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  • What's the point of electric vehicles?

    Kaustubh Katdare

    Kaustubh Katdare

    @thebigk
    Updated: Oct 26, 2024
    Views: 1.2K

    Everyone loves electric vehicles. Battery powered vehicles are ubiquitous - from two wheelers to mega trucks. I, however, fail to understand the point electric vehicles are trying to make. 

    As long as I'm charging the vehicle through electricity obtained by burning fossil fuel, I'm doing no good to the environment. 

    As engineers, we need to understand that there is going to be loss of energy at every step of conversion. For EVs, we first burn the fossil fuel and then convert it into electricity. 

    Then that electricity is used to power the batteries; which store energy in chemical form. Then the motor that actually powers the EV converts this chemical energy back into electricity. Ain't that loss of energy at every step? 

    I'm guessing that in order to charge our EVs, we're burning more fuel than ever! I'd love to be proven wrong on this. 

    Unless we go solar or obtain energy from renewable sources; EVs are pointless. What's your take? 

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  • Ramani Aswath

    Member • Jun 4, 2018

    Unless we go solar or obtain energy from renewable sources; EVs are pointless. What's your take? "

    CO2 emission and pollution get transferred to the generating station. I agree that we are only making things worse by shifting to EVs unless electric power can be generated without fossil fuels. (Wind, Solar, Nuclear fusion ...)

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  • saandeep sreerambatla

    Member • Jun 5, 2018

    #-Link-Snipped-#‍  What you have mentioned is correct, but if  you look at the countries which are going to renewable energy we need to have a second though.

    Say Germany is producing 35% of  its energy through Renewable (Wind).

    China, the big country with most polluted cities is investing heavy in solar energy, I think both going to renewable and electric goes hand in hand , and by the time we get affordable electric cars for common man , there will be significant amount of energy will be generated by renewable sources.

    USA claims that they would reduce the emission by 80% in next 14-15 years.

    So its good to invest and find better cars/bikes which run through electric and its always important to note that it should be made affordable only if the country has more renewable production than fossil fuels.


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  • Ramani Aswath

    Member • Jun 5, 2018

    What China is doing:

    #-Link-Snipped-#

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