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Electric Vehicles are Good for People and the Environment

Quiet roads and clean air.

Electric Car Battery Charge Gauge Close-up

Imagine if everyone commuted to and from work or school via electric car or electric bike. We could improve our health and tackle the climate crisis. 

Of course, walking, human-powered biking, and riding on public transportation can be good for your health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions too, but these are worthy topics for another time.

Technically a vehicle is a machine that transports people and/or cargo—everything from airplanes to wagons. The term electric vehicle (EV) can refer to any type of vehicle that runs on electricity including cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, and trucks. For this post, we will use the terms electric car and electric bike.

If you are worried that I am going to suggest that you rush out and buy or lease an electric car or an electric bike, relax, this post is about becoming informed and perhaps having some fun while doing it. After the brief overviews of transportation greenhouse gas emissions, electric cars, and electric bikes, we will talk about the fun part. 

Transportation Greenhouse Gas Emissions

You probably do not need me to tell you that the internal combustion engines powering most of our transportation burn fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide which is a greenhouse gas that is a major cause of global warming and the climate crisis. These engines produce air pollution and particulate matter which are harmful to everyone’s health.

The graph below shows that in 2018 the transportation sector consumed a whopping 37% of all the energy used in the United States and that 92% of our transportation was fueled by petroleum.

2018 US Energy Consumption by Source and Sector Graph
Click here for more detail from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (the webpage is updated monthly). 

The source of electricity affects the greenhouse gas emissions associated with operating electric cars and to a lesser extent electric bikes. The charts below illustrate the issue.

Annual Emissions per Vehicle based on Electricity Sources CA and US Charts
Click here for more information and an interactive tool from the U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center.

Transitioning to clean renewable energy sources and electrifying our transportation go hand in hand. Each goal drives (pun intended) and supports the other.

Electric cars and electric bikes are part of the solution. Chances are you know several people in your neighborhood, at work, or at school who drive electric cars or ride electric bikes. If you already do yourself, thank you. If not, you can join the decarbonized transportation movement at any time.

Electric Cars 

Today, there are over a million electric cars driving around the United States refueling (charging) at homes, businesses, and charging stations scattered across the country. 

The car market is already disrupted. Manufacturers around the globe are revamping their factories and retraining their workers to produce more electric cars.

Smart Electric Car

Models range from the pricey Porsche Taycan to the more moderately priced Nissan LEAF and include tiny Smart cars (photo) and Teslas.

This is good news for electric car shoppers and people considering buying or leasing an electric car in the future.

We can and should thank early electric car adopters for this wonderful state of affairs.

Porsche Taycan Electric Car

An early adopter is a person who begins using new a new product or new technology as soon as it is available, often paying a premium for doing so. Early adopters help create market demand and drive product improvement and lower prices.

Photo: Porsche Taycan

In addition to electric cars and bikes, other examples of products that benefited from early adopters include organic food, rooftop solar panels, and high-efficiency toilets.

Benefits 

Some of the benefits of electric cars include:

  • Zero tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide or particulate matter.
  • Refueling (charging) can be accomplished at home, work, and on the road while you are doing something else.
  • Electric motors are quiet.
  • Fewer moving parts decrease the need for preventative maintenance and repairs.
  • Operating costs can be less expensive.
Nissan LEAF Electric Car

Driving an electric car is a way to help our country get off burning fossil fuels and create healthier and more resilient communities where we live.

Photo: Nissan LEAF

Like any product, especially one as complicated as a car, manufacturing an electric car (or any car) is not an environmentally benign process. Analyzing life cycle greenhouse gas emissions is one method for evaluating the environmental impact of cars. 

The video below explains life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuel-powered and electric cars and addresses concerns about the lithium batteries used in electric cars. I thought it was worth the 13 minutes it took to watch it.

Electric Bikes 

If you have ever ridden a bike, you know the exhilarating feeling of getting yourself from point A to B using your own power.

Electric bikes are good for the environment because, well, they are bikes and not cars. The battery does add to their environmental footprint, but not much. 

I think electric bikes have two main benefits over solely human-powered bikes.

Parent and Child Commuting via Electric Bike
A parent and child commuting together on an electric bike. Click here to read the article.

One is that it can decrease your car use. For instance, being able to ride further with less effort may encourage you to leave your car at home and ride your electric bike to work or school. Expanding your range with an electric bike can increase the number of times you ride a bike to go grocery shopping or to run errands.

The second benefit is really cool. Electric bikes can make biking accessible to people of all ages, abilities, and incomes.

The short video below provides an overview of the different types of electric bikes.

Fortunately, for you and me, we can learn about and try out electric cars and electric bikes during National Drive Electric Week occurring September 14-22, 2019.

National Drive Electric Week

This is where the fun comes in.

The first national day to raise awareness for electric vehicles occurred in 2011 when 29 cities held events for what was then called National Plug In Day. 

National Drive Electric Week Logo

In 2014, it expanded to encompass a week and the name was changed to National Drive Electric Week. Last year, 296 cities in 3 countries and in all 50 states in the U.S. participated in National Drive Electric Week giving tens of thousands of people the chance to learn about and try out electric cars and electric bikes.

Visit the National Drive Electric Week website to find a 2019 event near where you live. 

San Luis Obispo, CA

In 2018, the SLO Climate Coalition led the effort to bring National Drive Electric Week to San Luis Obispo, CA for the first time ever. 

This year the Coalition is hosting two free events. If you live or work in or near San Luis Obispo or plan to be in the area on September 14 or 19, please join us to learn about electric cars and bikes and to talk with owners and dealer representatives. On the 14th, you will have a chance to take an electric bike test ride and/or an electric car test drive.

Event Information

Ride & Drive
Date: Sat. September 14, 2019
Time: 10:00 am- 3:00 pm
Location: Madonna Inn at 100 Madonna Road

Drive Electric Showcase
Date: Thurs. September 19, 2019
Time: 6:00-9:00 pm
Location: San Luis Obispo Downtown Farmers Market

Click here to register. If you register and complete the 8 question survey (I did), your name will be entered into a drawing to win $250.

If you have questions or need more information, please contact EV fan and our hardworking leader for this event—Barry Rands at barry@carbonfreeslo.org.

I am planning on attending the Ride & Drive event on Saturday because I want to learn about electric bikes and attempt to ride one. 

Although I enjoy walking for fun and to run errands, sometimes I just do not have the time to walk and riding a bike that is only human-powered is beyond my ability on the hilly terrain where I live. You would understand if you could see how steep my street and driveway are.

It has been a while since I have ridden a bike so if you see me wobbling by, please wave and give me a smile of encouragement. (Update – I did do it. Click here for the proof.)

Featured Image at Top: Electric car battery charge gauge close-up – photo credit juniorbeep.

Related Posts

Resources – Electric Cars 

Resources – Electric Bikes

About the Author: Linda Poppenheimer researches and writes about environmental topics to share information and to spark conversation. Her mission is to live more lightly on Earth and to persuade everyone else to do the same. She writes as The Unlikely Environmentalist at Green Groundswell.

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3 Comments

  1. Readers this is a truncated version of a conversation that took place via email between reader Bob Shanbrom and Justin Bradshaw, SLO Climate Coalition Outreach Lead. I thought other readers might benefit from their dialogue. Some new links were added to the Resource section.

    To Justin from Bob:

    Good article. I’m glad you put e-bikes in the mix. Unfortunately, I could not find good data on the energy embedded in the huge Tesla battery. A Swedish study put it at a whopping 17.5 tCO2.

    I recently studied e-cars carefully and I think every household should have a Prius Prime PHEV. It goes 30 miles on electric before turning into a 55-mpg hybrid. When I looked at how people actually use their Teslas I found that they only drive them 7,000 miles per year. Obviously, they are using other cars, not BEVs, for long trips and the Prius Prime gets superb gasoline mpg. Doesn’t make sense to drive a Tesla 7,000 miles a year and then a bad-mpg car for long trips. We love our Prime and it has performed as promised.

    To Bob from Justin:

    Thanks! Our blogger Linda is wonderful.

    I’ve been meaning to call and discuss this with you. In short, I don’t understand where you get your assumption that Tesla drivers don’t take road trips. I do. I’m on one right now actually and in the 17 months I’ve owned my Model 3 I’ve driven it almost 28,000 miles. Other Tesla owners I know love taking road trips in it because a) it’s so cheap to charge vs. fill up a tank, b) autopilot features are incredible to reduce driving fatigue, c) for a sedan, it has tons of storage.

    That said, I’d agree with you about other EVs. Even the long range Bolt and Kona don’t have the charging infrastructure in place to support a smooth road trip. Too many detours and long waits would be necessary. Not so with the Tesla. Superchargers are very fast and practically everywhere.

    To Justin from Bob:

    My research may be from a skewed sampling but then yours is anecdotal. I looked at used Tesla’s for sale at their site and in Craigslist, 27 data points. The average was 7,000 miles per year for the various model Ss for sale without free supercharging. And only 10,000 miles per year with free supercharging. I could not find a single car driven over 13,000 miles per year.

    What do you calculate your battery’s embedded energy to be? One study put it at a whopping 17.5 tCO2. Tesla puts out a lot data but they just don’t seem to answer that question anywhere.

    There’s no question BEVs are the way to go quite soon. But for the moment I’m convinced that a Prius Prime household comes out ahead in most situations due to the embedded energy and the road trip issue.

    To Bob from Justin:

    Here’s a different, (somewhat rosy) look a the 17.5 tCO2 number: When you compare the carbon emissions of a gas car that is comparable at all to the Model X or S P100D (which is the biggest battery Tesla makes, mine is 75kwh, not 100), then the carbon emissions of each 1000 miles is about 0.5 CO2. That’s 35,000 miles before the embedded carbon is paid off compared to an Audi A8. Both of these cars are, of course going to last far longer than that number…and batteries can be down cycled to other applications after their peak performance is over in a vehicle.

    If you want to learn more about the lengthy technical discussion that took place at this point, please contact Justin at justin@carbonfreeslo.org.

    To Justin from Bob:

    The takeaways for me were that we both find the Tesla and the Prius roughly comparable and that the Tesla avoids daytime charging when it becomes a fossil fuel car. One other point, with the money saved buying a Prius over a Tesla you can install a huge solar array plus e-bikes for the whole family.

    To Bob from Justin:

    My takeaways:
    – Use an e-bike and avoid buying a new car altogether. Once you buy even an efficient EV, the emissions are baked right in.
    – More hotels and B&Bs should have EV chargers for night-time road trip charging.
    – Carbon data analysis is kind of fun.

    1. Thank you for your work in extending this discussion, Linda.

      I adopted e-bikes as my first-choice transportation 13 years ago. I substitute about 5,000 miles of car travel per year with my two e-bikes, one of them a tandem for transporting my son to school and appointments. It seems like a no-brainer but people are (rightly) afraid to adopt them as long as cars have supremacy.

      I want to reemphasize my point that a BEV that is charged at peak is running on natural gas, so it has approximately no carbon savings over a Prius in that circumstance. But at least the first 200-250 miles of a road trip in a BEV is usually on low-carbon, non-peak, nighttime electricity.

      Here’s an example: If you drive a Tesla 3 Long Range to Las Vegas at 65 mph you will need 8 hours to get there. If you drive a Prime to Las Vegas at typical highway speed of 75mph you will need just 5.6 hours to get there. You will need to charge your Tesla for an hour. The Prime will make it one one tank of gasoline, no charging. The Tesla will go about 190 miles out of the 426 miles to Vegas on renewable electricity, but the rest will be on natural gas electricity. The Prius will go 25 miles on renewables and the rest on gasoline. When you factor in the embedded energy in the big Tesla battery it’s approximately a wash, very much depending on whether the battery was manufactured on coal in China or in the US on a better grid. I know a few Tesla owners who don’t mind tacking an extra 2.4 hours onto a 5.6 hour trip, but I think most motorists would want to take a faster gasoline route.

      I don’t know how we will soon get around the natural gas peaker issue. Wind and solar are peakers, of course, but we will need a huge amount of that before we could stop using natural gas peakers. That trip to Las Vegas, once a glory of desert landscape, is now solar factory floor. Such is environmentalism in a time of triage.

  2. It’s awesome that electric bikes can decrease your car use. My sister wants to do her part to help the environment in the coming weeks. I’ll share this information with her so that she can look into her options for electric bikes that can help her with this.

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