Re: TLDR; Will the shills just shut up?
I'm not a shill. In fact you'll find that most car companies don't want to sell their electric models.
Owners tend to do the job of selling EVs to others. And the enthusiasm is genuine, I'm on my 2nd EV and generally most owners tend to be of the opinion that they will never buy an ICE vehicle again. Try talking to a dealer... they hate selling EVs, you will often be handed off to the youngest sales intern or in some cases practically told to eff off.
I'm motivated to post on the EV topics because they tend to be populated by a lot of people who categorically don't know what they are talking about. If they've never driven or owned an EV and don't know basic information like charger types or rudimentary efficiency numbers they tend to be dismissive and that pisses me off.
As for your questions:
pollution transference (production) - Until you get to the battery, pollution from production is lower than an ICE vehicle. The problem with many of the numbers provided by EV opponents is that they tend to rely on reports into pollution from Li-Ion cell production in China... but most automotive cells are produced in Europe, Japan and the US with better pollution controls and controls over conflict minerals etc (in fact TMK no automotive cells for production EVs sold in Europe are made in China).
pollution transference (power): People often make the initial mistake of counting the total emissions for electricity an EV and only counting the manufacturers sales number for tailpipe emissions for the ICE. So often you'll see number like 300g/kWh for the EV (which is about right given the UK/Ireland grid power mix) and then quote 200-250g/kWh for the ICE when the real number is closer to 1700g/kWh well-to wheel. ICE engines lose more energy to heat than they use to actually move the car. Electric motors are 90-95% efficient. The battery charging is usually 90% efficient and the electricity grid is usually more than 90% efficient. In total around 70% of any kWh produced at the power plant reaches the road with an EV. My comparison with a h2 fuel cell vehicle using electrolysis that number is 19%. The only situation in which an EV might have 5-10% higher total emissions is if 100% of your power came from coal (even in the US the grid is only 38% coal at worst).
time to recharge:
How long a piece of string.... DC rapid charging at 50kW (150kW is possible, 100kW being deployed in Norway ATM) charges the 22kWh battery in my i3 from 0-80% in 15-20 minutes. AC home charging at 32 Amps charges the battery from 0-100% in 3 1/2 hours. Idiots quote the time to charge at 8-10A from a three pin plug (something which few owners do considering a proper charger is Free on grants or €500 without) which can be 12-80 hours depending on your EV. In general you charge on a timer to get the off-peak electricity rates and start with a full battery every morning. DC rapid charging is then used for longer trips. DC charging stops on long journeys are fairly natural. I've driven from Dublin to London/Amsterdam/Berlin with not that much difference in journey time vs my old diesel.
battery life:
The design life (which is not the time to a dead battery, it's the time to 70% capacity) of the i3 battery is 20 year and the Leaf battery is 10 years.Generally the two factors that matter are number of cycles and exposure to heat. A big factor is pack capacity because larger packs tend to be cycled less and the driver notices loss less. The i3 and Model S have active thermal management systems that keep the battery at the right temperature for optimum life. The Leaf and Zoe... don't. Early Nissan Leafs had issues in hot climates, particularly when being rapid charged (a single rapid charge can raise the battery temp by 10C). These issues were fixed from MY2013 forward with an updated battery chemistry (owners refer to this new battery as the lizard battery). UK/Ireland has fairly stable temperatures so it wasn't really a major issue here. My dad's 2014 Leaf has lost 1% of capacity in 54,000km. My i3 has done 18,000km and capacity loss is so low it's not measurable.
Personally I can't understand how anyone who drives less than 30,000-35,000km a year and doesn't need to tow a trailer can justify NOT driving an EV.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
