right?
Well ... the other day I was in the supermarket and I saw this vehicle promotion set up
No prices mentioned ... but I'll get to that
I sauntered over and looked at the stickers on the windscreens; first the Niro
I couldn't help but notice that it was Zero ... yippie ... but what's that hard to read small print in low contrast there?
Well if you charge that in this area at home at night then its basically going to be electricity coming from the Coal Powered grid, and so the "combined test" 16kwh / 100km ... or (as identified in a previous post) means releasing 13.6kg of CO2 / 100km ... oh dear.
So lets have a look at the Cerato
Which gives 6.8L of fuel per 100km, which will translate into (based on their claims) 15.8kg of CO2 / 100km which isn't much different to the reality of 13.6kg really.
But wait, what's this Combined and Extra Urban??
well this is because Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) use less fuel on highway use than around town use. Interestingly with EV's this is reversed. This is backed up by not only this site:
Unlike gas- or diesel-powered vehicles, which regularly beat their EPA ratings in our highway testing, every one of the 12 EVs that we've run range tests on to date has fallen short of both its EPA highway and combined figures.
but in the personal experience I have with friends who own EV's and also my scooters. Literally the faster you go the worse it gets (which is also true of ICE powered cars, but nobody tests them doing 80km/h along the track).
So this means that out here in the countryside that Niro will be more likely to be used at 100kmh NOT "combined" which will mean that the CO2 produced will simply go up above that claim, and maybe produce even a little MORE CO2 than the ICE version.
Oh Dear.
No wonder they didn't list them separately ... cunning.
Prices?
So the Cerato is the 1.6L Turbo with Dual Clutch Transmission which is listed at AU$34,190 while the Niro is listed at AU$70,990
FARRK that's over AU$36,000 more.
So lets just do some quick stuff here. At current prices of about AU$1.50 per liter even just spending $30,000 will give you 20,000L of fuel which even at 8.9 (the urban figure) will give you about 222,222km (or something like 10 years of driving).
As always the devil is in the details when dealing with King Wang Marketing...
Have you an interest in owning an EV? (very) occasionally I discuss them with owners and come away with a deep gratitude for my internal combustion vehicle. Most recently at a local hardware store a woman was lounging half in and half out of her Tesla as it charged. I couldn't resist striking up a conversation. Her estimate of the miles a half charge would give her, coupled with the cost seemed to be right in line with my 20 MPG Jeep. Additionally as I recall the half charge took in excess of 30 minutes. She was an older woman and to me very attractive so it was an enjoyable conversation regardless the economic impact of her decision
ReplyDeleteEVs in most part of the world is way over priced. $70k for an essentially entry level car is insane. The only place I see that have very reasonable price for EVs is China. They literally have hundreds of companies making EVs, with prices starting at around $5k for the basic city car. But alas, the world hates China, it seems. This would make importing these affordable EVs from China more challenging.
ReplyDeleteI believe we have to find a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels and EVs are a good start but unfortunately there are so many issues as you mentioned. Until all, or at least most of the electricity is coming from clean sources, EVs are still producing CO2 indirectly. There is also the environmental destruction from mining the precious metals needed for the cars and batteries. Finally there is no easy and economical way to recycle the batteries, which may pose another environmental threat. So much more need to be done before EVs are viable as replacement for ICE cars.
ReplyDeleteSorry last comment was meant for this post: https://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2021/06/my-position-on-electric-cars.html
ReplyDelete