My Shocking Experience with an Electric Car
We’ve all been shown the vision of a carbon-free future, where our current infrastructure is powered by photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and a fleet of lithium-ion vehicles. The latter is a crucial component of this vision, since road transport accounts for 15 percent of all global emissions, including those produced by cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks, according to the International Energy Agency. Cars are by far the largest mode of transportation in this category. Despite transportation producing a sizable chunk of annual emissions, the vast majority of cars sold are gas-powered, despite electricity’s abundance and accessibility. Still, electricity and heat production produces about half of the world’s emissions. Since 2013, clean energy transitions have driven electricity generation emissions down while total electricity generation continues to rise. What gives, and why haven’t electric cars taken off? And how does an electric vehicle compare to its fossil-fueled counterpart?
To answer these questions, I ran a very serious, and scientifically sound, experiment. During our summer internship in California (aptly, at a solar company), two of my fellow interns and I used an electric vehicle for our commutes, racking up hundreds of miles on trips to the office, neighboring cities, and a remote desert. The reason for our sustainable selection was simple economics; the local Hertz offered a luxurious Polestar 2 for a killer price, cheaper than many of their gas-powered options. We tried to go for the Tesla, but couldn’t circumvent the ironclad rules and thus would have had to pay the dreaded young driver fee. For the Polestar 2, this was avoided by my AAA membership.
Our beautiful Polestar 2, in front of solar panels in the California desert (how fitting). Photo by Max Bennett
I drove this electric car for two months. Thankfully, there were no accidents or dreaded but uncommon lithium battery explosions. Electric cars are becoming increasingly common in the US as federal incentives and market forces drive down prices and increase accessibility. Before this opportunity, I had never driven one. I was a minivan-stan, born and raised in the Midwest, bereft of charging stations. Much to my dismay, I have contributed to the climate crisis by driving gas-guzzlers my entire life. Needless to say, driving the electric vehicle was simultaneously familiar to me and deeply novel.
The most obvious feature: it has a giant touchscreen inside! Some modern models, like the Tesla Model 3, have the whole “car iPad” shtick on lock, but this large, touch-screen navigation system was new to me and offered many benefits that uniquely suited the electric experience. Wanna connect your music? Easy, plug in your phone and the screen lights up with your embarrassing Spotify playlists, and the display is large enough for backseat passengers to see. Can’t find the office you were supposed to be at twenty minutes ago? A ten-inch-wide map is here to help. Craving funny monkey videos on YouTube during a red light? The Polestar’s amenities have you covered, which could play videos during standstills. There was even an accelerometer, which displayed the number of G’s experienced by the vehicle and its passengers. For reference, one G is the acceleration you, and most objects on Earth, experience due to gravity. While parked, we were able to bring the car to 0.1 G’s by collectively rocking back and forth: one of our proudest achievements.
I foolishly did not snap a good photo of the display, but here’s a rough analog from a Tesla. Source: Flickr
Let’s be frank here, though. It’s 2024. This is all the stuff that most technologically advanced cars can do. The Polestar 2’s most utilitarian function was how the screen interacted with the battery cells. As you plug in a destination, the computer calculates how much charge you’ll have left when you get there, using Google Maps to take into account traffic. If you were low on battery, the map would warn you that a destination would be too far away, and direct you to charging stations along the way.
In Irvine, California it was very easy to find these charging stations. The map was tapped into the data, providing locations and even charging rates. In fact, you could set a destination and the navigational system could automatically put in the closest, cheapest charging station stops, factoring charge time into your ETA. While charging, the display tells you how long it would take to fully energize, including a miles-per-minute reading. This actually came in very handy, since not all stations charge batteries at an equal rate. My fellow interns and I relied on this system during our drive into the desert: the way there took two and a half hours, depleting our battery. The Polestar told us where the stations were, but it could not account for the massive gaps in electricity output.
Some well-kept supercharger stations, blasting out over 100 kilowatts of power, could get us back to nearly 100 percent charge in less than an hour. Others, tucked away in the corners of hotel or mall parking lots, would take days to do the same. So, the way back took nearly seven, since we had to rely on few-and-far-between charging stations, where it would take hours to gain a few percentage points of charge. It was a gamble driving to a new charging station in hopes of getting just enough juice to move on to the next one. The range anxiety was real.
At the same time, with the energy that it did have contained in that battery, the Polestar was remarkably efficient. The lithium-ion battery of our electric car has a maximum capacity of 78 kilowatt-hours. To put this number into even more relatable terms, imagine 78 toasters running for an hour. At the end of the hour, you would end up with a completely drained Polestar battery and 78 burnt pieces of toast. That 78 kWh is a lot of energy, but not nearly as much as what you have in the fuel tank. For reference, a gallon of gas contains roughly 34 kWh of energy, and the Cadillac CT4, a gas car comparable to the Polestar, can hold 17 gallons. What this means is that with the energy equivalent of just over two gallons of gasoline, the Polestar could travel 270 miles, farther than the Cadillac CT4 and most other gasoline cars can on ten. While range is not an electric vehicle’s best asset, efficiency certainly is.
The regenerative braking was also a huge plus, essentially turning the brakes and motor into a generator to recoup the lost energy. Thanks to this ergonomic innovation, letting your foot off the accelerator causes the car to jerk to a stop rapidly. It was uncomfortable for the carsick among us, but perfect for making the most out of limited charge. After getting used to the Polestar’s auto-break, I nearly crashed my mom’s gas-guzzling minivan when I returned to it.
I could ramble on about the inherent inefficiency of internal combustion engines due to the limitations imposed on them by thermodynamics, but the main point is that electric motors are much, much better at using up available energy than those of gas-powered vehicles. Ever hear the argument that electric cars will have no impact on emissions if the power comes from a coal plant? This high efficiency gives EVs a lower carbon footprint compared to gas-powered vehicles, even if their electricity is generated by a plant as dirty as an oil spill. Now, “coal-powered” cars are not the ideal here, but electric vehicles are still an impressive feat of energy conversion. With renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydroelectric increasingly replacing coal, oil and natural gas, truly clean travel via electric vehicles is quickly becoming a reality.
The Polestar 2 had some nice perks and ergonomic design features and undoubtedly would be a much greener alternative to the minivan I’m used to driving at home. Will I buy one, if and when I choose to purchase my first car? Almost certainly not, at least until infrastructure supports electric vehicles. The charging station infrastructure in the US is abysmal: it was difficult enough in California, an epicenter of the clean energy transition, and I’m certain it would be even harder in my home state of Illinois. For those in smaller countries, or for those that rarely make hours-long drives, EVs may be the best option. The technology clearly has potential, and though I enjoyed my experience, from a practical standpoint it posed some challenges. That said, I’m not one to let cynicism about new technology cloud forecasts, so I look forward to a future where a combination of public and private investments make electric cars, and other non-combustion vehicles, the norm. In fact, I would be shocked if I didn’t see major progress in my lifetime. While electric vehicles might not be a practical mode of transport yet, the cars are already a feat of innovation and I do not doubt that they will continue to improve.