Automotive Engineering - April 2023 - 41

READER
FEEDBACK
Hyperventilating over 'electron guzzlers'
It's jarring to see someone who normally defends large, powerful
vehicles as market-driven choices donning a hair shirt
and hyperventilating about " electron guzzlers " (Editorial,
February 2023). Delete the A/C? Really!?!? Let's take a deep
breath and do what engineers do best: look at numbers.
According to fueleconomy.gov, the most efficient non-hybrid,
gasoline Ford F-150, a 2WD model, gets 22 mpg, consuming
1530 Wh/mi. The most efficient gasoline vehicle is the
2022 Hyundai Ioniq Blue, a charge-sustaining
hybrid, at 59 mpg and 570 Wh/
mi. The fully electric, 4WD F-150
Lightning, far more powerful (and, I'll
argue, capable) than either, consumes
510 Wh/mi, worst case, equivalent to
66 mpg. All numbers are on the EPA
combined cycle.
Clearly, we " guzzle " electrons far
more efficiently than gas. This has major
financial, environmental, and geopolitical
benefits, even before considering
that about half of U.S. plug-in vehicle
owners collect their electrons directly
from sunlight.
As for materials, ask yourself which
pattern of mineral extraction is better:
half a ton of battery per vehicle, once,
recycled at end of life? Or a ton-and-ahalf
of oil per capita, every year, exhausted
into thin air? Obviously, both of
these numbers grow drastically when talking about huge vehicles
like Hummers.
However, in contrast to a Hummer EV, my Chevy Spark EV
has averaged 185 Wh/mi, equivalent to 182 mpg, over my four
years of real world driving on its quarter-ton battery.
Fortunately, there's room in the market for both.
Dave Erb
Instructor, SAE Professional Development
" Design of Hybrid Electric Vehicles " short course, 1995-2004
" Solar Power Your EV " : https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=IXcsBa5bPH0
Dave, thanks for reading AE, taking the time to write and make
some good points. My own point in the piece was to apply the
" gas guzzler " label that's traditionally used to describe big-engined
IC cars and large SUVs/pickups to the first wave of outsized
EVs with absurd performance. In my view, Hummer EV should
have come after GM's 'affordable' Equinox and similar EVs, not
before. Its sales, by the way, have not been commensurate with
Your March issue has a good variety of articles relevant to me.
It's difficult to find an automotive media outlet today that isn't
pushing a narrow agenda about what they say we should
believe the future will be. The EV publications are the worst
offenders, bringing poorly researched and single-viewpoint
articles with little or no basis in reality. The articles and opinion
columns in the SAE magazine have multiple viewpoints and
aren't dogmatic. Engineers know there is more than one solution
to a problem. That's why I became an SAE member nearly
18 years ago and read every issue. Keep up the good work!
Merle Rawlins
Austin, Texas
READERS: Let us know what you think about Automotive
Engineering magazine. Email the Editor at Lindsay.Brooke@
sae.org. We appreciate your comments and reserve the
right to edit for brevity and clarity.
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
April 2023 41
the truck's own hyperventilations. What the industry needs desperately
for EVs to sell themselves, rather than their sales be subsidized,
is a profound step-change in affordability equivalent to
that of Ford's base Model T. EVs need such a reduction in price as
much as they need 200,000 public charging stands. Even then,
the limitations of lithium batteries are clear, particularly for heavier
vehicles that haul and tow. We all can wait for the 'battery
breakthrough' that may or may not arrive. Or, as Prof. Dave Foster
and his colleagues argued in the same issue, we can deploy a
number of 'good is better than perfect'
alternatives to get us to that low-/zerocarbon
future. - Lindsay Brooke
Just want to share the February issue
was very insightful. Especially the comment
by Dr. Gill Pratt on page 17. The
reality of EV in the truck space is not
well-publicized.
David Downey
President, Downey Aviation
Southlake, Texas
I liked your comments in February
about inefficient BEVs, and your article
on hydrogen fuel cells. In addition, the
February article by Foster, et al, on the
need for varied propulsion systems is
equally good. I strongly encourage
Automotive Engineering to continue
publishing such articles, editorials and
letters because it is important that more people understand
the necessity for using multiple propulsion systems. As
Senecal and Leach say in their outstanding book Racing
Toward Zero, " The future is eclectic. "
David S. Krall
Monterey, California
http://fueleconomy.gov https://www.nxtbook.com/smg/sae/23AE03/index.php
Automotive Engineering - April 2023

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