
Show HN: Mission Emission – Calculate the emissions a vehicle produces - ymslavov
https://missionemission.co
======
ymslavov
Hi there,

We at BetaPeak ([https://betapeak.com](https://betapeak.com)) are a small team
of dedicated developers with passion for side projects and positive social
change. We're located in Bulgaria, which currently has the worst air quality
in all of Europe, so this led us to think - we sure as hell are not the only
ones with that problem, there must be thousands of cities around the globe
that breathe dirty air, we definitely need to raise some awareness.

So in partnership with the awesome guys at Oblik Studio
([http://oblik.works/](http://oblik.works/)), this led us to build Mission
Emission, a tool to help you calculate your car emissions and get tips on how
to travel more eco-friendly. Our bet is on simplicity, nice and clean UX and
informative and beautiful results page, to help punch in the main idea - we
need to ditch petrol/diesel cars!

We'd love to know what you love, what you hate, what you "meh" about the tool,
and obviously we're ready to implement any cool ideas you may have on how to
make this tool even cooler and more engaging.

Thanks!

Yasen

~~~
sonofgod
Can't speak for all metric users, but I found "mt" for metric tonnes just
confusing; the standard abbreviation is just "t".

Yes, that's easily confused with the imperial ton, but I think that's a less
important problem.

~~~
mveety
I agree. I thought this was megatons and thought “oh wow those emissions seems
a bit high.” Took me a minute to see my mistake.

------
meesterdude
Personally I think it's trying to hard to be cool. I'm all for making a
calculator look cool - but this presented the data in an unclear/unhelpful
way. Would be better if it was simpler/clearer.

~~~
pureliquidhw
Agreed. On a standard 1080px tall monitor, that "Show results" button requires
a scroll. I would make the 1,2,3 cards stack so you aren't wasting tons of
screen real estate. Also showing the map at the location entry screen invites
clicking on the map which doesn't seem supported.

Otherwise, a cool project! Hopefully it motivates someone to think about their
travels and its impact on the environment.

------
Angostura
That’s Curious. I tested my route from home in East London to my skiing
destination in Morzine France.

Diesel, ‘van’ - Seat Alhambra.

Once I had provided my correct MPG (I get about 47MPG on long journeys in
France) it suggested my 2016 Diesel produced less carbon than an electric
vehicle.

Which doesn’t feel quite right.

~~~
sideshowb
Mine too (55mpg average Skoda octavia which being much like a Passat is in
their 'luxury' category). I'm guessing they make assumptions about the mix of
electricity on the grid. Seeing as we are able to purchase green electricity
here they should let us alter that assumption.

~~~
ymslavov
Yes, your assumption is correct, we actually account for the means of
electricity production, as well as the car production process emissions
related to building a single electric vehicle. It's a great idea to be able to
switch those overhead emission calculations if you wanted to, we'll get on
that!

~~~
Rumudiez
It's great you're taking these "external" variables into account. To bandwagon
on the environmental costs of car production, it would be cool to see
motorcycles added to the lineup. A lot of motorcycles are lax on emissions
control so it would be very interesting to see how they compare to hybrids and
electrics.

~~~
ymslavov
We've actually considered adding it to the list, but as the information we
found was either very scarce, unverifiable or unofficial, so we had to make
the choice to leave it out for the time being. It's on our task list though,
that's for the good idea!

------
abootstrapper
I was kind of turned off by the Apple like marketing speak in the post title,
but otherwise this seems like a really neat project. Well done!

------
FooHentai
"This is the emissions index of an electric car, given the average amount of
emissions generated by the production of the electricity that powers it."

Does this factor in locale? Because electricity generation in NZ is 80%
renewable, and if we take the US generation ratio (I think something like 20%
renewable), it paints a very wrong picture.

If it does take into account locale, kudos!

~~~
hdodov
We thought about that exact thing! However, we didn't have enough data to make
this work. The numbers we display are averages. We'd love to make it more
accurate once we have the resources!

~~~
aurelwu
getting even somewhat accurate values for that is a rather big problem, as you
can't just take average emission values for a country as a base but rather
need to look at the daily and weekly recharge distribution of different types
of electric vehicles and then look at what the typical power generation
structure is in those hours (which also varies seasonally). Its a huge project
in itself and I think maybe you should just mention somewhere what values you
use to calculate it.

~~~
FooHentai
Even so there's good, better, best on a spectrum, right? :)

Or is my '80% renewable' point naive? I think i get what you're saying, if I
recharge during peak demand times, there's a chance nonrenewables are being
used in higher proportions to fulfil my charge. Conversely if I charge during
low-demand hours, the odds are higher that peak generation methods are not
being employed.

But even more complicated than that, is the kind of renewables. NZ has a ton
of hydro, and during certain times of the year they are drawn down for peak
demand, so kinda ideal. Then again during times of drought, no can do and non-
renewables may be the only thing that can meet demand.

If you're getting super fancy, NZ Transpower publishes live stats for the
grid, including proportion of renewables in use at any one time!
[https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-
data](https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-data)

------
Johnny555
The gas mileage seems off. I have a small SUV (Mazda CX3), and since there was
no category for that (maybe the small SUV market is too USA-centric), I picked
a "Medium car" (lke a VW Golf).

But it gave the gas mileage as 18 mpg, while I get a measured 30 - 32mpg on my
commute. Even when I had a golf, I was getting around 25 mpg.

~~~
hdodov
The fuel consumption by vehicle category is based on averages. We didn't put
too much energy into accurate measurements because you can change the
consumption on the results page so that it exactly matches that of your car.

~~~
vonmoltke
Average for what? Your number for an "SUV" is 13.6MPG. The _worst_ fuel
economy for a 2018 model I could find in the EPA database is 11MPG[1].

[1][https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/PowerSearch.do?action=noform...](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/PowerSearch.do?action=noform&path=1&year1=2018&year2=2019&mclass=Sport%20Utility%20Vehicles&srchtyp=newMarket&sortBy=Comb&tabView=0&rowLimit=10&pageno=75)

------
SubiculumCode
I was confused by the results then read online: "It seems impossible that a
gallon of gasoline, which weighs about 6.3 pounds, could produce 20 pounds of
carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. However, most of the weight of the CO2
doesn't come from the gasoline itself, but the oxygen in the air."

btw, have O2 levels been dropping over last century? edit:
[https://weather.com/science/nature/news/earth-atmosphere-
los...](https://weather.com/science/nature/news/earth-atmosphere-losing-
oxygen)

------
deathanatos
The default for a sedan is 18.2 MPG? Isn't this way too low, particularly for
modern vehicles? My 1998 gets ~30 MPG, for example…

But also, very cool. I would otherwise have no idea how the various modes
compare.

------
drewg123
I tried a calculation for an electric car, and was going to adjust the wh/km
consumption but was told: "Electric vehicles don't consume fuel." I wish that
were true :)

~~~
ymslavov
Damn, we've accidentally leaked our super secret plans for a fuel-less car. Oh
well, now you know what to expect, make sure to check regularly on our website
;)

~~~
drewg123
More seriously, how do you calculate the Co2 for EVs? It seems like different
power sources used at different times would make calculations like yours
almost impossible, since you would need to know when the vehicle was charged
and the mix of power sources at the time.

I have a friend who works for the local power company. He told me that at off
peak times, our power is almost entirely green. However, at peak times, they
use dirty natural gas or coal peaker plants. Even though I don't have time-of-
use metered power, I make sure to always charge in the middle of the night for
this reason.

------
jokoon
I recently found out that the fuel efficiency of a prius is comparable to the
one of a european city car (meaning a car with a displacement of 1 liter to
1.2 liter.

I really thought that an hybrid car was at least one order of magnitude more
fuel efficient, but it's not the case.

I don't understand, because I thought buying a prius was an investment that
you could repay in reduced gas bills, but apparently not so much.

Im quite happy to be able to live without a car.

------
secabeen
I would like more detail on the calculation for their emissions/km number. In
California, they list 148g/km, but the Union of Concerned Scientists has the
California electric grid at 93g/km. That's a significant difference, and I
wonder if they're taking the production profile of the CA grid into account.

~~~
ResearchAtPlay
148 g/km seems to be the default number. I got that same number for two
different routes that were entirely located within British Columbia and
Alberta, respectively. The problem is that British Columbia has an electricity
emissions intensity of about 30kg/MWh while Alberta's is about 600kg/MWh.
Hence, this website does not use correct electricity emissions data.

Maybe you can partner with the folks over at
[https://www.electricitymap.org/](https://www.electricitymap.org/) to improve
the emissions data?

------
cc439
I don't think this works correctly. It claims my medium sized sedan puts out
roughly ~125lbs of CO2 on a 100 mile trip. Unless my car somehow generates
carbon out of nothing, that's the equivalent of burning nearly 20 gallons of
gasoline (at ~6.3lb per gallon) for a regular drive to a customer site.

~~~
randomlurker
Carbon from the gas reacts with air so you need to factor the mass of the
oxygen the car uses as well to produce CO2 and other emissions. It's been a
long time since chemistry class but you could calculate the end mass of the
CO2 using teh atomic weights of carbon and oxygen used in the inputs, or
there's probably a website that will do the math for you.

------
djschnei
Love it because my beloved Honda S2000 is one of the 4 examples under "sports
car" :) Very neat project!

~~~
aabajian
LOL, logged in at work just to make this same comment. You never know the love
of a car until you've owned one.

~~~
djschnei
They're amazing little cars. Mines 14 years old and I'm still hard pressed to
find a car that makes me feel the same way while driving it. Was the first car
I purchased entirely on my own (thanks, Dad!) and I can't imagine ever selling
it.

------
rconti
Oddly my "mid-sized" car (eg, VW Golf) supposedly gets 18mpg, but I was
driving the 300hp one and still getting 26+mpg :)

Then again, I just replaced it with an electric, so I guess I'm producing half
the CO2. And am "100% solar" (for what that's worth), so... 0?

------
AWildC182
Maybe I'm being overly picky but I've found a bunch of cases where it seems to
think you'd be flying out of class D general aviation airports with no
commercial routes instead of the obvious class B/C ones nearby when comparing
fuel usages to flying.

------
kwhitefoot
Do the co2 emissions of petrol, diesel, etc, cars include the co2 emissions of
the production and distribution of the fuel? If not then they underestimate
the emissions in comparison with electric vehicles.

------
heavymark
Why is the SUV icon of a truck rather than an SUV? Or is there more aimed
towards non US where perhaps SUV means pickup truck?

~~~
ComputerGuru
I’m not aware of anyone that does that calls a truck an SUV. The opposite is
quite common though, even in the USA - people call SUVs, vans, and buses
“trucks” when they’re used for commercial purposes.

------
GrumpyNl
Very nice interface. Did a right calculation on my route here in Holland.

~~~
sideshowb
Not bad for a starting point! a few comments

It's awkward having the MPG and overall CO2 emissions on separate folds of the
screen. I shouldn't need to scroll around to access ~10 numbers.

Also the UK is weird, we use MPG for fuel economy but will measure CO2
emission in kg.

Your transit calculator misses the opportunity to suggest a combined bike+rail
trip which is the most practical.

~~~
hdodov
Valid points! We thought about these things, but we had limited time and we
couldn't get to them. As for the route suggestion - this isn't up to us. It
depends on our data source and what results it returns.

------
jtd514
this is so simple its worthless

------
webninja
I love this.

------
hdodov
Hello!

I am Hristiyan Dodov, Full-Stack Developer at Oblik Studio and developer of
Mission Emission.

I wanted to clear a few things out and say my opinion about the project.

First of all, we're not chemists or scientists and we haven't worked with such
either. We've done our best to do these calculations correctly, but there are
just so many variables and giving more accurate results demands more work,
time, and information. Although the calculations are rough estimates, they are
based on actual facts and research and are not some numbers we made up in our
head. We would love to make things more accurate, but we need more support and
data. Given that this is a non-profit project, it's a bit overwhelming.

For me, the goal of this project is to raise awareness about air pollution and
make you think. Transportation plays a big role in air pollution, while it's
an important part of everyone's life, making it easier for people to relate.
We display an average estimate of emissions for your journey and then put the
numbers in perspective with facts - for example, how much time is needed for a
tree to absorb the generated CO2. The goal is to educate people as best as we
can and perhaps even change their minds on transportation and make them think
about using a greener transport. I don't think it matters how much exactly the
air is getting polluted. The problem is that it's a lot, it's getting worse,
and things doesn't seem to change. And that's our goal - to provoke a change.

\---

 _Electric vehicle emissions:_ Some people said that the app sometimes shows
that electric vehicles produce more emissions than petrol/diesel vehicles.
That's correct. Yes, the electricity itself doesn't directly generate
emissions, but the way that electricity was created - probably does. Does it
sound more eco-friendly to burn 40 kilos of coal to generate X amount of
electricity and travel 10 kilometers, or burn 1 liter of petrol for that same
distance? I made up those numbers in my head, but I think it illustrates my
point nicely. Of course, this greatly varies with how each country or even
city generates its electricity. That's also why it's so hard to provide
accurate measurements and it's the reason we use average values. Basically,
how green an electric car is depends on how the electricity it uses was
generated.

 _Fuel consumption:_ The vehicle category determines the fuel consumption
value. It's not 100% accurate because it's based on averages from various
kinds of car makes and models. We didn't focus much on that because you can
change the fuel consumption on the results page and make it match that of your
own vehicle exactly. That's also the reason why we didn't include the exact
make and model, load, speed, etc. All of these things come down to fuel
consumption, which is the most important part of emissions after all. Instead
of putting a ton of settings, we simply put a vehicle category to give a rough
estimate and then gave you the ability to change the fuel consumption however
you wish.

------
techieshark
This is beautiful!

What a great example of technologists using the tools of the trade to do some
good for air quality and on the climate fight.

Thanks, Yasen, Hristiyan and the rest of the crew involved.

FYI - I heard about this from James in the #news-discussion channel of the
Slack group for ClimateAction.tech. Feel free to join us and introduce
yourselves there (in #introductions) if you'd like to be part of an
international network of technologists pushing for climate action.

