Comparing carbon emissions of a diesel car to an electric vehicle charged from the Eskom grid

Danie_V

Danie_V

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What a lot of rubbish and completely focussed on a single aspect of the supply chain. Diesel cars (especially in SA as our standards are lower) emit a lot of particulate matter where they are used, causing worse air pollution in cities than even petrol cars. Make the case for petrol cars, but certainly not diesel cars. The pollution of SA's coal burning plants is killing the nearby residents of those power stations (like they have always done) but that is still a lot less impact than all the cars burning diesel all day long in cities. The extraction, transporting to refineries refining, and transport to garages is also a part of the diesel story, as are the spills.

No-one said EVs on their own are just going to solve the world crisis, but why go BACKWARDS. EVs were one of the first of many steps, and those coal power stations in SA need to get with it and change, and stop holding us back. This is an incredibly BACKWARDS logic to sday, let's continue using diesel because we have not yet cleaned up our power stations. Yes, Eskom is starting to roll out renewable energy generation, but accelerate that., don't prolong diesel. I still wonder why VW never paid billions in fines in SA for Dieselgate... it is perhaps that we have been too slack to enforce diesel emissions in SA.

Let's get our move from coal going, and let us not be the country that finally gets renewable energy, but everyone is driving diesel cars still.

Yes, Electric Cars Are Cleaner, Even When The Power Comes From Coal - https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikesc...-cleaner-even-when-the-power-comes-from-coal/​

 
SilverCode

SilverCode

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What a clickbait headline with and equally poor article. The pollution generated by drilling for oil, refining it to gasoline, then transporting that gasoline to a pump far outweighs* the pollution of locally sourcing coal near the power station, then burning the coal and transmitting the electricity.

Plus, as the article mentions, Electric Cars in SA are hellishly expensive, so the people buying them are also likely already running some sort of solar setup.

Plus, it is far easier** to build a new green power station and demolish a coal burning one than it is to convince hundreds of thousands of people to buy a new green car. Thus electric cars should be pushed as fast as possible regardless of *current* generational pollution, because it can be "flipped over" MUCH quicker by building new power stations.

*I have done 0 research or calculations. This is the internet.\
**For non-ANC led countries
 
Voicy

Voicy

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Ok so your report basically says coal is worse than diesel. The electric vehicle has little to do with the equation.

If you compare a diesel car to an electric car being charged by a diesel generator, you still have around 30% better efficiency.

It's not a new concept. It's way more efficient to run diesel generators to load batteries and then stop...than to run diesel engines continuously and draw power from them when required. The load-shift (uphill, downhill, etc.) draw from the batteries.
 
C

c3n0byt3

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Jan said:
Electric cars are worse for the environment than diesel in South Africa

Electric vehicles are said to be environmentally friendly alternatives to petrol and diesel-powered cars, but this is not the case in South Africa.

South Africa relies heavily on coal-fired power plants, which release substantial amounts of pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
Click to expand...
Maybe include a source for the SA "carbon emission factor". Not disputing or anything, just lets the reader look at more detail, because details matter here. Would be interesting to know if this SA wide factor includes any sort of distribution losses or mining etc. I'm certain the BMW factor does not include local operating conditions. Also over time (you use 10 years), that 118d will consume more oil.

The 23% is quite close when you're comparing CO2e vs CO2. Or does the 118d technical data specify CO2e? Unfortunately there are also methane and N2O emissions from vehicles. This cannot be discounted.

But the crux of the issue for me is co-benefits from air quality.
The EU chased CO2 and looked at diesel as the holy grail (purely due to lower fuel consumption).
They didn't consider very high NOx and PM emissions from diesel. Now they sit with a black carbon, NOx and ammonia issue. Slowly phasing out diesel, but had to resort to things like higher taxes and traffic zoning.
Actually "they" did know this, but the people looking at CO2 were more funded and higher ranking.

Also you have to consider vehicle emissions (in your face) vs power-plant emissions (from a 200m stack).
Our power plants are probably some of the worst in the world, but shifting to diesel is not the solution.
 
S

Scorpion101

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This is very short sighted article. I for one will definitely be using my solar array to charge my EV vehicle. I believe people will see EVs as an incentive to install solar arrays on their homes and kill two birds with one stone… move away from Eskom and use Solar energy to fuel your car. Now that’s disruptive technology
 
Johand

Johand

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@Jan - you forgot to add the carbon emissions for producing and refining and transporting the diesel. You can't compare an all-in CO2 emission rate for electricity to a partial CO2 rate for diesel.

Sure there should be other sources, but this link I found by brief Google search gives a figure of 24% additional CO2 must be added to the CO2 emitted by your car's exhaust if you use diesel.
 
Q

quovadis

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Johand said:
@Jan - you forgot to add the carbon emissions for producing and refining and transporting the diesel. You can't compare an all-in CO2 emission rate for electricity to a partial CO2 rate for diesel.

Sure there should be other sources, but this link I found by brief Google search gives a figure of 24% additional CO2 must be added to the CO2 emitted by your car's exhaust if you use diesel.
Click to expand...
And diesel car emissions other than CO2.
 
K

Kawak

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How did we go from 0.97kg/kwh to 1kg/kwh? New solar went online, we're using way more diesel running the OCGT as our coal plants burn, blow up, leak and trip.

Aside from that, diesel engines idle and burns fuel at 0% efficiency, maybe add that into your calculations as well...
 
M

Muiskas

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It's expected since this article was paid for by the client.

In reality, a diesel car's carbon emissions are a lot greater than an electric car's emissions and carbon footprint.
There's many factors to consider, right from drilling for oil, to service on a diesel vehicle (replacing oil).
 
M

mje

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Jan 17, 2006
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I love this - not one person supported the article.
Wish the import tax on BEV's would be dropped to 0% for a few years - along with BEV road tax.
Also wish we could be "nice" to Elon and incentivize him to build a GigaFactory to supply the (free trade) African continent. Build vehicles and batteries from African resources in Africa - rather than "gifting" our African resources to China.
 
rph72

rph72

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The single biggest obstacle to widespread uptake of EVs in the country is a 25% tariff on imported EVs. Duty on conventional engine cars and hybrids is only 18%. With an extra luxury goods tax on top, a whopping 42% of an EV’s price tag is tax.

www.lubesngreases.com

Critiquing South Africa’s Taxes on EV Imports - Lubes'N'Greases

South Africa is dragging its heels on the path to vehicle electrification. Expanding the fleet and infrastructure is essential but investment in people more so.
www.lubesngreases.com www.lubesngreases.com
 
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