# Is the carbon footprint of my EV>Civic and Camry?



## powerhouse (Apr 1, 2011)

Another thing you have to consider, is that electricity CAN be produced without emitting and CO2, with solar panels, water turbines, wind turbines....


----------



## rmacey (Apr 3, 2009)

powerhouse said:


> Another thing you have to consider, is that electricity CAN be produced without emitting and CO2, with solar panels, water turbines, wind turbines....


 True. But when I plug my EV into my outlet, I'm not using electricity generated with these clean alternatives. My question isn't about my possible carbon footprint but my actual one. 

That said, and perhaps this should be in another post altogether, my power company offers me the option to pay an additional 3.5 cents per kwh (if memory serves) so that I can have clean energy generated. Any thoughts on this?


----------



## GizmoEV (Nov 28, 2009)

Don't forget that you are using some crude numbers to calculate what your EV actually uses. That in is self could account for the difference. The best thing to do would be to measure what you take out of the wall. If your charger can run on 120V then pick up a Kill-a-watt meter from the local hardware store and charge your car through that. It will give you a much better value to use. Make sure you drive more than just a couple of miles before recharging since your lead acid batteries "waste" a fair amount of energy at the end of charge if your charger does an equalize cycle. A longer trip will spread this "wasted" energy out over more miles.

FWIW, when I switched from lead acid to LiFePO4 cells my average miles/kWh from the wall went from just under 4 mi/kWh to nearly 6mi/kWh. As such, your EV will be less efficient with the existing battery pack than a Lithium based battery pack.

Finally, even if your EV "produces" the same amount of CO2 as the equivalent ICE version, you are driving on locally "grown" electrons rather than imported oil. We can save the oil for other things like grease, plastics, etc.


----------



## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

150 amps for 35mph steady cruise seems really high to me unless you have a very large and (relatively speaking) inefficient EV. I didn't catch exactly what your EV is, but my MR2 (which I chose for its light weight, aerodynamic chassis) only needs about 30 amps (126v traction battery) to cruise at 35mph flat and steady. As you rightly pointed out, hills and acceleration can take considerably more than that though. Still, I live in seattle and we have our share of hills here, and on my hilliest routes the car does about 300 wh/mile battery-to-wheels. On highway cruises it runs closer to 200 wh/mile. So even adding 20% for charging losses I would still say you may be overly conservative with your efficiency estimates.

Agree with prior poster the best thing to do is improve your measurement capability. Since it sounds like you don't have one, consider getting a kwh meter for the car. If nothing else, it is the closest thing you can get to a real 'gas gauge' in a conversion EV.

Also, It isn't really an apples to apples comparison per se if you are comparing a camry to for example a pickup conversion. It would be more reasonable to compare against the carbon footprint of a vehicle with similar weight and body characteristics.

Finally, Is atlanta one of those areas of the country with almost all coal fired power generation? If so, you live in a worst-case scenario area as far as EV cleanliness goes. There have been a lot of studies that show that overall EVs range from being only 'significantly' better to downright trouncing ICE vehicles in cleanliness when running off local utility grid power, but there are a few areas of the country that have dirty enough power generation (nearly all coal basically) that EVs end up being slightly dirtier unless of course the conscientious owner finds a cleaner supplemental source of power like solar on their roof or by purchasing green power credits through their utility.

Cheers


----------



## drgrieve (Apr 14, 2011)

Your EV would produce about 10 times less well to wheel emissions. All the ICE figures only include tile pipe.

For a start the power to refine a gallon of gas will drive your EV car further than the resulting gallon will drive the ICE car.

Then you need to add deep sea drilling, the oil tanker, refining as above, shipping again, trucking it to the gas station etc etc.

To accurately compare the two you'd need to understand the history of the particular gas you receive locally and compare that to the electricity you receive. Every location will have different answers but in any case a EV will always be less than ICE by a large margin.


----------



## aeroscott (Jan 5, 2008)

the cracking of fuel is very energy intensive , like 2 gal. to get 1 gal. but they use natural gas because it much cheaper . I would guess that some natural gas ends up in our fuel .


----------



## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

rmacey said:


> I did some calculations that suggest driving my EV causes more CO2 emission than driving a Civic or Camry. I'm hoping you can help point out the errors of my calculation. This came about because next week I will be showing my converted 1985 VW Cabriolet at a local (k-12) Atlanta school....


Yeah, there's a big error in your calculation: you are comparing a 1985 VW Cabriolet to a (presumably brand new) Toyota Camry or Honda Civic. How is that fair?

You should compare your EV to its stock ICE form; nothing else is relevant.


----------



## rmacey (Apr 3, 2009)

Is there a kill a watt meter designed for a 30 amp circuit which is what I have my EV plugged into?


----------



## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

A current of 150A at 35 mph is very high. My bit less than 2300 lb Suzuki Swift (www.evalbum.com/3060) uses about 45A, or 5.2kW, so about 148Wh/mile. Although you do use larger current to accelerate, it occurs over a short period of time so the energy usage is fairly small. The Swift uses about 40Wh to accelerate to 35 mph, about the energy to go 0.27 miles at 35 mph. Over a bit under two years I have averaged about 215 Wh/mile _from the wall_. Probably 60% of my driving is at 50-55 mph, the rest at 35-40 mph.

Estimating total emissions well to wheel with much accuracy is very difficult. If you include emissions due to extraction, transporting, refining, etc. for gasoline, you also need to include the comparative costs for extracting, transporting, etc the fuel burned to generate electricity. And comparing the same car with ice versus electric gives a more straight-forward comparison. If you are going to pick a new, cleaner ice in a more aerodynamic vehicle, then why not choose a more aerodynamic ev with lithium cells which waste far less energy during charge/discharge?


----------



## shock (Jul 16, 2011)

rmacey said:


> I did some calculations...



If you are looking at ALL the costs... Granting an old vehicle a second life is the ultimate in recycling. Don`t forget the emissions saved in the entire process of manufacturing a new car, or at least one without an engine. Just picture the emissions in mining, transporting, smelting, stamping the steel to start. AND the savings in manufacturing/emissions costs for oil filters and oil several times per year, spark plugs, etc., etc. 

I'd also suggest you get several opinions about your energy costs in CO2 by your electric company. It's a political topic, and everyone that produces a report has an agenda. In AZ we have nuclear and solar in the mix - and all the power companies buy/sell to eachother. Maybe get a few examples.

Great project, by the way. Please post what you find!


----------



## rmacey (Apr 3, 2009)

tomofreno said:


> If you are going to pick a new, cleaner ice in a more aerodynamic vehicle, then why not choose a more aerodynamic ev with lithium cells which waste far less energy during charge/discharge?


 Good question. My not so good answer is that I am driving a converted 1985 non-aerodynamic VW Cabriolet. I'd like to know its carbon footprint and what it compares to.


----------



## efan (Aug 27, 2009)

I think this video will help explain the CO2 emissions of an EV and ICE car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfTiRNzbSko


----------



## CrazyAl (May 9, 2011)

Hi,

You may want to consider the following things in your calculations.

With ICE, you need to do on a regular basis


OIL changes,
oil filter changes,
replace rusty exhaust systems,
replace worn out catalytic converters,
replace oxygen sensors,
coolant changes (for non air cooled motors),
replace fuel filters,
replace coolant hoses,
replace air filters,
replace various engine seals (unless the car is not kept for long),
replace spark plugs,
replace spark leads,
replace distributor rotors or coil packs (depending on what the engine uses),
replace timing belts,
replacing tensioners,
replace v-belts or serpentine belts,
and probably loads more of other things that need replacing which I have not mentioned. You may want to look at the service manual to see what things need to be done regularly.
It takes energy to make those components and transport them so they can be bought.
On top of it, it takes time to change those things so there are labor costs involved.

Kind Regards
CrazyAl


----------



## zeroexcelcior (Aug 2, 2011)

efan said:


> I think this video will help explain the CO2 emissions of an EV and ICE car:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfTiRNzbSko


Excellent find


----------



## rmacey (Apr 3, 2009)

shock said:


> Great project, by the way. Please post what you find!


 I have come across a very interesting site: the Argonne National Laboratory. Here's an interesting pdf on Well-to-Wheel Emissions (especially slide 3). They also have a program you can download to calculate your carbon footprint.


----------



## Lordwacky (Jan 28, 2009)

well i had a nice detailed post, but my browser timed out and a lost whole damned thing... man that pisses me off. anyway....

in order to answer this question you will need to use an LCA (life cycle analysis) looking at the different technologies. You either prepare your own which is very difficult and time consuming, LCAs are often used as PhD thesis. You’ll be better of referencing a few and going from there.

Just be aware the LCAs are very dependent on the scope of the analysis and the assumptions made. In general the more specific ones are the most accurate and more general ones are not as accurate, but can still provide some good basic information.

thea quick google search produced some promising results. I’ll let you read them for yourself, becasue I don’t want to rewrite my conclusions, suffice it to say the “greeness” of the EV is very dependant on the source of the electricity, big shocker I know.

here is one frm belegium assuming a general electrical mix:
http://www.cars21.com/files/papers/Boureima-paper.pdf

here is a tree hugger article citing one
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/gas_electric_an.php

another one from belgium
http://www2.ulg.ac.be/cior-fsa/publicat/8lca_ve.pdf

Here is another treehugger article on battery types
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08/life-cycle-analysis-lithium-ion-batteries-electric-cars.php

here is a neat one from berkley looking at compressed air vs electric
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/4/4/044011/erl9_4_044011.html

good report from the low carbon vehicle partnership 
http://lowcvp.org.uk/assets/reports...e car challenge booklet - lytton - 050511.pdf

there is a lot of information on the lowCVP website, you should check it out

here is an article bringing issue with some of the assumptions being made in the LowCVP article, illistrating a common issue with LCAs
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06...ic-cars-compares-co2-impact-conventional-cars

LCA based Nissan propaganda on the leaf
http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/ENVIRONMENT/CAR/LCA/

LCA on Plug in Hybrids
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702178s


----------

