
Where in Europe is electric car a good idea? - Tomte
https://jakubmarian.com/where-in-europe-is-electric-car-a-good-idea/
======
Reason077
Electric vehicles can be charged overnight and at off-peak times, so it's
reasonable to assume they use a higher-than-average share of low-carbon
energy.

For example, around 50% of the UK's electricity production is from low-carbon
sources (renewables and nuclear). But a much higher percentage of _off-peak_
power is low-carbon. After midnight, close to 100% of the grid is low-carbon
because the gas turbines spin down while the wind turbines and nuclear
reactors keep running. EVs and smart chargers/smart grids will help us make
_better_ use of clean off-peak power!

Also, grids will continue to get cleaner over time. An EV purchased today will
have lower and lower emissions as it ages, but a combustion vehicle will only
get worse!

~~~
captainmuon
Yeah, but does anybody do that?

If I had an electric car, I'd charge it overnight. I don't get different
pricing at different times. There has been talk of introducing that for
decades now (in Germany), but I'm not sure it is coming soon, nor that I'd
like it. Probably, it would become just more expensive when I need it most,
without being able to change my usage patterns much.

~~~
gchadwick
In the UK off peak tariffs are available. It's a bit of a pain because it
requires two meters but if someone was installing an electric charging point I
imagine many would add an economy 7 (the name of the off peak tariff) meter at
the same time.

~~~
icebraining
_it requires two meters_

Why?! Two-rate meters have been around for decades, long before they went
digital.

~~~
gchadwick
Ok, it may require changing to a two rate meter then :)

Never actually used an economy 7 tariff myself so I don't know the details but
the point is most houses in the UK aren't equipped to have one. However a
home-owner choosing to install a charging point for an electric vehicle will
probably switch to a suitable metering setup for economy 7 whilst they're at
it.

~~~
Reason077
_" Never actually used an economy 7 tariff myself so I don't know the details
but the point is most houses in the UK aren't equipped to have one."_

All homes in Britain will have smart meters installed by 2020:

[https://www.smartenergygb.org/en/smart-future/about-the-
roll...](https://www.smartenergygb.org/en/smart-future/about-the-rollout)

These support Economy 7, as well as whatever other variable tariffs that
energy companies dream up in the future.

------
zeristor
A huge benefit of electric cars is removing pollution from cities; this seems
to be forgotten.

Surely if the pollution is killing thousands of people a year this is an
issue.

~~~
greglindahl
It's not forgotten by the authorities! In the SF Bay Area the local air
quality council subsidizes electric car chargers. EVs reduce the total
pollution and moves what's left out of the prone-to-atmospheric-inversions Bay
Area.

~~~
virmundi
Isn't ozone worse than traditional pollution and the main byproduct of
electrical cars? So unless we go into a draconian charge laws, will cause more
harm in this regard.

[http://www.iop.org/news/11/april/page_50606.html](http://www.iop.org/news/11/april/page_50606.html)

~~~
Reason077
NOx from diesel vehicles is by far the most significant source of ground-level
ozone in most European cities.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_ozone#Formation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_ozone#Formation)

------
_ph_
Even if the CO2 balance would be a close call right now - one needs to take
into respect that over the lifetime of an electric car, the electricity
production in most places is going to have a much reduced carbon footprint.
And of course, electric cars don't produce local pollution and create much
less noise. Finally, electrical cars are an important step in producing
batteries cheap enough for energy storage applications.

~~~
jeffhuys
Indeed. When everyone has a combustion engine, the problem is completely
decentralised and hard to solve. When everyone has an electric engine, the
problem is centralised (the power plants).

~~~
kalleboo
On the other hand, cars have a much shorter lifespan than power plants. The
average age of a European car is 10 years. What's the average age of a power
plant?

------
lazyjones
This article is total nonsense. No data sources provided, claims 78g/Km CO₂
for Norway with 98% renewable energy. Also completely ignores energy use for
production of fossile fuels and apparently uses the circulating wild guesses
for CO₂ emissions during battery production (which Elon Musk has commented
on...).

~~~
fulafel
Without commenting on the figures of this article, generally EV CO2e footprint
is manufacturing-heavy -> total lifecycle per-km footprint is still
substantial without any emissions from charging energy.

~~~
lazyjones
> _total lifecycle per-km footprint is still substantial without any emissions
> from charging energy._

The "total lifecycle CO₂-per-Km footprint" is a pointless and deliberately
misleading figure when its basis of calculation is (almost completely)
independent of the distance driven, but it suggests that driving the vehicle
is subject to a high amount of emissions per Km. The opposite is true: EV
lifecycle CO₂/Km becomes lower the more you drive.

Besides, deliberately including highly speculative CO₂ amounts from vehicle
production and refuelling should be done in all cases: how much CO₂ is emitted
by ships and satellite launches used in detection of crude oil reserves?

~~~
fulafel
Vehicle wear and retirement is closely related to total distance driven, so
when looking at EVs in the aggregate, a per-km perspective works fairly well.

------
smsm42
France electricity is mostly (72%) from nuclear power. Aka the most under-
appreciated clean energy that everybody is panicky about and wants to get rid
of. Which means, unless you have a luxury of having tons of hydropower or
something, nuclear is probably the best way to lower carbon footprint. Of
course, this is also the least discussed way.

~~~
Kon5ole
I am one of the "panicky" ones and I want to explain my point of view.

When I was a kid, living in the equivalent of Kentucky, a nuclear accident in
the equivalent of the Bahamas made it so we couldn't eat wild berries from the
woods anymore.

Now a middle aged man over 30 years later, sheep from my home area still
measure levels of radioactivity too high for human consumption.

That's why I feel most options are better than nuclear power, for any purpose
except perhaps space probes.

~~~
petra
If you look at the seriousness the human race dedicated to creating safe
nuclear energy, it looks almost comical:we settled on the first technology we
found(pressured water reactors), because it fitted best for the requirents of
the Navy at the time, not because it offered the best safety for citizens, far
from it.And than, in the name of safety, we created an environment that
prevented from new designs to become commercialized.

Why wasn't it safe ? Because that type of reactors creates a lot of high
pressure radioactive gassses , and in the case of an accident, those gases
spread far.

But we now have reactors types that (a) can't physically blow up , their
temperature is limited, and (b) contain very little to no radioactive gasses ,
so even in the worst case scenario, we'll be just left with an enclosed pool
of radioactive material, which is safe.

So please don't judge nuclear by it's past.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "But we now have reactors types that (a) can't physically blow up , their
> temperature is limited, and (b) contain very little to no radioactive gasses
> , so even in the worst case scenario, we'll be just left with an enclosed
> pool of radioactive material, which is safe."

Interested in learning more about these reactor types. I hear different
reactor names discussed, but I'm not sure what's right on the cutting edge.

~~~
petra
I think moltex is among the best.

------
alkonaut
English isn't my first language, but this title doesn't sound right. Not sure
if it's incorrect but it just doesn't taste right.

I'd say "where [..] are electric cars a good idea" or "where [..] is _an_
electric car a good idea". Am I crazy?

(This OT grammar nazi question was triggered by the author pushing his grammar
book right at the page top)

~~~
komodo
As a native English speaker, I can confirm you are not crazy; it needs an
article.

~~~
Terribledactyl
That or change it to talk about electric cars in general.

Where in Europe are electric cars a good idea?

edit: Also I think we'd have something that breaks Betteridge.

------
andlier
I'm a bit tired of all these CO2 comparisons regarding electric vehicles. If
we put the CO2 emissions aside, there are so many other benefits moving to
EV's. Especially reduced local pollution in cities such as NOx, VOC and
particulate emissions. Even if we just look at noise and easy maintenance,
electric cars are clear winners. All this focus on CO2 just leads to a lot of
inaccurate napkin calculations on one part of the issue, taking focus away
from the bigger picture.

That being said, for cities, cars in general are problematic since the consume
so much space. I'd say electric bicycles and public transportation is the way
to go for cities.

~~~
wohlergehen
As an added bonus, the big coal exporting countries tend to be relatively more
democratic than the big oil exporting countries.

I.e. electrical power is already relatively cleaner by not supporting horrible
regimes (cf. Saudi Arabia or Nigeria).

------
jakozaur
Oversimplified. Electric car can act as storage for renewable energy. Moreover
charging happens at night when a lot of countries experience oversupply of
energy (e.g. in Poland electricity is cheaper during night hours).

~~~
karolg
I agree that you can make significant savings with G12 tariff in which night
usage is about 30% cheaper than during a day in comparison with fixed-price
G11. But unless you have your own source of renewable energy your car will be
charged with power from coal power plant. So maybe you can charge your car for
less but you still use fossil fuel and it doesn't change much in amounts of
emitted CO2.

------
nimish
Zero tailpipe emissions is worth far more than you are internalizing.

CO2 is not the only pollutant that matters. NOx and sulfur emissions are
arguably worse in term of quality of life in cities.

~~~
Reason077
And noise! Not so much from cars, which are reasonably quiet these days. But
trucks and motorbikes, especially, can be appallingly loud and make our cities
unpleasant places to be.

~~~
emj
The greatest sound pollution from cars is the tires noise. At low speeds this
is not noticable but the faster you go the worse it is, I believe engine noise
is overtaken by tire noise somewhere above 30km/h.

This sound is spread 10km in each direction from a highway, the areas which
are truly spared the noise of cars are hard to find these days.

~~~
Reason077
With cars, at highway speeds, you're right - but engine noise is a much more
significant factor for motorcycles (some of which are _absurdly_ loud) and
heavy trucks/buses.

In built-up cities, like London, these vehicles are usually traveling at
relatively low speeds anyway, so it's really engine noise that is the problem.

------
Tade0
The numbers seem off.

A Nissan LEAF - which is not particularly efficient - uses 175Wh/km and
burning coal for electricity produces ~1000g CO2/kWh, so even after factoring
in grid losses(8%) and charging losses(another 8%) the number is still
204g/km.

That's approximately how much a similarly sized car emits in dense urban
traffic(assuming 7,5l/100km).

------
api
EVs are a good idea everywhere.

Even if the power they use is dirty now, upgrading the power sources that feed
the grid is a lot easier than upgrading millions upon millions of cars. It is
for many reasons a much easier problem to solve.

------
mcsb
Not to forget that petrol is fueling terrorism. And oil tankers on the oceans
are an additional source of massive pollution.

------
scythe
The problem is that you're assuming that the makeup of electricity production
in Europe is a constant, which is strange, because it's probably _easier_ to
build low-carbon electricity infrastructure than replace tens of millions of
gasoline cars. But the fuel used for gasoline cars is constant, whereas an
arbitrary percentage of electricity production can be simply replaced by
renewables. Similarly, the CO2 output of car manufacturing itself is variable,
dependent on the choice of electricity production method. Of course, a
dramatic increase in car production translates to a dramatic increase in
resource usage, but cars are not particularly durable commodities, usually
lasting only about 15 years or so.

A bigger problem is that the Baltic states (worst electricity prospects in
this study) don't have a whole ton of renewable energy potential. It's dark,
not (that) windy, not mountainous or volcanic...

------
muehlbau
One thing I couldn't find in the vizzes is that Europe shares its energy grid
for a large part. This means that a large portion of energy consumed in say
Germany might well be produced by a nuclear plant in France. It's harder to
reflect these flows and get data for it, but I assume it changes the picture.

~~~
the8472
The cross-border flows are relatively small compared to domestic production.

Click on any country to see the flows:
[https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=...](https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=country)

------
fnoobor
To many people this map has little value because it includes nuclear power.
The article explains that this is a problem too.

So why not try to create a map that takes the nuclear waste/accident problem
into consideration.

For example France would look at lot worse since they are mostly run on
nuclear power and the northern European countries would look more like an
"environmentally friendly lighthouse". Which they are, mostly because some of
them get to use easily exploitable geothermal energy.

It would also be great to get an insight in the source of your data you've
based this map on.

------
melling
“Countries where electricity is mainly generated from natural gas. Electric
car carbon footprint is globally equal to diesel car or gasoline car”

Is this true? My understanding is that EV’s power by electricy generated from
natural gas is better than gas powered cars.

This Scientific American article gives a lot of detail on where EV’s are
better in the US

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-cars-
are...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-cars-are-not-
necessarily-clean/)

------
toyg
One of the many things missed in this study is that the switch to EV is not
"to reduce greenhouse effects", but to do that _while keeping the car industry
alive_. It if were all about global warming, we could all switch to trains and
bikes tomorrow; but fixing environmental problems _without challenging
established equilibria in terms of employment and economic output_ , that's
the hard bit.

------
5zBFyURxgY
Everywhere, because oil is an ending resource. Electricity is already way more
sustainable and cleaner, and this can only become even better soon.

------
captainmuon
Wait, you can choose what kind of energy you are using. In Germany at least,
you can choose a utilities company who gives you 100% renewable energy (at a
slightly higher price).

(Of course, I know that you get the same electrons - electricity is fungible.
But you do increase demand for renewable energy, and in the long term change
the energy mix.)

------
mcv
This goes completely against another recent report that said even electric
cars running on coal would still reduce CO2 emissions after about 3.5 years of
average use, simply because the internal combustion engine is so woefully
inefficient. (With green energy it was 2.5 years.)

I'm afraid I can't find a link to that article right now.

~~~
fulafel
Sounds unlikely given the high manufacturing and materials share of lifetime
CO2e footprint of EVs.

------
CiaranMcNulty
The source seems to be here: [http://euanmearns.com/co2-intensity-of-electric-
cars/](http://euanmearns.com/co2-intensity-of-electric-cars/)

It's unclear on a first skim whether the (constantly rising) energy costs of
fossil fuel extraction are included.

~~~
baking
He admits the he neglected to include the carbon cost of constructing the
internal combustion engine while including the carbon cost of building
electric vehicles, so I would assume he's not been that thorough.

Also, pretty sure he is not considering the rapid increase in photovoltaic
electricity production as the cost is dropping below that of coal, the current
cheapest source of electricity.

EDIT: Also carbon capture at the powerplant is definitely easier than at the
tail pipe.

------
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6
I'd say a better title for this article/graph would be "How would electric
cars affect CO2 output in European countries?" or something along that line.

There's far more to a specific car being a good idea considering the
differences between EVs and ICEVs (but of course the needs vary inside
countries as well). However, an electric car is much less attractive in a land
of long distances where you often need to keep the batteries pre-heated to
provide even reasonable range (and even keep your warranty!) – even if the
country's electricity production is not dominated by fossil fuels.

~~~
hnnsj
E.g. Norway, the country where EVs are the most popular in the world?

~~~
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6
EVs being popular have little to do if they are the best cars there – the gov
subsidizes the hell out of them (compared to other cars that are highly taxed
to pay for the welfare state) so much so, that a Model S retails there for
about the same as a $25,000 Audi (US price).

(And why is Norway so rich to begin with, you don't need to wonder.)

------
CM30
Have to admit, I expected a slightly more general look at the situation here,
not just the places where an electrical car does less harm to the environment
than a normal one. For example, it might reduce CO2 emissions to have an
electric car in London... but at the same time it may be better (and more
convenient) to just not have a car there at all. Who cares how good it is for
the environment it is if you can't find parking, traffic is a nightmare and
there are many better options involving public transport?

------
revelation
Wow, we're still doing this? Is it 2000 yet? Please don't start with elaborate
secondary effect models unless your model can accurately account for all CO2
emissions of a country per year. Until then, all I'm seeing is someone fudging
numbers and components to include/exclude in search of a preconceived
conclusion.

The first obvious failure is not accounting for the electricity that already
goes into refining oil to gasoline and diesel. A comparison that stops at the
exhaust pipe for ICEs is straining credibility.

------
fulafel
It's not clear that this is the right way to judge "good idea". Specifically
it's possible that oil saved from replacing ICEs will still be burned, in
which case EVs strictly increase CO2 emissions due to their manufacturing
being very CO2 intensive.

In the wider picture, EVs still have such big lifecycle CO2e footprints that
we'll still have to drastically reduce private car use. Focusing on EV
technology is a major distraction from recognizing this as a society.

------
bjourne
It's quite annoying that he doesn't link to the data source used to create the
map. It is hard to know if his data takes into account energy imports/exports
or not. For example, Germany's domestic electricity production is largely
based on coal and natural gas but it also imports a lot of electricity from
the Nordic countries which is generated using clean hydro power.

------
TeeWEE
This is skewed. My father has solar panels and an electric car. So its charged
overnight by the battery at his home. This is how you should use electric
cars: Start using solar panels. Its a logical combination. Electric cars
accelerate decentralised energy plants (like local solar panels).

------
pmuk
If you own an electric car in the UK you can choose an electricy supplier
which provides 100% renewable electricity, e.g.
[https://bulb.co.uk](https://bulb.co.uk)

------
AlphaWeaver
Has anyone done a similar study in the US? I'd love to learn if electric cars
here are really helping the planet.

~~~
reallydontask
This is oldish

[https://www.citylab.com/environment/2015/06/where-
electric-v...](https://www.citylab.com/environment/2015/06/where-electric-
vehicles-actually-cause-more-pollution-than-gas-cars/397136/)

~~~
AlphaWeaver
Thanks!

------
unixhero
Norway

It's all in the subsidies.

