With the energy required for a pump jack to extract oil from the ground in one month, a Tesla Model 3 would be able to run for almost three years. This is what Mark Linthicum revealed in his open-source video to debunk the lie that an EV can be as pollutant as an ICE car. That made us curious: what if that energy was used by more efficient EVs such as a Lucid Air, an Aptera, or a Nimbus Halo? Let’s answer that.
Peter Rawlinson is very proud that Lucid’s first vehicle can achieve an energy efficiency of about 4.5 miles per kWh. Aptera believes its trike will achieve 10 miles per kWh, and Nimbus bets on 11 miles per kWh for the Halo.
That said, the 9,960 kWh per month a single pump jack spends is enough for the Lucid Air to run 44,820 miles. According to PolicyAdvice, Americans drive 13,474 miles per year on average. That means you could power your Air for three years and almost four months. For the record, the Model 3 could run 34,860 miles or about 10,000 miles less. That’s two years and close to seven months of driving.
Take the Aptera and its 10 miles per kWh: it could travel 99,600 miles with what a pump jack spends in one month. That would be seven years and almost five months of driving. The Nimbus Halo would get 109,560 miles, or eight years and a little less than two months of use. Let’s repeat: all that with what a pump jack spends in a month.
This shows how important it is that electric cars keep improving their energy efficiency. If the current vehicles already make it obvious that EVs can be a sensible solution for energy usage, the future ones practically scream about how wrong it is to keep using oil.
If you remember the video, there are 435,000 pump jacks in the US alone. In one month, they spend 4.3 TWh of energy (4,332,600,000 kWh). Just like the video did, it makes more sense to calculate how many cars that amount of electricity could power in a year.
Running 13,474 miles per year, a Lucid Air would spend 2,994.2 kWh in that period. An Aptera and a Nimbus Halo need way less energy: 1,347.4 kWh and 1,224.9 kWh, respectively. If you calculate the average per month, the numbers are 249.5 kWh for the Air, 112.3 kWh for the Aptera, and 102.1 kWh for the Halo.
The Lucid Air fleet that could be powered in a month by what all American pump jacks spend in the same period would have 17,363,841 cars. In a year, that energy could feed 1,446,987 Airs. The Model 3 fleet would include 15,164,100 vehicles or about 2.2 million units less in a month.
When it comes to the Aptera, the 4.3 TWh would power 38,586,314 units in a month and 3,215,526 EVs in a year. The numbers for Nimbus Halo would be respectively 42,444,946 and 3,537,078 cars. Again, we are talking only about what the US spends with electricity on pump jacks in a month.
The video also calculated the energy all 1,470 offshore drilling rigs in the world spend in a month: the equivalent to 13.23 TWh. That would power 53,022,117 Airs, 117,826,926 Apteras, and 129,609,619 Halos in a month. If we were talking about a year, the numbers would be 4,418,510 Lucids, 9,818,910 Apteras, and 10,800,801 Nimbuses.
Add the 13.23 TWh to the 4.3 TWh, and you get 17.56 TWh – 17,562,600,000 kWh, to be more precise. That amount of energy could power 5,865,497 Airs, 13,034,437, Apteras, and 14,337,880 Halos in a year. If we were to consider a month, all that electricity could charge 70,385,958 Lucids, 156,413,240 Apteras, and 172,054,564 Nimbuses.
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When you think that the US has a little more than 260 million cars, imagine if 70 million of them were Lucid Airs. Or if Nimbus managed to replace 172 million with Halos. Can you imagine the impact 70 million Apteras could have? Yes, these last two only carry two people, but why do they need room for four or five if you commute alone? Consider that the Halo will cost only $6,420, which might allow you to have a bigger car for the kids.
These numbers make it even more urgent that the video is shared as much as possible. That places which still do not have a local translation get one. Help spread the message if you can, but remember to talk to Linthicum first, ok?