This page was last updated on July 4, 2011.
Shocking Electric Cost to Produce Fuel Dooms Todays [sic] Cars; Admin; TheEV.biz; July 3, 2011.
This piece of work is attempted deception from beginning to end. It’s so obviously flawed the deception has to be intentional. Not surprisingly, local lefties are swallowing it hook, line, and sinker because it tells a story they want to believe.
Below is a detailed critique of portions of this column.
“Many are shocked to discover that just the electricity used to refine crude oil into 1 gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel can propel an EV farther than the average passenger car using the very same gallon of gasoline or diesel!”
“Yes you read that right and here is the logic:
“According to the US Department of Energy a gallon of gasoline requires approximately 6kwh of electricity to refine it from crude oil.”
[RWC] That is NOT what the DOE said. The above sentence should read “According to the US Department of Energy a gallon of gasoline requires approximately the energy equivalent of 6kwh of electricity to refine it from crude oil.”
This story appears to be based on a piece posted by the Gateway Electric Vehicle Club sometime in 2010. You’ll find the DOE claimed “about 21,000 Btu—the equivalent of 6 kWh—of energy are lost per gallon of gasoline refined.” While I don’t know if the DOE figures are correct, it’s clear the DOE said “the equivalent of 6 kWh” of electricity, not six kWh of electricity. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the DOE reported in 1998 net electricity consumption is only about two percent of refinery fuel consumption, or about six percent if you include electricity losses. Therefore, the actual amount of electricity used to refine a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is only about 0.12 kWh, or about 0.36 kWh including electricity losses.
“If the average EV (starting with the advent of the Tesla’s Roadster) can go 4 miles per Kwh, then an electric car could go 24 miles using an equivalent amount of electric energy.
“According to the US Government’s National Transportation Statistics the Average Fuel Efficiency of U.S. Passenger Cars and Light Trucks for about the last ten years hasn’t gone much over 22 mpg!
“This makes for another game ending score that clearly favors Electric Vehicles vs Cars & Trucks using Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs):
“EVs: 24
“ICEs: 22”
[RWC] This section has more serious problems. Before I begin, please don’t bug me about the methodology I use below. It’s not how I would approach the comparison, but I wanted to stick with the article’s approach to simplify things and to avoid the “apples and oranges” criticism I’d get from people who want to believe the article even though it’s completely bogus.
First, as noted above, the amount of electricity used to refine a gallon of gasoline is between 0.12 kWh and 0.36 kWh, not the “6kwh of electricity” claimed by this article.
Second, the Tesla Roadster is a two-seater with a sticker price in excess of $100,000, not exactly a family car for most of us. A better example would be the Nissan Leaf (battery capacity of 24 kWh), a small, five-passenger vehicle with a sticker price starting around $33,000. Nissan claims the Leaf’s range can vary from 62 to 138 miles depending on driving conditions. Using the EPA’s official estimated range of 73 miles, the Leaf can go about three miles per kWh, the equivalent of about 18 mpg using this article’s methodology.
Third, you’ll note the article throws in “Light Trucks.” The EPA designation of light truck includes pickups, SUVs, and vans less than 8,500 lbs. Since there are no electric light trucks to my knowledge, including light trucks in the electric vs. internal combustion comparison is an obvious ploy to skew the results in favor of electric cars.
Fourth, the “ICEs: 22 [mpg]” figure appears to be the figure for all cars and light trucks currently on the road. This is another obvious ploy to skew the results in favor of electric cars. The comparison should be new electric cars vs. new gas/diesel cars. According to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, average fuel efficiency for new model year 2010 passenger cars was 33.7 mpg. The average for 2010 light trucks was 25.1 mpg, still better than the 24 mpg equivalent for electric cars cited by this article.
All of this means the real score is EVs 18, ICEs 33.7 if you use this article’s methodology. Further, it means the rest of this article is garbage because it’s based on seriously flawed data. Garbage in, garbage out. FYI, electric cars still lose even if I’d used the Tesla. Based on the EPA estimated range of about 244 miles with a 53 kWh battery works out to about 4.6 miles per kWh, or about the equivalent of 27.6 mpg, slightly better than light trucks and significantly less than internal combustion cars.
On top of this is limited range and the time it takes to recharge an electric car’s battery if you can find a place to do so away from home. According to Wikipedia, to completely recharge a drained battery using the Leaf’s standard charger connected to a 120V source requires about eight hours. Extra-cost options can reduce charge time. Refilling a comparable gasoline/diesel car takes about five minutes and gas stations are everywhere.
“According to Kenneth Burridge (Editor-in-chief of EV.com) ‘Once a person understands even this one vital statistic about EVs it should convince even some of the most stubborn of individuals to realize that the days in which fossil fuel powered cars can reign supreme in the transportation industry are numbered. This particular little secret of the oil industry is a huge game changer because it places most ICE cars in the dead men walking category. They seem fine for now, but the prognosis is death–they just don’t know it yet’.
“Remember that’s just the electric bill at the refinery for a gallon of gas and doesn’t consider all the other costs associated with that same gallon of gas. The cost of: prospecting, pumping, refining and transporting that gallon of gas multiple times down the supply chain before it gets to the service station and finally pumped again into the tank aren’t even being considered. Not to mention all the other external costs which are paid in the form of: tax subsidizes, pollution, missed days from work, reduced crop yields and military security needed to protect oil supply routes etc. One should also add in the amortized costs of all the associated specialized infrastructure needed such as: supertankers, oil platforms, tanker trucks, pipelines and all the other support equipment that is also only used to get that gallon of gas into the tank, which are not being utilized for any other purposes.
“What are some of the other ramifications of this shocking revelation?
“Well the electricity used by the oil company to refine that gallon of fuel completely invalidates the classic Long Tailpipe Argument/Myth, which is often used against the adoption of electric cars by oil industry proponents, which is commonly stated in the form of: ‘Electric cars don’t provide: energy, carbon or pollution benefits because they only shift the point of pollution etc to other sources of power such as coal powerplants etc when compared to ICEs’ now finally once and for all this myth can be considered truly Busted!
“It addition there is also the other classic scare tactic/myth that: ‘There isn’t enough electric power in the grid to support electric cars!’ However, it now becomes obvious that the electricity that would be used to refine that gallon of gas should instead be put directly in an EV battery especially since the EV can already go farther using that energy than the average ICE Passenger Car or Light Truck. Therefore each EV put on the road now actually would reduce the stress on the electric grid because the refinery wouldn’t need to produce the gas in the first place.
“But wait that’s not even close to the end of the story as the SIM-Drive Corporation of Japan has already introduced the SIM-LEI, which even though it still uses EV batteries similar to those found in the Nissan LEAF it can go double the range using just a few energy saving tricks and a new in-wheel motor technology. SIM-Drive will be selling the technology to all EV car manufacturers, which should start showing up in mass production models starting in 2013.
“There are also many new impending battery and solar cell improvements which will soon be announced, that will also extend the range of EVs even more.
“So why ever buy gas again? Well you will sadly because you don’t have a choice until sometime after EV manufacturers ramp up production and the majority of the current generation of ICE vehicles on the road now are retired. Meanwhile the EV can become a symbol of the benefits of having a free and open marketplace where in this case cleaner and more efficient technology has the opportunity to help improve the world in many categories. Suggestion: While this process is taking place people should help the oil companies keep as much oil in the ground as possible by adopting a greener lifestyle to do otherwise should be considered wasteful, selfish and irresponsible.”
[RWC] “Meanwhile the EV can become a symbol of the benefits of having a free and open marketplace?” According to the DOE, “The Recovery Act modifies the credit for qualified plug-in electric drive vehicles purchased after Dec. 31, 2009. The minimum amount of the credit for qualified plug-in electric drive vehicles is $2,500 and the credit tops out at $7,500, depending on the battery capacity.” How can we have “a free and open marketplace” when the feds are subsidizing electric cars by up to $7,500? This on top of the tax breaks given specifically to electric-car battery manufacturers by state governments and the feds.
© 2004-2011 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.