High CA gas prices

[coutinpe]

The per capita emissions statistic is wonderful for making Americans feel bad about themselves for having a comfortable lifestyle.

China emits twice the amount of CO2 as the US. A difference in population doesn’t make it less. Twice as much CO2 with four times the population, means the US emits twice as much per person. Orders of magnitude? Not so much. Should we strive to match their per capita income as well?

I can assure you that California is not leading the way in building smaller homes.

You are correct that I do not like the policies in California. They have accomplished little of value. Sure, it may have created a small market of overpriced electric and hybrid vehicles that would be a tough sell without federal and state incentives. Air quality is as bad or worse than it was 20 years ago. Traffic is atrocious, the roads are awful and lower income individuals are burdened by high fuel prices.

A few of my Tesla driving friends are man/woman enough to admit that their vehicle is powered by dirty electricity. Most truly believe they are driving a zero emission vehicle.

I didn’t buy the car to save the world. I understand that a great deal of resources and energy were required to manufacture a new vehicle and it was transported across the Pacific on a bunker oil burning ship. It isn’t that much more fuel efficient that my previous vehicle. It was simply time for a new car and the feds, state and manufacturer helped me out to the tune of $15K.

I also understand that it still burns gas and needs a source of electricity to charge the batteries. Both have an environmental impact as well as other impacts on human life. I’m unconvinced as to which is most detrimental.

That was right on spot! As much as L.A. is polluted, it's still nothing compared to Beijing but for some reason some people keep forgetting about it. On the other hand, I really dislike strong-arm policies aimed to discourage people to own/drive cars and have us all riding bikes in pre-Deng Xiaoping China style up/down the Sepulveda pass... At least, that was the self-confessed aim of one of our City council members.

 

[Andrew97]

Clarity where i live was definitely a wise purchase, gas is around 1,10-1,45 CAD$ per L, and electricity is 0,06 CAD$ per KWH.

 

[DucRider]

A few of my Tesla driving friends are man/woman enough to admit that their vehicle is powered by dirty electricity. Most truly believe they are driving a zero emission vehicle.

In Ashland, the electricity mix has an upstream GHG cost of 80g/mi for a Model 3 SR+
The Clarity Electric would be 90 g/mi
The Clarity PHEV generates 140g/mi (assuming 73% of driving in EV mode)
Prius = 207 g/mi
Subaru Outback 4 cyl = 385 g/mi (If Oregon had a State car like they do birds and flowers, this would be it)
Subaru Outback 6 cyl = 490 g/mi

Certainly not completely "zero emissions", but far from "dirty".

You can compare cars side-by-side here:
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbsSelect
Click the "Energy and Environment" tab where you can select "upstream and tailpipe".

For plug-ins, you also need to select "calculate emissions" which takes you here:
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?zipCode=&year=2019&vehicleId=41183&action=bt3
You can choose any plug-in from the drop down

Methodology:
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label/calculations-information.shtml

 

[Aaron]

Impossible to imagine a better convenience than "refueling" at home. For me that's one of the best incentives, not having to drive to the pump, especially to the long lines at costco due to the almost $1 difference with the other pumps in CA...

How do we refuel at home when they cut our electricity because.....well....that's a political discussion. Regardless....I lived in California all my life. It wasn't always like this. We are literally a third world country at this point.

 

[Landshark]

In Ashland, the electricity mix has an upstream GHG cost of 80g/mi for a Model 3 SR+
The Clarity Electric would be 90 g/mi
The Clarity PHEV generates 140g/mi (assuming 73% of driving in EV mode)

That sounds reasonable since 76% of the electricity in Oregon comes from hydro and renewables. Ashland has installed quite a bit of solar. Nice in summer. Not so great in winter when the sun drops behind the mountain at 2pm.

Nationally, electricity generation is at about 64% fossil fuels.

I’ll be back in the Rogue Valley for Thanksgiving. Maybe I’ll see another Clarity in the area.

 

[coutinpe]

How do we refuel at home when they cut our electricity because.....well....that's a political discussion. Regardless....I lived in California all my life. It wasn't always like this. We are literally a third world country at this point.

Unfortunately I have to agree with you. I have only lived here for 11 years but I never saw anything like what I'm seeing now... On my previous comment I was thinking on the (first world) best case scenario and (until yesterday) haven't had any blackout so I was being shamelessly selfish. Thanks God I was fully charged when the (4 hour) blackout struck and I wasn't just back from a trip and charging. Which brings to my mind what could happen if a blackout or surge hits when one is charging?

 

[KentuckyKen]

Clarity where i live was definitely a wise purchase, gas is around 1,10-1,45 CAD$ per L, and electricity is 0,06 CAD$ per KWH.

Wow. And I thought my electricity was cheap at $0.093 US. Yours converts to ~$0.045 US/kWh (Without taking into account converting that evil metric comma to a proper decimal point).
Does that include all taxes and monthly base rate?
Only way I can beat that is by not counted the cost of my “free” solar charging. I smile every time I pass a gas station or bank in my amazingly quiet and economical Clarity. And I no longer even keep up with gas prices since >90% of my driving is in EV.

 

[Landshark]

A surge guard can be installed for the whole house or just the outlet that provides power to the charger.

California does have a history of rolling brown outs. The current power outages are a result of last years Paradise Fire, which was caused by failed power distribution equipment. The current Tick Fire in Santa Clarita is believed to have been caused by power distribution lines. The Getty Fire was caused by a branch hitting a power line. The Kincade Fire is also believed to have been caused by a failed power line. Expect power outages, as a precautionary measure, to occur more frequently.

 

[Lowell_Greenberg]

The desired effect is less carbon emission. Local pollution is a relatively small part of the picture when one is fouling up the planet at a breakneck speed. Ignoring the environmental costs in the price of fuel has encouraged this. It is cheaper to build poorly insulated homes that guzzle energy. Average home sizes have increased and become wasteful. Sales of inefficient SUVs overwhelm those of more efficient cars in large part because of gas prices. The reversal in the mid 2000s gas price spike pretty much proved that. You may or may not like the policies personally, but CA policies have had the effect they desired.

And greenhouse gases hang around for hundreds of years. The US has, and continues to contribute to an overwhelming fraction of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is orders of magnitude more per person than any other country. So this is a problem that needs to be tackled.

You and I are driving this car and discussing things here because of California laws. If it were up to the Michigan and its lawmakers we would be driving 70s style gas guzzlers. The congressional and lobbying record is crystal clear.

Totally agree- obviously it is misleading to characterize your statements as biased or inaccurate because California has serious issues such as homelessness, income disparity and extreme housing costs. Clearly there has been great progress in particulate emissions. Now- at the federal level we see a retrenchment in air and water pollution regulations that directly translates into lost lives.

The key to successful carbon pricing is creating a market that is fair, environmentally and economically just and in particular one that can't be gamed. California's cap and trade is a step in the right direction- but probably not enough.



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[craze1cars]

So it seems the “Desired effect” is less carbon emissions IN CALIFORNIA. I can’t argue this is probably happening. But not without acknowledgement that an EV just shifts massive quantities of carbon emissions elsewhere. And it is NOT just because of fuels burned in electricity production to propel the car...that’s very short sighted and incomplete as well. It’s much bigger than that. I can’t believe there has been not one single mention yet here of the negative environmental consequences of battery production and elimination of these cars over their full life cycle? Of course not....this is an EV forum...so these inconvenient things are ignored here. But IMO one needs to consider conception-to-grave emissions, from development to disposal, not just the emissions created during ownership, which is the only thing ever mentioned in these extremely one sided forums, and the only short timeframe wheen I will acknowledge some small and short term environmental benefits occur.

But other sides of the “benefits” of EV indeed exists, long before and long after that short window of road use occurs, and they come at significant costs.

It seems I am one of very few here who honestly believes I have contributed absolutely zero benefit to the improvement of the world climate by purchasing this car. In fact I know I have actually harmed the earth by making this purchase, equally as much as, if not even more than had I purchased another ICE car. But I accept my place as an environmental destroyer by my mere existence...I still want my personal transportation vehicles, I eat beef, believe in single family homeownership, I fart frequently, and i believe individuals should have the right to give birth to children. I assume most here do also, yet all of these are absolutely destructive to the environment...most far more so than the ICE vs EV car differential, which is just a single grain of sand or less from a mountain, in terms of emissions/pollution.

I ask everyone to thoughtfully and open mindedly consider some of the points in this older and imperfect article:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017...lectric-cars-carbon-sustainable-power-energy/

 

[Lowell_Greenberg]

So it seems the “Desired effect” is less carbon emissions IN CALIFORNIA. I can’t argue this is probably happening. But not without acknowledgement that an EV just shifts massive quantities of carbon emissions elsewhere. And it is NOT just because of fuels burned in electricity production to propel the car...that’s very short sighted and incomplete as well. It’s much bigger than that. I can’t believe there has been not one single mention yet here of the negative environmental consequences of battery production and elimination of these cars over their full life cycle? Of course not....this is an EV forum...so these inconvenient things are ignored here. But IMO one needs to consider conception-to-grave emissions, from development to disposal, not just the emissions created during ownership, which is the only thing ever mentioned in these extremely one sided forums, and the only short timeframe wheen I will acknowledge some small and short term environmental benefits occur.

But other sides of the “benefits” of EV indeed exists, long before and long after that short window of road use occurs, and they come at significant costs.

It seems I am one of very few here who honestly believes I have contributed absolutely zero benefit to the improvement of the world climate by purchasing this car. In fact I know I have actually harmed the earth by making this purchase, equally as much as, if not even more than had I purchased another ICE car. But I accept my place as an environmental destroyer by my mere existence...I still want my personal transportation vehicles, I eat beef, believe in single family homeownership, I fart frequently, and i believe individuals should have the right to give birth to children. I assume most here do also, yet all of these are absolutely destructive to the environment...most far more so than the ICE vs EV car differential, which is just a single grain of sand or less from a mountain, in terms of emissions/pollution.

I ask everyone to thoughtfully and open mindedly consider some of the points in this older and imperfect article:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017...lectric-cars-carbon-sustainable-power-energy/

I don't want to go too far afield- this is a Honda Clarity forum. Based on the analyses I have read from objective sources such as the UCS, there is an environmental benefit to car EV tech. And SUV loving Americans are doing their fair share to destroy the climate.

But due to indifference and deliberate ignoring of warmings- I believe that further and more severe catastrophic climate change is inevitable. That mitigation now may lessen severity, is hypothetical. Responsible action would warrant caution and a massive effort to stem it. But it appears this is unlikely within a scientifically acceptable timeframe.

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[DucRider]

There is much misinformation circulating on the carbon impact of battery production (I suspect some of it intentional). In the study referred to in the article linked by @craze1cars, they look at the upstream environmental cost of electricity to compare to diesel, but the study admits they ignore the upstream of the diesel (extraction, refining, distribution).

Yes there is an additional carbon "cost" of producing batteries, but the ROI is about 2 years (on average and declining steadily) and after that point the EV starts paying the benefits of lower emissions.
A recent paper about battery production GHG:
https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life-cycle-GHG_ICCT-Briefing_09022018_vF.pdf

There are parts of world (even pockets in the US) where a highly efficient hybrid will produce less GHG, but in the big picture electricity is a much cleaner source of power for vehicles. That being said, the "green" aspect of electric vehicles is fairly far down on the list of why people like to drive them.

The social costs of the products we choose are not unique to vehicles. Much of the low cost merchandise the American consumer is so fond of is produced in parts of the world where the environment and human rights are abused.

 

[Andrew97]

Wow. And I thought my electricity was cheap at $0.093 US. Yours converts to ~$0.045 US/kWh (Without taking into account converting that evil metric comma to a proper decimal point).
Does that include all taxes and monthly base rate?
Only way I can beat that is by not counted the cost of my “free” solar charging. I smile every time I pass a gas station or bank in my amazingly quiet and economical Clarity. And I no longer even keep up with gas prices since >90% of my driving is in EV.

Yeah thats the price we pay, 0,06¢ not more not less. But the rate may differ when you use a lot of electricity because your going up on the price ladder. It's very rare that someone pays more than that tho. We are lucky to have hydro-quebec, the electricity is really cheap for us and is all green.

 

[Landshark]

We are lucky to have hydro-quebec, the electricity is really cheap for us and is all green.

No source of electricity is all green. There is a tremendous amount of concrete that goes into the construction of a hydro project. That’s not exactly a green building material. Mining and manufacturing everything necessary to build the turbines, etc consumes energy. Some of it, no doubt, from dirty sources. Transporting everything to the site from around the globe has an impact as well.

Then there’s the issue of altering the natural flow of rivers and flooding land that would not normally be flooded.

So while the act of generating electricity from hydro sources does not contribute significant amounts of pollutants to the atmosphere, we should not be under the impression that we are planting trees when we charge our cars or turn on the A/C at the house.

 

[Andrew97]

No source of electricity is all green. There is a tremendous amount of concrete that goes into the construction of a hydro project. That’s not exactly a green building material. Mining and manufacturing everything necessary to build the turbines, etc consumes energy. Some of it, no doubt, from dirty sources. Transporting everything to the site from around the globe has an impact as well.

Then there’s the issue of altering the natural flow of rivers and flooding land that would not normally be flooded.

So while the act of generating electricity from hydro sources does not contribute significant amounts of pollutants to the atmosphere, we should not be under the impression that we are planting trees when we charge our cars or turn on the A/C at the house.

Well i meant our energy is coming from mostly from green infrastructures even if there a lot of pollution in the making of the electric centrals is still WAYYYY better than a lot of others methods. There no way to get 100% green energy either way.

 

[Landshark]

Totally agree- obviously it is misleading to characterize your statements as biased or inaccurate because California has serious issues such as homelessness, income disparity and extreme housing costs. Clearly there has been great progress in particulate emissions. Now- at the federal level we see a retrenchment in air and water pollution regulations that directly translates into lost lives.

The key to successful carbon pricing is creating a market that is fair, environmentally and economically just and in particular one that can't be gamed. California's cap and trade is a step in the right direction- but probably not enough.



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It isn’t misleading to characterize a biased statement as biased. If it’s biased, it’s biased. It isn’t even necessary to characterize it as such. We all have our biases and when we put them on display we’re asking for a response.

It also isn’t misleading to call out and correct inaccurate statements.

We have people with different views, both claiming to be correct. Who’s correct? The one with whom we agree?

 

[Lowell_Greenberg]

It isn’t misleading to characterize a biased statement as biased. If it’s biased, it’s biased. It isn’t even necessary to characterize it as such. We all have our biases and when we put them on display we’re asking for a response.

It also isn’t misleading to call out and correct inaccurate statements.

We have people with different views, both claiming to be correct. Who’s correct? The one with whom we agree?

I stand by the original poster and my response. Nor is this the forum to focus on environmental policy.


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[Landshark]

Nor is this the forum to focus on environmental policy.

We can agree on that.

At the same time, environmental policy is the elephant in the room when the discussion turns to “High CA gas prices” which is the topic of this thread. A head in the sand approach is unlikely to lead to a rational conversation between adults with differing views.

Few things are as uninspiring as a room full of people who hold the same opinions and agree on everything.

 

[jdonalds]

Except that you also paid for the solar, either you have a loan or you used capital which is now not earning any income.

I also have solar (which has not reached full payback, so the "savings" go against my investment) but since I use 100% of what I generate, the marginal cost of using electricity to charge the car is the same as the grid rate, because that is where it ends up coming from.

Not trying to be negative, just my own honesty requires me to acknowledge up-front costs along with per-unit costs, and I don't claim to be "driving on solar" because I know my house was using all my output before I got the car.

We installed solar based on our city setting the size of the system, sized for our house. Then we added the Clarity which also gets charged only at home. So in a way the Clarity is almost free to fuel, at least for about 6-7 months a year when we generate more than we need.

Yes I used money from our investment portfolio knowing full well the risk profile said leave the money in the market. But this was a way to shift some money out of the market, and away from anyone who might attempt to steal our identity, and put it into something more stable and very difficult to rob. The "gains" are in the form of savings which are not taxed. Financially it is a loser but it is a planned move.

 

[skylines]

Haven't had a chance to check this forum for a while. All I can saw is Wow. I agree with Lowell that this isn't the main point of the forum. But there is so much misinformation.

Most of the people on this forum seem to be more from the technical/engineering background. I am a research scientist. Mentioning that simply because the approach to discussions is different and plays a huge role in such discussions in our society. Even when very pretty sure scientists are mindful of uncertainties and naturally cautious when making claims. Technical people are often much more declarative, which works fine for a narrow focus, but can get increasingly misleading the further it gets from their expertise. This is a massive disadvantage in politically charged topics because the misplaced confidence can appear convincing. So let me try and state the facts declaratively for a change.

To add to @DucRider 's link there have been studies to assess the lifecycle greenhouse gas costs of electric cars and they find that overall electric cars are better than gas powered cars and it gets better as the energy mix becomes "greener".


https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/cleaner-cars-cradle-grave

This is obviously a difficult thing to measure. To often in this country (apologies Canadian friends on this forum) people who dislike the conclusions use the complexity to dismiss the results instead of actually conducting their own rigorous study.

I keep track of my electric and gas usage and calculate both energy and green house gas savings. I come out ahead on both. But specifically on the greenhouse emission even with Michigan's not very good mix shown on that map I come out well ahead.

So the posters above claiming that they are not doing better on the greenhouse gas emissions front are simply wrong. You are! It isn't just California. And greenhouse gases don't care about state boundaries either.

The simple truth is that California's tax and environmental laws enabled it. Most of us used the federal tax benefit. That worked too. Using it while declaring ones distaste doesn't make your point more valid. There are plenty of other such examples in the country. Let us really not go there.