
How We Make Cars Is a Bigger Environmental Issue Than How We Fuel Them - xenophon
http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/06/the-future-of-car-making-small-teams-using-fewer-materials.html
======
Animats
It looks like they built a tube car chassis[1] using carbon fiber tubes and 3D
printed metal connectors, then put a stock powertrain in it and a body around
it. The powertrain is conventional, a 4 cylinder engine running on natural
gas. The site has pictures of assembling the frame parts and of the finished
car exterior, but does not show the car in motion or the powertrain.

The connectors are kind of strange for carbon fiber tubes. The video shows
them just slipping the tubes into the larger tubular connectors. They don't
show how they attach them. That's just a test assembly. Now they have to glue
it all together somehow, which is a touchy operation for carbon fiber to metal
bonds. BMW avoids those in their carbon-fiber car.

Building tube cars in a small shop is quite practical, and lots of racers do
it. It's not cheaper than mass-produced cars.

[1] [http://www.rjracecars.com/Chassis-Kits-
Prodlist.html](http://www.rjracecars.com/Chassis-Kits-Prodlist.html)

~~~
wazoox
> _It 's not cheaper than mass-produced cars._

The point is to be less damaging to the environment, not less expensive.

~~~
ars
The two are virtually synonymous. Things are more expensive when they need
more resources.

~~~
zurn
Co2 emissions are currently not priced in making energy severely underpriced,
so cost is not a good signal.

Here's one study,
[http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media/files/BatteryElectricV...](http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media/files/BatteryElectricVehicleLCA2012-rh-
ptd.pdf) \- look at Figure 1 and 2, battery & engine so dominate the
manufacturing footprints that everything fades into insignificance.

Of course, if you make the car really light you can somewhat reduce the
required engine & battery. But not drastically as weight has little impact at
cruising speed & you have regenerative braking in city.

~~~
ponderatul
Zurn - i'm confuseed. So in the study the article presents they say production
is the biggest polutant for a car, and bigger for ev than for cv; In your UCLA
paper they argue that the greatest cost to the env is given by use itself and
in that sense cvs are worse.

Which one is accurate then ?

~~~
zurn
The article doesn't seem well-sourced (their graph is a screenshot from a
slide that says "confidential", and you can't make out the text that might be
a reference). But the point was that the chassis isn't a big part of the
footprint which isn't contradicted by their claims.

Note that the slide is not talking about the same measure (co2), the slide
screenshot is titled "total environmental system damage" which smells a bit
like picking an rarely-used but favourable metric here.

------
erroneousfunk
Genuine question here: I keep finding conflicting information about how much
environmental impact a car's manufacturing has, relative to its lifetime use.
I took a very good math-based sustainable design class as an undergraduate,
and we were constantly shown numbers that indicated a car was a "20/80"
product (20% or less of its impact comes from manufacturing, as opposed to
"80/20" products). But I'm certainly willing to believe the information I
learned in that class was mistaken or outdated.

The research paper linked to from one of the linked articles (I followed the
rabbit hole down a ways...
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x/full)
it's the Norwegian study mentioned in
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-
sp...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-speed)) says
" vehicle production is not insignificant, contributing on the order of 10% to
the life cycle GWP."

However, the article, and the statement from Maureen Cropper (who presumably
knows what she's talking about) says that the majority of the impact comes
from the manufacture of the vehicle.

Am I confused? Are people talking about two separate measures of impact, or is
there something I'm missing? Having trouble reconciling all of this info.

------
contingencies
While this looks very advertorial, the notion is interesting. Big claims. Does
anyone have some firmer references for their process and its limitations?
Website is
[http://divergentmicrofactories.com/](http://divergentmicrofactories.com/) and
features another version of the same graph.

------
zurn
Another take: High car ownership rate (1-2 per household) is unsustainable
even with electric cars.

~~~
batou
Very good point. Also, at least here in the UK, cars seem to get scrapped
after 12-15 years. They should really consider higher priced cars that are
designed for a long life.

My first car, a 1974 Land Rover series 3, is still going and will be for a
long time to come.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I believe that electric cars are much better in this regard. Not being powered
by tiny explosions helps longevity. I'd guess refitting old cars with newer
generations of batteries and motors would be easier too when the time comes
for that.

~~~
koffiezet
Problems with the engine block, cylinders or cylinder valves are rarely the
cause for scrapping a car - which are the only parts being really affected by
these 'tiny explosions'.

Most problems are due to failing gearboxes, clutches, water pumps, belts,
electrical components, axles, brake disks, glue deteriorating over time, ...
Mostly it just becomes economically unfeasible to replace all parts that start
failing over time.

But true, an electrical car has a lot less components that are prone to wear,
but there still are parts that will wear down and be bloody expensive.

And then we're not even talking about the electronics that become more and
more important in these electrical cars. These are mostly already a bit dated
when a car is brand-new - so what about in 5 year? These also don't have an
infinite life. Right now cars are being equiped with already aging tech and
communication standards. Right now you have Bluetooth, WiFi, Edge/3G/LTE, ...
- and in 10 years those things will probably still be around in some backward
compatible way. But in 15 or 20 years? Wouldn't put my money on that.

------
joblessjunkie
"This post is a collaboration between O’Reilly and Divergent Manufacturing."

------
igravious
This is quite the claim. If true I'd imagine Big Oil and conventional car
manufacturers would be trumpeting this far and wide. Because it is such a
sensitive issue (climate change and all that) we must double-check to be
doubly sure of the sources of any of these graphs and data. I know this annoys
people but we really need a source for these claims[0], so citation please!

[http://www.divergentmicrofactories.com/wp-
content/uploads/20...](http://www.divergentmicrofactories.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/DM_emissions_flat.png)

~~~
jonah
This makes no sense. How can one 25MPG gas car require over twice the "fuel
manufacture" of another 25MPG gas car? Also, how does a hybrid vehicle cost
less to manufacture than an comparable gas-only car?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
A part made from cast aluminum will have a significantly higher environmental
cost than the same part made from cast steel because pulling aluminum out of
the ground is much more expensive environmentally, and monetarily
(fuel/electricity aren't free) than getting the equivalent amount of iron out
of the ground. Even if you make the parts from melted down anvils and beer
cans that initial cost is still there (there's also a lot less aluminum around
to be recycled than there is iron and steel).

Materials and methods of processing matter a great deal.

OEs care very much about this but the progressive fuel economy requirements
make it worth their while meet the requirements all else be damned

------
exabrial
I read an article several years ago about the environmental cost of the
lithium that goes into Prius vs the pollution it saves by not burning fossil
fuels. The article was, of course, in the lambasted as being [insert
uneducated political argument of the day here]. The only way we'll ever win is
if people start compromising and get way from the all-or-nothing stigma that
dominates politics.

~~~
skybrian
It probably wasn't actually lithium since most Priuses have a nickel-metal-
hydride battery. (Apparently the plugin hybrid model has lithium-ion.)

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tonmoy
Why would a "small team" require fewer materials?

