WIND INTERMITTENCY IS EXAGGERATED – NREL study shows US wind potential is larger and more stable than previously thought with capacity factors of 65% available, see details HERE. Better even than Handleman Post predictions, that capacity factors of 50% can be achieved in large volume.
BEST US WIND SITES ARE BARELY TOUCHED – HERE – is a post showing where the best sites are why they are underutilized and how we can harvest much more wind at those sites.
WIND TURBINE STATE OF THE ART – New wind turbine technology is further reducing the cost and intermittency of wind power – HERE
RENEWABLES IN GENERAL
– COST – The cost of Renewables Is Dropping Rapidly – HERE are some great graphs showing declining costs. Here is Lazards 2019 report showing that wind and solar are the least cost energy sources. HERE is Lazards 2018 report on the cost of generation showing solar and wind as the least cost sources. You can always get the most up to date version of this annual report by searching on ‘Lazard’s Levelized Cost’.
– GROWTH – The amount of renewable energy has been growing exponentially for decades. Here are some good graphics illustrate that growth.
– HERE is a link to videos of an entire course on renewable energy. The presenter is engaging making it fun and interesting.
STORAGE
– Storage is vitally important for the future of renewable energy and many think that Lithium Ion batteries will play an important role if the cost can be brought down. Elon Musk predicts breaking the important $100 / kwhr barrier by 2025. This is in the same ballpark as predicted by Navigant and McKinsey prior to the Tesla announcement of the Gigafactory.
– GIGAFACTORY A conservative bet for Tesla – HERE .
– LITHIUM AVAILABILITY – And not to worry, there is plenty of Lithium – HERE .
There has been much excitement over the Tesla Powerwall energy storage system. It is important but not for the reasons described in the press. My recent post post on the significance of Powerwall was picked up by The Energy Collective – HERE.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES INCLUDING ELON MUSK AND TESLA
– EV EMISSIONS – Electric Vehicles pollute less even when you take into account emissions from the generation source HERE
– TESLA IS REVOLUTIONARY – Tesla really is revolutionary. HERE
– BATTERY COSTS PLUMMET – EV batteries are the cost driver and they are coming down FAST – HERE – A 2021 graphic HERE
EVs FOR LOAD SHIFTING – EVs combined with Load Shifting use market forces to increase the value of wind power while reducing the cost of driving. – HERE
SOLAR LAND AREA – The Land area required for solar is relatively small in comparison to the overall human footprint.
EFFICIENCY
EFFICIENT LIGHTING – Incandescent bulbs are being phased out in favor of high efficiency lights. The most efficient is LED lighting which is dropping in price rapidly and is more efficient than CFLs – Here.
TRANSMISSION
Moving renewable energy from the best sites (eg Great Plains for wind, the Southwest for solar) to sites of highest demand such as the East Coast requires upgraded power transmission infrastructure
– EFFICIENT INTRACONTINENTAL POWER TRANSMISSION – Clean Line Energy HERE is developing HVDC transmission lines – HERE to do just that.
– LINKING THE THREE US GRIDS – The US is composed of three separate, independent electrical grids, by connecting the three grids Tres Amigas will make wider use of renewable energy possible.
BENEFITS OF AGGREGATION, A CASE STUDY – Texas’ grid expansion demonstrates a path towards higher wind penetration HERE . Completed transmission lines nearly eliminate curtailment.
TEACHER RESOURCES
These resources help you use renewable energy as a context to teach STEM.
Calculate the area required to power the earth with solar modules. This post discusses this and includes a spread sheet with the calculations.
This site has lots of data from a fixed and a tracking array. You can download the data or plot it on the site. If it doesn’t plot data for today then select an earlier date a couple of years earlier. It is an old site and the computers sometimes go down.
GM I building a battery factory in Lordstown that is expected to employ 1,100. It is a joint venture with LG Chem. It is about 3,000,000 square feet. Its projected cost is $2.3 Billion. It is expected to produce 30 GWhr of batteries. They are in the process of deciding whether to build a second plant in TN. Presumably it would be of comparable size.
GM Lordstown 35 GWhr Battery Plant Under Construction
For perspective, Tesla’s existing plant in NV has production capacity of 35 GWhr and is ramping to 40. Their Fremont pilot line is, or will soon, produce 10 GWhr of batteries. Technology developed there will be used for the Berlin and Austin factories. Their Austin battery plant will have a run rate of about 100 GWhr by the end of 2022 and 200 GWhr by the end of 2023. The size of the Austin battery factory has not been confirmed but reading the tea leaves, it is a near certainty. The Berlin factory will also start at 100 GWhr and ramp to 250 GWhr. It is expected to be the largest battery factory in the world.
450 GWhr capacity by end of 2023 suggests 3.36 Million vehicles / year run rate Q4 2023. Assuming 200 GWhr battery production at both Austin and Berlin.
Captive Production Capacity 450 x 10^9 GWhr = 450 x 10^6 kWhr
Assume average for cars 75 KWhr
If cars only ==> 450 / 75 = 6 million cars by end of 2023
Now add some Nuance – – :
3 Million Cars end of 2023 225 x 10^6 kWhr
Semi = 500 – 1000 kWhr say average = 750 kWhr and 150,000 per year 112.5 x 10^6 kWhr
250,000 Cyber Trucks Assume 100 kWhr Average 25 x 10^6 kWhr
362.5 GWhr for Vehicles
Leaves 87.5 for Energy Storage – Power Walls and GigaPacks
Note that they will be purchasing batteries from other companies which will make up for any shortfalls. The questions are:
It is not an exaggeration to say that Tesla is revolutionizing the manufacture of automobiles. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than with the giga casting machine and here at the manufacturer. It produces a diecast for the entire rear portion of the vehicle (2:44 – 3:05) eliminating, according to Elon Musk, 300 robots. (Start 17:16). They soon will be casting the front portion of the Model Y. In total this will eliminate 600 of the 1000 robots from the production floor. The implications for space efficiency, increased production rate, and cost reduction are substantial. In addition, it appears to address the fit and finish issues that stand in the way of Tesla becoming the best cars by all measures (they already are in terms of performance, safety and customer satisfaction but they lag in fit and finish).
I have been struck by the fact that they have already installed one of these at Austin (as of 3/8/2021 it is close to being fully assembled), well in advance of the building being completed. It is noteworthy that the Model 3’s being built in Fremont are not currently using the Giga castings. I have wondered if the Austin machine won’t start producing castings for the model 3’s and shipping them Fremont month’s before the Austin facility starts production. This would increase the rate of production in Fremont as well as improving the quality of the Model 3’s produced there. It would also free up space at the Fremont factory which currently is bursting at the seams.
The Giga presses are being described as the “beating heart of the Gigafactories”. They can be used to estimate production throughput at the factories under construction. They also offer a starting point for estimating the energy consumption at the auto plants as they are likely, by far, the heaviest users of electricity. Two machines are required to produce a car, one for the front casting and one for the rear casting. Given the high heat and pressure there surely will be a good bit of down time. So a reasonable annual throughput assumption is about 166,000 castings per machine (See Appendix 1). Giga Berlin will install 8 machines (2 per car, one front one rear casting ) indicating a likely throughput at that factory of about 650,000 cars annually.
The Austin factory has foundations for 3 machines with space for at least 3 more in the building as currently constructed. This is sufficient for about 500,000 vehicles annually. It appears that there is room to add on to the building with sufficient space to add 8 more machines for a total of 1,150,000 vehicles annually at the Austin factory under construction. So a reasonable estimation for the Austin and Berlin factories currently under construction, is about 1,800,000 vehicles per year. Added to Freemont (600,000 annual capacity) and Shanghai (450,000 annual capacity) this suggests annual runrate for all of Tesla of about 2,200,000 by mid 2022 . The production capacity of Shanghai phase III is unknown but it will add to this figure. And they are expanding production at Fremont, Austin and Berlin !
Photo shows the die-casting area. The red is the existing building. Foundations have been poured in half of it and they appear sufficient to accommodate 3 casting machines. The building is symmetric so it is expected that the other half of it will get three machines. The unbuilt area circled in blue is conspicuously unbuilt on. It appears to be available for expansion of the casting area. If so it can accommodate 6 – 8 more machines. Photo Credit – Joe Tegmeyer
In Fremont the giga presses went into service starting in 2020. They were installed outside the factory. This is a new approach for manufacturing car bodies so there was no provision for it in the Fremont facility. In other words this is a sub-optimal setup.
Gigacastings In Freemont – This is installed in a sub-optimal setting. It was added, after the fact, to the process. It is one of the first 2 every built. No doubt, the ones built into factories in TX, Berlin and Shanghai will have considerably higher throughput. The question I have is how much downtime do they require.
ENERGY IMPLICATIONS
The castings have a weight of 180 lbs or 80 kg. The melt temperature is about 850 C. The casting material is a custom designed alloy of Aluminum but it likely has thermal characteristics similar to other Aluminum alloys. Taking into account the approximate specific heat and the latent heat of fusion of Al, 1000 J/kg-K and 400 kJ/kg respectively the energy per casting for melting the Al is about 96 MJ. If we assume 660 castings per day that comes out to 63,000 MJ per day or about 7.2 MW per machine for melting the Al. Given the various other functions of the process, the power required per gigapress is about 10 MW. Since there are 2 per car that works out to about 20 MW per press pair or 60 MW for the 6 presses at Austin.
NOTE: Throughput rates revised from 250,000 per year to 167,000 per year. This reduces power consumption to about 40 MW.
80kg[ 370×10^3 J/kg + 1000J/kg-K x 825 K] = 96 MJ / Casting or 27 kWhr/Casting
For perspective the energy density of gasoline is about 133 MJ / gallon
So each casting requires the energy equivalent of less than a gallon of gasoline.
Appendix 1
NOTE: I found a better estimate than an earlier one I made HERE See Below. They came up with approximately 120,000 per year based upon the machine in Fremont. This is the first of its kind installed so I will bump the estimate to 167,000 per year for machines that are installed with the benefit of lessons learned and are installed so as to optimize production flow in a new factory. That gives throughput of 500,000 / year for the 3 pairs of machines. This is consistent with published estimates for the Austin factory.
UPDATE3/25/2021: T-Study has a nicely done updated video with gigapress cost analysis. Their daily unit estimate are converging with mine.
Screenshot from THIS video. Note: This number probably represents a lower bound. Literature from the die-casting machine company suggests much higher throughput.
Gigacasting machine throughput estimates range from 365,000, to my estimate of 166,000 (based upon directly measuring throughput using video footage of the gigapress in operation – – see video above) to the T-Study video 120,000 to JP Morgan’s estimate of 70,000 – 90,000 annually.
It should be noted that in December 2020 JP Morgan had a price target for Tesla of $90 / share and it was trading at 650 / share. They compare annual production of Tesla with that of other car makers but fail to compare the growth rate. Tesla is growing at about 50% per year. They have consistently missed the boat on Tesla suggesting that their research is flawed, I have rejected their numbers but include them for completeness.
NOTE: In this video IDRA announces their 8000 ton gigapress. Interestingly they mention it is for vehicles that do deliveries such as amazon and DHL .
Electric Vehicles and A Community Climate Action Plan
To industry watchers it is clear Electric Vehicles (EVs) are here to stay and will dominate sales of autos by the end of 2025. Communities that recognize this quickly will be able act proactively to reap the benefits, and avoid costly mistakes. The EV will have its ‘iPhone moment’ in 2022. In that year an enormous amount of new production capacity will come on-line and the cost of EVs will drop below that of their Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) competitors. It is also expected that self-driving cars will be well into commercialization. In order for communities to respond proactively it is helpful to understand the pace of change and the ramifications.
A note to the reader. This article references Tesla a lot. This is not an advertisement for Tesla, it is simply that they are ahead of all other auto makers so they are a good proxy for what the industry will look like in 3 – 5 years. And, for the time being, they pretty much ARE the EV industry with an 80% market share in the US.
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT AN EV – – WON’T THE BATTERY RUN OUT AND DON’T THEY COST A LOT?
COST: While the up front cost of a Tesla is higher, over 5 years, the Cost of ownership for a Tesla Model 3 is lower than that of a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord and it is a better car. Battery costs continue to plummet and experts expect even the upfront cost of EVs to be at price parity with ICE vehicles soon.
RANGE ANXIETY: Today’s EVs have long range and are more convenient than ICE vehicles. No more trips to the gas station, simple plug in at night and you have a ‘full tank’ in the morning. Range anxiety made sense in the early days of EVs when they could travel less than 100 miles on a charge. Today 200 miles of range is the new normal and that continues to rise. The bestselling Tesla Model 3 and Model Y exceed 300 miles on a charge and the Chevy Bolt over 250 miles on a charge. For more information this article looks at driving habits and typical distances travelled.
AREN’T EVs DANGEROUS?
In terms of injuries, Tesla makes the safest vehicles on the road today. As far as fires go, Tesla fires make the news because they are rare, ICE vehicle fires don’t make the news because they are common.
HOW SOON UNTIL MOST OF US ARE DRIVING AN EV?
There are varying views on how quickly EVs will dominate. But over the last few years, the optimist’s projections have been closest to the mark. And the optimists are saying that by the end of 2025, about 50% of new autos will be EVs. And credible analysis suggests it could be even more. As is so often the case, when a disruptive technology is introduced it takes hold faster than most of the experts can imagine. This Video examines disruptive change and then makes projections regarding the auto industry. It is fairly long but makes most of the key points in the first 10 minutes.
Here are some helpful factoids: GM is accelerating its plans for EVs. Most recently GM increased their EV development budget by $7 Billion to a total of $27 billion to be spent between now and 2025. Recently they announced that 2035 they will sell only Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs). VW has committed $87 Billion by 2025 and Ford plans to equal GM matching their $27 Billion development budget. And then there are well funded newcomers such as Rivan which Amazon invested heavily in. And Amazon has committed to the purchase of 100,000 delivery vehicles from them. And even Apple has been indicating that they plan to get in the EV game.
Tesla currently has capacity to produce a million cars per year. Later this year, 2 more Tesla auto plants will be completed, one in Germany and the other in Austin Texas. Their initial capacity is reported to be about 500,000 cars each. Making Tesla’s production capacity at the end of 2021 about 2 million cars. They are expanding the Shanghai factory. They also have already started clearing additional land at both their Austin and Berlin sites see videos in Appendix I. Most expect substantial expansion at those sites. A conservative estimate is that Tesla will build 4 million vehicles per year in 2025. However, with expansions already begun and likelihood of additional plants being built some are estimating 8 million vehicles per year by the end of 2025 or 10% of the worlds 80 million car annual production. The other auto manufacturers can be expected to come in with production capacity of over 50 million by 2025.
Tesla plants are reported to cost about $1 billion. For the sake of discussion, lets say that the other auto makers require $2 billion per plant. And lets say that only half of what they have committed to EVs goes to manufacture with the rest going to marketing, R&D etc. Then VW, Ford and GM combined are allocating about $70 Billion to building manufacturing by 2025. At $2 billion per plant that gets them production capacity of about 17 million vehicles. And that doesn’t include Toyota or other major manufacturers. If these companies spend at the reported pace, then, by the end of 2025 world production capacity of EVs will exceed 25 million or over 30% of all vehicles built! At that point EVs will cost less than ICE vehicles while range will continue to improve. Adoption of EVs will continue to accelerate. Appendix I links to Drone video of Tesla factories under construction.
HOW SOON UNTIL RIDE HAILING VIA AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IS COMMONPLACE?
All of the major auto makers as well as major tech players like Google and Apple are developing smart, driverless (autonomous) cars. This video provides a good sense of the level of activity and current state of the art. Most are focused on level 4 autonomy. This means that they can drive autonomously in restricted (geofenced) areas such as one street or one town that has been carefully mapped out. And there are places where this is up and running such as Las Vegas and Phoenix AZ.
Tesla has set it eyes on the prize, level 5 autonomy. This is essentially like a person. Plop the car on any road, anywhere in the world and it can drive itself just as is the case with a human driver. And they are closing in on this faster than most had predicted. The CEO of Tesla is noted for his failure to meet timelines. However he is also known for meeting the goals, even if late. For example landing a rocket on a floating platform . In this video, Musk describes the goals and promise of the Tesla Autonomous vehicle program. In this video a Tesla Beta tester demonstrates the Full Self Driving capability of the Tesla car. And in this video, posted February 6, 2021 the current state of the Tesla autonomy is demonstrated by a beta tester showing challenging ‘edge’ cases.
WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF EVS ON ELECTRICAL DEMAND, WILL THEY BREAK THE GRID?
Some worry that wide adoption of EVs will strain the electrical grid. While some grid upgrades may be needed, this concern is exaggerated. Electricity usage drops at night. Since most EV charging is done at night, it will enable higher utilization of infrastructure adding to utility profits. The added profits will go a long way to providing funds for needed grid upgrades. Ultimately, if well managed, this could make the grid more resilient, not less so as detractors claim.
Graph showing electricity demand and generation during the day of highest demand in 2020. The demand drops off by 37% at night. This represents the maximum stress test for the grid. Even with high EV penetration on the grid, night charging would not break the grid.
personal experience provides a helpful case study. My daily commute is about 50 miles. My car is set to start charging at 11:00 PM when there is low demand on Hingham’s electrical resources. I plug it in at night and it Is fully charged by morning. The amount of electricity used is about 10 kWhrs. This increases our daily use by about 30% but since we charge at night it does not tax utility resources. Night charging is convenient and I receive a $10 monthly credit on my electric bill as a bonus for my efforts. Will infrastructure upgrades be advisable? Probably. Will they be extreme, or add considerably to our electric bills, probably not. There may be some increase but not enough to negate the savings from not buying gasoline. And any upgrades to the transmission and distribution infrastructure will add resiliency which recent events in TX demonstrate are needed.
While my anecdotal story is informative, more rigorous studies are needed to guide planning. In the study cited below, Time Of Use (TOU) metering was shown to an effective way to motivate people to change their habits and charge at night. The graph below shows how people shifted when they charged their cars in response to switching from flat rate electricity to TOU billing. This article looks at how night charging could allow for greater use of renewable energy on the electric grid.
Study showing how Time of Use metering motivated people to charge at night.
WHAT ARE SOME IMPACTS TO TOWN PLANNING?
There are two areas for consideration. The near term, 5 – 10 years, little will change other than adding dedicated EV parking and some gratuitous charging stations. Longer term there are some important changes that need to be planned for now. 1st and foremost, including high capacity cabling for future addition of high speed charging stations serving emergency services. The second is less obvious but far more impactful from the standpoint of our day to day lives. Within the decade and probably within 3 years, autonomous (driverless) electric vehicles will begin to appear on our roads. From reducing traffic to increasing accessibility to transportation they promise extraordinary benefits. But there is much to think about in terms of how to guide their introduction and it is important for planners to become conversant in this technology as soon as possible.
The high performance of electric vehicles makes them well suited for fire, ambulance, and police vehicles. For perspective, the most popular police cars have 0 – 60 acceleration of 7 seconds. The most popular electric vehicles have 0 – 60 acceleration about half that, under 3.5 seconds. The benefits of better acceleration are clear for ambulances and fire trucks where every second matters for getting to emergency sites.
Autonomous corridors for geofenced autonomous taxi: Main St., 53, downtown Hingham, Derby street shops, all of the commuter rail stations – this could be done in the very near future – – requires dedicated parking and strict enforcement (like a bus stop)
Longer term, traffic management considerations – – AND GOOD NEWS, less traffic overall.
In 2019 they had one plant in Freemont California with a second under construction in Shanghai. They manufactured about 367,000 EVs in 2019. Tesla manufactured about 500,000 cars in 2020 which, by the way, to the derision of most industry experts, Elon Musk projected 7 years prior. Currently under construction is a plant in Berlin and another in Austin TX. It is important to realize that these are among the largest auto manufacturing plants ever built. Their manufacturing technology is the most advanced of any auto factories in the world. Both Berlin and Austin will begin production in 2021. There is ample land to expand both facilities. They are expected to ramp to about 1 million cars in 2021. While estimates vary widely, many expect to see another doubling from 2021 to 2022 and the introduction of the cyber truck. Tesla is expected to continue to ramp aggressively. Many expect them to be manufacturing over 5 million cars per year by 2025. And that is just Tesla. Ford and GM are planning to spend about $27 Billion adding new EV products and building production facilities. And VW has committed about $87 billion between now and 2025.
In 2023 Tesla will introduce a $25,000 car. This will make their cars available to lower income individuals. Hingham is an upper income community and many can afford to be early adopters. In the opinion of the author, at least half of Hingham households will own an EV by 2025 and most will by 2030.
BATTERIES
Tesla is unable to get enough batteries from other sources. So they are developing their own. They anticipate lowering their cost for batteries by 57% in three years. And the energy required for the new process is much lower than industry standard processes. They already have a pilot production line running with sufficient volume that its output is contributing meaningfully to their total supply of batteries. Publically they have stated they plan to be producing 100 GWhr of batteries by the end of 2022. That is enough to power about 1.5 million cars. And 200 GWhr by end of 2023. But that is their plan for the Austin factory. They have pulled permits to build another battery factory in Berlin which can reasonably be expected to produce similar quantities of batteries. If you are counting that puts it at capacity sufficient for 6 million cars by end of 2023. But wait, there is more, Musk has stated emphatically that other battery companies should not worry. Tesla will purchase all they can produce for the foreseeable future.
The additional capacity will no doubt be needed for things such as energy storage in the electric utility industry and the revolutionary Tesla Semi. Tesla Semi will rapidly electrify trucks and bring down the cost of shipping by truck to close to that of trains! Not surprisingly, trucks require much larger batteries. The Tesla Semi requires 10 – 20 times as much storage as a typical car.
As a quick off topic aside, battery based energy storage already competitive with gas peaker power plants. Later this decade cost reductions are expected to allow variable renewables to be combined with battery backup to displace base load combined cycle gas power plants. In other words, all fossil fuel power will become obsolete this decade.
* Geofencing is restricting to a set area. For example, a car could be programmed to only drive in one town or on one street.
Appendix I – – Tesla factories under construction:
Market Share US EVs, Market Share Total – Tesla currently has 80% market share for EVs in the US market. It is expected that their market share of EVs will drop as other auto makers develop credible alternatives. However the ‘pie’ is expected to grow much faster as EVs displace ICE vehicles. And their share of the total market is expected to grow rapidly for the foreseeable future.
See for yourself! The video links below show drone footage of factories under construction. And Ford, GM and VW are just getting started. They have committed to pour $27, $27, and $87 billion, respectively, into ramping their EV businesses between now and 2025.
Giga Shanghai – Started in 2019, completed and in production the same year. Another phase roughly doubling capacity went in 2020 and is now producing Model Y cars. Current capacity is 450,000 cars annually. Phase 3 is under construction. Video that explains the sections of the factory.
Giga Austin – Construction began in July – Production is expected to start in Q3 – Sufficient information is available to confirm at least 750,000 cars annual production capacity when complete. There is reason to believe it could be much higher. Pace of construction HERE And here is a great timelapse from the Start date of July 6 through February 6 Here .
Giga Berlin – While some site prep started earlier, construction started around June 1. Production expected to start Q2 or Q3. Sufficient information is available to assess capacity of about 1 million cars annually. That is before the expansions that ground is already being cleared for.
Freemont – This plant is the “mother ship” for Tesla. It is their first production facility. Its current production capacity is 600,000 per year.
Click the link below for a High Resolution Version. Image shows various Tesla factories to scale. The land outlines show the size of the parcel of property owned by Tesla. Green shows outline of operational factories, Yellow, factories under construction, and Red, planned expansions.https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50390329512_fe6340a573_o.jpg
Other Resources:
Great data on Tesla including comparison to other auto companies:
The Tesla Model 3 has per mile carbon footprint about 1/3rd that of a Nissan Leaf. It is widely anticipated that Tesla will announce a Million mile battery at their September 22nd Battery investment day. This will advance the state of the art to 1/10th the carbon footprint of a Nissan Leaf. Incredibly this is nearly 1/40th the carbon footprint of the typical Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle if the Tesla is charged from zero carbon sources such as solar, wind or nuclear power. But why would a longer lifetime improve the carbon footprint?
Figure 1: The graph shows the benefits of BEVs compared with typical and fuel efficient ICE vehicles.
Emissions in electric vehicles arise from carbon emitted to provide the energy for locomotion and from the energy required to manufacture the vehicle. The energy required for manufacture is called embodied energy. If a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) is charged from zero carbon sources it’s emissions will be due only to embodied energy. The further a car can be driven before it and/or its battery need replacing, the less embodied energy there is per mile and therefore the less carbon emitted per mile. So improvements in manufacturing efficiency or increases in battery lifetime will reduce the carbon footprint per mile.
Many analyses take into account the embodied energy in electric vehicles. Unfortunately, few take the additional step to account for the impact on the carbon footprint due to vehicles that are capable of driving a longer distance before replacement. As such, most estimates for per mile carbon footprint do not account for longer lasting batteries or cars whose drivetrains have million mile design lives. This aspect of Tesla cars has been underappreciated to date. How has this happened?
Most studies to date use a Nissan Leaf as a proxy vehicle. It is a very popular BEV in Europe and was first to introduce a mass market production EV in the US. The studies make the assumption that both the Leaf and the Tesla Model 3 have battery lives of about 100,000 miles. In one of the most authoritative and rigorous articles published to date, Zeke Hausfather published, in Carbon Brief, Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change covers all the important issues, except, inexplicably, that of increased lifetime. Fortunately, many Tesla owners have participated in providing data on their battery performance and have made it public. They are finding that Tesla batteries are useable for 300,000 to 500,000 miles. This is three to five times the assumed lifetime of the proxy Leaf. When combined with the data in the Carbon Brief article, a complete picture emerges of the existing state of the art in Carbon Footprints for BEVs and for the expected improvements due to the 1 million mile batteries. The findings are nothing short of stunning. BEV’s outfitted with million mile batteries will reduce their carbon footprints by nearly 2 orders of magnitude when compared with ICE vehicles (see Figure 1 above) and over 1 order of magnitude when compared with the proxy Nissan Leaf (see Figure 2 below).
Figure 2: Comparisons of carbon footprints of different BEVs. The flat curve is made with data that did not account for the longer lifetime of Tesla BEVs. The second curve accounts for the longer life of current generation Tesla BEVs and for the anticipated Tesla BEVs expected to be formally announced at the September 22, 2020 Battery Investment day.
It is useful to compare these results to those that Tesla has published in their Environmental Impact Report. Their results for a Model 3 with million mile battery are nearly identical to those found here. For ICE ‘midsize premium sedans’ they utilized statistics from consumer reports to assess average fuel efficiency. Using that data they determined that the average ICE vehicle emits .92 lbs / Mile which is roughly within 1% of our results (using data from the Carbon Brief Article). For the million mile Model 3 with renewable generated electricity we found emissions to be .02 lbs / mile when charged with renewable sources. The Tesla report appears to have conflicting values of .02 lbs / mile (which is what we determined) and .074 lbs / mile which is about 3 times higher than we found but still quite good. My assumption is that that is a typo and the .074 number is for the current generation Model 3. It is reassuring that the Tesla data stands the test of an independent cross check.
If renewable energy is used in the manufacture and charging of Tesla BEVs and they successfully introduce the million-mile battery, CO2 emissions from ground transportation becomes a very small percentage of humankind’s carbon footprint. Arguably it becomes small enough to be considered a solved problem. This is further supported by the trends which anticipate further reductions in embodied energy and longer lifetimes for batteries.
I offer a special note of recognition and commendation to the members of my 2019-2020 Stoughton High School Physics students who fully participated in the remote learning portion of our class. They read and processed all of the source material and checked my calculations that were used for this article.
Disclosure: The author owns Tesla stock.
Copyright Clayton Handleman September 2020
Tools: This references this tool but be careful, you have to put in correct assumptions such as car lifetime etc. Otherwise it does not differentiate between makes and models.
Most carbon emissions are for energy production. Nearly all of that can be transitioned to electricity. Solar and wind produce electricity with zero carbon emissions. Solar and Wind are now the least cost sources and therefore we can deploy them rapidly without economic hardship.
Energy intensive industries such as oil and gas will be dramatically reduced in size with the deployment of renewables and electrified transportation. There are some such as the manufacture of concrete that emit carbon by virtue of the chemical processes required to manufacture them. They are out of the scope of this series. However, if we reduce carbon emissions by 90% it is reasonable to assume that the remaining 10% can be addressed by finding substitutes or developing carbon sequestration, such as reforestation and development of other natural carbon sinks.
I am ramping up the curve on Tesla. Utterly amazing. I have long been a fan of Elon Musk but now I just see it at a whole different level. I believe he is on a level with da Vinci, Gauss and Newton. Below is my repository of Tesla and Tesla relevant links. They basically ARE the clean energy future:
All About RoboTaxis – April 22, 2019 – coming to a city near you 2020 – million mile model 3 in 2020
BATTERY DAY SUMMARY: September 23: Tesla Battery Day Summary – – Not much said about the million mile battery. However every other box was ticked. Most significantly, 50% cost reduction in 3 years! However they claim a 50% range increase which makes it possible to drive a car for a full day, recharging while sleeping at the hotel. End of discussion about charging being an inconvenient. Energy replenishment is easier with EVs now, except on trips. With the range extension people who want that convenience on trips will have it as well.
BATTERY DAY IMPLICATIONS: – September 24: Offers helpful insights into the expected scale and growth rate of Tesla. Tesla factories under construction will likely be the largest car/truck factories on the planet. Shanghai ==> 1 million vehicles per year, Berlin 2 Million, Austin at least 2 million. CA to ban sale of ICE by 2035.
About Million Mile Battery – Dec. 31 2019 – 1 TWhr annually – My second favorite Tesla Youtuber – go to his channel to see more.
Tony Seba on the next decade in transportation. It is long and hard to believe, but worth the watch: I think he is right – January 24, 2020 – 65 minutes.HEREis a shorter, similar video by one of his colleagues that focuses on renewable energy.
Tesla Semi – My favorite Tesla Youtuber. Tesla Semi will revolutionize freight transportation! – Febuary 7, 2020 – 14:55 go to his channel to see much much more. This video does a nice job of further summarizing benefits of the Tesla Semi and itemizes some improvements that are expected in the production version.
More Cathie Wood on Tesla – January 31, 2020 – 4:46 – “The other car companies are failing miserably, they are failing miserably” “To compete with Tesla they will have to sell every electric vehicle at a loss at the same time they are losing their internal combustion business” “within the next 18 months, two years, the price of an electric vehicle, like for like categories, is going to drop below that for a gas powered vehicle.”
END TIMES: Smart Money Is Divesting Here, Now is the Time (Actually Past Time) to Check 401k’s and 403b’s and Look for an Exit From These Industries. Cut My Losses.
Cramer says “Oil is Done” : January 31, 2020 – – 11:14 Love how this guy makes fun of the people suggesting that Elon Musk is never going to succeed because there are some who say that he uses hallucinogenics.
Not Looking Good for Ford and GM: 13:02 – – Important Excerpts from VW CEO interview. 2020 / 2021 to be the break-out years for EVs. He says Tesla is the leader.
THE FUTURE IS BATTERIES AND BATTERIES ARE TESLA
While societal transformations used to be measured in millennia, in modern times transformation is so rapid that the shifts occur in about a decade. The 2nd decade of the 21st century will likely be remembered as the age of decarbonization. And while solar energy , wind energy and electric vehicles will be important contributors to this, the underlying technology that will tie it all together is the Li-Ion battery. And Tesla is leading that transformation.
This you-tuber The Limiting Factor has done a nice job of laying out the facts and details of how Tesla is leading and will continue to lead this positive societal disruption. Below are links to his 4 part series and another on Jeff Dahn, Tesla’s battery Guru :
And This On Tesla’s Secret Weapon in Battery Development
Shirley Meng – Materials to Advance Li-Ion Batteries
The Secret Sauce – 10/14/2020 The first of several technical deep dives that offer understanding of the technology disclosed on battery day and the ramifications.
ADDITIONAL VIDEOS OF INTEREST TO INVESTORS
Great video with Elon Musk and Sandi Munro talking about the Model Y innovations. The least sexy aspect of all, metalurgy, may offer one of the most important technological breakthroughs.
Initial Results from Munro Model Y Tear Down – Paraphrasing ‘ Y is much better than 3’ Consider that Model 3 has been wildly successful. ‘Search on Munro Model Y’ for direct from Sandy Munro.
Final Results from Model 3 Tear Down – This car is profitable. While his initial work revealed that there were aspects of the Model 3 that weren’t so great, fit and finish details, when he dug deeper he liked what he say and the final result was very positive. His summarizing comment was “I’ll have to eat crow” i.e. my initial impressions were incorrect as to the overall value and profitability of the car.
WIND INTERMITTENCY IS EXAGGERATED – NREL study shows US wind potential is larger and more stable than previously thought with capacity factors of 65% available, see details HERE. Better even than Handleman Post predictions, that capacity factors of 50% can be achieved in large volume.
BEST US WIND SITES ARE BARELY TOUCHED – HERE – is a post showing where the best sites are why they are underutilized and how we can harvest much more wind at those sites.
– GIGAFACTORY A conservative bet for Tesla – HERE .
There has been much excitement over the Tesla Powerwall energy storage system. It is important but not for the reasons described in the press. My recent post post on the significance of Powerwall was picked up by The Energy Collective – HERE.
EVs FOR LOAD SHIFTING – EVs combined with Load Shifting use market forces to increase the value of wind power while reducing the cost of driving. – HERE
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GIGA SCALE AND EFFICIENCY INCREASES POINT TO GRID PARITY – Multiple entrants in the <20% Efficient PV module space points to impending solar grid parity.
BENEFITS OF AGGREGATION, A CASE STUDY – Texas’ grid expansion demonstrates a path towards higher wind penetration HERE . Completed transmission lines nearly eliminate curtailment.
