More pure genius

AAA has tested electric cars glorified golf carts at 20F to 95F, and found that when one actually uses heat and cooling to keep the occupants comfortable, range drops by 40% at 20F and by 17% at 95F.  One can only wonder what would have happened here in Minnesota, where low temperatures hit -30F recently. 


It illustrates the benefit of internal combustion; gasoline engines (a) do not need to carry both reagents around (gasoline and oxygen, oxygen is about 2/3 of the weight) and (b) the waste heat from an internal combustion engine is actually quite useful whenever the mercury goes below 60 or so.


It also illustrates the deceptiveness of the EPA, which calculates "MPG-e" values which do not count the power added efficiency (typically 30-35%) of a power plant.  So when you see 90 MPG-e, it really means at best equivalent to 30mpg, and in winter, we're really talking about 18mpg on average-with excursions down to ~ 12-15mpg in Minnesota in February.


Just a little bit worse than my 1997 GMC Sierra with 5.7liter (350 cubic inch) V-8.  And we haven't even started to discuss the environmental cost of the batteries--about an additional 0.1 kG of carbon dioxide per mile driven.  Once again, "environmentalist" all too often means "person who cannot do math or science."