (more losses involved), store it in a battery (more losses), and convert it back to mechanical energy (even more losses). 2) EVs like the Model S lug around as much as >1,000s of lbs of batteries. That's monstrously inefficient when specifically compared to the energy density of gasoline. 3) Some power generators may emit more pollution than modern cars-1
From a public policy perspective, the low-hanging fruits in the fight for cleaner emissions are to get people in gas guzzlers into Civics and Accords, not to get people in Civics and Accords in to EVs. That, and public transportation, bicycling infrastructure, and raising the price of carbon to align with the public cost of it.
1-https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-cars-are...
And it looks like New York peaks at around 4-5pm, with a drop off around 8-10pm. EVs will likely charge at night, meaning they won't have as much impact on the peak.
Edit: source for load http://mis.nyiso.com/public/htm/isolf/20170705isolf.htm
Most people would be fine with an EV given how much they actually drive, it's not just for rich people.
so now you have two insurances. two garages or live well enough to have two street parking. two maintenance bills. etc. etc.
Used Nissan LEAF's start around $7k, even in the Bay Area. With $0 down, that works out to about $125/month car payment. For the vast majority of drivers -- if you can afford a regular car, you can easily afford an electric one instead.
> Yes, the math says that if everyone in california drove an electric car, we'd be in trouble. Even if they only charge off peak.
An electric car can charge on power draws all the way down to 1.4kW (that's a standard 15amp 3-prong US household outlet). An electric car charging likely uses less electricity per second than the Air Conditioner or Clothing Dryer you already have in your home.
There is no doomsday scenario for the electric grid. Electric Cars simply don't draw enough power to do any of the things you've described. Especially once you factor in that their charging mostly happens off-peak anyway.
Source please?
