Entire Jeep lineup electrified by end of 2025

[chorky]

I have no interest in going green, but I'll call bullshit when I see bullshit. If you don't want an EV don't buy an EV, but you know it's a hypocritical argument about how not green they are when what we currently use is just as bad or worse for the environment.

Reminds me of the argument against nuclear power where because it's not perfect then we might as well not use it even though it would clearly have been a better technology long term.

Not to start an argument, but this statement is not entirely true. So I will leave this only thought because I don't want to get into a debate. It has been researched, calculated, measured, and reported (not by environmentalist because often times they don't use facts or look a the whole picture) that EV's are worse, in the long run with the current technology, for the environment than currently using crude oil. There are several reasons for this, but the biggest revolves around the limited lifespan of rare earth materials that are in shorter supply than oil. That is not to say that oil is 'good' for the environment. Not saying that one bit. But compared to EV's, they are a significantly lower impact.

A few thoughts to consider.
-where are most of these parts for an EV made
-where are most of the rare earth materials mined
-Why are they mined and made in other countries (answer - cheaper because said countries do not have the strict environmental protections found here in the US)
-what is the expected lifespan of a EV battery, and the EV vehicle as a whole, and what is the ratio of energy used/produced compared to gasoline (or diesel)

Now, this is not to say that in the future, with better technology, EV's will always remain 'worse' for the environment than gasoline vehicles. But, with the current technology, it in fact is worse for the environment. If EV's were solely produced in the US with US materials and mined in the US, the impact would be less, but the cost would be exponential, and the time to manufacturer would be extensive - because we have strict (compared to other countries) environmental protection laws and policies. One example of said strict policy is the NEPA process for a timber sale. Look it up, ask your local ranger district to let you in on a NEPA meeting (which probably won't happen) or ask for details of the process. It is very intense and takes a lot of time, and specialist knowledge of multiple disciplines. And a timber sale is pale in comparison to a permanent land use conversion associated with open pit mining. In other words - I would be very surprised if mining for lithium happened regularly on US soil in the next 20 years.

Another aspect is cost. You know it's actually cheaper to buy wood from China, even though logs (private industry only, or partially processed logs) have to be shipped over to China, then milled, and sent back? Same thing with chicken. It's all about money, zero influence from the environment. EV's are the same way.

A container ship can consume up to 80,000 (yes 80 THOUSAND) gallons of diesel PER DAY. The overall average travel of a container ship to get to a US port from is about 30 days - thats a lot of fuel. Compared to a vehicle designed, engineered, manufactured, and materials 'mined' in the US. All these things add up. It is about money savings. Wind turbines are another example, that has been shown several times through different studies, to consume more energy to produce, than they will return in their lifetime of operation - not to mention the environmental destruction, specifically relating to a certain species of threatened grouse.

And there is also the continuing debate of 'where does that electricity come from'. If we had more prevalent nuclear power, then it would be a different discussion; however, the majority of energy (at least in my state) is still oil/coal power plants. The more strain on the electrical system, the more these power plants have to operate at their max capacity, and the closer to their max capacity the lower their efficiency (I forget the specific ratio/percentages). So, deduction can sort that one out.

And lastly is the rabbit hole of additional resources used to research, design, and engineer. By this I mean, take for example a 1980's truck. It had bad emissions, sure. But that was also how many years ago. In relation to that truck, how many years did it take to design and engineer? I don't have the answer, this is just some critical thinking here.... Ok so maybe 10 years just to pull a random number. Now in that 10 years, how many people were working on said project, how many of them were commuting, using gas, producing emissions, using electricity on a computer manufactured in a power plant expelling more emissions, etc.... You get where this is going? Now fast forward. How many MORE people were needed to design and engineer the latest EV. How many more advanced computers, which required more advanced chips, and more rare earth materials, and more electricity, was needed to research and design said EV.... It all adds up. It's something environmental scientists (note, a big difference compared to an environmentalists) call "accumulating effects". Often times accumulating effects are significantly worse over space and time as 'more' and 'more' is required. More technology, more electricity, more computing power, so on and so forth... This is a deep rabbit hole, but the end story is this - a 1980's truck, in its entire lifetime considering its design, manufacturer, use, degradation (of gassing of plastics, paint, etc..) can plausibly be a lesser negative impact than a brand new EV throughout it's entire lifetime of use. I never got around to actually calculating this, but all the research I did in the past, about 5 years ago, points to EV's not being better, in the long run with current tech, than a 1980's truck, considering ALL factors. Too many people are only concentrating on "how much comes out of the tail pipe". There is SO much more to it than just that.

This is not to 'bash' EV's. They're cool and have their place. I actually LOVE the fact that they are super quiet, because I have only one ear, and it does't work super good itself. Plus, they provide instant power, and are some really cool technology. But the debate about EV's being better for the environment, with the current tech, is just not true. Also, if the entire discussion and push of EV's was truly about 'save the environment' the we would be drastically reducing usage of jet airliners, which push pollution directly into the jet stream, among other things.

And no, I do NOT work for an oil company lol....I just hope this provides folks with some more things to think about - the situation goes much much deeper than just what comes out of the tail pipe.


Now if they could make a hybrid Gladiator that wasn't super heavy, and had a on board lithium battery that they openly allowed us to tap into for camping and 'house battery' use - that would be, potentially, an overlanders dream.

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[bleda2002]

Now if they could make a hybrid Gladiator that wasn't super heavy, and had a on board lithium battery that they openly allowed us to tap into for camping and 'house battery' use - that would be, potentially, an overlanders dream.

Honestly if the 4xe was twice as bad for the environment but still gave me 400hp, 500lbft of torque and a per mile cost around town 1/4 of what I currently pay, sign me up lol. I'm not much of an environmentalist since imo they'll rape everything can anyways and environment be damned so I might as well just enjoy what I want.

That said, current tech is quickly evolving and recent studies (last 2 years or so, reference MIT and the Euro study) have modern evs just barely ahead of modern gas cars thanks to the grid continuing to improve and china's giga factories also improving manufacturing techniques.

 

[chorky]

But by what measure and factors are you basing your "1/4 cost"?

Cost of ownership for you might appear to be cheaper. cost of ownership total is not cheaper. If sold before batteries die, then cost of ownership is transferred, and impacts economics as a whole which contributes to rising cost of living, etc..... It would be interesting to do the math of cost of ownership on a cost per miles only evaluation over a course of 5 years. One would have to factor in the cost of electricity (and specifically measure electricity used for said vehicle) as well as factor in, over time, the additional cost of a 4xe as compared to a 3.6 gas (or diesel) - just saying "I'm not paying 5 bucks a gallon, but only XX cents per recharge" is not a equal comparison. To truly compare one would have to factor all associated operational costs. So things like additional base cost of a 4xe over a 3.6, additional cost of electricians installing a home charging port, cost of electricity, etc. Even things like total oil change cost and total volume of oil used is important to factor. And then there is the difficult factor to calculate which is 'convenience' - although that doesn't really apply to just the overall cost.

I have said elsewhere, but if I had the money I would keep my gladiator and also get a 4xe just for running errands....

MIT is not always a solid source of data. EV's are not 'better' for the environment than a gasser. Even with modern tech of today. They still fall behind in total measurable pollutants. MIT, and most other's, typically only calculate and factor pollutants at the tailpipe, and possibly the cost of replacing batteries. They rarely, if ever, factor all associated pollutants. Maybe on a smaller scale of only calculating tailpipe emissions as compared to emissions of electricity generation then I see how EV's might win, barely - but total measurable pollutants they are behind gas.

 

[bleda2002]

But by what measure and factors are you basing your "1/4 cost"?

Cost of ownership for you might appear to be cheaper. cost of ownership total is not cheaper. If sold before batteries die, then cost of ownership is transferred, and impacts economics as a whole which contributes to rising cost of living, etc..... It would be interesting to do the math of cost of ownership on a cost per miles only evaluation over a course of 5 years. One would have to factor in the cost of electricity (and specifically measure electricity used for said vehicle) as well as factor in, over time, the additional cost of a 4xe as compared to a 3.6 gas (or diesel) - just saying "I'm not paying 5 bucks a gallon, but only XX cents per recharge" is not a equal comparison. To truly compare one would have to factor all associated operational costs. So things like additional base cost of a 4xe over a 3.6, additional cost of electricians installing a home charging port, cost of electricity, etc. Even things like total oil change cost and total volume of oil used is important to factor. And then there is the difficult factor to calculate which is 'convenience' - although that doesn't really apply to just the overall cost.

I have said elsewhere, but if I had the money I would keep my gladiator and also get a 4xe just for running errands....

MIT is not always a solid source of data. EV's are not 'better' for the environment than a gasser. Even with modern tech of today. They still fall behind in total measurable pollutants. MIT, and most other's, typically only calculate and factor pollutants at the tailpipe, and possibly the cost of replacing batteries. They rarely, if ever, factor all associated pollutants. Maybe on a smaller scale of only calculating tailpipe emissions as compared to emissions of electricity generation then I see how EV's might win, barely - but total measurable pollutants they are behind gas.

I've done the 4xe math, we have a wrangler 4xe next to the gladiator. Cost was 54k or approximately (at that time) 3.5k more than a 3.6 with comparable options. With 37s we average 21 miles full electric at a cost of 1.40 here for those 14kwh, so 6 cents a mile. My 3.6 with 37s got 13 mpg around town, at 3.50 a gallon here that's 26 cent's a mile. So for the daily commute of less than 20 miles total it is indeed 1/4 the cost per mile as the other costs of oil etc are all the same since they both are on the same tire rotation, oil change schedule, and similar weights so tires don't wear faster on one or the other. Once the battery is low, the mpgs go down to similar levels (within 1-2 with the 4xe slightly better in all scenarios due to the 2.0), so let's also assume the extra miles are a wash or very close, that means 5k miles a year at 6 cents versus 26 or 1k bucks a year savings in fuel, or about 1500 bucks if you factor in the extra price (and ignore the 7500 tax credit which will take us to 9k saved) in 5 years and all with way better performance. Again that's for me in Florida at my cost of electricity, with the wife's commute (I work from home), some states are higher some states are lower so ymmv.

As for MIT not being reliable, if you have any studies I'd love to read them. Nothing I've found agrees with your position, so if you have studies showing total environmental impact it would really be interesting to me. One of the more interesting studies I read was this one which looked at 38 studies measuring the total life cycle of EV and ICE and found that BEV's overall were still "better" or at least not "worse". This of course also depends on what value you assign to certain types of pollutants. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R46420.pdf

 

[chorky]

I will try and dig for some of that info this weekend and see if I can find those studies. Been looking for them actually for a little while and I'm afraid I lost that entire hard drive.

Glad to hear you did some math before. MIT is a good source - I didn't mean to come across like they are bad. However, they, and in fact nobody really, don't look at the accumulating effects as a whole. All these talks about efficiency and lower emissions, etc. are primarily based at the tailpipe. Sometimes the manufacturer of batteries vs drilling for oil is also considered, but none of them really (from what I have seen) look at the entire picture. Which most don't care about, but to be fully accurate it does matter. The reason I dug so deep into this years ago is because I got tired of hearing all the superficial "batteries are better" talk without any substance to those claims, and then it changed where there was some substance, but it was all talk about emissions and no talk about the manufacturer process. I have not honestly seen any recent studies in the past 3 or so years, but I doubt any of them still consider the manufacturer process in those 'better for the environment' claims. But might look into that again as this discussion has increased some interest again. I enjoy those types of studies as well and will post up if I find anything valuable.

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