That was a nice article. However, I believe using the power capacity of a battery to determine what the power consumption of a fleet of electric cars would be is a little bit misleading. For instance, considering the official numbers of the Nissan Leaf (https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf/features/range-charging-battery…
In my opinion, a better alternative would be to take some car data (I’ve used the Leaf, above) and get its estimated range and divide it by the battery power. Then, multiply that number by the average yearly travel and by the number of cars. In my sheet, I have arrived at around 484TWh/year (I didn't use the 400 million figure, but a 250 million one). The problem with that estimate is that it takes for granted the values presented by the manufacturer, which, even though multiplied by 0.7 by the epa to best reflect reality, is based on lab tests. That obviously disregards winter use.
My preferred method is getting the gasoline consumption and then converting it to energy. The EU consumes approximately 84 billion liters of gasoline per year (https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/gasoline_consumption/Europe/). Considering that only around 30% of that, on average, becomes usable power in a gas car, and that an electric car motor is ~85% efficient on average, I’d estimate, without accounting for winter, the cars would use around 380TW/Year. That doesn’t mean that’s the actual electricity they will draw from the grid, though. Taking into account an average charger efficiency of 85.7% and a transmission loss of around 6% (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7046253 and https://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/ respectively), you’d have an impact of ~472TWh/Year on the grid. If you’d like to guestimate more, you could even account for the European winter taking close to 29% of the year and that electric cars would be about 80% as efficient when temperature is close to 0°C, and that would mean a ~506TWh impact on the grid.
Now, that power could be supplied by 13 Gravelines nuclear stations. You’d need 209 Alta Wind Energy Centers or 176 Benban Solar parks, though, for a respective occupation of ~18000km² and 4500km² respectively. Now, that is if Europe could have the second, which is located in Egypt. But there is one small caveat. That amount was calculated based on gasoline usage alone, and Europeans love diesel cars.
All that said, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of electric car problems. Not only is the disposal of batteries troublesome, they are also very expensive (they cost almost as much as the car to replace). That probably means whomever can afford them would get a new car instead of buying a new battery, which would result in the entire car going to waste. Add to this problem the fact that any minor damage to the battery pack will result in the need to replace it. With all that in mind it is pretty obvious that electric cars are no substitute, for the masses, for gas and diesel powered ones.
Thanks for your comments! From what I have seen the winter use can be incredible sometimes. I heard of some guys in Finland trying to charge their electric car at -25C with a plug from the house, and the car hadn't actually charged up anything during the whole night. All the electricity was just going to heat the battery.
That was a nice article. However, I believe using the power capacity of a battery to determine what the power consumption of a fleet of electric cars would be is a little bit misleading. For instance, considering the official numbers of the Nissan Leaf (https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf/features/range-charging-battery.html), a driver charging the battery from 0 every week would end up driving a total of a little bit over 17000km every year. The average european driving is around 11300, with the highest value being around 16400 for Ireland (https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-sector/transport/distance-travelled-by-car.html). That does not mean there won’t be people recharging weekly, but most people won’t be.
In my opinion, a better alternative would be to take some car data (I’ve used the Leaf, above) and get its estimated range and divide it by the battery power. Then, multiply that number by the average yearly travel and by the number of cars. In my sheet, I have arrived at around 484TWh/year (I didn't use the 400 million figure, but a 250 million one). The problem with that estimate is that it takes for granted the values presented by the manufacturer, which, even though multiplied by 0.7 by the epa to best reflect reality, is based on lab tests. That obviously disregards winter use.
My preferred method is getting the gasoline consumption and then converting it to energy. The EU consumes approximately 84 billion liters of gasoline per year (https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/gasoline_consumption/Europe/). Considering that only around 30% of that, on average, becomes usable power in a gas car, and that an electric car motor is ~85% efficient on average, I’d estimate, without accounting for winter, the cars would use around 380TW/Year. That doesn’t mean that’s the actual electricity they will draw from the grid, though. Taking into account an average charger efficiency of 85.7% and a transmission loss of around 6% (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7046253 and https://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/ respectively), you’d have an impact of ~472TWh/Year on the grid. If you’d like to guestimate more, you could even account for the European winter taking close to 29% of the year and that electric cars would be about 80% as efficient when temperature is close to 0°C, and that would mean a ~506TWh impact on the grid.
Now, that power could be supplied by 13 Gravelines nuclear stations. You’d need 209 Alta Wind Energy Centers or 176 Benban Solar parks, though, for a respective occupation of ~18000km² and 4500km² respectively. Now, that is if Europe could have the second, which is located in Egypt. But there is one small caveat. That amount was calculated based on gasoline usage alone, and Europeans love diesel cars.
All that said, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of electric car problems. Not only is the disposal of batteries troublesome, they are also very expensive (they cost almost as much as the car to replace). That probably means whomever can afford them would get a new car instead of buying a new battery, which would result in the entire car going to waste. Add to this problem the fact that any minor damage to the battery pack will result in the need to replace it. With all that in mind it is pretty obvious that electric cars are no substitute, for the masses, for gas and diesel powered ones.
Anyway, great article, as always.
Thanks for your comments! From what I have seen the winter use can be incredible sometimes. I heard of some guys in Finland trying to charge their electric car at -25C with a plug from the house, and the car hadn't actually charged up anything during the whole night. All the electricity was just going to heat the battery.
Excellent analysis Jota Pe. Really good work.