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I cannot give an answer for your car specifically but I found an interesting study (Spielmann & Althaus 2006) exploring the options of buying a new car or continue on using an older model for Swiss passenger cars. It is concluded that a
"prolonged car use [is] the environmentally better option. As a
consequence of the continuous use of the car ...
9
In large numbers, horses are more problematic than cars.
According to Eric Morris, in 1898 delegates from around the world gathered to discuss urban planning. The issue they were "desperate" to solve was what to do about horse manure.
Rutgers University has a fact sheet about horses and manure. It states that a 1000 lb horse will produce about 9.1 tons of ...
9
Yes, it matters, a little, but it also depends on your location.
In your car, the process of converting fuel to movement is pretty inefficient (about 25% to 30%, according to this). That movement (kinetic energy, if you're a physicist) is then converted to electrical energy with an efficiency of 75% to 80%, giving you an overall efficiency of 18.75% to 24%. ...
8
It doesn't depend on how much you drive, although it may depend on where and how you drive. I would argue that the best use for almost any vehicle is to use it until it is worn out. If it is running when you sell it, the next person is going to drive it, not scrap it. There is a very large 'embodied energy' in a car. Energy used to make the steel, run the ...
7
A quick look doesn't show a clearcut weight difference. The claim is more for a 'rounder' wheel and a 'stiffer wheel'
First order approximation fuel economy depends on the weight of the vehicle, given the same engine. Suppose that your vehicle weighs 1 metric ton -- 1000 kg -- 2200 lbs.
Suppose that an alloy wheel was 5 kg lighter. That would be 20 ...
7
I think that you can assume, worst case, that your car will be no worse than the 10-15 seconds break-even given in the linked answer. Since your car is engineered for start-stop, if there are easy improvements to be made to minimize the cost of restarting then the manufacturer may have made them, but in any case it should be no worse than average.
The ...
7
To encourage people to not use of purchase cars develop a public transportation system that is easily accessible by the to public and caters to the needs of the public so that people will use it. Additionally, the energy source for the public transport system must be electricity. Anything that is combustible, even bio fuels, will maintain a certain level of ...
6
I have been using this method for years, on both my Toyota and my Ford Explorer. I save lots of gas, nothing has ever happened to my batteries, and have never had a mechanical problem. You need to use common sense. I typically shut it off when it's a long light and I'm in a long line, railroad crossings, and any other situation where it's going to be at ...
6
I don't know an answer to your question, but I think it depends on how much you drive. I would imagine that a car that is in good shape is best used by someone, who needs a car, but doesn't drive very often and not for very long distances. Like an elderly person, who only uses the car to go shopping at the store 3 miles away, maybe twice a week. If that's ...
6
I think this is best answered as two questions.
How efficient is it to use a battery as storage when excess electricity is generated by solar panels?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using an electric car's battery for this purpose?
I'll take a stab at both, but there are probably others around who can answer each one better.
Question 1: ...
6
There isn't a single mathematical formula, because the ethical dimension isn't easily quantifiable, and because people have different priorities.
However, for both the ethical and the sustainability dimensions, you can look at what the net impact of your choice would be. Now, each impact might be very small; it may help, to do the maths, to scale up to a ...
6
According to this answer over on mechanics.SE, below a certain engine RPM, your vehicle automatically disengages the torque converter. That is to say, when stopped, there isn't a fundamental difference between having the transmission in drive or neutral.
On the other hand, shifting back and forth each time you're at a stop light does cause a bit of wear, ...
6
CO2 is produced by burning the carbon in the fuel, so if your driving style causes you to use twice as much fuel, you will produce twice as much CO2. Driving aggressively can have a big impact on fuel consumption. It's hard to quantify, but a 50% increase in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions is certainly possible. Conversely, the CO2 emissions will be ...
5
I think the main problem is that commuting is almost never "eco-friendly". There's a lot of energy that's needed to carry your behind (and your carriage) from your home to your workplace.
I think the most efficient way to commute it is to use public transport, for which the weight-of-vehicle to weight-of-passenger ratio is lowest. For trains, the amount of ...
5
According to this reference, up to 12 - 28% of the carbon emissions associated with a vehicles life cycle come from its manufacture and delivery.
So starting right now, of the two vehicles, the new one has a much larger impact than the old one. It would take a considerable amount of "better mileage" to overcome that impact. And that doesn't even factor in ...
5
In terms of energy for movement, the electric car is more sustainable. There are two main resons for that.
Firstly, when hydrocarbons are burnt to provide movement, local pollution is released: NOx, particulates, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide.
And secondly, it's much easier to clean electricity, than to clean hydrocarbons. That's because the clean ...
5
It would work, but there isn't much reason to do it. If you do this without batteries, you are giving up most of the potential advantages.
If you simply have an internal combustion engine (petrol or diesel, hereafter an ICE) driving a generator driving electric motor(s), then the engine must rev up and down according to the load from the motors at that ...
5
It is well within any government's power to tax the private automobile into the ground by raising taxes exponentially on the private use of fuel.
(...)
Not a single major politician, not a single leader of any country, even mentions this possibility, like, ever. Why not?
The answer is simple: because the majority of voters drive private automobiles and ...
5
Which countries, regions, or cities have set a date to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles?
The best list is probably wikipedia: Phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles
There is a good review from the World Economic Forum here, dated 2017, which discusses some of the different approaches taken, which I've summarized here:
UK: Ban production of petrol and diesel cars by 2040 (since changed to 2035);
France: Ban sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040;
...
4
Yes, many tuning stations offer a range of options.
The most popular is to offer power upgrades, usually at the expense of fuel economy, for example improving fuel/air/compression balance at low speeds for high acceleration, or altering tuning at high revs to increase top speed.
One of the tuning techniques to improve fuel consumption is to alter your car'...
4
The concept has been used in heavy duty mining trucks for decades. Diesel powered locomotive engines power an electric generator that then powers electric motors located on the rear axles of the trucks which then turn the wheels. One of my college lecturers mentioned in the early 1980s.
This was the solution to the engineering problem of not being able to ...
4
There are several reasons why a policy of encouraging electric cars, but discouraging electric heating, might make sense. I can't answer for the specific case of Belgium, which currently has some unique problems in meeting electricity demand, but some combination of the below motivations may apply.
Industrial policy
Electric heating is quite a mature ...
4
In the USA the Daimler/Mercedes "Smart" Fortwo car is the obvious choice, rated at 41mpg on the highway. Those look silly but are quite safe and very fuel efficient, as well and being ridiculously easy to park. In parts of Europe it's legal to park them across a roadside car parking space (so you can get two cars into one spot).
The efficiency is all-round ...
4
Plant a lot of trees -- assuming you mean partciulate pollution: See for example Estimating the removal of atmospheric particulate pollution by the urban tree canopy of London, under current and future environments, Tallis et al. 2011
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The immediate previous sentence says:
The other unknown that BNEF considers is the rise of autonomous cars and ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, which would all put more cars on the road that drive more than 20,000 miles a year.
If there is a benefit to electric vehicles per mile driven, that benefit will be realized more quickly by someone who'...
4
Li-Ion batteries are worth recycling just for the lithium in them. This material can be re-refined, and made into new batteries. In this use they should show similar cost savings to recycled vs new aluminum.
There is also the prospect of repurposing a worn battery for stationary use. E.g. It stores 30 kWh in your car for 3 years, then stores 10 kWh in ...
4
The favored anode catalyst in a hydrogen fuel cell is platinum(1) or another platinum-group element (e.g. palladium). The catalyst is required in small quantities for an individual fuel cell but of course this demand scales up linearly with the number of fuel cells you want to produce.
There is ongoing research into development of alternative anode ...
3
Theory
The calculation in the other answer is rather naive. I haven't done the calculation myself, but there are a few things to consider. First of all, lighter wheels mean more than just lower overall vehicle weight. Advantages are:
lower overall vehicle weight: lower inertia of the car
lower weight of the wheel (rotating part): lower rotational inertia
(...
3
tl;dr replacing fossil fuels with clean, sustainable alternatives would save ~17-20% of current total global energy consumption.
I'll start by noting that energy efficiency is just a side perk of getting rid of fossil fuels: the primary goals are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.
Still, let's look at how much less energy would we waste:...
3
The first part of your question is about where pollution happens as much as about pollution reduction. Cars emit pollution where people are, while electric generators can be built further away from most people. That reduces the (human) impact of the pollution. Normally fossil burning plants are built outside cities, often close to the fuel source because it'...
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