this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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It's worth noting that this is not being done for environmental reasons (more half of all coal pollution comes from China), but for strategic reasons as China has limited access to oil near it's borders.
I mean, that's a pretty good reason. I'm not too concerned why they do a good thing, as long as it's done.
Not to mention that they are the world's biggest manufacturing power, so whatever they make for themselves will likely also benefit the rest of the world.
If they really wanna make me pro China, make ME energy independent!
Cheap solar panels Cheap batteries Cheap ebikes Cheap ecars
That would cover half my yearly expenses!!
Electric cars aren't a "good thing" though.
You might get up votes if you accompanied a controversial opinion with a reasoned argument. However, making only broad, unsubstantiated statements is a waste of bandwidth and everyone's time.
Ultimately I agree that they should include the argument, but adding a reasoned argument has very little affect on the use of the vote buttons as "agree/disagree."
China is also the world leader in sustainable public transportation solutions
They're a "better than ICE cars" thing. I'll take whatever improvements I can get
Why not? This has been researched many times, and the results are consistently that it is a good thing already, and getting better, in regards to overall co2 produced
They're also far more efficient than fuel cell too
When coupled with electric buses and high speed trains, they’re plenty fine. We’re not going to reach a level of infrastructure anytime soon where all travel can be accomplished through public infrastructure, even in China where they have ten times the public transport infrastructure of the US.
Electric cars by themselves aren’t a good thing, as in, the USian belief in “an electric car for every person” is insane and if they convince even half the world of it we’re going to destroy the other half mining minerals, but using electric cars to supplement sustainable infrastructure and support areas yet without access to public transit is a necessary step on the path towards sustainability.
An EV running on a coal fired grid still has less emissions that a prius. Facts dont care about your feelings.
Could you please run us through your maths? I'm legit curious.
An ICE is only, at most, 35% efficient. In contrast to lithium batteries and electric motors, which is more like 90% efficient. Electricity produced from the dirtiest coal plants that exist, used in an EV, is more efficient and, thus, more environmentally conscious, than burning gasoline in an ICE.
What about the billions of cells that must be produced and replaced as the scale grown unto millions and millions of cars? And all the mining of rare earth elements it requires?
It turns out that the lithium is very recyclable. The process of disassembly is what's tricky, but one of Tesla's pre-musk founders is working specifically on this problem.
We can already do it. Mining is (for now) cheaper. Something legislation, applied carefully, can resolve.
I don't know if their statement is universally true, but the EPA's fuel economy / total emissions calculator seems to show it for what I've put in. You can put in a Prius or random EV and see how they compare.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths#Myth1
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=bt2
My guess would be the efficiency of coal power plants (35%) and electricity transmission (90%) + battery charging of an EV (80%) would be more than efficiency of transporting oil in ships (50%) , then in an ICE truck (40%) to fuel pumps and then finally the efficiency of the ICE car (40%).
I picked the numbers from internet, but they seem plausible.
Is it worth mentioning? Why?
Just wanted to add some perspective. There's a narrative lately that China is a champion of the green movement, which is absurd
It's no less absurd than the opposite narrative, that China is some kind of climate villain.
The reality is China is on the right track, but not there yet. I'm somewhat optimistic.
Pretty reasonable narrative tbh. China's CO2 emmissions plateleued last month and have even started to fall, and they're targeting zero emissions by 2060. They've also started spearheading cleaner energy this month with the first 4th gen nuclear reactor.
And of course the news in this post.
Car engines are immensely inefficient and car charging is a load that's easy to load-balance for renewables (dynamic pricing see: Tesla)
Yup! EVs and renewables are broadly good things. Just wanted to give some added perspective :)
Great argument for a green transition in many places, such as Europe, India and Japan. Dependence on fossil fuels is a big weakness.