How "green" is the SE? BMW's life cycle assessment.

How many of us can guarantee how green our charging supply is? I charge at home for 98% of the time, and my utility company says they are over 50% renewable (solar).

 

BMW might be the only brand that is on pace with the Paris climate agreement (1.5C and carbon neutrality by 2050) for Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions.

For me, my grid has a carbon intensity of over 500g CO2e/kWh, so I utilize home solar PV as much as possible. Many solar households resell their RECs or carbon credits (to speed up the ROI), but essentially strips the green attributes of solar!

 

One of the first graphs is interesting.



It uses the assumption that an SE charged with "dirty" electricity will have have higher fuel production emissions than a petroleum Cooper. However, it's fairly safe to assume that for most people, their electricity source will come from a mix of thermal and renewable energy. That said, the SE still has lower lifecycle emissions than a petrol Cooper. On the other hand, for those of us who are lucky enough to get electricity from almost 100% renewable sources (99.7% in Quebec), the lifecycle difference is almost astounding.

 

The interesting bit for me is the assumed lifespan of ~100,000mi. I wonder how many SEs will be on the road that long. For me that would be 833 charge cycles over 20 years at my current rate of use. Will the batteries even last that long?

 

Same! I just crossed 14k km at almost 16 months (though I was on the IR list last winter and barely drove for five months). Even if I bump up my average a bit, it'll still take me around 18 years to hit 150k km!

I'd like to see the full report, not just the TÜV-validated abstract. From the last graph, the suggestion is the "dirty" SE passes the petrol Cooper at about one-quarter lifecycle (37,500 km?) while mine might be greener much earlier on, perhaps already (14,238 km).

 

That's why grid-connected PV is barely a thing in Quebec. There are no provincial incentives, and Hydro Quebec only credits up to 100% of grid-supplied consumption. The rules don't even allow for over-built capacity – the array has to be sized according to the household's previous year consumption. I use about 950 kWh a month, including about 65 kWh charging the SE.

 

In NY 70% of electricity comes from renewable resources I'm using my home solar PV 100% for SE and my household and in 10 years I pay few $ for electric bill .My 5.5 KW system is covering almost 100% my electric bill.I’m driving 5000 miles/ year is not much .But a numbers of CO2 producing by gas or EV cars is mind blowing I just attach picture from NY Times here .According to this article takes me 4 years to become clean 0 emissions driver after 20000 miles.

 

If you interested how long HV battery could last you have to register on BMW I 3 .com forum owners have great inside after 8 years 2014 models about battery degradation before warranty expires.I own i3 for 7 1/2 years and before my warranty expires I sold a car.I3 battery was smaller thanSE by 10 Kw .and after 20000 miles I have very small % of degradation.Car was in heated garage .I also read article about I 3 that time and after 16 years experts were saying you still can drive but degradation could be to 50 % means 50 miles range .Dc charging is killing those batteries when you use very often .

 

Battery 8 years later /2013 I 3 /I believe have better chemistry in /2020 SE /Samsung which is better for us could last much longer like @ endquote was worry what happened 20 years later . That battery with 50% will be good for some drivers 50 miles range . I don’t care too but 20 years +I will be 93 years old in Ev chair no license required! About energy efficiency picture .gas vs Ev

 

That is awesome! Thank you for sharing.

In Ohio, we have the ability to choose our electricity supplier, and therefore choose renewable (either partial or 100%). I have used 100% renewable since we purchased a PHEV back in 2016, as I figured it was important to get the climate impacting reduction benefit of a PHEV/EV. This white paper confirms the choice.

 

One thing to clarify, you aren't actually getting energy from "renewable power", but buying the traceable RECs (renewable energy certificates) at 1,000kWh blocks.

So if you get 1,000 kWh from your local gas/coal power plant and offset with your 1,000kWh REC, that is considered green electricity. Likewise if one has solar and decides to sell their Scope 2 RECs to speed up the return on investment, they forfeit their "green" power. Kind of counter intuitive, but wind and solar farms actually produce brown energy because the future attributes will be bundled and resold as Scope 1 carbon credits (1 ton of CO2e) or Scope 2 REC (1MWh of renewable energy attributes).

 

Certainly. A friend of mine is in that industry (he does the deals); the great thing is that it is directing $ to renewables, so the more people that choose it, the more renewable power gets online. Grid demand is finite, so % renewable goes up.

it would be impossible to direct renewable power to one home and not the other, of course

 

To reach environmental goals we need to prioritize transportation options that are not cars. The cool part about them is they are often a lot cheaper, less stressful, and in the case of bicycles, more fun.

 

Hey welcome back!

 

Thanks : D

 

My knucklehead 25-year-old nephew, who as an Audi rep sells a lot of e-trons, is in the camp that believes all the FUD about EV's being dirtier than petroleum powered cars over their life cycles. He even thinks hydrogen is the future, not batteries. He pooh-poohs any validated studies like the above that I show him, then comes back to post things like this (he sent it earlier today):

 

Hydrogen is for planes, trains, semis, and maybe buses. Batteries + hydrogen are absolutely crucial for a zero carbon economy, we need both.

As for life cycles, IEA would say at a high case 9.4t CO2 for a BEV and 6t CO2 for ICE. At 20MPG and 10,000 miles/year that would give you 500 gallons of gas. The CO2 intensity is about 8.8kg/gal of gasoline, so that would be 4.4t of CO2.

So, if you charge in QC (literally zero grid emissions), an ICE vehicle will emit more emissions than a BEV after 1 year. To get net zero (Scope 1) CO2e from Quebec hydro is literally impossible as the carbon intensity is 1.7g CO2e/kWh and it would take 5.5 million kWh. You might get to net zero if you live in a region with coal power and charge with home solar exclusively (need about 17.5MWh to offset 9.4t CO2).

 

Presumably, this person dedicated a considerable amount of time to highlighting the environmental impacts of fossil fuel vehicles before EVs became available..