- cross-posted to:
- climate@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- climate@slrpnk.net
Canada to announce all new cars must be zero emissions by 2035::Canada expects to announce this week that all new cars will have to be zero emissions by 2035, a senior government source said, as Ottawa is set to unveil new regulations in the latest example of countries around the world pushing for electrification.
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Hope Canada has the political will to make this an actual reality.
I don’t think these kill all internal combustion engine by a set date policies are going to really work out. We’re still in the “incentivize people stage” of switching not the “kill it off internal combustion engine completely stage”. Most people don’t buy new cars cuz they’re just too expensive and there aren’t a lot of used EV’s that are affordable out there currently.
And before anyone says I don’t get the whole thing. I own an EV, I think there’s quite a long way to actually convince people to get them as a replacement.
We’re talking about 11 years in the future, and there’s a ramp up included in the legislation. That’s a long time, 11 years ago Tesla started selling the Model S, basically kicking off the current EV industry.
Eleven years is no time at all.
EV simply will not be ready by then.
I’d say they are mostly ready now except for a few very specific use cases.
Yes, batteries charging times should be shorter and have a longer range, but they are already acceptable for daily usage.
What we need is to wait while old vehicles are being phased out so people replace them with electric cars. Most people aren’t going to replace their perfectly working gasoline car with an electric just because it’s greener.
Once there are more readily available cheap models and second hand ones, it’ll probably be a smooth transition. I think it’s reasonable to stop selling consumer gasoline cars in a decade.
350 mile range and a lot more charging infrastructure are what’s needed. The range is practically there already. This is fully achievable if we don’t sit on our ass. Forcing us not to sit on our ass is the point of setting goals 11 years out.
Definitely. A country who does this will be like Cuba is with all the old vehicles, and people doing everything they can to maintain them.
That’s a good thing in many ways. Environmentally a huge chunk of the problem lies in the manufacturing of new cars, and it’s even worse with electric ones. Current ICE should be kept running for decades, not replaced at all costs.
Now of course you then get into spikier debates when you look at who actually bears the cost of the transition. When poor people with street parking end up subsidizing rich people’s electric cars (as is currently the case where I live), we have a problem IMO. Not a new one; people who don’t drive have been getting shafted for decades. But now it’s getting worse!
Policies like this are not to help the consumer but to push the manufacturers. A typical major redesign is every 5-6 years so this gives them about 2 generations for each model. It gives them some time to ramp up but no more excuses. Most importantly, if that’s all they’re allowed to sell then they need to figure out how to make them sellable.
I think that really depends where you are. If you’re in the US, sure. The US is far behind on infrastructure. If you’re in Europe, it’s much more viable. They have a lot more infrastructure (including much better public transportation) and EVs are actually viable as a replacement.
It’s fine for 90% of what people do with cars in the US. People in the US seem to like roadtrips a lot more than Europeans, though, and that’s where infrastructure needs to improve.
Right. You can easily take a long roadtrip in an EV in Europe. Not so much in the US. At least not yet.
Love this, but fucking hate having to deal with all the push back from Polievre, the Conservatives, Alberta, etc. Just hate seeing political ads masquerading as polls, or oil and gas companies trying to greenwash themselves, or the endless amount of idiotic comments from people who still don’t believe in climate change.
Yah, this is something conceived in a urban environment with high population density, and relatively warm weather, like Vancouver and Toronto.
It ignores about 95% of the country that has no mass transit and hits -20 and lower for 6 months of the year. There will need to be absolutely massive investments in technology for cold weather EV and power infrastructure to deliver a huge uptick in charging power across a massively spread out country. And our sources for renewable energy are pretty much used up, hydro hasn’t got a lot of possibilities left. Solar is awesome, but not a great producer this far north. Wind is only viable in a few localized spots and then you hae to get the power to the users from there.
Typical virtue signalling bullshit that’s not even vaguely realistic.
I have 27kW of solar panels , 5 days of battery storage on my house, extremely low energy usage (10kWh/day), and I still have to fire up the genny this time of year about once a week. And I don’t have to charge an EV.
The reason you know nothing will be done about this is that they didn’t set a small goal for the next few years, it’s another one of those multi-decade lofty goals towards which nothing will be done and at the end will be said it’s unrealistic. Like when Germany said the same.
Technically, with HVO, diesel engines can run without emissions. So “EV only” is not necessarily what this means…
If they set a 10 year goal it may take 20 years to hit 80% of goals, if they set a 20 year goal it’ll take 40 years to hit 50%, if they set a 50 year goal…
Nobody thinks this is a realistic goal, but the target gives a concrete number to set a mandate on which actually pragmatic policies, funding projects, and incentives can hang their hat on to keep the ball rolling.
With big infrastructure developments, nobody wants to buy into realistic goals, it’s too costly, and there’s never enough political will. You set overly ambitious goals so you can get people to buy in and then the project is too big to fail, so you end up paying what it actually costs, and you try to mitigate waste, unanticipated problems, corruption, and poor management along the way.
We’ll just have to carry gas generators on our electric trucks to drive to work in the bush I guess.
Too late anyways. Bottoms up.
Does break dust count as an emission?
*brake
And it should, it’s fairly toxic. Fortunately EV’s primarily and almost exclusively use regen.
Then there’s tire and road wear, which increase substantially with the heavier weight of EVs.
Not if we implement a weight tax on trucks and SUVs
I’ve commented on this before, though I couldn’t find it to plagiarise myself.
Ford puma ICE: 1280KG
Nissan leaf BEV: 1580KG
Ford F150: 2134 KG
Range Rover: 2513KGHonestly, tax weight and emissions. Emissions tax the energy put in the vehicle, and charge extra for high emissions in dense areas.
I also advocate for smaller cars, but batteries are heavy as fuck. The same car just swapping the motor with a battery will be considerably heavier.
Battery technology is impoving everyday, newer cars could easily have smaller batteries
And they will. Why have a 600 mile battery? Your bladder won’t last that long on the highway. Have a 300-400 mile battery and cut the weight.
Non-sequiter.
The spelling is non-sequitur. And it’s not that, the idea is that vehicles are already much heavier than they should be by use. For example a Tesla Model 3 is much lighter than the two most popular car models being sold in Canada, despite being an EV.
By the way, the biggest contributors to road and tire wear are heavy freight trucks, so instead of jerking off about EVs vs non-EVs, maybe building a decent railway infrastructure would actually help on that front, while also removing some cars on long road trips from the roads.
It’s really not as much as people make it out to be. I read something estimating an equivalent EV should be 20% heavier at our current technology, although some vehicles are much less efficiently designed and you have the monstrosity that is the Hummer
My Tesla seems like it’s about that although there’s really no ICE vehicle to directly compare to. However the important thing is it weighs much less than the pickups and full sized SUVs that all too many people drive. Feel free to advocate for taxes or fees based on weight and I’ll agree, secure in knowing my EV is lighter than half the population’s ICE cars and that it’s fair. The tendency (at least in US) is more of a problem than the extra weight of an EV.
If we consider the specific problem of road wear, it’s also a much smaller to non-existent problem than people think. Yes, road wear is relative to weight but cars are on the flat part of the curve where a few hundred pounds makes no real difference compared to road wear dominated by big trucks
Tire and road wear are not “as bad as exhaust” like some people suggest, but weight significantly increases road wear per the Fourth Power Law. So even 20% more isn’t great.
And as pretty much everyone transitions to EVs, I expect the ratio of trucks in EVs to come up to the same as with ICEV. I know some people have come down to the decision “Do I buy an EV car or an ICEV truck?” but as more EV trucks come on the market, I expect the size of vehicles to continue to grow.
I’m just trying to point out that EVs aren’t purely good and we as a society should be reducing our car usage in general. If alternative transportation (walking, biking, public transport) is possible, we should be facilitating and encouraging it.
Living in a city with an effective transit system, such as Boston or NYC, gives so much freedom to go anywhere anytime that you just can’t do with cars. It’s definitely something we need to work toward, and imagine how much better a good transit system would be.
The same with intercity rail: it’s so much faster and easier traveling Boston —> NYC with Acela than by driving or flying, and there’s no reason we can’t have similar serving most of the population (not area, but population)! Or imagine leveling up to high speed rail!
But some locations and usages will always be best served by personal vehicles , and transit will take decades, even if our politicians start funding it adequately
SUVs are by far the biggest factor that has driven vehicle weight.
Cars getting fatter has been an increasing issue for decades. Some of the people responsible for that are some of the same people now using tire and road wear as a talking point against EVs.
At least with EVs, there’s a path to getting it back down. The primary weight is the battery. Instead of having a 600 mile range EV (which is pointless), have a 300-400 mile range and cut the battery weight down accordingly.
What EV has a 600 mile range?
None, which is the number it should stay at.
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Of the direct operational sources of pollution:
- co2 - none
- ozone and exhaust particulates - none
- brake dust - almost none
- oil and fuel leaks - none
- tire dust - 20% more
EVs may not be perfect but they’re a HUGE improvement.
Even the 20% more tyre wear… That should mean I need to replace tyres faster. I’ve had one new set in 5 years on my EV (at about year 4). My old car was every other year. Sure compounds change, but I’m just not seeing more tyre wear.
In the new euro 7 emission standard it does
Don’t look at what powers the power plants. Just sit back and think you’re enjoying your zero emissions cars
Perfect is the enemy of good.
You mean the brakes that, if driven properly, are hardly ever used in an EV, and may last the life of the vehicle?
I’d like to say better late than never, but in this case late may end up with the same result as never. Once the ice caps have melted, they can’t melt any further.
Sure they can. Look at Venus.
And if you read about Venus you’ll understand the greenhouse effect as observed on Venus isn’t applicable to earth.
Greenhouse Effect is a political football with no meaning.
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How many cars are affordable at this point which offer 0 emissions?
Affordable to them.
Depends on what’s affordable for you, but by 2035, probably quite a lot more.
You don’t have to buy a new car.
Do tire particles emitted from wheels count as emissions?
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Looks like Canada’s grid has damn close to 0% coal and rapidly being phased out
Quebec is almost entirely hydro, Ontario is primarily nuclear and hydro, there are no operating coal plants in Ontario last I checked, just some gas plants. Those 2 provinces alone are just over 60% of the country, looking at the latest energy future report something like 81% of Canada’s power capacity is from renewables and nuclear, 61% being hydro.
Huh, here in Massachusetts, we’re trying to push through some long distance power lines so we can buy some of that sweet Canadian hydro.
I’ve got a TOPSECRIT Kickstarter project going that uses (shhhh!) sails on cars. ZERO emissions, baby. Come sign up !
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And as many created in buildin infrastructure, power distribution and maintenace.
And you created thousands more as you have to find people to build the charging infrastructure that barely exists in some locations at all., including most residential homes/apartments/condos, which gasoline doesnt touch.
Is that no emissions at all along the cars life from production to scrap? Cus EVs today are in large just virtue vehicles.
Interested to see where that data comes from, as looking at the lifetime emissions of an EV vs an ICE vehicle inclusive of fuel EVs are generally significantly lower emissions. If you’re only considering the emissions associated with the manufacture of the vehicles, EVs do result in more GHG, but very quickly once both vehicles are actually in use the benefits of EVs become apparent.
While somewhat misguided, they do still kinda have a point: Car centric culture really does have a high environmental cost regardless of power source. Switching from ICE to EV is a good start, but we also need to address urban sprawl, and push for better mass transit as well as cycling infrastructure.
Interested to see where that data comes from, as looking at the lifetime emissions of an EV vs an ICE vehicle inclusive of fuel EVs are generally significantly lower emissions.
I’m working from memory, but I think I have heard their claim before, and the data it is based on is probably 20 years out of date. The proportion of electricity produced by methods like solar and wind did not used to be what it is today, and the production method of electricity plays a significant role in lifecycle analysis of electric vehicles.
The Cambridge link you provided notes that electric vehicles are not better for the environment in Poland because most of their electricity is produced by burning coal. It also compares France and the UK, and notes the difference between emissions because of the different production mix of electricity.
Under current conditions, driving an electric car is better for the climate than conventional petrol cars in 95% of the world, the study finds.
The only exceptions are places like Poland, where electricity generation is still mostly based on coal.
Average lifetime emissions from electric cars are up to 70% lower than petrol cars in countries like Sweden and France (which get most of their electricity from renewables and nuclear), and around 30% lower in the UK.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/electric-cars-better-for-climate-in-95-of-the-world
I believe I saw similar comparing US states, but do not have a link. The numbers I remember is 1-2 years in states with more natural gas, nuclear, and renewable energy, up to 14 years for West Virginia and Wyoming as still mostly coal
IIRC, if you pick the worst state for power sources (W. Virginia) and the worst EV (the Hummer), you end up with a pathological combination that emits more CO2 than any ICE over its lifetime. Literally any other combination, and it’s better.
Dependable and available public transit is the answer to our transportation needs with electric vehicles substituted in areas where public transit presents implementation challenges.
Electric cars cannot be the backbone of our system if we look to reduce emissions and environmental hazards to a level that allows us to continue existence as we know it.
In Canada?
Obviously the metro areas and immediate surrounding suburbs can improve, but it’s a huge country
I dunno some intercity buses and trains would be nice… Like unless you can fly or rent a car I don’t know how you get to most of the country without your own car.
You mean like where 80% of our population is?
I do mean that. Where did I suggest otherwise? Is Canada big a huge country?
Hahahaha public transit.
Have you looked at the energy/environmental costs of trains or busses?
Hint: they both consume the same energy fully loaded or empty, as a start.
And train infrastructure is a massive user of concrete, steel, copper, etc.
Per capita it’s insanely lower than the personal cost alternative.
Why would you measure per capita? Not everyone will use it. How about per passenger?
Are you saying that the emission resulting from an EVs production is the same as the emission from and olds car production and lifetime of fuel usage combined?
Production of batteries, handling discarded batteries, breaking of minerals FOR the batteries, and producing the electricity have all been shown to be worse for the environment than than the entire life of a traditional car
You got something to back that up? The last study I read (I think it was from Volvo comparing one of their EVs against the ICE version of the car) showed between 60 and 80 thousand miles (depending on the energy generation mix) was the tipping point where EVs became better.
And that was probably about 5 years ago, there’s been a lot of significant development in EVs since then.
Well, please show me a trustworthy study of the difference between ICE and EV emissions per mile during their lifetime. The ones I’ve read always say “in their lifetime”, but they don’t take into account EV batteries need changing after about 10 years … And batteries are as we know the “big bad” of EVs. The absolutely only true comparison would be all emissions from all sources spread out over either per mile or per year. A combustion car can easily last 20 years, which isn’t really a fair comparison to the 10 years.
Hey you made the claim in the first place, you have the burden proof. Don’t attempt to shift it.
This article, and everying about this subject, presumes EV is better than ICE. That’s the positive claim.
Show me the math, the studies. If it holds true, this should be easy. And, it would end the debate.
Data trumps. If the research is so overwhelmingly in favor of EVs, let’s publish that info everywhere for people to read, study, analyze. Lots easier to convince people with the information out there, warts and all.
And, it would end the debate.
No, you’d hemm and haw and avoid the problem. We’ve been here before.
Well I claimed that I’ve not seen a study that accounts for all the different attributes at once. So there’s really nothing for me to provide?
But if you really need it, MIT did a study in 2019 and they explicitly (in about 2 sentences) declare that they don’t take into account battery lifetime, capacity degradation over time, battery efficiency’s sensitivity to cold, the problem with disposing of depleted batteries. According to their study an EV has about 55% of the emissions of a traditional ICE of comparable size, not accounting for the aforementioned details, nor the fact that EVs replace batteries. I.e. they assume one set of batteries for the entire lifespan.
Now, I might very well be wrong. And I probably am (judging from the down vote bombing). But I just want to see a thorough study of both types of vehicles with everything taken into account from basically drawing board to junkyard.
No, you claimed:
Production of batteries, handling discarded batteries, breaking of minerals FOR the batteries, and producing the electricity have all been shown to be worse for the environment than than the entire life of a traditional car
Furthermore, when asked about a source for these claims, you come out swinging with the ever popular “no, you” defense.
Again, link your sources (MIT study) please.
Na mate, I asked first.
Conventional ICE can last 30 years, with engine and trans rebuild, which is trivial from a materials standpoint.
We have multiple 30 year old ICE vehicles that still get 30mpg, have air conditioning and unlimited heat.
EV will never compete with that unless we find new ways to make batteries.
No calculation I hage ever read has ever shown that. There is an initial increase of emission from the new cars production, which is why there are discussion about retrofitting existing cars, but even if we never improve our battery technology there is a dramatic gain in lowered emissions.
Carbon tax deals with industries that creates emissions by taxing the fuels that cause the emissions. All businesses involved in making EVs and EV parts can choose between using taxed GhG-emitting fuels, or non-taxed cheaper renewable sources. Free markets will pick the winner, but at least all winners will be producing EVs only.
What makes you say that?
It’s because the Liberals are about to lose badly because their policies are not sustainable.
People need home heating, transportation, food, and housing to not die. Those aren’t luxuries.
Yeah, it’s tough bcz having a habitable planet isn’t a luxury either.
Most people don’t know anything about Canada, even people who live there. Most Canadians live in one of two megacities. They’ve never been to lynn lake, meadow lake, fort McMurray, fort st. John, or pickle lake. The wealth is extracted from these places, but with 0 understanding of what the country is like, particularly in February.
I’d be curious to see electric car range in fort mac’s winter temps.
EV performance in -40C is something nobody talks about but I’m extremely interested in.
There have been lots of videos of Teslas leaving a heated garage then flying around a snowy track in Norway, but that’s much different than getting in a car that’s soaked in the cold all night, driving it to work, then driving home after it sits all day. Or even better, taking that same cold soaked car and driving to the next city 13 hours away with only one or two places to stop along the way.
American here. Even in some northern US states we see - 20F in the winter.
I currently live where winter includes below freezing all the time, with temps approaching 0F frequently. I have friends with EVs, who can’t use their resistive heat (worst way to use battery power) in the winter or they can’t get to work and back, so they conserve power for window defrosting only.
We’re a long way from EV being viable. Wish people would admit that so we can have a proper conversation about it.
How far? 11 years of constant development driven by consumer demand and laws like this?
I have friends with EVs, who can’t use their resistive heat
Huh, I assumed they pretty much all had heat pumps now. Tesla introduced that several years ago and it made a huge difference, so I’d expect others to have followed.
I live in Northeast US so it doesn’t get that cold, but I can leave my car plugged in and set a schedule so it is all warmed up, when I’m ready to use. No battery. No effect on range
I built a cattle water pumping system this year with Lifepo4 batteries instead of lead acid. It was awesome all summer, never had a problem with the batteries losing charge or getting too hot to work. But as soon as the temps started to hit 0, the builtin heater started to work in order to prevent battery damage (LFP batteries need to be above 0 for charging) when there was enough solar to charge. That battery drain absolutely floored the system and after the nights started getting to -5 or so, it was completely drained between the heater draw and the lower output efficiency.
Cold is the enemy of high performance batteries, and LA batteries aren’t a possiblity in EVs.
I imagine at -40°C, ICE cars also need heat or a garage
I can only speak for Tesla, but if you have it plugged in overnight, you can schedule the battery and interior to come up to temperature by the time specified - you’ll be leaving on the trip with warm battery, warm interior, and a full charge
Interesting thing about gasoline engines, they become more and less efficient when the temperature drops.
They become more efficient because the air being brought into the engine is denser and cooler which is better, but they become less efficient because rubber parts become stiffer, lubricant becomes harder to move, and overall everything is tougher to deal with.
One result is that if you drive long ranges in -40C, your fuel economy is relatively similar to what it would be in warmer weather. You can blast the heat and your vehicle is toasty warm since it’s just moving waste heat around. I’ve done such drives many times since resources are not where people tend to be.
As you approach -40 you’ll probably want to have your block heater plugged in overnight on a gasoline engine, but generally speaking you can get pretty cold and have the motor turn over just fine. I drove a diesel for a while in the far north and going back to a (really crappy) gas engine was surprising for how easy it was to just get up and go in really cold weather.
I think we need to be realistic about what will actually happen. Climate change on the scale we’re seeing isn’t going to make the planet inhabitable.
What will happen is that it will be a more hostile environment to live in. Climate change is resulting in larger droughts/famines in areas that aren’t used to it, as well as increased storms/flooding in other areas. Forest fires will get worse. Storms will get worse, species will die off, and if we don’t have enough food to feed large cities, many will die and governments will collapse.
It won’t be the end of the world, but the world will not be the same because of it.
Depends on what emissions scenario we end up hitting. Some of them are pretty scary. You can’t say you know what will happen bcz we don’t actually know how much CO2 we will have in the atmosphere in the next century, and climate change seems to be outpacing the models right now, so we really can’t say if it will be worse or not.
I agree, most of what you’ve said is correct, but we cannot say it won’t be much worse than that bcz we just don’t know what we don’t know.
What are some of the scary scenarios you have seen? I wouldn’t mind reading up on some good sources that would be useful to keep an eye on.
Besides what we see in movies (unrealistic world ending scenarios), what I listed out seems to capture the realistic worst case scenarios that I have come across.
I haven’t seen any projections that say that the atmosphere itself will become unbreathable (although we could see a lot more massive dust storms that would force people to remain inside or only go out with proper protection).
No it’s just they follow a global trend. Europe will stop too to sell mass produced cars with fuel. If it is under 1000 cars/model they can still use fuel.
So Ford will just split into smaller companies, become a source for engineering and manufacturing, with the smaller companies leasing design and manufacturing facilities.
I’m just an average idiot, but I can see how they’ll sidestep this stuff.
So for sell the same amount of F150 that in 2022, they would need around 1800 of those companies.
And because people mix up federal and provincial powers
