My VW Id.4

After a great deal of research on EVs, I was most interested in the Cadillac Lyriq and the VW Id.4. Primarily, I wanted an EV that qualified for the Federal Tax incentive and I wanted to work with a dealership in the same city that I live in. I am not comfortable with the Tesla sales model. If I have a problem, I want to be able to visit a local service department in person.

I then contacted the local Cadillac and VW dealerships. At the Cadillac dealership I found out that there was a 15 month waiting list for a Lyriq which eliminated it from my thinking. On a whim I visited the VW dealership and on that day, they were delivering 4 new Id.4s. I learned that if I wanted to order an Id.4, it would take at least 8 months to get it. I was lucky. One of the new arrivals was available because the person who ordered it cancelled. So, I decided to take this EV on a test drive. The leg room and head room impressed me. I am 6'4'' and comfort was high on my list. This is a very comfortable car that handles well and can go over rough roads without shaking up the occupants. I started negotiations on the purchase right after my test drive.

I have had the car for three weeks. My wife and I are pretty happy with it. Many of the reviews that I saw on the Id.4 complained about the the infotainment system not being intuitive. It really isn't that bad. There are multiple ways to access functions including voice control. My wife is not a tech geek, and she picked up on the basic functions quickly.

This past week Tesla announced partnerships with both Ford and GM on adopting the NACS which will probably spell the death knell for CCS (the European standard). Since VW owns Electrify America (the second largest fast charging network in the US after Tesla), there may be a concern that VW will be left behind. I am not. The US has made it clear that it wants a viable network for EVs regardless of charging port and has made that a condition of its subsidies. It is not a trick to develop a CCS to NACS adaptor. As a matter of fact Ford and GM will be doing that for its current EVs which have CCS charging ports. This is an issue that will sort itself out one way or another for all EVs.

The Cradle to Grave Carbon Footprints of Energy Sources

Nothing in life is simple. Every energy source generates carbon when you consider emissions from cradle to grave. Each source starts with the materials it is made from. That includes the energy and fossil fuel used to mine or extract elements from the earth, processing, manufacturing, transportation, construction and maintenance. When each of these basic factors as well as others are considered, there is a carbon footprint associated with bringing the energy source online. When you consider the carbon generated by the source over its operational lifetime as well as the carbon created during the sources decommissioning, you then are able to calculate its cradle to grave carbon footprint. I spent nearly forty years teaching a course called Energy Resources and Systems and I co-authored two textbooks: Energy Resources and Systems Volume 1 Fundamentals and Non-Renewables & Volume 2 Renewables. The one fact that no energy resource can get around is that there is an expenditure of energy from cradle to grave to produce power. A large fraction of that expended energy will come from fossil fuels. Thus a good gage of the cradle to grave carbon footprint for an energy source is measured by the energy multiplier value which I called "Q" in my lectures. If you are interested in the concept of Energy Q Value, you can download the pdf file below.

Energy Q value 5-30-23.pdf

Download PDF • 150KB

Took the Plunge, Purchased an EV

As an undergraduate in 1974, I studied the greenhouse effect. I read about Eunice Foote and her 1856 presentation in which she reported on an experiment in which carbon dioxide and water vapor were heated in a jar by sunlight. I was aware of John Tyndall's studies in 1859 on how carbon dioxide traps heat in the earth's atmosphere. I was fortunate to have professors at Colorado State University who introduced me to the topic. That is when I made up my mind to study nuclear engineering. It has been a long road, but now most enviromentalists agree that nuclear energy has a very low carbon footprint and is needed to mitigate climate change. I am convinced of climate change due to serving on numerous government committies on the topic and from my research. Columbia Missouri is a progressive city because it strives to use renewable resources. Plus, some of it's electricity comes from the grid where part of that power is nuclear generated. I now feel comfortable that an EV in Columbia will have a lower carbon footprint than a gas powered car because of the city's effort to cut down on electricity produced by fossil fuels. It was time to take the plung and purchase an EV. I purchased a VW Id.4 for several reasons: the $7,500 federal tax break, leg room, head room, comfort, warranty, and track record.