It takes 7.5-9 kilowatts of electricity to produce a gallon of diesel.
With that electricity used to drill and refine that one gallon of diesel you can drive 20-25 miles.
Not to mention the diesel it requires to deliver diesel to the service station. And the electricity required to pump the diesel from the service station tanks into your car. And the particulates you are putting into the air once you burn the diesel.
In short, modern German turbo-diesels are neither more efficient nor more Green than electric cars.
The BMW in the story runs on unleaded premium gasoline. They were going to put a diesel in it when it was shown at the auto shows back in 2009, but they re-worked it. They basically cut the famous BMW 6 cylinder in half.
We use diesel to drill for the oil which can be distilled to make diesel.
That 20-25 miles is at the low end of the scale (i.e. luxury vehicles). The vast majority of Diesels available in this country will easily do 30-40 mpg.
“In short, modern German turbo-diesels are neither more efficient nor more Green than electric cars.”
And power stations generate electricity for free? No coal transport energy usage, no resulting particulates?
Knowing a thing or two about physics, I challenge that a gallon of diesel requires 7.5-9 kilowatts of electricity.
First off, for how long? Is that kilowatt hours? If so, I call BS.
Second, the final cost of the diesel gallon is the full cost of is manufacture, distribution, and tank filling. There are no other costs that you claim.
Green car use batteries that are causing massive Superfund cleanup projects. Battery part mining is extremely harmful to the environment. It was shown a Pious pollutes the planet far more than a Hummer in its lifetime because of this.
I just looked up the Tesla Model-S EPA mpg equivalent rating. It is terrible at only 89 mpg.
Someone is supposed to pollute the planet with battery materials mining, have an extremely inconvenient charging issue, be lied to about the battery life, and pay over $100,000, not to mention the illegal taxpayer subsidies we all pay in addition?? For what??
ANY car on the market rides better than a Tesla, is safer than riding like a skateboard on a battery pack, can be fueled in minutes practically at any street corner, pollutes far less than a Tesla, and can be had for under $75,000 and still pay for all the gas it can use in its lifetime.
If the “Saving the planet” and “stopping globull warming” (both ignorant liberal statements) were really the issue, you’d be driving around on a scooter that gets over 100mpg. At the very least a nice motorcycle. My motorcycle gets over 60mpg city and hauls quite a bit, not to mention it’s fun as hell to ride.
With no transmission losses, no charging losses, and no battery degradation. Fundamentally the battery suffers from low energy density and there's not much we can do about that.