Mercedes B Class EV is 64% cleaner than the petrol version

[Ferdball]

Not sure where my previous post went, but here it is again.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1095968_mercedes-b-class-electric-car-cuts-lifetime-carbon-emissions-up-to-64-percent

 

[sendler2112]

Very interesting.

 

[wavelet]

Interesting, and I wish more manufacturer's published this, and for all their vehicles...
But two issues:
1) From the MB PDF, it's not clear to me that they're taking regular servicing of the car into account in the "operation" phase; while some items may be identical for the EV and petrol versions (e.g., tires, power steering fluid, hydraulic brake fluid), other items last longer (brake pads) or don't exist (engine & gearbox oil, filters, spark plugs) for the EV. Both the production of those items and their recycling has environmental cost. Maybe this is negligible next to the environmental cost of the fuel, but they don't actually say so, while they do refer to these items for the end-of-life recycling phase.
If not negligible, this would make the EV version come out still more ahead.

2) The assumption of 160K lifetime km seems pretty low to me. The EU overall average for cars is 16k km/year AFAIK (US is ~20k); this means just 10 years of life or a mere 8 years in the US. This seems low for an expensive car, particularly from MB, who are know for the longevity of their cars. I'd expect at least 200k km, perhaps 250k.
I don't know the how long the battery will last before replacement is necessary (whe,n say, capacity has gone down to 75% or 80% of original), but if that is before 160k, the environmental cost of a new battery needs to be factored in for the EV...

 

[bcurious]

That evaluation depicted is based upon some electricity sources that I don't seem to have on offer in my U.S. location...

This is a somewhat popular topic for journalism these days...
Perhaps if they cut to the heart(s) of the matter too quickly, they may run out of material on the subject!
This is the first one that I've seen directly linking EV use to deaths:

From the article:
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...t?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595
and also somewhat recently:
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...e?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595

The chief point, to me, of much of this writing and discussion is that it's not a clear-cut simple issue of "new EV=savior," but there is fertile ground for an individual consumer and voter to investigate there.
I'm not here to stir the pot nor to debate, and I do drive a B Class as well as some gasoline-powered vehicles. I purchase my residential electricity used for home vehicle charging from renewable sources and use publicly available charging stations powered by unknown sources.

 

[Ferdball]

That evaluation depicted is based upon some electricity sources that I don't seem to have on offer in my U.S. location...

We don't have Hydro Power depicted in the center column, but I would think that Solar is equivalent. So for us with Solar, I would consider us equivalent to the center item graphed.

 

[padamson1]

That evaluation depicted is based upon some electricity sources that I don't seem to have on offer in my U.S. location...

This is a somewhat popular topic for journalism these days...
Perhaps if they cut to the heart(s) of the matter too quickly, they may run out of material on the subject!
This is the first one that I've seen directly linking EV use to deaths:

From the article:
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...t?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595
and also somewhat recently:
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...e?zid=291&ah=906e69ad01d2ee51960100b7fa502595

The chief point, to me, of much of this writing and discussion is that it's not a clear-cut simple issue of "new EV=savior," but there is fertile ground for an individual consumer and voter to investigate there.
I'm not here to stir the pot nor to debate, and I do drive a B Class as well as some gasoline-powered vehicles. I purchase my residential electricity used for home vehicle charging from renewable sources and use publicly available charging stations powered by unknown sources.

Typical lies, damn lies, and statistics stuff. This Deaths Graph simply doesn't jive with the OP graph. Somebody has excluded some data to generate the graph message that they want (lifetime of car, actual CO2 cost during manufacture, etc). The first graph seems to be the most common interpretation of EV CO2 costs, but a close examination of their basis for CO2 increase for manufacture of the vehicle skews the CO2 cost for Lithium battery production to unbelievable levels and under reports costs of parts in ICE production. I'll have to take some time to check the Tessum, Hill, & Marshall, PNAS report to see how they massaged the data.

No matter. Like most Americans I believe what I want to believe, and will feel comfortable with the knowledge that I moved my car pollution from my neighborhood to someone elses (NIMBY).