> Electric cars do not remove pollution - they are not trees. They merely pollute at a greatly reduced rate.
You seem to be oblivious to the fact that electric cars are replacing cars powered by an internal combustion engine.
If you replace an IC engine with an electric motor then that source of pollution is removed, don't you agree?
Furthermore, electric cars typically get their power from the national power grid, which generates power in a much more efficient way than your typical IC engine.
On top of that, nowadays any power grid is being supplied by sources other fossil fuels. This shift away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources is being spearheaded by the European Union and reflected by their national action plans. This already resulted in some EU member-states breaking green energy records such as:
* covering around 35% of their national power generation from renewable sources
They move the pollution from a tailpipe feet away from people to a large smoke stack specially optimized to lower the effect on air quality in the immediate area.
Combustion is just one type of pollution that cars produce. And while relocating pollution is a tempting way to externalize the problem, it doesn't solve the underlying issue.
I don't know why you're stretching so hard to make it seem like moving pollution away from population centers isn't an excellent benefit and likely to reduce in many fewer deaths from direct exposure to pollution.
The comment above was referring to local pollution in cities (which directly kills thousands through diseases related to particulates in that pollution). Relocating that pollution does solve that problem.
(PH)EVs also produce much less particulate pollution from brake dust due to the use of regen to brake (which is why they can go several times the normal replacement interval for brake pads).
The creation of pollution is a separate problem from the location of that pollution. Yes, EVs don't magically prevent the creation of pollution, but they can severely limit the creation of pollution in population centers, where they have the most immediate effect.
I live in a city and am not dying, in fact the air quality is very good. Do people who can afford electric cars live in the same cities where pollution is so bad that people are dying from it? Why don't they move to where the air quality is better? (Why move from a problem when you can make the problem move from you, I guess?)
When the majority of pollution is coming from large trucks anyway, will swapping a few cars even matter?
Big city air can look great and still kill young children and old folks due to small particles. Most cities in Europe have terrible air thanks to the popularity of diesel autos, the low standards for pollution controls, and European governments being willing to ignore automakers who break the rules.
Do you have a source for most pollution coming from large trucks?
Simply from the weight they carry, the energy required for this. Supplying a large city is neither cheap nor easy, and requires dozens or hundreds of daily shipments from dozens or hundreds of logistics companies. The majority of these happen during off-peak hours, to reduce load on the highway network.
Lithium batteries still can't approach 10% of gasoline's energy density, so gasoline is mandatory for trucks, and will be until yet another new battery technology is not only discovered and brought to market, but mass-produced to the point that we have a battery-pollution problem.
> the low standards for pollution controls
Why don't they increase the standards? If people are dying there must be public outrage. Does Universal Healthcare cover pollution injuries?
> European governments being willing to ignore automakers who break the rules.
Are people protesting or working to change their governmental leadership? Or are they content to see their loved ones perish? If diesel cars are such a problem, why not outlaw these? Then only outlaws will drive them.
Do you have a source for particulates killing children in cities?
> It found that heavy-duty vehicles tested in Germany and Finland emitted about 210mg NOx per kilometre driven, less than half the 500mg/km pumped out by modern diesel cars that meet the highest “Euro 6” standard. However, the buses and trucks have larger engines and burn more diesel per kilometre, meaning that cars produce 10 times more NOx per litre of fuel
That is atrocious - that a single car could pollute 4x more than a large truck or bus - and it's a side of the VW emissions scandal which never occurred to me.
How did independent emissions testing not catch this - or were OBDII outputs simply accepted as accurate? The Seattle region used to have mandatory emissions testing by an independent agency, where they probe the tailpipe. This was recently ended. Were VW cars programmed to fool this testing too?
NOx isn't the only pollutant involved in localized deaths from pollution, so it's very misleading to claim a car "pollutes 4x as much as a truck" based on NOx alone.
Also, what does this have to do with the VW scandal?
Your own article explains why the cars generate more NOx per mile. They are held to lower standards than the trucks and busses after those were "reigned in" in 2011. It's not some kind of defeat device, the cars are still within regulation
> Also, what does this have to do with the VW scandal?
The entire point of the VW scandal is that their cars pollute way more than they tested. Their diesels especially - the same diesels that have been popular in Europe for decades are the ones polluting the most. And their apparent low emissions was a passive way of fighting electric cars.
The cars aren't polluting because of defeat devices, they're polluting because the standards are lax.
And this is still all NOx emissions, not total emissions.
And this whole tangent really has nothing to do with the original point. If anything is emphasizes the benefits of moving pollution generation for cars to centralized points out of the hands of the manufacturers
> Lithium batteries still can't approach 10% of gasoline's energy density, so gasoline is mandatory for trucks, and will be until yet another new battery technology is not only discovered and brought to market, but mass-produced to the point that we have a battery-pollution problem.
Too bad that correct number to look at is entire power system energy density (engine+fuel+transmission). Electric engines are a lot lighter so batteries do not need to have same energy density.
> Why don't they increase the standards? If people are dying there must be public outrage.
Your expectation of public outrage happening doesn't mean it happens. Even if people are dying.
> Do you have a source for particulates killing children in cities?
It solves the problem of exposing hundreds of millions of people to multiple emission sources of highly deleterious fine particulates in their immediate vicinity, every single day. It's not rocket science, it's an obvious fact, and not a single person posting here can honestly claim not to understand it. Ignoring or downplaying it is a near criminal act of negligence.
> They move the pollution from a tailpipe feet away from people
You can't move non-existent pollution. It hasn't occurred yet, so there's no "movement". Electric cars create pollution displaced from the location the car is used in.
Electric cars can be (and are) charged with power generated with low pollution methods (solar, wind, water turbine...), while a gasoline, or worse, diesel powered car, will always pollute. Additionally, e-cars are more power efficient, even after subtracting line and charging heat losses.
Coal burning power plants are a problem on their own (e.g. high mercury emissions), so those should be shut down entirely IMO, and not be used to cover e-car power demands. They are problematic anyway because they can not change their output much, making them inflexible for modern requirements.
I making the pedantic point that saying "electric cars move the pollution" is technically inaccurate. It is better to say "electric cars pollute in places physically displaced from where they are used".
Any normal reading of English would understand a world before electric cars, and a world after electric cars, as having moved pollution. We're talking at a higher level of abstraction, where the mover is a change in the mix of polluters.
