Will Plug-in Hybrids Undermine the Grid?

What I’ve never under­stood about electric vehicles and the “save the planet” argument is: where does the electricity come from? A power station. What does the power station do to the planet? Damage it.

If the power station is more efficient at: converting oil to electricity, trans­mitting that electricity into a car, and the car using it to create motion — then OK there’s a saving to be made but all these articles talk about electric vehicles as if you just plug them into a free, zero-​​environmental-​​impact energy source and then they drive round making zero emissions and we’re all saved. It’s a crock!

“Couple that with the fact that power plants are indeed
more efficient…” That’s what I’d like to see in figures. A typical IC engine has at best 30~40% thermal efficiency from tank to flywheel. You’ll tell me it’s running nowhere near that efficiency most of the time.
But to my knowledge a steam turbine like we find in power plants has a typical thermal efficiency of 40% at best. You’ll tell me it always run at that rate. Yes, but it does so ²⁴⁄₇ and the energy generated that’s not used is dumped… into street lights for example. That’s why you occasionally see these lights on during the day. Then there’s a little loss through the big trans­formers and long HT cables.

Then you charge a battery at an efficienc of 80~90%, that you discharge into an electric motor (made of mostly resin coated copper wire) at an efficiency of 70~85%.

All in all, if plug-​​in electric cars are not as bad as petrol ones, they’re worse for the envir­onment. I like the idea of a quiet car with instant torque, but it’s actually better at producing performance toys than saving us! Unless someone proves we can generate the electricity with better efficiency and with the capacity to replace the equivalent of millions of petrol and diesel engines…
The key is not what we drive, but how much we drive it. Working from home, walking to the shops and having the occasional road trips with a fat V8 is more eco-​​friendly than commuting 20 miles per day in a Prius, as strange it may sound to some.

that’s why whilst wanting to spare our planet, I still believe in automotive pleasure more than in “more technology to reduce the damage done by technology”.