I read a comment recently that suggested that modern electric vehicles are a transformational innovation on the level of Henry Ford introducing the automobile to the horse and buggy crowd. Sorry, that’s the wrong take. The automobile was transformational because, compared to the horse and buggy, it was objectively better at everything. Power equivalent to tens, and then hundreds of horses was generated inside a block of iron about the size of a suitcase, so the automobile was faster and could do much more work, and you don’t have to muck out their stalls and feed them every night.
The correct analogy, if you want to use the horse and buggy as a stand-in for where we are now, is to say that electric vehicles are to vehicles powered by gasoline or diesel engines (let’s call them ICE vehicles, for Internal Combustion Engine) as horse that doesn’t poop and buggy is to horse and buggy. An electric vehicle has no utility advantage over an ICE vehicle. It just doesn’t poop (emit exhaust) from its tailpipe while you use it.
Electric vehicles can certainly be made to be engaging and powerful. I watched a video of a drag race between an E39 series BMW M5, a Lucid Air, and a Tesla Model S Plaid. The E39 M5, when it was released in 1998, was immediately hailed as perhaps the greatest luxury sport sedan ever built, and there are many today who still think that its combination of power, handling, luxury, and driver engagement is essentially unmatched. Needless to say, the M5 was fast, particularly for its time. It would run a quarter mile in the low 13 second range, with terminal velocity somewhere about 105-110 miles per hour (mph). In the drag race between the M5 and the two electric cars the M5 was allowed to cross the start line going 70 mph at which point the driver would mash the throttle to the floor at the same time the two electric vehicles launched from a standstill. Shockingly, the Tesla caught and passed the BMW before the end of the quarter mile. Its elapsed time was around 9 seconds with a trap speed of over 150 mph. Those are shocking numbers, but the formula is pretty simple. 1000 horsepower and all-wheel drive. It doesn’t take much engineering magic to build that into an ICE car as well. Link to BMW M5 vs Lucid Air vs Tesla Model S Plaid
So you can build an EV that goes fast. Interestingly, this seems to be one side of a two-pronged marketing strategy. Number one, win drag races. You’d think that drag-racing, the sport of gas-guzzling gearheads the world over, would be the last thing a committed enviro-activist would emphasize. Perhaps that instantaneous torque is one of the only EV advantages? Number two, you don’t have to buy gas, so presumably you’re saving money and the planet. About the money. Maybe you save in the long run and maybe you don’t. If an ICE vehicle is $10K cheaper than an EV counterpart you can buy a lot of fuel with that. More on the planet later.
The physical architecture of an EV has characteristics that are both good and bad for vehicle handling and braking. The battery is typically wide and flat and in the floor. This contributes to a low center of gravity, which is good for handling. But the battery carries a weight penalty, which is bad for handling and braking. We’ll call handling and braking a draw, but if you asked me to choose I’d take the ICE vehicle for it’s lighter weight.
For urban commutes between locations that have charging stations, like a home and a place of business, an EV works fine. You never have range anxiety, and you can use the air-conditioning and heating as much or as little as you want. On the open road in Montana in January, I would be anxious in an EV. Range is greatly diminished in the cold, and charging stations are few and far between. I just read a report about the owner of a Rivian R1T who was driving from California to Salt Lake City during the winter. Spoiler: his truck arrived on the back of a flatbed. Advantage ICE.
It’s not just cars that are being electrified, but light trucks now too. People use light trucks to tow things—heavy things like boats and travel trailers and flatbeds with a load of dirt or landscaping bricks for the backyard. Here’s an interesting statistic. A fully charged Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck with the big battery option has less energy onboard than an ICE F-150 with less than four gallons of gas in the tank. Motor Trend magazine did some tow testing with an F-150 Lightning. They towed small, medium, and large travel trailers. Regardless of the trailer weight, the range available was tightly clustered around 100 miles. With the big trailer that weighed over 7,000 pounds the range was 90 miles. In west Texas someone who lives 90 miles away is your next door neighbor. Of course, you wouldn’t actually travel 100 or so miles between charging stops because you’d want some cushion in there in case you wanted to use a little energy to keep the inside of the truck warmer or cooler than the outside. Then to recharge, assuming you can find a charge station every 75 miles or so, you’re sitting for 30 minutes, an hour, two hours? Huge advantage to the internal combustion engine. Link to Motor Trend towing article
Many will say I’m missing the point. The REAL game changer is the absence of tail-pipe emissions. Rapid replacement of ICE vehicles with EVs will help to lower the output of anthropogenic CO2 which is essential if humanity is to survive on this planet. Let’s continue with the CO2 equals poop analogy—both are plant food, right? There is a pile of poop (CO2 emissions) associated with the manufacture of an ICE vehicle—mining the raw material for steel, making steel and aluminum, making tires, making micro-chips, making plastic, assembling the vehicle, etc. It is generally accepted that the pile of poop associated with the manufacture of an EV is much larger than the one associated with the ICE vehicle, not least because of the mining of the raw materials required to make big, powerful, heavy batteries. A study by Volvo concluded that manufacturing the electric version of its small, XC40 suv produced a carbon footprint 70% larger than the manufacture of the ICE version even while building the two cars on the same platform and sharing many parts between them.
Once the two vehicles, one ICE, one EV, have been built, the ICE vehicle continues to add to its pile of poop at a steady rate that is proportional to how fuel efficient it is. My Chevrolet SS with its 6.2 liter V8, built in Australia as an homage to the E39 M5 mentioned above, poops pretty rapidly. The EV adds to its pile as well, but more slowly than the ICE vehicle. It could be a lot more slowly if all the energy used to charge the EV battery is produced by a hydro-electric dam or a nuclear power plant. It could be just a little more slowly if the battery charging is done by a coal-fired power plant. The question is, at what point does the pile of poop associated with the ICE vehicle, which starts out smaller, get bigger than the EV pile?
Link to a video that convinced me to buy a Chevrolet SS
That same study by Volvo attempted to answer the question and determined that if you assume a global average energy supply the EV vehicle has a carbon footprint that is 15% smaller at the end of its life, which is assumed to be at about 125,000 miles. In places where all the energy going into the battery is coming from a hydro-electric dam, the savings would be greater. In places where coal-fired power plants are providing more energy than the global average the savings would be less.
I feel reasonably sure that Volvo conducted their study in good faith. However, studies like this are all about the assumptions. Some of these assumptions are related to how much rock you have to mine, move, and process to produce enough lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, and copper to make an EV battery. Others are related to the location of the battery supply chain or the widely variable characteristics of the power grids used to charge the batteries. The author and technology/energy analyst Mark Mills put it this way in an article titled “The Tough Calculus of Emissions and The Future of Evs”. Link to Mark Mills article
The unavoidable fact is that there are so many assumptions, guesses and ambiguities that any claims of EV emissions reductions will be subject to manipulation if not fraud.
So are they really better for the planet? The jury’s out but considering all the inputs they’re definitely not game-changing. Certainly not if the EV manufacturers insist on building expensive toys like electric Hummers (9000 lbs, 1000 hp, 0-60 in about 3 seconds), and the Rivian R1T (7200 lbs, 835 hp, 0-60 in about 3 seconds). These are just expensive Tonka trucks. They may be wildly capable but they are not better for the planet. And it has to be remembered that if it’s cold out, or you’re towing, or you drive like a hooligan, they’re only wildly capable for an hour or so, and then you have to plug them in again. Still, some auto writers who seem to be trying hard to hurry us along write copy like this about the Hummer EV: This isn't the template future EV trucks should emulate; it's overpowered and under-braked, and it might be the least environmentally friendly EV ever made with the amount of materials and energy it consumes. Still, it achieves one critical, overarching feat: It makes EVs look cool as hell, and there's enormous value in that. As a statement, as a showpiece, as an experience, it's an unqualified success, and every EV skeptic and outright hater it converts is worth the cost.
Auto companies like Hyundai are doing better, building well-crafted, not so bonkers alternatives to their ICE powered cars and SUVs. Still, their Sonata N line sedan, an ICE sedan with 290 hp and 311 lbft of torque, and similar dimensions to their Ioniq 6 electric sedan, competes well with its EV sibling on performance metrics at a starting price $10K lower, and with a curb weight 1000 lbs lighter.
Full disclosure—I have never driven an electric vehicle more sophisticated than a golf cart. I might be blown away by the modern rides and turn into a total fan-boy. I think the more likely outcome is the one that most people in North America continue to arrive at when they acknowledge the limitations of EVs—limited range (especially under adverse conditions like cold weather or towing), higher purchase price, time to charge, availability of charge stations, questionable environmental benefit. I trust the auto reviewers when they declare that EVs are fast and engaging. But the point is being made that they are better in every way. No. At this point they’re just a horse that doesn’t poop.
Little Green Guy says he’s never seen a horse spontaneously combust. So there’s that besides the poop.
Not just another baseless opinion piece from a guy in the oil Buisness but a well articulated comparison based on real information! Great comparison of the ICE vs EV to horse and buggy. I think it is questionable if the EV horse poops or not. Good writing as expected. Keep them coming.