# Electric vehicles



## Woodchips2

Now that the Government has said the ban on selling petrol and diesel cars could be in 2035 or earlier I am wondering how it will affect our economy? For example the building industry where none of the electric vans seem capable of towing a trailer. Whereas it is common for a builder to bring a mini digger on site on a trailer towed behind a large van shall we see all plant having to be delivered by electric low loaders?

Another area is the caravan industry. I think you can currently buy a Tesla capable of towing a caravan but I suggest most caravan owners are not on a Tesla budget for their hobby. The caravan industry employs a lot of people in manufacture, selling and servicing and running sites. The Caravan and Motorhome Club has around 700,000 members. A big industry to see disappear.

By the time we get to 2035 I doubt whether I shall still be driving but our current lifestyle means we could probably manage with an electric vehicle. However what puts me off is the thought of being stuck on a long journey watching the battery power getting lower and lower and no charging point anywhere near. Imagine what it will be like in the Scottish Highlands, their tourism industry could just fade away.

I suppose a lot could change in 15 years but battery development doesn't seem to be developing quickly.

Anybody here drive an electric vehicle and have a more positive view of the future?

Regards Keith


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## Rorschach

Well for a start that is a ban on the sale of new vehicles, so you can expect petrol/diesel cars to be on the road for at least 10 years after that.

You are right though, it's currently an unknown future for anything except cars and the caravan/camper van thing is something I have talked about before, I don't think it was on this forum though. 

A much bigger issue than anything you have mentioned though is the simple problem of charging. At the moment there is insufficient infrastructure to charge large numbers of electric vehicles, not to mention the problems that will be faced by those that don't have a driveway or garage. You can't run an extension lead out of the 10th floor of a block of flats!
Battery technology will (and must) improve. My own personal opinion is that we need a briefcase style battery that can be removed and taken indoors for charging, this saves the need for installing large swathes of on street charge points. Then again I am also of the opinion that batteries are not the way forward, hydrogen fuel cells are.


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## decas

My money is on hydrogen as well. Too many awkward problems with batteries.
Dave


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## Terry - Somerset

A few thoughts:

Battery technology has improved with huge price reductions. In 2010 EV battery cost was about $800-1000 per KWh. Cost today is around $150. It is estimated that when the cost gets to around $100 per KWh and volumes increase that the cost of an EV will be similar to ICE.

Worth bearing in mind that 15 years ago the EV of choice (not that I would choose it) was the G-Wizz. The Nissan Leaf launched in 2011 was the first "normal" EV - battery only. It had a safe range of 60-80 miles. The typical EV today has a range of 150-250 miles and costs much the same as the original Leaf 9 years ago.

The average car commute is 10-12 miles. It would likely be possible to do the commute, school run, major shop and go out to see friends and still only need to recharge once a week!

Battery technology has also changed - leaving aside the complex chemical and physical science (which I don't understand) some batteries can be fast charged in around 30 minutes to 80% of capacity. Whether the future business model will be leased exchangable battery modules, or owned battery packs with the capacity for fast charging is up for grabs.

Concern has also be expressed about how additional charging points will be provided - necessary for flat dwellers etc. It is entirely feasible that government could mandate that:

- all workplace parking is provided with adequate charging points
- retailers will provide recharging points or customers will go elsewhere
- local delivery companies will switch to EV and recharge back at base
- local authorities could mandate recharging in all new developments
- council and private car parks could see recharging as an income stream

It's more about how badly we want to do it, not whether it is feasible. The remaining known unknowns are:

(a) overall electricity capacity increases - over what timescales
(b) driverless vehicles will fundamentally change behaviours
(c) exceptions for particular users - horses, caravans, farming, building etc
(d) rate of city and town centre environmental ICE bans


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## MusicMan

I've just ordered a Leaf so will report soon! I don't envisage problems with recharging as I can do it at home, solar panels make it even cheaper and long journeys seem fine with planning. OTOH I am retired and few journeys are urgent or very long. It won't suit everyone right now but it won't be long before it will. As for vans, they are already appropriate for day workers such as carpenters, though not yet for delivery vehicles that do 500 miles a day.

The National Grid seems well prepared for the challenge. One point often overlooked is that when a good coverage of electric cars is obtained, the storage potential for the nation's electric cars is massive, equivalent to several power stations. Thus there is capability for surplus wind/solar etc power to be stored, and released at peak times. Tariffs and smart meters will enable this. If you think about it, on days when you just commute 20 miles or so, you can use your car to sell electricity back in the evenings and still recharge in the small hours when rates are low. In fact there is a large scale trial of this going on in the southeast and east Anglia - look up Octopus Powerloop.

Hydrogen may be the better solution for lorries and trains, but the development still has much further to go than BEVs. The infrastructure needs developing for the latter, sure, but adding charge points to garages, service stations and retail outlets is far cheaper and faster than building a hydrogen infrastructure.

I've taken a 2-year lease on the Leaf, and fully expect there to be many more choices when it is time for renewal.


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## Trainee neophyte

There are a few 4x4 electric vehicles coming out (https://www.fleetcarma.com/electric-pic ... ck-market/) and the mainstream manufacturers are all working on it, although battery life will be an issue for a couple of years yet. But that <<should>> solve the caravan and towing market. Maybe.

The UK consumed 47.1 billion litres of petrol/diesel in 2018. If you say petrol and diesel both contain the same amount of energy - 10kWh/litre (it's close enough for fag-packet calculations, but they don't), then that would equate to 471 billion kWh of new electricity required annually, in the new, green economy. Given the inefficiency of battery storage, it will need to be more than that, but never mind. If you pretend that the energy will be delivered evenly, 24 hours per day, then you need an extra 1.2 billion kWh per day. Sounds like a lot. A billion kWh is, I think, one TerraWatt hour (10¹² Watts), and the average nuclear power station puts out, let's say, 1,000 MWh, or one GigaWatt. You need 1,000 GigaWatts to make a TerraWatt, so the UK will need one thousand nuclear reactors, or equivalent solar/wind/wave installations, all running 24/7. No problem.

The above is just me thinking out loud, and I may have lost track of zeros, so feel free to put me right on the maths.


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## Blackswanwood

I do not think this will have a negative impact on the economy and arguably it could have a positive impact.

Setting a deadline will focus minds on finding alternative solutions. 

Not acting arguably is a drag on the economy - how many millions of GDP will be spent on compensating for the floods of the last few days and shoring up defences for the next time?

I will wager a shilling that if anyone is reading this in 2035 they will wonder what all the fuss was about ... and I’ll double up the bet that woodworkers will still be arguing about the best way to sharpen!


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## Rorschach

As a related point, trains.

I was having a conversation recently about HS2. 

I am totally against building HS2, not because I don't want better transport connections for the north and the south (though it will never help me living in the SW) but because it is a waste of money that will be all but useless when it is finished.

We are looking at 10 years before the first trains run and a projected build cost of up to 100billion.

In 10 years time driverless electric cars will be a fairly common feature on our roads. If that 100 billions were spent on improving roads for driverless technology as well as incentives for it's development then instead of HS2 we could have a network of driverless taxis. The could be booked to take you from your home directly to your destination, no faffing about getting to train stations that are nowhere near where you live or want to visit, no lugging bags around. Prices could be based on demand and run 24 hours a day, no expensive drivers or safety concerns about working hours etc. Instead of serving the major cities only this network would cover the entire UK making the problems of isolated elderly or rural communities a thing of the past.

Anyway that would be my plan if I were PM.


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## Trevanion

Is there going to be enough lithium if everyone goes electric?


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## Just4Fun

Terry - Somerset":117o4jhs said:


> A few thoughts:
> 
> Battery technology has improved with huge price reductions.


Agreed. For those of us not familiar with EVs, think of the battery technology on computers, phones etc. These have improved greatly over the last couple of decades and I don't see why EV batteries aren't also much better and likely to improve further.

There is a lot of other stuff in your post that I agree with but I believe there is also a flaw in your thinking, Namely, you concentrate on the average case but this move will affect everyone so you have to look at the extremes, not the average.



> The average car commute is 10-12 miles.


What about those who have longer commutes, in rural areas without little infrastructure between home and work, maybe in lower temperatures such as winter in the Scottish highlands where range drops dramatically ... 


> It is entirely feasible that government could mandate that:
> 
> - all workplace parking is provided with adequate charging points


I live in Finland and here many companies already provide electrical points for vehicles in their car parks. They have done this for years. These are used for engine heaters during winter rather than charging EVs but the idea is basically the same. This is fine for those who work in such places but doesn't help those who work in remote locations, perhaps a different location every day. 
What about a forestry worker whose constantly-changing workplace is always in the middle of a forest miles from anywhere? Or road maintenance people repairing the road in the middle of nowhere? Or a builder working at building sites with potentially no power supply? It is entirely feasible that government would mandate that these locations are provided with adequate charging points but that doesn't make it possible.


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## loftyhermes

In the late 90's when I worked at Groundwork Ashfield and Mansfield they had an electric Peugeot that had a range of 50 - 60 miles. Still had to put a gallon of petrol in every now and then for the heater though.


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## Woody2Shoes

Trainee neophyte":1m3gfzpo said:


> There are a few 4x4 electric vehicles coming out (https://www.fleetcarma.com/electric-pic ... ck-market/) and the mainstream manufacturers are all working on it, although battery life will be an issue for a couple of years yet. But that <<should>> solve the caravan and towing market. Maybe.
> 
> The UK consumed 47.1 billion litres of petrol/diesel in 2018. If you say petrol and diesel both contain the same amount of energy - 10kWh/litre (it's close enough for fag-packet calculations, but they don't), then that would equate to 471 billion kWh of new electricity required annually, in the new, green economy. Given the inefficiency of battery storage, it will need to be more than that, but never mind. If you pretend that the energy will be delivered evenly, 24 hours per day, then you need an extra 1.2 billion kWh per day. Sounds like a lot. A billion kWh is, I think, one TerraWatt hour (10¹² Watts), and the average nuclear power station puts out, let's say, 1,000 MWh, or one GigaWatt. You need 1,000 GigaWatts to make a TerraWatt, so the UK will need one thousand nuclear reactors, or equivalent solar/wind/wave installations, all running 24/7. No problem.
> 
> The above is just me thinking out loud, and I may have lost track of zeros, so feel free to put me right on the maths.



The thing is, about 60% of the energy in all that petrol/diesel was wasted. EVs are much more efficient at turning stored energy into useful motion, say 80-90%. The big challenge is decarbonising the generation and storage of electricity at grid scale. Installing charging points is little more complicated than connecting a new supply to anything else, ie trivial. The trick is ensuring that what feeds it is low or zero carbon sourced. My next car will be an EV.

Range anxiety is the same problem whatever the fuel.


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## Woody2Shoes

Trevanion":4he7viqw said:


> Is there going to be enough lithium if everyone goes electric?


Yes, but things like cobalt might be more tricky, which is why they are all trying to reduce or eliminate exotic elements.

Eg https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/17/te ... n-commits/


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## lurker

There will not be enough capacity to generate all the electricity we need, in fact we will run out of capacity very soon, even without all this extra demand.

A couple of national outages and we will suddenly have a new set of priorities!


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## Rorschach

Woody2Shoes":2r8gqx3o said:


> Range anxiety is the same problem whatever the fuel.



I have to disagree there. I have no range anxiety in my petrol car. On every trip I take I am never more than say 20 miles from a petrol station. I can run my tank to nearly nothing, pull into a petrol station and within 5 minutes I am fully fuelled and ready for another 400 miles. 
We are going on a short break next week, not too far but further than the range of our car. In an electric car I would have range anxiety as there is not a suitable charge point at the destination. There is however a tesco supermarket about 10 minutes away so I will drive there, fill up and know I have plenty of petrol to come home again.


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## RogerS

Reading these last few posts, I agree with Rorschach on all the points that he's made. In particular the difficulty for those living in towns and blocks of flats to find a charging point. It's bad enough them trying to find an actual parking place. In some residential streets in areas of West London, double-parking is the norm.

And if you then factor in the suggestion of 'selling back' your cars storage then that requires even more points to plug into. That's a non-starter IMO.

Perhaps solar panels on the cars roof ?


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## RogerS

Western Power have made available a map showing the capacity of their sub-stations here https://www.westernpower.co.uk/ev-capac ... pplication

They make the point though that "Our modelling has not looked at individual services to properties so there may be *local pinch points *or upgrades which are not included in this representation." (My bold)

They also make available their Distribution Strategy for EV's in a pdf. Google "Western Power Distribution Electric Vehicle Strategy"


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## Woody2Shoes

Rorschach":azmy9pqz said:


> Woody2Shoes":azmy9pqz said:
> 
> 
> 
> Range anxiety is the same problem whatever the fuel.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have to disagree there. I have no range anxiety in my petrol car. On every trip I take I am never more than say 20 miles from a petrol station. I can run my tank to nearly nothing, pull into a petrol station and within 5 minutes I am fully fuelled and ready for another 400 miles.
> We are going on a short break next week, not too far but further than the range of our car. In an electric car I would have range anxiety as there is not a suitable charge point at the destination. There is however a tesco supermarket about 10 minutes away so I will drive there, fill up and know I have plenty of petrol to come home again.
Click to expand...


You obviously haven't shared a car with mrs w2s! She likes to play chicken with me over who gets to buy petrol....
No, but really, evs are now becoming affordable with a 200 mile plus real world range and an ability to charge to 80% within about 30mins given the right charger. Evs aren't for everyone but they are becoming a no-brainer for more and more people very fast.
As I write this, only about 29% of nearly 40GW of GB electricity is coming from fossil fuels. 
As for the 35% or so of British households who don't have a parking space, I think that public transport including autonomous, self-driving taxis, is the best answer. This is why our cities have buses/trams/tubes/trains and taxis. Neither of my adult children - who are city dwellers - own or want to own a car - they see car ownership as an expensive and underutilized liability.


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## Woody2Shoes

Rorschach":8g2vn3od said:


> Woody2Shoes":8g2vn3od said:
> 
> 
> 
> Range anxiety is the same problem whatever the fuel.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have to disagree there. I have no range anxiety in my petrol car. On every trip I take I am never more than say 20 miles from a petrol station. I can run my tank to nearly nothing, pull into a petrol station and within 5 minutes I am fully fuelled and ready for another 400 miles.
> We are going on a short break next week, not too far but further than the range of our car. In an electric car I would have range anxiety as there is not a suitable charge point at the destination. There is however a tesco supermarket about 10 minutes away so I will drive there, fill up and know I have plenty of petrol to come home again.
Click to expand...


If you had an ev you could use something like this to plan your journey 
https://www.zap-map.com/live/


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## Rorschach

RogerS":yxonpyrh said:


> Reading these last few posts, I agree with Rorschach on all the points that he's made. In particular the difficulty for those living in towns and blocks of flats to find a charging point. It's bad enough them trying to find an actual parking place. In some residential streets in areas of West London, double-parking is the norm.
> 
> And if you then factor in the suggestion of 'selling back' your cars storage then that requires even more points to plug into. That's a non-starter IMO.
> 
> Perhaps solar panels on the cars roof ?



Simply not enough surface area on the car to make any kind of useful quantity of electricity for driving the car. A whole day in full sunshine might be enough for mile if you are lucky.

The removal battery I mention would solve the flats problem, but the technology just isn't there at the moment, we need greater energy density in a battery to make it man portable.

What does work however is my self driving car suggestion I mentioned earlier. It doesn't matter then if you have no parking as you are booking the car on an as you need it basis and the car would charge itself at a central hub. 
This system also removes the range problem as when you book the vehicle it would automatically reserve vehicles along the route that are already charged and you would switch vehicles as needed.


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## Farmer Giles

On our 3rd Leaf, brilliant cars. Looking at swapping the 14 year old disco for a plug in hybrid in couple of years as most trips are less than 20 miles.


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## Rorschach

Woody2Shoes":xqzzd0yx said:


> If you had an ev you could use something like this to plan your journey
> https://www.zap-map.com/live/



Yes of course, but that involves a lot more planning for any trip. I can jump in my car right now and drive indefinitely without ever worrying about running out of fuel or where I am going to get it.
It's not just the range and finding a charge point that's the problem though, its the time to charge. Refilling my car takes about 5 minutes to give me 400 or so miles of range. Are there any electric cars that can do this? Best I have heard so far is 1 hour charge for 200miles range and that is not a common feature at all. Even in that best case scenario your journey times are increased by approx 30% due to charging. In a petrol/diesel vehicle your journey times are increased by a matter of minutes if you need to refuel, it takes me longer to pee than it takes to refuel.


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## Steve Maskery

Rorschach":221hb45s said:


> it takes me longer to pee than it takes to refuel.



:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## lurker

My BiL has a leccy jaguar, apparently they are very tax efficient if you own a business!

He went to Cornwall (300miles), stopped to top up, “not a problem just 30 mins whilst having a cup of coffee.”
Thing is, he had to wait a further 20 minutes in the queue for a charger.

How many minutes does it take to put in 450 miles worth of diesel?
How many chargers do you need to replace a forecourt of pumps?


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## Yojevol

Trainee neophyte":1p8w279j said:


> The UK consumed 47.1 billion litres of petrol/diesel in 2018. If you say petrol and diesel both contain the same amount of energy - 10kWh/litre (it's close enough for fag-packet calculations, but they don't), then that would equate to 471 billion kWh of new electricity required annually, in the new, green economy. Given the inefficiency of battery storage, it will need to be more than that, but never mind. If you pretend that the energy will be delivered evenly, 24 hours per day, then you need an extra 1.2 billion kWh per day. Sounds like a lot. A billion kWh is, I think, one TerraWatt hour (10¹² Watts), and the average nuclear power station puts out, let's say, 1,000 MWh, or one GigaWatt. You need 1,000 GigaWatts to make a TerraWatt, so the UK will need one thousand nuclear reactors, or equivalent solar/wind/wave installations, all running 24/7. No problem.
> 
> The above is just me thinking out loud, and I may have lost track of zeros, so feel free to put me right on the maths.



I think your calc needs an extra factor in it.
I agree up to 471billion KWh/year. Lets turn that into MW because that's how we measure power station output. So 471 x 10⁶MW.h/year. Converting this to generating capacity we must divide it by 365 x 24 hours/year which gives 54000MW. Our present generation of PWR power stations are rated at 1200MW. This means we need 45 new power stations or their equivalent. To that we've got to add on replacement of all existing fossil and nuclear capacity over the next 30 years. It's not impossible, but it's a very big ask.

This takes me back to my early days (1976) in the power station construction industry when I was studying this exact subject. We were contemplating PS construction rates of about 2 per year. As time went on the envisaged max capacity ebbed away to today's rate which is probably something like one every 5 years

So it's very difficult to forecast future needs because we just cannot see how society and the world is going to change. All we know is that something big is going to happen. Personally, I think we have missed the boat on being able to influence global warming. We've just got to try and ameliorate it as best we can and live (or die) with the consequences.

There's a happy thought.

Brian


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## Droogs

Apologies first, this may well be a long one. :roll: 

I am so glad this thread appeared, it really hammers home how ignorant the general public are to what is happening within the Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) field. I, as I've said many times, am a greenie and always have been (only ever voted for the Green Party since turning 18 way back in '86) but here is the dychotomy I'm also a massive petrol-head. Apart from my first car (Mk1 Opel Kadett SR 1.2), I have never owned a petrol vehicle that was not a V6 or diesel that was less than 2.5l as my main daily car until last year. 
I was shall we say offered a new career opportunity last year thanks to Boris and his ilk and I chose to go with the PHV route. I got my private hire licence and as my car was just outside the permitted age range for using as a taxi, chose to use a lease vehicle and that is an electric car. The company I have been working for use leafs and now MG ZS evs. I have used the MG mostly and it has been fantastic to the point that I am now in the process of getting my own and on boarding with Uber in Edinburgh. 
I have on average covered 218 miles per day per shift in a car that ONLY has a range of 160 miles and the car is used by 3 drivers and is in constant use. So over the course of 24 hours it has covered on average 450 miles a day, Remember it ONLY has 160 miles of range.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?!!!!!! I hear you all exclaim

Easy, Lets answer that in everyone's favourite way bullet points (hammer) :
1. The car takes roughly 40 minutes to recharge from 20% to 80%, For those who don't know, we don't use the full capacity of the rechargeable batteries as to do so would drastically shorten the life of the batteries. So we generally try to keep it in the at most 10 - 90% areas as this allows for longer life but also more importantly shorter charging times.
This is due to the fact that the batteries basically gorge themselves on electricity at the start of the recharge process and then struggle to ram in the last little bit at the end (apparently it's "fisiks don't ya know")
So this means that I as a driver get to have a nice break and bit to eat in comfort during a shift while the car refuels at the same time.

2. Where do you do that? Well, as it is not my car and I'm not going to be using my house electricity for that now am I, I take it to one of these apparently NON-EXISTENT charge points that everyone claims is not there. Just to put people minds at rest, pay close attention now THERE ARE MORE PUBLIC BEV CHARGE POINTS IN THE UK THAN THERE ARE PETROL STATIONS. Some you pay for and some are free. 
Talking of how we do in the highlands of Scotland, it's bloody marvellous, is what it is. Scotland in general has a much better organised and extant charging infrastructure that England does. So far I have found that I have not been more than 40 miles from a charging station at any point in the numerous times I have been in the wilds of remote areas. More and more Inns and rest service areas that are non roadside cafe's are providing free slow charge facilities (they charge at the same rate as a house charger 7Kw but some have 11Kw. There are a few enterprising chaps fitting rapid chargers in their car parks and making a little profit off of you getting a full charge in 40 minutes and while eating their lovely grubb. When I say profit I mean they charge you a few pence per unit more than it costs them, still far cheaper than petrol/diesel though. Below is the Chargeplace Scotland map link, this is just for the "government" funded/administered network:

https://chargeplacescotland.org/new-map/

You may be a bit surprised at what is around even this early in the adoption of the technology.

Now I am about to get my very own BEV and yet I live in a flat with absolutely no parking anywhere near it, am I mad? No, I have plenty of public fast and rapid chargers that I can use, yes it will be more expensive that if i lived in a house with a drive etc but it will still be nearly 80% cheaper than have to pay for the running costs of an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) care. 

EH? How can it be when they're sooo much more expensive to buy? No they are not. Yes they have a greater financial outlay at the start BUT as they have none of the ICE rubbish to look after they do not have the expense of maintenance that an ICE car has. They still have to eventually have an MOT and will eventually (as more people adopt using them) pay for a Road Fund Licence, but overall their general maintenance costs are negligible compared to what we are used to.

When you as a private individual buy a BEV you are given the option to take advantage of some grants that help you pay for getting a charging station fitted at home. Now if like me you live in a flat or you home's electrical wiring will not be up to supplying one then you can still claim the grants and pay for a unit and have that fitted once you carry out remedial works or move. As I rent a workshop that is a few miles away from my flat but has private off-road parking I will probably have my slow charge unit fitted there.

3. With regard to battery technology, have a look at the bio of Prof Googenough, he basically created the modern era regarding btty usage. As an interesting side note the chap who invented the NiMH btty did so with the main thrust that it would be used to power BEVs and he thought that it was going to when Chrysler and GM bought the patents from him for millions, however they then sold it on to a petrol company Chevron. Who did not let it be used for cars. Watch the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

4. Regarding towing a BEV can do so easily but yes the problem is that in terms of range it is bad as the battery drains very quickly. But the power density of batteries is getting better all the time and Prof Goodenough if correct has a good chance of defeating that problem with the glass batteries.
One solution would be to make trailers that have a battery module in the chassis to help extend range.

5.Norway has already banned the sale of ICE vehicles from 2025 and is talking about banning the resale of used ICE by 2035 as well. We are being left behind. China has the largest BEV sector right now. More BEVs are sold there than the rest of the world combined. If you buy an ICE version of a car in China rather than the electric version , you must then pay an additional $15K US in tax to get you number plate where as it's free for BEV. They have the largest BEV bus operators in the world and use induction charging at bus stop(New Bosch Drills) to charge the buses. Why can't we?

6. From what I have seen and found out most of the younger generation these days are not learning to drive. They are in fact using their cash for other things and using ridesharing instead. Hence the uptake of Uber and Lyft etc. They are far more comfortable with the idea of autonomous vehicles. i think it will be a city/country split in the future, where robocabs are used almost exclusively in urban areas and autonomous capable driven BEVs will be the general rule in the countryside. 

7. Looking at commercial vehicles upto the large Crafter/Sprinter LWB type of thing, they are available now with around 100 miles of range. PAH you say THATS USELESS. Well no it's not. Extensive reasearch shows the vast majority ie over 70% of such vehicles cover less that 100 miles per day and that includes delivery drivers such as Amazon and Asda. As battery density improves so will the range for a given weight. But for those long distance van drivers they may find that other transport means take over and that they are not needed. If they are then that is where HFC cars will possibly be used (its about using the right tech in the right place). However the HFC has been promised to be around 20 years away for the last 40 and is still 20 years away. We can not wait any longer. 

Tesla are about to have a Battery Day explaining what their medium and long term strategy is. Many think that they have been working with the Good Prof and will announce something big. Explains all the share fluctuations recently. 

So the ICE is dead tech and will die over the next decade, probably sooner. The oil companies are said to spend 2 billion a week to put out disinformation and doubt about EVs and such tech. That is only an average days profit for them. They spend this as each week they delay is a bonus. They have been very succesful at delaying this transition but no more. People are learning and even if being able to have your kids breath and not die of horrible diseases caused by the rubbish big oil makes is not enough of an incentive to change the fact that we are entering a technological convergence of different fields that will totally disrupt the status quo and enable dirt cheap power for transport is. The ;fact that many areas are making it compulsary to have proper insulation in new buildings and that they must have solar capture systems as well will only push the speed of change forward.

Hope that helps answer some of your questions Keith
rgds


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## RogerS

Now all you have to do, Keith, is convince my SWMBO ! 

Style - none unless it's a Tesla

Performance - poor unless it's a Tesla

Handling - poor unless it's a Tesla 

And she is a worrier. You'd push her into an early grave if she had to fret about charging points. Which she will. If it was just me then I'd probably buy an EV. If I had the funds. Which I don't.


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## Droogs

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?
the check out these youtube channels
Fullycharged
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzz4Co ... 9ZAvRMhW2A

EVM
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCigsK5 ... xkw/videos

Bjorn Nyland 
https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland/videos

Transport Evolved
https://www.youtube.com/user/transportevolved/videos

and
Now you Know
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMFmrc ... 0OA/videos


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## Trainee neophyte

Yojevol":1v93uvsh said:


> [
> 
> I think your calc needs an extra factor in it.
> I agree up to 471billion KWh/year. Lets turn that into MW because that's how we measure power station output. So 471 x 10⁶MW/year. Converting this to generating capacity we must divide it by 365 x 24 hours/year which gives 54000MW. Our present generation of PWR power stations are rated at 1200MW. This means we need 45 new power stations or their equivalent. To that we've got to add on replacement of all existing fossil and nuclear capacity over the next 30 years. It's not impossible, but it's a very big ask.
> 
> This takes me back to my early days (1976) in the power station construction industry when I was studying this exact subject. We were contemplating PS construction rates of about 2 per year. As time went on the envisaged max capacity ebbed away to today's rate which is probably something like one every 5 years
> 
> So it's very difficult to forecast future needs because we just cannot see how society and the world is going to change. All we know is that something big is going to happen. Personally, I think we have missed the boat on being able to influence global warming. We've just got to try ant ameliorate it as best we can and live (or die) with the consequences.
> 
> There's a happy thought.
> 
> Brian



Wow! I was out by lots! 45 is actually achievable, even if it is a big ask. My number was 20 times too big (notice I assume I am wrong - this really isn't my area of expertise). It's still going to turn everything on its head, especially if oil is outlawed.


----------



## RogerS

Droogs":10vy6fmk said:


> ........THERE ARE MORE PUBLIC BEV CHARGE POINTS IN THE UK THAN THERE ARE PETROL STATIONS. /..... Keith
> rgds



Actually I think that statement is meaningless. Does it factor in the number of pumps at a petrol station. Be that as it may, the bottom line is that you are correct but by no stretch of the imagination deserving BLOCK CAPITALS!  

Number of petrol stations 8385 (2019 source wiki)

Number of EV charging _locations_ (a far more relevant stat) - 10913 (source ZapMap)


----------



## Farmer Giles

RogerS":2dteqdd2 said:


> Now all you have to do, Keith, is convince my SWMBO !
> 
> Style - none unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Performance - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Handling - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> And she is a worrier. You'd push her into an early grave if she had to fret about charging points. Which she will. If it was just me then I'd probably buy an EV. If I had the funds. Which I don't.




We don't have the faster 60kw , just the 40kw Leaf and it is no slouch and handles fine too. Leaves most ICE cars for dead away from the lights. Inside it's very plush, outside a bit bland as all Nissan's are.


----------



## Rich C

Farmer Giles":199cotd0 said:


> We don't have the faster 60kw , just the 40kw Leaf and it is no slouch and handles fine too. Leaves most ICE cars for dead away from the lights. Inside it's very plush, outside a bit bland as all Nissan's are.


It's all relative. The Leaf is 0-60 mph is around 7.5 seconds which is a respectable time. But even the slowest Model 3 is 5.3 seconds 0-60 - Tesla really don't have much competition there.


----------



## Trevanion

We used to have a vehicle that ran on LPG, the range anxiety for that was real! :lol: You probably couldn’t use LPG for long runs anymore as it seems petrol stations are tearing out the tanks more and more now.

Out of curiosity because we’ve got thunder rumbling as I’m typing this and recently had a couple of thing a in the house explode, what happens if your car is connected to the grid when lightning strikes?


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Rorschach":251e8i96 said:


> Woody2Shoes":251e8i96 said:
> 
> 
> 
> If you had an ev you could use something like this to plan your journey
> https://www.zap-map.com/live/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes of course, but that involves a lot more planning for any trip. I can jump in my car right now and drive indefinitely without ever worrying about running out of fuel or where I am going to get it.
> It's not just the range and finding a charge point that's the problem though, its the time to charge. Refilling my car takes about 5 minutes to give me 400 or so miles of range. Are there any electric cars that can do this? Best I have heard so far is 1 hour charge for 200miles range and that is not a common feature at all. Even in that best case scenario your journey times are increased by approx 30% due to charging. In a petrol/diesel vehicle your journey times are increased by a matter of minutes if you need to refuel, it takes me longer to pee than it takes to refuel.
Click to expand...

Lets say your ev has a 200 mile range, then it would take you 3 to 4 hours to use that. Do you not stop for a cup of tea (and/or a pee!) after than sort of period?
EVs are not perfect but they are already a no-brainer for a lot of people and are getting significantly better over time.


----------



## loftyhermes

Just had a look on the zap map site and it seems that the charging systems use 3 different plugs. No one standard plug, does that mean that you need 3 leads to take advantage of all the charging points?


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Trevanion":1kpkye0a said:


> We used to have a vehicle that ran on LPG, the range anxiety for that was real! :lol: You probably couldn’t use LPG for long runs anymore as it seems petrol stations are tearing out the tanks more and more now.
> 
> Out of curiosity because we’ve got thunder rumbling as I’m typing this and recently had a couple of thing a in the house explode, what happens if your car is connected to the grid when lightning strikes?


The electronics in a car charger are pretty sophisticated and designed to ensure the safety of the user and the grid, for example many have their own earthing point.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

loftyhermes":2vzjs4tn said:


> Just had a look on the zap map site and it seems that the charging systems use 3 different plugs. No one standard plug, does that mean that you need 3 leads to take advantage of all the charging points?


The leads are usually on the charger. Cars have different types of receptacle on them. Most recent ones have more than one basic difference being speed of transfer.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

RogerS":21tzzhgs said:


> Now all you have to do, Keith, is convince my SWMBO !
> 
> Style - none unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Performance - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Handling - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> And she is a worrier. You'd push her into an early grave if she had to fret about charging points. Which she will. If it was just me then I'd probably buy an EV. If I had the funds. Which I don't.


Not sure what your mrs considers to be style but Mercedes do an all electric crv which looks pretty good. Performance and handling are surprisingly good and as always you get what you pay for.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3JOTiDlNUm4
Or perhaps a kia e nero
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OrOc_sXrU


----------



## Geoff_S

Gosh, this one took off.

There are so many variables in this subject you could write a book.

I bought my VW e Golf on the premise that I would never have to use a public charger for now. I have a garage with power where I can charge overnight, I have a range of 120 miles maximum and I have a petrol car as well that basically sits around waiting to be used on the occasion of a long trip.

But that’s me and it works for me. But there are countless others that are constrained by their personal situation for whom it will not work.

Why does it have to be so all or nothing?Why not encourage a transition to more eco friendly forms of transport rather than this draconian banning of all ICE vehicles?

Anyway, my pet hate is the amount of time it takes to charge on public chargers. PITA, and until that is sorted out I will always have an ICE car.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

I would love an electric vehicle - I would save €3-€4,000 a year in fuel alone, plus all the servicing costs (last year's engine rebuild was €2,000). I could buy a few solar panels and make my own charging system, for peanuts - I actually have sunshine, too, so for 10 months of the year it would be pretty much guaranteed to work - free fuel!

Only 2 problems for me: one, I can't afford a brand new vehicle, and two I need a pickup truck, or at the very least the ability to tow a ton, or more if possible. 4x4 is also a must. I am rather enamoured of the Mitsubishi Outlander, but being a hybrid it is even more expensive. Allegedly it does 28 miles on battery only, which would be the vast majority of my trips. Seems a no brainer, and the finance could be paid for by the saving in fuel but as I wouldn't be any better off, what is the point?

All bit of a conundrum.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Trainee neophyte":znsirdxz said:


> I would love an electric vehicle - I would save €3-€4,000 a year in fuel alone, plus all the servicing costs (last year's engine rebuild was €2,000). I could buy a few solar panels and make my own charging system, for peanuts - I actually have sunshine, too, so for 10 months of the year it would be pretty much guaranteed to work - free fuel!
> 
> Only 2 problems for me: one, I can't afford a brand new vehicle, and two I need a pickup truck, or at the very least the ability to tow a ton, or more if possible. 4x4 is also a must. I am rather enamoured of the Mitsubishi Outlander, but being a hybrid it is even more expensive. Allegedly it does 28 miles on battery only, which would be the vast majority of my trips. Seems a no brainer, and the finance could be paid for by the saving in fuel but as I wouldn't be any better off, what is the point?
> 
> All bit of a conundrum.


It's early days but there is already a market in second hand evs. I'd reckon that a hybrid is possibly the worst of both worlds. Tesla's pickup will be along soon, and no doubt others.


----------



## Geoff_S

Woody2Shoes":cfkxj2p6 said:


> loftyhermes":cfkxj2p6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just had a look on the zap map site and it seems that the charging systems use 3 different plugs. No one standard plug, does that mean that you need 3 leads to take advantage of all the charging points?
> 
> 
> 
> The leads are usually on the charger. Cars have different types of receptacle on them. Most recent ones have more than one basic difference being speed of transfer.
Click to expand...


And to add, the chargers are all run by different companies that you generally have to sign up to, all with slightly different rules.


----------



## Rorschach

Woody2Shoes":2dk0i5r1 said:


> Lets say your ev has a 200 mile range, then it would take you 3 to 4 hours to use that. Do you not stop for a cup of tea (and/or a pee!) after than sort of period?
> EVs are not perfect but they are already a no-brainer for a lot of people and are getting significantly better over time.



Yeah ok lets say I could squeeze the full 200 miles out of it. At motorway speed that is just under 3 hours. When travelling I tend to stop for a pee every 1.5-2 hours. I might also have a sandwich etc. I sip water while driving as needed. My stops are around 10 minutes or so. In that 3 hours I might have spent 20 minutes on breaks maximum. It's still a good bit less than an enforced 1 hour minimum stop, assuming there is a charge point free for me to use right away.

A previous poster has already said you can't drain the battery fully if you want to get good life out of it. Going by those numbers of 80%-30%, So for best performance I might only get 100 miles for each 30 minute charge cycle. That means every 1.5 hours I have to stop for 30 minutes, so about the same time loss as our above calculation but now it means I need to find a free charging point every 100 miles of my journey and spend 1/3rd of time sat around waiting for the car to charge.

Not very practical at the moment is it?


----------



## RogerS

Farmer Giles":1q935aar said:


> RogerS":1q935aar said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now all you have to do, Keith, is convince my SWMBO !
> 
> Style - none unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Performance - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Handling - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> And she is a worrier. You'd push her into an early grave if she had to fret about charging points. Which she will. If it was just me then I'd probably buy an EV. If I had the funds. Which I don't.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We don't have the faster 60kw , just the 40kw Leaf and it is no slouch and handles fine too. Leaves most ICE cars for dead away from the lights. Inside it's very plush, outside a bit bland as all Nissan's are.
Click to expand...


From BBC Top Gear's review

.....It’s all very simple and relaxing if you fall into its way of doing things - smooth and silent and serene. Try and drive it like a GTI and of course it’ll push back at you.....

...Don’t get carried away on the motorway though. Doing outside-lane speeds drives a coach and horses through your range....

...But that’s an odd style of driving. You try to avoid sudden acceleration and braking. But in bends you’re frantically conserving your speed. So there’s an unnatural combination of low longitudinal g but high lateral....

...But the steering is depressingly remote of feel and the low-resistance tyres don’t cling very gamely, and the damping can get flustered....

Enough to put me off.


----------



## Geoff_S

It is a bit like having a car that breaks down every 100 miles you drive in one go. But that’s OK, because you’ve signed up to a recovery company who’ll get to you in an hour or so.


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":1a77jgzj said:


> RogerS":1a77jgzj said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now all you have to do, Keith, is convince my SWMBO !
> 
> Style - none unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Performance - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Handling - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> And she is a worrier. You'd push her into an early grave if she had to fret about charging points. Which she will. If it was just me then I'd probably buy an EV. If I had the funds. Which I don't.
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure what your mrs considers to be style but Mercedes do an all electric crv which looks pretty good. Performance and handling are surprisingly good and as always you get what you pay for.
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3JOTiDlNUm4
> Or perhaps a kia e nero
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OrOc_sXrU
Click to expand...


For £65k I could buy a house up here !


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":31at7ok7 said:


> .....
> The electronics in a car charger are pretty sophisticated and designed to ensure the safety of the user and the grid, for example many have their own earthing point.



From articles in Windpower Engineering & Development, we learn that lightning bolts carry from 5 kA to 200 kA and voltages vary from 40 kV to 120 kV. Your 'pretty sophisticated electronics' or a lightning bolt ? Who would win ? I know who I'd put my money on.


----------



## MikeK

I would love an electric vehicle, but until I can find one that meets my current needs, I'll keep my Ford pickup.

The only Tesla I've seen up close was on the back of an ADAC roll-back at an Autobahn Tankstelle (motorway filling station). I tried talking to the driver about the car because I had never seen one, but he was in a foul mood and didn't want to talk much. He was on his way to Augsburg and thought he had enough power to make it to the charging point. He tried to squeeze the last bit of juice out of the batteries, and the car stopped about two kilometers from the exit. While he waited for the ADAC to respond, a passing Polizei saw him and stopped to see if everything was okay. He received a €70 fine for running out of fuel on the Autobahn. 

When I left him, he was number two in line for the charging station. There were lots of charging stations, but all were occupied.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

EVs will be a no brainer new purchase for most within 2-5 years. There will be exceptions - a few will be genuine but many will simply be a fear of the new.

And as ICE vehicle sales plummet so will the facilities supporting them - fuel station closures, some/many existing brands will go bust, increasing city and town centre bans etc.

Conversely the infrastructure supporting EVs will flourish - more and faster charging points, battery upgrade and reconditioning services etc. EVs also open the door to driverless technologies which I suspect is where the future is heading in cities and large towns.

But there is a personal "but". My wife has a 10 year old small Hyundai which she would like to change - probably for something similar in size but around a year old for ~£8-9k. She does less than 4000 miles a year so fuel savings will not be material. For the same cash outlay I can buy a 6 year old Nissan Leaf with 6 year old batteries and technology. A one or two year old Renault Zoe will be £14-16k.

I can't bring myself to double the spend without any real benefit! It's not urgent so will look again in a few months.


----------



## jeremyduncombe

The government sponsored rush to EVs is depressingly reminiscent of the similar rush to diesels a few years ago. Lots of enthusiasm but little knowledge - how many MPs have an education in science or technology ? Diesels were going to save the planet because they were so efficient, until we found out the emissions would kill us first. Now diesels have been demonised even though modern Diesel engines have lower real-life NO emissions than many small petrol engined cars.

Why do I feel the same way about EVs ? First, because of the enormous weight of the battery, EV’s get through tyres faster than comparable ICE vehicles. What happens when a tyre wears ? Yes, it produces toxic fine particles of rubber, so arguably an EV is as bad for your lungs as a diesel car.

Second, an electric motor may have a very long life, but the batteries have a finite life and there is currently no universal scheme for recharging them. The batteries contain toxic metals which are both in short supply and often mined in conflict areas.

And third, this ridiculous problem of recharging time. If I were still working and travelling all over the country, I would not want to stop for long periods to recharge my car.

I want to love electric cars, but I fear we are rushing in without properly considering the alternatives. Why not have a universal standard for battery packs, and design all new cars so that the batteries can be removed and replaced by robot. That would make filling up an electric car as fast, or even faster, than filling my tank with diesel. The filling stations would then bear the infrastructure costs of recycling worn out batteries and maintaining a ready supply of new ones. Or why not properly consider hydrogen fuel cells.

The problem is that this government ( like all others in recent decades ) leaves everything to market forces instead of directing the development of new technology. We have seen this with telecoms, where city dwellers enjoy ultrafast fibre broadband and are happily awaiting the rollout of 5G, while our copper cables give us a maximum of 5MB and the nearest village doesn’t even get a proper 3G signal. Meanwhile South Korea supplies 100MB fibre broadband to nearly every home in the country because they invested money and expertise in doing the job properly.

I hope EVs will be a triumphant success, but I suspect they will be enjoyed mainly by the better off while the poor have their diesel cars taken away and are forced onto buses. Fine if you live in a big city, but not out here in the countryside where the bus service is slow, intermittent and expensive.

End of diatribe. I can go and relax with a cup of tea now.


----------



## transatlantic

jeremyduncombe":2fqr8on6 said:


> The government sponsored rush to EVs is depressingly reminiscent of the similar rush to diesels a few years ago. Lots of enthusiasm but little knowledge - how many MPs have an education in science or technology ? Diesels were going to save the planet because they were so efficient, until we found out the emissions would kill us first. Now diesels have been demonised even though modern Diesel engines have lower real-life NO emissions than many small petrol engined cars.
> 
> Why do I feel the same way about EVs ? First, because of the enormous weight of the battery, EV’s get through tyres faster than comparable ICE vehicles. What happens when a tyre wears ? Yes, it produces toxic fine particles of rubber, so arguably an EV is as bad for your lungs as a diesel car.
> 
> Second, an electric motor may have a very long life, but the batteries have a finite life and there is currently no universal scheme for recharging them. The batteries contain toxic metals which are both in short supply and often mined in conflict areas.
> 
> And third, this ridiculous problem of recharging time. If I were still working and travelling all over the country, I would not want to stop for long periods to recharge my car.
> 
> I want to love electric cars, but I fear we are rushing in without properly considering the alternatives. Why not have a universal standard for battery packs, and design all new cars so that the batteries can be removed and replaced by robot. That would make filling up an electric car as fast, or even faster, than filling my tank with diesel. The filling stations would then bear the infrastructure costs of recycling worn out batteries and maintaining a ready supply of new ones. Or why not properly consider hydrogen fuel cells.
> 
> The problem is that this government ( like all others in recent decades ) leaves everything to market forces instead of directing the development of new technology. We have seen this with telecoms, where city dwellers enjoy ultrafast fibre broadband and are happily awaiting the rollout of 5G, while our copper cables give us a maximum of 5MB and the nearest village doesn’t even get a proper 3G signal. Meanwhile South Korea supplies 100MB fibre broadband to nearly every home in the country because they invested money and expertise in doing the job properly.
> 
> I hope EVs will be a triumphant success, but I suspect they will be enjoyed mainly by the better off while the poor have their diesel cars taken away and are forced onto buses. Fine if you live in a big city, but not out here in the countryside where the bus service is slow, intermittent and expensive.
> 
> End of diatribe. I can go and relax with a cup of tea now.



The problem is that it's having to be rushed (quite rightly so). We're about 30-40 years too late at solving this problem, but then 30-40 years ago, we wouldn't have had the technology (arguably, we don't now).

It's a similar issue with plastics, ...we left it too late. Although I feel as though that problem could have been easily dealt with if companies weren't allowed to do exactly what they want.


----------



## jeremyduncombe

I’m not disagreeing with you Transatlantic. We have a serious problem with vehicle emissions and their health consequences. I hope we come up with the best solutions, not just the quickest ones. In a few years it won’t matter to me, but it will matter a lot to my son and to succeeding generations.


----------



## Farmer Giles

I queued up at the only filling station in the town a couple of weeks ago, it took me best part of 10 mins to get on a pump as people were buying their weekly shop after getting fuel and left their car at the pump. Then the pump only sold that stupid "advanced" fuel that costs more. I then queued to pay, somebody was buying their scratch card pension fund and vape needs as well as shopping and fuel. Total time, including brimming the Disco tank over 90 quid worth, almost 30 mins.

Wife got home, she plugged in the Leaf and forgot about it, 2 mins total and a couple of quid.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

jeremyduncombe":1bi179x4 said:


> And third, this ridiculous problem of recharging time. If I were still working and travelling all over the country, I would not want to stop for long periods to recharge my car.



I think your average sales rep won't want an electric car, but he may get one anyway because the running costs are so much lower for the fleet manager. I once knew a guy who drove 60,000 miles a year. Truly mad, but he seemed to think it was sensible.

Everyone else who gets hung up on this panic over not being able to drive 500 miles at the drop of a hat, just because it is a Sunday afternoon, is losing perspective. How often do you do a round trip of more than an hour? If you do, will you have a stop-over of less than half an hour? If it's almost never, then get an electric car. If it is twice a day, maybe not. Allegedly the average mileage in the UK is less than 8,000 per annum, or 150 miles in a week! It's unlikely everyone doing that much mileage or less is doing it in one hectic, frenetic journey, and then not touching the car for the rest of the week, so half the driving public will, on average, not exceed the limit anyway. On the one or two long trips a year, will it hurt to have to rest for a little longer?


----------



## beech1948

I am only now considering an EV. I am not and will not be a convert as I am ultimately only interested in the practical and pragmatic. What I do know now is:-

1) Air pollution has increased since the downturn in diesel sales of 2 yrs ago as the myriad small petrol engines used by most humans create more particulate matter than diesels. A fine cock up that was.

2) An EV with a limited range of say 120 miles in summer and maybe only 80 miles in winter is a no go because I travel around 18,000 miles per year. If I was forced to sit for say 0.5 hrs queuing up for a charge point and 45 minutes charging the drop in my productivity would have my employers screaming for me to be fired.

3) Making several 100 mile jumps +charge+wait to charge X3 to travel say 250 miles would be a ridiculous use of my time and a waste of my effort as 3x1.5 hrs would be wasted charging. Yup thats 4.5hrs per day and a repeat the next day ??

4) The problem with the Greens is that they have a strange view of what is real and what is not.

5) Governments views and knowledge level is laughably poor and any rush to EVs will result in an outcome detrimental to the UK. Pretty certain that will become true.

6) The level of innovation being pursued by the EV industry is poor and quite low level.

7) Nissan have ( I'm told) a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle with a range of 320 miles. That seems like it could be worth pursuing but the EV people will decry it even when they can't emulate the fuel cells range.

I expect at some time to be forced into an EV. Probably a politically correct thing to do by the passive aggressive authorities and damn the impracticality. When faced with a 50% drop in my productivity ( read sales ability) the government will be faced with irate businesses clamoring for action.

I will accept an EV when the daily range is in the 400+ miles per day. Until then it is a triumph of hope over reason.


----------



## AJB Temple

I will add some practical experience here. My business partner persuaded me when we replaced our cars that the Tesla Model X was a better choice than a hybrid BMW X5 or Volvo 90. The Range Rover hybrid was not launched then. We bought two, about 18 months ago. They are excellent. 

For us, as early adopters, it is practically free motoring. We have lifetime use of Tesla superchargers for free. The running costs are incredibly cheap - I also have an Audi Q7 diesel, over 10 years old now - and that is £100 quid to fill and has a range of 500 miles and servicing is not cheap. The Tesla servicing costs are practically zero (electric motors - hardly anything needs touching) and as we both mainly charge up on the Tesla superchargers at Bluewater, the fuel cost is trivial. 

No1 offspring is at uni in Delft (Netherlands) - which is a fair trek. I can do that trip with one supercharger stop (free) at a hotel on the motorway near Antwerp, recharge at Delft (free) and same coming home. It takes me 30 mins to charge at a supercharger. I just grab a coffee and relax. 

Electric cars have full on performance in linear fashion from the off. I had a BMW M4 previously (very quick car) and the Model X is easily as quick as that in acceleration. Doesn't handle anywhere near as well, but it's a big SUV. 

High speed driving kills the range, but if I drive fully legally with 100% charge the range is close to 300 miles (It claims 330). The car plans your route via chargers if needed. 

Recent tests have shown that treated properly, batteries will retain 98% efficiency after 8 years. 

I bought the Teslas because she persuaded me. She was right.


----------



## powertools

Given that we know from experience that a modern petrol engine up to about 1500cc running on modern fuel and lubricant with minimal maintenance is good for about 200.000 miles do we have any reliable information on how long the motor in an ev will last?


----------



## Rorschach

How much did your lifetime of free motoring cost to buy? I am seeing the current price is over £86k. Not exactly in the remit for the average person is it? :roll:


----------



## Woody2Shoes

RogerS":2xqgbvf3 said:


> Woody2Shoes":2xqgbvf3 said:
> 
> 
> 
> .....
> The electronics in a car charger are pretty sophisticated and designed to ensure the safety of the user and the grid, for example many have their own earthing point.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From articles in Windpower Engineering & Development, we learn that lightning bolts carry from 5 kA to 200 kA and voltages vary from 40 kV to 120 kV. Your 'pretty sophisticated electronics' or a lightning bolt ? Who would win ? I know who I'd put my money on.
Click to expand...


At least one of us is a member of what used to be known as the Institute of Electrical Engineers. I know which one I'd put my money on...


----------



## Trevanion

This is turning into a very interesting discussion.

What recently totally changed my perception of 'leccy cars from "Pah, they'll never be as good as dino fuel burners in any way" to "Now you have my attention" was the Tesla Model S (supped-up mind!), doing 0 - 60 in under three seconds. Of course, it would be absolutely ludicrous on UK roads to be going from a standstill to that speed in such a short space of time but it made me realise that they're actually getting somewhere with the tech now, plus the fact you'll get 300 miles out of it.

The Porsche Taycan on Top Gear the other night was quite something too.

It's definitely going to be something to consider in the near future for myself I think since I rarely leave a twenty-mile radius of home :lol:.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Rorschach":3ak2tnhl said:


> Woody2Shoes":3ak2tnhl said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lets say your ev has a 200 mile range, then it would take you 3 to 4 hours to use that. Do you not stop for a cup of tea (and/or a pee!) after than sort of period?
> EVs are not perfect but they are already a no-brainer for a lot of people and are getting significantly better over time.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah ok lets say I could squeeze the full 200 miles out of it. At motorway speed that is just under 3 hours. When travelling I tend to stop for a pee every 1.5-2 hours. I might also have a sandwich etc. I sip water while driving as needed. My stops are around 10 minutes or so. In that 3 hours I might have spent 20 minutes on breaks maximum. It's still a good bit less than an enforced 1 hour minimum stop, assuming there is a charge point free for me to use right away.
> 
> A previous poster has already said you can't drain the battery fully if you want to get good life out of it. Going by those numbers of 80%-30%, So for best performance I might only get 100 miles for each 30 minute charge cycle. That means every 1.5 hours I have to stop for 30 minutes, so about the same time loss as our above calculation but now it means I need to find a free charging point every 100 miles of my journey and spend 1/3rd of time sat around waiting for the car to charge.
> 
> Not very practical at the moment is it?
Click to expand...


I think it's about thinking differently. Here's one person's experience https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0aU22rqtXc


----------



## Woodchips2

I'm glad I started this off because I've learned an awful lot about electric vehicles (albeit from a very low base  ) so appreciate all the contributions thanks.

I've got an additional requirement for a wheelchair accessible vehicle for my wife who is disabled. Nissan do a nice vehicle but that starts at £35k which is beyond my budget. Five years ago I bought an ex-Motability Citroen Berlingo with a diesel engine. Very low mileage but it cost me around £500 every year to get it through the MOT and on the last one the main dealer failed to satisfy the emissions test and they couldn't tell me why after 10 hours of tests (they were so embarrassed they only charged me for half-an-hour). I had to flog it off to We-Buy-Any- Car and now have a Renault Kangoo petrol wheelchair conversion. It puts out more emissions, costs more to tax and insure, has less power and uses a lot more fuel but I no longer drive a 'Dirty' diesel. Result I think not.

Love reading the different views so keep them coming and I think I am less negative about the future.

Regards Keith


----------



## Rorschach

Woodchips2":2jeg44ih said:


> Love reading the different views so keep them coming and I think I am less negative about the future.



No need to worry about the future, things are always changing and solutions will be found to all the problems we have listed here. 

For the moment though EV's are only suitable for certain people, there is still a long way to go before they will be as versatile as a ICE but the time will come. The transition from almost universal reliance on horses to a near complete change to ICE took barely more than 10 years. We will ge there but I almost guarantee that the current EV format will not be the eventual outcome.


----------



## Bodgers

AJB Temple":2hpuulz4 said:


> For us, as early adopters, it is practically free motoring.


Well, you had to buy a 70 grand Tesla to get to that point though...  it ain’t free.

I’ve ordered a Hyundai Ioniq Electric. Ordered December, delivery May. That’s the problem with a lot of new EVs, long waits...


----------



## Student

FWIW, as is the case with others on this forum, the current proposals for phasing out ICE cars won’t affect me. However, my personal take on the subject is that, for years I have had a diesel cars because I was originally under the impression that they were more eco- friendly due to their better mpg. I have a daughter who lives in France and a large part of my mileage used to be, and still is, going to visit her, a round trip of over 1,000 miles plus the mileage travelled whilst there. For years a diesel car made economic sense since, in France, the price of diesel was 2/3rds of the price of petrol and the £/euro exchange rate was very favourable plus we could get over 55 mpg on the motorways. Then, all of a sudden, diesels are bad news and, as part of his drive for climate change, M. Macron has increased the tax on diesel and it’s now more expensive than petrol plus the exchange rate is a lot worse.

As for EVs. It’s a 200 mile plus motorway trip from Bristol to Dover and another 375 miles, mostly on the autoroute, to our daughter’s place. With a fully laden car, I make that at least 2 stops between here and Dover and probably 4 the other side of the Channel. Battery technology will have to come on a long way for EVs to make sense for this type of journey. And no, we can’t take the train as it would take over a day and there’s no way we could get all my tools, our luggage and all the food (Baked beans, Marmite, peanut butter etc. for the ex-pats) on the train. Since I retired, I estimate that I drive about 8,000 miles a year. Over half of this is travelling to France, 25% is for journeys of over 150 miles and less than 2,000 is EV car territory; we tend to use the bus or walk for many of our local trips. So, for me, I can’t see that EVs will ever make economic sense.

On the subject of current battery technology, I appreciate that this will improve in time but what sort of range will EVs have in Scotland, and in the countryside in general, in the middle of winter when it’s cold and dark for most of the day with lights, wipers, heater etc. all going flat out?

As it happens, I’ve recently been roped into a Climate Action group locally and we had a very interesting presentation by the local bus company. The presentation compared the emissions of their old diesel powered buses, their newer diesel buses, their bio-methane powered buses and electric buses. It turned out that bio-methane was the best bet as, although they are more expensive to buy, they have very low emissions as well as being cheap to fuel and so are cheaper to run over the working lifetime of the bus. Electric buses on the other hand cost over £600,000, don’t cope with too many hills and need new battery packs every 6 or 7 years at a cost of £70,000 so are currently not economically viable.


----------



## RogerS

AJB Temple":pa719rfb said:


> I....We bought two, about 18 months ago. They are excellent.
> 
> For us, as early adopters, it is practically free motoring. .....



I should bloody well hope so at nearly £90k a pop. Meanwhile us lesser mortals paying for our own cars. I'm very happy with my Audi Q3 quattro.....do they make 4wd EV's ? and for fun the Honda S2000. I never have to plan my journeys around the availability of charging points There will be a garage just down the road. And guess what...the nozzle in all of them is exactly the same..


----------



## Jonzjob

The complete argument on zero carbon emmisions is the biggest load of 'merde' this side of creation. All everyone will do is move it to a different place. Energy is indestructable and all that is ever done is to change it from one kind to another.

Steel is dirty, batteries are thw same and plastics, so how are they clean? How to make hydrogen gas? Use lots of electricity I believe?


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":2uzx5nbc said:


> RogerS":2uzx5nbc said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Woody2Shoes":2uzx5nbc said:
> 
> 
> 
> .....
> The electronics in a car charger are pretty sophisticated and designed to ensure the safety of the user and the grid, for example many have their own earthing point.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From articles in Windpower Engineering & Development, we learn that lightning bolts carry from 5 kA to 200 kA and voltages vary from 40 kV to 120 kV. Your 'pretty sophisticated electronics' or a lightning bolt ? Who would win ? I know who I'd put my money on.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> At least one of us is a member of what used to be known as the Institute of Electrical Engineers. I know which one I'd put my money on...
Click to expand...

We are agreed then. Lightning wins hands down.


----------



## John Brown

Jonzjob":1ezdqkia said:


> The complete argument on zero carbon emmisions is the biggest load of 'merde' this side of creation. All everyone will do is move it to a different place. Energy is indestructable and all that is ever done is to change it from one kind to another.
> 
> Steel is dirty, batteries are thw same and plastics, so how are they clean? How to make hydrogen gas? Use lots of electricity I believe?


Right as you are about the conservation of energy, that's got little to do with carbon emissions.
As I understand things...

P.S. That creation thing is questionable as well.


----------



## RogerS

Jonzjob":22figaqe said:


> ... How to make hydrogen gas? Use lots of electricity I believe?


Not in the future..check out bio-hydrogen. https://www.technologynetworks.com/immu ... gen-324819


----------



## Droogs

Just released & an interesting watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qoHCMy-laA


----------



## jeremyduncombe

Having previously stated my reservations about EVs, there is one big point in their favour which I don’t think anyone has mentioned ( apologies if I missed a previous post on this ).
I live out in the countryside. Every time I go into our small but traffic choked local town, I am appalled by the stink of diesel fumes all day long. EVs will cure this problem and bring great benefits for public health. Electricity generation will still create pollution until it is based wholly on renewables, but at least modern power stations are not usually sited in urban population centres.
I don’t know why the government is so strongly against hybrid cars, they may be only a temporary solution but they seem to make a lot of sense. Charge it up at home and whizz into town on electric power, keeping the high streets free of exhaust pollution. Longer journeys outside towns would be done on petrol or diesel, with no range anxiety and quick refuelling almost anywhere.
There must be a catch. What am I missing ?


----------



## Jonzjob

I read an article on EV company cars a little while back. The companies were getting big discount prices because they were getting EVs and then the people driving them were using them purely on the fossile fuel and the attitude was that why should they pay for charging them when the petrol/deisel was paid for by the company. So they were being run totally on the fossile fuels.

As they have the extra weight of the motors and batteries they are not as efficient as a purely infernal cobustion vehicle. Double whammy me-thinks?

I believe that the discounts have now been stopped.


----------



## John Brown

Jonzjob":1tm8m49v said:


> I read an article on EV company cars a little while back. The companies were getting big discount prices because they were getting EVs and then the people driving them were using them purely on the fossile fuel and the attitude was that why should they pay for charging them when the petrol/deisel was paid for by the company. So they were being run totally on the fossile fuels.
> 
> As they have the extra weight of the motors and batteries they are not as efficient as a purely infernal cobustion vehicle. Double whammy me-thinks?
> 
> I believe that the discounts have now been stopped.


Surely they must have been plug-in hybrids of some sort, rather than just EVs, in which case, if my wife's non-plug-in hybrid Toyota is anything to go by, they are fairly efficient, round town at any rate, due to the regenerative braking.


----------



## Just4Fun

John Brown":26g67uqy said:


> Surely they must have been plug-in hybrids of some sort, rather than just EVs, in which case, if my wife's non-plug-in hybrid Toyota is anything to go by, they are fairly efficient, round town at any rate, due to the regenerative braking.


Plug-in hybrid cars emit three times more CO2 in ‘real world’ driving


----------



## Nigel Burden

RogerS":a3a3e7h6 said:


> Woody2Shoes":a3a3e7h6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RogerS":a3a3e7h6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now all you have to do, Keith, is convince my SWMBO !
> 
> Style - none unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Performance - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> Handling - poor unless it's a Tesla
> 
> And she is a worrier. You'd push her into an early grave if she had to fret about charging points. Which she will. If it was just me then I'd probably buy an EV. If I had the funds. Which I don't.
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure what your mrs considers to be style but Mercedes do an all electric crv which looks pretty good. Performance and handling are surprisingly good and as always you get what you pay for.
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3JOTiDlNUm4
> Or perhaps a kia e nero
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OrOc_sXrU
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> For £65k I could buy a house up here !
Click to expand...


:shock: 

You might just buy a small plot down here for that.

Nigel.


----------



## John Brown

" if my wife's>> non-plug-in<< hybrid"


----------



## Nigel Burden

Woodchips2":1pnbtvou said:


> I'm glad I started this off because I've learned an awful lot about electric vehicles (albeit from a very low base  ) so appreciate all the contributions thanks.
> 
> I've got an additional requirement for a wheelchair accessible vehicle for my wife who is disabled. Nissan do a nice vehicle but that starts at £35k which is beyond my budget. Five years ago I bought an ex-Motability Citroen Berlingo with a diesel engine. Very low mileage but it cost me around £500 every year to get it through the MOT and on the last one the main dealer failed to satisfy the emissions test and they couldn't tell me why after 10 hours of tests (they were so embarrassed they only charged me for half-an-hour). I had to flog it off to We-Buy-Any- Car and now have a Renault Kangoo petrol wheelchair conversion. It puts out more emissions, costs more to tax and insure, has less power and uses a lot more fuel but I no longer drive a 'Dirty' diesel. Result I think not.
> 
> Love reading the different views so keep them coming and I think I am less negative about the future.
> 
> Regards Keith



A lot of the problem with diesel cars is that too many drivers drive them too gently, change up too soon to keep the revs low. This soots up the DPF which will affect emissions. This was a problem that a lot of drivers who just used their cars for short shopping trips experienced. It' not so much of a problem if you do longer journeys. I've never had a problem, but I tend to drive in lower gears keeping the revs up much to my wives annoyance, as my mpg tends to be less than hers.

Another problem if you drive too gently is the dual mass flywheel. My friend is very eco minded, tending to pull away using very little throttle. He had a clutch replaced on his Peugeot 407 about four years ago which cost him £1300. He was told that he basically drives too gently.

Nigel.


----------



## Bodgers

Just4Fun":cea7ldxv said:


> John Brown":cea7ldxv said:
> 
> 
> 
> Surely they must have been plug-in hybrids of some sort, rather than just EVs, in which case, if my wife's non-plug-in hybrid Toyota is anything to go by, they are fairly efficient, round town at any rate, due to the regenerative braking.
> 
> 
> 
> Plug-in hybrid cars emit three times more CO2 in ‘real world’ driving
Click to expand...

No doubt. But we are talking EVs here. Not hybrids.


----------



## Bodgers

Jonzjob":2xj3liwm said:


> I read an article on EV company cars a little while back. The companies were getting big discount prices because they were getting EVs and then the people driving them were using them purely on the fossile fuel and the attitude was that why should they pay for charging them when the petrol/deisel was paid for by the company. So they were being run totally on the fossile fuels.
> 
> As they have the extra weight of the motors and batteries they are not as efficient as a purely infernal cobustion vehicle. Double whammy me-thinks?
> 
> I believe that the discounts have now been stopped.


Not EVs.

Plugin hybrids with petrol engines that were never plugged in.

Those aren't EVs.


----------



## Jonzjob

It was the 'plug in' machines. That was why the drivers didn't use their own non refundable electricity. I think that I would have done the same. Why should the employee pay for company miles?


----------



## Bodgers

Jonzjob":var820ep said:


> The complete argument on zero carbon emmisions is the biggest load of 'merde' this side of creation. All everyone will do is move it to a different place. Energy is indestructable and all that is ever done is to change it from one kind to another.
> 
> Steel is dirty, batteries are thw same and plastics, so how are they clean? How to make hydrogen gas? Use lots of electricity I believe?



I think there are places where you don't want the result of moving that energy to be.

Excess CO2 released into the atmosphere in such large quantities to bring in the green house effect, for example.

If nobody wants to do anything about the current problem, you can descend into a list of "whataboutisms" for a long time...


----------



## cookiemonster

Flipping from fossil fuels to electricity will deprive the government of lots and lots of fuel duty, which they will need to make good by raising other income. My bet is that within the next couple of decades all private vehicles will be tracked and their owners will be obliged to pay a road infrastructure surcharge per mile driven.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

cookiemonster":39otvmat said:


> Flipping from fossil fuels to electricity will deprive the government of lots and lots of fuel duty, which they will need to make good by raising other income. My bet is that within the next couple of decades all private vehicles will be tracked and their owners will be obliged to pay a road infrastructure surcharge per mile driven.



Or just tax the electricity.  Why else is it so much cheaper than oil? The electricity is, for the most part, generated by fossil fuels anyway. Solar panel ownership may be considered tax evasion. Any attempt to go fully carbon-free for energy is going to cost a packet, to be paid for by lower living standard for everyone. Greta assures me it is for a worthy cause.


----------



## AJB Temple

I dip in and out of this as quite busy, but a couple of people have asked how much it cost to but the Tesla and made some negative remarks. I agree that what I bought is not viable for the typical car buyer - but that was not the point. I went fully loaded with all the self drive etc and it was £110k before tax benefits. But...the alternative was I would probably have bought another Range Rover and that would have been more. In my case I was interested in the technology and I thought I've got one life to live and I may as well do it. The gull wing doors looked cool as well. (In real life they are a pain). 

You don't have to buy the most expensive EV. The Tesla model 3 is much cheaper. 

My attitude to SUVs is I bought a nearly new Q7 over 10 years ago and I have still got it and it is used daily. It is likely that we will both keep the Tesla's for at least 10 years as well. 

The Tesla supercharger network is really good, especially in mainland Europe. I wish people would stop buying them as at the moment there is never a queue to charge. 

I did previously look at hybrids. That included the BMW i8 and i3 a few years ago. Hybrids are a waste of time in my opinion. The electric range in any of the SUV type cars is typically about 30 miles. The reality is that hybrids are petrol cars with a nod to being eco. And usually the petrol engine is way too small to suit the car. 

I also realise that clean electricity production is not there yet. However, at least with an EV we are not importing pollution into the most densely populated areas.


----------



## LarryS.

Just to give a perspective of a non eco warrior who is very new to EVs.....

We’ve had our Nissan Leaf for just over a month. Our typical week is around 200 miles in and out of town for kids clubs / work, so far we’ve only had to charge the car once a week for that.

Every other week I have two commutes to an office 160miles away, when I get here I plug into one of the chargers at our office and it’s full battery again for my return home. There are chargers at the Morrisons supermarket down the road as backup if works chargers are full (I just combine lunch and a charge)

We went on a 300 mile round trip and stopped at a services for a charge and for a bit of food / distraction time for the kids.

Estimating we’re saving about £200 a month in “fuel” costs.

Last car was a Mark 6 Golf GTI which was 210bhp I think, I’m not sure what this leaf is but it is faster than the golf ever was.

We charge it up overnight on an economy seven type tariff.

I recognise EVs have limitations, but none of them are insurmountable for a lot of people. I also have to admit that every time I drive past our Tesco petrol station and see the queues of people about to shell out £60 for a full tank and a hand smelling of diesel, I do have a small smug smile to myself !





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


----------



## AJB Temple

PS. Anyone thinking of buying an EV, don't spend a dime on self drive technology as an extra. Mine has this but it is years away from being A to B automatic navigation. The lane change software basically is unusable currently, so auto drive is entirely limited by the speed of the vehicle in front. Also auto braking etc is poorly developed at present.

I agree with Paul above too. Compared with what we were spending on fuel (petrol and diesel) for quite powerful conventional cars, we are saving at least £400 a month in fuel costs and about £100 a month in London congestion charge levies. I also make savings of about £40 month in parking due to special EV schemes, and we got a grant to install a fast charger at home. Servicing costs are almost nil. Sadly tyres are not free.


----------



## Rorschach

It does make me laugh that the "savings" most people are making here are higher than my total running costs it seems. :roll: :lol:


----------



## jeremyduncombe

AJB Temple":1zm7uehr said:


> a couple of people have asked how much it cost to but the Tesla and made some negative remarks. I agree that what I bought is not viable for the typical car buyer - but that was not the point.



I am not sure what your point is then. You have simply proved that a wealthy ( by most people’s standards ) person who is used to driving expensive and inefficient cars can save money on fuel by going electric. The savings on fuel costs will never cover the cost of the car, and the energy costs of manufacturing your Tesla probably far outweigh any energy savings on the road.
This is not a personal attack. I am a firm believer in the right to make money and spend it however you want. I used to love driving big fast cars and I didn’t care about fuel consumption. I switched to driving cheaper, more economical cars because of a dawning realisation that the environment really is in a bit of a mess, but I believe in persuasion rather than coercion.
You claim to save £400 a month in fuel costs by driving the Tesla. I cover about 15,000 miles a year, half in a diesel estate and half in my camper van. My total fuel costs average £180 per month, and I live in an expensive area. It would take longer than the expected life of the batteries to save this much money by going electric, unless the government provides much bigger incentives to cover the inflated purchase price.


----------



## Bodgers

I'm all fairness not all EVs cost 100k plus.

The financial case for buying a new car is pretty poor regardless.

If you are buying new, an EV is worth considering.

An MG ZS EV can be had for under £25k after grants and incentives, for example.

For me, I am leasing for £250 a month. Diesel cost for me a month is about £130. Because insurance and maintenance are included in the deal it makes a lot of sense. I am also buying because I think an EV is a better car generally - it is quieter, smoother, you can pre-heat and cool it etc. 

If all you ever do is buy a used £1k car every few years and put tiny amounts of fuel in, it never will add up. You'll have to wait until 10-15 year old EVs turn up.


----------



## AJB Temple

Jeremy, I am not really trying to make a point as such. There was a request for experience of EVs so I gave mine. I didn't buy it to save money - I bought it as an alternative to a Range Rover, which is what we would have got otherwise. I was interested in experiencing the technology and my best friend and business parter is a very persuasive woman so we took the plunge. 

The reason why fuel savings are so high for us is we live in the UK and also Germany (German wife). So we frequently trek to Koln and also to Delft. This is quite a long way (around 370 miles each way) and previously was usually in an Audi Q7 as we use it to shift a lot of stuff. The Q7 is a 4.2 diesel V8 and has a huge range but is expensive to fill. The Tesla is actually free in terms of fuel costs for these trips - but does take a bit longer, despite the superior acceleration. This is because I only want to do one charge stop on the journey and realistically the motorway range on the Model X is maximum 270 miles at sensible speeds. The Q7 will do door to door on one tank. (In fact it will do London to Mannerdorf, the other side of Zurich on one tank). 

I'm not an EV evangelist by any means. I can reel off criticisms if needed, but I do think that Tesla have pretty much got it right. It is interesting to see the tech evolve. Every couple of weeks there is a software update which improves certain aspects (and occasionally is rather stupid). This is pretty much remote servicing, which I suspect is the future.


----------



## RogerS

AJB Temple":3qtdopfb said:


> .... This is pretty much remote servicing, which I suspect is the future.



Mmm..sounds to me like an open door challenge for a hacker :wink:


----------



## jeremyduncombe

AJB Temple, sorry I wasn’t getting at you, I thought you actually were trying to make a point. It has been interesting to see the variety of views in this thread. I will be happy to see EVs eventually replace internal combustion, but I suspect it will be a longer and more difficult process than the politicians seem to think.


----------



## jeremyduncombe

Just out of interest, how do EVs compare with conventional cars for insurance costs ?


----------



## Geoff_S

jeremyduncombe":23ommpaw said:


> Just out of interest, how do EVs compare with conventional cars for insurance costs ?



I’ve just paid £208 fully comprehensive, full no claims, no accidents, no points, SW London for an e Golf if that helps. Oh, and I’m quite old


----------



## MusicMan

Comparable. I used to use a broker, who found insurance for my 18 year old Mercedes 200E for £950, but could not do better then £1050 for the new Nissan Leaf. However he did not have access to online quotes. I ended up paying LV about £525 for a year, with three named drivers, Midlands, no points and a 9 year NCD. Two of the drivers are around 80. It was maybe £30 more expensive for being a leased vehicle. I believe the somewhat higher cost is offset by the cheaper maintenance costs.


----------



## Rorschach

Geoff_S":23u8mxqg said:


> jeremyduncombe":23u8mxqg said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just out of interest, how do EVs compare with conventional cars for insurance costs ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I’ve just paid £208 fully comprehensive, full no claims, no accidents, no points, SW London for an e Golf if that helps. Oh, and I’m quite old
Click to expand...


Are you able to get a quote for an ICE Golf for comparison, otherwise that doesn't help much.

My mother just paid £103 for her insurance on an ICE but that doesn't help much either.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

jeremyduncombe":ltomqm05 said:


> AJB Temple, sorry I wasn’t getting at you, I thought you actually were trying to make a point. It has been interesting to see the variety of views in this thread. I will be happy to see EVs eventually replace internal combustion, but I suspect it will be a longer and more difficult process than the politicians seem to think.



My thinking regarding electric vehicles is simple: I can make electricity myself, but I can't make fuel oil (actually I can - it even grows in trees, but running the truck on olive oil would be fairly profligate, and has its own issues). The idea of being fuel independent is really interesting/exciting/important. I just need the right vehicle, at the right price. Perhaps a tiny runaround shopping trolley style electric car, and keep the truck for the days I cut down trees etc. Still working out the wrinkles.


----------



## Geoff_S

Rorschach":1m73u0wj said:


> Geoff_S":1m73u0wj said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jeremyduncombe":1m73u0wj said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just out of interest, how do EVs compare with conventional cars for insurance costs ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I’ve just paid £208 fully comprehensive, full no claims, no accidents, no points, SW London for an e Golf if that helps. Oh, and I’m quite old
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Are you able to get a quote for an ICE Golf for comparison, otherwise that doesn't help much.
> 
> My mother just paid £103 for her insurance on an ICE but that doesn't help much either.
Click to expand...


Sure, I just got £255 for a 1.5 petrol Golf for comparison. Interesting exercise!


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":3l5pm5dg said:


> AJB Temple":3l5pm5dg said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... This is pretty much remote servicing, which I suspect is the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mmm..sounds to me like an open door challenge for a hacker :wink:
Click to expand...

ICE cars are also not immune.

Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk


----------



## Rorschach

Geoff_S":2vjq7kzi said:


> Sure, I just got £255 for a 1.5 petrol Golf for comparison. Interesting exercise!



Very interesting!

I wonder how those numbers change across a broader spectrum of people. I wonder if EV's are more expensive then ICE for some people?
Oh and were both cars automatic? I know that makes a bit of a difference.


----------



## Geoff_S

Both automatic, yes


----------



## Nigel Burden

AJB Temple":2foby2qh said:


> Jeremy, I am not really trying to make a point as such. There was a request for experience of EVs so I gave mine. I didn't buy it to save money - I bought it as an alternative to a Range Rover, which is what we would have got otherwise. I was interested in experiencing the technology and my best friend and business parter is a very persuasive woman so we took the plunge.
> 
> The reason why fuel savings are so high for us is we live in the UK and also Germany (German wife). So we frequently trek to Koln and also to Delft. This is quite a long way (around 370 miles each way) and previously was usually in an Audi Q7 as we use it to shift a lot of stuff. The Q7 is a 4.2 diesel V8 and has a huge range but is expensive to fill. The Tesla is actually free in terms of fuel costs for these trips - but does take a bit longer, despite the superior acceleration. This is because I only want to do one charge stop on the journey and realistically the motorway range on the Model X is maximum 270 miles at sensible speeds. The Q7 will do door to door on one tank. (In fact it will do London to Mannerdorf, the other side of Zurich on one tank).
> 
> I'm not an EV evangelist by any means. I can reel off criticisms if needed, but I do think that Tesla have pretty much got it right. It is interesting to see the tech evolve. Every couple of weeks there is a software update which improves certain aspects (and occasionally is rather stupid). This is pretty much remote servicing, which I suspect is the future.



How would the vehicle cope in the event of adverse weather? eg. sub zero temperatures with freezing fog where most of the vehicles ancillaries would be required. Surely these situations, although rare will impact on driving range considerably.

Nigel.


----------



## Bodgers

Nigel Burden":3i7ei85i said:


> AJB Temple":3i7ei85i said:
> 
> 
> 
> Jeremy, I am not really trying to make a point as such. There was a request for experience of EVs so I gave mine. I didn't buy it to save money - I bought it as an alternative to a Range Rover, which is what we would have got otherwise. I was interested in experiencing the technology and my best friend and business parter is a very persuasive woman so we took the plunge.
> 
> The reason why fuel savings are so high for us is we live in the UK and also Germany (German wife). So we frequently trek to Koln and also to Delft. This is quite a long way (around 370 miles each way) and previously was usually in an Audi Q7 as we use it to shift a lot of stuff. The Q7 is a 4.2 diesel V8 and has a huge range but is expensive to fill. The Tesla is actually free in terms of fuel costs for these trips - but does take a bit longer, despite the superior acceleration. This is because I only want to do one charge stop on the journey and realistically the motorway range on the Model X is maximum 270 miles at sensible speeds. The Q7 will do door to door on one tank. (In fact it will do London to Mannerdorf, the other side of Zurich on one tank).
> 
> I'm not an EV evangelist by any means. I can reel off criticisms if needed, but I do think that Tesla have pretty much got it right. It is interesting to see the tech evolve. Every couple of weeks there is a software update which improves certain aspects (and occasionally is rather stupid). This is pretty much remote servicing, which I suspect is the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How would the vehicle cope in the event of adverse weather? eg. sub zero temperatures with freezing fog where most of the vehicles ancillaries would be required. Surely these situations, although rare will impact on driving range considerably.
> 
> Nigel.
Click to expand...

Of course. An ICE car also uses more energy in winter too...

If you want numbers the Nissan UK site has a table of ranges you can expect at different temperatures/conditions for the leaf.

Batteries are also heated and cooled by a management system.


----------



## Woodchips2

Nigel Burden":o30m0cum said:


> Woodchips2":o30m0cum said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm glad I started this off because I've learned an awful lot about electric vehicles (albeit from a very low base  ) so appreciate all the contributions thanks.
> 
> I've got an additional requirement for a wheelchair accessible vehicle for my wife who is disabled. Nissan do a nice vehicle but that starts at £35k which is beyond my budget. Five years ago I bought an ex-Motability Citroen Berlingo with a diesel engine. Very low mileage but it cost me around £500 every year to get it through the MOT and on the last one the main dealer failed to satisfy the emissions test and they couldn't tell me why after 10 hours of tests (they were so embarrassed they only charged me for half-an-hour). I had to flog it off to We-Buy-Any- Car and now have a Renault Kangoo petrol wheelchair conversion. It puts out more emissions, costs more to tax and insure, has less power and uses a lot more fuel but I no longer drive a 'Dirty' diesel. Result I think not.
> 
> Love reading the different views so keep them coming and I think I am less negative about the future.
> 
> Regards Keith
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A lot of the problem with diesel cars is that too many drivers drive them too gently, change up too soon to keep the revs low. This soots up the DPF which will affect emissions. This was a problem that a lot of drivers who just used their cars for short shopping trips experienced. It' not so much of a problem if you do longer journeys. I've never had a problem, but I tend to drive in lower gears keeping the revs up much to my wives annoyance, as my mpg tends to be less than hers.
> 
> Another problem if you drive too gently is the dual mass flywheel. My friend is very eco minded, tending to pull away using very little throttle. He had a clutch replaced on his Peugeot 407 about four years ago which cost him £1300. He was told that he basically drives too gently.
> 
> Nigel.
Click to expand...

You've got it in one, I bought the wrong car. A lot of our mileage is local trips of less than 3 miles so when the sooting up first started the main Citroen dealer said thrash it on the motorway once a week for 20 minutes in 3rd gear which I did but thought "this is the tail wagging the dog" and not my style of driving.

The more I read of the contributions on this thread I think electric vehicles were maybe invented for me (hammer) .

Regards Keith


----------



## AJB Temple

Nigel and others. Re cold. Interesting question. 

I keep my car garaged. Very cold weather (sub zero in Germany at times) has almost no impact on range. 

My partner keeps hers on her drive. Very cold weather reduces range by about 20%. Enough to be annoying.


----------



## RogerS

Bodgers":2kpn96pm said:


> RogerS":2kpn96pm said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AJB Temple":2kpn96pm said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... This is pretty much remote servicing, which I suspect is the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mmm..sounds to me like an open door challenge for a hacker :wink:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> ICE cars are also not immune.
> 
> Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


Totally agree.


----------



## RogerS

Trainee neophyte":2p10j19d said:


> .... Perhaps a tiny runaround shopping trolley style electric car, and keep the truck for the days I cut down trees etc. Still working out the wrinkles.



Sorry, TN, but Doctor Bob is way ahead of you on this thinking







:lol:


----------



## MusicMan

I'd love to get a Microlino when it comes out next year!

https://electrek.co/2018/09/14/microlin ... preorders/


----------



## Trainee neophyte

MusicMan":lj3f8ml2 said:


> I'd love to get a Microlino when it comes out next year!
> 
> https://electrek.co/2018/09/14/microlin ... preorders/



Reckon I could strap a 4m paddleboard to that? If so, it would be perfect.


----------



## Just4Fun

Bodgers":1i7gvwtj said:


> An ICE car also uses more energy in winter too...


In theory yes, but ...
I keep a fairly close eye on fuel consumption and I am always trying to drive more economically to beat my previous figures. (OK, sad hobby). Our winters are usually significantly colder that in the UK; getting down below -30C is not exactly rare. I also have studded tyres in winter, and have to push through snow. Heaters, demisters, heated seats etc are on almost permanently for months on end. Intuitively I would expect all this to have a significant impact on fuel economy but in practise I cannot measure any difference.


----------



## Rorschach

Just4Fun":3kv8xgzw said:


> Bodgers":3kv8xgzw said:
> 
> 
> 
> An ICE car also uses more energy in winter too...
> 
> 
> 
> In theory yes, but ...
> I keep a fairly close eye on fuel consumption and I am always trying to drive more economically to beat my previous figures. (OK, sad hobby). Our winters are usually significantly colder that in the UK; getting down below -30C is not exactly rare. I also have studded tyres in winter, and have to push through snow. Heaters, demisters, heated seats etc are on almost permanently for months on end. Intuitively I would expect all this to have a significant impact on fuel economy but in practise I cannot measure any difference.
Click to expand...


What kind of driving do you do, long or short trips normally?

From what I can gather the batteries need cooling once they have been running for a little while. So for short trips in cold weather the range is reduced because the battery never gets up to temp to be fully efficient. For longer trips in the cold the battery warms itself and the excess heat is used to warm the car so it can be very efficient overall. In hot weather on longer trips the AC system has to cool the battery so range is reduced but short trips are more efficient.


----------



## AJB Temple

Rorsach - this depends on the technology the manufacturers use. Some EVs can be programmed to pre warm the battery (and the car) at a given time (pre commute for example). If the car is tethered to its charging station this makes sense. One other advantage of an EV is that the "tank" can always be full every day if you wish.


----------



## Tris

A couple of questions for those who already have EVs, do you own or lease your batteries, roughly what is the cost, and how long a life do you get/expect from them?
I would love to replace our second car with something like a Leaf, but it'll be a while before that happens.


----------



## AJB Temple

In my case we own the cars and the batteries. We have a warranty scheme on the batteries, but in any case industry research is that as long as they are not abused they can stay at 98% capacity for 8 years. Not sure that tests have gone beyond that yet.


----------



## Sideways

We as a species have a problem and need to address it.
Our governments need to push alternative energy and transport. Hard.

While I was of working age I didn't have enough time to read and make myself properly aware of some of our climate issues - details, not headlines - nor to really think about what I could do about it. If I had, I'd have had to find a whole new line of work as it involved massive amounts of travelling. People like I was a few years ago are part of the problem, We're not going to welcome change that disrupts our work and lifestyle, however much wider society may actually be clamoring for change.

Now I'm retired, I'm educating myself about stuff that most of our kids have already been taught. I can so I have to change my lifestyle to try and reduce the damage that we do day to day (I love a steak but the environmental impact of cows is dreadful...).

I'm running a small car into the ground and the next one will be battery electric. I have roof space so I'll add solar to help power it. If only someone would get on and make something affordable, I'd love an electric motorbike or scooter like I used to ride in China (just, please, not with lead acid batteries).
We have to be willing to change our lifestyles. Reschedule our local travel where we can, use more public transport for long journeys, run the washing machine when the sun's out or it's windy. 

And as was pointed out in a video linked from an earlier thread around this subject, once we reach a tipping point, disruptive technologies seem to turn the status quo on it's head in about a decade. There's a lot to do, yes, but the roller coaster is coming. It's fun. I might even live long enough to see this one happen 

<end rant>


----------



## RogerS

Sideways":1mnzuhxd said:


> .....(I love a steak but the environmental impact of cows is dreadful...)......



Don't believe all the propaganda that you read. As ever, there are two sides to every argument.



Sideways":1mnzuhxd said:


> use more public transport for long journeys,


It would be helpful if there was even some local public transport in rural areas. We need the car to get to the railway station !


----------



## Sheffield Tony

RogerS":35idzg0m said:


> Woody2Shoes":35idzg0m said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RogerS":35idzg0m said:
> 
> 
> 
> From articles in Windpower Engineering & Development, we learn that lightning bolts carry from 5 kA to 200 kA and voltages vary from 40 kV to 120 kV. Your 'pretty sophisticated electronics' or a lightning bolt ? Who would win ? I know who I'd put my money on.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At least one of us is a member of what used to be known as the Institute of Electrical Engineers. I know which one I'd put my money on...
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> We are agreed then. Lightning wins hands down.
Click to expand...

[sorry, the system won't let me quote the whole exchange]

Have to dip in here as a CEng member of aforementioned institution. I do a bit of electronic design.
Why worry about EV's and lightning particularly ? ICE vehicles, petrol pumps, almost everything these days are full of electronics. They don't pack up in a storm. Nor does the National grid. Or telecomms equipment. In fact, how often have you known electronics to be damaged by lightning ? Or static electricity ? 

Rather analogous to handling petrol - sometimes precautions are needed, like non-sparking filler nozzles. Give engineers a bit of credit, we do sometimes think about things like that.


----------



## pcb1962

RogerS":152j6fzh said:


> AJB Temple":152j6fzh said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... This is pretty much remote servicing, which I suspect is the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mmm..sounds to me like an open door challenge for a hacker :wink:
Click to expand...


Tesla invite hackers to attack their cars and reward them if they're successful.


----------



## Trevanion

Sheffield Tony":320gz3tp said:


> In fact, how often have you known electronics to be damaged by lightning ? Or static electricity ?



We had the telly and sound system blow up before christmas during a lightning storm, at the weekend the phones blew up because of a lightning storm.

To be fair though, the electric systems around here are probably very primitive compared to further east. Did I ever tell you the story about when I got electrocuted in my shower by a bad earth on my neighbours electrical system 300 yards away?


----------



## Just4Fun

Rorschach":2j7tndgj said:


> What kind of driving do you do, long or short trips normally?


Compared to the UK my trips are longer, slower, relatively little in cities. Mainly on country roads with little traffic. To pop to the nearest shop is a 60km round trip. Other than that trips are between 200km and 600km. Today for example is 550km. Our 2 cars together do 80 000 km per year.


----------



## Rorschach

Sideways":8t4nr358 said:


> .....(I love a steak but the environmental impact of cows is dreadful...)......



Do more research on that one! The meat industry is being targeted with misinformation by militant vegetarians, vegans and PETA (bleurgh! I hate to even mention them, they disgust me)



Sideways":8t4nr358 said:


> use more public transport for long journeys,



When public transport is as fast, cheap and efficient as my car then maybe, at the moment it just isn't an option for the vast majority of people. That's why I believe in the self driving electric taxi scheme I mentioned earlier in this thread. Public transport will never serve the entire country like cars can.


----------



## nev

A number of things spring to mind. Rambling in no particular order.. 

So charging points now outnumber petrol stations - but not petrol pumps I think.

If we say an average fast charge takes 30 minutes. 
Average 'local' petrol station has 2 rows of 2 pumps giving 8 service points and an average filling time of 5 minutes per car that gives us 12 x 8 = 96 /2 = 48 . 
so 48 petrol 'charging' points verses 8 EV per station. And that's just the little stations.

But then again there won't be any local fuel stations anymore unless they can offer a cafe and restrooms to their waiting customers. but then they'll need another 48 service points installed in their small forecourt to get the same amount of customers per day.
So no local fuel stations. Where will we buy our wives Christmas presents now?

I've never had the money to buy a new or even nearly new car. Apart from an inheritance I have never spent more than 4 grand on a car, which are usually about 8 or ten years old. So I and millions of others will no longer be able to afford a car. So I'll have to move from my semi rural area cos there's no public transport and move into town which I can't afford to do because housing costs more. Of course my house will be worth even less because there's no public transport and not being in one the more desirable areas will reduce the possible purchaser pool to a much smaller number.
If I _can_ find a car that's within my price range chances are the batteries will be either pippered or on lease from the manufacturer (a la Renault), so more cost there, and of course all vehicles now being electric with no gas guzzlers to fund the road licence that won't be free anymore I'm sure.

Servicing etc compared to ICE vehicles. Apart from oil, plugs and filters you still have brakes, bearings and the rest of the running gear to wear out and require servicing. Having to have any major engine repairs is not a service cost, its a repair, same as if your electric motor, control box or magic stick packed in. And do you think the manufacturers are going to give up the lucrative after sales service and maintenance business - I think not! There will still be hefty service charges they just won't involve oil.

Forget classic cars, motorbikes, tractors etc as the cost of fuel from any remaining fuel stations will no doubt be extortionate and probably illegal. The flying Scotsman and its ilk will probably be electrified and have external audio systems to inspire the next generation of trainspotters.

All those trucks on the motorway and around town suppling goods to whoever - I'm sure we could do without them anyway because how will our fruit and veg and clothes ant TVs get to us from half way round the world anyway because the ships won't be allowed to dock or refuel because their mpg figures are slightly worse than my motorbike, which I cant take into certain cities even today because its pre euro 4 emissions, even though it emits less than most cars that are allowed.

etc etc

In short, if you're either rich or a city dweller you'll be fine, everyone else - you're ......ed. :mrgreen:


----------



## AJB Temple

I don't disagree with the essence of that Nev. It is very easy for politicians to tell us how it will be by 2035, but there need to be a lot of changes before this vision is realised. 

However, your logic on charging stations is flawed. At present, most of us early adopters of EVs can charge them at home. Mine came with a Tesla charging station, that is in my garage. Same for my partner. Although we are dead mean and tend to use superchargers as they are free for us, it is very easy and cheap to just plug the car in every night when I get home. It is timed to use economy 7 electricity which in our case starts at 1am and it costs very little (pence) to top the car up most days. 

Hence anyone who has an off street facility of any kind, can leave home in the morning with a full battery. In practice what this means is many people - anyone who mainly does less than 200 miles a day, will hardly ever have to visit a charging station. I only visit charging stations when I am doing long trips. 

The conventional garage experience will disappear anyway. Charging stations are already being installed in supermarkets, restaurants, car parks and street stations (like a parking meter). The tech will find you one that is free and guide you to it (Tesla does this now). Every car sales garage will have a set of charging bays. I went to the Tesla place in Park Royal this week and they have about 30 bays. Some of these charge at 250Kw. As fast chargers become more universal (other manufacturers are miles behind) charging times will drop to 15 minutes.

For heavy duty users, your 5 minute fill assumption is also off the mark. My Q7 has a tank of about 110 litres I think. My fill up experience can easily extend to 15 minutes, including paying. And that assumes the people in front are not buying vapes and lottery tickets....

We need to re-calibrate our thinking as the infrastructure need is radically different and in many ways much easier to deliver as cabling is fairly universal and there is no need for diesel and petrol to be shipped about in tankers. 

There will also be far greater pricing equality on EV fuel I expect. 

There are other benefits. Electric vehicles will be safer. Mine is bristling with cameras. It will prevent me from changing lane in the path of a hazard, or run into the back of a lorry, or hitting a pedestrian or animal who steps out. Sentinel systems photograph anyone who touches the car and gives a warning. Intelligent cruise control and regenerative braking can be used for entire journeys and will maintain an exact safety gap. This even works in stop start motorway traffic down to a complete standstill. If you start dropping off to sleep the car will wake you up. Lane control keeps you dead centre of lane, or will give wider berth or brake if someone infringes on the lane. If someone pulls out in front unexpectedly, the car deals with it (a bit scary). The tech updates are coming thick and fast and in 10 years we will see EVs with even more massive intrinsic safety. Much of this can be retro added at trivial cost as long as the base car has suitable cameras and sensors. 

It is also easier to make EV passenger cells safer. All of the heavy stuff - battery and electric motors - are down at axle level. This makes engineering crush zones much easier, and the days of engines being slammed back into your legs will be over. Many EV's have a front and rear boot. It is feasible to have a big airbag at the front, ahead of the driver and passenger. 

Complex transmission systems and stuff like twin or multiple hydrostatic clutches are redundant. Electric motors are easily and accurately independently controlled. Much simpler. Much cheaper to engineer. 100% torque (near enough) available instantly as well. 

It's a bit big brother-ish. But it is the future. We need to start learning to change. The early adopters like me always pay a massive premium, but prices will come down.


----------



## Rorschach

Please be aware AJB that your experience and comments are related to your 100k+ Tesla, not all EV's are going to be like that, not within the price bracket for the average person.


----------



## Sheffield Tony

Many of those other benefits are not specific to electric vehicles. Petrol cars also bristle with cameras if you choose that. Lane control or at least warning is fairly common, automatic breaking if you are too close etc.


----------



## AJB Temple

Rorschach - I am aware of this and have given full disclosure so you don't need to keep commenting along these lines. The point I am making is this stuff filters down quite quickly to much more affordable cars. The tech is much the same on the much cheaper model 3 - but is an upgrade extra (as it is on the X and S). 

Tony I agree. I had a BMW M4 convertible until a short while ago (great car) and the tech was way better than Tesla. The collision avoidance systems, night vision, auto full beam, head up display, auto wipers etc were all much superior. My Tesla had no HUD available. The BMW parking system with a virtual overhead camera was massively better. But manufacturers, of necessity in the UK and EU, will focus more and more on EV and some of the tech is EV specific. EV is the platform for auto driving (a pipe dream at the moment - ignore media rubbish from people who never use it) and that requires a LOT of cameras. Manufactures need to deal with bad weather issues and dirt, and sun blinding issues with them. It's early days.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

EVs are very close to becoming mainstream. Whilst Tesla needs really to be compared to high end BMW and Audi motors, a more relevant comparison for most would be the cost of (say) a Nisssan Leaf at around £24k, with around £18-20k for a basic similar size Ford Focus. 

A FF sized EV with a 250 mile range is approx £35k - Nissan, Hyundai etc. The FF close in performance is around £28-30k

The assumption that EV costs will continue to fall over the next few years is, I believe, correct. For a fairly average annual mileage of (say) 12000 at 50mpg the fuel bill will be approx £1300 pa. Electric costs will be around £300. A saving of £1000 pa.

In very simple terms, leaving maintenance, insurance etc aside, the extra upfront costs of around £5-8000 represent 5-8 years savings. Very close to a rational alternative for many providing range anxiety is overcome. That's why we need early adopters who can afford to take the risk and pay the price to get the ball rolling!

However for those with greater budgetary constraints there will be a lag of several years before current technology is available in reasonable volumes on the second hand car markets. So ICE will be in demand for a while. 

Additionally we may expect existing conventional manufacturers to be challenged by EVs. Some will make the transition but many won't. Therefore expect some good ICE deals as manufacturers will feel pressurised into using spare capacity and cutting costs in R&D.


----------



## Fitzroy

EV + self driving cars is the game changer in my mind. Uber is as close to as convenient as owning a car but more expensive per mile. Eliminate the driver and you can get per mile costs significantly lower than the average per mile cost of a personal car. 

Fitz.


----------



## Bodgers

Tris":2lgzk3nm said:


> A couple of questions for those who already have EVs, do you own or lease your batteries, roughly what is the cost, and how long a life do you get/expect from them?
> I would love to replace our second car with something like a Leaf, but it'll be a while before that happens.


Renault was the only company leasing the battery separately as an option, nobody else does that. And even now they have gone off that idea.

If you are leasing the car for 2-3 years it's a non issue, but typically manufacturers are doing 10 year warranties on the battery. If you stay off the rapid chargers it could last a lot longer than that.


Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk


----------



## Sheffield Tony

Is it just me who is irritated by the term "range anxiety" - it makes it sound like it is all in your head, your thinking. Nothing physical. Not like a genuine limitation that deserves consideration. Almost belittles those who might be concerned about it.

AJB is right about driverless cars. The hype is far ahead of reality. They will not be with us for a long time. You've now heard it from a user of one of the most automated road cars of the moment, and someone with a DPhil in robotics :wink:


----------



## Nigel Burden

Self driving cars are an anathema too me. As a retired driving instructor and ex qualified observer for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, I absolutely hate the idea of control being taken away from me. Our Skoda Octavia has cruise control as do most modern cars. Why do you need cruise control? You already have it. It's called the right foot.

Nigel.


----------



## Bodgers

Nigel Burden":1lcf1zdi said:


> Self driving cars are an anathema too me. As a retired driving instructor and ex qualified observer for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, I absolutely hate the idea of control being taken away from me. Our Skoda Octavia has cruise control as do most modern cars. Why do you need cruise control? You already have it. It's called the right foot.
> 
> Nigel.


A true luddite at work!

Love the adaptive cruise on my current car.


----------



## nev

Google and Facebook doing their thing, just had this ad on FB 

https://dollydubre.myshopify.com/collec ... world-wild

I'm almost tempted to order one just to see if a) it turns up and b) how dangerous it actually is if it does :shock:

edit: for those who don't have the link its one of these for $99 delivered!


----------



## Bodgers

Sheffield Tony":310reenv said:


> Is it just me who is irritated by the term "range anxiety" - it makes it sound like it is all in your head, your thinking. Nothing physical. Not like a genuine limitation that deserves consideration. Almost belittles those who might be concerned about it.
> 
> AJB is right about driverless cars. The hype is far ahead of reality. They will not be with us for a long time. You've now heard it from a user of one of the most automated road cars of the moment, and someone with a DPhil in robotics :wink:


I would have sort of agreed with you a while ago.

But if you learn about the shear amount of data gathering Tesla are doing on their cars and the decisions they are making every minute of every day, they are amassing a huge amount of data (including capture of GPS, car parameters and video) that can inform machine learning processes to help drive future algorithms.

As a Tesla driver you are training an AI algorithm.

It might not happen in the short term, but 10 years out I wouldn't be surprised it was fairly close.

The main issues are about less than perfect conditions, snow, heavy rain, fog etc. that make it difficult for full autonomy -.but even humans in these scenarios basically use "positive optimistic" planning to drive on, the assumption being that there isn't anything 100m ahead in the fog that they might hit.


----------



## RogerS

AJB Temple":2axmc003 said:


> .... Electric vehicles will be safer. .....



Ah yes. All that clever hi-tech


----------



## Rorschach

AJB Temple":h7f2548r said:


> Rorschach - I am aware of this and have given full disclosure so you don't need to keep commenting along these lines. The point I am making is this stuff filters down quite quickly to much more affordable cars. The tech is much the same on the much cheaper model 3 - but is an upgrade extra (as it is on the X and S).
> .



Umm this is my second post mentioning that and Tony just made the exact same point and you didn't have a go at him.


----------



## Nigel Burden

Bodgers":2qirwjik said:


> Nigel Burden":2qirwjik said:
> 
> 
> 
> Self driving cars are an anathema too me. As a retired driving instructor and ex qualified observer for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, I absolutely hate the idea of control being taken away from me. Our Skoda Octavia has cruise control as do most modern cars. Why do you need cruise control? You already have it. It's called the right foot.
> 
> Nigel.
> 
> 
> 
> A true luddite at work!
> 
> Love the adaptive cruise on my current car.
Click to expand...


Another thing, EVs are automatics. I hate automatics, they only have two pedals. That means that I can't double de clutch, hell and toe etc.  

Nigel.


----------



## Nigel Burden

RogerS":a6cc0ky0 said:


> AJB Temple":a6cc0ky0 said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... Electric vehicles will be safer. .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah yes. All that clever hi-tech
Click to expand...


What's wrong with drivers just paying attention. :roll: 

Nigel.


----------



## RogerS

Bodgers":3gcvqmar said:


> .....
> The main issues are about less than perfect conditions, snow, heavy rain, fog etc. that make it difficult for full autonomy -.but even humans in these scenarios basically use "positive optimistic" planning to drive on, the assumption being that there isn't anything 100m ahead in the fog that they might hit.



Um..not everyone and especially those who haven't become brain-dead relying on tech. You know...the kind of muppets who go hill-walking without a map and think they will rely on their phone. Or the muppets creating queues at the Heathrow Express while they fiddle about with their phones trying to find the ticket. Or the muppets who can't be bothered to get off their fat arrises to turn the light off but ask Alexa to do it. Or the muppets walking down the pavement, head down focussed on a tiny little screen, twitting away and expecting other people to get out of their way....hmmph..I don't.

Hell in a handbasket.


----------



## RogerS

Nigel Burden":3pxshaki said:


> RogerS":3pxshaki said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AJB Temple":3pxshaki said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... Electric vehicles will be safer. .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah yes. All that clever hi-tech
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> What's wrong with drivers just paying attention. :roll:
> 
> Nigel.
Click to expand...


Precisely.


----------



## Rorschach

Fitzroy":vs0b2xx4 said:


> EV + self driving cars is the game changer in my mind. Uber is as close to as convenient as owning a car but more expensive per mile. Eliminate the driver and you can get per mile costs significantly lower than the average per mile cost of a personal car.
> 
> Fitz.



Exactly my earlier suggestion to replace public transport with a self driving EV network.


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":3s2i4eay said:


> Bodgers":3s2i4eay said:
> 
> 
> 
> .....
> The main issues are about less than perfect conditions, snow, heavy rain, fog etc. that make it difficult for full autonomy -.but even humans in these scenarios basically use "positive optimistic" planning to drive on, the assumption being that there isn't anything 100m ahead in the fog that they might hit.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Um..not everyone and especially those who haven't become brain-dead relying on tech. You know...the kind of muppets who go hill-walking without a map and think they will rely on their phone. Or the muppets creating queues at the Heathrow Express while they fiddle about with their phones trying to find the ticket. Or the muppets who can't be bothered to get off their fat arrises to turn the light off but ask Alexa to do it. Or the muppets walking down the pavement, head down focussed on a tiny little screen, twitting away and expecting other people to get out of their way....hmmph..I don't.
> 
> Hell in a handbasket.
Click to expand...

I think you are confusing convenience with unwise decision making.

One day there will be fully autonomous cars, ones without any driver involvement, no steering wheels etc. They will be safer than driver operated ones. That's not a bad thing. That's not somebody being daft with technology.


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":1xt1aaad said:


> AJB Temple":1xt1aaad said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... Electric vehicles will be safer. .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah yes. All that clever hi-tech
Click to expand...

https://insideevs.com/news/399122/tesla-technology-saves-life-falling-tree/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjnq8btjeHnAhU1QRUIHa0fDQ4QFjAKegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3MaBKx7bqMfcz6GXT5oIsN&ampcf=1

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thereg ... ot_driver/


----------



## Droogs

RogerS":2abw7tj6 said:


> AJB Temple":2abw7tj6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... Electric vehicles will be safer. .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah yes. All that clever hi-tech
Click to expand...


Roger that is the exact sort of tactic I would expect from your best friend. As the phot says itself there is no evidence yet if it was on autonomous driving. In other circumstances that could be construed as libel.

also for those concerned about how long it takes to charge look at it this way. On average how many times to you go to a fuel station and put fuel in. Now think about how long it takes to leave your house, drive to the fuel station, fill up and drive back to the house. multiply that with how many times you do that a year and compare that to the 15 seconds it takes for you to plug the cable on the wall of your house into the car to charge each day. That is how much of Your time it takes on average to re-charge a BEV, the reason being you are not standing in the peeing rain and sleet or baking in the sun next to the car breathing in all the rubbish floating around the fuel station while you wait to get the amount you want. No instead you are in the house having a beer or playing with your kids, kissing the missus (if you have to) or down the shed sawing instead. Throw in the few odd times a year you do a long trip and just adjust how you plan a journey to include a bit more time to relax, eat well, or visit an attraction on the way while the car charges.


----------



## Sheffield Tony

Bodgers":du5k0k43 said:


> It might not happen in the short term, but 10 years out I wouldn't be surprised it was fairly close.



:lol: Having been a researcher, when asked for when research ideas would become commercial reality, "10 years" was the standard code for "no idea, certainly not for the forseeable future".

The enthusiasm for driverless cars scares me. Back when I was at Uni, the trendy idea in software was _formal methods_ - creating algorithms and software you could mathematically prove to do what you expected. For critical systems like aircraft, spaceflight etc. Now we propose to allow neural nets, which noone is quite sure of the basis for their decisions - to drive cars. Which are potentially lethal. Or in the case of Tesla, actually lethal. Twice IIRC.


----------



## Bodgers

Sheffield Tony":1jcwlwd6 said:


> Bodgers":1jcwlwd6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> It might not happen in the short term, but 10 years out I wouldn't be surprised it was fairly close.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> :lol: Having been a researcher, when asked for when research ideas would become commercial reality, "10 years" was the standard code for "no idea, certainly not for the forseeable future".
> 
> The enthusiasm for driverless cars scares me. Back when I was at Uni, the trendy idea in software was _formal methods_ - creating algorithms and software you could mathematically prove to do what you expected. For critical systems like aircraft, spaceflight etc. Now we propose to allow neural nets, which noone is quite sure of the basis for their decisions - to drive cars. Which are potentially lethal. Or in the case of Tesla, actually lethal. Twice IIRC.
Click to expand...


Yes, but the difference here with the 10 years is that significant progress is already been made. It's already here (in a basic form) and incrementaly improving.

Formal methods in software is a way of specifying and formally defining requirements. I'm a software dev, and these days we are specifying things with a variety of methods, but what we are also doing is using a lot of programmatic automated testing, much of which is written before the actual code is written - to test for what you requirements are.

That's a different thing to what your actual algorithm that runs the cars is doing. You can test using whatever method you choose.

You can come up with whatever fears and concerns you have, but ultimately, it WILL happen, just as cars succeeded as transport originally - despite misgivings at the time that resulted in having to have an individual walk in front of a car with a flag at no more than a few miles an hour.


----------



## AJB Temple

There is a lot of media nonsense about Tesla's and similar. I have seen photos in the press of people driving along hands free eating breakfast and such like. It is all nonsense written by people with no actual knowledge. 

You cannot drive a Tesla in auto drive for more than about 20 seconds without putting one hand on the wheel and applying slight (circa 1 degree) steering force. Its a bit annoying actually but the system forces you to keep in contact with the wheel. 

And Roger, you need to get the blinkers off. There is more than one way of driving. It so happens that I did 10 years as a national observer on cars and bikes, have an IAM masters (distinction), and a racing licence and am still a very keen motorcyclist. My favourite car is a red V12 and is used in summer ....I get the real driving thing. But I also get the super smooth limo experience of a silent, super comfortable EV. 

In this country driving pleasure has been greatly reduced by cameras and congestion and lots of "Nationals" changed to 40's. At times a car is just a utility vehicle and there is benefit in letting it just do the job. Especially on tedious motorway runs and in heavy traffic. 

If you live anywhere near Tunbridge Wells I will happily show you the two extremes. It is possible to like blondes and brunettes and even fiery redheads.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Some of you may already have seen this:



This is interesting as it will need all of the sensory and artificial intelligence of a driverless vehicle without a person actually having to sit inside. It should enable real world data on its capability and either (a) provide increased confidence that autonomous vehicles are now feasible or (b) that there is a lot of development still to be done.

There remains a risk that its unpredictable actions could cause an accident - but (a) the sensor data I assume would be held in a "black box" for analysis to identify the cause, and (b) the vehicle is small enough not to cause huge or life threatening damage to other road users (slow, small, lightweight)


----------



## cookiemonster

I look forward to the advent of driverless EVs. The pubs will be packed again.


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs":3aunbrl7 said:


> also for those concerned about how long it takes to charge look at it this way. On average how many times to you go to a fuel station and put fuel in. Now think about how long it takes to leave your house, drive to the fuel station, fill up and drive back to the house.



Bit of a straw man there. I cannot remember the last time I made a specific trip out to get fuel. It is always combined with something else, almost always the weekly shopping which I have to do anyway, so a few minutes extra is no bother.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

It's interesting to see how the comments split into two main camps: for and against, early adopter Vs luddite. The language is being controlled, in that political correctness way, much like the climate change thing. "Range anxiety" has all the overtones of a debilitating mental disorder, much as "climate denier" is designed to conflate holocaust and climate, for denigration purposes. 

Tesla as a company is fun, too. Hasn't made a profit, has some pretty questionable production and manufacturing processes, it's servicing and spares are deplorable (6-9 month wait for new body panels, allegedly), and yet is valued at insane levels, for no apparent reason. I will undoubtedly get some flack from the true believers for that last sentence. For example, Tesla make 7,000 cars in 7 days, whereas ford make 7,000 cars every 4 hours. Teslas's market capitalisation is the same as Ford and General Motors' combined value. What could possibly go wrong? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/tesla-m ... china.html

My position is that I actually really want an electric vehicle because I can make my own electricity, but there is no way I'm going to buy one yet, because they just aren't up to snuff for my particular situation. And so I wait.

In the meantime, here's a little video to show what happens if you pop a nail into a lithium battery - makes you think.[youtube]xhhrtMYKANQ[/youtube]

I do wonder if, in time, the new fun sport will be nailgunning self-driving taxis. Urban yooff (or is it yoot?) will be entertaing themselves by lighting up the night sky with self-immolating pizza deliveries. All that facial recognition surveillance will be necessary to protect the corporate profits of Pizza Hut and McDonald's (is Pizza Hut still in existence? Not something I have ever partaken of)


----------



## Rorschach

Trainee neophyte":3kp8cm5f said:


> My position is that I actually really want an electric vehicle because I can make my own electricity, but there is no way I'm going to buy one yet, because they just aren't up to snuff for my particular situation. And so I wait.



I think we agree there. I would love an EV, I think EV's are probably the future (even though I think Hydrogen fuel cells are likely superior from a practical standpoint) and I can see their many benefits.

However at the moment I cannot afford an EV and it cannot do everything that my car can do. Sure as many have said an EV can do maybe 95% of the things I do in my car, but that 5% is still very important.


----------



## AJB Temple

Completely agree about the Tesla valuation logic. 

But....Ford et al are producing far more cars than we need. Maybe the market prices in ludicrous stock holding and the fact that used values are depressed because new stock is churned out at big discounts?

The market has a long track record of ascribing crazy values to companies with potential. Facebook springs to mind. I don't follow the stock but it has achieved a lot of monetisation capability and largely controls global messaging through its ownership of what's app. 

Maybe the market thinks Elon Musk is a visionary and that he will eventually dominate the electric car industry. 

I have spent most of my life in the finance and banking business one way or another. Share investing is a game of opposites: the seller thinks the price will go down. The buyer thinks it will go up. One of them is always wrong. Money is made from facilitation. 

One think Musk has got right, is developing his infrastructure. He is miles ahead of the game there, and other manufacturers have struggled to catch up with vehicle development and failed to deal with the charging issue properly. 

I still wonder if electric cars are a blip on the path to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Or even a universal magnetic rail system.


----------



## Geoff_S

AJB Temple":2s6e68ja said:


> Or even a universal magnetic rail system.



What, like a Scalextric ? That would be cool.


----------



## Sheffield Tony

cookiemonster":xsjv6icm said:


> I look forward to the advent of driverless EVs. The pubs will be packed again.



This touches on the interesting question of liability. If the manufacturer accepts full responsibility for the actions of the vehicle, and you are freed completely from being in charge of the vehicle, that would be a game changer. At the moment all the driver aids come with a warning that you are still in charge.


----------



## RogerS

Droogs":1gaknkmn said:


> RogerS":1gaknkmn said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AJB Temple":1gaknkmn said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... Electric vehicles will be safer. .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah yes. All that clever hi-tech
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> ..... On average how many times to you go to a fuel station and put fuel in. Now think about how long it takes to leave your house, drive to the fuel station, fill up and drive back to the house.....
Click to expand...


But I don't nor do most other people, I'd hazard a guess. You're driving en route somewhere and as a garage comes up you pull in and fill up. Daft to do what you suggest.

I still maintain that we are placing far too much reliance on technology. Just look at the Boeing 737 Max.


----------



## RogerS

Trainee neophyte":30e7cxnd said:


> ...early adopter Vs luddite. ....



That's a very pejorative comparison. You're implying that being an early adopter is 'a good thing' and that not doing so makes one a luddite. That's not necessarily the case.


----------



## Droogs

Rorschach":3u6dxi3t said:


> Droogs":3u6dxi3t said:
> 
> 
> 
> also for those concerned about how long it takes to charge look at it this way. On average how many times to you go to a fuel station and put fuel in. Now think about how long it takes to leave your house, drive to the fuel station, fill up and drive back to the house.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bit of a straw man there. I cannot remember the last time I made a specific trip out to get fuel. It is always combined with something else, almost always the weekly shopping which I have to do anyway, so a few minutes extra is no bother.
Click to expand...


That is the whole point, as aBEV driver unless you are on a very long journey you never have to do a specific refueling journey because as part of the parking procedure you adopt (just like folding wing mirrors if you need to) you automatically plug it in and just go do something else. I don't go do the shopping which takes anything up to an hour depending how busy and then go refuel no I just plug in and go shop and then go home.

Now before anyone says "There's never enough charge points". That is total boollax it may happen occasionally but then is the pump free at every fuel station every time you go or have you ever had to wait. Besides as an example the local Tesco in partnership with VW put in a charge point around 7 months ago it had 4 points and I notice yesterday there are now 6. So these charge points are all obviously being monitored and the infrastructure upgraded in relation to real time use. But if that is not enough then have a look at NIO and how they are proposing to do things and actually are in China. In fact have a root around what the 40 or so BEV manufacturers in China are doing and what they are coming out with you will be amazed. Yeah Tesla may be all just now but in terms of affordability and usability the chineses are coming and they don't have the problems that western existing car makers have regarding legacy tooling etc. The chinese companies have taken full advantage of the fact that Tesla made all their patents for this tech royalty free, he just gave all advantage up to that point away. This is what "fossil-heads" or "dino burners" don't see or realize. Musk aint just in it to win it by making money, he is out to totally change human society and how we live as a civilization and he is bringing more and more people to his cause daily, especially those under 30 in terms of the moral eco crusade but also the well off as after all, how do the rich stay rich? Easy, they don't look at the size of the down payment or monthly costs on their own they look at total cost of ownership and buy the best but overall cheapest thing they can. 
For those that can't afford a Tesla fine there are lots of asian cars coming that you will be able to afford and this will be because they are just like your current car but with an electric drive and none of the expensive software gizzmos as they are taking the really important bits from Tesla that will get people off of fossil fuels . MG reckon by the end of this year or early in next they will offer their car for around 20K with at least 250 mile range and on a lease if you want for around £300 a month. AT the moment you can lease an MG with a 160 mile 44KWh battery for £250. Are any of you going to honestly argue that that car would not meet the needs of the majority of the users of this forum taking the full costs of running a car for a year and the types of journeys most will do?


----------



## RogerS

Bodgers":1t3h0dis said:


> RogerS":1t3h0dis said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bodgers":1t3h0dis said:
> 
> 
> 
> .....
> The main issues are about less than perfect conditions, snow, heavy rain, fog etc. that make it difficult for full autonomy -.but even humans in these scenarios basically use "positive optimistic" planning to drive on, the assumption being that there isn't anything 100m ahead in the fog that they might hit.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Um..not everyone and especially those who haven't become brain-dead relying on tech. You know...the kind of muppets who go hill-walking without a map and think they will rely on their phone. Or the muppets creating queues at the Heathrow Express while they fiddle about with their phones trying to find the ticket. Or the muppets who can't be bothered to get off their fat arrises to turn the light off but ask Alexa to do it. Or the muppets walking down the pavement, head down focussed on a tiny little screen, twitting away and expecting other people to get out of their way....hmmph..I don't.
> 
> Hell in a handbasket.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I think you are confusing convenience with unwise decision making.
Click to expand...


Not at all. I'm thinking that when it all goes pear-shaped and, for example, you can't get a mobile signal and are there running around completely lost like headless chickens, I'll simply get out my paper map and away I go. This Gadarene push to place more and more reliance on tech will be humanities undoing.

And we haven't even begun to address the moral conundrum of autonomous cars. Does the car decide it will mow down that pedestrian to save the occupants of the car ?

Anyway, I need to go out and chop down a tree for the fire tonight :wink:


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":lo6fobp2 said:


> I still maintain that we are placing far too much reliance on technology. Just look at the Boeing 737 Max.



Yes, one of many aircraft. So you wouldn't fly on any aircraft because of the 737?

Worth pointing out that not only software system faults can cause fatal results.

Plenty of mechanical design and wear issues do too.


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":38x2hby4 said:


> [
> Not at all. I'm thinking that when it all goes pear-shaped and, for example, you can't get a mobile signal and are there running around completely lost like headless chickens, I'll simply get out my paper map and away I go. This Gadarene push to place more and more reliance on tech will be humanities undoing.
> :


So just because there is a manual alternative you'll always choose the non technology based one?

So why use a car at all? Just walk.


----------



## RogerS

Bodgers":34bog4u6 said:


> RogerS":34bog4u6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> [
> Not at all. I'm thinking that when it all goes pear-shaped and, for example, you can't get a mobile signal and are there running around completely lost like headless chickens, I'll simply get out my paper map and away I go. This Gadarene push to place more and more reliance on tech will be humanities undoing.
> :
> 
> 
> 
> So just because there is a manual alternative you'll always choose the non technology based one?
> 
> So why use a car at all? Just walk.
Click to expand...


That's facile. I'll make a carefully balanced judgement. Not simply accept tech for tech's sake.


----------



## Geoff_S

Wow, the end of humanity now.


----------



## RogerS

Bodgers":1k7evrlb said:


> RogerS":1k7evrlb said:
> 
> 
> 
> I still maintain that we are placing far too much reliance on technology. Just look at the Boeing 737 Max.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, one of many aircraft. So you wouldn't fly on any aircraft because of the 737?
> 
> Worth pointing out that not only software system faults can cause fatal results.
> 
> Plenty of mechanical design and wear issues do too.
Click to expand...


Again you're being deliberately obtuse. Of course, I'm not going to sop flying. You've missed my point completely but no bother.


----------



## RogerS

Droogs":ec3uipz3 said:


> Rorschach":ec3uipz3 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Droogs":ec3uipz3 said:
> 
> 
> 
> also for those concerned about how long it takes to charge look at it this way. On average how many times to you go to a fuel station and put fuel in. Now think about how long it takes to leave your house, drive to the fuel station, fill up and drive back to the house.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bit of a straw man there. I cannot remember the last time I made a specific trip out to get fuel. It is always combined with something else, almost always the weekly shopping which I have to do anyway, so a few minutes extra is no bother.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That is the whole point, as aBEV driver unless you are on a very long journey you never have to do a specific refueling journey because as part of the parking procedure you adopt (just like folding wing mirrors if you need to) you automatically plug it in and just go do something else.....
Click to expand...


But that's not what you originally said which was that ICE drivers jumped in their cars at home, drove to the garage, filled up and then drove back home. Which both Rorschach and I said was nonsense. 99.999% of ICE drivers will fill up during a journey.

And I wonder just how many selfish EV drivers there are who will plug their car in to charge at the supermarket and leave it there...while they did the shopping..even if it's fast charger and can do it in say 10 minutes or whatever. Thus blocking other EV users from also charging up.


----------



## AJB Temple

The blocking thing does not happen. This is because the system will identify when the car is charged and you get a running notification on your app. If you leave the car on the charger longer than this, a surcharge can be issued (basically a fine for blocking the charger). Hence it is easily controlled. 

More of an issue in my experience is that occasionally people with non-electric vehicles park in the charger spot. 

All of this kind of obvious stuff was sorted out years ago.


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":jjhat9cd said:


> Bodgers":jjhat9cd said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RogerS":jjhat9cd said:
> 
> 
> 
> I still maintain that we are placing far too much reliance on technology. Just look at the Boeing 737 Max.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, one of many aircraft. So you wouldn't fly on any aircraft because of the 737?
> 
> Worth pointing out that not only software system faults can cause fatal results.
> 
> Plenty of mechanical design and wear issues do too.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Again you're being deliberately obtuse. Of course, I'm not going to sop flying. You've missed my point completely but no bother.
Click to expand...

I don't think I am.

Your point is that people (in their apparent stupidity) have an over reliance on technology, with you being in a superior position with your paper maps etc.

But where do you draw the line?

MRI machines? Are they a step too far? Over relying on technology when a good old fashioned physical can do the job?

Lots of things that you take for granted today are reliant on software. Can't escape it.


----------



## Geoff_S

AJB Temple":1p3zkmcy said:


> The blocking thing does not happen. This is because the system will identify when the car is charged and you get a running notification on your app. If you leave the car on the charger longer than this, a surcharge can be issued (basically a fine for blocking the charger). Hence it is easily controlled.
> 
> More of an issue in my experience is that occasionally people with non-electric vehicles park in the charger spot.
> 
> All of this kind of obvious stuff was sorted out years ago.



But then you get the BEV vs PHEV division. PHEVs shouldn’t use public chargers because BEVs need them more argument.

It’s exhausting


----------



## AJB Temple

Not really, the various flavours of hybrids are a side show really - a sop to the eco brigade and toe dippers. Their typical electric range is circa 20 miles, which makes them largely pointless (maybe a bit of pollution reduction in town, but if you mainly drive in town then a small electric would be better). Most hybrids can't access the high capacity chargers anyway. There will always be people for an against. But I think the advancement of this technology and solving the inherent problems is worthwhile. Most EV criticisms in the press and elsewhere seem to come from people who have little experience of using them. That will gradually change as their market share increases.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

As far as charging and places to do it, any minute now the options will be much increased. It looks like they have cracked the technical (and, more importantly, political - with a small p) challenges around wireless car charging.

https://witricity.com/

Now that technical standards have been nailed down, we can expect big manufacturers like BMW to offer this technology very soon.

Vehicles topping up at traffic lights, taxis topping up at taxi ranks, buses at bus stops what next?

There are a lot of very clever people - and a tsunami of cash - working hard to make EVs the norm.

Interesting times...


----------



## nev

Droogs":3fbfa106 said:


> Now before anyone says "There's never enough charge points". That is total boollax it may happen occasionally but then is the pump free at every fuel station every time you go or have you ever had to wait.
> 
> .....
> 
> AT the moment you can lease an MG with a 160 mile 44KWh battery for £250. Are any of you going to honestly argue that that car would not meet the needs of the majority of the users of this forum taking the full costs of running a car for a year and the types of journeys most will do?



First I'll say I am not against electric cars or any other alternative, and for my own personal use , the mileage I do at the moment, an electric car as they are today would indeed be perfectly adequate, and if it weren't for cost my next car may indeed be electric. 
I found your initial post in this thread interesting and informative but with comments like those above we seem to be drifting into argument for arguments sake (sorry)

If there's a queue at the petrol station its a few minutes per car wait not 30 minutes per car, that's just common sense.

Are any of the manufacturers providing a quick swap method? where one can unplug and withdraw a 'cell' and swap them from a bank of charged ones at the shop to cover a short range of say 10 -20 miles to get one home? That would seem to be a sensible option.

According to a quick google there were 38million vehicles on the road in the UK in 2019. 
From that figure I will take a punt that at least a few million of those are owned by the not so well off. Those that can, at the moment, buy a car for a few hundred quid, pay for the road tax and insurance monthly and put fuel in as and when needed. It can sit on the roadside unused for weeks at a time if need be. Yes petrol is more expensive than electric but if I do 50 miles a month , once a week to the supermarket or visiting aunt Ethel* up the road, they can 'pay as you go' and not have go into debt they cannot afford (even if it was offered to them in the first place) for a lease or purchase of a new vehicle. 
Leasing or buying an EV is not an option for literally millions of people and never will be.


----------



## AJB Temple

Slot in batteries make no sense Nev. If all you need is 20 miles top up, then that is literally 4 or 5 minutes on a super fast charger.


----------



## Bodgers

Only Renault were doing the battery lease, with an option to replace a battery if things went bad. It wasn't a 'hot' swap.


These packs are massive and weigh a lot. There were companies doing some sort of swap tech, but it has never taken off.

There's little point if the battery can be effectively managed with built in heating and cooling, capacity redundancy, to give average life spans of well over 10 years.


----------



## MikeK

AJB Temple":10aksdd3 said:


> The blocking thing does not happen. This is because the system will identify when the car is charged and you get a running notification on your app. If you leave the car on the charger longer than this, a surcharge can be issued (basically a fine for blocking the charger). Hence it is easily controlled.
> 
> More of an issue in my experience is that occasionally people with non-electric vehicles park in the charger spot.
> 
> All of this kind of obvious stuff was sorted out years ago.



I can't speak for the UK, but in Germany the "blocking thing" by EV and ICE vehicles does indeed happen. To help distinguish EV from ICE or hybrid vehicles, the license plate ends in "E". For example, my ICE truck would be GG ME 950. If my truck was a pure EV, the license plate would be GG ME 950E. This makes it real easy to identify who should or should not be in an EV charging point.

In my small town, there are three EV charging points, and all are in public parking lots. One lot has a local government charging point that cannot used by the public, and another lot has two charging points that are first come, first serve. None of the stores or the five petrol stations have EV charging points, yet. One store, a Rewe (similar to Tesco), was built last year. During the design phase of the large parking lot, no infrastructure was installed for EV charging.

When an ICE vehicle parks in any of the EV charging spots, the vehicle is usually towed within minutes. When an EV remains in the charging spot for hours, nothing obvious happens. I don't know if the EV owner is notified, warned, fined, or ignored, but I have noticed the same two BMW sedans parked in the only two public charging points for hours each day. I have no way (or interest) in telling how many frustrated EV drivers have driven by these charging points and unable to plug in.


----------



## RogerS

OK...so if I wanted to buy an EV, which ones are 4 x 4...I'm having difficulty finding any. Or are SUV's by default always 4 x 4 ?

Size-wise the Leaf is fine...definitely not smaller as SWMBO is uncomfortable driving anything smaller down the M6 !
Some good points are being made here - both for and against but I seriously think that for this household, we're very much like Nev.


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":2lea1c1m said:


> OK...so if I wanted to buy an EV, which ones are 4 x 4...I'm having difficulty finding any. Or are SUV's by default always 4 x 4 ?
> 
> Size-wise the Leaf is fine...definitely not smaller as SWMBO is uncomfortable driving anything smaller down the M6 !
> Some good points are being made here - both for and against but I seriously think that for this household, we're very much like Nev.



Dual motor Teslas are 4WD I believe.

Audi e-Tron and Jaguar iPace are also.

You don't need all the drivetrain elements that you do in an ICE car for 4WD - typically an electric motor is fitted on each axle, which cuts down on complexity.

Cheaper ones will come along eventually.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

RogerS":b74a6urv said:


> Trainee neophyte":b74a6urv said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...early adopter Vs luddite. ....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's a very pejorative comparison. You're implying that being an early adopter is 'a good thing' and that not doing so makes one a luddite. That's not necessarily the case.
Click to expand...


That was one of my notorious "exagereration for effect" statements - it's on the list of logical fallacies, for those who can't actually argue a point, and so prefer to claim it's on the list and therefore can be safely ignored.

I agree that it is absolutely not black and white, but there are some born-again greenies (and Tesla investors) who think everything electric is wonderful, and conversely there are others that think all this newfangled cars-driving-themselves nonsense can only end in tears. There is almost certainly a huge wodge of people in the middle who think it all mildly interesting, but have to walk the dog, do the shopping, and pick up the kids from school, and haven't got the time or inclination to contemplate all of this.

Apologies to anyone who was upset by my binary options. Or my logical fallacy, if you prefer.


----------



## Geoff_S

Trainee neophyte":2ysynqkc said:


> RogerS":2ysynqkc said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Trainee neophyte":2ysynqkc said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...early adopter Vs luddite. ....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's a very pejorative comparison. You're implying that being an early adopter is 'a good thing' and that not doing so makes one a luddite. That's not necessarily the case.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That was one of my notorious "exagereration for effect" statements - it's on the list of logical fallacies, for those who can't actually argue a point, and so prefer to claim it's on the list and therefore can be safely ignored.
> 
> I agree that it is absolutely not black and white, but there are some born-again greenies (and Tesla investors) who think everything electric is wonderful, and conversely there are others that think all this newfangled cars-driving-themselves nonsense can only end in tears. There is almost certainly a huge wodge of people in the middle who think it all mildly interesting, but have to walk the dog, do the shopping, and pick up the kids from school, and haven't got the time or inclination to contemplate all of this.
> 
> Apologies to anyone who was upset by my binary options. Or my logical fallacy, if you prefer.
Click to expand...


I had to Google "logical fallacy"


----------



## AJB Temple

Some excellent points. That has not been my experience in Germany. (There is a but coming). Our place there is near Cologne and we had no issue charging, though we eventually installed our own Tesla point similar to the UK. 

I have to say I would definitely not buy an EV unless I was satisfied the manufacturer had truly sorted the charging network. The main reason by my friend / business partner and I bought Tesla was because they have dedicated charging stations, Tesla only, that happen to be convenient for us. So I have practically zero experience of other charging networks. My friend does a lot of short journeys in London, and she does occasionally use the supermarket chargers and car park chargers. They are really slow compared with the dedicated Tesla ones, so I think she should charge up at home each night and keep telling her that! 

The system in our cars tells you how much juice you need to get to your destination and back again, and estimates the percentage remaining. If it needs juice to get you there or home, with adequate reserves, it will navigate you via Tesla charging points (and possibly others now as they improve the software - not really explored that). It will also warn you to adjust your speed etc if it thinks you are plundering the reserve (which heavy acceleration really does) and you can switch to emergency "get me home" mode, which ekes out the battery to the max.  I think the range anxiety thing is over egged frankly - you just need a different attitude to journey planning. 

On the 4WD question, I think (not sure) the Model X has an electric motor on each corner. It has ludicrous levels of acceleration (4 secs 0-60 or something) but you need to tow a power station in order to use it for long.


----------



## Bodgers

No, it is dual motor, one at the front, one at the back.


----------



## RogerS

AJB Temple":zlt8th3q said:


> ....
> On the 4WD question, I think (not sure) the Model X has an electric motor on each corner. It has ludicrous levels of acceleration (4 secs 0-60 or something) but you need to tow a power station in order to use it for long.




That was what I feared. We live on the top of a very very steep twisty hill. In Northumberland. Lot of run off from the fields. Not to mention the odd snow. So 4x4 is mandatory. Looks like I'll pass for a while.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Although I believe quite strongly that EVs will become the default choice of new car purchase within just a few years (2-3) I also believe the full impact will not be apparent on the roads for at least 15 years.

There are 38m vehicles on UK roads. The average life is 8.2 years - suggesting that (averagely) they are scrapped after aound 16 years. This fits well with typical new vehicle sales of around 2.5m pa.

Most people do not buy and cannot afford a new car. It's probably a fair assumption that most vehicles below 3 -4 years old were acquired new either with cash, HP or PCP deals. So 75% of people drive cars that are 2nd, 3rd, 4th hand.

The number of used EVs available are limited by low historic sales. They are expensive compared to ICE equivalents and embed now outdated tech. For the used EV market to develop requires sales of new EVs in sufficient quantities to supply the market at reasonable prices.

Therefore the used ICE market seems likely to persist for many years after the new market is EV dominated.


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":3eaqa8y1 said:


> AJB Temple":3eaqa8y1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ....
> On the 4WD question, I think (not sure) the Model X has an electric motor on each corner. It has ludicrous levels of acceleration (4 secs 0-60 or something) but you need to tow a power station in order to use it for long.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That was what I feared. We live on the top of a very very steep twisty hill. In Northumberland. Lot of run off from the fields. Not to mention the odd snow. So 4x4 is mandatory. Looks like I'll pass for a while.
Click to expand...

Wrong impression may have been gained. Unless you are doing constant flat out 0-60s the energy consumption is actually pretty good!


----------



## RogerS

Bodgers":f9hblkzk said:


> RogerS":f9hblkzk said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AJB Temple":f9hblkzk said:
> 
> 
> 
> ....
> On the 4WD question, I think (not sure) the Model X has an electric motor on each corner. It has ludicrous levels of acceleration (4 secs 0-60 or something) but you need to tow a power station in order to use it for long.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That was what I feared. We live on the top of a very very steep twisty hill. In Northumberland. Lot of run off from the fields. Not to mention the odd snow. So 4x4 is mandatory. Looks like I'll pass for a while.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Wrong impression may have been gained. Unless you are doing constant flat out 0-60s the energy consumption is actually pretty good!
Click to expand...


I'm not worried about range. More about slipping all the way down the hill and out of control ! I did it once in the Q3 Quattro ...admittedly not with the tyres I have now on...and although I was doing only about 5mph under engine braking. I had to change me kecks at the bottom.


----------



## AJB Temple

All four wheels are driven. I was only saying that the range is deeply affected by heaviness of right foot. If I want to drive it really fast, range goes down. 

It is fine on hills. I've been all over the Swiss Alps in it in winter, based from Mannerdorf (work in Zurich some of the time) and like any 4WD it is fine as long as you stick winter tyres on it. Q7 is the same - needs smaller wheels and the bigger winter tyres we put on at this time of year. 

Like most big SUVs you can set the ground clearance right up electronically and you can set it for slippery conditions. Copes just as well as the Q7. 

Nothing in the UK roads is going to bother it. But, it is not an off roader like a proper Land Rover or even Range Rover.


----------



## AES

@Bodger: Far from me to let a small matter like reality (i.e. the truth) to get in the way of a good discussion (I'm much enjoying this thread, AND learning a lot, WITHOUT having my own dog in the ring)! 

But I cannot let your statement, QUOTE: MRI machines? Are they a step too far? Over relying on technology when a good old fashioned physical can do the job? UNQUOTE: go unchallenged mate!

As someone who has had MANY MRIs (and similar/related-technology scans) over the last few years (the last was last week!), I can assure you that based on FACTS given me by the physicians, surgeons, and technicians involved, far from these technologies being used just instead of "surgical OR physical inspections", todays scanning technologies actually provide MORE information - and more precisely - about the need for subsequent surgical intervention (or not) than the sort of physical examinations and/or invasive surgery that was previously carried out "only" for investigative purposes.

Furthermore, it's clear to even a "good old Luddite" like me that over the last, say, 5 years, these scanning technologies have improved their capabilities enormously - and will no doubt continue that trend.

So sorry Bodger, I'm crying "Foul", and "Yellow Card" on that one. "Point disallowed on a point of fact Mr. Chairman"


----------



## Droogs

nev":2z3urrb2 said:


> Droogs":2z3urrb2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now before anyone says "There's never enough charge points". That is total boollax it may happen occasionally but then is the pump free at every fuel station every time you go or have you ever had to wait.
> 
> .....
> 
> AT the moment you can lease an MG with a 160 mile 44KWh battery for £250. Are any of you going to honestly argue that that car would not meet the needs of the majority of the users of this forum taking the full costs of running a car for a year and the types of journeys most will do?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> First I'll say I am not against electric cars or any other alternative, and for my own personal use , the mileage I do at the moment, an electric car as they are today would indeed be perfectly adequate, and if it weren't for cost my next car may indeed be electric.
> I found your initial post in this thread interesting and informative but with comments like those above we seem to be drifting into argument for arguments sake (sorry)
> 
> *I am trying to point out the extreme and narrow thought process put forward by the exponents of these arguement trains. It is a common misconception that something we do all the time does not take up a lot of our actual time even when it does. People only take the time in front of the pump into consideration but people nip to the garage far more often to fill up than they conciously realize. In no way am I saying that everyone must switch right now. I own a Kia Seddona as my personal vehicle it has a 2.9 diesel engine and I love it to bits due to it's practicality and have said so in other threads. but there are plenty of times I have gone to fill up before a big journey the night before going on holiday etc and if busy that has taken up to 30 mins in the past. *
> 
> If there's a queue at the petrol station its a few minutes per car wait not 30 minutes per car, that's just common sense.
> 
> Are any of the manufacturers providing a quick swap method? where one can unplug and withdraw a 'cell' and swap them from a bank of charged ones at the shop to cover a short range of say 10 -20 miles to get one home? That would seem to be a sensible option.
> 
> *As mentioned in my earlier post Nio, who are coming to europe have a quick change system. You buy the car and pay a membership fee per month, I believe it is around £30 and you can charge at any of their chargers no additional costs and they also have quick change stations on the main motorways and in most of the chinese cities as people there (around 90% of urban dwellers) do not have private parking as they all live in flats.
> Using their app you can pre-book appointments to have a battery change at anypoint in you want in your commute etc or during long jouneys etc or if you turn up you wait until a free slot . A pre-booked appointment takes 9 minutes*
> 
> According to a quick google there were 38million vehicles on the road in the UK in 2019.
> From that figure I will take a punt that at least a few million of those are owned by the not so well off. Those that can, at the moment, buy a car for a few hundred quid, pay for the road tax and insurance monthly and put fuel in as and when needed. It can sit on the roadside unused for weeks at a time if need be. Yes petrol is more expensive than electric but if I do 50 miles a month , once a week to the supermarket or visiting aunt Ethel* up the road, they can 'pay as you go' and not have go into debt they cannot afford (even if it was offered to them in the first place) for a lease or purchase of a new vehicle.
> Leasing or buying an EV is not an option for literally millions of people and never will be.
Click to expand...


*At no point have I said all ICE cars should be taken off the road. I have been extolling (and it unfortunately assumed it was clear) that my arguement is for those who are buying a new car. I am only getting a new car as it will be a business expense as a self employed PHV driver. I could in no way afford one of any kind otherwise. I would be driving my Seddona until it fell apart, I died or in around 10 years time I could afford to buy a well used BEV. I will still use the Seddona for holidays (camping etc) and for any woodwork related stuff I need to move around but everything else will be done in the BEV.*

hope that answer some of your points Nev


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Some of the off-road pickup solutions that may make it into production soon: [youtube]D_untxR-1u8[/youtube]

Good old USA and their pickup trucks...


----------



## nev

Thanks Droogs, it does.

I just find it incomprehensible that there will (ever?) be an infrastructure in place in the next ten or twenty years that can cater for every household, place of business, car park (think hospitals and large institutions and employers etc) and every vehicle in every street, town and city in the UK, accessible to each of those 38million vehicles including the vans, trucks and motorcycles (probably the easiest to electrify) not to mention the ships and planes etc.

Once the ICE sales ban is implemented we're almost certain to then ban resales within x years too. 

The whole 'lets get this thing done' seems to be thought up and implemented by those that have private parking both at home and office, plenty of disposable income and absolutely no idea what the logistics, cost (where's that coming from?) or timescales would be for basically a complete restructuring of UK's transport network (for want of a better term). 
I'm all for innovation, development and progress but the infrastructure must be in place before the rules by the rich and shameless are implemented. I'm not a communist by the way even though reading this back I seem to be anti- wealth, I'm just an average Joe who thinks I'm more than likely to be priced off the road in the not too distant future in a futile attempt to appease the greenies so that our tiny little Island can say "it wasn't our fault!" to Asia, Africa and the Americas when the next ice age comes along.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

nev":2uogl4rw said:


> Thanks Droogs, it does.
> 
> I just find it incomprehensible that there will (ever?) be an infrastructure in place in the next ten or twenty years that can cater for every household, place of business, car park (think hospitals and large institutions and employers etc) and every vehicle in every street, town and city in the UK, accessible to each of those 38million vehicles including the vans, trucks and motorcycles (probably the easiest to electrify) not to mention the ships and planes etc.
> 
> Once the ICE sales ban is implemented we're almost certain to then ban resales within x years too.
> 
> The whole 'lets get this thing done' seems to be thought up and implemented by those that have private parking both at home and office, plenty of disposable income and absolutely no idea what the logistics, cost (where's that coming from?) or timescales would be for basically a complete restructuring of UK's transport network (for want of a better term).
> I'm all for innovation, development and progress but the infrastructure must be in place before the rules by the rich and shameless are implemented. I'm not a communist by the way even though reading this back I seem to be anti- wealth, I'm just an average Joe who thinks I'm more than likely to be priced off the road in the not too distant future in a futile attempt to appease the greenies so that our tiny little Island can say "it wasn't our fault!" to Asia, Africa and the Americas when the next ice age comes along.



As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread (or was it a different one? I've lost track), the UK will need somewhere between 45 and lots more than 45 new power stations to provide the electricity to run all these cars. These power stations can not be fossil fuel powered, so will be vast tracts of solar panels, forests of windmills, or many, many new reservoirs for hydroelectric power. The nuclear option probably isn't affordable, although there will be a faction fighting for it because of all the money to be made stealing from the government.

No one seems to be talking about that bit, because it is awkward.


----------



## nev

Also why aren't the cars themselves covered in solar panels? (serious question) surely a roof and bonnets worth has got to have some effect?


----------



## Bodgers

AES":3on591sx said:


> @Bodger: Far from me to let a small matter like reality (i.e. the truth) to get in the way of a good discussion (I'm much enjoying this thread, AND learning a lot, WITHOUT having my own dog in the ring)!
> 
> But I cannot let your statement, QUOTE: MRI machines? Are they a step too far? Over relying on technology when a good old fashioned physical can do the job? UNQUOTE: go unchallenged mate!
> 
> As someone who has had MANY MRIs (and similar/related-technology scans) over the last few years (the last was last week!), I can assure you that based on FACTS given me by the physicians, surgeons, and technicians involved, far from these technologies being used just instead of "surgical OR physical inspections", todays scanning technologies actually provide MORE information - and more precisely - about the need for subsequent surgical intervention (or not) than the sort of physical examinations and/or invasive surgery that was previously carried out "only" for investigative purposes.
> 
> Furthermore, it's clear to even a "good old Luddite" like me that over the last, say, 5 years, these scanning technologies have improved their capabilities enormously - and will no doubt continue that trend.
> 
> So sorry Bodger, I'm crying "Foul", and "Yellow Card" on that one. "Point disallowed on a point of fact Mr. Chairman"


Err...I think you have completely reversed what I was saying...

Read it in context as a question in response to the person I was replying to...


----------



## Geoff_S

nev":3gnefhjn said:


> Also why aren't the cars themselves covered in solar panels? (serious question) surely a roof and bonnets worth has got to have some effect?



A solar panel on the roof of a car will provide about 1 mile of range per hour or so I’ve been told


----------



## Droogs

nev":14qbbvx5 said:


> Also why aren't the cars themselves covered in solar panels? (serious question) surely a roof and bonnets worth has got to have some effect?



have a look here
https://sonomotors.com/


----------



## Geoff_S

Droogs":32d2gpw3 said:


> nev":32d2gpw3 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Also why aren't the cars themselves covered in solar panels? (serious question) surely a roof and bonnets worth has got to have some effect?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> have a look here
> https://sonomotors.com/
Click to expand...


Well based on our current weather, I’d be getting the bus a lot!


----------



## Cheshirechappie

You wouldn't. Buses are bigger and heavier than cars, so they'd need even more solar panels!


----------



## MusicMan

nev":2xk3l7ax said:


> Also why aren't the cars themselves covered in solar panels? (serious question) surely a roof and bonnets worth has got to have some effect?



Serious answer. Solar irradiation is about 1 kW per square metre when sunny and when the receptor is pointing directly at the sun (which it isn't most of the time). Conversion efficiency is 20 - 25% (slow increases coming but not much). So with a roof area of a few square metres and an optimistic overall efficiency of 10%, on a good day one gets a few hundred watts, say an optimistic 4 kW hours in a full day. On a car such as a Leaf with 40 KWH to do 160 wish miles, it would add about 16 miles range on a very sunny day.

So yes, it has some effect but hardly worth the expense. I did work out that it was just about feasible to run a 70 ft narrowboat with solar panel on the roof. These have a lot of roof and need little power.

I used to be engineering director of a solar energy company. Solar panels are worth while (I have them on a south-facing roof) but not on most mobile units. You can get 40 - 50% efficiency on the compound semiconductor cells used in satellites and the ISS, but those are *really* expensive.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

nev":17vk3bvc said:


> Thanks Droogs, it does.
> 
> I just find it incomprehensible that there will (ever?) be an infrastructure in place in the next ten or twenty years that can cater for every household, place of business, car park (think hospitals and large institutions and employers etc) and every vehicle in every street, town and city in the UK, accessible to each of those 38million vehicles including the vans, trucks and motorcycles (probably the easiest to electrify) not to mention the ships and planes etc.
> 
> Once the ICE sales ban is implemented we're almost certain to then ban resales within x years too.
> 
> The whole 'lets get this thing done' seems to be thought up and implemented by those that have private parking both at home and office, plenty of disposable income and absolutely no idea what the logistics, cost (where's that coming from?) or timescales would be for basically a complete restructuring of UK's transport network (for want of a better term).
> I'm all for innovation, development and progress but the infrastructure must be in place before the rules by the rich and shameless are implemented. I'm not a communist by the way even though reading this back I seem to be anti- wealth, I'm just an average Joe who thinks I'm more than likely to be priced off the road in the not too distant future in a futile attempt to appease the greenies so that our tiny little Island can say "it wasn't our fault!" to Asia, Africa and the Americas when the next ice age comes along.



I think you need to bear in mind that a government suggestion that it will ban the sale of ICE vehicles at some date more than a decade into the future is simply a way to gain greenwash points in the media based on the latest advice from 'advisors'. This is not a statement of intent to actually do anything, just a space-chimp-like expectation that the world will have moved on by then. 
In the same way that we can still see horse-drawn vehicles, I'm sure we will still see ICE vehicles in a few decades time.
I think it is difficult to appreciate the pace of technological change.
Quiz question: a century ago, the largest single consumer of British-mined coal was?
I am enthusiastic and optimistic that our transport and electricity supply infrastructure will be vastly different in a decade or so - it needs to be.


----------



## Sheffield Tony

Indeed ! Words from politicians about what will happen in 15 years time are to be taken with a pinch of salt.

IMHO, we are addressing quite the wrong problem with worrying about what fuels cars. More we need to worry about why people need to spend so much time charging around like blue-pineappled flies by all forms of transport - like providing a sensible distribution of housing and employment, encouraging work from home, technological alternatives to face to face meetings, etc, etc.


----------



## Cheshirechappie

Sheffield Tony":24ec47ck said:


> Indeed ! Words from politicians about what will happen in 15 years time are to be taken with a pinch of salt.
> 
> IMHO, we are addressing quite the wrong problem with worrying about what fuels cars. More we need to worry about why people need to spend so much time charging around like blue-pineappled flies by all forms of transport - like providing a sensible distribution of housing and employment, encouraging work from home, technological alternatives to face to face meetings, etc, etc.



Indeed. But - you can't tax those as easily, can you ....


----------



## Bodgers

Woody2Shoes":2bi0y55a said:


> This is not a statement of intent to actually do anything, just a space-chimp-like expectation that the world will have moved on by then.
> In the same way that we can still see horse-drawn vehicles, I'm sure we will still see ICE vehicles in a few decades time.
> I think it is difficult to appreciate the pace of technological change.
> Quiz question: a century ago, the largest single consumer of British-mined coal was?


The action is stop the sale of cars. That will happen, but the dates may change.

Yes, you'll see ICE cars, but you probably won't be able to buy a new one. Or if you can, it will be a low production expensive exotic.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Code:







Sheffield Tony":2qspkn9a said:


> Indeed ! Words from politicians about what will happen in 15 years time are to be taken with a pinch of salt.
> 
> IMHO, we are addressing quite the wrong problem with worrying about what fuels cars. More we need to worry about why people need to spend so much time charging around like blue-pineappled flies by all forms of transport - like providing a sensible distribution of housing and employment, encouraging work from home, technological alternatives to face to face meetings, etc, etc.



I live in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country, but when I'm in the UK the over-riding questions are: "Don't these people have any work to do?" How can everyone afford to be on the road, all the time? Where are they going? What are they doing? Why aren't they at work? The difference in traffic is astonishing. It's not just white vans delivering Amazon carp, although there is a fair amount of that.


----------



## Bodgers

Sheffield Tony":rrrk8h6a said:


> Indeed ! Words from politicians about what will happen in 15 years time are to be taken with a pinch of salt.
> 
> IMHO, we are addressing quite the wrong problem with worrying about what fuels cars. More we need to worry about why people need to spend so much time charging around like blue-pineappled flies by all forms of transport - like providing a sensible distribution of housing and employment, encouraging work from home, technological alternatives to face to face meetings, etc, etc.


It is possible to do both. They aren't mutually exclusive.


----------



## dangles

I read this on a "green" site and admittedly it was from 2017 and I've read that some manufacturers throw one in for "free" and the government give a grant of upto 75%.
With the recent huge boom in the number of electric car owners, more and more people in the UK are choosing to install electric car charging points at home. However, they don’t come cheap. A typical cost for a charge point plus installation is £1000 .


----------



## Woody2Shoes

dangles":3kcf2w2z said:


> I read this on a "green" site and admittedly it was from 2017 and I've read that some manufacturers throw one in for "free" and the government give a grant of upto 75%.
> With the recent huge boom in the number of electric car owners, more and more people in the UK are choosing to install electric car charging points at home. However, they don’t come cheap. A typical cost for a charge point plus installation is £1000 .


GB subsidies are about 3000 ukl per vehicle (but luxury car tax can be a nasty surprise for some). Some manufacturers offer a 'free' charger install with a new car. I wonder how long it will be before EVs are taxed - that will be an acknowledgement that they are truly mainstream.
The answer to the quiz question earlier was the Royal Navy.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Trainee neophyte":1ltut7cj said:


> Code:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sheffield Tony":1ltut7cj said:
> 
> 
> 
> Indeed ! Words from politicians about what will happen in 15 years time are to be taken with a pinch of salt.
> 
> IMHO, we are addressing quite the wrong problem with worrying about what fuels cars. More we need to worry about why people need to spend so much time charging around like blue-pineappled flies by all forms of transport - like providing a sensible distribution of housing and employment, encouraging work from home, technological alternatives to face to face meetings, etc, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I live in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country, but when I'm in the UK the over-riding questions are: "Don't these people have any work to do?" How can everyone afford to be on the road, all the time? Where are they going? What are they doing? Why aren't they at work? The difference in traffic is astonishing. It's not just white vans delivering Amazon carp, although there is a fair amount of that.
Click to expand...

I remember visiting a small town in rural India and being taken aback by the number of people walking around the streets. It later dawned on me that the population density at home is similar but we're all whizzing around in cars.
The car use that really seems barmy to me is the number of people who will drive three or four miles to take the dog for a walk - we're in leafy open countryside.


----------



## Bodgers

dangles":2tj56sax said:


> I read this on a "green" site and admittedly it was from 2017 and I've read that some manufacturers throw one in for "free" and the government give a grant of upto 75%.
> With the recent huge boom in the number of electric car owners, more and more people in the UK are choosing to install electric car charging points at home. However, they don’t come cheap. A typical cost for a charge point plus installation is £1000 .



No.

With the OLEV grant it is more like £300-500.

I have just paid £300 to PodPoint to get mine installed. And that's everything included.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Bodgers":1i4cqoky said:


> dangles":1i4cqoky said:
> 
> 
> 
> I read this on a "green" site and admittedly it was from 2017 and I've read that some manufacturers throw one in for "free" and the government give a grant of upto 75%.
> With the recent huge boom in the number of electric car owners, more and more people in the UK are choosing to install electric car charging points at home. However, they don’t come cheap. A typical cost for a charge point plus installation is £1000 .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No.
> 
> With the OLEV grant it is more like £300-500.
> 
> I have just paid £300 to PodPoint to get mine installed. And that's everything included.
Click to expand...


A typical charger will cost about £500 plus perhaps about half a day's installation. The OLEV 'grant' is 500 or 800 in Scotland so you can see how the numbers work out.


----------



## AJB Temple

Be wary about installation costs. It is cheap and easy as long as your consumer unit is reasonably close to the location where you want the charger. 

It needs a beefy cable and this gets expensive over distance. Higher amperage charging is good and 3 phase much better. 

In my case the garage is 50 metres from the incoming supply and I wanted a fast charger. If you need to trench it and cable it with thick armoured, then cost goes up by a few hundred pounds at least (I am my own digger operator).


----------



## AES

@Bodgers: Re your "Err...I think you have completely reversed what I was saying...". 

I did realise that you were replying to someone else's point (about not relying on electronic maps but paper maps instead - amongst other points in similar vein), but having re-read your post I really don't think that I misunderstood (or reversed) your point about MRI scanning. 

BUT it's late at night and I'm tired, so if I did misunderstand you then I apologise and immediately retract the yellow card! No harm done I hope?  

Whatever, this remains an interesting thread for me, even though at my age I doubt I shall be driving long enough into the future for it all to make much difference to me personally - in 2035 I shall be 90, and whatever "target date" today's Govt have put on a "definitive change" (ahem!) I doubt that much will come into effect to make a real difference to me. That's why I said above that I don't have a dog in this particular fight.


----------



## RogerS

Rorschach":1hn5aifk said:


> As a related point, trains.
> 
> I was having a conversation recently about HS2.
> 
> I am totally against building HS2, not because I don't want better transport connections for the north and the south (though it will never help me living in the SW) but because it is a waste of money that will be all but useless when it is finished.
> 
> We are looking at 10 years before the first trains run and a projected build cost of up to 100billion.
> 
> ......




Came across this chart. Similar amount of money. DITCH HS2. That's a no-brainer


----------



## jeremyduncombe

Doesn’t that just prove the 2012 Olympics were a terrible waste of money ?


----------



## Trainee neophyte

jeremyduncombe":3i1hubip said:


> Doesn’t that just prove the 2012 Olympics were a terrible waste of money ?



Allegedly UK spends 5.5% of GDP on education. 2018 GDP was 2.11 trillion (again,allegedly according to the internet), and 5.5% of 2.11 trillion is 116 billion, possibly. 20 billion plus or minus - not really worth talking about. Small change down the back of the sofa

I'm sorry to keep harping on about the fact that there isn't the capacity to power all these cars. Again allegedly, according to the briefest of internet searches, it costs $7 billion and takes 12 years to build a nuclear power station, and we have already ascertained that we need 45+ new nuclear power station's to replace the oil used currently to power all the transport. You could use solar or wind power instead, but that is even more expensive than nuclear power. Allegedly. 45 X $7 billion is $315 billion, which makes a bit more of a dent than the 5% of GDP mentioned in the graphic.



> France built 58 nuclear reactors over 15 years and has generated over 400 TWh with them. The inflation-adjusted price was $330 billion.
> 
> Germany spent $580 billion on solar and wind to get about 220 TWh. This was four times more expensive than France.
> 
> Global Solar and Wind has to increase by about five times to provide all of annual increase in electricity.
> 
> Solar and Wind need natural gas or some other power plant backup or massive battery farms that have not been built yet.



https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/05/n ... -wind.html


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I have also done a swift google. A lot of sites are selective with figures to reach the conclusion wanted - thus the situation gets more confusing:

It seems that around 6 Hinckley point nuclear reactors would be required to power all EVs. This is much less than above - possibly because Hinkley point is new, being constructed, and possibly designed to be higher output.

It also seems that the additional capacity required to accomodate all EVs depends on the charging regime. Spare capacity at night would/could be sold at much lower prices than daytime charging. So the additional capacity required could be a factor of 2 or 3 time different under different pricing and charging regimes.

There is also some debate whether battery storage could be used to supplement the grid at peak demand times by feeding power back into the grid. This would impact on additional capacity requirements but there are some technical issues to be sorted

The final point is that the transition is not going to happen this year or next year - it will happen progressively over the next 15-20 years. The general proposition is that the number of cars sold pa will remain at around 2-2.5m pa. Given a national fleet of 32m private vehicles it would take around 13 years to replace them if ALL new vehicle sales were electric. This is unlikely to be the case as many will replace current ICE with ICE for several years to come.

In conclusion:

(a) future plans need to assume a significant increase in generating capacity
(b) plans should include upgrades to distribution networks
(c) it is reasonable to assume a median case not worst case in terms of capacity needed
(d) as the changes will happen over 15-20 years we do not need to be in panic mode
(e) if properly managed some costs may be offset by savings in not upgrading conventional fuel supply chains.


----------



## MusicMan

Rather than doing simplistic calculations claiming to show that vast new numbers of power stations will be required, why not look at National Grid's own forecasts?

https://www.nationalgrid.com/group/case ... future-evs

They point out that it is not at all sensible or realistic to assume, as T_N did above, that the large predicted numbers of EVs will all try to charge at once at peak times. That indeed would need an impractical number of power stations. What they are planning is smart meters that measure and charge in half hour intervals throughout the 24 hours, linked to the price and availability of power. They don't seem to be concerned about coping, as long as the 'smart grid' is brought in nationally, plus maybe a 10-15% growth in generation power,

It does not take all night to charge a BEV. The 40 KW Leaf takes about 5-6 hours for a full charge, and most days many drivers will only need a popup charge. It is already possible to use an app to control when this is done so as to get the cheapest power. 

And this is not futuristic hopefulness. I have just ordered a smart meter from Octopus and a charger from EO that will do this already, and also take account of when solar power is available from my roof panels. The Octopus Agile tariff charges in half-hour intervals. Most of the day it is around 5 - 6p a unit, in the small hours it is 3 - 4p but between 4 and 7 pm it is about 24p. It doesn't need legislation or enforcement to persuade people to charge when the power is cheap. This compares to roughly 15p a unit charged by the big power utilities and even Economy 7 is 8p.

And in those peak hours, it is already possible in some areas to sell your surplus stored battery power back to the grid (Ovo and Octopus have extensive trials working now). The combined storage power of, say, a million BEVs that have 80% charge left at 4 pm is in the region of tens of GW - that's roughly five major power stations or Dinorwig hydro storage installations, which will make a huge contribution to the grid. And there is plenty of time after 7 pm to charge your car ready for the morning.

BEVs are not the complete answer nor the answer for everyone. Hydrogen or (perhaps better and safer) ammonia fuel cells may be the best for heavy transport, though they are still a long way off making a major contribution. They will not alone fix the CO2/greenhouse problem in time. They will make a serious contribution to reducing CO2 (yes even when you take manufacturing costs into account) and a massive contribution to cleaning up air pollution in cities. Of course many other changes will be needed, especially in agriculture and diet and in consumption generally.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

MusicMan":2gqvkp46 said:


> Rather than doing simplistic calculations claiming to show that vast new numbers of power stations will be required, why not look at National Grid's own forecasts?
> 
> https://www.nationalgrid.com/group/case ... future-evs
> 
> They point out that it is not at all sensible or realistic to assume, as T_N did above, that the large predicted numbers of EVs will all try to charge at once at peak times. That indeed would need an impractical number of power stations. What they are planning is smart meters that measure and charge in half hour intervals throughout the 24 hours, linked to the price and availability of power. They don't seem to be concerned about coping, as long as the 'smart grid' is brought in nationally, plus maybe a 10-15% growth in generation power,
> 
> It does not take all night to charge a BEV. The 40 KW Leaf takes about 5-6 hours for a full charge, and most days many drivers will only need a popup charge. It is already possible to use an app to control when this is done so as to get the cheapest power.
> 
> And this is not futuristic hopefulness. I have just ordered a smart meter from Octopus and a charger from EO that will do this already, and also take account of when solar power is available from my roof panels. The Octopus Agile tariff charges in half-hour intervals. Most of the day it is around 5 - 6p a unit, in the small hours it is 3 - 4p but between 4 and 7 pm it is about 24p. It doesn't need legislation or enforcement to persuade people to charge when the power is cheap. This compares to roughly 15p a unit charged by the big power utilities and even Economy 7 is 8p.
> 
> And in those peak hours, it is already possible in some areas to sell your surplus stored battery power back to the grid (Ovo and Octopus have extensive trials working now). The combined storage power of, say, a million BEVs that have 80% charge left at 4 pm is in the region of tens of GW - that's roughly five major power stations or Dinorwig hydro storage installations, which will make a huge contribution to the grid. And there is plenty of time after 7 pm to charge your car ready for the morning.
> 
> BEVs are not the complete answer nor the answer for everyone. Hydrogen or (perhaps better and safer) ammonia fuel cells may be the best for heavy transport, though they are still a long way off making a major contribution. They will not alone fix the CO2/greenhouse problem in time. They will make a serious contribution to reducing CO2 (yes even when you take manufacturing costs into account) and a massive contribution to cleaning up air pollution in cities. Of course many other changes will be needed, especially in agriculture and diet and in consumption generally.



I freely admit to not having the expertise or time to look into this properly, but I started out by converting the annual amount of oil used in the UK to electrical energy as an equivalent amount of energy. I then divided that by 365 to give an amount per day, as an average. I'm not looking at peak energy requirement, just the amount of energy needed in a year, as provided by either oil, of nuclear power stations as an equivalent. My number came up with an outrageous 1,000 power stations required, just based on the energy used annually. However, I have since been put right and downgraded to 45 new power stations required. It is very easy to lose track of zeros when dealing with TerraWatt hours, and different people have differing numbers as to what constitutes "one nuclear power station equivalent". I was only out by a factor of 20 

If the UK is already producing sufficient electricity to completely replace all fossil fuels, but are currently throwing it away through inefficient use of electrify, that is a) brilliant news, and b) ever-so-slightly unbelievable. I wait to be convinced.


----------



## RogerS

Terry - Somerset":3bztd39z said:


> .....
> It also seems that the additional capacity required to accomodate all EVs depends on the charging regime. Spare capacity at night would/could be sold at much lower prices than daytime charging. So the additional capacity required could be a factor of 2 or 3 time different under different pricing and charging regimes.



That's a specious argument by those propounding it. If everyone charges their car at night then there won't be 'spare capacity'.



Terry - Somerset":3bztd39z said:


> .
> There is also some debate whether battery storage could be used to supplement the grid at peak demand times by feeding power back into the grid. This would impact on additional capacity requirements but there are some technical issues to be sorted



Sheer lunacy and dreamt up while in a drug-induced euphoria. "Oh, sorry dear, we can't go shopping, I've just emptied the car into the grid". Leaving aside the technology, the cost.


In conclusion:

(a) future plans need to assume a significant increase in generating capacity _They do....refer to the National Electricity documents_
(b) plans should include upgrades to distribution networks _They already do....refer to the Western Power Distribution document I linked to_
(c) it is reasonable to assume a median case not worst case in terms of capacity needed _But if we assume that 'worst case' is all EV cars then surely that is the worst case and MUST be planned for._
(d) as the changes will happen over 15-20 years we do not need to be in panic mode 
(e) if properly managed some costs may be offset by savings in not upgrading conventional fuel supply chains.[/quote] _Any more information on this ?_


----------



## RogerS

Just a thought. Where is the night time generation going to come from ? Certainly not solar. Wind is not consistent. If the frequency starts to drop then automatic power-shedding occurs as happened in August last year.


----------



## RogerS

MusicMan":1fyb5gbp said:


> .... What they are planning is smart meters that measure and charge in half hour intervals throughout the 24 hours, linked to the price and availability of power. ....



If they bring in charging by the half-hour and hike the price up between, say, 4 and 7pm then can the differentiate between those houses with a charging point and those houses without ? Seems a tad unfair if they can't.


----------



## Bodgers

RogerS":3u3puslt said:


> MusicMan":3u3puslt said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... What they are planning is smart meters that measure and charge in half hour intervals throughout the 24 hours, linked to the price and availability of power. ....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If they bring in charging by the half-hour and hike the price up between, say, 4 and 7pm then can the differentiate between those houses with a charging point and those houses without ? Seems a tad unfair if they can't.
Click to expand...

For the most part, yes.

For a charger to qualify for the UK gov grant it must include the hardware to do grid comms, similar to a smart meter. This kind of dynamic balancing has been thought about.

As general comment to some of the objects raised on this thread and on the "whataboutisms" that you see around the internet - you aren't the first one to think of these sorts of issues. Engineers around the world have been thinking and planning for a long time about things like vehicle to grid, infrastructure to vehicle, long term battery management, battery recycling, complete vehicle lifetime emissions, rapid charging infrastructure etc.


----------



## Droogs

In future, I would think you will have to register your specific home electric vehicle supply equipment ( EVSE) with your respective energy supplier as it will "talk" to them and they will then offer you the appropriate rate in your contract.


----------



## Bodgers

Droogs":ke1w60q6 said:


> In future, I would think you will have to register your specific home electric vehicle supply equipment ( EVSE) with your respective energy supplier as it will "talk" to them and they will then offer you the appropriate rate in your contract.


Octopus just do the off peak metering via a smart meter at the moment.

The hardware in the charger that can do grid comms, is used purely by the national grid for balancing I believe and does that without any sign up to anything.





Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Yet more numbers by someone who has looked into the power generation issue. He claims:

The UK: A 36% increase in generation and a 49% increase in installed capacity, costing $140 billion.






The numbers for Europe are more exciting. The entire article is here: http://euanmearns.com/how-much-more-ele ... -vehicles/

Once the infrastructure is paid for, it may well be a better way organising travel, especially if cars drive themselves (although a car doesn't need to be electric to drive itself). However, $140 billion is still quite a bit lump of cash, and will naturally increase substantially before the rollout is complete, because that's how government works. It's double the HS2 budget, but everyone benefits, rather than just people in the Midlands.

Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.


----------



## Cheshirechappie

Trainee neophyte":1cf5hd8z said:


> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.



Fun scientific fact for the day; carbon dioxide is plant food. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration gives faster plant growth, so more food for humans, more fodder for grazing animals, quicker tree growth. 

You never hear much about that on the BBC. Can't think why.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Cheshirechappie":f9g7g6s7 said:


> Trainee neophyte":f9g7g6s7 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fun scientific fact for the day; carbon dioxide is plant food. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration gives faster plant growth, so more food for humans, more fodder for grazing animals, quicker tree growth.
> 
> You never hear much about that on the BBC. Can't think why.
Click to expand...


Greenhouses have CO2 levels boosted up to about 1,000ppm, and a good two hour meeting with Human Resources can see levels as high as 5,000 ppm. (Actually any room with a group of people trapped in it will do - it isn't only HR that blows lots of hot air).

Final thought for the day: the UK is looking to impoverish its people by an unspecified amount, by changing their energy source from concentrated, cheap and efficient fossil fuels to an expensive, hard to harvest, difficult to distribute energy source, all because of Climate Change™. India and China, on the other hand, are building coal powered generating stations hand over fist. The UK's contribution to CO2 is irrelevant compared to 2+ billion people going through their industrial revolution, so the only possible outcome is the same climate change regardless of UK behaviour, but UK citizens will be materially poorer.

Makes you think, doesn't it...


----------



## Sheffield Tony

We will have a long way to go to be materially poorer than most of those people in India and China though.

And remember that a lot of that pollution in India and China is created on our behalf in the process of making the tut we in the West buy. We have effectively subcontracted our pollution to them.

And yes, CO2 promotes plant growth. When we've released all that trapped in coal, we will have the climate of the Carboniferous era back. Tree ferns will do really well. Humans, maybe not so.


----------



## RogerS

Trainee neophyte":1ypomoww said:


> Yet more numbers by someone who has looked into the power generation issue. He claims:
> 
> ...



Absolute BS in his numbers. His average mileage per year is double what it actually is. I didn't bother looking at the rest.


----------



## Bodgers

Trainee neophyte":buwn26x5 said:


> Yet more numbers by someone who has looked into the power generation issue. He claims:
> 
> The UK: A 36% increase in generation and a 49% increase in installed capacity, costing $140 billion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The numbers for Europe are more exciting. The entire article is here: http://euanmearns.com/how-much-more-ele ... -vehicles/
> 
> Once the infrastructure is paid for, it may well be a better way organising travel, especially if cars drive themselves (although a car doesn't need to be electric to drive itself). However, $140 billion is still quite a bit lump of cash, and will naturally increase substantially before the rollout is complete, because that's how government works. It's double the HS2 budget, but everyone benefits, rather than just people in the Midlands.
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.



Who is “he”? They look like fossil fuel industry experts...
These are not the numbers that the National Grid are showing - and they are running the grid.

https://theenergyst.com/millions-electr ... onal-grid/

National Grid are actually encouraging the take up of EVs. If they had any private concerns, I doubt they’d be encouraging it,


----------



## RogerS

Bodgers":2venk8wm said:


> Trainee neophyte":2venk8wm said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yet more numbers by someone who has looked into the power generation issue. He claims:
> 
> The UK: A 36% increase in generation and a 49% increase in installed capacity, costing $140 billion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The numbers for Europe are more exciting. The entire article is here: http://euanmearns.com/how-much-more-ele ... -vehicles/
> 
> Once the infrastructure is paid for, it may well be a better way organising travel, especially if cars drive themselves (although a car doesn't need to be electric to drive itself). However, $140 billion is still quite a bit lump of cash, and will naturally increase substantially before the rollout is complete, because that's how government works. It's double the HS2 budget, but everyone benefits, rather than just people in the Midlands.
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Who is “he”? They look like fossil fuel industry experts...
> These are not the numbers that the National Grid are showing - and they are running the grid.
> 
> https://theenergyst.com/millions-electr ... onal-grid/
> 
> National Grid are actually encouraging the take up of EVs. If they had any private concerns, I doubt they’d be encouraging it,
Click to expand...


Maybe the geezer was confused using his Sinclair calculator with one needing RPN input ?

One thing is for sure. £100 BN on HS2 or £100 BN on a UK-wide charging network? I know which one benefits the UK as a whole by about a Google-percent.


----------



## John Brown

Cheshirechappie":32rg1yp8 said:


> Trainee neophyte":32rg1yp8 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fun scientific fact for the day; carbon dioxide is plant food. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration gives faster plant growth, so more food for humans, more fodder for grazing animals, quicker tree growth.
> 
> You never hear much about that on the BBC. Can't think why.
Click to expand...

It's because radio waves don't propagate as well through CO2, so all the BBC would have to up their transmission power.
Obvious, I'd have thought.
Or maybe it's just total b*ll*cks, as it doesn't really matter how much faster plants grow, if most of the planet is under water.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

RogerS":6ufm63et said:


> Bodgers":6ufm63et said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Trainee neophyte":6ufm63et said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yet more numbers by someone who has looked into the power generation issue. He claims:
> 
> The UK: A 36% increase in generation and a 49% increase in installed capacity, costing $140 billion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The numbers for Europe are more exciting. The entire article is here: http://euanmearns.com/how-much-more-ele ... -vehicles/
> 
> Once the infrastructure is paid for, it may well be a better way organising travel, especially if cars drive themselves (although a car doesn't need to be electric to drive itself). However, $140 billion is still quite a bit lump of cash, and will naturally increase substantially before the rollout is complete, because that's how government works. It's double the HS2 budget, but everyone benefits, rather than just people in the Midlands.
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Who is “he”? They look like fossil fuel industry experts...
> These are not the numbers that the National Grid are showing - and they are running the grid.
> 
> https://theenergyst.com/millions-electr ... onal-grid/
> 
> National Grid are actually encouraging the take up of EVs. If they had any private concerns, I doubt they’d be encouraging it,
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Maybe the geezer was confused using his Sinclair calculator with one needing RPN input ?
> 
> One thing is for sure. £100 BN on HS2 or £100 BN on a UK-wide charging network? I know which one benefits the UK as a whole by about a Google-percent.
Click to expand...


From the nice people at the RAC, total petrol sales for the year 2018 was 47.1 billion litres. Diesel 30.5 billion litres. Now, the bit that may have tripped me up previously was the assumption that however many kilowatt-hours in that fuel would be needed to be generated for the electric cars, but ICE cars throw away about 70% of the energy as heat and cooling the system, whereas electric cars are 90% efficient. Here's a fun quote com Elon Musk:


> Elon: “Exactly. Chris has a nice way of saying it which is, you have enough electricity to power all the cars in the country if you stop refining gasoline. You take an average of 5 kilowatt hours to refine gasoline, something like the Model S can go 20 miles on 5 kilowatt hours. You basically have the energy needed to power electric vehicles if you stop refining.”



Panic over guys! We can all buy electric cars and save the world, and still have change left over to buy lunch! Who said TANSTAAFL?

For my next trick, I'm going to convert my aged pickup truck. What could possibly go wrong?


----------



## Geoff_S

John Brown":2hqy0ads said:


> Cheshirechappie":2hqy0ads said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Trainee neophyte":2hqy0ads said:
> 
> 
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fun scientific fact for the day; carbon dioxide is plant food. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration gives faster plant growth, so more food for humans, more fodder for grazing animals, quicker tree growth.
> 
> You never hear much about that on the BBC. Can't think why.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> It's because radio waves don't propagate as well through CO2, so all the BBC would have to up their transmission power.
> Obvious, I'd have thought.
> Or maybe it's just total b*ll*cks, as it doesn't really matter how much faster plants grow, if most of the planet is under water.
Click to expand...


But we won't be under water because all of the plants will suck it up!


----------



## RogerS

I've been laid up in bed with food poisoning.....well, the bedroom is closer to the khazi and so I might as well be comfortable. Been looking at house batteries...just can't see the economics. Prices are insane. And that's without the cost of solar panels. Selling it back to the grid at night ? How much are they going to get paid for it then ? They're already discounting the electricity price that they're charging customers.

Then there was a throwaway comment about repeatedly recharging back up to 100% from 80% would radically shorten the life of the battery. That battery life was, at best 8-10 years. So the value of the secondhand market looks like zilch if you buy one then.

All sounds to me a bit like a gigantic con/Ponzi scheme/Emperor's New Clothes/all three.


----------



## jeremyduncombe

Cheshirechappie":h94cg0w9 said:


> Trainee neophyte":h94cg0w9 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fun scientific fact for the day; carbon dioxide is plant food. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration gives faster plant growth, so more food for humans, more fodder for grazing animals, quicker tree growth.
> 
> You never hear much about that on the BBC. Can't think why.
Click to expand...


That is partly true. Increased CO2 concentrations will give an initial boost to plant growth, and so do increasing temperatures. However, when average temperatures pass a certain point, a plant’s ability to absorb and use carbon dioxide reduces. If we all accept that increasing atmospheric CO2 ( whether manmade or not ) eventually leads to global warming, we will sooner or later reach a point when plant growth slows sharply and CO2 levels therefore increase ever faster. I don’t know when or whether we will get to that point - but maybe it would be better not to find out the hard way.


----------



## jeremyduncombe

Trainee neophyte":p7cz4m4r said:


> Yet more numbers by someone who has looked into the power generation issue. He claims:
> 
> The UK: A 36% increase in generation and a 49% increase in installed capacity, costing $140 billion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The numbers for Europe are more exciting. The entire article is here: http://euanmearns.com/how-much-more-ele ... -vehicles/
> 
> Once the infrastructure is paid for, it may well be a better way organising travel, especially if cars drive themselves (although a car doesn't need to be electric to drive itself). However, $140 billion is still quite a bit lump of cash, and will naturally increase substantially before the rollout is complete, because that's how government works. It's double the HS2 budget, but everyone benefits, rather than just people in the Midlands.
> 
> Final thought: what if carbon isn't the evil monster purported to be? What if the catastrophic climate change message turns out to be exagereration rather than fact? If everyone stops using oil, it's price wil plummet, and it will be even more cost-effective to use oil rather than electricity. I do hope no one has made a mistake, because we are all going to be poorer paying for all of this new technology.


The latest statistics show annual car mileage in the UK is around 7,600 miles, that is a little over half the figures quoted on that chart. That would give us additional infrastructure costs in the UK of say 80 billion US dollars or thereabouts. That is rather less than HS2 is likely to cost, and surely an investment worth making. My concern is not whether it is worth doing, more that on past experience predicted costs of 80 billion are likely to balloon to 300 billion before we are finished.


----------



## RogerS

Why do I picture two images...??

Private Fraser "We're doomed....we're doomed"

Corporal Jones "Don't panic....don't panic"


----------



## jeremyduncombe

I am continuing to enjoy this thread and the wide variety of opinions people have expressed. The arguments have tended to focus on whether an individual will be financially better of by buying an EV, whether the UK can develop the necessary infrastructure quickly enough, and whether it is worth bothering when other countries are continuing to increase their CO2 emissions.
All other things being equal, EVs have one big point in their favour - there are no emissions at the point of use. I drive a diesel car so I am as guilty as everyone else, but I am sick of breathing filthy exhaust fumes in every town and village. No good of course if we just shift the air pollution elsewhere, but surely a factor if we really can build an adequate electricity generating system based on renewables. I was pretty cynical about renewable power when it all started a few years ago. I am getting close to having to eat my words.


----------



## Cheshirechappie

jeremyduncombe":34o1adie said:


> That is partly true. Increased CO2 concentrations will give an initial boost to plant growth, and so do increasing temperatures. However, when average temperatures pass a certain point, a plant’s ability to absorb and use carbon dioxide reduces. If we all accept that increasing atmospheric CO2 ( whether manmade or not ) eventually leads to global warming, we will sooner or later reach a point when plant growth slows sharply and CO2 levels therefore increase ever faster. I don’t know when or whether we will get to that point - but maybe it would be better not to find out the hard way.



That's interesting. Would you be kind enough to provide a link or two, or indicate at what temperature a plant's ability to absorb carbon dioxide reduces, and by how much it's ability to absorb reduces? Does this happen at one or two degrees centigrade above current temperatures (which seems rather improbable, given that most plants grow better in summer conditions than winter ones), or at tens of degrees centigrade above (which even the most alarmist forecasts of global warming fall short of)?


----------



## Trevanion

Anyone see Top Gear tonight?

Jesus that Volkswagen IDR could shift! Seriously impressive stuff.

[youtube]dgwml_jW5LQ[/youtube]


----------



## RogerS

It's just not the same without those throaty exhaust riffs! Anyway, there's not enough room for SWMBO's handbag.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Lots of people are expressing shock/horror at the capital cost of a renewable (wind) infrastructure, but apparently fail to understand that future running costs are maintenance only and require no fuel or reprocessing plants.

The accepted approach is to compare the levelized costs of different energy sources. These seek to estimate the whole life costs taking into account initial investment, maintenance, fuel costs, major in life upgrades etc.

There are several estimates made in these calculations which needs to look forward at efficiencies and costs over several decades. But to focus on capital costs and exclude any running costs is (at the very least) somewhat simplistic.


----------



## RogerS

I'll ask the question again. What happens during the night when there is little or no wind ? How do we generate power then ?


----------



## Trevanion




----------



## RogerS

Terry - Somerset":1uc2g9rw said:


> Lots of people are expressing shock/horror at the capital cost of a renewable (wind) infrastructure, but apparently fail to understand that future running costs are maintenance only and require no fuel or reprocessing plants.
> 
> The accepted approach is to compare the levelized costs of different energy sources. These seek to estimate the whole life costs taking into account initial investment, maintenance, fuel costs, major in life upgrades etc.
> 
> There are several estimates made in these calculations which needs to look forward at efficiencies and costs over several decades. But to focus on capital costs and exclude any running costs is (at the very least) somewhat simplistic.



Well certainly looking at this chart from 2018, off-shore wind looks just a tad more expensive than coal or even nuclear ! And they both keep going when there's no wind.


----------



## Lons

AJB Temple":yownhtay said:


> The blocking thing does not happen.



Maybe not where you live but it does here. The local town main car park has 4 charging points and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen an empty bay. Always occupied by electric vehicles unless they have had fake charging cable installed :roll: and I've seen the same cars left plugged in for hours.

I don't drive an electric car and need / prefer 4x4 so until the size and spec of vehicle becomes affordable I won't be changing and I think that will be quite a while yet. I certainly will consider a hybrid when the time comes.

BTW I don't remember ever making a special trip or even detour to a filling station and imo anyone who does needs to get their life organised and as far as having to queue because the pumps are occupied, of course that happens but it's usually just a few minutes not possibility of the few hours waiting for a charging point.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

> Well certainly looking at this chart from 2018, off-shore wind looks just a tad more expensive than coal or even nuclear ! And they both keep going when there's no wind.



Onshore wind is currently much less than offshore - not surprising as every aspect of installation (foundations, cables, erection etc) and subsequent maintenance and repair is subject to often adverse weather conditions and delays. 

There is an issue with wind variability - it should probably only be part of an energy mix, not the basis for an entire strategy. Nuclear is a possibility in my view, using coal for energy is a step back into the dark ages (in more ways than one).


----------



## jeremyduncombe

Cheshirechappie":1aufxauk said:


> jeremyduncombe":1aufxauk said:
> 
> 
> 
> That is partly true. Increased CO2 concentrations will give an initial boost to plant growth, and so do increasing temperatures. However, when average temperatures pass a certain point, a plant’s ability to absorb and use carbon dioxide reduces. If we all accept that increasing atmospheric CO2 ( whether manmade or not ) eventually leads to global warming, we will sooner or later reach a point when plant growth slows sharply and CO2 levels therefore increase ever faster. I don’t know when or whether we will get to that point - but maybe it would be better not to find out the hard way.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's interesting. Would you be kind enough to provide a link or two, or indicate at what temperature a plant's ability to absorb carbon dioxide reduces, and by how much it's ability to absorb reduces? Does this happen at one or two degrees centigrade above current temperatures (which seems rather improbable, given that most plants grow better in summer conditions than winter ones), or at tens of degrees centigrade above (which even the most alarmist forecasts of global warming fall short of)?
Click to expand...


If you want some rather heavy bedtime reading, try this: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi ... /nph.15283.

It can be summarised ( very roughly! ) as:

1) A bit of warming probably increases CO2 uptake by many plants;
2) A lot of warming probably reduces CO2 absorption by many plants. Some trees may be able to acclimatise to higher temperatures, but others may not;
3) But ( from this and lots of other studies ) the biggest effect seems to be from increased global temperatures increasing drought risks across large areas of the globe, with consequent reductions in plant growth.

So I can’t quote a temperature rise at which effects will suddenly happen. Some areas are already experiencing more frequent droughts and lower growth, but it is always difficult to pin this directly on climate change. The only thing I can safely say is that rising atmospheric CO2 will not automatically lead to faster plant growth, and may eventually lead to the opposite.

No sign of a drought in my garden right now.


----------



## Lons

My neighbour currently has a leased Jag F pace and he's had a 48 hour trial of an I pace over the weekend, a very nice car which I drove 5 miles yesterday and was astonished at the smooth, lightning fast acceleration, around 4 seconds he told me though it took a bit of getting used to it's quiet and impressive apart from road noise.

Would I consider one? Well possibly if cost wasn't an issue but for most of us it is. I was interested enough to do a comparison with my current car last night and it's pretty shocking tbh.

I currently have a very highly specified GLC 4x4 SUV which to replace new would be around £47k. An equivalent I pace with less equipment would cost a wopping £75k, so £28k / almost 60% more expensive. No guessing what my decision would be it would have to be a hell of an argument to persuade me even if I could afford so way in the future as far as I'm concerned.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Terry - Somerset":3081jun2 said:


> Lots of people are expressing shock/horror at the capital cost of a renewable (wind) infrastructure, but apparently fail to understand that future running costs are maintenance only and require no fuel or reprocessing plants.
> 
> The accepted approach is to compare the levelized costs of different energy sources. These seek to estimate the whole life costs taking into account initial investment, maintenance, fuel costs, major in life upgrades etc.
> 
> There are several estimates made in these calculations which needs to look forward at efficiencies and costs over several decades. But to focus on capital costs and exclude any running costs is (at the very least) somewhat simplistic.



I hope you're not going to apply that logic to nuclear power! We'll be in all sorts of trouble if you look at total costs for building, running, and decommissioning.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

jeremyduncombe":31fo1psv said:


> Cheshirechappie":31fo1psv said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jeremyduncombe":31fo1psv said:
> 
> 
> 
> That is partly true. Increased CO2 concentrations will give an initial boost to plant growth, and so do increasing temperatures. However, when average temperatures pass a certain point, a plant’s ability to absorb and use carbon dioxide reduces. If we all accept that increasing atmospheric CO2 ( whether manmade or not ) eventually leads to global warming, we will sooner or later reach a point when plant growth slows sharply and CO2 levels therefore increase ever faster. I don’t know when or whether we will get to that point - but maybe it would be better not to find out the hard way.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's interesting. Would you be kind enough to provide a link or two, or indicate at what temperature a plant's ability to absorb carbon dioxide reduces, and by how much it's ability to absorb reduces? Does this happen at one or two degrees centigrade above current temperatures (which seems rather improbable, given that most plants grow better in summer conditions than winter ones), or at tens of degrees centigrade above (which even the most alarmist forecasts of global warming fall short of)?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If you want some rather heavy bedtime reading, try this: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi ... /nph.15283.
> 
> It can be summarised ( very roughly! ) as:
> 
> 1) A bit of warming probably increases CO2 uptake by many plants;
> 2) A lot of warming probably reduces CO2 absorption by many plants. Some trees may be able to acclimatise to higher temperatures, but others may not;
> 3) But ( from this and lots of other studies ) the biggest effect seems to be from increased global temperatures increasing drought risks across large areas of the globe, with consequent reductions in plant growth.
> 
> So I can’t quote a temperature rise at which effects will suddenly happen. Some areas are already experiencing more frequent droughts and lower growth, but it is always difficult to pin this directly on climate change. The only thing I can safely say is that rising atmospheric CO2 will not automatically lead to faster plant growth, and may eventually lead to the opposite.
> 
> No sign of a drought in my garden right now.
Click to expand...


Most, but not all plants increase productivity up to about 1,000 ppm. They evolved with that level of CO2. The increase is impressive - up to 50% more/faster growth - it's not just some theoretical, statistical difference. At the end of the last ice age CO2 levels were so low (180ppm) it was touch and go as to whether photosynthesis could actually take place at all - I have seen figures ranging from 50-170ppm as being the cut-off. People talk about the very close grain in bog Oak, and I wonder if this is due in some part to the slow growth due to lack of CO2 in the atmosphere - just my idle speculation, not anything I have seen tested.

As for plants being unable to cope with high temperatures, the effect on pollination is more pronounced than on growth generally, but the trivial increases in "average" temperatures is hardly going to make a difference - it will as you say be the extremes that cause the issue. The 3°C catastrophe projected by the IPCC is only going to be a worry if it causes desertification (how I hate that word, misused by the us army who "desertize" their tanks, probably with the letter zee). I have always assumed that more energy in the system means more evaporation of water from the sea which means more precipitation, but it won't be evenly spread. How is your current precipitation?

Oh, and it has been significantly warmer than it is currently several times, for prolonged periods, since the last ice age. Plants seem to have coped with it then, so I wouldn't worry too much.


----------



## RogerS

Trainee neophyte":3kzdt0x2 said:


> Terry - Somerset":3kzdt0x2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lots of people are expressing shock/horror at the capital cost of a renewable (wind) infrastructure, but apparently fail to understand that future running costs are maintenance only and require no fuel or reprocessing plants.
> 
> The accepted approach is to compare the levelized costs of different energy sources. These seek to estimate the whole life costs taking into account initial investment, maintenance, fuel costs, major in life upgrades etc.
> 
> There are several estimates made in these calculations which needs to look forward at efficiencies and costs over several decades. But to focus on capital costs and exclude any running costs is (at the very least) somewhat simplistic.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you're not going to apply that logic to nuclear power! We'll be in all sorts of trouble if you look at total costs for building, running, and decommissioning.
Click to expand...


Not sure what point you're making. Figures for nuclear are there in the chart I posted.


----------



## Blackswanwood

Lons":1chljoay said:


> My neighbour currently has a leased Jag F pace and he's had a 48 hour trial of an I pace over the weekend, a very nice car which I drove 5 miles yesterday and was astonished at the smooth, lightning fast acceleration, around 4 seconds he told me though it took a bit of getting used to it's quiet and impressive apart from road noise.
> 
> Would I consider one? Well possibly if cost wasn't an issue but for most of us it is. I was interested enough to do a comparison with my current car last night and it's pretty shocking tbh.
> 
> I currently have a very highly specified GLC 4x4 SUV which to replace new would be around £47k. An equivalent I pace with less equipment would cost a wopping £75k, so £28k / almost 60% more expensive. No guessing what my decision would be it would have to be a hell of an argument to persuade me even if I could afford so way in the future as far as I'm concerned.



I can relate to that Lons having recently been through the same thought process when we changed my wife’s car. My expectation is that we will see prices converge over the next couple of years particularly as major fleets switch over.

While £’s will be a factor for commercial fleets it will be impossible for many large employers achieve their publicly committed sustainability targets without making this move. My employer is taking the plunge with 5,000 plus car users now renewing on a cycle that only gives the options of electric or hybrid.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

RogerS":3ltwvtb5 said:


> Trainee neophyte":3ltwvtb5 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Terry - Somerset":3ltwvtb5 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lots of people are expressing shock/horror at the capital cost of a renewable (wind) infrastructure, but apparently fail to understand that future running costs are maintenance only and require no fuel or reprocessing plants.
> 
> The accepted approach is to compare the levelized costs of different energy sources. These seek to estimate the whole life costs taking into account initial investment, maintenance, fuel costs, major in life upgrades etc.
> 
> There are several estimates made in these calculations which needs to look forward at efficiencies and costs over several decades. But to focus on capital costs and exclude any running costs is (at the very least) somewhat simplistic.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you're not going to apply that logic to nuclear power! We'll be in all sorts of trouble if you look at total costs for building, running, and decommissioning.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Not sure what point you're making. Figures for nuclear are there in the chart I posted.
Click to expand...


Does it clude the cost of waste disposal/storage, and plant decommissioning? Neither are trivial. https://www.energydigital.com/utilities ... ower-plant


----------



## RogerS

Trainee neophyte":1ss3wmmt said:


> RogerS":1ss3wmmt said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Trainee neophyte":1ss3wmmt said:
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you're not going to apply that logic to nuclear power! We'll be in all sorts of trouble if you look at total costs for building, running, and decommissioning.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure what point you're making. Figures for nuclear are there in the chart I posted.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Does it clude the cost of waste disposal/storage, and plant decommissioning? Neither are trivial. https://www.energydigital.com/utilities ... ower-plant
Click to expand...


Yes it does...

_The costs include the initial capital, and the costs of continuous operation, fuel, and maintenance as well as the costs of de-commissioning and remediating any environmental damage. _


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":2l9qwjn3 said:


> My neighbour currently has a leased Jag F pace and he's had a 48 hour trial of an I pace over the weekend, a very nice car which I drove 5 miles yesterday and was astonished at the smooth, lightning fast acceleration, around 4 seconds he told me though it took a bit of getting used to it's quiet and impressive apart from road noise.
> 
> Would I consider one? Well possibly if cost wasn't an issue but for most of us it is. I was interested enough to do a comparison with my current car last night and it's pretty shocking tbh.
> 
> I currently have a very highly specified GLC 4x4 SUV which to replace new would be around £47k. An equivalent I pace with less equipment would cost a wopping £75k, so £28k / almost 60% more expensive. No guessing what my decision would be it would have to be a hell of an argument to persuade me even if I could afford so way in the future as far as I'm concerned.



For what it’s worth, I remove my shirt ready for a flaying

Obviously, any car that I look at is what I can afford at that point in time.

But whenever I have looked at buying a new car vs new car, or new vs second-hand, this is the way I calculate it. Obviously, there are other variables to consider, cash or loan, pay interest on loan or lose interest on savings, mpg vs miles per kWh, miles per year, actual depreciation etc, but for me it has always been a good starting point. And I just plug in the variables for the specifics at the time.

I personally try to keep a new car for up to 10 years, but have been known to trade after 5 years, so I do my calculations for 5 and 10 years.

I depreciate the car by 20% each year for 5/10 years.

I do 12000 miles per year.

I assume 3ppm for EV, 23ppm for ICE.

*5 Year Calculation*

An ICE car price of £47,000 after 5 years is going to be worth £15,401, a cost to me of £31,599.

An EV car price of £75,000 after 5 years is going to be worth £24,576, a cost to me of £50,424

Over 5 years the additional cost of the EV is £18,825, not £28,000.

But over 5 years I have had a 20ppm saving at 12000 miles per year is £12,000.

So, the EV has cost me an extra £6,825 over 5 years, not £28,000.

*10 Year Calculation*

An ICE car price of £47,000 after 10 years is going to be worth £5,047, a cost to me of £41,953.

An EV car price of £75,000 after 5 years is going to be worth £8,053, a cost to me of £66,947.

Over 10 years the additional cost of the EV is £24,994, not £28,000.

But over 10 years I have had a 20ppm saving at 12000 miles per year is £24,000.

So, the EV has cost me an extra £994 over 10 years, not £28,000.

*Summary*

The potential savings on EV really make a huge difference but yes, I am using a crystal ball here and maybe/probably/certainly things can change.

I applied this calculation to a number of scenarios and in a lot of cases (Tesla excluded because they are so expensive), it sort of works and I came to the conclusion that I would never save money with an EV over ICE, but over the life of the car, it wasn’t really going to cost me that much more.

As it happens, I bought a Golf EV which actually cost less than a Golf diesel and about the same as the Golf petrol. Those deals are out there.

It works for me, but I do understand that everyone is different in all sorts of ways.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

These figures broadly make sense - EVs are just about competitive over an extended "whole life" ownership in financial terms, although range and charging infrastructure still concern many. It makes little impact on those (most of us) who cannot afford, or don't want to buy, a new car.

What will happen to the future upfront costs of purchase:

- EV cost reductions driven by improved battery technology and economies of scale should reduce prices over the next few years. 

- potential for cost reduction on ICE is more limited - although if EV sales increase the response is likely to be reduced prices to use spare capacity.

The complete unknown of course is when the tax regime will change to penalise EVs as the government will want to replace ICE tax revenues which will fall.


----------



## Lons

I can see what you're saying Geoff and we're all different but in particular regarding your statement that you keep a car for up to 10 years. I would suggest that most people don't do that and in my case the longest I've had a car is 3.5 years and shortest exactly 12 months. I rarely buy a brand new car these days btw to avoid the financial hit when it leaves the showroom, my current car for example was 6 weeks old with £8k off the list price.

Technology moves at a pace and a car that is now 10 years old is archaic compared to one I could buy new today.
I would be extremely wary of buying a 10 year old EV probably needing batteries at likely extortionate cost whereas my car at the same age would have maybe 70k miles on the clock and still be good for that mileage again.

OK all over simplistic and crystal ball gazing but one size doesn't fit all and we really don't quite know how developments will pan out but in my case I can't identify with your calculations. I also note you haven't included cost of setting up charging points at home.

My wife would like to replace her current Mini Cooper Clubman, now 3.5 years old with an electric Mini and while I'm in favour it just doesn't stack up at the minute to change so we're hanging on to see what happens.


----------



## Lons

Terry - Somerset":wxopgw8b said:


> The complete unknown of course is when the tax regime will change to penalise EVs as the government will want to replace ICE tax revenues which will fall.



I think we all know what's going to happen Terry in the same way that when huge numbers of us took government advice and changed to diesel it didn't take long before they slapped 5p a litre extra tax on to claw back falling revenues.


----------



## Sheffield Tony

I wonder what the value of a 10 year old EV will be. I wonder how you would even start to predict it. So much can happen in 10 years. At the moment second hand EV prices are inflated by scarcity. But if they become more common, or the new price falls ? If technology does advance, could they become about as desirable as a 10 year old PC ? And the battery is so much of the cost, will it ever be worth replacing the battery, or does a significantly degraded battery make it scrap value only ? Like phones and other tech, perhaps they will become a throw away item.

I think it is quite likely that second hand ICE vehicles in good condition may be worth quite a premium at some point in the future. Except that the government will probably heavily load taxes onto them. Once they are gone, the tax breaks for EV's will not last long.


----------



## RogerS

Sheffield Tony":1jqdgadm said:


> I wonder what the value of a 10 year old EV will be.


Probably very low because the one thing that we DO know is that these batteries have a finite life. 8-10 years.


----------



## Lons

> I bought a Golf EV which actually cost less than a Golf diesel and about the same as the Golf petrol. Those deals are out there.



I was intrigued by that so had a quick look at the current VW pricelist.

Cheapest petrol Golf is listed at £ 21,120
Cheapest diesel ......................£ 22,495

EV ............................................£32,180 ( already includes government discount of £3,500 )

Even the highly specified GTI Perfomance model is only £1000 more than the EV ( that would take care of the cost of a home charging point ).

To me the figures still don't make sense especially as the discounts you can get on diesel and petrol at the minute are, I would suggest higher than you can get on an EV model.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

RogerS":3cmxyzo4 said:


> Sheffield Tony":3cmxyzo4 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder what the value of a 10 year old EV will be.
> 
> 
> 
> Probably very low because the one thing that we DO know is that these batteries have a finite life. 8-10 years.
Click to expand...

I'm unclear how "we" come to "know" this ( :shock: )


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Lons":bgu51bql said:


> I bought a Golf EV which actually cost less than a Golf diesel and about the same as the Golf petrol. Those deals are out there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I was intrigued by that so had a quick look at the current VW pricelist.
> 
> Cheapest petrol Golf is listed at £ 21,120
> Cheapest diesel ......................£ 22,495
> 
> EV ............................................£32,180 ( already includes government discount of £3,500 )
> 
> Even the highly specified GTI Perfomance model is only £1000 more than the EV ( that would take care of the cost of a home charging point ).
> 
> To me the figures still don't make sense especially as the discounts you can get on diesel and petrol at the minute are, I would suggest higher than you can get on an EV model.
Click to expand...

As said above, simply comparing ticket prices is not meaningful. It's the cost of ownership over the period of ownership that matters...


----------



## RogerS

Lons":1pyhajje said:


> ......
> 
> To me the figures still don't make sense especially as the discounts you can get on diesel and petrol at the minute are, I would suggest higher than you can get on an EV model.



I agree. And if you went into a high-end dealership they'd bite your hand off as they are suffering. As is the rest of the motor trade but even more so.


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":2vpn26ie said:


> RogerS":2vpn26ie said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sheffield Tony":2vpn26ie said:
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder what the value of a 10 year old EV will be.
> 
> 
> 
> Probably very low because the one thing that we DO know is that these batteries have a finite life. 8-10 years.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I'm unclear how "we" come to "know" this ( :shock: )
Click to expand...


Lots of studies out there. Easiest is to look at the length of warranty offered by the car maker.


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":ur0doihp said:


> Lons":ur0doihp said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I bought a Golf EV which actually cost less than a Golf diesel and about the same as the Golf petrol. Those deals are out there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I was intrigued by that so had a quick look at the current VW pricelist.
> 
> Cheapest petrol Golf is listed at £ 21,120
> Cheapest diesel ......................£ 22,495
> 
> EV ............................................£32,180 ( already includes government discount of £3,500 )
> 
> Even the highly specified GTI Perfomance model is only £1000 more than the EV ( that would take care of the cost of a home charging point ).
> 
> To me the figures still don't make sense especially as the discounts you can get on diesel and petrol at the minute are, I would suggest higher than you can get on an EV model.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> As said above, simply comparing ticket prices is not meaningful. It's the cost of ownership over the period of ownership that matters...
Click to expand...


Agreed. The extra cost of financing that extra £10k is not insignificant.


----------



## Lons

Woody2Shoes":3cauf456 said:


> As said above, simply comparing ticket prices is not meaningful. It's the cost of ownership over the period of ownership that matters...



It's not meaningless it's part of the equation and all I illustrated was that at list prices there's a big difference. The important bit is that we don't all have the same "period of ownership" expectations and where Geoff for example might be happy to keep a car for 10 years mine is more like 3.


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":3ak1rqpz said:


> I bought a Golf EV which actually cost less than a Golf diesel and about the same as the Golf petrol. Those deals are out there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I was intrigued by that so had a quick look at the current VW pricelist.
> 
> Cheapest petrol Golf is listed at £ 21,120
> Cheapest diesel ......................£ 22,495
> 
> EV ............................................£32,180 ( already includes government discount of £3,500 )
> 
> Even the highly specified GTI Perfomance model is only £1000 more than the EV ( that would take care of the cost of a home charging point ).
> 
> To me the figures still don't make sense especially as the discounts you can get on diesel and petrol at the minute are, I would suggest higher than you can get on an EV model.
Click to expand...


Last November I was quoted £23,858 for a new Golf EV, and similar figures from other dealerships. The Mk 7 Golf is to be replaced by the Mk 8 Golf but not the EV Golf. It was stock that they were trying to get rid of. So a bit of a deal at that time!

I take your point on the pricing of petrol/diesel Golf, but they are the cheapest, so I compared just above that to get some sort of comparison of standard options etc compared with the e Golf. It's more art than science in that respect.

As for the charger, our situation is that we don't need one. We just plug in at night on a standard 3-pin plug and next morning, fully charged.
The i-Pace sort of thing is of course a different option having more batteries, but it would still take in 100'ish miles of charge on a 3-pin over 12 hours. That's 2.4 kWh charge rate giving 4 miles per kWH, for us anyway.


----------



## RogerS

Geoff_S":2vlxrej8 said:


> ...
> The i-Pace sort of thing is of course a different option having more batteries, but it would still take in 100'ish miles of charge on a 3-pin over 12 hours. That's 2.4 kWh charge rate giving 4 miles per kWH, for us anyway.



Geoff, can you convert that to pence per mile please ?


----------



## Lons

I wasn't questioning your personal costs Geoff there are always deals to be done especially on stock and pre reg vehicles. in fact I quite enjoy the process of extended negotiations with the dealerships and am quite prepared to walk away until I get the deal I want. 
It's 20 years since I bought a VW so out of touch but including my wife's I've bought 8 cars and a motorhome in the last 10 years and know that in the current climate it's a hell of a lot easier to extract very hefty discounts off diesel and petrol cars than EV. Certainly when it comes to Minis as I've had the conversations.


----------



## Geoff_S

RogerS":2dar6ag4 said:


> Geoff_S":2dar6ag4 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...
> The i-Pace sort of thing is of course a different option having more batteries, but it would still take in 100'ish miles of charge on a 3-pin over 12 hours. That's 2.4 kWh charge rate giving 4 miles per kWH, for us anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Geoff, can you convert that to pence per mile please ?
Click to expand...


Sure, we pay 12.83 pence per kWh. In the Golf I can easily get 4.5 miles per kWh, a bit less when it's cold, more when it's warm.

So, 12.83 pence / 4.5 miles = 2.85ppm

Last trip, SW London to Alexandra Palace, a round trip of 56 miles cost £1.60


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":194yn4qq said:


> I wasn't questioning your personal costs Geoff there are always deals to be done especially on stock and pre reg vehicles. in fact I quite enjoy the process of extended negotiations with the dealerships and am quite prepared to walk away until I get the deal I want.
> It's 20 years since I bought a VW so out of touch but including my wife's I've bought 8 cars and a motorhome in the last 10 years and know that in the current climate it's a hell of a lot easier to extract very hefty discounts off diesel and petrol cars than EV. Certainly when it comes to Minis as I've had the conversations.



That's OK Lons, I didn't think you were  

I hate haggling , I actually hate the whole buying process but needs must


----------



## Cheshirechappie

jeremyduncombe":1s4e55jx said:


> Cheshirechappie":1s4e55jx said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jeremyduncombe":1s4e55jx said:
> 
> 
> 
> That is partly true. Increased CO2 concentrations will give an initial boost to plant growth, and so do increasing temperatures. However, when average temperatures pass a certain point, a plant’s ability to absorb and use carbon dioxide reduces. If we all accept that increasing atmospheric CO2 ( whether manmade or not ) eventually leads to global warming, we will sooner or later reach a point when plant growth slows sharply and CO2 levels therefore increase ever faster. I don’t know when or whether we will get to that point - but maybe it would be better not to find out the hard way.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's interesting. Would you be kind enough to provide a link or two, or indicate at what temperature a plant's ability to absorb carbon dioxide reduces, and by how much it's ability to absorb reduces? Does this happen at one or two degrees centigrade above current temperatures (which seems rather improbable, given that most plants grow better in summer conditions than winter ones), or at tens of degrees centigrade above (which even the most alarmist forecasts of global warming fall short of)?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If you want some rather heavy bedtime reading, try this: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi ... /nph.15283.
> 
> It can be summarised ( very roughly! ) as:
> 
> 1) A bit of warming probably increases CO2 uptake by many plants;
> 2) A lot of warming probably reduces CO2 absorption by many plants. Some trees may be able to acclimatise to higher temperatures, but others may not;
> 3) But ( from this and lots of other studies ) the biggest effect seems to be from increased global temperatures increasing drought risks across large areas of the globe, with consequent reductions in plant growth.
> 
> So I can’t quote a temperature rise at which effects will suddenly happen. Some areas are already experiencing more frequent droughts and lower growth, but it is always difficult to pin this directly on climate change. The only thing I can safely say is that rising atmospheric CO2 will not automatically lead to faster plant growth, and may eventually lead to the opposite.
> 
> No sign of a drought in my garden right now.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the reply. Given the nature of these 'debates' in the past, I wasn't really expecting one!

Here's a passage from page 425 of 'Heaven and Earth' by Ian Plimer:

"During times of ice ages such as 140,000 years ago, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was higher than the pre-industrial revolution figure of 270ppmv [reference to Lorius et al 1990: The ice core record - climate sensitivity and future greenhouse warming, Nature 347 pp 139-145]. It is clear that CO2 is not the only factor that controls air temperature, otherwise we could not have ice age conditions with a high atmospheric CO2 content. The transition to global ice age to global warming at about 250Ma was characterised by huge rises (to 2000ppmv) and falls (to 280ppmv) in the amount of atmospheric CO2 [Montanez et al 2007 - CO2 forced climate and vegetation instability during the Late Paleozoic deglaciation. Science 315 pp87-91]. During this time plant and animal life thrived. If CO2 was not recycled and humans burned all the known fossil fuels on earth, then the atmospheric CO2 content would be 2000ppmv."

I think that both your reference and mine were written by people of knowledge, decency and integrity, but their messages do seem to vary a bit, or our interpretations do, at any rate.

Which just demonstrates how complex and uncertain 'climate science' (as opposed to climate politics) tends to be. It's deeply regrettable that most of our media fail lamentably to look at any depth at climate science, but I suppose that trying to convey complexity is a lot harder than simple dumbed-down soundbites. Either the journalists think we couldn't cope with the complexity, or, more likely, some of journalists can't. It's also deeply regrettable that the science and the politics have become so entangled that separating the two is a nightmare.

I've seen very credible evidence that climate change is predominantly a natural phenomenon, but there are plenty asserting that it's current changes are predominantly anthropogenic.

Where does the truth of all this lie? Damned if I know - but I strongly suspect that the political ramifications are going to cause me inconvenience, curb my freedom to act as I see fit, and cost me a lot of money. Matthew Goodwin, author (with Roger Eatwell) of 'National Populism; The Revolt against Liberal Democracy' has suggested that the next big political argument, after the debates surrounding EU membership, will be about 'environmentalism' and it's ramifications, and I suspect he may be right.

We shall no doubt find out in due course.


----------



## Lons

Geoff_S":xlcxz3yq said:


> I hate haggling , I actually hate the whole buying process but needs must



I love it. :lol: 
When I bought my last Audi I gave them a price I was prepared to pay and walked away when they refused to get anywhere near it, they chased me for nearly 2 weeks and then I knocked off another £300 as I said there car was depreciating on the forecourt and if it went into the next month would be even more, they gave in and accepted the lowered figure to boot.

My Merc took over a week to negotiate and again the tactics worked but only if you are able to walk away and be prepared to lose the car. My view is that there's always another one and they'll still make money or wouldn't sell it.

The best deal I've done I think was a 3 year old Skoda Citigo with £10k on the clock which I bought last summer specifically to tow behind the motorhome. It was up at £6950 and I offered £5200 but shook hands at £5300. The dealership had 18 similar cars in stock and I got hold of the owner and pushed it hard. When I collected the car he offered me a coffee and dug out the car paperwork to show me that after workshop prep costs he had cleared £1.17 total so including the coffee had made a loss, in fact I got a free voucher for its next MOT so the cost of that is on top. 
He did it for cash flow reasons and had nothing to gain by showing me that so I believe it and admit to feeling a bit guilty at the time.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

RogerS":13y1f90z said:


> Yes it does...
> 
> _The costs include the initial capital, and the costs of continuous operation, fuel, and maintenance as well as the costs of de-commissioning and remediating any environmental damage. _



Then I shall shut up!


----------



## Droogs

I would first like to thank Geoff_S for his calculations, very informative but his post along with a lot of others are not taking a few things into account and these are not really technical points that can really have an easily quantifiable financial effect for us at this point. This is due to them having quite big differentials in their size and impact depending on where you are in the world. For some parts, they are trends that are just starting and for others they are having an effect already even before we have the full technology disruption, market re-alignment and eventual switch of technology and transport in general. 

For us here on the forum, I think they are something that we are not really aware of and this is, as I see it, because in general we are a bunch of old farts. So, you can guess these points are due to what is generally a generational split in attitudes, aspirations and social interaction. 

The following is not set in concrete and are for the most part generalizations of my observations. I will start with economics first; 

For us a car has usually been the second largest outlay that we would have economically in our lifetimes and after getting a nice house full of sparkly consumer carp we would then look to get a nice car. (I know there are exceptions). However there does definitely seem to be a marked difference between those roughly over mid-thirties and those below as to that view. Those below that age are it appear consigned to the fact that they will not be able to afford to buy a house until they are much older that we were before they can afford to, unless they inherit. They are also a generation who have grown up knowing nothing about the benefits of saving in general as there has been not real return rate or encouragement to do so. They have in general been enticed with easy credit and low interest rates to spend. It is really alarming how little in savings the average person actually has. They are a generation that has not had to go without or had to save up to get stuff and are bombarded with the ideas that they have inalienable rights that seems to include the right to have whatever they want without necessarily earning it (not a dig or their fault). They are the true consumerist society and everyone wants to be part of it, especially those in the poorer parts of the world as they gain more education and exposure to what the 1st world has to offer. 

They are therefore more inclined to use all their income as disposable and not allocate any aside at all. They are for the most part easily to describe as technology junkies and almost fall over themselves to get the latest and greatest tech.


----------



## Droogs

They are therefore more inclined to use all their income as disposable and not allocate any aside at all. They are for the most part easily to describe as technology junkies and almost fall over themselves to get the latest and greatest tech. 
Alongside this they are much more imbued with “groupthink” thanks to that tech and social media. They are far more easily influenced in what to think is the right thing to do or say etc. and being basically brought up with social media echo chambers and have very little exposure to other views or possibilities of thought and even have had very few experiences or requirements to “think on the fly” or use critical thinking about things in general. Hence the rise of “social influencer” as an actual job. They are very aware of what is seen as the great movements or social arguments of our time and are much more inclined to voice their opinion as they can do so without consequences online for the most part. Many are very aware and vocal IRL about many things and do sway others by a lot.
We on the other hand tend to think in a much more cynical way and as for the most part don’t live on social media as they do tend to be much more realistic in outlook and in how we approach things. But as a consequence, our world view, attitudes and actions for the most part make it very difficult if not impossible for us foggies to see how so very different their thinking is. 
How does this all relate to cars, well having spoken to several family members about cars and aspirations etc., I was very surprised at how different things were even between the small age gap of 12 years from the oldest to youngest I spoke to. This is how things broke down for each of them:


----------



## Droogs

Mid – late 30s – Saving like hell to get deposit for house and drives a cheap 12-year-old diesel Focus. Has a couple of big screen TVs and all the game consoles and PC etc but older versions but new phone. Missus having a kid later this year and they are trying to get into a house before the kid is born. Reckons once house is sorted, they will buy slightly newer used car with space to have family in in around 3-4 years probably something like an old Nissan Leaf but defo not a diesel. 
Late 20s to mid 30s – not married but cohabits with girlfriend – Does not think he will ever buy a house unless they inherit some cash. They live quite well don’t really save much other than enough to cover emergency (equivalent to about 5% of income) but do spend it very often and have to start again. Has a leased 3 series. Has all the tech you could want in his rented flat and they go out to gigs, meals at least once a fortnight. He wants to get a better car once he gets a raise or promotion at work and will probably lease or PCP a M3 or similar, keep that until deal is finished and then he hopes to trade it in for a Tesla. 
Early 20s just finished uni and once settled in new job is looking to rent a better flat (doubts he will ever buy a home unless he wins lottery) and hopefully next year get a BEV. Has all the latest tech toys including drones and one of those stupid wheelie board things. Very environment aware and has voted green but wants to see fossil cars banned for sale new within the next 5 years and used sales only allowed to pay the deposit on a BEV. Thinks long range travel will be train and haulage probably Hydrogen truck or Tesla semi with 10 years. 
Late teens – just started uni - not interested in buying a house or a car she feels she can’t afford the first and the second is pointless as that’s what Uber is for now and when she leaves uni what Robotaxi will be for. Very interested in living in a house that is solar or wind powered expects Amazon to deliver by drone and wants to travel the world on an airship or super-fast train
Sub teen thinks we will be living like star trek and teleport everywhere.
From talking to them there seems to be a definite move to the younger you are the less likely you will want to own a car in the first place and if you do then it will definitely not be an ICE car. I have read articles that seem to support this and that the general trend is that there are less and less people taking driving lessons. So for the established motor industry it seems that their days are numbered not just from a power-train choice but also from a public want/need one as well as the upcoming generations expect to have autonomous clean transport systems in place and it is just the older generation that seem to want to hold on to the status quo. The future may be around 10 to 15 years away but it is absolutely electric


----------



## RogerS

Lons":5fu2wpv2 said:


> Geoff_S":5fu2wpv2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I hate haggling , I actually hate the whole buying process but needs must
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I love it. :lol:
> When I bought my last Audi I gave them a price I was prepared to pay and walked away when they refused to get anywhere near it, they chased me for nearly 2 weeks and then I knocked off another £300 as I said there car was depreciating on the forecourt and if it went into the next month would be even more, they gave in and accepted the lowered figure to boot......
Click to expand...

Classic =D> 

When we bought our secondhand S2000. they'd not been out for very long. The local garage in Worcester didn't have any so the nice salesman invited me through to the back office to see what was available in the rest of the dealer network. We sat down in front of the screen and there, against every secondhand car, was the price the garage had paid for it :lol:


----------



## RogerS

Interesting posts, Droogs and thanks. The one thing that jumps out at me is the sheer power of Groupthink in social media. Kind of saddens me, TBH.


----------



## Droogs

Me too


----------



## RogerS

One thing's for sure, my missus would never agree to one. She even hates the electric brake on the Audi ! She hates the way it always seems to be beeping at her as well. I am with her on one thing though. This model of Q3 lets you shove that wretched and to us pointless central screen out of sight. I think that if we ever get a car where you can't do that then I'll be making a nice little ornate wooden cover.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Luddite. I was at the bloody forefront of the microprocessor revolution. Designed and built my first three computers long before Gates-baby. I just happen to think that we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater and lost our priorities as a society.


----------



## Lons

Droogs":t1mxyapo said:


> because in general we are a bunch of old farts.



Hey, speak for yourself Droogs. :roll: 
On second thoughts you're probably right. :wink:


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":1j0ffdkc said:


> Droogs":1j0ffdkc said:
> 
> 
> 
> because in general we are a bunch of old farts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hey, speak for yourself Droogs. :roll:
> On second thoughts you're probably right. :wink:
Click to expand...


Careful, don't slip into groupthink :|


----------



## Lons

> upcoming generations expect to have autonomous clean transport systems in place



The problem with that Droogs is it will take longer than 10 - 15 years to achieve that on a national basis. The youth of today may well not see the need for a car and it's perfectly valid if they live in one of the major conurbations with established public transport and cycle paths but they'll change their minds pretty quickly if they move out into the countryside with maybe half a dozen buses a day if they're lucky enough to be near a bus route in the first place.

The taxi service provided by mum and dad might well not be available if they can't afford an EV


----------



## Lons

Has anyone noticed, 20 pages and no falling out or political arguments and pontificating. Just the way it should be. =D>


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Lons":1vfnbkga said:


> Has anyone noticed, 20 pages and no falling out or political arguments and pontificating. Just the way it should be. =D>



That's because everyone here is just lovely.

Talking about second hand prices, I had a quick look at auto trader, and there are 496 ev cars available priced below £15,000.

Now I think I could save up to £3,000 a year on fuel costs, so if I bought a second hand EV for £5,000, it would only have to survive two years before it had paid for itself. 
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified ... rchad=Used

"They" reckon that an ev should last half a million miles so the one above on 86,000 is almost new  Just need to ask about batteries...

For those of us who can't / won't afford a Tesla, it's an interesting thing to consider.


----------



## AES

Yes, I HAVE noticed that! And "right pleased" I am to do so.

The way the thread has developed there was plenty of "scope" for it to turn into a personalised mud slinging match but no sign of that. Great. Wonder if it's got anything at all to do with the notable absence of the Forum-designated "Resident Troll"????????

The research done by Droogs is very interesting. I wonder if those youngsters (can't all be "youngsters, surely?) who see no need/want for a car will feel the same when, as already mentioned above, they move some distance away from, say, a local bus route?

I've lived in "rural England" (yup, in the SE) when the local bus "service" consisted of 4 busses a day. No idea what it would be like these days up in rural Scotland, say.

And, just a perhaps extreme example, myself. I now live within 5 minutes of the local bus service which is EXCELLENT - 20 minutes between buses mornings, middays, and evenings, and hourly rest of the time, even Sundays. But I still use my car. Why? My back means that I'd anyway rather carry 10 half-full shopping bags than 5 full ones - in reality though our weekly shop is about 6 bags usually. Although a short journey to/from the bus stop it's up a BIG hill on the way back (WITH the shopping!) and frankly, I just can't do it, in 1 go, even with 6 half-full bags. And just don't even THINK about taxis at the price they are here!

OK, I'm an OAP, but I suggest that within any population there's more people than you think with "disabilities" of some sort - NOT only just "the wrinklys" either! AND many "modernised" town centres in UK seem to be pedestrian-only too now (no busses), again making problems for the "disabled", many of whom, even with powered wheelchairs, let alone those with only walking frames (no, I haven't descended so low!) have at least some difficulties and often seem to need friends/relatives WITH cars to help them.


----------



## RogerS

AES":n23y9tvc said:


> .....But I still use my car. Why? My back means that I'd anyway rather carry 10 half-full shopping bags than 5 full ones - in reality though our weekly shop is about 6 bags usually. .....



You use _your_ car ? :shock: That's so.o.o 1980's. Don't they have a little man-in-a-van to deliver it to your door for you ? :wink: :lol:


----------



## AES

Yes, "they" do Roger, but as ever here, "it costs"! 

And NO, I haven't done the sums, but what about when I want to go and visit "my girlfriend" and her husband up in NW Germany? 3 different trains, and because he and I are both into "woodfiddling", with a load of tools in my bags too? No thanks mate! All fits comfortably in my little station wagon, AND I can stop for a fag break and a drink (or swap drivers with my wife) anytime & anywhere I like!

"Uber"???=? What's that then? Would I need a smart phone for that? How millienium newby that is! (I haven't got a smart phone - never been the same since I stopped working and Blackberry went all silly)!

Seriously though, Droogs' little bit of "market research" really was illuminating. I wonder how representative it really is (no disrespect intended Droogs)


----------



## beech1948

What I want to know is why are electric vehicles so bloody expensive. Less parts, less complex motors, relatively simple software. Why so expensive and why do we just accept that. 

I have yet to buy an EV but already feel ripped off.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

A little bit more research - 83% of the UK population (66m) apparently live in urban areas. No definition of an urban area but based upon a city/town analysis:

- 30% (19.5m) live in areas with a population over 250,000
- 45% (29.8m) live in areas with a population over 100,000 
- 59% (39.0m) live in areas with a population over 50,000

So most of us live in towns and cities where local transport may be all that is required for day to day living - jobs, retail, entertainment, healthcare, education. Rural dwellers in less densely populated parts of the country will hang on to their ICEs longest - but the direction of travel seems clear.

The older f*rts (of which I am one) on this forum grew up in an age where car ownership allowed us to disconnect job location from home, friends, and family. Commuting by car became the accepted norm. We often find it difficult to give up behaviours we've grown into over the last 40+ years - although unlike most of the young we may have the financial capacity to indulge ourselves.

But objectively, commuting is a huge waste of time, money and energy. The young probably have it right for the future - walk, cycle, public transport to work and other infrastructure. If autonomous vehicles are on the horizon an app based call service will mean transport on demand if needed (a bit like Uber!)


----------



## Lons

Trainee neophyte":3eg2j1sc said:


> Now I think I could save up to £3,000 a year on fuel costs, so if I bought a second hand EV for £5,000, it would only have to survive two years before it had paid for itself.



You're presumably a high mileage user TM whereas I'm no more than 7K pa.

Excluding all the other costs / savings you've quoted only fuel so.....
At todays price local to me petrol is £1.18 and diesel £1.21 per litre, so in round figures at say £1.20 litre ( £5.50 gal ) £3000 = 545 galls of fuel which at a fairly frugal 35 mpg equates to a mileage in excess of 19000 pa. I get low 40s from my heavy awd diesel car which would be more like 22000 miles pa.
And if you add in cost per mile of using the EV then that makes the mileage comparison much worse, or have I miscalculated?


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Lons":2fyogvon said:


> Trainee neophyte":2fyogvon said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now I think I could save up to £3,000 a year on fuel costs, so if I bought a second hand EV for £5,000, it would only have to survive two years before it had paid for itself.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're presumably a high mileage user TM whereas I'm no more than 7K pa.
> 
> Excluding all the other costs / savings you've quoted only fuel so.....
> At todays price local to me petrol is £1.18 and diesel £1.21 per litre, so in round figures at say £1.20 litre ( £5.50 gal ) £3000 = 545 galls of fuel which at a fairly frugal 35 mpg equates to a mileage in excess of 19000 pa. I get low 40s from my heavy awd diesel car which would be more like 22000 miles pa.
> And if you add in cost per mile of using the EV then that makes the mileage comparison much worse, or have I miscalculated?
Click to expand...


I don't do much mileage, but it's a 4x4 pickup, and I pay €1.45 a litre for diesel..also lots of low ratio off road work, which doesn't help at all.


----------



## Trevanion

Droogs":4te2vfvj said:


> However there does definitely seem to be a marked difference between those roughly over mid-thirties and those below as to that view. Those below that age are it appear consigned to the fact that they will not be able to afford to buy a house until they are much older that we were before they can afford to, unless they inherit. They are also a generation who have grown up knowing nothing about the benefits of saving in general as there has been not real return rate or encouragement to do so. They have in general been enticed with easy credit and low interest rates to spend. It is really alarming how little in savings the average person actually has. They are a generation that has not had to go without or had to save up to get stuff and are bombarded with the ideas that they have inalienable rights that seems to include the right to have whatever they want without necessarily earning it (not a dig or their fault). They are the true consumerist society and everyone wants to be part of it, especially those in the poorer parts of the world as they gain more education and exposure to what the 1st world has to offer.
> 
> They are therefore more inclined to use all their income as disposable and not allocate any aside at all. They are for the most part easily to describe as technology junkies and almost fall over themselves to get the latest and greatest tech.



Hopefully without diverging too far from the original subject, but I'd like to make a comment  

I'm a relatively "youngun" I suppose so I can talk from a first-hand position. It annoys me how few people my age are "moneywise" so to speak and have no real perception of what money is _actually_ worth, I was talking with quite a good friend the other day who was moaning about never having any money and always being overdrawn despite earning quite a bit more than myself every week, whilst munching down on a £8 baguette, his second of the day of which he had two every working day instead of a packed lunch, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out £16 x 5 = £80 per week on baguettes which didn't include drinks! I know I spend less than £10 per week on my whole packed lunch. 

The weekend rolls around, he's the first man at the bar and usually the last one to leave and I wouldn't be surprised most weekends he ends up with £100 pineappled down the toilet by the time he's bought himself and everyone else in the pub drinks. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a drink every now and then but it's an expensive hobby, even by woodworking standards :shock:. So now he's down roughly £180 from his £450 a week pay packet which means he has about £270 to spend on everything else like rent, more food and drink, phone contract, fuel for commuting, extravagant spends, etc... which won't leave *any* room for being cash neutral, let alone having savings. 

And that person isn't the only example I know of, I know plenty that just *CAN NOT* handle their money and will squander it when really you need to make your money whilst you're young otherwise you'll never be moving forward later on. To be honest, it's usually these kinds of people that will still be moaning later on in life "I wish I had it as easy as you have had it". Not to brag, in my current circumstances I can stash away £200 a week fairly easily, which is what I'm doing since I actually want to _try_ and get a house before I'm 25, if possible. I suspect it's going to be *FAR* easier to do now when I've got basically nothing holding me back rather than at 30 with loads of commitments, which seems to be the opposite opinion to everyone my age I talk to.


----------



## Lons

Trainee neophyte":2ce9u3im said:


> Lons":2ce9u3im said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Trainee neophyte":2ce9u3im said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now I think I could save up to £3,000 a year on fuel costs, so if I bought a second hand EV for £5,000, it would only have to survive two years before it had paid for itself.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're presumably a high mileage user TM whereas I'm no more than 7K pa.
> 
> Excluding all the other costs / savings you've quoted only fuel so.....
> At todays price local to me petrol is £1.18 and diesel £1.21 per litre, so in round figures at say £1.20 litre ( £5.50 gal ) £3000 = 545 galls of fuel which at a fairly frugal 35 mpg equates to a mileage in excess of 19000 pa. I get low 40s from my heavy awd diesel car which would be more like 22000 miles pa.
> And if you add in cost per mile of using the EV then that makes the mileage comparison much worse, or have I miscalculated?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I don't do much mileage, but it's a 4x4 pickup, and I pay €1.45 a litre for diesel..also lots of low ratio off road work, which doesn't help at all.
Click to expand...

Can you check your calcs TN as I honestly can't see how it's possible to make a £3000 saving on fuel alone at low mileage even at that much a litre and how are you going to make an EV work in an off road low ratio environment?

I've had a couple of glasses of the red liquid tonight so my brain's a bit fuzzy at the mo. :lol:


----------



## Lons

Good for you Trevanion you've got your head screwed on the right way round, I see the same as you within my extended family both young and old though luckily my 2 kids did what you're doing and now have their own homes.

It is hard now to get on the housing ladder but those who won't give up their expensive habits won't ever get on at all and will be the green eyed moaners later in life. What they don't seem to grasp is that most of us they're envious of didn't go out drinking, smoking and wasting money as we had a mortgage and kids to pay for and the older generation I come from tended to save for what they needed rather than get into debt.


----------



## RogerS

Terry - Somerset":1nhs6qhz said:


> A little bit more research - 83% of the UK population (66m) apparently live in urban areas. No definition of an urban area but based upon a city/town analysis:
> 
> - 30% (19.5m) live in areas with a population over 250,000
> - 45% (29.8m) live in areas with a population over 100,000
> - 59% (39.0m) live in areas with a population over 50,000
> 
> So most of us live in towns and cities where local transport may be all that is required for day to day living - jobs, retail, entertainment, healthcare, education.



Do you have a source for that statement, Terry, as I think it is probably flawed or biased. I looked at a few lists out of curiosity and it quotes districts more rather than actual towns. So if that is their criteria then the argument is flawed. For example, Malvern Hills district is shown as having a population of 78,000 but sure as hell, the area covered is vast and without any sensible public (I assume you meant that when you said local ?) transport.

People still drive 10 miles or more to get to work.



Terry - Somerset":1nhs6qhz said:


> But objectively, commuting is a huge waste of time, money and energy.


Agreed but necessary unless you can work from home.



Terry - Somerset":1nhs6qhz said:


> The young probably have it right for the future - walk, cycle, public transport to work and other infrastructure.


That's because they live in towns and cities an can. It's called public transport ! Something that doesn't exist outside the major conurbations.


Terry - Somerset":1nhs6qhz said:


> If autonomous vehicles are on the horizon an app based call service will mean transport on demand if needed (a bit like Uber!)


But wouldn't life be so boring ?


----------



## RogerS

Lons":yk7jm79g said:


> Good for you Trevanion you've got your head screwed on the right way round, I see the same as you within my extended family both young and old though luckily my 2 kids did what you're doing and now have their own homes.
> 
> It is hard now to get on the housing ladder but those who won't give up their expensive habits won't ever get on at all and will be the green eyed moaners later in life. What they don't seem to grasp is that most of us they're envious of didn't go out drinking, smoking and wasting money as we had a mortgage and kids to pay for and the older generation I come from tended to save for what they needed rather than get into debt.


+1

And they forget interest rates of 17% !


----------



## Lons

RogerS":2mogawc4 said:


> +1
> 
> And they forget interest rates of 17% !



Hell Roger that brings back unpleasant memories, the hikes in mortgage payments meant drastic cutbacks elsewhere if we wanted to keep a roof over our heads.

Of course we didn't have £100 trainers or £1000 mobiles to pay for back then and before anyone says it I don't think they were the good old days at all. :wink:


----------



## Terry - Somerset

> Do you have a source for that statement, Terry, as I think it is probably flawed or biased. I looked at a few lists out of curiosity and it quotes districts more rather than actual towns. So if that is their criteria then the argument is flawed. For example, Malvern Hills district is shown as having a population of 78,000 but sure as hell, the area covered is vast and without any sensible public (I assume you meant that when you said local ?) transport.



The 83% figure for living in urban areas comes via a gooogle search for "UK urban population" . Looking for more detail this is the reverse of the DEFRA "Rural population 2014/15" which quotes, for England only, 17% in rural areas.

I also did a google for population by size of city to substantiate this - Great Malvern comes out at 37,000 so the figures are clearly not area based.

This is a bit of a generalisation, but towns/cities with more than 100,000 generally have a full (or nearly) full infrastructure - jobs, education, retail, some cultural, clubs, restaurants etc. You could live a life there and never leave town - bar holidays and specialist medical (although I would find this very boring!)

Below 50,000 you would certainly be lacking some key elements. Whether this creates a real problem would depend on he adjacency of other settlements - in the South East probably not, in Central Wales, Highlands, Northumberland etc it probably would.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Lons":1azgsize said:


> Can you check your calcs TN as I honestly can't see how it's possible to make a £3000 saving on fuel alone at low mileage even at that much a litre and how are you going to make an EV work in an off road low ratio environment?
> 
> I've had a couple of glasses of the red liquid tonight so my brain's a bit fuzzy at the mo. :lol:



It turns out I may have exaggerated slightly (who? Me?). I fill up about three times a month, at a cost of about €70 a time (plus or minus for both numbers). My fag packet says that is €2520 a year. I do an oil change every 6 months, at around 5,000 miles, so that gives me 10,000 miles a year, or thereabouts. Would that suggest I am paying about €0.25 a mile? Seems about right. It takes me about 12 minutes to drive to town - of which the first kilometre takes 5 minutes. Not really designed for fuel efficient mileage.

Regarding the off-road thing, that is exactly why I don't have an electric vehicle. In reality we would need two cars - one diesel to carry stuff and drive up mountains, and the other electric to go shopping. Two lots of insurance and tax means the savings don't add up. I still want to be fuel independent, and a few solar panels would give me that, for 10 months of the year, guaranteed. So yes, I can't make the numbers work, either, but it doesn't mean I can't dream. The truck is 20 years old now,so we will have to do something fairly soon - say in the next 5 years or so? My neighbour has a pickup that is 45 years old, and still used daily, so I'm not worried too much.


----------



## Droogs

Just for your off roading edification and enjoyment  have a look at the "off road electric" channel on Youtube. I'm sure you'll find it very enjoyable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzRz4qF81Qw


----------



## Nigel Burden

Been there, done that, and still managed to pay off the mortgage after eight years, despite having an about average income, though admittedly we were broke after doing so. If interest rates were to reach those levels again the housing market would collapse, which would be great for those trying to get on the property ladder but there would be a hell of a lot of negative equity, and the economy would likely collapse.

My children are both mid thirties, single, and have mortgages. My son has had slighter higher wages than my daughter until recently, and has paid off about one third of his mortgage in four and a half years. My daughter has paid off about one quarter of hers in four years. She has multiple bank accounts where she deposits money for different purposes, eg. house acc. car acc. photographic acc. etc. 

I'm not having a go at youngsters, but I think that many off them have had it relatively easy whilst living at home and don't appreciate the value of money. That's not necessarily their fault but the fault of their parents buying them everything they want.

Back to cars. Both children drive cars. My son who is not interested. only bought a car because the bus that took him to work changed route and he had to go a couple of miles, then change bus to complete his journey. This added about fifteen minutes to a six mile journey. He kept his first car thirteen years only changing it six months ago. he will probably do the same with this car. My daughter changed her first car after four years, buying a six month old Mini Cooper S Checkmate in 2007. She still has this car and refuses to part with it even though the fuel economy is, how should I put it to be polite, poor.

Nigel.


----------



## Geoff_S

Hang on, what's this all about?

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/overvie ... -cars.html

Imagine where we would be today if this hadn't fizzled out!

There is some very interesting reading out there.


----------



## Just4Fun

AES":3t1vc50a said:


> I wonder if those youngsters (can't all be "youngsters, surely?) who see no need/want for a car will feel the same when, as already mentioned above, they move some distance away from, say, a local bus route?


I don't believe many of them would do that. Why would they?

The result will likely be more of migration from the countryside to the towns. That has been happening for a while where I live (for other reasons) and rural areas suffer because of that. In my village we have lost the school and the village shop, plus there are numerous empty properties. Is that a likely future scenario for the UK?


----------



## Sheffield Tony

Just4Fun":an90v0k1 said:


> The result will likely be more of migration from the countryside to the towns. That has been happening for a while where I live (for other reasons) and rural areas suffer because of that. In my village we have lost the school and the village shop, plus there are numerous empty properties. Is that a likely future scenario for the UK?



I suspect it depends to what extent coronavirus - or the next one - shows us one of the bigger disadvantages of living all in big conurbations. And charging around the planet like blue-pineappled flies by all methods of transportation.


----------



## RogerS

Sheffield Tony":1vpbbgl1 said:


> Just4Fun":1vpbbgl1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> The result will likely be more of migration from the countryside to the towns. That has been happening for a while where I live (for other reasons) and rural areas suffer because of that. In my village we have lost the school and the village shop, plus there are numerous empty properties. Is that a likely future scenario for the UK?
> 
> 
> 
> I suspect it depends to what extent coronavirus - or the next one - shows us one of the bigger disadvantages of living all in big conurbations.
Click to expand...

I'll second that. Re Covid-19...seems to me that it's now out there and in the wild. Although the mortality rate is low, the one thing that the health authorities are keeping under wraps is that the morbidity is very high at 20%. This does not bode well.


Sheffield Tony":1vpbbgl1 said:


> And charging around the planet like blue-pineappled flies by all methods of transportation.


Are you suggesting that people give up their hols ? :shock:


----------



## Tonyhaw

I think it would be a bit premature to give up on hols entirely, no?


----------



## AJB Temple

To speculate on Beech's question about why are EVs so expensive...I suspect it is largely about volume. As demand grows and production lines switch over, prices are bound to come down in comparison to petrol and diesel vehicles. 

It may be a factor that many EVs are fundamentally re-engineered as well (as opposed to clones of petrol) - often built largely of aluminium. 

And the marketing costs are no doubt higher. In the case of Tesla we are also paying for the infrastructure implementation as well. I see that as perhaps the biggest brake on development of EV generally.


----------



## Sheffield Tony

They also use fair amounts of relatively uncommon materials - lithium, neodymium etc for powerful magnets. And probably a fair bit of copper. Compared to a smartphone at ~£1000, they start to look quite a lot for your money.


----------



## nev

Sheffield Tony":3ir5q3en said:


> They also use fair amounts of relatively uncommon materials - lithium, neodymium etc for powerful magnets. And probably a fair bit of copper. Compared to a smartphone at ~£1000, they start to look quite a lot for your money.



Which will become a darn sight rarer the more EVs that are produced.
Is there enough of these resources ?

A quick google (so it must be true)(at the time of publication) says that there are/were an estimated 1.3 billion cars on the road in the world and at the then current growth rates that number doubles every 20 years.
Of those the report put the total global EV carpark at 3.28 million vehicles, including full-electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid models.

So that's a helluva lot more mining for those precious and rare materials currently required to build the energy sources for millions of EVs to replace the 1 billion ICE cars.

It would seem to me to be more logical to power vehicles with a material that is more abundant e.g. hydrogen but I understand that this requires a lot of energy to produce? 
Maybe the hydrogen creation centres could be battery powered?
I'm beginning to see another meaning for the recycling sign now  round and round we go.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

nev":mrftvqd3 said:


> Sheffield Tony":mrftvqd3 said:
> 
> 
> 
> They also use fair amounts of relatively uncommon materials - lithium, neodymium etc for powerful magnets. And probably a fair bit of copper. Compared to a smartphone at ~£1000, they start to look quite a lot for your money.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which will become a darn sight rarer the more EVs that are produced.
> Is there enough of these resources ?
> 
> A quick google (so it must be true)(at the time of publication) says that there are/were an estimated 1.3 billion cars on the road in the world and at the then current growth rates that number doubles every 20 years.
> Of those the report put the total global EV carpark at 3.28 million vehicles, including full-electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid models.
> 
> So that's a helluva lot more mining for those precious and rare materials currently required to build the energy sources for millions of EVs to replace the 1 billion ICE cars.
> 
> It would seem to me to be more logical to power vehicles with a material that is more abundant e.g. hydrogen but I understand that this requires a lot of energy to produce?
> Maybe the hydrogen creation centres could be battery powered?
> I'm beginning to see another meaning for the recycling sign now  round and round we go.
Click to expand...


Everyone thinks of hydrogen as a fuel, but it isn't, at least not in the way that oil is a fuel. Oil eyou dig out of the ground, and if you use less energy digging it up than you get from it, then you are in a profit (as in you have gained added energy). Hydrogen doesn't exist in the wild as H2, because it escapes the atmosphere pretty quickly. Therefore all hydrogen for use as power must be crowbarred off some currently bonded hydrogen. Water can produce hydrogen gas using electrolysis, but it is not very efficient. You can get more hydrogen for less effort by stripping it from organic molecules - the current favourite is to use methane, I believe. 

In other words, to get hydrogen, you must first expend quite a lot of energy. Now you have your hydrogen, what are you going to do with it? In its natural state it is not very dense (floats in air), so to have any hope of having enough gas to use as fuel you have to compress it, using energy. Then to have the problem of containing it. Hydrogen atoms are so small the hydrogen tends to sneak out between the molecules of the container. It also makes metals brittle. And it explodes at the drop of a hat. (https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/h ... challenges)

As an idea, hydrogen is brilliant: you burn it and get pure, distilled water! How fabulous is that! Unfortunately there are too many challenges to make it a viable "fuel", which is a shame. The big plus for hydrogen is that you can make it at home very easily using solar power.

There is a mad inventor on YouTube who fixed the storage problem - you just need to have a particle accelerator in your basement. I'll see if I can find the link...here we go: [youtube]Ytg23mDd1a4[/youtube]
If this chap is telling the truth, then hydrogen is completely viable, and in fact probably a better solution than anything else. However, it's a big if all around.


----------



## Droogs

Oh THE Bob Lazar who used to work on captured UFO anti gravity engines for the US DoD at area 51. Mind you he did build a rocket car in his garage, apparently how he got the area 51 job, to get to work in when he was at Los Alimos


----------



## Just4Fun

Some friends and I discussed the idea of towing a small petrol or diesel generator trailer on long journeys to extend the range of an electric vehicle. The reasoning is that many people only occasionally do long journeys so there is no need to lug the generator around most of the time, and the generator (unlike a normal car's engine) could always run at its most efficient rpm.

Now I see someone has actually tried that and concluded it is better to tow extra batteries, renting the trailers and changing them when a charge is required. Clicky

I suppose if you are driving past these rental sites anyway it may work, and it could be a nice little franchise operation at motorway services. For something only used occasionally a rental option probably makes a lot of sense, compared to everyone buying their own trailer. I think though that many people would prefer the flexibility of a generator, or possibly a "hybrid trailer".


----------



## MusicMan

Hydrogen is not an energy source, unlike nuclear, coal, wind or sunlight. It does not exist on its own in nature, but requires energy to extract it. At the moment the majority (95%) is made by reduction of methane by carbon, resulting in use of energy and emission of a lot of CO2, thus is fossil fuel reliant and is a greenhouse gas emitter. Electrolysis of water is often cited as a convenient and CO2-free source. To make 1 kg of hydrogen, about 40 KWH equivalent of electricity, takes 50 - 55 KWH of electricity. Thus you are much better off putting this directly in your car or home battery. And while the bulk of electricity is produced unsustainably and with CO2 emissions, this is even more stupid.
The situation is indeed changing rapidly at least in the UK and Western Europe, to renewable sources. When this is further along it could be sensible to introduce electrolytic hydrogen as a portable fuel. The use of hydrogen is in transporting energy, not in generating it.

There are two areas where this could be very appropriate. One is in domestic and industrial gas supply, which is a very large source of CO2 emissions nationally. The gas network is OK for hydrogen, in fact the old "town gas" was largely hydrogen (plus poisonous CO). It is also an enormous energy storage system, easily able to iron out peaks and troughs in electricity demand. In Germany it is estimated to be around 200,000 GW, i.e. about 100 power stations, and gas pipelines are cheaper than electricity cables for energy distribution.

The other area is in heavy movers: lorries, trains etc. It looks as if hydrogen storage (essentially highly explosive tanks!) plus fuel cells could be an economic solution, along with renewable energy to make the hydrogen. Quite probably ammonia could be a better solution with lower risks, but the economic and renewable argument is pretty similar. In contrast, battery technology still needs some development before it is appropriate and economical for these big applications, though development is now pretty rapid.

These all require further development of fuel cells. These do exist but are more expensive than IC engines at the moment. I expect this will change.

Whilst hydrogen can be used to fuel an IC engine, you immediately lose at least half the efficiency (hence range). 

I expect to see battery technology dominant in small-to-medium size transport in the next 5 - 10 years, with hydrogen/ammonia competing in the heavier sector at first then competing at smaller scales later. It is a requirement of both that zero or very low emission energy sources first become the dominant national electricity supply. 

The hydrogen distribution network is well established in gas mains, but local stations to compress/liquefy hydrogen and distribute it to the user are pretty complicated and very expensive at present (millions rather than tens of thousands). Far cheaper to build a charging network through the grid.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy, which is a very good read.

Looking forward to my Leaf coming next week!


----------



## Trainee neophyte

MusicMan":p9lawfux said:


> Looking forward to my Leaf coming next week!



You need to do this with it: https://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/143 ... ngol-rally


----------



## beech1948

The problem with this thread is that it ignores the needs of many of us. That is the 15,000 to 20,000 miles a year. Its alright for the virtue signalling low mileage driver to talk about the Leaf, Volkswagon e etc etc but these cars are merely LOCAL RUNAROUNDS with low overall ranges available. They are unsuitable for those of us who need to drive a considerable distance frequently.

EV vehicles are expensive eg Tesla S is around £80,000 for something that is less complex than an ICE car. 

Range throttling is due to the car industry delivering too small batteries, restricting the range available to Joe Public and high prices are the result of marketing bulls**t where the maker believes the rubbish being put out. 

It is not a battle between the Run Abouts and the Long Distance cars but about finance, overreached manufacturing costs and an inability to innovate.

The Honda e looks superb, has excellent facilities, COSTS 25% above other small runabouts and has a RANGE of only 120 ish miles. Maybe only 80 miles in cold weather. Its a toy it is not a real method of transport.

Frustrated. 

Al


----------



## RogerS

Don't worry, Beech...there will soon be a charging point on every corner


----------



## MusicMan

Trainee neophyte":3jyhdgl5 said:


> MusicMan":3jyhdgl5 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looking forward to my Leaf coming next week!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You need to do this with it: https://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/143 ... ngol-rally
Click to expand...



That would be well cool!


----------



## MusicMan

beech1948":1qakral9 said:


> The problem with this thread is that it ignores the needs of many of us. That is the 15,000 to 20,000 miles a year. Its alright for the virtue signalling low mileage driver to talk about the Leaf, Volkswagon e etc etc but these cars are merely LOCAL RUNAROUNDS with low overall ranges available. They are unsuitable for those of us who need to drive a considerable distance frequently.
> 
> EV vehicles are expensive eg Tesla S is around £80,000 for something that is less complex than an ICE car.
> 
> Range throttling is due to the car industry delivering too small batteries, restricting the range available to Joe Public and high prices are the result of marketing bulls**t where the maker believes the rubbish being put out.
> 
> It is not a battle between the Run Abouts and the Long Distance cars but about finance, overreached manufacturing costs and an inability to innovate.
> 
> The Honda e looks superb, has excellent facilities, COSTS 25% above other small runabouts and has a RANGE of only 120 ish miles. Maybe only 80 miles in cold weather. Its a toy it is not a real method of transport.
> 
> Frustrated.
> 
> Al



Nobody here is saying that the BEV suits all needs at the moment, but right now it probably does suit 60-70% of people who frankly do use a car mostly as a local runabout. I anticipate doing only about 8000 miles a year (indeed have stipulated that on the lease). I might do a 150 - 200 mile trip once a month, which is easily manageable. As the cars develop, more and more will come into their scope. People who point out the limitations for their lifestyle do a service in pointing these out to the manufacturers.

It also depends very much on how you do your 15000 - 20000 miles. I did this mileage for some years from 2003, when I would commute 200 miles at the beginning of the week, 10 or so miles a day during the week, then 200 back, about 300 a week most of the year. The Mercedes 200E I used then was perfect for it though costly. I would not do that easily on the mid-size Leaf I am getting, but I easily could on the e+ Leaf with 237 mile range (and e-Niro etc, one doesn't need the expensive Teslas), as long as overnight charging were available at the destination. And as for cost, I finally retired the Mercedes last week; the cost of maintenance, tax, insurance and petrol was by now well exceeding the lease on a new Leaf plus insurance and electricity.

However, if you can't charge your car overnight, or if your high mileage often involves daily trips greater than 300 miles or so (i.e. could involve multiple stops for fast charging) then only an expensive Tesla would meet your needs right now. As mentioned before, I only took a 2-year lease on the Leaf, as I think there will be much more choice, and scope, by then. 

I don't think there is a particular conspiracy going on amongst car makers to keep prices high. Batteries are genuinely expensive to make, but the price is coming down fast. Nissan put much more milage and capability onto the Leaf 2 than the Leaf 1, and managed to reduce the price (and size of the batteries).

Threads on this forum are surely not meant to be universally appealing? I have no interest in scroll sawing or professional joinery, for example (other than to admire the results). But they do for sure have a place here.


----------



## RogerS

MusicMan":1gvtakid said:


> ..... as long as overnight charging were available at the destination.



And therein lies the rub. How on earth do you find out beforehand ? Waste time ringing up ? And say they only have a couple of charging points and they are full when you get there. How do you get your 'turn' ? I came at this from wondering how I would have coped when I was commuting to Halifax from Malvern and back each week. It would have been impossible. 

I'd have had to stay in a hotel as well and not my ideal choice which was a holiday let with room and all mod cons. But no charging point.

As the number of EVs rises but charging point density does not, if we will see "charger-rage". I bet we do and remember you heard that term here first  



MusicMan":1gvtakid said:


> .
> Threads on this forum are surely not meant to be universally appealing? I have no interest in scroll sawing or professional joinery, for example (other than to admire the results). But they do for sure have a place here.



I'm not sure that Beech or anyone else was objecting to the thread ?


----------



## Woody2Shoes

RogerS":2kr2y98p said:


> MusicMan":2kr2y98p said:
> 
> 
> 
> ..... as long as overnight charging were available at the destination.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And therein lies the rub. How on earth do you find out beforehand ? Waste time ringing up ? And say they only have a couple of charging points and they are full when you get there. How do you get your 'turn' ? I came at this from wondering how I would have coped when I was commuting to Halifax from Malvern and back each week. It would have been impossible.
> 
> I'd have had to stay in a hotel as well and not my ideal choice which was a holiday let with room and all mod cons. But no charging point.
> 
> As the number of EVs rises but charging point density does not, if we will see "charger-rage". I bet we do and remember you heard that term here first
> 
> 
> 
> MusicMan":2kr2y98p said:
> 
> 
> 
> .
> Threads on this forum are surely not meant to be universally appealing? I have no interest in scroll sawing or professional joinery, for example (other than to admire the results). But they do for sure have a place here.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'm not sure that Beech or anyone else was objecting to the thread ?
Click to expand...

An easy way to find out where the chargers are is to use an app like zapmap already mentioned upthread https://www.zap-map.com/live/ it would be foolish to assume that the rate of installation of new chargers will not continue to increase - including carparks.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Charger rage is a nice emotive expression and it may indeed come to pass occassionally in the future - just as some people have fist fights over items in the xmas sales.

But at the dawn of motoring C1900 there were no motorways, self service petrol stations, car tyre repair services etc. The early motorist didn't even have an internet or smart phone to check on what might be at their destination, if indeed they did arrive. But they still ventured forth, and the infrastructure we love so much today developed. And I think this will happen with EVs over the next 5-10 years:

1. It seems unlikely that technology will simply stall at the current level after having made such rapid progress over the last 10 years. Battery capacity and range will increase, fast charging or an exchange battery model will evolve, costs will fall further.

2. Provision of recharging facilities may be driven by regulation, but much of the progress will be market driven - hotels filling rooms on the back of charging point provision, retailers attracting shoppers (on the back of .....), house builders attracting buyers by providing ..........., etc

Only time will tell which crystal ball has it right!


----------



## Geoff_S

RogerS":3e09z7z0 said:


> As the number of EVs rises but charging point density does not, if we will see "charger-rage". I bet we do and remember you heard that term here first



Nah, it's already been done :wink: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-49204522


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":1ize6sc6 said:


> RogerS":1ize6sc6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MusicMan":1ize6sc6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ..... as long as overnight charging were available at the destination.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And therein lies the rub. How on earth do you find out beforehand ? Waste time ringing up ? And say they only have a couple of charging points and they are full when you get there. How do you get your 'turn' ? I came at this from wondering how I would have coped when I was commuting to Halifax from Malvern and back each week. It would have been impossible.
> 
> I'd have had to stay in a hotel as well and not my ideal choice which was a holiday let with room and all mod cons. But no charging point.
> 
> As the number of EVs rises but charging point density does not, if we will see "charger-rage". I bet we do and remember you heard that term here first
> 
> 
> 
> MusicMan":1ize6sc6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> .
> Threads on this forum are surely not meant to be universally appealing? I have no interest in scroll sawing or professional joinery, for example (other than to admire the results). But they do for sure have a place here.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'm not sure that Beech or anyone else was objecting to the thread ?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> An easy way to find out where the chargers are is to use an app like zapmap already mentioned upthread https://www.zap-map.com/live/ it would be foolish to assume that the rate of installation of new chargers will not continue to increase - including carparks.
Click to expand...


That's actually not a very helpful app TBH. If you could filter by hotel then that would be infinitely more useful. As it is you spend so much time clicking...nope..it's a car park..click...nope..Sainsbury's. I came at this by thinking how would I fare if I was doing the job now that I was doing then. The job was by no means unique ...anyone doing contracting and being away from home each week, at this moment in time EVs and the lack of charging points or the ability to see which hotels actually have them is a resounding raspberry.


----------



## Lons

Our local town centre Morpeth has 2 facing car parks to accommodate several hundred cars and a close by supermarket has another sizeable car park.
*There are only 2 EV spaces in total in the town centre* although for some reason the website lists 3 charging points, the next nearest are both out of the town centre one being the station. All those 3 car parks were constructed and / or modified within the last few years.

The LA list an estimated 1840 off street parking spaces in the town so go figure that!

I was in town yesterday morning when both spaces were occupied by taxis, still there 2 hours later when I returned and I saw several EVs looking to use those spaces while I sat in the car waiting for my wife. Fights over charging points or flat batteries, both a distinct possibility!


----------



## Rorschach

FWIW I took a medium length trip at the weekend. Just shy of 200 miles each way. 

For curiosity sake I did a little planning as to how would I have carried out this trip if I had an EV. This of course is not meant to be representative of how life will always be, or even of how things are in the whole country but I thought it would be a good example of the current situation and a counterpoint to all those who say it's easy to plan your journey and it's "cheaper" to have an EV.

Well firstly due to the horrendous weather it looks unlikely I would have been able to get there without stopping. The conditions really lowered fuel economy, I have made that trip in the past and even my gas guzzler would eek out nearly 50mpg on that journey in fine weather, we managed 44mpg, so a good 10% reduction. 
The almost certain stop we would have had to make in an EV would have been ok though, we did actually make a toilet stop and a breakfast stop (we couldn't combine the two annoyingly) and both services had charging points available and we stopped 20minutes for breakfast so a 30min charge would have been fine.

Then for a our destination. We stayed at a budget hotel quite close to the city centre, we were able to park outside the door for free. We paid £30 per night. Despite the hotel being part of a larger complex with massive car park, there are no charging points. Approx half a mile to the nearest charger, a single charging point in a council car park, (multiple high power type plugs, 2 are out of service). The next nearest is 2 x 7kW Tesla points, about 3/4 mile away, both are currently out of service. So potentially the closest is a mile away, it's a single 3kW charger that is currently in service.
So on that basis we are looking at charging being unavailable for the hotel I stayed in without me making a specific trip at some distance from the hotel for a slow charge, or a longer distance to find a fast charge and waiting for it to fill the vehicle.

So as Roger has pointed, you need a hotel with charger really. The website didn't make it easy to find one but my local knowledge helped me find a budget hotel with charger in the area we wanted to stay. The hotel has 2 x 3kW charge points, so an overnight charge needed I would suspect. Problem is both the chargers are out of service, so no luck there.

Only other hotel in the area is actually at least a mile further out than we wanted to stay, so we now can't walk and will need to get a taxi twice each day (no bus there). The hotel is a more expensive hotel, over £100 per night, plus £20 per night to park the car. It has 2 x 7kW Tesla points. Oh and of course they are both out of service as well.

So yeah, the long and short of it is if I had an EV and wanted to make the trip we did this weekend, I will waste several hours working out charging for the car, or pay literally hundreds more for my hotel and extra travel costs, and actually at this point in time I can't do that because all the convenient charging points are out of service.

Our real trip however didn't even require a fuel stop as we had plenty of fuel for journey there and back. We parked right outside the hotel and did all our extra travelling on foot. We paid approx £40 for the fuel and £30 per night for the hotel.


----------



## RogerS

Bloody good post, Rorschach,and injects some much-needed reality into all the rose-tinted spectacles here. Extrapolate all those 'out-of-service' charging points across the country and EV at the moment is pointless for 90% of us. Revisit EV again in five years, I say.


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## AJB Temple

In real world usage...
I do two long trips regularly (every month) and the rest is local. 
One long trip is to Coventry - I can fast charge at Heathrow, Oxford or Warwick and I can see in real time in the car how many chargers are free. I usually have breakfast at Oxford services and do a top up. I must have done this trip 40 times and never had a charging issue. 

The other long trip is either Cologne or Delft (most of the route is much the same). I have numerous charging choices, including at the Channel Tunnel, but I usually stop for coffee at a hotel just off the motorway at Antwerpen, where they have about 12 Tesla fast chargers. Never an issue.

However - and I've made this point before, the whole EV thing only works IMO if there is good access to fast chargers AND the car has a decent range in the first place. Frankly a 3kW or 7kW charger is next to useless really. Takes forever to do a full charge - I have a much more powerful charger than that at home and it is nowhere near as good as a fast charger.

Penetration of EV into the market depends on fast chargers, so that cars can be on and off them quickly. Turnover is necessary. It will come, but will take time. 

Anyone who is doing mainly local mileage and can charge at home, will find their fuel and maintenance costs drop like a stone with EV, at the expense of higher price of the car to begin with. Overall cost of ownership, taking account of these things, will be governed largely by depreciation and the cost of financing. 

It is also worth remembering that the experience of driving an EV is quite a bit different to a conventional car.  Mine is very quick - and will give a Porsche 911 a shock in a straight line - but is not fun to drive. They are a bit anodyne. It's all very quiet and super smooth - but not really engaging. It depends what you want - my business partner likes the fact the car will self park, she can summon it out of a tight bay with her phone, etc, whereas I find self parking much slower than me. She really likes auto navigation, whereas I think the car makes completely different decisions to me and needs development to adapt to different driving styles and expectations. 

The market is learning. So are the cars. So are the mapping systems. If the government is serious about phasing out petrol and diesel, then we will definitely see infrastructure being a major part of the planning process for new developments, and we will also see changes to the tax structure.


----------



## Geoff_S

Rorschach":1st2qd19 said:


> FWIW I took a medium length trip at the weekend. Just shy of 200 miles each way.
> 
> For curiosity sake I did a little planning as to how would I have carried out this trip if I had an EV. This of course is not meant to be representative of how life will always be, or even of how things are in the whole country but I thought it would be a good example of the current situation and a counterpoint to all those who say it's easy to plan your journey and it's "cheaper" to have an EV.
> 
> Well firstly due to the horrendous weather it looks unlikely I would have been able to get there without stopping. The conditions really lowered fuel economy, I have made that trip in the past and even my gas guzzler would eek out nearly 50mpg on that journey in fine weather, we managed 44mpg, so a good 10% reduction.
> The almost certain stop we would have had to make in an EV would have been ok though, we did actually make a toilet stop and a breakfast stop (we couldn't combine the two annoyingly) and both services had charging points available and we stopped 20minutes for breakfast so a 30min charge would have been fine.
> 
> Then for a our destination. We stayed at a budget hotel quite close to the city centre, we were able to park outside the door for free. We paid £30 per night. Despite the hotel being part of a larger complex with massive car park, there are no charging points. Approx half a mile to the nearest charger, a single charging point in a council car park, (multiple high power type plugs, 2 are out of service). The next nearest is 2 x 7kW Tesla points, about 3/4 mile away, both are currently out of service. So potentially the closest is a mile away, it's a single 3kW charger that is currently in service.
> So on that basis we are looking at charging being unavailable for the hotel I stayed in without me making a specific trip at some distance from the hotel for a slow charge, or a longer distance to find a fast charge and waiting for it to fill the vehicle.
> 
> So as Roger has pointed, you need a hotel with charger really. The website didn't make it easy to find one but my local knowledge helped me find a budget hotel with charger in the area we wanted to stay. The hotel has 2 x 3kW charge points, so an overnight charge needed I would suspect. Problem is both the chargers are out of service, so no luck there.
> 
> Only other hotel in the area is actually at least a mile further out than we wanted to stay, so we now can't walk and will need to get a taxi twice each day (no bus there). The hotel is a more expensive hotel, over £100 per night, plus £20 per night to park the car. It has 2 x 7kW Tesla points. Oh and of course they are both out of service as well.
> 
> So yeah, the long and short of it is if I had an EV and wanted to make the trip we did this weekend, I will waste several hours working out charging for the car, or pay literally hundreds more for my hotel and extra travel costs, and actually at this point in time I can't do that because all the convenient charging points are out of service.
> 
> Our real trip however didn't even require a fuel stop as we had plenty of fuel for journey there and back. We parked right outside the hotel and did all our extra travelling on foot. We paid approx £40 for the fuel and £30 per night for the hotel.



My recent experience. I've got a BEV that does 144 mile (allegedly). It's a VW e Golf and bloody brilliant!

My trip was 85 miles one way. Same as you with the weather by the sounds of it. I checked the Zap Maps app and there was a 40kwh charger at about 75 miles and I could have used that, but it was in use.

No problem, I was visiting a mate so could charge there at 2.4 kWh. Err no, the nearest socket was a garden socket on a 6 amp fuse.

Never mind, next day I would charge up on the charger that was blocked on the way in. Again no, it was in use. So now this thing called range anxiety kicks in and I would need to get Zap Maps out and find another charger, or wait at the blocked charger until the guy had finished.

Fortunately, I was in my Range Rover  

On the plus side, I am doing about 6,000 miles a year urban/suburban/medium range in the Golf and that's a lump of money saved. 

The way I see it for now, and I think a while into the future, is that electric cars are a brilliant 3rd option if it works for you. Nothing more apart from the environmental stuff, which helps.


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## Rorschach

I am glad things work for you AJB but something I would like to point out for your experience (I don't think you will disagree) is that not only do you have arguably the best EV currently available, but you are also doing the same regular trips within the greater London sphere and to a known European destination. You have a long range, access to the best fast chargers and you have the local/regular knowledge of how to do that trip.

I do not live in the greater London sphere, and while my trip was to a city, it was only a regular sized one. I would not be able to afford a high end EV, in fact I can't afford one at all at the moment but that is not the point. When planning my fictional EV holiday everything revolved around charging the car and I estimate that even if we found a working fast charger I am looking at a couple of hours dedicated simply to get the vehicle prepared for going home. Since our trip only lasted 2 days anyway that represents a big chunk wasted. If I were to plan my trip around currently available hotels then the cost of the trip either quadruples if I go for the fancy hotel or at a minimum doubles if I went for the other budget hotel. Of course neither had working chargers anyway. 
Quite honestly if we did have an EV, I am not sure how we would have been able to do this trip, as I say we don't have a lot of money, all of our trips are based around budget hotels so we can spend our money on experiences instead and we would rather have 3 or 4 short, cheap breaks through the year than one expensive fancy holiday.

For some balance, I have said before I am not against EV's in principle. We are definitely one of the groups of people where a large part of our driving is local. My partner drives to work everyday, a round trip of 8 miles, we go shopping etc at the weekend and every 6 weeks or so we visit family, a round trip of 70 miles. An EV would work great for all of that and if we could afford 2 cars then our second car would almost certainly be a small EV, even a 100mile range would be plenty for any of the day trips we do. However for our holiday trips and business trips through they year an ICE is what allows us to make those trips affordably and conveniently. 

Oh and an extra interesting point. We go to London a couple of times a year, staying on the outskirts and using public transport when there. I looked at charging points near where we stay. None within a mile, no fast chargers either. I am not going to waste my time doing another planning exercise but my 5 minute quick check shows this would be another trip made either very much more difficult or at the very least very much more expensive!


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## AJB Temple

I completely agree. As I have mentioned before, we did our research before buying our EVs. We have a high density of charging points in the areas where we live and work, and our journeys are predictable. I had been considering EVs and hybrids for a while - three years previously I looked at the i8 and i3 and realised that hybrids are pointless and at that time EV networks were not developed. For both of us though, in terms of fuel costs they are close to zero. 

I doubt if we would have gone EV if we had not also had a conventionally fuelled car.


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## RogerS

I said 'Give it five years'. I was wrong.

Ten years is closer to the mark - if not longer - and even then I'd argue that without any coherent plan for chargers involving state and private enterprise it will, at best, be a mediocre solution. When was the last time that any Govt project on this scale - regardless of Party - was a success.

Geoff_S ...that was an excellent post. Were all those chargers really out of order ? If so then that reflects the disinterest in providing them. What was the phrase ? Follow the money. As a country, we cannot afford both HS2 and a well-integrated and maintained charging infrastructure. HS2 is a vanity project ...or as I like to put it


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## beech1948

I have decided to check my frustration not just with Toy like EVs but you guys as well. To do this I am going to spend a week of odd minutes finding and loading every EV charging point app I can find on my phone and also loading 2 or 3 map apps to locate these things.

Next week I will plan every journey as though I was an EV with a 230 mile range. I will try to report back on what I find.

Todays revelation is that there are at least 3 if not 4 different types of EV charge plug. What a joke. Obviously Tesla is the most common by far.


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## RogerS

beech1948":1lhtcf0w said:


> I have decided to check my frustration not just with Toy like EVs but you guys as well. To do this I am going to spend a week of odd minutes finding and loading every EV charging point app I can find on my phone and also loading 2 or 3 map apps to locate these things.
> 
> Next week I will plan every journey as though I was an EV with a 230 mile range. I will try to report back on what I find.
> 
> Todays revelation is that there are at least 3 if not 4 different types of EV charge plug. What a joke. Obviously Tesla is the most common by far.



Beech...good idea and I'd be interested to see your results. Aso just how much time you have to spend on your research. To be fair, at 230 mile range you're giving EVs a head start !


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## nev

Regards 'mpg' It seems the manufacturers quote miles per kWh. 
e.g. The E-Golf is quoted as 4miles per kWh. (and has a range of 120 miles.)
I assume that this is related to the battery capacity. 

My electricity bills show I pay (lets say) 12p per kWh.
Is it as simple as 12p will get me 4 miles?
Surely the cost to fuel the car is how much electricity is used to charge the battery to full.
Does the transfer of energy (charging) work on a 1 to 1 basis? do I need to put 1 kWh worth of electricity into the battery to get 1 kWh out?


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## Geoff_S

nev":1n95c2sh said:


> Regards 'mpg' It seems the manufacturers quote miles per kWh.
> e.g. The E-Golf is quoted as 4miles per kWh. (and has a range of 120 miles.)
> I assume that this is related to the battery capacity.
> 
> My electricity bills show I pay (lets say) 12p per kWh.
> Is it as simple as 12p will get me 4 miles?
> Surely the cost to fuel the car is how much electricity is used to charge the battery to full.
> Does the transfer of energy (charging) work on a 1 to 1 basis? do I need to put 1 kWh worth of electricity into the battery to get 1 kWh out?




That’s about right. Check this:

https://pod-point.com/guides/driver/cos ... ectric-car


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## AJB Temple

It can be a bit more complex. In our case:

1 As early adopters we get free charging at Tesla superchargers for as long as we own the car. This is what makes our fuel costs largely free. Manufacturers offer deals but this one is no more. 
2 When charging at home, it is timed (by the car) to run on night time economy tariff. 
3 When in use the car uses regenerative systems on deceleration and braking to add charge back to the battery. 

In practice (my sole experience is with Tesla) there are numerous factors affecting range, of which the most dominant is driving style. If you go easy on acceleration and keep the speed down, range is increased very substantially compared with hard acceleration and high speeds. As with any car, range is also affected by the rolling radius of the wheel/tyre (big wheels reduce range but may look sexier) and wide low profile tyres reduce range through friction losses. Temperature plays a part - but much more so in cold weather if the car is kept outside and the battery is not pre-conditioned. 

Use of in car gadgets like steering wheel heating and seat heating, don't seem to make much difference. 

Many EVs show your power usage on the dash, in kW. This is pretty useless. What you actually want to know is how far you can go on the current charge. The Tesla has algorithms for predicting this and you can choose between calculation methods (essentially just different assumptions about how you will drive and at what speed). 

In my experience of test driving cars and talking to owners or various makes, many manufactures are wildly optimistic in their range claims. You have to drive with minimal acceleration and quite slowly to achieve them. This also applies to Tesla - I generally discount the claimed range on the dash (usually 320 miles when I leave home) by at least 10%. It is also noticeable, I think, that the battery usage / range calculation is not linear even with consistent driving. It all requires a different mindset but is perfectly manageable.


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## Nigel Burden

Driving style does make quite a difference. I am more likely to accelerate briskly than my wife, and generally drive in a more spirited manner. Consequently she is getting better mpg than me.

When I bought my last car, a 1.4 Ford Fiesta, the salesman said to knock 10 mpg of the off the manufacturers combined fuel consumption figures. He was correct, and with learners driving, it was slightly more.

Nigel.


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## MusicMan

Geoff_S":39l4gq7g said:


> nev":39l4gq7g said:
> 
> 
> 
> Regards 'mpg' It seems the manufacturers quote miles per kWh.
> e.g. The E-Golf is quoted as 4miles per kWh. (and has a range of 120 miles.)
> I assume that this is related to the battery capacity.
> 
> My electricity bills show I pay (lets say) 12p per kWh.
> Is it as simple as 12p will get me 4 miles?
> Surely the cost to fuel the car is how much electricity is used to charge the battery to full.
> Does the transfer of energy (charging) work on a 1 to 1 basis? do I need to put 1 kWh worth of electricity into the battery to get 1 kWh out?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That’s about right. Check this:
> 
> https://pod-point.com/guides/driver/cos ... ectric-car
Click to expand...


Yes. There are a number of very good charging rates out there for night time charging. Standard economy 7 is 8p/KWH, and some suppliers have rates as low as 4 - 5 p in off peak. For the Nissan Leaf, 40 KWH should give about 160 m range on moderate driving, which makes it an easy-to-remember 4m per KWH. Thus home charging costs are 1 - 2p per mile. Rapid chargers at motorway service stations etc are generally 25 - 40 p/KWH which is 6 - 10p per mile. If you have solar panels, even lower.


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## Trainee neophyte

MusicMan":3gf3ucrs said:


> Geoff_S":3gf3ucrs said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> nev":3gf3ucrs said:
> 
> 
> 
> Regards 'mpg' It seems the manufacturers quote miles per kWh.
> e.g. The E-Golf is quoted as 4miles per kWh. (and has a range of 120 miles.)
> I assume that this is related to the battery capacity.
> 
> My electricity bills show I pay (lets say) 12p per kWh.
> Is it as simple as 12p will get me 4 miles?
> Surely the cost to fuel the car is how much electricity is used to charge the battery to full.
> Does the transfer of energy (charging) work on a 1 to 1 basis? do I need to put 1 kWh worth of electricity into the battery to get 1 kWh out?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That’s about right. Check this:
> 
> https://pod-point.com/guides/driver/cos ... ectric-car
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes. There are a number of very good charging rates out there for night time charging. Standard economy 7 is 8p/KWH, and some suppliers have rates as low as 4 - 5 p in off peak. For the Nissan Leaf, 40 KWH should give about 160 m range on moderate driving, which makes it an easy-to-remember 4m per KWH. Thus home charging costs are 1 - 2p per mile. Rapid chargers at motorway service stations etc are generally 25 - 40 p/KWH which is 6 - 10p per mile. If you have solar panels, even lower.
Click to expand...


For perspective: I put €68 in my truck yesterday, and the odometer tells me I had driven 268 miles: €0.25 per mile. I always reset the odometer every time I fill up, and the numbers never get any better (usually I manage to get over 300 miles per tank, but this time I must have been off-road more than usual).

I really, really want an electric car. Sigh.


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## beech1948

Beech...good idea and I'd be interested to see your results. Aso just how much time you have to spend on your research. To be fair, at 230 mile range you're giving EVs a head start ![/quote]

RogerS,

Maybe but I can buy a Hyundai Kona Electric which will give me 230 or so miles today. I could not in all conscience compare to a Toy like Golf or Leaf or what have you. I thought a Kona would be a good choice as its sort of affordable by the richer middle classes possibly.


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## Lons

I have an inbuilt suspicion of economy figures churned out by manufacturers, just look at the history of conventionally aspirated vehicles, every manufacturer used lab tests, cooked the books and even now the stated figure are still not realistic to real world conditions. 
I'm just as sceptical when it comes to EVs, with range being one of the major selling points who's going to believe everything the manufacturers say when they have a vested interest in stretching the facts?

Live in a hilly area, exposed with strong winds, need to detour to charge on route, like to drive quickly, it all means the results will be different for each individual imo although I have no personal experience.
I drove a round trip today only 160 miles for a days fishing, one filling station without charging point on route in fact none anywhere near my route into the hills, no possibility of charging so I'd be a bit uneasy with any of the quoted figures even over that not excessive distance. I could have taken a different route and passed two more filling stations but 18 miles each way further.

As for charging points, if there aren't enough now for the relatively low number of EVs on the road there needs to be an explosion of nuclear proportions in provision to cater for the anticipated increase in EV sales. Are they going to catch up? I doubt it so while my wife certainly could have an EV I think we'll sit on the fence a while longer and see how the land lies.


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## AJB Temple

Lons - the key point here is you always leave home with a full tank. This is a key difference from a petrol or diesel vehicle. If you top it up when you get home (on economy in the small hours) you always have maximum range in the morning. Unless you are doing round trips that are beyond the range of the car, then fuel station location is a non-issue. 

I'm not sure why people are concerned about hills. I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. The UK is flat in comparison. Doesn't bother the EV and seems to make little difference to range.


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## Jake

AJB Temple":2j0yf40i said:


> I'm not sure why people are concerned about hills. I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. The UK is flat in comparison. Doesn't bother the EV and seems to make little difference to range.



Hills are great, but maybe regeneration is what helps range.


----------



## Lons

AJB Temple":2yednyre said:


> Lons - the key point here is you always leave home with a full tank. This is a key difference from a petrol or diesel vehicle. If you top it up when you get home (on economy in the small hours) you always have maximum range in the morning. Unless you are doing round trips that are beyond the range of the car, then fuel station location is a non-issue.
> 
> I'm not sure why people are concerned about hills. I spend a lot of time in Switzerland. The UK is flat in comparison. Doesn't bother the EV and seems to make little difference to range.



Yeah I get that, my point really was that being the cautious sceptic that I am I find it difficult to accept blanket range figures supplied by the manufacturers, we all drive differently which surely has to affect range and electricity consumption.
I could be easily persuaded to change to a hybrid at the minute, my best mate has has a Toyota Rav hybrid for over a year now and is happy with it and while my missus would have an electric car tomorrow I think there a way to go before we'll do it. I like to see the bugs ironed out first so let others be the guinea pigs during development.

That same mate owns a wholesale company and allowed his rep in Yorkshire to have a leased Prius 3 years ago, it was hopeless for a rep he said and he's just swapped her back to a diesel but it's reminded me that my wife's uncle had a Prius for 4 years before he died last year, living in Switzerland for 40 years he often said the hills adversely affected his car so maybe that's where I got it from and of course technology has moved on a pace since he bought his car. He never drove here from Switzerland as he said the support network here made it completely impractical.

As an aside, he used to drive over the border into Germany for a big grocery shop once a month because of the price difference.

As far as electricity at home we have oil c/h, no gas and cook via electricity. I always negotiate a fixed term contract and move suppliers when necessary but have never looked at overnight economy packages as currently of no use to us and that type of plan has not shown up as cheapest option overall for us so would need to look at that as part of the equation.


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## Lons

I've decided I want a hybrid, one exactly like Lewis Hamiltons F1 car. Wonder if I can afford his last year cast off?


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## MusicMan

Lons":2cmjq9to said:


> AJB Temple":2cmjq9to said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah I get that, my point really was that being the cautious sceptic that I am I find it difficult to accept blanket range figures supplied by the manufacturers, we all drive differently which surely has to affect range and electricity consumption.
> I could be easily persuaded to change to a hybrid at the minute, my best mate has has a Toyota Rav hybrid for over a year now and is happy with it and while my missus would have an electric car tomorrow I think there a way to go before we'll do it. I like to see the bugs ironed out first so let others be the guinea pigs during development.
Click to expand...


Yes we all drive differently and will get different range in an electric car and mileage with an ICE.

In the long term I don't think hybrids are very sensible, but they are a good solution for some at the moment (that's a plug-in hybrid, not what is lyingly called a self-charging hybrid). You get what you need to do your job and manage your life. My circumstances in retirement are different, with no commuting, mostly local trips, and occasional long journeys that are quite manageable with planning. (Indeed I am planning trips to Scotland and Switzerland later this year as a kind of experiment). Oh and my car insurance pays for towing to the nearest charge point if I am stranded! So I am quite happy to be a guinea pig and also to contribute a little to clean air and carbon reduction.

I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience, and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs.


----------



## LarryS.

MusicMan":1d6ok9o9 said:


> Yes we all drive differently and will get different range in an electric car and mileage with an ICE.
> 
> I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience.



Agreed. I think the fact stated a few times through this thread is that this is the infancy stage of electric cars, car chargers and price. So right now it's not all perfect so it works for some people but not everyone (distances, 4 wheel drive, price e.t.c.) so to keep reiterating that it may not work for x situation today seems a fairly fruitless task.

To illustrate the point, in the last couple of days some news has emerged concerning Tesla. Currently their batteries cost $165 per Kwh to produce. The price they need to get battery prices to to match ICE car prices is $100 - and they're on track to do it in the next 12 months.


----------



## AES

@Lons: FWIW, I agree with you 110% about not trusting the car manufacturers' figures - look no further than the VW scandal, AND if that's not enough, the fact that even today, neither I not my wife, nor anyone else we know, gets the claimed "mpg" (in our case it's the claimed Litres per 100 Km) figures for ICE vehicles.

You also wrote, QUOTE: As an aside, he used to drive over the border into Germany for a big grocery shop once a month because of the price difference. UNQUOTE. Yeah, so do we. "Normal grocery stuff" of all sorts costs on average half in Germany what it does here, and if it's meat we're talking, the difference is even bigger.

Anyway, nothing to do with electric cars, but what is, is the fact that we're getting more and more charging points here, especially at Motorway rest areas. BUT the prices charged are, according to our equivalent of "Which" magazine, MUCH higher than "ordinary" electricity. Personally, I dunno. Though I think the Tesla is a lovely looking car it's well out of the range I'm prepared to spend on a car so I've gone no further. And to back up Beech's earlier point, all ICE car prices here are at least 5,000 quid cheaper than their (broadly equivalent) electric cars - no matter if "city flitzer" or top of the range "performance machine" - which costs MUCH more than the 5,000 quid differential.

But something else that only been touched on a little so far - the cost (money and CO2, etc) of making batteries. I saw someone with a presentation on extracting, I think it was Lithium (but may not have been, I know here's a lot of different battery chemistries these days) who was saying that extracting said chemical/element in the desert was "trillions" of litres of water per "lump" of whatever it was. 

Sorry to be vague, I wasn't paying a lot of attention, because I agree with some others here - "EVs? Fine in theory, but for us anyway, not yet. Perhaps in other 5 to 10 years, by which time most likely we won't be driving any more anyway".

But I do wonder if the independent experts (if there are such animals anywhere) have really added the all costs of extracting the special minerals and of transporting them and of making the whole battery into the total "environmental cost" of insisting on EVs-only in the future.

So far, most of what I've read is mainly about the costs and methods of generating all the extra electricity all these new EVs will need.

Still a very interesting thread though .


----------



## MusicMan

An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:

https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/

And concerning the lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of BEVs, there's a detailed report at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environme ... ectric_car

The conclusion is that the manufacturing of the BEV causes 15 - 60 % more emissions of greenhouse gases than ICE cars. This is offset within 6 - 18 months of use, resulting in roughly 50% lower emissions of BEV over the whole manufacturing to scrappage cycle.

There are concerns about the supply of some of the critical materials in batteries. There is plenty of availability in the globe but it tends to be concentrated (cobalt in the Congo, for example) and may be toxic. It is true that Lithium takes a lot of water to extract at the moment. These problems do need to be solved at scale. I'm in touch with some of the UK battery research, and it is going very fast, so I don't believe that these will be long-term problems. Lithium is abundant in seawater for example, but extraction takes much more energy than from the thick brines used at present. Renewable processes designed to counter such problems are being researched and funded very intensively.


----------



## RogerS

MusicMan":1731lkkt said:


> An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:
> 
> https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/
> 
> ...



Quotes from it :

_The main run was more than 250 miles in the course of an afternoon, with only a lunch stop to break the journey up, other than rapid charges. The Leaf had to be topped up a little twice on rapids - around 40% added each time - plus an hour on a fast charger while I was meeting someone, and another 30% to 80% rapid charge at the end, since the venue I was heading for didn't have a dedicated charge point. This meant I had a decent amount of charge to start my journey back the following day, which required another couple of rapid charges to get me home._

_...All told, the round trip would have taken about two and a half hours longer than in a petrol or diesel model, which is a fair amount. Factor in the fact that I would have needed a decent break in each leg regardless of having enough fuel or not - for comfort if nothing else - and that accounts for around half an hour of that time_

250 miles is nothing to hit in one go. Who needs a 'decent break ' ? Anyway, the above extract sums up why I'll not be getting an EV anytime soon. I also note that he lives in the rich, lush, charging points-all-over-the-place South of England. I'll fill up the Q3 on the outbound journey and also before I hit the road to return North. I won't have to worry about broken chargers, finding a charger, chargers busy with other cars.


----------



## AES

Thanks MM, both are interesting reads, though I have to agree with RogerS that 250 miles in one go is not really a lot - at Motorway speeds I'll often do more than that in one go, though due to my back problems I'll usually stop for a rest/stroll around and a fag (Yup!) for about 10 mins every 2 hours or so.


----------



## MusicMan

RogerS":2tr7tdgl said:


> MusicMan":2tr7tdgl said:
> 
> 
> 
> An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:
> 
> https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Quotes from it :
> 
> 250 miles is nothing to hit in one go. Who needs a 'decent break ' ? Anyway, the above extract sums up why I'll not be getting an EV anytime soon. I also note that he lives in the rich, lush, charging points-all-over-the-place South of England. I'll fill up the Q3 on the outbound journey and also before I hit the road to return North. I won't have to worry about broken chargers, finding a charger, chargers busy with other cars.
Click to expand...


Monmouthshire is in Wales, actually, not the lush south. No, you won't have to worry about finding chargers, etc., but the rest of us will have to worry about your emissions.


----------



## Bodgers

AES":29u2d64a said:


> But I do wonder if the independent experts (if there are such animals anywhere) have really added the all costs of extracting the special minerals and of transporting them and of making the whole battery into the total "environmental cost" of insisting on EVs-only in the future.
> .



There's no need to wonder. They have - search around if you want the answers, Engineering Explained on YouTube has a good video on this subject. I made a comment earlier in the thread about the "whataboutisms"...all the questions and objections brought up in this thread have been thought and planned about for a long time.


----------



## MusicMan

And the Wikipedia reference I gave a few posts ago discusses and references this in detail. I even summarised the conclusions in that post.

A good rule when one is tempted to "whatabout" is to do a quick Google. It can save embarrassment.


----------



## RogerS

MusicMan":2ur8i3ag said:


> RogerS":2ur8i3ag said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MusicMan":2ur8i3ag said:
> 
> 
> 
> An interesting journal of a 6 month extended test of a Leaf by someone who averages 28,000 miles a year:
> 
> https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/857 ... term-test/
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Quotes from it :
> 
> 250 miles is nothing to hit in one go. Who needs a 'decent break ' ? Anyway, the above extract sums up why I'll not be getting an EV anytime soon. I also note that he lives in the rich, lush, charging points-all-over-the-place South of England. I'll fill up the Q3 on the outbound journey and also before I hit the road to return North. I won't have to worry about broken chargers, finding a charger, chargers busy with other cars.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Monmouthshire is in Wales, actually, not the lush south. No, you won't have to worry about finding chargers, etc., but the rest of us will have to worry about your emissions.
Click to expand...


Very funny. Out of curiosity, how many children have you got or plan to have ?


----------



## MusicMan

One son of 46, well past the frequent emission stage.


----------



## RogerS

MusicMan":2f0bas39 said:


> One son of 46, well past the frequent emission stage.



OK.. so his total carbon footprint over his lifetime is infinitely higher than our offspring since we made a conscious decision not to have any children.

So you know where you can shove your holier-than-thou, smug, virtue-signalling post.


----------



## beech1948

I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience, and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs.[/quote]

I don't get annoyed by many here as there is usually little point in getting angry BUT this statement has done it.

" I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience"
Why. Motoring is purely about personal convenience and in the course of whatever is convenient getting stuff done. How far is your supermarket, your hardware store etc etc. Remove private transport and shops will need to multiply like rabbits in every locale. A silly and petulant statement.

"and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs."

Why.? As an owner and director of my small company (48 staff) our clients are located in Edinburgh, Preston, Lancaster, Blackpool, Bristol, Gloucester etc etc LOndon X20 and every where in between. We sell and install/maintain AI software for banks and insurance companies. There are only 48 of us so what model of dispersion do I adopt for my company. Option 1:: 12 of us drive way over 18,000 miles a year. Option 2:: I set up at great expense say 3 offices around the country with 2 to 3 people at each but deprive them of daily meaningful contact with the development staff of 31 who are static in there Crowthorne, Berkshire base. Option 3:: I move development out to say 3 offices and we struggles over communications even if easy video conferencing were available it lacks too much of the unspoken communication that is very very necessary. 

If the first remark was silly then this comment on the attitude of employers is downright impractical rubbish.

I am not in any way against EVs, I am growing to be against quite a few of the impractical people who chat about them though. I like many other people in business are watching EVs with an eagle eye and trying to see when they might become VIABLE for us. The issues are as follows:-

1) Tesla is too expensive and lacks financial Government support via less tax.
2) Leaf, Golf e and those like them with an 120 mile range when warm and 80 mile range when cold are simply toys and not a real choice and they cost a fortune. You Toy EV owners should try doing Crowthorne-Glasgow-Blackpool-Crowthorne in just under 3 days. A round trip of about 1300 miles which would have about 13 charging stops of at least 45/60 minutes of unproductive time to get just an 80% charge.
3) Maybe the future model will be that customers pay us all support and mileage rather than the % of the contract value they do at present.

Thoroughly frustrated with the author of this missive. I'm getting in my ICE car, with a 895 mile range and getting its 2 tons of weight upto Norwich tonight. I wonder how much carbon dioxide it will spew out given that this particular customer has refused our offers of training, lacks there own staff to maintain their software and will not train any of their multitudes of contract staff. There is a problem caused by an old fashioned customer, who will not invest to cut their support costs because they are too profitable. So the issue is not just my carbon spewing huge juggernaught diesel but really the lack of professionalism in a customers management.

I think if I see a Toy EV on the road I will run it over and add to the roadkill. Just joking of course.


----------



## Lons

MusicMan":10pd6eox said:


> Oh and my car insurance pays for towing to the nearest charge point if I am stranded! So I am quite happy to be a guinea pig and also to contribute a little to clean air and carbon reduction.



Interesting about the insurance I hadn't thought of that but I wouldn't want to be waiting the hour or so it takes recovery services to actually get to you.


> I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience



We all consider a car as convenience otherwise we wouldn't own one in the first place surely and that has to be the reason you previously had that MB estate Keith or you wouldn't have bought a car capable of carrying a wardrobe. ( that was a great car I remember when we loaded that morticer into it and in excellent condition) and if you had wanted to be a guinea pig you would perhaps have swapped years ago.


> the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs.



Can't agree we you there Keith. 
Not all businesses can operate just via telephone or the internet or can allow their staff to work from home. In my pals case he gets repeat orders by 'phone and email but without the face to face contact by his reps with customers several things would happen. He would get very few new accounts, would lose many existing ones to more aggressive competitors, would never get any new products off the ground. The result of all that would be loss of his business and the livelihood of his 28 staff who rely on him to pay their wages. Having spent much of my working life managing sales environments I know that to be the case!
He tried to be progressive by leasing a Prius, it didn't work for his situation though it won't stop him trying again when the situation has changed.

It's great that you could change your huge car for a small EV and can make it work for you but unfortunately in my case I often still pull a large heavy twin axle trailer and I often need a large capacity car. I'm not against EVs in any way just not for me at the minute and I seriously doubt the finances stack up for me covering less than 6000 miles a year and changing at a max of 2 - 3 years. Hopefully it will in due cours or my requirements change.

In my wife'as case her Mini is now 3. 1/2 years old and covered less than 16000 miles. For much of last year she needed at the drop of a hat to dash across to her mother who has dementia, often in the middle of the night and several times included a lengthy trip to hospital, no way could she have coped with the thought of either running out of power or delay at a charging point with her mother in distress. Thankfully she's in care now so it's less of an issue.

Our low mileage using up to date ICE engines should not be the first priority imo as it's the commercial vehicles and old petrol / diesel cars often poorly maintained which pump out the most noxious stuff. Unfortunately the owners of those cars are usually the ones who can least afford to pay exorbitant EV prices.

PS
*I sincerely hope this thread doesn't become an angry one as it's an important subject to all of us*


----------



## Bodgers

beech1948":1h20aopy said:


> I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience, and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs.
> 
> I don't get annoyed by many here as there is usually little point in getting angry BUT this statement has done it.
> 
> " I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience"
> Why. Motoring is purely about personal convenience and in the course of whatever is convenient getting stuff done. How far is your supermarket, your hardware store etc etc. Remove private transport and shops will need to multiply like rabbits in every locale. A silly and petulant statement.
> 
> "and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs."
> 
> Why.? As an owner and director of my small company (48 staff) our clients are located in Edinburgh, Preston, Lancaster, Blackpool, Bristol, Gloucester etc etc LOndon X20 and every where in between. We sell and install/maintain AI software for banks and insurance companies. There are only 48 of us so what model of dispersion do I adopt for my company. Option 1:: 12 of us drive way over 18,000 miles a year. Option 2:: I set up at great expense say 3 offices around the country with 2 to 3 people at each but deprive them of daily meaningful contact with the development staff of 31 who are static in there Crowthorne, Berkshire base. Option 3:: I move development out to say 3 offices and we struggles over communications even if easy video conferencing were available it lacks too much of the unspoken communication that is very very necessary.
> 
> If the first remark was silly then this comment on the attitude of employers is downright impractical rubbish.
> 
> I am not in any way against EVs, I am growing to be against quite a few of the impractical people who chat about them though. I like many other people in business are watching EVs with an eagle eye and trying to see when they might become VIABLE for us. The issues are as follows:-
> 
> 1) Tesla is too expensive and lacks financial Government support via less tax.
> 2) Leaf, Golf e and those like them with an 120 mile range when warm and 80 mile range when cold are simply toys and not a real choice and they cost a fortune. You Toy EV owners should try doing Crowthorne-Glasgow-Blackpool-Crowthorne in just under 3 days. A round trip of about 1300 miles which would have about 13 charging stops of at least 45/60 minutes of unproductive time to get just an 80% charge.
> 3) Maybe the future model will be that customers pay us all support and mileage rather than the % of the contract value they do at present.
> 
> Thoroughly frustrated with the author of this missive. I'm getting in my ICE car, with a 895 mile range and getting its 2 tons of weight upto Norwich tonight. I wonder how much carbon dioxide it will spew out given that this particular customer has refused our offers of training, lacks there own staff to maintain their software and will not train any of their multitudes of contract staff. There is a problem caused by an old fashioned customer, who will not invest to cut their support costs because they are too profitable. So the issue is not just my carbon spewing huge juggernaught diesel but really the lack of professionalism in a customers management.
> 
> I think if I see a Toy EV on the road I will run it over and add to the roadkill. Just joking of course.



It was sort of making sense, until you gave your real opinion in the last sentence.

Your car choices seem a bit selective. Crowthorne to Nottingham is what, 150 miles? Hyundai Ioniq would make that without any stop. The Leaf 40kwh might, the 60kwh would definitely. Lots of other choices would to (Zoe, Kia Soul, Hyundai Kona etc.)

200 miles plus range is becoming the norm now for new EVs coming out, that will only increase. 

For most people averaging 10k miles a year, averaging 30 miles a day EVs already make sense. For your use cases you just have to spend more money to get the range at the moment.


----------



## flying haggis

Lons":2c8mkpsh said:


> MusicMan":2c8mkpsh said:
> 
> 
> 
> Oh and my car insurance pays for towing to the nearest charge point if I am stranded! So I am quite happy to be a guinea pig and also to contribute a little to clean air and carbon reduction.
Click to expand...


if you run out of fuel on a motorway you can get done for "driving without due care and attention so I assume the same will apply to EV owners who try the journey and fail


----------



## flying haggis

Just4Fun":29cchbjk said:


> Some friends and I discussed the idea of towing a small petrol or diesel generator trailer on long journeys to extend the range of an electric vehicle. The reasoning is that many people only occasionally do long journeys so there is no need to lug the generator around most of the time, and the generator (unlike a normal car's engine) could always run at its most efficient rpm.
> 
> Now I see someone has actually tried that and concluded it is better to tow extra batteries, renting the trailers and changing them when a charge is required. Clicky
> 
> I suppose if you are driving past these rental sites anyway it may work, and it could be a nice little franchise operation at motorway services. For something only used occasionally a rental option probably makes a lot of sense, compared to everyone buying their own trailer. I think though that many people would prefer the flexibility of a generator, or possibly a "hybrid trailer".



but newer motorists dont have a licence that allows them to tow a trailer


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Bodgers":30v556vo said:


> It was sort of making sense, until you gave your real opinion in the last sentence.
> 
> Your car choices seem a bit selective. Crowthorne to Nottingham is what, 150 miles? Hyundai Ioniq would make that without any stop. The Leaf 40kwh might, the 60kwh would definitely. Lots of other choices would to (Zoe, Kia Soul, Hyundai Kona etc.)
> 
> 200 miles plus range is becoming the norm now for new EVs coming out, that will only increase.
> 
> For most people averaging 10k miles a year, averaging 30 miles a day EVs already make sense. For your use cases you just have to spend more money to get the range at the moment.



The trip to be considered was "Crowthorne-Glasgow-Blackpool-Crowthorne in just under 3 days". Would your even more expensive option still work? 

Once fleet managers work out that EVs will be cheaper to run than petrol cars, they will make the change, but until then, they won't. It looks like fossil fuel will be getting cheaper before it gets more expensive, so there may be a delay in the changeover.


----------



## Trevanion

flying haggis":1gxuqile said:


> but newer motorists dont have a licence that allows them to tow a trailer



Sort of yes, sort of no.



> _If you passed your car driving test on or after 1 January 1997 you can:
> 
> drive a car or van up to 3,500kg maximum authorised mass (MAM) towing a trailer of up to 750kg MAM
> tow a trailer over 750kg MAM as long as the combined MAM of the trailer and towing vehicle is no more than 3,500kg_



That's quite a bit of leeway really, I can legally drive the Jeep with the 7x5 trailer with a quarter tonne load without a trailer licence.


----------



## Lons

Trevanion":35nzeaxj said:


> If you passed your car driving test on or after 1 January 1997 you can:
> 
> drive a car or van up to 3,500kg maximum authorised mass (MAM) towing a trailer of up to 750kg MAM
> tow a trailer over 750kg MAM as long as the combined MAM of the trailer and towing vehicle is no more than 3,500kg[/i]





> That's quite a bit of leeway really, I can legally drive the Jeep with the 7x5 trailer with a quarter tonne load without a trailer licence.



I would be careful with those figures as they can be interpreted differently Trevanion.
MAM is as you say " maximum authorised mass" and is set by the manufacturers of the vehicle which if taken literally by the police if they stop you can mean you're driving over the limit. That's why years ago trailers and caravans were forced to plate them, originally as GVW. The unladen weight or amount of load is largely irrelevant except to calculate how much load you can carry.

Doesn't apply to me as I have a class C licence but as an example my car weighs almost 2000 kg, my trailer empty weighs 500 kg and has a MAM of 2500 kg. If your licence allows you a combined weight of 3500 kg then you would think towing it empty is ok but that's not what the DVLA states so if pulled over they would look at the MAM on both car and trailer added together which in the above case is 4500 kg and if being picky could prosecute the driver who could be fined up to £9k / 9 points on licence and have his insurance invalidated.

The DVLA are at fault as it's not clear and I haven't heard of any prosecutions but were there to be an accident the consequences could be horrific.


----------



## Trevanion

Lons":2lu1hdar said:


> The DVLA are at fault as it's not clear and I haven't heard of any prosecutions but were there to be an accident the consequences could be horrific.



They do need to make it much clearer, but I suspect it's intentionally vague. In an ideal world I just need to to the test


----------



## Lons

Trevanion":108ap2fs said:


> Lons":108ap2fs said:
> 
> 
> 
> The DVLA are at fault as it's not clear and I haven't heard of any prosecutions but were there to be an accident the consequences could be horrific.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They do need to make it much clearer, but I suspect it's intentionally vague. In an ideal world I just need to to the test
Click to expand...


I checked all this out a couple of years ago Trev as my son can't tow my trailer for exactly that reason, I also have an acquaintance who is a retired traffic officer and he confirmed it but said the only time he ever pulled one over was if the lights weren't working, number plate was wrong and it looked dangerous or dodgy.

I have to take a medical every 3 years to keep my "C" category as I'm now 70 but I need it for the trailer and our motorhome which is over the 3500 kg limit.


----------



## RogerS

My apologies to Musicman and the rest of you for my intemperate response. 

Guess all this wretched flat business is starting to get to me. Won't happen again.


----------



## AJB Temple

Good post Roger S. This has been a courteous thread and the apology put it back on track. 

I wasn't aware of the trailer rules. Will have to look that up. I have an HGV licence as I used to drive big horse boxes and had to take a special test some years ago, but they were not articulated.


----------



## Geoff_S

beech1948":9fct4vzv said:


> I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience, and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs.
> 
> I don't get annoyed by many here as there is usually little point in getting angry BUT this statement has done it.
> 
> " I must say I am quite disturbed by the attitude of motorists who will not consider anything other than their own convenience"
> Why. Motoring is purely about personal convenience and in the course of whatever is convenient getting stuff done. How far is your supermarket, your hardware store etc etc. Remove private transport and shops will need to multiply like rabbits in every locale. A silly and petulant statement.
> 
> "and also by the attitude of employers who will not consider any alternatives to their staff driving huge mileages to do their jobs."
> 
> Why.? As an owner and director of my small company (48 staff) our clients are located in Edinburgh, Preston, Lancaster, Blackpool, Bristol, Gloucester etc etc LOndon X20 and every where in between. We sell and install/maintain AI software for banks and insurance companies. There are only 48 of us so what model of dispersion do I adopt for my company. Option 1:: 12 of us drive way over 18,000 miles a year. Option 2:: I set up at great expense say 3 offices around the country with 2 to 3 people at each but deprive them of daily meaningful contact with the development staff of 31 who are static in there Crowthorne, Berkshire base. Option 3:: I move development out to say 3 offices and we struggles over communications even if easy video conferencing were available it lacks too much of the unspoken communication that is very very necessary.
> 
> If the first remark was silly then this comment on the attitude of employers is downright impractical rubbish.
> 
> I am not in any way against EVs, I am growing to be against quite a few of the impractical people who chat about them though. I like many other people in business are watching EVs with an eagle eye and trying to see when they might become VIABLE for us. The issues are as follows:-
> 
> 1) Tesla is too expensive and lacks financial Government support via less tax.
> 2) Leaf, Golf e and those like them with an 120 mile range when warm and 80 mile range when cold are simply toys and not a real choice and they cost a fortune. You Toy EV owners should try doing Crowthorne-Glasgow-Blackpool-Crowthorne in just under 3 days. A round trip of about 1300 miles which would have about 13 charging stops of at least 45/60 minutes of unproductive time to get just an 80% charge.
> 3) Maybe the future model will be that customers pay us all support and mileage rather than the % of the contract value they do at present.
> 
> Thoroughly frustrated with the author of this missive. I'm getting in my ICE car, with a 895 mile range and getting its 2 tons of weight upto Norwich tonight. I wonder how much carbon dioxide it will spew out given that this particular customer has refused our offers of training, lacks there own staff to maintain their software and will not train any of their multitudes of contract staff. There is a problem caused by an old fashioned customer, who will not invest to cut their support costs because they are too profitable. So the issue is not just my carbon spewing huge juggernaught diesel but really the lack of professionalism in a customers management.
> 
> I think if I see a Toy EV on the road I will run it over and add to the roadkill. Just joking of course.



We did future model 3 back in the 90’s.
We charged 50% hourly rate for travel time and full fat mileage charge. Didn’t stop a single client from calling us in. My personal record was South London to Sandbach, arrive to be told they had changed their minds and then back home again. They paid as well only to ask me if I could do it all again a week later.

Anyway, what do you drive? I only ask because I’ve got an e Golf and need to watch out for you 8)


----------



## MusicMan

RogerS":3hvrx0bl said:


> My apologies to Musicman and the rest of you for my intemperate response.
> 
> Guess all this wretched flat business is starting to get to me. Won't happen again.



Gladly accepted, Roger, and my apologies for getting under the skin of you and Beech1948 and anyone else who was (unintentionally) offended. Good luck with the flat, my son is going through the same process and it is mentally quite draining.

Lons, you are right, I did have the Mercedes estate for convenience and for my job when I was commuting 200 miles and even Teslas weren't available. Yes I did carry wardrobes in it a couple of times, as well as several Boley lathes, a Wadkin saw and numerous other items and it was indeed great to drive. And I use the mortice a lot, it's still going strong!

I reluctantly parted with the car last week after 17 years. Indeed I was not an early guinea pig, but had to admit that since my circumstances had changed since I was running part of a company in Durham and commuting from Warwick, I should start making up for my carbon excesses. Oh, and my job then involved several trips a year to the US, China etc so I have a lot to make up. My holier-than-thou attitude was as much to myself as to others.

The other motivation in my posts in this thread has been to show that EVs are perfectly practical for a large fraction of the population right now, and that those for whom it is a good fit should really look hard at them. I'm perfectly aware that for the rest of the population it isn't a good fit: flat or terrace house dwellers, those obliged to do long distance drives frequently, trailer haulers etc. I'm not getting at them, I'm aware that infrastructure problems, mainly related to charging station availability and grid development, need solving and these won't all be solved overnight. More of them have been solved or properly planned than many are aware, however (hence the comments by Bodgers and myself on "whatabouters"). And those who can use them now are starting the stock of cheaper secondhand cars for a few years time.

The basic reason is of course the need - enshrined in the UK law in response to the Paris agreement - to decarbonise our economy in a fixed, short time scale. Even this may not be enough to avert many consequences of climate change but it must be done, and if it is not started quite aggressively it won't happen in time. The government Committee on Climate Change (CCC - one can look up their reports) is absolutely clear that transport is one of the areas that needs decarburising and that a major shift towards BEVs is the best way to do this. This is because it moves the CO2 emissions from the vehicles into the power stations, which are already much lower carbon emitters than vehicles, and will progressively become more so. Obviously we start with the low hanging fruit (such as me), and expect to resolve the harder cases in a few years time as batteries and infrastructure develop. I am quite sure that they will.

I've had some pushback from saying that employers should not expect employees to do so much business mileage. I actually said "consider" not "you must do it now", but that's a fine point! This is also covered by the CCC, who point out that as individuals and employers we need to learn to travel less in general. Of course this also means better and cheaper public transport, so it is not simply an individual choice. But if you look ten or fifteen years ahead, it is unlikely, in my view, that the enormous amount of travel currently required in some companies will be possible, acceptable or affordable. So it would be wise to plan for it, or at least start to think about how it might be done. I know there are awkward customers who do not yet accept it. At least, talking about it helps, slowly, to change the attitudes.


----------



## RogerS

All very good points, MM, and nothing to take issue with. But there is a huge elephant in the room and that is for a lot of people, myself included, they're just too damn expensive - both new and secondhand. I know that will change but for a lot of people that timescale is way out there in the far distance.


----------



## LarryS.

Too expensive today but if Tesla hit their plans for battery production (which they’ll sell to others at a margin) and other manufacturers catch up (they’re spending a fortune to do so) we could be talking less than a couple of years 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


----------



## AES

Maybe LarryS. I (once again!) haven't done my homework properly, but there have been a couple of items on German TV recently about Tesla's plans for a new factory in a part of what used to be E. Germany (somewhere up N & E of Berlin I think). Apparently it's an area where there's not all that much alternative employment but the local (and no doubt not so local?) environmentalists are demonstrating against the factory because of - I think - the damage it'll do to the local water table - or something. 

I'm not saying that factory won't happen, but knowing something about German bureaucracy from personal experience (sometimes it's a bit faster than UK, sometimes a bit slower!) my guess is that it'll be more than a couple of years hence before that factory starts production - especially in view of the pending German "general election" and Angela Merkel's party's changing fortunes in recent "local" German elections.

But yeah, in principle, I'm sure you're right, and sooner or later the prices of EVs will come down, AND their range (and various other technicalities, including charging) WILL improve over today's offerings.

But in my own case, last year I was selfish enough (yup, I admit it) to come to the conclusion that for me/my particular circumstances, the buying price (my final consideration) of any available EV was more than A) what I was willing to pay, and B) would, in my own judgement, be unlikely to fall within acceptable (to me) limits within the time I guess I've got left to me as a driver.

But as above, yes, that was a selfish decision in so far as I was basing that decision entirely on my own wishes and needs, rather than taking any external factors such as the environment into consideration.

As I say, I do admit that, but at the same time I also submit that many people (the majority?) make such decisions on a very similar "selfish basis".

So the, "I'm guilty, but no more than him over there is" is NOT an excuse, I know that, but it IS something which does require a considerable change in mind set, which is why I find this thread so interesting, - AND very good natured! 

Who knows, IF I'm still in a position to "need" another new car in 5 years time (which is about the average time I keep my cars) by then it could well be/probably will be EV.

Actually, if I need wheels at all by then, I'll probably be only be able to handle a mobility trike at best! AFAIK, they're ALL BEVs, so problem solved. (But I'll still be looking into one with a tuned-up lawnmower engine, and it'll no doubt need racing slicks on it so I get a good 0-60 time)!


----------



## MusicMan

RogerS":ed4nhdp5 said:


> All very good points, MM, and nothing to take issue with. But there is a huge elephant in the room and that is for a lot of people, myself included, they're just too damn expensive - both new and secondhand. I know that will change but for a lot of people that timescale is way out there in the far distance.



I appreciate that, Roger, and I've been conscious of that too. The financial turning point for me came when I added up the actual costs of maintaining my 17 year old (big Merc) car last year, and careful shopping for insurance and lease costs. They were about the same with margin of error. for a new Leaf n-accenta, the mid-range one. So I have to sacrifice the luxurious carry-anything load platform. In return I get a new car with precisely known costs, under warranty, modern car facilities and equipment, and still pretty good comfort and luggage capacity. Sure I could have spent less on an ICE model, but I knew I could afford what I was already paying, and I could start paying back some of the carbon I've used in the past! My circumstances allowed this, and I understand that yours and others' may not, but it came as a surprise to me that it was more affordable than I thought.

I am leasing for 2 years and am sure that the options will be much greater next time. OTOH like you I'll be advancing in age (80 shortly) but I bet my leccy wheelchair will beat your hotrod lawnmower one!


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I agree it is likely new EVs will come down in price, whilst range and recharging issues will improve and no longer represent a barrier to EV ownership for most.

But most people buy used cars - there are approx 2.0m new cars sold each year, and 30m+ cars on the road. Assuming that buyers of new cars keep them for 3 years, 6m are driving cars bought new and 24m were bought used.

Currently there few used EVs for sale relative to overall demand. And those that are for sale embed technology and software which is out of date as EV technology is evolving so rapidly.

A further issue is one of perception - even when the lifetime cost of an EV is close to ICE, the choice will be between (a) pay (say) £30k for a new EV, or (b) pay (say) £20k for ICE and save £20 a week (£1000 pa) on fuel costs for the next 10 years.

Bear in mind that the first owner will do the lifetime analysis over their anticipated ownership (3 years?), not the lifetime of the vehicle. 

So I suspect it will be between 5 - 10 years before a fully "operational" used EV market develops - sufficient number of EVs available to provide buyers with a choice of vehicles locally, using reasonably competitive technology, and with proven support infrastructures (charging, repairs, etc)


----------



## RogerS

Terry - Somerset":3p8ib4ga said:


> ...
> So I suspect it will be between 5 - 10 years before a fully "operational" used EV market develops - sufficient number of EVs available to provide buyers with a choice of vehicles locally, using reasonably competitive technology, and with proven support infrastructures (charging, repairs, etc)



No doubt about it IMO.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Another look at what could have been: 1970s EV designed in the UK, built on a Greek island(!) and eventually failed because of changing government tax positions. 

https://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/1 ... 70s-video/







I'm not sure things have moved on much from the 1970s. (Extra points if you spot the hang-dog expression)


----------



## AES

OK, MM, we'll wait a couple of years (+) then have a leccy v hot rod lawn mover mobility trike race! "Your place or mine dear?"


----------



## dangles

I was suprised to see some Tesla models are advertised as auto and some not.I imagined E.V's were like the old milk floats,press the pedal and away she goes.


----------



## AJB Temple

Teslas are automatic. Accelerator does it all. No clutch. Column shift is park, forward, reverse, neutral.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

RogerS":2kz49g07 said:


> All very good points, MM, and nothing to take issue with. But there is a huge elephant in the room and that is for a lot of people, myself included, they're just too damn expensive - both new and secondhand. I know that will change but for a lot of people that timescale is way out there in the far distance.


Well over 80% of new private car sales in the UK are leased (or effectively so). This makes a relatively higher list price much less of an issue. The running costs of EVs are already lower in terms of fuel ( if using an off peak tariff at home) and servicing. All EVs are effectively 'automatic' the reference to 'auto' in relation to a Tesla may be a reference to autonomous driving capability.


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":12jnqmty said:


> RogerS":12jnqmty said:
> 
> 
> 
> All very good points, MM, and nothing to take issue with. But there is a huge elephant in the room and that is for a lot of people, myself included, they're just too damn expensive - both new and secondhand. I know that will change but for a lot of people that timescale is way out there in the far distance.
> 
> 
> 
> Well over 80% of new private car sales in the UK are leased (or effectively so). This makes a relatively higher list price much less of an issue. ...
Click to expand...


A higher price pushes up the leasing cost. Economics 101.

Anyway, I won't be in the market for a new car - leased or otherwise - unless I win the lottery.


----------



## Lons

Woody2Shoes":q1ybr8ku said:


> Well over 80% of new private car sales in the UK are leased (or effectively so). This makes a relatively higher list price much less of an issue.



That makes absolutely no sense to me. :? 

Leasing costs are based mainly on the cost of the vehicle and expected resale value at end of lease with minor other items factored into the calculation such as tyre wear and servicing so in very simple terms if an EV costs 25% more than the equivalent ICE then leasing cost reflects that. 
The only other consideration if leased to a company is possible tax incentives but they'll disappear along with current purchase grants for private sales as soon as sales volumes are high enough. The government will need to recoup lost fuel revenues one way or another so it's a dead cert.


----------



## Lons

Doesn't help to persuade people like us to buy an EV when you read this in the local rag.

This guy when campaigning for election less than 12 months ago to what is a useless post anyway imo, listed climate change as his number 1 priority and in his acceptance speech he re-affirmed that which I remember well as he was heckled for driving an old Land Rover Defender. Well it seems he's still driving it to work despite having done SFA about emissions except tell everyone else to do what he won't. :roll:


----------



## AES

I don't of course know what the current terms & conditions are in UK now for leasing vehicles, but having had a lot to do with leasing aircraft (the only real difference is the number of noughts in sale/buy price, + the extra steps taken in the contract to "insure" the residual value!) is that at the very basic level, a lease is simply a bank or some such company lending you an amount of money to buy said car (aeroplane, or whatever).

Therefore I think you do need to be in some sort of a company situation to take full advantage of whatever tax breaks, depreciation allowances, etc, apply. In essence the leasing company is just lending you that amount of money, so built into that "loan" will be the leasing company's "profit" on the loan.

So I agree 100% with Lons on that one.


----------



## profchris

AES":43bcmwpb said:


> I don't of course know what the current terms & conditions are in UK now for leasing vehicles ...



Really quite simple. £X per month for Y months, and then you have the option to buy the vehicle for £Z (stated up front). If it's worth more than £Z you consider buying it, if less you walk away and start again.

The complication is that you can trade in your existing vehicle against a lower monthly cost. If your current vehicle is leased, the trade in value is not £Z but its current market value.

In practice, most people who do this trade in a car they own outright to start off, and then trade in the leased vehicle for another one after, say, 3 years. So the residual value becomes important when that happens. But if the leasing company has got its sums right, the car is worth pretty close to £Z, so you just take on another lease.

For these people, the cost of their car soon becomes £X per month in terms of their budgeting. Servicing is usually included in the lease.

So if an electric vehicle costs more than an ICE to lease, but the running costs per month are less, it's pretty easy to work out if it's a better or worse deal overall.

What this means is that the extra purchase cost of an EV isn't the barrier it would be to someone who is thinking of buying outright. Sellers (lessors, really) will give an estimated all-in monthly cost which can easily be compared with that for an ICE.


----------



## Lons

Another point is that any new premium car that has a list price of more than £40k ( including any extras added at time of order ) is subject to an extra £310 for 5 years ( £1550 ), even if the car is bought used so up to 6 year old and includes EVs so is if the government want to promote EVs even more then they need to remove that extra tax burden.


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":2gt1pjw9 said:


> Another point is that any new premium car that has a list price of more than £40k ( including any extras added at time of order ) is subject to an extra £310 for 5 years ( £1550 ), even if the car is bought used so up to 6 year old and includes EVs so is if the government want to promote EVs even more then they need to remove that extra tax burden.



I don’t like that tax


----------



## Hlsmith

I don't know if it has been mentioned before in this thread but I don't know if this company has been posted
It is far more than any other eco vehicle 
It is a whole concept beyond anything other companies are producing atm 
Aimed at reducing the entire carbon footprint of a vehicle not just when its running 
If you read their website there is alot of information about just how wasteful some eco cars are 
For example a Tesla seat with electric adjustment weights nearly 200kg 
A conventional old fashioned seat weighs as little as 40 kg 
It doesn't matter where you produce the power carrying an extra 160kg per seat around the whole time is not efficient

https://www.riversimple.com/


----------



## RogerS

Hlsmith":2tokvpxv said:


> I don't know if it has been mentioned before in this thread but I don't know if this company has been posted
> It is far more than any other eco vehicle
> It is a whole concept beyond anything other companies are producing atm
> Aimed at reducing the entire carbon footprint of a vehicle not just when its running
> If you read their website there is alot of information about just how wasteful some eco cars are
> For example a Tesla seat with electric adjustment weights nearly 200kg
> A conventional old fashioned seat weighs as little as 40 kg
> It doesn't matter where you produce the power carrying an extra 160kg per seat around the whole time is not efficient
> 
> https://www.riversimple.com/



I thought we'd discounted hydrogen as a realistic fuel choice ?


----------



## Trevanion

Hlsmith":3nyxbsjr said:


> For example a Tesla seat with electric adjustment weights nearly 200kg



Where did you get that number from!? Over two to three times the weight of the average person? I've removed seats with all the electrical bells and whistles and I don't think any have been over 40kg.


----------



## AJB Temple

I have lifted out Tesla seats and I definitely cannot lift 200 Kg out of a car. :lol: 

In any case, picking the weights of individual components is not realistic: we have to consider the whole. Lot's of aluminium in Teslas. But I agree, the more weight we shift around and the more air we have to displace to achieve motion, the higher the energy consumption is likely to be.


----------



## RogerS

AJB Temple":1d8zrgso said:


> ..... But I agree, the more weight we shift around and the more air we have to displace to achieve motion, the higher the energy consumption is likely to be.


I have an idea...


----------



## Lons

RogerS":94ziogj7 said:


> I have an idea...


Yebbut if you mix up your molecules with other peoples you might catch coronavirus.


----------



## Hlsmith

RogerS":2125zq2o said:


> Hlsmith":2125zq2o said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know if it has been mentioned before in this thread but I don't know if this company has been posted
> It is far more than any other eco vehicle
> It is a whole concept beyond anything other companies are producing atm
> Aimed at reducing the entire carbon footprint of a vehicle not just when its running
> If you read their website there is alot of information about just how wasteful some eco cars are
> For example a Tesla seat with electric adjustment weights nearly 200kg
> A conventional old fashioned seat weighs as little as 40 kg
> It doesn't matter where you produce the power carrying an extra 160kg per seat around the whole time is not efficient
> 
> https://www.riversimple.com/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I thought we'd discounted hydrogen as a realistic fuel choice ?
Click to expand...


Toyota and alot of the Asian manafacturers are plowing alot more time and money into hydrogen than pure electric they just don't advertise it 
Toyota where supposed to supply an entire hydrogen fleet to the Olympics


----------



## MusicMan

I am not discounting hydrogen (or more likely ammonia) fuel cell power in the long run, especially for heavier vehicles (lorries, trains). It is portable, non-polluting, stores a lot of energy and for big vehicles the cost and weight of onboard fuel storage and fuel cell may well scale more favourably than batteries. The distribution network is also very expensive to build compared with EV chargers. But possible for railways and ships of course, which can charge at relatively few locations.

This is for pollution. For energy efficiency the story is different, as hydrogen manufacturing processes currently use about three times as much energy as the hydrogen stores. If it is produced by fossil fuel (as it mostly is at present) then this is a greenhouse gas disaster. However, if and when we get into a surplus of renewable energy, manufacturing hydrogen or ammonia is a good way to store it. For static purposes such as heating, the gas network is already available. Maybe a clever way will be found, possibly using biological processes, but electrolysing it from water will always cost a lot of energy.

Of course one can build impressive demo cars that use it, but building a whole network is very much more difficult than for BEVs. And there is still plenty of research to be done on hydrogen or ammonia fuel cells to bring the cost down.

A very detailed and really useful discussion of electric vehicles and infrastructure was published last week in a House of Commons research briefing paper. The summary is here:
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk ... y/CBP-7480
and it contains a link to the full report, for anyone interested. It answers a lot of questions raised in this thread.


----------



## RogerS

Account here of the trials and tribulations of owning an electric car. Highlights some of the issues raised here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51678830


----------



## Rorschach

This bit is rather worrying:

_However, she adds that the system will still need to ensure everyone isn't plugging in their electric car at once.

This means connecting up charging points to a computer system that determines when they can be used_

Sounds like huge potential for restricting the movements of the population.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Rorschach":2qfz2e07 said:


> This bit is rather worrying:
> 
> _However, she adds that the system will still need to ensure everyone isn't plugging in their electric car at once.
> 
> This means connecting up charging points to a computer system that determines when they can be used_
> 
> Sounds like huge potential for restricting the movements of the population.


It's called demand management and we should be much better at it than we are. Economy 7 or whatever it's now called is a simple example.


----------



## Rorschach

Woody2Shoes":3m2z108a said:


> Rorschach":3m2z108a said:
> 
> 
> 
> This bit is rather worrying:
> 
> _However, she adds that the system will still need to ensure everyone isn't plugging in their electric car at once.
> 
> This means connecting up charging points to a computer system that determines when they can be used_
> 
> Sounds like huge potential for restricting the movements of the population.
> 
> 
> 
> It's called demand management and we should be much better at it than we are. Economy 7 or whatever it's now called is a simple example.
Click to expand...


That's not the same thing. They are talking about cutting off the electricity supply at will. At no point is your electricity supply cut at home under E& or similar, they just offer you a cheap rate at night.

If someone has control over when your car is charged they could prevent you travelling to work for example.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

We live in a connected world. It is entirely possible for the EV to vary its charging rate minute by minute depending on overall available capacity, overall demand, and infrastructure constraints.

This is no different in principle to your internet connection where speeds and prices vary depending on the activity of other users. The charging mechanisms may be similar too - if you want:

- priority and high charge rate you pay xxx, 
- a fully charged by 07.00 commitment you pay xx,
- lower priority and charge rate the price is x


----------



## dangles

What people forget to mention when charging at night on economy 7 is that by having economy 7 you pay more for your daytime electricity.


----------



## RogerS

Met a mate of mine down t'pub last night. He looks after a huge patch of garages in the North...drives 40,000 miles a year. He's ordered a plug-in hybrid. We're having supper in a couple of weeks time and so I'll grill him then as to his decision making process. He reminded me that we have a local community BEV. Will also ask him how it's going. They're after volunteer drivers and I'm tempted. Hands on and all that.


----------



## Lons

I think my stepping stone when it comes before a BEV, unless there are some major developments would most likely be a hybrid of some kind. Was looking at the new self charging Subaru Forester on Thursday and it looks impressive, very well equipped and at top spec model they've kept it just under the luxury car tax threshold.


----------



## RogerS

Really can't see the point of a hybrid, TBH. You're paying a hell of a lot for something you shouldn't need ....the ICE ! Plus gearbox etc.


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":jtayub0f said:


> I think my stepping stone when it comes before a BEV, unless there are some major developments would most likely be a hybrid of some kind. Was looking at the new self charging Subaru Forester on Thursday and it looks impressive, very well equipped and at top spec model they've kept it just under the luxury car tax threshold.



As a matter of interest Cons, what electric only range are you getting on that?


----------



## stuartpaul

I'd be quite happy to have an EV, - for the vast majority of our trips it would be fine. A few longer ones would need better planning but not insurmountable. However affording one is a very different issue and I don't see one on the horizon for quite some time. Unless sales of second hand ICE cars are banned as well there's going to be a significant market at the 'lower end' for many, many years to come.

What I can't understand is why Tesla have managed to 'stitch up' the charging system like they have and none of the major vehicle manufacturers have anything even remotely similar. Cost, availability and even plug standardisation are issues that need to be rapidly addressed.


----------



## Lons

RogerS":2ck7wnyn said:


> Really can't see the point of a hybrid, TBH. You're paying a hell of a lot for something you shouldn't need ....the ICE ! Plus gearbox etc.


probably right Roger just was very impressed with the car. I change my mind about cars as often as Steve changes his undercrackers ( coronavirus thread :lol: )


----------



## Lons

> As a matter of interest Cons, what electric only range are you getting on that?



I didn't know Geoff as I only saw it on Thursday when one of the fishing guys rolled up in one.

I've changed my mind though as just looked it up and apparently only has 1 mile battery range at 25mph so stuff that! :lol: I'll stick with my Euro 6 diesel Merc for the minute.


----------



## RogerS

Lons":1ywxglq5 said:


> As a matter of interest Cons, what electric only range are you getting on that?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't know Geoff as I only saw it on Thursday when one of the fishing guys rolled up in one.
> 
> I've changed my mind though as just looked it up and apparently only has 1 mile battery range at 25mph so stuff that! :lol: I'll stick with my Euro 6 diesel Merc for the minute.
Click to expand...


Lons, I hear AA batteries are plentiful. You could always get another one to complement the one already fitted.


----------



## Bodgers

dangles":3arx2sht said:


> What people forget to mention when charging at night on economy 7 is that by having economy 7 you pay more for your daytime electricity.


Yes, but the while point is that if you didn't have the deal, running the storage heaters overnight would be more expensive overall.

If you have an electric car, you are probably better off with something like Octopus Go, where the overnight band is narrower and the daytime rates are close to typical rates.


----------



## Lons

RogerS":3izu999i said:


> Lons, I hear AA batteries are plentiful. You could always get another one to complement the one already fitted.



Or could fit one of your solar panels and a controller on the roof maybe!  

The 100w panel on the roof of our motorhome does a reasonable job keeping the batteries ticking over.


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":2obgry62 said:


> As a matter of interest Cons, what electric only range are you getting on that?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't know Geoff as I only saw it on Thursday when one of the fishing guys rolled up in one.
> 
> I've changed my mind though as just looked it up and apparently only has 1 mile battery range at 25mph so stuff that! :lol: I'll stick with my Euro 6 diesel Merc for the minute.
Click to expand...


Good shout  Self charging hybrids do seem to be a little bit stupid IMHO


----------



## Bodgers

Lons":1xlyxqht said:


> I think my stepping stone when it comes before a BEV, unless there are some major developments would most likely be a hybrid of some kind. Was looking at the new self charging Subaru Forester on Thursday and it looks impressive, very well equipped and at top spec model they've kept it just under the luxury car tax threshold.


The self charging thing is basically advertising lies. Toyota have already had their wrists slapped by many euro companies over the term.

It is charged by filling the car with petrol after all! Any energy recovery can only happen because of that fuel.


----------



## MusicMan

Hey, this is just the journalists speculation. Ive not seen that anywhere in the House of Commons documents, even as a suggestion. Let's not start a conspiracy theory.

I think that smart meters and differential pricing will sort it out nicely. I am shortly going on the the Octopus Agile tariff which is cheap most of the time but particularly expensive at the peak 4 - 7 pm time. Guess when I won't be charging my car.


----------



## MusicMan

The only point of a so called self-charging hybrid is to get better fuel economy (at quite a price) by using regenerative braking rather than brake pads. This is quite noticeable, but as said, the are totally fuel powered. A plug-in hybrid makes a bit more sense for people who do short trips most days and long trips occasionally. This is my situation; I have my Leaf now, I didn't get the longest-range model and I'll see how I get on with good planning. People who drive high mileages on time-critical business need the longest range car possible. At the moment this pretty much means a Tesla, but the scene will be very different in a year or two. Caravanners and trailer haulers will have to wait a bit too.


----------



## Droogs

stuartpaul":fvdqyiy8 said:


> What I can't understand is why Tesla have managed to 'stitch up' the charging system like they have and none of the major vehicle manufacturers have anything even remotely similar. Cost, availability and even plug standardisation are issues that need to be rapidly addressed.



Tesla haven't stitched up the charging system. They approached other OEM at the start and were rejected when they proposed a universal charger plug standard and also they offered the idea of clubbing together to create the charging infrastructure. Mainly 'cause the car OEMs laughed them out the room as no-one took them seriously, Tesla spent 3.7Blln USD to build its worldwide system so far. As they started basically 5 years before anyone else bothered about it or took BEVs seriously that is why all the others are so dung in comparison. Ionity is a charging consortium of fossil car OEMs trying to catch up as they now realize they are totally knackered otherwise. They have relied on being able to buy in the infrastructure just like their ICE cars and can see what way the wind is blowing and basically are starting to panic.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

I have (very briefly) being looking at DIY conversions - £6,000 plus a vehicle to play with, which ideally should be structurally sound but doesn't need an engine. If you want huge performance (or a pickup truck) £6,000 goes up to £10,000. If anyone has first hand knowledge, I would be interested to hear.

I'm thinking about how, in a few years, older diesel cars in particular will be virtually worthless, and there may even be a market for conversions. Assuming ev cars are the future, that is.

The problem with being an early adopter is that you have to have the funds for a new car. I have never bought a new car, and I tend to run my second hand cars until they are scrapped. In my youth that used to happen quite often - both the buying and the scrapping.


----------



## Duncan A

The BEV technology is already here. It's just a case of not over-complicating things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AlndKQSs6Q
Duncan


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Saudi Arabia has dropped the oil price by $10 a barrel, allegedly. OPEC openly at war with itself. We live in interesting times. 

It may make ICE vehicles cheaper for longer, or it may just show how much of the price of fuel is not the cost of the fuel, but the tax.

According to HM Gov:


> Fuel Duty is included in the price you pay for petrol, diesel and other fuels used in vehicles or for heating.
> 
> You also pay standard rate VAT at 20% on most fuel, or the reduced rate of 5% on domestic heating fuel.
> 
> Fuel Duty rates
> The rate you pay depends on the type of fuel.
> 
> Type of fuel	Rate
> Petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol	57.95 pence per litre
> Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)	31.61 pence per kg
> Natural gas used as fuel in vehicles, for example biogas	24.70 pence per kg
> ‘Fuel oil’ burned in a furnace or used for heating	10.70 pence per litre



Add the VAT on to the duty, and you are paying a smidgen under £0.70 per litre in taxes. Always nice to be taxed on your tax.


----------



## Rich C

RogerS":1bqh0npu said:


> Really can't see the point of a hybrid, TBH. You're paying a hell of a lot for something you shouldn't need ....the ICE ! Plus gearbox etc.


I had one (a Corolla) for a week while my car was in for a recall. The fuel efficency was impressive - I got 65mpg out of it in city traffic which is way better than any ICE I've ever driven. It drove quite nicely as well as the electric motor makes up for the slightly weedy petrol.

So I can see the point over a petrol or diesel car.


----------



## RogerS

Rich C":ubu1awnz said:


> RogerS":ubu1awnz said:
> 
> 
> 
> Really can't see the point of a hybrid, TBH. You're paying a hell of a lot for something you shouldn't need ....the ICE ! Plus gearbox etc.
> 
> 
> 
> I had one (a Corolla) for a week while my car was in for a recall. The fuel efficency was impressive - I got 65mpg out of it in city traffic which is way better than any ICE I've ever driven. It drove quite nicely as well as the electric motor makes up for the slightly weedy petrol.
> 
> So I can see the point over a petrol or diesel car.
Click to expand...


That's as maybe. The TCO is very high and there is just more stuff to go wrong.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

£6bn a year sounds impressive https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... c-vehicles


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Trainee neophyte":2nscbzrl said:


> Saudi Arabia has dropped the oil price by $10 a barrel, allegedly. OPEC openly at war with itself. We live in interesting times.
> 
> It may make ICE vehicles cheaper for longer, or it may just show how much of the price of fuel is not the cost of the fuel, but the tax.
> 
> According to HM Gov:
> 
> 
> 
> Fuel Duty is included in the price you pay for petrol, diesel and other fuels used in vehicles or for heating.
> 
> You also pay standard rate VAT at 20% on most fuel, or the reduced rate of 5% on domestic heating fuel.
> 
> Fuel Duty rates
> The rate you pay depends on the type of fuel.
> 
> Type of fuel	Rate
> Petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol	57.95 pence per litre
> Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)	31.61 pence per kg
> Natural gas used as fuel in vehicles, for example biogas	24.70 pence per kg
> ‘Fuel oil’ burned in a furnace or used for heating	10.70 pence per litre
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Add the VAT on to the duty, and you are paying a smidgen under £0.70 per litre in taxes. Always nice to be taxed on your tax.
Click to expand...


It's a little more nuanced than you suggest. Russia (part of a wider group) failed to support OPEC - they need the cashflow more than the arabs it seems. https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ction-cuts
I think that they will be scrabbling for market share in a shrinking market before long.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

As consumers we are probably all delighted at the prospect of reduced motoring costs as demand for oil reduces and the price falls.

However this may pose a major threat to global stability as many oil producing nations are reliant on oil revenues with limited other economic sectors to generate income.

The United States 12,108,000 BPD (barrels per day)
Russia 10,835,000 BPD
Saudi Arabia 9,580,000 BPD
Iraq 4,620,000 BPD
Canada 4,129,000 BPD
China 3,823,000 BPD
The United Arab Emirates 3,068,000 BPD
Kuwait 2,652,000 BPD
Brazil 2,604,000 BPD
Iran 2,213,000 BPD

The top 10 account for a little over 70% of world output. 

- only 3 are real democracies (US, Canada,Brazil)
- 5 are Middle East. Little other major economic activity - cue major instability
- Russia is corrupt, loss of income could make them unpredictable 
- China uses most oil production internally, exports little

Oil has historically been regarded as inelastic - as prices change, demand remains fairly constant as there were limited alternatives. On this basis a small reduction in demand could could lead to a much larger price fall.

So the impact on the economies of the larger producers (US, Canada, China aside) could be catastophic. Even OPEC whose members liked to cooperate in setting prices will have limited influence (a) they only control part of world output, and (b) have historically struggled to agree on even small changes.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Terry - Somerset":dgbgn4o2 said:


> As consumers we are probably all delighted at the prospect of reduced motoring costs as demand for oil reduces and the price falls.
> 
> However this may pose a major threat to global stability as many oil producing nations are reliant on oil revenues with limited other economic sectors to generate income.
> 
> The United States 12,108,000 BPD (barrels per day)
> Russia 10,835,000 BPD
> Saudi Arabia 9,580,000 BPD
> Iraq 4,620,000 BPD
> Canada 4,129,000 BPD
> China 3,823,000 BPD
> The United Arab Emirates 3,068,000 BPD
> Kuwait 2,652,000 BPD
> Brazil 2,604,000 BPD
> Iran 2,213,000 BPD
> 
> The top 10 account for a little over 70% of world output.
> 
> - only 3 are real democracies (US, Canada,Brazil)
> - 5 are Middle East. Little other major economic activity - cue major instability
> - Russia is corrupt, loss of income could make them unpredictable
> - China uses most oil production internally, exports little
> 
> Oil has historically been regarded as inelastic - as prices change, demand remains fairly constant as there were limited alternatives. On this basis a small reduction in demand could could lead to a much larger price fall.
> 
> So the impact on the economies of the larger producers (US, Canada, China aside) could be catastophic. Even OPEC whose members liked to cooperate in setting prices will have limited influence (a) they only control part of world output, and (b) have historically struggled to agree on even small changes.



Whether its a temporary thing like covid19, or a structural thing like the decline of the ICE, states like Iran and Saudi - whose populations have burgeoned over recent decades - face enormous problems. At least Saudi has one of the lowest marginal costs of production - it could probably make a profit if oil went down to 10 us/bbl but couldn't fund its commitments to its own people. The real pain is being felt by the unconventional shale oil producers where marginal costs are 30-50 us/bbl hence the trashing of Riverstone Energy's share price, for example - there's a lot of recent oil investment close to being underwater, which is a threat to finacial stability, besides political stability.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Woody2Shoes":72z00ry1 said:


> Trainee neophyte":72z00ry1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Saudi Arabia has dropped the oil price by $10 a barrel, allegedly. OPEC openly at war with itself. We live in interesting times.
> 
> It may make ICE vehicles cheaper for longer, or it may just show how much of the price of fuel is not the cost of the fuel, but the tax.
> 
> According to HM Gov:
> 
> 
> 
> Fuel Duty is included in the price you pay for petrol, diesel and other fuels used in vehicles or for heating.
> 
> You also pay standard rate VAT at 20% on most fuel, or the reduced rate of 5% on domestic heating fuel.
> 
> Fuel Duty rates
> The rate you pay depends on the type of fuel.
> 
> Type of fuel	Rate
> Petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol	57.95 pence per litre
> Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)	31.61 pence per kg
> Natural gas used as fuel in vehicles, for example biogas	24.70 pence per kg
> ‘Fuel oil’ burned in a furnace or used for heating	10.70 pence per litre
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Add the VAT on to the duty, and you are paying a smidgen under £0.70 per litre in taxes. Always nice to be taxed on your tax.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> It's a little more nuanced than you suggest. Russia (part of a wider group) failed to support OPEC - they need the cashflow more than the arabs it seems. https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ction-cuts
> I think that they will be scrabbling for market share in a shrinking market before long.
Click to expand...


I may be wrong, but I think KSA need the oil price higher more than Russia does. Russia has a balanced budget with oil at $40 a barrel. They also have a real economy, and so aren't totally dependent on oil. KSA was planning on $65 a barrel. I think they may actually _need_ north of $80 a barrel just to break even. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gene ... e-Low.html

As you point out, it is all about market share. Will a slash and burn fire sale benefit Saudi Arabia? Will USA force Europe to buy from anyone who isn't Russia? Will electricity actually end the oil wars? We certainly live in interesting times...

Then there is the Aramco share price, if you are a fan of schadenfreude. I would be a bit depressed if I bought into that IPO. https://markets.businessinsider.com/sto ... stock?op=1


----------



## selectortone

Russia exports four times as much gas as it does crude oil (approx $400bn vs $100bn in 2019 from memory). It's more concerned about being the power in Syria and stopping gas pipeline exports from Qatar to Eastern Europe.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Terry - Somerset":vcvd3ib3 said:


> As consumers we are probably all delighted at the prospect of reduced motoring costs as demand for oil reduces and the price falls.
> 
> However this may pose a major threat to global stability as many oil producing nations are reliant on oil revenues with limited other economic sectors to generate income.
> 
> The United States 12,108,000 BPD (barrels per day)
> Russia 10,835,000 BPD
> Saudi Arabia 9,580,000 BPD
> Iraq 4,620,000 BPD
> Canada 4,129,000 BPD
> China 3,823,000 BPD
> The United Arab Emirates 3,068,000 BPD
> Kuwait 2,652,000 BPD
> Brazil 2,604,000 BPD
> Iran 2,213,000 BPD
> 
> The top 10 account for a little over 70% of world output.
> 
> - only 3 are real democracies (US, Canada,Brazil)
> - 5 are Middle East. Little other major economic activity - cue major instability
> - Russia is corrupt, loss of income could make them unpredictable
> - China uses most oil production internally, exports little
> 
> Oil has historically been regarded as inelastic - as prices change, demand remains fairly constant as there were limited alternatives. On this basis a small reduction in demand could could lead to a much larger price fall.
> 
> So the impact on the economies of the larger producers (US, Canada, China aside) could be catastophic. Even OPEC whose members liked to cooperate in setting prices will have limited influence (a) they only control part of world output, and (b) have historically struggled to agree on even small changes.



"Russia is corrupt". Corrupt in comparison to whom? The US military has lost $6 trillion dollars - not mis-allocated, but vanished into the scotch mist (or someone's pocket). The entire US government is struggling to account for 21 trillion. Hillary Clinton sold the US uranium reserve deposits to Russia, and pocketed $145 million. Too big to fail banks commit fraud constantly, and pay a trivial percentage of their profit as a fine, and carry on. The entire system is corrupt. 

What you haven't touched on is the petrodollar system: KSA sells oil in dollars, and uses those dollars to buy US debt. US dollar is king because if this, and anyone who tries selling oil not in dollars gets a bayonet suppository as a warning. If this system breaks down, the US debt is instantly unsustainable, the dollar will not be needed for oil sales, and the many, many trillions of dollars around the world will make their way back to USA for a Zimbabwe style hyperinflation. Maybe.


----------



## Droogs

Good podcast from fully charged with Baroness Worthington (originator of the Environment Bill)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAiAzHddqCY


----------



## MusicMan

She does make some interesting points, when Robert Llewellyn finally allows her to speak. But I got very fed up with his waffle, self-promotion, talking over her, patronising and generally mansplaining in about half of the long podcast!


----------



## Droogs

but she was interesting to me with the way her mind is working on the ways to monetise electric transportation in a way the Treasury would be happy to move forward and incentivise its uptake especially the idea about 0% loans to convert current ICE for the second hand market


----------



## MusicMan

Droogs":34bfg5j7 said:


> but she was interesting to me with the way her mind is working on the ways to monetise electric transportation in a way the Treasury would be happy to move forward and incentivise its uptake especially the idea about 0% loans to convert current ICE for the second hand market



Yes indeed she was very interesting, when she could get a word in over his blather! I think those sort of ideas will have to be introduced. Just as one must ration times of charging by smart meters and price, not by compulsion. Make it a win-win.

The secondhand market is obviously a big factor. Has anyone done this (converted an ICE car) or looked into it? I imagine a concern is where to put the batteries when the car is not designed for them.


----------



## RogerS

MusicMan":3ovq1tt6 said:


> .....
> ...Has anyone done this (converted an ICE car) or looked into it? I imagine a concern is where to put the batteries when the car is not designed for them.



How on earth would they prove it was roadworthy !


----------



## John Brown

People have been doing DIY electric conversions for years. I guess they just MOT it like any other vehicle.


----------



## RogerS

John Brown":34e8ba0o said:


> People have been doing DIY electric conversions for years. I guess they just MOT it like any other vehicle.



A quick Google shows that indeed they have. Then looking at a website that did conversion kits, my eyes were drawn to this on their Home page

_Prior to contacting us in regards to one off conversions please be aware that the average parts cost is currently in the region of £25,000+_


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I can believe that there are a very limited number of cases where a full electric conversion could be worthwhile - eg: wedding and funeral limos, high end classic cars. These vehicles typically travel very limited distances slowly and are normally kept under cover in buildings with access to electric power for recharging.

But for most cars it makes no sense whatever. Any installation is likely to be compromised as the battery, motor and control systems are completely different size and weight to the components to be removed (eg: suspension components may also need upgrading).

It is unlikely to be financially attractive to convert a car only a few years old - removing engine, gearbox, ECUs etc would effectively trash any value. Almost certainly better to sell the existing vehicle and replace with a new EV.

And you have to question why anyone would comtemplate a very costly conversion on any car more than 4 or 5 years old.


----------



## Geoff_S

Terry - Somerset":2cu4ohu2 said:



> I can believe that there are a very limited number of cases where a full electric conversion could be worthwhile - eg: wedding and funeral limos, high end classic cars. These vehicles typically travel very limited distances slowly and are normally kept under cover in buildings with access to electric power for recharging.
> 
> But for most cars it makes no sense whatever. Any installation is likely to be compromised as the battery, motor and control systems are completely different size and weight to the components to be removed (eg: suspension components may also need upgrading).
> 
> It is unlikely to be financially attractive to convert a car only a few years old - removing engine, gearbox, ECUs etc would effectively trash any value. Almost certainly better to sell the existing vehicle and replace with a new EV.
> 
> And you have to question why anyone would comtemplate a very costly conversion on any car more than 4 or 5 years old.



I'm guessing it's just the challenge. A bit like my woodworking actually


----------



## Trainee neophyte

RogerS":2clcgmc5 said:


> John Brown":2clcgmc5 said:
> 
> 
> 
> People have been doing DIY electric conversions for years. I guess they just MOT it like any other vehicle.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A quick Google shows that indeed they have. Then looking at a website that did conversion kits, my eyes were drawn to this on their Home page
> 
> _Prior to contacting us in regards to one off conversions please be aware that the average parts cost is currently in the region of £25,000+_
Click to expand...

If they are the same people I found, it is because they do high end racing conversions, and use only Tesla parts. I found some other people who suggest about £5-6k for an average car, and a high performance car or big truck could get up to £10k.

Normally you would swap the engine, and attach it to the clutch plate for ease. I don't think you bother using the gears much though, as you get constant torque at all revs, but they will be there for those occasional emergency steep hill starts or whatever. 

Regarding weight, the electric motor is probably lighter then the ICE it replaces, and the batteries (unless you have a Tesla battery) don't seem to be outlandishly heavy. Don't forget that you will have 50 litres of fuel to not carry around with you. If you were doing a hi-tec conversion you would do way with the drive train and gearbox and mount the engine on the axle. Even better would be a motor in each wheel, but that might be beyond the home mechanic.


----------



## Lons

What Terry said is correct though and in fact making the vehicle significantly lighter and probable redistribution of new parts to other areas can affect the balance and make the vehicle handle poorly at best and downright dangerous at worst.

Cars are designed with highly tuned suspension which takes account of all those factors and in many cases even a change of tyre make or type changes how it feels so altering most of the drive components without specialist knowledge is more than a little stupid IMHO.


I have a MB suv a little over 2 years old now and when I bought it I was aware that a model design fault on the RHD versions caused clonking and tyre skip on full lock at low speeds. MB tried to mask this by offering winter wheels and tyres or all season tyres FOC but eventually designed a new front wishbone set up which was duly carried out on my car last June.
Prior to that the car handled very well indeed and the all wheel drive and suspension set up kept it well and truly planted on the road but immediately following the wishbone change the car was undriveable on damp or wet roads, like driving on sheet ice. The battle with the dealer is another story but they had managed to get the set up wrong and that relatively minor change could have caused a very serious accident. I would seriously hope that any heavily modded car would have full compliance tests similar to self build or manufactured before allowing them on British roads. 
Greek roads are a different matter and from what I've seen there on holiday they get away with murder already. :wink:


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Everything JP Morgan thinks you need to know about the future of electric vehicles. https://www.jpmorgan.com/global/researc ... c-vehicles


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Lons":2gu513wt said:


> What Terry said is correct though and in fact making the vehicle significantly lighter and probable redistribution of new parts to other areas can affect the balance and make the vehicle handle poorly at best and downright dangerous at worst.
> ...
> Greek roads are a different matter and from what I've seen there on holiday they get away with murder already. :wink:



I've driven a pickup truck and/or 4x4 for so many years I tend not to think about shopping trolley design. The Nisan Leaf 39kWh battery seems to weigh around 175kg, but I am struggling to find a definitive figure, so that may be up or down a bit. That is completely irrelevant to a pickup truck, but might make a bit of a difference in a two seater. It's basically two chubby passengers, or one and a half rugby players. However, it can be spread around to distribute the weight low down and evenly - Tesla like theirs under the floor. Don't forget that you won't need the fuel tank (50kg or more when full?), and there should be a gain after throwing away the huge lump of metal under the bonnet, so a net gain of a bit over 100kg, or one passenger. Your comments are still valid about needing to pay attention to changes in handling, but I am not too worried personally. I think it can be overcome.

Regarding Greece and driving - it's a very simple attitude here, which mostly works very well: you do you, and I'll do me, and we will _try_ not to hit each other head on. That last bit doesn't always go according to plan, but hey ho - insha'Allah etc.


----------



## Rorschach

Weight etc are not really the problem with a conversion. The batteries are heavy, but so is an ICE and full fuel tank. Removing the fuel tank gives you a good bit of space and the design of the car already takes into account the fact that there will be a changing, sloshing load in that area already. 

As has already been mentioned the electric motor will weigh a fair bit less than a comparable ICE and you don't have oil and coolant as well. All these things add up. I would be surprised if the completed weight of a an EV conversion is much different to it when it was an ICE. Bear in mind though we are talking about a converted car that would be maybe 150mile range, a 300+ Tesla is a different story, they are beasts compared to an ICE but they are also performance cars as well so to be expected.

Your issue is really going to be all the other gubbins. How much of the drive train do you replace, how much of the electrics and ECU need to be replaced, not to get the motor working, that's trivial, but to get all the other components working, things like a range calculator, alarms, lights, wipers, ABS, speedo, power steering. On an older car these things might be "dumb" and fairly easy to convert but if you are trying to do a car made within the last 20 years then the ECU is going to be at least monitoring a lot of these things so that could be an issue.


----------



## Droogs

The IVA/SVA have sections that cover EV conversions and athey are treated like kit cars basically. But the pointabout the ecu is very valid. From a lot of the forums I read on BEV DIY conversions it seems that you need to be very up on how to reprogam them etc. The biggest chunck of discourse seems to be about the electronics and the ecu if you intend to convert anything sort of post early 80s


----------



## Lons

I watched this youtube vid a few days ago where they tested 6 EVs from full charge to zero and the range from all of them although much lower than stated figure was nevertheless impressive. Still not really true figures for my situation as most of the driving was motorway at fixed speeds where ours tends to be country roads and town driving etc. Interesting that there's no Golf there though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH7V2tU3iFc

There are 3 cars including an equivalent of mine that I could have been interested in but at prices that are more than 50% over and above the comparably specified ICE model and that's before any additional discount that can be screwed from the dealers who are desperate to get rid, so for me they really aren't viable at the minute.
I can't find per mile costs for the EV comparable to my diesel but whatever it is it would take a hell of a long time to get back the extra £25K purchase cost! :shock: 

As an aside, my daughter was rabbiting on about the new Corsa EV, she currently has a Fiesta 1.0 petrol eco, there was an article in the local paper yesterday.

* The Corsa EV starts at £27k ( after grant discount ) which is around £10k or 58% more than a standard 1.4 petrol.
* This is 7.4kw version which takes 7.5 hours to fully charge. A larger 11kw model is planned but at cost of around £32k.
* Stated range is 200 miles but _"in real conditions could be as low as 100 miles"_
* Vauxhall state that "_fuel savings would be about £65 per month_". That equates to £780 pa so would take nearly 13 years to get your extra £10,000 purchase outlay back in simple terms however I assume that saving is based on Laboratory figures and average mileage which would be different for those of us driving much less or more. It also takes no account of the likely drop in petrol and Diesel or the almost certainty that electricity prices will continue to rise and the government will need to recoup falling duty rates by taxing EVs, just as they did when following their recommendations millions switched to diesel and tax receipts fell like a stone!
Over simplification because they will also increase duty on ICEs of course.


----------



## MusicMan

Interesting video, thanks. I do suggest you check out leasing, however.

I wouldn't be so gloomy about the tax/price situation. The government really needs to shift a large fraction of cars to electric in order to meet its legal commitments to reduce carbon emissions. It's important to make cars zero emission at point of use, so that carbon emission can be limited to power stations. These are much lower emission than in the past, and the last coal stations are closing in 2024 or 2025. And CO2 can be much more easily dealt with at the power stations. EVs are only around 2% of total cars at the moment so there is a long way to go, so I expect more incentives rather than less over the next 10 years, and probably financial penalties for ICEs. 

It's right that you cannot expect the stated range under test conditions to be achieved all the time. The test is a mixture of the more efficient city driving and the less efficient motorway driving (the other way round from ICE cars). Better regarded as a means of comparing cars accurately. 

Very much liking my new Leaf, though as I've been stuck at home with a cold the last week I haven't had a lot of a chance to drive it yet!


----------



## Lons

The Leaf comes out pretty well in that video Keith, from my own point of view I was only comparing my own car with the alternative of the same type, size and spec which is reasonable given that I don't want at the minute to down spec. and while of course the future is speculation I think it's fairly certain that once the tipping point is reached on EVs and ICE vehicles sales are low enough that there will be taxes imposed on EVs to make up the shortfall, they have to get it somewhere and as soon as people are locked in they become easy targets as history shows.

The Corsa in my daughter's case is much more relevant and though she's very interested in EV she can't afford the price difference and her current circumstances make leasing difficult.

As an aside Keith, did you ever come across Sir Alistair MacFarlane on your travels? I did several jobs for and became friendly with him and his mad ( in a nice way), Welsh wife until she died a number of years ago when he moved and I lost touch. He was a member of The Royal Society and though retired still travelled regularly for them, I guess he'll be in his 90s now if he's still around.

cheers
Bob


----------



## MusicMan

Lons":2nbx52wh said:


> The Leaf comes out pretty well in that video Keith, from my own point of view I was only comparing my own car with the alternative of the same type, size and spec which is reasonable given that I don't want at the minute to down spec. and while of course the future is speculation I think it's fairly certain that once the tipping point is reached on EVs and ICE vehicles sales are low enough that there will be taxes imposed on EVs to make up the shortfall, they have to get it somewhere and as soon as people are locked in they become easy targets as history shows.
> 
> The Corsa in my daughter's case is much more relevant and though she's very interested in EV she can't afford the price difference and her current circumstances make leasing difficult.
> 
> As an aside Keith, did you ever come across Sir Alistair MacFarlane on your travels? I did several jobs for and became friendly with him and his mad ( in a nice way), Welsh wife until she died a number of years ago when he moved and I lost touch. He was a member of The Royal Society and though retired still travelled regularly for them, I guess he'll be in his 90s now if he's still around.
> 
> cheers
> Bob



Circumstances can make leasing difficult, though if it's possible it makes sense to me. The usual business advice is: 'Appreciating asset - buy, Depreciating asset - lease', especially when it is certain that better value and range in EVs will be available in a couple of years time.

Yes, I did meet Alistair on a few occasions and he's a famous figure in academic engineering. He's indeed alive (89 now) though I haven't seen him at the Royal Society recently. I never met his wife but am impressed that you knew them well!

Keith


----------



## Lons

I'll pm you re Alistair rather than hijack the thread Keith.


----------



## RogerS

MusicMan":2fjovfrt said:


> I do suggest you check out leasing, however.
> 
> .....



No point. If an EV costs that much more than an ICE will cost then the leasing costs will also cost that much more. Simple economics.


----------



## jeremyduncombe

RogerS":1ahxr3g2 said:


> MusicMan":1ahxr3g2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I do suggest you check out leasing, however.
> 
> .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No point. If an EV costs that much more than an ICE will cost then the leasing costs will also cost that much more. Simple economics.
Click to expand...

Economics isn’t that simple. Leasing costs depend on how much value the vehicle loses over the period of the lease. The initial cost of an EV is far higher than an equivalent ICE. If a three year old EV still attracts a big premium over a three year old ICE, the leasing costs may not be much different. At present there are not enough second hand EVs on the market to get a realistic idea of depreciation rates. I guess leasing will make sense in four or five years, when the EV market is better established.


----------



## RogerS

jeremyduncombe":2vvzuwfh said:


> RogerS":2vvzuwfh said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MusicMan":2vvzuwfh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I do suggest you check out leasing, however.
> 
> .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .... I guess leasing will make sense in four or five years, when the EV market is better established.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


And prices much lower.


----------



## Geoff_S

We've leased ours (PCP) for 4 years. First time ever and only because we cannot be sure where the EV technology will be in 4 years time. If our current EV is then "out of the ark" we can just hand it back.


----------



## RogerS

Why do they call it 'leasing' when all one is really doing is hiring it for a fixed time period ?


----------



## Droogs

I believe, Roger, that's because renting is open ended . You don't buy a house and rent the land its on you get a lease


----------



## AES

In the wider world (now I'm creeping back to what I know, aviation again, sorry) it IS called "leasing" Roger - it's probably a "dry lease". (There are also "wet" and "damp" leases, but AFAIK, they don't apply to the car market). 

And to further illustrate the points above about the difference between the initial price and "residual value" (which is what the professionals call it), instead of a car (ICE or EV) let's take the Boeing 737 Max airliner as an example.

A few years ago, when I was at a meeting of the world professional aircraft Lessors, when Boeing first announced the Max model of the B737 (to compete with Airbus's already-announced updated and improved model of the A320), the Lessors were all up in arms and dead against Boeing (and Airbus) going ahead with these new models. Why? Because Lessors could very well see that if the new models offered the fuel efficiencies promised, their "assets" (i.e. the existing models) would become of lower residual value almost overnight - or at least as soon as the new models became freely available - AND market monthly lease rates for the old(er) models would also drop in line with these new efficiencies to the operators - the airlines).

That is in fact exactly what has happened with the new model A320, but as became well known in the general media, the new B737 Max model has shown some deficiencies (to say the least!) and a short time after first entering service, has been (and today remains) grounded.

So those Lessors with the older (but still pretty efficient) model B737s in their portfolios are "making hay while the sun shines" (it always does for someone).

As far as I can see, about the only differences between the overall car market and the airliner market is A) the number of noughts it takes to buy an airliner rather than a car, and B) the fact that car manufacturers introduce new models much more frequently than airliner manufacturers do.

But make no mistake, the basic lease transaction "simply" involves party A lending a bucket full of money to party B (though there may well be parties C & D involved too - in both markets). With the relative volativity of the car market, particularly since the introduction of EVs, generally falling car sales just about everywhere outside China, and with the very high importance of "residual value", I just cannot believe that the professional financiers who are at the root of making car lease finance directly or indirectly available to the general public have not all taken these factors - and most especially the fast-moving technology in cars/batteries - into account in their calculations.

I therefore fail to see how a lease can possibly be financially attractive unless, A) you've got a business situation where you can somehow offset at least part of the lease payments, or B) you intend to "roll your lease over" into the next new car, be it ICE or EV.

But I'm just a "technician", and NOT a financial expert, so perhaps I'm wrong?

If so please correct me.


----------



## Lons

AES":3ksq6avl said:


> I therefore fail to see how a lease can possibly be financially attractive unless, A) you've got a business situation where you can somehow offset at least part of the lease payments, or B) you intend to "roll your lease over" into the next new car, be it ICE or EV.



I know a number of people in both camps, the ones running a business do it mainly for the confidence in knowing exactly what their costs are per month excluding fuel but including tyres and maintenance and there were or are some tax advantages. One of these running 9 vehicles says it's the only way he can operate.

I have 4 friends who currently lease their cars on a private basis and in every case a main attraction is to just hand over the car and get a new one so they're pretty much locked into the system as none have the wherewithal to raise a deposit or a trade in should they wish to buy in future.

I can see the reasoning behind leasing an EV however due to expected but unknown technology advances, however I'm old school with a built in resistance to committing myself to something I might not be able to afford if my circumstances change which is what you do when signing a lease contract. I's possible that in the current crisis there will be many people who find themselves in that situation. 
Owning my car means I can sell it at any time and owe nothing!


----------



## Rorschach

I think leasing is the sensible choice for EV's at the moment. 

As far as I see it they are going to have a much higher depreciation rate than an ICE car. ICE technology hasn't really evolved much in the last 20-30 years, people know what to expect in terms of lifespan, repair costs and value. EV technology is moving very quickly and there are a lot of unknowns.


----------



## RogerS

Rorschach":15otqjb8 said:


> .... ICE technology hasn't really evolved much in the last 20-30 years,..



You are joking, surely ?


----------



## dangles

I came across this whle looking for running costs on the web.
I see it was written in 2019 and wondered if any thing has changed.
https://www.whatcar.com/news/electric-v ... ost/n16833


----------



## AES

Rorschach, you wrote, QUOTE: EV technology is moving very quickly and there are a lot of unknowns. UNQUOTE: 

Exactly, that's precisely my point, and I just cannot believe that financiers have not written that uncertainty into the lease rates for EVs, which - of course - the Lessee and NOT the Lessor is paying.

Therefore, unless the Lessee wants to "roll over" his lease for a new car in 2/3/4/5 years and doesn't have the money up front to buy; or unless a business needs the "value" of known monthly payments, as said, I just cannot see the financial sense in leasing a car, especially if it's an EV.


----------



## Rorschach

AES":200sceiz said:


> Rorschach, you wrote, QUOTE: EV technology is moving very quickly and there are a lot of unknowns. UNQUOTE:
> 
> Exactly, that's precisely my point, and I just cannot believe that financiers have not written that uncertainty into the lease rates for EVs, which - of course - the Lessee and NOT the Lessor is paying.
> 
> Therefore, unless the Lessee wants to "roll over" his lease for a new car in 2/3/4/5 years and doesn't have the money up front to buy; or unless a business needs the "value" of known monthly payments, as said, I just cannot see the financial sense in leasing a car, especially if it's an EV.



I never disagreed with you that the lease rate for EV's is high, of course it is. What I am saying is I think it is probably better to pay that price than take the risk of buying an EV that in 5 years time might be worth scrap value of the raw materials at best and possible actually cost money to scrap due to being hazardous waste.


----------



## Rorschach

RogerS":2ka6nwcw said:


> Rorschach":2ka6nwcw said:
> 
> 
> 
> .... ICE technology hasn't really evolved much in the last 20-30 years,..
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You are joking, surely ?
Click to expand...


No. Can you tell me any significant difference between an ICE car produced last year and an ICE car from the 90's?
I am talking propulsion/drive train of course.


----------



## Lons

Rorschach":qra1dwin said:


> No. Can you tell me any significant difference between an ICE car produced last year and an ICE car from the 90's?
> I am talking propulsion/drive train of course.



Modern petrol and diesel engines are much more efficient, have a lot more power, cleaner emissions, are hugely more reliable, and are far more driveable. 

For instance buying an automatic 30 years ago meant accepting a fuel penalty generally considered to be around 10 mpg whereas current autos are smooth and quick plus many are more fuel efficient than manual cars and the damn things in the 90s were clunky and unreliable.
An average 2 litre car 30 years ago would produce not much over 100 bhp, the same size engine today is twice that in basic guise as well as being much cleaner, more economical and will start first time 99 times out of a 100. 

I've changed my wife's and my own car every 2 - 3 years max during the last 30 years and much longer before during which time there have been huge improvements. I wouldn't swap backwards under any circumstances.


----------



## Rorschach

Lons":3d0b4ve6 said:


> Rorschach":3d0b4ve6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> No. Can you tell me any significant difference between an ICE car produced last year and an ICE car from the 90's?
> I am talking propulsion/drive train of course.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Modern petrol and diesel engines are much more efficient, have a lot more power, cleaner emissions, are hugely more reliable, and are far more driveable.
> 
> For instance buying an automatic 30 years ago meant accepting a fuel penalty generally considered to be around 10 mpg whereas current autos are smooth and quick plus many are more fuel efficient than manual cars and the damn things in the 90s were clunky and unreliable.
> An average 2 litre car 30 years ago would produce not much over 100 bhp, the same size engine today is twice that in basic guise as well as being much cleaner, more economical and will start first time 99 times out of a 100.
> 
> I've changed my wife's and my own car every 2 - 3 years max during the last 30 years and much longer before during which time there have been huge improvements. I wouldn't swap backwards under any circumstances.
Click to expand...


It's still the same basic technology though. Maybe I was being a bit over generous with my time span there, lets say 20 years rather than 30. My previous car was built in 2003, it's fuel economy was not much different to a similar spec new car today, it had a 1.2 engine would get around 40mpg city driving and well over 50mpg motorway, I once managed 62mpg on a trip. That's an almost 20 year old car. Is there is a similar sized ICE car built today that can do much better?
Now look at EV 20 years ago, they are nothing like those made today. 300+ mile range from a 5 seater EV? Dream talk, back then you were lucky to get 2 seats, let alone 3 figure range.

I am not saying there aren't improvements in ICE tech but it is nowhere near the scale of the improvements made in EV tech in the same time frame.


----------



## Lons

Rorschach":tb0gtx1a said:


> I am not saying there aren't improvements in ICE tech but it is nowhere near the scale of the improvements made in EV tech in the same time frame.



Yebbut that's not what you said!



> Can you tell me any significant difference between an ICE car produced last year and an ICE car from the 90's? I am talking propulsion/drive train of course.



Of course there has been and will be a huge development in EV, it started from a very low base unlike ICE which has been developed over the last 130 years. Comparing apples with pears in that context comes to mind when looking at your parameters of rate of development.

Just to respond to your comment about your old car, my daughter has had a succession of Fiestas, her last was a 1.2 which I think was 2010 model, she swapped for a 2015 eco 1 litre model with higher spec and is heavier but the engine is at least as powerful, the car is quicker, much smoother engine and a lot more economical. Ford aren't the only ones who have gone down that route so I can't agree with you.

My 2 tonne SUV with eco 6 diesel engine, 9 speed auto box and 230 bhp and returns real life economy in the mid to high 40s is way way beyond the capability of the cars I drove 20 years ago.


----------



## Rorschach

Fair enough, we can disagree on that.

Just to be clear, I did say "significant improvement". It's ok if we both have differing ideas as to what constitutes significant.


----------



## Lons

Agreed!

As I've said before I'm certainly not against EVs in any way but they're just not yet at a stage when I can personally embrace them, or afford what I would want from one!

Edit: On second thoughts I'll explain what I consider significant. 
F1 which I follow has historically provided a lot of the technological advances eventually fed down to production vehicles, I needed to do a quick check but in very rough figures I think how they developed is pretty significant.

* Early 2000s engines were 3.0l with a power output of typically up to 950bhp
* 2019 they were 1.6l hybrid with ICE output of 875 - 1000bhp plus electrical regeneration of 160 bhp
That's without looking at the fuel consumption, emissions and drivetrain, gearbox etc which I haven't checked but know have seen massive improvements.

Going back to my daughters Fiestas I also think that the differences between the 2 cars less than 5 years apart was significant so yes that's where our opinions differ and I guess we aren't going to agree as you said.

cheers
Bob


----------



## Terry - Somerset

ICE has improved significantly over the last 20-30 years in economy, reliability, emissions etc. But they have not changed radically - they still explode a fuel/air mixture to move a piston in a bore, to drive a crankshaft to get rotary motion. They are a function of well over 100 years development to optimise the technology.

I know electricity has been around for a long time and for special applications EVs have been used for decades (eg: milk floats!) But EV's as an alternative to ICE personal vehicles are the product of at best 20 years development. 

It can be no surprise that progress made in a new technology in a (say) 20 year period is far greater than in a technology which has developed and evolved over the past 100+ years. 

The first modern ICE was created by Nicolaus Otto in 1876. In 1886 the first commercial ICE car production was started by Karl Benz. It's probably fair to say that the EV of today is (roughly) where the ICE was in 1920 or thereabouts - the technology is proven with a probable long term future, from which it can be developed materially. 

In 20 years time the EV will still be very similar to the EV of today - it will have a battery, motor, control systems etc. It will be more powerful with longer range, lighter, cheaper to make etc - precisely as the ICE of today is similar to the ICE of 20, 40 or 60 years ago.


----------



## Lons

Terry, that's over simplification imo. It's like saying that humans, haven't significantly developed over centuries because basically we still breath air.


----------



## Bodgers

Lons":1i8wht3b said:


> Rorschach":1i8wht3b said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am not saying there aren't improvements in ICE tech but it is nowhere near the scale of the improvements made in EV tech in the same time frame.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yebbut that's not what you said!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can you tell me any significant difference between an ICE car produced last year and an ICE car from the 90's? I am talking propulsion/drive train of course.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Of course there has been and will be a huge development in EV, it started from a very low base unlike ICE which has been developed over the last 130 years. Comparing apples with pears in that context comes to mind when looking at your parameters of rate of development.
> 
> Just to respond to your comment about your old car, my daughter has had a succession of Fiestas, her last was a 1.2 which I think was 2010 model, she swapped for a 2015 eco 1 litre model with higher spec and is heavier but the engine is at least as powerful, the car is quicker, much smoother engine and a lot more economical. Ford aren't the only ones who have gone down that route so I can't agree with you.
> 
> My 2 tonne SUV with eco 6 diesel engine, 9 speed auto box and 230 bhp and returns real life economy in the mid to high 40s is way way beyond the capability of the cars I drove 20 years ago.
Click to expand...

I think based on actually efficiency of energy in movement out, ICE are still well away from Electric motors. Even the best engines are only about 25% efficient - where the rest is thrown away as heat. Compare that to 85% for Electric and it doesn't look so good. So improvements have been made, but it actually isn't massive when you compare the alternatives.


----------



## Just4Fun

Terry - Somerset":qthli2fk said:


> ICE has improved significantly over the last 20-30 years in economy, reliability, emissions etc. But they have not changed radically - they still explode a fuel/air mixture to move a piston in a bore


If an engine didn't do that I don't think it would be classified as an _internal combustion_ engine (ICE) so maybe that isn't really a fair criticism of ICEs.


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons":2775qkjs said:


> Agreed!
> 
> As I've said before I'm certainly not against EVs in any way but they're just not yet at a stage when I can personally embrace them, or afford what I would want from one!
> 
> Edit: On second thoughts I'll explain what I consider significant.
> F1 which I follow has historically provided a lot of the technological advances eventually fed down to production vehicles, I needed to do a quick check but in very rough figures I think how they developed is pretty significant.
> 
> * Early 2000s engines were 3.0l with a power output of typically up to 950bhp
> * 2019 they were 1.6l hybrid with ICE output of 875 - 1000bhp plus electrical regeneration of 160 bhp
> That's without looking at the fuel consumption, emissions and drivetrain, gearbox etc which I haven't checked but know have seen massive improvements.
> 
> Going back to my daughters Fiestas I also think that the differences between the 2 cars less than 5 years apart was significant so yes that's where our opinions differ and I guess we aren't going to agree as you said.
> 
> cheers
> Bob



I loo forward to being fed down 1000bhp 

PS I know what you mean.


----------



## beech1948

I've put this here because although its not immediately about EV's its about the cause of driving so far so often.

I drive typically 18,000 miles a year. I have a salesman who often exceeds 25,000 and so EV's are a bit unrealistic for my business. BUT....

I have spent the past 2 weeks calling and talking to my customers. Reminding them of the coming Armageddon and suggesting we do something different to give them support. That is we create a cloud based app which will permit us to connect to their systems via a highly secure interface. Thus we sit in our office doodling on our keyboards instead of travelling by car. A sort of NOC for AI software for those of you familar with NOCs.

I was encouraged by the responses. Of our 100 highest spending customers 47 have said yes, 14 have said maybe and 39 have not made a decision. The app is minimal, the time and mileage saved could be of the order of 6 man years mileage could be around 120,000 ++ miles a year. Coronavirus Covid-19 has perhaps been the impetus to consider new things just to keep their business up and running as the expected 4 to 6 million people in the UK are infected..

Software already exists to legitimately penetrate and take over access to their systems and adding 256 bit security to that does not seem difficult. Most of the complexity seems to be in forming and config of the networking bits.

So prior to any purchase of short range EV cars I may have a partial way out of my dilemma about how to disperse the company/or not. I will of course also delay decisions about purchase of EV vehicles until we have 12 months operations under my belt.

We'll see how this goes.


----------



## Rorschach

Very interesting how quickly things can change beech.

I think our lives are going to be very different a year or two from now, hopefully for the better and maybe a bit more flexible in terms of work etc.


----------



## MusicMan

beech1948":opcpasur said:


> I've put this here because although its not immediately about EV's its about the cause of driving so far so often.
> 
> I drive typically 18,000 miles a year. I have a salesman who often exceeds 25,000 and so EV's are a bit unrealistic for my business. BUT....
> 
> I have spent the past 2 weeks calling and talking to my customers. Reminding them of the coming Armageddon and suggesting we do something different to give them support. That is we create a cloud based app which will permit us to connect to their systems via a highly secure interface. Thus we sit in our office doodling on our keyboards instead of travelling by car. A sort of NOC for AI software for those of you familar with NOCs.
> 
> I was encouraged by the responses. Of our 100 highest spending customers 47 have said yes, 14 have said maybe and 39 have not made a decision. The app is minimal, the time and mileage saved could be of the order of 6 man years mileage could be around 120,000 ++ miles a year. Coronavirus Covid-19 has perhaps been the impetus to consider new things just to keep their business up and running as the expected 4 to 6 million people in the UK are infected..
> 
> Software already exists to legitimately penetrate and take over access to their systems and adding 256 bit security to that does not seem difficult. Most of the complexity seems to be in forming and config of the networking bits.
> 
> So prior to any purchase of short range EV cars I may have a partial way out of my dilemma about how to disperse the company/or not. I will of course also delay decisions about purchase of EV vehicles until we have 12 months operations under my belt.
> 
> We'll see how this goes.



Very relevant, and excellent leadership, Beech, and you'll save a huge amount of emissions, too. Let us know how it goes! 

The national organisation for whom I do a lot of committee work is closing its London office tomorrow and switching entirely to home and online working, including video conferencing with anything up to 30 participants (probably using Zoom), instead of gathering people from all over the country and abroad. When they see how much they save, I should not be surprised if this becomes permanent.


----------



## AES

VERY interesting beech and MM. I for one will be pleased to see how it goes after, say, the 1st year. Thanks for posting.


----------



## Lons

Excellent if it's possible to do it, hope it works well.

t An example of he other side of the coin is a close friend who is a self employed engineering trainer, all his forward scheduled bookings have now been cancelled so no income from now on.


----------



## MusicMan

Had an unexpected conflation of the threads I am following most: this one and the coronavirus thread. As you know, I've recently got a Nissan Leaf and am very pleased with the limited use I've been able to make of it so far. Done one rapid charge, on the Instavolt network, and that was dead simple and fast. All the longer trips are now cancelled or postponed thanks to the virus.

I am planning to do mostly home charging, and have ordered a smart meter (Octopus) and EO charger, which will enable me to program use of my solar panels when appropriate, and will let me use Octopus Agile which charges electricity on 30 minute slots through the day. Basically, it's cheap most of the time (below 10p/unit) very cheap in the small hours of the morning (3p - 6p) and expensive between 4 pm and 7 pm (about 25p). So the first engineer came to fit the smart meter on Monday last week, and couldn't because he could not get the (ancient - 1960s build) main fuse out, it was stuck fast. So Western Power (the only ones who can do main fuse work in my area) were booked for their first date, at the end of March, before Octopus can fit an isolator and smart meter, and then EO can be booked to fit the charger.

On Friday Western Power ring up to say that because of the coronavirus they are cancelling all installations nationwide and have no idea when they can resume!

I understand this of course. And in fact the Leaf charges perfectly well on a long overnight charge from a 13A plug and, to my surprise, the plug doesn't overheat at all.

And the current 100% charge will probably last me the whole 12 weeks of confined-to-barracks that is about to start!


----------



## beech1948

AES":gqnz94ed said:


> VERY interesting beech and MM. I for one will be pleased to see how it goes after, say, the 1st year. Thanks for posting.



I'm almost reluctant to add this truth but after reading some of your comments about what I'm trying to do I need to add this in the spirit of honesty: here goes.

If I can save 120,000 ++ miles per year, convert many of our service calls into video conferences and postpone the purchase of a minimum of 12 £80k Teslas ( overall around £1.3 million) there is considerable extra profit potential to be had. That's not just my only motivation of course but it makes the struggle easier. There's about £5 million available to save if the changes can be made to work as well as a major reduction in greenhouse gases.

We are still a small size company compared to say Fujitsu but we have a large and very dispersed client base hence the need to travel.

I have started to try out video conferencing with up to say 15 people present. The core issue is scale of video conferencing software, client acceptance and their need/desire to see one of our staff on site. Its not going to be easy though to get all clients onto a new scheme for support. As you might have guessed our Government clients are the slowest and most reluctant.

I have to smile though as it was my irritation with all this talk about EVs with what I think are overly short ranges which got the old blood pumping. My training is to remove and eradicate whatever is unproductive first, then reduce and then to make efficient ( faster) and then to make effective so thats what I am doing.

Just been to have a look to see what a Nissan Leaf can do for my wife who does about 6000 miles a year in short local hops. We will see.
Al


----------



## Trainee neophyte

beech1948":27lx9iyd said:


> AES":27lx9iyd said:
> 
> 
> 
> VERY interesting beech and MM. I for one will be pleased to see how it goes after, say, the 1st year. Thanks for posting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm almost reluctant to add this truth but after reading some of your comments about what I'm trying to do I need to add this in the spirit of honesty: here goes.
> 
> If I can save 120,000 ++ miles per year, convert many of our service calls into video conferences and postpone the purchase of a minimum of 12 £80k Teslas ( overall around £1.3 million) there is considerable extra profit potential to be had. That's not just my only motivation of course but it makes the struggle easier. There's about £5 million available to save if the changes can be made to work as well as a major reduction in greenhouse gases.
> 
> We are still a small size company compared to say Fujitsu but we have a large and very dispersed client base hence the need to travel.
> 
> I have started to try out video conferencing with up to say 15 people present. The core issue is scale of video conferencing software, client acceptance and their need/desire to see one of our staff on site. Its not going to be easy though to get all clients onto a new scheme for support. As you might have guessed our Government clients are the slowest and most reluctant.
> 
> I have to smile though as it was my irritation with all this talk about EVs with what I think are overly short ranges which got the old blood pumping. My training is to remove and eradicate whatever is unproductive first, then reduce and then to make efficient ( faster) and then to make effective so thats what I am doing.
> 
> Just been to have a look to see what a Nissan Leaf can do for my wife who does about 6000 miles a year in short local hops. We will see.
> Al
Click to expand...


The video posted very early on in this thread had chappie stating that it would be the fleet managers who would make the move to electric first, purely for cost reasons. Could you be an early(est) adopter of this strategy?

Many moons ago I worked for an IT company based in Cornwall, but with a national clientele. The telephone support, management and programming were all done in Cornwall, and because wages are low, it makes good economic sense, but the on-site engineers had mad itineraries; away all week, and often in the north of England, but having to return to base each week. The number of miles driven must have been insane. The first b&b to install a fast charger will have a jump on all the competition.


----------



## beech1948

Trainee neophyte":ojrgwi51 said:


> beech1948":ojrgwi51 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AES":ojrgwi51 said:
> 
> 
> 
> VERY interesting beech and MM. I for one will be pleased to see how it goes after, say, the 1st year. Thanks for posting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm almost reluctant to add this truth but after reading some of your comments about what I'm trying to do I need to add this in the spirit of honesty: here goes.
> 
> If I can save 120,000 ++ miles per year, convert many of our service calls into video conferences and postpone the purchase of a minimum of 12 £80k Teslas ( overall around £1.3 million) there is considerable extra profit potential to be had. That's not just my only motivation of course but it makes the struggle easier. There's about £5 million available to save if the changes can be made to work as well as a major reduction in greenhouse gases.
> 
> We are still a small size company compared to say Fujitsu but we have a large and very dispersed client base hence the need to travel.
> 
> I have started to try out video conferencing with up to say 15 people present. The core issue is scale of video conferencing software, client acceptance and their need/desire to see one of our staff on site. Its not going to be easy though to get all clients onto a new scheme for support. As you might have guessed our Government clients are the slowest and most reluctant.
> 
> I have to smile though as it was my irritation with all this talk about EVs with what I think are overly short ranges which got the old blood pumping. My training is to remove and eradicate whatever is unproductive first, then reduce and then to make efficient ( faster) and then to make effective so thats what I am doing.
> 
> Just been to have a look to see what a Nissan Leaf can do for my wife who does about 6000 miles a year in short local hops. We will see.
> Al
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> The video posted very early on in this thread had chappie stating that it would be the fleet managers who would make the move to electric first, purely for cost reasons. Could you be an early(est) adopter of this strategy?
> 
> Many moons ago I worked for an IT company based in Cornwall, but with a national clientele. The telephone support, management and programming were all done in Cornwall, and because wages are low, it makes good economic sense, but the on-site engineers had mad itineraries; away all week, and often in the north of England, but having to return to base each week. The number of miles driven must have been insane. The first b&b to install a fast charger will have a jump on all the competition.
Click to expand...


I don't have a fleet manager were are too small at only 58 employees. I get to add this skill to my many other hats as the owner of the biz. Looking back over the last month's thought processes I am motivated by making more profit, investing that to grow the company and EV life is a very low third place at the moment.

I have decided that we need a NOC style view. Over a network linked initially to critical customers.
I have decided to try out video conferencing across the 50 most critical customers
I have decided that at present NO electric vehicle can meet or replace our ICE vehicles wait 2 yrs
I have decided to keep the company centralised for next 2 yrs

What's become interesting is that our own AI software has just been fed this set of problems and we need to add more data but it will be a learning experience to see what it comes up with as we do our 2yr plan from April 2020 to April 2022. 

I said in a message a few days ago about a client which is so hugely profitable that they do not invest in their staff training and rely on us travelling to compensate. Such poor management is rife across the UK and will become a major issue soon if say 60% of working age people are infected with Covid-19.
Al


----------



## Terry - Somerset

60% is apparently the point at which herd immunity kicks in. This does not mean the virus will cease to exist, just that it is unlikely to be passed on to more than one person and ultimately it becomes low level. 

Making a few assumption:

- 60% are infected before transmission declines to a much lower level
- 50% are infected during the peak period
- the peak infection period is 10 weeks
- anyone infected needs 2 weeks off work - 1 feeling rubbish and 1 recovery

This means that averagely during the peak period 10% will be off due to the virus (50% / 10 weeks x 2 weeks = 10%). This could be an underestimate due to self isolation, and family isolation - the number off work at any one time could be higher - up to (say) 20% of the working population.

It may be much less than this if mitigation and suppression policies work - work from home, better testing, social distancing etc. If it works too well it may be that when controls are relaxed it simply reappears.


----------



## MusicMan

So glad I irritated you, Beech, it seems to have been very productive! I totally understand you not wanting to buy EVs in bulk as yet and I think you will see far more choice and range in 2 years time. That's why I only took a 2 year lease (as well as the mantra, if it appreciates: buy it, if it depreciates: lease it). Mind, once your wife gets one the pressure may become unstoppable. The Leaf does sound perfect for her.

I've been reviewing video conferencing software for other purposes and the general consensus seems to be that Zoom is well ahead of the pack. They have focused on video quality, connectivity and usability and it shows - much better than Skype. I had a session yesterday with an experienced friend in New Mexico, and it was easy to set up even a tricky combination: video on external large screen off a Macbook, audio through my iPhone direct to my made-for-iphone hearing aids. Worked very well. The guy I was working with frequently uses it similar mode to you. He's a senior executive in a sizable medical insurance company in the States and works with employees and representatives spread over several thousand miles. You can use it in full conference mode, or in webinar mode where the host is presenting to a lot of attendees, and they can ask questions afterwards. Not too expensive either.

Apologies if you know all this!

Cheers

Keith


----------



## MusicMan

Just heard that the OLEV brant for installing a home charger is being cut (again) by £150, and I can't get the higher one despite it being on order as this is in effect from April 1, and key installers aren't working because of the virus. Government's left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, again. Oh well.


----------



## beech1948

MusicMan":2z7zxd7w said:


> So glad I irritated you, Beech, it seems to have been very productive! I totally understand you not wanting to buy EVs in bulk as yet and I think you will see far more choice and range in 2 years time. That's why I only took a 2 year lease (as well as the mantra, if it appreciates: buy it, if it depreciates: lease it). Mind, once your wife gets one the pressure may become unstoppable. The Leaf does sound perfect for her.
> 
> I've been reviewing video conferencing software for other purposes and the general consensus seems to be that Zoom is well ahead of the pack. They have focused on video quality, connectivity and usability and it shows - much better than Skype. I had a session yesterday with an experienced friend in New Mexico, and it was easy to set up even a tricky combination: video on external large screen off a Macbook, audio through my iPhone direct to my made-for-iphone hearing aids. Worked very well. The guy I was working with frequently uses it similar mode to you. He's a senior executive in a sizable medical insurance company in the States and works with employees and representatives spread over several thousand miles. You can use it in full conference mode, or in webinar mode where the host is presenting to a lot of attendees, and they can ask questions afterwards. Not too expensive either.
> 
> Apologies if you know all this!
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Keith



Sorry to tell you this but it was'nt particularly you but rather the rest of the fairly preachy mob. EVs are not for me yet. Tesla are probably the best bet but still need too much time to charge and the range is too low. 

You stated that in 2 yrs the problem will be sorted. I do not believe that and expect it to take a least 10 yrs due to the need for revised battery chemistry to get the energy density of each battery increased.

Tesla cars have several other major issues as well. Not easy to repair, very expensive repairs, battery replacement costs, unreliability and of course the under developed auto driving software. Its not all chocolates and roses in EV land.


----------



## MusicMan

Oh, I must up my preachy game! No, I didn't say sorted, but much better with more choice and more range.I'd guess that the 'regular' Leafs, Kira etc then will compare with the Teslas now, but that will still not be enough for some users. But more than there are now. I agree that more years development are needed (and are happening).


----------



## beech1948

I'm afraid that my personality is interested in NEW things and ideas. Old stuff like current EV's is fairly mundane to me. Thats why I work at AI and use woodwork to stress relieve.

I have been trying to decipher a likely path for development of batteries. I have tracked 4 US companies, 1 UK company 3 Chinese and 2 Japanese companies working in advanced battery tech.

1) Same old same old stuff from Nissan, Honda, Renault etc with only likely change to be an increase in Kw hours per car. A form of rationing by car model where the builder gets to say for this much cash you only get this much battery. The next 7 years will be like that. So your leaf will go from 80/120 miles range to maybe 160 miles range but at very high cost.

2) More research into hydrogen battery types but will peter out in 5 yrs ish. The infrastructure is simply too difficult.

3) Solid state batteries will be heavily researched for about 8-9 yrs and come on song at about 10 yrs and could provide x2 on range and possibly x3. It is likely that solid state batteries will become the norm. Current solid state batteries yield a much faster charging regime, much higher energy density per battery and could be linked together to give lighter weight more powerful batteries. They also would needed to make charging without a cable a reality.

4) A possible outcome will be a revolt by the buying public against to many proprietary battery types and just a few standardised batteries available. Just like the current 3 or 4 plug types will need to be reduced as they will become vulnerable to government intervention to standardise. Kind of makes current battery proprietry standard obselete.

The point at which current research indicates a break through above a range of 450 miles with a 30 minute full recharge looks to be about 10 years away maybe even slightly more.

I'm getting old ( 72) and will see it but not take part in the changeover from ICE to proper EV. I don't expect to retire until I'm 80 as my brain is still sharp, my body is old but in good nick and my spirit is still contentious.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

beech1948":3kqcr9j0 said:


> I'm afraid that my personality is interested in NEW things and ideas. Old stuff like current EV's is fairly mundane to me. Thats why I work at AI and use woodwork to stress relieve.
> 
> I have been trying to decipher a likely path for development of batteries. I have tracked 4 US companies, 1 UK company 3 Chinese and 2 Japanese companies working in advanced battery tech.
> 
> 1) Same old same old stuff from Nissan, Honda, Renault etc with only likely change to be an increase in Kw hours per car. A form of rationing by car model where the builder gets to say for this much cash you only get this much battery. The next 7 years will be like that. So your leaf will go from 80/120 miles range to maybe 160 miles range but at very high cost.
> 
> 2) More research into hydrogen battery types but will peter out in 5 yrs ish. The infrastructure is simply too difficult.
> 
> 3) Solid state batteries will be heavily researched for about 8-9 yrs and come on song at about 10 yrs and could provide x2 on range and possibly x3. It is likely that solid state batteries will become the norm. Current solid state batteries yield a much faster charging regime, much higher energy density per battery and could be linked together to give lighter weight more powerful batteries. They also would needed to make charging without a cable a reality.
> 
> 4) A possible outcome will be a revolt by the buying public against to many proprietary battery types and just a few standardised batteries available. Just like the current 3 or 4 plug types will need to be reduced as they will become vulnerable to government intervention to standardise. Kind of makes current battery proprietry standard obselete.
> 
> The point at which current research indicates a break through above a range of 450 miles with a 30 minute full recharge looks to be about 10 years away maybe even slightly more.
> 
> I'm getting old ( 72) and will see it but not take part in the changeover from ICE to proper EV. I don't expect to retire until I'm 80 as my brain is still sharp, my body is old but in good nick and my spirit is still contentious.




I'm interested to know why you think that ss batteries are a prerequisite for wireless charging?


----------



## beech1948

Not a prerequisite but the wireless charging times for SS are much lower in the lab than current battery types. Thats important for business because for example a 3 day trip from Crowthorne to Lancaster to Glasgow and back via Shrewsbury would become a 4 day trip at a minimum using current short range batteries eg A Nissan Leaf will only do about 100 miles and need about 1 hour to recharge to 80%. Journey would be about 1400 miles so 14 recharge occurrences of about an hour each.

A Hyundai Kona does about 220 miles per charge so minimum 6 charging sessions of 1 hour to 80% charge. Either way you look at it the working time is extended by about a day or 1.5 days.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

beech1948":23ubhtu2 said:


> Not a prerequisite but the wireless charging times for SS are much lower in the lab than current battery types. Thats important for business because for example a 3 day trip from Crowthorne to Lancaster to Glasgow and back via Shrewsbury would become a 4 day trip at a minimum using current short range batteries eg A Nissan Leaf will only do about 100 miles and need about 1 hour to recharge to 80%. Journey would be about 1400 miles so 14 recharge occurrences of about an hour each.
> 
> A Hyundai Kona does about 220 miles per charge so minimum 6 charging sessions of 1 hour to 80% charge. Either way you look at it the working time is extended by about a day or 1.5 days.



Is a business where one is paying (presumably well paid) staff so much to drive around the country the norm and/or the best way of doing business?
I suspect that one positive to come out this nasty covid mess will be the realisation that "in person" is less necessary than we currently assume.
Certainly the firehoses of internet traffic are being reconfigured already.


----------



## Droogs

As most of us are really nosey about how stuff works etc, hers is a bit of viewing while trying to plow through our house arrest.

A very good vid on the gubbins of a Chevy Bolt motor/transaxle unit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APhRPSdmdmk


----------



## beech1948

Woody2shoes wrote

<<<Is a business where one is paying (presumably well paid) staff so much to drive around the country the norm and/or the best way of doing business?>>>

YES. Absolutely. This question is asked and answered frequently by every business in the land.

Because there is currently little alternative. Planes, trains and buses are too slow, to indirect and often have door-to-door times not too different from car use. Public service travel is poor and frequently unreliable.

<<<I suspect that one positive to come out this nasty covid mess will be the realisation that "in person" is less necessary than we currently assume.>>>

I assume nothing. We travel because clients ASK/DEMAND that we do not because we choose to go out on a jolly. I am spending £1.4 million + £50k per network hook-up to change that in the 2020/21 tax year. I will try to see if clients will accept temporary or even permanent network hook-ups so we can get an error report from a client and get to work on it within an hour and effect a fix over the network. If we succeed then it looks like we will need to employ another 4 people to help manage that ( cost 4xhigh salary+tax+NI+floor space costs) with only a few savings from existing staff. One of my staff will need to learn how to run and manage a very high tech service call centre and I'm finding there are not too many of those around.

I'm doing my bit what are you doing for your business.

<<<Certainly the firehoses of internet traffic are being reconfigured already.>>>
What ? By whom, for whom, to where. I'm uncertain if you understand. If you mean the shift to home working due to Covid-19 then not really as most places of employment will expect you to return after the Armageddon. That is client driven and not able to be controlled by me or my business and that is where you need to aim your wish for less travel.

Don't forget that we only travel because a client ASKs/DEMANDS we do ...not for our own jollies.


----------



## Bodgers

MusicMan":3vrjpsu6 said:


> Just heard that the OLEV brant for installing a home charger is being cut (again) by £150, and I can't get the higher one despite it being on order as this is in effect from April 1, and key installers aren't working because of the virus. Government's left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, again. Oh well.


McNally EV that installed my charger were at our house yesterday, they are still working. That was through Podpoint.

The day before arrival they ring you and ask you to confirm if you are anyone in the house has symptoms or a diagnosis.


----------



## AES

Completely different to beech's business, but when I was working I lost count of the number of times customers and potential customers said "thanks for coming to see me/us".

In some cases it was unavoidable (I had to go and physically look at their aeroplane and paperwork), in other cases not so.

Unsurprisingly, the most grateful for a personal visit were those "far off the beaten track".

But I stress, completely different business to Al's.


----------



## MusicMan

Bodgers":2a1lrp4s said:


> MusicMan":2a1lrp4s said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just heard that the OLEV brant for installing a home charger is being cut (again) by £150, and I can't get the higher one despite it being on order as this is in effect from April 1, and key installers aren't working because of the virus. Government's left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, again. Oh well.
> 
> 
> 
> McNally EV that installed my charger were at our house yesterday, they are still working. That was through Podpoint.
> 
> The day before arrival they ring you and ask you to confirm if you are anyone in the house has symptoms or a diagnosis.
Click to expand...


There's no trouble with OE (the charger installer) nor Octopus (the smart meter installer). The trouble is with Western Power, who control the distribution network in half (?) the country. The main fuse on our 1960s house has jammed in its holder - excessive bitumen I am told - and can't be replaced by the usual meter installers. Western Power are the only ones allowed to do this and there are no alternatives, I am told. Only when they are done can the rest of the chain start. And WP have shut down all its installers nationwide, because of the virus, with no options to check the health of the household.

I have to respect the decision. And as i said, the present charge in the car will probably last me all 12 weeks!


----------



## MusicMan

None of us knows other people's business well enough to tell them how it should be done, not at least without an in-depth study by somebody experienced. And as Beech says, the business may actually depend on the client's choices not their own.

And yes when "all this" is over they may insist on the previous service returning. But new models of work simply have to be found for the next few months or more, probably a year or so. In some cases at least, the different method of working could come to be seen to be an advantage to the client. They may come to prefer to have an issue fixed in one hour by remote control rather than in 24 hours by a visit, and this could even become a valuable USP.

And I do have experience of running a network of field service engineers in the USA from a single location, including huge customers (major computer manufacturers) who demanded that a problem be fixed in four hours. They didn't care how, and if it was not a hardware problem were more than happy to have remote software fixing (if you could get permission to get through their firewall) or a phone call to talk the user through the problem and its resolution.

When the initial investment is paid off, companies may even be able to offer cheaper service (or retain more profit) in the long run.


----------



## Lons

AES":2ilc0ahv said:


> Completely different to beech's business, but when I was working I lost count of the number of times customers and potential customers said "thanks for coming to see me/us".
> 
> In some cases it was unavoidable (I had to go and physically look at their aeroplane and paperwork), in other cases not so.
> 
> Unsurprisingly, the most grateful for a personal visit were those "far off the beaten track".
> 
> But I stress, completely different business to Al's.



Yep there are many types of business where it's essential to travel.

I've been out of the loop a while but if I discount my own business where it was impossible to have anything else but face to face contact I spent my life working for and managing companies in extremely competitive sales markets. If you have several aggressive competitors in your area selling broadly similar products then the only way to maintain and grow the business is to build relationships with your customers. It's the manager / owner who does that along with his reps and it's maintained and reinforced by internal sales personnel. The companies who don't do that go out of business! 
Like it or not there's still a hell of a lot of business takes place on the golf course and over lunch.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Lons":13df1r3k said:


> AES":13df1r3k said:
> 
> 
> 
> Completely different to beech's business, but when I was working I lost count of the number of times customers and potential customers said "thanks for coming to see me/us".
> 
> In some cases it was unavoidable (I had to go and physically look at their aeroplane and paperwork), in other cases not so.
> 
> Unsurprisingly, the most grateful for a personal visit were those "far off the beaten track".
> 
> But I stress, completely different business to Al's.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yep there are many types of business where it's essential to travel.
> 
> I've been out of the loop a while but if I discount my own business where it was impossible to have anything else but face to face contact I spent my life working for and managing companies in extremely competitive sales markets. If you have several aggressive competitors in your area selling broadly similar products then the only way to maintain and grow the business is to build relationships with your customers. It's the manager / owner who does that along with his reps and it's maintained and reinforced by internal sales personnel. The companies who don't do that go out of business!
> Like it or not there's still a hell of a lot of business takes place on the golf course and over lunch.
Click to expand...


I think that beech has mistakenly taken my observation/questions as negative criticism of the way he does business. I detect a sensitivity that I should have spotted sooner. Client relationships are at the heart of every business, and face-to-face is still the best way to nurture client relationships in certain circumstances. My main point is that we may learn over the next few months that f2f is less vital in many situations than currently assumed by many (not necessarily beech, who I'm sure knows all he needs to know about his business and his clients).

PS I'm not saying much different from what beech wrote: "I said in a message a few days ago about a client which is so hugely profitable that they do not invest in their staff training and rely on us travelling to compensate. Such poor management is rife across the UK and will become a major issue soon if say 60% of working age people are infected with Covid"


----------



## Lons

Woody2Shoes":26u7al5b said:


> I think that beech has mistakenly taken my observation/questions as negative criticism of the way he does business. I detect a sensitivity that I should have spotted sooner. Client relationships are at the heart of every business, and face-to-face is still the best way to nurture client relationships in certain circumstances. My main point is that we may learn over the next few months that f2f is less vital in many situations than currently assumed by many (not necessarily beech, who I'm sure knows all he needs to know about his business and his clients).



Unfortunately Woody many of those businesses that rely on F2F relationships won't survive to prove it one way or 'tother.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Lons":372ydb4p said:


> Woody2Shoes":372ydb4p said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think that beech has mistakenly taken my observation/questions as negative criticism of the way he does business. I detect a sensitivity that I should have spotted sooner. Client relationships are at the heart of every business, and face-to-face is still the best way to nurture client relationships in certain circumstances. My main point is that we may learn over the next few months that f2f is less vital in many situations than currently assumed by many (not necessarily beech, who I'm sure knows all he needs to know about his business and his clients).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unfortunately Woody many of those businesses that rely on F2F relationships won't survive to prove it one way or 'tother.
Click to expand...


I guess, but this covid won't go on forever, and capitalism is all about 'creative destruction'. When the Forestry Commission was set up they decided that all the new spruce tree plantations would provide the nation with 'pitprops and newsprint'. There's no market for the former and a rapidly dwindling one for the latter. Putting it a another way, how many of the FTSE 250 constituents from 20 years ago are in the current lineup and doing what they did then. Of course covid is going to cause huge upsets of all kinds for months to come, but life will go on and we will all learn/improve as a result one way or another.


----------



## Geoff_S

I think that this thread has mutated.  

Anyway, when I was working and travelling I know for a fact that the company was not happy about it, too much cost and not one of
the travelling employees was happy about it either. Hours of motorway tedium and drab commercial hotels for the evening. I don't miss any of that.

And I'm sure that owning an EV at that time would have made no difference whatsoever. (Back on track (hammer) )


----------



## RogerS

Woody2Shoes":8b691rsk said:


> ..... When the Forestry Commission was set up they decided that all the new spruce tree plantations would provide the nation with 'pitprops and newsprint'. There's no market for the former and a rapidly dwindling one for the latter. .....



Bad analogy ! They have plenty of other markets for the timber. Iggesunds. Egger. Hoover the damn stuff up. He said knowing that in a few weeks time this is going to happen. For 12 weeks.


----------



## beech1948

Geoffery S,
Yes this thread has mutated and it's probably my fault. Sorry. I will give one final update and then take it elsewhere.

Its Sunday and I'm stuck in the office after helping a mate this am. I'm trying to think about what to do next week as our guys out there will be vulnerable to the Covid-19 all the time they are out there. Unfortunately there are not too many options other than keep them at home or send them out. 

1) Set up a Triage scheme to identify which technical errors are going to close down a company and deal with these with a visit

2) Put 4 people onto the network development to be able to link into clients and negotiate with clients for this access

3) Send all but 8 people to work from home

4) Train all those at home on what to say to clients, how to guide them through a remote diagnosis and how to guide them through a remote error correction routine.

Take care all of you.

Cheers Al


----------



## beech1948

So back on track with a Tesla thought.

It is Tesla policy to disconnect from Supercharging any and all Teslas which have been repaired from salvage vehicles. In other words you do not own your car and can not make all of the decisions about it. Tesla policy is to deny salvage repaired vehicles access at the Supercharge points even when presented with a valid credit/debit card.

Interesting. Of course any new Tesla would not be crashed and need repair would it. This came from a friend of a friend who found out the hard way as he tried to recharge his Tesla. He is now back to home charging but this reduces the value and likely range of his £30k + vehicle.


----------



## Geoff_S

beech1948":3v9k372t said:


> So back on track with a Tesla thought.
> 
> It is Tesla policy to disconnect from Supercharging any and all Teslas which have been repaired from salvage vehicles. In other words you do not own your car and can not make all of the decisions about it. Tesla policy is to deny salvage repaired vehicles access at the Supercharge points even when presented with a valid credit/debit card.
> 
> Interesting. Of course any new Tesla would not be crashed and need repair would it. This came from a friend of a friend who found out the hard way as he tried to recharge his Tesla. He is now back to home charging but this reduces the value and likely range of his £30k + vehicle.



Did he know it was a crash repaired vehicle when he bought it?


----------



## Lons

How does the charging point recognise that it's a repaired vehicle?


----------



## beech1948

I do not know except a salvaged vehicle is notified to Tesla Inc VIN data which is read by the charger and some computer somewhere says NO


----------



## AES

I know NOTHING about Tesla cars, but before the end of last year there was a big hullabaloo in our papers here because the Police in Basel (nearest "big" city) had bought a few and they cost a lot. Then the journo's noises got even louder because it turned out the Police couldn't use them because the cars were automatically sending data back to Tesla in the US and the Police couldn't stop it happening. What sort of data and what happened to the cars in the end I don't know/remember - to be honest I didn't pay all that much attention at the time, and as said it was quite a few months ago now.

Sounds like a typical "journo's story" to me (i.e. 5% fact and all the rest just made up BS) but as there's at least one Tesla owner here (sorry, I've forgotten the name of the member) perhaps he can shed some real light on that matter/the "crashed car" matter above? There seems a bit of vague similarity in these 2 "stories" to me.


----------



## Droogs

This is a big problem with the Tesla model of selling cars. there is a big debate about who really owns what in the car. They seem to think you are just buying the hardware and they still own the software and can do what ever they like with it. As much as I am pro BEV, I do not think that all their (Tesla's) bells and whistles are needed, especially if we are just looking to get people to change from the fuel type they use to something greener. 
Tesla are very much like Google and FB and all the other IT software providers, they will give you the moon and its all free or cheap to use in terms of cash but in others costs ?????


----------



## AES

OK Droogs, so are you saying that my half-remembered Basel Police cars story has at least SOME truth in it?

But P.S. Those Tesla fastbacks don't arf look good, don't they? ;-)


----------



## Droogs

All Teslas pass back all their operational information back to Daddy Elon as that is how they advance the capabilities of the software. The S and X do look good, for me the rest are just blancmange or etcha-sketch


----------



## Lons

Droogs":3rys1sur said:


> The S and X do look good, for me



I've just choked on my coffee! 
Googled the S, thought that looks good then found a price, £82k as a starter :shock: not on my wish list, could buy a low mileage Aston Martin for that! If I had the funds that is. :lol:


----------



## Droogs

I did say looked good Lons not value for money (hammer) :lol:


----------



## D_W

Woodchips2":145m6den said:


> I suppose a lot could change in 15 years but battery development doesn't seem to be developing quickly.



I think this is a line being fed to people, and it's not remotely close to true. I have no electric vehicles and am not a zealot, but think about your cordless tools from 15 years ago vs. now. Remember ni-cd tools, and how great we thought NiMH was? All a distant memory. 

battery capacity in 2010 was $1,153 per hwhr. In 2019, it was $156. expected cost per kwhr is below $100 in 2024 and is expcxted to be about $60 in 2030.

Electrolytes will probably switch to salt or something other than lithium based, and batteries are likely to be dry electrolyte in the future. 

By the time 2035 comes around, if oil is cheap, it'll only be due to the burden that battery takes on. 

In the south here in the US, there are companies implementing battery powered buses. Their objective was to take the aging packs and use them to store electricity in the depots so that they could purchase smart meter power at the lowest rates and then use it during peak, but they've got an issue thus far that the packs are lasting far longer than they expected. 

What's that mean? expected life of a current pack is 90% capacity at 1000-2000 cycles (half a million miles in the newer stuff coming out). What do you do with a 75 kwhr pack that still has 90% of its capacity? Put it in your garage and manage your power through it so that you can use the cheapest power you can get at a given time of the day. 

It's going to punish car dealers (but they'll adapt) as they make more money from service now than anything else (Sales, finance) and that will dry up to a large extent. 

Vehicles that go slow and start and stop a lot are first (buses, garbage trucks, delivery trucks) because it makes economic sense.


----------



## beech1948

Its been a while since this thread has been updated. Here is a summary of what is happening from my business perspective re driving and Ev's.

The business has survived.....just about. Covid-19 has come close to breaking us. The issue is as always cash flow, bloody banks, slow payers etc etc. I have a Tesla model 3 on trial and will let you all know how it goes.

We have moved into a triage approach based on level 1...about to kill off my business; level 2....functioning for 2 weeks but likely to go into breakdown; Level 3....minor updates.

We have become quite good at categorising these levels of pain for customers and very good at deflecting and showing clients how to cope. Technician travel is down 40%. We have hired 2 extra desk based technicians who are just about up to speed this week. Its interesting to see travel budgets change to staff hiring budgets.

83% of customers are now introducing remote service calls into their permitted network interconnects. Its slower than I wanted but going OK. Worst customer is UK Gov'mt who are slower than molasses in January as well as poor at understanding and execution. So getting there. 

We have set up a NOC style secure centre in a new office in a remote industrial estate in Manchester. NOC stands for Network Operating Centre and ours has become somewhat similar since we are also introducing remote alerts from clients. Ours is called an AIOC or "ache"....gotta love Three Letter Acronyms.

Sales force is down by two people as we do not need as many sales people to keep selling. Marketing has made a big thing about our new facility so we have increased our customer base by 3 and are hoping to keep this up for a few years.

After 6 months of breakneck work, a little useful panic and some very committed people we have kept our profits at 8% below previous levels, cash expenditures have rocketed up but will abate by year end as the new investments come on line.

What's next. Well holidays are so buggered up now that we will just have time at home and collapse into an arm chair. We need to start to set next years budgets and plan any changes to coincide with Aprils new budgets. We are looking to start a significant change to staff roles, retrain Technicians, automate billing more and reduce admin staff.

Generally become leaner and more responsive. A few of our major clients have proved alert to having one of our staff based on their sites but able to also go out to other regional clients. So further cuts in overheads are likely.

I'm just about done in now. 6 months of 14 to 16 hour days has taken a toll and I do not have a lot of energy left. I'm getting irritable and bad tempered a bit a sure sign that things need to slow down. So time to start succession and ownership planning and ready to execute by April next year.

Rule of Six has been interesting. We have four doors from external to internal. So several "bubbles" are possible. We have about 36 people who now work from the office again in bubbles with some ODD means of communication. A lot of email between each employee whereas we used to just pop round to the nearby cubical and talk it through. Teams have created signs which they hold up to perspex partitions eg Tea is ready, Who took my parking spot, Sarah and Andy are rowing again ? etc etc. Quite funny in a tech company.

Hope you are all well, surviving the Covid-19, Rule of Six, Testing and the NHS struggles. I have written to my MP about paying those who were in the front line of the NHS and at risk of death a large and well earned pay rise. Maybe you would consider doing the same.


----------



## Droogs

So are you having the EV or is it being given to a tech to see how travel costs compare to similar ICE?
Glad the idea to consolidate into a centralised system has started working for you


----------



## Rorschach

This is both heartening and sad to read. I am glad your business has survived and work in continuing but I feel sad for those who are have been lost and will be lost as you continue to re-structure. This is a bad sign of things to come as the pain hits.

Not surprised the government is the worst to deal with, people who work on government tend to be those that wouldn't survive in the real world.

I can't agree with your idea of an NHS pay rise either, this situation for me has highlighted just how bloated and poorly organised it is, reform is badly needed.


----------



## clogs

Battery tech will change but not for a long time unless the inventor is magnamus enough to give the tech away.......
well that won't happen as the likes of Shell and BP will put a stop to that.....if they can.....
and who knows waht clever tech they have salted away already.....?..
I dont really want to replace my VW Kombi but an electric one would make complete sence.......
but not at 50 grand...
I wanted a forklift for home use, was advised to buy an electric one with dead batteries.......
it's only another £1000 - 1500 to replace them, fair enough but what about the other junk you need that will go wrong....
like HD chargers and the electronic control gear hidden underneath......
Diesel will out last me and besides to crack petrol there something like 60-70% Diesel from the same process..... 
and Diesel is still easy tto fix.....wont be here in 50 years to find out what mess the govenment willhave left us in....


----------



## MusicMan

Thanks for your detailed update, Beech1948. I was wondering how you and your company were getting on. Congratulations on (a) adapting and surviving and (b) increasing your customer base by 3 - that's impressive. Travel budgets changing to staff hire budgets is surely a positive and useful trend. I hope you can work out how to step back a bit soon.

I'm enjoying my Nissan Leaf on its rare outings, less than 1000 miles since I got it in March! I charge it about every two weeks. And I am busier than before, in that I've been hauled out of retirement to be part time (about a day a week) chief science adviser for a startup whose founder has moved on. The commute (to Oxford) would be minimal, but in fact I haven't been there yet. 100% of the work is online, and it is proving much more productive than if I travelled there a day a week. The science team have access to me almost any time, rather than on a single day trip of which two hours would be spent driving. It's proving far more productive.


----------



## beech1948

Droogs said:


> So are you having the EV or is it being given to a tech to see how travel costs compare to similar ICE?
> Glad the idea to consolidate into a centralised system has started working for you


Its a bit of a funny deal. Caused I think because all car sales are 80% less than last year. I have it on a 6 month lease. Its an ex demonstrator, ex dealer company car with 19,000 miles on the clock. The lease is Ok and not too expensive.

The car has gone to one of our best technicians who is thrilled. He is going to keep a diary of the things which bother me, mileage, charge times, charge restrictions, costs, and of course reliability.


----------



## Droogs

As part of the test are you allowing access to the Tesla supercharging network or are you/will you have a period of using only not Tesla charging possibilities and seeing how feasable that is in regard to the getting to sites if you had a fleet of non tesla cars such as the say the ne MG estate that is coming out or similar.

I really am interested in your results, given you are not a wholehearted leccy car fan


----------



## beech1948

MusicMan said:


> Thanks for your detailed update, Beech1948. I was wondering how you and your company were getting on. Congratulations on (a) adapting and surviving and (b) increasing your customer base by 3 - that's impressive. Travel budgets changing to staff hire budgets is surely a positive and useful trend. I hope you can work out how to step back a bit soon.
> 
> in fact I haven't been there yet. 100% of the work is online, and it is proving much more productive than if I travelled there a day a week. It's proving far more productive.



I'm going to have to step back soon as 7 day weeks at 14-16 hrs a day just are too much at my age. I have been surprised that I have kept going. Will try a two week holiday in October.

Like you we have found that the people still working from home are very productive and have also been very willing to occasionally come in to the office and pitch in if needed. My long work hours have perhaps demonstrated how close we came to not surviving. Though also possibly not.

What we have adopted almost secretly is an attitude that means if people need to work from home they can or from a public space or even come into the office. A local handyman built some perspex screens for us for between desks/bubbles, a local bakery delivers daily (not Sunday) and we seem to still be having some fun within the teams.

I would be interested to hear what you use for video conferencing as we have some reservations about Zoom. Surprising how quickly people create and operate new cultural norms for things like Zoom.


----------



## Droogs

@beech1948 If your IT systems are windows/Office based for admin have you considered just using skype or even MS teams





__





Group Chat - Team Chat - Collaboration | Microsoft Teams


Sign up to Microsoft Teams for free chat tools for your next group chat or team chat. Go from instant messaging to secure video chat & work remotely.



www.microsoft.com


----------



## beech1948

Droogs said:


> As part of the test are you allowing access to the Tesla supercharging network or are you/will you have a period of using only not Tesla charging possibilities and seeing how feasable that is in regard to the getting to sites if you had a fleet of non tesla cars such as the say the ne MG estate that is coming out or similar.
> 
> I really am interested in your results, given you are not a wholehearted leccy car fan



Yes to the Tesla charging network as it is the best developed along our lines of travel. My technician will fund it via his credit card and make weekly claims for reimbursement so we can track costs. After this next 6 months are over we will consider doing a "non charging network" test depending on how the costs come out.


----------



## beech1948

Droogs said:


> @beech1948 If your IT systems are windows/Office based for admin have you considered just using skype or even MS teams
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Group Chat - Team Chat - Collaboration | Microsoft Teams
> 
> 
> Sign up to Microsoft Teams for free chat tools for your next group chat or team chat. Go from instant messaging to secure video chat & work remotely.
> 
> 
> 
> www.microsoft.com



Droogs,

Admin is MS based. Development and Technicians are UNIX based. Our IT is provided by an external group to a small 3 person internal team. So far we have not had too many inter OS problems....yet. It just seems that for Admin the relative richness of programs available works well and of course most clients are MS based as well. Unix development for us is very quick as we have designed and use a number of tools to aid this and we have become competent at cross compilation on the few times we need it. As the owners of the software we can spec what it should run on.


----------



## Spectric

Trevanion said:


> Is there going to be enough lithium if everyone goes electric?



Yes by the time we all go electric, I will be long dead and they will be mining Lithium on planet zonk!!!


----------



## Spectric

The solution is not to ditch the internal combustion engine, instead use the engine to generate electrical power to drive motors in the wheel hubs and a battery for energy storage. An internal combustion engine can be made extremely clean if it only runs within a very narrow rpm range. 

If you think really long term do you actually think people will all be driving their own vehicles, no they will be using public transport such as electric trams because that is a cleaner and more efficient use of resources, you won't have vehicles sitting on drives and car parks doing nothing all day whilst people are at work or at home.


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## Rorschach

@Spectric Public transport? Not a viable solution, doesn't work very well now does it?. The only way that removal of personal transport will be possible is by the use of self driving electric taxis.

Also your internal combustion idea is flawed, the added weight of a battery will more than outweigh any efficiency savings.


----------



## MusicMan

beech1948 said:


> ---
> 
> I would be interested to hear what you use for video conferencing as we have some reservations about Zoom. Surprising how quickly people create and operate new cultural norms for things like Zoom.



My main job uses Google Meets. That's partly because the whole company IT (about 32 people) is based around Google: gmail, docs, calendar, notebooks and meets. They do integrate well together, though I don't like the interfaces and facilities as much as others. The audio is not brilliant but OK if everyone carefully mutes when not speaking. It does work very well from phones/tablets also. Last week one of the members joined from a car using a phone and it was surprisingly good.

I also use Zoom a lot for committee meetings that I am on, used for between 5 and 50 people. I also take Tai Chi classes on Zoom. The audio is the best of the various systems I've used. There are also the best options for fine tuning in various ways, eg noise reduction, and I prefer the video options too, e.g. easier to see the total group. Organisations do have reservations about the security of Zoom, which of course would be important for your business. I am not sure whether this is still the case or whether that has been fixed (it was to do with a way in which a stranger could join into a Zoom meeting).

I use Microsoft Teams a bit; this seems to be favoured where there are security concerns, but I haven't used it as much as the other two so can't really compare the usability. I think it is pretty good for large groups, and universities tend to use it for this and the security issue.

With all systems it is pretty important to use headphones/earbuds/headsets to prevent feedback from a speaker to the microphone. Zoom copes fairly well in suppressing this but the others are less good.

And of course good bandwidth is essential.

It's true what you say about cultural norms. When the video stuff started, people would log on fifteen minutes early to ensure that everything was OK. Now in my company everyone logs in a few seconds before the exact time. 30 people x 15 minutes is a person-day's amount of work! Also, since interruptions are obviously disruptive on video links (Zoom immediately flips to the interruptor, though Google is a bit better behaved) people soon learn not to do it. This makes a difference, as people actually listen till the speaker has stopped, making both more courteous and more effective communication.


----------



## beech1948

Musicman,

Interesting that as of last week we have ALL migrated to Google Meets and have convinced more than 50% of clients to use this as well. Thew rest of them seem to prefer voice to voice contact. We would now use almost any video conferencing software if needed to as just treat it as an expedient thing to do.

Tesla is going well except that the technician doing the testing has reported some increased costs (+7%). Mainly in an increase in cost per mile. Reliability in the coldish weather has been OK but total range has dropped a bit due to the cold. It's OK for now and we will see what it is like in Jan/Feb. We have noticed that he needs to stop for coffee breaks more often in his Tesla but fast charge is quite fast so these breaks are not so noticeable. Clients intrigued to see the Tesla. Some concern that the software is not ours but remains the property of Tesla who can do what they like with it.

I'm going to swap my Merc for his Tesla over X-mass break to let me see what it is like in use.

89% of customers now signed up to Manchester AIOC and remainder will probably sign up in the New Year as we have threatened to raise their annual service costs if they do not adopt the service. HMG still slow but of 18 gov'mt customers 2 have signed up.

Reduced sales team by one more and converted job to an extra travelling Technician based in Manchester so North of England cover is improved. We are still split between 2 sites...one in Crowthorne south of Reading and one in Wilmslow, Manchester. It appears to be working OK.

The likely state of no-play between the UK and EU has caused us to attempt to set up a three person group in Denmark. They will all be Brits in a foreign land but we have a few clients in Denmark and Germany. We will establish a single database for tech support in the UK and we are hoping to dodge any differences in data protection issues across Germany, Denmark and UK and deal with them later. Database is in UK so UK laws should apply. 

What is now evident is that client support is causing us to fragment the company somewhat and we will just have to deal with it. One oddity is that a German company is a real pain in the backside to deal with. We have considered dropping them but they were amongst the first so sign up to the AIOC in Manchester. Danish teams job to talk to them and get it all improved....I must learn to delegate, I must learn to delegate, I must learn to delegate, I must learn to delegate.

I had hoped to slow down by now but the forward business forecast is such that I don't think I will have much chance. Now only working 5 days at 14 to 16 hrs a day, company looks a bit safer and quite sound so I just take a deep breath and try to relax over the weekend. Succession plan and company development plan now in focus and being worked on.

From March until today has been a wild ride of Lockdowns, relative freedom and a second lockdown. Banks have been the bain of my life and we are approaching the new year with a new bank in mind with a different approach to long term finance. Slow paying customers are slowly learning the problems they cause us as we now have to refer to the state of up to date payments or not before dispatching a technician out to them.


----------



## MusicMan

Thanks for the update, Beech. Very interesting to see how you have coped, and I hope that brutal workload is getting under control. Congratulations on working on a succession plan and for pulling the company through this tough time.

In my case, I just work a day a week as chief scientific adviser, but I distribute the hours around the week. This means that staff can get hold of me quickly when they need, and vice versa, on top of some regular meetings. It's interesting that this is far more effective by video link than it would be by going there in person for a day a week. I haven't actually been there in person since March. Not everything can be done remotely of course, but it mostly can if it requires brains and not hands!


----------



## billw

I suppose it’s easy to look at this from the current perspective of “people need cars” whereas in future with the switch to working from home, supermarkets delivering to home, offline retail dying a slow death, and a potential expansion of the public transport network (would have to be nationalised or subject to significant revenue redistribution) means that the whole car ownership thing might just be dying off.

plus there’s those car share/hire for an hour type things that will gain market share.

I haven’t owned a car for 4 years. In that time I’ve hired a car twice and a van once.


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## Rorschach

billw said:


> I suppose it’s easy to look at this from the current perspective of “people need cars” whereas in future with the switch to working from home, supermarkets delivering to home, offline retail dying a slow death, and a potential expansion of the public transport network (would have to be nationalised or subject to significant revenue redistribution) means that the whole car ownership thing might just be dying off.
> 
> plus there’s those car share/hire for an hour type things that will gain market share.
> 
> I haven’t owned a car for 4 years. In that time I’ve hired a car twice and a van once.



Depends on your personal circumstances though. Despite living in a city, we have very poor public transport, it's much cheaper and faster for me to use my car to go anywhere in the city. Our family is also spread out with some living in the countryside, there is no public transport option to go and visit them.
My partner and I both work from home, we still use the car extensively, the only thing that is missing is the commute.


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## ScaredyCat

billw said:


> I suppose it’s easy to look at this from the current perspective of “people need cars” whereas in future with the switch to working from home, supermarkets delivering to home, offline retail dying a slow death, and a potential expansion of the public transport network (would have to be nationalised or subject to significant revenue redistribution) means that the whole car ownership thing might just be dying off.



If you live anywhere outside a major town or city you're still going to need your own transport. We get 2 busses a day - if they turn up. If I wanted to get to the office by bus it'd take 2.5 hours each and it's only 15 miles away, plus I'd be gambling on the bus actually turning up oh and I'd have to leave at 6:30am.

Sure I can do shopping online and get that delivered but other than that we'd be stranded. Uber et al aren't available here, it's £20 for a taxi to the nearest large town (5 miles) - so £40 before you've done anything. That's more than the cost/month of my car tax & insurance gone in one round trip. 

My fuel cost would be roughly £2.50. Let's double it for wear and tear, £5. It's still cheaper for me to own the car. 

Prices will need to drop hugely for it to be even remotely practical but not only that, remoter areas will need a massive increase in other options and this increase wont be particularly profitable for those doing it. 

Personal transport isn't going away anytime soon - or even remotely soon-ish.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

billw said:


> I haven’t owned a car for 4 years.


That will please the nice people at the World Economic Forum: they want us to end up owning nothing, and renting everything. It's a great economic model for the asset owners, but possibly not so nice for the dispossessed masses. 









Here's how life could change in my city by the year 2030


It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service.




www.weforum.org


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that there is a lot to commend renting as a dispossessed mass rather than ownership - however emotionally atractive ownership may be. A couple of examples:

some years ago on relocation to Somerset I had to rent for a year or so before the rest of the family could move down. Renting was more attractive than bridging loans, and any problems weren't mine. Drains blocked, call landlord, fixed etc.
We have now got into the habit of spending 3-4 months in southern Spain. I could buy an apartment, use in winter, rent out in summer. On balance I prefer to rent - I just don't need the hassle of managing a property 1500 miles away.


----------



## Rorschach

Terry - Somerset said:


> I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that there is a lot to commend renting as a dispossessed mass rather than ownership - however emotionally atractive ownership may be. A couple of examples:
> 
> some years ago on relocation to Somerset I had to rent for a year or so before the rest of the family could move down. Renting was more attractive than bridging loans, and any problems weren't mine. Drains blocked, call landlord, fixed etc.
> We have now got into the habit of spending 3-4 months in southern Spain. I could buy an apartment, use in winter, rent out in summer. On balance I prefer to rent - I just don't need the hassle of managing a property 1500 miles away.



I don't think I would equate renting property to renting vehicles.


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## Spectric

You need to look further ahead and on a bigger scale, we all know that our planet does not have endless supplies of raw materials and that the scale of the damage is accelerating, basicaly the way we live must change and drastically. This will mean that cars will eventually become historic, it is not feasable for everyone to own a car which spends a lot of time either sitting on the drive or parked at work that has consumed resources and energy to build. The way society works and are economic models are already obsolete, people need to work local and use cheap, reliable, green public transport. Think about your journey to work, lets say Liverpool to manchester and how many people are doing the opposite, thats a lot of needless miles. The other aspect is choice, we think of it as a freedom and our right but again do we really need to have so much choice, which has only occured to support the economic model. At the end of the day we are in far more trouble than many realise because the only solution to our problems are not electric vehicles but global unity and that is not going to happen. If you think of our Earth as a boat, electric or diesel then like any boat if you keep putting more and more people on it, it will eventually capsize and sink.
There was a Tv program not so long ago and it talked about extinction events, the one we all know is the dinosaurs but there have been others which I never realised and they believe we are now entering the sixth.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

The holiday industry appears to be in tatters, intercontinental travel mostly forbidden, commuting has transmuted to working from home - it looks like the "Great Reset™" is well underway. A conversation yesterday about East Germany brought up the point, unknown to me, that most East Germans had never seen a banana or an orange. Are you ready to go back to a life of salt pork and pickled cabbage as the only food available? It's already grim up north, but if you force them to subsist on only locally produced goods then life is going to get interesting.


----------



## paulrbarnard

ScaredyCat said:


> If you live anywhere outside a major town or city you're still going to need your own transport. We get 2 busses a day - if they turn up. If I wanted to get to the office by bus it'd take 2.5 hours each and it's only 15 miles away, plus I'd be gambling on the bus actually turning up oh and I'd have to leave at 6:30am.
> 
> Sure I can do shopping online and get that delivered but other than that we'd be stranded. Uber et al aren't available here, it's £20 for a taxi to the nearest large town (5 miles) - so £40 before you've done anything. That's more than the cost/month of my car tax & insurance gone in one round trip.
> 
> My fuel cost would be roughly £2.50. Let's double it for wear and tear, £5. It's still cheaper for me to own the car.
> 
> Prices will need to drop hugely for it to be even remotely practical but not only that, remoter areas will need a massive increase in other options and this increase wont be particularly profitable for those doing it.
> 
> Personal transport isn't going away anytime soon - or even remotely soon-ish.


Don't underestimate the cost of your car. Doubling fuel isn't anywhere near enough. Most research shows running a typical car costs you about 40p per mile when you consider all the associated costs, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, tax, insurance etc.

I completely get the rural challenge. We have two busses a week and our nearest town, and that's a small one, is 4 miles away. We do walk to the local village shop which has seen a resurgence in use since Covid.

It might be controversial but I think vehicle usage charging needs to go up rather than down. Only then will it encourage people to shift to different modes where they are available. An increased demand for public transport might even result in more rural transport options. The thought that shifting from IC to EV will have any marked difference in city congestion and traffic problems is a false assumption. Only modal shifts will acheive that goal. Ironically it needs a substantial reduction in vehicle traffic to encourage people to get out of their cars and consider it safe to walk or cycle where that is possible. It's a chicken and egg problem. "There are too many cars on the road for Roger to walk to school so I drive him in my large collision protected SUV..." .


----------



## ScaredyCat

paulrbarnard said:


> Don't underestimate the cost of your car. Doubling fuel isn't anywhere near enough. Most research shows running a typical car costs you about 40p per mile when you consider all the associated costs, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, tax, insurance etc.



There's no cost calculation I can make that will have me paying £40 to run my car on a round trip that's 10 miles. That's how much it costs me to use the other transport option.

If you want people to use public transport, fix public transport FIRST. and that means rural locations too. I'm not giving up my personal transport options (car/motorcycle) until there's an option. Why would I struggle to travel on the off chance they might improve public transport and I can be pretty sure they wont? 

Quite frankly I get fed up with people in London complaining that they've had to wait 8 minutes for another bus or tube train when the rest of the country, outside big cities, has little choice but to wait hours for their next bus. I'd use public transport round here if it was available and reliable - it isn't and until it is it's not a viable option. 



paulrbarnard said:


> "There are too many cars on the road for Roger to walk to school so I drive him in my large collision protected SUV..." .



I don't think that's why they do it, I think it's more that they're dropping their kids off then going to work. I mean, that's what's going on round here. In cities it might well be different.


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## Rorschach

paulrbarnard said:


> Don't underestimate the cost of your car. Doubling fuel isn't anywhere near enough. Most research shows running a typical car costs you about 40p per mile when you consider all the associated costs, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, tax, insurance etc.
> 
> I completely get the rural challenge. We have two busses a week and our nearest town, and that's a small one, is 4 miles away. We do walk to the local village shop which has seen a resurgence in use since Covid.
> 
> It might be controversial but I think vehicle usage charging needs to go up rather than down. Only then will it encourage people to shift to different modes where they are available. An increased demand for public transport might even result in more rural transport options. The thought that shifting from IC to EV will have any marked difference in city congestion and traffic problems is a false assumption. Only modal shifts will acheive that goal. Ironically it needs a substantial reduction in vehicle traffic to encourage people to get out of their cars and consider it safe to walk or cycle where that is possible. It's a chicken and egg problem. "There are too many cars on the road for Roger to walk to school so I drive him in my large collision protected SUV..." .



It could cost me £1 per mile and my car is still far cheaper and more convenient than pubic transport. 

As to safety, that's nonsense. Hardly anybody is using a car because it's safer, you are far safer walking than driving. People use a car because walking isn't an option unless you live within 1, maybe 2 miles of your workplace.


----------



## billw

I think the rural argument is totally valid, but the vast majority of people live in cities, and it's there that the change should begin. The end game should be an overall reduction in car ownership, with cities pushing for removal of car ownership where possible, and more rural areas ensuring that electric vehicles are viable.

Yes, the car as a status symbol thing won't be going away any time soon, but it probably will longer term especially since consumerism itself is changing with the generations. Who knows, there might even be a return to stuff being built to last!


----------



## Rorschach

billw said:


> I think the rural argument is totally valid, but the vast majority of people live in cities, and it's there that the change should begin. The end game should be an overall reduction in car ownership, with cities pushing for removal of car ownership where possible, and more rural areas ensuring that electric vehicles are viable.
> 
> Yes, the car as a status symbol thing won't be going away any time soon, but it probably will longer term especially since consumerism itself is changing with the generations. Who knows, there might even be a return to stuff being built to last!



I live in a city and while I certainly could use my car less than someone living in a rural area, I could not get rid of it entirely. The daily commute is not viable by public transport and is very expensive, not withstanding all the other reasons we use the car.


----------



## billw

Rorschach said:


> I live in a city and while I certainly could use my car less than someone living in a rural area, I could not get rid of it entirely. The daily commute is not viable by public transport and is very expensive, not withstanding all the other reasons we use the car.



Yeah it won't work for everyone, but things like taking kids to school in a car when it's 200 metres down the road are the things that definitely need to be stamped out. Commuting itself will reduce as home working is retained, flexible working will allow the rush hour to be more spread out and mean more off-peak capacity being utilised on public transport. 

Using it less is still a start though, if everyone reduces use by 10% it makes a big difference. There's probably other people like me who can totally forgo car ownership too, they just "don't want to".


----------



## Rorschach

How many people do you think are driving their kids 200m to school?
And even if every parent were stupid enough to be doing that, does that mean they don't need a car for other reasons as well?

If my partner could practically walk to work, she would, indeed we have specifically tried to find a house within 2 miles of her office so she can do that. Does that mean we suddenly don't need a car though? No of course not, we need it for plenty of other journeys as well.

I suspect if you really looked at the numbers of people who own a car but realistically don't need one the number would be vanishingly small. Cars are expensive, require maintenance, take up space and are generally a liability, I don't think there are many people that put themselves through that if they don't need to.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Leaving aside cycling and walking which work for reasonably active folk, on short journeys, in preferably clement weather:

A small car costs ~ 12p per mile for fuel, ~25-50p all up cost
A bus costs ~ 100p per mile - although very journey, ticket type dependant
A taxi costs ~500p per mile - variable depending on time and location
Even if the price of fuel doubled, or a tax of 10p a mile imposed it would make almost no difference to the attraction, both cost and flexibility, of personal transport.

To reduce congestion and pollution needs a far more thoughtful and integrated strategy:

reduce the need for travel. Smaller local schools, surgeries, hospitals, shopping, etc
one teacher travels to a number of smaller schools, not 30 kids to a larger school
change planning rules to sensibly mix employment, restaurants, etc with housing - not zoned as at present
plan for imminent driverless on demand "pods" to reduce the need for vehicle ownership and parking
reconfigure local services to meet new demands for work from home - local office pods, coffee shops, cafes etc
and lots of other things I haven't even mentioned!
If you are truly rural or small settlement this will probably not work - but for larger villages upwards (population 2-3000+?) bringing more services locally minimises travel demand.


----------



## ScaredyCat

Imagine the chaos on a bank holiday weekend when everyone tries to rent a car to go to the beach.


----------



## paulrbarnard

Rorschach said:


> It could cost me £1 per mile and my car is still far cheaper and more convenient than pubic transport.
> 
> As to safety, that's nonsense. Hardly anybody is using a car because it's safer, you are far safer walking than driving. People use a car because walking isn't an option unless you live within 1, maybe 2 miles of your workplace.



The KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) risk for pedestrians vs car occupants is *22 times higher.* source

Over 500 pedestrians are killed by vehicles a year. Over 100 cyclists are killed by vehicles a year. 

3000 CHILDREN were KSI as pedestrians in 2000. 
Road incidents are the highest single cause of child deaths in the UK.

A final stat in case you still think the problem isn't vehicles, between 2005 and 2018 5,835 pedestrians were killed ON Pavements by vehicles.

So yes perfectly safe walking.


----------



## paulrbarnard

Terry - Somerset said:


> Leaving aside cycling and walking which work for reasonably active folk, on short journeys, in preferably clement weather:
> 
> A small car costs ~ 12p per mile for fuel, ~25-50p all up cost
> A bus costs ~ 100p per mile - although very journey, ticket type dependant
> A taxi costs ~500p per mile - variable depending on time and location
> Even if the price of fuel doubled, or a tax of 10p a mile imposed it would make almost no difference to the attraction, both cost and flexibility, of personal transport.
> 
> To reduce congestion and pollution needs a far more thoughtful and integrated strategy:
> 
> reduce the need for travel. Smaller local schools, surgeries, hospitals, shopping, etc
> one teacher travels to a number of smaller schools, not 30 kids to a larger school
> change planning rules to sensibly mix employment, restaurants, etc with housing - not zoned as at present
> plan for imminent driverless on demand "pods" to reduce the need for vehicle ownership and parking
> reconfigure local services to meet new demands for work from home - local office pods, coffee shops, cafes etc
> and lots of other things I haven't even mentioned!
> If you are truly rural or small settlement this will probably not work - but for larger villages upwards (population 2-3000+?) bringing more services locally minimises travel demand.



Terry to add to your costings there the indirect cost to society need to be added. That's to cover things like the cost of infrastructure, health cost of poor air quality or direct injury etc. 
Recent data shows that for every £1 pound spent by a person on travel there is an additional cost covered by society as a whole through taxation
Walking society pays 1p
Cycling society pays 8p
Bus society pays £1.50
Personal car society pays £9.20

I completely agree the problem is lack of alternatives but that because people perceive the car as being a cheap option. This won't change until people have to pay the full cost of their choices.


----------



## Spectric

Hi all

If we are completly honest and remove any rose tinted specs then anything we do is like peeing in the ocean, we could all use bicycles, public transport and have no petrol or diesel vehicles but the difference it would make is insignificant when you look at the Asian countries who are all becoming more industrialised and the American people probably produce more methane from eating junk food than all our cattle in the uk. There is no solution until everyone works as a single body and can anyone see that happening, we have enough issues getting on with our so called allies let alone getting places like North Korea onboard. The solution will be delivered by nature, whilst we continue to talk and squabble nature will just cleanse the planet like a giant etch a sketch.


----------



## Rorschach

paulrbarnard said:


> The KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) risk for pedestrians vs car occupants is *22 times higher.* source
> 
> Over 500 pedestrians are killed by vehicles a year. Over 100 cyclists are killed by vehicles a year.
> 
> 3000 CHILDREN were KSI as pedestrians in 2000.
> Road incidents are the highest single cause of child deaths in the UK.
> 
> A final stat in case you still think the problem isn't vehicles, between 2005 and 2018 5,835 pedestrians were killed ON Pavements by vehicles.
> 
> So yes perfectly safe walking.



You can't really equate the figures of deaths in a car vs deaths walking in the same way you can with cycling. The report there is very poorly designed.


----------



## ScaredyCat

paulrbarnard said:


> The KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) risk for pedestrians vs car occupants is *22 times higher.* source



Look at the KSI stats for horse riders. They're worse off than motorcyclists.


----------



## Rorschach

ScaredyCat said:


> Look at the KSI stats for horse riders. They're worse off than motorcyclists.



Another one where comparisons are almost impossible but for different reasons. I was almost killed by a Horse when I was a teen and I had travelled less than a mile!


----------



## paulrbarnard

Rorschach said:


> You can't really equate the figures of deaths in a car vs deaths walking in the same way you can with cycling. The report there is very poorly designed.


Why? The numbers are perfectly clear.


Spectric said:


> Hi all
> 
> If we are completly honest and remove any rose tinted specs then anything we do is like peeing in the ocean, we could all use bicycles, public transport and have no petrol or diesel vehicles but the difference it would make is insignificant when you look at the Asian countries who are all becoming more industrialised and the American people probably produce more methane from eating junk food than all our cattle in the uk. There is no solution until everyone works as a single body and can anyone see that happening, we have enough issues getting on with our so called allies let alone getting places like North Korea onboard. The solution will be delivered by nature, whilst we continue to talk and squabble nature will just cleanse the planet like a giant etch a sketch.


That's an easy thought to hide behind but not so true. 
If you look at the total output from US and EU then it is almost the same as China and India. 
When you look at it by individual contribution (by population), each person in US polutes more than each person in China and India. China also, and remarkably, has a lower emissions growth rate than US.
The per capita distributions also show the developed countries far exceeding the Asian countries for emissions.


----------



## Rorschach

paulrbarnard said:


> Why? The numbers are perfectly clear.



Numbers might look clear but you are comparing two completely different modes of transport. Simply basing it on how many miles are covered is farcical. Walking is safer than driving.



paulrbarnard said:


> That's an easy thought to hide behind but not so true.
> If you look at the total output from US and EU then it is almost the same as China and India.
> When you look at it by individual contribution (by population), each person in US polutes more than each person in China and India. China also, and remarkably, has a lower emissions growth rate than US.
> The per capita distributions also show the developed countries far exceeding the Asian countries for emissions.



Per capita emission mean nothing when the two countries you mention there make up more than 1/3rd of the world population. You really are putting forward some very silly arguments in this thread.


----------



## paulrbarnard

Rorschach said:


> Numbers might look clear but you are comparing two completely different modes of transport. Simply basing it on how many miles are covered is farcical. Walking is safer than driving.
> 
> 
> 
> Per capita emission mean nothing when the two countries you mention there make up more than 1/3rd of the world population. You really are putting forward some very silly arguments in this thread.



You realy do cherry pick what you respond to. In the KSI comment I also quoted absolute numbers. I find it incredible that you argue the KSI per mile is farcical and ignore 3000 CHILDREN killed or seriously injured in 2000 by vehicles. For the emissions comment you focus on per capita and completely ignor the other statistic based on population which shows the US being worse.

Anyway I'll not comment on this thread again it is obviously only for those with only one perspective. Is it any wonder the world is in the state it is...


----------



## Lons

paulrbarnard said:


> "There are too many cars on the road for Roger to walk to school so I drive him in my large collision protected SUV..." .


Is that really the whole reason?
I get it if he's on his own as kids get distracted and play the fool but if the distance is such that he could walk then he will be safe enough if you walk with him instead of using the car.


----------



## Rorschach

Lons said:


> Is that really the whole reason?
> I get it if he's on his own as kids get distracted and play the fool but if the distance is such that he could walk then he will be safe enough if you walk with him instead of using the car.



Stop it, we might agree on something!


----------



## Lons

Rorschach said:


> Stop it, we might agree on something!


It wasn't meant for you and I probably wouldn't have posted had I thought you would respond.


----------



## MikeJhn




----------



## alex_heney

Rorschach said:


> Numbers might look clear but you are comparing two completely different modes of transport. Simply basing it on how many miles are covered is farcical. Walking is safer than driving.


That is just not remotely true by any rational measure.

It *could* be true, if the infrastructure were changed dramatically, to put barriers between pedestrian spaces and vehicular spaces, with only very limited crossing points, all with some sort of control.

But at present, it certainly isn't true.



> Per capita emission mean nothing when the two countries you mention there make up more than 1/3rd of the world population. You really are putting forward some very silly arguments in this thread.


Not one tenth as much as you are.

Per capita emissions mean everything.


----------



## Rorschach

alex_heney said:


> That is just not remotely true by any rational measure.
> 
> It *could* be true, if the infrastructure were changed dramatically, to put barriers between pedestrian spaces and vehicular spaces, with only very limited crossing points, all with some sort of control.
> 
> But at present, it certainly isn't true.



You can't compare walking and driving because they are totally different forms for transport used in totally different circumstances.



alex_heney said:


> Not one tenth as much as you are.
> 
> Per capita emissions mean everything.



You are being silly too.
Per capita emissions are meaningless. USA per capita emissions are double the rate of China, but China's population is nearly 5 times higher. UK per capita emissions are only 1/3rd that of the USA and our population is 5x smaller than the USA. The argument that per capita emissions matter is stupid unless taken in the context of population, so why bother, just use the output of the country as a whole in the first place.


----------



## AJB Temple

Rorschach said:


> You are being silly too.
> Per capita emissions are meaningless. USA per capita emissions are double the rate of China, but China's population is nearly 5 times higher. UK per capita emissions are only 1/3rd that of the USA and our population is 5x smaller than the USA. The argument that per capita emissions matter is stupid unless taken in the context of population, so why bother, just use the output of the country as a whole in the first place.



It's not really silly or meaningless though - as it gives an insight into how much a country outputs in terms of emissions, when measured against its population. Multiply one by the other and you get total emissions. But you also get a simple measure of how polluting a country is for each person in it. Per capita is not the _only_ measure - it's just _a_ measure that helps to provide context. As does total emissions. As would the type or mix of emissions. As would the reasons why some countries have higher emissions than others (for example restricted access to technology or lack of education about consequences). There are always several relevant factors needed in order to gain a useful understanding. 

Calling people "silly" never helps debates and never persuades the person you call silly.


----------



## Rorschach

AJB Temple said:


> It's not really silly or meaningless though - as it gives an insight into how much a country outputs in terms of emissions, when measured against its population. Multiply one by the other and you get total emissions. But you also get a simple measure of how polluting a country is for each person in it. Per capita is not the _only_ measure - it's just _a_ measure that helps to provide context. As does total emissions. As would the type or mix of emissions. As would the reasons why some countries have higher emissions than others (for example restricted access to technology or lack of education about consequences). There are always several relevant factors needed in order to gain a useful understanding.
> 
> Calling people "silly" never helps debates and never persuades the person you call silly.



I agree, used in context it is very helpful, I stated that. What I was saying was silly is to use per capita as your basis for comparing countries which is what the previous commenters were doing. Spectric made the very valid point that what we do in the UK is meaningless in the grand scheme of things if big countries are not doing something. In the UK we have a moderate per capita emission rating but combined with the fact we are a small country means that our global impact is very small. It is silly to make the argument that what we do is important compared to countries like China that not only have a higher per capita rating than us, but are vastly more populous. 

The commenters knew they couldn't win the argument based on total output so they chose a metric that suited their agenda, that is silly and easily debunked, as I just did. I know calling them silly won't persuade them, but nothing will persuade them, they have already drunk the cool aid.


----------



## Tris

I don't think that per country emissions would be much use. How much of China's emissions are down to producing goods for sale in the West? 
Equally, what use is a per capita average as carbon footprint varies according to lifestyle. 
Just my opinion


----------



## evildrome

A decent free public transport system would help immensely.

Like what Munich has. Ok, its not free but its nearly free for all it costs.

I lived there for 3 years and never missed having a car. My sisters been there for 20 years and has never owned a car.

Given that governments create money when they spend, there seems no reason not to subsidise the economy + help the environment.

Government can buy anything for sale in its own currency, at no cost to itself.

The only danger is inflation and I see no sign of that in the time it would take to build a modern mass transport system for the UK (say 10 years).


----------



## NickWelford

When I lived in London and worked in the city, I didn’t bother with a car. Rented when I needed one. Now I live in a hamlet with fewer than 20 people. Buses? Not ever, never will be. It’s 4.5 hilly miles to the nearest shop. A car is absolutely a necessity. I cannot afford to replace my diesel with electric. It has to last me another 10 years if possible. I suspect we will be taxed out of existence.


----------



## boggy

Consider electric assisted bikes, they cost about £2.5k for a decent-ish one. They are not much use for the weekly shopping trip nor for a trip to the dump, but the carrying capacity can be increased by using a trailer such as the 
BOB Yak. www. bobtrailers.com.


----------



## treeturner123

As I can't be bothered to read through all 29 pages, please let me say the following:-

*Charging Cars* - I have a daughter who lives in Preston. Even in a I/C car, it can take 4 hours to get there. If I had to stop to charge, how long?!
*Charge Points 1* - How many would be needed at Motorway service stations for example. Has no one seen the queues at Motorways at Bank Holiday, then add the time for charging a car!! 
*Charge Points 2 & 3* - Those of you in terraced houses, built onto the street with no garden, how are you going to charge your cars? And, how are we going to generate within the next 10 years, enough electricity to charge cars AND replace Gas heating in new houses with electric heating (Don't start me on that either!)
*Road Tax & Petrol Duty* - When the I/C car is no longer made, rumoured to be 2030 in the UK, how will the treasury regain the HUGE loss of tax and VAT? I bet that at that point or before, electric cars will have to pay the same license fee as any other type of car.
*Car Share* - Fine in the city but not in the country. End of....

Finally, don't give me any of the 'Free Public Transport'. For a start, it doesn't go where I want to go, at the time I NEED to go. If I needed to go by bus to our local hospital it would take 3 busses and then some walk, fine if you're fit, but if I'm going for an appointment, by definition, I won't be fit. BTW, time to hospital approx 2 hours for a direct journey of 13 mile. Then I'd have to get back. Second, there is no such thing as a Free anything, someone has to pay and the richer you are, the easier to move, employ tax experts to minimise etc. Better by far to encourage business and get the tax from them.

End of rant!!!

Phil


----------



## D_W

paulrbarnard said:


> You realy do cherry pick what you respond to. In the KSI comment I also quoted absolute numbers. I find it incredible that you argue the KSI per mile is farcical and ignore 3000 CHILDREN killed or seriously injured in 2000 by vehicles. For the emissions comment you focus on per capita and completely ignor the other statistic based on population which shows the US being worse.
> 
> Anyway I'll not comment on this thread again it is obviously only for those with only one perspective. Is it any wonder the world is in the state it is...



Let's be realistic. There's never been a better time to live than now. Every generation is full of people decrying the state of the world while having it better than their parents, who had it better than their grandparents, and so on.


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> You can't compare walking and driving because they are totally different forms for transport used in totally different circumstances.
> 
> 
> 
> You are being silly too.
> Per capita emissions are meaningless. USA per capita emissions are double the rate of China, but China's population is nearly 5 times higher. UK per capita emissions are only 1/3rd that of the USA and our population is 5x smaller than the USA. The argument that per capita emissions matter is stupid unless taken in the context of population, so why bother, just use the output of the country as a whole in the first place.



China is an emerging economy to some extent, too. Comparing emissions from emerging economies to mature wealthy economies is dopey.


----------



## D_W

alex_heney said:


> That is just not remotely true by any rational measure.
> 
> It *could* be true, if the infrastructure were changed dramatically, to put barriers between pedestrian spaces and vehicular spaces, with only very limited crossing points, all with some sort of control.
> 
> But at present, it certainly isn't true.
> 
> 
> Not one tenth as much as you are.
> 
> Per capita emissions mean everything.



Let's ignore explosive population growth and just focus on per capita......uh huh...everything.


----------



## craigs

what did i just walk in on....

*gets coat and leaves


----------



## Terry - Somerset

A bit of guesswork over the adequacy of electrical infrastructure and generating capacity.

*The probability is that we have ~ 25 years to make the transition, not 10 years to 2030. It is a pretty much a non-problem.*

Assuming the average life of an ICE is 15 years, 33% of cars on the road in 2030 will be 10-15 year old ICE. Additionally the cars sold 2021 - 2030 will be partially ICE (say 50%) as EV sales increase from approx 15% to 90%+ of total car sales.

*By 2030 ~33% of cars on the road will be EV*

The issue of gas boilers has also been noted. I doubt that mandatory gas boiler change will be the outcome - more likely the ban impact new and replacement installations. 

The legislation has yet to be put in place, and gas boilers have an operating life of 15-30 years.

*5-15% of gas installations will be replaced by electric by 2030. *


----------



## Spectric

Terry - Somerset said:


> The issue of gas boilers has also been noted. I doubt that mandatory gas boiler change will be the outcome - more likely the ban impact new and replacement installations.
> 
> The legislation has yet to be put in place, and gas boilers have an operating life of 15-30 years.
> 
> *5-15% of gas installations will be replaced by electric by 2030. *



If they start making every household move over to electric heating the increased load on the grid would be enormous and unless they supply houses with three phase there would potentially be balancing issues and they would need to start a major infrastructure project now, then add on all the electric vehicles being charged and then a surge of kettles during breaks in major Tv programs and the grid will become a major factor in global warming. Another problem is the huge expense of running an electric heating system, for every Kw of heat you want you need a Kw of electrical power.


----------



## Droogs

The chief engineer for the national grid has already stated that the problem is not generation of power to fuel BEVs as every car could change over tomorrow and the grid would have enough power to meet demand provided there was a balanced approach.

What is required is that every vehicle if not being used is plugged into the gride and has V2G capabilities that way the grid can remain balanced, even more effieciently than now and no extra power need be generated. each car would act as a reserve for the grid and be able to adapt to taking or receiveng as needed


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> What is required is that every vehicle if not being used is plugged into the gride and has V2G capabilities that way the grid can remain balanced, even more effieciently than now and no extra power need be generated. each car would act as a reserve for the grid and be able to adapt to taking or receiveng as needed



Yeah because that's going to work. "Honey, lets go shopping, oh no we can't go, the car is empty because Bob next door has been running his electric heating"


----------



## Droogs

no because the software in the car prevents this

a BEV is not like using an iron it has the capability of making sure that you always have a minimum range. Rorschach, instead of yakking out your backside, actually find out about the subject before mouthing off. It is 2020 not 1920.


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> no because the software in the car prevents this
> 
> a BEV is not like using an iron it has the capability of making sure that you always have a minimum range. Rorschach, instead of yakking out your backside, actually find out about the subject before mouthing off. It is 2020 not 1920.



What if I want to go further than the minimum range?


----------



## Droogs

what if you want to go further than the maximium range in your tank just now or do you just forget it cos you're lacking the cereberal capacity and imagination to operate a pump at a petrol station. Same thing for EVs just do it at a different point in the journey. stop being a cockwomble just for the sake of it


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> what if you want to go further than the minimum range in your tank just now or do you just forget it cos you're lacking the cereberal capacity and immagination to operate a pump at a petrol station. Same thing for EVs just do it at a different point in the journey.



No problem in my car, takes me less than 5 minutes to refill the tank with 500 miles worth of fuel. Can you put 500 miles worth of electricity in an EV in 5 minutes?

You totally missed the point i was making.


----------



## AJB Temple

From what I have read, the legislative intention with respect to domestic heating and hot water is to require new homes to use renewable energy sources (heat pumps etc) and have high levels of passive insulation, rather than using gas. This is clearly sensible. 

Lots of people seem to have jumped on this to suggest that gas boilers in existing houses are being banned. This is not the case. 

It is entirely realistic to leave electrical vehicles plugged into their charging station for those of us who have charging stations at home (I do) whether these are plug in or drive over mats. If my car is not in use it is typically plugged in. It will only draw charge (unless I override) during the night time low rate period. In this way (unlike with petrol or diesel) my car almost always has maximum range available. I set the max charge level to 85% to protect battery life. All of this is super easy to manage via the built in technology.


----------



## Droogs

yes perfectly possible and do less damage to all life on the planet wile doing so. Infact it take 4 minutes 28 seconds on some cars already available in china


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> yes perfectly possible and do less damage to all life on the planet wile doing so



Who is talking out of their backside now?


----------



## Droogs

do the research for yourself and you will be surprised


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> do the research for yourself and you will be surprised



I can't find any evidence of an EV that will charge 500 miles in 5 minutes. Please, enlighten me.


----------



## Droogs

you switch out the battery pack


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> you switch out the battery pack



Are there any EV's on the market with this technology?


----------



## Droogs

Yes 2 on sale in china now - go look. and I mean that literally


----------



## AJB Temple

To answer the very frequently trotted out line about charge times. This is a non-issue. I am only experienced with Tesla, but mine has a maximum range of 325 miles (genuine range when driven sensibly). If I plug it into a fast supercharger, from 30 miles or so left when I get to the charger, to 90% takes 15 minutes on the latest chargers. 

Not many cars have a range of 500 miles and take 5 minutes to brim. Our oldish Audi Q7 diesel, with a capacity of around 110litres, takes about 10 minutes to fill and pay. On long journeys I need a break anyway, so the extra 5 mins at a supercharger (which I don't pay for as I get free for life with this car) is no big deal at all: it's my coffee break. 

Remember that unlike petrol cars, you can charge very cheaply at home and so your "tank" will always be full if you want. It is more convenient than a petrol car (or diesel). Much more so.


----------



## Rorschach

AJB Temple said:


> To answer the very frequently trotted out line about charge times. This is a non-issue. I am only experienced with Tesla, but mine has a maximum range of 325 miles (genuine range when driven sensibly). If I plug it into a fast supercharger, from 30 miles or so left when I get to the charger, to 90% takes 15 minutes on the latest chargers.
> 
> Not many cars have a range of 500 miles and take 5 minutes to brim. Our oldish Audi Q7 diesel, with a capacity of around 110litres, takes about 10 minutes to fill and pay. On long journeys I need a break anyway, so the extra 5 mins at a supercharger (which I don't pay for as I get free for life with this car) is no big deal at all: it's my coffee break.
> 
> Remember that unlike petrol cars, you can charge very cheaply at home and so your "tank" will always be full if you want. It is more convenient than a petrol car (or diesel). Much more so.



That's impressive but not indicative of EV's at large and of course you have something that not everyone has, a driveway.


----------



## AJB Temple

Rorschach said:


> That's impressive but not indicative of EV's at large and of course you have something that not everyone has, a driveway.


My point is that some people are determined to be negative. EV's barely existed 5 years ago. We have come a long way since then. Tech can move very fast. 

People like me are the guinea pigs for tech. Our experience feeds down to everyone else eventually. 

Soon we will have cordless charge mats embedded in parking bays on and off road. Driveways are not necessary now. If people take their car to a supercharger (as I do 90% of the time) they can park the car anywhere. Car parks in towns, hotels, etc are increasingly getting charge points. 

Charging speed has at least doubled in the last 3 years. Range is going up. I see no reason why technology will stagnate. 

Concerns about battery longevity are often trotted out, but the software makes sure charging is optimised and I suspect that battery life will be much longer than people expected as recently as three years ago. Software monitors battery efficiency constantly. 

There are other benefits. Electric vehicles require hardly any servicing, especially compared with an ICE. Electric motors are super reliable and simple. Even brakes have less stress as some braking effort is replaced with energy recovery to slow the car. 

Electric cars are taking over. It will happen much faster than many people think IMO. For a user it is increasingly a no brainier.


----------



## Droogs

you will not be able to buy an ICE car from any of the mainstream makers currently around in less than 10 years as they will either have changed over to BEV or gone out of business due to both legislation and public buying habits. Once this happens it will be increasingly becoming exhobinately expensive to own and run an ICE. Texaco engineers (i know one of them) had a meeting not long ago where they reckoned that their market worth would be 15% of what it is now in 15 years time


----------



## Rorschach

I have nothing against the principle (apart from the fact that EV are overall probably more polluting than ICE cars as things stand currently) but I am pessimistic about the implementation. Maybe (hopefully) I will be proved wrong, I'd be surprised though.


----------



## billw

D_W said:


> China is an emerging economy to some extent, too. Comparing emissions from emerging economies to mature wealthy economies is dopey.



China is indeed an emerging economy and as much as that seems very odd given its current status, apart from the very major cities (Beijing, Shanghai) much of the country is way behind. There are huge industrial zones such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou (probably the smoggiest place I’ve ever been in my life) but that doesn’t detract from China’s overall status.


----------



## billw

Rorschach said:


> Yeah because that's going to work. "Honey, lets go shopping, oh no we can't go, the car is empty because Bob next door has been running his electric heating"


Sometimes I actually think you’re going to say that windmills cause cancer and your cover will be blown.


----------



## D_W

Yes, I didn't go into detail because I was typing on a phone. The areas you mention are enormously tech savvy and shenzhen was just mentioned last week as it's too expensive of an area for stanley to keep their tooling factory open (thus it closed). 

But some of the rural and more industrial and less tech-related areas (where people are required to stay if they don't have papers to move elsewhere - something my parents ran into when they were in china - their guide was snatched due to confusion about her papers - she wasn't in violation of anything ultimately, but it led to a 5 hour stranding). 

My point with china, though, is that if they continue to increase their standard of living, large parts of the country will consume more and more energy. 

I have this discussion with people fairly often here. You know what lowers emissions? Poverty. It may not make for clean water, but it sure does lower personal consumption. That's usually met with "no, we need more wealth distribution so people can afford clean energy as wealthier people are greener". 

Yes, 6000 square feet within 1 degree end to end 365 days a year, and four cars, but the fourth is a prius, and that's our definition of environmentally conscious. (and let's not forget flying. Take an international flight, and the round trip could be 100 to 400 gallons of fuel for a single passenger. Very green. 

What nobody likes to discuss is that if emissions are a problem, the population size is a problem, not per capita usage. Quarter the population, double the consumption vs. double the population and decrease consumption by 50% - which does more? 

And we all sit on our computers all the time, too, which has huge energy costs for everything we're connected to.


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> I have nothing against the principle (apart from the fact that EV are overall probably more polluting than ICE cars as things stand currently) but I am pessimistic about the implementation. Maybe (hopefully) I will be proved wrong, I'd be surprised though.



It's an even game at about 60k miles (for emissions / pollution for a tesla vs. ICE). After that, the electric car becomes clearly less polluting. Not sure when a secondary market for the battery packs will come up, but here in the states where most power is tiered, a pair of those that's got 80% capacity left (which is considered worn out - tesla's target for lifetime is when the pack no longer has 90% of its original capacity) would make a dandy grid tie power demand kind of thing in california where people consuming in the top tier level can end up with power bills of $600+ in the summer. 

Last I checked, it was more popular to destroy the packs (I guess there's not enough economic incentive now, and groups like tesla with the powerwall will want to use new batteries to get paid as much as possible for installations). 

(I got my 60k mile figure above from a german article where the publisher was looking to prove that battery cars are more polluting than ICE. That was their conclusion - I don't remember what their qualitative conclusion was, because it came out in favor of longer term battery cars, but at least they were honest about it. )


----------



## Rorschach

billw said:


> Sometimes I actually think you’re going to say that windmills cause cancer and your cover will be blown.



Don't be silly. Windmills cause diabetes, it's solar panels that cause cancer, at least that's what the 5G signals are telling me.


----------



## D_W

well, looking around for my articles, i see some that can obviously be purchased - such as one claiming that a hummer h2 is less polluting than a prius (all they have to assume is that the prius lifetime is a small fraction of the hummer h2...

.....and anyone here in the states knows the converse is true. The h2 was one of the shortest lived cars ever introduced here and often makes lists of "worst ever". 

So, I see articles claiming 100,000km break even and others greater than 180,000km with claims that the average car cannot last that long, and that batteries in EVs don't last nearly that long (which is odd given the tesla experience is greater than 90% capacity at 300,000 km - the rest of the S, as far as I know, is what makes the car depreciate. We'll see how the 3s do - BIL has one and has had no issues in the first 50k miles. <4 cents per mile so far for him to drive it (admittedly high entry cost, but he's an early adopter). He's got a round trip commute that is between 90 and 120 miles a day (and has continued to work on site throughout covid -that commute is why he got a battery car in the first place). 

That said, I understand that batteries to be the pollution issue that most argue against. I also think it's odd that the argument is always against a static battery technology (both in cost and pollution). Lithium looks like it will be replaced by sodium at some point in the future for lower energy density use (garbage trucks, etc), and who knows what else will change. In 2010, li-ion batteries were $1183/kwhr according to the googlemonster. $153 last year. Not sure what they were this year, but I heard $120 is a near term target. 

I do recall criticism that tesla would never turn a profit because of the loss on the batteries. Now they're considering lowering the price of the model Y in china where it's locally made (i'm sure it's cheaper to make there) and some of the chinese companies are folding on making competing models because they can't make cars profitably at levels that tesla can).

Things change - here in the states, pac. gas wants to get even gas applicances out of houses as I guess grid powered electric appliances pollute less. I didnt' read further into that but would imagine it has something to do with gas not completely burned by appliances. 

Can't be that long before we call cars up on an app, anyway.


----------



## Rorschach

My understanding was that it isn't jus the CO2 factor (where there may well be a break even at around 60k or something), it was the environmental damage caused by the lithium mining.


----------



## Droogs

You're out of date on that score as well R. VAG, Tesla and Merc are using less damaging sources of Li and are using only 20% of the amount of Cobalt and falling of what just Shell alone use annually to produce your dead dinousaur juice. You are onto a losers argument. You are our Donald when it comes to facts


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> You're out of date on that score as well R. VAG, Tesla and Merc are using less damaging sources of Li and are using only 20% of the amount of Cobalt and falling of what just Shell alone use annually to produce your dead dinousaur juice. You are onto a losers argument. You are our Donald when it comes to facts



Alright if you say so.

Just to see if you will disagree with everything I say, did you know the Earth revolves around the sun?


----------



## Droogs

No it revolves around it's axis and orbits around the sun 
 .


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> No it revolves around it's axis and orbits around the sun
> .



You sure your name isn't Roger?

The Earth rotates around its axis and revolves around the Sun  (edit: just for clarification for others, I am sure you already knew that)


----------



## Droogs

Yes, I am sure. I just hate the fallacies people put out about BEVs and the technology. If you really do want to know more about it a great place to start is the "fullycharged" channel on youtube


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> My understanding was that it isn't jus the CO2 factor (where there may well be a break even at around 60k or something), it was the environmental damage caused by the lithium mining.



Right, there is some cost to the cobalt and the lithium, but it is less now than it was half a decade ago. Depending on who is writing the article, pollution will be counted based on current technology (EV defenders) or figures from half a decade or a decade ago (pretty much anyone else). 

Just as the prius and hummer study appears to have done - find out what numbers are needed and then go backwards until they're reached. Once the conclusion is dumb, post, anyway. 

I don't know how many times I've heard that a prius pollutes more than a full sized truck or whatever else due to the batteries (which are not significant in the pre PHEV priuses). 

Progress is a little slower on diesel and gasoline cars. The govt here has generally decided that diesel isn't worth pursuing further for passenger cars. Not because of carbon, but because of other pollution. I used to think this was a stupid thing, but the reality is that a gas hybrid car in the states generally matches a diesel car pretty easily and at about the same initial cost. Diesel is usually higher in price here, too. 

And the race to have the most powerful pickup truck (along with emissions controls) has left us with a bunch of overpowered and inefficient diesel pickups that only make economic sense in a business.


----------



## Droogs

@Rorschach don't worry, I'd still lend you a chisel if you needed it


----------



## billw

Rorschach said:


> You sure your name isn't Roger?
> 
> The Earth rotates around it's it's axis and revolves around the Sun  (edit: just for clarification for others, I am sure you already knew that)



its


----------



## Droogs

Never said I was perfect billw. I know I'm the worlds worst pedant. Great at grammar and unfortunately pants at spelling


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> @Rorschach don't worry, I'd still lend you a chisel if you needed it



I'd never dare borrow a chisel from anyone.


----------



## Rorschach

billw said:


> its


 
Damn predictive text. Corrected, thanks.


----------



## Droogs

Oh I didn't say it would be one of my good ones


----------



## Trainee neophyte

D_W said:


> You know what lowers emissions? Poverty. It may not make for clean water, but it sure does lower personal consumption


Precisely why I mentioned the World Economic Forum (you may know them as the nice billionaire's club who get together at Davos and plan how the proles should be controlled). If you are of a cynical turn of mind, they seem to be selling the benefits of making the world population much, much poorer. Do we think your average billionaire will include himself in this reduction in status/power/wealth?

I'm all for buying locally as a choice; not so much if it is an enforced, top-down planned economic necessity. Having your freedom to travel restricted by government decree or enforced technology ban is something to ponder on, as will be your ability to buy food or anything else that currently arrives by diesel powered truck. If we really have hit peak oil (ie we have extracted all the cheap oil, and the only oil left uses too much energy to extract to make it economically viable to use), then market forces will make the change to other energy sources as necessary. If not, then central planning will do what central planning always does - rob the majority for the benefit of a select few. 

It all comes down to _available net _energy - how much you have left after extracting and transporting your energy to the point of use. Electric cars cars are great, but how did you generate the electricity, what were the losses, and what is the overall net energy profit? Solar panels seem to use roughly as much energy to create as they produce in their lifetime, and windmills aren't much better. Liquid fossil fuels are truly astonishing in their energy content, because you have millions of years of sunshine, followed by more millions of years of gravity, heat and pressure from the planet, all available at pump number 4 at your local Tescos, with a Mars Bar for snackage if you want one. Very hard to compete with fossil fuel in energy terms, and the switch away from them will make everyone poorer. No one seems to want to address this.

Should you want to get your teeth into the calculations: ERoEI for Beginners


----------



## clogs

hear, ....hear...... aptly put Mr Neophyte


----------



## alex_heney

Rorschach said:


> That's impressive but not indicative of EV's at large and of course you have something that not everyone has, a driveway.


It is 100% indicative of EV's at large in the medium to long term.

It will be absolutely the norm for new Evs being sold by the time new ICEs are banned.


----------



## billw

I suppose one effect of weaning cars off fossil fuels is that it means there's a longer window of supply that can go to aviation, since electric aircraft aren't arriving any time soon.


----------



## Rorschach

billw said:


> I suppose one effect of weaning cars off fossil fuels is that it means there's a longer window of supply that can go to aviation, since electric aircraft aren't arriving any time soon.



Except that the cost will go up massively since there won't be such a demand for the products of refining.

Not that we will be able to fly by then anyway, it will be deemed too dangerous too travel and there won't be any airlines left anyway.


----------



## AJB Temple

Hmmm. I think electric aircraft will appear much more widely before too long. This does not necessarily mean that fossil fuels will not be consumed on board to generate electrical power for the motors (there has been recent media coverage of this), but electric replacements for turbofans are being developed. 

No 1 offspring is doing a masters in aerospace and aeronautical engineering at one of the hotspots for advanced tech (graphene development and so on) and electric aircraft propulsion systems are very much on the curriculum. Much quieter, more efficient, more reliable, cheaper to build, less catastrophic in failure.


----------



## NikNak

Has anyone out there got a BEV _and_ solar panels _and or_ a powerwall/powerbank/powervault..?

AJB i'd love to hear more about your experiences of running your EV. I'm looking to change and would lurrrvv a Tesla unfortunately my pockets aren't deep enough. I've test driven the Niro 4+ ev and omg what an experience..!!


----------



## Droogs

If you are looking for a practical and affordable normal car with a range that will cover most of what you do without recharge during the trip, then have a look below. 









MG5 EV | Electric Car | MG Motor UK


The MG5 EV offers space, 214 miles of electric range and modern electric car features, available in the Excite and Exclusive models. Book your test drive today.




mg.co.uk


----------



## NikNak

Droogs... i've read your previous input and was very impressed


----------



## Tris

I like the look of that MG, reading around it looks like something I could realistically replace our main car with for 95% of the time.

As an aside, has anyone towed with an EV and how has range been affected?


----------



## ScaredyCat

We shouldn't be too concerned, right about now we should be getting jetpacks, right?


----------



## MorrisWoodman12

Trainee neophyte said:


> It all comes down to _available net _energy - how much you have left after extracting and transporting your energy to the point of use. Electric cars cars are great, but how did you generate the electricity, what were the losses, and what is the overall net energy profit? Solar panels seem to use roughly as much energy to create as they produce in their lifetime, and windmills aren't much better. Liquid fossil fuels are truly astonishing in their energy content, because you have millions of years of sunshine, followed by more millions of years of gravity, heat and pressure from the planet, all available at pump number 4 at your local Tescos, with a Mars Bar for snackage if you want one. Very hard to compete with fossil fuel in energy terms, and the switch away from them will make everyone poorer. No one seems to want to address this.
> 
> Should you want to get your teeth into the calculations: ERoEI for Beginners



I haven't read all the pages of this thread, just from page 29, but only Mr Neophyte has touched on what seems to me to be the crux of the matter. Energy doesn't come for free. The raw material is either converted to a petrol/diesel liquid form and used in our vehicles locally or used to generate electricity centrally and distributed to the end user's vehicle. Either way it is still using our valuable resources. Yes, YES, I hear you shouting about solar and wind and wave energy but for the immediate future they are still a small percentage of our total energy needs. In the meantime we are arguing about whether EV is better than IC for the planet when we need to reduce our energy usage. 

Just my two penny worth of opinion. 
Martin


----------



## Bodone

We have Golf Ev and Diesel car. Other half does about 10k a year and all sub 80 mile round trips so the golf's range is ideal. I do 20k to 25k a year with a couple of 300 mile round trips a week, hence the oil burner.

ICE/BEV mix works for us and we're lucky to be able to have the choice. I did look for 300 mile range BEV's, but technology/cost not there yet. When it is and if we can afford it, we'll make the change.

So many lobbyists and think tanks and political bullshit around the whole EV subject. Especially when it comes to something as emotive as personal transport and it being positioned for decades as an example of personal freedom.


----------



## Droogs

@MorrisWoodman12 I honestly do think that no one would dispute the argument that we should use less resources and energy. It is how to do that as efficiently and as pollution free as possible that is in dispute. To me it boils down to a few simple basic arguments/responsibilities each generation has. 
The first is: do we the current generation of planetary tenants have any sort of duty to pass on a planet that is livable on or indeed comfortabe and productive to live on to the following generations. Well that boils down to the big question - what is the purpose of life other than to beget life.
Are we morally responsible to the following generations as to how good a life they can live within their environment or can we do what we like regardless, once we know the effects of what we do and how we do it. Personally, I (due to circumstance) have no foot in the game at all. It matters not one jot to my genealogy if those to come survive or not and how they do so. For my genealogical line, I am the endling. But do I still have that moral duty to provide as good a life to those to come as those before did for me. Lets us face it our parents et al did what they did in the belief that it would provide us with a better future. Yes they have given us a material life unsurpassed in human history (as we know it) but their ignorance or for some greed has produced a situation where we are at the last dance of the ball . Are we going to sit on the sides and watch as it all fades away or will we stand up and try the last tango in Paris in the hope that the girl gives us a kiss and we pull a future together out of the bag. One that will be of benefit to those still to come.
So do we have a moral duty to take matters into our hands and forgo our selfishness for "our" children or can we just do what we want and to hell with everyone else?

The second is if we do take the steps needed how best to do this and are we prepared to sacrifice some of our comfort, ease and lets admit it our laziness for those that follow. It appears that through history the trend has been yes parents do this mostly going by past experience by taking up arms to defend what they believe and have or to defend those who can't defend themselves out of a compunction form moral duty. But we are living in a time where the self and its pleasures seem to be more important. Just take a look at the cowpats being thrown about what is needed for covid's defeat and impact prevention. If we as a species do this for the survival not of the planet (mother nature doesn't give a flying fig about our continuing existence) but for our own survival then the has to be a paradigm shift in our attitude about what is acceptable not about that which is merely convenient.
Thirdly we know the technology we have been using to power the industrial and following revolutions has basically knackered the planet with regard to our comfortable survival and are now collectively in Trump mode about admitting what we need to do and using the same tactics and arguments exercises that he does. We are on the verge of having the technology to help us but in order for it to work effectively now, we must make changes to our practices and thinking that we may be uncomfortable with for what ever reason, be it laziness, luditeness, ignorance or just plain stubborness. But change we must if our children are to have a future that is not some dystopian Orwellian nightmare.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Wind power in the UK has grown from 2.7% of total energy in 2010 to 21% in the past year - a growth of ~800%. To increase this by (say) 300% or more over the next 10 years is plausible - albeit with significant investment.

There are issues - energy storage when the wind fails to blow, finding acceptable sites etc - these are problems which need a solution; not a reason never to start the journey.

What is abundantly clear is that fossil fuels, the outcome of millions of years of geological process, are being consumed at a rate massively in excess of the rate at which they are being naturally replaced. They will become increasingly scarce and expensive - the only real unknown being timing.

There are overwhelming reasons for leading the transition to alternative energy sources - economy, jobs, environment, and in the medium term, energy cost. Failure to try will leave the UK trailing competitor countries, reliant on imported technology and knowledge about how best to generate and manage energy consumption.


----------



## Droogs

Engergy storage can be provided by the vehicles that are parked and plugged in all over the country in times of need and you will be paid by the grid to provide it. You do not need to have uber massive btty sites though they would help as well


----------



## Droogs

For a sensible intro to BEs watch this and go from there


----------



## D_W

Trainee neophyte said:


> Precisely why I mentioned the World Economic Forum (you may know them as the nice billionaire's club who get together at Davos and plan how the proles should be controlled). If you are of a cynical turn of mind, they seem to be selling the benefits of making the world population much, much poorer. Do we think your average billionaire will include himself in this reduction in status/power/wealth?
> 
> I'm all for buying locally as a choice; not so much if it is an enforced, top-down planned economic necessity. Having your freedom to travel restricted by government decree or enforced technology ban is something to ponder on, as will be your ability to buy food or anything else that currently arrives by diesel powered truck. If we really have hit peak oil (ie we have extracted all the cheap oil, and the only oil left uses too much energy to extract to make it economically viable to use), then market forces will make the change to other energy sources as necessary. If not, then central planning will do what central planning always does - rob the majority for the benefit of a select few.
> 
> It all comes down to _available net _energy - how much you have left after extracting and transporting your energy to the point of use. Electric cars cars are great, but how did you generate the electricity, what were the losses, and what is the overall net energy profit? Solar panels seem to use roughly as much energy to create as they produce in their lifetime, and windmills aren't much better. Liquid fossil fuels are truly astonishing in their energy content, because you have millions of years of sunshine, followed by more millions of years of gravity, heat and pressure from the planet, all available at pump number 4 at your local Tescos, with a Mars Bar for snackage if you want one. Very hard to compete with fossil fuel in energy terms, and the switch away from them will make everyone poorer. No one seems to want to address this.
> 
> Should you want to get your teeth into the calculations: ERoEI for Beginners



Natural gas and nuclear are common here. Makes for a good combination with battery powered cars (nat gas is local. This is a coal area, too, but the mines are closing because gas is cheaper and obviously better for the air). 

As far as the global planner clubs - not a fan of those folks at all. Sounds like a club where they'd fly in private jets to the meeting and then chide people for setting the A/C down a degree. And then dance around things like unclean animal meat markets in China that generate respiratory viruses or "Spanish flus". 

We don't have much solar here - the factor is poor, but the idea that panels take more to make than they generate sounds outdated. A 250 watt panel is now $200 at retail here. I doubt it costs more than $100 to make, which would include the energy, but even if you count the retail price and ignore margins (to cover transportation and delivery cost), those panels generate about $50 a year of electricity here at generation rates and double that at transmitted rates (we pay about the same amount for distribution as generation - and we're retail customers). I calculate that a 250kw panel here generates around 1.5 kw/hr a day throughout the year (about 1.5 times that south of here), which would be around $85-$100 a year in net distributed generation (again, half that for utility generation cost without distribution). 

I see 250 watt cosmetic damage solar panels guaranteed to work for $39 shipped on ebay right now (I have a yard full of trees, though - otherwise, I'd think about installing solar here on my own and paying an electrician only for grid hook up).


----------



## billw

Aren’t Rolls Royce gearing up to make a load of nuclear reactors? Sure I heard that on the news. I’m sure they’re not intended for a new range of cars (yes I know cars isn’t part of RR any more).


----------



## clogs

generally I know we are waiting for the next jump in techno......Graphene/batteries etc.....

personally I'd love to have an EV to replace my aging VW T4, 1999......but a rlike for like replacemnt would cost around €60,000......no way mate....
the price is a premium because of "fashion"....for me it woud suit even with a 200 mile drive limit on charge...
Being in industry this vehicle should cost less than 1/2 still giving everyone a good living.....
so for now I'll keep my old'un.....it has been rebuilt mechanically and no rust to worry about.....
if fuel oil runs out she is old enough to run on chip fat (veggy oil, plenty of chip shops here).....

Living in a sunny climate I'd be happy to have elec solar panels on the roof but *D_W* here in Europe we get robbed by overpriced gear.....
it is NOT a free market here......and one person just can't import products for a good price.....
plus it's dificult to find info on what is the best product manufacturer....always scared of buying a Lemon.....I have tried....
be my luck to buy a set of panels then a week later the upgrade apears.....dohhhh.....
Not sure but even the Germans supposidly import panels from China.....?????

Now solar farms are useful but why oh why don't they make em so sheep and other animals can graze underneath the panels...
they just need longer legs (panels not the animals) and protection for cableing.....cant be hard....but the instalation has to be CHEAP.....
2 for the price of 1.....

Solar water heating I have and it works pretty well for over 300 days of the year.....average cost here is around €1500 for a mid range set up.....
300 ltr hot water tank....
the same unit will cost over €4,000 in France and I have no idea on cost in the UK (been abroad for a very long time).....
Surley a reasonable priced unit fitted to everyone's house where suitable would benefit everyone....
even being tax free would help, but those in power need their tax money to waste on other project....HS2 for one....
again nobody is thinking of the future....

Lastley I've seen these solar farms where the sunshine is directed at a tower producing a super heated salt solution for the prod of elec.........
anyone know how efficient they are....? 
did hear that the oil producers were considering cableing up the planet and then sell that to us instead of oil....mmmmm......dont think so....
but Graphene etc could help make it poss.....
here in Crete elec is totally produce using OIL.....

I think lots of little things could help the planet if those in power were really interested.....back to greed again....


----------



## Rorschach

Given todays announcement, I wonder when the best time to buy a new/newer car will be to get best value for money/lifetime out of it?


----------



## Spectric

Hi 

I hope the chancellor and government can find new jobs for all those displaced from the automotive and gas industries. It takes a lot of people to develop a combustion engine compared to an electric motor. Then they still want to pursue the nuclear option, thats never going to be green due to handling and storage of the byproducts that hang around for millenium.


----------



## billw

Rorschach said:


> Given todays announcement, I wonder when the best time to buy a new/newer car will be to get best value for money/lifetime out of it?



31 December 2029?


----------



## beech1948

I've been wondering what the Gov'mt should do...I mean really useful actions not ban petrol/diesel by 2030.

Step one would be to get the EV industry people to standardise on battery type, shape and fitting as well as all the associated electronic control gubbins. Once standardised in sizes of say 30Kw, 50Kw, 75Kw , 100Kw and maybe 120 or more Kw sizes then users would get to choose which they wanted to afford.

At present ALL of the EV batteries are proprietary and designed to fit for one car only. Thus manufacturers can decide how much battery life you will get and at what costs. So the poor old buyer is forced into the difficult balance of costs between car and battery size and thus range.

Standard batteries would also cause a rapid simplification and standardisation of charger plugs.

Cars might become commodities and cheaper. After all who cares if they dive a Golf, Maserarti or Rolls Royce. A range of similar types of vehicle would be fine. I of course will keep my old Porche 911.


----------



## billw

Spectric said:


> Hi
> 
> I hope the chancellor and government can find new jobs for all those displaced from the automotive and gas industries. It takes a lot of people to develop a combustion engine compared to an electric motor. Then they still want to pursue the nuclear option, thats never going to be green due to handling and storage of the byproducts that hang around for millenium.



Well how much displacement will there be? The vast majority of the vehicle will remain as is, it still needs an engine albeit a different and simpler one, still has a gearbox. KInda tough on the manufacturer of fuel tanks I suppose.

There will still be engineers working on new technologies in the engine department.

I mean sure I'm not denying there will be change, but jobs will come and jobs will go just the same as they have over the decades as technology and lifestyles evolve.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

ScaredyCat said:


> Personal transport isn't going away anytime soon - or even remotely soon-ish.



It's interesting to 'hear' you 'say' that. I live in a relatively rural area. I have a small collection of aerial photos from the end of the war to today. Comparing my village in the 1940's to now on these photos - the difference is striking - most houses had a footpath at the front, from the front door to the road, now they have multiple cars/vans parked.

I think that car ownership has grown hugely in the last fifty years or so - and has enabled people to live/work in ways which would not have been considered sensible/feasible a generation or two ago. The railways had a similar effect - and Covid has made many people realize that 'commuting' isn't quite as 'necessary' as people once thought.

I think that local retail may see a resurgence. Of course, now we all have come to think of a car as being indispensable, it will be harder to put the genie back in the bottle, but it really just needs a different way of thinking/living.


----------



## Rorschach

I would say it's not as simple as working from home and having a local shop though. Families are more spread out and people are much more used to travelling not just for shopping but for leisure activities as well. 
Londoners probably won't notice any change (likely why the London centric government is coming up with this stuff) but the majority of people don't live in London.


----------



## Spectric

billw said:


> Well how much displacement will there be? The vast majority of the vehicle will remain as is, it still needs an engine albeit a different and simpler one, still has a gearbox. KInda tough on the manufacturer of fuel tanks I suppose.



The difference will be enormous, where I used to work there were many engine dyno's running 24/7 to design, develope and calibrate powertrains, large teams working on everything from cylinder head design to engine dynamics and auxilaries. Once you go electric most of these positions cease because you do end up with just a motor, no clutch or gearbox and the only area that will be needed is probably the electronics for control. If you look under the bonnet of a current car and then imagine its got an electric motor you will see what can be discarded.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

It's funny how in many other countries, all the young people want to live and work in a city and see the countryside as 'backward'. In the UK we seem to have the opposite notion - everyone seems to dream of living 'in the country' - in fact we, to an ever increasing extent, end up with an American-style car-enabled-suburbia (the worst of all possible worlds!).


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Society in the UK (and probably much of the developed world) has evolved to embed cheap flexible personal transport as the enabler of social interaction, jobs, shopping, leisure, family, schooling etc.

Reversing the process will not be quick or easy.

For city dwellers the economics could work in favour of a transition to public transport, driverless pods on demand, e-bikes etc. 

In rural areas distances are longer, and user volumes smaller, Personal mobility will continue to be a necessity for most.


----------



## Benchwayze

Let's hope the powers that be can first sort out the massive infrastructure required, to go along with this switch to alternative propulsion. If the Covid crisis is anything to go by then heaven help is!

John


----------



## Rorschach

billw said:


> 31 December 2029?



Any sensible answers?

It's clear that ICE vehicles will be around for many years after 2030. From an environmental standpoint it makes sense to make your ICE vehicle last as long as economically viable. 
My current car is 13 years old and realistically has another 5 years in it maybe. I am thinking it might make sense to buy a new ICE in say 2025/6 and then hopefully get 15 years out of it by which point I might be able to afford to buy a new or nearly new EV.


----------



## Droogs

Why not buy a 2nd hand BEV instead of a _*new *_ICE car. That is the environmental thing to do, not add the the guff we already breathe in. Bur we al know R and where your priorities lie. The £  is far superior and more important than the lb


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> Why not buy a 2nd hand BEV instead of a _*new *_ICE car. That is the environmental thing to do, not add the the guff we already breathe in. Bur we al know R and where your priorities lie. The £  is far superior and more important than the lb



It depends whether a 2nd hand BEV is affordable or practical for our needs at the time, if it is then I would consider it of course but at the moment no BEV being produced is suitable for us, so unlikely something 2nd hand will be available in a few years time.
I say new ICE, it would likely have to be 2nd hand but as new as possible.

It would be nice to have no £ worries as you seem to, unfortunately the £ is very important when you don't have very many of them to spare and you need to make them go as far as possible for you.


----------



## TRITON

Down with fossil fuels.

There I've said it.

A bit oldie worldie these days as tech moves ever forward. And not just the pollution side which we just cannot ignore any ore.

coal, oil etc are there but like all energy production, they cost money to extract.
Solar, wind and wave power are in their infancy, so we cant demonize then, and there have been big advances as billions goes into research. Back to 1.5ah battery drills 
EVERYTHING starts expensive and then filters down to less and less. £10 for a mobile anyone. Original price of the first mobiles were $3,995.

Wind seems the best, and if it spoils the landscape then sorry thats the price, which is considerably less and less damaging than a smog soup.
Once that infrastructure is up, and investment pretty much covered the price will come down.
Well maybe not in the UK which lfleeces its citizens for everything, but I recklon theres an election winner out there once E vehicles become the norm.


----------



## Bodone

Most BEV's do use common cells from panasonic, samsung etc. They will then package them depending on their use, vehicle architecture etc and customise the control system to achieve/meet their requirements. Whether they be performance or marketing based.

Much of the energy was/is going into keeping the pack at optimum condition. Think cold temp start, heater, usb, wipers, lights, massive draw on energy from cold. On the golf we see 150 miles range in summer and it drop to nearer 100mile range in winter. Not tested how accurate as very conscious of not going beyond 80% capacity draw down.

The differing charge connectors are a ball ache, but once you know which ones are compatible, the app or just the signage makes it clear what can go where. Sometimes you may have to pre-plan, but thats a learning thing. We'll plan around the 'free' chargers, ie park at tesco charging points and do the family shop. Not going to be feasible post 2030 me thinks, or much sooner.

Tesla was using standard cells but are developing their own, probably as a marketing exercise and to give them some bargaining power as the big traditional brands ramp up and pre buy all available cell capacity.


----------



## Felix

There are other factors that come into play on this whole electric car thing. They are definitely the way to go, but going totally electric from the start is a bad idea. Ideally I think that all vehicles should be hybrid for a period of at least 10yrs after the change-over deadline, and there should be the capability of removing the diesel/petrol side of the fuel system after the 10yr transition period.

Can you imagine how many people in electric only vehicles will get themselves unintentionally stranded on motorways or in rural/remote areas without any form of propulsion? Hybrid vehicles with, say for example, should be fitted with a 2 gallon auxilliary fuel tank (that could only be used in emergency) to get them out of trouble.

Vehicles should be able to generate a significant amount of the energy required to recharge the batteries whilst they are moving. Micro wind turbines, electricity generated from wheel rotation (like a generator - but there might be weight issues there and the obvious braking dilemma!!)

After all this recharging how will the inevitable 'mountain' of dead batteries be dealt with? I guess they will be heading for India or Africa.

At the moment there are approximately 38.4 licensed vehicles on the road in the UK. If 10% of those owners suddenly bought an electric vehicle there would be carnage. There would certainly not be enough infrastructure to support them. I thought the idea was to reduce the number of vehicles on the road not change the type of fuel they use.

A better public transport system is a very good option - but do you think any government wants an all singing - all dancing public transport system where the number of vehicles on the road was significantly reduced - I doubt it - imagine the massive reduction in revenue for the treasury coffers. That money would have to be recouped elsewhere - and guess who's going to pay? They might talk the talk - but they definitely do not walk the walk.

I think diesel/petrol vehicles will be around for quite some time yet.....long after I'm gone.....and you just know that whatever government is in charge at the time they will - as sure as eggs is eggs - screw it up......

Oh - and don't forget - once they've got you hooked on electricity - AND THERE'S NO OTHER FUEL ALTERNATIVE - you know what's going to happen to the price....... and I meant that pun .....


----------



## billw

Just as an aside, it;s been a few years since I visited Germany, but I am sure some of the autobahn had overhead wires on the inside lane for trucks to draw power much like trains do. Obviously this doesn't stop them overtaking because they can use their battery power before switching back to the grid.

Who knows - maybe all motorways will be eventually fitted with similar tech!


----------



## Droogs

dodgems - yay


----------



## clogs

there's also a big problem with old fuel to worry about......
the rubbish they add to petrol atracts water and rot's everything it touches......
Ur Hybrid with old fuel still wont run properly.....
aslo...
if the likes of the fuel companies didn't buy up all the patents for better engines would we be so far down this messy road....?


----------



## Droogs

Rorschach said:


> It depends whether a 2nd hand BEV is affordable or practical for our needs at the time, if it is then I would consider it of course but at the moment no BEV being produced is suitable for us, so unlikely something 2nd hand will be available in a few years time.
> I say new ICE, it would likely have to be 2nd hand but as new as possible.
> 
> It would be nice to have no £ worries as you seem to, unfortunately the £ is very important when you don't have very many of them to spare and you need to make them go as far as possible for you.


Sadly its not my situation at all mate. I have been unable to work since last November and been stuck in the house due to illness it is only in the last few months I have been allowed outside. I had planned on getting a new EV for business (PHV) but alas, I am still stuck with my 16 year old Kia. it has done very little this year. But even though I can't afford the car I want, I am trying to get there and doing so while encouraging others to learn more so they can make an informed choice


----------



## billw

Droogs said:


> dodgems - yay



Haha - no but the point is that long-distance journeys don't drain the battery, meaning you can go on a motorway without it counting towards your range - unless you're one of those idiots who change lanes every 30 seconds.


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> Sadly its not my situation at all mate. I have been unable to work since last November and been stuck in the house due to illness it is only in the last few months I have been allowed outside. I had planned on getting a new EV for business (PHV) but alas, I am still stuck with my 16 year old Kia. it has done very little this year. But even though I can't afford the car I want, I am trying to get there and doing so while encouraging others to learn more so they can make an informed choice



I am sorry to hear that.


----------



## Sandyn

beech1948 said:


> I've been wondering what the Gov'mt should do...I mean really useful actions not ban petrol/diesel by 2030.
> 
> Step one would be to get the EV industry people to standardise on battery type, shape and fitting as well as all the associated electronic control gubbins. Once standardised in sizes of say 30Kw, 50Kw, 75Kw , 100Kw and maybe 120 or more Kw sizes then users would get to choose which they wanted to afford.
> 
> At present ALL of the EV batteries are proprietary and designed to fit for one car only. Thus manufacturers can decide how much battery life you will get and at what costs. So the poor old buyer is forced into the difficult balance of costs between car and battery size and thus range.
> 
> Standard batteries would also cause a rapid simplification and standardisation of charger plugs.
> 
> Cars might become commodities and cheaper. After all who cares if they dive a Golf, Maserarti or Rolls Royce. A range of similar types of vehicle would be fine. I of course will keep my old Porche 911.



I just cannot believe that we are starting this 'new' technology without standardisation of batteries. What a missed opportunity. Manufacturers could still have their proprietary technology, but the same fit for all vehicles. It would also stimulate aftermarket battery supply to reduce costs, but manufacturers don't want that.


----------



## D_W

clogs said:


> Lastley I've seen these solar farms where the sunshine is directed at a tower producing a super heated salt solution for the prod of elec.........
> anyone know how efficient they are....?
> did hear that the oil producers were considering cableing up the planet and then sell that to us instead of oil....mmmmm......dont think so....
> but Graphene etc could help make it poss.....
> here in Crete elec is totally produce using OIL.....
> 
> I think lots of little things could help the planet if those in power were really interested.....back to greed again....



Bummer on the lack of competition - but you're likely right about Germans and panels. The chinese economy is notorious for copying and undercutting, but my understanding from a decade ago was that they were already innovating on solar panels, which is why a prior political scheme to subsidize solar manufacturing here (under the idea that if you could just subsidize it to start, it would become competitive against a place that works for wages at a 10th of ours here and regulatory oversight far less) was so dumb. 

Germany is notorious in the US for advertising their engineering and then giving us south american or mexican-made versions (of cars, for example) when they wouldn't dream of owning the trash that they make in lower cost markets. VWs, for example, are utter garbage here - I can say that with too much experience. Apparently, in Germany, they are better (made locally there and look the same as the mexico-made cars that we get). I doubt they're as good as a toyota of the same range, but everything made by VW/Audi is worse here, but delivered with the same stuck up "german engineering" ad copy. 

Back to the panels - every panel I've seen in the last decade has been of chinese make. The US manufacturers are out of business or mostly out and I haven't heard of any issues with the panels (they are dirt cheap here - the machine that installs them, a combination of commercial leasing, etc, and securitization of leases - that machine adds huge overhead, but the cheapness of the equipment makes it possible). An example of something they do here is to put together panel packages, get history of your use and then offer a contract to install solar at the same price you're already paying for electricity. The equipment cost is around $6k, but the installed cost with financing is about 4x that. The customers have no clue, all they see is a contract to go to solar generation without a change in their cost of electricity....

...i'm in the weeds, that's not germane to England. The only reason I mention it is that someone with a little bit of foresight here can install for slightly over the $6k level and be economically better off pretty quickly IF they live somewhere favorable. Most open space in the US is favorable enough. 

The tower you talk about, I believe those are molten salt type thermal generation plants. There's one in the southwest US and I'm not sure about their efficiency, but I think they were based on the idea that mirrors were cheaper than panels in harvesting the sun's energy, and in theory, the molten salt can be heated and used to generate steam whenever there is demand. I haven't seen any or many more built, and apparently, the energy focused by the mirrors kills birds. 

With the right design here, maybe there's some synergy for KFC franchises to fry chickens for free with a power contract!!

(the solar thermal installations were popular here years ago - for hot water. Most of them went into disrepair as it costs me about $12 a month to pay for the natural gas to heat my water. Vacuum tube installations showed up then in rural areas when panels were more expensive, but I think cheap panels have just about killed most of the other small scale solar and wind popularity. 

A relative of mine got a 10 kw windmill back in the 1970s when that was trendy, but lives in an area with bad wind (he's deceased now), paid to build a 90 foot tower for the turbine, and was rewarded by a machine that was often broken. It's not enticing to have something that is less than economically feasible (at that time), not turning that often due to wind, and then broken most of the rest of the time with the promise of having to go to the top of a 90 foot tower to fetch it. 

He was a bit of a nut and had a separate 3 leg 199 foot tower (the legal limit here before lights are required) to use two way radios for his business before cell phones became cheap. I'm not normal, and I guess my relatives aren't, either.


----------



## DBT85

bowmaster said:


> There are other factors that come into play on this whole electric car thing. They are definitely the way to go, but going totally electric from the start is a bad idea. Ideally I think that all vehicles should be hybrid for a period of at least 10yrs after the change-over deadline, and there should be the capability of removing the diesel/petrol side of the fuel system after the 10yr transition period.
> 
> Can you imagine how many people in electric only vehicles will get themselves unintentionally stranded on motorways or in rural/remote areas without any form of propulsion? Hybrid vehicles with, say for example, should be fitted with a 2 gallon auxilliary fuel tank (that could only be used in emergency) to get them out of trouble.
> 
> Vehicles should be able to generate a significant amount of the energy required to recharge the batteries whilst they are moving. Micro wind turbines, electricity generated from wheel rotation (like a generator - but there might be weight issues there and the obvious braking dilemma!!)
> 
> After all this recharging how will the inevitable 'mountain' of dead batteries be dealt with? I guess they will be heading for India or Africa.
> 
> At the moment there are approximately 38.4 licensed vehicles on the road in the UK. If 10% of those owners suddenly bought an electric vehicle there would be carnage. There would certainly not be enough infrastructure to support them. I thought the idea was to reduce the number of vehicles on the road not change the type of fuel they use.
> 
> A better public transport system is a very good option - but do you think any government wants an all singing - all dancing public transport system where the number of vehicles on the road was significantly reduced - I doubt it - imagine the massive reduction in revenue for the treasury coffers. That money would have to be recouped elsewhere - and guess who's going to pay? They might talk the talk - but they definitely do not walk the walk.
> 
> I think diesel/petrol vehicles will be around for quite some time yet.....long after I'm gone.....and you just know that whatever government is in charge at the time they will - as sure as eggs is eggs - screw it up......
> 
> Oh - and don't forget - once they've got you hooked on electricity - AND THERE'S NO OTHER FUEL ALTERNATIVE - you know what's going to happen to the price....... and I meant that pun .....



The transition from fully ICE to fully electric only in NEW cars is going to have taken nearly 20 years by the time 2030 rolls around and even then, people will still be able to buy ICE only cars well into the 2040s on the used market. There is literally no need for anyone to feel forced into buying an electric car until probably 2045, at which point the majority of the people driving will have been born after 1980. A generation that has grown up with battery anxiety in everything from laptops to phones.

Adding tiny aux fuel tanks and the equipment to the car in order to generate power from that fuel is pointless, complex, drivers the price up and the rate of adoption down (because the price goes up).

Micro wind turbines do not work on a vehicle you need to propel with its own electricity because you're using more energy to turn the turbine than it can ever hope to produce. Regenerative braking is already a thing which recovers energy while slowing down while also maintaining "real" brakes just in case.

The lithium in these batteries are all recyclable and over the next few years manufacturers will be getting end of life batteries from their cars which can all be processed and made into new batteries. Most will be made into even more efficient batteries than they were originally as the technology has evolved.

On the subject of everyone suddenly going out and buying an electric car. It doesn't happen. Worrying about it is like worrying about all of the banks suddenly closing and running away with all of the worlds money. By the time 2030 rolls around the market will have gradually started adding more and more electric vehicles as manufacturers wind down on producing ICE versions. So the ramp up in energy demand will be granular. It's also not like everyone will be plugging in at the same time. With supermarkets, offices, etc all adding power points, charging isn't going to all be condensed to the 3 minute ad break in Corrie like it is when everyone puts the kettle on.



Sandyn said:


> I just cannot believe that we are starting this 'new' technology without standardisation of batteries. What a missed opportunity. Manufacturers could still have their proprietary technology, but the same fit for all vehicles. It would also stimulate aftermarket battery supply to reduce costs, but manufacturers don't want that.


The problem is the market is in its infancy still, as is the technology. In addition, a new standard will only be a standard until someone invents a new one. Tesla did try to offer their technology around but nobody was interested.

What would be nice is if there was a standard plug (though I think adapters exist for them all) and an actually useful real world test of mileage. We've spent decades being lied to about a new cars consumption became the test they performed was a) pathetic and b) easily cheated to boost the results.


----------



## MusicMan

Trainee neophyte said:


> It all comes down to _available net _energy - how much you have left after extracting and transporting your energy to the point of use. Electric cars cars are great, but how did you generate the electricity, what were the losses, and what is the overall net energy profit? Solar panels seem to use roughly as much energy to create as they produce in their lifetime, and windmills aren't much better.
> 
> Should you want to get your teeth into the calculations: ERoEI for Beginners



No this is wrong. Wind power with big turbines produces their manufacturing energy in less than a year, Silicon solar cells are not so good but manage 3 - 5 years to repay their energy, and they have a lifetime of 20 - 25 years.

I haven't checked the ERoEI site but I did the sums and research when I was chief engineer of a solar energy company about 10 years ago.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

MusicMan said:


> No this is wrong. Wind power with big turbines produces their manufacturing energy in less than a year, Silicon solar cells are not so good but manage 3 - 5 years to repay their energy, and they have a lifetime of 20 - 25 years.
> 
> I haven't checked the ERoEI site but I did the sums and research when I was chief engineer of a solar energy company about 10 years ago.


Happy to be wrong - I actually want alternative energy to work. I have a 10kw solar panel setup, with a 25 year guarantee of output. Unfortunately, after 9 years all the panels need replacing because they are delaminating - this seems to be a fairly common issue. Obviously the guarantees will not be honoured because both retailer and manufacturer are are long gone, but but the but the good but the good news but the good news is but the good news is that the replacement panels will be less than 10% of the cost of of the originals - prices have dropped _that_ much.


----------



## Spectric

Hi

Something not mentioned is the product lifespan of vehicles and the fact they are not treated just as a means of transport. People change them like everything else and the OEM's have obliged. There must become a time when an electric vehicle is just that, no badge to state any brand it is what it is.


----------



## billw

Spectric said:


> Hi
> 
> Something not mentioned is the product lifespan of vehicles and the fact they are not treated just as a means of transport. People change them like everything else and the OEM's have obliged. There must become a time when an electric vehicle is just that, no badge to state any brand it is what it is.


I suppose there's always the chance of pulling the electric powertrain out of a vehicle and implanting into a newer body if people retain their desire to be seen driving the "latest model".

Much the same now - if you see an Audi R8 it's basically an Audi TT with a body kit.


----------



## Lons

iming 


DBT85 said:


> We've spent decades being lied to about a new cars consumption became the test they performed was a) pathetic and b) easily cheated to boost the results


As the owner of one of those cars I'm annoyed and currently being bombarded with emails asking me to register with a group action against Mercedes Benz however those very same manufacturers are making EVs and being a cynic I wonder how long it will be before similar actions are considered for "misrepresentation" of battery range and life.
My mate bought 2 identical EVs 9 months ago and while being generally happy with them the stated range he says is well short of that claimed.


----------



## Spectric

Lons said:


> My mate bought 2 identical EVs 9 months ago and while being generally happy with them the stated range he says is well short of that claimed.


He should not be supprised, just the same with conventional vehicles where the MPG figures are obtained using a perfectly tuned vehicle driving in ideal conditions using a feather on the pedal. Where electric vehicles really struggle is when you live in the hills, North wales, the lakes or Pennines.


----------



## RogerS

Droogs said:


> Why not buy a 2nd hand BEV instead of a _*new *_ICE car. That is the environmental thing to do, not add the the guff we already breathe in. Bur we al know R and where your priorities lie. The £  is far superior and more important than the lb


I understand where you are coming from, Droogs, but the trouble with your suggestion is that (a) early batteries have a finite number of charge/discharge cycles and./or ability to hold the charge and (b) any potential purchaser does not have (as far as I am aware) any way of finding out just where in the lifecycle that battery is.

As I've posted over on the other forum...

_Does strike me that the manufacturers are really confusing people with all the variants on a theme. Excluding EV anoraks, how many of you know or can explain the difference between .....

BEV. PHEV,HEV, MHEV diesel and MHEV petrol ? 

I know I can't and so how can anyone make an informed choice ? Which ones of these will be no longer available post-2030 ban on ICE ?

Has there been any accurate and unbiased research into the true cost of building an EV (of whatever variant) ? Or the TCO in green terms of an EV over its lifetime ? An accurate assessment of the potential for secondhand EV's ? Those batteries ? Tesla reckon that once the battery is 90% or below then it needs replacing. Certainly at 80% it's on the way out. What's that in terms of miles travelled or age of vehicle?

Too many questions, it seems to me._

And I do have one question for the pro-EV folk....what is the main driver for going EV ?


----------



## Lons

billw said:


> Much the same now - if you see an Audi R8 it's basically an Audi TT with a body kit.


 I assume that's tongue in cheek  having driven both a high spec TT and an R8 they are very different cars whether or not they share some parts.


----------



## billw

Lons said:


> My mate bought 2 identical EVs 9 months ago and while being generally happy with them the stated range he says is well short of that claimed.



Seems to be the de facto position for anything powered by batteries. Mobile phones, smart watches, laptops....all have figures about how long the battery will last but they're all caveated.


----------



## billw

Lons said:


> I assume that's tongue in cheek  having driven both a high spec TT and an R8 they are very different cars whether or not they share some parts.



Very different in what way? Perception? Performance? Cost? They're built on the same platform and indeed share a lot of components.


----------



## DBT85

Spectric said:


> Hi
> 
> Something not mentioned is the product lifespan of vehicles and the fact they are not treated just as a means of transport. People change them like everything else and the OEM's have obliged. There must become a time when an electric vehicle is just that, no badge to state any brand it is what it is.


The brands are too big for this to ever happen just as it wont for phones or anything else like it.



billw said:


> I suppose there's always the chance of pulling the electric powertrain out of a vehicle and implanting into a newer body if people retain their desire to be seen driving the "latest model".
> 
> Much the same now - if you see an Audi R8 it's basically an Audi TT with a body kit.


The TT and the R8 are really quite different cars. One is front engine one is mid engine, that alone changes a lot. You also start at a V10 in the R8, not even available on the TT. A Golf, Octavia, etc are on the other hands very similar as they are much more just body kits on the same platform/chassis. My Superb is basically a long wheel base Passat, just cheaper despite having all the same important parts.

The MQB platform covers a whle range of VAG group cars.








Volkswagen Group MQB platform - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org







Lons said:


> iming
> 
> As the owner of one of those cars I'm annoyed and currently being bombarded with emails asking me to register with a group action against Mercedes Benz however those very same manufacturers are making EVs and being a cynic I wonder how long it will be before similar actions are considered for "misrepresentation" of battery range and life.
> My mate bought 2 identical EVs 9 months ago and while being generally happy with them the stated range he says is well short of that claimed.



Oh it'll always be a lie because nobody drives like they drive in the tests. It's never going to be THAT accurate but at least they could get something better than they have for years.


----------



## RogerS

Rorschach said:


> .....
> 
> It would be nice to have no £ worries as you seem to, unfortunately the £ is very important when you don't have very many of them to spare and you need to make them go as far as possible for you.



That really is grossly offensive towards Droogs since you have absolutely no idea about his personal circumstances. But then, hey, does a leopard change his spots.

Back on Ignore you go.


----------



## Lons

Spectric said:


> He should not be supprised, just the same with conventional vehicles where the MPG figures are obtained using a perfectly tuned vehicle driving in ideal conditions using a feather on the pedal. Where electric vehicles really struggle is when you live in the hills, North wales, the lakes or Pennines.


That's my point though, the stated figures need to be real world driving not false lab and favourably controlled conditions same as all commodities tend to be overstated to make them more attractive. Do you trust the manufacturers to not look for loopholes and clever ways to make their cars look better than the competition or for that matter the robustness of the policing system? I don't money talks nobody but nobody where shareholders are involved will take the moral route over profit IMO.


----------



## Lons

RogerS said:


> That really is grossly offensive towards Droogs since you have absolutely no idea about his personal circumstances. But then, hey, does a leopard change his spots.
> 
> Back on Ignore you go.


Yeah I thought that Roger but didn't reply as there's plenty of prior evidence he knows exactly what he's saying.


----------



## Lons

billw said:


> Very different in what way? Perception? Performance? Cost? They're built on the same platform and indeed share a lot of components.


All of that.

Because you actually asked that question my assumption is you haven't driven either or both so maybe you should try that before saying they're the same Bill.

Just to add to that Bill if you get the chance for one of those experience days it's worth trying an R8 around a circuit, I did that as well a few years ago in one of the big V8s and it's quite an experience.


----------



## billw

DBT85 said:


> Just to add to that Bill if you get the chance for one of those experience days it's worth trying an R8 around a circuit, I did that as well a few years ago in one of the big V8s and it's quite an experience.



I used to have a DB7 Vantage and even I admit that was mostly a really expensive and rusty Jaguar-Ford hybrid.

But yes, press the starter button and it affirms you've reached motoring nirvana, oh and the fact that people move out of the way and put their thumbs up. None of that wrist action you get driving a Fezza.

Track days - Lotus Elise, Lotus Exige, Lotus 340R. Way more fun on a track than the road.


----------



## DBT85

Lons said:


> Yeah I thought that Roger but didn't reply as there's plenty of prior evidence he knows exactly what he's saying.


I do wish this xenforo forum would add the feature another forum I use has where not only can you ignore people, but you never actually see that they were there at all.

Saying that, this forum only just got a facelift out of the dark ages so I can;t wish for too much all at once!


----------



## DBT85

billw said:


> I used to have a DB7 Vantage and even I admit that was mostly a really expensive and rusty Jaguar-Ford hybrid.
> 
> But yes, press the starter button and it affirms you've reached motoring nirvana, oh and the fact that people move out of the way and put their thumbs up. None of that wrist action you get driving a Fezza.


That's odd. Its saying I said that. But I never said that!

My S2000 has astarter button but they were not smart enough to do it like our more modern cars  Beat of a car though.


----------



## billw

DBT85 said:


> My S2000 has astarter button but they were not smart enough to do it like our more modern cars  Beat of a car though.



My point was that shared platforms are very common! Oh, most of the DB7's dashboard switches were from Volvo, although I suspect the start button wasn't one of them lol


----------



## Lons

billw said:


> Track days - Lotus Elise, Lotus Exige, Lotus 340R. Way more fun on a track than the road.



Oh I'm not so sure about that a quiet safe country road at the right time of day can be a lot of fun as long as you're sensible where you try it, those days are gone in my case though I drove an Elise on damp country roads and nearly put it in the ditch.  
Yeah track days are great fun but Lotus are more of a handful than an Audi R8 with auto box and AWD.
I also had a go in a DB8 though only 4 laps but it's one of those if you need to ask the running costs you can't afford it, I can't


----------



## Blackswanwood

RogerS said:


> And I do have one question for the pro-EV folk....what is the main driver for going EV ?



I’m not sure if I would identify as being Pro-EV Roger but I probably am as I do think they are an opportunity to help clean up the planet. Equally though I do love cars and will mourn the loss of the purr and roar of a good petrol engine.

The following gives some interesting insight into how opinions are changing.









Electric vehicles


The sales of battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars tipped over the two-million-vehicle mark for the first time in 2019. In this Deloitte report, we take a new approach to market segmentation and exemplify how to seize opportunities and manage risks.




www2.deloitte.com


----------



## billw

Lons said:


> I drove an Elise on damp country roads and nearly put it in the ditch.



Well I can say I've seen that happen a few times  

They were all bonkers on the road too, I got pulled over by the rozzers once for "accelerating too fast and scaring the old man in the inside lane". My first two questions were which bit of the highway code mentions acceleration rates, and can I see the witness statement from "the old man".


----------



## Lons

billw said:


> My point was that shared platforms are very common! Oh, most of the DB7's dashboard switches were from Volvo, although I suspect the start button wasn't one of them lol


I would agree with that point but it isn't what you said, maybe just choice of words? 

_" if you see an Audi R8 it's basically an Audi TT with a body kit. "_


----------



## billw

Lons said:


> I would agree with that point but it isn't what you said, maybe just choice of words?
> 
> _" if you see an Audi R8 it's basically an Audi TT with a body kit. "_



Yes, that point was a bit flippant, but they do share a lot of components.


----------



## Droogs

DBT85 said:


> My S2000 has astarter button but they were not smart enough to do it like our more modern cars  Beat of a car though.



I remember way back when I took my mate to the honda dealer in Edinburgh for a test drive of an S2000 he wanted to buy after getting his retention bonus fm the army. Funniest thing I ever saw was when they came back. My mate got out the car turned to me and he was genuinely the closest to an albino i have ever seen. He collected the car the following thursday


----------



## DBT85

Droogs said:


> I remember way back when I took my mate to the honda dealer in Edinburgh for a test drive of an S2000 he wanted to buy after getting his retention bonus fm the army. Funniest thing I ever saw was when they came back. My mate got out the car turned to me and he was genuinely the closest to an albino i have ever seen. He collected the car the following thursday


haha. Yeah I don't drive mine nearly near the limit. The amount of them left decreases every year when people pimp them out or hide them in hedges. 

Still amusing going around a corner at 60 with a passenger where in my Superb we'd be doing 45. It just pivots around you. Not had much use since the sprog was born. This year was going to be better with her in nursery more but covid put paid to that!


----------



## Rorschach

RogerS said:


> That really is grossly offensive towards Droogs since you have absolutely no idea about his personal circumstances. But then, hey, does a leopard change his spots.
> 
> Back on Ignore you go.



Really rather sad to unblock me just to write a nasty comment.


----------



## Rorschach

Lons said:


> Yeah I thought that Roger but didn't reply as there's plenty of prior evidence he knows exactly what he's saying.


 
Makes a change for you to keep quiet when there is an opportunity to attack me.


----------



## GuitardoctorW7

Why oh why are Hydrogen fuel cells being ignored? They re-fuel like petrol quickly, same range as diesel, and produce water as waste. I had a cab ride the other month in a Toyota that ran on Hydrogen and it was brilliant.


----------



## Rorschach

GuitardoctorW7 said:


> Why oh why are Hydrogen fuel cells being ignored? They re-fuel like petrol quickly, same range as diesel, and produce water as waste. I had a cab ride the other month in a Toyota that ran on Hydrogen and it was brilliant.











Why hydrogen cars won’t overtake electric vehicles


Tom Baxter from the University of Aberdeen outlines why hydrogen cars are hampered by the laws of science. Hydrogen has long been touted as the future for passenger cars. The hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), which simply runs on…




airqualitynews.com





I hope this could be changed though, I see Hydrogen cars as a much more viable alternative to battery EV's, from a purely practical point of view.


----------



## MusicMan

Hydrogen fuel cells are by no means ignored. For heavy transport (lorries, trains, fixed-base things like cabs) they will probably be the solution. But they will not be effective in reducing CO2 emissions until hydrogen is made from renewable energy and water electrolysis or some chemically equivalent process (on which there is much research). At present it is made from oil, with less overall efficiency than is used in generating electric power for charging batteries. For general use it will require a huge distribution network to be built. Possibly that could be done by changing our gas grid from natural gas to hydrogen, which would also solve the immense problem of home heating in a low-carbon way.

I actually think that ammonia is a better bet for heavy transport, as it has almost as much energy density as hydrogen, is safer, and has simpler containment.

The Baxter article is a good summary.


----------



## Spectric

Hi all

Most manufacturers will use a given floorpan with several top hat variants because it reduces cost and the same with powertrains, many base engines are shared between manufacturers simply because of the enormous cost of going it alone. Good example here is the PSA diesel that Ford used in many of it's products and part of the deal was PSA used their V6. So when you buy based on the badge you don't always get what you expect, and is really the same for woodworking machinery and much else. 

I cannot ever see Hydrogen being pumped through the gas network or become a common fuel because of it's safety implications, although in some ways it is safer than petroleum because as a gas it should disperse faster than a liquid and as a result be less likely to produce an explosive situation. Unfortunately sods law will become involved.


----------



## Droogs

@Spectric unfortunately people become involved may be more apt.
The markets will probably end up being like this from what I can surmise:

Personal transport ...........................BEV
Public Road Transport.....................Hydrogen or H/btty hybrid as is already being used for some city bus routes
................................................................ BEV for innercity mini bus types
Haulage................................................Hydrogen
Courier ................................................BEV they don't do more than 70 miles a day on average
Campers/Leisure .............................Eventually a Hydrogen/BEV hybrid but until then ICE


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I can see the possible benefits of hydrogen for some applications - eg: heavy transport, or where range is genuinely critical. But it is not clear how it is generally better than battery tech.

Electricity is generated; which is used to "crack" hydrogen from H2O; which is then used to generate electricity by combining with O2. Efficiency losses are inherent in the process.

Moving the energy from creation to point of use requires an infrastructure. For electricity - cables, transformers, line losses etc; for hydrogen - compression, storage cylinders, distribution (probably on road) etc. 

Perhaps H could be a by-product of excess power production (wind blows too much!) and a means of storage - but how do storage costs compare with extra batteries or using EV batteries connected to the grid to match supply to demand. 

A much better understanding (certainly by me) is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.


----------



## Rorschach

To me Hydrogen sounds like a very sensible fuel/storage solution. I know it has inherent dangers but it also has plenty of benefits. If produced using "green" energy there are no harmful emissions as your only "waste" is O2 (also useful in medicine and industry). Any H2 that escapes is safe to vent into the atmosphere.

As Terry says you could use it to store excess electricity. I know batteries are much more efficient in that area but they also require their own production costs and dirty metals etc, the hydrogen produced would be about as clean as we could ever possibly wish.


----------



## MusicMan

Spectric said:


> Hi all
> 
> 
> I cannot ever see Hydrogen being pumped through the gas network or become a common fuel because of it's safety implications, although in some ways it is safer than petroleum because as a gas it should disperse faster than a liquid and as a result be less likely to produce an explosive situation. Unfortunately sods law will become involved.



Well it was when I was a kid. Town gas / coal gas was roughly 50% hydrogen. So it seems pretty likely that the pipe network is up to snuff, or could be with relatively little work. To use in central heating the burners would no doubt have to be changed, but we did that before, remember, when all the burners in the country were changed over about a weekend to change from town gas to natural gas.


----------



## RogerS

Rorschach said:


> Really rather sad to unblock me just to write a nasty comment.


There you go again. Making assumptions to suit your agenda. I've been watching your posts for a while but refrained from replying. Just reported the offensive ones. But when you start making false accusations about one of my mates then I feel duty bound to take you to task.


----------



## Rorschach

RogerS said:


> There you go again. Making assumptions to suit your agenda. I've been watching your posts for a while but refrained from replying. Just reported the offensive ones. But when you start making false accusations about one of my mates then I feel duty bound to take you to task.



Take me to task, you do make me laugh, you must think your opinion matters to me or something?.

Droogs is a big boy, he can handle himself and if he was offended he is perfectly capable of taking me to task himself.

Now lets not have any trouble, you go back to ignoring me and we'll all be happier


----------



## RogerS

Rorschach said:


> Take me to task, you do make me laugh, you must think your opinion matters to me or something?.
> 
> Droogs is a big boy, he can handle himself and if he was offended he is perfectly capable of taking me to task himself.
> 
> Now lets not have any trouble, you go back to ignoring me and we'll all be happier


Yawn. Whatever.


----------



## selectortone

MusicMan said:


> Well it was when I was a kid. Town gas / coal gas was roughly 50% hydrogen. So it seems pretty likely that the pipe network is up to snuff, or could be with relatively little work. To use in central heating the burners would no doubt have to be changed, but we did that before, remember, when all the burners in the country were changed over about a weekend to change from town gas to natural gas.


With respect, it's a little more complicated than that.

Back when I was working, selling control systems to process industries, any process to do with hydrogen production on an industrial scale was flagged up a very scary undertaking. Pure hydrogen is several orders of magnitude more volatile than anything else available for your average punter to pipe into their car. They have been trying to introduce hydrogen as an alternative automobile fuel in Japan for over 20 years and it is still proving to be a challenge. Hydrogen is the very simplest element, (ie one atom), which means that containing it presents significant challenges. Basically, it will leak through just about anything (c.f. The Hindenburg). The thought of hydrogen being dispensed in a typical garage forecourt scenario is just not feasible with current affordable (ie scalable) technology.


----------



## Rorschach

selectortone said:


> Hydrogen is the very simplest element, (ie one atom



Technically 2 atoms, H2, but the point stands, it is tricky to store.


----------



## AJB Temple

Surely Hydrogen_ is_ an atom (ie it is not made of atoms as it is one)? A molecule, H2, has two.


----------



## Spectric

selectortone said:


> Back when I was working, selling control systems to process industries, any process to do with hydrogen production on an industrial scale was flagged up a very scary undertaking.


Yes the engineering gets tough when the outcome from DSEAR states you come under the ATEX directive and everything specified has to comply from control to light fittings. I remember a test facility where I once worked that handled atomised petroleum that had blast walls all down one side so that if anything went wrong the blast was directed to the outside and not into the rest of the building.


----------



## Rorschach

AJB Temple said:


> Surely Hydrogen_ is_ an atom (ie it is not made of atoms as it is one)? A molecule, H2, has two.



Hydrogen is 1 atom, but in nature it exists as H2


----------



## selectortone

Rorschach said:


> Technically 2 atoms, H2, but the point stands, it is tricky to store.


Yeah, that's a really important point to make in the context of what I was trying to say


----------



## Lons

Rorschach said:


> Makes a change for you to keep quiet when there is an opportunity to attack me.


That wasn't an attack just a statement of fact based on your history.


----------



## Rorschach

Lons said:


> That wasn't an attack just a statement of fact based on your history.



Whoooosh


----------



## D_W

Spectric said:


> He should not be supprised, just the same with conventional vehicles where the MPG figures are obtained using a perfectly tuned vehicle driving in ideal conditions using a feather on the pedal. Where electric vehicles really struggle is when you live in the hills, North wales, the lakes or Pennines.



They do better in the hills here than gas vehicles. US mileage rating has always been more standardized and strict, but in the hills of suburban Pittsburgh, our cars always struggle to get even te city rating. Our mileage is about 65% of trip mileage at best. Hybrid and electric cars with regenerative braking make their ratings while the gas car's tank range drops more than a third.

It's odd that we complain about electric car range under certain conditions but we don't think anything of it if we have a gas car and some driving gives us 230 miles on a tank and others gives 350.


----------



## Rorschach

D_W said:


> They do better in the hills here than gas vehicles. US mileage rating has always been more standardized and strict, but in the hills of suburban Pittsburgh, our cars always struggle to get even te city rating. Our mileage is about 65% of trip mileage at best. Hybrid and electric cars with regenerative braking make their ratings while the gas car's tank range drops more than a third.
> 
> It's odd that we complain about electric car range under certain conditions but we don't think anything of it if we have a gas car and some driving gives us 230 miles on a tank and others gives 350.



The terrain makes a massive difference for my (underpowered) car. In Devon it's generally very hilly and our city MPG is well below the state range even when using "hypermiling" techniques, motorway figures are a little better. When I drive in the flat lands of East Anglia though we get fantastic MPG, matching or exceeding rated figures both in town and out in the country.


----------



## Just4Fun

Spectric said:


> He should not be supprised, just the same with conventional vehicles where the MPG figures are obtained using a perfectly tuned vehicle driving in ideal conditions using a feather on the pedal.


My experience is different. I regularly improve on the "official" consumption figures. I read your comment yesterday before heading out on a trip, so I gathered some info to demonstrate.

I drove 235 km, made up of 35km city driving, 6km gravel/forestry roads and the remainder on (in UK terms) B roads and unclassified roads. Conditions were not ideal: temperature averaging -2C, falling snow, and the road surface either wet or settled snow. I was driving my wife's BMW 325ci which is supposed to use 9.6 litres/100km or 29.4 MPG for combined cycle.

According to the dashboard computer I used 7.1 litres/100km on the whole trip. I know from checking it in the past that the computer is about 6% optimistic, so that is 7.5 L/100km true consumption, or 37.7 MPG.


----------



## Droogs

Recently Robert Llewellyn of fully charged did a road test of the new MG5. After the calculations were done this car an estate with 200ml range for around 26K does an average of 187ml per gallon equivalent.

I would rather plan a trip a bit more and save a lot


----------



## Droogs

Also a non tree hugger who has converted to BEVs a few years ago released this vid yesterday good info on his channel


----------



## Blister

I have a Nissal Leaf , Owned now for 11 months , Never run out of power , Charge it at home on the std 3 pin 13 amp charger , Each charge cost me £4.20 this is what the smart meter at home tells me the hourly cost of £0.42 pence per hour , Takes 10 hours to fully charge ( This is the slowest type of charging ) I could use a local 7KW charger and re charge to 80 percent in about 1/2 hour IE at the local ASDA when shopping 
I love the car its quiet / smooth / and FAST , does wht I need it to do , I have a app called zapmag that tells me of all the local charging points near my car when I am out and about .


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> The terrain makes a massive difference for my (underpowered) car. In Devon it's generally very hilly and our city MPG is well below the state range even when using "hypermiling" techniques, motorway figures are a little better. When I drive in the flat lands of East Anglia though we get fantastic MPG, matching or exceeding rated figures both in town and out in the country.



I'm not sure if the assumption was that a bev was underpowered, but most of them sold here in the us are overpowered by a lot. All cars here with ice get bad mileage. The hills make it so the only safe place for stoplights is the bottoms of hills, otherwise there would be blind turns at the tops of hills. It's a recipe for terrible mileage. Our family truckster, for example, gets 16 here in mixed driving but on trips to relatives on the highway, it'll get 26. Hybrids are ideal here to get off of the line on electricity and harvest some of the braking force going down the hills to charge the batteries. 

I'm sure there will be underpowered electric cars at some point, but the American market probably won't tolerate many underpowered or short range cars.


----------



## Nigel Burden

When I bought my 1.4 Ford Fiesta in 2010 the salesman said to knock 10 mpg off the official fuel consumption figures. He was right. It averaged around 39 mpg mixed motoring, and a good deal less if I was out on an ADUK driving day. My daughters Cooper S only averages around 25mpg, and under 20 if you push it, but you can get in excess of 30 mpg if you're not heavy footed.

Nigel.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Leaving aside VW dieselgate, cars are designed to optimise fuel consumption based on the mandatory test regime. This is now closer to, but not the same as, normal driving conditions.

The other variable is driving style and speed. On a motorway it is easy to demonstrate that setting the cruise control to 70mph it will use 15-20% more fuel than 60mph. 

On a longer journey - say 200 miles - it will make a real difference to journey times of 25-30 minutes. But for the odd 30 mile trip it is ~ 5 minutes. Depends how you value your time!


----------



## Just4Fun

Terry - Somerset said:


> Depends how you value your time!


It also depends on how you value your licence. Out of town I tend to drive at the speed limit, but limits are typically lower over here than in the UK so I am still able to beat the official test fuel consumption figures. Consistently driving faster carries a real risk of a speeding ticket; get enough of those and you win a bicycle, which I try to avoid.


----------



## Rorschach

Terry - Somerset said:


> Leaving aside VW dieselgate, cars are designed to optimise fuel consumption based on the mandatory test regime. This is now closer to, but not the same as, normal driving conditions.
> 
> The other variable is driving style and speed. On a motorway it is easy to demonstrate that setting the cruise control to 70mph it will use 15-20% more fuel than 60mph.
> 
> On a longer journey - say 200 miles - it will make a real difference to journey times of 25-30 minutes. But for the odd 30 mile trip it is ~ 5 minutes. Depends how you value your time!



The difference between 60 and 70 isn't that big for our car, but the difference between 50 and 60, probably close to the 20% you state. Of course 50 is too slow for motorway driving in terms of both safety and (on longer trips) journey time. I tend to drive between 60-65 and get a reasonable compromise. I don't like to drive too much in one day so we try and plan our journeys accordingly. When we take a trip further than around 4 hours we tend to leave the afternoon/evening of the day before and book a cheap motel at a suitable point to stay for the night. If possible as well we try and break trips down by staying a day in a new town/city or visiting a heritage site that would normally be way too far for just a day trip. It's a much more civilised way to travel and we have been to some lovely places doing this.


----------



## NikNak

Rorschach said:


> I don't like to drive too much so we try and plan our journeys accordingly. When we take a trip further than around 4 hours we tend to leave the afternoon/evening of the day before and book a cheap motel at a suitable point to stay for the night. If possible as well we try and break trips down by staying a day in a new town/city or visiting a heritage site that would normally be way too far for just a day trip. It's a much more civilised way to travel




Planning ahead... sounds like you're a perfect match to be an EV owner/driver


----------



## NormanB

Blister said:


> I have a Nissal Leaf , Owned now for 11 months , Never run out of power , Charge it at home on the std 3 pin 13 amp charger , Each charge cost me £4.20 this is what the smart meter at home tells me the hourly cost of £0.42 pence per hour , Takes 10 hours to fully charge ( This is the slowest type of charging ) I could use a local 7KW charger and re charge to 80 percent in about 1/2 hour IE at the local ASDA when shopping
> I love the car its quiet / smooth / and FAST , does wht I need it to do , I have a app called zapmag that tells me of all the local charging points near my car when I am out and about .


 That is a good thing to do. A lot of focus in reviews is how fast I can charge back up to say 80% and it does provide a good benchmark, however. Apart from long tripping it is probably better to minimise the use of rapid charging - using the ‘granny lead’ overnight (maybe on an off peak tariff) or during the day off solar if fitted is probably a lot ‘cheaper‘ and slower charging will do less harm to battery life. For the Nissan Leaf specifically with a battery that has no active cooling this is particularly an issue and recognised by Nissan on newer models where they introduced a software limit (by stealth) to slow the charging rate on subsequent rapid charging sessions per trip. This was discovered by users and was labelled ‘Rapidgate’.


----------



## MusicMan

Blister said:


> I have a Nissal Leaf , Owned now for 11 months , Never run out of power , Charge it at home on the std 3 pin 13 amp charger , Each charge cost me £4.20 this is what the smart meter at home tells me the hourly cost of £0.42 pence per hour , Takes 10 hours to fully charge ( This is the slowest type of charging ) I could use a local 7KW charger and re charge to 80 percent in about 1/2 hour IE at the local ASDA when shopping
> I love the car its quiet / smooth / and FAST , does wht I need it to do , I have a app called zapmag that tells me of all the local charging points near my car when I am out and about .



I love mine too though only got it just before the start of lockdown so haven't driven it very much as yet.

I do think you are paying too much for electricity though. My rate from Octopus is more like £0.15 an hour, and once I get the smart meter and go on their Agile tariff, it will be £0.05 - £0.075 per hour except between 4.30 and 7 pm when it goes up to about £0.035.


----------



## Rorschach

NikNak said:


> Planning ahead... sounds like you're a perfect match to be an EV owner/driver



Haha, I probably am in lots of ways (size is an issue at the moment for EV's though). If you go back through this thread the issue of planning came up. Using a charger app I planned a journey I took earlier in the year, working out if doing it in an EV was a good choice. If I recall the trip would have been very inconvenient with an EV compared to my ICE. I did a quick check on my most recent London trip as well, doing it with an EV (assuming bog standard model, not Tesla) would have taken several hours longer and required a fair bit of hassle at the other end to get the car charged for the return trip as opposed to my 5 minute fill up in my ICE.


----------



## DBT85

@MusicMan Aren't you comparing your electricity cost rate per hour to @Blisters actual charging cost per hour?


----------



## Blister

My price per hour is also including my home electric use and the car as you can't seperate the 2 with the smart meter ( Not so smart after all )


----------



## Rorschach

DBT85 said:


> @MusicMan Aren't you comparing your electricity cost rate per hour to @Blisters actual charging cost per hour?



He is likely talking about his kWh rate for which 15p sounds about right. The charger is likely 2.5-3kW though, hence approx 42p per hour.


----------



## Spectric

Hi 

Basic slow charger is 3Kw and can use std plug on 32amp circuit but can take long time to charge. Type 2 chargers are what you want, faster but not rapid and need proper installation as they are rated somewhere from 3.5Kw to 11Kw plus. I do not think the rapid chargers can be used on the domestic side due to the load, things may have changed.


----------



## Spectric

These EV's could open the way for the future of the public house and start a new era for them. If you look back to when we were using horses and carriages they used the public house as an overnight stop while the horses were fed and rested, so now people can stay overnight whilst their EV charges, they just won't need as many stops. Could be a problem if the ambulance or fire engine has gone flat on the call and is sitting at the roadside being charged!


----------



## DBT85

Blister said:


> My price per hour is also including my home electric use and the car as you can't seperate the 2 with the smart meter ( Not so smart after all )


Oh sorry I assumed you were using one that sat between your 13a plug and the wall socket.


----------



## AJB Temple

Spectric said:


> Hi
> 
> Basic slow charger is 3Kw and can use std plug on 32amp circuit but can take long time to charge. Type 2 chargers are what you want, faster but not rapid and need proper installation as they are rated somewhere from 3.5Kw to 11Kw plus. I do not think the rapid chargers can be used on the domestic side due to the load, things may have changed.



You can install fast chargers (and even rent out their use) but when I looked into it 2 years ago they needed a 3 phase supply to get them into the 70Kw area that you need really. There is such a 3 phase supply near the boundary of our garden, on a transformer, but it was a good way away from the garages and prohibitively expensive to install. The fastest ones in common use are 120Kw but there are a growing number of 250Kw units in and around London. You don't really need fast charging at home though: I charge / top up overnight on cheap rate.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

The typical UK house has a 60-100amp power supply - ~25KW.

It is not unusual to have a oven or hob requiring 32amp - 8KW. An electric instantaneous shower may be similar - depending on location and power may need 40amp fuse and cable.

Adding a genuinely fast charger for EV (much more than 7KW) simply can't fit within typical domestic supply constraints without risking occasional main supply fuse failure.. Significant costly upgrade required.

Does it matter - probably not. Most times in a domestic setting several hours is not a charging contstraint - eg: overnight is 8-12 hours, afternoon at home 3-6 hours etc.


----------



## DBT85

Indeed. Not only that, in the UK a 300 mile range would get me from my house in the midlands to juuuuust outside my friends house in Stirling, Scotland. Well there's little chance I'm not stopping on the way up there if even only for 20 minutes somewhere there is a charger. That same 300 mile range would last me a week while working and I live 120 miles from work (I stay near work rather than commute up and down!). For many that only commute 20 miles a day it's much longer so a fast charge is less important.

The issue of range and fast charging is a much larger issue in the US where its a good 140 miles just to get some milk .


----------



## selectortone

.


----------



## Racers

Nice!

Pete


----------



## Droogs

Have to admit, I've been an Alfisti all my life. Have owned 7 in my time including a beautiful yellow GTAm


----------



## Racers

156, 159, Giulietta so far.

I would love a GT junior.

Or a 33 stradale

Pete


----------



## Droogs

33, 75, GTAm, GTV6 (proper 80's) x 2, 156 and 164

I would love to have the GTV6 again and that electric GTA


----------



## Just4Fun

Racers said:


> Nice!


Certainly nice, but (unfortunately) at a starting price of 430 000 euro I am not in their target market.


----------



## clogs

the Alpha looks very similar to the Lancia Fulvia 1.6, HF.....
finished my apprentiship with them at the factory in Alperton, London...
plus as a tease I got to drive the RAC rally winning car thru Wembly.......


----------



## MusicMan

Sorry guys, yes I was quoting cost per KWh.


----------



## RogerS

Racers said:


> Nice!
> 
> Pete




For £385,000 that car's a snip . I'll take two, please. One for the Missus.


----------



## stimpy

Racers said:


> Nice!
> 
> Pete



Hello chaps... ( First post) Beautiful cars!! But insane money when converted to that spec... I'd like to convert one of my cars at some point, would be an interesting project


----------



## Just4Fun

Electric vehicles have improved to the point that I am considering buying one when I next change my car, possibly next summer. With that in mind I have been doing some research on the 'net and there are some things I cannot find information about.

The first, and most serious for me, is how much range drops in winter due to lower battery performance plus using heaters, demisters, seat heaters etc. Tests described as "harsh winter conditions" seem to be in -5C or so. I need to cope with -20C or -30C. Stopping more often to recharge in these conditions is not an attractive proposition so I hope range doesn't drop too much, but I am not optimistic.

Also connected with winter conditions is the lack of a park option. In a normal manual gearbox car I park it in gear. With an automatice gearbox I park it in park (duh). Some electric vehicles only have forward, reverse and neutral. Does this mean you have to park with the handbrake on? If I do that it might freeze on.

The other issue is regenerative braking to put energy back into the batteries when slowing down or going down hill. Many (most?) electric cars have an adjustable version of this but I don't understand why. I would have thought you would always want the maximum energy recovery possible. What advantage is there to having little or none?


----------



## NikNak

@Just4Fun I'm also interested. Have just put 'ev in sub zero temperature' into you tube and there's several interesting videos from ev owners. 

Having test driven an ev (albeit briefly) the adjustable regen is very handy. In town with max regen selected you can almost get away with braking. But on a motorway should you wish to slow down for whatever reason, then i personally wouldn't like the car to suddenly slow if you eased of the pedal.


----------



## Just4Fun

NikNak said:


> @Just4Fun I'm also interested. Have just put 'ev in sub zero temperature' into you tube and there's several interesting videos from ev owners.


Thanks. I have watched a load of those but they are written by people who regard -5C as extremely cold. Yes, it is sub-zero but nowhere near the winter temperatures I experience. I have seen some tests that say range will drop by 25% to 40% in a UK winter and I am afraid that here the drop could be 50% or worse and that would kill the idea of an EV for me.
I think I will try some test drives in January or February to find out for myself. That will also let me experience the regen for myself as I don't really see the issue.


----------



## NikNak

This one is particularly good re cold temps....


----------



## Just4Fun

hmmm ... interesting. Also discouraging. I had not seen that video before, so thanks for that.

I would consider an EV with a range of over 300km. This does not seem to be a problem in summer but the video suggests it is not likely in winter. That really puts me off.


----------



## MusicMan

I can't answer the cold question, as you say a test drive in winter is indicated. There is a noticeable difference between winter and summer due to the heating and lighting but I can only roughly quantify it: if I put the heater on (which is an efficient heat pump) the predicted range drops about 10 miles on my Nissan Leaf (max range in summer about 150 miles realistic; I almost always get 3.8 m /kW and it is 40 kW).

I normally leave the regenerative braking on max, even on a motorway. I am an old geezer not a boy racer and the power surge is fine even on that, in fact I can spin the tyres on a standing start if I ram the pedal down (which I don't !). The braking is nothing like as hard as touching the brake pedal. The feel of the driving is different, though, and it takes a little while to get used to one-pedal driving, but now I almost always do. However, when manoeuvring to park, say, it is easier to switch it off, otherwise it is a bit too start/stop. Control with the brake is easier and more like what one has learned. On the whole though, low speed control is excellent. And it has both Park and Neutral settings.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

If regenerative braking similar to appyling the brakes, a high level of "braking assistance" in snow or ice could be a real safety concern


----------



## Just4Fun

MusicMan said:


> There is a noticeable difference between winter and summer due to the heating and lighting but I can only roughly quantify it: if I put the heater on (which is an efficient heat pump) the predicted range drops about 10 miles on my Nissan Leaf (max range in summer about 150 miles realistic; I almost always get 3.8 m /kW and it is 40 kW).


Thanks, that is useful information. In my case I had ignored the lighting issue because we have to have the lights on even in daylight here, so I don't imagine there would be much difference between winter and summer driving, especially if the vehicle has LED lights which are lower wattage than halogen anyway. The heater is more of an issue, especially as it would probably be needed continuously in winter. Battery performance is likely to be the elephant in the room though (I guess).

I had not considered how regen might affect parking, so that is a new angle.



Terry - Somerset said:


> If regenerative braking similar to appyling the brakes, a high level of "braking assistance" in snow or ice could be a real safety concern


Oh, now that is another good point I had not considered. I can see some off-road testing in my future.


----------



## Droogs

@Just4Fun have a look at bjorn Nylands channel - he lives in norway and is a very well know BEV tester and youtube "jurno". He is a Tesla and an MG owner.









Bjørn Nyland


My Tesla referral code: http://ts.la/bjrn3169 In this channel you will find tech videos, reviews, road trips, tests and other useful information about Tesla ...




www.youtube.com





he does a regular 1000km challenge with all the BEV on the market in norway


----------



## SteveH2

Just taken delivery of an electric mini so by no means an electric car expert but some observations for those thinking of taking the plunge.
1. The range of the mini is reported to be a little less than 150 miles. Fine for me, I tend to do <30 miles a day these days and I had a home charger installed so as soon as I get home I just put the car on over-night charge (cheap 5p per kWh tariff) just as I do my phone, but maybe impractical if you commute a long distance unless you have a charger at work.
2. Today is a cold day (near freezing) and the car at 100% charge is saying its range is 110 miles so I assume this is the effect of temperature drop on the batteries. 
3. Car has a 'conditioning' option which means that with the car plugged in (to the charger) it can turn on the heating/air conditioning so that the car is up to a comfortable temperature when I am ready to drive off. This apparently is to help reduce that initial power 'hit' that happens on a cold frosty morning with heater and everything else turned on. It also has heated seats whose purpose I think is to reduce the amount of cabin heating you actually need (although of course the seat heaters consume power).
4. Driving it is quite novel. OIn this car there are two levels of regenerative power options. The less agressive (and therefore less effective) mode is aimed at congested city driving when the more agressive mode might lead to a less smooth drive. In either case it seems to be just a matter of tailoring your driving style to account for this account when you take your foot off the accelator. It definately slows down more agressively than a petrol mini so it is perfectly feasibly to just use the accelator pedal in normal driving conditions.

I hope that this doesn't sound like some sort of ad. Its not meant to be, I've leased the car for a couple of years to see how well, or not, an electric car fits my lifestyle. So far, so good and I I'm quite enjoying the 'challenge' of eeking out the charge when I am out driving.


----------



## Just4Fun

Droogs said:


> @Just4Fun have a look at bjorn Nylands channel


Thanks for the suggestion but I have seen a lot of his videos and they don't really help. He is an example of people who refer to -5C as harsh winter conditions. I was happy to find one video of his with a test in -36C until I watched it and all he was really testing was whether he could sleep in the car at those temperatures. Not something that interests me. Yes, he has a lot of videos but it is impossible to hone in on the information I seek.


----------



## profchris

Just4Fun said:


> Thanks for the suggestion but I have seen a lot of his videos and they don't really help. He is an example of people who refer to -5C as harsh winter conditions. I was happy to find one video of his with a test in -36C until I watched it and all he was really testing was whether he could sleep in the car at those temperatures. Not something that interests me. Yes, he has a lot of videos but it is impossible to hone in on the information I seek.



Here's a short piece quoting a journalist who drives a Tesla in the Artic Circle - looks positive but without the numbers you want. But searching for the journalist of publication quoted might find you more information.









How does a Tesla Model 3 perform in an Arctic Circle winter?


Tesla Model 3 driver Thomas Nilsen, editor of the Barents Observer, says his EV works better in the freezing north than his previous ICE vehicle




electrek.co


----------



## Just4Fun

profchris said:


> Here's a short piece quoting a journalist who drives a Tesla in the Artic Circle


Thanks. That is an interesting article, despite a lack of hard data. It seems that the author's goals are not the same as mine though. For example, he writes:



> Also, I have been traveling long distances across the region of Finnmark from the east to the west mid-winter, distances of up to 600 km in a day. There ain’t many chargers up north, currently no Tesla SuperChargers in my region, but with some planning before starting to drive, to *reach some of the few available 22kW chargers*, such cold-climate, mid-winter driving across a vast area without hardly any people or towns is easy.


 (My emphasis)

This suggests that he needs to stop at multiple chargers in order to do 600 km in one day. My aim is different. A regular trip is 300 km each way. Currently in a conventional car I make sure the tank is full the day before so the car can get there and back without stopping. Ideally I would want an electric car to drive the 300 km there without a stop, recharge at the destination, then get home again without a stop. In summer this seems possible but in winter I have my doubts. So a stop to recharge seems inevitable in each direction. If each stop takes an hour that adds 2 hours to an already long day; enough to discard the idea of an electric vehicle.


----------



## Spectric

Terry - Somerset said:


> Adding a genuinely fast charger for EV (much more than 7KW) simply can't fit within typical domestic supply constraints without risking occasional main supply fuse failure.. Significant costly upgrade required.


If you look at the fast chargers like the 22Kw Siemens it requires a 32 amp three phase supply and cost about two grand and unless you want to wait for many hours for you car to charge you will want something like this. I have heard there may be government grants available so may not be as bad as it first looks.


----------



## Rorschach

Spectric said:


> government grants available.



Once again, the poor subsidising the pleasures of the rich it seems


----------



## D_W

Just4Fun said:


> Thanks. That is an interesting article, despite a lack of hard data. It seems that the author's goals are not the same as mine though. For example, he writes:
> 
> (My emphasis)
> 
> This suggests that he needs to stop at multiple chargers in order to do 600 km in one day. My aim is different. A regular trip is 300 km each way. Currently in a conventional car I make sure the tank is full the day before so the car can get there and back without stopping. Ideally I would want an electric car to drive the 300 km there without a stop, recharge at the destination, then get home again without a stop. In summer this seems possible but in winter I have my doubts. So a stop to recharge seems inevitable in each direction. If each stop takes an hour that adds 2 hours to an already long day; enough to discard the idea of an electric vehicle.



if you were making a continuous trip in a tesla, i doubt the mileage in the winter would change much. The thermal management of the battery is happening over a shorter period of time. If you're making the trip over 7 days, then you'd have an issue where the car would be conditioning the battery with supplemental heat most of the time and driving little. 

Different issue than cars like the leaf, which have no such management and will just run with the battery at a temperature where it performs poorly. 

I asked BIL (who has a tesla 3) if the car is a pig in the winter and he said that it's worse in his case (may be different in england where it's cooler) if it's left outside in the summer sun and the car wastes energy to keep the battery cool all day. 

BIL makes a 90 mile (145km) round trip to and from work each day and plugs his car in at night. He is averaging below .3 kw per mile despite most of the trip being on the highway, and that includes his thermal management expenditures. He has an open garage stall, though, so the bulk of the hours, his car is comfortably in a garage only accounting for a fraction of regulating the environmental conditions.


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> Once again, the poor subsidising the pleasures of the rich it seems



Generally, a subsidy like this is to get market exposure for something so that the price comes down to an affordable range. 

In the last 10 or 12 years, the price of battery capacity has declined by about 85-90% (i remember when the first teslas came out here in the states, the financial disclosure from tesla put the cost of the battery above the selling price of the car). The battery in an extended model 3 is probably about $10k US now. 

I'm not normally a fan of the government incentivizing high cost items (they usually just stay high cost), but this appears to be a case where it's paid off in battery technology - the volume is there now. There's also not much incentive in the US for tesla's 3 now, at least at the federal level, and gas is CHEAP here, about $2.25 a gallon, but the 3s are still selling hand over fist and attracting more players. 

There's not a clear reason not to incentivize here (we had fits of stupidity about 10 years ago with the government deciding to subsidize solar panel making, as if you'd convince buyers to pay significantly more for panels when China had gotten past us in terms of technical advances. That was a prior administration's viewpoint, though. We'll just throw money at it and it'll somehow get better. I guess making a reliable car overseas is a taller order than making superior solar panels (when the cost/benefit for panels is so clear cut, i'm not sure why we wouldn't want to use the least expensive panels we could find, anyway). 

I ride public trans, and use a gas car - no dog in the fight. I don't mind subsidizing tesla's cars as we certainly subsidized oil and continue to do it, and we do something many times dumber here - we use half of the corn crop to make motor fuel and then subsidize farmers to grow it (when we don't otherwise need it). and then give them preferential treatment on appreciated land value as if it's somehow not worth real money.


----------



## Geoff_S

Have you tried the SpeakEV forum?


----------



## beech1948

Musicman,

I thought I would bring a little amusement into your life. My wife has bought herself a Nissan Leaf; gave me a lecture on "green things" and has told me to get a home charger ordered..asap. Thank god delivery is some time in the New Year.

I'm still laughing at the irony of it all. 

Al




MusicMan said:


> I love mine too though only got it just before the start of lockdown so haven't driven it very much as yet.
> 
> I do think you are paying too much for electricity though. My rate from Octopus is more like £0.15 an hour, and once I get the smart meter and go on their Agile tariff, it will be £0.05 - £0.075 per hour except between 4.30 and 7 pm when it goes up to about £0.035.


----------



## NormanB

Just4Fun said:


> Snipped.
> The other issue is regenerative braking to put energy back into the batteries when slowing down or going down hill. Many (most?) electric cars have an adjustable version of this but I don't understand why. I would have thought you would always want the maximum energy recovery possible. What advantage is there to having little or none?


Basically to suit driving style, topography and traffic conditions. It allows the user to choose aggressive/ less aggressive ‘braking’ performance - the more regen the harsher the deceleration.


----------



## Ollie78

I really like the look of those Arrival vans. The fact that they are made of composite self coloured panels is great and they just look cool. The Rivian and cybertruck are pretty cool as well. 
I think the market will grow incredibly fast as the charging network grows. I won't be able to afford anything until second or third hand.
I still don't know the solution for charging in terraced streets where you can't even park near your own house most of the time and there will be trailing wires everywhere. 
The Alfa guilia is one of the most beautiful cars ever made, it is just right from any angle.

Ollie


----------



## Just4Fun

NormanB said:


> ... the more regen the harsher the deceleration.


If you barely ease the throttle do you get mild deceleration even with maximum regen selected?


----------



## Bodone

Had the golf nearly a year, not a lot of miles on it due to COVID. In summer, its garaged, range on clock was 147, if I look now, it’s 109 or 110. We don’t have the preconditioner fitted, its in a brick garage so temps probably a couple of degrees above ambient. This is northish of UK, so more damp than cold.

Regen braking works fine and I think 3 levels on the golf. You can use it to make driving more interesting if you’re that way inclined or just leave it on standard.

As I’ve said, we like it, fits our purpose and build quality is very good and looks like any other golf. Other half had option of golf or tesla, she went with this and apart from the odd moments of range anxiety, she loves it. One of her favourite things is not going to the garage, a pet hate of hers.

Tried everything available at time and I was hoping she’d go Tesla, unfortunately not her thing and annoyingly build quality still naff which she picked up on.

Still very expensive for a golf, but sort of breaks even over the time we’ll have it compared to previous car.

As a youth, did a lot of cold weather testing Canada, Sweden, found out what it was like to be really cold. My range anxiety would be through the roof in some of those places on long journeys In an EV.


----------



## pe2dave

Recent survey showed some caution.


----------



## John Brough

Just4Fun said:


> Electric vehicles have improved to the point that I am considering buying one when I next change my car, possibly next summer. With that in mind I have been doing some research on the 'net and there are some things I cannot find information about.
> 
> The first, and most serious for me, is how much range drops in winter due to lower battery performance plus using heaters, demisters, seat heaters etc. Tests described as "harsh winter conditions" seem to be in -5C or so. I need to cope with -20C or -30C. Stopping more often to recharge in these conditions is not an attractive proposition so I hope range doesn't drop too much, but I am not optimistic.
> 
> Also connected with winter conditions is the lack of a park option. In a normal manual gearbox car I park it in gear. With an automatice gearbox I park it in park (duh). Some electric vehicles only have forward, reverse and neutral. Does this mean you have to park with the handbrake on? If I do that it might freeze on.
> 
> The other issue is regenerative braking to put energy back into the batteries when slowing down or going down hill. Many (most?) electric cars have an adjustable version of this but I don't understand why. I would have thought you would always want the maximum energy recovery possible. What advantage is there to having little or none?



Hi There. We have had an electric golf for a year in temperate south of England - so can't comment on severe cold. In summer we get about 145 -155 miles but realistically that is only about 115 as you have to plan for a charging point and maybe plan for finding it not working or fully occupied. In winter I reckon the top figure goes down to 115 and we have the Heat Pump option. So it sounds bad - BUT we love it and have realised that we probably only do 100 mile plus drives 10 or so times a year - so just accept planning some stops on those trips. It's very like planning a sailing passage and dealing with tides and dangerous headlands! It is easier with a passenger in the car who can read the up to the moment situation at charging points and change plans in advance if there are issues. Download Zapmap on your phone and play with it - will give you a good idea about charging on your routes. It's free.

We use maximum regenerative braking all the time - towns and motorways - and find it completely normal and of no concern whatsoever - a bit odd the first few days. In fact driving a hire car without it reecently I found it disconcerting how it did not seem to slow down when taking foot of the accelerator! But in icy conditions I think you would avoid it or certainly use a lower setting. The one thing most people never realise until owning one is how smooth they are to drive and how smooth the power comes in. We'd love one that could do 300 miles but then I'd love a band saw that could resaw 16" logs. Good luck with your decision.


----------



## NikNak

Rorschach said:


> Once again, the poor subsidising the pleasures of the rich it seems



I certainly wouldn't class myself as rich in any sense of the word. 




D_W said:


> Generally, a subsidy like this is to get market exposure for something so that the price comes down to an affordable range.



I do wonder if the so called subsidies are just a means of keeping the price of ev's (or anything that attracts a subsidy) artificially high, i.e. take away the subsidy, sales drop, car manufacturers reduce price of cars by the subsidy amount.? I'm no economist but that's my take on it.

I worked in the wind turbine industry way back when it was just some crackpot engineers idea of creating renewables. And look at it now.... we're all benefitting from it. And when i say 'all' that includes the planet..... and believe me you wouldn't believe the eye watering 'subsidies' we were getting way back then to try new ideas and development methods.

Having said all that.... i've got the keys to a spanking new Kia Niro4+ demonstrator to try for the day (my 5yr old Sportage is in for a warranty jobby... just the drivers door mirror, but hey they said they'll put a new one on) so i'll let you know how i get on later


----------



## Rorschach

NikNak said:


> I certainly wouldn't class myself as rich in any sense of the word.



Why would you think this was aimed at you?


----------



## Ditch 08

With all the points raised and answered, I have yet to hear the the answer to the one question regarding EV cars that I have. This being what is the view with regards social etiquette, if you plug in your vehicle at the home of the person you visit? Should invites be sent out stating that you can or can not plug in, then if you do should you be expected to pay.
You may believe this a silly point, but if you are visiting and you need to recharge, what do you do? Stop at a recharge point prior to visiting or afterwards or spend that hour with your friends/family.


----------



## PhilTilson

Just a quick note about regenerative braking. There are two main aspects to adjusting the level of this. The first is personal; you may find full regeneration a bit too fierce for your driving style, especially at lower speeds. Personally, I find I quickly adjusted my driving style and find the facility excellent. It also means that you can probably keep the car for many years without having to replace brake pads or discs! The level of braking is normally adjustable, which means you can reduce or remove it in icy conditions.

The second is technical. If the battery is at nearly full charge, regenerative braking is reduced, because you can't risk overcharging the battery. If the battery is very cold (or very hot) it can absorb less power so regenerative braking is reduced. Once again, after a relatively short time, you get used to this and it ceases to be a problem.

I have had my Tesla for nearly four months now and I really can't imagine ever going back to a conventional vehicle. I actually look forward to going out in the car and with its Autopilot facility (and this is not full self-drive) my trip around the M25 a few weeks ago was (and I never thought to hear myself say this) almost enjoyable! You may be pushing it a bit for 300Km in -20°C - though the latest Teslas would probably cope admirably - but the number of people I have come across who have driven EVs for any reasonable period that would wish to return to an ICE vehicle are, I suggest, miniscule. Good luck!


----------



## Lons

Ditch 08 said:


> With all the points raised and answered, I have yet to hear the the answer to the one question regarding EV cars that I have. This being what is the view with regards social etiquette, if you plug in your vehicle at the home of the person you visit? Should invites be sent out stating that you can or can not plug in, then if you do should you be expected to pay.
> You may believe this a silly point, but if you are visiting and you need to recharge, what do you do? Stop at a recharge point prior to visiting or afterwards or spend that hour with your friends/family.


It's like going back to when people had land lines and no phone call package so if you needed to use their 'phone you would leave some coins for the call.  

If you had a petrol car you wouldn't presumably be begging them a can of petrol.  I wouldn't ask for a contribution..... until the cost of charging BEVs goes up dramatically as is likely when the financial black hole opens up after the loss of tax on fuel takes effect. Might need a rethink and a lock on the charging point then.


----------



## Rorschach

Ditch 08 said:


> With all the points raised and answered, I have yet to hear the the answer to the one question regarding EV cars that I have. This being what is the view with regards social etiquette, if you plug in your vehicle at the home of the person you visit? Should invites be sent out stating that you can or can not plug in, then if you do should you be expected to pay.
> You may believe this a silly point, but if you are visiting and you need to recharge, what do you do? Stop at a recharge point prior to visiting or afterwards or spend that hour with your friends/family.



Depends how far you are going to visit really, if you are going 20 miles up the road it would seem rather rude to expect a recharge. If you are travelling halfway across the country though I would assume your family/friend would expect you to need to recharge. Of course that assume your family has the facilities for you to charge your car.

Whether you pay is a personal thing, do you pay for the cup of tea and biscuit they give you?


----------



## Spectric

Rorschach said:


> Whether you pay is a personal thing, do you pay for the cup of tea and biscuit they give you?



I think it may cost a bit more than just tea and biscuits, what if they are visiting as a salesperson and they need an overnight stay in order to recharge?


----------



## Ditch 08

Rorschach said:


> Depends how far you are going to visit really, if you are going 20 miles up the road it would seem rather rude to expect a recharge. If you are travelling halfway across the country though I would assume your family/friend would expect you to need to recharge. Of course that assume your family has the facilities for you to charge your car.
> 
> Whether you pay is a personal thing, do you pay for the cup of tea and biscuit they give you?


Yes I agree with your reply and if you had the capacity that would get you home, no problems. But I was trying to ask what the position was with regards "Social Etiquette" was, The same as holding a door open for someone etc.
It also is the same as your example with tea and biscuits, you would instinctually not pay if you were at that persons home, but if you were having a Sunday Roast and before lunch you went to a pub, as the guest you would offer to pay the first round as that is the Social Etiquette that I was dragged up by.


----------



## Just4Fun

John Brough said:


> So it sounds bad - BUT we love it and have realised that we probably only do 100 mile plus drives 10 or so times a year - so just accept planning some stops on those trips.


I guess that makes you an ideal customer for an EV. Were I in your position my decision would be much easier. In reality I need a car that can regularly do long distances in all weathers and that still seems to be a sticking point, for a while at least.



PhilTilson said:


> If the battery is very cold (or very hot) it can absorb less power so regenerative braking is reduced.


It seems everywhere I look I find another reason why I am not going to get the range I need in winter. If I could afford a "summer use only" car it would be fine, but ...


----------



## Just4Fun

Ditch 08 said:


> This being what is the view with regards social etiquette, if you plug in your vehicle at the home of the person you visit? Should invites be sent out stating that you can or can not plug in, then if you do should you be expected to pay.


I have never been in that position, neither as visitor or host, but I doubt there is a simple solution. My feeling is that it would depend on how well the visitor knows the host. A family member or good friend might not be expected to pay but a casual aquaintance might. Personally I doubt I would ever expect or accept payment from a visitor but would at least offer payment if I visitted someone. Perhaps it will become a bit like tipping in a restaurant which many of us find vaguely awkward no matter how often we eat out.


----------



## NormanB

Just4Fun said:


> If you barely ease the throttle do you get mild deceleration even with maximum regen selected?


That’s unique to the model of the car and user input on the pedal- essentially it is a matter of the user becoming attuned to the vehicle - rather the same as jumping into a ‘new to you’ manual transmission ICE car and developing a feel for the clutch bite point.


----------



## D_W

pe2dave said:


> Recent survey showed some caution.



The actual data here in the US suggests that the tesla 3 is the only car sold here so far that has reliability data similar to a good ICE car. Not that we don't have our gas-powered turds. Cadillac, US-distributed VW/Audi, etc, are probably just as bad as the Model S and Y tesla. 

Most of the luxury cars sold here have poor reliability and repair history/cost data. 

Rule of thumb here is that even if the domestics have something they do well (for example, the mid-design cycle domestic trucks are far more reliable than the cars from the same maker), they're still to be avoided the first year or two after a redesign. Data collected supports that - domestic makers go too bold on redesigns and then iron out the problems in the first few years of production (or drop the model). On the luxury cars, they often don't get ironed out (cadillac is supposedly going to all-EV in the future - I think the brand is dead as they haven't had a reliable car since they introduced the northstar series in the 1990s - though I'm not sure why anyone would trust them to make a reliable EV if they can't make a reliable type that's been around for more than a century). 

At any rate, CR collects data here and when I had a subscription, had notified tesla that data showed the 3 to be unreliable, and that was the only reason they didn't give it their "recommendation". Tesla addressed the issues, the data is better, and it's now in the recommended list. The S and Y aren't close to my knowledge, but they're aimed at a different buyer.


----------



## D_W

Just4Fun said:


> I have never been in that position, neither as visitor or host, but I doubt there is a simple solution. My feeling is that it would depend on how well the visitor knows the host. A family member or good friend might not be expected to pay but a casual aquaintance might. Personally I doubt I would ever expect or accept payment from a visitor but would at least offer payment if I visitted someone. Perhaps it will become a bit like tipping in a restaurant which many of us find vaguely awkward no matter how often we eat out.



BIL has a plug in van to go with his model 3 (Depending on kids or not and long trips). I live 260 miles from BIL/SIL and while visiting, he asked me if I had 220 in the garage in the middle of a woodworking discussion. I don't, as I'm not a serious power tool user, and then he clarified that he was hoping to top off his PHEV's battery while visiting for a couple of hours. I thought that was a bit presumptuous!! He then mentioned that any time they visit SIL's parents, it's just at the end of their PHEV range and they request a recharge while visiting. Presumptuous because the car would get home just fine on a gallon or two of gas.


----------



## pe2dave

D_W said:


> The actual data here in the US suggests that the tesla 3 is the only car sold here so far that has reliability data similar to a good ICE car.



Forbes says not?


----------



## D_W

pe2dave said:


> Forbes says not?



I post post saying that tesla's only reliable car is the model 3 (and improvement from fixes based on early data trails brought the reliability into an average or better range needed to get the "recommended label"). And state S and Y are poor. Do they still make the X? I don't know. 

You post an article saying no. 

Article says this:
>>Indeed the only Tesla vehicle Consumer Reports could recommend is the Model 3 <<

> both physical and electronic issues in the Model X and Model S. <<

I don't know about the Y or what the balance of Y and 3 production is (I think they account for almost 90% of tesla's vehicles). My point being, if you're buying the 3, tesla does not force you to buy a Y with it. 

Longer term with the 3 will be interesting. My BIL puts about 30k miles on his a year. It's 2 now. No issues so far. One data point does not make credible proof, though. I'd be comfortable with it. Just as with any manufacturer, I wouldn't buy anything that doesn't have a decent history on its own and on its current design (as in, if they made a wholesale revision of the 3 without much tie-back to what's there, I wouldn't feel safe buying it. Our domestics here have proven that out over and over - not a safe buy.


----------



## Droogs

for those who want to see the future of the garage forecourt


----------



## NikNak

Rorschach said:


> Why would you think this was aimed at you?




I didn't, i was merely stating that i along with millions of others would not class my self as 'rich'.

So we (me and the co driver "what does this button do..?"   ) took the Niro4+ ev out today for a jaunt of 120 miles or so in the pouring rain, and Oh... My... Fffflippin'... God... what... a... car...!! Its happy to just poodle along in slow moving traffic. But when you click it into Sport mode and put your foot to the floor its also happy to give you a free face lift, which also stopped her from wondering what buttons did


----------



## MusicMan

Just4Fun said:


> If you barely ease the throttle do you get mild deceleration even with maximum regen selected?


Yes.


----------



## MusicMan

Terry - Somerset said:


> If regenerative braking similar to appyling the brakes, a high level of "braking assistance" in snow or ice could be a real safety concern


On the Leaf it is not as aggressive as applying the brakes. I doubt if it would lead to skids, but I haven't yet tried it.


----------



## MusicMan

beech1948 said:


> Musicman,
> 
> I thought I would bring a little amusement into your life. My wife has bought herself a Nissan Leaf; gave me a lecture on "green things" and has told me to get a home charger ordered..asap. Thank god delivery is some time in the New Year.
> 
> I'm still laughing at the irony of it all.
> 
> Al


 So ironic, you could pick it up with a magnet! You clearly married wisely!


----------



## NikNak

@Just4Fun and @MusicMan.... i found if you _just_ ease off the throttle the same as you normally would in your ICE car, so you end up almost coasting(?) but still maintaining 50ish lets say, then you can see from the fangled graphic display that you're also regenerating. All clever stuff....


----------



## Droogs

does anyone know what a fangle is? I have been saying new fangled this and that all my life and don't have a clue.


----------



## Blackswanwood

Droogs said:


> does anyone know what a fangle is? I have been saying new fangled this and that all my life and don't have a clue.


I think it is derived from fancy from looking at the dictionary definition?


----------



## Rorschach

NikNak said:


> I didn't, i was merely stating that i along with millions of others would not class my self as 'rich'.



You are still making no sense whatsoever.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Ditch 08 said:


> With all the points raised and answered, I have yet to hear the the answer to the one question regarding EV cars that I have. This being what is the view with regards social etiquette, if you plug in your vehicle at the home of the person you visit? Should invites be sent out stating that you can or can not plug in, then if you do should you be expected to pay.
> You may believe this a silly point, but if you are visiting and you need to recharge, what do you do? Stop at a recharge point prior to visiting or afterwards or spend that hour with your friends/family.



I have a vision of hosting a dinner party (post Covid, obviously): 12 guests would equate to 6 cars, probably. How much extension cable spaghetti do you need running out of the front door to accommodate everyone? It is an interesting point. I'm sure that social media will find the correct solution and enforce it on everyone through ritual humiliation for contravention. Perhaps you will be required to supply a charge point to anyone who needs power - a modern version of philoxenia for the weary traveller.


----------



## MikeJhn

Alfa have always made beautiful cars, just a shame they have never sorted out where to put the front number plate, always looks an after thought.

If any visitor presumptuously asked where the could plug in, I would certainly tell them where to stick their plug, or tell them my charge point is broken, two choices take your pick.


----------



## Just4Fun

Trainee neophyte said:


> I'm sure that social media will find the correct solution


No need to be sarcastic . When has that ever happened?

Interesting point about multiple guests needing access to a charge point. The same problem will arise every day in multi-car households. Extra charge points would mean additional installation costs, and many people will not have suitable parking for multiple cars to have access to a charge point.


----------



## Oaktree11

Hi all,
Just a few observations of my own. I bought a Hyundai Kona ev. I have done a lot of research and one of the things that is clear to me is that in these early (almost pioneering) days there are few of the companies involved who have made the change of mindset that I think is required. My Hyundai dealer for example doesn’t have an ev specialist. The salesman, who I like btw, was briefed but had no deep knowledge about the finer points. Their maintenance regime requires one service a year...why? This is just ICE thinking read across to EV’s.
My insurance on the old car (a Mercedes E350 convertible) had 3 months to run, I had to cancel it because the underwriter won’t cover an EV so I can’t just change the vehicle ... what??
I know it’s early days but it’s changing fast. My car has a 64kW (useable) battery. I can fill this up at 5p/kWh overnight so under £4 for a real life minimum 250 mile range. 1.6p/mile. No road tax, insurance (from a switched on (pun intended) underwriter £250 annually, half what I was paying.
It’s a pleasure to drive, not perfect but damned good and I am sure that in the next few years the volume of Ev’s will increase dramatically.
No going back for me


----------



## clogs

Droogs,
fangle must be something like "scratch" everythingis made from it.....lol....


----------



## D_W

I'd be fairly sure there is a regular service interval on the electric cars to satisfy the dealer network at this point. Service and repair is the profit center for the dealers in the US and probably everywhere. They'll still be fixing modular things and window motors and such in these cars, but for the rest of their revenue from service, they're going to have to get creative, and the brands are going to have to help them figure that out.


----------



## Just4Fun

D_W said:


> Service and repair is the profit center for the dealers in the US and probably everywhere.


That is an excellent point and can be expanded to cover all the independent workshops that service cars without being tied to any particular brand. A friend has such a business. He is very active and has been growing his business, with each month's turnover setting new records even during the pandemic. Yet he has no in-house expertise with electric vehicles, does not service them, and has no plans to move into this area. That seems short-sighted to me. I think he could be treating this as an opportunity but he is basically sticking his head in the sand and ignoring a trend that is a long-term threat to his business.


----------



## Lons

Just4Fun said:


> That is an excellent point and can be expanded to cover all the independent workshops that service cars without being tied to any particular brand. A friend has such a business. He is very active and has been growing his business, with each month's turnover setting new records even during the pandemic. Yet he has no in-house expertise with electric vehicles, does not service them, and has no plans to move into this area. That seems short-sighted to me. I think he could be treating this as an opportunity but he is basically sticking his head in the sand and ignoring a trend that is a long-term threat to his business.


I'd agree but there is another way to look at that as ICE cars are still going to be on the roads for very many years yet, probably at least 25 to 30 years and they still need servicing perhaps more so if owners hang on to their vehicles for longer, I guess depending on his age he might possibly think he'll be long retired before then.

My Merc has just come out of warranty so rather than use the main dealer I had it serviced a few weeks ago by a local independent who's owner is a close friend of my son, he suggested it will be years before he needs to look at BEVs and has no plans at present as he is doing very nicely.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

The powertrain is only part of a service and repair requirement - all other functions - brakes, steering, suspesion, aircon, central locking, wipers etc - are similar.

Expect monitoring and fault systems to become ever more sophisticated and the current trend (wasteful) to replace entire modules will continue.

However, were I running an independent garage I would want to get proficient in the new tech unless planning to retire in the next 5-10 years.

ICE may be around for another 20-30 years, but as the end approaches there will be far more ICE competent garages than there are cars to service!


----------



## D_W

Just4Fun said:


> That is an excellent point and can be expanded to cover all the independent workshops that service cars without being tied to any particular brand. A friend has such a business. He is very active and has been growing his business, with each month's turnover setting new records even during the pandemic. Yet he has no in-house expertise with electric vehicles, does not service them, and has no plans to move into this area. That seems short-sighted to me. I think he could be treating this as an opportunity but he is basically sticking his head in the sand and ignoring a trend that is a long-term threat to his business.



I'd imagine periodic inspection of electrical and battery components will probably be offered as a side service. Kind of like transmission flushes are offered on sealed transmissions now (that otherwise would outlast most of the cars that they're in). Who knows what else. Virus scans, etc. There are already system flashes offered by third parties, but the manufacturers would frown on that!

In the states, dealers have aesthetic requirements - the whole property gets redone. I would guess the manufacturers dictate that, and offer exclusivity in return. Dealer repair or service work here is highway robbery to be avoided, but it's partially a consequence of a wise public who can shop dozens of dealers at once with email buying (the revenue shifts to finance, trade margin and service). 

I think what may happen in some places (as most electronics groups here in the states are trying to serialize all parts so that nobody else can repair their wares, and if anyone tries, the non-serial matching part is rejected and the entire unit doesn't work) is that dealers will maintain ability to work exclusively on their machines, and they will use "consumer safety" as an excuse. It's already happening here on computers and devices. You can get your screen repaired at an independent shop for $300 on a laptop, or apple will give you an option that costs $1700. There's a huge legal fight about it right now as samsung and apple serialize parts on devices. brand lobbyists have more money than anyone else as far as legislature and council in most places do (or repair groups) so it's still legal here in most cases. 









Massachusetts passes "right to repair" law to open up car data


Car owners could view repair data with a phone app.




www.theverge.com





Nobody would've guessed cars in this situation 10 years ago, but manufacturers can deny your ability to use your car in some cases under spurious claims of safety or a fault detected.


----------



## D_W

i have no idea if our antiquated dealership model is used in other states countries. It's outdated here but is filled with lobbying dollars.


----------



## NikNak

wowzer... its begun... Plug-in car sales overtake diesels in race to 2030 ban


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## Rorschach

NikNak said:


> wowzer... its begun... Plug-in car sales overtake diesels in race to 2030 ban



Bit cheeky there. That's all types of electric vehicle vs diesel only and as everyone knows diesels are being purposely discriminated against at the moment. 
Almost 56k Petrol vehicles were sold last month, that's more than 3x the number of electric/hybrid vehicles.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

In 2018 - 2 years ago - sales of pure electric vehicles was less than 1% of the market. This year to date is 6%.

Sales of assorted hybrids accounted for 20% of the market in 2020.

People are voting with their "pockets". 

Diesel is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a polluting technology and now offers litte benefit over modern petrol units.

EVs are increasing in range and reducing in price making them relatively more attractive. Right now running costs are also a positive - although longer term this will be influenced by possible changes in road pricing and tax.

Within 5 years people will only be buying conventional ICE if it is hugely discounted as resale values will fall off a cliff after 2030 (possibly apart from the very specialist).


----------



## Just4Fun

Terry - Somerset said:


> Diesel is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a polluting technology and *now offers litte benefit over modern petrol units*.


(My emphasis)
To be fair, that depends where you live and what you use the vehicle for. Where I live the annual tax (like road tax) on a diesel car is a lot more than on a petrol car, but diesel fuel is cheaper. So there is a cut-off point. If you drive more than that cut-off level a diesel car is cheaper to run; if you drive less than the cut-off then a petrol car is cheaper to run.

Of course all this really proves is that the cost of running a vehicle - any vehicle - is totally dependant upon the whim of the government, who can change the calculations whenever they so decide. This applies just as much to EV as ICE, so even if you make detailed financial plans when deciding which to buy you have to be prepared for change at any time.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

The fun part about electric vehicles is that you could, in theory, generate your own power to charge it. A Nissan Leaf apparently has either a 40 or 60kWh battery. My 10kw solar "array" (is that too posh a word for some panels bolted to the roof of my house?) can generate 60kWh in a day, just...but only in June and July. In December 20kwh per day is difficult. 10kw solar system would cost £6,000 absolute minimum and most likely more. How would that work out from a cost/benefit point of view? 

Allegedly it would cost £8.20 to fully charge a 60kWh battery (so a random Web search tells me), therefore if I pay £8,200 for my solar installation for easy maths purposes, I get 1,000 full charges from the mains electricity before my solar array breaks even. That would be 3 years of completely discharged batteries every day, with perfect midsummer sunshine, or more likely 6 years of more "normal" usage, and 12 years if I wanted sufficient power to actually do the job for more than 2 months of the year. It's quite a long term investment. Just go to show how much energy is required. 

I'm not sure what I just proved to myself, if anything.


----------



## Robbo60

I currently have a Diesel just because I used to do 20K+ miles a year. I now do about 8k so wouldn't choose a diesel again. However, I've took the depreciation hit and taken the view that I run this for a good few years more and then purchase and electric if they are comparatively cheaper than at present.
I'm sure the tax on diesel will be increased


----------



## Terry - Somerset

A 60 kwh battery will allow you to drive ~ 200miles in a typical EV. 

You may need/want to do that each day - but more likely you need ~ 60kwh a week. 

The question is then - how quickly do you want to be able to recharge it - in a few hours, a full day, or several days - and therefore what level of output you need from your PV array.


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> Bit cheeky there. That's all types of electric vehicle vs diesel only and as everyone knows diesels are being purposely discriminated against at the moment.
> Almost 56k Petrol vehicles were sold last month, that's more than 3x the number of electric/hybrid vehicles.



They are being discriminated against for good reason. Most people live on larger contiguous land masses and it's not reasonably possible to get a diesel car's emissions in the same range that you can get a gas or phev or hev into.


----------



## Rorschach

D_W said:


> They are being discriminated against for good reason. Most people live on larger contiguous land masses and it's not reasonably possible to get a diesel car's emissions in the same range that you can get a gas or phev or hev into.



I am not denying that Diesels are a bad idea (in most circumstances), I was pointing out that the article is showing a bias by comparing electric vehicles sales to diesel, a technology that is being actively phased out. It's like saying electric cars are outselling horses.


----------



## Droogs

It is rather sad that Dr Diesel's invention has become ubiquitous by running on the very thing it was not meant to be run on. He originally designed the engine to be used by farmers who could use what we now call bio-diesel ie veg oil run it not hydrocarbons


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Terry - Somerset said:


> A 60 kwh battery will allow you to drive ~ 200miles in a typical EV.
> 
> You may need/want to do that each day - but more likely you need ~ 60kwh a week.
> 
> The question is then - how quickly do you want to be able to recharge it - in a few hours, a full day, or several days - and therefore what level of output you need from your PV array.


There are so many permutations. I would probably fall into the 60kWh per week category, which means I would only need about 2kw of panels to do the job in a day in the summer. In the winter, 6kw would be preferable. If I only want to charge 10kw per day, then 2kw of panels will probably suffice. None of this will be very cost effective, but it means I will be independent, which might be more important in a few years. I wonder how long before the government starts taxing solar panels?


----------



## Geoff_S

__





‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’ | Money | The Guardian


A Kent couple love their new car – but their experience suggests there are problems with the charging network




amp.theguardian.com





It actually happens!


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> I am not denying that Diesels are a bad idea (in most circumstances), I was pointing out that the article is showing a bias by comparing electric vehicles sales to diesel, a technology that is being actively phased out. It's like saying electric cars are outselling horses.



That's a fair point. Someone probably had an article quota to meet.


----------



## MusicMan

Similar experiences re my Leaf, though haven't done many miles yet because of lockdown. I found LV a very good insurance company and they understand EVs. The insurance covers a tow to the nearest charging point if you run out! And costs half of what my old Merc 200 estate cost with a broker-found insurer..

I would never arrive at friends and expect to plug in without notice. In the two trips that I had planned and were cancelled for lockdown, I contacted the hosts and asked if it would be possible to charge there from a 13A socket. One said no problem, the other said they don't have a driveway so sorry but no. So that meant allowing for a commercial charge point on the way there or back, which is no problem. 

The Leaf is leased, and I'll need just one service in the two-year lease, already paid for in the lease costs.

Try not to trash a tyre though. I did just that on a sharp-edged wall in my own drive! EVs need premium tyres (for grip plus low rolling resistance) which cost a lot, and at the moment are very hard to get - stocks are low because of lockdown.


----------



## TRITON

Im actually also about to !GO ELECTRIC!, but with bikes as i dont drive.

Major dilemma currently is the cost of Emtb's compared to what else you can get for £5K. For the life of me I just cant see how they justify those kind of prices, compared with a trade thicknesser(£1500) or even a trade panel saw, both of which will offer decades of service, and you'd still get change back.


----------



## Droogs

Would you not be better off getting a conversion kit first @TRITON and bolt that to a current bike. that is what I am about to do to help me get back into excercise


----------



## TRITON

Droogs said:


> Would you not be better off getting a conversion kit first @TRITON and bolt that to a current bike. that is what I am about to do to help me get back into excercise


Unfortunately my current ride is a freeride bike with big brakes and big forks and it has the ability to commute/shop but also anything else you want to do with it, voted for 5 years as the most capable bombproof mtb available. A conversion kit i'd lose it and it wouldnt perform as well.
Plus for decades ive been seeing bits(mostly knackered) of these conversion kits come up on ebay. Though I expect these days as tech has increased the type/power and quality is far better, but again its you get what you pay for and a good conversion kit should set you back 600+

I felt that to have electric you get the specifically designed electric bike. It's just the price I balk at. Having built and owned and ridden some 20 bikes over the last 15 years I know what they cost really, and overheads aside that type is pretty much just fleecing the buyer.
Would you buy a makita biscuit jointer for Lamello price ?.
So you can see the overpricing is extreme. where the components of the bike add up to less than the motor, yet plugged out in the thousands.
My bike above the frame cost 600, the wheels and brakes another 750, the forks 500, so in a bike/build like that you can justify how it adds up financially. But with these Ebikes, the wheels cost 150, the brakes 50 and the fork 150, yet the total rice is £4500. To me its just a headf*** they can charge so much for pants parts.



If it wasnt for my health/leg prob, i'd use the money to coat the tool wall in Lie Nielsen


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Bikes are a little like cars or workshop kit.

For most people they are two wheels, occasionally assisted by an electric motor. Price is the major determinant
Some will appreciate there is probably a difference between a £600 ebay special and a £1200-1500 model from a "proper" bike shop.
Only the bike obsessed, the very knowledgable or professional user would appreciate the difference a £5000 bike brings
I can understand going for a (2) - a little research will probably justify the cost. The marginal gains going (2) - (3) completely escape me. Some may understand or appreciate the difference, but choice is usually based on brand perceptions, illusory quality or performance benefits.

Just as all new cars will get from A to B. A £10-12k new car will be small, limited luggage capacity, limited performance, bit noisy, poorly equipped.

Step up to a sweet spot - say £25-30k and you will get a comfortable, quiet, adequately fast, reasonably equipped vehicle.

More than (say) £40k and you are buying unusable performance, ego boosting brand recognition, and (very occassionally) a specialist vehicle - eg: to tow a 2 ton caravan or horsebox across muddy fields. 

Of course, it is not a moral or pragmatic decision - if you have the money and enjoy it, buy whatever takes your fancy!


----------



## beech1948

The pace of business is slowing so I have just swapped cars with one of my technicians...my Mercedes S for his Tesla 3. Plan is to use it for around a month including some long journeys eg 380 miles so I can begin to understand what the impact of charging is to me and the team. That is in terms of time lost, cultural changes, maintenance if any etc. So far I am very curious and quite excited.

I am an agnostic when it comes to EVs but we have to move with the times.


----------



## Geoff_S

beech1948 said:


> The pace of business is slowing so I have just swapped cars with one of my technicians...my Mercedes S for his Tesla 3. Plan is to use it for around a month including some long journeys eg 380 miles so I can begin to understand what the impact of charging is to me and the team. That is in terms of time lost, cultural changes, maintenance if any etc. So far I am very curious and quite excited.
> 
> I am an agnostic when it comes to EVs but we have to move with the times.


That's a great opportunity to decide if it's right for you. I have had my e Golf for just over a year now and although I had done a lot of reading, there were a few things I discovered in ownership, or re-inforced what I had already read. Ultimately the e Golf is a great EV for urban/suburban sub 120 mile day trips, well, that's my assessment anyway, and it works for us. We have garage & driveway to charge, and we use a 3 pin plug, just fine. I reckon it satisfies 95% of my journeys and around 40% of my miles.

I do understand that the Tesla 3 is a different kettle of fish with a much longer range. Have fun!

Be nice to hear what you think in a month's time.


----------



## Rorschach

Geoff_S said:


> I reckon it satisfies 95% of my journeys and around 40% of my miles.



What do you do for the other 60% of your miles?


----------



## Geoff_S

Rorschach said:


> What do you do for the other 60% of your miles?



I have another car.


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## Rorschach

Geoff_S said:


> I have another car.



Have you worked out if the costs of owning the electric car make your overall travel expenses cheaper?

I know for my own situation I could do a lot of our trips in an EV, but an ICE is still essential for a proportion of our travel at the moment. I think overall it is cheaper to just run 1 ICE vehicle than an EV as well. Have you done that calculation or is that not important in your decision to own an EV?


----------



## Geoff_S

Rorschach said:


> Have you worked out if the costs of owning the electric car make your overall travel expenses cheaper?
> 
> I know for my own situation I could do a lot of our trips in an EV, but an ICE is still essential for a proportion of our travel at the moment. I think overall it is cheaper to just run 1 ICE vehicle than an EV as well. Have you done that calculation or is that not important in your decision to own an EV?



Interesting question and one that I did indeed ask myself at the time.

I live in SW London and hence a lot of my trips are stop/start slow crawl jobs that just drink petrol. On the other hand I have a number of regular long distance journeys each year which are far more fuel efficient. 

Also, we have always had a second car, so that requirement is factored in with our calculations.

Then if you are in the second car scenario, you have to take into account what your first car is. If it's a diesel golf for example, then the cost savings aren't going to be as great as say compared to a V8 Range Rover.

To answer your question directly, in this restricted COVID year it's saved us about £100pm, and I would expect that to be more like £150+ in a normal year,

But that is our scenario and I think the point here is that personal scenario is going to be different for other people, and rather than see EV vs ICE as some sort of binary decision, realise that EVs today are another potentially viable option if your scenario fits. It's a bit like when I travelled 21 miles across West London twice a day for 12 years. I eventually bought a motorbike as a viable alternative to a car, for that scenario. And that saved me time & money. If I had the option of an EV, then that would have saved me money but not time.

Oh, and I really like driving an electric car, I really like 3ppm and so many other little nuances in this whole subject.

Ultimately, only you can answer your question for your personal situation.

Cheers


----------



## Rorschach

@Geoff_S thanks for the very reasoned reply. 

We currently do about 6k miles a year (I am disregarding 2020 of course), up to 50% of those miles are on longer trips or where we require a high load capacity, so an EV is not currently practical. Our ICE car is certainly much more expensive to run than an EV but I am certain that the costs of running an EV as a second vehicle, probably depreciation alone in fact, would not be offset by any savings we could make.

Switching to an EV only option is also not practical as a long range estate size vehicle is way out of our budget.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

For a household with two or more cars and off road parking the option to have one EV is generally going to be easy. We have:

a 2 year old car which is needed for long trips (eg: 400+ miles in a day) several (5-15) times a year. With an EV, I would currently be concerned about speed and availability of recharging.
a 10 year old city car which does 2-3000 miles a year owned from new. It is reliable and does what it says on the can. This could be an EV if we so chose. However I can see little justification for upgrading to an EV which would cost £20k+.
We are fairly unconcerned about image, gizmos etc so there is little point in changing for no good reason. Until the 10 year old starts to cost it won't get replaced. If/when it does EV may be an option.

I can fully understand why those with a single car who ocassionally drive long distances would not want to change to an EV today. A new EV is unaffordable for many, there are few available second hand, and they command premium prices.

I still remain convinced that EVs are the future - in 3-5 years time charging may be perceived as far less of an issue, and a much higher volume of cars will be available s/h.


----------



## Droogs

@Terry - Somerset 
very interesting post, I thought this vid may be of interest. Gives current experience of an owner and also shows what is coming up in the very near future


----------



## Just4Fun

Rorschach said:


> We currently do about 6k miles a year


As you do so few miles I don't think any savings from using an EV could every pay back the initial investment. Instead I would look at it in reverse: doing so few miles is not going to cost a fortune in fuel no matter what you drive. So in your position I would ignore fuel costs and run a gas-guzzler that appeals for some other reason, such as luxury, performance or whatever floats your boat. Such vehicles depreciate a lot from new so you could buy a little-used second-hand example comparatively cheaply and enjoy it.


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## NikNak

Yes i saw that clip the other day   have you watched the one where he's trying to convince his wife that 'maybe, just maybe the Tesla is the better option...' it is sooo funny


----------



## Rorschach

Just4Fun said:


> As you do so few miles I don't think any savings from using an EV could every pay back the initial investment. Instead I would look at it in reverse: doing so few miles is not going to cost a fortune in fuel no matter what you drive. So in your position I would ignore fuel costs and run a gas-guzzler that appeals for some other reason, such as luxury, performance or whatever floats your boat. Such vehicles depreciate a lot from new so you could buy a little-used second-hand example comparatively cheaply and enjoy it.



I am quite happy to have something fairly eco friendly such as a high MPG petrol vehicle. Our current vehicle doesn't go great on the MPG as the engine is underpowered for the weight of the vehicle. it wouldn't surprise me if the owner costs (MOT, Tax, Insurance etc ) equal the fuel costs over the span of a year, especially for 2020.

Luxury doesn't interest me, nor performance. I don't drive fast and I don't need gadgets, the only "luxury" I insist on in a car is air conditioning as I can't bear to be hot and sweaty when trying to concentrate on driving. Otherwise I don't care what gadgets it has.
For me a car is a practical necessity, I like something with good load carrying space and 5 seats, but also reasonably easy to park. I would be happy with a small van/people carrier, but currently we settle for an estate. Any EV we bought would have to be at least as big as our current car and they are not really available it seems. We can't justify 2 cars.

If road tax/fuel duty etc were changed into a per mile system with a higher price for ICE and lower price for EV then it might make sense to keep a large ICE and buy a very small EV but since it currently costs me at least £500 per year just to keep the car on the road, regardless of how many miles I do, an additional vehicle does not appeal.


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> Have you worked out if the costs of owning the electric car make your overall travel expenses cheaper?
> 
> I know for my own situation I could do a lot of our trips in an EV, but an ICE is still essential for a proportion of our travel at the moment. I think overall it is cheaper to just run 1 ICE vehicle than an EV as well. Have you done that calculation or is that not important in your decision to own an EV?



This is much like the truck conversation in the US. I realize that giant 3/4 ton personal trucks are probably not common in the UK, but in the US, it usually goes like this:
* Why do you buy a $48k 3/4 ton truck. Aren't 90% of your miles commuting? Insurance, car payment and gas eats you up on that when something half the size would cover you most of the time 
a: well, I can't get lumber, plywood or tow a trailer with what you're talking about and I need to be able to do that
* "how many times a year do you do that"
a: every couple of months
* "why don't you rent a truck for $75 a day when you do that?"
a: it's too much of a hassle - they probably wouldn't be available, either
* "ever try renting one? you reserve it online, they drive to your house and pick it up when you're done"
a: nope, not interested
* OK, so it doesn't sound like you actually need the truck, you just want it
a: you don't know what you're talking about, I need it. renting wouldn't work

(and I wouldn't be seen in a car half the size, my friends would make fun of me is what the person with the truck is really thinking). 

My point with that is that I actually am the guy with the smaller car (by US standards, average for UK, I guess). When I need a truck or cargo van, I rent it. The cost of rental is usually a sale deal because I would only need one weekend or holiday and the rental companies struggle to get trucks and vans or really anything rented when it's not a typical business day rental. It costs me about $40 to rent a van for a short pickup (i just rent from a moving company - they charge a small amount then 60 cents a mile), or about $70 a day to rent a van or truck from a rental car company - sometimes it's half that - for unlimited mileage. 

If someone has an EV and they make two trips a year or even one a month or whatever where they just wouldn't be able to live with an EV, then it's really easy just to rent a car that fits rather than owning a second one (or something that doesn't make sense 95% of the time). 

In the rural areas and midwest here, people hate EVs - it's a political thing. When you get to remote areas, they do drive long distances over flat areas and ICE cars do far better for efficiency there than they do in populated areas, so they do have that on their sides. But they're immune to rational discussion about renting a car when they'd actually need to drive more than 240 miles in a given day. Immune to it because they're pretty much immune to rational discussion that makes them think you're some "big city person who doesn't think like an individual like we do out here in the sticks". 

(I'm not really either - grew up rural and live in the surburbs. I just kind of like things that make sense analytically).


----------



## D_W

(i can walk to the rental car place here, so even if they didn't pick up the car, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. I asked the guy why they do that now, and he said that a lot of the weekend rentals are drug dealers using fake payment info. The payment goes through, but it's not attached to the individual - and when they're done, they abandon the car. However, if the rental car offers to pick up the rented car, they're glad to call and say where they abandoned it. They have to spend less time trying to find cars or retrieving them unexpected places at unexpected time by just offering to pick them up, and most of the on-the-ground employees are college students, so they're not paying them much to pick up a few cars an hour.

hah!)


----------



## Rorschach

@D_W You make a good argument there and I am sure for some people that would make perfect sense. 

I have rented Vans (we don't use trucks here) before to move house, they are not cheap but not terribly expensive either. The trouble for me, inconvenience. I often have to transport larger items at short notice, renting would be a big hassle. Renting for long distance travel, not a great option, it's quite expensive to rent a vehicle for a week for instance especially if you want to rent something suitable for collecting dirty materials, our local firm has a limit on how far away you can take the vehicle without paying an extra premium for instance. 

As I have said in a previous post, the savings from an EV just don't outweigh the costs of owning an ICE, if I did the longer trips maybe just once a year it would make sense, but the frequency for me means any rental costs would far exceed any savings.


----------



## Just4Fun

D_W said:


> My point with that is that I actually am the guy with the smaller car (by US standards, average for UK, I guess). When I need a truck or cargo van, I rent it.


I don't need a large load carrier often so I tried the rental option a couple of times. It just doesn't work for my use. I typically have little advance notice of needing to carry something. Rental companies here don't deliver or collect. The nearest one in over 40km away. If I need such a vehicle I probably need to do 200 or 300 or more km, purely because I live out in the sticks and everything is spread out. The cost of rental can easily be 150 euro and that is enough to kill most of the activities for which I need a large load carrier.

My next best solution was to look to buy a trailer rather than buying a large vehicle. That seems a much better option. I mentioned this to a friend and he said he had a suitable trailer but didn't really have anywhere to store it. So he suggested he store his trailer at my place. I can use it when I want to and he can do the same. That was 18 months ago. I have used it maybe half a dozen times since then and for me it has been a good deal.


----------



## D_W

no, the savings at this point probably don't....there may be a couple of small exceptions, but not widespread (esp. not tesla). 

Kia has an EV that is probably offered there, and for some reason, they ran a package of incentives this year that allowed some people to buy a supposedly $40K vehicle for $24k (i'm sure this is including tax credits at federal and state level, and one does have to have income to write against at least some of them as they're an offset to tax and not a pure credit). 

In that case, if the car lasts 150k miles, it's probably a savings. 

The car rental thing here is much more relaxed than there, so it's an easier option - especially for the non-business user as weekend users have the upper hand in renting at off peak. 

The mrs and I flew to new england (660 miles away) about a decade ago and rented an SUV for an entire week (about $450, unlimited mileage) and put 1000 miles on it. Cost a little more for a week rental in that case as the charge reflected returning the car 660 miles away. When I turned the car in, they gave me a cross look for putting 1000 miles on it, but I noted that their agreement was unlimited mileage - no problem. 

Local rentals usually have no mileage limitations, either. A toyota minivan was $75 here for a three day weekend and a buddy and I used it (minivans are probably bigger here than there - they can haul lumber and sheet goods in most cases) to drive a 400 mile round trip and then after I gassed it up, the mrs and I drove it around. 

Super cheap. 

But even I didn't have much luck when the mrs. wanted a bigger family truckster "for trips". She didn't buy my rental rationale, so I drive a small car and she drives a big one. The biggest difference that I can see is that she doesn't have to pay much attention to the cargo area, so she ends up hauling a lot of junk around that would've been addressed sooner in a smaller car.


----------



## Rorschach

All good points. I think really it's down to personal circumstance, we are all different and choose our vehicles to suit our needs. At the moment there is not an EV to suit my needs (let alone my budget) and there is not the rental system to allow me to change my needs. That system may change in the future though. I can only base my decision on the situation as it stands now, and for now I need an ICE.


----------



## D_W

As a cheap pineappled late model used buyer, I'm also stuck with ICE. But we don't drive that many miles combined for a US user (12-14k total between two separate cars). There are some people here who commute a hundred miles a day - I'd never do that. My BIL does about 90 (and now has a tesla). I guess if you get the automatic driving system, you can half doze off while you're driving, but I don't like trading car hours for "I can stand and do something" hours. Cost of driving like that also adds up sneaky a little at a time.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Electric pickup trucks should be available from next year, if you can afford one.

Electric Trucks - New Electric Pickup Trucks For 2021 And Beyond 

For the same money I can buy a house here, or possibly two houses - so some thinking to do. Maybe a conversion of my existing truck might be more logical.


----------



## heimlaga

I rekon those of us who aren't rich will be forced to go back to woodgas conversions if oil based fuels are banned. Chevrolet Scotsdale and Volvo 245 are popular models for such conversions but I fear they will be in short supply at that stage. What then?

It takes between 15 and 20 years for a car or van or pickup to pass far enough down the food chain to become available to a workig class family who also wants to own a small house and who are not into loaning way more than they can pay back. The avarage market value of cars/vans/pickups in use in Finland is 3000 euros because that is what the average family can afford.
Will one of those fancy electrc cars be possible and economically viable to keep running when it is let's say 25 years old? They say the battery packs alone cost many thousand euros and last less than 10 years. What then? 
An old hot bulb engine running on waste oil mixed with black lye driving a generator all mounted on a trailer towed by the "electric" car?
Home built steam waggons?
Or.........


----------



## Artiglio

Reading the last few pages it would seem that a euro 6 ice vehicle with a battery capable of covering 50 miles would be the solution for many people. Linked to an intelligent sat nav that determined when the electric drive takes over and controls recharging when using the petrol / diesel. 
Effectively the ICE runs outside of emission control zones, 50 miles would deal with a huge percentage of most vehicles daily use. The ICE giving a range of around 400 miles. If such a vehicle existed and had a future it’d be something i’d look at.
But surely any notions of cost savings in the longterm are pointless, at some point HMG is going to want to recover the lost fuel taxes for my car they stand at very roughly 6 pence a mile, if people put sucha figure into their cost calcs , how does it work out?


----------



## Just4Fun

heimlaga said:


> They say the battery packs alone cost many thousand euros and last less than 10 years.


I don't think that is quite right. Yes, I believe battery packs are (likely to be) expensive, but the "last less than 10 years" is perhaps misunderstood. From what I can see, manufacturers provide a guarantee on the battery packs of say 8 years. What they actually guarantee is that after that time the battery capacity will be at least X% of the new capacity. Perhaps 75% or 80%. It doesn't mean the battery pack is useless when old, it is just that the capacity (and so the vehicle range) is reduced.

That said, you make a valid point about many/most people not being able to afford an EV, even when the vehicle is older. To add to that, many people who currently run old cars keep them going by doing maintenance & repairs themselves. I don't know how feasible that might be on an EV - although to offset this there should be less to go wrong on an EV.

My son is a student. I bought him a 2003 VW Bora for 600 or 700 euro. All it needed was a new exhaust box. There is no way he could have an EV; they are way out of the price range.


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## Terry - Somerset

There is a danger that we confuse the issues with respect to EVs and are selective in the data used to justify an opinion.

*Cost - *this is about government taxation and subsidy policy. To encourage uptake of EVs (rigtly or wrongly) subsidies support the costs of purchase, oil is taxed but not electricity for recharging.

Longer term lost tax revenue will need to be recovered if the transition to EV happens as planned. The general level of taxation could be increased, but it may be more likely through motoring taxes.

*Environment - *there seems little doubt that EVs is urban areas improve air quality. Whether overall pollution is reduced depends on how the electricity is generated.

Pollution is generated in the manufacturing process. I am unconvinced that a complete analysis exists as it needs to include:

whole lifecycle impacts including end of life and recycling
equipment in the manufacturing process, not just those embedded in the vehicle.
*Performance - *EVs are improving at a rapid rate - reduced battery costs and weight, battery technologies, increased range, faster recharging.

There are issues around short term recharging capacity. Longer term it is not a barrier - solved over time and with investment.

There will inevitably be some who cannot easily transition to EV even assuming improvements to current constraints - due to where they live and possibly nature of requirement (eg: farming). 

84% of the UK population live in urban areas. Those living in genuinely rmote remote locations (eg 20+ miles from the nearest small town) are less than 2-3%.


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## beech1948

Yesterday I took delivery of my swapped Tesla from one of my Techs. We had to have a meeting to do the swap as he explained a few things about the Tesla. That is:-

1) I need to have at least 5 or better 7 credit card ready accounts with charger station suppliers. What.!! It seems once I am off the very well beaten Mway lines of traffic chargers are less available so I need to be ready. Oh Well
2) I need at least 2 adaptors from non Tesla sources to Tesla
3) When travelling over 250 miles in Winter the cold will curtail the battery performance somewhat so I need to be ready to plan my stops and take time out (What !!) to recharge the batteries...of the battery not for me.
4) I need to build a mental map of overall weight in the vehicle vs distance to be covered to make sure I plan recharging well.
5) I need tree different apps to try to find all of the chargers out there....What !!

Tom did say he still thought it was brilliant. My somewhat ironic face expression probably cause him to worry.

So next week sees me doing about 800 miles as I have to visit customers for 3 days, and a trip of 170 miles each way to visit family.

Still excited to see how the Tesla shapes up.

Does anyone know if Tesla has estimated a miles per gallon equivalent for their cars.


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## D_W

beech1948 said:


> Yesterday I took delivery of my swapped Tesla from one of my Techs. We had to have a meeting to do the swap as he explained a few things about the Tesla. That is:-
> 
> 1) I need to have at least 5 or better 7 credit card ready accounts with charger station suppliers. What.!! It seems once I am off the very well beaten Mway lines of traffic chargers are less available so I need to be ready. Oh Well
> 2) I need at least 2 adaptors from non Tesla sources to Tesla
> 3) When travelling over 250 miles in Winter the cold will curtail the battery performance somewhat so I need to be ready to plan my stops and take time out (What !!) to recharge the batteries...of the battery not for me.
> 4) I need to build a mental map of overall weight in the vehicle vs distance to be covered to make sure I plan recharging well.
> 5) I need tree different apps to try to find all of the chargers out there....What !!
> 
> Tom did say he still thought it was brilliant. My somewhat ironic face expression probably cause him to worry.
> 
> So next week sees me doing about 800 miles as I have to visit customers for 3 days, and a trip of 170 miles each way to visit family.
> 
> Still excited to see how the Tesla shapes up.
> 
> Does anyone know if Tesla has estimated a miles per gallon equivalent for their cars.



KW/hrs. BIL uses about 0.3kw/hr per mile on average in his model 3. His utility rate is 11 cents, so a little over 3 cents a mile. Typical 30mpg combo gas car (which is really an econo car here unless you only have flat drives with no stops) would be 8-12 cents a mile depending on the gas price at any given time. 

Typical gallon of gasoline is about 33.7kw/hr (us gallon) and 20-35 efficiency on cars. Shoot the middle and you get about 9kw/hr of converted energy to the road in a gas car and the tesla comes out to about..

wait for it....30 miles per gallon. Not a big surprise. 

The trouble with the comparison is that it doesn't waste the other 24-25kw of energy that a gas car discharges into thermal energy, so you could look at it more as some large fraction of 112 miles per gallon (there must be 10-20% lost in distribution of electricity and charging).

Electricity generation here does, of course, create more thermal energy than electricity, but the fuels to generate electricity are majority natural gas, and then coal/nuclear are probably coming close to even and then all the rest. Very little liquid fuel.


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## heimlaga

Just4Fun said:


> I don't think that is quite right. Yes, I believe battery packs are (likely to be) expensive, but the "last less than 10 years" is perhaps misunderstood. From what I can see, manufacturers provide a guarantee on the battery packs of say 8 years. What they actually guarantee is that after that time the battery capacity will be at least X% of the new capacity. Perhaps 75% or 80%. It doesn't mean the battery pack is useless when old, it is just that the capacity (and so the vehicle range) is reduced.
> 
> That said, you make a valid point about many/most people not being able to afford an EV, even when the vehicle is older. To add to that, many people who currently run old cars keep them going by doing maintenance & repairs themselves. I don't know how feasible that might be on an EV - although to offset this there should be less to go wrong on an EV.
> 
> My son is a student. I bought him a 2003 VW Bora for 600 or 700 euro. All it needed was a new exhaust box. There is no way he could have an EV; they are way out of the price range.


I just wonder how a 30 years old battery pack will work in -40 degrees celsius............. 
Because I am one of those who can afford to own a car because the car is old and financially speaking worthless and I do roughly 80% of the repair myself. Without a car I would also be without a job.

I am fully aware that there is an urgent need to cut down the consumption of fossile fuels. I just don't thing the solution is as simple as they say.


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## D_W

heimlaga said:


> I just wonder how a 30 years old battery pack will work in -40 degrees celsius.............
> Because I am one of those who can afford to own a car because the car is old and financially speaking worthless and I do roughly 80% of the repair myself. Without a car I would also be without a job.
> 
> I am fully aware that there is an urgent need to cut down the consumption of fossile fuels. I just don't thing the solution is as simple as they say.



Something will have to change between then and now for that to even happen. The packs condition themselves in terms of temperature (and maybe humidity?). The pack would expend energy to keep itself conditioned so that it doesn't get used when it's cold (and damage itself). 

More likely if the 30 year old cells still work that they'll be grid tied, though and if you had some stroke of luck to have any car made these days last 30 years (I don't see it working on them with all of their plastic and cheap PCBs vs. much more stainless and fewer PCBs in cars 30 years ago), you'd have a newer pack in it by then. 

Cars will be modular. Unless there's a legislative issue, you'll probably be able to repair a two decade old electric car the same as you do your car. Think of it this way - the cars will have to come with software and guidance to fix them so that everyone doesn't have to be the best mechanic within 100 miles. You'll have the car, the info and you'll fix it.


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## Just4Fun

heimlaga said:


> I just wonder how a 30 years old battery pack will work in -40 degrees celsius.............


Impossible to say, so let's guess ...

It seems a battery pack should have, say, 80% of its original capacity after 8 years. If (big assumption) it continues to loose 20% of its capacity every 8 years then it might have 40% to 45% of its original capacity after 30 years.

Recently in this thread we have discussed how much range of a (new) battery pack might degrade in real winter conditions. Hard data is difficult to come by but I suspect range could drop by 50% to 80% when it is very cold. After 30 years that would mean losing, say, 70% of the remaining 45% in the battery, leaving not much over 30%.

This means a car with a 250 km summer-time range when new today might have a range of 75 km in 30 years. In winter you won't want to risk getting stranded so maybe that means not attempting any trip in excess of, say, 40km.

Obviously these figures are just guesses and any similarity to reality is probably coincidence. If anyone has any better figures I would be interested to know them. Anyway, the calculation is not encouraging. Besides being guesses though I think these figures are meaningless because I seriously doubt if any battery will last 30 years.


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## D_W

If batteries have environmental conditioning (that is, they're kept corrosion free and temperature conditioned like tesla does), I'd imagine you're going to find that they will still have a reasonable amount of capacity at 30 years. 

I believe tesla's target was about 180k miles in the S to have batteries with 90% of capacity remaining (which I've read tesla considering a good point to target). There was a taxi company in malaysia using S's (why, I don't know - the S has a poor reliability history, but we're just talking about the batteries - maybe the cars are a status symbol). When you read accounts from S owners, the consensus seems to be far more than 180K miles before reaching the 90% target. How far off of 90% does a large battery need to go before it's not useful for household? If you end up with a 75-100kw/hr pack, if it even has half capacity and is still working reliably, it'll be useful. 

The next generation of tesla batteries are supposedly good for 1000 full charging cycles, still meeting the 90% capacity target (half million mile battery claim due to this for the pickup, and million for the trucks when they start producing them). If there is a stationary system that can manage the used packs, I can't imagine a market won't organize for them. 

The comment above re: environmental, lots of assumptions are involved. I've seen studies claiming 150k miles for environmental equivalence (usually from an org. that caters to the petroleum industry) accounting for all of the components as well as the energy use (that is, the pollution in making the batteries is accounted for). I saw a german study that was a bit more independent years ago where the authors expected to show that battery cars are bigger polluters, but concluded breakeven on pollution around 100k km/ or just over 60k miles. 

That will probably continue to improve. 

The mistake that we all make looking at this (I don't, but many here are making the mistake) is assuming that looking at a current snapshot of electric cars is something that can be overlayed over the next several decades. I don't think the industry for used packs is particularly large yet, and have seen more FYI videos about disposal of used batteries than recycling. But the batteries will change and if there is economic interest in reuse or recycling, that will, too. 

I'd have to imagine that a stationary pack with more gradual demand on power than a car, and steady environmental conditions will be pretty easy to use for a long time. 

I got two articles this morning that Toyota and VW will have solid state batteries in use starting in 2021, with more widespread distribution by 2025. There's also huge money being spent in battery technology that was never spent before almost solely due to Musk expediting the initial work and creating demand due to widespread recognition. 

As to the comment above about loss of road or fuel taxes. We hear this all the time in the US. Quite often, the road taxes pay for little of the road maintenance here and often have been diverted elsewhere. On top of that, I haven't seen too many governmental entities that aren't good at creating new revenue sources. That whole discussion is just a diversion - if there is a need for revenue, once there is market saturation, it'll be collected one way or another.


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## Lons

The trouble with all of that DW is that the words "I imagine" pop up several times and as none of us know what will happen, all we can do is speculate.
I recently read a "real driving conditions" comparison between main brands and models comparing range and as an example the three Tesla models didn't fare any better than several others being between 204 and 257 miles, the Audi, Mercedes, jaguar (all SUVs) performed equally as well and a decent range if I'm honest though clearly less in poor weather, not that we get that in the UK.  Of course just one test so not conclusive.

_"The next generation of tesla batteries are supposedly good for 1000 full charging cycles, still meeting the 90% capacity target (half million mile battery claim due to this for the pickup, and million for the trucks when they start producing them)" _

Is that accurate? Even if the unrealistic range of 300 miles is used then 300 x 1000 full charges = 300,000 not half a million and as fast charging and other issues affect battery life then being sceptical I seriously doubt their claims.

I'm not sure whether comparisons can really be made between US and UK revenues e.g. UK road tax currently raises around £40 billion pa which equates to 5% of government revenue or £750 per UK adult. Added to that fuel duty is another £28 billion which splits to 58p per litre in duty plus 20% vat on the total so 62% of what we pay for every litre is tax. With the onset of BEVs that revenue is going to reduce drastically and all on top of a huge hole in finances under the banner of Covid-19 so it will have to be found somewhere and once we are mostly in electric vehicles to use your own words I imagine the cost of keeping them on the road witll rockets skywards.


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## Rorschach

No doubt there is going to have to be a "per mile" charge for electric vehicles very soon.


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## Droogs

I think you will find it will be all vehicles that will have to pay a per mile charge. This will be on top of any tax paid during your cars refuilling process regardless of what that "fuel" may be. I also believe that, that cost will be much higher for dinoburners than it will be for dodgems. Carbon Zero 2050 being the main hidden prompt for this as the biggest, quickest, easiest reduction to show and brag about will be a reduction due to change of car usage. I truly do think ICE cars will be made deliberately and totally unviable in an economic sense for the average to lower income brackets to force them to use non polluting public transport


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## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> I think you will find it will be all vehicles that will have to pay a per mile charge. This will be on top of any tax paid during your cars refuilling process regardless of what that "fuel" may be. I also believe that, that cost will be much higher for dinoburners than it will be for dodgems. Carbon Zero 2050 being the main hidden prompt for this as the biggest, quickest, easiest reduction to show and brag about will be a reduction due to change of car usage. I truly do think ICE cars will be made deliberately and totally unviable in an economic sense for the average to lower income brackets to force them to use non polluting public transport



Well ICE users already pay per mile basically in the form of fuel duty, the more you drive the more you pay and you are incentivised to get a more economical vehicle in the same way. It's a fairly good system really when you think about it.

I don't think ICE users (who in future are more likely to be low earners in the working class) will be unduly penalised as it is counter productive for the government. If you force workers out of their cars you either must provide better public transport (costly) or you force them out of work and if they are out of work they are a drain on the economy.

Things should continue much as they are for now, incentives for switching helping bring the costs down then gradually reducing those incentives as EV's become the norm and the second hand market increases. Incentives then move to scrappage schemes for older ICE vehicles. Finally penalties at the end for ICE users with commercial use exempt until suitable vehicles have emerged for that part of the economy. 
Not sure about rural users, that would be trickier as public transport is not a viable option there.


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## beech1948

Made my first journey by EV today after the handover from Tom.

Just about magic for the journey. The drawbacks were few and possibly self made. For example I found myself the night before the journey fussing to charge the Tesla from my household supply. Took 6 hrs to go from 45% charge to 95%. I only popped out to check about 12 times....me anxious..nah !!. The rest of the evening was spent checking that I had accounts with at least 5 charging providers; loading 3 Charger point apps on my phone; and poring over these charger point maps and real maps like Christopher Columbus setting off the discover the New World.

Today's journey of 87 miles each way was accomplished.........without any drama at all other than my raised heart rate and blood pressure. So far so good and a very interesting talking point with clients who are all curious to see what their car fleet managers are going to do in the next 2 years. 

Car is on charge tonight ready for tomorrows 164 miles each way. So I will soon get to check out the charging infrastructure in the UK.


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## Droogs

Glad you had a good journey, here's to many more and a little bit less anxiety 
=


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## D_W

Lons said:


> The trouble with all of that DW is that the words "I imagine" pop up several times and as none of us know what will happen, all we can do is speculate.
> I recently read a "real driving conditions" comparison between main brands and models comparing range and as an example the three Tesla models didn't fare any better than several others being between 204 and 257 miles, the Audi, Mercedes, jaguar (all SUVs) performed equally as well and a decent range if I'm honest though clearly less in poor weather, not that we get that in the UK.  Of course just one test so not conclusive.
> 
> _"The next generation of tesla batteries are supposedly good for 1000 full charging cycles, still meeting the 90% capacity target (half million mile battery claim due to this for the pickup, and million for the trucks when they start producing them)" _
> 
> Is that accurate? Even if the unrealistic range of 300 miles is used then 300 x 1000 full charges = 300,000 not half a million and as fast charging and other issues affect battery life then being sceptical I seriously doubt their claims.
> 
> I'm not sure whether comparisons can really be made between US and UK revenues e.g. UK road tax currently raises around £40 billion pa which equates to 5% of government revenue or £750 per UK adult. Added to that fuel duty is another £28 billion which splits to 58p per litre in duty plus 20% vat on the total so 62% of what we pay for every litre is tax. With the onset of BEVs that revenue is going to reduce drastically and all on top of a huge hole in finances under the banner of Covid-19 so it will have to be found somewhere and once we are mostly in electric vehicles to use your own words I imagine the cost of keeping them on the road witll rockets skywards.



re: the batteries - the million mile claim is for heavy trucks. Musk has an objective of getting a 1000 mile range so that no matter what the conditions, the average US driver (must take breaks at 10 hours) wouldn't be able to outlast their battery. You could say "what about the driver who ignores the rules?" In a fleet, this doesn't occur in the US as the freight haulers are using electronic logs and extra surveillance to avoid regulatory trouble. If a "drop" comes up short of the recipient, the national carriers will send another driver who is not on break to exchange the trailer. 

At any rate, to me, that makes the batteries half a million miles in their proposed truck (500 mile range or something like that). Energy density of the batteries is the catch for large trucks - cost has declined fast, but energy density is increasing slower than cost is declining (we have strict weight limits on the roads here - trucks already do more than 90% of road damage based on weight, which is another interesting aspect of the road tax talk- similar to guilting people out of applying fert or chem to their lawns to "save bay areas". Lawns have relatively little runoff compared to naked farming fields, and farms already use 12 times more fert and chem than lawns (guilting people about "damaging roads" with cars over gas taxes on PHEVs is kind of pointless here as the cars aren't doing the damage - thus since there's more road mileage here, the weight limits and fines for exceeding them is strict. If the batteries in a truck weigh 6k pounds, that's a problem as a lot of the heavy loads are closer to the weight limit than 6k). 

Anyway, yes on the other comparisons. Gas taxes here are variable, but in my state, they're about 58 cents per gallon of gas. There's a handy site in the states that details how much of the road taxes on fuel actually go to roads. Overall, 70% of road maintenance is paid for elsewhere out of other revenues, and in some states, the "road tax" doesn't go to roads at all - it's just assessed because the states can even though they don't need the dedicated revenue for roads. In others, all of it does. If EVs become a large part of road mileage, the change in revenue source will be quick as construction contracts for infrastructure are not that variable and nobody who cuts infrastructure work will get reelected. It ends up in commercials, even if the commercials can be intellectually dishonest. 

I think the biggest risk in all of this as all we can do is speculate is talk about wet cell batteries being used in cars in 30 years - i doubt they will be. Actually, I doubt the majority of miles will even be ridden in cars that we own in 30 years. It'll be cheaper to have a charger fleet of cars and dial up a ride from an app. We have two cars, and I'm guessing in a two income household in the UK ,that's also common. If I could dial up a car, I'd be comfortable having only one car that we own. 

As for audi, mercedes and jaguar making EVs -I see that a lot of the luxury names are headed toward EVs (tesla has really screwed up their market here as an S or X is often cheaper than a comparable fossil vehicle and the buyers of those cars don't care much about longevity or reliability. If they did, nobody would've sold a V8 BMW, mercedes or any audi here in the last 20 years). Cadillac notified that they are headed to all- EV in the future and offered to buy out dealers who don't like that (that'll be interesting - cadillac has not built a reliable car in 3 decades, so I don't know why we'd expect they could build a reliable EV unless it's just a GM platform with a different skin dropped over it, with different gauges and seat materials). I'll be surprised if any of them can build a reliable car - so far, only the model 3 is putting together reasonable data, and it didn't at first.

re: the range - if they are rated at 300 and people driving on the highway or intermittently get 200, their range anxiety will be resolved as the packs in the cars go toward double that rating. I'm sure there will still be complaints then. Tesla built the first car that was rated to go 200, which was said to be impractical. They have one now rated at 398, which probably equates to 300 actual in regular use. It'll keep going up as capacity keeps declining.


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## Lons

As I said it's all speculation though there is little doubt it will be a very different motoring world in 30 years time I seriously doubt the 10 year target will be met in the UK, I wouldn't presume to speculate on the US situation.

I'm not sure how your point on how much of the revenue is actually spent on road maintenance is relevant as it matters not one jot. It's the same in the UK with revenues being swallowed up in general, what matters and was my point is that in the UK and _I imagine_ the US, there will be a huge hole in government revenues due to the shift to BEVs, I think that's pretty much a given and the motorist in the UK has usually been an easy target so as said it's highly probable that the cost of running a BEV will in due course skyrocket. The government whoever they are have to get it back from somewhere and their track records in doing so are very well established.
My argument isn't against electric vehicles or pro ICE far from it though I know it will be much further down the line before I switch and even longer for my wife as I've just changed her petrol Mini for new one and I explained previously my reasons for that. If I go even further I bought a £70k motorhome two years ago with a Euro 6 diesel engine and have no intention of swapping that, even if I could afford to for obvious reasons, I also own another small vehicle related to that which I'm likely to keep until it falls apart which will be a long way into the future.


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## Rorschach

Lons said:


> As I said it's all speculation though there is little doubt it will be a very different motoring world in 30 years time I seriously doubt the 10 year target will be met in the UK, I wouldn't presume to speculate on the US situation.
> 
> I'm not sure how your point on how much of the revenue is actually spent on road maintenance is relevant as it matters not one jot. It's the same in the UK with revenues being swallowed up in general, what matters and was my point is that in the UK and _I imagine_ the US, there will be a huge hole in government revenues due to the shift to BEVs, I think that's pretty much a given and the motorist in the UK has usually been an easy target so as said it's highly probable that the cost of running a BEV will in due course skyrocket. The government whoever they are have to get it back from somewhere and their track records in doing so are very well established.
> My argument isn't against electric vehicles or pro ICE far from it though I know it will be much further down the line before I switch and even longer for my wife as I've just changed her petrol Mini for new one and I explained previously my reasons for that. If I go even further I bought a £70k motorhome two years ago with a Euro 6 diesel engine and have no intention of swapping that, even if I could afford to for obvious reasons, I also own another small vehicle related to that which I'm likely to keep until it falls apart which will be a long way into the future.



Trickier for those of us with ageing vehicles now though and needing to think about when to change it.


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## Terry - Somerset

Second hand ICE vehicles are likely to be around until around 2040. 

Assuming assuming the transition to EV happens as planned appox 50% of vehicles on the road will be EV and 50% ICE. 

It really isn't worth worrying about what may happen in the future - by 2030 there will be a full choice of EVs or ICE to choose from ranging in price from ~£1k up as at present.


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## Lons

Rorschach said:


> Trickier for those of us with ageing vehicles now though and needing to think about when to change it.


Not really if you need an ICE there as there are and will be plenty of choice for some years yet though there's every chance IMO that good s/h models will hold their value as availability declines.


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## Rorschach

Lons said:


> Not really if you need an ICE there as there are and will be plenty of choice for some years yet though there's every chance IMO that good s/h models will hold their value as availability declines.



That's my point, if you have an ageing ICE car and are on a budget, when do you change? The car will need to last long enough until a 2nd hand EV is affordable.


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## D_W

Rorschach said:


> That's my point, if you have an ageing ICE car and are on a budget, when do you change? The car will need to last long enough until a 2nd hand EV is affordable.



When is the UK supposedly phasing out the ICE new cars?
California is going to do that according to them by 2030 or 2035. That generally means there will be decent used ICE cars until 2045 or 2050. I'm sure there will be a low income waiver or purchase assistance for an electric car (But there will be dirtbags who spring up with everything under the sun on payment plans for people who don't understand how detrimental it is to put everything on a payment). 

A friend and I at work talk about this. The most small time crookery always seems to be done among small timers. Like robberies - robbery here in the states is generally common in areas where people have near nothing. The thieves know it's easier to get away with, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense (they should just get an MBA and file for regulatory approval for some kind of car repair warranty or oddball small loan - they'd make more money).


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## Lons

Rorschach said:


> That's my point, if you have an ageing ICE car and are on a budget, when do you change? The car will need to last long enough until a 2nd hand EV is affordable.


Ok you didn't understand my reply. If you need an ICE rather than a BEV then being on a budget you can buy a used model for as long as they remain available and roadworthy which will be many years after the switch to new electric cars in 2030, if it actually happens. If you want to buy ICE new then until December 2029 or while still available prior to that. Simples. Used electric vehicle availability is anyone's guess.


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## Lons

DW
The stated target date in the UK recently was brought forward from 2040 to 2030 however 10 years in politics is a lifetime and governments have a habbit of doing a U turn or quietly forgetting policies.


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## Rorschach

Lons said:


> Ok you didn't understand my reply. If you need an ICE rather than a BEV then being on a budget you can buy a used model for as long as they remain available and roadworthy which will be many years after the switch to new electric cars in 2030, if it actually happens. If you want to buy ICE new then until December 2029 or while still available prior to that. Simples. Used electric vehicle availability is anyone's guess.



No I understood your reply, the question was somewhat rhetorical though, I wasn't expecting you to have the answer.


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## Jos7000

Two...Three... Four... OK, FIVE thoughts (speculation) on the matter...

1. Eventual charging on the fly via wireless charging. Something between scalextric and a modern mobile phone. I think we're stuck thinking like fossil fuel users, for something that is entirely different. New roads will likely have power grids built in. 
2. Tax, with all the duty lost on petrol and diesel, the cheap running of EVs will likely be overshadowed by huge hikes in tax on electricity. 
3. Conversion of old vehicles is already a thing, so it'll will likely become much cheaper to change over without rushing out to spend £80k on a new car. 
4. All vehicles will be used as electrical storage devices, power will flow in either direction depending on demand and usage. Handy for those who invest in solar and wind generation currently. 
5. The 10 - 90% charging dilemma, it's likely they'll change the way it's displayed/used if they're not already doing so. An electronic cut-off at 10% whilst displaying 0%, to increase longevity (because *some* people are stupid)


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## D_W

Lons said:


> DW
> The stated target date in the UK recently was brought forward from 2040 to 2030 however 10 years in politics is a lifetime and governments have a habbit of doing a U turn or quietly forgetting policies.



Agree. Being bold about something that someone else is responsible for completing is a hallmark of politicians, as is glossing over something when it doesn't work out.


My point about revenues may have been partially incomplete. Yes, there will be a hole in revenue collected. Since there is no history of our revenue sources being properly dedicated, when there is an additional need, the rates collected elsewhere will go up.

In the us, the average road tax per passenger car is probably $250 per car. They'll split the new tax revenue among different sources to make up for it. Probably an increase in utility rate taxes, an increase in the licensing costs for a car and a direct assessment on electric cars by the mile. The government here is proficient at that.


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## Terry - Somerset

There are no hypothecated taxes in the UK so far as I am aware. The closest we get is the BBC licence fee!

All taxes effectively end up in a big Treasury pot, and are then allocated to different uses reflecting a mix of:

- strategy - eg: promote transition to EVs
- political dogma - eg: public services vs free market
- public need - eg: state funded education, what are the needs
- modify behaviours - eg: high taxes on tobacco products
- perceived fairness - there needs to be broad public support

How the reduction in fuel revenues will be recovered from the public is just speculation. It could be through road charging, annual licence fees, increased energy taxation, VAT, national insurance etc.

The list is endless, but they are unlikely to pass up the opportunity to "fairly" raise taxes given the financial stress the public sector is under.


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## Woody2Shoes

Jos7000 said:


> Two...Three... Four... OK, FIVE thoughts (speculation) on the matter...
> 
> 1. Eventual charging on the fly via wireless charging. Something between scalextric and a modern mobile phone. I think we're stuck thinking like fossil fuel users, for something that is entirely different. New roads will likely have power grids built in.
> 2. Tax, with all the duty lost on petrol and diesel, the cheap running of EVs will likely be overshadowed by huge hikes in tax on electricity.
> 3. Conversion of old vehicles is already a thing, so it'll will likely become much cheaper to change over without rushing out to spend £80k on a new car.
> 4. All vehicles will be used as electrical storage devices, power will flow in either direction depending on demand and usage. Handy for those who invest in solar and wind generation currently.
> 5. The 10 - 90% charging dilemma, it's likely they'll change the way it's displayed/used if they're not already doing so. An electronic cut-off at 10% whilst displaying 0%, to increase longevity (because *some* people are stupid)


Re. point 1 the international standards are now agreed for wireless EV charging and BMW already offers it as an option - I think we can expect price and availability to improve quickly over the short term:


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## Jos7000

That's currently static charging, mobile charging will take over. You'll never need to exit your vehicle to recharge. It'll be a major selling point in colder and wetter climates. Although it will likely encourage excessive extra journeys too. Think teenagers with access to parent's credit facilities. (still unproven)


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## beech1948

Yesterday I completed my second EV trip in the Tesla. 349 miles each way with an overnight stay....due to my decrepitude.

Covered 245 miles after leaving home....impressed. Pulled into the Mway services ( not named or shamed) and found that all 8 of the Tesla chargers were occupied....had a coffee and a bun...went back out and found a charging slot. Whilst charging I had a walk around and saw 6 other chargers ( non-Tesla) but 2 of them were not working.??

Time to recharge 55 minutes. That's a long time to sit, read the paper, get laptop out and deal with emails. Total stop 72 minutes. Finished journey at clients only to find nearest charger was 2 miles away and non-Tesla. Called up my hotel to see what they had or what was near them and they had a 2 chargers with 2 more within 1 miles.....tried to reserve one...no luck just pot luck. Arrived at Hotel and parked by a charger and plugged in....now both chargers were occupied. Time to charge to at least 80% 4 hrs. Time allowed by charger company to be connected 2 hrs so had to come out again at around 9:30 ish to buy another charging session. Went out at 11:40 to disconnect and move car so someone else could use it if needed.

Return journey stopped at services ...there were 10 Tesla chargers, 4 non-Tesla and all worked. Total stop 50 minutes.

WHAT have we learned. ??

1) Driving an EV is a CULTURAL shift. Its not mechanical, technical or electrical its cultural. They are all just sources of power.
2) Change to journey times is not disastrous but requires more time to be taken so progress is slower. Whether that is a good or bad thing is not my judgement except to say that a customer waiting an extra 72 minutes ++ for my tech to charge may be a step too far for them.
3) I'm surprised that chargers can be out of service. As the prime source of revenue I would expect them to be rapidly repaired. My first service stop indicated that the non-Tesla chargers had been unavailable for 10 days or so.....not really good enough.
4) My next step is to try to research the TOTAL cost of an EV..car, maintenance,power station, transmission of power etc...be interesting to see the comparison to ICE

Friday we have a trip to see family in Bristol before Berkshire is raised to Tier 3 on Saturday and Bristol is reduced to Tier 2.

Thursdays journey was just 45 miles each way so no need to recharge.


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## pe2dave

Most off putting for me?
The motor mfc's can't agree on a common plug.

'kin disgusting IMHO.

I do hope they'll live to regret it. Until then, I'll stay with petrol


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## pcb1962

pe2dave said:


> Most off putting for me?
> The motor mfc's can't agree on a common plug.


Tesla's superior and exclusive charging network gives them a significant marketing advantage over other mfrs. If they didn't have a unique plug Tesla drivers would forever be finding that superchargers are full of other brands plugged in and wondering why they're not working.


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## Rorschach

@beech1948 
Thank you for the "real world" experience you shared there.


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## pe2dave

pcb1962 said:


> If they didn't have a unique plug Tesla drivers would forever be finding that superchargers are full of other brands plugged in and wondering why they're not working.


And ditto for all other mfc's? Crazy not to have standards, at least UK, if not .eu wide.
I do hope uk.gov get in on this.


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## MikeK

pe2dave said:


> And ditto for all other mfc's? Crazy not to have standards, at least UK, if not .eu wide.
> I do hope uk.gov get in on this.



This reminds me of a conversation I had with two AutoCAD draftsmen who worked for me. I wanted to standardize the drawing formats and one of the guys said something like "I love standards. That's why I use my own." I thought he was joking, but he was serious.


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## pcb1962

MikeK said:


> This reminds me of a conversation I had with two AutoCAD draftsmen who worked for me. I wanted to standardize the drawing formats and one of the guys said something like "I love standards. That's why I use my own." I thought he was joking, but he was serious.


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## Rorschach

Some things are improving in the area of standards. USB for example. USB-C is quickly becoming the standard connector for many devices. I just bought an electric toothbrush that uses USB-C to charge it up, my phone is also USB-C and uses that port for charging, data and headphone. You can get laptops that only use USB-C, even for their power cable as it can handle higher voltages than standard USB connectors.


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## beech1948

Most of my journeys until the new year are a max of about 90 miles so well within the capability of the Tesla. My next long journey is Jan 5th from Crowthorne to Glasgow, then Preston, then Derby, then Bristol and eventually home. Will be interesting to see if the Tesla can cope with some intensive driving. Not done the route planning yet but learnt that I also need to factor in Hotels which have charge points.

I also think that having a Standard for charge plugs would be great as would a standard for the rate of charge. That idea of standards though will only be possible when either the Government or a couple of big companies set out to create the UK infrastructure. Obviously not there yet.


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## Terry - Somerset

It may not need government action to create common charging standards. Currently many manufacturers are promoting unique solutions in the hope of becoming the de facto standard as sales volumes increase. Tesla are prime exponents of this.

EV buyers want flexible charging. This may help agreement between some manufactuers to adopt common standards, account and payment processes - particularly if product ranges initially don't compete.

Once one standard starts to dominate charging, other manufacturers will be forced to be compliant or risk losing sales.

The EV market seems too small at present for this transition - but in two years time volumes may have increased sufficiently to make it a reality.

Many decades ago, similar complexities were played out between VHS, Betamax, Phillips 2000; the same has happened with domestic IT cabling, connectors and interfaces. Mainly so far as I am aware with very limited government intervention.


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## Lons

That's one of the reasons that makes the current crop of BEVs less attractive especially when they come on to the secondhand market as old technology, non standard connectors, old batteries etc. It's perfectly acceptable to stick with old video recorders or even old 8 track car players, a very different story with a vehicle you depend on for transport and probably need to charge on route. With WiFi charging being perfectly possible I wonder how many using older BEVs could afford to have those systems retrofitted. Remains to be seen though no doubt there will be cheap converters cropping up on Bangood and other well known sites,  

I would want to buy new, latest technology once the market has stabilized and standardized and so will continue with ICE until the products are a lot further down the line, unfortunately the vast majority of buyers won't have that choice because of financial circumstances so will run old ICEs well into the future or be forced into buying older and largely obsolete electric cars..


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## Droogs

I dont see why over the next few years as recharge points pop up that like fuel station they can have more than one cable and connector type fitted to cover the different standards just like petrol diesel and lpg have different nozzeles


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## MusicMan

I was astonished when I gt my BEV (Leaf) how many different cable types and charging networks there are. Yes it does need a bit of thought and planning at the moment but it is manageable, and I am sure they will steadily merge by market forces, as Terry suggests. And wireless charging does appear to be efficient and well standardised already (5 Wireless Charging Myths Exploded By WiTricity CEO)

However, I did decide to lease the Leaf for two years as no doubt there will be significant advances. When the lease company sell it at that point, it will make a very nice secondhand BEV as, thanks to lockdown, I think it will have done less than 8000 miles at that point!


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## Skydivermel

I brought the missus a Hyundai Kona around 3 months ago, the 64kW 2020 model. Like everyone else I was perplexed at the number of different cable types. However my experience of owning and driving a BEV as of today is as follows.

1. Buy a vehicle with a good real world range. Mine has circa 175 cold weather on motorway up to 250 miles warm weather motorway. Book says 278 which is achievable if you drive sensibly.
2. You need several accounts with different EV charging suppliers as not all chargers are tap your card friendly.
3. ZapMap app is a must have.
4. Careful route planning is advisable and factor in 2 alternative stops near your planned recharge stop in case all chargers are taken.
5. Your driving style will dictate your range (efficiency)
6. Weather plays a part in both charging time and range
7. Try to not let the charge drop to below 20%. Don't rapid charge above 80% battery charge. The charge rate drops off significantly once you reach 80%
8. Higher voltage chargers will charge more quickly but cost more. Some as high as 39p kWh
9. Your home charger (mines 7.3kW) will be used for circa 80% of your charging.
10. Get onto a cheap electricity tariff. (Mines Octopus Go) 5p per kWh between 00:30 & 04:30. Car never needs more than 4 hrs to charge to 80%
11. When I work out my cost per mile on the home charger it's very close to 1.1p per mile. Or another way of looking at it is circa 155mpg.
12. The higher the fast charge (max) power the car can handle the quicker the car will charge. Mines 77kW

I've just had the first of it kind in the world all electric charging station opened up a couple of miles from me. Called GridServe. They have the below

12 DC Chargers – up to 350kW
12 DC Chargers – up to 90kW
6 AC Chargers – up to 22kW
6 TESLA Superchargers
They charge a flat rate of 24p kWh. So as an example if I took my Kona there on 10% charge and charged to 80% using a CCS 90kW charger it would take 44mins to charge to 80% at a cost of £10.56. Say average range on that charge is circa 200 miles then its around 5p a mile.

GridServe are planning to open 100 EV stations in the UK over the next 5 years.


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## Rorschach

@Skydivermel 
Some interesting info there, thank you.

I wonder how successful a charging station will be though. You say 44 mins for your charge, who is going to sit around for that long? I can sort of understand it at a motorway services where you might want to have something to eat, use the toilet and stretch your legs (that being said my average stay at a services is under 15 minutes) but the equivalent of a petrol station taking 44 mins, and that is assuming there is a free charge point to use.

I filled my car with petrol today at the supermarket, I took note of the time on the cars clock, drove in at 11.41, getting ready to leave at 11.45, clicked over to 11.46 as I started moving. Yes there was a free bay to use but that is putting in about 3/4 of a tank and paying (at pump). Hard to compete with that.


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## Lons

I've just thought of one benefit of BEVs, they aren't suitable for boy racers fitting exhausts the size of chimney pots. It won't stop the 200 db loudspeakers or plastidip sick making colours and chassis scraping the ground but then I suppose they'll be buying up all the old petrol Corsas and running them for the next 30 years.
Thinking about it maybe Bangood will start offering loud digitized exhaust noises.


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## beech1948

So just completed two days of travel a la Tesla one journey of 60 miles another of 90 miles. Nothing of any note to report. Just plain sailing. Recharged at home so nothing to report about charge stations. Cost of travel not calculated yet.

Tesla holding up well, no faults, no fuss. Miss my old Merc S class though. The Tesla is a bit plasticy and has the aesthetics of a toy car. That;s an odd thing for me to say. I wonder if its the lack of a front grill as la ICE cars.

Mondays big trip looms. Need to start the planning soon.


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## Woody2Shoes

Rorschach said:


> @Skydivermel
> Some interesting info there, thank you.
> 
> I wonder how successful a charging station will be though. You say 44 mins for your charge, who is going to sit around for that long? I can sort of understand it at a motorway services where you might want to have something to eat, use the toilet and stretch your legs (that being said my average stay at a services is under 15 minutes) but the equivalent of a petrol station taking 44 mins, and that is assuming there is a free charge point to use.
> 
> I filled my car with petrol today at the supermarket, I took note of the time on the cars clock, drove in at 11.41, getting ready to leave at 11.45, clicked over to 11.46 as I started moving. Yes there was a free bay to use but that is putting in about 3/4 of a tank and paying (at pump). Hard to compete with that.


Yebbut, 80% of the time skydiver's quicker (and a lot cheaper and more carbonfriendly) than you!


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## Rorschach

Woody2Shoes said:


> Yebbut, 80% of the time skydiver's quicker (and a lot cheaper and more carbonfriendly) than you!



That makes no sense at all.


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## Just4Fun

Skydivermel said:


> 6. Weather plays a part in both charging time and range


The influence of weather on charging time is not something I was aware of. Is this a significant effect?


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## Terry - Somerset

I'll say it again at the risk of being repetitive - supermarkets and retail parks will install charging stations for the same reasons that they originally installed petrol pumps - to get punters into the store to do their shopping.

If a one hour charge gets a car from 20% to 80% charge - the charging problem goes goes away. Most will only ever need to charge once or twice per week.

It's a competitive world. Supermarkets will make a much bigger margin on food and other sales than they do on fuel (be it oil or electricity). Fuel is simply an (almost) loss leader to attract spending power.


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## chris watford

I have much admiration for those who have purchased an electric vehicle. Really helpful to hear their experiences in use as i will need a new vehicle in the next few years or so


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## NewbieRaf

I’ve just ordered - - dare a day a new diesel. I looked at EVs mainly the merc EQC and Etron and IMO they are still unaffordable.


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## Just4Fun

NewbieRaf said:


> I looked at EVs mainly the merc EQC and Etron and IMO they are still unaffordable.


I think that is true for most people. There must be, though, a cut-off point where the lower running costs eventually offset the higher purchase price. If you do enough miles and keep the car long enough the EV might eventually be cheaper. I have seen a couple of calculations like that but not studied them. Did you look at it that way, or was the high up-front cost enough to rule it out for you? It would be interesting to see the way you approached it.


----------



## Rorschach

Just4Fun said:


> I think that is true for most people. There must be, though, a cut-off point where the lower running costs eventually offset the higher purchase price. If you do enough miles and keep the car long enough the EV might eventually be cheaper. I have seen a couple of calculations like that but not studied them. Did you look at it that way, or was the high up-front cost enough to rule it out for you? It would be interesting to see the way you approached it.



Pretty difficult calculation to make I would think given the variables and how they could change?

Speaking for myself, it wouldn't just be cost, it's the convenience factor that I have talked about a lot. If you gave me the money to buy a brand new car today, and it could be my only car (if it was for a second car it would almost certainly be an EV), would I choose an EV? For me, no, I would buy Petrol.


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## Woody2Shoes

Rorschach said:


> That makes no sense at all.


Point 9 how long do you think they spend plugging in and unplugging at home?


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## Rorschach

Woody2Shoes said:


> Point 9 how long do you think they spend plugging in and unplugging at home?



I wasn't talking about plugging in at home.


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## Geoff_S

Just4Fun said:


> The influence of weather on charging time is not something I was aware of. Is this a significant effect?


In winter I allow a 20% drop in range compared to summer

Edit: Oops, I just reread your post. I read "range" and not "time". Ignore me.


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## Terry - Somerset

Economics of EVs requires a number of unstable and uncertain assumptions. The current fairly stable fuel cost assumption:

Standard mid-size ICE vehicle. MPG (say) 50mpg. Annual mileage 10k. Fuel cost £6 per gallon. Fuel cost pa £1200.
For an EV. Consumption 3 miles per KWH. Cost per KWH 15p (domestic rate). Annual mileage 10k. Electricity cost pa £500.
Annual saving for an average domestic charging customer £700.

Now for the imponderables:

many new car purchasers trade in their cars every (say) 3 years and may be unconcerned about whole life savings.
uncertainty over how long the running cost advantage for EVs will continue. 3 years may be plausible, but 10 years+ is unlikely
trade in values are difficult to estimate as they are impacted by legislation and future running cost savings compared with ICE
charges per KWH vary hugely depending on user circumstances - eg: off peak domestic vs premium commercial
So who may find EVs attractive right now:

the environmentally empathetic (not an economic argument)
high mileage drivers with domestic recharging (faster payback)
contract deals where the total monthly cost is easily compared


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## D_W

Woody2Shoes said:


> Point 9 how long do you think they spend plugging in and unplugging at home?



I always end up putting gas in the car for the mrs. Two left turns at stop lights to do it in a high traffic area. Plugging a car in would be an improvement. 

I ride public trans to work, so I'm rarely out driving one of the cars myself to fill it along the way.


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## D_W

Terry - Somerset said:


> Economics of EVs requires a number of unstable and uncertain assumptions. The current fairly stable fuel cost assumption:
> 
> Standard mid-size ICE vehicle. MPG (say) 50mpg. Annual mileage 10k. Fuel cost £6 per gallon. Fuel cost pa £1200.
> For an EV. Consumption 3 miles per KWH. Cost per KWH 15p (domestic rate). Annual mileage 10k. Electricity cost pa £500.
> Annual saving for an average domestic charging customer £700.
> 
> Now for the imponderables:
> 
> many new car purchasers trade in their cars every (say) 3 years and may be unconcerned about whole life savings.
> uncertainty over how long the running cost advantage for EVs will continue. 3 years may be plausible, but 10 years+ is unlikely
> trade in values are difficult to estimate as they are impacted by legislation and future running cost savings compared with ICE
> charges per KWH vary hugely depending depending the user circumstances - eg: off peak domestic vs premium commercial
> So who may find EVs attractive right now:
> 
> the environmentally empathetic (not an economic argument)
> high mileage drivers with domestic recharging (faster payback)
> contract deals where the total monthly cost is easily compared



We have no cars in the us that are mid sized and get 50 mpg. Esp if there is any urban or suburban driving. Highway driving for the better mid sized cars is closer to 35 and combination would be 25. I realize our gallon is slightly smaller than yours and our mid sized car is slightly larger. 

That said, the ev right now is in early adopter phase. The only way someone saves money with it is if they were thinking of getting an equivalently priced or higher ice car. But there's no shortage of cars here in the states that hit 45 to 50k sticker price.


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## Lockyear2810

I doubt at current prices you would ever break even. 
How long before you need to spend a ridiculous amount on a new battery?
As more people switch to EV the cost of charging MUST increase to make up the short fall in revenue generated from the duty on traditional fuels. 
I think all EVs should have several identical batteries that can be changed at a fuel station. 
Something akin to a car wash. 
You could then have unlimited range and you would never own the batteries. 
Thus never be faced with the staggering cost of buying a new one.


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## NewbieRaf

I’m a Tech guy at heart so for me it’s just the believe that EVs are the future, having said that clearly there is a way to go although cell technology is moving quick. Another consideration I had was the road tax (UK). At 450 pounds per year for my new car it’s expensive but still not as expensive as paying well over 60k for an EV


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## Skydivermel

Rorschach said:


> @Skydivermel
> Some interesting info there, thank you.
> 
> I wonder how successful a charging station will be though. You say 44 mins for your charge, who is going to sit around for that long? I can sort of understand it at a motorway services where you might want to have something to eat, use the toilet and stretch your legs (that being said my average stay at a services is under 15 minutes) but the equivalent of a petrol station taking 44 mins, and that is assuming there is a free charge point to use.
> 
> I filled my car with petrol today at the supermarket, I took note of the time on the cars clock, drove in at 11.41, getting ready to leave at 11.45, clicked over to 11.46 as I started moving. Yes there was a free bay to use but that is putting in about 3/4 of a tank and paying (at pump). Hard to compete with that.



On a long journey I like to factor in a stop including food, drink and the toilet break. The GridServe forecourt has a post office, costa, WH Smiths, Toilets, showers, rest areas, and a very good walk thru display about the future of electric cars. I appreciate not all service stops have these type of facilities but it's early days yet. I do believe we'll head that way thou. With the recent govt announcement about no more ICE cars from 2030 I think it'll focus the minds. Necessity is the mother of all invention as they say.


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## Skydivermel

Just4Fun said:


> The influence of weather on charging time is not something I was aware of. Is this a significant effect?


In the UK, not really. There's very little significance compared to say a Scandinavian winter. If it's what we would call really cold here -4deg C then the charge time would be around 10% longer.


----------



## D_W

NewbieRaf said:


> I’m a Tech guy at heart so for me it’s just the believe that EVs are the future, having said that clearly there is a way to go although cell technology is moving quick. Another consideration I had was the road tax (UK). At 450 pounds per year for my new car it’s expensive but still not as expensive as paying well over 60k for an EV



Things must be marked up there. The base tesla here is $38k and $47k for extended range. Not sure where the credits are now (They're less), but in most states, you can probably take $2-$5k off of that. That's probably about 26k pounds to 32k pounds. 

I don't think any of these vehicles will play well in the really cold areas unless they're driven regularly and have a garage to exist in when not being driven (they'd be fine then). 

Still with all of the criticism about range, very few people complain when they drive gas vehicles less than optimally and get poor mileage. It's kind of interesting that nobody really seems to complain about that now. My BIL has the extended range tesla. He drive hard miles for an EV (lots of highway at high speed) and has a comfortable range of about 200 miles with some extra beyond that. In lower speed town driving, the total potential range is 350 miles. That assumes driving that consumes 0.21 kw/hr per mile. I think BIL is somewhere just under 0.3. The way he drives (90 mile round trip to work), the EV is convenient (drive home, plug in, no gas stations, which would be pretty regular and annoying with a 90 mile round trip commute every day) but not optimal in terms of efficiency. With the driving software, I think his price was around $50k less a $7500 credit at the time. 

Will he ever recover his initial cost? I doubt it. Toyota makes a prius that gets 53 highway here (our mileage estimates are far more honest than the UK mileage estimates), 58 in the city and the base price is about half of the extended range tesla. It would halve fuel cost for most people (which comes out to about $1000-$1500 of savings per year in the US). Base price is $25k here. That would seem to make more sense - for a high mileage driver, it would actually recover its purchase price in fuel over a typical mid sized car here (someone driving 20k miles per year). 

I'm sure tesla's base vehicle price will continue to drop for the 3 as they increase overseas manufacturing and more assembly than production is done in the US and other expensive markets.


----------



## MikeJhn

Someone mentioned about noise for boy racers, there is an engine noise app available for electric model scale aircraft, a model scale electric Lancaster just does not look or sound right when it's almost silent.


----------



## D_W

MikeJhn said:


> Someone mentioned about noise for boy racers, there is an engine noise app available for electric model scale aircraft, a model scale electric Lancaster just does not look or sound right when it's almost silent.



When I was young, you would see something like this from time to time (but huge). Batteries weren't good back then, and the engines were always glow radial or some type of gasoline that wasn't quite right (maybe twins for each engine). 

Then, I saw not too long ago an electric version of a four engined bomber. It sounded like bees. 

The kero fueled turbines on the other hand - they'll deafen just like a real one. Really uncomfortable. 9 pounds of thrust makes noise like 9000.


----------



## D_W

Lockyear2810 said:


> I doubt at current prices you would ever break even.
> How long before you need to spend a ridiculous amount on a new battery?



Never. Tesla originally planned older batteries to have 90% capacity remaining at 180k miles. A few taxi companies who put gobs of miles on teslas (model S) found them to have more than 90% of original range at 300k miles. Only things advised against by tesla (constant fast charging only, etc) degrade the batteries any significant amount. 

The same thing used to be said about the toyota prius because it's constantly charging and discharging a small battery. The charging system on those cars is usually what gives up when they're old, but the batteries generally need replacing only if they're damaged in a wreck. 

Car and driver did a re-test of a 9 year old prius with 200k miles on it in 2011 (I think the car was a 2002) and found no difference in acceleration or efficiency. 

as the range increases on tesla cars with subsequent generations, tesla's target for 90% is moving to about 500k miles in cars (they're shooting for a million in heavy trucks). Their target for % retained range is conservative in most cases. I don't know anyone with a half million mile car, though I know there have been cars driven over a million, and a toyota pickup that I think went past a million). 

The vehicles in the US that had that kind of longevity are mostly gone (older mechanical diesel pickups would last about 300k miles, as would a 300-six from ford in pickups, and the ford crown victoria platform (panther) here can be found used with original bits in it running fine with 250-300k miles. 

I don't think the current generation of toyota and honda cars (due to cheap plastic parts, etc) will last that long, even if the engines can.


----------



## Just4Fun

Terry - Somerset said:


> The current fairly stable fuel cost assumption:
> 
> Standard mid-size ICE vehicle. MPG (say) 50mpg. Annual mileage 10k. Fuel cost £6 per gallon. Fuel cost pa £1200.
> For an EV. Consumption 3 miles per KWH. Cost per KWH 15p (domestic rate). Annual mileage 10k. Electricity cost pa £500.
> Annual saving for an average domestic charging customer £700.


That is good as far as it goes, but fuel is not the only cost saving to be had. Maintenance is said to be much cheaper on EVs, tax can be lower, I don't know if insurance is more or less than for an ICE car, etc.
Not really complex calculations; getting believable & reliable data is the key though and not something I have personally attempted.


----------



## Skydivermel

Just4Fun said:


> That is good as far as it goes, but fuel is not the only cost saving to be had. Maintenance is said to be much cheaper on EVs, tax can be lower, I don't know if insurance is more or less than for an ICE car, etc.
> Not really complex calculations; getting believable & reliable data is the key though and not something I have personally attempted.



That's a good point to consider. Road tax £0.00 (although I suspect it will at some time be added to BEV's once a few more are on the road). Servicing costs are minimal. Obviously with an ICE car the older it gets and the more mileage it has will increase the overall running costs. With the current Covid pandemic I again suspect that government will increase the fuel costs in an attempt to claw back some of the money spent and ditto with road tax. Servicing costs for a BEV are much lower than an ICE car/van. The dealers don't like it as it's one of their main sources of revenue. When I brought my BEV the dealer asked me if I wanted a service package (which helps with the warranty) so I said yes. When he produced the cost it was comparable to an ICE car. Some robust discussions took place and I walked away with a 3 year service plan for less that half what he quoted. Insurance costs (in my case) are around 10% lower compared to an ICE car.


----------



## Rorschach

Skydivermel said:


> That's a good point to consider. Road tax £0.00 (although I suspect it will at some time be added to BEV's once a few more are on the road). Servicing costs are minimal. Obviously with an ICE car the older it gets and the more mileage it has will increase the overall running costs. With the current Covid pandemic I again suspect that government will increase the fuel costs in an attempt to claw back some of the money spent and ditto with road tax. Servicing costs for a BEV are much lower than an ICE car/van. The dealers don't like it as it's one of their main sources of revenue. When I brought my BEV the dealer asked me if I wanted a service package (which helps with the warranty) so I said yes. When he produced the cost it was comparable to an ICE car. Some robust discussions took place and I walked away with a 3 year service plan for less that half what he quoted. Insurance costs (in my case) are around 10% lower compared to an ICE car.



Road tax is £0 for now, that won't last long.

As for running costs increasing on ICE cars with age, my car is 13 years old, it's running costs are the same today as they were when new. The only things that have been replaced are exactly the same as would be replaced on an EV except for oil of course and the cost of that is probably offset by the cheaper tyres I can use.


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## Lons

_Road tax £0.00 (although I suspect it will at some time be added to BEV's once a few more are on the road). Servicing costs are minimal. 
That isn't 100% accurate._

Road fund licence is £0 but only if the BEV has a list price including any factory fitted extras under £40K, anything over that will from the second period of taxing be liable for a premium tax of £325 pa at todays rate for a period of 5 years so any premium BEV will like it's comparable ICE be paying road tax. That carries over to any new owner buying the car s/h within that period. In the case of my car v EVQ the difference therefore is £140 pa not £465.

I would also question how much cheaper servicing will be in the real world. Currently the only real difference on a modern car is oil and filters so over the 3 year period I usually own a car it would need to be a huge variation to make any difference. Brakes, fluid, tyres and mechanical parts will be just as liable to maintenance with little other difference unless the vehicle is high mileage and needs cam belts, clutch etc.

In September I did similar comparisons as NewbieRaf as my car has just turned 3 years old but I've now decided to wait a while longer. I have a GLC 250D with a very high specification and to replace like for like would be a list price of around £49k however I found without too much pressure I could get that down to just over £41k and have no doubt based on experience there's still some wiggle room, The equivalent EQC which is based on my car has a list price of £75k and the best I could get including government £3k incentive was more than £72K. That was excluding the value of my GLC which is the same whichever one I would buy.
So a difference of at least £31k ( or 77% more expensive ) is financial stupidity on a car that would cover 6000 miles pa as whatever extra charges they might throw at ICEs it just isn't possible to save £10k a year by buying a premium BEV to suit my needs and what I want from a car. AT THE MINUTE as the situation is fluid and that was 3 months ago following the same excercise carried out before buying my wife's new petrol Mini.


----------



## CornishWoodworker

EV s still a lifestyle choice. Until a 300 mile plus range is actually achieved, not perceived, then its a big no.
Depreciation on EV's are very high. Overall battery life still a relative unknown. Worldwide exploitation of the rare minerals required and their final disposal doesn't sit well. Please feel free and Google it.
The goverment will soon put a charge on and mandate a secondary electric meter to all medium to fast chargers installed in domestic properties, a higher charge per kw and higher VAT will apply to all electricity consumed through it. 
The government will have to get its revenue which will be lost from fuel sales From somewhere and the motorist in whichever guise is their only cash cow.
Meanwhile back to Wood, must get into the garage and get the woodtools out to repair the Morgan.


----------



## Geoff_S

Lons said:


> _Road tax £0.00 (although I suspect it will at some time be added to BEV's once a few more are on the road). Servicing costs are minimal.
> That isn't 100% accurate._
> 
> Road fund licence is £0 but only if the BEV has a list price including any factory fitted extras under £40K, anything over that will from the second period of taxing be liable for a premium tax of £325 pa at todays rate for a period of 5 years so any premium BEV will like it's comparable ICE be paying road tax. That carries over to any new owner buying the car s/h within that period. In the case of my car v EVQ the difference therefore is £140 pa not £465.



Hi Lons

That bit about the BEV's being taxed over £40k changed a short while ago. If it's zero emissions, which a BEV is, then the VED is £0.









Road Tax on Electric Cars | Pod Point


A complete guide to road tax for electric cars, including how it’s calculated and how much it costs.




pod-point.com


----------



## Lons

Thanks Geoff I hadn't realised it had changed, quite right too.


----------



## clogs

prob said here before......
if the suits in charge want to charge an extra tax to charge ur car at home......
Might be the time to buy a roof photo/elec panels installed.....
if it wasn't for the need of 3 phase leky I would def be off grid....plenty of free sunshine here.....
also from Feb to Oct-Nov never pay for hot water either....
we burn wood for central heating/hot water but thats prob about 30 days per year.....
life is just geography......


----------



## NikNak

Having test driven a Niro e+ 6-8 weeks ago I’m wanting one  but I’m also prepared to look at a hybrid (while the infrastructure improves...) any suggestions, and can you really get the mpg’s they’re claiming from them.?
Have always bought outright in the past but am prepared to look at leasing. To those that have leased an ev, is there a specialist company that does ‘deals’ for ev’s.? Failing that... who does the best deals in leasing.?
As always cheers guys....


----------



## Spectric

In the future say 30 years when everyone is driving a milkfloat then there will be a fortune to be made at motorway service stations because you will have a captive audience all hanging around for longer whilst they recharge. If you consider the location of some of these service stations they will be limited on the number of charging points as their power supply would not cope with to many big chargers so even more people to service. Also the current fuel stations will be obsolete and many of these provide a local shop so another loss to locals.


----------



## Droogs

DriveElectric are probably your best bet in the south of England






Electric car lease, electric van lease specialists | DriveElectric


Providing affordable expert electric car lease and electric van leasing since 2008. DriveElectric; helping the UK on its journey to net zero.




www.drive-electric.co.uk


----------



## MusicMan

I lease from Nissan Finance, but the rates do vary with the agent. Do shop around. I figured a 2 yr lease would be good as it would enable me to get a much better car next as new ones come out.
For insurance LV is very good, and their EV version gives you a free tow to a charger if you do run out. Online only, but very responsive on the phone.

But I estimated for far too many miles given the lockdowns!


----------



## beech1948

My trip via Tesla to Glasgow,Preston,Derby, Bristol and back to Crowthorne will not now happen due to Being in Tier 4 lockdown. A shame as it would have been a good test of charge stations across about 1400 miles of the UK motorways. Contacts have been replaced with Zoom conferences.

Remaining journeys are from 35 to 90 miles which the Tesla has consumed with no drama and no difficulties. Arriving home and plugging in the Tesla just like an electric drill is still a bit strange and seems a bit unreal.

The whole experience is interesting as the change is "cultural" and not due to mechanical, electrical or other issues. The cultural change is plugging the gadget in, charging times across 1400 miles of motorways to replace the 5 minute fill and go. I can see that with possibly 2x45 minute stops going to Glasgow I would be caught up with email and reports.


----------



## Just4Fun

Droogs said:


> @Just4Fun have a look at bjorn Nylands channel - he lives in norway and is a very well know BEV tester and youtube "jurno".





Just4Fun said:


> Thanks for the suggestion but I have seen a lot of his videos and they don't really help. He is an example of people who refer to -5C as harsh winter conditions. I was happy to find one video of his with a test in -36C until I watched it and all he was really testing was whether he could sleep in the car at those temperatures. Not something that interests me. Yes, he has a lot of videos but it is impossible to hone in on the information I seek.



I just watched another Bjorn Nyland video that he posted today. I thought it would give me the information I was looking for but no. In the first 5 seconds of the video I learned that he had been sleeping in the car in -26C, which he always seems to think is the most important information he can impart. Watch the rest of the video though and nowhere does he say how the range compared to the range at summer temperatures. I won't watch any more of his stuff, it is just too frustrating.

Rant over.


----------



## beech1948

Final comments re the Tesla I ripped off one of my Tech's which was returned last Monday after nearly 3 months use. What is funny is that we had words about the excessive extra mileage on my Merc he had done...ouch?

Longest journey was 210 miles which it achieved with no fuss...except me having an anxious time over range viability. Shortest journey was 32 miles x 6 over 2 days again no fuss.

Issues for me still remain. 
1) Range is still a worry. My Merc S has a max range of 860 miles due to extended fuel tank option. Tesla is still only just a bit over 240 depending on weather temps. 
2) Had 3 electronics faults. All minor but still 3 faults.
3) The cultural issues still remain being:a) 45 + minutes to stop and charge is just boring as I get a lot of thinking done behind the wheel. So if I had driven to Glasgow I would need at least 2 stops and possibly 3 all at 45 minutes +++.
4) Software is not owned by the car owner but remains the property of Tesla. Thus I have no control over updates, fixes, patches or revision levels.
5) All Tesla charge points on my routes worked. 18% of other charge points did not work or were for some reason not available to me. I saw 5 broken ones when looking for charge points in more remote suburban areas.
6) The lack of a common charge point plug was a never ending pain in the behind. Time for Gov'mt action to make the Tesla plug the common one for the UK.
7) Having to have accounts with 4 different charge point companies sucks. Having trouble getting service from them all, all the time sucks. One nameless charge network has never worked for me despite having a charge card detailed with them, calling to check the details and confirming everything was OK did not help me get a charge.
8) Obvious points for chargers such as Hotels, Garages, Shopping Malls, Supermarkets DO NOT provide enough chargers.

So did it work..YES.
Was it an enjoyable experience...SOMETIMES (80%)
Is there enough infrastucture for me....NO
Do I want to buy one..NOT YET as I'm not yet convinced of an EVs practicality.


----------



## Droogs

Well done for giving it a go Beech1948. my take mostly positive but not quite there regarding infrastructure for you. As to getting one you haven't said no, so as recharge points increase, do you see yourself eventually getting one. Leaving out things like your age etc, if you were gonnal be around over the next 25 - 30 years, would you go for one?


----------



## Rorschach

Really appreciate the real world feedback. Confirmed my suspicions.


----------



## D_W

I can only relay my brother in law's experience. I believe he's just past two years now with a model 3 with extended range battery, with a 90 mile round trip to work. 

He has had one day where tesla's network was down here, but he wasn't driving anywhere that day, so the annoyance of knowing that the issue was there was the extent of it. 

They have another vehicle for long trips (a phev), so there's no range anxiety. 

No other problems with the car that he's admitted to. 

His two prior vehicles were chryslers, so his bar is probably pretty low in the long term. The nature of his commute with ICE cars tends to make his experience per mile better than most, because most engine time warm running compared to someone with a shorter commute, and generally, a warm running engine and transmission is receiving little beating. 

Irrigation motors here in the states can last 50,000 hours without a rebuild whereas the same engine in a farm tractor (on and off quite often except for a few times per year when heavy work is being done) would need what they referred to as an underhaul or minor rebuild at 4k hours, and a major at 8k hours. If an engine design is decent on an irrigation system and the engine is propane, then the engines are usually fine when taken out of service, so I have no idea if 50k is even too low of a target. 

I don't think the same advantage exists on a tesla (in terms of highway miles - they're probably harder on the car than short trips), but with just the work mileage racking up, BIL would have been changing oil often and getting gas something like twice per week. He's now not doing that. 90% of the miles on his commute are interstate highway. He's also not an economy buyer, he's an early adopter, so he doesn't care about the fiscal side of it to some extent. His power rates are 10.5 cents per kw/hr (which equates to about 3 cents per mile), but gas prices here are low, so fuel cost for him in his older car would've only been about double that.


----------



## DBT85

I'd imagine electric can grow faster in Europe simply because most only have sub 25 mile journeys to work. Hell. I work 120 miles from home but a 300 mile electric range would still allow me to work 4 shifts (I lodge near work) and get home just fine.

The limitations in cities will be where to charge. If more supermarket carparks are littered with charging points howeverthe problem starts to dissipate.


----------



## selectortone

I was in sales for 35 years and in a couple of jobs drove 50k miles or more a year. I definitely got driving out of my system. When my wife passed away I changed my job/lifestyle and the most I have driven since 2005 is up to London a couple of times. Most of the shopping I do is within walking distance. I do a 'big' shop once a fortnight or so. This week the car has sat in the drive the entire week. An electric car would suit me perfectly - wish I could afford one.


----------



## DBT85

selectortone said:


> I was in sales for 35 years and in a couple of jobs drove 50k miles or more a year. I definitely got driving out of my system. When my wife passed away I changed my job/lifestyle and the most I have driven since 2005 is up to London a couple of times. Most of the shopping I do is within walking distance. I do a 'big' shop once a fortnight or so. This week the car has sat in the drive the entire week. An electric car would suit me perfectly - wish I could afford one.


The daft thing is that given how little you drive there's actually even less reason to buy one. Racking up the miles is a great way to save money on fuel and help offset that purchase cost.


----------



## D_W

selectortone said:


> I was in sales for 35 years and in a couple of jobs drove 50k miles or more a year. I definitely got driving out of my system. When my wife passed away I changed my job/lifestyle and the most I have driven since 2005 is up to London a couple of times. Most of the shopping I do is within walking distance. I do a 'big' shop once a fortnight or so. This week the car has sat in the drive the entire week. An electric car would suit me perfectly - wish I could afford one.





DBT85 said:


> I'd imagine electric can grow faster in Europe simply because most only have sub 25 mile journeys to work. Hell. I work 120 miles from home but a 300 mile electric range would still allow me to work 4 shifts (I lodge near work) and get home just fine.
> 
> The limitations in cities will be where to charge. If more supermarket carparks are littered with charging points howeverthe problem starts to dissipate.



There is a surplus at the end of many commutes here in the states, but the issue is cost. That is, if you have an EV, in our local garage, you are entitled to a free charge, but only 6 kw/hr. There are two walls of chargers built into the Authority (as in tied in to the city) garages, probably paid for by a grant. Once you're past your 6kw allowance each day, the charger cost is about double the going rate of electricity (this seems like good policy at the charge point, but it encourages owners to charge elsewhere other than the free bits).

This could change quickly if electric cars become a much larger % of those around, and someone actually cares. As in, if there are 10 electric cars in the garage on three levels, they wouldn't quite occupy those spots, and it's not uncommon to see those E-cars parked in a "normal" spot, anyway, ignoring the free current as the free current is less than a dollar and the parking rate is $300 a month for a spot. If there are 50 electric cars, the situation will go the other way, but the cars parked may stick with the freebie current only blocking others who may want to charge more. Who knows.

Everyone I know with an EV charges at home because the rate is cheaper. They talk about charging on the go like it's the same as paying $50 for mcdonalds.

I am not an early adopter, but rather have a scion creeping up on 13 years of age. $79 in unscheduled maintenance so far, it always goes despite being boring and with the mileage I drive (commute with public trans and only drive to business meetings), about 2k miles a year, my fuel cost is about $200. There's no way for me to pencil out an electric car, and the same is likely true of most retirees who are on a fixed budget. The lowest cost option here initially (at least real option) was the nissan leaf, but they had no thermal management and didn't last long by my count waiting for the bus. Models 3 are everywhere. A few S models remain, but for the same kind of crowd that an AMG mercedes would attract. Unreliable, but so is anything else they'd have bought.


----------



## selectortone

DBT85 said:


> The daft thing is that given how little you drive there's actually even less reason to buy one. Racking up the miles is a great way to save money on fuel and help offset that purchase cost.


I don't understand why EVs are so expensive. (well, I do, it's what the market will tolerate). When you compare the motor in an EV (which is only a little more conmplicated than a washing machine's) and a modern internal combustion engine with all it's myriad components, fine tolerances and timings there's no comparison cost wise. And battery prices have come down massively over the last couple of years.


----------



## DBT85

selectortone said:


> I don't understand why EVs are so expensive. (well, I do, it's what the market will tolerate). When you compare the motor in an EV (which is only a little more conmplicated than a washing machine's) and a modern internal combustion engine with all it's myriad components, fine tolerances and timings there's no comparison cost wise. And battery prices have come down massively over the last couple of years.


The motors are a little different and quite large, and the while battery prices have come down the scale still isn't there like it is with ICE cars yet. Now that the likes of VW and others are getting on board the prices will start to come down as more and more companies ramp up battery production. The price right now has been paying for the large development costs involved in getting this started when the big players were happy cheating diseasal tests and not really really bothered about electric. They no longer really have a choice and so their sizable weight is being brought to bear. 

We're essentially still in the "own a horse until the cost of the model T comes down" phase.

My Superb 280 will hopefully last me until such time as I can get myself one.


----------



## beech1948

Droogs,

I'm 72 and still working. Yipeeeeee. 

Age does come into it a lot but I will buy an electric car when I can see a range in cold weather of 350 miles. The drop in range during cold weather can be quite dramatic.

I have bought my wife a Nissan Leaf to replace her beloved very old 1997 Toyota Rav4. So I will try that out as well as a run about.


----------



## beech1948

I'm in quite a different situation than many of you.

I still drive 25K ++ miles a year to customer meetings. I have been trying to cut back on driving by making my tech staff reduce their miles and move to Zoom or whatever the customer is comfortable with based contact. 

Given my age (72) I will have to retire sometime (sigh) and arrange for my company to be run by someone else. I can see that happening around 75/76 ish with a drop to 3 days a week or move to a Chairman sort of position....you know fingers meddling in the company and annoying everyone.

I must admit to liking the Tesla even if a bit underwhelmed at present.

Costs are always a factor and I think that Tesla is just too expensive for what they are given my experience in AI and electronics. When the costs come down then I will buy as well as when the range is increased to 350 miles in cold weather. Looked at a Dacia Spring the other day for a cheaper EV....could be interesting if they ever make a RH drive one.

I'm also still tracking Toyota who are still experimenting with a Hydrogen car ( infrastructure looks problematic) and have plans to create and make a Solid State Battery.


----------



## Blackswanwood

Jaguar‘s announcement this week and VW said to be looking at floating off Porsche to generate funds for reinvestment must be signs that the tipping point isn’t too far away.


----------



## Jelly

beech1948 said:


> I'm also still tracking Toyota who are still experimenting with a Hydrogen car ( infrastructure looks problematic) and have plans to create and make a Solid State Battery.



I seriously looked at leasing a Mirai (which involved a fair bit of pestering Toyota, as they don't actively market them yet in the UK when I was looking, that's planned for 2021)

It's a fabulous car, not blistering performance wise, but extremely well specified for the money, and nice driving experience in comfort, by all accounts the new one is better still.

If you lived in Sheffield, Aberdeen, Birmingham, Coventry, Pontypridd, Port Talbot, Swindon or Greater London, or could guarantee never needing to go more that 400 miles without passing through one of those points, it would be great... 


Unfortunately I routinely (at least weekly) found myself going up to Glasgow at the time, and having to then go on to Aberdeen before I could drive home would have made it an insane choice, wouldn't take too many more stations nationally to make that a "deal with-able" issue... Or an ability to fill up from H2 cylinders (given that there are hundreds of sites across the UK where you can access those mon-sat).

I'm not going to be required to do that routine Glasgow trip going forwards, but will be commuting more in the future, and will likely choose to go over to some kind of H2 vehicle in a year or two (finances allowing).


----------



## eribaMotters

Regarding the earlier mentioned towing of caravans. This a concern as the vehicles that can tow are generally looking at a 750kg limit and obviously a vastly reduced range. We are fortunate in that our van is a lightweight 1200kg but this is still to heavy. We also typically do non stop, 3 return tows of 300 miles each way that do not require a refuel and then 2 tows of up to 600 miles each way that require one short refuel. These are not uncommon events for caravan owners so we have a problem.
One European manufacturer is experimenting with a bank of batteries on the van around the axle, I think set up to drive the caravan wheels and reduce the load on the cars power supply. If they get it to work I'm sure it's going to be expensive.

Coln


----------



## Jelly

eribaMotters said:


> Regarding the earlier mentioned towing of caravans. This a concern as the vehicles that can tow are generally looking at a 750kg limit and obviously a vastly reduced range.



If they can't improve on that when it comes to electric vans/commercials, that's going to be a non-starter for the road maintenance and light construction sectors... 

It's not too unusual to see a Transit or Daily towing a 2500kg trailer, and I can't see road rollers or mini-diggers magically getting lighter (especially if they too have to be battery powered, which is also coming quickly).


----------



## Just4Fun

This looks interesting but no mention of towin capacity (if any).


----------



## Rorschach

Just4Fun said:


> This looks interesting but no mention of towin capacity (if any).



Decent towing capacity is a fair way off for electric vehicles I am afraid. I suspect it's not really a major concern for car manufacturers, the number of drivers who are eligible to actually tow anything sizeable is decreasing every year and ICE vehicles will continue to fulfil that role for a long time yet.


----------



## Robbo60

I have never been in an EV, but as it is direct drive? I am guessing it has no gears? If that is so, is it technically classed as an automatic for driving test purposes? So if you pass your test in one you are not qualified to drive a manual gearbox car.


----------



## Rorschach

Robbo60 said:


> I have never been in an EV, but as it is direct drive? I am guessing it has no gears? If that is so, is it technically classed as an automatic for driving test purposes? So if you pass your test in one you are not qualified to drive a manual gearbox car.



From what I have seen they are all automatic, whether that means gears or not doesn't really matter. I am not aware of being able to take a test in an EV yet.


----------



## Droogs

Appatently some driving schools have been teaching in BEVs since 2011 using leafs









Electric car driving school: learning to drive in an EV | Auto Express


After 126,000 miles, Paul Tomlin, one of the first UK driving instructors to go electric, gives us his opinion on using an EV to teach




www.autoexpress.co.uk


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> Appatently some driving schools have been teaching in BEVs since 2011 using leafs
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Electric car driving school: learning to drive in an EV | Auto Express
> 
> 
> After 126,000 miles, Paul Tomlin, one of the first UK driving instructors to go electric, gives us his opinion on using an EV to teach
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.autoexpress.co.uk



Interesting. I wonder how limiting that would be for your license though?


----------



## Droogs

no idea


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> Decent towing capacity is a fair way off for electric vehicles I am afraid. I suspect it's not really a major concern for car manufacturers, the number of drivers who are eligible to actually tow anything sizeable is decreasing every year and ICE vehicles will continue to fulfil that role for a long time yet.



I'd imagine it would be easy to make an EV that could tow a lot, and that the real reason for limited towing is because towing is a huge power suck. If you're driving a pickup truck that gets 17 miles a gallon in the US, but it gets 9 pulling a huge travel trailer, then nobody really cares. If it limits your practical range to 100 miles, then where are you going to go? I think one of the reasons for the long range in tesla's proposed pickup is so that it'll be able to do respectable towing.


----------



## D_W

Robbo60 said:


> I have never been in an EV, but as it is direct drive? I am guessing it has no gears? If that is so, is it technically classed as an automatic for driving test purposes? So if you pass your test in one you are not qualified to drive a manual gearbox car.



electric motors have high torque at low speed, so there's no reason to run them through a gearbox to make up for a lack of low rpm torque.


----------



## Nick Laguna UK

Interesting thread - I'd have gone EV for latest company car, but didn't for two major reasons

1) Cost of lease for a decent one was way way over budget despite looking at the offset vs co. car tax BIK & even if I pay some back. 

2) I just can't risk doing the mileage I will be doing again when this is all over (maybe 300 miles a day if needed) then staying overnight with no charging infrastructure. I can't stop 45 mins in a services - I keep overnight costs down so tend to stay away in some cosy rooms over small pubs which suits me, but they don't have charging points. I've stayed at swanky hotels which have tesla parking slots/chargers - but few and far between.

I'm diesel for next 2 years at least as it was a 4 year contract on this car....just need to make up the estimated 60k mileage shortfall so far that we are paying for on this lease...may just jack it up on the driveway and pop it into drive with a brick on the accelerator...


----------



## Sachakins

EV may not be the panacea for cleaning up the air we breathe at all.


Point to note for all vehicle particulate matter emissions, only 10% come from exhausts, the other 90% arrive from wheels, brakes clutches etc.
Interesting 2016 research paper summarised its findings as...





*Atmospheric Environment*
Volume 134, June 2016, Pages 10-17



*Review article
Non-exhaust PM emissions from electric vehicles*

*Highlights*

•
A positive relationship exists between vehicle weight and non-exhaust emissions.
•
Electric vehicles are 24% heavier than their conventional counterparts.
•
Electric vehicle PM emissions are comparable to those of conventional vehicles.
•
Non-exhaust sources account for 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 from traffic.
•
Future policy should focus on reducing vehicle weight.

*Abstract*
Particulate matter (PM) exposure has been linked to adverse health effects by numerous studies. Therefore, governments have been heavily incentivising the market to switch to electric passenger cars in order to reduce air pollution. However, this literature review suggests that electric vehicles may not reduce levels of PM as much as expected, because of their relatively high weight. By analysing the existing literature on non-exhaust emissions of different vehicle categories, this review found that there is a positive relationship between weight and non-exhaust PM emission factors. In addition, electric vehicles (EVs) were found to be 24% heavier than equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1–3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels. Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.

Victor R.J.H. Timmers, Peter A.J. Achten
Corrigendum to “Non-exhaust PM emissions from electric vehicles” [Atmos. Environ. 134 (June 2016) 10–17]
Atmospheric Environment, Volume 147, December 2016, Pages 492


----------



## Jonzjob

That is a very interesting tit-bit there Sachakins. I wonder why it's not advertised more widely?  

May well be something to do with the 'non polluting' aspect of the sales pitch me-thinks


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Particulates are not the only pollution from vehicles - ICE or EV. 

Particulates may impact health - gases may impact health and climate.

EV generate no polluting gases at the point of use but total pollution depends on how the electricity is generated. 

Overall total pollution may depend on a complex analysis of the relative efficiency of central energy generation (EV) vs distributed energy generation (ICE).

An interesting analysis but only a small part of the story!


----------



## Droogs

Sachakins said:


> EV may not be the panacea for cleaning up the air we breathe at all.
> 
> 
> Point to note for all vehicle particulate matter emissions, only 10% come from exhausts, the other 90% arrive from wheels, brakes clutches etc.
> Interesting 2016 research paper summarised its findings as...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Atmospheric Environment*
> Volume 134, June 2016, Pages 10-17
> 
> 
> 
> *Review article
> Non-exhaust PM emissions from electric vehicles*
> 
> *Highlights*
> 
> •
> A positive relationship exists between vehicle weight and non-exhaust emissions.
> •
> Electric vehicles are 24% heavier than their conventional counterparts.
> •
> Electric vehicle PM emissions are comparable to those of conventional vehicles.
> •
> Non-exhaust sources account for 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 from traffic.
> •
> Future policy should focus on reducing vehicle weight.
> 
> *Abstract*
> Particulate matter (PM) exposure has been linked to adverse health effects by numerous studies. Therefore, governments have been heavily incentivising the market to switch to electric passenger cars in order to reduce air pollution. However, this literature review suggests that electric vehicles may not reduce levels of PM as much as expected, because of their relatively high weight. By analysing the existing literature on non-exhaust emissions of different vehicle categories, this review found that there is a positive relationship between weight and non-exhaust PM emission factors. In addition, electric vehicles (EVs) were found to be 24% heavier than equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1–3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels. Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.
> 
> Victor R.J.H. Timmers, Peter A.J. Achten
> Corrigendum to “Non-exhaust PM emissions from electric vehicles” [Atmos. Environ. 134 (June 2016) 10–17]
> Atmospheric Environment, Volume 147, December 2016, Pages 492


Written by someone who does not drive an BEV. Most drivers use regenerative braking, which does not use the brake pads and disks at all. A friend of mine has had a Leaf for 8 years and has covered over 200K and is still on the same brake pads the car came with


----------



## Droogs

Nick Laguna UK said:


> Interesting thread - I'd have gone EV for latest company car, but didn't for two major reasons
> 
> 1) Cost of lease for a decent one was way way over budget despite looking at the offset vs co. car tax BIK & even if I pay some back.
> 
> 2) I just can't risk doing the mileage I will be doing again when this is all over (maybe 300 miles a day if needed) then staying overnight with no charging infrastructure. I can't stop 45 mins in a services - I keep overnight costs down so tend to stay away in some cosy rooms over small pubs which suits me, but they don't have charging points. I've stayed at swanky hotels which have tesla parking slots/chargers - but few and far between.
> 
> I'm diesel for next 2 years at least as it was a 4 year contract on this car....just need to make up the estimated 60k mileage shortfall so far that we are paying for on this lease...may just jack it up on the driveway and pop it into drive with a brick on the accelerator...


and then line shaft it to all the demonstators at the show room and get some wood cut lol


----------



## Retired

Hi,

We bought our new Skoda Yeti almost five years ago it being an SE L 2.0L diesel in black. Usually we trade in before the MOT is due but this Yeti is the best car we've ever owned having owned 13 new cars since 1990. The Yeti is due for a cambelt/water pump also it's service & MOT in July so it's having the lot done together by DMK Wakefield where it's always main dealer serviced. I've browsed the web looking at new cars but not found one we'd trade our Yeti in against; modern cars are mostly clones of each other whereas not only is our Yeti brilliant it has real street presence.

Regarding electric vehicles; no chance at all for us; at work I had both electric & Diesel fork trucks; the electric was a real pain only running for half a shift before the battery needed recharging; a spare battery was needed and I detested having to use a crane in order to lift these heavy batteries; the diesel was fuelled in minutes always ready for work. The diesel could be used in the despatch area but because of exhaust emission's it couldn't be used within the manufacturing cells hence the need for the electric truck.

My own experience of batteries is unfavourable in that many times when I've needed something like a torch it's battery would be discharged even my camera and iPod need charging; I simply dislike batteries and hence no electric car for us unless absolutely no other choice. I like electric motors powered from the mains supply but not powered by battery.

Our Yeti is a keeper unless it starts to cost a lot in repairs; at five years old with only 26,000 miles on it we don't mind in the least paying the July bill of £826 which gives another years motoring. With each passing year the Yeti loses less depreciation; it's still got GAP insurance on it until July next year value at £14,000 in case of write off.

An hybrid car too holds little interest because it's neither one or the other; if the engine runs it creates emissions so are all the complexities really worth any saving. Our Yeti is the Adblue model currently only costing £30 per year road fund; it has the stop/start function which is the only thing I dislike about it and this is switched off for every journey however short; I'm concerned about how modern cars are becoming laden with ever more electronic kit; not everyone uses Bluetooth or needs to drive around in a mission control. What happened to the old fashioned idea of a decent basic car being used for transport; I'm a dinosaur who doesn't even use a mobile phone and I don't feel the need to show off having all the latest electronic gizmos including cars.

Just rambling on as usual; if Skoda ever make a basic Yeti cash is waiting until then we love our current Yeti. 

Kind regards, Colin.


----------



## Lons

I've been in a Nissan leaf and there's no way I'd want to spend 25,000 miles pa in one, that's some going, he or she must have a high pain barrier Droogs.


----------



## Lons

Hi Colin, I have a little Skoda Citigo I bought at 3 years old purely as a car to tow behind the motorhome, just had it's MOT at 5 years with 12000 miles on the clock and apart from a spark plug issue it's a cracking little car, One of my mates bought a 12 month old Yeti last year and loves it.

My son bought a Skoda Octavia VRS diesel saloon in 2016 and swapped it last week for the new shape petrol model but estate as he now has a dog, I saw it at the weekend and it's a very nice car indeed.


----------



## DBT85

Lons, I do love pulling up beside the VRS Octavias knowing that my 280 superb has them beat for both comfort and speed 



Retired said:


> What happened to the old fashioned idea of a decent basic car being used for transport; I'm a dinosaur who doesn't even use a mobile phone and I don't feel the need to show off having all the latest electronic gizmos including cars.


Cars without the new toys stopped selling.

For you it's showing off. For others it's getting a huge car into a space that they'd not even attempt without the beeps or the self park, or the in mirror warning that some . is sitting in your blind spot, or the car knowing that the one in front is slowing down and at your current rate of deceleration you are going to hit them if you don't get a shift on.

The stop/start takes some getting used to but it does what its supposed to do. Your VED is based on your car having it and therefore emitting less despite you never using it so it's a bit of a con.

I imagine the next big iteration of most of these cars will be electric only to comply with the regs.

Was your SE L one of the ones with parking beeps, cruise control, electric windows, TPMS, holl hold control etc?


----------



## simonh

Disclaimer: I have a Tesla.

However, I feel like EVs are like getting rid of incandescent lights... there'll be lots of anguish but what does come in a few years will make us wonder why we were treated like mugs by the car companies for so many years.


----------



## Spectric

If you think of your nice new electric car as just being a larger cordless tool then you will soon have your doubts. The big difference is you cannot just change the batteries like in your cordless and I have lost count of how many good cordless tools I have put aside due to knackered batteries.


----------



## Retired

Hi,

Thanks Lons. The Citygo is as you rightly say a nice little car; our former neighbour has had two from new and loves them. Your mate will find the Yeti brilliant and I wonder if the electronics hold up if they will eventually become classics. Thanks for adding the VRS picture; we had a Fabia Monte Carlo before the Yeti and it looked gorgeous in black over red but was like riding on a skateboard with it's sports suspension and low profile tyres; we got such a good deal on the Yeti so parted with the Monte when it was only two years old. Skoda's are excellent cars.

Yes our Yeti has all the trimmings DBT85 not that we use them all they happened to come with the car even down to heated seats; the full leather upholstery is nice; I'm 73 and am used to riding big motorcycles so I've got a good survival instinct and have no problems watching all around whilst driving the Yeti I can even back it into car parking spaces without lots of electronic aid; I think it's called learning to drive; I don't need to be informed a tyre pressure is low because I check using a tyre gauge and have a compressor. 



Sorry to hijack this thread

Kind regards, Colin.


----------



## skeetstar

An acquaintance of mine , who works for an electric car manufacturer tells me that the batteries are about half the cost of the car. They will last about ten years he tells me. If he is right then electric cars are going to be a liability that no one wants at around 9 years of age. They will be scrapped en masse and the environment will suffer.

I had one of the most eco friendly cars on the planet. A 1969 land rover. 21mpg, but nil cost of replacement over 52 years and it is still going strong. How many iterations of eco friendly small cars would have been manufactured in that time? Four? Five? All at huge environmental cost to make, use and then scrap..


----------



## DBT85

Retired said:


> Yes our Yeti has all the trimmings DBT85 not that we use them all they happened to come with the car even down to heated seats; the full leather upholstery is nice; I'm 73 and am used to riding big motorcycles so I've got a good survival instinct and have no problems watching all around whilst driving the Yeti I can even back it into car parking spaces without lots of electronic aid; I think it's called learning to drive; I don't need to be informed a tyre pressure is low because I check using a tyre gauge and have a compressor.



Ah you have then disabled the beeps then and don't use the heated seats when its 2C outside?

I like most others can park my car fine with no aids because as you so scathingly politely put it, we all learned to drive, but having them just makes life easier, hell they turn on automatically so are you going to the effort to turn them off each time on principal?

A TPMS is very useful WHILE driving, not while it's stationary and can help spot a tyre losing pressure before you utterly annihilate it, potentially leading to a completely ruined tyre or worse an accident. It also doesn't stop the car working if its broken just like the heated sets, cruise control, blind spot detection and everything else that isn't the ECU controlling the actual engine and drivetrain. I can at least understand a desire for a simpler car where you don't even have that. Sadly they aren't terribly common any more, in part becase they oft make the Bugatti Veryon fuel economy look quite frugal.

I entirely agree on the Skodas. Had an Octavia Hatch before this Superb Estate. It's had 50,000 on it from me in 3 years since I got it 3 months old.



skeetstar said:


> An acquaintance of mine , who works for an electric car manufacturer tells me that the batteries are about half the cost of the car. They will last about ten years he tells me. If he is right then electric cars are going to be a liability that no one wants at around 9 years of age. They will be scrapped en masse and the environment will suffer.
> 
> I had one of the most eco friendly cars on the planet. A 1969 land rover. 21mpg, but nil cost of replacement over 52 years and it is still going strong. How many iterations of eco friendly small cars would have been manufactured in that time? Four? Five? All at huge environmental cost to make, use and then scrap..


There is no need to scrap the entire car becase the battery is degraded. Manufacturers will (have to) have programs in place.


----------



## pe2dave

Woodchips2 said:


> I suppose a lot could change in 15 years but battery development doesn't seem to be developing quickly.



I think that is a good perspective Keith. Think where electric vehicles were 15 years ago?


----------



## danst96

DBT85 said:


> Lons, I do love pulling up beside the VRS Octavias knowing that my 280 superb has them beat for both comfort and speed
> 
> 
> Cars without the new toys stopped selling.
> 
> For you it's showing off. For others it's getting a huge car into a space that they'd not even attempt without the beeps or the self park, or the in mirror warning that some . is sitting in your blind spot, or the car knowing that the one in front is slowing down and at your current rate of deceleration you are going to hit them if you don't get a shift on.
> 
> The stop/start takes some getting used to but it does what its supposed to do. Your VED is based on your car having it and therefore emitting less despite you never using it so it's a bit of a con.
> 
> I imagine the next big iteration of most of these cars will be electric only to comply with the regs.
> 
> Was your SE L one of the ones with parking beeps, cruise control, electric windows, TPMS, holl hold control etc?


haha nice, i love those superbs, proper sleepers. I drive a 2019 Golf Gti and am part of the emission problem apparently. You might even get me on a launch, i dont know


----------



## DBT85

danst96 said:


> haha nice, i love those superbs, proper sleepers. I drive a 2019 Golf Gti and am part of the emission problem apparently. You might even get me on a launch, i dont know



It's a heffer of a car but I think its supposed to be like 5.8 to 62? Mine was sold by the Skoda dealer with a "Steinbauer" box fitted which they claim adds extra power. Its deffo on the car as I had it in my hand at one point, but I've never tried turning it off to see if I can even see a difference.

It'll beat my S2000 handily, but its a little boatier in the corners  Though the sport mode does stiffen the suspension and steering quite a bit. But its a roadboat and as long as you still remember that it's a great drive. Everyone comments on how smooth it is, passengers in the back note how much leg room they have and I grin on the occasions I let it stretch its legs. For a petrol I was happy with 540 miles from the last tank, but then I sit on the motorway at 65 a fair bit (while not getting in the way of everyone else). Much more relaxed when arriving home 3 minutes later.

I think there's a guy with one of these that got the full Revo set and even put a TDi badge on the back. 500hp family estate that turns no heads 99% of the time.


----------



## danst96

DBT85 said:


> It's a heffer of a car but I think its supposed to be like 5.8 to 62? Mine was sold by the Skoda dealer with a "Steinbauer" box fitted which they claim adds extra power. Its deffo on the car as I had it in my hand at one point, but I've never tried turning it off to see if I can even see a difference.
> 
> It'll beat my S2000 handily, but its a little boatier in the corners  Though the sport mode does stiffen the suspension and steering quite a bit. But its a roadboat and as long as you still remember that it's a great drive. Everyone comments on how clean it is, passengers in the back note how much leg room they have and I grin on the occasions I let it stretch its legs. For a petrol I was happy with 540 miles from the last tank, but then I sit on the motorway at 65 a fair bit (while not getting in the way of everyone else). Much more relaxed when arriving home 3 minutes later.
> 
> I think there's a guy with one of these that got the full Revo set and even put a TDi badge on the back. 500hp family estate that turns no heads 99% of the time.


5.8 to 60 might just pull the pants off my Gti then haha. Mine is the performance model at 250bhp but only FWD. But yes handling may be a bit better. My fuel efficiency is not quite that good, I need a lighter right foot.

Sounds like you have some nice vehicles, the S2000 is a great driving car.


----------



## DBT85

danst96 said:


> 5.8 to 60 might just pull the pants off my Gti then haha. Mine is the performance model at 250bhp but only FWD. But yes handling may be a bit better. My fuel efficiency is not quite that good, I need a lighter right foot.
> 
> Sounds like you have some nice vehicles, the S2000 is a great driving car.


Oh just those 2. I started at 19 with a Focus 1.6, then an Octavia 1.8. My brothers first car was a Scooby STI  @Lons has a nicer collection and history I think!

Hopefully this year we can actually put some miles on the S2000.

Anyway, hopefully this Supoerb wil see us through till we can buy an all electric one. Maybe 2030? We'll see.


----------



## danst96

DBT85 said:


> Oh just those 2. I started at 19 with a Focus 1.6, then an Octavia 1.8. My brothers first car was a Scooby STI  @Lons has a nicer collection and history I think!
> 
> Hopefully this year we can actually put some miles on the S2000.
> 
> Anyway, hopefully this Supoerb wil see us through till we can buy an all electric one. Maybe 2030? We'll see.


You do wonder whether it really will happen or if its another one of those, we said we are going to do it to help win an election but its not actually possible, sort of things. 

Either way I am not to worried, I am moving to Canada, the land of V8's and 5.6L hemis which I dont see changing any time soon. Which reminds me, i need to start a thread about shipping my tools and machines by sea to another country and what is the best to protect them etc....


----------



## Retired

Hi,



DBT85 said:


> Ah you have then disabled the beeps then and don't use the heated seats when its 2C outside?
> 
> I like most others can park my car fine with no aids because as you so scathingly politely put it, we all learned to drive, but having them just makes life easier, hell they turn on automatically so are you going to the effort to turn them off each time on principal?
> 
> A TPMS is very useful WHILE driving, not while it's stationary and can help spot a tyre losing pressure before you utterly annihilate it, potentially leading to a completely ruined tyre or worse an accident. It also doesn't stop the car working if its broken just like the heated sets, cruise control, blind spot detection and everything else that isn't the ECU controlling the actual engine and drivetrain. I can at least understand a desire for a simpler car where you don't even have that. Sadly they aren't terribly common any more, in part becase they oft make the Bugatti Veryon fuel economy look quite frugal.
> 
> I entirely agree on the Skodas. Had an Octavia Hatch before this Superb Estate. It's had 50,000 on it from me in 3 years since I got it 3 months old.
> 
> 
> There is no need to scrap the entire car becase the battery is degraded. Manufacturers will (have to) have programs in place.



Apologies for any offence caused which was totally unintended towards you DBT85. I was thinking more of the car drivers in our local Morrison's & Aldi who manage to occupy four parking bays with their one car even if they do have all the electronic aids like rear cameras. I've never used the Yeti heated seats with heat turned on and I don't use the Infotainment either; it's possible our Yeti has lots of other electronic kit added that I'm not even aware of. I check our Yeti tyres weekly because the tyre monitor won't pick up on any tyre damage until the pressure drops then it could be too late?

We looked at a Yeti in the showroom before buying the Fabia thinking it a bit too big and possibly a lot more expensive to run given it's engine size but the opposite is true it costs less than the Fabia Monte to insure and the £30 road fund is also a lot less but to us the Yeti is a much better car than the Fabia although in fairness it cost more. It's all down to personal choice we love our Yeti and intend to keep it.

Kind regards, Colin.


----------



## DBT85

danst96 said:


> You do wonder whether it really will happen or if its another one of those, we said we are going to do it to help win an election but its not actually possible, sort of things.
> 
> Either way I am not to worried, I am moving to Canada, the land of V8's and 5.6L hemis which I dont see changing any time soon. Which reminds me, i need to start a thread about shipping my tools and machines by sea to another country and what is the best to protect them etc....


It's all across the major european nations. Even our lot have said it and they have got to do something to meet the emissions targets.
Canada might not be far behind us lot with regard internal combustion engines. I believe Quebec is banning all new ICE by 2035 and Canada as a whole wants to do 2040? As manufacturers ramp up production you may even find it harder and harder to keep buying new ICE. Hopefully the "nice" ICE cars are kept running. As much damage as they've done, a burbling V8 is a sound to behold.



Retired said:


> Hi,
> Apologies for any offence caused which was totally unintended towards you DBT85. I was thinking more of the car drivers in our local Morrison's & Aldi who manage to occupy four parking bays with their one car even if they do have all the electronic aids like rear cameras. I've never used the Yeti heated seats with heat turned on and I don't use the Infotainment either; it's possible our Yeti has lots of other electronic kit added that I'm not even aware of. I check our Yeti tyres weekly because the tyre monitor won't pick up on any tyre damage until the pressure drops then it could be too late?
> 
> We looked at a Yeti in the showroom before buying the Fabia thinking it a bit too big and possibly a lot more expensive to run given it's engine size but the opposite is true it costs less than the Fabia Monte to insure and the £30 road fund is also a lot less but to us the Yeti is a much better car than the Fabia although in fairness it cost more. It's all down to personal choice we love our Yeti and intend to keep it.
> 
> Kind regards, Colin.



None taken Colin fear not. I know the people you are talking about. But when its cold af out there one morning do give yourself the luxury of getting your seat warmer on, just have a go . First time feels a bit like you wet yourself  but it _warms_ on you.

The TPMS should alert you if for example you were to get a slower puncture while driving that didn't cause an instant deflation, but a slow drop that you might not notice from handling until it was so low that it was now rolling along on the shoulder or worse.

The people that baffle me most are those that will drive through a series of empty bays to park between 2 other cars and then struggle to get out of the car. I quite honestly stood there stunned one day when I saw someone drive through an entire 50 car carpark that had 3 cars in it just to part between 2 of those cars. I can't get my head around that.


----------



## danst96

DBT85 said:


> It's all across the major european nations. Even our lot have said it and they have got to do something to meet the emissions targets.
> Canada might not be far behind us lot with regard internal combustion engines. I believe Quebec is banning all new ICE by 2035 and Canada as a whole wants to do 2040? As manufacturers ramp up production you may even find it harder and harder to keep buying new ICE. Hopefully the "nice" ICE cars are kept running. As much damage as they've done, a burbling V8 is a sound to behold.


Yes I think Canada will follow, they are a bit more conscious than their southern neighbors. The area I am moving to though, not so much. Its the middle of the prairies, known as the bread bowl of Canada, every second vehicle is a big gas guzzler. The well made ICE will likely be worth a mint once its all in place.


----------



## Lons

I envy you moving to Canada Dan, have been a couple of times Vancouver being my second most favourite city after Perth in OZ. The grizzly pic in my avatar was a close encounter near Jasper, he was a big fella. 

My Merc as pretty much all the toys that were available and I love them tbh, rarely use the heated seats unless VERY cold weather and the leather is freezing if it was fabric I wouldn't bother, gear paddles are always a novelty at first but I can't remember the last time I flicked it out of auto as the gearbox is pretty slick and can be fierce in sport+ mode, love the 260 deg cameras though I never rely on them rather than my own eyes however I have never once allowed the car to self park, just can't bring myself to risk it.  One of the features I really like is the intelligent headlight system, my last couple of Audis had similar and I thought they were slow to respond to oncoming traffic but this is very quick and it doesn't dip the lights it blocks out relevant LED sections, I've never once been flashed for headlights too high or felt I was dazzling the car I was following

_"Lons, I do love pulling up beside the VRS Octavias knowing that my 280 superb has them beat for both comfort and speed "

_ He didn't buy it for comfort though I gather it's better than the last model and it's "plenty quick for him I think" ( that's what his mother thinks anyway )


----------



## beech1948

I have hesitated to write this but its about EVs.

I had a Tesla "stolen" from one of my Techs until the end of January. Quite liked it but was not too impressed by the cost and the infrastructure of the UK for recharging.

Last week I had an Audi e-tron on test and the week before a Jaguar i-Pace. The Audi was fine in terms of expected quality but was not too good on range. Available range was used up too quickly, cold weather caused too much reduction in range relegating this model to the also ran for me. I had daily problems getting it recharged which was a bit strange as each day there were issues with 6 different chargers. Some were broken, others were not responding to my 5 different cards to charge the thing. A broken charger means you have to find another and motorway chargers can be difficult to use when others are already using them. Frustrating and annoying. It went back to the dealer with a few sharpish words and a request for them to be truthful about range or lack of it. I would have been stranded if I had believed their range figures.

The Jaguar was also lacking a bit in range as it was at best average for the EV world and did not offer anything "extra". Comfort and quality fine. Performance OK but not enough range as I need around 350 miles or better given the many longer journeys I need to take on. Still keeping longer journeys down where possible for my whole company but sometimes you need to agree to travel.

I'm getting a bit disappointed with EVs actual performance eg cold weather battery performance is upto 25% less than warm weather.

Tesla is still probably the best option but the price is ridiculous.


----------



## Lons

Hi beech
The e-tron *GT* is probably one of the few I would look at but at around £90k it's way out of my comfort range.  Presumably it was the e-tron SUV if you were comparing against the i-pace, I haven't looked at either but when I bought my current SUV I drove both the Audi Q5 and the F Pace and I was disappointed with the Jag as though it drove nicely it felt flimsy and poor quality. EVs are a long way off for me yet.


----------



## Bodone

We've the golf e, 150miles in summer, high 90's in winter. It's the run around car and does the odd 80 mile round trip to lincoln. As a second car we've a diesel, so use that for anything longer. Works fine for us.

Tried most EV's, range isn't there for me yet, also for the money, the quality, ride and handling need to be much better. Will be interesting to see the new bmw range.

Were i work they're asking us all to go electric, will come down to how they support us.


----------



## Suffolk Brian

I’ll start things of my saying I have a petrol electric self charging hybrid - a Toyota if you are interested - and have no desire to go full electric. From where we live in Suffolk, if we want to visit our grandkids, then that is a (roughly) 400 mile round trip. Anyone got a car that will reliably do that on one charge? The manufacturers admit that after about 8 years batteries will have lost over 20% of their capacity, so that knocks your mileage back. The you put on lights, heater, screen demister, air con, etc etc. All of these will knock your range back even more. But the big bug for me is the batteries. I think there are some nasty chemicals in those batteries. What will happen to them at end of life? They are also quite heavy, so you need a bigger motor to give petrol equivalence. Several clips I have seen show batteries under slung beneath the body of the car. Had a stone hit your windscreen? What happens if a stone gets to puncture a battery case? Will you be able to get to a garage? What will that cost to repair?
thanks, but I will stick with my hybrid.


----------



## beech1948

Suffolk Brian said:


> I’ll start things of my saying I have a petrol electric self charging hybrid - a Toyota if you are interested - and have no desire to go full electric. From where we live in Suffolk, if we want to visit our grandkids, then that is a (roughly) 400 mile round trip. Anyone got a car that will reliably do that on one charge? The manufacturers admit that after about 8 years batteries will have lost over 20% of their capacity, so that knocks your mileage back. The you put on lights, heater, screen demister, air con, etc etc. All of these will knock your range back even more. But the big bug for me is the batteries. I think there are some nasty chemicals in those batteries. What will happen to them at end of life? They are also quite heavy, so you need a bigger motor to give petrol equivalence. Several clips I have seen show batteries under slung beneath the body of the car. Had a stone hit your windscreen? What happens if a stone gets to puncture a battery case? Will you be able to get to a garage? What will that cost to repair?
> thanks, but I will stick with my hybrid.



Brian,
Thats where my brain has gone as well. I'm a bit disappointed in EV range performance as like you I have a number of family connection which entail a minimum 250 mile journey so a 500 mile round trip. That would be at least 2 charge stops if I pushed the car to the limit and probably 4.

The charge time is too long a stop and the UK infrastructure for road warriors like me too uncertain and fragile.

Next week I have a Toyota RAV4 Business SUV on trial. Thats a hybrid with a 2.5 litre engine + electric motor which will cover 40 miles ish. Recharges itself from the 2.5 litre engine. Problem is the 2.5ltr engine seems to defeat the purpose of trying to go to an EV. The whole point of this activity is to try to decide what to do about company cars for the future. 

I have been amazed that UK petrol and diesel miles per gallon in most cars is so poor. Where is the average 70+ mpg we should have got to by now. Nowhere. Why no Gov legislation to force mpg up to say 70 mpg. Car manufacturers seem to get away with blue murder with few Gov checks.

I have managed to cut my companies overall mileage by 32% last year and want to do better this year but why am I having to do this on my own with zero support and no interest from other businesses and the Gov. Cutting mileage was a by product of a £1.6 million investment in my business and this is already showing a substantial payback.
The one area where there is no recognition is HMG who seem oblivious.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

My wife and I both have (petrol) cars.

Mine gets used for the longer trips - 400 mile round trips fairly frequently to see family and friends, and winter in Southern Spain. I would not be confident in using an EV for these unless I have a lots of time to waste.

Wife has a 10 year old city car. Used locally with an occassional 100 miles round trip. Does 2-3000 miles in a normal year. An EV would be fine - but it makes no sense either environmentally, or financially to spend £20k+ on a new small EV.

Plug in hybrid for me may be an option when I change - at least local journeys would be electric and still usable for longer journeys.


----------



## skeetstar

DBT85 said:


> There is no need to scrap the entire car becase the battery is degraded. Manufacturers will (have to) have programs in place.



Manufacturers will do what is most profitable for them.
I have no idea of the price of EVs, but if the battery really is half the cost of a new car, who is going to buy a 9 year old car knowing that within 12 months thet will have to spend 10 or 20k on it. The car in that instance will be virtually worthless.

Not sure we understand the economics of EVs yet, because we've not had them long enough..


----------



## DBT85

skeetstar said:


> Manufacturers will do what is most profitable for them.
> I have no idea of the price of EVs, but if the battery really is half the cost of a new car, who is going to buy a 9 year old car knowing that within 12 months thet will have to spend 10 or 20k on it. The car in that instance will be virtually worthless.
> 
> Not sure we understand the economics of EVs yet, because we've not had them long enough..


The most profitable thing for them is to recycle the vast majoirty of that battery and make a new one to put in the car. Why buy rarer and rarer commodities at higher and higher prices when you can recycle the majority of the ones you already bought and paid for a decade ago.


----------



## Droogs

~Battery it is no where near as bad as was predicted, most Teslas are showing less than 10% loss and most other manufacturers similiar numbers. The battery is intended to be replaced once a pack falls below 80% of capacity and put to a second use such as being a back up power storage unit for a house or factory where they will have at least another 15 to 20 years of usable life before being replaced and then recycled. Cars manufactured so far since its invention have lasted on average for ICE cars globaly has been 12 years or 150K miles. The bodyshells and motors of BEVs so far have shown to more than capable of of beating that due to the materials and construction methodology of modern manufacture and be still ready for another 100K at least. Even then manufacturers are talking about using PCP but refurbishing larger cars with new packs and putting the slightly depleted ones into smaller city cars where range is not needed


----------



## Robbo60

Wonder what the "road tax" system will be for EVs as they become more popular? Govt can't afford to lose all that income. Didn't realise until last year that any car over £40k(?) attracts an additional £400pa road tax. A mate of mine has a Audi Q5 4ltr Quattro and I think he said it was £720p.a.
Will resale value of ICE cars become better or worse as we near 2030?


----------



## Ozi

Suffolk Brian said:


> I’ll start things of my saying I have a petrol electric self charging hybrid - a Toyota if you are interested - and have no desire to go full electric. From where we live in Suffolk, if we want to visit our grandkids, then that is a (roughly) 400 mile round trip. Anyone got a car that will reliably do that on one charge? The manufacturers admit that after about 8 years batteries will have lost over 20% of their capacity, so that knocks your mileage back. The you put on lights, heater, screen demister, air con, etc etc. All of these will knock your range back even more. But the big bug for me is the batteries. I think there are some nasty chemicals in those batteries. What will happen to them at end of life? They are also quite heavy, so you need a bigger motor to give petrol equivalence. Several clips I have seen show batteries under slung beneath the body of the car. Had a stone hit your windscreen? What happens if a stone gets to puncture a battery case? Will you be able to get to a garage? What will that cost to repair?
> thanks, but I will stick with my hybrid.


Hi Brian,

I used to work for Jaguar (retired now) I can't disagree with you on range although it's improving but wanted to answer your concern about the stone hitting a battery, those cases are tough, there is more chance of something coming up through the floor on a conventional car than it taking out a battery do you have the same worry about the engine sump on your current car I can assure you it's at far more risk.


----------



## Lons

Robbo60 said:


> Wonder what the "road tax" system will be for EVs as they become more popular? Govt can't afford to lose all that income. Didn't realise until last year that any car over £40k(?) attracts an additional £400pa road tax. A mate of mine has a Audi Q5 4ltr Quattro and I think he said it was £720p.a.
> Will resale value of ICE cars become better or worse as we near 2030?


It was introduced in 2017 and initially included electric cars but that was changed after a fuss was made and they are currently exempt however it's a pretty safe bet that will be reintroduced at some stage. There are other exemptions where the Gov did an about turn such as motorhomes which are not available new under the £40k threshold.
The rate btw isn't £400 it's and additional £335 for cars registered this year, ( previously £325) and has to be paid for for 5 years so additional £1675 over that period and the normal tax dependant on emissions etc is on top of that. I.E. my car tax is £150 + 325 = £475 p.a.

As you say they will need to recoup that revenue and when you add in the loss of tax on diesel and petrol sales it leave an enormous black hole to fill. Almost 60p per litre in tax is a hell of a lot to get back somewhere else.


----------



## DBT85

Lons said:


> It was introduced in 2017 and initially included electric cars but that was changed after a fuss was made and they are currently exempt however it's a pretty safe bet that will be reintroduced at some stage. There are other exemptions where the Gov did an about turn such as motorhomes which are not available new under the £40k threshold.
> The rate btw isn't £400 it's and additional £335 for cars registered this year, ( previously £325) and has to be paid for for 5 years so additional £1675 over that period and the normal tax dependant on emissions etc is on top of that. I.E. my car tax is £150 + 325 = £475 p.a.
> 
> As you say they will need to recoup that revenue and when you add in the loss of tax on diesel and petrol sales it leave an enormous black hole to fill. Almost 60p per litre in tax is a hell of a lot to get back somewhere else.


I'm sure they'll invent some new reason to need to pay up more and more.


----------



## marcros

Are electric motorbikes a thing? The equivalent of sports bikes, in terms of performance rather than small scooter types.


----------



## Droogs

Oh yes


----------



## Terry - Somerset

The loss to the taxman from EV is not just the road tax (VED), but fuel taxes - duty and VAT. These are approx 5 times the value of VED.

Whist a higher rate of tax could be applied to commercial charging stations, home charging has very low tax as domestic usage for cooking, heating and lighting has only a low rate of 5% VAT.

Charging a higher price per unit (KW) for vehicle charging at home may be complex (although probably feasible in an internet connected world).

More likely I suspect is some sort of road charging - possibly depending on time of day, traffic loading, type of road (mway or local) etc. 

This could be used as a tool to reduce congestion, encourage a switch to public transport, cycling, walking etc. All part of a green zero carbon future!?!?


----------



## Jameshow

Does anyone think that the smart motorway system might be a stealth preparation for toll equipment to replace fuel duty? 

Just a thought? 

Cheers James


----------



## Sachakins

Smart motorways (dumb name) won't in themselves be able to be used as a charging system. What will be used is the ever expanding current network of ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) cameras. These have been touted as a crime prevention tool. But if you look around, there are more and more of them situated at the motorway slip roads, at major routes into and out of cities and towns, on bridges, tunnels and throughout the major .uk non motorway network.
The use of ANPR is being trialled on major Toll roads, M6 toll, Runcorn Widnes bridge, congestion charge areas, clean air initiatives areas. etc.
Vehicle registration marks are read automatically, and you are invoiced instantly, and paid automatically if you have a bank direct debit.

It's not beyond the realms of feasibility to quickly expand this technology for charging for vehicle excise duty by mileage and usage. So every vehicle will pay, and some more than others too.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

To put in place road charging the government could simply mandate that every electric vehicle is fitted with a GPS tracker chip which monthly takes the appropriate charge from your credit card.

It could even be able to disable the car if payment was not forthcoming!!

Existing ICE would continue to pay fuel taxes as currently, so no need to retrofit millions of vehicles.


----------



## Rorschach

A per mile charging scheme probably makes the most sense for EV's as the more you drive the more wear and tear you cause. You don't need complex GPS or ANPR though, you just charge based the mileage the vehicle shows when MOT'd.


----------



## Droogs

KIA officially launch the new EV6 on Tuesday but here is a sneak peak


----------



## Spectric

Terry - Somerset said:


> To put in place road charging the government could simply mandate that every electric vehicle is fitted with a GPS tracker chip which monthly takes the appropriate charge from your credit card.


The government could not implement a working test and trace system to help with the pandemic and now is also confused as to vacine passports so what chance is there that an EV track and pay system would ever work. 

Also how many people would be jumping up and down and whinging that the system infringes their human rights and civil liberties and that big brother is tracking them.

What is needed as we move forward into the age of electric vehicles, cleaner technology, IOT and green power is a total and complete reset of every aspect of our lives and how decisions are made that effect the population and that is the real challenge facing everyone but holds the key to solving many issues including fair taxation on road usage. The only people who should be concerned are the criminals, illegals and dodgy types who lurk in the shadows as well as people in power who sway towards corruption.


----------



## Rorschach

Spectric said:


> The government could not implement a working test and trace system to help with the pandemic and now is also confused as to vacine passports so what chance is there that an EV track and pay system would ever work.
> 
> Also how many people would be jumping up and down and whinging that the system infringes their human rights and civil liberties and that big brother is tracking them.
> 
> What is needed as we move forward into the age of electric vehicles, cleaner technology, IOT and green power is a total and complete reset of every aspect of our lives and how decisions are made that effect the population and that is the real challenge facing everyone but holds the key to solving many issues including fair taxation on road usage. The only people who should be concerned are the criminals, illegals and dodgy types who lurk in the shadows as well as people in power who sway towards corruption.



Just charge on the mileage shown on the vehicle at MOT time. If you want payments inbetween (I doubt yearly MOT's will be needed for EV's) then get people to submit their own numbers as they do with electricity/gas and then get an official inspection at a certain interval.

Fast, easy and just as reliable as any tracking system.


----------



## Ozi

Lons said:


> It was introduced in 2017 and initially included electric cars but that was changed after a fuss was made and they are currently exempt however it's a pretty safe bet that will be reintroduced at some stage. There are other exemptions where the Gov did an about turn such as motorhomes which are not available new under the £40k threshold.
> The rate btw isn't £400 it's and additional £335 for cars registered this year, ( previously £325) and has to be paid for for 5 years so additional £1675 over that period and the normal tax dependant on emissions etc is on top of that. I.E. my car tax is £150 + 325 = £475 p.a.
> 
> As you say they will need to recoup that revenue and when you add in the loss of tax on diesel and petrol sales it leave an enormous black hole to fill. Almost 60p per litre in tax is a hell of a lot to get back somewhere else.


The fairest system would probably be pay by mile but it would be difficult to administer and charging foreign vehicles would be problematic


----------



## Rorschach

Ozi said:


> The fairest system would probably be pay by mile but it would be difficult to administer and charging foreign vehicles would be problematic



Well we don't really charge foreign vehicles now. Most will fill up with fuel before leaving the continent and unless they are doing long distances here they will have enough to get them back over again.

As I said earlier though, not really complicated or difficult to administer at all. And if you did want to charge foreign vehicles you just log their mileage on entry and again when exiting and charge a fee. I wouldn't bother myself, it isn't a big deal.


----------



## baldkev

Whatever happens I guarantee we will be taxed to death


----------



## Ozi

DBT85 said:


> Ah you have then disabled the beeps then and don't use the heated seats when its 2C outside?
> 
> I like most others can park my car fine with no aids because as you so scathingly politely put it, we all learned to drive, but having them just makes life easier, hell they turn on automatically so are you going to the effort to turn them off each time on principal?
> 
> A TPMS is very useful WHILE driving, not while it's stationary and can help spot a tyre losing pressure before you utterly annihilate it, potentially leading to a completely ruined tyre or worse an accident. It also doesn't stop the car working if its broken just like the heated sets, cruise control, blind spot detection and everything else that isn't the ECU controlling the actual engine and drivetrain. I can at least understand a desire for a simpler car where you don't even have that. Sadly they aren't terribly common any more, in part becase they oft make the Bugatti Veryon fuel economy look quite frugal.
> 
> I entirely agree on the Skodas. Had an Octavia Hatch before this Superb Estate. It's had 50,000 on it from me in 3 years since I got it 3 months old.
> 
> 
> There is no need to scrap the entire car because the battery is degraded. Manufacturers will (have to) have programs in place.


There is a scheme in Germany where the batteries are effectively rented. When they get degraded beyond automotive use they are repackaged into a unit about the size of a washing machine and installed in peoples houses. Usually in combination with solar panels but charged from the grid when cost is low, used to sell back to the grid if demand spikes. One battery I worked with gave a peak output of 127amps when new, if that drops below 100 amps it's had it for the car but for domestic use it's more than plenty. The things that kill batteries are rapid charge and discharge, vibration and temperature cycles, none of which matter if it's under the stairs. Last I heard and this is a few years out of date 20,000 units were in use in Germany. In this country 0.6% of our electricity supply has been returned from storage of some form, this needs to increase dramatically we have times when the commercial price of wind energy goes negative being able to store it either in batteries or as hydrogen will help us overcome our addiction to gas. 

Sorry climbs off soap box


----------



## Ozi

Rorschach said:


> Well we don't really charge foreign vehicles now. Most will fill up with fuel before leaving the continent and unless they are doing long distances here they will have enough to get them back over again.
> 
> As I said earlier though, not really complicated or difficult to administer at all. And if you did want to charge foreign vehicles you just log their mileage on entry and again when exiting and charge a fee. I wouldn't bother myself, it isn't a big deal.


I don't have facts to back this up but I suspect it is quite a big deal and would become one if vehicles could be registered abroad. There are a lot of foreign lorries on our roads and heavy vehicles do a disproportionate amount of damage. As I say just my opinion but we could end up with all lorries run under a "flag of convenience" from somewhere like Luxembourg. Going away to read my Daily Mail till I feel better.


----------



## Rorschach

Ozi said:


> I don't have facts to back this up but I suspect it is quite a big deal and would become one if vehicles could be registered abroad. There are a lot of foreign lorries on our roads and heavy vehicles do a disproportionate amount of damage. As I say just my opinion but we could end up with all lorries run under a "flag of convenience" from somewhere like Luxembourg. Going away to read my Daily Mail till I feel better.



If that was an issue like you mention then I agree a new system would need to be used, such as my suggested logging of mileage at the border crossing.


----------



## Jameshow

Sachakins said:


> Smart motorways (dumb name) won't in themselves be able to be used as a charging system. What will be used is the ever expanding current network of ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) cameras. These have been touted as a crime prevention tool. But if you look around, there are more and more of them situated at the motorway slip roads, at major routes into and out of cities and towns, on bridges, tunnels and throughout the major .uk non motorway network.
> The use of ANPR is being trialled on major Toll roads, M6 toll, Runcorn Widnes bridge, congestion charge areas, clean air initiatives areas. etc.
> Vehicle registration marks are read automatically, and you are invoiced instantly, and paid automatically if you have a bank direct debit.
> 
> It's not beyond the realms of feasibility to quickly expand this technology for charging for vehicle excise duty by mileage and usage. So every vehicle will pay, and some more than others too.


Don't the motorways on the continent use a transponder and reader in an overhead gantry so that as the car passes under the gantry the car is clicked and charged? Same at the TAG system here in UK??? 

Cheers James


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## AES

Jameshow said:


> Don't the motorways on the continent use a transponder and reader in an overhead gantry so that as the car passes under the gantry the car is clicked and charged? Same at the TAG system here in UK???
> 
> Cheers James




Well, they don't here (Switzerland), nor, as of late last year (last time I was diving over the borders) , do they in Austria, France Italy & Germany! Note please I'm talking about private cars ("PKW") in German, NOT trucks ("LKW") in German.

Where did you get the above idea from?


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## Wildman

whatever they darn well please; given that Road tax was abolished in the 1970's and extra duty added to fuel instead so the heaviest users paid the most. Road tax was around £250 by then and too expencive for a lot of people so they dodged it, it was replaced with a £5 charge for checking your ins and MOT were in order, of course that was soon forgotten by successive governments, that charge should have been removed as well because now those checks are done by computer automatically. Ha Ha Ha Ha and look where it is back to now, it wasn't me mate it was some other government, nowt to do with me.


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## Terry - Somerset

An automated web based system for charging road use by time, road, vehicle size is entirely feasible. Utility companies have been doing it for years - as do banks, online shopping, phone companies, netflix etc etc.

Whether UK Government can implement such a system is another matter - but after her outstanding performance in T&T, Dido Harding may not be the right candidate to lead the initiative.


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## Trainee neophyte

Surely there will be an app for this: real time gps tracking of the vehicle, plus identities of the passengers. Reason for travel needs to be logged before departure, and a limit to the length of time you are allowed to be out. Also a limit to the distance travelled.

Madness? Those are exactly the rules I have to comply with every time I leave the house (I circumvent the gps tracking by not having a smart phone, but the rest of it is unavoidable). No reason not to expand it to all people, all the time, because climate change, obviously.


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## Jameshow

AES said:


> Well, they don't here (Switzerland), nor, as of late last year (last time I was diving over the borders) , do they in Austria, France Italy & Germany! Note please I'm talking about private cars ("PKW") in German, NOT trucks ("LKW") in German.
> 
> Where did you get the above idea from?







__





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A system like this?? 

I'm not an expert but I have my suspicions that the smart infrastructure might be used for charging down the line. 

Cheers James


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## francovendee

Anything that is good for the environment gets the thumbs up and EV's seem to offer reduced emissions if the energy it 'clean'. 
How we get around those people who need a car, have no off street parking and have very small budgets. You could say they need to take public transport and I'm sure many do. The problem lies with people, who because of the hours they work, lack of or cost of public transport, don't have this option.
Until I've seen how EV's last then I'd be very wary of buying used.
I believe with batteries it's not the age but the number of time they are charged that reduces capacity?
I believe there is a way you can run diagnostics to show this but I've also heard this can be 'clocked' by a criminal. 
The people who have already bought an EV are trail blazers for the rest of us and should be applauded.


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## Blackswanwood

It is interesting how this may play out - I think it will however be a very different landscape in five years.

The demographic of this forum is arguably not representative of the population as a whole so arguably there may be many of us who don’t follow what will be the norm. I guess most of us “like” owning a car and it’s more than a functional item. While undoubtedly there are car enthusiasts of all ages I also think the “younger generations“ have a different outlook.

I think personal car ownership will reduce massively When you need a car it will be rented and be driverless. At first it sounds wacky but the benefits are significant. I don’t need tie up a lump of capital in ownership and pay as I go. The car that turns up will be the right size. Tax can be collected easily and fairly. For longer journeys where range is an issue recharging can be scheduled therefore more convenient.

I can come up with many “ah but” objections to my own hypothesis but they all stem from me having become conditioned to like owning an ICE car.


----------



## AES

Jameshow said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Le site officiel des sociétés d'autoroutes sur le badge Liber-t
> 
> 
> Optez pour le badge liber-t le service télépéage sur mesure Départs en vacances, week-ends, trajets professionnels, liber-t simplifie vos déplacements et les rend plus agréables.
> 
> 
> 
> www.telepeagelibert.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A system like this??
> 
> I'm not an expert but I have my suspicions that the smart infrastructure might be used for charging down the line.
> 
> Cheers James



Oh. My French is pretty bad, but I see that your clip is talking about the "Peage". That's the motorway system in France which you have to pay to use. You either collect a ticket from the booth where you enter the system and show the ticket - and pay of course - where you leave the system, or, just as you say, you can pre-pay, which apparently gives you some sort of sticker to put on the windscreen which is read by a camera and you are charged accordingly. I'm not sure about the details of the pre-pay system (never done that) but there are 2 points here: 1). You have to pass through the same booth/s as everyone else for your sticker to be read, and 2). Somehow, I'm not sure how, you have to go "somewhere" to buy the pre-paid sticker, so obviously only of use to and interesting for "locals" whom, I guess, make the same journey each day.

So apart from the actual charging James, it's not exactly the fully automated system you previous post suggested - though I agree, it could become that "one day"!!!

A couple of other observations if I may:

With the French Peage system there is, AFAIK, always an alternative not chargeable road system. Certainly I've always seen signs saying "non-Peage this way";

A similar system also works in Italy, and with the same limitations, but I THINK, often without the alternative non-payment routes;

A similar system also exists in UK in places, e.g. the Dartford Tunnel (M25), and also a stretch of motorway somewhere in the Midlands (I forget where, sorry). But similar "problems" as those above exist presently.

In addition, the UK system suffers hugely that all the booths I've seen are ALL for drivers of RH drive vehicles which is a real traffic slower for drivers of LH drive vehicles who are on their own - DAMHIKT! AND precisely the same limitations, but in mirror image, exists with ALL the booths I've used in France and Italy. "Daft" (i.e. lack of thought and sensible pre-planning).

So with respect, I think your previous post which at least to me suggested that "everything is all automatic and is all over Europe" was at best somewhat misleading. But I agree, it COULD become what you suggest ("one of these fine wet days")!

At just coming up to 76 years old I doubt that I'll ever live to see that though.


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## Just4Fun

Blackswanwood said:


> I can come up with many “ah but” objections to my own hypothesis but they all stem from me having become conditioned to like owning an ICE car.


I can come up with many "ah but" objections which apply both to those who like owning a car and those who hate cars. For example your scenario might be a real pain for someone who lives in the middle of nowhere. The on-demand car might have to travel more miles to get to & from that person than the miles that person wants to travel. 

I think you probably hit the nail on the head when you said " personal car ownership will reduce massively", which could well be true, but personal car ownership is unlikely to disappear altogether any time soon. Many (most?) people couple probably accept or even welcome easy rental of a car on demand, but I believe it would be unrealistic to try and apply that model to everyone.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I agree that many will not be prepared to sacrifice their transport independence. I also wonder what pricing model will be adopted. 

A price per journey will seem high compared to car ownership where the immediate variable cost is the fuel. A bit like a pay as you go phone!

Or a monthly miles contract option - pay £200 per month and get 500 miles. Unused balance to be rolled over?

My local council have invested in a trial of electric scooters. Once registered, it costs £1 to unlock + 10p a minute. They are being used extensively as the bays in which they are parked are often empty - they are certainly more flexible than buses and probably cheaper.

This may be a model for in town/city rentals where small 2 seater modules with limited range and performance will be available for low cost rental (possibly driverless) on a similarly simple basis.


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## D_W

in cities in the US, we have rental cars (for profit) - but not typical rental cars, rather app checkable cars rentable by the hour. I have no idea what they cover as we use one car generally and have 2. 

The other initiatives, like making bikes and scooters available end up being sponsored, the figure that they cost isn't profitable, but they fail. I'm not sure what the rental costs are for the bikes, but I doubt anyone cares what they are - people will either pay, or not pay. I don't think they'll care if they're paying half of actual costs. 

In the future, cars will be dialed up by app because it'll be cheaper for the end user and profitable for someone who owns the car. I don't think any level of government is going to like it very much unless they can figure out how to tax the rubbish out of the autonomous cars, as they do spend a lot on roads here (and probably there, too), but registration and license for cars here costs us a minimum of about $60 a year. that's not much money, but when you register 4 million cars, it's $240MM, and you need those bad drivers on the road to generate ticket revenue and parking ticket revenue, and parking revenue. 

We'll see how that goes. 

For all of the range anxiety above, I know a couple of people who have one PHEV and one EV, and I've never heard them complain about range limitation. What happens with them is they drive the PHEV or EV for short trips, the EV for intermediate trips and back to the PHEV for long trips. It's a bit offputting, though, as when they come to town, they will ask if we have a 220V pigtail to run out of the garage and expect to charge for free, despite being in a car that will run fine on gas until they get home. Fortunately, I don't have any such pigtail in the garage. 

The PHEV and EV together were $90k. comparable cars in non PHEV or EV would've been about 73k. There's no way they'll save that amount in fuel with the low costs in the US, but I guess that's not the point. 

Once the cars are autonomous, they'll go off service and charge, and the battery size will probably be based more on expected mileage lifetime (e.g, the tesla trucks' assumption that 90% charge capacity is end of life, and it will get there in 1000 charges with a typical range of 500 or so - 500k miles). I'd imagine autonomous cars will be able to manage charge life of batteries better if there's an incentive to do it (they'll be able to stay in some specific range - and batteries may be sodium based by then instead of lithium. who knows).


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## Blackswanwood

Just4Fun said:


> I can come up with many "ah but" objections which apply both to those who like owning a car and those who hate cars. For example your scenario might be a real pain for someone who lives in the middle of nowhere. The on-demand car might have to travel more miles to get to & from that person than the miles that person wants to travel.
> 
> I think you probably hit the nail on the head when you said " personal car ownership will reduce massively", which could well be true, but personal car ownership is unlikely to disappear altogether any time soon. Many (most?) people couple probably accept or even welcome easy rental of a car on demand, but I believe it would be unrealistic to try and apply that model to everyone.


I agree - it may be different in Finland but most of the UK population do not live in remote locations.


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## Jonm

I worked in Turkey in the late eighties and in Istanbul they had a very effective way of enforcing road fund license collection. As you went through the tolls on the Bosphorus bridge the police would sometimes be there checking for tax discs. No current disc and you parked up nearby. Apparently you then had to deal with the bureaucratic system to actually pay your tax and get the car back. Real deterrent seeing lines of empty parked cars with the occupants getting in taxis. No messing about with prosecutions etc. but loads of bureaucratic hoops to jump through and no vehicle to use.


----------



## D_W

Jonm said:


> I worked in Turkey in the late eighties and in Istanbul they had a very effective way of enforcing road fund license collection. As you went through the tolls on the Bosphorus bridge the police would sometimes be there checking for tax discs. No current disc and you parked up nearby. Apparently you then had to deal with the bureaucratic system to actually pay your tax and get the car back. Real deterrent seeing lines of empty parked cars with the occupants getting in taxis. No messing about with prosecutions etc. but loads of bureaucratic hoops to jump through and no vehicle to use.



sounds about as big of a hassle as some of the inner city public/private schemes here where a private towing company trolls an area sometimes taking cars to the impound on behalf of the city (automatically $150 to get the car out, after you pay other stuff - figure out whether or not you owe it later, they don't care). 

If you go out of inspection here (like forget, but your car is fine), you'll get stuck with a non-safety fine of about $150. No way out of it, you missed your inspection - nails old ladies all the time (got my mother). 

"it's for your safety!!" The local police are so concerned about safety that you can see them looking at inspection tags as they drive by, looking to write "safety" tickets. At least one of the more rural states has ditched annual inspections. I'm sure it's already not legal to drive a car around with safety issues, but the way the system is set up now, they have a handy way of collecting money two different ways from people driving already safe cars.


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## Just4Fun

Blackswanwood said:


> I agree - it may be different in Finland but most of the UK population do not live in remote locations.


No, it is no different here. I suspect only a small proportion of people in any developed country lives in remote areas. Many or most people in urban areas could probably adapt to as-required car rental. There will always be exceptions though. Tradesmen for example. It would not be realistic to expect plumbers, electricians, etc etc etc to work that way, constantly loading and unloading tools and materials into vehicles they do not own.


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## Trainee neophyte

Currently electric vehicles are purely for replacement of private petrol driven cars. Tractors, hgv, ships, etc will need diesel or bunker fuel for years to come, possibly for ever. A barrel of oil contains many things, but about 30% is petrol (or gasoline if it in the americas). If electric vehicles remove demand for petrol, it can't be used for anything else, so what do we do with it? It has already been pulled out of the ground with every barrel, so something will need to be done with it. Additionally, petrol is actually a waste product that people found a use for - it's the heavy oils which are the important stuff as far as keeping civilization spinning is concerned: without a market to subsidise the heavy oils, everything that uses them will become more expensive. Food, transport - everything really. If one third of a barrel of oil has no market, would the price go up or down? If it goes down, will less be extracted? 

Interesting knock - on effects of going green.


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## Rorschach

Trainee neophyte said:


> Currently electric vehicles are purely for replacement of private petrol driven cars. Tractors, hgv, ships, etc will need diesel or bunker fuel for years to come, possibly for ever. A barrel of oil contains many things, but about 30% is petrol (or gasoline if it in the americas). If electric vehicles remove demand for petrol, it can't be used for anything else, so what do we do with it? It has already been pulled out of the ground with every barrel, so something will need to be done with it. Additionally, petrol is actually a waste product that people found a use for - it's the heavy oils which are the important stuff as far as keeping civilization spinning is concerned: without a market to subsidise the heavy oils, everything that uses them will become more expensive. Food, transport - everything really. If one third of a barrel of oil has no market, would the price go up or down? If it goes down, will less be extracted?
> 
> Interesting knock - on effects of going green.




I suspect there will be attempts to utilize petrol in new ways as demand falls. Chemical processes that currently are not needed or economically viable could become so if Petrol falls in value.


----------



## TominDales

Suffolk Brian said:


> . But the big bug for me is the batteries. I think there are some nasty chemicals in those batteries. What will happen to them at end of life? They are also quite heavy, so you need a bigger motor to give petrol equivalence. Several clips I have seen show batteries under slung beneath the body of the car. Had a stone hit your windscreen? What happens if a stone gets to puncture a battery case? Will you be able to get to a garage? What will that cost to repair?
> thanks, but I will stick with my hybrid.


I've some familiarity with the manufacture of batteries in the NE of UK.
Car batteries are improving very quickly, we are at the early adopter phase, but in the next 3 to 5 years we will see very rapid development. Faster charging ie 5 to 10 minute charging, longer range, cheaper and longer life, so although not ideal now, that is changing quickly. I expect the cost + tax equation to flip in favour of EVs within 5 years.
Full EVs (not hybrids) are cheaper to maintain as no hot parts to replace such as exhaust, catalyst and engine wear, electric motors are v reliable. The Nissan guys in Sunderland have found the aftermarket sales of parts are well down for the Leaf.
Car batterers for all EV (not hybrid) are lasting well beyond the stated life. Also they will have a good aftermarket value as they can be used for grid balancing and other stationary cell uses before they need to be recycled.
EV battery systems must pass a knife puncture test where the equivalent of a six inch nail is driven through the cell and it must not catch fire. The case of batteries is also defended to protect the occupant from stone damage and a survivable crash. Its a similar safety issue to carrying 50 litres of petrol (1.5 giga joules of energy that can be released).


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## AES

Just4Fun said:


> No, it is no different here. I suspect only a small proportion of people _in any developed country lives in remote areas_. Many or most people in urban areas could probably adapt to as-required car rental. There will always be exceptions though. Tradesmen for example. It would not be realistic to expect plumbers, electricians, etc etc etc to work that way, constantly loading and unloading tools and materials into vehicles they do not own.




"As-required" car rental is not a good solution for many, not just tradesmen and tools IMO (see below).

And I think it really does mean what you mean by "remote" locations too. E.g. Before leaving UK permanently in 1984, I lived in the county of Surrey in a fairly small village - about 30 miles (??) from London, about 15 minutes car drive from Gatwick Airport (where I worked), and about 10 minutes drive from 2 decent sized towns (East Grinstead & Crawley). In other words I was in "the heart" of the densely populated South East and NOT what I would "remotely" regard as "remote" (sorry!), such as Dartmoor or the Scottish Highlands!

And yet to get to Gatwick by public transport one needed THREE separate bus journeys (total time EXCLUDING waiting for connections 55 minutes as opposed to 15 mins by car) AND those buses only ran about twice mornings and twice evenings at "peak" times. To get to either E.Grinstead or Crawley at any other times there was a choice of ONE bus to each, and that was roughly at midday, nothing evenings and even more limited for weekends.

OK, that was back in 1984 and things may well have changed there almost 40 years later. But IF they've changed at all I bet it's for the worse!

And YES, the quoted reason for the sparse bus service was because even back then "everyone" had a car - AND indirectly that is/was also the reason for the relatively very high bus fares.

In other words, the good old chicken and egg situation, based on "attitudes" really!

And incidentally, I'm NOT saying "it's better in Switzerland" now, because although the bus service in the little village I live in is MUCH better than that described above for Surrey in the 1980's, the only people I see regularly using the buses here are kids going to/from school and a few old people. The bus here is subsidised and outside of school times, those I see are mainly transporting fresh air!

So as far as I can see, regardless of whether a personal-use "car" is powered by petrol, diesel, electricity or even dynamite (!!) is NOT so much the main point.

To me it seems it's going to take concerted action at the highest levels of government in all countries before the average person with A) big personal loads/young kids to carry; and/or B) people who do not live in at least a biggish city centre will be "persuaded" to use "public transport" on a regular basis. So a lot of attitudes to change, and as far as I can see, here anyway, there's little difference in the attitude to private cars between OAP's like me and the early 20 year olds.

And whether or not that "public transport" will be a simple bus like today or a "dial it up robot" is also largely immaterial I think. It's people attitudes to the definite lack of "freedom" and high costs imposed by public transport versus the "freedom" offered by "private transport" that is going to have to change - one day!!!! I shan't live to see much of it.


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## TominDales

Trainee neophyte said:


> Currently electric vehicles are purely for replacement of private petrol driven cars. Tractors, hgv, ships, etc will need diesel or bunker fuel for years to come, possibly for ever. A barrel of oil contains many things, but about 30% is petrol (or gasoline if it in the americas). If electric vehicles remove demand for petrol, it can't be used for anything else, so what do we do with it? It has already been pulled out of the ground with every barrel, so something will need to be done with it. Additionally, petrol is actually a waste product that people found a use for - it's the heavy oils which are the important stuff as far as keeping civilization spinning is concerned: without a market to subsidise the heavy oils, everything that uses them will become more expensive. Food, transport - everything really. If one third of a barrel of oil has no market, would the price go up or down? If it goes down, will less be extracted?
> 
> Interesting knock - on effects of going green.


This is a very active area of R&D in the chemical industry. The economics of a refinery today, is the profit margin is made on making chemicals, gasoline refining has virtually no margin. It will require some major changes to the whole petrochemical supply chain to cope with this change, it can be done, crack the napha into smaller molecules for chemicals manufacture. Also carbon neutral methods for making an re-using chemicals and plastics will have a huge impact. One example, The Phillips 66 refinery in Hull produces needle coke as a byproduct of refining oil. This is the major raw materials that goes to china and every EV maker as its one of the key raw materials in a Lithium battery. So how to make the chemicals, pharmaceutical, needle coke without the gasoline is one of the challenges being worked on. Fuel oil for ships will need to be replaced with carbon neutral alternative - this will take longer than for cars, but is already being investigated. Hybrid ships are already on the market to reduce pollution in harbours etc. As more is recycled and energy is sourced from renewable sources, more oil will remain in the ground. The oil majors are working hard on this as its upending their business model and they need to be at the forefront of the new energy revolution or they wont have a future.


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## Titan_uk

Seems that people are only considering road/fuel tax. However, it should be necessary to consider the myriad of implications in reducing ICE vehicles from health services, environmental impact, etc. How much would the government save by not having people in hospital with chest problems due to vehicle fumes? How much would they save by lessening some of the various air scrubbing systems to lower particulate levels to mandated levels?

I'm not saying the government actually WILL take all those things into account, but I sincerely hope they do and not kill cleaner cars off with a stupid, short-sighted, knee-jerk tax grab.

@D_W - on the charging front, I think the various companies need to get their acts together - I see no reason whatsoever why chargers don't display a simple stick-on barcode, qr code, or even something fancier, that you scan with your OWN electricity company's app to start and stop charging. The cost then being added to your OWN PERSONAL bill. That tech has been in place for ages, before EVs were even out and it would cost a pittance to implement - a sticky label one side and a simple app the other (with a auth code to the charger ofc) - pretty ridiculous there wasn't an ounce of thought put into this. (my provider does meter readings like this already, take a picture of the meter in the app, it reads the numbers and that's it not even a smart meter in sight)

Context: I'm not an EV evangelist, I'm a realist. I own a volvo s80 diesel (vilification totally ignored  Before lockdown, used to travel from countryside into manchester every day and needed to carry a lot in the boot. Not a day went past without me thinking Manchester city centre stinks - literally! Hopefully going to swap it this year hopefully for the new hyundai EV (missed the project 45 pony up allocation and had it refunded  )

Would love to come back in 100 years and see what we did for our children's children, hoping hydrogen gets taken up again


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## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> I suspect there will be attempts to utilize petrol in new ways as demand falls. Chemical processes that currently are not needed or economically viable could become so if Petrol falls in value.





Blackswanwood said:


> It is interesting how this may play out - I think it will however be a very different landscape in five years.
> 
> The demographic of this forum is arguably not representative of the population as a whole so arguably there may be many of us who don’t follow what will be the norm. I guess most of us “like” owning a car and it’s more than a functional item. While undoubtedly there are car enthusiasts of all ages I also think the “younger generations“ have a different outlook.
> 
> I think personal car ownership will reduce massively When you need a car it will be rented and be driverless. At first it sounds wacky but the benefits are significant. I don’t need tie up a lump of capital in ownership and pay as I go. The car that turns up will be the right size. Tax can be collected easily and fairly. For longer journeys where range is an issue recharging can be scheduled therefore more convenient.
> 
> I can come up with many “ah but” objections to my own hypothesis but they all stem from me having become conditioned to like owning an ICE car.


We are seeing this trend happen quite quickly. Cars are not used in cities to anything like the extent of 20 years ago. In cities like Paris, car ownership has fallen to the point where underground car parks are being re-purposed. New business models that allow for micro renting of cars at very low cost are attractive to the young who dont have the space for a car, a system not unlike uber or airb&B that allows shared ownership will work for the generation living in cities and towns.


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## TominDales

Suffolk Brian said:


> But the big bug for me is the batteries. I think there are some nasty chemicals in those batteries. What will happen to them at end of life? They are also quite heavy, so you need a bigger motor to give petrol equivalence.


These are two good points; the battery has hazardous chemicals in it such as metals cobalt, Nickle, and some solvent (NMP). However these are valuable commodities that can be easily recycled. Routes are being developed by the manufactures to have a closed loops recycle system whereby the end of life cell becomes the raw materials for the new ones.
The auto industry is investing billions in EVs - if they don't get this right they are out of business. EVs primary selling point is there environmental performance, if it was not for that they would have stuck with ICE. So any environmental issue from EVs is taken very seriously, for instance Johnson Matthey are building a battery chemicals plant in Poland to supply continental EU with battery chemicals. They have just announced a deal to be supplied with renewable energy for their factory - Poland has a legacy of coal based electricity production. Solvay have just announced a tie up with Veolia waste and Renault to provide closed loop recycling of EV cells. Cobalt is an element mainly sourced from the DRC with attendant worries about unsafe mining conditions. So very low Cobalt batteries are being developed to reduced this risk. As the car companies are very sensitive to being caught out again on environmental front.
Size issue: this is also a potential barrier to uptake. It is being addressed by new designs, fitting the cells in void space for instance. One of the industries challenges and reservations about the 2030 timescale was the effort to produce small cars. The original 2040 phase-out allowed much more time to trickle the innovation down the models. 2030 is posing a challenge to this. Its particularity difficult for the smaller producers such as JLR and others of similar size with smaller balance sheets. So we may see more industry consolidation and an opportunity for Chinese manufactures to steal a march on the smaller EU ones.


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## Spectric

Trainee neophyte said:


> If electric vehicles remove demand for petrol, it can't be used for anything else, so what do we do with it?


This is the tip of a very big iceburg, it all boils down to the Law of Conservation of Energy. You need energy to move any mass and you will always need energy to be able to convert it into the type of energy you want because energy cannot be created or destroyed. So you could burn the unwanted petrol to produce electricity to then charge your electric vehicle! This is the same as growing huge amounts of cereal to feed the cattle which you later eat, better option is to just eat the cereal. Think of the total job losses created when ICE's and gearboxes no longer need to be designed, tested, certified and manufactured, this will impact the manufacturer of the specialised machinery to produce the components, the foundries that cast a lot of parts, all the production facilties and the list goes on. Milkfloats are much easier to produce, make a vehicle and then all you need are batterys and motors , and I think of all the time and effort that I have put into the ICE, not to mention the hours of training and research.


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## Rorschach

@AES 
Your comments there about public transport are the reason I think a fleet of self driving electric cars are such a great idea to replace a lot of public transport. It will be like having a cheap taxi service that could take you anywhere in the country, almost as good as owning a vehicle yourself for some people.


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## Spectric

I think Tom is leaning in the right direction, fewer cars in private ownership and the masses will use public transport and I also believe will work much more locally, could go back to the days of the mill towns. The problems faced are that we as humans cannot work as a global entity which would be much more efficient and there is too much conflict and mistrust in everything. A huge problem needs to be initially addressed as just that, no good having the odd nibble here and there. The people in the future will live in a world that we would not reconise, otherwise they will not survive because the way we currently live is not sustainable and electric vehicles will not solve much of the overall issues.


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## AES

Rorschach said:


> @AES
> Your comments there about public transport are the reason I think a fleet of self driving electric cars are such a great idea to replace a lot of public transport. It will be like having a cheap taxi service that could take you anywhere in the country, almost as good as owning a vehicle yourself for some people.




I'm not so sure about the "self-driving" bit (maybe to a large extent irrelevant until the technology is REALLY proven AND accepted by the majority?) But to me the key word in your post Rorschach is "cheap". (Relatively speaking of course, when compared to the true cost of a privately owned car).

And maybe (just maybe) the idea would be to have those cheap "taxis" of yours available at each end of the journey, but to cover the middle - long distance - bit with a series of cheap "self-driving" taxis, all coupled together but able to "hive off independently" at various points as required - i.e. a sort of "train" (but rather different to trains we have now).

Dunno mate, but again I guess doubtful in my remaining life time except perhaps on a one-off experimental basis .


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## Rorschach

AES said:


> I'm not so sure about the "self-driving" bit (maybe to a large extent irrelevant until the technology is REALLY proven AND accepted by the majority?) But to me the key word in your post Rorschach is "cheap". (Relatively speaking of course, when compared to the true cost of a privately owned car).
> 
> And maybe (just maybe) the idea would be to have those cheap "taxis" of yours available at each end of the journey, but to cover the middle - long distance - bit with a series of cheap "self-driving" taxis, all coupled together but able to "hive off independently" at various points as required - i.e. a sort of "train" (but rather different to trains we have now).
> 
> Dunno mate, but again I guess doubtful in my remaining life time except perhaps on a one-off experimental basis .



Self driving tech will be common enough in the next 10 years I reckon.

In my mind you would have hubs dotted around the country where the vehicles can be charged and maintained, you book through an app much as you would an Uber now. Not only would you book your pick up point but also your destination. The cars would pick you up and take you to your destination, if the journey was long then the car would drive you to a service station where you could have a comfort break and you would swap vehicles to continue the journey or the car would re-charge as needed. Depends if the cars would stick to a local area or be a nationwide system. 

In my idea you would basically get almost all the benefit of driving there in your own car (speed, efficiency, privacy and door to door service) coupled with a much more environmentally friendly transit system that could be used by anyone regardless of having a license.


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## Blackswanwood

AES said:


> Dunno mate, but again I guess doubtful in my remaining life time except perhaps on a one-off experimental basis .


You may be right. On the other hand I remember being told that the music industry would end up leasing content rather than selling CD’s and records and thinking something that rhymes with rollocks ... for a start what would happen to the chat up line ”Would you like to see my record collection?”. Then all the record and CD shops disappeared!


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## Blackswanwood

Rorschach said:


> Self driving tech will be common enough in the next 10 years I reckon.



I bet you a pint it’s before then! And after I’ve drunk it no problem getting home


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## Rorschach

Blackswanwood said:


> I bet you a pint it’s before then! And after I’ve drunk it no problem getting home



You must have been drinking already , my comment already covers this lol "In the next 10 years" is between now and 10 years in the future.


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## Spectric

Again are they really serious about change and wanting to improve the enviroment or just playing with words. We are talking removing/reducing the number of cars with ICE's on our roads but if they had been really on the ball then they would have addressed the issue with the HGV by now, why are they still running the length and breadth of the country? Rail hubs at all major cities and towns and lorries only work local to the rail hubs, think about the reduction in pollution if all those lumbering trucks were taken off our major roads. It has not happened because the government earns a lot of duty on the Diesel they use, but will if they go electric due to reduced capacity and no duty.


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> This is the tip of a very big iceburg, it all boils down to the Law of Conservation of Energy. You need energy to move any mass and you will always need energy to be able to convert it into the type of energy you want because energy cannot be created or destroyed. So you could burn the unwanted petrol to produce electricity to then charge your electric vehicle! This is the same as growing huge amounts of cereal to feed the cattle which you later eat, better option is to just eat the cereal. Think of the total job losses created when ICE's and gearboxes no longer need to be designed, tested, certified and manufactured, this will impact the manufacturer of the specialised machinery to produce the components, the foundries that cast a lot of parts, all the production facilties and the list goes on. Milkfloats are much easier to produce, make a vehicle and then all you need are batterys and motors , and I think of all the time and effort that I have put into the ICE, not to mention the hours of training and research.


You raise some of the very major an serous issues behind the drive to remove ICE engines.

Energy and pollution. 
The drive to remove ICE is two fold, removal of NOX from cities and CO2 byproduct from burning petrol and diesel. Nox reduction is the (wrong headed in my view) move against diesel, in my view add blue and diesel is a good stop gap until EVs are mature. As petrol makes more CO2 per mile travelled. The need to reduce in CO2 is the overwhelming problem. 
For CO2 to be reduced then we have to move away from fossil fuels like petrol and not burn the unwanted petrol but use wind, solar and nuclear energy to charge the cars. That is the UK governments strategy. Hence the Nuclear deal announced last summer and the subsidies to get off shore wind going and EVs going, backed up by legislation that makes ICE harder to sell each year and carbon taxes on fusel fuels. 
So what happens to the petrol
- firstly the refineries get reconfigured to not make it - they have had to do similar things over the past 100 years as they switched from coal to oil and then to gas. They were re-configure to make more diesel in the 1990's. Incidentally natural gas and shale gas (contains ethane as well as methane) are a much greener feedstock than coal and oil. But intimately by 2050 we will have to be largely free of burning oil and gas without some sort of carbon capture. That is a huge global challenge. But a driver for innovation and investment in this country, so potentially a flow of well paid work for the next generation of engineers etc.

You second point about the supply chain is happening fast. Town's like Rochdale that make sophisticated gear and engine components have been devastated by the change, same for Bridgend that makes most the the EUs diesel engines etc. Hence the attempts to get new industries to those place. Honda exiting Swindon is part of this change (Brexit accelerated unfortunately), but as you point out EVs are simpler to make and maintain than ICE vehicles


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## Jameshow

Spectric said:


> Again are they really serious about change and wanting to improve the enviroment or just playing with words. We are talking removing/reducing the number of cars with ICE's on our roads but if they had been really on the ball then they would have addressed the issue with the HGV by now, why are they still running the length and breadth of the country? Rail hubs at all major cities and towns and lorries only work local to the rail hubs, think about the reduction in pollution if all those lumbering trucks were taken off our major roads. It has not happened because the government earns a lot of duty on the Diesel they use, but will if they go electric due to reduced capacity and no duty.



Do EV work for 44t lorries??? 

I haven't seen any EV vehicles on sale above 3.5t any one seen any???

Cheers James


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## MARK.B.

Jameshow said:


> Do EV work for 44t lorries???
> 
> I haven't seen any EV vehicles on sale above 3.5t any one seen any???
> 
> Cheers James


Tesla- Volvo and others are making 18 wheelers, the Tesla starts around $150,000 to around $180,00. No idea how much they can carry though.


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> Again are they really serious about change and wanting to improve the environment or just playing with words. We are talking removing/reducing the number of cars with ICE's on our roads but if they had been really on the ball then they would have addressed the issue with the HGV by now, why are they still running the length and breadth of the country? Rail hubs at all major cities and towns and lorries only work local to the rail hubs, think about the reduction in pollution if all those lumbering trucks were taken off our major roads. It has not happened because the government earns a lot of duty on the Diesel they use, but will if they go electric due to reduced capacity and no duty.


Another thoughtful question. To be a bit cynical about this, the UK government has been slow to act on climate change, but has been moved by public opinion over the past decade or so, Greta and David Attenborough effect, and along with the EU, most nations including China and now the USA again.
The focus on passenger cars is both pragmatic and logical. Firstly they are the biggest source of CO2 emissions -see the chart cut from one of many reports for the Climate committee, in this case from IEA data Cars, planes, trains: where do CO2 emissions from transport come from?. . Cars are also the easiest to convert as the power required is the lowest and as a premium product the industry sustains high levels of R&D. 

Medium and Heavy trucks are the next one and there is development and legislation for these coming in later, mainly on the back of car developments. For trucks, batteries are looking like the winning technology, although fuel cells and hydrogen combustion are being investigated as well. In Germany there is a trial piece of motorway fitted with a pantograph to enable electric trucks to re-charge while travelling on the autobahn, battery power being required for the start and finish of a journey. 
Shipping carries by far the most transport in term of tonnage and mileage but is ultra efficient. But even marine is planned to phase out fossil fuels, . Aviation, while not the biggest emitter is of high concerns as its the one growing the fastest and the most challenging. Sustainable fuels such as bio fuels are the likely short term solution but electric planes are being developed for short haul -RR have a programme with Airbus, also drones and small craft.

As you say, electric rail is the lowest CO2 emitter, but the UK has very congested rail and most lines are shared passenger trains which is problematic. With autonomous vehicle technology, you can envisage a day when trains of trucks will run nose to tail on motorways and peal off to their destination, probably replacing rail. This will also happen to passenger cars, they will effectively be locked together in formation - seems quite a scary prospect. 
This graph looks simple enough, but we should not underestimate the shear scale of the change. 95% of the worlds energy is from fossil fuels today, in 50 years time it will all be low carbon alternatives.


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## TominDales

Jameshow said:


> Do EV work for 44t lorries???
> 
> I haven't seen any EV vehicles on sale above 3.5t any one seen any???
> 
> Cheers James


Most manufactures offer them Scania launches electric truck range or have pilots, DAF, Mercedes, Scania, generally offering Battery EV, but heging best on the tech at the moment with hydrogen (combustion and fuel cell), or biodiesel. London has adopted a fleet of 26te EV bin waggons and Glasgow has a fleet of 32te bin waggons. Bin waggons and vehicles that go back to base - such as buses- to be re-charged are the first to be adopted. Scania published a report last month saying that they are scaling back R&D on fuel cells and focusing more on full battery EV for its 44te trucks.


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## Spectric

TominDales said:


> are shared passenger trains which is problematic.


You could run the freight overnight when passenger services are really low.


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## Jameshow

Spectric said:


> You could run the freight overnight when passenger services are really low.


Do they not do that already. 

Near me a quarry train trundles by quite late in the evening most nights. 

I think there are several road / rail transfer stations too. 

Cheers James


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## Spectric

Yes they do run some but they do not fully ultilise the tracks, I used to get a heavy ballast train going past at 2am every wednesay and that shook the houses. You think one freight train can haul over 100 tons in a single freight car so with just ten cars you have 1000 tons being hauled which is over 40 lorries off the road. So you could remove all trucks from M1, M5 & M6 by using trains and think of the reduction in conjestion on say the M5.


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## chrisdt

All this talk about electric vehicles and advancement in technology when the roads in the UK are a bloody disgrace. Potholes as big as footballs. "Smart Motorways" that were designed by utter morons full of broken down electric cars (which you cant tow) and scrap yards full of dud batteries.


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## Ozi

chrisdt said:


> All this talk about electric vehicles and advancement in technology when the roads in the UK are a bloody disgrace. Potholes as big as footballs. "Smart Motorways" that were designed by utter morons full of broken down electric cars (which you cant tow) and scrap yards full of dud batteries.


You can tow electric cars just as you can tow automatics you just have to follow the correct procedure, also electric vehicles are looking to be more reliable than IC even at this early stage of their development. "Dud batteries are a very valuable resource you won't see them littering scrap yards for long.

Smart motorways you may have a point, there will certainly be more accidents, they claim to reduce polution, I would like to see facts before I believe that.

I'm not sure what happens with potholes in your area, here Rugby council have a phone line where you can report things like potholes or fallen trees etc. it makes a difference getting roads reopened sooner and holes fixed before they grow too large, I don't often find good things to say about our local council but I have to give them credit for this it saves money and improves the service. Worth having a look on your councils web site.


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## Trainee neophyte

Transferring to EV is expensive, both in terms of new infrastructure, but also in terms of energy usage. We will use more energy to travel the same distances, or we will travel less. Either way we will be the poorer for it. Is Climate Change fear just a way of convincing everyone to accept being poorer, because the oil is running out?


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## Terry - Somerset

The question of how HGVs and the bulk movement of goods will evolve may be far more complex than simply the road or rail, battery or hydrogen, or it just can't be done debate.

Containerisation of international trade in the 1960/70s radically changed the way goods are shipped. Part of the reason for large HGVs is economic - employing one driver to move 20 tons is more effective than 20 drivers to move one ton. There are also efficiency benefits in larger HGV vs several smaller.

The economic balance may change:

self driving vehicles could allow freight modules with a capacity of 1-3 tons to be economically viable
larger volume long distance freight could use the rail system for the major part of the journey with automated transfer on to smaller self driving modules for local delivery.


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## Rorschach

People aren't stupid, there is a reason that a lot of freight uses road transport rather than rail.


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## Droogs

Jameshow said:


> Do EV work for 44t lorries???
> 
> I haven't seen any EV vehicles on sale above 3.5t any one seen any???
> 
> Cheers James



Scania are launching a range of trucks which they hope will go up to 44T over the next few years see below links:









Home


Welcome! Scania is a global company with sales of trucks, buses & services in more than 100 countries. Scania’s production units are located in Europe, South America and Asia.




www.scania.com















Scania launches fully electric truck with 250 km range


Scania now launches its first fully electric truck. With a range of up to 250 km, the Scania electric truck can operate during the whole day and still return sa




www.scania.com














Discover Scania´s electrified solutions


Scania has created an electrification roadmap which takes a multi-faceted approach to electrified transport, including research into different kinds of bio-fuelled hybrid technologies and fully-electric vehicles.




www.scania.com


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> Yes they do run some but they do not fully ultilise the tracks, I used to get a heavy ballast train going past at 2am every Wednesay and that shook the houses. You think one freight train can haul over 100 tons in a single freight car so with just ten cars you have 1000 tons being hauled which is over 40 lorries off the road. So you could remove all trucks from M1, M5 & M6 by using trains and think of the reduction in conjestion on say the M5.


I'm not that well acquainted in this topic, my understanding from talking to a few in this area - we have projects with Hitachi, Siemens rail and Bombadier is UK rail freight is problematic due to the crowded nature of the UK and the need to share infrastructure, much of which was build 180 years ago. Whereas long distance rail across Europe and through to Russia etc is more viable than in the UK there are a mixture of issues.
- dedicated freight lines work quite well - cf the old coal transport lines etc but mixed freight and passage traffic has problems - there are not that many synergies.
- our high speed mainlines are highly congested in the day time, the East coat line has a fast train every 6 minutes on average, this capacity constrained means that maintenance of the line (see next point) causes losses to passenger traffic, delays etc. Much of the maintence is done out of hours to ease congestion.
- freight traffic causes faster erosion of track which necessitates more frequent repairs otherwise safety of fast passenger trains would be compromised, which disrupts the lines for fast passenger traffic - pure freight lines can be designed differently and can take more wear due to the slower speeds, but combined lines don't have such synergies
- Building new lines in the UK is difficult due to congested nature of the island. Just bringing back old lines that have had houses and gardens build near or on the tack bed is very hard to drive through the planning process.
- EWS had a poor reputation for flexible thinking and innovation in the industry so not used as much as it could be - (this is a rather dated comment cf 2005 so things may have improved. Sadly I saw the economics when ICI switched tankering bulk chemicals such as methanol across the country from dedicated rail to road - the cost plummeted, this was largely due to outdated processes in the rail fright sector not competing with road freight. - this is fixable.

So I suspect some freight can be switched to rail through better operational practices, but the structural problems will favour road haulage for the bulk of transport.


----------



## Spectric

Rorschach said:


> People aren't stupid, there is a reason that a lot of freight uses road transport rather than rail.


Are you sure, stupidity can be a good guise for both incompetance and corruption. Rail freight has many benefits but reason that a lot of freight uses road transport rather than rail is because the rail infrastructure is no longer there, if we built new rail yards then it would be a simple mater to move containers onto & off rail, but like everything else there would be winners and losers. The haulage industry is huge, Ok the trucks are not made in the Uk but there is a large service industry and overall it employs a lot of people, then another loser would be the government through loss of fuel duty and taxation so whilst they use diesel and generate jobs and income there is no reason to change even if it means helping congestion and the enviroment. This is a good example of why we need fresh younger blood in our leadership, once you get to a certain age you know that you are past making any significant difference and so just go with the flow waiting to retire with the attitude that the next generation will have to sort out the mess left behind and so the cycle continues.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

chrisdt said:


> All this talk about electric vehicles and advancement in technology when the roads in the UK are a bloody disgrace. Potholes as big as footballs. "Smart Motorways" that were designed by utter morons full of broken down electric cars (which you cant tow) and scrap yards full of dud batteries.


We obviously need to bring back coal-powered steam engines as soon as possible......


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## TominDales

Trainee neophyte said:


> Transferring to EV is expensive, both in terms of new infrastructure, but also in terms of energy usage. We will use more energy to travel the same distances, or we will travel less. Either way we will be the poorer for it. Is Climate Change fear just a way of convincing everyone to accept being poorer, because the oil is running out?


You are right to highlight the investment and effort needed for this huge change, but in energy terms EVs are far MORE EFFICEINT at turning energy into distance traveled, I have no doubt that the running costs will be lower for the poor in the medium term.

The investment in new infrastructure is huge and the diversion of resources into this will cause short term issues for people as priioreties change. Transport is only the start, switching domestic heating away from natural gas will require a similar level of capital investment. 

However the oil is not running out and wont run out. Most economists expect peak oils to be reached soon due to the switch to renewables and the Saudis will see oil left in the ground, just like coal is increasingly being left underground in the EU and US.
- Petrol engines are about 30% efficient at turning fuel into motion. The very best large diesels in trucks and large cars can get upto 45% efficientcy.
- EVs are 80%to 85% energy efficient at converting energy to motion.
- fuel cell EVs are about 30% efficient ie similar to ICE
EVs are by far the most efficient vehicle, that is why trains are electrics and diesel electric etc.
BUT WHEN IT COMES TO ZERO CARBON FUELS EVs even more efficient because batteries are very energy efficient at converting energy see enclosed chart

- ICE cars based on sustainable fuels ie using fuel oil derived from carbon capture and Fischer Trops synthesis (FT in the enclosed table) are only 13% efficient.
- The cost of electricity from wind is predicted to fall bellow the cost of electricity from fossil fuels by 2024, its already close.
- as large scale manufacture, distribution and use of EVs gets going the cost of ownership will plummet 

So for these reasons EVs will be more affordable than ICE in 10 years time, so I think the poor of the world will see benefits, the challenge is getting over the first few years of change, which may be or may not be painful.

Note in the chart, Power to liquid means making diesel, petrol and aviation fuel using low carbon tech ie carbon capture and Fischer Tropps chemistries to make the fuel. However, whether it be the making of the energy or the consumption of it in the vehicle EVS are way more efficient at both.


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## Woody2Shoes

Trainee neophyte said:


> Currently electric vehicles are purely for replacement of private petrol driven cars. Tractors, hgv, ships, etc will need diesel or bunker fuel for years to come, possibly for ever. A barrel of oil contains many things, but about 30% is petrol (or gasoline if it in the americas). If electric vehicles remove demand for petrol, it can't be used for anything else, so what do we do with it? It has already been pulled out of the ground with every barrel, so something will need to be done with it. Additionally, petrol is actually a waste product that people found a use for - it's the heavy oils which are the important stuff as far as keeping civilization spinning is concerned: without a market to subsidise the heavy oils, everything that uses them will become more expensive. Food, transport - everything really. If one third of a barrel of oil has no market, would the price go up or down? If it goes down, will less be extracted?
> 
> Interesting knock - on effects of going green.


It is possible to make "petrol" into all sorts of other things. By the same token, a lot of things can be turned into petrol - I know a guy who once worked in South Africa during apartheid, helping them make petrol (which they couldn't easily import!) out of coal which they had loads of. Of course these transformations require quite a lot of extra energy, so probably best avoided. Medium term, less oil will be extracted, not least because it's increasingly scarce/expensive to extract - we found and burned most of the 'low hanging fruit' some time ago, possibly excluding places like Saudi/Iran/Iraq/Libya etc.


----------



## Woody2Shoes

Trainee neophyte said:


> Transferring to EV is expensive, both in terms of new infrastructure, but also in terms of energy usage. We will use more energy to travel the same distances, or we will travel less. Either way we will be the poorer for it. Is Climate Change fear just a way of convincing everyone to accept being poorer, because the oil is running out?


I think you need to justify some of these statements. EVs are much more efficient at converting chemically stored energy into movement on the ground. More than half the energy from diesel/petrol is wasted when it is burned in an ICE.


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## Woody2Shoes

Woody2Shoes said:


> I think you need to justify some of these statements. EVs are much more efficient at converting chemically stored energy into movement on the ground. More than half the energy from diesel/petrol is wasted when it is burned in an ICE.


All technological progress requires change - think of all the saddlemakers and farriers put out of work when horses went out of fashion about a century ago...


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## Rorschach

Spectric said:


> Are you sure, stupidity can be a good guise for both incompetance and corruption. Rail freight has many benefits but reason that a lot of freight uses road transport rather than rail is because the rail infrastructure is no longer there, if we built new rail yards then it would be a simple mater to move containers onto & off rail, but like everything else there would be winners and losers. The haulage industry is huge, Ok the trucks are not made in the Uk but there is a large service industry and overall it employs a lot of people, then another loser would be the government through loss of fuel duty and taxation so whilst they use diesel and generate jobs and income there is no reason to change even if it means helping congestion and the enviroment. This is a good example of why we need fresh younger blood in our leadership, once you get to a certain age you know that you are past making any significant difference and so just go with the flow waiting to retire with the attitude that the next generation will have to sort out the mess left behind and so the cycle continues.



Ok people are stupid but that isn't the reason they don't use rail. Rail is simply not good enough for "just in time" delivery which is how a lot of companies buy there stock, warehousing is expensive. Rail is great for bulk products like clay for example which will go from quarry to factory, but you can't transport food efficiently by train, too much time to load and unload and you need it to go to too many smaller locations. 

I know rail sounds great because it is super efficient when used in the right circumstance, but road haulage just works better for the vast majority of goods that need transporting.


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## chrisdt

Yes I know you can...with a tow dolly...Loaded on the All lane running hard shoulder if the overhead signs and phones are working which by Highways Englands own admission have not been in some areas. Yes we have a pot hole hot line here in Cumbria and they might eventually come out and repair them...But what a repair??? Fill it with a little tarmac, smooth it over and three months down the line out it pops....Complete waste of time and money.
Talking about wasting money anyone seen the horrendous TV ad Go Left which they say is intended to "Educate Us" in the art of using a Smart Motorway I really believe its Highway England that needs educating.Tell that to the lady in a Ford Focus with 2 kids in the back and the cam belt breaks. Please dont say put your foot on the clutch and cruise to a safety zone which might or might not be a third of a mile or one mile away Is'nt it strange in the ad the safety zone is conveniently just in front of the car. Anyone been driving when a cam belt breaks? I have. It judders to a halt very rapidly giving you no time to think.
The official result:
Given its long list of responsibilities, there are no prizes for guess that timing belt failure is pretty catastrophic. It’s possible to ‘get away’ with it if your car has what’s known as a non-interference engine, by which we mean the innards don’t clatter into each other without a belt.
Sadly though, most modern powerplants are engineered so finely, and to such small tolerances that without a belt, things go very wrong, very fast. The valves will crash into the pistons, which will be moving, so they’ll crush and bend the valves if the valves don’t punch through the piston cap.
This in turn can result in metal being broken off, which will damage the cylinder walls and also the combustion chamber within the cylinder head.
If you’re really unlucky, small fragments of metal could be pulled through to the exhaust, and if you’ve got a turbo, it could chew up said metal and grade the blower, too. Basically, if a timing belt snaps, it’s bad, bad news and you will grind to a halt within yards or even feet.


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## RobinBHM

The Queen makes a fortune out of renewables, at least from wind turbines.

Who Owens the sea bed from low tide mark to 12 miles out?
Where do offshore wind turbines go.


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## Jameshow

My view on smart motorways is that the hard shoulder should only be used when the traffic is congested enough to be reduced to 40mph speed limit. 

I know this limits the capacity of the motorway but in safety terms it's the right thing to do. 

Your far more likely to stop with a 40mph speed limit and antt crash your more likely to survive. 

Cheers James


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## RobinBHM

The problem with smart motorways is they've been built on the cheap, so missing many features that are needed to make them safe.


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## Ozi

chrisdt said:


> Yes I know you can...with a tow dolly...Loaded on the All lane running hard shoulder if the overhead signs and phones are working which by Highways Englands own admission have not been in some areas. Yes we have a pot hole hot line here in Cumbria and they might eventually come out and repair them...But what a repair??? Fill it with a little tarmac, smooth it over and three months down the line out it pops....Complete waste of time and money.
> Talking about wasting money anyone seen the horrendous TV ad Go Left which they say is intended to "Educate Us" in the art of using a Smart Motorway I really believe its Highway England that needs educating.Tell that to the lady in a Ford Focus with 2 kids in the back and the cam belt breaks. Please dont say put your foot on the clutch and cruise to a safety zone which might or might not be a third of a mile or one mile away Is'nt it strange in the ad the safety zone is conveniently just in front of the car. Anyone been driving when a cam belt breaks? I have. It judders to a halt very rapidly giving you no time to think.
> The official result:
> Given its long list of responsibilities, there are no prizes for guess that timing belt failure is pretty catastrophic. It’s possible to ‘get away’ with it if your car has what’s known as a non-interference engine, by which we mean the innards don’t clatter into each other without a belt.
> Sadly though, most modern powerplants are engineered so finely, and to such small tolerances that without a belt, things go very wrong, very fast. The valves will crash into the pistons, which will be moving, so they’ll crush and bend the valves if the valves don’t punch through the piston cap.
> This in turn can result in metal being broken off, which will damage the cylinder walls and also the combustion chamber within the cylinder head.
> If you’re really unlucky, small fragments of metal could be pulled through to the exhaust, and if you’ve got a turbo, it could chew up said metal and grade the blower, too. Basically, if a timing belt snaps, it’s bad, bad news and you will grind to a halt within yards or even feet.


One more reason to want a more reliable EV


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## Ozi

RobinBHM said:


> The problem with smart motorways is they've been built on the cheap, so missing many features that are needed to make them safe.


Agreed. Hopefully collision sensing will become more common particularly for HGVs. Although I can imagine we will see some nasty issues when it reaches 90% usage and people know vehicles will stop if you step in front of them


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## TominDales

Woody2Shoes said:


> It is possible to make "petrol" into all sorts of other things. By the same token, a lot of things can be turned into petrol - I know a guy who once worked in South Africa during apartheid, helping them make petrol (which they couldn't easily import!) out of coal which they had loads of. Of course these transformations require quite a lot of extra energy, so probably best avoided. Medium term, less oil will be extracted, not least because it's increasingly scarce/expensive to extract - we found and burned most of the 'low hanging fruit' some time ago, possibly excluding places like Saudi/Iran/Iraq/Libya etc.


That is pretty well spot on what is happening right now.
Methods for making fuel and chemicals from coal and carbon feedstocks, called Fischer Toppsch synthesis (FT) after the inventors ca 1920 Germany and then improved by UK, US, SA and global petrochemical companies. Its offers a way to take bioderived and waste food and plastics into fuels and higher chain chemicals. 
FT has a bit of a negative history - it was used by Nazi Germany in WWII to convert coal into chemicals and gasoline in the war. It was used by Sasol to convert coal into chemicals and gasoline during the apartheid sanctions era. But it offers a way to convert 'green' hydrocarbons into aviation fuel, shipping fuel and chemicals of tomorrow.

Fossil derived oil is currently cheap and available (as is shale gas), so regulation is the only way to make the change. The Net Zero carbon initiatives agreed by most governments is leading to investment in new low/zero carbon chemicals routes.
Some oil will be needed to make the petrochemicals society needs it will need to be done in a net zero way and petro-refineries and crackers will be modified to make these materials without making petrol and diesel as byproducts. 
Hydrocarbons can be converted (at a cost) into pretty much anything, so recycled plastic can be turned into fuel or back into plastic goods.

EVs make much more economic sense within this petrochemical framework, as net zero carbon fuels are costly whereas wind/solar/nuclear to electricity and EVs (E trains, E HGVs) will use renewable energy more cost effectively, and so a large chunk of todays oil be left in the ground. Even Saudi Aramco the worlds largest producer of oil is developing these new chemistries for a carbon dioxide free future. Putin's Russia is hoping to be the last conventional hydrocarbon supplier, but I suspect technology will come in faster than he realises. That is not to say there wont be small legacy uses of hydrocarbons, but the really big emitters of CO2 will get replaced. 

I've spent 35 years in the Chemical sector and this is by far the biggest change in my life-time. The industry has been aware of these issue since the mid 70's but its taken until now for the will and economics to make sense. Many chemical companies developed various low or net zero carbon plastics in the 1980's but there was very low public appetite to adapt to using them or pay the extra price vs fossil equivalents, so the initiatives died a death at that time. This time round all the ducks seem to be in orders for the change to happen.


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## Droogs

Rorschach said:


> Ok people are stupid but that isn't the reason they don't use rail. Rail is simply not good enough for "just in time" delivery which is how a lot of companies buy there stock, warehousing is expensive. Rail is great for bulk products like clay for example which will go from quarry to factory, but you can't transport food efficiently by train, too much time to load and unload and you need it to go to too many smaller locations.
> 
> I know rail sounds great because it is super efficient when used in the right circumstance, but road haulage just works better for the vast majority of goods that need transporting.


For once we do agree. To paraphrase General der Infantrei General Feld marshall Erich von Ludendorff 1st Quartermaster General of the Imperial German Army "The Great War, was a battle between German railways and French trucks. The trucks won."


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## Droogs

Here is some more info on the new Kia EV6 and guess what it can to 1.5 tonne


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## Lons

I'd hate to think what towing a caravan does to the real range of the car and of course the manufacturers won't tell you that. As well as weight and wind resistance caravans depend on the towing vehicle for lights and running a fridge on 12v and you aren't supposed to run on gas whilst towing, also modern tow systems often rely on electrical safety systems which all draw current, not an issue with ICE as the battery is being charged whilst driving. 
Caravaners usually cover a fair distance to get to their first destination, (I had a caravan for many years and worked for one of the largest manufacturers for a few years as well), before switching to a motorhome and would be more than a little surprised if it didn't impact on EVs in a similar way it does to ICE.

The launch model of the Kia starts at a base £41000 so not chicken feed and because it's over the new £35000 ceiling it doesn't qualify for the now reduced gov subsidy of £2500 either.

Not a bad looking car though I think I'll wait until the new Audi E-tron GT halves in price.


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## chrisdt

I love them all..Especially when the tin boxes are parked on the pavement and my daughter squeezes through with her baby buggy and makes a pretty wavy line all down the side


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## Rorschach

Lons said:


> I'd hate to think what towing a caravan does to the real range of the car and of course the manufacturers won't tell you that. As well as weight and wind resistance caravans depend on the towing vehicle for lights and running a fridge on 12v and you aren't supposed to run on gas whilst towing, also modern tow systems often rely on electrical safety systems which all draw current, not an issue with ICE as the battery is being charged whilst driving.
> Caravaners usually cover a fair distance to get to their first destination, (I had a caravan for many years and worked for one of the largest manufacturers for a few years as well), before switching to a motorhome and would be more than a little surprised if it didn't impact on EVs in a similar way it does to ICE.
> 
> The launch model of the Kia starts at a base £41000 so not chicken feed and because it's over the new £35000 ceiling it doesn't qualify for the now reduced gov subsidy of £2500 either.
> 
> Not a bad looking car though I think I'll wait until the new Audi E-tron GT halves in price.



I am sure I heard Andrew Ditton say you only get about 1/3rd of the range when towing. So even on the most powerful EV's at the moment that is a non-starter for towing a caravan, you would be lucky to do 200 miles in day I think.


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## Lons

Rorschach said:


> I am sure I heard Andrew Ditton say you only get about 1/3rd of the range when towing. So even on the most powerful EV's at the moment that is a non-starter for towing a caravan, you would be lucky to do 200 miles in day I think.


Not as simple as that. 
When towing with a normal ICE and while torque comes into the equation which EVs have plenty of but with an ICE the heavier and more powerful the towcar is the less it will suffer when towing, depends on many other things a high reving, high geared sports car will suffer more than a gutsy SUV for example both in engine performance and wind drag.
As an example a previous Audi A6 avant with 2 litre deisel engine would return me around 40+ solo which dropped to high 20s when towing using 8 spd auto all the time, my current SUV with about 20bhp more and 9 speed auto has similar solo but low 30s towing the same caravan. Less gear changes and higher tow vehicle are the main reasons.

Either way an EV, at the current stage of development should be viewed with caution as a potential towcar.


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## Lons

chrisdt said:


> I love them all..Especially when the tin boxes are parked on the pavement and my daughter squeezes through with her baby buggy and makes a pretty wavy line all down the side


I guess she'll have the pushchair out this weekend then as The Lakes are sure to be jam packed.
I'd be seriously annoyed if someone did that to my M/H but then I certainly would be inconsiderate enough to park on a footpath in the first place. Not all caravaners and m/h owners are like that.
There are idiots of all types of road users, I was in Newcastle this afternoon and a di**head cyclist shot across a roundabout in front of me when I had clear right of way, only avoiding action stopped th fool being knocked off his bike. I admit I did say "oh deary me, what a silly Billy" a couple of times.


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## Terry - Somerset

Basic physics would suggest a reduction of 35-50% in mpg - crudely energy is consumed (EV or ICE) to make progress:

Weight - towing a caravan weighing ~ 1 ton with a car weighing 1.5 tons adds 67% to the weight "package"
Aerodynamics - the frontal area of a caravan is around 36 sq ft compared to a typical medium hatch of ~ 22 sq ft. The shape has more in common with a brick than an arrow!
Caravanners may drive more slowly than unencumbered vehicles! 
Figures for individual vehicles and caravans may differ.


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## Spectric

When looking at Nuclear as a power source you have to look at the whole picture, not just the nice parts to get the true cost. To initially just build the cost are astronomic, just look at Hinkley C, quote.

"The group, which is financing the construction of the plant along with its junior partner CGN of China, said it expected the project in Somerset to cost up to £23bn compared with a 2019 estimate of a maximum of £22.5bn "

Then the runing cost , a high maintenance cost due to license compliance, site security and then decomisioning and of course the long term storage of spent fuel so it no longer paints such a rosy picture. Then what about what you cannot put a value on, people having to live with a potential like Fukushima on their doorstep so in reality it is like asbestos, a great idea at the time but should no longer be considered.


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## chrisdt

Lons said:


> I guess she'll have the pushchair out this weekend then as The Lakes are sure to be jam packed.
> I'd be seriously annoyed if someone did that to my M/H but then I certainly would be inconsiderate enough to park on a footpath in the first place. Not all caravaners and m/h owners are like that.
> There are idiots of all types of road users, I was in Newcastle this afternoon and a di**head cyclist shot across a roundabout in front of me when I had clear right of way, only avoiding action stopped th fool being knocked off his bike. I admit I did say "oh deary me, what a silly Billy" a couple of times.


No, not everyone is as inconsiderate as to park on the pavement but seems to be in ever increasing numbers. Not so bad if the pavements are wide but they tend to be narrow here in the Lakes so if its a choice of squeezing through a gap and marking someones "Pride and joy" or going into the road then I would recommend the former every time.
Yes the crag rats (local terminology) will be arriving at Keswick and Kendal at the weekend and then leaving all their rubbish behind. Nevertheless I will still get some consolation watching 5 miles of tailbacks on the M6 "Smart Motorway" as they leave and then sitting in my back garden drinking a beer and watching the sun go down over the fells.


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> When looking at Nuclear as a power source you have to look at the whole picture, not just the nice parts to get the true cost. To initially just build the cost are astronomic, just look at Hinkley C, quote.
> 
> "The group, which is financing the construction of the plant along with its junior partner CGN of China, said it expected the project in Somerset to cost up to £23bn compared with a 2019 estimate of a maximum of £22.5bn "
> 
> Then the runing cost , a high maintenance cost due to license compliance, site security and then decomisioning and of course the long term storage of spent fuel so it no longer paints such a rosy picture. Then what about what you cannot put a value on, people having to live with a potential like Fukushima on their doorstep so in reality it is like asbestos, a great idea at the time but should no longer be considered.


Unless you live in France, where rolling out a throughout out design on mass has given them the lowest cost low carbon electricity in Europe for years. its only now that wind power is challenging it in terms of cost.
The UK is not such a pretty picture.
I visited Sellafield on business last year and was shocked to find that normal nuclear power makes next to no waste and the fuel is relatively easily re-processed. 98% of the problematic waste pile at Sellafield was from two main sources: 1, the rush to make the bomb in the 1950s - still a huge legacy to clean up. 2, the 1984 miners strike, when the CEGB (on instruction) ran the power stations flat out and made -off spec waste. Its still hanging around to this day. More waste was made that year than all the other years put together. A bit remains from various experimental reactors but modern reactors produce very little waste about 25tonnes a year per for a Gw reactor and about 1/3 of that is recycled.
Sellafield is a sombre place it contains our entire history of nuclear waste all in one place. However when you think about it, its all in one place. Whereas the waste from other industries is scattered everywhere. The ocean is full of plastic waste for example. If we scooped it all up and put it in one place it would fill Cumbria. Its this perspective that makes nuclear power less of a nonsensical option. The waste from the old wind turbines being decommissioned in Scotland is huge and if not done properly will also damage the environment, the carbon fibre, concrete, iron ore etc all do damage to the environment and damage our health. As is well known, coal fired power stations emit more Uranium in the fly ash than nuclear plants do. 
There is no doubt that nuclear power and radioactivity are highly hazardous industries and need to be properly managed and regulated but our media get the risks out of proportion with scare stories. I'm not a particular fan of nuclear power, but I hate it when the media distorts the facts to make their arguments, so that we the public get misled and cant make rational decisions.

In our lifetime, 45% of our radiation dose comes from medical procedures, another 30% from natural radon and Thorium in the environment, the rest from natural foods including the highly toxic potassium 40 (in small quantities), our exposure from industrial nuclear, including accidents at Chernobyl, Windscreen, 3 mile, Fukushima is 0.1%, so it gets an unjustified bad press. Another example to put things in perspective is the BED this is the radioactivity in a banana equivalent! (from K40), people living in Fukushima were exposed to about 300 Bananas worth of radiation in the first year. And the journalists flying home from Tokyo got more radiation in the plane (much more cosmic radiation) than those on the ground!

Nuclear waste and the industry is a lot less hazardous than, things we accept everyday, the body is quite tolerant to small amounts of radioactivity in the environment, we have evolved to cope with the natural background radiation. Most emissions and leaks don't give off waste in a form that is readily ingested, which helps. That does not mean it isn't extremely hazardous but does explain why so few people have died or been maimed by radioactivity compared with say Asbestos, which incidentally is more toxic than plutonium.
Now for the cost, for years the UK industry (old CEGB) hid the true cost of nuclear power and allowed for some expensive glory projects such as fast reactors etc. That has now become much more transparent and on a proper commercial footing, which is why innovation and investment is focussing on SMRs or small reactors that can be build in a factory as opposed to the super large reactors like Hinkley point - a decision made is a rush in my view as the government had procrastinated for so long it risked putting the UK lights out.
Whilst Nuclear power has many downsides, its hazards and risks, it is highly likely to be part of the energy mix of the future for very rational reasons, it complements wind and solar power, is cleaner than coal and oil and is low carbon. Given the planet is threatened with climate change that will kill and wreck the lives of millions, governments will choose nuclear as one of the ways out of the current predicament they face.
Incidentally the green lobby used to say how Hinkley electric would cost £90 Mwh vs solar at 43.3p kwh solar feed in tariff (back in 2011). but that was deliberately mixing units, as £430.3 Mwh was the true comparison. Its now 5.3p or £53. Now that the costs have fallen they have stopped using this argument. The feed in tariff subsidy has cost about £8bn, probably necessary to get the industry stated. We pay it through the carbon tax on our bills.
We are hopefully far from the time in the 1950s where they were considering nuclear power for commercial shipping and even nuclear mining, but the sensible use of nuclear is rational when compared with all the other methods of generating energy and the huge risks we are taking with the environment that go unseen.


----------



## Lons

Terry - Somerset said:


> Basic physics would suggest a reduction of 35-50% in mpg - crudely energy is consumed (EV or ICE) to make progress:
> 
> Weight - towing a caravan weighing ~ 1 ton with a car weighing 1.5 tons adds 67% to the weight "package"
> Aerodynamics - the frontal area of a caravan is around 36 sq ft compared to a typical medium hatch of ~ 22 sq ft. The shape has more in common with a brick than an arrow!
> Caravanners may drive more slowly than unencumbered vehicles!
> Figures for individual vehicles and caravans may differ.


Not always basic physics Terry though I can't fault your reasoning, there are a lot of variables which is why i guess you quote a 15% variation in your calcs. Car shape, mine for example is more streamlined than a boxy Discovery, an estate car has different aerodynamics than a hatch or saloon, caravan frontal shapes aren't all the same and it also depends on front windows, rooflights, aerials and the shape of the rear end. Cars might have bike rack or roof boxes some even a spoiler on the roof, much depends on the rolling resistance, 2 or 4 wheels and how it's been maintained, poor loading can cause it to waft around which changes towcar consumption and as I said the weight of the vehicle is important to keep the outfit stable and the size and type of engin / gearbox dictates how hard it has to work therebye affecting consumption.

Working for the manufacturer showed that the only possible method to give accurate comparisons was identical outfits, exactly the same loading in exactly the same atmospheric conditions and using the same driver. Real world towing and performance can be very different to mathematical models.

BTW you must have noticed that a modern powerful car towing a stable 4 wheel caravan can shift along quite easily at 70mph on the motorway, not that they should of course! Not all caravans hold up traffic and often on a single carriage country road where they are limited to 50mph rather than 60 you'll find the actual hold up is a little car at the front doing 40 and the caravanner can't get past, whenever that happened to me I'd pull over in the next layby for 10 minutes.


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## Lons

People who despoil areas like that are scum Chris and I know what I'd do to them unfortunately it's the times we live in with many having no respect. It isn't caravaners doing that in your pic it's idiots with small tents and despicable habits.

The hedge of my paddock borders the main A road into our village and we were out there last week where we filled 2 bin bags with cartons, cans and bottles thrown on to the verge from passing cars, says it all really.
Like you I sit and watch the queues on the road with a coffee or a beer in my hand this weekend, a couple of weeks later we'll have another little spike in covid cases to boot.


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## TominDales

Lons said:


> I'd hate to think what towing a caravan does to the real range of the car and of course the manufacturers won't tell you that. As well as weight and wind resistance caravans depend on the towing vehicle for lights and running a fridge on 12v and you aren't supposed to run on gas whilst towing, also modern tow systems often rely on electrical safety systems which all draw current, not an issue with ICE as the battery is being charged whilst driving.


I suspect it will be a while before the manufacturers address this market. HGVs are being launched so I suspect Campervans will come in first.
Near us is Sutton Bank, a switchback climb up to the moors. In the early days of caravans and low-power cars (ca 1970) a caravan got stuck half way and blocked the road to Scarborough for 12 hours. They have banned caravans ever since, although I suspect a modern SUV would cope.

You will probably be able buy a power pack for the caravan - add some weight, but would give the range extension most would be looking for. Maybe an idea for a new line at Halfords


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## TRITON

When me and mate arrive anywhere wild camping here in Scotland(usually areas frequented by other wild campers) we walk the area and pick up every scrap of litter we can find, although its usually clear due to being difficult to get to and beyond the scope of the teens and drunkards that are the main culprits for that type of littering, it isnt always but mostly, but we walk the area anyway and totally clean up even the smallest bit of paper.
Same when leaving. Deposit bin bag in car and put it in a wayside bin on the route home.

It seriously pees me off seeing mess like that.


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## Rorschach

Lons said:


> Not as simple as that.
> When towing with a normal ICE and while torque comes into the equation which EVs have plenty of but with an ICE the heavier and more powerful the towcar is the less it will suffer when towing, depends on many other things a high reving, high geared sports car will suffer more than a gutsy SUV for example both in engine performance and wind drag.
> As an example a previous Audi A6 avant with 2 litre deisel engine would return me around 40+ solo which dropped to high 20s when towing using 8 spd auto all the time, my current SUV with about 20bhp more and 9 speed auto has similar solo but low 30s towing the same caravan. Less gear changes and higher tow vehicle are the main reasons.
> 
> Either way an EV, at the current stage of development should be viewed with caution as a potential towcar.



Sorry I meant powerful as in battery range rather than "sportyness", bad choice of words. I am looking at EV's for towing based purely on how far you can travel. I am sure plenty of EV's coming onto the market will be able to tow, but if you can only do a couple of hundred miles at best in a day (and a very boring day at that) that is no good for touring. 

An EV camper is probably not quite so bad in that regard as campers are a lot more versatile than caravans.


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## Just4Fun

I am at the extreme ends on the towing spectrum.

At the short end of the spectrum the only real towing I do with my own vehicle is to tow a trailer around locally. The trailer is bigger than a typical camping trailer; long enough but not quite wide enough to carry a vehicle. I have the trailer as an alternative to owning a van. I use it for mainly local journeys, getting materials or furniture from stores and similar tasks. I rarely do more than 100 km per day whilst towing this trailer. I believe I could easily do this with an electric vehicle - if only it would also suit my non-towing needs.

At the long end of the spectrum a few times per (normal, non-covid) year I travel in a friend's motorhome behind which we pull a large box trailer to carry a competition car. We might drive from Finland to Germany, France or Spain and on those trips we try to average over 800 km per day. 1000 km per day is a target we never seem to hit but 800+ is normal. I don't see any way we could manage anything like that whilst towing with an electric vehicle.


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## Droogs

I think the main point about the EV6 most seem to be missing is that yes it can tow 1.5 tonne but as standard it is fitted with 400/800V rapid charging so 18 minutes to get to 80% on a 77Kwh (usable power) btty. So given that it is generally a bit more tiring to drive a larger vehicle like a camper/motorhome, a BEV M/H /camper could do the longer mileage in a couple of years time, if you were happy to take a break every 3 hours or so of driving - if and it's a big if - the charging infrastructure is available. To me it is not the car that is/will be the limiting factor but the how much and what type of investment is made in each country regarding the charging infrastucture.


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## Rorschach

Remember also that the charging area needs to accommodate a caravan. Not seen any charging points yet that are big enough for that.


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## Droogs

That is a really good point, I don't think it has crossed the mind of most of the designers of the main charge points on the highway that indeed they will need to give access to towing vehicles down the road. So instead of just bays maybe a couple of mini terminals like for hgv presently


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## Rorschach

Yes it's going to be an issue for a while I think as we make a transition especially when not travelling along the motorway network. I think a lot of people forget that there are large parts of the country that are not served by motorways and large service stations. These places also happen to be the areas that are very popular with caravanners. 
As it currently stands using an EV to tow a caravan to Cornwall would be a major hassle from a charging point of view. Your last major service station that most would be happy to pull into with a caravan is at Taunton, that's 150 miles from Helston for instance. Towing with an ICE, no problem, fill up at Taunton and you will have plenty to get you to your caravan park and then take you out on a day trip to top up. Doing that with an EV, well you would be lucky to make it there even on a full charge and then you are unlikely to be able to charge your vehicle at the caravan park itself.


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## TominDales

TRITON said:


> When me and mate arrive anywhere wild camping here in Scotland(usually areas frequented by other wild campers) we walk the area and pick up every scrap of litter we can find, although its usually clear due to being difficult to get to and beyond the scope of the teens and drunkards that are the main culprits for that type of littering, it isnt always but mostly, but we walk the area anyway and totally clean up even the smallest bit of paper.
> Same when leaving. Deposit bin bag in car and put it in a wayside bin on the route home.
> 
> It seriously pees me off seeing mess like that.


We generally take our rubbish bags back home as the wayside bins in the Lakes, Northumberland, Scotland just weren't made for the scale of picnicking these days. 
Our town council (Ripon - a gateway to the Dales...) employs bin people to clean the streets and parks of litter to make the place nice for tourists. But it encourages certain types to just dump their litter. I'd prefer to see some old fashioned enforcement and zero tolerance of this habit. The place looks good, much better than 30 years ago, but its now a business/ cost to the community. They get a piece of my mind when I catch them.


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## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> Yes it's going to be an issue for a while I think as we make a transition especially when not travelling along the motorway network. I think a lot of people forget that there are large parts of the country that are not served by motorways and large service stations. These places also happen to be the areas that are very popular with caravanners.


I very much doubt these issues are being considered by the auto industry right now. 

This strikes me as a business opportunity. There will be fast charging ports needed for HGVs through the main road networks, where HGVs park up will need a charging point. This would be the obvious place for other large vehicles. 
Also it would make sense to put some range extending batteries into future caravans. They potentially have the space, it maybe something that one could rent for the duration of a holiday.

We are obviously at the state of development similar to ICE in the 1930s when trunk roads were first being rolled out and finding petrol stations needed a Michelin guide, the RAC / AA were a lifeline. 
My grandfather used to start so many stories with in sometime 1946 to 1955, we spent 3 days in this random town on our way home from holiday because the axel/big end/etc broke in Devon/Cornwall and we stayed in this coaching inn for 3 days while the local garage welded the parts back on.


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## Rorschach

There are already caravans with built in batteries and powered axles, they help solve some of the range problems (they basically make up for the reduction) but you still have the charging issues and now you need to charge 2 batteries.


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## Geoff_S

Could you put a couple of alternators/generators/dynamos on the caravan wheels?


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## Spectric

TominDales said:


> Our town council (Ripon - a gateway to the Dales...) employs bin people to clean the streets and parks of litter to make the place nice for tourists.


That is not addressing the issue, just resolving the outcome. The question is why are people these days so happy to discard their litter in the first place, does that show just how little they actually care for the enviroment or are they just very selfish and only care about themselves.

I am sure many will have seen the state of the London parks following just one day out of lockdown, what sort of people now inhabit the city that can just walk away and leave such a mess for others to clear up, personally I would just leave it as a monument to the people so they can then live in their own dung.

What is needed is on the spot fines of say £500 that then goes to pay for clearup and then they have to do 1000 hours of community work to clean their local area.


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## PhilTilson

Geoff_S said:


> Could you put a couple of alternators/generators/dynamos on the caravan wheels?



I assume you are posting this as an April Fool joke question?


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## Rorschach

Geoff_S said:


> Could you put a couple of alternators/generators/dynamos on the caravan wheels?



Yes if you wanted to reduce your range even further. Dynamos would create even more drag on the axles.


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## Rorschach

Spectric said:


> What is needed is on the spot fines of say £500 that then goes to pay for clearup and then they have to do 1000 hours of community work to clean their local area.



We already have on the spot fines for littering. The problem is not the fines, it's the enforcement.


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## Spectric

Thats always a problem, the punishment is pointless without be implemented so not only don't the dirty people care for the enviroment and are also just very selfish, the law enforcers also do not see it as an offence worth pursuing. Lets have microchipping because then you would know who was in the park at the time of the littering and just send out the fines, no police needed.


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## Rorschach

Spectric said:


> Thats always a problem, the punishment is pointless without be implemented so not only don't the dirty people care for the enviroment and are also just very selfish, the law enforcers also do not see it as an offence worth pursuing. Lets have microchipping because then you would know who was in the park at the time of the littering and just send out the fines, no police needed.



Councils literally employ people whose sole job is to hand out fines for things like littering. And trust me, they don't let it go, they are right jumped up little fascists who will fine you if the wind blows something out the bin you just put it in.

The problem is no matter how many people you employ to enforce it and no matter how high the fines, there will always be litter.


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## Geoff_S

PhilTilson said:


> I assume you are posting this as an April Fool joke question?


Moi?


----------



## Lons

TominDales said:


> Also it would make sense to put some range extending batteries into future caravans. They potentially have the space, it maybe something that one could rent for the duration of a holiday.



One of the biggest considerations is weight, batteries are heavy and caravan manufacturers under pressure to keep the unladen weight as low as possible so that the available payload when deducted from MTPLM/MGW is realistic (it never is enough) and extra batteries would eat into that. ICE cars have been getting much lighter and caravans larger and heavier which is another issue as in general terms the van ideally shouldn't be more than 85% of the towcar KW unless you're very experienced and is limited anyway by the car manufacturer towing limit. Ironically EVs are heavier usually than equivalent ICEs but the manufacturer limits are likely to stay low and EVs will need to become lighter anyway as battery technology evolves.

As already said until the infrastructure is there for charging it's a complete no go, campervans and motorhomes will happen but it will again be restricted until sufficient charging points are installed for large vehicles and the wilds of Scotland and Wales aren.t going to be serviced any time soon.
Our motorhome is a couple of years old now with only 2400 miles and I tow a small car so I can state for certain that it won't be changed for an EV version as it was a rather large investment and will have to see out our needs until we give up that type of holiday.


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## Rorschach

I think it will be EV campervans that will be the starting point as the type of holiday most people do in them is the most suited to the current (and near future) charging situation, then again, unless you travel exclusively in the summer months you will still need fossil fuels for your heating and cooking. 

Motorhomes tend to be used in a way much more similar to caravans (hence why @Lons tows another car) and will suffer from the same kind of drawbacks.


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## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> I think it will be EV campervans that will be the starting point as the type of holiday most people do in them is the most suited to the current (and near future) charging situation, then again, unless you travel exclusively in the summer months you will still need fossil fuels for your heating and cooking.
> 
> Motorhomes tend to be used in a way much more similar to caravans (hence why @Lons tows another car) and will suffer from the same kind of drawbacks.


I think your predictions, and Lon's are pretty well spot on. Its unlikely the technology for this market niche will be ready for 10 years or so and as you say the capital cost is high and the mileage is low. 
It maybe that biofuels or sustainable fuels will serve this market - they will command a price premium as they are 50% more costly to produce at the moment. The% bio/sustainable content is regular fuel is only 5% rising to 10% at the moment to count as sustainable -this was designed to encourages uptake while keep the price down. The % of bio/sustainable content will have to rise to 100% at some point and that will add to the cost.

From a save the planet perspective, getting passenger cars to EV quickly is the priority, as its addresses 50% of the problem and can be rolled out quickly. As EVs become universal then charging points will become universal. HGVs are next on the list. I suspect caravans will be further down the list. The Dutch do a lot of caravanning and don't have an indigenous car maker any more (DAF taken over), so they may well get something going in the is area as they have a lot of battery R&D in Eindhoven.
This is a very active development space. I've got clients making very low internal resistance batteries for server farm back-up supply and for fast charge points. The cells, trickle charge all day and night, but can be discharged very quickly when a vehicle plugs in. They are designed to even out the load at the substations.
National grid has a huge expansion programme unfolding to provide connectivity to distributed generation and supply, but this is a 20 year plan.
New technologies such as solid state batteries which offer lighter weight, higher power density, greater safety (ie no flammable solvents) are being developed - still some way off being commercialised. So at some point the caravans and motor homes challenge will get addressed, but it does feel like it will be further down the pipeline.


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## CornishWoodworker

Geoff_S said:


> Could you put a couple of alternators/generators/dynamos on the caravan wheels?


First Law of Thermodynamics prevents this.
Just because you add a alternator or two does not mitigate the law.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed , it only transforms from one form into another.
You will use more energy in order to drive the alternators, just because the wheels are already turning does mean its free. There is drag , friction etc , which needs to fed by the driven source
Else, An electric car would have a generator on its motor, each of its wheels and the vehicle would always fully recharge itself.
No one has yet produced the Perpetual engine.


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## CornishWoodworker

TominDales said:


> I think your predictions, and Lon's are pretty well spot on. Its unlikely the technology for this market niche will be ready for 10 years or so and as you say the capital cost is high and the mileage is low.
> It maybe that biofuels or sustainable fuels will serve this market - they will command a price premium as they are 50% more costly to produce at the moment. The% bio/sustainable content is regular fuel is only 5% rising to 10% at the moment to count as sustainable -this was designed to encourages uptake while keep the price down. The % of bio/sustainable content will have to rise to 100% at some point and that will add to the cost.
> 
> From a save the planet perspective, getting passenger cars to EV quickly is the priority, as its addresses 50% of the problem and can be rolled out quickly. As EVs become universal then charging points will become universal. HGVs are next on the list. I suspect caravans will be further down the list. The Dutch do a lot of caravanning and don't have an indigenous car maker any more (DAF taken over), so they may well get something going in the is area as they have a lot of battery R&D in Eindhoven.
> This is a very active development space. I've got clients making very low internal resistance batteries for server farm back-up supply and for fast charge points. The cells, trickle charge all day and night, but can be discharged very quickly when a vehicle plugs in. They are designed to even out the load at the substations.
> National grid has a huge expansion programme unfolding to provide connectivity to distributed generation and supply, but this is a 20 year plan.
> New technologies such as solid state batteries which offer lighter weight, higher power density, greater safety (ie no flammable solvents) are being developed - still some way off being commercialised. So at some point the caravans and motor homes challenge will get addressed, but it does feel like it will be further down the pipeline.


Please read any of the UK electricity network EV charging strategy papers.
Makes interesting reading.
I can't have anything higher than a granny charger (13A socket)at my property as the local infrastructure has maxed out its ability to sustain more than 4 , yes 4 higher rated chargers.
Timescale to upgrade , 7 months. plus the issue of who pays for it.
So as I need another car, its another diesel . Purchasing when showrooms open again.
Also EV
I can't tow
I can't fit a roofbox.
So EV is still a lifestyle choice


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## TominDales

CornishWoodworker said:


> Please read any of the UK electricity network EV charging strategy papers.
> Makes interesting reading.
> So as I need another car, its another diesel . Purchasing when showrooms open again.
> Also EV
> I can't tow
> I can't fit a roofbox.
> So EV is still a lifestyle choice


For now, that seems the only option. A pitfall to watch out for as 2030 approaches, I suspect the government will up the anti on diesel vs EV by increasing fuel duty - probably to make it parity with sustainable fuel and another wack on road tax.


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## beech1948

Spectric said:


> Thats always a problem, the punishment is pointless without be implemented so not only don't the dirty people care for the enviroment and are also just very selfish, the law enforcers also do not see it as an offence worth pursuing. Lets have microchipping because then you would know who was in the park at the time of the littering and just send out the fines, no police needed.



One solution would be to place UNTIDY tokens within the software of an EV. Authorised by the Police maybe. When the total number reaches say 3 times a demand for payment before being able to move the EV would almost ensure payment and thus punishment.


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## Lons

TominDales said:


> For now, that seems the only option. A pitfall to watch out for as 2030 approaches, I suspect the government will up the anti on diesel vs EV by increasing fuel duty - probably to make it parity with sustainable fuel and another wack on road tax.


I guess it depends on what type of car you want.
I'm perfectly happy with my SUV which is very high spec. and would seriously consider replacing it with the same model, the difference in price at the minute however for the nearest EVQ equivalent, with lower spec. is around 50% more, that's an extra £25k which would pay for a hell of a lot of extra tax and fuel surcharge as I only do 6000 miles a year.

Will have to wait and see how much prices and incentives eventually alter the balance but aways to go yet methinks.


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## chrisdt

Get a bike and fill the scrapyards up with these enormous over complicated pieces of rubbish. Come on lets help the scrappies make a good living. I was putting a set of points in a neighbours Morris Minor a few days ago. (For those under the age of 60 a set of points are contacts driven by a cam from the distributor to provide properly timed pulses of 12-volt electricity to the ignition coil. Might as well have written that in German) I digress. A guy walking by stopped and said my god I cant believe the amount of room you have to work each side of the engine. I replied Yes thats because everything today is so complex even the Main Agents are sometimes at a complete loss as to the problem. I know someone with an Audi which has been back to MA 5 times. He tells me he is getting used to driving in limp mode. Anyway the little Morris was back on the road in about15 minutes at a cost of £5. We need to think about K.I.S.S


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## TominDales

chrisdt said:


> Get a bike and fill the scrapyards up with these enormous over complicated pieces of rubbish. Come on lets help the scrappies make a good living. I was putting a set of points in a neighbours Morris Minor a few days ago. (For those under the age of 60 a set of points are contacts driven by a cam from the distributor to provide properly timed pulses of 12-volt electricity to the ignition coil. Might as well have written that in German) I digress. A guy walking by stopped and said my god I cant believe the amount of room you have to work each side of the engine. I replied Yes thats because everything today is so complex even the Main Agents are sometimes at a complete loss as to the problem. I know someone with an Audi which has been back to MA 5 times. He tells me he is getting used to driving in limp mode. Anyway the little Morris was back on the road in about15 minutes at a cost of £5. We need to think about K.I.S.S


I'm not sure its because the cars are that much more complicated - at least on a relative scale given what we know understand. But the MAs have deskilled their staff. They relyu on computer diagnostics and simple replacement solutions. When my automatic gearbox developed a fault I took it to a well know engineer in a shed in Stockton (on Tees) his shed was full of cars from the MA that he was having to fix. While in the guys shop, his phone went twice from the MA asking for help diagnosing a fault.
While I like to keep the old going - I had a Morris 40 years ago. The EUs new recycling directives will compel goods to be made to be mendable, companies like Miele the top end German white goods manufacture already has this strategy. Their goods cost way more to buy but last a long time and they keep parts for years to enable them to be fixed. our last washing machine lasted 20 years. Proctor and Gamble R&D in Newcastle use them as their test machines. So back to the EVs of the future. They will be force to be designed to be repaired. EVs are simpler than ICE and don't go wrong as often.


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## chrisdt

Simple replacement solutions????? Come on....... Over £100 to replace an Audi A1 headlamp bulb. Have to take the front of the car apart to do it. If thats progress then my c.... a kipper !


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## TominDales

chrisdt said:


> Simple replacement solutions????? Come on....... Over £100 to replace an Audi A1 headlamp bulb. Have to take the front of the car apart to do it. If thats progress then my c.... a kipper !


You are right, all the main manufacturers seem to blunder on one point or another, my T5 is a doddle to change the bulb, but when changing the radio I found that it was simple to replace but rewiring the speaker would have meant taking the whole dash off. Our taxi firm told me the old Mercedes alternator had coolant running through it, which meant removing the engine to replace it. In my experience German cars are usually easier to get around than British designed ones. EVs are much simpler than ICE so there should be no excuse. This EU directive is specifically aimed as simplifying repairs, we will have to see if it pans out that way.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Energy density per litre and per kilo is the main problem. 900Wh/litre seems to be the current pinnacle of battery technology. Unfortunately they measure fossil fuel energy in different units, but it seems that batteries currently offer about 1% of the energy density of fossil fuels, and this may increase to 10%, when we reach the pinnacle of battery technology. 

The good news is that electric motors are more efficient, so it's not quite as awful as the numbers suggest. It's still pretty dreadful though. A nice article on why jumbo jets can't ever be fueled by batteries: Flying Without Fossil Fuels: The Need For High Energy Density

About three years ago there were a few announcements about using atmospheric carbon dioxide to make liquid fuels - I haven't heard anything since, but that might be a better use of our time than chasing what seems to be a bit of a unicorn.

A quick search gave me a Forbes article, which says using the current technology the cost is about $4/gallon, which is not too far away from conventional fuel. Certainly not orders of magnitude higher. Carbon Engineering - Taking CO2 Right Out Of The Air To Make Gasoline


----------



## Ozi

I think we need to get away from the one size fits all route we seen to be taking. Batteries have advanced amazingly but may not be the only answer. Fuel cells are coming along in many applications, mainly large CHP installations, there are over 500MW of electricity generation from fuel cells currently installed in the US. Running on gas they increase efficiency significantly compared to conventional combustion and hugely if the heat is also used. What we need now is cells running on hydrogen that's generated when wind energy is surplus to demand. Develop that technology till it's good to run first ships then trucks and cars. There is potential to develop micro cells that could run items like a phone


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## Jameshow

chrisdt said:


> Simple replacement solutions????? Come on....... Over £100 to replace an Audi A1 headlamp bulb. Have to take the front of the car apart to do it. If thats progress then my c.... a kipper !


Funny story about headlights. 

I have had Volvo estates for many years and had an XC90 went to change the headlights bulb and it was a pain scratched hands everywhere Then later I noticed two metal tags wonder what these do! So I pulled the tent peg like levers up and out popped the headlight. Sometimes good design is there - we just dont see it!!! (Or read the instruction manual) 

Cheers James


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## Rorschach

Jameshow said:


> Funny story about headlights.
> 
> I have had Volvo estates for many years and had an XC90 went to change the headlights bulb and it was a pain scratched hands everyone... Then later I noticed two metal tags wonder what these do! So I pulled the tent peg like levers up and out popped the headlight. Sometimes good design is there - we just dont see it!!! (Or read the instruction manual)
> 
> Cheers James



That's a similar to my current car. My last car had tools free headlight changing, you popped off covers and could access the bulbs in just a few seconds, but you had to do it by feel, you couldn't actually see the tabs or clips etc.

My current car you have to remove the headlight to change the bulbs, this is done with 2 screws and 2 clips. At first I was rather irritated by this as I thought having to carry a tool to change the bulbs was a retrograde step. However what I realised is that while takes about a minute or so to get out the screwdriver and remove the headlight unit, once you do you can take the entire unit into the workshop where you can see exactly what you are doing. No fiddling with unseen clips, no scraped knuckles etc. I really rather prefer it now. And as to having to carry a tool to change them, well I just found an old screwdriver and put it in the small tool bag I keep in the boot along with the spare bulbs I carry, no big deal.


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## Lons

I haven't needed to change a bulb on any of the vehicles in at least 25 years though I dread to think of the cost involved if my car headlights develop a fault. LED matrix intelligent light system, sounds like mega bucks.


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## Rorschach

Lons said:


> I haven't needed to change a bulb on any of the vehicles in at least 25 years though I dread to think of the cost involved if my car headlights develop a fault. LED matrix intelligent light system, sounds like mega bucks.



Yikes, yeah it would be mega bucks. I know you have not had to do anything but personally I think I prefer my "old fashioned" system which costs me £2 or £3 a year and 5 minutes of my time.


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## TominDales

Trainee neophyte said:


> Energy density per litre and per kilo is the main problem. 900Wh/litre seems to be the current pinnacle of battery technology. Unfortunately they measure fossil fuel energy in different units, but it seems that batteries currently offer about 1% of the energy density of fossil fuels, and this may increase to 10%, when we reach the pinnacle of battery technology.
> 
> The good news is that electric motors are more efficient, so it's not quite as awful as the numbers suggest. It's still pretty dreadful though. A nice article on why jumbo jets can't ever be fueled by batteries: Flying Without Fossil Fuels: The Need For High Energy Density
> 
> About three years ago there were a few announcements about using atmospheric carbon dioxide to make liquid fuels - I haven't heard anything since, but that might be a better use of our time than chasing what seems to be a bit of a unicorn.
> 
> A quick search gave me a Forbes article, which says using the current technology the cost is about $4/gallon, which is not too far away from conventional fuel. Certainly not orders of magnitude higher. Carbon Engineering - Taking CO2 Right Out Of The Air To Make Gasoline


The key point with engineering solutions is its horses for courses. So a mix of EV, hydrogen, SAF, etc will be the solution.

At the moment battery technology seems the most cost effective and convenient solution for vehicles. Its beggining to look like its will also be a solution for trucks and HGVs but the R&D and innovation is still at an early stage to be sure. Fuel cells seem to be on the waine for HGVs in favour of EVs. recent announcement by Scania to that effect.

For airlines, SAF is the proffered opti on SAF - Sustainable Aviation Fuels. The name has been chosen carefully as many supposedly sustainable solutions have bad side effects. So for instance growing maze (US Corn) to produce ethanol as a bio fuels uses water, fertilizer and other resourses and may effect global food supply. whereas the reference you make taking CO2 from the air is sustainable. US airlines have recently announce this is there preferred option. Major U.S. Airlines Commit to Net-Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050 | Airlines For America, 
as you point out, SAF has good energy density and is a drop in replacement needing very little change to the aircrafts engineering.

There are programmers looking at turning CO2 into fuels, most are taking waste CO2 from industrial processes such as steel making, petrochemical refining etc as this have high concentration of CO2 and so the pumping costs (pressurisation of the CO2) are relatively low and more affordable. The example you gave of CO2 from air is very energy inefficient as the air only has 400ppm of CO2, so is likely to be way down the list of viable projects. A way of making negative carbon is to take CO2 emitted from fermentation such as brewing or the big bioethanol plants that make pure CO2 which has been derived from the atmosphere - it mostly goes into make fizzy drinks. Nottingham university has found a bug that can eat Hydrogen and use it to turn CO2 into ethanol. Once you have ethanol you can use conventional chemistry to make SAF.

Having said all that, Boeing, Airbus and Rolls are looking at all electric planes for short hall hops of say 100 miles for light planes. As you point out a plane needs a lot of power, an Airbus A320 needs 20mW to take off, so its unlikely that will come from EV in the short term. However SAFs and jet engines cause noise pollution and NOX, so another option is to see if the plane can take off with electric ie lots of fans and once in the sky the jets open up to take people on long-hall.
Its horses for courses with many combined technologies


----------



## TominDales

Lons said:


> I haven't needed to change a bulb on any of the vehicles in at least 25 years though I dread to think of the cost involved if my car headlights develop a fault. LED matrix intelligent light system, sounds like mega bucks.


Um as its fairly new tech, you may be unlucky. LEDs being semiconductors will pretty well last forever - ca 20k to 30,000 hrs and some. The problem is the ballasts - power supply and the electronic controls. That's why most home LEDs fail. Auto companies plan on a design life of about 10 years for cars, so likley to have high quality ballast designed to take the power and heat for 10 to 15 years of use (bearing in mind vehicles don't get a lot of use). Not so sure about motorhomes, campervans etc which should have a longer planned service lifetime, but I suspect they are built on modified car designs. Probably one to take on the chin.


----------



## Rorschach

TominDales said:


> Um as its fairly new tech, you may be unlucky. LEDs being semiconductors will pretty well last forever - ca 20k to 30,000 hrs and some. The problem is the ballasts - power supply and the electronic controls. That's why most home LEDs fail. Auto companies plan on a design life of about 10 years for cars, so likley to have high quality ballast designed to take the power and heat for 10 to 15 years of use (bearing in mind vehicles don't get a lot of use). Not so sure about motorhomes, campervans etc which should have a longer planned service lifetime, but I suspect they are built on modified car designs. Probably one to take on the chin.



It is probably design more than anything that causes failures. LED's are very sensitive to heat. In an effort to keep costs down and give maximum light output companies overdrive the LED or at least run it it right on the limit of what it can handle. This causes a lot of heat and heat damages the LED or the electronics around it, causing premature failure.

BigClive did an excellent video recently on Dubai(?) LED bulbs which have a much better design and should last far longer than a generic bulb and use less energy too, but they are much more costly to manufacture of course and produce less light.


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> It is probably design more than anything that causes failures. LED's are very sensitive to heat. In an effort to keep costs down and give maximum light output companies overdrive the LED or at least run it it right on the limit of what it can handle. This causes a lot of heat and heat damages the LED or the electronics around it, causing premature failure.
> 
> BigClive did an excellent video recently on Dubai(?) LED bulbs which have a much better design and should last far longer than a generic bulb and use less energy too, but they are much more costly to manufacture of course and produce less light.



I've noticed the same about LEDs in general - the early LEDs are cool running. I have a green flashlight from around 1996 or so. It'll be working in 2036. The light output isn't high and it's from a period prior to when white LEDs were widely available, but it does its thing without drama. I vaguely recall that it was about $27 back then (which was a princely sum for a small flashlight that only makes a bit of light) and blue was 10% more. Red was also available (But the buddy who had these early on was a pilot looking for a light he could use often and a lot of the lines are red, so red LED was a no-no. Thus, we have green. 

It's still the flashlight that I use when I rifle through a few high output lights when the power goes out only to find that something no longer works on them. Old greenie always lights up and goes somewhere between 100 and 200 hours on a pair of batteries.


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## Spectric

chrisdt said:


> was putting a set of points in a neighbours Morris Minor a few days ago. (For those under the age of 60 a set of points are contacts driven by a cam from the distributor to provide properly timed pulses of 12-volt electricity to the ignition coil.


Almost there, the basic principle of producing a Hv spark from an autotransformer(coil) is known as the kettering principle, the spark is produced when the points open and the magnetic field in the coil collapses, the capacitor is used to ensure the current flow is interupted abruptly without arcing across the points as they open. Easy when you have worked on the design of automotive ignition systems and CDI systems for two stroke motorcycles and yes I am near sixty.


----------



## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> It is probably design more than anything that causes failures. LED's are very sensitive to heat. In an effort to keep costs down and give maximum light output companies overdrive the LED or at least run it it right on the limit of what it can handle. This causes a lot of heat and heat damages the LED or the electronics around it, causing premature failure.
> 
> BigClive did an excellent video recently on Dubai(?) LED bulbs which have a much better design and should last far longer than a generic bulb and use less energy too, but they are much more costly to manufacture of course and produce less light.


Yes that's the issue with household and budget lighting, made on a budget and relatively poor heat management. Although the main brands seem to last quite well there is a lot of cheap chinses supply these days. Its still usually the ballast that fails - at least that's what the Thorn (Zumtoble) lighting guys in Spennymoore tells us. Bright LED lights are really quite specialist for automotive use so i'd expect them to have really good ballast and heat management, but its relatively new technology so there will be some dud products.


----------



## Lons

TominDales said:


> Um as its fairly new tech, you may be unlucky. LEDs being semiconductors will pretty well last forever - ca 20k to 30,000 hrs and some. The problem is the ballasts - power supply and the electronic controls. That's why most home LEDs fail. Auto companies plan on a design life of about 10 years for cars, so likley to have high quality ballast designed to take the power and heat for 10 to 15 years of use (bearing in mind vehicles don't get a lot of use). Not so sure about motorhomes, campervans etc which should have a longer planned service lifetime, but I suspect they are built on modified car designs. Probably one to take on the chin.


I won't have the car that long, it's 3 1/2 years old with 19k on the clock now which is the longest I've had a car for a while and I'd have changed it by now but have to pay for my wife's foot operation soon, just as well I changed hers in September or she would be waiting for her new Mini instead.  The motorhome isn't an issue neither is the other little Skoda.


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> Almost there, the basic principle of producing a Hv spark from an autotransformer(coil) is known as the kettering principle, the spark is produced when the points open and the magnetic field in the coil collapses, the capacitor is used to ensure the current flow is interupted abruptly without arcing across the points as they open. Easy when you have worked on the design of automotive ignition systems and CDI systems for two stroke motorcycles and yes I am near sixty.


The Charles Kettering ignition system was a wonder of its day in 1911 and won the UKs prestigious Dewar Trophy for allowing cars to not need to be cranked


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## Spectric

Can you imagine when you actually had a flame as the source of ignition, hard to imagine having to light your car and now we are dreaming of all transport becoming electric.


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## D_W

Spectric said:


> Can you imagine when you actually had a flame as the source of ignition, hard to imagine having to light your car and now we are dreaming of all transport becoming electric.



How about steam cars having to build steam (they didn't keep too big of a boiler, but relied on high heat output, but it still wouldn't have been 15 seconds), and then the instructions when you had a fire on a steam car not to stop (the car will burn to the ground), but rather cut fuel and speed up on remaining steam to blow the fire out.


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## Terry - Somerset

I'm not sure if steam cars had the same "safety" systems as some steam trains - in the event of overheating or a failure of the pressure relief valve, you could dump the contents of the firebox on the track.

Somewhat less damaging than an explosion.


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## Spectric

I love the smell and sound of a good old steam train, reminds me of the fact that great britain was once upon a time really great.


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## Woodmatt

Spectric said:


> I love the smell and sound of a good old steam train, reminds me of the fact that great britain was once upon a time really great.


Great Britian was great,you must have a long memory


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## Spectric

No it just reminds me of the history I have learnt over the years, we have certainly been going down the pan during Elizabeths reign, I wonder if Victoria ever pays her a ghostly visit to rub it in.


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## chrisdt

Probably not good to think about the past too much but I was watching the "Smart Motorway" Highways England "Education ad on TV and I wondered how that rather portly gentleman managed to remove himself from the passenger door, let alone jump over the barrier. I went to one of the last vintage car rallies before lock down. My 1936 Jowett was of the road so I went in a friends 57 Ford Zodiac. What a lovely car to drive. No big plastic lump in the middle with numerous lights telling you what the weathers like in Mombasa or the Air conditioning needs attention and other useless information. Just a lovely long bench seat positive column change and basic instrument panel. Easy to change light bulbs. Easy to check oil level with a dipstick (note BMW and others) A cam chain that lasted the life of the car albeit a bit noisy and errrm so easy and and quick to slip out of the passenger door before a 40 ton Freightliner sent you to the promised land. That ad on TV seems to refer only to a breakdown. What if.......A lone driver feels really really poorly. He just might be able to pull on to a hard shoulder but not drive to an emergency bay which could be up to a mile away (HE have admitted lying about the distance apart)


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## Spectric

chrisdt said:


> Easy to change light bulbs. Easy to check oil level with a dipstick


What you want a vehicle that you can change bulbs without taking the light unit out, what next do you realise you could be doing your local garage out of a job! 
Just think yourself lucky that they do not have to plug the vehicle into a computer to be told what bulb needs changing.

I can remember being told by a bean counter, ok a senior bean counter that as an engineer we must design for manufacturing and not for repair or maintainance that should only occur out of warranty anyway.


----------



## Geoff_S

chrisdt said:


> Probably not good to think about the past too much but I was watching the "Smart Motorway" Highways England "Education ad on TV and I wondered how that rather portly gentleman managed to remove himself from the passenger door, let alone jump over the barrier. I went to one of the last vintage car rallies before lock down. My 1936 Jowett was of the road so I went in a friends 57 Ford Zodiac. What a lovely car to drive. No big plastic lump in the middle with numerous lights telling you what the weathers like in Mombasa or the Air conditioning needs attention and other useless information. Just a lovely long bench seat positive column change and basic instrument panel. Easy to change light bulbs. Easy to check oil level with a dipstick (note BMW and others) A cam chain that lasted the life of the car albeit a bit noisy and errrm so easy and and quick to slip out of the passenger door before a 40 ton Freightliner sent you to the promised land. That ad on TV seems to refer only to a breakdown. What if.......A lone driver feels really really poorly. He just might be able to pull on to a hard shoulder but not drive to an emergency bay which could be up to a mile away (HE have admitted lying about the distance apart)



A few years again my wife and I went to Malmsebury for a "history weekend". Not being very interested in the Tudors and stuff (my wife is and I've been beaten to death with it), I took a trip out to a local car museum. And it was really, really interesting seeing a really nice collection of old museum cars ..........

...... until I realised how many of them I had owned and had known. I had officially become a museum piece.


----------



## Jameshow

chrisdt said:


> Probably not good to think about the past too much but I was watching the "Smart Motorway" Highways England "Education ad on TV and I wondered how that rather portly gentleman managed to remove himself from the passenger door, let alone jump over the barrier. I went to one of the last vintage car rallies before lock down. My 1936 Jowett was of the road so I went in a friends 57 Ford Zodiac. What a lovely car to drive. No big plastic lump in the middle with numerous lights telling you what the weathers like in Mombasa or the Air conditioning needs attention and other useless information. Just a lovely long bench seat positive column change and basic instrument panel. Easy to change light bulbs. Easy to check oil level with a dipstick (note BMW and others) A cam chain that lasted the life of the car albeit a bit noisy and errrm so easy and and quick to slip out of the passenger door before a 40 ton Freightliner sent you to the promised land. That ad on TV seems to refer only to a breakdown. What if.......A lone driver feels really really poorly. He just might be able to pull on to a hard shoulder but not drive to an emergency bay which could be up to a mile away (HE have admitted lying about the distance apart)



That's progress for you! 

I really think we should have had greater say over such an important matter. 

Cheers James


----------



## Amateur

In not buying one till the batteries are smaller and I can clip them in my Makita 18v charger every night.


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## Droogs

For those interested in some amazing engineering, here is the worlds first PHEV


----------



## Droogs

The working persons game changing EV has just been launched by Ford this morning - F150 Lightning BEV

Std vehicle can carry 907Kg in cargo and tow 3693kg btty pk 80-100kWh range 230ml
Extd range 816KG and tow 4546KG btty 100-140kWh range 300ml

both versions have a 400l frunk


----------



## Spectric

Woodchips2 said:


> I suppose a lot could change in 15 years but battery development doesn't seem to be developing quickly.


That is always an issue when constrained by the laws of physics as per our current understanding. If you think that a lead acid cell can only deliver around 2.2 volts, no matter how big you make it then it starts to make you understand the challenges. We want a lot of power but in a small package, much easier if you used a trailer for the power pack, can be exchanged very easily rather than recharged and a lot more miles on a pack.


----------



## Just4Fun

Droogs said:


> The working persons game changing EV has just been launched by Ford this morning ...


That sounds like an impressive device. I will watch for more news on it with interest.


----------



## pe2dave

TV programme last night on e-bikes in UK. Safety issues, Riding on pavements, two up riding, did not paint a good picture at all. Not that that will stop this .gov


----------



## Droogs

What channel Dave? just for the right player


----------



## pe2dave

channel 4. Tonight programme.


----------



## Dabop

Spectric said:


> That is always an issue when constrained by the laws of physics as per our current understanding. If you think that a lead acid cell can only deliver around 2.2 volts, no matter how big you make it then it starts to make you understand the challenges. We want a lot of power but in a small package, much easier if you used a trailer for the power pack, can be exchanged very easily rather than recharged and a lot more miles on a pack.


Which is why EV (even hobby homebuilt ones) have used lithium cells for the last decade plus 
Lead's heavy, so those 'lead acid' batteries were heavy, and not particularly effective energy storage...
Lithiums (LYP is the most commonly used) can delivery much higher currents, have more energy storage, have a slightly higher output voltage (less cells in a series pack to make a higher voltage- good because high volts - low amps for the same power), and are much lighter to boot...


----------



## Spectric

But Lithium batteries need babysitting, if you upset them you get an exothermic reaction which is not good. Over voltage, pulling to much current, high ambient temperature, short circuits and the need to maintain temperature during charging all can cause issues. It is interesting to note Lithium was first considered for batteries back in 1912 but took until the 1070's to hit the market.


----------



## Dabop

Considering I have lived off batteries for a good part of my life- I dispute your claims that lithiums need 'babysitting'- in practice- its the L/A that need constant 'care and attention'- especially flooded, but even so called 'sealed' cells outgass and require terminal cleaning etc
Lithiums are as close to 'set and forget' that we have come to- my own have been over a year with the only reason for me to look at them at all was to take photos!!!!
I know the guy I bought mine off has his has been so much in need of 'babysitting' that he hasn't unscrewed the battery box lid in three years- and to do so would mean a good hour of moving junk that has now been piled around the battery box...and I mean a good hour- its higher than I am!!!- there a bloody rideon lawnmower chassis sitting on top LOL


----------



## Sideways

Not taking an position on these as they could be a death trap in the wrong hands - and that is probably most peoples - but Rion in the USA seem to be making electric stand up scooters capable of hitting 80 and even 100mph with a range of 30 to 60 miles !
How's that for a first / last mile commuting solution ?
You will pay $8000 plus for the latest electronics, batteries and some beautifully formed carbon fibre.
Like jet bikes, they are probably a blast to ride but problematic. 
I wonder what the average life expectancy is (of the owners) ?


----------



## Sachakins

Sideways said:


> I wonder what the average life expectancy is (of the owners) ?


Probably around 2 miles.....


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## Terry - Somerset

Banned in the Uk but often available overseas are Segways. For those who don't recall - two wheels aligned left/right (rather than front/back), electric motor, automated stability. Lean forward to go forward, left to go left, right to go right, backwards to slow or stop.

Strange that similar stability systems have not been built into the scooters that are being rolled out around the UK. May be both safer and capable of faster speeds - although an unprotected 80mph woould not be my choice of ride even with automated stability assistance.


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## Sachakins

Re seaways.

Launched nearly two decades ago, the company will *stop manufacturing* the *Segway* PT starting July 15 as it shifts focus to other units such as its shared scooter business, it said on Tuesday. The model accounted for less than 1.5% of the Bedford, New Hampshire-based company's revenue last year.24 Jun 2020


----------



## JobandKnock

Droogs said:


> The working persons game changing EV has just been launched by Ford this morning - F150 Lightning BEV
> 
> Std vehicle can carry 907Kg in cargo and tow 3693kg btty pk 80-100kWh range 230ml
> Extd range 816KG and tow 4546KG btty 100-140kWh range 300ml
> 
> both versions have a 400l frunk


Nice, but nowhere near good enough, though. Many tradesmen here, especially those who work on larger sites, on interior fit-out, etc use far smaller vehicles - think Transit Connect, Berlingo, VW Caddy Kangoo and the like. A tank like an F150 is just too big to get into city parking spaces in Europe. The problem is that when you are looking at a 600 to 900kg vehicles the current type available stuff (like the Kangoo EV) have insufficient range and load capacity. Try going from Manchester to Edinburgh with 750kg of tools and ironmongery in the back in any of the currently available small EV Van's and in cold weather you won't even get there. Another issue is that construction sites just don't have the necessary infrastructure to support a large number of electric vans (onany given day in the last 2 years my present main site would have needed anywhere from 50 to 200 chargers). So unless there is a major sea change in the way major contractors approach the job, then going electric isn't going to work. And that's before you start to consider the needs of guys living in flats or terraced houses without their own charge points at home.


----------



## Spectric

Dabop said:


> I dispute your claims that lithiums need 'babysitting'-



Lithium is a dangerous metalic substance that can be very unstable, it needs careful handling, charging, discharging and eventually disposal.



News Centre A warning on why Lithium Batteries can catch fire











Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires


Lithium-ion battery fires generate intense heat and considerable amounts of gas and smoke. Although the emission of toxic gases can be a larger threat than the heat, the knowledge of such emissions is limited. This paper presents quantitative measurements ...




www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov













Lithium batteries are everywhere, and they're more dangerous than you think. Here's what to know.


Crushed or opened lithium batteries have caused sudden and massive fires at recycling plants and in garbage trucks. They're also all over your house.



eu.pressconnects.com













Risks and side effects<br /> The underestimated dangers of lithium-ion batteries


With its high energy density and low self-discharge rate lithium-containing batteries offer some great advantages compared to conventional and rechargeable batteries. Indeed, operator errors and de...




www.petro-online.com













Lithium-ion Battery Waste Fires Costing the UK Over £100m a Year - Eunomia


A new report by Eunomia and ESA estimate that 201 waste fires each year are caused by lithium-ion batteries at a cost of £158m to the UK economy.




www.eunomia.co.uk


----------



## JobandKnock

I seem to recall some footage on YouTube showing a vehicle storage framed full of Teslas. It was raining heavily and the site was flooding, and as the waters rose one Tesla after another went up in flames...


----------



## Droogs

JobandKnock said:


> Nice, but nowhere near good enough, though. Many tradesmen here, especially those who work on larger sites, on interior fit-out, etc use far smaller vehicles - think Transit Connect, Berlingo, VW Caddy Kangoo and the like. A tank like an F150 is just too big to get into city parking spaces in Europe. The problem is that when you are looking at a 600 to 900kg vehicles the current type available stuff (like the Kangoo EV) have insufficient range and load capacity. Try going from Manchester to Edinburgh with 750kg of tools and ironmongery in the back in any of the currently available small EV Van's and in cold weather you won't even get there. Another issue is that construction sites just don't have the necessary infrastructure to support a large number of electric vans (onany given day in the last 2 years my present main site would have needed anywhere from 50 to 200 chargers). So unless there is a major sea change in the way major contractors approach the job, then going electric isn't going to work. And that's before you start to consider the needs of guys living in flats or terraced houses without their own charge points at home.


There are over 400 chargers on that route so not a problem really.


----------



## Rorschach

JobandKnock said:


> Nice, but nowhere near good enough, though. Many tradesmen here, especially those who work on larger sites, on interior fit-out, etc use far smaller vehicles - think Transit Connect, Berlingo, VW Caddy Kangoo and the like. A tank like an F150 is just too big to get into city parking spaces in Europe. The problem is that when you are looking at a 600 to 900kg vehicles the current type available stuff (like the Kangoo EV) have insufficient range and load capacity. Try going from Manchester to Edinburgh with 750kg of tools and ironmongery in the back in any of the currently available small EV Van's and in cold weather you won't even get there. Another issue is that construction sites just don't have the necessary infrastructure to support a large number of electric vans (onany given day in the last 2 years my present main site would have needed anywhere from 50 to 200 chargers). So unless there is a major sea change in the way major contractors approach the job, then going electric isn't going to work. And that's before you start to consider the needs of guys living in flats or terraced houses without their own charge points at home.



Well what did you have to go and spoil it all for? Common sense has no place here.


----------



## Blackswanwood

JobandKnock said:


> Nice, but nowhere near good enough, though. Many tradesmen here, especially those who work on larger sites, on interior fit-out, etc use far smaller vehicles - think Transit Connect, Berlingo, VW Caddy Kangoo and the like. A tank like an F150 is just too big to get into city parking spaces in Europe. The problem is that when you are looking at a 600 to 900kg vehicles the current type available stuff (like the Kangoo EV) have insufficient range and load capacity. Try going from Manchester to Edinburgh with 750kg of tools and ironmongery in the back in any of the currently available small EV Van's and in cold weather you won't even get there. Another issue is that construction sites just don't have the necessary infrastructure to support a large number of electric vans (onany given day in the last 2 years my present main site would have needed anywhere from 50 to 200 chargers). So unless there is a major sea change in the way major contractors approach the job, then going electric isn't going to work. And that's before you start to consider the needs of guys living in flats or terraced houses without their own charge points at home.


Looks like there is going to need to be a major sea change in the way contractors approach the job then as it's the direction we are headed


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## JobandKnock

Droogs said:


> There are over 400 chargers on that route so not a problem really.


I can tell you are not in trade. The need to get there and get the job done means you have to get in the vehicle and do the haul in one. How long does it take to charge a vehicle? And when you get there and there is no place at site to charge your EV, what then?


----------



## Droogs

I've never met anyone with a daily commute of Manchester to Edinburgh and no one is daft enough to do so. Common sense would be applied. Go there stay in digs and go back at the end of the week or the job.


----------



## Spectric

Another point is that the actual grid is being stretched to it's limits by all these housing developments, it is like pluging many extension leads and adaptors into one socket and eventually something has to give. The whole topic of electric vehicles, addressing greenhouse gas emissions and enviromental pollution requires some very radical decisions and massive changes in society, one of which is choice. We do not need loads of vehicle manufacturers, these need to be cut down to a basic few all using common modular power packs and then reduce the use of single occupancy private vehicles for getting to work, yes we need a huge investment in basic public transport and not getting up and down the country faster in HS2. Then what about all the power hungry data centres, as our fanatical obsession with data gets more out of control then more of these are needed consuming huge levels of power. The US data centres apparently consume 90 Billion Kwh a year, that is about 40% more power than the entire UK.


----------



## JobandKnock

Droogs said:


> There are over 400 chargers on that route so not a problem really.


I can tell you are not in trade. The need to get there and get the job done means you have to get in the vehicle and do the haul in one. How long does it take to charge a vehicle? And when you get there and there is no place at site to charge your EV, what then?



Blackswanwood said:


> Looks like there is going to need to be a major sea change in the way contractors approach the job then as it's the direction we are headed


Not just contractors. One of the issues is that the infrastructure isn't there and probably won't be for several decades without major government investment. Secondly, if we have to change to a less efficient (in terms if time utilisation) way of working it will have a knock on effect in terms of costs passed on to you, the end customer. Thirdly, the current range and load capacity of commercial EVs is frankly risible. For example, there is no such thing as a HGV EV, despite Musk's attempts, and without those we won't be able to get the heavy, bulky materials we use onto site. At present rate of progress that all looks to be more than a decade away

Don't get me wrong, I would like to see a cleaner environment - in fact I would like to see almost all commuting in private cars banned, especially long distance commuting - but I am highly sceptical of the state of play after some 30 odd years of development of modern EVs (taking the GM EV1 as my example)

And lest I am accused of hypocrisy, I commute by train to most jobs and have done for nearly a decade. The van only comes out if strictly necessary. In addition I haven't flown in nearly decades on environmental grounds


----------



## Spectric

JobandKnock said:


> The need to get there and get the job done means you have to get in the vehicle and do the haul in one.


There are only so many hours in a day, I think the customer would not be happy if you were charging day rates and part of that was sitting in a service station waiting for the battery to charge. Imagine if your heating was down and you were freezing but the guy apologises for the delay as he is waiting for his van to recharge, no they have a way to go before these vehicles are fit for anything other than social and pleasure use.


----------



## Sachakins

Droogs said:


> There are over 400 chargers on that route so not a problem really.


But not all of them can be used by all vehicles, there is still no real standardisation in plugs are charge methods.
Also, that ignores the obvious issue that, if they are in use, you can't drive to next one if its too far, so you have to sit and wait around.
I am sure you would soon lose work if you keep being late?
Contractors don't have that luxury of time to waste.


----------



## Spectric

There are many trades which have to cover the miles, field service engineers and specialist electricians amongst them, you need a vehicle that you can jump into that will get you to that customer and either home or onto the next customer.

I needed a new gas meter here in cumbria, the guy turned up at ten at nite from Liverpool, then he had his next job in Hexham before heading back, he would have loved the extra time sitting at a charging point. There are also companies across the Uk that use a particular contractor for maintenance and refits, the post office is one of them and there guys travel a lot.


----------



## JobandKnock

Droogs said:


> I've never met anyone with a daily commute of Manchester to Edinburgh and no one is daft enough to do so. Common sense would be applied. Go there stay in digs and go back at the end of the week or the job.


Where did I say daily commute? I did have one week when I spent a day in Edinburgh, two in Manchester and two in London. Not uncommon in certain trades, e.g. shopfitters, plant service engineers, etc

It is a common misconception amongst some of the "green" people I know that you can get someone local to do the job. In reality you cannot guarantee the level of experience, training, certification, competence, etc of a "local" when trying to find bodies to staff a job


----------



## Sachakins

Droogs said:


> I've never met anyone with a daily commute of Manchester to Edinburgh and no one is daft enough to do so. Common sense would be applied. Go there stay in digs and go back at the end of the week or the job.


Sometimes the job is only a day.


----------



## Droogs

and perfectly possible to do in an EV van. The argument was that it was not possible to do the journey, the provision of chargers is high enough that you can, just requires you the driver to plan a bit and include a stop to charge while you have breakfast etc. After all if you choose to travel to a job that far away on the same day that you are meant to start then that shows a lack of forethought by you. I used to cover 3k a week as a contractor working in data centres and would always plan to be where i was needed at the normally accepted start of the working day even if it meant traveling there the day before. i would never set out to travel 250 miles on the day I needed to be at a job by 9 am. The recently launched Citreon EV van (transit size) is based on the new mpv and was used to go from Yorkshire, cover the whole north coast 500 and back in a weekend. no problems, watch out for the video from EVM on the tube.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I suspect there will always be jobs where high mileage needs to be covered and it is not realistic to expect a tradesman to wait a few hours while the van recharges. Time is money!

Improvements are clearly in the pipeline - faster charging, more charging points installed at hotels, supermarkets, possibly even standardised connectors. More a case of when not if. 

For those who can't or won't adapt there is 15-20 years to go before electric becomes unavoidable - a lot can happen in the interim.

On large sites it may increasingly be the case that a generator for EV charging is routinely installed on site at the start of the job, I assume in much the same way as portaloos appear!


----------



## Droogs

Sachakins said:


> Sometimes the job is only a day.


And Edinburgh has 83 rapid chargers, so will take max an hour to charge a vehicle. so you go to one and plug in and get your tea before you sod off home. I'm sure most UK cities will have a similar number. Yes you pay for them but then you pay for dinojuice too. Your arguments are spurious and show a lack of knowledge on what is actually available and possible. Perhaps you should do a bit of actual research about the subject from sources that will give you accurate and up to date information before using unfounded and clearly out of date knowledge in a discussion about a subject. But then going by your avatar's tag you probably wont.


----------



## Sachakins

Droogs said:


> And Edinburgh has 83 rapid chargers, so will take max an hour to charge a vehicle. so you go to one and plug in and get your tea before you sod off home. I'm sure most UK cities will have a similar number. Yes you pay for them but then you pay for dinojuice too. Your arguments are spurious and show a lack of knowledge on what is actually available and possible. Perhaps you should do a bit of actual research about the subject from sources that will give you accurate and up to date information before using unfounded and clearly out of date knowledge in a discussion about a subject. But then going by your avatar's tag you probably wont.


83 rapid chargers! Wow, how will that cope with a day
So rapid charge is about 20 mins not an hour, so 3 cars per hour, so a maximum of 249 per hour, that's 5976 a 24 hour day.
Given the distribution curve for traffic use, the curve is actual spread around 12 hours, so that means only about 3000 vehicl
The average wet fuel forecourt can handle 12 to 15 cars per hour per pump, say 10 pumps, that's upto 150 cars per hour. That's 1800 per 12 hours and that's only one petrol station.

Proves that the infrastructure is decades away.

Oh and how many others at the same timd will also be "having their tea and sod off home" as you put it.?


----------



## Droogs

But not that your example journey is impossible


----------



## Sachakins

Droogs said:


> But not that your example journey is impossible


No it doesn't, for one or two contractors, but for any more than about a dozen it does, as the local EV users will overload that level of charging points anyway. So given that there could be 1000s of contractors, reps etc every day then it proves my case clearly.


----------



## Droogs

no they wont the average daily distance travel by a non HGV vehicles in the UK is 23 miles and only whole only 14% do more than 42, so no need to charge every day. Most will charge at home as cheaper and easier than going to a rapid charger. If you have an EV you can join CoCharge, which is an app to link EV drivers with home charger owners who will allow you to use their chargers for a small aditional fee on top of the electricity you take from their house and still cheaper than a rapid charger. As you will be on site all day, find someone close and leave the van there once you unload (just takes a litlle planning). This is the way its going and no matter how much people bleat about it they will still have to change their way of doing things. Just as with the use of language and with what is socially acceptable.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs. 

That is not how progress is supposed to work.


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> But not that your example journey is impossible



Just because something isn't impossible, doesn't mean that it isn't impractical.


----------



## Rorschach

Trainee neophyte said:


> The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs.
> 
> That is not how progress is supposed to work.



A proposition usually put forward by people who are jealous of others.


----------



## John Brown

Trainee neophyte said:


> The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs.
> 
> That is not how progress is supposed to work.


I take your point, but I was alive to see the last of the really bad smog. The introduction of smokeless zones cost money, and gave people less choice, but many would consider it progress.


----------



## Amateur

All these comments are fine as we wave the green flag. However like covid, unless the whole world moves in the same direction at the same time, it's all pointless.
What exactly are we trying to achieve alone here?
Let's Go metric they said? Get the whole world on a standard....no more of that whitworth rubbish either.
That was a good idea too until the US decided they were staying in feet and inches And we were already up to our necks in the brown stuff pushing forward.
And what of China? Taking away their coal fired industries. Stopping buying cast iron products?
Good lord!
And those rockets now being sent up by the thousand......
is it not more important just to leave this dying world behind, because there's more investment going into that than white elephant batteries?
Carbon footprint my a#####s.


----------



## MikeJhn




----------



## JobandKnock

Droogs said:


> After all if you choose to travel to a job that far away on the same day that you are meant to start then that shows a lack of forethought by you. I used to cover 3k a week as a contractor working in data centres and would always plan to be where i was needed at the normally accepted start of the working day even if it meant traveling there the day before.


Well lucky you. You obviously live and work in some sort of OCD heaven, however the real world I and many others inhabit isn't that neat and tidy.

For example, go to do a joist repair as described by a building surveyor and what is estimated as a 4 hour task might turn into a far longer job involving many more tools than was originally envisaged and taking a lot longer. The job might come in as an emergency late in the afternoon or in a week when the contractor doesn't have anyone local with the required certification (e.g. IPAF, PASMA, confined spaces, harness, SMSTS, etc) so has to bring in an outsider. Buildings can be extremely complex and there is often a public safety element in the long trips I and some of my colleagues undertake - so your "lack of forethought" is no such thing. Unfortunately the world doesn't run to a nice well defined timetable, but TBH I don't expect IT people to understand that



Droogs said:


> As you will be on site all day, find someone close and leave the van there once you unload (just takes a litlle planning).


Now who's showing their ignorance? Any tradesman here would be able to tell you that you don't unload your van when you get to a distant job - your van is an office, a material carrier, a mobile tool vault, and often a mobile workshop, too. It would probably take me a.n hour or more to unload my van (and to repack it at the end of day) only to discover that there is nowhere secure to store my kit on site, so it's a preposterous idea. We are often working in places which are a long way from any infrastructure with booger all public transport. And in any case leaving a van with tools in it where it can't be monitored is an open invitation to every thieving scrote in the locality.

Granted, things need to change, but as I stated earlier we are a very long way off a situation thstvis viable and whilst the scenario I illustrated earlier is theoretically feasible eith your van, in the real world, the now world, it is highly likely to leave the poor tradesman high and dry somewhere or other


----------



## Rorschach

JobandKnock said:


> Well lucky you. You obviously live and work in some sort of OCD heaven, however the real world I and many others inhabit isn't that neat and tidy.
> 
> For example, go to do a joist repair as described by a building surveyor and what is estimated as a 4 hour task might turn into a far longer job involving many more tools than was originally envisaged and taking a lot longer. The job might come in as an emergency late in the afternoon or in a week when the contractor doesn't have anyone local with the required certification (e.g. IPAF, PASMA, confined spaces, harness, SMSTS, etc) so has to bring in an outsider. Buildings can be extremely complex and there is often a public safety element in the long trips I and some of my colleagues undertake - so your "lack of forethought" is no such thing. Unfortunately the world doesn't run to a nice well defined timetable, but TBH I don't expect IT people to understand that
> 
> 
> Now who's showing their ignorance? Any tradesman here would be able to tell you that you don't unload your van when you get to a distant job - your van is an office, a material carrier, a mobile tool vault, and often a mobile workshop, too. It would probably take me a.n hour or more to unload my van (and to repack it at the end of day) only to discover that there is nowhere secure to store my kit on site,a preposterous idea. You are often in places where you are a long way from any infrastructure with bag all public transport. And in any case leaving a van with tools in it is an open invitation to every thieving scrote in the locality.
> 
> Granted, things need to change, but as I stated earlier we are a very long way off and whilst the scenario I illustrated earlier is theoretically feasible, in the real world, the now world, it is highly likely to leave the poor tradesman high and dry somewhere or other



Sadly it's people like Droogs who make the rules we all will have to live by.


----------



## Droogs

Like i said check your info first before you use spurious arguments that can be rebuffed


----------



## Droogs

Rorschach said:


> Sadly it's people like Droogs who make the rules we all will have to live by.


no it aint, if it was you would know. Things change guys - adapt improvise and overcome or die by the wayside.


----------



## Cooper

Rorschach said:


> Sadly it's people like Droogs who make the rules we all will have to live by.


No it isn't, it's all of us who have the vote.
I wonder with all the negative comments about EV here, what those who make the comments have as an alternative solution, to the action needed to avert the climate emergency? I suspect that it is to look to the people "who make the rules we live by" to find a solution that lets them get on with life without making any changes and somebody else has to alter their behavior. At least 10 times a day various supermarket and mail order delivery vans come to our street, of about 30 homes, none of the vans are electric, there is massive scope for electric vans which would make a substantial CO2 reduction. All new Cabs are electric and they are still in business.


----------



## Rorschach

Cooper said:


> No it isn't, it's all of us who have the vote.
> I wonder with all the negative comments about EV here, what those who make the comments have as an alternative solution, to the action needed to avert the climate emergency? I suspect that it is to look to the people "who make the rules we live by" to find a solution that lets them get on with life without making any changes and somebody else has to alter their behavior. At least 10 times a day various supermarket and mail order delivery vans come to our street of about 30 homes, none of the vans are electric, there is masive scope for electric vans which would make a massive difference to CO2 reduction.



Depends I guess if you think there is a climate emergency. The climate is changing of course, whether man-made or not we know it's changing because it would it naturally even without us here. The question is if it's an emergency or not and are the steps we are taking justified and proportionate (hmmm where I have said that before? lol).


----------



## Sachakins

Y


Droogs said:


> no they wont the average daily distance travel by a non HGV vehicles in the UK is 23 miles and only whole only 14% do more than 42, so no need to charge every day. Most will charge at home as cheaper and easier than going to a rapid charger. If you have an EV you can join CoCharge, which is an app to link EV drivers with home charger owners who will allow you to use their chargers for a small aditional fee on top of the electricity you take from their house and still cheaper than a rapid charger. As you will be on site all day, find someone close and leave the van there once you unload (just takes a litlle planning). This is the way its going and no matter how much people bleat about it they will still have to change their way of doing things. Just as with the use of language and with what is socially acceptable.


You are correct in your statement, but unfortunately the overall average distance you quote is incomplete, which most people fall foul of as a figure.
In order to properly quote a median figure, statistically you need to indicate the mean displacement, which is the outliers mean at a given statistical interval, could be the CI (confidence interval, normally given as a percentage or a measure at + or - 2 standard deviations from that mean displacement.

Using your assumptions, without knowing the median displacement, is absolutely useless for forecasting EV usage.
As an example the average mileage in uk.

And yes I have done my research, these are not plucked out of thin air.

The average motorist in the United Kingdom drove up to 10,000 miles per year. In 2018, 35 percent of respondents stated that they drove between one to 5,000 miles annually, which was an increase compared to the year before. Mileage for private travel was highest when compared to other purposes, according to a governmental survey among British car drivers. In 2017, an average of roughly 4,500 miles were driven for private reasons.


Average miles driven201720180-5,00032%35%5,001-10,00036%33%>10,00123%22%

As this shows, if you don't account for users in the higher mileage bracket, you will then condemn nearly a quarter of motorists to the scenario that a lot of people against EV have, which is "Range Anxiety

This is easily resolved from two aspects.
EV with a Guaranteed Minimum range of 425 miles, not an up to figure, as we all know that the quoted MPG/MPCharge, even with the new WLTP assessment, still do not represent real life driving

A EV charging network structure that is comparable to wet fuel forecourt, ie plentiful and usable by 95% of vehicles, which also requires that a charging system is standardised across the network and that cars have just the one or two types of socket/plug Just as Petrol and Diesel are standardised.

Note Petrol to change in 2021
E10 petrol - a more eco-friendly type of petrol containing up to 10 per cent ethanol - will be available at fuel stations across the UK from September 2021 and become the default form of petrol, with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions.

The Department for Transport (DfT) announced the launch of E10 petrol following a consultation with motorists and the automotive industry. E10 - which is a mixture of standard petrol and ethanol made from materials including low grade grains, sugars and waste wood - is expected to cut CO2 emissions on UK roads by as much as 750,000 tonnes per year. This is the equivalent to taking 350,000 cars - or all the cars in North Yorkshire - off the road.

TO BE CLEAR
I am not against EV in any way, and as soon as the above is reasonably achievable, I will willingly and gladly jump to the EV over the ICE polluter, juat not yet.


----------



## selectortone

Cooper said:


> At least 10 times a day various supermarket and mail order delivery vans come to our street, of about 30 homes, none of the vans are electric, there is massive scope for electric vans which would make a substantial CO2 reduction. All new Cabs are electric and they are still in business.


I had a delivery from DPD the other day and the driver had an electric van. I asked him what he thought of it and he said he absolutely loved it. Better performance than his old diesel and much easier to drive with no gears. Much less stressful, just get in and press the accelerator. No range problems, delivering all day around the Bournemouth area.

Companies like Amazon and UPS are making massive investments in EVs, and electric buses are close to being on our streets in large numbers.


----------



## D_W

MikeJhn said:


> View attachment 111317



I wouldn't be surprised if a diesel generator charging a battery car was still more efficient than a gasoline powered vehicle (in miles per gallon).


----------



## RobinBHM

selectortone said:


> I had a delivery from DPD the other day and the driver had an electric van. I asked him what he thought of it and he said he absolutely loved it. Better performance than his old diesel and much easier to drive with no gears. Much less stressful, just get in and press the accelerator. No range problems, delivering all day around the Bournemouth area.
> 
> Companies like Amazon and UPS are making massive investments in EVs, and electric buses are close to being on our streets in large numbers.



Courier drivers often do huge numbers of drops but only cover a small area -the bigger problem is going to the hub to load and then going to the delivery area.


----------



## Spectric

Ok I think I may have solved the issue for using electric vans for trade use, the answer was really obvious and could even be helpful onsite. All you need is a box trailer in which you have a generator that can keep the vehicle charged whilst on route and then onsite providing you have the right genny you also have a 110 volt power source. Now the trailer will also allow you to carry any extras as well and maybe even some 8by4 sheet materials if required.


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## Jake

Cooper said:


> All new Cabs are electric and they are still in business.



I have yet to find a cabbie (in one, rather than driving a diesel and understandably worrying about the price of upgrading) who doesn't absolutely gush about them and say how much better it has made their lives from a comfort and financial perspective. On the other hand I haven't been in one since March last year so maybe all their batteries died.

That said about 150-180 miles is about their average mileage when I've asked about how charging fits in.


----------



## Cooper

Rorschach said:


> Depends I guess if you think there is a climate emergency.


I'm afraid that I can't believe that faced with all the evidence that there is an acute emergency, even people who claim there is no climate emergency actually believe what they say. I'm sure they are just being provocative, to wind up those of us they describe as Woke. (Odd word, passed tense of to wake up, in other words: to be aware.)


----------



## Rorschach

Cooper said:


> I'm afraid that I can't believe that faced with all the evidence that there is an acute emergency, even people who claim there is no climate emergency actually believe what they say. I'm sure they are just being provocative, to wind up those of us they describe as Woke. (Odd word, passed tense of to wake up, in other words: to be aware.)



That's a very odd view to have. As I said, I don't dispute that there are changes to our climate (natural or unnatural). I just don't think it's an emergency that justifies the response we are seeing. Innovation, not restriction is the key, improve the standard of living, don't diminish it.


----------



## Just4Fun

Sachakins said:


> I am not against EV in any way, and as soon as the above is reasonably achievable, I will willingly and gladly jump to the EV over the ICE polluter, juat not yet.


I think that sums it up very well. Many of us are not against EV in principle but we don't think the vehicles and the infrastructure are good enough _yet_. When things improve many more people will be happy and able to make the change, but until then it would be folly to force the change on everyone. Actually there should be no need to force the change on anyone; if and when EVs become better than existing alternatives people will change without being forced to. Anyone who thinks it is OK to force this change on people should at least consider why it is so unattractive to so many.


----------



## simonh

What if instead of being put forward as a solution to global warming it was put forward as making the air we breathe cleaner and our cities nicer places? We locked down and paid people to sit at home for months to a year to save lives from COVID. How many lives could be saved due to respiratory problems caused by car fumes and cancers by carcinogenic particles? Is it a price worth paying?

Also, is the policy really about replacing all cars with electric or hydrogen? Or, is the policy simply about removing cars from the road and pushing people onto public transport as many local council policies have been long before the advent of electric cars?

The current electric grid has plenty of capacity for the electric cars charging at night (or as controlled by the power companies) as shown by John Ward... getting home from work and making tea is where the grid struggles.


----------



## Rorschach

simonh said:


> How many lives could be saved due to respiratory problems caused by car fumes and cancers by carcinogenic particles? Is it a price worth paying?



No.


----------



## Matress

Why don't they standardise batteries and make them interchangeable at petrol stations?


----------



## Rorschach

Matress said:


> Why don't they standardise batteries and make them interchangeable at petrol stations?



They have been doing this in China for a while now.


----------



## AlanY

Amateur said:


> All these comments are fine as we wave the green flag. However like covid, unless the whole world moves in the same direction at the same time, it's all pointless.
> What exactly are we trying to achieve alone here?
> Let's Go metric they said? Get the whole world on a standard....no more of that whitworth rubbish either.
> That was a good idea too until the US decided they were staying in feet and inches And we were already up to our necks in the brown stuff pushing forward.
> And what of China? Taking away their coal fired industries. Stopping buying cast iron products?
> Good lord!
> And those rockets now being sent up by the thousand......
> is it not more important just to leave this dying world behind, because there's more investment going into that than white elephant batteries?
> Carbon footprint my a#####s.


 Absolutely agree. Were the UK to become carbon neutral (leaving only the issues of poverty, mass unemployment and civil unrest to deal with), it would make not one iota of difference to the global climate change situation, unless the major polluters all do the same. We all know who they are and we all know they have no intention of following suit. All we will do is make the UK poor, non-competitive and much worse off socially. Mind you, it might solve the immigration problem, 'cos who on Earth would want to come here?


----------



## AlanY

D_W said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if a diesel generator charging a battery car was still more efficient than a gasoline powered vehicle (in miles per gallon).


Yes, but diesel engines are heavy particulate polluterzzz...zzzz..zzzz...zzzz


----------



## Crazy Dave

IMO what needs to happen is fuel stations need to switch from selling fossil fuel to electric charge points. This would encourage folk to take up EV ownership and when the local petrol station stops selling petroleum and starts selling electric instead the message would become very clear.
The problem with this is if I owned a petrol station and was making my living from selling fossil fuels I would be reluctant to invest in electric.

Maybe the government should give incentives to the independent fuel station owners to switch over which would give the EV market a boost by taking away the range anxiety, once the switch starts the big companies would follow, some like Shell and BP have started already.

Motorway services are the only places where you can get a charge and have a break at the moment be it the most expensive option.

Charge points in my local area hardly ever get used and I won't use them either as they are run by profit hungry companies. This attitude has to change or we are screwed, what good is money when we are fighting over clean water in years to come.

So stop thinking about why you shouldn't switch to EV and start finding the reasons why you should, I did it and it was the best choice for me and it could be for you. It is a complete change of habit and there will no doubt be problems to overcome but once you get your head around it you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

Remember the clock is ticking. . . . The worst thing you can do is nothing.


----------



## clogs

EV vans in particular.....I'd have one in a heart beat but gotta make em affordable.....
to replace my 1999 VW T4 with the latest generation....1/2 cab, 5 seater 1/2 van, the cost is nearly £60,000........
now totally rebuilt, new engine, g/box, brakes, steering alt n starter etc etc...total cost was under £7000.....
not on your nelly......it will see me out unless wrecked.....


----------



## Rorschach

Crazy Dave said:


> IMO what needs to happen is fuel stations need to switch from selling fossil fuel to electric charge points. This would encourage folk to take up EV ownership and when the local petrol station stops selling petroleum and starts selling electric instead the message would become very clear.
> The problem with this is if I owned a petrol station and was making my living from selling fossil fuels I would be reluctant to invest in electric.
> 
> Maybe the government should give incentives to the independent fuel station owners to switch over which would give the EV market a boost by taking away the range anxiety, once the switch starts the big companies would follow, some like Shell and BP have started already.
> 
> Motorway services are the only places where you can get a charge and have a break at the moment be it the most expensive option.
> 
> Charge points in my local area hardly ever get used and I won't use them either as they are run by profit hungry companies. This attitude has to change or we are screwed, what good is money when we are fighting over clean water in years to come.
> 
> So stop thinking about why you shouldn't switch to EV and start finding the reasons why you should, I did it and it was the best choice for me and it could be for you. It is a complete change of habit and there will no doubt be problems to overcome but once you get your head around it you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.
> 
> Remember the clock is ticking. . . . The worst thing you can do is nothing.



As has been pointed out many times in this thread, simply switching petrol to electric isn't going to work, petrol takes literally a few minutes to put 4-500 miles of range into your vehicle, electricity takes MUCH longer for less range.


----------



## AlanY

clogs said:


> EV vans in particular.....I'd have one in a heart beat but gotta make em affordable.....
> to replace my 1999 VW T4 with the latest generation....1/2 cab, 5 seater 1/2 van, the cost is nearly £60,000........
> now totally rebuilt, new engine, g/box, brakes, steering alt n starter etc etc...total cost was under £7000.....
> not on your nelly......it will see me out unless wrecked.....


The thought of replacing my E350 with something like a Nissan Leaf just makes me want to


----------



## MikeJhn

D_W said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if a diesel generator charging a battery car was still more efficient than a gasoline powered vehicle (in miles per gallon).


That is a for-lone hope, but I thought the point was to be carbon neutral.


----------



## D_W

MikeJhn said:


> I thought the point was to be carbon neutral.



I only know a couple of people with evs. They're tech nerds and don't care about carbon neutral. I'd love an ev , and also don't care about carbon neutral.


----------



## Droogs

MikeJhn said:


> I thought the point was to be carbon neutral.


I've always thought that the point was about not having a  not only on your doorstep but in your livingroom as well. Oh an making sure that you children are able to eat and breath. Perhaps the way to look at is this, unlike previous generations you are not being asked to risk life and limb on some muddy blood drenched field somewhere but to put up with being inconvenienced a bit by taking a little longer to get somewhere, just so future generations have a chance at being able to live a reasonable life. not much really.


----------



## D_W

Rorschach said:


> As has been pointed out many times in this thread, simply switching petrol to electric isn't going to work, petrol takes literally a few minutes to put 4-500 miles of range into your vehicle, electricity takes MUCH longer for less range.



For most people, ev takes no remote charging, ever. Bil has 60k miles on a Tesla 3 now. He plugs it in at the end of the day and has never "stopped for gas" or charge remotely. Phev is more sensible for someone who does a lot of long trips, which is bils other car. He's far more comfortable spending money than I am.


----------



## D_W

AlanY said:


> Yes, but diesel engines are heavy particulate polluterzzz...zzzz..zzzz...zzzz



Yes, they are. So are jets that all of the eco people ride in after they drive a battery car to the airport.


----------



## Rorschach

D_W said:


> For most people, ev takes no remote charging, ever. Bil has 60k miles on a Tesla 3 now. He plugs it in at the end of the day and has never "stopped for gas" or charge remotely. Phev is more sensible for someone who does a lot of long trips, which is bils other car. He's far more comfortable spending money than I am.



A lot more people in the UK do not have access to home charging like you might in the US.


----------



## D_W

A lot do.


----------



## Rorschach

D_W said:


> A lot do.



And a lot don't. I have an off road parking space, but no way to charge a vehicle on it, on my street perhaps 10% have a private driveway that could be used to charge a car, pretty much every house seems to have at least one car though.


----------



## D_W

I have a garage that's my shop. I won't change it back at this point to charge a car, either, but could do that if needed. Ability to run high amp 220v varies here, but my panel is in my garage, so no problem there.


----------



## AlanY

Rorschach said:


> A lot more people in the UK do not have access to home charging like you might in the US.


EV charging in cities will be a nightmare. And that is where the pollution is worst (at the moment).
When I was a kid I remember watching an article (on Tomorrow's World!) about hydrogen fuels cells and how they were going to take over the world. What happened to that technology and would it not be the true solution to this green nonsense? You would have an internal combustion engine and, when your tank is low, you pull into a service station and fill it back up again. Why has this been forgotten about in favour of the EV solution? Yes, hydrogen is very volatile, but so is litium and lithium is one of the most toxic substances there is. And we are putting shedloads of it into fast moving cars that, inexplicably, seem to burn out after heavy collisions.


----------



## D_W

AlanY said:


> Yes, but diesel engines are heavy particulate polluterzzz...zzzz..zzzz...zzzz



Not defending the diesel btw. We have valleys here that are problematic with particulates. Emissions standards have always been tighter here than in Europe and they get tighter every year. For practical purposes, car diesel has been phased out and emissions on pickups and trucks have taken away the fuel economy to a point that they're not cheaper to run for most. Only in the really heavy trucks.


----------



## D_W

AlanY said:


> EV charging in cities will be a nightmare. And that is where the pollution is worst (at the moment).
> When I was a kid I remember watching an article (on Tomorrow's World!) about hydrogen fuels cells and how they were going to take over the world. What happened to that technology and would it not be the true solution to this green nonsense? You would have an internal combustion engine and, when your tank is low, you pull into a service station and fill it back up again. Why has this been forgotten about in favour of the EV solution? Yes, hydrogen is very volatile, but so is litium and lithium is one of the most toxic substances there is. And we are putting shedloads of it into fast moving cars that, inexplicably, seem to burn out after heavy collisions.



Fuel cells are still monstrously expensive and so is hydrogen, so there's little interest in it right now. Probably 20 years off. Imagine an 80k priced prius with fuel equivalent to 10 pounds a gallon gas. That's where we are now. The ag lobby in the US is angling to try to get ethanol fuel cells to the market. One unwanted fuel on top of an unwanted technology.


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## Droogs

@D_W you don't need to change your garage/wksp. You can buy a charging unit that is the same size a an electric shower unit and put it on the wall outside if you would rather not have it in the garage


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## D_W

I could just run a cord, but if the car is in the heat and cold here, it'll just waste a bunch of energy climate controlling the battery pack.


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## Terry - Somerset

EV or ICE is no longer a rational debate. Most people seem attached to a personal opinion based upon rumour, conspiracy theory, skewed statistics, flawed science etc etc. Every individual is a unique case and objective analysis becomes irrelevant. 

Whether the motives and rationale for EV new cars sales by 2030 is "correct" is unimportant. The Government has the power to implement and enforce the policy. 

I don't expect an alternative Labour (or Libdem or SNP) government to materially alter course - the only plausible change is to defer for 1-3 years if infrastructure development is too slow to support the number of new EVs.

People are free to make their own choices - for the next 9 years you can still go and buy the burble of a new V8 should you so choose. After 2030 you will be at liberty to buy s/h. In 20 years time, if the itch hasn't yet been scratched, you will be able to buy a V8 banger. 

A purely personal view:

well before 2030 EV sales will dominate new car sales as EV range increases and prices fall
ICE will depreciate faster as government policy favours EV usage and running costs
some exceptions to EV transition identified, probably with a significant cost attached
a s/h EV market will evolve as new EV sales increase. Most (80%) buy s/h cars.


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## AlanY

D_W said:


> Not defending the diesel btw. We have valleys here that are problematic with particulates. Emissions standards have always been tighter here than in Europe and they get tighter every year. For practical purposes, car diesel has been phased out and emissions on pickups and trucks have taken away the fuel economy to a point that they're not cheaper to run for most. Only in the really heavy trucks.


In the UK we have such a high propensity of diesel cars for one simple reason: Political opportunism. Tony Blair favoured diesel when he saw it would reduce CO2 emissions and so give him 'green' credentials. Of course, everyone knew about the particulates issue with diesel, but when have scumbag politicians every listened to anyone outside their own petting circle? Now, of course, the economic benefit of diesel ihas been largely negated (again by deliberate political intervention) and people have started moving back to petrol as a fuel. So, CO2 is back on the rise... EVs are not the answer. Hybrids make more sense (I could be persuaded to buy a hybrid, I think). But I really wish the scumbag politicians would stop wasting taxpayer money on pet projects such as HS2 and, instead, invest it in hydrogen fuel cell R&D. If I wanted the UK to lead the world in anything, it would be that.


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## Sachakins

As an aside to the charging issue, I think the local house building program needs to change too.
There needs to be legislation that every new build to include a private driveway and have the necessary wiring/meters pre installed ready for a charging box. NOT the actual charging unit though.
Instead of the mass of apartments and houses with none, insufficient, shared or on street parking.


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## Droogs

Why not apartments with underground parking for each flat and the provision of charging hook up for each bay as they have been doing in nearly all new build appartments in China for the last decade. A more efficient use of the ground plan.


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## Trainee neophyte

I still think liquid fuels are the best option, especially for heavy goods vehicles, agricultural machinery etc. How about using atmospheric CO2 to make carbon neutral diesel? (I may have mentioned this before). 








How to Make Diesel Fuel from Water and Air


Let's face it: hydrocarbons are secondhand energy sources. Trees and other plants absorb electromagnetic radiation from the Sun and use that energy to convert water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen into sugars that the plant needs




offgridworld.com





Of course it is currently cheaper to pull fossil oil out of the ground.


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## Spectric

Sachakins said:


> There needs to be legislation that every new build to include a private driveway and have the necessary wiring/meters pre installed ready for a charging box.


The problem here is that it should be a three phase supply to each property, EV chargers can be power hungry unless you are willing to charge overnite so now you have a chain of issues in that the local supply transformer will need to be changed to meet the potential load, then the DNO sub will need to be uprated to supply all these new local supplies and then even the national grid may need uprated to supply the DNO's especially in areas only with 132Kv and not 400Kv. So again big changes and huge capital expenditure.


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## Dabop

Spectric said:


> Lithium is a dangerous metalic substance that can be very unstable, it needs careful handling, charging, discharging and eventually disposal.
> 
> 
> 
> News Centre A warning on why Lithium Batteries can catch fire
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> Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires
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> Lithium-ion battery fires generate intense heat and considerable amounts of gas and smoke. Although the emission of toxic gases can be a larger threat than the heat, the knowledge of such emissions is limited. This paper presents quantitative measurements ...
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> www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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> Lithium batteries are everywhere, and they're more dangerous than you think. Here's what to know.
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> Crushed or opened lithium batteries have caused sudden and massive fires at recycling plants and in garbage trucks. They're also all over your house.
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> eu.pressconnects.com
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> Risks and side effects<br /> The underestimated dangers of lithium-ion batteries
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> With its high energy density and low self-discharge rate lithium-containing batteries offer some great advantages compared to conventional and rechargeable batteries. Indeed, operator errors and de...
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> www.petro-online.com
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> Lithium-ion Battery Waste Fires Costing the UK Over £100m a Year - Eunomia
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> A new report by Eunomia and ESA estimate that 201 waste fires each year are caused by lithium-ion batteries at a cost of £158m to the UK economy.
> 
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> www.eunomia.co.uk


And yet billions of cells are in daily use around the world- with a lower failure rate than lead acid batteries- including the ones that run my house- which mind you (unlike my previous leadacid batteries) I haven't touched once since their first installation and use- over a year ago...
Set up,and totally ignored since then in terms of actually having to do a single thing to them, and I expect to continue to ignore them for the next 15-20 years, much like a fellow offgrid forum member, who has the exact same brand he first started using over a decade ago....


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## Dabop

Spectric said:


> The problem here is that it should be a three phase supply to each property, EV chargers can be power hungry unless you are willing to charge overnite so now you have a chain of issues in that the local supply transformer will need to be changed to meet the potential load, then the DNO sub will need to be uprated to supply all these new local supplies and then even the national grid may need uprated to supply the DNO's especially in areas only with 132Kv and not 400Kv. So again big changes and huge capital expenditure.


Any WHY do you need to have a 30 minute charger in your house???
Now you are getting slightly ridiculous....


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## Rorschach

Sachakins said:


> As an aside to the charging issue, I think the local house building program needs to change too.
> There needs to be legislation that every new build to include a private driveway and have the necessary wiring/meters pre installed ready for a charging box. NOT the actual charging unit though.
> Instead of the mass of apartments and houses with none, insufficient, shared or on street parking.



Every new build I have seen (certainly the ones around here anyway) all come with a private driveway or allocated parking for the flats. The problem is the vast majority of our housing stock does not have this as an option so unless we knock down all the houses and build new we are still looking at a big issue to solve.


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## Spectric

Because your vehicle should be ready to use when required, if you need to collect something urgent such as medicine then having to wait for the EV to charge is not an option, I suppose you could have designated areas within a new development with a couple of charging points rather than one for each house but if you do have a three phase supply laid on then it opens up the options for your workshop, only downside is that it will be a 6 by 4 shed if you are lucky because they are really just battery farms for humans now.


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## D_W

AlanY said:


> In the UK we have such a high propensity of diesel cars for one simple reason: Political opportunism. Tony Blair favoured diesel when he saw it would reduce CO2 emissions and so give him 'green' credentials. Of course, everyone knew about the particulates issue with diesel, but when have scumbag politicians every listened to anyone outside their own petting circle? Now, of course, the economic benefit of diesel ihas been largely negated (again by deliberate political intervention) and people have started moving back to petrol as a fuel. So, CO2 is back on the rise... EVs are not the answer. Hybrids make more sense (I could be persuaded to buy a hybrid, I think). But I really wish the scumbag politicians would stop wasting taxpayer money on pet projects such as HS2 and, instead, invest it in hydrogen fuel cell R&D. If I wanted the UK to lead the world in anything, it would be that.



Toyota and Honda (and others - including international harvester and allis chalmers and all kinds of groups who specialize or specialized in stationary and machine power ideas) have spent immense amounts of money on fuel cells for at least 60 years (I'm not a historian on this stuff by any means, but remember seeing a very early 1960 or so fuel cell tractor made by allis). 

Siemens made a 3kw fuel cell that a local high dollar charity used (a place called Phipps here) to generate power for one of their rooms. It was large, I'm sure it made no financial sense, but it was an early adopter project. One day, we went there, and it was turned off (something broke) and then not long after, it was gone. 

If there was low hanging fruit there on fuel cells (in terms of making them economically viable), it would be out there already. I recall seeing that toyota had a fuel cell prius (maybe for sale, maybe for lease), and I saw a cost of production of about $70k per unit. That's obviously a challenge. 

Honda had a hydrogen civic perhaps 15 years ago here and their per unit cost was $170k. I guess that's progress? They leased them in a couple of urban areas for $600 a month. It doesn't take much figuring to determine that doesn't pencil out (plus, you can lease a lot of cars for $600 a month - nice ones). I could be wrong about it being hydrogen fuel cell, but it was something along those lines. 

100% agree that hybrids make sense - especially on cars that will be driven a lot in urban areas and won't be allowed to get too old. I understand the issue here is the charging system as they get older - if it poops, it's several times the value of the car to fix. The old nonsense about battery life never was an issue here with a prius - replacement generally only due to accidents physically damaging batteries). 

But the hybrids match the diesels until you get to pulling loads or really large vehicles (and that's N/A for most customers). 

The loyalists here for diesel pickups are farmers, etc, who wish to tow more than they should really be towing (and they can write off the pickups), and want to evade rules that apply to larger class trucks. The numbers have gone ballistic - a favorite truck in the 1990s was a cummins dodge - 195 horsepower, 400ft lb of torque, mechanical diesel (i think) and capable of mid to upper 20s in US gallons and legitimately tested independently. What's out there now are numbers like 450+ horsepower, 1000 ft lbs or torque and mileage is half with more regular maintenance. 

I know a few farmers, and probably half even of that group has gone to large displacement gasoline trucks because they cost less to buy and drive and only give up mileage to the diesels under load. Emissions have created huge problems with diesel reliability, also.


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## D_W

Spectric said:


> Because your vehicle should be ready to use when required, if you need to collect something urgent such as medicine then having to wait for the EV to charge is not an option, I suppose you could have designated areas within a new development with a couple of charging points rather than one for each house but if you do have a three phase supply laid on then it opens up the options for your workshop, only downside is that it will be a 6 by 4 shed if you are lucky because they are really just battery farms for humans now.



This is a strange comment. How often do you think EVs have too little charge to go get medicine somewhere? How far are you driving for medicine, and what's the chance that you figure out you need to get it right after you just exhausted your battery (plus all of it's emergency reserve) just as you got home?

Plus you have to exhausted all other emergency options (no ability to get a taxi, uber, or whatever or know anyone else at all who would allow use). 

I can only map to my BIL's circumstances - he's got about 225 miles of realistic range on his EV - he drives round trip about 80-90 miles each day, comes home and plugs the car in. 

I generally refill at 1/4th tank, which on my car (due to some manufacturer magic making it look more empty than it is as a safety for dummies) is about 90 miles of range. My BIL has more range left than I do in some cases, but my medicine comes from 1/2 mile away. I could walk there. Not everyone could, but what's a reasonable max - 30 miles? I'd hate to have to drive 30 miles one way to get medication - especially if it was an emergency.


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## D_W

Let's not forget that we're generally in the early adopter phase right now, and probably will be for a while yet, but battery capacity is about a tenth of the cost that it was 15 years ago (I think all of the early tesla cars were sold at a loss, and perhaps some cost less than the batteries did at the time - that's going to continue to go toward lower cost, though it's anyones' guess how much is passed on to the consumer). 

In the US, the only real issues we've seen for EV owners here is a combination. Not just range (you can still quick charge and schedule eating or whatever after 4 hours of driving and then move on), but range, needing quick charge, and then a travel holiday when everyone else is traveling. That *does* look like a pain, as there were lines at charge stations. 

There's kind of an easy way around that right now, but maybe some think it's not convenient - travel a day early or a day late. Depending on where you are in the states (I have to drive the PA turnpike - two days of the year, it's downright dangerous because traffic can go from 80miles an hour to stop over and over due to congestion. Easter Sunday and the day after Thanksgiving in the afternoon both days. The fix is that we don't ever travel those days. I'm already doing what the battery car people would need to do). 

The other workaround is traveling very late or early (something I also did before I had a spouse and kids and couldn't just tell them to pop out of bed at 4 am and get the wheels turning).


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## Terry - Somerset

Early adopters of almost everything pay a premium price for a level of functionality which two years later is often commonplace.

5 years ago new EVs would typically cost £10-30k more than for an equivalent ICE. Range was compromised. Charging points were low and scarce.

New cost is now approaching the price of an equivalently equipped and size ICE. Range is now acceptable for most - although some may bemoan the fact we cannot leap in the car, drive 400 miles to the chemist without stopping for a pee.

Speculate about EV for the next 5 years - likely greater range, faster recharging, growing network of vehicle specialists. ICE will progress little or not at all. In 4/5 years the default choice will be electric (bar a few dinosaurs and those with very specialist needs).

Personally - most cars have been bought with head rather than heart. Current car is a 3 year old medium hatch. I could not justify to myself buying a new electric at £30k++. I would not buy a s/h EV as 2/3 year old technology is already becoming obselete.

I like the idea of a luxobarge for a few years before they are no longer tenable - Merc, BMW, Lexus, Jag etc. But I wholly accept that the days of ICE are very limited.


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## D_W

The era of relatively reliable gasoline powered cars is gone. I think it went away about 15 years ago (not that all cars were reliable before then, but at least some were- but not now). We had a span of honda and toyota cars from the mid/late 80s to in some cases, the early 2000s, and that was sort of the last of it. Light trucks lasted a little longer.


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## Spectric

D_W said:


> This is a strange comment. How often do you think EVs have too little charge


I think of an EV as a large cordless tool, I have found my cordless drill always seems to go flat when you most need it such as to finish an urgent job and then you find your spare is also low on charge, just seems to be the way and with an EV you don't have the luxury of just swapping out the battery anyway.


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## D_W

think of it as a cordless drill that can run for 3-6 hours under load and doesn't magically go flat and you can literally check its status on your phone. 

It's not at all what you're describing. Instead, what you actually do is step out and plug it in right before you walk in the house. 

AS far as the cordless tools go, I have five batteries that are all lithium and literally have never run out of useful batteries. Yard tools, leaf blower, cordless vacuums and then of course drills and such, the batteries (like a tesla) have a meter on them so then they're a few bars down, you put them on the charger. they never "go flat", unless perhaps they could over a year. 

Which doesn't fit the emergency medicine story that well because you'd be contending that you have a car that you haven't driven for 6 months or a year and the fact that it may not run is a complete surprise. 

I've watched my BIL let his car out, and can give you a more realistic scenario. You walk by the car, unplug it and then stand in the driveway and it backs out of the garage on its own and you get in. So when you're in a panic about your medication, you won't back the car into the garage door frame.


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## AlanY

Dabop said:


> And yet billions of cells are in daily use around the world- with a lower failure rate than lead acid batteries- including the ones that run my house- which mind you (unlike my previous leadacid batteries) I haven't touched once since their first installation and use- over a year ago...
> Set up,and totally ignored since then in terms of actually having to do a single thing to them, and I expect to continue to ignore them for the next 15-20 years, much like a fellow offgrid forum member, who has the exact same brand he first started using over a decade ago....


I don't think anyone doubts the efficiency of lithium ion batteries, but it is valid to point out they contain a substance that is both very toxic and very volatile. Probably not an issue when used as battery storage banks for buildings but, as I mentioned earlier, EVs that suffer heavy collisions have a habit of catching fire and completely burning out. I know that puts me off being in one. Also, our local amenity tip (Westhampnett, if anyone cares to google it) recently burned down and was closed for ages, with the cause being determined as a truck running over a discarded lithium ion battery which burst into flames. It is frightening enough that stupid people chuck these toxic timebombs away without the added risk of them burning down buildings.


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## Sachakins

Rorschach said:


> Every new build I have seen (certainly the ones around here anyway) all come with a private driveway or allocated parking for the flats. The problem is the vast majority of our housing stock does not have this as an option so unless we knock down all the houses and build new we are still looking at a big issue to solve.


But here there is flood of apartment new builds, and dense city building that unfortunately does not have the space and capacity for sufficient parking. Many builds are on existing brown field sites, not green field sites, so parking space is limited. Certainly out of town builds do have in general have private parking, but they are virtually all beyond affordable housing prices.


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## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> A much bigger issue than anything you have mentioned though is the simple problem of charging. At the moment there is insufficient infrastructure to charge large numbers of electric vehicles, not to mention the problems that will be faced by those that don't have a driveway or garage. You can't run an extension lead out of the 10th floor of a block of flats!
> Battery technology will (and must) improve. My own personal opinion is that we need a briefcase style battery that can be removed and taken indoors for charging, this saves the need for installing large swathes of on street charge points. Then again I am also of the opinion that batteries are not the way forward, hydrogen fuel cells are.


One solution to this is induction charging in the street. JLR and Coventry city are trialing some streets with this technology for on street parking. Quite high power charging with some advanced induction and power electronics.


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> That is always an issue when constrained by the laws of physics as per our current understanding. If you think that a lead acid cell can only deliver around 2.2 volts, no matter how big you make it then it starts to make you understand the challenges. We want a lot of power but in a small package, much easier if you used a trailer for the power pack, can be exchanged very easily rather than recharged and a lot more miles on a pack.


Yes, the only way out is to find different intrinsic properties of the materials. That has been the thrust of R&D into automotive batteries. Lead acid is in water which limits the potential to 2.2v. The Lithium ion is in a solvent with no water present so has a potential of 3.7v. 
This chart shows how different chemistries have enabled higher energy density to be developed. There are several practical reason that make Lead acid cost effective for ICE vehricles. However for EVs energy density is important for range. 
One confusion is energy density is sometimes given by weight (gravemetric )where 200wh/kg is good, or by volume where 400Wh/l is good. Li-ion is not that dense. So some companies quote one and some another.






The past 20 years has seen a huge increase in energy density. This graphic from Tesla is typical, energy density has doubled since 2010 and most roadmaps in EU and US have it doubling again as new technologies includng solid state batteries are developed.





This graphic shows the potential for new technologies. Lithium sulphur and solid state being two potential winners. The Li air and Zn air are very much research batteries but of interest to aviation as they are lighter on take off and scavenge air during flight. Energy density today is about 1/8 of the limits due to the physics of Lithium batteries


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> But Lithium batteries need babysitting, if you upset them you get an exothermic reaction which is not good. Over voltage, pulling to much current, high ambient temperature, short circuits and the need to maintain temperature during charging all can cause issues. It is interesting to note Lithium was first considered for batteries back in 1912 but took until the 1070's to hit the market.


Safety is the main consideration for commercial cells. The industry is generally very conservative. Some companies such as Tesla are pushing the technology so have the odd fire, whereas Nissan have a conservative approach, they have sold more EVs than any other makes and have NEVER HAD A FIRE- Tesla just overtaken Nissan in sales per month, but Nissan have sold way more than anyone else. The main manufacturers such as VW, Ford, JRL, Toyota take a very conservative approach as they don't want any reputational damage. A fuel tank is a hazard as it stores large amounts of energy, so its a similar risk management approach. There is a battery management systems that monitors cell packs and switches them out if any show abnormalities, such as temperature or strain excisions. Even power tools have a simple BM system to protect the battery and for safety. One test all cells have to pass for automotive compliance is the nail test. where the equivalent of a six inch nail is hammered through the pack. It must not catch fire to pass the test. Its must withstand most survivable accidents - similar to an ICE.


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## TominDales

JobandKnock said:


> Nice, but nowhere near good enough, though. Many tradesmen here, especially those who work on larger sites, on interior fit-out, etc use far smaller vehicles - think Transit Connect, Berlingo, VW Caddy Kangoo and the like. A tank like an F150 is just too big to get into city parking spaces in Europe. The problem is that when you are looking at a 600 to 900kg vehicles the current type available stuff (like the Kangoo EV) have insufficient range and load capacity. Try going from Manchester to Edinburgh with 750kg of tools and ironmongery in the back in any of the currently available small EV Van's and in cold weather you won't even get there. Another issue is that construction sites just don't have the necessary infrastructure to support a large number of electric vans (onany given day in the last 2 years my present main site would have needed anywhere from 50 to 200 chargers). So unless there is a major sea change in the way major contractors approach the job, then going electric isn't going to work. And that's before you start to consider the needs of guys living in flats or terraced houses without their own charge points at home.


My understanding on the manufactures role out plan is they are starting with the main family models first. One reason why the industry was pressing to keep 2040 as the phase out date was the sheer investment needed to change every model over. Its about £1bn for production line. So many of the vans you mention wont have decent choice until closer to 2030. Smaller companies with smaller balance sheets like JLR are finding it hard to invest at the pace required. The big guys such s VW and Toyota have the strength to do it and also the German government is pulling out every stop to help them achieve this. The way the regulations work, is companies are tasked over their whole range of vehicles, so if they switch the volume cars to EV they can achieve the Euro target emissions. So I expect vans further down the priority list.


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> Another point is that the actual grid is being stretched to it's limits by all these housing developments, it is like pluging many extension leads and adaptors into one socket and eventually something has to give. The whole topic of electric vehicles, addressing greenhouse gas emissions and enviromental pollution requires some very radical decisions and massive changes in society, one of which is choice. We do not need loads of vehicle manufacturers, these need to be cut down to a basic few all using common modular power packs and then reduce the use of single occupancy private vehicles for getting to work, yes we need a huge investment in basic public transport and not getting up and down the country faster in HS2. Then what about all the power hungry data centres, as our fanatical obsession with data gets more out of control then more of these are needed consuming huge levels of power. The US data centres apparently consume 90 Billion Kwh a year, that is about 40% more power than the entire UK.


Yes, this is a huge programme. £40bn over the next five years. UK Regulator Approves £40B of Grid Investment, But Is It Enough? . This has for once been long anticipated, the government set up an energy institute to look into this challenge in the early 2000. £40bn is not considered enough the electricity grid was neglected compared to the gas grid for years. But it has had attention over the past 10 years and there is now a considerable amount of engineering capacity being created, so I suspect if there is a squeeze they will be able to work through it. Because electricity demand will rise, there is a good commercial re-investment case for the grid.


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## TominDales

Spectric said:


> There are only so many hours in a day, I think the customer would not be happy if you were charging day rates and part of that was sitting in a service station waiting for the battery to charge. Imagine if your heating was down and you were freezing but the guy apologises for the delay as he is waiting for his van to recharge, no they have a way to go before these vehicles are fit for anything other than social and pleasure use.


I think two things will mitigate this. Firstly I cant see vans being replaced for a few years and secondly fast charging is being developed. I've seen a system for a US company that is developing USP systems that can charge in a five minutes it is a cell with very low internal resistance and does not change in size as it charges and discharges. Over time all sites will have charging points. As I'm mentioned earlier I've seen a project run by JLR, Warwick uni (WMG) and Coventry council to fit a street in Coventry with a trial set of under the road inductive chargers in parking bays. All of this technology seems a bit far fetched right now, but if ICE phase out becomes mandatory then the investments will have to be made. I still find it amazing that only 20 years ago I bought my first digital phone and had just started searching the web from home down a slow dial up line.
I do worry that the curbside infrastructure will not be fully installed by 2030, this date did not have industry backing, they were holding out for a 2040 date. I suspect there will be some exceptions made to the 2030 date in a few localities and vehicle types.


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## TominDales

Sachakins said:


> 83 rapid chargers! Wow, how will that cope with a day
> So rapid charge is about 20 mins not an hour, so 3 cars per hour, so a maximum of 249 per hour, that's 5976 a 24 hour day.
> Given the distribution curve for traffic use, the curve is actual spread around 12 hours, so that means only about 3000 vehicl
> The average wet fuel forecourt can handle 12 to 15 cars per hour per pump, say 10 pumps, that's upto 150 cars per hour. That's 1800 per 12 hours and that's only one petrol station.
> 
> Proves that the infrastructure is decades away.
> 
> Oh and how many others at the same timd will also be "having their tea and sod off home" as you put it.?


There is a lot of development into rapid charging, by 2030 the charge-time will be down to about 5 minutes. However you do raise an interesting question as to whether we will have all the infrastructure in place by then. The industry was pushing for 2040 as date for phase out as it allowed more time for the massive investments to be made. The government forced through the law changes to 2035 and then to 2030 on the back of a few press campaigns, and we know that this prime minister does not listen to advice, but does his own thing. So there will likely be a mad scramble to meet 2030 and I suspect some slippage.


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## TominDales

Trainee neophyte said:


> The simplest solution would be to have an electric vehicle, but hire an old fashioned evilcar for long journeys. If the carbon fuel is banned, then don't make the journey. The interesting thing in all of this is the acceptance, and in some quarters apparent relish, that everyone is going to be materially poorer, with fewer choices and higher costs.
> 
> That is not how progress is supposed to work.


There may be another option. Sustainable aviation fuels are being developed, ie fuel that is not derived from oil but from biological routes or from CO2 captured from the air and processed up to kerosene. This is 70% more expensive to produce right now, but may be made on a vast scale for aviation and shipping, so could be supplied for residue ICE vehicles but at a premium price.


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## TominDales

Amateur said:


> All these comments are fine as we wave the green flag. However like covid, unless the whole world moves in the same direction at the same time, it's all pointless.
> What exactly are we trying to achieve alone here?
> Let's Go metric they said? Get the whole world on a standard....no more of that whitworth rubbish either.
> That was a good idea too until the US decided they were staying in feet and inches And we were already up to our necks in the brown stuff pushing forward.
> And what of China? Taking away their coal fired industries. Stopping buying cast iron products?
> Good lord!
> And those rockets now being sent up by the thousand......
> is it not more important just to leave this dying world behind, because there's more investment going into that than white elephant batteries?
> Carbon footprint my a#####s.


Actually China is investing more than any country in low carbon energy, it has more wind and solar power than any country. It produced more EVs than any other country. It is very vulnerable to climate change so has a strong incentive to change, as does India (which is further behind in developing alternative energy). The problem with China is two fold, it is rapidly industrialising so its consumers are are going from very low to more normal rates of individual energy consumption. This growth is expanding all energy sectors, renewable and traditional coal based energy. The other problem is many of the regional state governments in china have invested in coal to support their local industry, they have tended to ignore the centres policies - quite common in china, being a huge country. However the central government is beginning to tackle this issue and is shutting down old smokestack companies quite ruthlessly. The president announced that China would achieve net zero by 2060/70, which is only 20 years behind the UK and given their current rate of growth that is quite a radicle target. I suspect their target has planning behind it, more than the UKs governments does. I also suspect they will bring their target forward as climate change has increasingly negative effects in China.


----------



## Rorschach

TominDales said:


> One solution to this is induction charging in the street. JLR and Coventry city are trialing some streets with this technology for on street parking. Quite high power charging with some advanced induction and power electronics.



Can you see that being installed in poor neighbourhoods though?


----------



## Amateur

TominDales said:


> Actually China is investing more than any country in low carbon energy, it has more wind and solar power than any country. It produced more EVs than any other country. It is very vulnerable to climate change so has a strong incentive to change, as does India (which is further behind in developing alternative energy). The problem with China is two fold, it is rapidly industrialising so its consumers are are going from very low to more normal rates of individual energy consumption. This growth is expanding all energy sectors, renewable and traditional coal based energy. The other problem is many of the regional state governments in china have invested in coal to support their local industry, they have tended to ignore the centres policies - quite common in china, being a huge country. However the central government is beginning to tackle this issue and is shutting down old smokestack companies quite ruthlessly. The president announced that China would achieve net zero by 2060/70, which is only 20 years behind the UK and given their current rate of growth that is quite a radicle target. I suspect their target has planning behind it, more than the UKs governments does. I also suspect they will bring their target forward as climate change has increasingly negative effects in China.



I cant agree with your optimism and what you quote. 
This is China we are talking about, and while they spout what the west wants to hear they continue down their own path.
There are failing in the rosy picture you paint. 
Firstly the push for more coal power stations goes directly against their climate change goals.
In fact emmisions increased by 2% and 65% of the annual growth in energy consumption came from fossil fuels.
But the main fact is that to sustain Chinas growth, which has been mightily hampered by covid, they have to continue churning out products for the western world, and it doesnt matter how China dresses this up, its entire economy relies on being a cheap sub contractor at the moment, with a cheap labour force and a government that ignores human rights.
China has little intention of changing the way it makes money at the moment Climate change or not. 
And who in the western world will upset the equilibrium, despite the vile way we continue to support China by buying its goods?
Can you imagine the uproar when all the lefties and wokes cant get a set of stick on acrylic nails for under fifety quid?

China will continue telling the West what it wants to hear and doing what China does best.
Looking after China..
....... 
and low and betide anyone who believes what come out of the dragons mouth


----------



## CornishWoodworker

The argument for EV use is strong but simply unaffordable for a vast majority of motorists.
So unless you are happy to rent an EV( PCP or lease) then they are not anywhere in the ballpark when it comes to cost and I'm not wiping out a quarter of my saving to buy one, when I can buy an acceptable car for under 20k
Yes, if charged at home, the cost is low but as we all know, when the crossover point is reached , the government will hammer the public charge points with taxes and connection charges.
Anyway , I couldn't get a rapid charger in my immediate vicinity, as the network provider has just maxed out on capacity without upgrading the local network. There are 4 rapid chargers in households nearby.
Look up EV infrastructure plans in your local electricity network suppliers website, it makes interesting reading


----------



## Danieljw

If it is a motorised form of transport, at least a proficiency test should become law. (That should be for cyclists too)
Road tax and insurance should be compulsory.
All other road user laws should apply.
Same as any car or motorbike.
Is it not discrimination, cyclist over motorists? Soon they will be saying you don't need to have a license if you are lgbt


----------



## Sachakins

TominDales said:


> Yes, this is a huge programme. £40bn over the next five years. UK Regulator Approves £40B of Grid Investment, But Is It Enough? . This has for once been long anticipated, the government set up an energy institute to look into this challenge in the early 2000. £40bn is not considered enough the electricity grid was neglected compared to the gas grid for years. But it has had attention over the past 10 years and there is now a considerable amount of engineering capacity being created, so I suspect if there is a squeeze they will be able to work through it. Because electricity demand will rise, there is a good commercial re-investment case for the grid.


Wasn't HS2 also estimated at £40bn, and look were that is now.
Now there's a budget spend with minimal gain for end user. Just like the £12bn for smart meters.

So cost projections just finger in air guesses I think.


----------



## Jacob

Danieljw said:


> If it is a motorised form of transport, at least a proficiency test should become law. (That should be for cyclists too)
> Road tax and insurance should be compulsory.
> All other road user laws should apply.
> Same as any car or motorbike.
> Is it not discrimination, cyclist over motorists? Soon they will be saying you don't need to have a license if you are lgbt


Yes it's discrimination in favour of transport which is very safe, cheap, with zero carbon footprint, non polluting, silent, available to all including children, very good for your health, requires little in terms of infrastructure and roads. 
Difficult to see a connection but if you are worried about lgbt issues maybe you need to talk to somebody?


----------



## Danieljw

Amateur said:


> I cant agree with your optimism and what you quote.
> This is China we are talking about, and while they spout what the west wants to hear they continue down their own path.
> There are failing in the rosy picture you paint.
> Firstly the push for more coal power stations goes directly against their climate change goals.
> In fact emmisions increased by 2% and 65% of the annual growth in energy consumption came from fossil fuels.
> But the main fact is that to sustain Chinas growth, which has been mightily hampered by covid, they have to continue churning out products for the western world, and it doesnt matter how China dresses this up, its entire economy relies on being a cheap sub contractor at the moment, with a cheap labour force and a government that ignores human rights.
> China has little intention of changing the way it makes money at the moment Climate change or not.
> And who in the western world will upset the equilibrium, despite the vile way we continue to support China by buying its goods?
> Can you imagine the uproar when all the lefties and wokes cant get a set of stick on acrylic nails for under fifety quid?
> 
> China will continue telling the West what it wants to hear and doing what China does best.
> Looking after China..
> .......
> and low and betide anyone who believes what come out of the dragons mouth


Perfectly correct.


----------



## Rorschach

Jacob said:


> Yes it's discrimination in favour of transport which is very safe, cheap, with zero carbon footprint, non polluting, silent, available to all including children, very good for your health, requires little in terms of infrastructure and roads.
> Difficult to see a connection but if you are worried about lgbt issues maybe you need to talk to somebody?



How do I bring half a dozen bags of sand & cement home on my cycle?


----------



## John Brown

Rorschach said:


> How do I bring half a dozen bags of sand & cement home on my cycle?


One at a time.


----------



## Droogs

carefully


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> One at a time.



With the hills around here I think I would have to just fill my pockets up great escape style.


----------



## MikeJhn




----------



## Droogs

Rorsach's question has sprung one in my mind.
Given that it is now feasible to 3D print a house and that there are some of these machines claiming to use recycled building material (as much as 45% - I think) in the paste mix they use. Would these printed house not be of an inferior strength in their structure as I have always thought you can't reuse mortar of old bricks. ie you just crush it and mix it up to build a new wall. Am I missing something, does the reused material just act as an inert filler like hardcore?


----------



## Rorschach

MikeJhn said:


> On a trailer?



Not really a feasible option unless you live somewhere flat, it's darn near impossible to cycle up the hill near me, most people push their bikes up it. Add a trailer with a 100+kg of building supplies? Not gonna happen.


----------



## TominDales

Sachakins said:


> Wasn't HS2 also estimated at £40bn, and look were that is now.
> Now there's a budget spend with minimal gain for end user. Just like the £12bn for smart meters.
> 
> So cost projections just finger in air guesses I think.


I think the key difference is this is a private company market driven plan whereas HS2 is using taxpayers money. This investment is in known technology and markets by private capital. The grid is owned by 3 private companies in the England its National grip plc (owned by investors including Maquarery of Australia) and they charge the generators and consumers for using it. They are using private finance to do it. They are pressing to make this investment, so it wont be taxpayers money that is invested. They want to make this investment as they make good returns on capital, they expect to generate £3.2bn extra revenue from this investment ie about 8% which is way better for the pension funds than UK government bonds. The issue about it, is that we the consumer are taking the investment risk through our electricity bills, see later.
The companies expect to get a payback as they plan to sell more electricity to consumers to charge their cars (ie money to the grid not the oil companies) and eventually the switch away from gas. They get paid by both the generators - new wind farms etc, and the consumer. Your question raises an interesting point, why is Ofgem the regulator giving sanction to this investment if its by private companies? Its because, it is a regulated market, we consumers, have no choice but to buy from the grid, so if they make poor investment decisions that will impact on our bills. If the grid owners spend the £40bn and the market does not grow, then we will pay more per unit than we would have done. So there is a difference between this and HS2, in that we will be paying for it through our electricity bill, either by paying a similar price to what we pay now (there are reasons to believe the price could decline as cheaper power becomes available) but consuming more energy gives the companies their payback. Conversely, if the market does not grow, we can expect to see the price per unit rise to pay for an unnecessary investment. The argument in the article I referenced as about the guaranteed capital return of 0.54% that pretty much incentivise the industry to make capital investment. So the regulators role is to due diligence the need and the efficiency of these investments.

The other factor is the grid has suffered from years of underinvestment as heavy industry declined in the 1980s early 1990s. Transmission losses are currently about 9% of the power. By modernising the infrastructure and installing some efficient interconnects we will reduce the transmission losses. This exercise was last done in the mid 1960s when they had a simple solution of increasing the transmission voltage from 265kv to 400kv which could be done on existing power lines. Then the problem was generation was in the midlands coal fields and consumption was in the home counties. This time round new capital infrastructure is needed to boost voltage and power transmission eg the Western HVDC link from Scotland to North West England/Wales in 2013, which cost £1bn. Now the issue is connecting North Sea wind farms to the consumers in the south east.
In simple terms if EVs take off our cost per unit of electricity will be lower over the longter, but if Evs don't then expect to pay more per unit!


----------



## MikeJhn

Of course once we all have no choice but to use electric everything the price/tax will skyrocket, as with Diesel when we where all persuaded to buy Diesel cars.


----------



## TominDales

Amateur said:


> I cant agree with your optimism and what you quote.
> This is China we are talking about, and while they spout what the west wants to hear they continue down their own path.
> There are failing in the rosy picture you paint.
> Firstly the push for more coal power stations goes directly against their climate change goals.
> In fact emmisions increased by 2% and 65% of the annual growth in energy consumption came from fossil fuels.
> But the main fact is that to sustain Chinas growth, which has been mightily hampered by covid, they have to continue churning out products for the western world, and it doesnt matter how China dresses this up, its entire economy relies on being a cheap sub contractor at the moment, with a cheap labour force and a government that ignores human rights.
> China has little intention of changing the way it makes money at the moment Climate change or not.
> And who in the western world will upset the equilibrium, despite the vile way we continue to support China by buying its goods?
> Can you imagine the uproar when all the lefties and wokes cant get a set of stick on acrylic nails for under fifety quid?
> 
> China will continue telling the West what it wants to hear and doing what China does best.
> Looking after China..
> .......
> and low and betide anyone who believes what come out of the dragons mouth


I agree with you that China will do what it wants and will use its PR/propaganda internally and externally to promote its interests, quite ruthlessly. However they are vulnerable to climate change themselves, more so that we are in the north northern hemisphere. Its for this reason that I belive they are taking climate change serously. The evidence seems to support it. Clean energy investment worldwide by major country 2019 | Statista. They are making huge investment in green energy, even the size of their economy its 15 times what the UK is doing.







Its also its in their interests to encourage and support the west in investing in climate change, as you say we are all in it together so we have a mutual interest in making these investments. Finally there is an economic gain to be a leader in a new market

. The Chinese culture and politics is to play a long game, they have done this for centuries and for the past 45 years in economics and politics, their stance over Hong Kong etc was to play the long game, wait for 1999 and treaty revision and grind their way through to where they want to go. President Xi seems unusual to me in his hurry to change things and his outward aggression and ruthlessness, we have not seen a dictator of his ilk in China since Mao, but nevertheless the Chinese culture is to play the long game, and they will more easily find the political will to invest in climate change over the long term than we will.
The Chinese government is highly technocratic, its dominated by engineers and economists that are planning for gain over the long term. Its in this context that I see optimism for climate policy in China. They are less influenced (but not immune) by short term politics and they have great power to influence internal debate in their country.

Climate change is not a zero sum game, unless the majority of industrialised nations adopt similar environmental policies no-one will see the benefit. Hence the politics behind COP26, the Kyoto and Paris protocols. China is no different to the US, EU and UK in needing to balance medium term growth with climate policy, so their approach is nuanced in that they are rapidly urbanising and industrialising but at the same time they need to improve local air and water quality and mitigate climate change for their own self interested reasons.
There is a short to medium term economic incentive. Once technology reaches a tipping point then there will be money to be made. So smart investors will chose when to switch from backing existing money earners such as oil and gas to new energy investments. The Chinese have an eye of this prize too. They are no different to other nations in looking to make an economic gain from these. Even in the USA despite Trumps ambivalence to climate change, US industry continue to invest in wind and Solar and disinvest in coal as the new industries are reaching an economic tipping point. I'm almost more concerned about this aspect of chinas prowess than I am about their seriousness in tackling climate change - after all its a chinese wind energy company that bought the Nissan giga battery factory in Sunderland, so far that is the UKs only Li-ion giga factory that is in production.

I share your concerns about Chinese economic dominance and many of their underhand approaches to competition, in fact it was a policy that Trump got right to challenge the Chinese on. They have hugely benefited from joining the WTO, but have cheated on a large scale and the WTO has been far to slow to react. I work for a tech company and we have had to install highly sophisticated software to protect us Chinese and Russian hacks. One of our sites employs ex Gurkhas to keep intruders out (its a sensitive factory and a Chinese company sprung up opposite on the business park) - the police have commented on the state intruders get handed over in. I think the UKs investments post covid and in infrastructure should have a strong policy of national resilience against unfair competition. 
I'm not sure that the economic data support the view that China has suffered economically from Covid, from an initial hit last spring, they have seen record export demand (from western consumers) and the economy grew 18% last year that is a record for the past 8 years. Breakneck growth following industrialisation in late 90s to 2010 have seen more modest growth of 6% as they the economy has matured. In fact national policy was to move away from export driven growth to consumer driven growth reflecting the maturity of their economy, Covid seems to have set this back. Demand from china has been so great that it has distorted global shipping and lead to shortages of containers etc. I share your concern







concern about our reliance on Chinese manufactured goods. I'd like to see a better balance in trade. But I do see common cause with China on climate change. Hope that makes sense.


----------



## TominDales

CornishWoodworker said:


> The argument for EV use is strong but simply unaffordable for a vast majority of motorists.
> So unless you are happy to rent an EV( PCP or lease) then they are not anywhere in the ballpark when it comes to cost and I'm not wiping out a quarter of my saving to buy one, when I can buy an acceptable car for under 20k
> Yes, if charged at home, the cost is low but as we all know, when the crossover point is reached , the government will hammer the public charge points with taxes and connection charges.
> Anyway , I couldn't get a rapid charger in my immediate vicinity, as the network provider has just maxed out on capacity without upgrading the local network. There are 4 rapid chargers in households nearby.
> Look up EV infrastructure plans in your local electricity network suppliers website, it makes interesting reading


The UK EV market is still quite immature, its really only just moving from the early adopter stage. My view working in the supply industry (battery materials) is costs will fall as production ramps up. The deadline of 2030 is a problem for the industry as its has huge investments to make, but all the indications are that the cost of EVs will fall. One issue is that the running costs are much lower than ICE - the folk in Nissan in Sunderland tell me the sales of after parts such as exhausts and brakes etc has plummeted as electric motors are so reliable. So at point in the near future, there will be a case to pay capital up front for lower running costs - I bit like LED bulbs, that will be hard for some consumers to take advantage of, but over the next 10 years we will see EVs become cheaper than ICE as manufactures ramp down ICE product and ramp up EVs.


----------



## Fas4wd

Droogs said:


> no it aint, if it was you would know. Things change guys - adapt improvise and overcome or die by the wayside.


Things are changing for the worse in the name of climate change and we are being charged for it. Everything is seen as a revenue stream for those who govern. That fool, mayor of london has imposed ridiculous rules and fines, at the detriment of business and residents and the air is far worse than before. People of london cut their noses to spite their face by voting him back in.


----------



## TominDales

Droogs said:


> Rorsach's question has sprung one in my mind.
> Given that it is now feasible to 3D print a house and that there are some of these machines claiming to use recycled building material (as much as 45% - I think) in the paste mix they use. Would these printed house not be of an inferior strength in their structure as I have always thought you can't reuse mortar of old bricks. ie you just crush it and mix it up to build a new wall. Am I missing something, does the reused material just act as an inert filler like hardcore?


Interesting point. Quite a bit of 3D print PR is just that. Its great for some purposes such as rapid prototyping and making of scare parts but there are a lot of challenges in replacing existing manufacturing processes. Trying to get the strength into a composite structure - ie one with binders and aggregates or fibres is a major challenge for 3D and subject to a lot of UK university work in reality some of the problems are really very hard to commercialise.
On the other hand, progress is being made in re-using old construction materials. Its a very active development space right now and about time too in my view, We desperately need to figure out how to avoid landfill by re-purposing old aggregates etc. The first generation of wind farms are approaching end of life so a lot of thought is going into what to do with the old blades and how to make the replacements last longer (relatively easy to do) but be made in a way they can be recycled or repurposed into construction (much more challenging).


----------



## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> Can you see that being installed in poor neighbourhoods though?


That will depend to some extent of political will. Cars are so essential that there will be a case to treat it as an essential asset like the post or interenet and there will be a mixture of subsidies and a requirement for the operating companies to cross-subsidise rural and poor areas from income generated in richer areas.

The other technology trend that will help towns and cities will be the rise of autonomous vehicles. There are companies with ambitions to hire out cars by the hour in a similar way to Airbnb. Most cars sit in car parks doing nothing for most of the day. There will be a market for cheap autonomous taxis, the car takes someone to work and then goes of to do another delivery before returning to pick the person up later in the day. That re-use of assets is predicted to lower overall car volumes. this trend is being seen in big cities with good urban transport and also the uber effect. Several cities are seeing this, in Paris, some of the underground car parks that were built under the Paris streets in the 1960s and 1970s are being re-purposed for other uses as car ownership has declined.


----------



## Rorschach

TominDales said:


> That will depend to some extent of political will. Cars are so essential that there will be a case to treat it as an essential asset like the post or interenet



Poor areas tend to have less post offices, slower internet, less community facilities in general. A sudden change about to happen? better watch out for pig turds landing on your EV in your driveway.


----------



## D_W

TominDales said:


> That will depend to some extent of political will. Cars are so essential that there will be a case to treat it as an essential asset like the post or interenet and there will be a mixture of subsidies and a requirement for the operating companies to cross-subsidise rural and poor areas from income generated in richer areas.
> 
> The other technology trend that will help towns and cities will be the rise of autonomous vehicles. There are companies with ambitions to hire out cars by the hour in a similar way to Airbnb. Most cars sit in car parks doing nothing for most of the day. There will be a market for cheap autonomous taxis, the car takes someone to work and then goes of to do another delivery before returning to pick the person up later in the day. That re-use of assets is predicted to lower overall car volumes. this trend is being seen in big cities with good urban transport and also the uber effect. Several cities are seeing this, in Paris, some of the underground car parks that were built under the Paris streets in the 1960s and 1970s are being re-purposed for other uses as car ownership has declined.



Not sure what you have there, but even in a moderate metro area like where I live (1.2MM in the county with the city and 2.2MM total in the metro area), you can rent cars by the hour with app. 

We have a vernacular, let's say, road system here since it's appalachia - you can't just lay out a grid. Uber tested autonomous/self driving volvo SUVs for quite some time here and they did well. I think one person was hit (killed?) on a bike, and you may say "OH GOD!!", but I'm not sure with as many miles as they drove that they didn't have an overall better safety record than cars with drivers intervening. 

The way the system worked, a driver was still in the car with their hands under the wheel ready to intervene. This is a stupid idea in terms of hoping for thousands of hours of sitting and doing nothing and thinking that a $10 an hour driver is going to react like a cat at the one instance the software doesn't recognize something (like a bicyclist swerving at the last second in front of a car). 

Amazon has supposedly ordered 10k or 100k electric glider platforms with the expectation now that the operational cost will overall be lower than gas/diesel (not hard to believe given that those things are driven stop and go with lots of traffic - same for garbage trucks, etc.). It isn't an altruistic or charitable thing they're doing testing out platforms in bulk numbers - they bid the gliders at a level where the total vehicle cost would be the same as gas/diesel. Unless they turn out to be horribly unreliable and unfixable (doubtful), they'll make more money with them. 

I understand they have a range of something like 100 miles, which keeps the cost down, but if you think about driving 100 miles delivering packages in the suburbs, there's no way they'll ever drive 100 miles in a day.


----------



## Crazy Dave

Rorschach said:


> As has been pointed out many times in this thread, simply switching petrol to electric isn't going to work, petrol takes literally a few minutes to put 4-500 miles of range into your vehicle, electricity takes MUCH longer for less range.


I assume you are talking from your own experience?
Because I am.

Thanks for your interest.


----------



## John Brown

Danieljw said:


> If it is a motorised form of transport, at least a proficiency test should become law. (That should be for cyclists too)
> Road tax and insurance should be compulsory.
> All other road user laws should apply.
> Same as any car or motorbike.
> Is it not discrimination, cyclist over motorists? Soon they will be saying you don't need to have a license if you are lgbt


That's hilarious. I think you've misread something there. What's actually going to happen is that you will be banned from driving or riding any form of mechanical transport, motorized or otherwise, unless you are LGBT, or LBW at the minimum.


----------



## clogs

I just love this thread.....have learned a lot....
as for induction chargeing.....no hope.....some moron will dig it up, thats if a pot hole/sink hole doesn't trash it in weeks.....
the gas board/elec companies and even the phone comp cant work together now after a century of digging up the roads....
what chance have u got with a new kid on the block.....
on the lighter side, D_W, do you have pot holes in the US....the UK road system is like a cocked up Swiss chesse...and with no money of incentive to fix it.....but will happily waste BILLIONS on and uneccesary new rail system....JOBS for the boys and another pocket filler for those in the know.....
Luckily for me I live in a warm sunny place......extra/higher charges to recharge my future EV would be enough for me to go off grid and stick my fingers up to those in power.....but we cant all do it.....


----------



## Rorschach

Crazy Dave said:


> I assume you are talking from your own experience?
> Because I am.
> 
> Thanks for your interest.



Yes, I own a petrol car and I can put 500 miles worth of petrol into in less than 5 minutes. I am assuming you own an EV, can you put 500 miles of range into it in less than 5 minutes?


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> That's hilarious. I think you've misread something there. What's actually going to happen is that you will be banned from driving or riding any form of mechanical transport, motorized or otherwise, unless you are LGBT, or LBW at the minimum.



LBW?


----------



## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> Poor areas tend to have less post offices, slower internet, less community facilities in general. A sudden change about to happen? better watch out for pig turds landing on your EV in your driveway.


Agree, its a likely situation, even with incentives and subsidies, you are probably predicting the likely picture. These areas will be less well covered by all these facilities and services. Same with doctors surgeries, quality schools, bus services trains, are similarly affected. It depends on how the national political mood swings in the future.
My know-how is related on what insights from my work on technology, I can see it evolving and investment being made in manufacturing, so I have some feel for the likely cost of technology. For these wider issues, its down to a political consensus, its swung from collectivist/ redistributive to individual atomised during my lifetime, the pendulum may be swinging back with talk of leveling up. I don't know.


----------



## MikeJhn

Perhaps some of you are not old enough to remember the smog that used to hang over London and most other major cities of the world, but we have got cleaner by the decade, unfortunately I don't think electric vehicles are the answer, because we can't support the infrastructure without Nuclear power, I admit I don't know the answer, but it certainly is not wind power, perhaps wave generation needs to be updated, can anyone tell me why the Greens have not jumped on the bandwagon about the wind turbines and the massive resources needed to service, maintain and build them.


----------



## John Brown

Rorschach said:


> LBW?


Lesbian/bisexual/wicker.
Try to keep up with the modern terminology.


----------



## Rorschach

MikeJhn said:


> Perhaps some of you are not old enough to remember the smog that used to hang over London and most other major cities of the world, but we have got cleaner by the decade, unfortunately I don't think electric vehicles are the answer, because we can't support the infrastructure without Nuclear power, I admit I don't know the answer, but it certainly is not wind power, perhaps wave generation needs to be updated, can anyone tell me why the Greens have not jumped on the bandwagon about the wind turbines and the massive resources needed to service, maintain and build them.



Because greens aren't interested in innovation that leads to a higher quality of life and happier, they want regressive action, misery and depopulation, unless you are rich, in which case you can do what you like.


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> Lesbian/bisexual/wicker.
> Try to keep up with the modern terminology.



Sorry, it's hard when it changes every 5 minutes.


----------



## Jacob

What's a wicker? Is it much fun?


----------



## John Brown

Jacob said:


> What's a wicker? Is it much fun?


No. Totally the opposite.


----------



## Droogs

isnt that druids and virgin sacrafices


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> isnt that druids and virgin sacrafices



Don't be silly, that's Wigan.


----------



## Crazy Dave

Rorschach said:


> Yes, I own a petrol car and I can put 500 miles worth of petrol into in less than 5 minutes. I am assuming you own an EV, can you put 500 miles of range into it in less than 5 minutes?


Sounds expensive to me, I don't need 500 MLS range but I do supplement my electricity with solar power which means I can drive for free well at least part of if and a super charger can charge my car in around two hours from flat but I never run it flat just like you won't run your tank until empty. So how often do you need to drive 500mls in one go, just curious.

BTW you don't have to assume that I drive an EV because I made it perfectly clear in my first post that you replied to.


----------



## Crazy Dave




----------



## D_W

I've driven more than 300 miles in a day once in my life. But something does come to mind for BIL and his tesla 3 - it takes more or less overnight on his home charger for his car to go from empty to full - but it costs about 3 cents a mile (his electric rate is 10.5 cents a kw/hr, lots cheaper than mine is further west, but for me, it would be about 4 1/2 cents a mile). 

My wife's car is costing around 20 cents a mile at the moment.


----------



## Rorschach

Crazy Dave said:


> Sounds expensive to me, I don't need 500 MLS range but I do supplement my electricity with solar power which means I can drive for free well at least part of if and a super charger can charge my car in around two hours from flat but I never run it flat just like you won't run your tank until empty. So how often do you need to drive 500mls in one go, just curious.
> 
> BTW you don't have to assume that I drive an EV because I made it perfectly clear in my first post that you replied to.



I usually top up at a quarter tank. Do I drive 500 miles in one go, not generally, but I do 300 miles + often enough that an EV with current tech would not be suitable. I did 700 miles over 2 days last week, no opportunity for an overnight charge so would have taken me twice as long if I had to stop to charge at service stations. I did one 5 minute petrol stop.


----------



## Crazy Dave

Rorschach said:


> I usually top up at a quarter tank. Do I drive 500 miles in one go, not generally, but I do 300 miles + often enough that an EV with current tech would not be suitable. I did 700 miles over 2 days last week, no opportunity for an overnight charge so would have taken me twice as long if I had to stop to charge at service stations. I did one 5 minute petrol stop.



Then I gracefully accept your point, an EV could do that for you but the cost of it would be high an example is the Best *range electric car*: Tesla Model S Plaid+: 520 miles. Data from Google.


----------



## Rorschach

@Crazy Dave RRP £130k, that's worth more than the flat I live in, the flat I rent because I can't afford to buy it. I drive a 15 year old car and it's not because I like the retro styling.


----------



## Crazy Dave

Rorschach said:


> @Crazy Dave RRP £130k, that's worth more than the flat I live in, the flat I rent because I can't afford to buy it. I drive a 15 year old car and it's not because I like the retro styling.


Please don't think I'm some rich git with all the toys he can dream of because that definitely isn't the case here and I fully understand where you're coming from.
For me it was a necessity to furnish myself with cheap to run low maintenance transport as I'm no longer physically capable of servicing an ICE car myself due to ill health. I bought my EV with a loan against my home because being on benefits I'm never going to pay it off so will no doubt die in debt and the mortgage company can have the lot. BTW not married, no kids.

Thank you for the stimulating conversation. God bless you and be safe.


----------



## JobandKnock

Rorschach said:


> LBW?


A cricketing term, I believe


----------



## MikeJhn

I make regular trips of 300miles and trips of 500miles every other month, so electric is not an option.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

More deprived and less well off areas are likely to be less well provided with EV recharging facilities. No great surprise - so far as I am aware current fuel stations are provided entirely by the private sector on a "for profit" basis. 

Why should EV charging points be any different?


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Solar panels are now ludicrously cheap: I just replaced 40 panels (10kW output) with 28 panels with marginally more output for under £5,000. I paid 6 or more times that for the originals 10 years ago. 

According to https://ecocostsavings.com/average-electric-car-kwh-per-mile/ you need 34kW hours to travel 100 miles, so a 10kw panel system (which is a fairly hefty area of panels) would need a minimum of 3 hours of sunshine to replace that energy. If you park your car at home, and don't travel more than 100 miles per day, then that might just do you (except in December and January or anywhere north of Birmingham). 

If you commute to work, and don't work the night shift, your car is not connected to your panels when they have output, so you either need to swap the electricity with the grid (or sell it or similar) or store it in a battery to charge the car at night. More expense, and less efficient. 

It only really works if you don't do enough miles to justify the expense of self - generating your own electricity (or live in London, where your car is mostly stationary when in use?) Really annoying, because I have a load of no longer very efficient panels that I can't really put to good use. I'm looking to power my water pumps , as that is my major electrical expense. Travel will have to wait until I can buy a 15 year old Nissan leaf for peanuts.


----------



## Droogs

Ford just released the EPA figures for the F150 - 230 - 300 miles carrying a 1000lb load or over 400 mile no cargo


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> Ford just released the EPA figures for the F150 - 230 - 300 miles carrying a 1000lb load or over 400 mile no cargo



Not much use for us here though is it?


----------



## John Brown

I find the strange whining noise upsetting.


----------



## Droogs

@Rorschach Why not? Same system will be used in new BEV Transit van, lighter chassis, more cargo capacity similar range. The resistance you put up about living in a way that helps you and yours and those around you live longer healthier lives, while not actually having to do very much in order to have a postive impact, is truly epic, unless of course you're able to divert everybody else's cash into your pocket doing so. Yeah yeah we know your poor and can only afford a 2 donkey power trabant because you need to save up for 70 years to be able to buy the porch on your dream home. Most of the people on the planet are far worse off than you are and the majority rent for most of their live. If you can't afford a prick and ping house then do something about it; either politically or financially. Tell us what you actually make and sell and then we may be able to help you do/sell more rather than being our resident secret squirrel about your woodworking business. Buy some agricultural land and put a caravan on it - live there and begin the process of getting it's use changed and build your own home. You can get a very good and efficient and inexpensive home from cob (clay sand and straw). All available where you are for very very much cheapness ie free. Or do some research and seize unregistered/abanddoned land and then use it and build on it- get that process going and in 10 years you own it outright along with a nice house. There are loads of ways you can get out of your supposed poverty trap, I know, I've been in far worse, lived in a bush in a park for a year & ate out of the skip behind the super market and the chip shop.


----------



## Droogs

John Brown said:


> I find the strange whining noise upsetting.


don't worry @Rorschach will stop soon


----------



## Rorschach

@Droogs I simply meant the F150 isn't going to be released in the UK and even if it was you would never be able to park the blooming thing


----------



## Droogs

Rorschach said:


> @Droogs I simply meant the F150 isn't going to be released in the UK and even if it was you would never be able to park the blooming thing


They are thinking about it, but the point is that it shows what is possibly coming our way to power all Fords


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> They are thinking about it, but the point is that it shows what is possibly coming our way to power all Fords



Well it will be interesting for certain to see where it goes. I am not against progress, I am against forced progress that only benefits small sections of society and penalises the masses which is what I am seeing at the moment.


----------



## Blackswanwood

Rorschach said:


> Well it will be interesting for certain to see where it goes. I am not against progress, I am against forced progress that only benefits small sections of society and penalises the masses which is what I am seeing at the moment.


I don’t readily recognise the situation as you portray it Mr R

The way I look at it is the overall benefit of successfully moving away from ICE is shared by the rich and poor alike - a better environment. We have 8/9 years to get there and technology is advancing .... the deadline is a nudge to get industry to take up the challenge. In that time (and beyond as the secondhand market will remain) we can all continue to use ICE if we choose. I would expect nearer the time whoever is in power will be mindful of the need to that those with lower incomes don’t get left behind.


----------



## Rorschach

Blackswanwood said:


> I don’t readily recognise the situation as you portray it Mr R



That's a fair comment, I don't know what the future will bring, I am just point out observations based on my personal circumstances and those of the people that live around me. If you live in an affluent area where everyone has a driveway for instance, the idea of charging your car at home not only seems like a sensible thing to do, but actually is more appealing than going out to the petrol station. If you are retired or work from home or an office nearby, the drawbacks of car charging and travelling for work don't readily make themselves apparent. I am just trying to put forward situations which some may not have thought about, I had said it before that the general membership here seems to occupy a certain social class that is not very representative of the majority of the populous, threads like these help us to learn from each other.

I took a walk yesterday afternoon around my area and along the very long street which I live on. I paid attention to how many houses actually had a reasonable opportunity to charge their vehicle at their house, either a driveway or garage. I had estimated in a previous post that it was approx 10% that could do so. I actually surprised myself in how wrong I was, the number is far fewer, less than 5%. Most people have to park on the street, a small number have garages in blocks and there are (non allocated) spaces in communal car park, but very few people have a private driveway.


----------



## clogs

Mr Swanwoo......
those at the top running the UK have no interest in low income families unless it helps win them votes....
Unless u look at the last silly person running the Lab party.....thick or what.......?
Mind if Lab got back in we'd be forced to drive an EV Trabant....heaven forbid......
One of the main reasons for getting out of the UK.....
The Uk has so much to offer but those grabbers at the top just mess it up....

As far as used cars go here, a 10 year old vehicle with upwards of 200,000klms will still fetch close to 1/2 the new price....
no chance for a used EV here at a reasonable price.....

Cant see the Taliban running a fleet of EV Toyota pick-up's with a 50 cal on the back....CAN YOU....

Mad all mad.......hahaha.....


----------



## Jacob

Rorschach said:


> Well it will be interesting for certain to see where it goes. I am not against progress, I am against forced progress that only benefits small sections of society and penalises the masses which is what I am seeing at the moment.


Hmm, sounds a bit socialistic to me!
Re EVs not only would huge swathes of the population not have home access to charging but a most of them don't buy cars until they are 6 or more years old and fallen in value.
I think mass transport by personal EV is just a motor industry fantasy and it isn't going to happen for a long time, if ever. 
If it depends on govt subsidy then investing in EV electrified rail, tram, trolley bus, looks much more cost effective and completely sidesteps the big battery problem


----------



## Jacob

clogs said:


> Mr Swanwoo......
> those at the top running the UK have no interest in low income families unless it helps win them votes....


Agree


> Unless u look at the last silly person running the Lab party.....thick or what.......?
> .....


Not really - you just spend too much time reading the Daily Mail.
Those at the top running the UK have spent a vast amount of money, time and effort brain-washing the population. They had to; there was a real threat of an alternative govt and the 2017 election had scared them s***less.
Scarily successful - you just have to say the word "Corbyn" to a lot of people and you get a conditioned reflex reaction of shock & horror. When you ask them why they can't really explain - in fact they just get angrier!






Conditioned reflex - AccessScience from McGraw-Hill Education


A learned response performed by a human or other animal to a signal that was previously associated w…




www.accessscience.com
 



.


----------



## MikeJhn

Don't want to start a political debate, but "Corbyn = Racist" without even mentioning Communist.


----------



## Cooper

This is a fascinating thread with a range of positive and negative attitudes to EV and sustainability. It has struck me that a lot of the worry from some is the questions of range and cost, that is to some extent true for me. It is really a problem of town vs country. If you live in a town the chances are that you have a good mobile connection, a choice of high-speed broad band, street lighting and access to reasonable public transport. All these things come because the investment is worthwhile as there is a large market close together. Charging facilities will follow. If nearly everyone in towns and cities (who don't regularly make long journeys), I think about 80% of the population went to EV and those out in the sticks carried on as they are for the time being, we would go a long way towards reducing CO2 emissions and improve air quality. Also the price of secondhand EV vehicles (I guess what most of us here buy) would fall and make them affordable. This issue is a bit like how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.


----------



## Jacob

MikeJhn said:


> Don't want to start a political debate, but "Corbyn = Racist" without even mentioning Communist.


Exactly my point. The conditioned reflex reaction. Absolutely no point in arguing that you are wrong on both points.
It's a real issue and it's how people are now controlled, as forecast in 1984 etc.


----------



## Blackswanwood

clogs said:


> Mr Swanwoo......
> those at the top running the UK have no interest in low income families unless it helps win them votes....
> Unless u look at the last silly person running the Lab party.....thick or what.......?
> Mind if Lab got back in we'd be forced to drive an EV Trabant....heaven forbid......
> One of the main reasons for getting out of the UK.....
> The Uk has so much to offer but those grabbers at the top just mess it up....
> 
> As far as used cars go here, a 10 year old vehicle with upwards of 200,000klms will still fetch close to 1/2 the new price....
> no chance for a used EV here at a reasonable price.....
> 
> Cant see the Taliban running a fleet of EV Toyota pick-up's with a 50 cal on the back....CAN YOU....
> 
> Mad all mad.......hahaha.....



That’s an odd view in my opinion. If politicians disenfranchise the less well off they get voted out. In practice it matters not if they are motivated by personal belief or a sense of survival - ie winning votes 

There’s also not exactly a flood of people looking to get out of the UK and it remains one of the better places to live in the world.


----------



## Cooper

Blackswanwood said:


> There’s also not exactly a flood of people looking to get out of the UK and it remains one of the better places to live in the world.


If that's so what's all the fuss about Red, Orange and Green countries about then? 
If you aren't careful this thread will end up in the contentious zone!!


----------



## Blackswanwood

Cooper said:


> If that's so what's all the fuss about Red, Orange and Green countries about then?
> If you aren't careful this thread will end up in the contentious zone!!


Sorry I don’t get your point and I’m definitely not looking to bring anything to do with pandemics into the mix.

I was responding to the point in the quoted thread that the state of the UK meant it was worth leaving.


----------



## JobandKnock

Droogs said:


> Ford just released the EPA figures for the F150 - 230 - 300 miles carrying a 1000lb load or over 400 mile no cargo


You almost never do trade mileage with no load (tool kit is a load AFAIK), so the range is never going to be 400 miles. And as a site carpenter my tool and fixings load is 600 to 800 kg in a Caddy (fairly common vehicle size and load), making an F150 good for maybe 150 to 230 miles fully laden (and assuming I'm not carrying a couple of 80kg passengers and their overnight luggage as well). And all this is before I turn the heater on to warm the vehicle up (did I mention that I live in the North of England?). So in winter I wouldn't even get to Carlisle...

... in the real world, that is

I get the impression that Rorschach is in a similar position to myself. I am a tradesman. It pays reasonably well at the moment, but the construction industry over the.last 20 years hasn't been a wonderful place to earn a living at times with trades rates slashed to little better than labour's rates immediatrly after the 2007 crash (I'm now back to bit above where I was in 2006) - always assuming that you could find a job, that is. In other words if you turn round and tell me that I'll have to shell out approaching £60k for a 1 tonne EV van with a paltry 200 mile (or less) real world range, I and many others will struggle to raise the money for something which at present is not fit for purpose. It's that simple.

Then there's the bright suggestion that maybe people like me should change our jobs to earn more money so that we can buy the vehicle that presumably we wouldn't need if we changed our jobs...

Some people find a niche in life where they are good at what they do and get job satisfaction from doing it - it isn't always about earning loads of money - and what I do for a living earns a wage which is pretty much the same per hour here in the NW as in the Midlands or elsewhere other than London. So the liklihood I could earn a lot more is extremely small


----------



## TominDales

clogs said:


> I just love this thread.....have learned a lot....
> as for induction chargeing.....no hope.....some moron will dig it up, thats if a pot hole/sink hole doesn't trash it in weeks.....
> the gas board/elec companies and even the phone comp cant work together now after a century of digging up the roads....
> what chance have u got with a new kid on the block.....
> on the lighter side, D_W, do you have pot holes in the US....the UK road system is like a cocked up Swiss chesse...and with no money of incentive to fix it.....but will happily waste BILLIONS on and uneccesary new rail system....JOBS for the boys and another pocket filler for those in the know.....
> Luckily for me I live in a warm sunny place......extra/higher charges to recharge my future EV would be enough for me to go off grid and stick my fingers up to those in power.....but we cant all do it.....


Your raise a good point. I'll ask the guys doing the project how they propose to fit around it - I guess they are aware as its quite a large project. I suppose is gas gets eliminated its one less utility to worry about.


----------



## TominDales

MikeJhn said:


> Perhaps some of you are not old enough to remember the smog that used to hang over London and most other major cities of the world, but we have got cleaner by the decade, unfortunately I don't think electric vehicles are the answer, because we can't support the infrastructure without Nuclear power, I admit I don't know the answer, but it certainly is not wind power, perhaps wave generation needs to be updated, can anyone tell me why the Greens have not jumped on the bandwagon about the wind turbines and the massive resources needed to service, maintain and build them.


Its not just the smog that we have eliminated. Most advances in technology have unexpected consequences that need to be finessed as they emerge. We are getting better at anticipating them as we have learned a lot about the chemistry of earth and climate science. A lot of product development over the past 50 years has been to improve environmental issues. 
Its a mugs game prediction the future as things don't progress linearly, we adapt to issues as they emerge. Necessity is the mother of invention as they say.
In 1894 a huge horse manure crisis emerged as London's streets were covered in dung, urine and dead horses there being 50,000+ horses on the streets and the London Times predicted the streets would be 9 foot deep in dung by 1944. The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894
In the 1970s lead pollution was a serious issue. Its now believed that lead poisoning contributed to a crime wave as mental heath suffered. The lead crime hypothesis.






It was argued by the petroleum industry that emiminateng lead would put up cost and they had a lot of capital assets tied up in ethyl lead production. However after an initial investment and cost jump the replacements soon fell in price.

Personally from everything I've seen we have the technology to replace fossil fuels. Solar Wind and Nuclear all work well and are cost effective. I'm not sure why you have your doubts on nuclear and wind, apart from the known hazards associated with nuclear of course. Modern nuclear seems a good solution, its actually a clean fuels compared to the alternatives when you do a full life cycle analysis from mineral extraction to Kwhrs delivered. Solar and wind, both have dirty begging's (ie manufacturing the assets) and dirty end of life - disposal, as does nuclear. Its the long running time in the middle that pays back well for these three technologies.





This graphic is from a work programme looking at making the next generation of wind turbines in a more sustainable way. That is reducing the carbon footprint of manufacture and end of life and going for a circular economy model with recycling and reclamation of the materials. Naturally consumers want this new technology at no extra cost.


----------



## Jacob

My doubts about nuclear are simple; 
1 If capacity is to increase by say 50 times then the risk factor has to decrease by 50 times to maintain current levels of risk. 
2 It makes us dependent on a very high level technical knowledge and skill, high levels of political stability, but highly vulnerable to anything which threatens these, such as another nastier virus, let alone the disruptions likely from climate change itself.


----------



## D_W

That's a poor hypothesis. The breakdown of the family and increased drug trade coincided with the rise and an enormous increase in enforcement and imprisonment coincided with the decline. Just because one bar looks like it marches doesn't mean the two have anything to do with each other.


----------



## TominDales

Trainee neophyte said:


> Solar panels are now ludicrously cheap: I just replaced 40 panels (10kW output) with 28 panels with marginally more output for under £5,000. I paid 6 or more times that for the originals 10 years ago.
> 
> According to https://ecocostsavings.com/average-electric-car-kwh-per-mile/ you need 34kW hours to travel 100 miles, so a 10kw panel system (which is a fairly hefty area of panels) would need a minimum of 3 hours of sunshine to replace that energy.


That's interesting real world data. There is 9.1kwhrs of energy in a litre of petrol. so that is approximately 122 miles per gallon petrol equivalent. 

That seem about right as Evs are far more effieicint than ICE at turning energy into miles. 80% vs 30%. Its even more efficient when you consider low carbon methods to generate each fuel type. The ratio is 77% for eV vs 13% for ICE.


----------



## TominDales

Rorschach said:


> That's a fair comment, I don't know what the future will bring, I am just point out observations based on my personal circumstances and those of the people that live around me. If you live in an affluent area where everyone has a driveway for instance, the idea of charging your car at home not only seems like a sensible thing to do, but actually is more appealing than going out to the petrol station. If you are retired or work from home or an office nearby, the drawbacks of car charging and travelling for work don't readily make themselves apparent. I am just trying to put forward situations which some may not have thought about, I had said it before that the general membership here seems to occupy a certain social class that is not very representative of the majority of the populous, threads like these help us to learn from each other.
> 
> I took a walk yesterday afternoon around my area and along the very long street which I live on. I paid attention to how many houses actually had a reasonable opportunity to charge their vehicle at their house, either a driveway or garage. I had estimated in a previous post that it was approx 10% that could do so. I actually surprised myself in how wrong I was, the number is far fewer, less than 5%. Most people have to park on the street, a small number have garages in blocks and there are (non allocated) spaces in communal car park, but very few people have a private driveway.


You raise an important point. I've seen a lot of development work in addressing on street charging. Various schemes from plug in lamposts, to charge points for every space on the road, and as I'm previously mentioned even inductive charging loops set into the road surface.
I'm share Blackswanwood's view that the technology will be made widely accessible. At present its only just being introduce to early adopter. That is how the auto industry works, they try things out on the more up market products first. That way they iron out the issues on low volumes before cranking up the high volume lower cost models.
The political heft of the uk's 'average person' will cause the government to have to listen. I share the view that the phase out deadline is to encourage industry investment, it provides a target and legal framework for companies to compete around. In that time I expect lots of innovative solutions to charging EVs, most of the technology challenges have been overcome so its really a matter or commercialising and productionising the technology.


----------



## Just4Fun

Cooper said:


> If you live in a town the chances are that you have a good mobile connection, a choice of high-speed broad band, street lighting and access to reasonable public transport.


The inference being that away from the towns those things are not available. That is a depressing but, I think, perfectly true observation. Depressing because it does not have to be like that. I live in the forest miles from anywhere. It is 27 km to my nearest retail outlet, a village shop. The village in which I theoretically live has a population of about 900 but that is dispersed - I live 9 km from the village center for example. So I am not exactly in a major metropolis. Yet I have a good and reliable 4G mobile phone service and fibre optic broadband. It can be done if the will is there. I don't have any viable public transport though.


----------



## clogs

Just for fun.....
you are very lucky, gotta say 1/2 of rural Britain is in the stone age as far as internet coverage is concerned.....

I went up a goat track here in Crete, miles from anywhere.....never saw a soul but had FULL 4G.....fibre is now in the ground all over the island and gradually being conected...even in the outlaying villages.....
COSMOTE do a package, TV, land line phone and no limit internet for 32euro's per month....
it was double that cost in France with limits on the net.....


----------



## Just4Fun

clogs said:


> COSMOTE do a package, TV, land line phone and no limit internet for 32euro's per month....


That sounds like a good deal.
Our fibre optic cable provides TV and no limit internet. I have no idea what our package costs. Almost certainly expensive; everything is expensive here.
Nobody here gets land line phones any more. We moved into this house in 2004 and even back then it just wasn't done. The only people with land line phones had them when Adam was a small boy and for some reason have kept them.


----------



## selectortone

Coal Miners driving Teslas


----------



## TominDales

D_W said:


> That's a poor hypothesis. The breakdown of the family and increased drug trade coincided with the rise and an enormous increase in enforcement and imprisonment coincided with the decline. Just because one bar looks like it marches doesn't mean the two have anything to do with each other.


Amazingly it is a serious subject with loads of good scientific studies, its credibility stems from the causal link, lead does have a very serious impact on mental capacity, it lowers IQ and IQ correlates to prison population. In reality there are loads of factors affecting crime, but lead was probably under recognised at the time. I included the graph to be light hearted as its clearly not the whole story - but has an amazingly close coralation. But eliminating lead has been an environmental success story and the costs were manageable.

Here is an overview of the lead hypothesis in wiki. Lead–crime hypothesis - Wikipedia I've seen studies done in the UK, especially around spaghetti junction in Birmingham (a notorious road junction) again the correlation is striking and shifted about 5 to 7 years to the US data - TEL was introduced later in the UK and phased out later than the US. However similar social trends in the UK to the US over the same time period, so again lead is only part of the picture.


----------



## D_W

Not discounting that lead has consequences on IQ and judgement, but unless that judgement causes parents to become unmarried, income (and drug traffic) to rise at the same time, and incarceration to increase significantly when lead drops, it doesn't really work well against the reality of what occurred in the states. 

Map the percentage of single parent households against the crime increase, the decline of household families and extended families and then chart the tail end (when the crime rate drops) against the incarceration rate in the US.


----------



## sirocosm

Rorschach said:


> How do I bring half a dozen bags of sand & cement home on my cycle?



Like this:


----------



## Spectric

or get one of those bikes that Freddie delivers his flowers with.


----------



## MikeJhn

Interesting, I can't get a mobile signal or high speed internet where I am in Kent.


----------



## clogs

the only reason we have a land line is because u can't opt out of one...
the phone stopped working after a month or two but who cares....hahaha.....
I think it's just another way to get extra money...(phone call charges)
but with the cost of the phone unit it doesn't really stack up....
just nuts.....guess it'll change in years to come......

this place is pretty laid back but even Greek grannies have a smart phone now.....
makes me laugh when I see 80 year olds surfing the net when having a coffee....hahaha.....


----------



## Rorschach

sirocosm said:


> Like this:
> 
> View attachment 111527



Might be ok if I lived in Norfolk or somewhere else flat, everywhere around here is uphill.


----------



## John Brown

Rorschach said:


> Might be ok if I lived in Norfolk or somewhere else flat, everywhere around here is uphill.


Escher land?


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> Escher land?



You've been to Devon as well then


----------



## John Brown

I've been through it. 
Don't stop, keep the doors locked and windows closed, was the advice I was given.


----------



## John Brown

Actually, I like some parts of Devon. My cousin's husband ran the Totnes School of guitar making.


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> I've been through it.
> Don't stop, keep the doors locked and windows closed, was the advice I was given.



That's the propaganda we spread so that people don't try and stop here and spoil it like they do when they get to Cornwall


----------



## Ozi

TominDales said:


> That's interesting real world data. There is 9.1kwhrs of energy in a litre of petrol. so that is approximately 122 miles per gallon petrol equivalent.
> 
> That seem about right as Evs are far more effieicint than ICE at turning energy into miles. 80% vs 30%. Its even more efficient when you consider low carbon methods to generate each fuel type. The ratio is 77% for eV vs 13% for ICE.
> View attachment 111505


Interesting figures, expect to see some improvement in the H2 to electricity conversion in the next few years. The weight of the power-train should also be factored in. 

Hydrogen really only makes sense at present if it is created as a by product from electricity generation. Installing enough renewable generation capacity to become carbon neutral requires a lot of energy storage when generated power exceeds demand and H2 may be a viable way to achieve this.


----------



## Crazy Dave

So, has anybody had their mind changed by this discussion?
Or is this just a platform for a good moan?

Really curious.


----------



## Just4Fun

Changed? Perhaps not - I didn't have a real opinion before. 
Made up? Possibly. At least I have more definite views now.
Opened? For sure. I have learned a lot from this thread.


----------



## MikeJhn

Wind farms are still an eyesore.
Electric vehicles are still not viable for me.
More Nuclear power stations are coming.
Some posters can write very long posts, that I don't read to the end.


----------



## Ozi

Crazy Dave said:


> So, has anybody had their mind changed by this discussion?
> Or is this just a platform for a good moan?
> 
> Really curious.


Despite the moaning which I find annoying it's interesting to see what people think about electric vehicles. I work in the industry and find it astonishing that people are not more enthusiastic about the changes that are coming. The rate of progress has been extraordinary in the last few years now we are on the cusp of being able to produce small family cars , yes with limited range but practical for many people and most importantly at a price where the average customer has a chance of affording them and the industry can make a profit. The days of one vehicle doing all you need may be coming to an end as may the days of mass ownership. Personally I would like to be able to hire something very small and cheap just to get to work ( I don't need the other 4 seats or a ton and a half of bodywork ) then swap it for something bigger if I go on longer journeys or want to go on holiday as a family.

To answer your question my mind hasn't changed, I'm still in favor but I have learnt a few things along the way.


----------



## John Brown

Not me. There has been some interesting information, though.
We have opted for the halfway house if a PHEV, on the grounds that the vast majority of our journeys are under 25 miles. And we are lucky enough to have solar PV at the old, absurdly high feed in tariff.


----------



## Ozi

MikeJhn said:


> Wind farms are still an eyesore.
> Electric vehicles are still not viable for me.
> More Nuclear power stations are coming.
> Some posters can write very long posts, that I don't read to the end.


Wind farms look better when you view every turn of a blade as making us a little less dependent on imported energy


----------



## Cooper

MikeJhn said:


> Wind farms are still an eyesore.


I bet people said that about pylons and I still do when I drive up the M2. If you go to Holland along certain roads you still can see rows of old wooden windmills, which most think are attractive but really they are just a load of old sheds with blooming big trellises swinging about. Beauty is, as someone said, in the eye of the beholder and to my mind if they slow the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers and the whiting of the Great Barrier Reef etc., better than the Mona Lisa.


----------



## Sachakins




----------



## TominDales

clogs said:


> Just for fun.....
> you are very lucky, gotta say 1/2 of rural Britain is in the stone age as far as internet coverage is concerned.....
> 
> I went up a goat track here in Crete, miles from anywhere.....never saw a soul but had FULL 4G.....fibre is now in the ground all over the island and gradually being connectedeven in the outlaying villages.....
> COSMOTE do a package, TV, land line phone and no limit internet for 32euro's per month....
> it was double that cost in France with limits on the net.....


Need to be a bit careful making these comparisons. UK has slipped down the league from 3rd to 8th for high speed internet. But Greece has remained bottom of the EU for the past 10 years. Study on National Broadband Plans in the EU-28: connectivity, targets and measures | Shaping Europe’s digital future
Greece has very good broadband covering the tourist economy such as the islands, coast and Athens environs, but rural mainland Greece isn't that well served. For all of rural Britain's problems it holds up quite will against other country comparisons. For NGA coverage, Greece is doing quite well, up 7 places. However even these EU wide studies have their issues, even good places have dead spots etc, not sure that rural Finland is as bad in reality as this graph would indicate.

Study on National Broadband Plans in the EU-28: connectivity, targets and measures | Shaping Europe’s digital future


----------



## TominDales

I've got a lot from these posts. I work in the industry that is developing the chemicals that go into batteries and fuel cells, wind farms, solar cells, nuclear etc. We also work with the old industries consuming fossil fuels to make products, they are trying to work out where they need to invest. I work a lot of the time in a technical bubble of engineers, chemists etc so its interesting to hear the views of users of this emerging technology, this forum has intelligent and practical people with interesting views. I also like to be able to point to sound sources of data to help inform the debate. We work with Nissan and JLR, JCB, Komatsu etc on developing batteries for niche vehicles that provides some market feedback.

I don't yet own an EV, we have 3 cars at present, an old T5, which is used for family holidays. My wife drives an UP and I (used to) commute in a huge Merc up and down the A1 or to York rail station. All these are second had cars that we tend to drive until they start to fall apart. I've found the practical insights on owning an EV from the forum informative. Without the forum I was going to wait a few years for the technology to settle down and do the usual of buy a used EV. These posts have made me think of switching sooner as the experiences seem very positive. 

Ideally like Ozi, I'd like to stop owning cars and have the option of cheap hire. The T5 does less than 5k per year and costs £500 to licence as its CO2 emissions are in the high bracket - Its quite CO2 benign as we drive to Scotland, Northumberland or France for our annual holiday avoiding airlines, but ideally I'd like to hire an electric one.
I like the mixture of comments on the forum, it can get a bit moany, but new concepts and technology does need challenging, as there are a lot of unknowns that need to be considered. - edited for typos


----------



## Just4Fun

TominDales said:


> not sure that rural Finland is as bad in reality as this graph would indicate


Yes, at first sight that is surprising, but I can believe it. Our area has good coverage because people locally took the initiative to get it. Installation seems to be on a local basis so if not enough people in a community want (and are able/prepared to pay for) it, nothing will be installed. I guess it IS possible to get a good service here but it is not universal. Perhaps understandable given the low population density in many rural & remote areas.


----------



## Crazy Dave

@Ozi would a Sinclair C5 suit you? (Tongue in cheek) I hear they're quite collectable.


----------



## Ozi

Crazy Dave said:


> @Ozi would a Sinclair C5 suit you? (Tongue in cheek) I hear they're quite collectable.


I did ride one a long time ago, just once and only around a car park, don't think I would be brave enough to take one on the road, or a recumbent bike. What I would like would be single seat with a range of 50 miles, I do under 40 a day but a bit of grace would stop panic setting in and cover the unexpected diversions but it would need a top speed of at least 50mph not to be a pain to other road users with the route I drive. The tech is already there it just needs more people like me to want one and create a market. 

If I wanted to be really unpopular I'd suggest they were compulsory for 2 years for all new drivers or anyone returning to driving after a years ban

or 

Make them cheap to rent with 3rd party insurance thrown in to encourage new drivers to get their first couple of years no-claims. As new registrations they would have to have auto sign recognition so could be limited to the legal speed limit but I would make them exempt from some of the more expensive tech to keep the cost as low as possible. A couple of 10A/h batteries would probably do the job so they could be changeable like a cordless tool and cheap enough to have a spare charge at home avoiding the need for on street charging. 


This way lies madness, no, no slightly to the left .. now you've got it


----------



## Droogs

@Ozi check out the honda cub ev conversion on the fully charged youtube channel


----------



## Jacob

..


Crazy Dave said:


> So, has anybody had their mind changed by this discussion?
> Or is this just a platform for a good moan?
> 
> Really curious.


Interesting and informative stuff without a doubt!
Interesting that climate change deniers are almost a thing of the past and have mutated into sustainability sceptics.
A lot of talk about the technology but less about the change of life styles which I think will be forced upon us.
Can't say I've changed my mind much - we're all doomed!


----------



## Droogs

For once @Jacob we agree, the tech is there or near enough to make a positive differrence but only if everyone is willing to be a lot less me me me and willing to alter their lifestyles a bit


----------



## clogs

sounds good Ozi, 
BUT 1/2 the drivers in the UK are hopeless and a lot cant even get the correct fuel in the tank....
so no chance them changing a battery even if the don't break a finger nail......hahaha...
heaven forbid a broken nail.....lol.......
someone on here said a car at a decent price for the customer and for the factory to make a profit.....mmmmm
it don't take £60 grand to make a new VW transporter even with a leather int n a few toys.....
I know they have to invest for the future but that price is just plain greedy........


----------



## Crazy Dave

Just to stimulate further thought.
The *Earth's atmosphere* is an extremely thin sheet of air extending from the surface *of the Earth* to the edge of space. The *Earth* is a sphere with a roughly 8000 mile diameter; the *thickness of the atmosphere* is about 60 miles. So shall we contaminate it further or try to clean it up so that us and further generations can breath. We all have to change our ways, well to be more precise you lot of doubters need to change I already have and I'm not just talking about EV's.
I'll be alright because I have about 10 or maybe 12 years left to live, so why am I bothering about this, simple, I'm not doing it for me, I'm doing it for your grandchildren.


----------



## D_W

I think it would take a whole lot more "Damage" to make it unlivable for people - not that we're incapable. But we could very well have our attitudes adjusted by a giant volcano eruption. 

At some point, the sun will take away our atmosphere - what happens between then and now (aside from near extinction events) is a matter of our own manipulation and us keeping ourselves playing with things. as we get in to carbon capture in the future, then it'll be something else. And something else after that, and so on. 

It would be a fun thing to take up a pool to see if anyone can guess what the next crisis will be after carbon.


----------



## Crazy Dave

Regarding PHEVs don't waste your money, think about it you've got an engine, gearbox and a tank of fuel then you're adding an electric motor and a battery pack. The weight alone kills your fuel economy and throws the handling out of the window.
I had a BMW 330e Hybrid and the car was rubbish with the stupid stop start system that couldn't be disabled.

Trust me Hybrid's don't work unless you have to drive in a congestion zone.


----------



## selectortone

D_W said:


> It would be a fun thing to take up a pool to see if anyone can guess what the next crisis will be after carbon.



Going by recent events, toilet paper probably.


----------



## D_W

selectortone said:


> Going by recent events, toilet paper probably.



If someone makes a carbon capture device that uses toilet paper rolls, we're toast.


----------



## Crazy Dave

D_W said:


> I think it would take a whole lot more "Damage" to make it unlivable for people - not that we're incapable. But we could very well have our attitudes adjusted by a giant volcano eruption.
> 
> At some point, the sun will take away our atmosphere - what happens between then and now (aside from near extinction events) is a matter of our own manipulation and us keeping ourselves playing with things. as we get in to carbon capture in the future, then it'll be something else. And something else after that, and so on.
> 
> It would be a fun thing to take up a pool to see if anyone can guess what the next crisis will be after carbon.


I'll say it will be food shortages first, as the climate warms we'll have no rain for months and then a month of none stop heavy rain and flooding, oh wait a minute sorry that's already started. We've got about 50 years before everyone wishes we had another 50 years to fix it. Seriously we are in deep shizzle.


----------



## Rorschach

D_W said:


> It would be a fun thing to take up a pool to see if anyone can guess what the next crisis will be after carbon.



Probably a raw materials shortage, especially rare elements needed for the high tech we will have to create in order to continue living here or exploring the galaxy.


----------



## Rorschach

Crazy Dave said:


> I'll say it will be food shortages first, as the climate warms we'll have no rain for months and then a month of none stop heavy rain and flooding, oh wait a minute sorry that's already started. We've got about 50 years before everyone wishes we had another 50 years to fix it. Seriously we are in deep shizzle.



We really aren't.


----------



## D_W

Crazy Dave said:


> I'll say it will be food shortages first, as the climate warms we'll have no rain for months and then a month of none stop heavy rain and flooding, oh wait a minute sorry that's already started. We've got about 50 years before everyone wishes we had another 50 years to fix it. Seriously we are in deep shizzle.



I haven't seen what you're talking about. I'll bet there's more news of extreme weather events since there's more news now and more sharing of information.

I just looked at local historical data from about 150 years ago and got a 30 year mean precip of 37 inches.

I checked the last 30, and it's 39.6

It looks like we have fewer drought years in the later span. While we do have local goofs telling us that we have more drainage issues now than we did in the past due to the "more intense rainfall from climate change", they seem to fail to report the reason for serious problems. For example, along the local highway here is a conduit that's about 10 feet in diameter. For years, we had flooding problems halfway through the stretch of highway "due to climate change and more intense rain events". And then about five years ago, a parking lot caved in due to underground erosion (the conduit had collapsed, culvert, whatever you'd like to call it). They fixed it and no roadway flooding since. And I haven't heard anyone here talk about climate change affecting the roadway (but I'm sure they have something else it's affecting).


----------



## D_W

by the way, please tell me something accurate -something measurable that I can check in two decades. 

(another entertaining one in the last couple of years - fender is no longer going to offer "Swamp ash" guitars in their standard line because they want to be more ecologically responsible and the delta where ash comes from is going underwater due to "rising sea levels".

...I figured I'd read about it, and what's happening is the following - ash is increasing in price and the land where it's more commonly harvested in low density billets is sinking.....but that's the key word - it's sinking and since we've introduced flood control through river management, the natural floods that refresh the delta aren't occurring, so it's not getting layers of silt deposited in the delta territory. Thus, it's sinking and nothing is continuing to build it up. 

Fender took the chance to virtue signal and gave a factually false explanation, as well as probably a false reason for not using the wood - they're not using the wood because to them, another $20 of wood cost on a $1500 guitar is something they just won't absorb. I can almost guarantee they'll be willing to add $100 or $200 to a limited run guitar, and they'll forget when they acquire a huge lot of wood at wholesale that it used to be eco responsible not to use "swamp" ash).


----------



## Crazy Dave

Rorschach said:


> We really aren't.


That attitude is exactly why we are.


----------



## Crazy Dave

At the risk of an overly long post, I'll condense it for those that don't read the whole thing.

A very close friend of mine worked for 18mths at Rothera base in Antarctica, while he was there as the base Electrician he had plenty of time to get to know what really is happening and everything you hear about ice melts and Carbon dioxide being released from the melting ice is nothing short of frightening.

Since he returned home the breaking of the ice sheet/shelf resulted in the whole base having to be moved or risk loosing it to the Antarctic ocean as a crack was traveling in a direction that would have separated a huge slab of ice with the base on it.
This is happening because the sea temperature is rising and the ice melt increases the sea level around the world, as the ice melts it releases more Co2 and methane into the atmosphere which traps heat and warms the ocean further which melts the ice faster which the releases more gas and so on.....

So if you think this is some sort of conspiracy to get you to give up your car then your wrong, you WILL give up your car but only when it's too late to make a difference.

There's a frozen country, sorry the name escapes me, where they drill the ice and set light to methane gas and it burns for days with flames shooting from the ice as is better to do that then let the gas escape into the atmosphere.

Ok beer o'clock.


----------



## JobandKnock

I started taking steps to reduce my carbon footprint 20 years ago which had nothing to do with electric vehicles. Instead it involves changes to how you approach travel and fuel usage. I'm unconvinced that the current approach to battery powered vehicles works or is sustainable - at least in part because of concerns I have about the production of lithium and other rare metals used in the manufacture of EVs (e.g child labour in the mineral mines, etc) and the environmental impact of refining the raw materials. I seem to recall reading at least one article which demonstrated that in terms of carbon footprint, taking the manufacturing carbon footprint into account, an mid sized EV would take 10 to 12 years to better a conventional petrol car.

Of all of you guys going on about personal EVs, just how many of you would give up driving your personal car and instead use public transport? All the time. How many of you (in the UK) actually live within commuting distance of your workplaces? If you want to be sustainable you don't buy an EV - you just stop non-essential driving. And at the end of the day most driving in cars is non-essential. That's what I actually did a 6 years ago and I can tell you it is one hell of a wrench. Yes, I still use a van to take my kit onto site at the start of a job (and off it at the end of the job - I hire a secure site vault for the duration and avoid sites with poor security) as well as to go to the inevitable call outs , because i am never going to get half a tonne of kit and materials on the train, but my annual mileage is now well under 4000 miles - down from 16k plus in 2010.


----------



## Rorschach

Crazy Dave said:


> That attitude is exactly why we are.



And your attitude is exactly why we are going to be in unnecessary trouble.


----------



## Jacob

Less travel just means people working nearer home. There's plenty of scope, not just the internet - I remember travelling off to work in Nottingham on a biggish job a few years back, only to discover that a Nottingham firm was working just down the road from where I lived. We must have been passing each other in opposite directions on the A52


----------



## Crazy Dave

Rorschach said:


> And your attitude is exactly why we are going to be in unnecessary trouble.


Of course, it's all my fault. I don't know why I couldn't see it before, I will immediately sell my EV and by a Bathurst VXR8 as I've always been a petrol head and I'll take down my rain water reclamation system so my £100 p.a. water bill goes back up to £600 and remember to leave the lights on when I go out and of course leave the tap running when I brush my remaining teeth. Then I'll be just like you.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Our horizons may be limited by personal relationships - children, grandchildren, great grand children. No one we will ever meet in our lifetimes is likely to be around in 150-200 years - probably rather less as I am already 60+.

The less plausible the future "catastrophe" and the more selfish/self absorbed we are, the less important immediate action seems..

Prosperous developed bits of the world need not worry too much - they can afford to "fix" the environment for many decades to come. The rest of the world will not be able to avoid the impact of sea level rise, drought, floods, pollution, habitat destruction etc.

There are too many people on the planet - the somewhat fatalistic proposition that a mass cull needs to happen is harsh but possibly realistic. We just hope that we can personally avoid it.

In my mind there is no doubt that the climate is changing:

consuming in 3 centuries fossil fuels which took 300m years to lay down is unstable
consuming other natural resources and materials which will be unavailable or unaffordable in the next 100-200 years is unsustainable
delaying action until adverse changes are evident to an uninformed casual observer will be too late, or the cost of reacting or mitigating will be very "painful". 
A bit like ignoring a roof with a possible leak - leave it long enough and carpets, curtains, plaster furniture will need replacement. Then the wood rots! 

I was going to use a covid lockdown analogy about the impact of leaving action too late. I then realised views on this are somewhat divergent!


----------



## alanpo68

Rorschach said:


> And your attitude is exactly why we are going to be in unnecessary trouble.



I am sure there were Luddites who expressed similar irresponsible nonsense when we had smog filled cities and people struggled to live past their forties.


----------



## MikeJhn

Material shortages have already started, the blocking of the Suez canal had substantial repercussions with ships missing their allotted port times and having to leave with half a cargo still on board, the shortage of containers is having a massive effect on the costs of raw materials, check out Travis Perkins just for one.


----------



## Sachakins

I know we've drifted of topic about EV's, but I don't think that's a bad thing, as its highlighted a bit about renewable and usage. But a lot of this has been about personal consumption of energy, which although is important, its not the whole picture.

How many times have you walked through town of an evening, to be greeted with shops, closed for the day, but with fully lit window displays, or wandered into a 24 hour supermarket, with half a dozen customers in, along with 24 hour service stations and late night businesses, even off licenses, newsagents etc that's not accounting for glaring shop signage.

If we stepped back from this pervasive 24/7 culture, even if only to 18 hour culture, we forced businesses extinguish lighting and signage within 30 minutes of closing, that in itself is going to reduce load massively.

We bang on about personal usage, but given the growing levels of fuel poverty, do you really believe masses of the public really waste so much energy, when with prices rising continually rising most people are trying to save energy, not out of wishfulness for the environment, but purely out of necessity.

You can only use what you can afford,

I think there is more businesses and industry can do, but they must be forced into it, as consumers are priced into energy poverty, but businesses just up their prices to cover energy rises, but the consumer can only cut usage.

There is a diminishing return on consumer led efficiency, as we are already fast approaching the point that we just can't do more or we've done what we can within budget.


----------



## sirocosm

Rorschach said:


> Might be ok if I lived in Norfolk or somewhere else flat, everywhere around here is uphill.



You can buy them with an electric motor, or install one yourself. Sadly, I decided to sell it when I moved to the UK from Germany, and buy a car instead. If the roads in the UK were as cycle friendly as Germany, I wouldn't need a car.


----------



## Crazy Dave

D_W said:


> I haven't seen what you're talking about. I'll bet there's more news of extreme weather events since there's more news now and more sharing of information.
> 
> I just looked at local historical data from about 150 years ago and got a 30 year mean precip of 37 inches.
> 
> I checked the last 30, and it's 39.6
> 
> It looks like we have fewer drought years in the later span. While we do have local goofs telling us that we have more drainage issues now than we did in the past due to the "more intense rainfall from climate change", they seem to fail to report the reason for serious problems. For example, along the local highway here is a conduit that's about 10 feet in diameter. For years, we had flooding problems halfway through the stretch of highway "due to climate change and more intense rain events". And then about five years ago, a parking lot caved in due to underground erosion (the conduit had collapsed, culvert, whatever you'd like to call it). They fixed it and no roadway flooding since. And I haven't heard anyone here talk about climate change affecting the roadway (but I'm sure they have something else it's affecting).



Temperature and weather *changes*
A 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on *Climate Change* (IPCC) report confirmed that a strong body of *evidence* links *global warming* to an increase in heat waves, a rise in episodes of heavy rainfall and other precipitation, and more frequent coastal flooding.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia › wiki › Cli...
*Climate change in the United States - Wikipedia*


----------



## Crazy Dave

Wikipedia
Link to the full article.


----------



## D_W

Crazy Dave said:


> Temperature and weather *changes*
> A 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on *Climate Change* (IPCC) report confirmed that a strong body of *evidence* links *global warming* to an increase in heat waves, a rise in episodes of heavy rainfall and other precipitation, and more frequent coastal flooding.
> 
> Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia › wiki › Cli...
> *Climate change in the United States - Wikipedia*



Something measurable, predictive. Not calling it after the fact.


----------



## D_W

Sachakins said:


> I know we've drifted of topic about EV's, but I don't think that's a bad thing, as its highlighted a bit about renewable and usage. But a lot of this has been about personal consumption of energy, which although is important, its not the whole picture.
> 
> How many times have you walked through town of an evening, to be greeted with shops, closed for the day, but with fully lit window displays, or wandered into a 24 hour supermarket, with half a dozen customers in, along with 24 hour service stations and late night businesses, even off licenses, newsagents etc that's not accounting for glaring shop signage.
> 
> If we stepped back from this pervasive 24/7 culture, even if only to 18 hour culture, we forced businesses extinguish lighting and signage within 30 minutes of closing, that in itself is going to reduce load massively.
> 
> We bang on about personal usage, but given the growing levels of fuel poverty, do you really believe masses of the public really waste so much energy, when with prices rising continually rising most people are trying to save energy, not out of wishfulness for the environment, but purely out of necessity.
> 
> You can only use what you can afford,
> 
> I think there is more businesses and industry can do, but they must be forced into it, as consumers are priced into energy poverty, but businesses just up their prices to cover energy rises, but the consumer can only cut usage.
> 
> There is a diminishing return on consumer led efficiency, as we are already fast approaching the point that we just can't do more or we've done what we can within budget.



I don't think you'll find too many commercial shops turning off all of their lighting, because with that goes video surveillance.


----------



## MikeJhn

I wonder how much energy is used keeping Manhatten lit up all night, a nighttime view of the US is quite an eye opener.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

The Great Reset. That's exactly what we need. All the European leaders have signed up (or been bought - same thing), so it's going to happen whether we like it or not.

Unless it's a conspiracy run by some of the world's wealthiest people, to make sure they continue to be wealthy...but that would just be a conspiracy theory, wouldn't it.

Here's a vision of the future via the World Economic Foundation: Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better

My idea of hell on earth, but perhaps that's just because I'm not a city person. Anyway, it's all for the collective benefit of the collective, so individuals should just suck it up.


----------



## Jacob

alanpo68 said:


> I am sure there were Luddites who expressed similar irresponsible nonsense when we had smog filled cities and people struggled to live past their forties.


Wouldn't have been the Luddites it would have been the "conservatives" of all persuasions, most resistant to change, then as now. The Luddites were anxious to preserve their livelihoods and the quality of their lives, not against change as such.


----------



## JobandKnock

And pray tell me, @Trainee neophyte, just how does that work for those of us who don't work behind a desk? Will AI and robots take over? Will we knock down listed buildings because it is just too expensive to program the robots to work on them? Will I have to hand all my tools to the state and get whatever broken, sub-standard junk they choose to send me to do a job? (A bit like most of the company-owned tools I've ever used - nobody owns them so nobody ever cleans, lubricates, services or generally takes care of them). It must be me, because I can see a few tiny holes in this idea. Gotta go now, my (publically owned) train is coming...


----------



## clogs

after reading the above.....
I'm gonna build an EV BOAT before all the tree's disapear under the waters......hahaha....
plus
I live 1/2 way up a small mountain, property value will increase as it will become beach front property....hahaha.....


----------



## John Brown

D_W said:


> I think it would take a whole lot more "Damage" to make it unlivable for people - not that we're incapable. But we could very well have our attitudes adjusted by a giant volcano eruption.
> 
> At some point, the sun will take away our atmosphere - what happens between then and now (aside from near extinction events) is a matter of our own manipulation and us keeping ourselves playing with things. as we get in to carbon capture in the future, then it'll be something else. And something else after that, and so on.
> 
> It would be a fun thing to take up a pool to see if anyone can guess what the next crisis will be after carbon.


My money's on running out of working antibiotics.


----------



## Sachakins

John Brown said:


> My money's on running out of working antibiotics.


My money's on self destruction through nuclear armageddon.


----------



## John Brown

Sachakins said:


> My money's on self destruction through nuclear armageddon.


Yes, but you won't be around to pick up your winnings.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Slightly off topic but worth a read.

BBC on EVs

Protest all you want about how EVs don't meet your personal needs, but ICE will become a dying technological backwater. In 10-20 years some companies will use them to deliver goods on the back of a wave of nostalgia - a little like using a horse and cart today.


----------



## D_W

John Brown said:


> My money's on running out of working antibiotics.



That could be an issue long before climate. People will say "terrible death by infection, but at least climate didn't cause it so it's not too bad" .

...except It's only a matter of time before someone tries to correlate antibiotic resistance to global warming.


----------



## Droogs

The only correlation DW is that people are stupid and have caused both


----------



## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> The only correlation DW is that people are stupid and have caused both



Yeah we are so stupid, just look at us in our houses with our cars and our mobile phones and our space ships. Stupid humans.


----------



## alanpo68

Rorschach said:


> Yeah we are so stupid, just look at us in our houses with our cars and our mobile phones and our space ships. Stupid humans.


Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.

That is where the stupidity comes in.


----------



## Jacob

alanpo68 said:


> Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.
> 
> That is where the stupidity comes in.


Doubly stupid even from an utterly selfish point of view: population growth is often greatest in deprived/unstable communities. 
It's one of nature's ways of ensuring survivors when the going gets tough, throughout much of the living world. Individual survival doesn't matter as long as species survival takes precedence.
Latest from China is that they have falling population and have suspended the one child rule. Life has become better for them on the whole so birthrates fall, as they have in many better off countries - leading to an ageing population in need of young carers!








How can countries such as America and China raise birth rates?


Governments with ageing populations struggle to encourage people to have babies




www.economist.com


----------



## Rorschach

alanpo68 said:


> Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.
> 
> That is where the stupidity comes in.



That's not stupidity, it's a difference in priorities, we all do that.


----------



## D_W

Droogs said:


> The only correlation DW is that people are stupid and have caused both











Compounding Effects of Climate Warming and Antibiotic Resistance


Bacteria have evolved diverse mechanisms to survive environments with antibiotics. Temperature is both a key factor that affects the survival of bacteria in the presence of antibiotics and an environmental trait that is drastically increasing due to climate ...




www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov





I'm sure there's money in this. When the scary story of temperatures rising runs out, then you go to different avenues. Sort of like Fender mentioned above - if the truth is that the ash borer and lack of allowing the mississippi river to flood has caused an increase in the price of ash, instead, a manufacturer makes a claim that they're switching use of wood for eco reasons and that the water level is rising in the swamps due to climate change (without mentioning that they're physically sinking instead).

We do appear to have caused the warming on earth, and we'll cause it to reverse when it's significant enough to do that.


----------



## D_W

alanpo68 said:


> Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.
> 
> That is where the stupidity comes in.



It's a bit more difficult to get relief through a war torn country than it is to get men into space. Solve starvation in sudan? Yes, just take a boat of food and money over, fill the boat with trucks to deliver it and drive right through the middle of the country. I'm sure it's as simple as that.


----------



## Jacob

Rorschach said:


> That's not stupidity, it's a difference in priorities, we all do that.


It's a stupid thing to prioritise. Not to care for the rest of the world results in over population, see earlier post.


----------



## John Brown

D_W said:


> Compounding Effects of Climate Warming and Antibiotic Resistance
> 
> 
> Bacteria have evolved diverse mechanisms to survive environments with antibiotics. Temperature is both a key factor that affects the survival of bacteria in the presence of antibiotics and an environmental trait that is drastically increasing due to climate ...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure there's money in this. When the scary story of temperatures rising runs out, then you go to different avenues. Sort of like Fender mentioned above - if the truth is that the ash borer and lack of allowing the mississippi river to flood has caused an increase in the price of ash, instead, a manufacturer makes a claim that they're switching use of wood for eco reasons and that the water level is rising in the swamps due to climate change (without mentioning that they're physically sinking instead).
> 
> We do appear to have caused the warming on earth, and we'll cause it to reverse when it's significant enough to do that.


You keep saying that, D_W, but the theory is, as I understand it, that the situation is more akin to thermal runaway in semiconductors, or a nuclear reactor getting out of control. There is a point of no return, and according to some scientists, we have either already passed that point, or will do do by next Wednesday. I'm not a climate scientist, but I do understand how it would not be as simple as turning the faucet off, milliseconds before the tub overflows, and frankly, I'm surprised that you don't seem to.
It's one thing to deny climate change ( and I don't think you fall into that camp), it's another thing to deny that it's anthropogenic (I'm not sure where you stand on that, but I think you accept that it's at least partially man-made), but it's entirely another thing to believe that we can wait until the last minute to take evasive action. Do you get forest fires in your neck of the woods? Easy to stamp out that small flame from a cigarette butt, let it go for a day or two, and it's a bit more difficult.


----------



## D_W

I'm kind of turned off by the "it's like a semiconductor or nuclear reactor". It's not. It's the environment. What is or what isn't should be the important thing to understand. You've managed to suggest that I don't gather what's going on and that I think the effect is shut off. Nowhere did I say that. I said we will make attempts to mitigate it at some point, because it will become necessary. If there is some momentum, that doesn't mean mitigation efforts don't have lag. 

As far as man made, I'd say we're pretty comfortable that it's likely man made. Likely means you can act on it (more than just probably, and far more than maybe). But the number of platitudes with the inability of anyone to say something predictive to check against, not a fan. 

I seriously doubt it's too late (but it sounds good to scare people - it's like one level beyond - this is the last second, we have to do it now). Threaten that it's already too late. It is or it isn't, but we don't need fantasy stuff. 

We don't have wildfire issues here - my state is more than 50% tree covered as I understand it, and it's possible to have conditions where fires occur, but the kind they have in the west - not here. The fires that occur in the western US are small compared to what occurred naturally before mitigation, and most of the fire pressure now is probably two parts:
1) barring cleaning of the forest floor (vs. the older old growth forests that burned periodically leaving behind dominant fire resistant trees)
2) suddenly the fire pressure is going into occupied areas as we feel like it's a great idea to build in them more and more (the deurbanization movement now that follows the urbanization movement that had been going on since the 1920s or so). 

But leaving forests in a condition (by regulation) where they burn more easily and then pointing to climate change is a pretty good indication of what's going on here. It's addressing an ideal rather than what is because what is (on the climate change side) doesn't generate enough income or interest on its own. 

Without antibiotics, I don't think we have the issue mentioned in the article above (global warming or not). That's the key fact.


----------



## Rorschach

Jacob said:


> It's a stupid thing to prioritise. Not to care for the rest of the world results in over population, see earlier post.



We all do it though, that's why you won't give me your workshop.


----------



## John Brown

Ok. Predictable enough response. I shall agree to disagree, although I do wish you would cease stating your opinions as fact.
However, please don't think I was suggesting that an increase in forest fires is in any way a result of climate change. I wasn't, although I suppose it could be.


----------



## Droogs

Just saw this vid and it is interesting for what Rachel Maddow says about BEVs and the F150 and is why I say it is a game changer


----------



## Tenacity

Crazy Dave said:


> Regarding PHEVs don't waste your money, think about it you've got an engine, gearbox and a tank of fuel then you're adding an electric motor and a battery pack. The weight alone kills your fuel economy and throws the handling out of the window.
> I had a BMW 330e Hybrid and the car was rubbish with the stupid stop start system that couldn't be disabled.
> 
> Trust me Hybrid's don't work unless you have to drive in a congestion zone.


I've had a PHEV for 5 years and for my needs it is brilliant!


----------



## Blackswanwood

D_W said:


> We do appear to have caused the warming on earth, and we'll cause it to reverse when it's significant enough to do that.



I just wondered what you feel constitutes “significant enough”?


----------



## JobandKnock

Droogs said:


> Just saw this vid and it is interesting for what Rachel Maddow says about BEVs and the F150 and is why I say it is a game changer


Not to the sort of person it should be aimed at. It is too large (for the UK), has paltry load carrying capacity, pitifully low range when laden, and is way too expensive. Those factors don't apply if you only need it to carry half a dozen laptops or you regard it as some form of penis extension, but in the real world they matter. It's just that you cannot see that.

The load capacity needs to be nearer to 800kg or 1 tonne, it needs a van body, it needs to be a lot smaller and the range needs to be more like 400 miles in winter with an 800kg load for it to be a game changer. 

Maybe in 3 or 4 years it will be, when they correct its' obvious shortcomings (by about generation 3 or 4) - at the moment it is at best an expensive toy for keyboard eco warriors to use for virtue signalling. It is not, for most purposes, a viable working vehicle. Oddly enough, I had a chat with my wife's cousin in California this evening and he was of the same opinion. But then he's a working carpenter with a hefty pick up


----------



## Droogs

Who said anything about the UK? Most contractors don't do round the world trips to get to a job, unlike you apparently. This is aimed at the average workman in most of the US. It meets the needs of most contractors, the biggest market there. They have their supplies delivered by someone else. They are able to carry their tools and if they have a trailer 10000lb or 3 and a half metric tonnes of gear at least 230 miles, for most normal people that is plenty. And it gives you a friggin' inbuilt generator to run your tools for an 8 hour shift at a minimum. This car will change the biggest vehicle sector in the US and for the better. Regardless of the fact that you want to be able to go to Alpha Centrui and back before having to pull in for a pee.

Have you even actually been in a modern current EV? I'm sure your kids/grandkids (if you have any) will thank gran'pa for leaving them a great planet in between taking puffs from their oxygen bottles and eating their cockroach protein bar. It's just that you don't/wont see that.

I've never regarded nor needed to regard anything as a penis extension, must be personal experience you're talking about there, don't worry, I wont tell anyone


----------



## D_W

John Brown said:


> Ok. Predictable enough response. I shall agree to disagree, although I do wish you would cease stating your opinions as fact.
> However, please don't think I was suggesting that an increase in forest fires is in any way a result of climate change. I wasn't, although I suppose it could be.




Point to an opinion that I stated as fact.


----------



## D_W

Blackswanwood said:


> I just wondered what you feel constitutes “significant enough”?



When society as a whole thinks there's enough value in action. It's not my choice as an individual. I'd make everyone have solar panels as a federal mandate if it was my choice and mandate xprize style contests for advancements. I'm not swayed by scary stories at this point because they're more about psychology than they are likelihood.


----------



## John Brown

D_W said:


> Point to an opinion that I stated as fact.


"It's not."


----------



## John Brown

"because they're more about psychology than they are likelihood."
Again, that's your opinion.


----------



## Sachakins

D_W said:


> I don't think you'll find too many commercial shops turning off all of their lighting, because with that goes video surveillance.


Why not? It's easier enough to have motion sensor security leds spots activated as needed.
In actuality, a sensor activated light, shining out of a row dark shops is more likely to be spotted on street cctv, and gives an instant alarm to anyone in vicinity. Much more effective than siren alarm.
Most home owners who fit security lights, don't have them on 24/7 nearly all on sensors nowadays, so why can't businesses do the same.


----------



## D_W

John Brown said:


> "because they're more about psychology than they are likelihood."
> Again, that's your opinion.



Show me an accurate predictive study over two separate intervals. Just one with accurate numerical predictions.


----------



## D_W

https://www.cato.org/blog/bias-climate-science



Note the publication bias. Note that it focuses on simplified results and overstatement.


----------



## John Brown

D_W said:


> https://www.cato.org/blog/bias-climate-science
> 
> 
> 
> Note the publication bias. Note that it focuses on simplified results and overstatement.


The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries.


----------



## John Brown

D_W said:


> Show me an accurate predictive study over two separate intervals. Just one with accurate numerical predictions.


Why? What comfort will it be, as we cling to the top of the Blackpool Tower, surrounded by swirling water, to know that the predictions were a bit out? Define accurate, anyway? It's hard enough to predict the weather for next week, where I live. By the time anyone's produced an "accurate" prediction, over two separate intervals, it could be too late.
My point was, and still is, that according to some scientists (most, as far as I know, but I haven't personally counted them), there are factors like reflectivity and release of trapped methane, that represent so-called tipping points. You don't believe this, you thing we should wait and see. Which is fine, you are entitled to your own opinion, but that's all it is.


----------



## Rorschach

@John Brown how fast do you think the waters are going to rise? lol


----------



## Blackswanwood

D_W said:


> When society as a whole thinks there's enough value in action. It's not my choice as an individual. I'd make everyone have solar panels as a federal mandate if it was my choice and mandate xprize style contests for advancements. I'm not swayed by scary stories at this point because they're more about psychology than they are likelihood.


Society as a whole will never agree on this as some are simply selfish and find it convenient to do nothing.


----------



## John Brown

Rorschach said:


> @John Brown how fast do you think the waters are going to rise? lol


Rorschach, can you not distinguish between an accurate prediction and a bit of hyperbolic rhetoric?


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> Rorschach, can you not distinguish between an accurate prediction and a bit of hyperbolic rhetoric?



It's called a joke, google it.


----------



## Blackswanwood

Rorschach said:


> @John Brown how fast do you think the waters are going to rise? lol


Do you not believe that it’s happening?
Edit - posts crossed - sometimes soh doesn’t translate on inter web!


----------



## John Brown

Rorschach said:


> It's called a joke, google it.


Sorry, it lacked a vital ingredient.


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> Sorry, it lacked a vital ingredient.



Yes but you might pick it up one day.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Debating climate science will get this thread shut down pdq, so how about talking about cars instead?

YouTube insisted that I watch the following, which I did purely because of the title.



I immediately thought of @Garno and his YouTube dependency issues, but it fits in here, too. A 4hp engine you can hold in one hand seems to be a bit of a breakthrough. Not electric, but may be an interim stopgap in increased efficiency.


----------



## Cooper

Rorschach said:


> how fast do you think the waters are going to rise? lol


Sadly, much faster than you think. Over 40 years ago I was taken on a tour of the Woolwich barrier just before it officially opened, by one of the engieers in charge. He explained "London was sinking and surge sea levels rising but the barrier and flood protection walls along the banks of the Thames would keep us safe for 60 years, at the then rate of sea level rise." Not many of those 60 years left ,especially as the rate of melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has dramatically increased in recent years.


----------



## John Brown

Rorschach said:


> Yes but you might pick it up one day.


If you weren't so young, and busy eating your avocado toast and sipping your fancy coffees, you might have picked up on the Marriot Edgar reference, especially in a woodworking forum...
"Well the rain showed no sign of abating
And the water rose hour by hour,
'Til the only dry land were at Blackpool,
And that were on top of the Tower."


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> If you weren't so young, and busy eating your avocado toast and sipping your fancy coffees, you might have picked up on the Marriot Edgar reference, especially in a woodworking forum...
> "Well the rain showed no sign of abating
> And the water rose hour by hour,
> 'Til the only dry land were at Blackpool,
> And that were on top of the Tower."



Who knew as well as running all those hotels he could also write poetry.


----------



## Cooper

I know its not woodwork or EV cars but thanks for this reference


John Brown said:


> Marriot Edgar reference


I've just looked him up. I always thought the Stanley Holloway wrote his own stuff. It proves you don't have to be young not to know stuff!!


----------



## John Brown

Cooper said:


> I know its not woodwork or EV cars but thanks for this reference
> 
> I've just looked him up. I always thought the Stanley Holloway wrote his own stuff. It proves you don't have to be young not to know stuff!!


I think most people thought Stanley Holloway wrote it.
Anyway, that particular poem is very relevant to woodwork.


----------



## D_W

Trainee neophyte said:


> Debating climate science will get this thread shut down pdq, so how about talking about cars instead?
> 
> YouTube insisted that I watch the following, which I did purely because of the title.
> 
> 
> 
> I immediately thought of @Garno and his YouTube dependency issues, but it fits in here, too. A 4hp engine you can hold in one hand seems to be a bit of a breakthrough. Not electric, but may be an interim stopgap in increased efficiency.




Has something happened? Rotary engines were always more compact but less efficient (and the torque is very poor). We had them in RC airplanes and they advertised high horsepower specs, but couldn't swing as big of a prop for a given horsepower spec (maybe when both the wankel and recipro engines were wide open they could, but the same power wankel choked under a prop that the recipro engine could handle). 

Same in chainsaws - they ran OK wide open, but chainsaws do need some torque and the novelty wore off quickly. 

mileage here or the Rx mazda cars was always poor, and the harder you drove them, the worse they seemed to get relative to a piston car doing the same thing.


----------



## D_W

Cooper said:


> Sadly, much faster than you think. Over 40 years ago I was taken on a tour of the Woolwich barrier just before it officially opened, by one of the engieers in charge. He explained "London was sinking and surge sea levels rising but the barrier and flood protection walls along the banks of the Thames would keep us safe for 60 years, at the then rate of sea level rise." Not many of those 60 years left ,especially as the rate of melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has dramatically increased in recent years.



6-8 inches of rise in the last 100 years according to the google monster. Is the thames issue also partially due to lack of flooding like we have with the mighty missespissi?

The delta here sinks about 10mm a year due to lack of sediment - sea level rise is supposedly around 3mm a year. I don't know if the sink rate is gross or net, the article that I read doesn't explain.


----------



## clogs

not really an Ev but I had a Mk1 Mazda sport with the rotary in it....
cost to much too fix it so I put a 3liter Ford V6 in it......same kinda M.P. Gallon but if flew.....
wish I had it now......


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Risk is often expressed or defined in terms of a 1 in 100 (or 500 or 1000) year event. 

A (say) 20cm rise in sea level may not appear to be great - deep enough to drown in if you lie down, but if walking comes half way up the shin.

However the distribution of events around which the risk is expressed tend to cluster around the mean. An extreme event, be it temperature, wind speed, river level etc, comes at the ends of the distribution curve. 

The impact of a small change in the mean value may have the effect of turning what was (say) a 1 in 100 year event into a 1 in 25 year event - 4 events now exceed whatever threshold level is considered acceptable. This is a massive change in risk even though the value change is fairly trivial.


----------



## D_W

Those are the kinds of things insurers puzzle over because catastrophic infrequent rates are difficult to insure. Also complicated by the desire here in the states to build in those areas (river valleys here - so the mentioned mississippi sediment isn't something that can be reversed - the delta shall continue to sink even if the sea level were to cease moving - which it won't do....but even worse, building of expensive homes in coastal areas using federal program coordinated insurance. ). 

The hurricane that went through jersey here years ago did a lot of damage to houses held mostly by real estate speculators (think $4MM houses on 1/10th of an acre on little island areas - some considerably more expensive than that). There was some outrage that insurance for those homes is covered under a federal program (hard to cut out the folks of means without taking out the few who are not) - in reality, 80 years ago, that wasn't a good place to build a house so few people did and the houses they built were bungalows that would cost little to repair or replace.


----------



## TominDales

Droogs said:


> Just saw this vid and it is interesting for what Rachel Maddow says about BEVs and the F150 and is why I say it is a game changer



This is very significant. When the most popular car in the US goes electric that says a lot about how quickly the market is changing. Its a a mugs game to predict the future, unless you make the future which Ford et al appear to be doing.


----------



## Ozi

Found out the other day a Toyota hydrogen powered car did 1003 km on one charge, admittedly in special circumstances and as a publicity exercise but on the public road. It's normal range is 650 km, just over 400 miles with a recharge time similar to filling a petrol tank. Obviously without the infrastructure in place we won't all be buying Hydrogen fueled cars any time soon, the most likely starting point for this technology to be adopted on any significant scale is buses and delivery vans operating from city center depots where the impact on air quality would be huge. It shows it can be done and with a significant range.


----------



## TominDales

D_W said:


> I think it would take a whole lot more "Damage" to make it unlivable for people - not that we're incapable. But we could very well have our attitudes adjusted by a giant volcano eruption.
> 
> It would be a fun thing to take up a pool to see if anyone can guess what the next crisis will be after carbon.


Crisis is a matter of personal perspective, and selling newspapers. You raise an interesting question. What is a crises.
Our industrialised economy of 7 billion people is big enough to dangerously change the planets environment, so we will be subjected to unexpected changes/crises from time to time. 

To me what distinguishes the CO2 driven climate crises is its sheer scale and challenge in dealing with it.

We are used to crises. Some natural such as the volcano example you site, others man made such as the smog, the poisoning of UK rivers by sewage and pollution in the 1950s, 






A foaming rivers crises emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s was dues to man made detergents that could not be broken down by microbes in the water. 1965 legislation banned certain types of detergent. DDT was a wonder insecticide which in 1945 was a major life saver as thousands of refugees were deloused and in particular eliminating typhoid/typhus spread. However it had a devastating impact on wild life - the bald eagle etc and after Silent spring was published in 1962 it was steadily replaced following a ban in the US in 1972. All of these product bans were initially disruptive and cause costs to rise and affected employment, but they were managed and necessary for our planets heath and survival. We will continue to live through them as more 'unexpected effects' emerge from our technologically driven economies. In my view these things are normal adaptations to change.

I have some personal experience of the Montreal protocol, when I first joined ICI in the 1980s the ozone hole had been discovered in 1985 and really quite quickly the culprit was identified as CFCs which were regulated out in 1987/9 - interestingly lead by Thatcher and Reagan. Who realised that the ozone hole would have a devastating effect on people and crop yields. I saw the effect this had on ICIs businesses are plants making £200m per years of products had to closed over a 8 year period and new products had to be found. Ultimately it lead to several thousand redundancies as the whole technical support departments were closed down. I recall at least two people died while on re-deployment, one dropped dead on the bus home and we wondered at work if it was related to the stress of seeing their careers ended.
DDT took about 20 years from early data on bird death to a ban in 1972. with CFCs the first chemical hypothesis was published in 1974 and governments started to fund research into the issue in the late 70s. In 1985 the hole was observed and by 1987 the protocol was agreed and came into effect in 1989 - four years after the hole was observed. This is perhaps an unusually quick example, it became clear that rapid action was needed and leaders from the right of centre in the US and EU were on board.

We have natural disasters, its believed that a volcanic eruption in Indonesia (Sumatra) in 542 was con9ncident with the first global pandemic, it lead to two missed summers - a huge climate change and is thought to have caused a change in the plagues spread, the Justinian plague wiped out between 20% and 60% of the European population and effectively ended the Byzantium empires control of the west. It was a natural event. The same with the Black death in the c13th.



the last rights administered to victims of the plague of Justinian 543.

Returning to the theme of man made crises. These will continue to be created and will need to be resolved. A classic is the 1960s green revolutions. Green Revolution - Wikipedia at the time about 1 billion people were facing starvation in Asia Africa and south america and this was averted by developments of new drought resistant rice and later corn varieties. Its know as the green revolution and can be traced back to various key individuals such as Norman Borleung, who saved 100smilloin lives. However these advanced enabled the worlds population to grow exponentially from 3bn to 5 bn over that 20 year period.





We now have the challenge to stabilise the global population and to mitigate the effects of the green revolution on the environment. Its a challenge that will eventually lead to a crisis is nothing is done.

Returning to Climate change. I can think of now bigger issue.

Our entire economic prosperity is based on cheap fossil energy. It has fuelled enormous growth for the past 100 years. The change to zero carbon economy is the biggest technological change in history. We managed evolutionary changes at great pace as oil replaced coal as the dominant fuel source in the early 20th century, but this change is bigger and faster than anything before. It requires changes to nearly all basic man made materials, fuels, steel, concrete. Nearly everything we buy will need to be made differently. Food production is responsible for 25% of Co2 emissions so changes to agriculture and our diets will be needed. I cant think of anything on this scale that has happened before.


----------



## D_W

Neither can I (in terms of scale and longevity), but panic isn't the answer. Solving problems is the answer. Actual analysis and problem solving (which often includes "we're not sure at this point") bores most people. It's not thrilling, it doesn't satisfy a lot of peoples' desire to listen to and be swooned by charisma, and the fantasy stories distract from solving the actual problem. 

Truthfully, if the population continues to explode, I don't see the problem getting solved any time soon. Even if it doesn't, I don't, but if we pat our backs about carbon emissions per capita declining 20% or 50% and population doubles....

.....when it becomes economically gainful to mitigate the problem, that's when we'll see far greater appeal to doing so. Until then, the "scary story" narrative will dominate.


----------



## RobinBHM

alanpo68 said:


> Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.
> 
> That is where the stupidity comes in.


That's free market capitalism....i.e. Greed not stupidity.


----------



## RobinBHM

TominDales said:


> . I work in the industry that is developing the chemicals that go into batteries and fuel cells, wind farms, solar cells, nuclear etc


Will you have any involvement in British Volt which is building a battery gigs factory?
Or Cornish lithium.

I'm interested to see if UK will catch up with other countries on lithium battery cell manufacture


----------



## D_W

RobinBHM said:


> That's free market capitalism....i.e. Greed not stupidity.



are these billion living in capitalist countries?


----------



## Terry - Somerset

We need to consider expectations of what life/existence should be. Decisions need to be taken today to de-risk the future, even if detailed actions are not immediately obvious.

It is possible that 20bn+ could exist on the planet. The greater the numbers, the more constrained individual existences would become - similarities with factory farming. This is technically feasible but not a life I would relish. Nor is it one I would wish on my descendants.

At the other extreme it is already technically feasible for global populations of below ~1bn to live almost indefinitely with no human induced environmental impact.

A more distant planning horizon embeds greater uncertainty. 10 years is too short (I may still be around). 1000 years is too long with many fundamental uncertainties. 100-200 years seems reasonable if only on the basis I know no-one who will still be around in 100 years time.

Human exploitation has, and will, change the climate and broader environment. More prosperous countries are able to adapt, poorer will simply succumb to whatever happens. 

Most of western Europe, USA, Japan can afford to adapt over time - build sea defences, relocate populations, intensively grow food, generate power (green, nuclear, carbon based), install revised infrastructures (drainage, road, power distribution etc). 

Many poorer countries will be reliant on the largesse (should it happen) of the wealthy for survival.


----------



## TominDales

RobinBHM said:


> Will you have any involvement in British Volt which is building a battery gigs factory?
> Or Cornish lithium.
> 
> I'm interested to see if UK will catch up with other countries on lithium battery cell manufacture


There is a lot happening in the UK. BV visiting us later this month, very ambitious plans for Blyth, while Cornish lithium are scaling up a sophisticated ion exchange system developed by an academic at Southampton university, early doors for both companies. There is also Northern lithium looking at winnowing lithium from old mines in Weardale.
One of the most promising UK companies is AMTE power. Like BV they are having to raise a lot of capital to expand, but they have a head start in battery development and have about 4 types of cell in development. They took over AMGs original lithium battery factory in Thurso and developing a pilot scale process in Dundee (ex Michelin site) AMTE Power, Potential to Power there are a number of small start ups sadly Oxis energy spun out from Oxford in 2005 and with 44 odd patents has just gone into administration, the bleeding edge of technology. 
In Sunderland is Envision AESC, its 85% Chinese owned, they make the Nissan Leaf battery, but looking to source its main materials from UK sources from 2025 as it expands production and brings the electrode coating process into the UK.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

TominDales said:


> Our entire economic prosperity is based on cheap fossil energy. It has fuelled enormous growth for the past 100 years. The change to zero carbon economy is the biggest technological change in history. We managed evolutionary changes at great pace as oil replaced coal as the dominant fuel source in the early 20th century, but this change is bigger and faster than anything before. It requires changes to nearly all basic man made materials, fuels, steel, concrete. Nearly everything we buy will need to be made differently. Food production is responsible for 25% of Co2 emissions so changes to agriculture and our diets will be needed. I cant think of anything on this scale that has happened before.


That is the the most important point of all. If we don't reduce fossil fuel use voluntarily we will reduce its use when it runs out. There is a good chance that 2018 was the year of peak oil production and we are now on the downward slope - the 1970s "Limits to growth" catastrophe science put the collapse around about now: 







Unless we find a new source of energy that is cheaper to produce than oil then the current "civilisation " is unsustainable. The only question is how far down do we go?


----------



## Terry - Somerset

The graph creates a narrative that limited fossil fuels ultimately limit population growth, increase deaths, reduce births, reduce resource consumption etc. 

Peak oil for most of the last 50 years has consistently been ~20 years in the future. This was inevitable as *proven *reserves are limited. With constant or increasing demand the price will rise to a level where the costs of further exploration and extraction is fundamentally uneconomic. The graph could be plausible.

What may now have changed is that alternative (green) energy sources have reduced in price to the point where they can supplant carbon based fuels, and render peak oil a reality without impacting population and resource consumption.


----------



## Ozi

D_W said:


> are these billion living in capitalist countries?


India, Nigeria


----------



## Cooper

D_W said:


> are these billion living in capitalist countries?


Perhaps the regimes they live under do not call themselves capitalist but I suspect that a significant number live under the rule of Kleptocrat dictators who sell the resources into our economies and stash their cash in our banks. I think that the whole of the world's economy, including China is driven by our economic model. But what do I a retired woodwork teacher know? Certainly and I'm sure you would agree D W, that our model is the only one capable of bringing about the radical changes necessary. Central planning failed the USSR and Eastern Europe, isn't doing much for Cuba or Venezuela either. As you say solutions rely of solving problems and this one is really urgent, though it would be nice to delude ourselves that it isn't.


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## Cooper

Trainee neophyte said:


> Unless we find a new source of energy that is cheaper to produce than oil then the current "civilisation " is unsustainable. The only question is how far down do we go?


The obvious source of energy is available and drives the planet's climate, ocean currents and on a nice day like today keeps us comfortable, the Sun. It is just a question of efficient conversion into a form of energy we can distribute and exploit. I am convinced that the rich boys, who own the oil giants and pushed out all the anti climate crisis propaganda, to protect their wealth, will realize which side their bread is buttered and follow the recent directions of shareholder votes EXXON and legal rulings Shell and get into gear. If they want to profit from our massive appetite for energy, they have to sell it in a form we demand. The customer is always right (in the end).


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## hairy

TominDales said:


> This is very significant. When the most popular car in the US goes electric that says a lot about how quickly the market is changing. Its a a mugs game to predict the future, unless you make the future which Ford et al appear to be doing.


Round here there seem to be very few private EVs, but quite a few charging points. New projects seem to have them regardless of not a lot of local demand. I would think there are plenty of firms who would want to have EVs to be seen to be doing their bit hence a flipping great US pickup modified to suit. I looked at buying a new Sprinter last year and was surprised to see a come back of petrol engines in their EU range as well as of course leccy versions. If a Euro 6 diesel is no more polluting and actually a better idea for heavy users (better mpg so less overall consumption of resources?), anyone diverting from that because the wind is blowing from a different direction rather that anything rational is a bit bonkers, and exporting our pollution to those who currently care less.


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## Woody2Shoes

Spectric said:


> Lithium is a dangerous metalic substance that can be very unstable, it needs careful handling, charging, discharging and eventually disposal.
> 
> 
> 
> News Centre A warning on why Lithium Batteries can catch fire
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> Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires
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> Lithium-ion battery fires generate intense heat and considerable amounts of gas and smoke. Although the emission of toxic gases can be a larger threat than the heat, the knowledge of such emissions is limited. This paper presents quantitative measurements ...
> 
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> www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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> Lithium batteries are everywhere, and they're more dangerous than you think. Here's what to know.
> 
> 
> Crushed or opened lithium batteries have caused sudden and massive fires at recycling plants and in garbage trucks. They're also all over your house.
> 
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> eu.pressconnects.com
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> Risks and side effects<br /> The underestimated dangers of lithium-ion batteries
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> 
> With its high energy density and low self-discharge rate lithium-containing batteries offer some great advantages compared to conventional and rechargeable batteries. Indeed, operator errors and de...
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> www.petro-online.com
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> Lithium-ion Battery Waste Fires Costing the UK Over £100m a Year - Eunomia
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> A new report by Eunomia and ESA estimate that 201 waste fires each year are caused by lithium-ion batteries at a cost of £158m to the UK economy.
> 
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> www.eunomia.co.uk


Petrol's not particularly safe either, e.g. Buncefield fire - Wikipedia 

The difficulty is that most things that are energy dense also, almost by definition, have some risk associated with them (even if it's something as simple as accidental short-circuit).

Realistically, lithium is no more/less dangerous than most other energy storage media - if we use the right technology to package/manage it. I still won't have gas in the house though!!  Gas explosion - Wikipedia


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## Trainee neophyte

Peak _cheap_ oil is the problem - you can always find expensive oil, but once you need more energy to extract the oil than that oil can give you, it ceases to be relevant. The energy return on energy invested, in other words.

In other disappointing news, it might be that the carbon saved by switching to electric vehicles may be negligible to none at all.









Exploring Lithium-ion Electric Vehicles’ Carbon Footprint


Comparing carbon emissions of internal combustion engines to lithium-ion electric.




blog.gorozen.com




"Moreover, they point out that a typical EV is on average 50% heavier than a similar internal combustion engine, requiring more steel and aluminum in the frame. They conclude the “embedded carbon” in an EV (i.e., when it rolls off the lot) is therefore 20–50% more than an internal combustion engine."​
You save on the carbon bill by using green electricity, so the breakeven point appears to be at about 130,000 miles traveled. Unfortunately that also seems to be the point at which you replace the EV batteries because they are no longer efficient enough, and so you are immediately back in a carbon deficit. This may change in the future with better battery technology but for the minute...oops.

Of course, it might just be oil companies trying to keep their business model working. Everyone gets to pick and choose the science they believe in these days anyway.


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## TominDales

Trainee neophyte said:


> Peak _cheap_ oil is the problem - you can always find expensive oil, but once you need more energy to extract the oil than that oil can give you, it ceases to be relevant. The energy return on energy invested, in other words.
> 
> In other disappointing news, it might be that the carbon saved by switching to electric vehicles may be negligible to none at all.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Exploring Lithium-ion Electric Vehicles’ Carbon Footprint
> 
> 
> Comparing carbon emissions of internal combustion engines to lithium-ion electric.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> blog.gorozen.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Moreover, they point out that a typical EV is on average 50% heavier than a similar internal combustion engine, requiring more steel and aluminum in the frame. They conclude the “embedded carbon” in an EV (i.e., when it rolls off the lot) is therefore 20–50% more than an internal combustion engine."​



This article seems way off the mark. The accepted view is that its about 45,000 miles in the UK - using our energy mix for electricity and will fall over time as more power is made from non carbon sources.
This article quoted is disputing analysis by others and then drawing assumptions some of quick are dubious and misleading. The best analysis is head to head real data comparisons. There are loads of authoritive articles on this topic, this fact cheque article from a year or so ago is quite good it sumarises most of the comparitors.













Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change


Electric vehicles (EVs) are an important part of meeting global goals on climate change. They feature prominently in mitigation pathways that limit warming to well-below 2C or 1.5C, which would be inline with the Paris Agreement’s targets.




www.carbonbrief.org




Note that France which generates most of its electricity from low carbon nuclear has the lowest emissions as of 2019. The US and Germany have the highest as they use a a fair amount of coal and gas. By 2050 the UK and EU will have a similar profile to Norway and the other manufacturing emission will have all fallen to zero.

The embodied emissions in the battery depend on what energy is used to make it. That is why Johnson Matthey have announced renewable energy deals for their Polish and Finland battery chemical factories. the last thing the auto industry want to do is sell a green car that has been made using Polish brown coal.





Johnson Matthey’s battery materials plant in Konin, Poland, to be 100% powered by renewable electricity | Johnson Matthey


Johnson Matthey’s battery materials plant in Konin, Poland, to be 100% powered by renewable electricity




matthey.com




.
Its why British volts giga factory is in Blyth because it connects to the North Sea wind interconnector. Similarly North Volt (supplier to VW) is using Finish low carbon electricity for its giga factory.

I remember around 2005 stories that PV cells used most of their life to earn back the huge amount of power needed to produce the silicon. However they were using solar cell efficiency data from the 1970s and assumed all the energy was from coal. Modern PV is far more efficient the energy needed to make them is much lower and the the electricity used is mainly hydro from the 3 dams project and from earlier PV farms. So PV cells give a CO2 payback in about 3 years. It turned out the source of these stories were from data provided by an oil industry sponsored think tank and were deliberately misleading - I might add it was only a minority of the oil industry that indulged in this practice.[/QUOTE]


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## Ozi

Trainee neophyte said:


> Peak _cheap_ oil is the problem - you can always find expensive oil, but once you need more energy to extract the oil than that oil can give you, it ceases to be relevant. The energy return on energy invested, in other words.
> 
> In other disappointing news, it might be that the carbon saved by switching to electric vehicles may be negligible to none at all.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Exploring Lithium-ion Electric Vehicles’ Carbon Footprint
> 
> 
> Comparing carbon emissions of internal combustion engines to lithium-ion electric.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> blog.gorozen.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Moreover, they point out that a typical EV is on average 50% heavier than a similar internal combustion engine, requiring more steel and aluminum in the frame. They conclude the “embedded carbon” in an EV (i.e., when it rolls off the lot) is therefore 20–50% more than an internal combustion engine."​
> You save on the carbon bill by using green electricity, so the breakeven point appears to be at about 130,000 miles traveled. Unfortunately that also seems to be the point at which you replace the EV batteries because they are no longer efficient enough, and so you are immediately back in a carbon deficit. This may change in the future with better battery technology but for the minute...oops.
> 
> Of course, it might just be oil companies trying to keep their business model working. Everyone gets to pick and choose the science they believe in these days anyway.


The 50% heavier figure is not accurate, I have crash tested a lot of different vehicles and not seen that sort of mass increase. The worst offenders are PHEV where you have to carry both power trains. I really don't like PHEV as a concept and not just because getting the sods to crash safely is difficult, it's the high proportion of users who get board with plugging them in then just lug flat batteries around. Cars of all types have been getting heavier for a long while as we try to cram ever more features into them. It really is time we stop driving about on our own in 5 seat cars with wheels big enough for lorries.


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## Trainee neophyte

Ozi said:


> The 50% heavier figure is not accurate, I have crash tested a lot of different vehicles and not seen that sort of mass increase. The worst offenders are PHEV where you have to carry both power trains. I really don't like PHEV as a concept and not just because getting the sods to crash safely is difficult, it's the high proportion of users who get board with plugging them in then just lug flat batteries around. Cars of all types have been getting heavier for a long while as we try to cram ever more features into them. It really is time we stop driving about on our own in 5 seat cars with wheels big enough for lorries.


If I absolutely had to have a job, could I have yours, please? 

That article I posted seems to have been rubbished from both directions, so probably has little if any veracity. Interesting, given that they offer investment advice on commodities - you might expect them to be a bit more up to speed with their research.

"G&R uses a fundamental, research-driven, value-investing approach. We believe the best time to find value in the natural resource sector, is when a commodity is largely out of favor with investors, prices are depressed and valuations are low."​
Perhaps they are just trying to downplay the value, so they can invest at a better price - can't trust these investment types when they are "talking their book". Or they are incompetent - "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".


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## Ozi

Trainee neophyte said:


> If I absolutely had to have a job, could I have yours, please?
> 
> That article I posted seems to have been rubbished from both directions, so probably has little if any veracity. Interesting, given that they offer investment advice on commodities - you might expect them to be a bit more up to speed with their research.
> 
> "G&R uses a fundamental, research-driven, value-investing approach. We believe the best time to find value in the natural resource sector, is when a commodity is largely out of favor with investors, prices are depressed and valuations are low."​
> Perhaps they are just trying to downplay the value, so they can invest at a better price - can't trust these investment types when they are "talking their book". Or they are incompetent - "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".


I have to say my job is a small boys dream I get big expensive toys get to break them and get new ones. On the flip side be there when $2,000,000 hits the wall and everyone thinks you got it wrong - then you can have my job. But at the end of the day it's just twisted metal I would not have the courage to be a surgeon.

Hanlon's razor cuts deep


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## Spectric

Here is another issue, keeping the occupants warm and cosy, with an ICE you are using a waste product to provide the heating, ie the engine coolant but with just batteries you will now have to use the same energy source that provides the motive power. Just using all electric is a way of until we get a suitable battery technology, for the mean time as an intermediate measure what is needed is a small non reciprocating power source such as a gas turbine to produce additional power as well as the batteries. Another option when traveling at higher speeds is a ram turbine.


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## Ozi

Spectric said:


> Here is another issue, keeping the occupants warm and cosy, with an ICE you are using a waste product to provide the heating, ie the engine coolant but with just batteries you will now have to use the same energy source that provides the motive power. Just using all electric is a way of until we get a suitable battery technology, for the mean time as an intermediate measure what is needed is a small non reciprocating power source such as a gas turbine to produce additional power as well as the batteries. Another option when traveling at higher speeds is a ram turbine.


In a car you need to keep screens clear and need to be warm enough to drive safely but cars like houses do not need to be 20°C all year round, if you come out of your 10°C house wearing a good jumper and feeling quite OK into 5°C it doesn't hurt, if like me hair is a rear commodity put a woolly hat on. 

The real killer is having to heat the battery, they give less power when cold and using some of what you have to warm them kill range, having heated seats and motorized everything else just uses power and adds weight.

Climbs back on soap box - Small simple vehicles, designed to do the job you do most often on a hire contract that lets you pay for something else when you need it. A bit of planning ahead for lower transport costs and cleaner air


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## Droogs

Spectric said:


> Here is another issue, keeping the occupants warm and cosy, with an ICE you are using a waste product to provide the heating, ie the engine coolant but with just batteries you will now have to use the same energy source that provides the motive power. Just using all electric is a way of until we get a suitable battery technology, for the mean time as an intermediate measure what is needed is a small non reciprocating power source such as a gas turbine to produce additional power as well as the batteries. Another option when traveling at higher speeds is a ram turbine.


You are missing the crux, by burning dino  just because you are too lazy to get a jumper, you are in all likelyhood actually killing your grandkids. I bet they'll be ever so grateful.


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## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> You are missing the crux, by burning dino  just because you are too lazy to get a jumper, you are in all likelyhood actually killing your grandkids. I bet they'll be ever so grateful.



Not a worry if you don't have grandkids


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## Just4Fun

Droogs said:


> You are missing the crux, by burning dino  just because you are too lazy to get a jumper, you are in all likelyhood actually killing your grandkids.


That is a UK-centric view I think. Getting an extra jumper may be a possible solution most of the time in the UK. It is not the case in the winter in my climate. At the other extreme someone in a very hot climate may have a justifiable need to spend some of their available battery power on air conditioning. Cars are typically made for global markets, so the same car has to be able to cope anywhere from Arizona to the Arctic and currently (excuse the pun) that means range takes a big hit in the more extreme conditions.


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## Droogs

Exactly the reply I would expect from you. But rest assured @Rorschach I, even as a non-believer, pray to the multiverse for your continued serenity and sterility 


@Just4Fun not arguing against having a heater or ac, I am pointing out the junkie like addiction to burning everything to the point of even adding on a fossil fuel burning device on an eco machine just "because that is what I've done for the the last 150 years" and the I can't be arssedness of that attitude as it means people would have to accept Mea Culpa. Still what do I care, I have 40 years max left and no protazoa running around in shorts in the game. Besides those last few years wont all be rat frikese and toe cheese burgers, I'll probably have a few MREs still stashed away somewhere


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## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> Exactly the reply I would expect from you. But rest assured @Rorschach I, even as a non-believer, pray to the multiverse for your continued serenity and sterility
> 
> 
> @Just4Fun not arguing against having a heater or ac, I am pointing out the junkie like addiction to burning everything to the point of even adding on a fossil fuel burning device on an eco machine just "because that is what I've done for the the last 150 years" and the I can't be arssedness of that attitude as it means people would have to accept Mea Culpa. Still what do I care, I have 40 years max left and no protazoa running around in shorts in the game. Besides those last few years wont all be rat frikese and toe cheese burgers, I'll probably have a few MREs still stashed away somewhere



I thought depopulation was the answer? Not having children is the most powerful thing anyone can do to reduce their carbon emissions short of killing themselves.
I don't think I'll pass onto the missus that you are praying for her sterility.


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## Droogs

you miss-understood, it's her serentity and your ...


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## Cooper

Ozi said:


> Small simple vehicles, designed to do the job you do most often


A friend pointed out that the best EV would be a converted 2CV. Why, for short runs, we have to be more comfortable and have more tech than in lots of homes beats me.


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## Rorschach

Cooper said:


> A friend pointed out that the best EV would be a converted 2CV. Why, for short runs, we have to be more comfortable and have more tech than in lots of homes beats me.



Ummm safety, a 2CV is not a safe car at all.


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## hairy

Rorschach said:


> Ummm safety, a 2CV is not a safe car at all.


That is rubbish. I'm sure one is fine until you crash, so, top tip, don't crash


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## Rorschach

hairy said:


> That is rubbish. I'm sure one is fine until you crash, so, top tip, don't crash



Damn, if only I had thought of that!


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## hairy

A friend has a hybrid which costs not very much to charge via a 13amp plug. Most of their trips are local so have gone weeks on leccy only, even with something like a 45 mile range. Longer trips it uses a perfectly suitable ICE. The purchase cost would be huge but for him it works well.

One letter to I think Honest John described someone buying a second hand Ev, maybe a Leaf. The range was ok to start but got worse and became marginal. He was quoted something like £15K for a new battery to which he thought no way I'll tolerate it. But as it got worse and then just too little range to be useable for him after a only a few more months he went back and said ok I'll pay your £15K. Dealer said sorry, no longer made.


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## hairy

Rorschach said:


> Damn, if only I had thought of that!


Was it Clarkson who suggested to get all drivers to actually pay attention replace airbags with a spike pointing at your chest


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## AlanY

Droogs said:


> You are missing the crux, by burning dino  just because you are too lazy to get a jumper, you are in all likelyhood actually killing your grandkids. I bet they'll be ever so grateful.


Really. I am 'actually' killing my grandkids? It is stupid statements like this that make me turn the central heating up and drive my (diesel) car in sport mode. Is it not enough to simply say that we all have a responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible?


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## Droogs

Yes you are, by polluting their environment which leads to shorter unhealthier lives, by compounding the destruction of the mechanisms that keep them alive meaning many will die of thirst, hunger and disease. Impoverishing them by destroying/asset stripping local environments and economies of poorer places and inflicting these injustices on their children as well. So yeah you crack on and be a


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## Rorschach

hairy said:


> Was it Clarkson who suggested to get all drivers to actually pay attention replace airbags with a spike pointing at your chest



Yes I seem to remember something like that. It is true that the more safety devices you install, the more dangerous people act.


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## Droogs

It may be the less they think of the consequences of their actions @Rorschach


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## Rorschach

Droogs said:


> It may be the less they think of the consequences of their actions @Rorschach



Could be, not sure of the psychology behind it, just know that it happens.


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## AlanY

Droogs said:


> Yes you are, by polluting their environment which leads to shorter unhealthier lives, by compounding the destruction of the mechanisms that keep them alive meaning many will die of thirst, hunger and disease. Impoverishing them by destroying/asset stripping local environments and economies of poorer places and inflicting these injustices on their children as well. So yeah you crack on and be a


Nah, you must be thinking about somebody else's grandkids. Mine are fine.


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## Geoff_S

Cooper said:


> A friend pointed out that the best EV would be a converted 2CV. Why, for short runs, we have to be more comfortable and have more tech than in lots of homes beats me.


I look forward to hearing your review once you've bought one 





__





2CV GarageElectric - 2CV Garage







2cvgarage.nl


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## Cooper

Geoff_S said:


> I look forward to hearing your review once you've bought one



Thanks for the link, I think that for such a basic car 22,000 euro is a bit steep, though I'd love to have one. I dare say that being so light weight would give it plenty of range.


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## TominDales

hairy said:


> A friend has a hybrid which costs not very much to charge via a 13amp plug. Most of their trips are local so have gone weeks on leccy only, even with something like a 45 mile range. Longer trips it uses a perfectly suitable ICE. The purchase cost would be huge but for him it works well.
> 
> One letter to I think Honest John described someone buying a second hand Ev, maybe a Leaf. The range was ok to start but got worse and became marginal. He was quoted something like £15K for a new battery to which he thought no way I'll tolerate it. But as it got worse and then just too little range to be useable for him after a only a few more months he went back and said ok I'll pay your £15K. Dealer said sorry, no longer made.


I doubt its a Leaf the batteries have lasted much longer than first thought and you can get upgrades from replacements of the origional 24kwh for 5.5k or an 40KWh upgrade from £8k Battery Upgrades - Cleevely Electric Vehicles Gloucestershire also worth trying other Nissan dealers. The batteries are still made in the UK so quite avaialable.


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## hairy

TominDales my point was meant to be more general spurred by a specific case I'd read about a few months back, how do you know that with the oft quoted rapid increase in performance in EVs that in the near future your older EV battery will still be available? That makes a hybrid more attractive with less risk, you may be charged less tax than a full ICE even if your not too common lithium has totally died. Who will know the electric part no longer does a great deal?

From the 2cv site " We reached 120km of range. The engine comes from a Nissan Leaf, the batteries from a Smart. The performance is potentially spectacular, but is electronically adjusted to the 2cv. The rear springs are slightly heavier, as the weight increases by 120kg. Not a disadvantage, it makes the car drive even better, less jumpy and wonderfully smooth. "
That 120kg seems to be behind the back axle. And they leave the gearbox in?

Seperately, I know you will damage lithiums by charging when too cold, so do they have heaters in them too? Powered by what when it's flat?


----------



## stuart little

Rorschach said:


> Ummm safety, a 2CV is not a safe car at all.


If a 2CV gets hit head-on it folds up at the bulkhead - I've seen such victims in France. What about Smart cars or Micro cars - who'd feel safe in one of them? Where do you put the battery (ies) - there's hardly room for shopping.


----------



## AlanY

stuart little said:


> If a 2CV gets hit head-on it folds up at the bulkhead - I've seen such victims in France. What about Smart cars or Micro cars - who'd feel safe in one of them? Where do you put the battery (ies) - there's hardly room for shopping.


That is an interesting point. I wonder if the retro-EVs are required to be subject to crash testing? It would be interesting to see if the batteries survive it or if they rupture and burn?


----------



## Rorschach

AlanY said:


> That is an interesting point. I wonder if the retro-EVs are required to be subject to crash testing? It would be interesting to see if the batteries survive it or if they rupture and burn?



It's probably like those "restored" aircraft you get. They say it's a spitfire but 99% of it is new material and only the dials are original, bit of a con really. The cars are probably the same, triggers broom, everything is new but because it looks like a 2CV they class it as such.


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## Just4Fun

Rorschach said:


> The cars are probably the same, triggers broom, everything is new but because it looks like a 2CV they class it as such.


I competed on some historic rallies with a friend who bought his car new in 1966. I once asked him how much of the current car is from the original build. After thinking for a while his list was:
- bonnet badge
- boot lock
- one door handle


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## Rorschach

Just4Fun said:


> I competed on some historic rallies with a friend who bought his car new in 1966. I once asked him how much of the current car is from the original build. After thinking for a while his list was:
> - bonnet badge
> - boot lock
> - one door handle



I suspect this is more common than most people think.


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## Spectric

I think that all this is fairly ironic, in the seventies playing with Scalextric and our milk delivered by Unigate with battery milkfloats, now we are starting to drive battery cars and collect our milk from supermarkets.


----------



## selectortone

New neighbours have just moved in over the road from me. They have a Tesla Model 3. Wow - what a beautiful car close up. The science fiction I used to read in the 60s has come to life.

I was chatting to the guy yesterday; he absolutely loves it. He was on his way out in it, he pulled away in virtual silence apart from a bit of tyre noise. I now have to figure out how I can wangle a ride in it


----------



## D_W

stuart little said:


> If a 2CV gets hit head-on it folds up at the bulkhead - I've seen such victims in France. What about Smart cars or Micro cars - who'd feel safe in one of them? Where do you put the battery (ies) - there's hardly room for shopping.



The smart brand cars do fine in a crash here except for one thing - with big cars in the US, they can get bounced and then get hit again if they're bounced into other traffic. 

I'm sure this can happen with all cars, but if a car is much lighter than other cars, it increases the odds that it'll be the one moving more after impact.


----------



## clogs

my best friend in the states said when I was choosing a car to drive.....
get something with 1/2ton of iron under the hood....he wasnt wrong as it turned out later......

actually everyones slates Fiat... I saw a test when they used one and compared it to a Volvo 
needless to say the Fiat was surprisingly intact in the passenger cell....it's all in the engineering.....


----------



## John Brown

hairy said:


> TominDales my point was meant to be more general spurred by a specific case I'd read about a few months back, how do you know that with the oft quoted rapid increase in performance in EVs that in the near future your older EV battery will still be available? That makes a hybrid more attractive with less risk, you may be charged less tax than a full ICE even if your not too common lithium has totally died. Who will know the electric part no longer does a great deal?
> 
> From the 2cv site " We reached 120km of range. The engine comes from a Nissan Leaf, the batteries from a Smart. The performance is potentially spectacular, but is electronically adjusted to the 2cv. The rear springs are slightly heavier, as the weight increases by 120kg. Not a disadvantage, it makes the car drive even better, less jumpy and wonderfully smooth. "
> That 120kg seems to be behind the back axle. And they leave the gearbox in?
> 
> Seperately, I know you will damage lithiums by charging when too cold, so do they have heaters in them too? Powered by what when it's flat?


Maybe powered by the charger.


----------



## Ozi

AlanY said:


> That is an interesting point. I wonder if the retro-EVs are required to be subject to crash testing? It would be interesting to see if the batteries survive it or if they rupture and burn?


They would not be tested due to low volume production. Old 2cvs are death traps by modern standards but don't put all small cars in the same category, SMART cars do surprisingly well in test and also out in the real world as do some others like the Corsa. It depends hugely on the accident but a big heavy car does not always win. My biggest concern with the batteries would not be rupturing but where they went in the impact, there isn't structure designed to hold them down. Batteries tend to be stronger than fuel tanks but I would not want to share a seat with one if I'd rolled an old car that's suspension wasn't meant to take the extra weight. It pays to think about what you have in a car, people have been badly hurt by items like crook locks rattling about in an accident. Here I am claiming to be an expert but there is a packet of chisels I have sharpened for a friend sitting on my back seat, having been a crash test engineer for more years than I want to count I should do better than that.


----------



## TominDales

hairy said:


> TominDales my point was meant to be more general spurred by a specific case I'd read about a few months back, how do you know that with the oft quoted rapid increase in performance in EVs that in the near future your older EV battery will still be available? That makes a hybrid more attractive with less risk, you may be charged less tax than a full ICE even if your not too common lithium has totally died. Who will know the electric part no longer does a great deal?
> 
> From the 2cv site " We reached 120km of range. The engine comes from a Nissan Leaf, the batteries from a Smart. The performance is potentially spectacular, but is electronically adjusted to the 2cv. The rear springs are slightly heavier, as the weight increases by 120kg. Not a disadvantage, it makes the car drive even better, less jumpy and wonderfully smooth. "
> That 120kg seems to be behind the back axle. And they leave the gearbox in?
> 
> Separately, I know you will damage lithiums by charging when too cold, so do they have heaters in them too? Powered by what when it's flat?


Hi , Yes I think right to be cautious of some of the after market, especially for bespoke models/modifications. You raise a good point about general after market stuff. I have regular meetings with the Leaf battery maker in Sunderland so will ask him about how they service the aftermarket. My understanding of their latest offer, is they have change the battery chemistry of the leafs which means a 40kwh battery now fits into the old 24kwh battery slot and costs no more than the original. The AESC (who make the battery) guys say that is a bonus upgrade for new users. The 60kwh battery is large and costs more.
Word is that hey are planning to upgrade the battery chemistry in about 2 years time to the latest low cobalt cell which will have aditoinal range. I'll ask if they are maintaining spares for older models.

Interestingly on the guys told me that when Nissan sold the plan to AESC they gave a £30mish bond to cover faulty batteries and returns under warrenty. So far that bond has not been used at all as they have had zero failures.


----------



## Just4Fun

What do people think about the ultra-cheap EVs available from China? For example:
Solar EV car on alibaba
Anybody seen or tried anything like that? Or seen a review?
What sort of range are they likely to have in reality?
Do they perform well enough to keep up with the normal flow of traffic?
Is the build quality as low as the price might suggest?
Are they street legal in the UK and/or EU?


----------



## Rorschach

Just4Fun said:


> What do people think about the ultra-cheap EVs available from China? For example:
> Solar EV car on alibaba
> Anybody seen or tried anything like that? Or seen a review?
> What sort of range are they likely to have in reality?
> Do they perform well enough to keep up with the normal flow of traffic?
> Is the build quality as low as the price might suggest?
> Are they street legal in the UK and/or EU?



I doubt they are legal but it would be interesting to know and I expect cars like this will be very common soon.
The solar panel on the roof though is just laughable, it might charge up your phone or run the satnav but to actually make any kind of meaningful charge on the car battery, nah, not gonna happen.

Oh and top speed 50km/h so not suitable for A-roads in the UK.


----------



## John Brown

Rorschach is too young to remember the Sinclair C5. The gulf between the hyped product and the real thing was breathtaking. I can't imagine how Clive's credibility must have suffered. An acquaintance of mine bought one, solely so that he could drive to the pub and back without fear of losing his licence. After everybody had taken it for a spin, he almost invariably ended up having to pedal home.


----------



## Rorschach

John Brown said:


> Rorschach is too young to remember the Sinclair C5. The gulf between the hyped product and the real thing was breathtaking. I can't imagine how Clive's credibility must have suffered. An acquaintance of mine bought one, solely so that he could drive to the pub and back without fear of losing his licence. After everybody had taken it for a spin, he almost invariably ended up having to pedal home.



Just a little bit lol.

I think the problem with the C5, aside from the fact that the technology didn't exist to make it a practical vehicle (that's something that could have been overcome if demand was there), is that it was a solution looking for a problem.


----------



## Just4Fun

Rorschach said:


> The solar panel on the roof though is just laughable


Inadequate, yes; it could not be the sole charging method. In some uses it might be a useful addition though and perhaps better to have it than not.


> Oh and top speed 50km/h so not suitable for A-roads in the UK.


Yes, totally unrealistic on the open road even if they had the range for any useful journeys. I doubt that would be why someone would buy one though.
Over here you can get a licence for a "moped car" at a younger age than you can get a full car licence. These are limited to 50 KPH and they seem to keep up OK in towns & cities which I guess is the most likely environment in which to use one of these cheapo electric cars. I don't see top speed as a major concern for a glorified shopping trolley.


----------



## hairy

In trying to find the article I mentioned where a secondhand EV buyer ended up with not being able to buy a replacement battery turning the whole car into landfill or a chicken shed I did stumble across an article about the Leaf 40KW battery losing capacity on each charge considerably more quickly than the smaller one.









Nissan Issues Statement On LEAF 30-kWh Battery Degradation


Nissan is aware that a limited number of customers have expressed concerns with the previous generation of the Nissan LEAF 30-kWh battery.




insideevs.com





If you search for Leaf 40KW battery issues there are plenty of people saying they have issues which the manufacturer doesn't seem to want to deal with. I am sure they have very few "failures" because that is an absolute term in the warranty I am sure, but ending up with something that doesn't do what was advertised is a harder thing to prove I would think.

Not that I'm going to buy an EV. Having spent some time reseaching lithiums for my camper, and installed enough with solar to run a washing machine in that when parked near the Med, I can't see it being a sensible choice for the environment, short or long term personal or business vehicle use, or as a domestic storage unit to be run from solar or a turbine to put my house off grid. All cars should be made to a more basic standard and be as light as possible, carting round more weight than needed rather than desired is too wastefull. Simplify and add lightness was and will always be true, not bolt in hundreds of kg of lithium. The only sensible use for an EV IMHO is to hopefully reduce particulates in areas where there are too many, like some city centres only.



TominDales said:


> Hi , Yes I think right to be cautious of some of the after market, especially for bespoke models/modifications. You raise a good point about general after market stuff. I have regular meetings with the Leaf battery maker in Sunderland so will ask him about how they service the aftermarket. My understanding of their latest offer, is they have change the battery chemistry of the leafs which means a 40kwh battery now fits into the old 24kwh battery slot and costs no more than the original. The AESC (who make the battery) guys say that is a bonus upgrade for new users. The 60kwh battery is large and costs more.
> Word is that hey are planning to upgrade the battery chemistry in about 2 years time to the latest low cobalt cell which will have aditoinal range. I'll ask if they are maintaining spares for older models.
> 
> Interestingly on the guys told me that when Nissan sold the plan to AESC they gave a £30mish bond to cover faulty batteries and returns under warrenty. So far that bond has not been used at all as they have had zero failures.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

A small EV for less than £10k! It may be the future of city transport:

a max speed of 50mph would be more than adequate
range of less than 100 miles would suffice for journeys typically 1-5 miles
even if the pv roof only managed 1 or 2 kw per day may suffice for very local use
I doubt this is the solution - probably non-compliant in UK, safer than a motorbike or scooter (but probably not much), built down to a price (not up to a quality standard) etc. No use on main roads or for long journeys - but that's not what it's designed to do.


----------



## John Brown

Terry - Somerset said:


> A small EV for less than £10k! It may be the future of city transport:
> 
> a max speed of 50mph would be more than adequate
> range of less than 100 miles would suffice for journeys typically 1-5 miles
> even if the pv roof only managed 1 or 2 kw per day may suffice for very local use
> I doubt this is the solution - probably non-compliant in UK, safer than a motorbike or scooter (but probably not much), built down to a price (not up to a quality standard) etc. No use on main roads or for long journeys - but that's not what it's designed to do.


Assuming you mean kwh, rather than kw, then with a rough figure of 150w per square metre, you're looking for about 7 hours of sunshine. Maybe slightly better if solar cells become more efficient, but then again, they're not going to be optimally angled, and there are some tall buildings about.
For once I agree with Rorschach the younger. Fairly pointless.


----------



## selectortone

hairy said:


> In trying to find the article I mentioned where a secondhand EV buyer ended up with not being able to buy a replacement battery turning the whole car into landfill or a chicken shed I did stumble across an article about the Leaf 40KW battery losing capacity on each charge considerably more quickly than the smaller one.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nissan Issues Statement On LEAF 30-kWh Battery Degradation
> 
> 
> Nissan is aware that a limited number of customers have expressed concerns with the previous generation of the Nissan LEAF 30-kWh battery.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> insideevs.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you search for Leaf 40KW battery issues there are plenty of people saying they have issues which the manufacturer doesn't seem to want to deal with. I am sure they have very few "failures" because that is an absolute term in the warranty I am sure, but ending up with something that doesn't do what was advertised is a harder thing to prove I would think.
> 
> Not that I'm going to buy an EV. Having spent some time reseaching lithiums for my camper, and installed enough with solar to run a washing machine in that when parked near the Med, I can't see it being a sensible choice for the environment, short or long term personal or business vehicle use, or as a domestic storage unit to be run from solar or a turbine to put my house off grid. All cars should be made to a more basic standard and be as light as possible, carting round more weight than needed rather than desired is too wastefull. Simplify and add lightness was and will always be true, not bolt in hundreds of kg of lithium. The only sensible use for an EV IMHO is to hopefully reduce particulates in areas where there are too many, like some city centres only.


Robert Llewellyn (Kryten in 'Red Dwarf') has a youtube channel devoted to EVs and renewable energy called 'Fully Charged'. He bought a Nissan Leaf several years ago and in one of his videos he talked about swapping out the original battery for a new one. He had it done by the company in Cheltenham mentioned earlier in this thread. The only issue he had was that the garage was closed for a time during the first lockdown. Other than that, no problem.

Edit: here's the video:


----------



## RobinBHM

Just4Fun said:


> What do people think about the ultra-cheap EVs available from China? For example:
> Solar EV car on alibaba
> Anybody seen or tried anything like that? Or seen a review?
> What sort of range are they likely to have in reality?
> Do they perform well enough to keep up with the normal flow of traffic?
> Is the build quality as low as the price might suggest?
> Are they street legal in the UK and/or EU?


in the video it looks like it goes about 10 miles an hour down the dual carriageway


----------



## D_W

hairy said:


> In trying to find the article I mentioned where a secondhand EV buyer ended up with not being able to buy a replacement battery turning the whole car into landfill or a chicken shed I did stumble across an article about the Leaf 40KW battery losing capacity on each charge considerably more quickly than the smaller one.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nissan Issues Statement On LEAF 30-kWh Battery Degradation
> 
> 
> Nissan is aware that a limited number of customers have expressed concerns with the previous generation of the Nissan LEAF 30-kWh battery.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> insideevs.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you search for Leaf 40KW battery issues there are plenty of people saying they have issues which the manufacturer doesn't seem to want to deal with. I am sure they have very few "failures" because that is an absolute term in the warranty I am sure, but ending up with something that doesn't do what was advertised is a harder thing to prove I would think.
> 
> Not that I'm going to buy an EV. Having spent some time reseaching lithiums for my camper, and installed enough with solar to run a washing machine in that when parked near the Med, I can't see it being a sensible choice for the environment, short or long term personal or business vehicle use, or as a domestic storage unit to be run from solar or a turbine to put my house off grid. All cars should be made to a more basic standard and be as light as possible, carting round more weight than needed rather than desired is too wastefull. Simplify and add lightness was and will always be true, not bolt in hundreds of kg of lithium. The only sensible use for an EV IMHO is to hopefully reduce particulates in areas where there are too many, like some city centres only.



As I recall, the leaf didn't have thermal management for the batteries, at least early on. It suffered here where it gets cold and hot. Tesla has thermal management for the battery and probably better batteries to begin with, and so far the opposite has been the case...The batteries last longer than expected and I'd be surprised if the cars themselves can last as long as the batteries will before they get to 90% capacity.


----------



## hairy

D_W from A Study on Real-Life Tesla Battery Deterioration you seem to be right about Tesla


----------



## D_W

There were a lot of nissan leafs here early on. I don't see many lately (it's hot in the summer and cold in the winter). I remember thinking that early li-ion tools were very poor in a cold garage and said something to my brother in law about it seeming to make sense that you could use less energy keeping the battery warm or cool than it would lose in working at an improper temperature (I wasn't thinking about degradation of capacity, just efficient use of what's there). 

He is a tesla owner - I know not much about them other than some reading and he mumbled "yeah, they already do that", and then something about storing in a garage if not using the car often otherwise it's just spending energy keeping the battery conditioned. He drives a lot of miles and has nothing in his garage. I drive few and my garage is full of tools. 

Model S vehicles here didn't have good reliability, but the class they were competing in (full size BMW, Audi, Mercedes) is filled with very unreliable cars that have no value after a decade, so I guess they're keeping up with the class!


----------



## D_W

(it seems like there are fewer S models here now, to the point that I don't recall seeing more than one here or there - the X seems to be the choice for doctors wives and such now that crossover types are pushing out sedans (saloons?). I'm sure there's some case for extended range high performance models 3 being bought by someone who may have otherwise bought an S, too. )


----------



## Dr W

John Brown said:


> Rorschach is too young to remember the Sinclair C5. The gulf between the hyped product and the real thing was breathtaking. I can't imagine how Clive's credibility must have suffered. An acquaintance of mine bought one, solely so that he could drive to the pub and back without fear of losing his licence. After everybody had taken it for a spin, he almost invariably ended up having to pedal home.



When I was a marine biology student in the 1980s, we had a 2 week field trip to the research station at Millport on Great Cumbrae. The local cycle hire shop had a small fleet of Sinclair C5s for day trippers to rent. Their battery life was just enough to get you about 2/3rds of the way around the road that circumnavigates the island. Apparently bank holidays were marked by the sight of small groups of inebriated Glaswegians peddling like fury in a desperate race to complete the last few miles, so as to retrieve their deposits in time to catch the ferry back to Largs. 
Did try one myself one day (purely for research purposes you understand) and couldn't believe how bad they were - really hard to pedal!


----------



## MikeJhn

Lost your licence, not problem, move to France and get a _voiture sans permis_ :The little car you can drive in France without a licence


----------



## ivan

With average traffic speed in London # 7MPH your chinese tok tok (to warn pedestrians) would have a sporty advantage!
Tesla is not very well built according to the Consumer Association car testing - very prone to breakdowns - but these not in motor or battery. However what happens in winter? car heaters are rated about 9KW, everyone wants aircon nowadays, oh! and it rains a lot and wiper motors are quite juicy. If everyone bought one, we'd need the extra generating capacity of around 6 large nuclear power stations, and that is before the gas is cut off to your boiler and you run an electric heat pump producing low grade heat so it runs most of the 24 hours. As usual we're behind the curve - batteries ok for short term advantage, hydrogen for the future - other coutries looking there, but not so much in UK.


----------



## AlanY

MikeJhn said:


> Lost your licence, not problem, move to France and get a _voiture sans permis_ :The little car you can drive in France without a licence


Move to France? No thanks, I would rather walk. Funny, really, because I did consider moving to Normandy back in the noughties. My wife and I spent some time looking for a property but found most were structurally challenged or simply too far run down. I wanted to move there because Normandy is beautiful, with a stunning coastline (it reminded me of 1960's to early 1970's England: low traffic, lovely countryside and, as it turned out, an appalling economy!). Anyhow, life changed and we turned away from the idea of moving. Just as well for us, I think.


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## Just4Fun

MikeJhn said:


> Lost your licence, not problem, move to France and get a _voiture sans permis_ :The little car you can drive in France without a licence


That is called a moped car over here. Almost always sold to teenagers, who can drive one of those before they are old enough to get a full driving licence. A licence (and test pass) is needed before you can drive one, but it is an easier test I think. They are notorious for being an accident risk and are also expensive to run & repair.


----------



## Just4Fun

RobinBHM said:


> in the video it looks like it goes about 10 miles an hour down the dual carriageway


10 MPH should be good enough for anybody, but if you want something a tad faster take a look at the latest Tesla. Just what you need for nipping down to the corner shop!


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## clogs

Alan Y.
being just lucky enough to escape Frogland......16 years of hell......the country is wonderful, it's the inhabitants that wreck it....
u had a lucky escape......
those little cars were know as TUT-TUT's.....absolute carp.....
the later one's now have a 2 cylinder Kubota "D"...slightly faster, more reliable.....
they were the main runaround for drunks that lost their D/ licience......
had a few close escapes of nearly running them down.....


----------



## powertools

Well 76 pages in and I have to say I have not read them all but I think that this push for EV cars is more stupid than the compulsory fitting of cats on European petrol cars and the push for everybody to buy diesel cars in the past.
The way that the environmental impact of cars is worked out in the UK is ridiculous in that a vehicle that weighs the best part of 2 tons and does 20 mpg is considered better than a car that weighs less than a ton and does 50 mpg.


----------



## D_W

Are you talking about gas vs. diesel? WE went through the same thing here in the US - there's no good way to clean up the diesels and the particulate and NOx screws up the air no matter how efficient a diesel is. 

The push for EV cars is simple - just like the push for electric appliances in the states where gas lines are common. You can clean up the dirty combustion and emissions at the power plant a lot easier than you can solve it at the appliance level. I'd be more impressed with the idea if we could get modular platforms, though. But that involves people using something for a long time and only replacing parts of it and manufacturers aren't going to be into that.


----------



## powertools

D_W said:


> Are you talking about gas vs. diesel? WE went through the same thing here in the US - there's no good way to clean up the diesels and the particulate and NOx screws up the air no matter how efficient a diesel is.
> 
> The push for EV cars is simple - just like the push for electric appliances in the states where gas lines are common. You can clean up the dirty combustion and emissions at the power plant a lot easier than you can solve it at the appliance level. I'd be more impressed with the idea if we could get modular platforms, though. But that involves people using something for a long time and only replacing parts of it and manufacturers aren't going to be into that.




I have no idea what goes on in the US I am referring to the UK and Europe.
In the past all new petrol cars had to be fitted with cats that simply done work in the UK or most of Europe and only increase fuel consumption this was done to protect the German car industry that rely on sales to the US to thrive.
In the UK in the past people were encouraged to buy diesel cars and we can all see how that worked out.
If we are serious about the environmental impact of cars we need to take into account the whole life impact and take into account the manufacturing and life span.


----------



## D_W

I don't disagree with that. Cats improve air quality in areas with inversions by an enormous amount, though. 

50 miles per gallon is possible with a cat (toyota prius). 

The same thing has occurred with diesels - diesels at the small vehicle level now seem to be less efficient than the smaller mechanical (but very dirty) diesels of yesteryear. It's possible to make an underpowered pickup truck in the US with a cummins 4BT and get 40 miles per gallon. This is a full sized pickup truck. 

mechanical 12v cummins pickups (factory) that weren't underpowered would average in the low to mid 20s (this is a "super duty" pickup here, not just a regular half ton light truck). Trucks have gotten larger and the powerplants doubled in power, but now the average MPG that I hear from farmers for a super duty pickup is about 13-14 empty. 

This is absurd. They can only match older pickups when comparing consumption per pound fully laden/towing. 

That said, I live in an area that often has a temperature inversion - catalytic converters help immensely here.


----------



## powertools

D_W said:


> I don't disagree with that. Cats improve air quality in areas with inversions by an enormous amount, though.
> 
> 50 miles per gallon is possible with a cat (toyota prius).
> 
> The same thing has occurred with diesels - diesels at the small vehicle level now seem to be less efficient than the smaller mechanical (but very dirty) diesels of yesteryear. It's possible to make an underpowered pickup truck in the US with a cummins 4BT and get 40 miles per gallon. This is a full sized pickup truck.
> 
> mechanical 12v cummins pickups (factory) that weren't underpowered would average in the low to mid 20s (this is a "super duty" pickup here, not just a regular half ton light truck). Trucks have gotten larger and the powerplants doubled in power, but now the average MPG that I hear from farmers for a super duty pickup is about 13-14 empty.
> 
> This is absurd. They can only match older pickups when comparing consumption per pound fully laden/towing.
> 
> That said, I live in an area that often has a temperature inversion - catalytic converters help immensely here.



In the UK a Toyota Prius is a hybrid car that will do 50 miles to the gallon but only if you also charge up the battery that it has along with a petrol engine so all of a sudden it does not seem very environmentally friendly.
Way back in the 1990's Ford were developing lean burn engines with amazing mpg figures but they had to abandon it because it did not burn enough fuel to make a cat work that US insisted had to be fitted to all new cars. In the UK most of the time cats don't work but we have lost the advantages that lean burn engines would have given us.
From what I understand about the market for vehicles in the US is that Ford no longer produce cars because you all want to drive around in massive suv's with little or no regard to the environmental impact. Sadly I think the same is happening here.


----------



## JobandKnock

Surely the solution is to return to living nearer to.worķ, have greater labour mobility (so more public housing/affordable rents housing) and people tentimg longer as opposed to buying homes, more home working (where feasible) and a major reduction in private motoring...

Even EVs have large carbon footprint in terms of their manufacture...

BTW I am referring to Europe here


----------



## Spectric

EV's will become pointless just like any other vehicle if we continue down this path of just building roads, then more houses and allowing urban sprawl to just spread out of control, it will be quicker to walk or cycle as the traffic grinds to a halt, ok with EV's we can sit there in clean air but will still be stationary.


----------



## MikeJhn

Well you could sit in that traffic jam in clean air with your air conditioning on and then when its time to move you can't because your battery is flat.


----------



## Droogs

Or you could sit in the traffic jam with the air conditioning off and just open the window, seeing as the air outside wont be trying to kill you, instead of acting like a numpty. Drive smarter go farther


----------



## MikeJhn

I thought better of you Droogs until now, the vehicle has air conditioning so it's supposed to be used, or do you advocate driving in the dark without lights, and in the rain without wipers as well.


----------



## JobandKnock

Probably. After all, he thinks that the F150 is ideal family transport that I can drive to work in, power my tools off all day, then drive home in -without charging...


----------



## Just4Fun

D_W said:


> 50 miles per gallon is possible with a cat (toyota prius).


I don't disagree, but just for clarity do you mean US MPG or UK MPG?
50 US MPG is 60 UK MPG.

You don't need a Prius to get 50 UK MPG. I even got 4 UK MG on my last trip in my wife's BMW 325 and that is 17 or 18 years old now.

60 UK MPG is a bit more of a challenge but I used to regularly beat that when we had a (petrol) Mercedes A180. One of the few things I liked about that car was the economy.


----------



## clogs

just seen an ad on TV for the new Mustang EV......looks just like the other Jelly mould car styles....

crazy, 
but my gream car would be to convert a Roll's/R Shadow into a pick-up and fit the Cummins 4BT engine....
that engine is so sweet.....
now u can shout at me......hahaha.......


----------



## selectortone

Just4Fun said:


> I don't disagree, but just for clarity do you mean US MPG or UK MPG?
> 50 US MPG is 60 UK MPG.
> 
> You don't need a Prius to get 50 UK MPG. I even got 4 UK MG on my last trip in my wife's BMW 325 and that is 17 or 18 years old now.
> 
> 60 UK MPG is a bit more of a challenge but I used to regularly beat that when we had a (petrol) Mercedes A180. One of the few things I liked about that car was the economy.


The new Mazdas with the e-skyactivex petrol engines will do better than 50 mpg. I have an earlier Mazda6 with the original 2-litre skyactive engine and that will do close to that on a motorway run.

I absolutely love that car, and my other Mazda, an MX-5, (that's how to make an MGB...), but IMHO, engines like these are approaching the limits as far as internal combustion development goes. Fiendishly complicated and expensively manufactured to amazingly tight tolerances. Then you take an EV engine, which is basically a big washing machine motor, a giant battery and all the clever stuff is software. It has to be the way of the future.


----------



## Droogs

MikeJhn said:


> I thought better of you Droogs until now, the vehicle has air conditioning so it's supposed to be used, or do you advocate driving in the dark without lights, and in the rain without wipers as well.


Just because you have something available doesn't mean you _*have *_to use it. I am pointing out the spurious nature of the argument being used. Which totally ignores common sense or sensibility of the driver and seeing as the air con will run for a couple of days before depleting the btty of most EV's to the point of not being able to move the vehicle 

"Probably. After all, he thinks that the F150 is ideal family transport that I can drive to work in, power my tools off all day, then drive home in -without charging... "

This is a is you actually being libelous and lying @JobandKnock. At no point have I stated any of those things. I have never said the f150 is the ideal family car, not even close. I have said it will be a game changer for the US market and for the average contractor. The machine is designed to give you enough power not just for a mitresaw but to power your entire home for 3 days, not my words but Fords.
Regarding the charging, the whole reason you have a hot poker up your chocolate starfish, is the fact that I pointed out the faillings of you antiquated and shall we say very miss-informed knowledgebank, there are more than enough charging points along the route of your imaginary commute to ensure you got there and in good time. All of which just show your arrogance and ignorance of the actual subject overall.


----------



## Just4Fun

This is an entertaining and informative thread. I wouldn't like to see it closed because of personal confrontations. Can we try and avoid that?


----------



## MikeJhn

Went out the other day in my pal's supposed 280mile range EV, as an experiment we turned everything on and watched the range indicator fall dramatically, did not complete the experiment as it was getting close to not being able to complete our journey and get back, it got close to 100miles.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

It's entirely possible to reduce the range of an EV by switching everything on to max. In normal driving it is also entirely unnecessary - except for (say) starting off on a dark frosty morning for 5 minutes (heater, windows, lights etc)

I can seriously impair the range and longevity of an ICE by crusiing down the motorway at 75mph resolutely stuck in 3rd gear! Daft but feasible.


----------



## hairy

JobandKnock said:


> Surely the solution is to return to living nearer to.worķ, have greater labour mobility (so more public housing/affordable rents housing) and people tentimg longer as opposed to buying homes, more home working (where feasible) and a major reduction in private motoring...
> 
> Even EVs have large carbon footprint in terms of their manufacture...
> 
> BTW I am referring to Europe here



In working on larger scale construction sites I would need to take more tools with me than I could carry (The smaller footprint given to site storage, with as much squeezed into the site as possible, just in time if poss etc means no room often to leave things there, and not sensible if I'm working on more than one site at a time). Once that's built then off you go to the next. I lived near Newmarket for quite a while and an hours commute, maybe a bit more, from there would keep me in work, Cambridge, Peterborough, Norwich. Not having a car would mean I would be out of work a lot if I lived in Cambridge perhaps, the only one big enough to possibly sustain the workload.
So if all the people doing a job along those lines need their own vehicle and the powers that be try to tax everyone out of such things those jobs still need doing, so my rate goes up to cover those costs, building costs go up and the client whoever that may be (school, hospital, block of flats etc) will pay more.


----------



## Blackswanwood

I thought this was an interesting take on how the tipping point may materialise.










Why it's the end of the road for petrol stations


Many petrol stations will close over the next 20 years, accelerating the shift to electric cars.



www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## alz

Years ago, when they began importing the Citroen 2CV into the UK, my wife bought one. I ran a Land Rover but became fascinated by the "tin snail".
We still get snow in Scotland, and the 2CV seemed to tackle the winters almost as well as the 4x4 (most drivers seem unable to cope with the smallest snowfall nowadays). The 2CV also seemed to hardly ever need to visit the petrol station!
As for EV's, keep hearing about problems re battery metals and future electricity supply?


----------



## selectortone

Blackswanwood said:


> I thought this was an interesting take on how the tipping point may materialise.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why it's the end of the road for petrol stations
> 
> 
> Many petrol stations will close over the next 20 years, accelerating the shift to electric cars.
> 
> 
> 
> www.bbc.co.uk


Saw that on the BBC website the other day. Food for thought.

_"And don't worry about where the electricity to power all these new cars will come from.
The National Grid says it won't have a problem charging all the electric vehicles that are going to come onto our roads.
In fact, it isn't expecting much of an increase in demand, just 10% when everyone is driving electric.
That's because we drive much less than we tend to imagine. The average car journey is just 8.4 miles, according to the Department for Transport.
And, explains Isabelle Haigh, the head of national control for the National Grid, there is already quite a lot of spare capacity built into the system.
"Most charging will not be at time of peak, and peak demand has been reducing over the years so we are very confident there is enough energy to meet demand," she says."_


----------



## TominDales

Blackswanwood said:


> I thought this was an interesting take on how the tipping point may materialise.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why it's the end of the road for petrol stations
> 
> 
> Many petrol stations will close over the next 20 years, accelerating the shift to electric cars.
> 
> 
> 
> www.bbc.co.uk


Interesting take. Innovation and new technology follows whats called an s curve. Very slow uptake to start with then very rapid exceeding all forecasts as it grows explosively and then tails off, in my experience old tech tends to hang around for quite a while at the top of the s curve. We still had hemp sail makers in Hutton Rugby until the 1950s servicing the remaining tea clippers. 

However I'm sure the point is well made sometime around 2025 there will be a tipping point where EVs become the much cheaper option and ICE goes into rapid decline. Not just petrol station will die but the major manufactures will stop sell the less popular ICE models, the cost of parts will go through the roof etc. So the choice of ICE will fall as the choice of EVs rises.


----------



## TominDales

Latest forecast from Bloomberg, good source of data. This gives a very international perspective. Its possible to download the executive summary. I was surprised how developed the Chinese market it especially for vehicle that we don't use much 2 and 3 wheelers. Its explains the different statistics showing China to be the worlds biggest market for batteries. Bloomberg forecast China and EU as leaders with US and South Asia as laggards.








EVO Report 2022 | BloombergNEF | Bloomberg Finance LP


The Electric Vehicle Outlook is our annual long-term publication looking at how electrification, shared mobility, autonomous driving and other factors will impact road transport in the coming decades.




about.bnef.com




following Blakswanwood's recent post on the demise of petrol stations, my thoughts are similar that the market will accelerate faster in the mix 2020s than this Bloomberg forecast, once prices of EVs hits a tipping point. This report seems to think low cost ICE in India will continue for quite some time, but I suspect once the economics of scale for EVs is reached they will rapidly supplant ICE for general purpose vehicles. Also I expect the US will lagg to start and then rapidly swap over. That is the US way on most things, a bit slow to start with and then a massive economic drive to leader in the new technology.


----------



## Ozi

It's a nice sunny Saturday and right now 69.2% of our national grid is being powered by low carbon generation. One of the main issues with getting this figure higher is a lack of energy storage making it less economic to install more renewable energy. Repurposed car batteries can be one of the solutions. Anyone object to being to buy more of the power they use when it's cheep rate


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## selectortone

Ozi said:


> It's a nice sunny Saturday and right now 69.2% of our national grid is being powered by low carbon generation. One of the main issues with getting this figure higher is a lack of energy storage making it less economic to install more renewable energy. Repurposed car batteries can be one of the solutions. Anyone object to being to buy more of the power they use when it's cheep rate


Most cars sit outside people's houses or in car parks for most of the day. When they're EVs there's your storage.


----------



## Ozi

TominDales said:


> Interesting take. Innovation and new technology follows whats called an s curve. Very slow uptake to start with then very rapid exceeding all forecasts as it grows explosively and then tails off, in my experience old tech tends to hang around for quite a while at the top of the s curve. We still had hemp sail makers in Hutton Rugby until the 1950s servicing the remaining tea clippers.
> 
> However I'm sure the point is well made sometime around 2025 there will be a tipping point where EVs become the much cheaper option and ICE goes into rapid decline. Not just petrol station will die but the major manufactures will stop sell the less popular ICE models, the cost of parts will go through the roof etc. So the choice of ICE will fall as the choice of EVs rises.


You will know when the point comes as Toyota will start making them, they will let everyone else take the hit getting to that point then takeover, until then it's self charging hybrids - watch this space.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

There are ~8.5k fuel stations in the UK serving ~33m cars - ~1 fuel station for every 4k cars.

A typical medium/large town (like the one in which I live) has a population of ~80k. Between them there are ~40k cars. In the town there are ~8 fuel stations, of which 4 are supermarket based. 

Looking at the transition to EV - by 2030 there may only be two or three that will be economically viable. The 2 nearest larger cities are 35 and 50 miles away. Intermediate small towns and villages are likely to have no fuel stations.

So if you live in a rural area you may have to plan to travel 15-30 miles simply to refuel an ICE. But your small town or village already has electricity running to every home, shop, etc. What will your next vehicle purchase be??


----------



## Spectric

clogs said:


> just seen an ad on TV for the new Mustang EV......looks just like the other Jelly mould car styles....


Yes it is sad how the OEMs are willing to throw classic car badges onto something that is so obviously not a mustang, more of a mule. I cannot see an EV having the same following as thousand horsepower Skyliners and American classics with huge V8's but then I suppose the new generation sitting in their EV could play a loud recording of there favourite car and pretend, plus that will be safer for pedestrians.


----------



## Spectric

Terry - Somerset said:


> So if you live in a rural area you may have to plan to travel 15-30 miles simply to refuel an ICE. But your small town or village already has electricity running to every home, shop, etc. What will your next vehicle purchase be??


But when everyone in that village plugs their car in for an overnight charge what happens next, them old overhead supply cables will start adding to global warming.


----------



## JobandKnock

Terry - Somerset said:


> So if you live in a rural area you may have to plan to travel 15-30 miles simply to refuel an ICE. But your small town or village already has electricity running to every home, shop, etc. What will your next vehicle purchase be??


I live in a semi rural area and we have few filling stations within 10 miles, but like the vast majority of people of working age in this area I travel into larger conurbations (where there are filling stations) to work and sometimes to shop (although not often).I also have a full gallon can in the back for emergencies- mine or other people's. That's how it works in the country


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## hairy

Smart meters ars supposed to allow the grid to buffer excess production from renewables into domestic EVs in the future. But also to take it back when needed. How good will that be to discover your supplier took your drive to work fuel?


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## D_W

hairy said:


> Smart meters ars supposed to allow the grid to buffer excess production from renewables into domestic EVs in the future. But also to take it back when needed. How good will that be to discover your supplier took your drive to work fuel?



If you opt out, they won't do it. I'm sure you could choose a level cutoff, too.


----------



## D_W

alz said:


> Years ago, when they began importing the Citroen 2CV into the UK, my wife bought one. I ran a Land Rover but became fascinated by the "tin snail".
> We still get snow in Scotland, and the 2CV seemed to tackle the winters almost as well as the 4x4 (most drivers seem unable to cope with the smallest snowfall nowadays). The 2CV also seemed to hardly ever need to visit the petrol station!
> As for EV's, keep hearing about problems re battery metals and future electricity supply?



If there's a shortage of one chemistry, batteries will just be another. Fair chance there will be a sodium ion battery before lithium or cobalt are short. There's enormous incentive now to create a cheaper battery.


----------



## John Brown

hairy said:


> Smart meters ars supposed to allow the grid to buffer excess production from renewables into domestic EVs in the future. But also to take it back when needed. How good will that be to discover your supplier took your drive to work fuel?


Or to get paid for charging your EV.
Not a frequent occurrence, I'll grant you, but if you sign up for the strangely named "Agile octopus" tariff, it's a real possibility.
I have considered it, since we currently use Octopus for gas and electricity, but I don't believe it would be a good fit, especially as we have some solar.
However, I think the idea of being able to use EVs as storage is cool. If it were a case of, "oh carp, I now don't have enough capacity to get to work", the idea would be stillborn.


----------



## MikeJhn

I wonder how the richest people in the world (Oil) are going to take being side lined by EV vehicles, are all power stations in the future going to Oil fired and keep the $ rate high or will we embrace the Nuclear stations and stop the public debate of should we build them? Or is it just a case of not in my back yard?


----------



## Sachakins

Top 10 EV by manufacturers range available in UK now.
See the common theme, to overcome range anxiety it will cost you a lot of money.



Tesla Model S Long Range 379-mile range (WLTP) £77,9800

Tesla Model 3 Long Range 348-mile range (WLTP) £46,990

Tesla Model X Long Range 314-mile range (WLTP) £82,980

Jaguar i-Pace 292-mile range (WLTP) £64,495

Kia e-Niro 282-mile range (WLTP) £36,495

Hyundai Kona Electric 278-mile range (WLTP) £38,900

Mercedes-Benz EQC 259-mile range (WLTP) £65,720

Audi e-tron 239-mile range (WLTP) £59,900

Nissan Leaf e+ 239-mile range (WLTP) £35,895

BMW i3 193-mile range (WLTP) £37,480


----------



## Jake

Is that real world or claimed?


----------



## MikeJhn

Claimed, it was a Kia that we carried out the experiment on: 



MikeJhn said:


> Went out the other day in my pal's supposed 280mile range EV, as an experiment we turned everything on and watched the range indicator fall dramatically, did not complete the experiment as it was getting close to not being able to complete our journey and get back, it got close to 100miles.


----------



## Blackswanwood

MikeJhn said:


> I wonder how the richest people in the world (Oil) are going to take being side lined by EV vehicles, are all power stations in the future going to Oil fired and keep the $ rate high or will we embrace the Nuclear stations and stop the public debate of should we build them? Or is it just a case of not in my back yard?


The Gulf States have been getting ready for this through their Wealth Funds for many years. They have no choice - embrace the change or be left behind.


----------



## Ozi

D_W said:


> If there's a shortage of one chemistry, batteries will just be another. Fair chance there will be a sodium ion battery before lithium or cobalt are short. There's enormous incentive now to create a cheaper battery.


Lithium is used because of the charge density that it can support, if you want to think of it simply lithium atoms are much smaller than sodium so you get more in a box, fortunately lithium is one of the most abundant elements on the plannet


Blackswanwood said:


> The Gulf States have been getting ready for this through their Wealth Funds for many years. They have no choice - embrace the change or be left behind.


They have a lot of sunshine out there, also a lot of unused land with access to a lot of salt water. Solar desalination to grow food in hydroponic farms and electricity / hydrogen to fuel it all. An awful lot of money to be made making the desert bloom. Given the heat out there living in the shade under your highly profitable solar farm doesn't sound like a terrible life style. Water supply is already at crisis point for many people on this planet but closed loop hydroponic systems can be very frugal and also work in sink with sewerage systems as is done on a very small scale in this country growing reeds.


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## Jacob

Big emphasis on EV in lots of the forums I look at.
I can't help thinking it's not that important really - it's just about losing our extravagant toys. They've only been with us on a massive scale since mid 1900s - two generations.
There were no cars on our street when I was little, unless a doctor or a taxi. In fact there was no tarmac at first (1947) it came later, along with concrete paving slab pavements. A marvellous playground - you could play hopscotch or marbles in the middle of the smooth road and thats where I learned to ride a bike - the cars came later and spoiled it all!
The alternative to cars could be the 20 minute neighbourhood, which is less of a radical innovation than a step back to earlier times. The 20-minute neighbourhood
The key word missing from climate change strategy chats is "regression". Innovative solutions are one thing but more to the point are the things we are going to have to give up


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## CornishWoodworker

An EV range should be given as a Max and Min and Average
Everything that can sap power ON or working near capacity
Nothing on and driving sedately at normal speeds.
Normal Driving with use of some electrical sapping devices and functions


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## Ozi

Sorry not trying to reply to this post but any post I try to reply to takes me here, hopping this will get rid of it


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## Ozi

Jacob said:


> Big emphasis on EV in lots of the forums I look at.
> I can't help thinking it's not that important really - it's just about losing our extravagant toys. They've only been with us on a massive scale since mid 1900s - two generations.
> There were no cars on our street when I was little, unless a doctor or a taxi. In fact there was no tarmac at first (1947) it came later, along with concrete paving slab pavements. A marvellous playground - you could play hopscotch or marbles in the middle of the smooth road and thats where I learned to ride a bike - the cars came later and spoiled it all!
> The alternative to cars could be the 20 minute neighbourhood, which is less of a radical innovation than a step back to earlier times. The 20-minute neighbourhood
> The key word missing from climate change strategy chats is "regression". Innovative solutions are one thing but more to the point are the things we are going to have to give up


Very true. Also how much of the giving up will be a loss. Perhaps the next generation are already heading that way. I was desperate to learn to drive, both my sons in their early twenty's view having to drive as at best an inconvenience, my friends daughters have never learned. Much of their social life is on line, things get delivered, one works from home and for now dads the taxi. It took some getting used to walking past any of their rooms and hearing multiple voices in many different accents and occasionally different languages knowing there is no one else there, but increasingly I think it's a good thing. They have friend alround the world and a much more international attitude than I ever had.


----------



## Jacob

Ozi said:


> Very true. Also how much of the giving up will be a loss. Perhaps the next generation are already heading that way. I was desperate to learn to drive, both my sons in their early twenty's view having to drive as at best an inconvenience, my friends daughters have never learned. Much of their social life is on line, things get delivered, one works from home and for now dads the taxi. It took some getting used to walking past any of their rooms and hearing multiple voices in many different accents and occasionally different languages knowing there is no one else there, but increasingly I think it's a good thing. They have friend alround the world and a much more international attitude than I ever had.


My son has given up too. His last one was a Mercedes estate of which I was very envious! He says he's better off without, in spite of high cost of trains, which he uses a lot.


----------



## NikNak

Terry - Somerset said:


> There are ~8.5k fuel stations in the UK serving ~33m cars - ~1 fuel station for every 4k cars.
> 
> A typical medium/large town (like the one in which I live) has a population of ~80k. Between them there are ~40k cars. In the town there are ~8 fuel stations, of which 4 are supermarket based.
> 
> Looking at the transition to EV - by 2030 there may only be two or three that will be economically viable. The 2 nearest larger cities are 35 and 50 miles away. Intermediate small towns and villages are likely to have no fuel stations.
> 
> So if you live in a rural area you may have to plan to travel 15-30 miles simply to refuel an ICE. But your small town or village already has electricity running to every home, shop, etc. What will your next vehicle purchase be??





I'm in no way doubting any of the figures above.... however something did whizz through my head.... 

Currently when you need to refuel you HAVE to go to a petrol station/supermarket. But... given than x% of homes have off street parking and will be able/want(?) to charge at home, how will this affect the amount/number of future charging/refueling stations.? Will there be a need for 8.5K 'fueling' stations if x% of charging is now done at home. And will the x% that DONT have off street parking/charging facility then have to travel further just to get charged up, making the 20 minute neighbourhood more of a reality.....


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## Sachakins

Jake said:


> Is that real world or claimed?


Claimed, so optimistic IMHO.


----------



## Ozi

NikNak said:


> I'm in no way doubting any of the figures above.... however something did whizz through my head....
> 
> Currently when you need to refuel you HAVE to go to a petrol station/supermarket. But... given than x% of homes have off street parking and will be able/want(?) to charge at home, how will this affect the amount/number of future charging/refueling stations.? Will there be a need for 8.5K 'fueling' stations if x% of charging is now done at home. And will the x% that DONT have off street parking/charging facility then have to travel further just to get charged up, making the 20 minute neighbourhood more of a reality.....


As it takes a lot longer to charge we will need more charging points than petrol pumps but on street charging is not a difficult thing to install, if you have room to park a car there is room for a charge point. Vandalism is the big issue here both of the charge points and peoples cables


----------



## stuart little

F150? Always thought these came out of Maranello !!!


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## alz

Why don't we go totally alternative. Up to a century ago steam cars were still popular.
So let's combine solar energy and steam in a high-tech version of the old Stanley steamer.
Had a drive in one once - and a Sentinel steam waggon - and they were amazing machines........


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Only in the last 75 years (3 generations) have most people ventured more than a few miles from home. There are exceptions - eg: military, crusaders, the wealthy doing grand tours, slave trade etc - but not the norm for most.

We have now become used to the freedoms that air and surface transport have delivered. 

Perhaps recent history is the exception to "normal" human existence. Covid and lockdowns have been a huge problem for many, but it has reinforced the wisdom of having very local infrastructures and social relationships.

The 20 minute neighourhood may be the future reality - putting the genie back in the bottle is going to be a lot more difficult than releasing it in the first place!


----------



## Jameshow

I think covid has done a good job of limiting travel both international and domestic travel. 

Many people are WFH taking breaks close home / holiday from home etc. 

However much of shipping is home delivery which offsets this but surely more efficient than us all going to the shops. But I do miss a good independent DIY / ironmongers Wilko and the middle issue if Lidl!!! 

Cheers James


----------



## J-G

alz said:


> Why don't we go totally alternative. Up to a century ago steam cars were still popular.
> So let's combine solar energy and steam in a high-tech version of the old Stanley steamer.
> Had a drive in one once - and a Sentinel steam waggon - and they were amazing machines........


It's a shame that the Stanley brothers decided that the near death of their driver in 1907 in speed trials on Ormond Beach meant that they were not prepared to continue development. They had previously been winning nearly every race that came available such that steam cars were often banned from competition.


----------



## TominDales

D_W said:


> If there's a shortage of one chemistry, batteries will just be another. Fair chance there will be a sodium ion battery before lithium or cobalt are short. There's enormous incentive now to create a cheaper battery.


I think that is spot on prediction. Despite the recent demise of Oxis energy (sodium sulphur), other chemistries will come on stream. Its one reason iron Phosphate is still being produced as both iron and phosphorous are abundant. Sodium and sulphur are super abundant so probably will be the chemistry for solid state one day.

Cobalt is the biggest concern. Its quite rare and mainly mined in the DRG which is a major cause for concern.







Battery chemistry is constantly evolving and quite complex to follow. The chart below summarises the metal contents of various chemistries used in commercial cells.
Early EVs such as the Leaf were focused on good environmental chemistry, prismatic cell with low cobalt or zeros cobalt such as LMO (Lithium Manganese oxide) and LFP (Li, iron, phosphate) chemistries, these were green but low range - as the average American travels 35miles a day that did not seem to matter. see the middle two columns in 'figure 5' Then came Tesla!

The move for high cobalt containing batteries was driven by Tesla for a couple of historic reasons. Early EVs such as the Leaf and others used low cobalt or zero cobalt batteries LFP or LMO, environmentally a good solutions but had low range, due to low energy density of the chemistry. Tesla chose the 18650 standard Panasonic cylinder cells as they offered blistering power and long range ie 300 miles and good battery life and was a cheap cell. This cell was based on cobalt oxide chemistries LCO which very high proportioning of cobalt, LCO - Lithium Cobalt oxide. The chemistry is quite frisky so a sophisticated battery management system was developed to contain run away temperature excursions (ie fires) and extend battery life. See column 1 in fig 5, 60% of the 18650 is cobalt.

Some manufactures are intruding LFP again as its zero cobalt, but most are going for a high power cells but tweaking the chemistry to lower the cobalt content. In Panasonic/Tesla's case its NCA with N being Nickle and A being aluminium being their latest cell - fig5 far right reduction from 60% to 9% cobalt. In most other cases eg Nissan its NMC 811 where 8 is the part content of Nickle, 1 is Manganese, and 1 is cobalt so cobalt is 1/10 of the weight, second from the right, varoues NMC from 524 to the latest 811 hence the average of 19%, but it will drop to below 10% quite soon.

So we have seen, zero cobalt evolved to 60% cobalt for the early Teslas and now low cobalt cells over the past 10 years or so.








Manganese is cheap and abundant and Nickle is relatively plentiful and the basis of stainless steel production..





In the above chart the left hand pie is demand for nickle in 2019 and the right is projected demand in 2030, The red slide is steel whereas batteries is the purple slice, it grows but is not the dominant use for Nickle. My view is by 2030 other chemistries such as sodium sulphur will come on stream.

Lithium is not is short supply,
its available in many rock streams and in the Chilean salt lakes and is also available in sea water. Sodium is much cheaper to extract than lithium so will always be a potential replacement.


----------



## TominDales

Ozi said:


> As it takes a lot longer to charge we will need more charging points than petrol pumps but on street charging is not a difficult thing to install, if you have room to park a car there is room for a charge point. Vandalism is the big issue here both of the charge points and peoples cables


I imagine some petrol stations will go the whole hog and become conveyance stores, rest areas and fast food restraints. Many have a ff store attached. Petrol will be a minor part of the offer as time goes on. The rest will close.


----------



## TominDales

Jacob said:


> Big emphasis on EV in lots of the forums I look at.
> I can't help thinking it's not that important really - it's just about losing our extravagant toys. They've only been with us on a massive scale since mid 1900s - two generations.
> There were no cars on our street when I was little, unless a doctor or a taxi. In fact there was no tarmac at first (1947) it came later, along with concrete paving slab pavements. A marvellous playground - you could play hopscotch or marbles in the middle of the smooth road and thats where I learned to ride a bike - the cars came later and spoiled it all!
> The alternative to cars could be the 20 minute neighbourhood, which is less of a radical innovation than a step back to earlier times. The 20-minute neighbourhood
> The key word missing from climate change strategy chats is "regression". Innovative solutions are one thing but more to the point are the things we are going to have to give up


We naturally resist giving up our tech and comforts, so there is a resistance to this type of change. But as your rightly point out, we lost a lot with mass transportation. I remember our village with only a few cars and we played on our bikes in the road. From the moment we could walk we wandered the roads and my mum didn't worry at all, the only cycling we do with the family is off-road, too many friends have been mowed down - my cousin is in hospital since being knowned off his bike communing on Friday morning.
Those old pictures market squares with only one or two cars and lots of people on foot.

I do see change coming, as Ozi has said, in my case, our eldest son aged 22 has not taken his driving test, lives in a town and sees a car as an inconvenience. He socialises on-line and on phone a lot and they walk to the local pub etc, or get an uber. 
Autonomous taxis will come in and enable shared car use that will further reduce the number of vehicle. (except for those that we use to ern money selling chargin capacity back to the grid - um) I've read about Paris re-purposing its underground car parks as car ownership has dwindled.


----------



## Jacob

TominDales said:


> ....... we lost a lot with mass transportation. I remember our village with only a few cars and we played on our bikes in the road. From the moment we could walk we wandered the roads and my mum didn't worry at all, the only cycling we do with the family is off-road, too many friends have been mowed down - my cousin is in hospital since being knowned off his bike communing on Friday morning.
> Those old pictures market squares with only one or two cars and lots of people on foot.
> .......


We made a huge historic mistake with cars, which was to allow them to be kept on the road when not in use i.e. "parking". Those old photos also don't show parked cars, except those going about their business stopped temporarily.
Things would have been very different and the technology might have taken another turn altogether.


----------



## Spectric

MikeJhn said:


> I wonder how the richest people in the world (Oil) are going to take being side lined by EV vehicles, are all power stations in the future going to Oil fired and keep the $ rate high or will we embrace the Nuclear stations and stop the public debate of should we build them? Or is it just a case of not in my back yard?


Those rich people also have a lot of very hot dessert where they can use solar to generate their electricity and sell excess, but there will always be a market for oil as we need lubricants and the by products are used in so many other products, you cannot have some of them without producing petroleum. Nuclear fission has no future if we all want a guaranteed future because there is no such thing as safe, accidents do and will happen because thats what being human is all about. We are inherently prone to things going wrong, not an issue if the outcome is restricted to a small locality but very bad when that locality is the planet you live on. There was a program showing an American military plane at an airshow that suddenly lost control and crashed, reason was that they had forgot to put all the bolts back into a wing section during maintanance, there was that one where the pilot got half sucked out of a commercial airline, again because during a window replacement the wrong bolts were used and the list goes on showing that despite all the procedures and regulations someone will mess up. If you want to see a real example of what a muppet can do there is that solid fuel plant where the guy chucks a fag butt into something he should not have, that made a bang.
What is needed to allow the use of EV's is a radical shakeup of the very way we have lived and worked for many decades, rather than use the EV to be a replacement for ICE we need far greater change. We are like crazy ants all going in different directions to get to work, we need to address this urgently to minimise peoples commute and reliance on a car. How many people cross paths during their commute, one person from A to B whilst the other is doing the opposite.


----------



## Spectric

When we stop production of ICE vehicles there could be less demand for EV's simply because all the people now unemployed cannot afford one anyway, has anyone actually looked at how many jobs would go? An ICE is far more complex than an electric motor and has more sub systems and components so take the batteries out of the equation the EV must cost less to produce and should be cheaper to purchase.


----------



## powertools

Spectric said:


> When we stop production of ICE vehicles there could be less demand for EV's simply because all the people now unemployed cannot afford one anyway, has anyone actually looked at how many jobs would go? An ICE is far more complex than an electric motor and has more sub systems and components so take the batteries out of the equation the EV must cost less to produce and should be cheaper to purchase.




Vehicle manufactures must be loving all this. They will no longer have to produce engines with 100's of precision parts and will no longer have to do any more engine development. They will no longer have to produce gearboxes with 100's of precision parts also no clutch. They seem to be able to charge more money for less vehicle content and don't even to have to give any discount incentives as the government now seems to think that they should do that.


----------



## Ozi

powertools said:


> Vehicle manufactures must be loving all this. They will no longer have to produce engines with 100's of precision parts and will no longer have to do any more engine development. They will no longer have to produce gearboxes with 100's of precision parts also no clutch. They seem to be able to charge more money for less vehicle content and don't even to have to give any discount incentives as the government now seems to think that they should do that.


Not while we have expectation of ever increasing features and functions, the vehicle I am currently working on has 40 ECUs one of which admittedly does run the IC engine so will soon be obsolete yet you would think of it as quite a basic car. If people expect autonomous driving aids and software updates over the air etc. if you want to know where available charging points are in real time it all comes at a cost. You may find it hard to believe but the profit margin on EVs is currently low at best and most are losing money, the forecasts are better in the future but lower than current vehicles.


----------



## Spectric

powertools said:


> Vehicle manufactures must be loving all this. They will no longer have to produce engines with 100's of precision parts and will no longer have to do any more engine development.


Yes with an electric motor you have current, volts, torque and Rpm. An ICE has a very complicated calibration made more difficult because you need to meet Euro emission requirements, so who loses out?

Companies that manufacture: Castings for cylinder heads, blocks and ladder frames. Oil pumps, water pumps and fuel pumps. Engine management components and control modules. Forged components like con rods & camshafts. Gaskets and drive belts. All the fasteners and bearings.

The people who supply and maintain engine dynometer cells such as AVL, although a few could remain for characterisation of electric motors but full development cells are obsolete along with all the emision testing instrumentation from the likes of Horiba.

Most people involved with powertrain test and development from test cell operators all the way up the chain. 

That is a lot of jobs and only for the engine, add on gearboxes, engine ancilaries such as alternator, starter motor and it grows and grows.

It could run into hundreds of thousands of jobs globally if you take into account everything involved and what do they now do, someone whose career has been in engine development and is say fifty years old?


----------



## Spectric

Ozi said:


> Not while we have expectation of ever increasing features and functions, the vehicle I am currently working on has 40 ECUs


Has to be landrover, or maybe Jag but I cannot see why any vehicle needs that many control modules unless they are all single purpose. Complexity is always a big factor in unreliability, automotive connectors are just as cheap as chips and you can see a big cost saving can be made here by combining more functions into fewer control modules, easily done these days with everything sitting on buses.


----------



## hairy

£134,290 93KWh, for a range of 241 miles on eco when this first drive started, maybe less when deploying 600hp  Harry is good value I think


----------



## JobandKnock

So very affordable for the man on the street!


----------



## Blackswanwood

Spectric said:


> Yes with an electric motor you have current, volts, torque and Rpm. An ICE has a very complicated calibration made more difficult because you need to meet Euro emission requirements, so who loses out?
> 
> Companies that manufacture: Castings for cylinder heads, blocks and ladder frames. Oil pumps, water pumps and fuel pumps. Engine management components and control modules. Forged components like con rods & camshafts. Gaskets and drive belts. All the fasteners and bearings.
> 
> The people who supply and maintain engine dynometer cells such as AVL, although a few could remain for characterisation of electric motors but full development cells are obsolete along with all the emision testing instrumentation from the likes of Horiba.
> 
> Most people involved with powertrain test and development from test cell operators all the way up the chain.
> 
> That is a lot of jobs and only for the engine, add on gearboxes, engine ancilaries such as alternator, starter motor and it grows and grows.
> 
> It could run into hundreds of thousands of jobs globally if you take into account everything involved and what do they now do, someone whose career has been in engine development and is say fifty years old?


You are undoubtedly right that this means significant upheaval and transformation for vehicle manufacturing. I don’t see an alternative though as to not act leads to a far less appealing situation.


----------



## Spectric

That is going to be the issue, I think the pandemic has shown people will accept change such as the lockdown for a short period but we are looking at a permanent change which will only be the start of a massive social upheaval but it will be pointless unless it is a global change, the UK can be an example of perfection but that alone will not save the planet or prevent the fourth extinction event.


----------



## Ozi

Spectric said:


> Has to be landrover, or maybe Jag but I cannot see why any vehicle needs that many control modules unless they are all single purpose. Complexity is always a big factor in unreliability, automotive connectors are just as cheap as chips and you can see a big cost saving can be made here by combining more functions into fewer control modules, easily done these days with everything sitting on buses.


Neither of those although I used to work for JLR


----------



## D_W

powertools said:


> Vehicle manufactures must be loving all this. They will no longer have to produce engines with 100's of precision parts and will no longer have to do any more engine development. They will no longer have to produce gearboxes with 100's of precision parts also no clutch. They seem to be able to charge more money for less vehicle content and don't even to have to give any discount incentives as the government now seems to think that they should do that.



You should probably look at the electric motors that a Tesla uses before considering that they're simple and cheap.


----------



## Sachakins

We are still fairly early in the manufacturing and design of usable and affordable EV and as is the norm in this part of vehicle development, manufacturing designers are falling over themselves to produce super fast variants, outrageous 0 to 60 figures, and are just trying to prove that the EV can be as entertaining as other sports cars.

We need less focus on this and more on usable family and smaller size cars.
Also government should remove the discount subsidy altogether, as I believe the manufacturers are keeping prices artificially high and using the subsidy as a marketing device, 
Remove the subsidy and manufacturers will have to compete more fiercely on prices to get sales.


----------



## TominDales

Spectric said:


> has anyone actually looked at how many jobs would go? An ICE is far more complex than an electric motor and has more sub systems and components so take the batteries out of the equation the EV must cost less to produce and should be cheaper to purchase.


You highlight a big issue with the switch from ICE to EV. ICE are much more complicated, with lots of mechanical components. Many of the parts for ICE are made be precision engineering firms North of Manchester. Its not just the midlands than make cars. I hear a talk from one of the guys setting up a precision engineer centre in Rochdale to help re-purpose companies into other markets. As you say many suppliers are going to find life very touch pose ICE.
The Advanced Machinery and Productivity (AMP) Institute receives funding boost this is quite a small initiative, but many more of these initiative will be needed or there will be a lot of sick tier 2 suppliers.


----------



## TominDales

powertools said:


> Vehicle manufactures must be loving all this. They will no longer have to produce engines with 100's of precision parts and will no longer have to do any more engine development. They will no longer have to produce gearboxes with 100's of precision parts also no clutch. They seem to be able to charge more money for less vehicle content and don't even to have to give any discount incentives as the government now seems to think that they should do that.


Apart from the new starts-up such as Tesla I don't know of many tradition ICE producers who are enjoying this change. Its a conservative industry, it requires about £1bn to build a new model and smaller companies like JLR are fining it hard to raise that kind of finance for their fleet. Even VW and Toyota are terrified that this disruptive change will allow new entrants to take their market. A sizable chunk of the value of an EV is its battery, this is good for the chemical industry but not so good for the car industry as the EV bit is more strait forward.

You and Ozi have commented that EVs should be simpler but the manufacturer then adds complexity back into the vehicle with extra features. The head of Ford UK described his latest model as an ipad on wheels. I did a project for Bentley to take weight out be replacing steel with light weight carbon fibres. The chief engineer told me that the weight saving then gets eaten by adding more stull to the car. He told me that each front seat has 27 motors.....We as consumers have to stand back and see the bigger picture from time to time, or we will end up driving around in our living rooms


----------



## hairy

The video I linked to with the silly Audi commented that Euro 7 coming in very soon (2025) may well make ICEs too expensive, too complicated and not worth the manufacturer investment considering the supposed ban in 2030 for "green" reasons, so that rather than any EU govt will stop the sale of new ones.
I had stupidly thought that Euro 6 being really quite good from an emmissions pont of view the politicians would stop there.

Would anybody comment on how sensible the Cornwall mining of lithium is? How can the whole process be competitive if UK wages throughout are to be paid? Ethical maybe but sellable?


----------



## Terry - Somerset

> each front seat has 27 motors.....We as consumers have to stand back and see the bigger picture from time to time, or we will end up driving around in our living rooms



Being wholly rational, cars are devices to provide transport from A to B, ideally reasonably comfortably, safely and reliably. For most, cost will also be an issue.

Strangely, most cars in which we spend only a few hours a week (typically) have features and equipment which is wholly absent from the houses we spend most of our lives in.

It reinforces the conclusion that the car is as much an expression of status as need - compared to a house, even the most expensive cars are cheaper, with the added advantage that where ever you go the car goes too. You will never be far from your pxnxs extension!


----------



## John Brown

Terry - Somerset said:


> Being wholly rational, cars are devices to provide transport from A to B, ideally reasonably comfortably, safely and reliably. For most, cost will also be an issue.
> 
> Strangely, most cars in which we spend only a few hours a week (typically) have features and equipment which is wholly absent from the houses we spend most of our lives in.
> 
> It reinforces the conclusion that the car is as much an expression of status as need - compared to a house, even the most expensive cars are cheaper, with the added advantage that where ever you go the car goes too. You will never be far from your pxnxs extension!


It's been that way for decades. How many of us have electric windows in our houses? Or electrically adjustable seats?
Our house doesn't even have windscreen washers, we have to pay someone to come round and wash the windows once a month.
I'll bet more people in the UK have AC in their cars than in their homes. I suppose it's a smaller space, for one thing, and the necessary glass area can make it very hot.


----------



## Rorschach

Terry - Somerset said:


> Strangely, most cars in which we spend only a few hours a week (typically) have features and equipment which is wholly absent from the houses we spend most of our lives in.



This is an interesting statement, could you expand on it? What features does a car have that our houses don't, I am assuming the features you are thinking of are superfluous?


----------



## Just4Fun

Terry - Somerset said:


> Strangely, most cars in which we spend only a few hours a week (typically) have features and equipment which is wholly absent from the houses we spend most of our lives in.
> 
> It reinforces the conclusion that the car is as much an expression of status as need ...


Certainly status v need is one possible factor. Another is that a large proportion of new cars sold are sold to companies rather than to individuals. Many people are thus getting new cars without paying for them themselves. That must inevitably lead to feature creep; if not paying for the car they will drive, most people will opt for more gadgets that if it was coming out of their own hard-earned money.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

> What features does a car have that our houses don't, I am assuming the features you are thinking of are superfluous?



Whether they are superfluous is a personal opinion, based on personal circumstance, but:

climate control - most houses have heating, almost none have cooling. Control is typically by central or zoned thermostat, sometimes manual radiator thermostatic valves. Very few houses have climate control capable of being set with separate zones in a single room, or through a touch screen or central controller
central locking - most houses have separate manually operated locks for front, back, patio, shed and garage doors to be locked on leaving the home
electric windows - rare in most properties - house windows (and doors) typically need separate closure and opening.
car security includes internal movement sensors, coded keys etc - houses typically have Yale or similar lock, some may have limited security - cameras, lighting, alarms
electric adjusted memory seats - in a house - mainly available to help the elderly and infirm get up and sit down. Sometimes a luxury picce of furniture.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

> Certainly status v need is one possible factor. Another is that a large proportion of new cars sold are sold to companies rather than to individuals. Many people are thus getting new cars without paying for them themselves. That must inevitably lead to feature creep; if not paying for the car they will drive, most people will opt for more gadgets that if it was coming out of their own hard-earned money.



Most companies like to save money and would normally resist actions which drive up costs.

However in recruiting and retaining good staff it may be cheaper to "blow" an extra £100 per month on a fancy lease car than give a material pay increase - eg: £100pm is an increase of only 3% on a salary of £40k pa.

Staff member feels valued - everyone can see the motor, few see the payslip. Customers and business contacts believe that anyone who drives a fancy car must be a valued high performer, worthy of respect and someone with whom to be associated in business. All staus really!


----------



## Rorschach

Terry - Somerset said:


> Whether they are superfluous is a personal opinion, based on personal circumstance, but:
> 
> climate control - most houses have heating, almost none have cooling. Control is typically by central or zoned thermostat, sometimes manual radiator thermostatic valves. Very few houses have climate control capable of being set with separate zones in a single room, or through a touch screen or central controller
> central locking - most houses have separate manually operated locks for front, back, patio, shed and garage doors to be locked on leaving the home
> electric windows - rare in most properties - house windows (and doors) typically need separate closure and opening.
> car security includes internal movement sensors, coded keys etc - houses typically have Yale or similar lock, some may have limited security - cameras, lighting, alarms
> electric adjusted memory seats - in a house - mainly available to help the elderly and infirm get up and sit down. Sometimes a luxury picce of furniture.



Climate control: Well a house doesn't heat up or cool down as fast as a car and is far more protected from sun with a lower glass to volume ratio. This seems a silly feature to dismiss.
Central locking: Your house doors don't all open at the same time and aren't all used at the same time by different people exiting. Central locking seems a very sensible feature that allows for a single person or multiple occupants to enter/leave the vehicle without having to lock each door manually.
Security: You can't jump into a house and drive it off, it is also usually easier to break into a car than a house. Increased security is a prudent idea.
Adjusted seats: Correctly adjusted seats are essential for comfort and safety in a car, not so in a house.
Electric Windows: Opening manual windows is a safety concern when driving and impossible to do any others than your own if alone in the vehicle. Not an issue in a house.

Sorry but this list is just silly, a house and a car are not comparable items in any of these cases. You are not far short of saying "SatNav's, why would you want a satnav in a car, you don't have one of them in your house."


----------



## Spectric

D_W said:


> You should probably look at the electric motors that a Tesla uses before considering that they're simple and cheap.


An electric motor is simple compared to an ICE, it is a rotary device that works on magnetics wheras the ICE is a reciprocating device that works on thermodynamic's and burning fuel whilst trying to be clean but the price is all down to marketing and volume of sales. 

If you look back to when the stop / start technology made an entrance one of the better systems was I believe designed by Delphi and utilised the flywheel as a stator and coils in the bell housing which gave high torque for lower currents due to the diameter, with EV's they need to look at incorporating the motors into the wheel assemblies, you now have no transmission and no mechanical diff just direct drive.


----------



## selectortone

Rorschach said:


> Climate control: Well a house doesn't heat up or cool down as fast as a car and is far more protected from sun with a lower glass to volume ratio. This seems a silly feature to dismiss.
> Central locking: Your house doors don't all open at the same time and aren't all used at the same time by different people exiting. Central locking seems a very sensible feature that allows for a single person or multiple occupants to enter/leave the vehicle without having to lock each door manually.
> Security: You can't jump into a house and drive it off, it is also usually easier to break into a car than a house. Increased security is a prudent idea.
> Adjusted seats: Correctly adjusted seats are essential for comfort and safety in a car, not so in a house.
> Electric Windows: Opening manual windows is a safety concern when driving and impossible to do any others than your own if alone in the vehicle. Not an issue in a house.
> 
> Sorry but this list is just silly, a house and a car are not comparable items in any of these cases. You are not far short of saying "SatNav's, why would you want a satnav in a car, you don't have one of them in your house."


I rode in and drove cars for 30 years that were perfectly fine without climate control, central locking, electric windows and had only the most basic seat adjustment.

The original point was that these features are all luxuries and it was perfectly valid.


----------



## NikNak

Rorschach said:


> This is an interesting statement, could you expand on it? What features does a car have that our houses don't, I am assuming the features you are thinking of are superfluous?



You asked, Terry replied (with what i thought were reasoned replies), you didn't like his (reasoned) replies, so threw your toys out of your 'ICE' pram and proceeded to diss all his answers in the only way that you seem able.

Oh... satnav in my house.? yes i have many.... on my/our phones, tablets and computer... they're called google maps, and i use them a lot to find out where a place is how far it is and the best way to get there, turn by turn, the same as the system in my car. Try it... you might like it....

Now... where's that block button...


----------



## Spectric

I think the younger generation cannot believe that we used to have cars that had only manual locking, manual window winders and no graphic displays to remind us that we have left a door open, but then is that because we knew that you have to shut the doors without being told! We also had to pull out the choke knob and pump the throttle to hopefully start the engine and then it took ages to warm up to get any heat inside. As for seat adjustment, that was only forwards or backwards and I can remember a car that if you pushed to hard to get more room it just came off the runners. What about wing mirrors, actually mounted on the wing and made of metal the same as our chrome bumpers, who thought of just having cosmetic plastic bumpers. Have we really progressed, no all we have done is made things complicated and tried to make them iiiidiot proof.


----------



## Rorschach

selectortone said:


> I rode in and drove cars for 30 years that were perfectly fine without climate control, central locking, electric windows and had only the most basic seat adjustment.
> 
> The original point was that these features are all luxuries and it was perfectly valid.



And my grandparents lived in a house with no running water, no central heating and a long drop in the garden, they were perfectly fine. All these things in our houses are luxury and we don't need them. I'll phone the plumber and send him over to yours to take out your taps, you don't have a problem with that I assume?


----------



## Rorschach

Boomers gotta boom


----------



## Spectric

But there has to be a point where we have what is required but not over the top, if we are going to prevent a fourth extinction event due to global warming and climate change then the changes we need to make will be very radical, there is no way that our current lifestyles are sustainable long term and just going from ICE to EV's will not solve the problem, we need to get back to a more basic way of living so that we are not stretching resources to the limit. Just because we have got used to a car does not mean that at some point we will not be priced out of ownership and have to use public transport, but everything needs to change in order to accomodate a new way of living.


----------



## selectortone

Rorschach said:


> And my grandparents lived in a house with no running water, no central heating and a long drop in the garden, they were perfectly fine. All these things in our houses are luxury and we don't need them. I'll phone the plumber and send him over to yours to take out your taps, you don't have a problem with that I assume?


Sorry, little fishies not biting today


----------



## Rorschach

selectortone said:


> Sorry, little fishies not biting today



Either that or you got no comeback


----------



## Sachakins

Just a thought on tge 2025 ban.

How will the government deal with their vehicles, ie Bullet proof limousines, high security vehicles for likes of diplomats, royalty, also those that feel the need for attack proof cars. 

Will they extend the ICE ban to the likes of new military vehicles, police vehicles, emergency vehicles, ambulances etc.

Would love to see the performance of a challenger tank on batteries....

Also is the proposed ban on ICE to include motorcycles, boats, barges.

What about generators, construction and agricultural vehicles and machinery.

Think that a 250 tonne crane lift going to be unlikely for years to come.

Also changing over the entire public transport fleet, busses, trains, ferry boats.


----------



## Rorschach

Sachakins said:


> Just a thought on tge 2025 ban.
> 
> How will the government deal with their vehicles, ie Bullet proof limousines, high security vehicles for likes of diplomats, royalty, also those that feel the need for attack proof cars.
> 
> Will they extend the ICE ban to the likes of new military vehicles, police vehicles, emergency vehicles, ambulances etc.
> 
> Would love to see the performance of a challenger tank on batteries....
> 
> Also is the proposed ban on ICE to include motorcycles, boats, barges.
> 
> What about generators, construction and agricultural vehicles and machinery.
> 
> Think that a 250 tonne crane lift going to be unlikely for years to come.
> 
> Also changing over the entire public transport fleet, busses, trains, ferry boats.



Expect so many U-turns you won't know which way is up.


----------



## D_W

I should add to my comment above, the Tesla S has one configuration that offers two three phase motors with a combined 825 brake horsepower, but in a format that two fit in the car. Pricing an


Spectric said:


> An electric motor is simple compared to an ICE, it is a rotary device that works on magnetics wheras the ICE is a reciprocating device that works on thermodynamic's and burning fuel whilst trying to be clean but the price is all down to marketing and volume of sales.
> 
> If you look back to when the stop / start technology made an entrance one of the better systems was I believe designed by Delphi and utilised the flywheel as a stator and coils in the bell housing which gave high torque for lower currents due to the diameter, with EV's they need to look at incorporating the motors into the wheel assemblies, you now have no transmission and no mechanical diff just direct drive.



I think most of the service vehicle gliders have motors at the wheels. While ICEs are complicated compared to electric motors, there's nothing expensive in the materials. Electric motors are the opposite.


----------



## D_W

Spectric said:


> I think the younger generation cannot believe that we used to have cars that had only manual locking, manual window winders and no graphic displays to remind us that we have left a door open, but then is that because we knew that you have to shut the doors without being told! We also had to pull out the choke knob and pump the throttle to hopefully start the engine and then it took ages to warm up to get any heat inside. As for seat adjustment, that was only forwards or backwards and I can remember a car that if you pushed to hard to get more room it just came off the runners. What about wing mirrors, actually mounted on the wing and made of metal the same as our chrome bumpers, who thought of just having cosmetic plastic bumpers. Have we really progressed, no all we have done is made things complicated and tried to make them iiiidiot proof.



I'll bet the electric lock sets now cost less to make than a good mechanical door set and then they give the manufacturer a revenue stream that they didn't have as far as parts go. 

My first cars were from the 1980s and had manual everything. One of the two had no ac and the other had so little power that when you turned on the ac compressor, it would lurch (80 horsepower).

The biggest difference I notice isn't the power add ons, but that even base model cars can pull the hills here in Appalachia with no problem. My 80s v6 truck had to be downshifted to pull hills, and the base model had less than 2/3rds the power and no overdrive standard in that version.


----------



## Spectric

D_W said:


> there's nothing expensive in the materials.


The basic materials will be comparable in price, but the price for production moulds for casting cylinder blocks, heads, pistons and other parts is astronomical and will not be needed for an EV, you now have another group of companies that will lose out.


----------



## D_W

I guess they'll be replaced by battery makers.


----------



## TominDales

hairy said:


> The video I linked to with the silly Audi commented that Euro 7 coming in very soon (2025) may well make ICEs too expensive, too complicated and not worth the manufacturer investment considering the supposed ban in 2030 for "green" reasons, so that rather than any EU govt will stop the sale of new ones.
> I had stupidly thought that Euro 6 being really quite good from an emmissions pont of view the politicians would stop there.
> 
> Would anybody comment on how sensible the Cornwall mining of lithium is? How can the whole process be competitive if UK wages throughout are to be paid? Ethical maybe but sellable?


Two comments. Firstly the Euro 7 is the reason why the industry is changing to EV, they just cant make the emission at reasonable cost and the regs were only going to tighten, so they have chosen EV as its an investable solution. Its why the auto-council created the APC, to lobby to get £1bn fund and £500m of taxpayer support to develop ICE. The EU is spending over e2bn on the same developments.

Lithium and chemical processing in general in the UK is relatively competitive..
In general the UK chemical industry competes globally very well, its an net exporter. Unlike the automotive industry the chemical industry has very high productivity, ratios, one of the highest of all industries. at about £90k per person. This gives it a cushion against cheap labour.
A chemical plant is basically a computer controlling some pipes these days. Most processes are continuous so need very little labour to operative. The labour comes with maintence shutdowns, and R&D etc.
There are two main disadvantages opposite china;
Firstly environmental, until recently its was hard to compete against Chinese production that had lower environmental standards, or no regulations at all. The cost of capital in the west was a disadvantage. However China is tightening environmental regs fast as its consumers want a better standard of living which means better air and water quality.

The other issues are economies of scale. Unless the lithium deposits are substantial enough it will be hard to achieve economies of scale. This is usually the secret weapon in the Chemical industries as its takes roughly as much to runs and maintain a giant plant as a smaller one..
Finally, the cost of capital in China is much lower than the UK.
Having said all that the UK and EU compete well, especially the big German producers such as BASF. The biggest problem for the UK is that our shareholders sold out to overseas companies for a quick buck and now most chemical companies are overseas owne.


----------



## MikeJhn

This looks good:


----------



## GuitardoctorW7

I'm sorry if this has been debated before, but, why the hell are we (society) not pursuing Hydrogen powered vehicles more? Yes the fuel cells are expensive to produce, but that cost would diminish with mass production. The range of a HPV vehicle is more akin to an ICE. 5 minute fill up and the only by-product is water. To re-battery an EV is the best part of £10K and the environmental cost is huge. I used an HV taxi the other month and it was great. The driver said the only downside was there were only a couple of refuelling stations around.


----------



## plum60

TominDales said:


> Apart from the new starts-up such as Tesla I don't know of many tradition ICE producers who are enjoying this change. Its a conservative industry, it requires about £1bn to build a new model and smaller companies like JLR are fining it hard to raise that kind of finance for their fleet. Even VW and Toyota are terrified that this disruptive change will allow new entrants to take their market. A sizable chunk of the value of an EV is its battery, this is good for the chemical industry but not so good for the car industry as the EV bit is more strait forward.
> 
> You and Ozi have commented that EVs should be simpler but the manufacturer then adds complexity back into the vehicle with extra features. The head of Ford UK described his latest model as an ipad on wheels. I did a project for Bentley to take weight out be replacing steel with light weight carbon fibres. The chief engineer told me that the weight saving then gets eaten by adding more stull to the car. He told me that each front seat has 27 motors.....We as consumers have to stand back and see the bigger picture from time to time, or we will end up driving around in our living rooms


The future of the motor industry is hydrogen. Jaguar made a huge mistake investing in all Electric whereas smart trade is already gearing up for water power. Interestingly the new all electric jag is made in Austria and they just put the badge on it when it gets to the uk- it still can't go far without having to be charged but goes very very fast they say. Grids are being made for roads so you drive over them to charge your vehicle a bit like how you can charge your phone by placing it on top of a charging pad. The industry is charging relatively high prices for new vehicles that will have a limited life time it seems. Water powered cars are currently a strong point with Asian car makers, the uk needs to speed up. Getting info from the actual makers can take you down the right road... with water power.


----------



## Cooper

Spectric said:


> with EV's they need to look at incorporating the motors into the wheel assemblies, you now have no transmission and no mechanical diff just direct drive.


I thought this was an obvious solution but someone who understands motor vehicles better than I do explained that it is important for suspension etc that the wheels are as light as possible. It seemed to me that it would be possible to have permanent 4 wheel drive with no differentials only requiring a little chip to workout the different revs for each wheel. I even worked out a spread sheet formula that could do the sums.
What I can't understand is why a simple vehicle like the old VW microbus, beloved of surfers and hippies isn't produced. I'm sure that young people should be the driving force of EV take up, (they don't require all the home comforts of us old crusties). If the vehicles were simpler and cheaper and more versatile they would be the height of trendy fashion. A few years ago a new camper, based on the old type 3, was produced. Without all the camping clutter it would have been the ideal platform for an EV. VW have a concept version but its its an all bells and whistles thing, miles away from what we drove around in, in the 70s.


----------



## Garden Shed Projects

Looks like JLR are following this thread. 








Land Rover unveils prototype electric Defender powered by hydrogen


The zero-emissions prototype Defender uses the hydrogen in a fuel-cell chemical reaction to generate electricity which then powers electric motors to drive the wheels of the off-roader.




www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## Garden Shed Projects

I am always a little suprised that high end car manufacturers don’t have a line of light weight efficient vehicles. The likes of Ferrari, Maclaren etc. don’t follow Caterham or Arial and create vehicle that are designed from the ground up as light weight, thus efficient vehicles. It isn’t like there are cost constraints within there markets and using modern materials and engine designs they could create something really special. 
A 500kg Ferrari with a 1.6 litre V6 any one. 
The halo effect of these vehicles could drive a renewed interest in lightweight simplistic vehicles for the mass market. 
Colin Chapman had it right. Design the car and then add lightness.


----------



## D_W

GuitardoctorW7 said:


> I'm sorry if this has been debated before, but, why the hell are we (society) not pursuing Hydrogen powered vehicles more? Yes the fuel cells are expensive to produce, but that cost would diminish with mass production. The range of a HPV vehicle is more akin to an ICE. 5 minute fill up and the only by-product is water. To re-battery an EV is the best part of £10K and the environmental cost is huge. I used an HV taxi the other month and it was great. The driver said the only downside was there were only a couple of refuelling stations around.



It costs twice as much to make a hydrogen fcv and there's no distribution of hydrogen, and it's expensive where it's distributed. Bevs are economically feasible now. Hydrogen is reformed from natural gas right now.

Toyota has spent a lot of money on fc vehicles and if they could make them economically, they would. A $80k Toyota Prius with expensive fuel doesn't exactly serve the masses.


----------



## D_W

Why hydrogen fuel cell cars can't compete with electric cars


Hydrogen fuel cell cars will never be able to compete with battery-electric cars, writes Zachary Shahan. Policymakers should focus on stimulating EVs.




energypost.eu





It appears that as time passes, fcv gets less likely, not more.


----------



## D_W

Garden Shed Projects said:


> I am always a little suprised that high end car manufacturers don’t have a line of light weight efficient vehicles. The likes of Ferrari, Maclaren etc. don’t follow Caterham or Arial and create vehicle that are designed from the ground up as light weight, thus efficient vehicles. It isn’t like there are cost constraints within there markets and using modern materials and engine designs they could create something really special.
> A 500kg Ferrari with a 1.6 litre V6 any one.
> The halo effect of these vehicles could drive a renewed interest in lightweight simplistic vehicles for the mass market.
> Colin Chapman had it right. Design the car and then add lightness.



How do you make them safe at low weight? In a crash, that is. Once you get on the highway, low weight doesn't really make much difference. One would wonder why we don't stamp dimples in car body parts yet as that absolutely increases cruise efficiency.


----------



## TominDales

Spectric said:


> But there has to be a point where we have what is required but not over the top, if we are going to prevent a fourth extinction event due to global warming and climate change then the changes we need to make will be very radical, there is no way that our current lifestyles are sustainable long term and just going from ICE to EV's will not solve the problem, we need to get back to a more basic way of living so that we are not stretching resources to the limit. Just because we have got used to a car does not mean that at some point we will not be priced out of ownership and have to use public transport, but everything needs to change in order to accomodate a new way of living.


We are consuming 6 planets worth of resources in the west. We need to adjust to a more sustainable lifestyple, EVs are a start, but over time we will need to get more frugal. New technology will help but we will need to ajust our lifestyles to bring everything back in kilter.


----------



## Garden Shed Projects

D_W said:


> How do you make them safe at low weight? In a crash, that is. Once you get on the highway, low weight doesn't really make much difference. One would wonder why we don't stamp dimples in car body parts yet as that absolutely increases cruise efficiency.


Safety comes from design and the use of exotic materials, carbon fibre, bonded aluminium and such. Light cars that are safe are around already. Take the Smart roadster from a few years ago, great idea. Small safe roadster, light in weight small efficient engine spoilt by horrible gear box. 
Give the design to Ferrari with a price point north of £150k and what would you get?
The technology in these high end cars is utilised to carry around 5 litre v8’s leather seats ac. If a car was designed from a clean sheet of paper to be a light weight simple car, a Lotus Elise springs to mind, it may be possible. 
They do build specials like club sports and stradale but they are based on the “standard”car which needs to carry all the luxury items. 
A light car with any power train, be it EV, hydrogen or ICE would still perform better than one that was heavier. 
In a lot of cases this technology starts as pie in the sky thinking and is expensive but the more technology is implemented the cheaper it becomes.


----------



## TominDales

Sachakins said:


> Just a thought on tge 2025 ban.
> 
> How will the government deal with their vehicles, ie Bullet proof limousines, high security vehicles for likes of diplomats, royalty, also those that feel the need for attack proof cars.
> 
> Will they extend the ICE ban to the likes of new military vehicles, police vehicles, emergency vehicles, ambulances etc.
> 
> Would love to see the performance of a challenger tank on batteries....
> 
> Also is the proposed ban on ICE to include motorcycles, boats, barges.
> 
> What about generators, construction and agricultural vehicles and machinery.
> 
> Think that a 250 tonne crane lift going to be unlikely for years to come.
> 
> Also changing over the entire public transport fleet, busses, trains, ferry boats.


Good question.
There is a huge amount going on in this area.

The MOD pouring money into this area. They have loads of cells on the body, want to upgrade but seriously they are looking at EVs and E ships. Army vehicles adopt electric technology
Electric vehicles offer military advantages, quieter and less IR emissions means they are harder to detect by enemy. 

Port of London has a major project to convert its fleet to EV, same in Amsterdam. Ferries are a good start as they go back to a dock. Lloyds shipping have international programmes looking at long haul shipping - that is a major challenges.http://www.pla.co.uk/Port-of-London-Authority-to-more-than-halve-emissions-by-2025

Off road - interestingly for JCB and Komatsu etc, EVs have enabled them to introduce new products as they are great for enclosed spaces such as tunnels. But the extra power is enabling new desisgnes, a Newcastle company Hyperdrive is developong cells systems for these applications. Hyperdrive Innovation Limited | High Performance Battery Energy Storage Systems

EVs are naturally very powerful, but range is an issue. The UK has some good companies in this area such as Delta motorsport. Delta The motorsport sector is pioneering high power EVs Notre sure about specialist vehicle such as 250 tonne crane but its only a matter of time.

Of all of these applications you list, long distance shipping is the most challenging. How to store that much energy. It could be hydrogen or a sustainable fuel rather than a battery.


----------



## selectortone

Garden Shed Projects said:


> If a car was designed from a clean sheet of paper to be a light weight simple car, a Lotus Elise springs to mind, it may be possible.



It exists. The Mazda MX-5. Best selling roadster of all time. They've since loaded it up with extras like aircon etc, but the mk1 was pretty much that. I can see an electric version in that model's future.


----------



## D_W

Garden Shed Projects said:


> Safety comes from design and the use of exotic materials, carbon fibre, bonded aluminium and such. Light cars that are safe are around already. Take the Smart roadster from a few years ago, great idea. Small safe roadster, light in weight small efficient engine spoilt by horrible gear box.
> Give the design to Ferrari with a price point north of £150k and what would you get?
> The technology in these high end cars is utilised to carry around 5 litre v8’s leather seats ac. If a car was designed from a clean sheet of paper to be a light weight simple car, a Lotus Elise springs to mind, it may be possible.
> They do build specials like club sports and stradale but they are based on the “standard”car which needs to carry all the luxury items.
> A light car with any power train, be it EV, hydrogen or ICE would still perform better than one that was heavier.
> In a lot of cases this technology starts as pie in the sky thinking and is expensive but the more technology is implemented the cheaper it becomes.



There must be no real market interest. There were some lighter stripped down vehicles offered here in the states for a 10 year or so period. Ultimately, their sales numbers dropped in favor of more complicated cars and that was the end of that.


----------



## TominDales

GuitardoctorW7 said:


> I'm sorry if this has been debated before, but, why the hell are we (society) not pursuing Hydrogen powered vehicles more? Yes the fuel cells are expensive to produce, but that cost would diminish with mass production. The range of a HPV vehicle is more akin to an ICE. 5 minute fill up and the only by-product is water. To re-battery an EV is the best part of £10K and the environmental cost is huge. I used an HV taxi the other month and it was great. The driver said the only downside was there were only a couple of refuelling stations around.


Yes we have, in summary, hydrogen is hard to handle, compress, store and burn. Batteries are about 95% to 97% efficient at charging and discharging energy whereas electrolysers are only 80% efficient and fuel cells about 65% so there is a big efficacy loss. So for short range applications EV wins out. For longer range their is not such a clear cut view and Hydrogen, SAF (sustainable or bio fuels) etc are still being developed. As usual the UK having been a leader is behind the fuell cell curve. This table compares ICE with EV and fuel cell quite well. As you can see, EVs win out on efficiency and as you point out as the manufacturing costs come down they will also win out on cost vs ICE and hydrogen.







Fuel cells make sense for very long distance such as long haul shipping, or direct burn hydrogne or even fuel cells using amonia as a hydrogen carrier. For cars EVs are the most economic. Scania have development programmes fro large trucks in EVs and fuel cell trucks running side by side, but are now investing increasingly in EVs at the expense of fuel cells due to better progress on high power EVs.








Home


Welcome! Scania is a global company with sales of trucks, buses & services in more than 100 countries. Scania’s production units are located in Europe, South America and Asia.




www.scania.com


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## Spectric

They are actually making the problems with EV's worse because they are trying to run before they can walk. The ICE has been around about 200 years in which time it has evolved to what we see now, for better or worse. They are trying to instanty replicate this with an EV rather than step back and accept that it will have to start with a lower top speed and less power but that could then deliver the range, overtime it will evolve and become what they are trying to achieve overnight.


----------



## TominDales

plum60 said:


> The future of the motor industry is hydrogen. Jaguar made a huge mistake investing in all Electric whereas smart trade is already gearing up for water power. Interestingly the new all electric jag is made in Austria and they just put the badge on it when it gets to the uk- it still can't go far without having to be charged but goes very very fast they say. Grids are being made for roads so you drive over them to charge your vehicle a bit like how you can charge your phone by placing it on top of a charging pad. The industry is charging relatively high prices for new vehicles that will have a limited life time it seems. Water powered cars are currently a strong point with Asian car makers, the uk needs to speed up. Getting info from the actual makers can take you down the right road... with water power.


JLR and the APC chose EV as its investable at the time (2010-2012). Hydrogen wasn't developed enough. In Germany and Japan they are much more advance with hydrogen for transport. However with hind sight this was not a bad decision as EVs are developing faster than hydrogen. There are a lot of difficult distribution problems to overcome with hydrogen. It looks increasingly that it will compete at the very long range market and EVs will take over car, van and most trucks. 
Although a lot of JLR production is overseas the design and R&D in based in the UK which is the most labour intensive and value add bit. They employ 39,0000 to make 550,000 units in 2019 across several sites including Halewood, Castle Bromwich, Solihull and then several overseas plants cf Nissan in Sunderland who assemble 350,000 cars in Sunderland with a workforce of just 9000.

When JLR switched to aluminium body panels, they didn't work closely with their UK supply chain and made the change just as the Aluminium smelters were closing in the UK, also GKN had not invested in their Telford pressing facility so could not switch to ali, so JLR had to switch Germany for the aluminium pressing. Since then an increasing amount of their cars are made overseas. The Brexit trade deal with the EU and US demands at least 50% UK hoe production to qualify for tariff free access to those markets, so there is a scramble to onshore more of the car, especially the battery and its chemicals, as currently the average UK content about 44%, they have just 2 or 3 years to get to 50% under the Brexit rules of origin deal.


----------



## TominDales

Garden Shed Projects said:


> I am always a little suprised that high end car manufacturers don’t have a line of light weight efficient vehicles. The likes of Ferrari, Maclaren etc. don’t follow Caterham or Arial and create vehicle that are designed from the ground up as light weight, thus efficient vehicles. It isn’t like there are cost constraints within there markets and using modern materials and engine designs they could create something really special.
> A 500kg Ferrari with a 1.6 litre V6 any one.
> The halo effect of these vehicles could drive a renewed interest in lightweight simplistic vehicles for the mass market.
> Colin Chapman had it right. Design the car and then add lightness.


The Caterham and Arial atom are really for enthusiasts for safety reasons, you need to where a helmet etc and would not come out of a high speed crash well.
However you touch on a long running debate about light weighting in the auto and aerospace industries.

Maclaren is in fact highly advanced from a weight point of view employing aircraft style technology to build carbon fibre moncocks. Its about 2/3 the weight of a steel equivalent but still has a protected shell for he passengers. you are correct that in general auto companies design the car and then apply lightweighting, whereas for aerospace the two issues are linked in ever decreasing cycles, ie a lighter wing means a smaller engine which means small brakes which make the whole plane lighter which means a smaller engineer etc, its a very complicated holistic equation. 

There are two schools of thought in auto/aero lightweighting. 1) will auto absorb tech top-down technology from the aerospace industry (which is expensive) or go for bottom up low cost car designs and then fix the weight issues. At the moment the money is on the later, but with a revolution in small planes and drones there may be more cross over between the two engineering approaches. Similarly will aerospace start to go for lower cost standard carbon fibres etc to drive down costs and use better computer designs to overcome the high tech performance loss in choosing more standard materials? Its a very live issue.


----------



## Just4Fun

selectortone said:


> It exists. The Mazda MX-5. Best selling roadster of all time.


OK, This is from my memory of a conversation some years ago, in which a friend described a magazine article to me. So an old memory of secondhand information; I may have some details wrong but the essence is correct I think.

Anyway, apparently a motoring magazine got hold of 50 so-called sports cars ranging from the mundane to supercars. They took them to Silverstone along with 50 drivers ranging from a 17-year old who had just passed his driving test to a professional circuit racer. Each driver did one timed lap in each car and for each car they calculated an average time. The Mazda MX-5 turned out to be the fastest on average. Sure, the professional was much faster in a Ferarri but most people couldn't drive a Ferarri quickly. The Mazda was easy to drive and most people could pedal it along at a respectable speed the first time they jumped in it.


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## CornishWoodworker

I've read it takes about 100kw to produce 22kw of end power in a hydrogen powered car when you factor in production to the green hydrogen state and subsequent losses through to tyres turning.
Hardly Green.
Still hopefully it will get better.
Remember , whichever power source is used, it will eventually be taxed to the Max.


----------



## selectortone

Just4Fun said:


> OK, This is from my memory of a conversation some years ago, in which a friend described a magazine article to me. So an old memory of secondhand information; I may have some details wrong but the essence is correct I think.
> 
> Anyway, apparently a motoring magazine got hold of 50 so-called sports cars ranging from the mundane to supercars. They took them to Silverstone along with 50 drivers ranging from a 17-year old who had just passed his driving test to a professional circuit racer. Each driver did one timed lap in each car and for each car they calculated an average time. The Mazda MX-5 turned out to be the fastest on average. Sure, the professional was much faster in a Ferarri but most people couldn't drive a Ferarri quickly. The Mazda was easy to drive and most people could pedal it along at a respectable speed the first time they jumped in it.


They are so easy to drive they let 70 year olds have them


----------



## selectortone

CornishWoodworker said:


> I've read it takes about 100kw to produce 22kw of end power in a hydrogen powered car when you factor in production to the green hydrogen state and subsequent losses through to tyres turning.
> Hardly Green.
> Still hopefully it will get better.
> Remember , whichever power source is used, it will eventually be taxed to the Max.


Do we really want to continue the fuelling model of needing to drive to centralised facilities storing large quantities of volatile fuel - even more volatile in the case of hydrogen?


----------



## D_W

Just4Fun said:


> OK, This is from my memory of a conversation some years ago, in which a friend described a magazine article to me. So an old memory of secondhand information; I may have some details wrong but the essence is correct I think.
> 
> Anyway, apparently a motoring magazine got hold of 50 so-called sports cars ranging from the mundane to supercars. They took them to Silverstone along with 50 drivers ranging from a 17-year old who had just passed his driving test to a professional circuit racer. Each driver did one timed lap in each car and for each car they calculated an average time. The Mazda MX-5 turned out to be the fastest on average. Sure, the professional was much faster in a Ferarri but most people couldn't drive a Ferarri quickly. The Mazda was easy to drive and most people could pedal it along at a respectable speed the first time they jumped in it.



Was this a new review? The older Ferrari's without all of the assistive stuff are complained about by professional reviewers.


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## Just4Fun

D_W said:


> Was this a new review?


It was new at the time  
As I wrote in my post, this was some years ago, so to us now it is an old article. Perhaps things have changed, I don't know.


----------



## John Brown

MikeJhn said:


> This looks good:



Funny.


----------



## D_W

Just4Fun said:


> It was new at the time
> As I wrote in my post, this was some years ago, so to us now it is an old article. Perhaps things have changed, I don't know.



Only curious because of all of the driving assistance added to cars now. I think they try to make the supercars safe for novices, which i find boring. My days of car magazines were in the 1990s and I can absolutely believe a mild sports car back then could've been driven faster than an f40.


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## TominDales

Scania have been running fuel cell and BEV programme for trucks. They announced earlier this year that they are increasing focus on EVs.
Here is a benchmark they have done on BEV trucks vs diesel. Seems in line with Studies on the Nissan Leaf for cars. The pay-back depends on the source of electricity as with other studies but the figures look good. Headline is 20,000 miles (33,000km) to 42,000 miles needed to recoup the carbon cost of manufacture.
This is an industry study so not independent, but Scania are a reputable brand, so its likely to have been well researched.



https://www.scania.com/content/dam/group/press-and-media/press-releases/documents/Scania-Life-cycle-assessment-of-distribution-vehicles.pdf


----------



## Ozi

D_W said:


> Why hydrogen fuel cell cars can't compete with electric cars
> 
> 
> Hydrogen fuel cell cars will never be able to compete with battery-electric cars, writes Zachary Shahan. Policymakers should focus on stimulating EVs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> energypost.eu
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It appears that as time passes, fcv gets less likely, not more.


I have said it before but Toyota got 1003 km out of one charge with a Mirai on the public road. It wasn't a standard car but they get 650 km from those. Making hydrogen from gas is a disaster environmentally but no one is suggesting that as a solution. Hydrogen from electrolysis of sea water can make sense, not as the main reason for installing turbines but as a by product from those times turbines produce power in excess of demand. Being able to sell this by product increases the generating capacity which can be economically installed, without it we are nearing the point at which additional wind power is not cost effective yet we do not have enough at times of high demand or when the wind don't blow. It is one additional means of storing renewable energy, we are going to need others, huge banks of batteries are being installed and everyone will have heard of pump storage but looking for one answer to the whole problem is unlikely to be the best way forward and as many have said we are going to see a lot of upheaval and almost certainly a drop in living standards measured by current standards. 

As far as refueling hydrogen cars goes it does not have to be a nightmare, imagine filling your petrol tank with Jerry cans and a funnel. Once the infrastructure is in place it will be just as simple as it needs to be. 

On the subject of safety I have read the crash standards and other safety standards relating to hydrogen tanks in road vehicles, there through and I would be happy to be on the road with these and equally happy to drive one if things go this way. Far happier than I currently am breathing diesel fumes.

The best study I have seen to date suggested about 11% of road transport could economically be hydrogen powered, the truth is we don't really know yet where the balance will end up. At one point the CEGB ran a study which proved you could not run the national grid in a stable manor with more than 10% renewable energy, in the last 12 months we did a lot better than that.


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## Jacob

The loss if personal powered transport is no big deal. Boys toys really. We would survive!
What about the important Climate change issues?


----------



## D_W

Ozi said:


> I have said it before but Toyota got 1003 km out of one charge with a Mirai on the public road. It wasn't a standard car but they get 650 km from those. Making hydrogen from gas is a disaster environmentally but no one is suggesting that as a solution. Hydrogen from electrolysis of sea water can make sense, not as the main reason for installing turbines but as a by product from those times turbines produce power in excess of demand. Being able to sell this by product increases the generating capacity which can be economically installed, without it we are nearing the point at which additional wind power is not cost effective yet we do not have enough at times of high demand or when the wind don't blow. It is one additional means of storing renewable energy, we are going to need others, huge banks of batteries are being installed and everyone will have heard of pump storage but looking for one answer to the whole problem is unlikely to be the best way forward and as many have said we are going to see a lot of upheaval and almost certainly a drop in living standards measured by current standards.
> 
> As far as refueling hydrogen cars goes it does not have to be a nightmare, imagine filling your petrol tank with Jerry cans and a funnel. Once the infrastructure is in place it will be just as simple as it needs to be.
> 
> On the subject of safety I have read the crash standards and other safety standards relating to hydrogen tanks in road vehicles, there through and I would be happy to be on the road with these and equally happy to drive one if things go this way. Far happier than I currently am breathing diesel fumes.
> 
> The best study I have seen to date suggested about 11% of road transport could economically be hydrogen powered, the truth is we don't really know yet where the balance will end up. At one point the CEGB ran a study which proved you could not run the national grid in a stable manor with more than 10% renewable energy, in the last 12 months we did a lot better than that.



We have nat. Gas fill stations for cars here. I understand that in order to have a setup for nat gas, the installation cost is a half million extra or so. Consequently, there aren't many. A compressor in home to fill the car off of residential nat gas is about $10k.

The infrastructure to compress it won't be cheap and probably not that reliable. Electric cars will charge at short intervals by then.


----------



## Spectric

Reverse the problem, rather than seeking EV's so that we can continue as we do now, it would be better to reduce the commute to work so you don't need your EV to travel long distance and this requires social and society re-ordering. The problem with EV's would be solved by changing what we expect from them.


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## Spectric

When we no longer refine petrochemicals to produce fuel for our ICE's we know there will be other losers, LPG is one and a lot of rural folk rely on this for heating, Bitumen for our roads, MDPE pipe for gas and water utilities and the list continues so we need to find solutions to these issues before getting rid of the ICE.


----------



## Just4Fun

Spectric said:


> Reverse the problem, rather than seeking EV's so that we can continue as we do now, it would be better to reduce the commute to work so you don't need your EV to travel long distance


On the surface that is OK but there is precious little employment in the countryside so everyone would have to move to the towns. You would end up with even fewer people living in rural areas, villages would die and rural housing stock would be unused. Back when agriculture employed a significant workforce villages could survive and perhaps thrive as a local economy. Now that agriculture employs hardly anyone very few people can live in a village and be close to their work.


----------



## John Brown

Just4Fun said:


> On the surface that is OK but there is precious little employment in the countryside so everyone would have to move to the towns. You would end up with even fewer people living in rural areas, villages would die and rural housing stock would be unused. Back when agriculture employed a significant workforce villages could survive and perhaps thrive as a local economy. Now that agriculture employs hardly anyone very few people can live in a village and be close to their work.


But hasn't the pandemic shown us that a large number of people can work mainly from home?


----------



## Just4Fun

John Brown said:


> But hasn't the pandemic shown us that a large number of people can work mainly from home?


Yes, that is true. It will be interesting to see what long-term effect this has. We could have done that before the pandemic but not so many did. Will people/companies continue with home working or revert to their original mode of operation?


----------



## D_W

Just4Fun said:


> Yes, that is true. It will be interesting to see what long-term effect this has. We could have done that before the pandemic but not so many did. Will people/companies continue with home working or revert to their original mode of operation?



The latter is more likely if it's cost neutral as employers generally like to keep close tabs on their employees if they can and training of new employees in most white collar jobs has been tough remotely.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

One benefit of a market economy is that it finds gaps in the preconceived logic and seeks to fill them. 

Oil refineries have managed to balance demand for petrol, diesel, fertilisers, plastics, oil etc through the refining process. AFAIK there is no great lake of unused hydrocarbons because demand didn't match refining capability.

I expect this to be the case as the market reacts to variable wind and solar energy. This may involve using excess output to generate hydrogen, switching recharging of vehicle (and possibly domestic) power packs, consumers flexing demand based on price, commercial and industrial users flexing demand to reduce consumption during periods of high prices.

None of this is impossible - it is all entirely feasible. That the infrastructure is not yet in place is simply due to the immediate need for rebalancing being unnecessary. As solar and wind are only a part of the current energy mix, we simply flex fossil fuel generation!


----------



## Jacob

Terry - Somerset said:


> One benefit of a market economy is that it finds gaps in the preconceived logic and seeks to fill them.
> ....


The big dis-benefit of a market economy is that it finds gaps in the preconceived logic and;
1. seeks to fill them with any old ***** which will make money, which is basically why we are in the fix we are in.
2. Is completely unable to supply where there is no profit to be made i.e. the needs of majority of the world population who have close to zero wealth.
3 Is utterly resistant to losing trade/profit for the greater good e.g. to seek ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption.
It's all down to strong purposeful government.
Infrastructure isn't in place because governments have not demanded it not even by the easily available method if increasing taxation on fossil fuel - strongly resisted by the industry itself, along with systematic climate change denial.
Fuel prices are historically low, we are still playing in the last chance saloon, the phoney war, tipping points are being passed.
It's not looking good: Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists . Change in the gulf stream was talked about at length 30 or more years ago, as a probable major climate changer. It's back on the agenda as highly probable. It was ignored back then, it's ignored now, just a detail in a whole range of tipping points.
A lot of arranging deck chairs on the Titanic going on!


----------



## Spectric

Just4Fun said:


> On the surface that is OK but there is precious little employment in the countryside so everyone would have to move to the towns.


What I am thinking is how GEC Marconi used to get it's huge workforce into it's main site, where there were buses to collect the workers from all points on the compass and people only had to get to one of these points, now the transport could be electric buses. This highlights yet another issue, if the EV has 4 seats then they all need to be occupied to get max efficiency, single occupancy has to go as it will not be viable and buses should be used. Again this shows how radical change is needed to solve the issue and if we are really honest this is not going to happen, people have tasted a level of choice and freedom they will not want to give up.


----------



## Spectric

D_W said:


> The latter is more likely if it's cost neutral as employers generally like to keep close tabs on their employees


This is very easy with the Pc, there is software now that can perform all sorts of monitoring that the employer will claim is for personel improvement or performance appraisal. It is actually capable of recording every key stroke made and can provide the employer with all sorts of data that will show whether you are putting in the hours or just not delivering.


----------



## Spectric

Yes I can clearly see @Jacob 's view, we know the iceberg is out there, not yet seen it but we are just tickling the edges with a few ideas and all we have to deal with this is a broom that we hope to push the berg out of the way when we do see it, but those in the know realise at that point it is to late.
In some ways I relate the problem of climate change to getting my head around CPUs's that can do three million instructions per second, something that I still find incredable but so will be the solution to global warming.


----------



## Sachakins

Spectric said:


> This is very easy with the Pc, there is software now that can perform all sorts of monitoring that the employer will claim is for personel improvement or performance appraisal. It is actually capable of recording every key stroke made and can provide the employer with all sorts of data that will show whether you are putting in the hours or just not delivering.


There's no need for all that monitoring, since if your not delivering, then you're obviously not doing the work.

The issue is that employers want there 8 hours of time, irrespective of the actual work done.

I worked for a year at ICI, @1996, and for five days a month I would work from home doing month end analysis, reporting etc on time and revenue across UK and Dutch project teams. My manager at the time was far more progressive, and providing the report was in on time, she was happy, even if I only did 6 hours a day. She was of the mind-set that sometimes home working was far more productive than being in the office.


----------



## MikeJhn

D_W said:


> Only curious because of all of the driving assistance added to cars now. I think they try to make the supercars safe for novices, which i find boring. My days of car magazines were in the 1990s and I can absolutely believe a mild sports car back then could've been driven faster than an f40.


And of course the difference between being used to front wheel drive and then getting into a rear wheel drive car and not knowing that if the car does not have traction control/braking assistance braking has to be done in a straight line.


----------



## Jacob

Jacob said:


> The big dis-benefit of a market economy is that it finds gaps in the preconceived logic and;
> 1. seeks to fill them with any old ***** which will make money, which is basically why we are in the fix we are in.
> 2. Is completely unable to supply where there is no profit to be made i.e. the needs of majority of the world population who have close to zero wealth.
> 3 Is utterly resistant to losing trade/profit for the greater good e.g. to seek ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption.
> It's all down to strong purposeful government.
> Infrastructure isn't in place because governments have not demanded it not even by the easily available method if increasing taxation on fossil fuel - strongly resisted by the industry itself, along with systematic climate change denial.
> Fuel prices are historically low, we are still playing in the last chance saloon, the phoney war, tipping points are being passed.
> It's not looking good: Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists . Change in the gulf stream was talked about at length 30 or more years ago, as a probable major climate changer. It's back on the agenda as highly probable. It was ignored back then, it's ignored now, just a detail in a whole range of tipping points.
> A lot of arranging deck chairs on the Titanic going on!


More on this theme. This meme is going the rounds:

_The bicycle is the slow death of the planet.
"A cyclist is a disaster for the country's economy: he does not buy cars and does not borrow money to buy. He does not pay for insurance policies. He does not buy fuel, does not pay for the necessary maintenance and repairs. He does not use paid parking. He does not cause serious accidents. He does not require multi-lane highways. He does not get fat.
Healthy people are neither needed nor useful for the economy. They don't buy medicine. They do not go to hospitals or doctors. Nothing is added to the country's GDP (gross domestic product).
On the contrary, every new McDonald's restaurant creates at least 30 jobs: 10 cardiologists, 10 dentists, 10 dietary experts and nutritionists, and obviously, people who work at the restaurant itself."
Choose carefully: cyclist or McDonald's? It is worth considering.
P.S. Walking is even worse. Pedestrians don't even buy bicycles._

The simple fact is that the benefits of "market" economies are completely random; good, bad or indifferent.


----------



## John Brown

Jacob said:


> More on this theme. This meme is going the rounds:
> 
> _The bicycle is the slow death of the planet.
> "A cyclist is a disaster for the country's economy: he does not buy cars and does not borrow money to buy. He does not pay for insurance policies. He does not buy fuel, does not pay for the necessary maintenance and repairs. He does not use paid parking. He does not cause serious accidents. He does not require multi-lane highways. He does not get fat.
> Healthy people are neither needed nor useful for the economy. They don't buy medicine. They do not go to hospitals or doctors. Nothing is added to the country's GDP (gross domestic product).
> On the contrary, every new McDonald's restaurant creates at least 30 jobs: 10 cardiologists, 10 dentists, 10 dietary experts and nutritionists, and obviously, people who work at the restaurant itself."
> Choose carefully: cyclist or McDonald's? It is worth considering.
> P.S. Walking is even worse. Pedestrians don't even buy bicycles._
> 
> The simple fact is that the benefits of "market" economies are completely random; good, bad or indifferent.


Interesting viewpoint.
I would take issue with the "slow death of the planet" part. The economy, maybe. The planet will survive most things.


----------



## selectortone

Jacob said:


> _Choose carefully: cyclist or McDonald's? It is worth considering._


After covid arrived I didn't have a McDonalds for a year. Then I discovered they deliver


----------



## Spectric

Sachakins said:


> The issue is that employers want there 8 hours of time, irrespective of the actual work done.


Yes this is something that software can deliver, if you look at the data file from say employee X then you will know when they logged on, keyboard activity over a period of time and if they are looking at anything not work related during that time, it is big brother. It will clearly show periods of inactivity and there are many functions that it can deliver to produce the boss all the data he/she needs to evaluate that employee's performance.


----------



## Spectric

selectortone said:


> After covid arrived I didn't have a McDonalds for a year. Then I discovered they deliver


That will have improved your life expectancy, your pipework both blood and waste will only thank you.


----------



## selectortone

Spectric said:


> That will have improved your life expectancy, your pipework both blood and waste will only thank you.


"_All things in moderation. A little of what you fancy does you good_". A very wise lady (my dear old mum) used to say that


----------



## hairy

Jacob said:


> More on this theme. This meme is going the rounds:
> 
> _The bicycle is the slow death of the planet.
> "A cyclist is a disaster for the country's economy: he does not buy cars and does not borrow money to buy. He does not pay for insurance policies. He does not buy fuel, does not pay for the necessary maintenance and repairs. He does not use paid parking. He does not cause serious accidents. He does not require multi-lane highways. He does not get fat.
> Healthy people are neither needed nor useful for the economy. They don't buy medicine. They do not go to hospitals or doctors. Nothing is added to the country's GDP (gross domestic product).
> On the contrary, every new McDonald's restaurant creates at least 30 jobs: 10 cardiologists, 10 dentists, 10 dietary experts and nutritionists, and obviously, people who work at the restaurant itself."
> Choose carefully: cyclist or McDonald's? It is worth considering.
> P.S. Walking is even worse. Pedestrians don't even buy bicycles._
> 
> The simple fact is that the benefits of "market" economies are completely random; good, bad or indifferent.


How does cycling to MiccyDs fit into that?


----------



## D_W

Spectric said:


> Yes this is something that software can deliver, if you look at the data file from say employee X then you will know when they logged on, keyboard activity over a period of time and if they are looking at anything not work related during that time, it is big brother. It will clearly show periods of inactivity and there are many functions that it can deliver to produce the boss all the data he/she needs to evaluate that employee's performance.



That can be done with in office PC's also. It's not just enforcement, but training, collaborative work and meetings.


----------



## Spectric

selectortone said:


> "_All things in moderation. A little of what you fancy does you good_".


That only applies if the poison is not accumulative.


----------



## D_W

Sachakins said:


> There's no need for all that monitoring, since if your not delivering, then you're obviously not doing the work.
> 
> The issue is that employers want there 8 hours of time, irrespective of the actual work done.
> 
> I worked for a year at ICI, @1996, and for five days a month I would work from home doing month end analysis, reporting etc on time and revenue across UK and Dutch project teams. My manager at the time was far more progressive, and providing the report was in on time, she was happy, even if I only did 6 hours a day. She was of the mind-set that sometimes home working was far more productive than being in the office.



The 2021 version of this is to get you to do the reporting in 6 hours in the office and add 5 more hours, and get you to take responsibility only promotions that offer potential raises later.


----------



## selectortone

Spectric said:


> That only applies if the poison is not accumulative.


I'm 70, 6-foot 13 stone and in good health. Worked for me!


----------



## hairy

Just4Fun said:


> On the surface that is OK but there is precious little employment in the countryside so everyone would have to move to the towns. You would end up with even fewer people living in rural areas, villages would die and rural housing stock would be unused. Back when agriculture employed a significant workforce villages could survive and perhaps thrive as a local economy. Now that agriculture employs hardly anyone very few people can live in a village and be close to their work.



This is where I think the current trajectory must take us.
If every bit of travel is bad it must be minimised.
So all food must be grown as close as possible to the people.
People must be as close as possible to each other.
This is the only logical end point to what we are told must happen.

In reading about how to grow more of my own I discovered that many years ago Paris used to grow all it's food with the confines of the city, but the cost of land eventually pushed all the growers out. And further out, and abroad etc etc


----------



## hairy

If I could entirely work from home with a laptop I would be worried it could be done by someone cheaper anywhere?
WFH and not commuting is surely a white collar thing? Not wishing to poke anyone but the phrase "There has never been a lockdown, just poor people delivering things to rich people hiding at home" does have some resonance. 
There will always be jobs that need a person to travel. If the costs of those go up as EVs seem to currently be forcing over the next ten years, those costs will be born by all those who are served by those jobs. I don't see how that is avoidable?


----------



## Spectric

selectortone said:


> I'm 70, 6-foot 13 stone and in good health. Worked for me


But this addiction has come in later life, like me you came into this world before junk food took over and turned our youngsters into living humpty dumpties and space hoppers, we had healthy childhoods that we are now reaping the rewards of, plus you get plenty of sunshine down on the south coast, the locals up here get webbed feet.


----------



## Spectric

hairy said:


> If I could entirely work from home with a laptop I would be worried it could be done by someone cheaper anywhere?


If it can be done at home then you are right, just look at call centres. Next worry will be AI.


----------



## Sachakins

D_W said:


> The 2021 version of this is to get you to do the reporting in 6 hours in the office and add 5 more hours, and get you to take responsibility only promotions that offer potential raises later.


The only way to achieve this at the office would be in a locked room with no phone hence no interruptions,
My point is that with in office interruptions it takes 8 hours and the firm are happy with that.
But if I can do it in 6 at home, then the firm want to see 2 more hours, which in actuality why businesses are stuck in the 8 hours work for 8 hours pay.
But in the office they get 6 hours work and 2 hours interruptions and faff! But the see an 8 hour attendance so they are happy.
At home they still get the 6 hours work, without the faff! But suddenly they think they've lost 2 hours work. This is such short sightedness.


----------



## selectortone

Spectric said:


> But this addiction has come in later life, like me you came into this world before junk food took over and turned our youngsters into living humpty dumpties and space hoppers, we had healthy childhoods that we are now reaping the rewards of, plus you get plenty of sunshine down on the south coast, the locals up here get webbed feet.


Addiction?

(With apologies to readers wishing to discuss EVs) As my old Mum used to say, a little of what you fancy does you good. I don't think enjoying a takeaway with my daughter on a Friday night is doing me serious harm. I fully intend redeeming my 45-odd years worth of National Insurance contributions before I go off to meet the Great Spaghetti Monster In The Sky.

And anyway, mental health is important too, so I'll continue to enjoy a balanced diet with a few non-PC treats occasionally. Living an extra few years on a high-fibre cardboard diet doesn't really appeal to me.


----------



## D_W

Sachakins said:


> The only way to achieve this at the office would be in a locked room with no phone hence no interruptions,
> My point is that with in office interruptions it takes 8 hours and the firm are happy with that.
> But if I can do it in 6 at home, then the firm want to see 2 more hours, which in actuality why businesses are stuck in the 8 hours work for 8 hours pay.
> But in the office they get 6 hours work and 2 hours interruptions and faff! But the see an 8 hour attendance so they are happy.
> At home they still get the 6 hours work, without the faff! But suddenly they think they've lost 2 hours work. This is such short sightedness.



I don't disagree. Except the 8 hour office is rare here except in hourly jobs. I experienced this in 1999 as an intern. They fed us work for 8 hours (we were hourly as interns). A coworker in an easy practice got about 4 hours of work a day and wanted to leave and get paid for 8 hours, anyway. This doesn't make sense when you're paid hourly and it didn't occur to him to ask for something else to learn. He didn't return as full time after graduation.

But, in my profession, the tradition has always been to try to choke everyone with work if they're hourly simply because we are paid salary but bill hours.


----------



## MikeJhn

CornishWoodworker said:


> An EV range should be given as a Max and Min and Average
> Everything that can sap power ON or working near capacity
> Nothing on and driving sedately at normal speeds.
> Normal Driving with use of some electrical sapping devices and functions


Don't you know, you are not allowed to use any of the equipment supplied with the car whilst using it for its main purpose.


----------



## plum60

CornishWoodworker said:


> I've read it takes about 100kw to produce 22kw of end power in a hydrogen powered car when you factor in production to the green hydrogen state and subsequent losses through to tyres turning.
> Hardly Green.
> Still hopefully it will get better.
> Remember , whichever power source is used, it will eventually be taxed to the Max.


I agree that some aspects of each potential initiative to reduce pollution from vehicles has issues. My take is the pollution issue is going to speed up the collective sorting out problems with cars etc because nature is a bit like driving in that if you turn the wheel a little bit it doesn't start off too different but in the end you crash because you end up in a different direction. If you push nature she will stay static for a long time but when she starts to move she will be slow but gather momentum and show you her real power ( which will dwarf us). If we stopped all harmful emissions today I think it will take as long a time for nature to stop going in the wrong direction as it did to start so transport and moving things around will change as climate forces the issue over car makers and drivers heads. I am revising how I work so I don't have to drive much at all - they blocked off the roads where I am and it took me 3 hours to deliver 12 miles away on a Sunday when the roads are relatively clear last week. Main roads are slower than horse and cart in London. If I could get a horse and somewhere safe to keep him/her it would make a lot more sense. Environmental migrants and transport issues will become popular topics as things develop.


----------



## TominDales

Sachakins said:


> There's no need for all that monitoring, since if your not delivering, then you're obviously not doing the work.
> 
> The issue is that employers want there 8 hours of time, irrespective of the actual work done.
> 
> I worked for a year at ICI, @1996, and for five days a month I would work from home doing month end analysis, reporting etc on time and revenue across UK and Dutch project teams. My manager at the time was far more progressive, and providing the report was in on time, she was happy, even if I only did 6 hours a day. She was of the mind-set that sometimes home working was far more productive than being in the office.


I think that is how homeworking during the pandemic is panning out. I work for a pretty progressive company, they have adapted to mixed home and work based working - we have a lot of laboratories, so you have to go in to do the physical work. I've noticed that people have switched to results focused rather than clock watching, we were pretty far down that path before covid with flexible working and various family friendly initiatives, but covid has taken it to another level. 
Its amazingly helpful to be able to put the washing machine on over lunch, or to get the kids to and from school and fit work around it. Our experience is that work output has gone up as people are more focused on getting the right things done instead of being seen in the office or lab for its own sake.
Interestingly our company is basically a daughter of ICI, many of our sites are in ex ICI premises and probably 25% of our staff are ex ICI from various businesses.

The comment about bussing people in - to Plessey/Marconi - I think those days are gone, no longer are there gargantuan sites with thousands of people adding up spreadsheets by hand. These days work is very distributed so unless you are based in a city - as most work is, I suspect a distributed form of labour to work will be the future. A lot of home working via the NET and PC and the odd day in the office or lab communicating an doing physical stuff.


----------



## Spectric

Sachakins said:


> But if I can do it in 6 at home, then the firm want to see 2 more hours, which in actuality why businesses are stuck in the 8 hours work for 8 hours pay.


This has been the downside of the English way of working for decades, 8 hours work for 8 hours pay, but not always 8 hours work. The better approach especially if working from home is to work SMART. These are key parts of what your company expects from you, it is not just a statement from the boss but a two way agreement with support and they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. This is what the business expects of you, you know that what is expected can be done, there is measurable criteria that will show if it has been done and a period of time has been allocated so working more flexable is possible because when you are in the flow you may work extra time to get things done to move your objective closer but then if you are having a day where you just cannot get things going then leave it till later, so long as you deliver within the time frame. This puts you in charge of time management so you nolonger are working a fixed period each day.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I happened to meet four of my nephews today, all of whom are fairly high achieving individuals in their 30s, and we got on to the subject of work from home.

Their general consensus was that most of the normal 9-5 day is taken up with back to back zoom meetings. Often these cover the most trvial of issues as they can no longer simply walk across an office or chat by the coffee machine. 

This leaves the "thinking" and actual work (report writing, analysis etc) to the evening. Overall work days are far longer than when office based.

Clearly they need to be more disciplined in organising their time - perhaps to allow time during the day for thinking and tasks, and actually say "no" on occassion. FOMO (fear of missing out) dominates as if you don't participate you risk being marginalised.

It's easy when retired (as I am) to be clever about how they should manage themselves, but at that stage in their careers they are understandably concerned about money, promotion, future prospects etc. The working environment for a 35 year old today is very different from that which existed when I was 35 three decades ago!


----------



## NikNak

Test drove the new Mazda MX30 yesterday.... love the look of it and it had some really nice features (mirrors pointed downward when you select reverse) but... errr no thanks  stupid doors, VERY limited range, not user friendly.... next..!!


----------



## D_W

NikNak said:


> Test drove the new Mazda MX30 yesterday.... love the look of it and it had some really nice features (mirrors pointed downward when you select reverse) but... errr no thanks  stupid doors, VERY limited range, not user friendly.... next..!!



Mazda can't be expected to build a good ev when they can't build a good ICE car.


----------



## D_W

Terry - Somerset said:


> I happened to meet four of my nephews today, all of whom are fairly high achieving individuals in their 30s, and we got on to the subject of work from home.
> 
> Their general consensus was that most of the normal 9-5 day is taken up with back to back zoom meetings. Often these cover the most trvial of issues as they can no longer simply walk across an office or chat by the coffee machine.
> 
> This leaves the "thinking" and actual work (report writing, analysis etc) to the evening. Overall work days are far longer than when office based.
> 
> Clearly they need to be more disciplined in organising their time - perhaps to allow time during the day for thinking and tasks, and actually say "no" on occassion. FOMO (fear of missing out) dominates as if you don't participate you risk being marginalised.
> 
> It's easy when retired (as I am) to be clever about how they should manage themselves, but at that stage in their careers they are understandably concerned about money, promotion, future prospects etc. The working environment for a 35 year old today is very different from that which existed when I was 35 three decades ago!



It's more likely that they are just working more and they weren't as productive as they thought when working at the office. We track time and revenue in my office...there has just been more work to do since shutdown and the revenue and time matches what it feels like. Meetings with clients have been relegated to zoom and other similar formats leaving the core meeting time the same but erasing hours of transit to various locations, meaning you can cover a meeting and still get in a full normal work day.

Chatter at the cooler in my office is never work related, and that aspect (pleasantries with each other) has suffered. Fastest way to get people at work to leave the kitchen is to go into it and start talking about work.


----------



## Ollie78

NikNak said:


> Test drove the new Mazda MX30 yesterday.... love the look of it and it had some really nice features (mirrors pointed downward when you select reverse) but... errr no thanks  stupid doors, VERY limited range, not user friendly.... next..!!


My 2002 Nissan has mirrors that do that.


----------



## TominDales

Terry - Somerset said:


> I happened to meet four of my nephews today, all of whom are fairly high achieving individuals in their 30s, and we got on to the subject of work from home.
> 
> It's easy when retired (as I am) to be clever about how they should manage themselves, but at that stage in their careers they are understandably concerned about money, promotion, future prospects etc. The working environment for a 35 year old today is very different from that which existed when I was 35 three decades ago!


This had me thinking. It is a common feature of graduate work, most jobs these days are heading down this path. I was a new grad in a blue chip company 35 years ago and found myself in a similar boat during my first 10 years. As a grad you come in with a deep but narrow set of skills and find the old timers are quick and efficient at getting stuff done and know where the cul-de-sacs are. There was pear pressure to work very long days to learn the and competences and prove yourself as someone who got stuff done- it was not family friendly or a good work/life balance. But it does ease off as you develop networks, and learn where to apply effort, and pick up the IT, enterprise, presentation, communication and all those other capabilities needed. I've read it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a profession.
I suspect this trend has got worse over the years as manufacturing jobs have gone and new grads are competing with those who have years of experience and lots of connections. As many jobs are less manual, many people choose carry on working into older age, part-time, making it doubly hard for youngsters to find opportunities. On the plus side, education is much more careers focused and grads are better aware on how to navigate there way through.


----------



## Woodchips2

When I started this thread I never imagined it would still be going 16 months later but I’ve learned an awful lot from the contributions so thanks for that.

I’ve had to recently change the car and although an electric vehicle would suffice for most of my motoring there are a few long journeys where the limited range would have caused problems. I’ve ended up leasing a Honda Jazz hybrid. It has a 1.5l petrol engine and a battery charged from the engine but no need to plug it in. Around town it runs a lot of the time on electric and seems to be averaging about 60mpg. It has lots of new safety features that make motorway driving a very relaxing experience.

One step forward in the electronic experience!

Regards Keith


----------



## Just4Fun

Woodchips2 said:


> I’ve ended up leasing a Honda Jazz hybrid. It has a 1.5l petrol engine and a battery charged from the engine but no need to plug it in.


Congrats on the new car!
I am totally ignorant about that type of vehicle. Perhaps you could educate me. All the energy to run the vehicle comes from the fuel you use, so what advantages do you see? On the face of it, to me, the only real difference is that you might move some of the emissions and noise out of towns into the countryside. Against that you have to cart around the electric motor etc. Obviously 60 MPG is good, but presumably it would be even better without that weight penalty.


----------



## John Brown

Just4Fun said:


> Congrats on the new car!
> I am totally ignorant about that type of vehicle. Perhaps you could educate me. All the energy to run the vehicle comes from the fuel you use, so what advantages do you see? On the face of it, to me, the only real difference is that you might move some of the emissions and noise out of towns into the countryside. Against that you have to cart around the electric motor etc. Obviously 60 MPG is good, but presumably it would be even better without that weight penalty.


Firstly, you can recover some of the energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat from braking, and secondly, hybrids allow the ICE to run at peak efficiency.
That's all I know.


----------



## Just4Fun

John Brown said:


> Firstly, you can recover some of the energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat from braking


OK. Not of maor significance I think but not something I had considered in this context.



> , and secondly, hybrids allow the ICE to run at peak efficiency.


That is much more promising I think. It seems I had misunderstood the concept. I had thought that sometimes the ICE propelled the car and sometimes the electrical system propelled the car. From what you say I guess the electric motor always propels the car, and some of the time the ICE runs in order to recharge the batteries. So the ICE is basically just a generator so it can run at ideal revs regardless of vehicle speed and terrain. Have I got that right now? If so, I like the idea.



> That's all I know.


Clearly a lot more than I know


----------



## John Brown

Just4Fun said:


> OK. Not of maor significance I think but not something I had considered in this context.
> 
> 
> That is much more promising I think. It seems I had misunderstood the concept. I had thought that sometimes the ICE propelled the car and sometimes the electrical system propelled the car. From what you say I guess the electric motor always propels the car, and some of the time the ICE runs in order to recharge the batteries. So the ICE is basically just a generator so it can run at ideal revs regardless of vehicle speed and terrain. Have I got that right now? If so, I like the idea.
> 
> 
> Clearly a lot more than I know


From what I've read, the regenerative braking can add between 20 to 30 percent to the mileage. 
Comparing my wife's hybrid Toyota to my diesel Merc, I could get better mileage on a long run, but she wins hands down around town.


----------



## selectortone

My petrol Mazda6 has regenerative braking and it definitely improves mileage. I get 80 or 90 miles more out of a tankful compared with my previous similar engined 2-litre Mondeo.

The beauty of it is that it recoups the most energy in stop-start driving in town, which is when you get the worst fuel economy.





__





MAZDA: Brake Energy Regeneration System | Environmental Technology


Brake Energy Regeneration System. At Mazda we are always working hard to develop environmental technologies which will contribute to an exciting and sustainable future for people, automobiles, and the Earth. [MAZDA Official Web Site]




www.mazda.com


----------



## Just4Fun

I can see that regenerative braking might improve exonomy around town. That is not really something I do very much - I am obviously lucky in that regard. For my driving conditions and my driving style I doubt that regenerative braking would make a noticable difference to my fuel economy. YMMV.


----------



## Dabop

Got to admit, I wish I had the money to go electric, I was very impressed with the guy I bought the batteries for my house from, he has a homebrew Hilux thats electric- with over 100 thousand on the clock since he built it in 2008- since then he hasn't spent a cent driving- unlike my (exactly the same year even) one that uses about a hundred bucks a week driving rural country here in Oz...
He doesn't even pay for the electricity to drive it, as he is offgrid and solar recharges the car (he has batteries that recharge the ute when he isnt at home, that recharge it when he gets home- even at night)

$5200 a year, since 2008 would be $67 grand in fuel....his batteries and conversion cost well under half that...

Like all elec stuff it is the initial cost that hurts, but then you make up for it
:-(

If I had the money and sense to copy him at the time- I could afford to have two of them now....
A 'Monday, Wed and Friday ute..
And a Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday one...
(even more embarrassing is that his, despite being heavier and looking identical to mine, is a 'V8 killer' at the traffic lights- mines more like a 'I MIGHT beat a pushbike-maybe...')
;-(


----------



## stuart little

If everyone had to have an EV, where would they all recharge from? What about all the populated areas that only have kerbside parking, including estates (multi vehicle ownership), It would lead to a spaghetti mass of extension leads, surely. What would happen to the National Grid every night? TBH I can't see it happening.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

A fairly typical 4kw domestic array even in the UK will produce around 20kw a day - sufficient for the typical domestic electricity consumption. Daily output will vary somewhat due to daylight hours, cloud cover etc.

This would comfortably provide sufficient power to recharge an EV for most normal users - may need to be linked to a separate battery to enable night time charging. 

I then have a choice - do I recharge an EV and avoid paying for highly taxed carbon fuels, or prioritise the house where my savings are low taxed grid electricity supply. Or simply double up on PVs assumining budget and space will stand it?


----------



## Woodchips2

Just4Fun said:


> Congrats on the new car!
> I am totally ignorant about that type of vehicle. Perhaps you could educate me. All the energy to run the vehicle comes from the fuel you use, so what advantages do you see? On the face of it, to me, the only real difference is that you might move some of the emissions and noise out of towns into the countryside. Against that you have to cart around the electric motor etc. Obviously 60 MPG is good, but presumably it would be even better without that weight penalty.


Thanks Just4Fun.
This is the explanation from the Honda website:

"The Jazz hybrid car features a petrol engine, an electric motor and a small battery pack. This battery pack is powered by the engine as well as kinetic energy that is recuperated when the car is in motion, particularly when slowing down and braking.
This is sometimes referred to as “self-charging”. Once the car starts to accelerate again, the electric motor is powered by electricity from the batteries, helping the car gain speed."

When I'm driving around town the car runs on the electrical battery but when I accelerate the petrol engine cuts in. On the motorway driving at 70mph it also switches to electrical power on downhill sections. It's very good in stop start traffic jams because it stays in electric mode. It also automatically brakes if you get too close to the car in front.

Regards Keith


----------



## stuart little

So, when there's no government income from fuel tax, will they put it on electricity or find something else? They've already introduced or is it reinstated (from the Middle Ages) a 'Salt tax' on crisps. I know there weren't crisps in those days, before some bright spark says it!


----------



## Cooper

stuart little said:


> If everyone had to have an EV, where would they all recharge from? What about all the populated areas that only have kerbside parking, including estates (multi vehicle ownership), It would lead to a spaghetti mass of extension leads, surely. What would happen to the National Grid every night?





stuart little said:


> So, when there's no government income from fuel tax, will they put it on electricity or find something else?



Good questions and points. 

If everyone had an EV with reasonable range there would be little difference to taking ice to the petrol station. In fact as lots of people would home charge only those without would need a public charger. Businesses will proved the charge points needed when they see a profit to be made.

Tax has to come from somewhere, if electricity was taxed and we used it for transport and at home, there would be even more motivation for better efficiency.

It has to happen. Look at the West coast of North America and Siberia and the other day in Japan. The climate crisis is here and is real. Any inconvenience to what we are used to is better than your home being burned down or flooded and certainly better than dying of exesive heat and humidity. Not to mention the massive population movements of climate refugees.
Martin


----------



## John Brown

stuart little said:


> So, when there's no government income from fuel tax, will they put it on electricity or find something else? They've already introduced or is it reinstated (from the Middle Ages) a 'Salt tax' on crisps. I know there weren't crisps in those days, before some bright spark says it!


The way I understand things, the push for EVs is not aimed at making motoring cheaper, but greener. The fact that they are currantly cheaper per mile may help encourage early adopters, but it is not the raisin d'etre.

see what vindictive text has done there... A dried fruit pun...


----------



## D_W

re: the solar arrays mentioned above. That would seem a sensible way to charge during the day (but it's a lot cheaper for utilities to just add commercial solar arrays than it is to incentivize residential installations. The DOE puts levelized cost of commercial solar now at 3 cents a kw/hr. Which means we will be getting it in droves over the next several decades. It would probably make more sense for us to organize coops, buy real estate and set up commercial solar installations (with coop members having fixed shares) than it does to put panels on roofs, but it's more fun to look at the ones on roofs (the levelized cost even though we already own the land is more than twice as much for residential). 

At any rate, california (during the last heat wave) asked people to charge cars overnight if possible, which caused an uproar. Needlessly. There's no shortage of capacity overnight at this point and anyone charging at low draw in off peak hours could could do so and add 40 miles a day without matching their day-time use. I can't find perfect data anywhere except for an EIA example that shows nuclear capacity is 9% of total generating capacity but supplies 20% of the energy generated in 2020 (because you can't shut it off like other types). 

20% of our generating capacity is renewables, and they generate 25% of the electricity used (wind isn't good base power, but it's *really* cheap). That suggests the rest of the grid is operating at <50% capacity, and a ratio of the nuke plants (which run around 90-95% capacity over time accounting for shutdowns) overall utilization here is about 9/20x0.95, let's say - 43% or so. 

Because of this, gas plants have dominated new base load construction here. They can operate continuously and be shut down cheaply, making them easy to get contracts for (at this point, they're a threat to cause nuclear plant permanent shutdowns because they can contract at rates lower than ongoing costs for a nuclear plant and still be profitable). 

Generation in much of the US is private, while the grid is public/regulated. That makes the generation competitive, cheap and really flexible (if new gas generation is needed, it will appear quickly. Changes in the grid do not, but the grid has a lot of excess capacity overnight, too). These are things that can be pretty easily solved over time, though - if EVs strain the grid, then the regulators will approve bonds and grid improvements.


----------



## RobinBHM

selectortone said:


> My petrol Mazda6 has regenerative braking



So the harder you brake the further it will go


----------



## niemeyjt

_To replace all UK-based vehicles today with electric vehicles (not including the LGV and HGV fleets), assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation NMC 811 batteries, would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes copper. This represents, just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production during 2018. _









Leading scientists set out resource challenge of meeting net zero emissions in the UK by 2050







www.nhm.ac.uk


----------



## John Brown

niemeyjt said:


> _To replace all UK-based vehicles today with electric vehicles (not including the LGV and HGV fleets), assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation NMC 811 batteries, would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes copper. This represents, just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production during 2018. _
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Leading scientists set out resource challenge of meeting net zero emissions in the UK by 2050
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nhm.ac.uk


There will, of course, be challenges. I wasn't around at the time of the first ICE vehicles, but I can imagine there were similar concerns. Having clicked through and read the article you linked to, these scientists accept that we need to tackle the problem. I don't think they are advocating throwing in the towel and stoically awaiting doomsday. They are drawing attention to the challenges, which is a good thing, because you can bet Boris and his chums have never heard of dysprosium. To be honest, neither had I.


----------



## Jacob

John Brown said:


> ..... They are drawing attention to the challenges, which is a good thing, .....


They may eventually draw attention to the possibility that personal powered transport will not be sustainable.
It's well past its best anyway, if you look at the chaos and confusion in every town and village in the country and the amount of work needed to accommodate it; basically the destruction of large areas of town, cities, countryside, and the domination of streets and open spaces.
One odd thing is how modern cars have bloated in size and make life even more difficult - great fat paramilitary vehicles draw up every day, blocking the street outside our village school to drop off little kids who would have walked or cycled in the old days.
Boys toys!


----------



## John Brown

Jacob said:


> They may eventually draw attention to the possibility that personal powered transport will not be sustainable.
> It's well past its best anyway, if you look at the chaos and confusion in every town and village in the country and the amount of work needed to accommodate it; basically the destruction of large areas of town, cities, countryside, and the domination of streets and open spaces.
> One odd thing is how modern cars have bloated in size and make life even more difficult - great fat paramilitary vehicles draw up every day, blocking the street outside our village school to drop off little kids who would have walked or cycled in the old days.
> Boys toys!



*Road*, _n._ A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.


----------



## Cooper

niemeyjt said:


> _To replace all UK-based vehicles today with electric vehicles (not including the LGV and HGV fleets), assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation NMC 811 batteries, would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes copper. This represents, just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production during 2018. _
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Leading scientists set out resource challenge of meeting net zero emissions in the UK by 2050
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nhm.ac.uk


Amazing that you point out it will only take one years production of these materials to replace all the ice vehicles. Why has it taken so long for manufactures to get around to doing it?
Production of course is always linked to demand. I understand that Lithium is one of the most abundant elements and Cornwall has a very good supply. I just wish I could justify the purchase of an EV but our annual mileage is so low it doesn't warrant even the traditional materials, let alone the exotic ones.


----------



## hairy

John Brown said:


> There will, of course, be challenges.


That's funny!


----------



## Jacob

Cooper said:


> Amazing that you point out it will only take one years production of these materials to replace all the ice vehicles. Why has it taken so long for manufactures to get around to doing it?
> Production of course is always linked to demand. I understand that Lithium is one of the most abundant elements and Cornwall has a very good supply. I just wish I could justify the purchase of an EV but our annual mileage is so low it doesn't warrant even the traditional materials, let alone the exotic ones.


But it will have to be continued indefinitely, not just a one off event


----------



## John Brown

Cooper said:


> Amazing that you point out it will only take one years production of these materials to replace all the ice vehicles. Why has it taken so long for manufactures to get around to doing it?
> Production of course is always linked to demand. I understand that Lithium is one of the most abundant elements and Cornwall has a very good supply. I just wish I could justify the purchase of an EV but our annual mileage is so low it doesn't warrant even the traditional materials, let alone the exotic ones.


I think you may have missed the fact that they talk about all the vehicles in the UK, and the resources world wide. That's how I read it, anyway.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

If the transition to EV happens over 20 years, the UK may typically consume less than 5% of world output of even the most scarce elements annually.

Worldwide this will create price and availability pressures. But it also assumes no improvements in battery technology over the period which may either reduce or eliminate the need for scarce materials.

Further if the intention is to recycle at the end of life, the problem possibly being created will disappear over time.

I prefer glass full to glass empty.


----------



## Garden Shed Projects

John Brown said:


> The way I understand things, the push for EVs is not aimed at making motoring cheaper, but greener. The fact that they are currantly cheaper per mile may help encourage early adopters, but it is not the raisin d'etre.
> 
> see what vindictive text has done there... A dried fruit pun...


I don’t feel that battery electric vehicles is the future. The technology is available now so this what is being promoted. Hydrogen fuel cell looks to have more legs to me and battery cars may well go the way of the humble compact disk.
I came across a video on YouTube over the weekend 

 look

From the thumb nail you couldn’t tell the make of the car and it looked pretty exotic. If we manage to get the infrastructure in place I think they will overtake battery cars pretty quickly.


----------



## John Brown

Garden Shed Projects said:


> battery cars may well go the way of the humble compact disk.


Well I for one am not planning on hanging Teslas from my fruit trees to discourage the birds.


----------



## niemeyjt

Cooper said:


> Amazing that you point out it will only take one years production of these materials to replace all the ice vehicles. Why has it taken so long for manufactures to get around to doing it?
> Production of course is always linked to demand. I understand that Lithium is one of the most abundant elements and Cornwall has a very good supply. I just wish I could justify the purchase of an EV but our annual mileage is so low it doesn't warrant even the traditional materials, let alone the exotic ones.



I guess the issue is it will take the world's production to satisfy the needs of replacing the UK's ICE cars. Some of the other 190+ countries in the world may also want to replace their ICE cars.


----------



## Garden Shed Projects

John Brown said:


> Well I for one am not planning on hanging Teslas from my fruit trees to discourage the birds.


I am just suggesting it as technology that we all bought into that worked well and proved to just be a stepping stone into digital music that was soon overtaken as storage improved.

you may be better off hanging a Nissan Leaf from your trees


----------



## TominDales

John Brown said:


> There will, of course, be challenges. I wasn't around at the time of the first ICE vehicles, but I can imagine there were similar concerns. Having clicked through and read the article you linked to, these scientists accept that we need to tackle the problem. I don't think they are advocating throwing in the towel and stoically awaiting doomsday. They are drawing attention to the challenges, which is a good thing, because you can bet Boris and his chums have never heard of dysprosium. To be honest, neither had I.


I agree, That is my reading of this article. As others have pointed out as demand increases so will supply. Its very expensive to open a new mine +£bn etc so prices tend to fluctuate as demand outstrips supply and then new production clicks in. If prices continue to rise, then alternative battery chemistries or business models become attractive.
Current predictions indicate Cobalt demand will outstrip current supply by mid about 2025.





The other big concerns is the source of cobalt. Most metals are distributed fairly uniformly across the globe, Cobalt is an exception, its main source is the DRG. The industry is concerned about sustainability and the environmental conditions from DRG mining. There have been development to produce low cobalt and zero cobalt batteries. The latest NMC 811 is an example of this development 811 refers to the proportion of metal, N (Nickle), M (manganese) C (cobalt). In the past decade the main formulation for battery chemistry has been from NMC- 111 to 625 and now 111 so Cobalt has shrunk from ca 33% to 10% of the weight of the cell. Alterative chemistries such as LFP and future chemistries such as dodium sulphur are in development to remove Cobalt completely.

Metal traders saw this trend and tried to corner the market in 2019 leading to a price hike, but they overestimated uptake of Evs and new mining capacity, so the prices has come down 2/3rs in the past 2 years. Cobalt is a fairly rare metal with not many applications so its price has always been erratic. Wars in or near the DRG have had the biggest impact on availability and price




.
Magnets for motors and generators
Of more concern is the availability of rare earth elements such as Dysprosium and Neodymium. They are used to make the strong magnets in motors and generators. So wind turbines, and EVs - wither its hydrogen fuel cell or battery ev its still needs a motor. The rare earth magnets have caused a revolution in motors size and power. The avaialbity of lightweight powerful hand tools is down to these magnets, however most of todays supply comes from China and the US in particular is short on supply. In the UK there has been an announcement of a rare earth refiner investment on Teesside using ores from Tanzania. Rare earths are hard to purify as they contain Thorium a radioactive by-product. Its for that reason the mines in the US and Mexico shut in late 20th century and china became the domenant supplier. Now there is a scramble to find non-Chinese supply and purification methods that can deal with the toxic tailings in a safe way.






Recycling
The industry is already looking at recycling. Having seen the problems in ICE and other industries (plastic packaging for example), the new EV and battery makers are looking to design circular supply chains and closed loop recycling. The valuable metals are an incentive, but the whole point of EV is to be green so it needs a green end of life and second life. The view is that by 2035 most cobalt and rare earths will be available from recycling and new minerals will only be needed to supply growth in demand.

Alternative to personal transport.
As Jacob has pointed out, there are strong drivers to reduce personal transport. New models for transport, such as shared ownership and home delivery, and communication by smart phone etc are likely to reduce the demand for cars over time. By 2035 we are likely to have reached peak car ownership.


----------



## TominDales

Terry - Somerset said:


> If the transition to EV happens over 20 years, the UK may typically consume less than 5% of world output of even the most scarce elements annually.
> 
> Worldwide this will create price and availability pressures. But it also assumes no improvements in battery technology over the period which may either reduce or eliminate the need for scarce materials.
> 
> Further if the intention is to recycle at the end of life, the problem possibly being created will disappear over time.
> 
> I prefer glass full to glass empty.


Most people in the industry see it this way.
Technology will help meet supply demand and recycling is will go to a new level.

Recycling is likely to be the next big tech story
At present the industry has linear supply chains and relies on the recycling industry; Viola Suez etc to sort out the mess at the end. This is changing, there is a lot of R&D on how to design for recycling and how to cope with end of life. Its a tricky thing to do and will need new supply chains and wholescale change to materials technology so will probably take until 2050 to fully implement, but its the direction of travel. It has to be, we are consuming 6 planets worth of resources right now.
In EVs there is a strong incentive to develop recycling, the whole selling point of EV's is the environmental sustainability. Also the metals are valuable and worth recovering, so its likely to be an early adopter.


----------



## D_W

Garden Shed Projects said:


> I don’t feel that battery electric vehicles is the future. The technology is available now so this what is being promoted. Hydrogen fuel cell looks to have more legs to me and battery cars may well go the way of the humble compact disk.
> I came across a video on YouTube over the weekend
> 
> look
> 
> From the thumb nail you couldn’t tell the make of the car and it looked pretty exotic. If we manage to get the infrastructure in place I think they will overtake battery cars pretty quickly.




Decades away at least. Too expensive at this point, something like 70k in dollars for a Toyota prius style car and then more for fuel. 

Fuel cells have been tried off and on since at least 1960 in the states.


----------



## Garden Shed Projects

D_W said:


> Decades away at least. Too expensive at this point, something like 70k in dollars for a Toyota prius style car and then more for fuel.
> 
> Fuel cells have been tried off and on since at least 1960 in the states.


I don’t agree.
We had a national fleet of battery electric milk floats in the UK in the 60’s and that the technology didn’t catch on untill the noughties.
I agree hydrogen is in its infancy but the cars are on the market now we just need the infrastructure to catch up.

£65000 would get you a Hyundai or Toyota. How much was a Tesla 5 years ago. It’s not the car, it’s somewhere to refuel them that’s the issue.


----------



## Jacob

TominDales said:


> .....the whole selling point of EV's is the environmental sustainability. Also the metals are valuable and worth recovering, so its likely to be an early adopter.


I think the main selling point will be legislation depriving us of the unsustainable alternatives - which will be heavily resisted by industry as we know from the Exxon scandal and others. Carmakers want petrol and diesel vehicle ban to start from 2035.
We need something like the wartime utility standard https://museum.wales/articles/2168/Rationing-furniture-during-the-Second-World-War-/ for higher quality, longer life, reduced material demand, increasingly serviceable, increasingly recycleable etc. plus rationing/banning of the most wasteful products and services.
If we don't do it ourselves it will be done to us by mother nature instead!








Exxon’s Climate Denial History: A Timeline


A review of Exxon's knowledge and subsequent denial of climate change.




www.greenpeace.org






exxon scandal - Google Search


----------



## D_W

Those are probably subsidized at that cost. 

It's not just somewhere to refuel, but that somewhere also costs more than gas. If it cost more for electricity for a bev than gas, nobody would buy it.


----------



## woodfarmer

I don't see the problem, Just fit a towing hitch and put a diesel generator in a trailer.


----------



## Jameshow

woodfarmer said:


> I don't see the problem, Just fit a towing hitch and put a diesel generator in a trailer.


You Have Amish blood!!! 

Cheers James


----------



## John Brown

woodfarmer said:


> I don't see the problem, Just fit a towing hitch and put a diesel generator in a trailer.


Good to see you're into recycling!


----------



## TominDales

Jacob said:


> I think the main selling point will be legislation depriving us of the unsustainable alternatives - which will be heavily resisted by industry as we know from the


The legislation is already in place in Europe. This years emission targets have condemned ICI. Its technically easer and cheaper to make EVs that meet the new target than its to make ICE vehicles that comply.
Legislation is only part of the issue, ultimately vehicle manufactures design products that appeal to consumers, as society desires greener products, the suppliers will innovate in imaginative ways to satisfy that need. The desire for sustainable products is driving innovation.
Legislation is essential when the desired change cannot compete on cost with the previous standard, having taken into account manufacturing scale factors. Ultimately consumers (and voters) will only tolerate so much legislative change that is fostered on them top down, so leaders need to win the hearts and minds of their population to effect these changes. And its a lot easier to do if the OEMs can use normal market factors to drive sales of the greener product.

I've watched governments too often trip over on environmental issue, either by not properly engaging and persuading the public and industry of the need for change (vs Macron in France last year over fuel duty, and Blair in 2001 in similar vein), or they are too timid and delay much needed policy change. However I do think the that EU legislators got the emissions control regime pretty spot on to drive the switch from ICE, shame they didn't start 10 years earlier. The technology was invited in the 1990s, it needed emissions legislation to drive industrialisation and adoption.


----------



## stefan szoka

Did a trip in a hybrid BMW a couple of years back of 150 miles. MPG was 15 miles per gallon !!


----------



## MikeJhn




----------



## MikeJhn




----------



## stuart little

Ah well, back to the horse & cart!


----------



## D_W

I guess the portable generator is the future's version of a gas can.


----------



## Trainee neophyte

Garden Shed Projects said:


> £65000 would get you a Hyundai or Toyota


I could buy a 120 square metre house for that round my way, with an acre of garden/grounds. Probably less than 2km from the beach. Decisions, decisions...


----------



## Garden Shed Projects

Trainee neophyte said:


> I could buy a 120 square metre house for that round my way, with an acre of garden/grounds. Probably less than 2km from the beach. Decisions, decisions...


It’s all relative I guess. I see Prince Charles has been bombing around in a Welsh made hydrogen fuel cell powered car today.


----------



## Cooper

Trainee neophyte said:


> I could buy a 120 square metre house for that round my way, with an acre of garden/grounds. Probably less than 2km from the beach. Decisions, decisions...


You couldn't buy a lock up garage for that around our way!!


----------



## Rorschach

Trainee neophyte said:


> I could buy a 120 square metre house for that round my way, with an acre of garden/grounds. Probably less than 2km from the beach. Decisions, decisions...



How many MPG does that get though?


----------



## John Brown

Garden Shed Projects said:


> It’s all relative I guess. I see Prince Charles has been bombing around in a Welsh made hydrogen fuel cell powered car today.


Interesting choice of words...


----------



## Trainee neophyte

EV owners told to send in odometer readings for road tax, and they are not happy


Victoria electric vehicle owners have received a letter asking for a photo of their odometer for the state's EV road tax. And they are not happy.




thedriven.io





It had to happen...


----------



## Droogs

Trainee neophyte said:


> EV owners told to send in odometer readings for road tax, and they are not happy
> 
> 
> Victoria electric vehicle owners have received a letter asking for a photo of their odometer for the state's EV road tax. And they are not happy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> thedriven.io
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It had to happen...




It's due to the rush of blood to the head


----------



## Jameshow

From another forum....

Interesting article on TV last night with regard to cheaper all electric motoring in a decade or so.
The government currently makes about £35,000,000,000 a year from duty on petrol and diesel.
Therefore once we all have to go all electric, with that shortfall in tax revenue having to be made up somehow with so called green taxes or whatever.
So no matter what people may think, that motoring will become cheaper , it most certainly will not.....

Any thoughts? 

Cheers James


----------



## Ozi

Jameshow said:


> From another forum....
> 
> Interesting article on TV last night with regard to cheaper all electric motoring in a decade or so.
> The government currently makes about £35,000,000,000 a year from duty on petrol and diesel.
> Therefore once we all have to go all electric, with that shortfall in tax revenue having to be made up somehow with so called green taxes or whatever.
> So no matter what people may think, that motoring will become cheaper , it most certainly will not.....
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Cheers James


Pay by mile, the tech is already going into new cars, just the privacy laws to work around but it won't be long, still I'd rather the money went to our tax pool than the Arabs or the Russians, and I'd prefer to be breathing clean air. We all see paying tax as a bad thing but it's not - if we elect governments that actually support our society. Now where are the plans for that soap box I need to build.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

All taxes (I think with the exception of the BBC licence fee) goes into a central Treasury pot. It is then shared out to different government departments depending on a combination or need, political priority, previous promises etc etc.

If the Treasury lose £35bn over the next 10-20 years it seems likely they will try to recover the loss. Options - increase VAT on electricity, increase basic tax rates, mileage charges (possibly based on road/time of day etc), fixed licence fees, etc. Quite possibly a combination of all of them.

Bear in mind that taxes are only partly about raising revenue, but also about changing behaviours - eg: a charge mile mile may reduce road congestion (and new road building) by reducing car usage, but a fixed annual licence fee may increase usage (once you have a vehicle).


----------



## Sirenity

Trevanion said:


> Is there going to be enough lithium if everyone goes electric?


Yes. Gordon Giesige of “the limiting factor” has a series on YouTube called “lithium mine to battery line” that talks about the real short term bottlenecks but also the med/long term solutions. His is some of the best researched but accessible language reporting and I’d thoroughly recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest. He’s also got one of the most relaxing voices I’ve ever heard!


----------



## stuart little

Once they eliminate 'instantaneous combustion'!


----------



## Sirenity

Trevanion said:


> This is turning into a very interesting discussion.
> 
> What recently totally changed my perception of 'leccy cars from "Pah, they'll never be as good as dino fuel burners in any way" to "Now you have my attention" was the Tesla Model S (supped-up mind!), doing 0 - 60 in under three seconds. Of course, it would be absolutely ludicrous on UK roads to be going from a standstill to that speed in such a short space of time but it made me realise that they're actually getting somewhere with the tech now, plus the fact you'll get 300 miles out of it.
> 
> The Porsche Taycan on Top Gear the other night was quite something too.
> 
> It's definitely going to be something to consider in the near future for myself I think since I rarely leave a twenty-mile radius of home :lol:.


It’s a no brainier, says a Model S owner but even my old leaf was amazingly punchy. The thing you don’t expect until you drive in one is the torque is flat, as much poke at 1 as 30 as 60… it’s a weird but wonderful sensation. Seriously swap today. The used prices are great and there’s a huge range, you won’t look back. P.S, if you’ve not followed the market, Pre Feb 2017 Teslas had free fast charging for life. Tesla claws it back from any they px, but lots still out there and if you are into your tech look for a “unicorn” like mine. Between Sept 2016 and Jan 17 they had introduced the upgraded self driving hardware but still had the free charging on. If Tesla ever pull off actual self driving they will be real collectables, but even now the “autopilot” is an very fun tech to play with at the best of current driver assist tech and improving all the time.


----------



## Sirenity

AJB Temple said:


> PS. Anyone thinking of buying an EV, don't spend a dime on self drive technology as an extra. Mine has this but it is years away from being A to B automatic navigation. The lane change software basically is unusable currently, so auto drive is entirely limited by the speed of the vehicle in front. Also auto braking etc is poorly developed at present.


I do take your point for the “enhanced autopilot” setting but I got a too good to miss upgrade price to FSD and even without the beta, “Navigate on Autopilot” has been the game changer. Just did trip to Budapest and it was magic. It did all the motorway transfers autonomously and the overall driving experience was much more relaxing than driving myself. Just enough babysitting it to keep me interested/alert. It’s a loooooooong way from “Self driving” tho ;-)


----------



## Sirenity

Nigel Burden said:


> How would the vehicle cope in the event of adverse weather? eg. sub zero temperatures with freezing fog where most of the vehicles ancillaries would be required. Surely these situations, although rare will impact on driving range considerably.
> 
> Nigel.


Highest EV use country is Norway. Yes you are right it does impact, about 20% if the car is at ambient temp. The usual way it’s dealt with is that you “precondition” your car. You tell it, programmed or via the app, what time you want to leave and it warms the car and batteries while plugged in so you walk out to a warm car with a clear windscreen and range near normal.


----------



## Sirenity

Bodgers said:


> The action is stop the sale of cars. That will happen, but the dates may change.
> 
> Yes, you'll see ICE cars, but you probably won't be able to buy a new one. Or if you can, it will be a low production expensive exotic.


In fact, Johnson’s change was a downgrade, he brought the timing forward 5 years but changed it to the time to end all fossil fuel vehicles to the time when all vehicles must be able to use electricity. It will still be perfectly legal to buy a hybrid that only has a mini battery and motor but is to all intents and purposes an ICE car.


----------



## sawtooth-9

Trevanion said:


> Is there going to be enough lithium if everyone goes electric?


Probably not BUT recycling is the issue.
Recycling can be done, but the economics are not real.
So most will just "close their eyes" and pass the problem and profits to China - NO THANKS !


----------



## Trainee neophyte

This might be one of those future technologies that that never comes to anything, but someone has worked out how to make graphine - like nanocarbon sheets from hemp waste. This might make a more efficient, powerful battery than lithium, and it's both biodegradable and cheap.

Allegedly an American company will be marketing these starting in 2025, but who knows if it is true..



https://www.hempbatterydirect.com/hemp-batteries-offer-a-more-powerful-alternative-to-lithium-and-graphene-batteries/


----------



## sawtooth-9

Electric cars might sound ok for non-commercial use over limited distances - but
there are massive ( unsolved ) recycling issues.
People who want electric cars - powered by lithium batteries - are probably helping to feed the child slave labour in the lithium mines.
An interesting calculation is the total Kw hours used by all petrol / diesel cars today.
Look at the Kw produced per litre of petrol / diesel and multiply that by the number of litres sold each year. That's a scary number.
AND this would either be replaced by power generators ( well below 100 % efficiency ), or a huge reduction in travel Km. Now, if you can't have coal, gas, or nuclear - it's going to take a mother load of wind farms and solar panels.
If the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine - you are in deep sh..t
On the up side - the coffee shops and motels will do well - catering for those poor soles waiting for their batteries to charge !


----------



## John Brown

But the wind does blow some of the time, and the sun does shine sometimes. Just need a way to store it all. That's where electric cars and smart chargepoints come into their own.
Child labour in lithium mines is surely a soluble problem, albeit incurring extra costs, but it's not some immutable law of physics that states lithium has to be dug out by children.
As for efficiency, show me an ICE engine with near 100% efficiency and I'll show you my everlasting bottle of Guinness.


----------



## pe2dave

PHEV... Anyone explain the difference between this and a hybrid, or is just the latest fashion in EV's?


----------



## Gerry

PHEV = Petrol Hybrid Electric Vehicle.
One and the same.

Gerry


----------



## Alex H

pe2dave said:


> PHEV... Anyone explain the difference between this and a hybrid, or is just the latest fashion in EV's?


They've been around for quite a while (at least 4 years IME)

How does a plug-in hybrid car work?​
A PHEV is similar to a conventional ‘self-charging’ hybrid car, but instead of a small battery that’s charged by the car’s petrol or diesel engine, it has a larger battery that you can plug into a dedicated electric-car charger.


The bigger battery in most PHEVs has the added bonus of giving you a greater electric-only range than most conventional hybrid cars. On average, a PHEV can go between 20 and 30 miles before the petrol engine kicks in and takes over but some can cover more than 50 miles.

While the engine will charge up the battery slightly to give you a boost where needed, you’ll need to plug your PHEV into a charge point to realise its full potential. You can charge it from a household 3-pin plug or you can have a fast charger installed at your home.

dvantages of a plug-in hybrid:​

The main advantage of a PHEV is its greater electric-only range compared with a normal hybrid. A range of 20 to 30 miles is enough for most people’s daily commute meaning, as long as you have a charger at home, you won’t need to use the internal combustion engine very often.
A PHEV does away with the range anxiety associated with fully electric cars. This is because once the battery has run out, you have the backup of the petrol or diesel engine. This means you can tackle longer journeys without the fear of getting stranded between chargers.
You can take advantage of reduced tax rates. Taxing a typical PHEV will cost you between £0 and £105 for the first year (depending on the specific car’s emissions) and £145 per year after that. You can also enjoy a reduced rate of company car tax by choosing a PHEV.
Disadvantages of a plug-in hybrid:​If you regularly do longer journeys, PHEVs can be less fuel-efficient than traditional petrol or diesel cars. This is because of the extra weight of the batteries. Some cars try to make up for this by fitting a smaller fuel tank, but this just means you’ll have to stop at the pumps more often.

Plug-in hybrids tend to be a lot more expensive to buy than a conventionally powered alternative, especially as they’re no longer eligible for the plug-in car grant.
You’ll need access to a mains supply or charging point overnight if you want to take full advantage of the EV range every day. Even though the UK’s charging network is expanding fast, you may find it difficult to find a charger if you don’t have access to off-street parking.
What is a Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV)?


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## Sirenity

pe2dave said:


> PHEV... Anyone explain the difference between this and a hybrid, or is just the latest fashion in EV's?


The P denotes plug eg can be charged as opposed to the “self charging” hybrid. So a PHEV can be called a hybrid but a “mild” or self charging hybrid can’t be called a PHEV. 
In practice the difference is massive. A “self charging” hybrid is a standard ice vehicle with a motor that captures slowing energy running backwards to regenerate a tiny battery instead of applying the brakes so hard. The electric power is then used to get the vehicle moving from a standing start which is the most energy dense part of most vehicle movement. So it improves the efficiency of the vehicle quite a bit just by virtue of generating electricity instead of wearing brakes but by itself travels almost no distance under electric power. 

PHEVs come in a spectrum of ranges but clustered at 2 ends: the 30m ish ev range with a near normal size engine (which for many people puts the majority of their miles travelled into EV mode) and the “range extender engine” variety which has a much larger battery and a small engine and fuel tank just as a backup to do what it says on the tin. The latter is popular with those with over 200m typical days as the battery will typically have a range iro 85m and they can often charge at their work site but the range extender means no hassle with overcrowded fast chargers on the way home if not. 

Both have that massive flat torque from 0 that makes pulling away in an EV such stupid fun even in little diddy city cars. 

For a long while I’ve been in the “why tow an engine you hardly ever use” brigade, but for the next 6-8 years my view is reversed. In 2018 there was rarely a queue to charge an EV, now queues are bad, in 2-3 years it will be a pain until the infrastructure catches up with the 1/6 cars selling this year are ev. So that range extender becomes much more valuable asset. If I were in the market for a sub £10k car now I’d be buying a PHEV with a 50 mile range. If I did much more than 50m most days I’d likely not be in the market for a sub 10k car 

Edge case scenario but for those that say that’s no use I’m higher milage and broke: I’d take the pain of charging at my destination for a year and use the 50 mile fuel savings to save the extra for a 100m range PHEV the year after, depreciated values of both ends of the PHEV spectrum are similar so you wouldn’t lose out. Charging for free while you shop at the supermarket puts another 20+miles on so allows a 70m round trip for example.


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## Jameshow

Phev 
Mitsubishi Outlander
And mercedes c350e come to mind...


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## John Brown

We have a Mitsubishi Outlander.
If we'd known how much electricity was going to go up in price, we might have thought twice...
Having said that, we are lucky to have solar panels, so we try to charge when it's sunny.


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## pe2dave

Sirenity said:


> The P denotes plug eg can be charged as opposed to the “self charging” hybrid. So a PHEV can be called a hybrid but a “mild” or self charging hybrid can’t be called a PHEV.
> 
> 
> PHEVs come in a spectrum of ranges but clustered at 2 ends: the 30m ish ev range with a near normal size engine (which for many people puts the majority of their miles travelled into EV mode) and the “range extender engine” variety which has a much larger battery and a small engine and fuel tank just as a backup to do what it says on the tin. The latter is popular with those with over 200m typical days as the battery will typically have a range iro 85m and they can often charge at their work site but the range extender means no hassle with overcrowded fast chargers on the way home if not.
> 
> 
> For a long while I’ve been in the “why tow an engine you hardly ever use” brigade, but for the next 6-8 years my view is reversed. In 2018 there was rarely a queue to charge an EV, now queues are bad, in 2-3 years it will be a pain until the infrastructure catches up with the 1/6 cars selling this year are ev. So that range extender becomes much more valuable asset. If I were in the market for a sub £10k car now I’d be buying a PHEV with a 50 mile range. If I did much more than 50m most days I’d likely not be in the market for a sub 10k car
> 
> Edge case scenario but for those that say that’s no use I’m higher milage and broke:


Many thanks, v.clear. 
Looking round at (nearly) new PHEV cars, I don't see anything under £10K though. 
30-40 m/day would do me 95% of the time.
It's just the initial cost that hurts :-(


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## pe2dave

And another variant? Complexity? ICE ->generator->Wheels?
I do take the point about charging points though.


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## Jacob

I think the powered alternatives to personal ICE transport will be a short lived and expensive fashion, before reality kicks in.
Rue of thumb says tank fuel fill takes 5 minutes, EV takes 30.
Hence we'd need charging stations 6 times the number (and area + infrastructure) of current fuel pumps to achieve equivalence, even if green electricity was available in sufficient quantities, which looks extremely improbable.


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## Jameshow

Jacob said:


> I think the powered alternatives to personal ICE transport will be a short lived and expensive fashion, before reality kicks in.
> Rue of thumb says tank fuel fill takes 5 minutes, EV takes 30.
> Hence we'd need charging stations 6 times the number (and area + infrastructure) of current fuel pumps to achieve equivalence, even if green electricity was available in sufficient quantities, which looks extremely improbable.


No because for 90% journeys you can charge at home / supermarket etc. 

Only longer journeys will you need a charging station. 

I will miss ice cars though esp V8!


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## Jacob

Jameshow said:


> No because for 90% journeys you can charge at home / supermarket etc.
> 
> Only longer journeys will you need a charging station.
> 
> I will miss ice cars though esp V8!


Well yes except from 1/4 (rural) to 3/4 (town) homes don't have off street parking, which wouldn't be any use anyway to someone needing to charge away from home.


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## johna.clements

Jacob said:


> Well yes except from 1/4 (rural) to 3/4 (town) homes don't have off street parking, which wouldn't be any use anyway to someone needing to charge away from home.


All problems do not have to have the same solution.

People with off street parking can charge at home.

People who work in places where there is parking could charge there. With average mileage they one have to charge one day a week so 20% of the parking places would need a charger assuming no one could charge at home.

Many people do or could use park and ride (bus or train) to get to work. 20% of those parking spaces could have a charger.

People who live or work next to supermarkets, sports facilities etc could use chargers there when the carpark is not needed. Most supermarket carparks are mostly empty on weekdays.


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## Jacob

johna.clements said:


> All problems do not have to have the same solution.
> 
> People with off street parking can charge at home.
> 
> People who work in places where there is parking could charge there. With average mileage they one have to charge one day a week so 20% of the parking places would need a charger assuming no one could charge at home.
> 
> Many people do or could use park and ride (bus or train) to get to work. 20% of those parking spaces could have a charger.
> 
> People who live or work next to supermarkets, sports facilities etc could use chargers there when the carpark is not needed. Most supermarket carparks are mostly empty on weekdays.


The same crude 6X figure is still relevant though there are various ways of implementing it. Even home charging needs an installation (£900 or so?) unless 2.4kw and 30 hours plus is acceptable


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## Spectric

Jacob said:


> Even home charging needs an installation (£900 or so?) unless 2.4kw and 30 hours plus is acceptable


I think that for any serious fast charger you will need three phase, that can be a lot more than £900 and we must not forget that the electrical distribution system that supplies many housing estates will not have been designed to handle a large proportion of them charging electric vehicles. This issue will continue back up the grid with each supply point potentially being stretched to it's limits.


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## John Brown

It's all been said before, both about EVs, and probably about ICE vehicles. I remember having the same discussion, almost word for word, with a work colleague, over 40 years ago, about how ridiculous the idea of long distance journeys in cars would have seemed, before the network of filling stations was established.
Jacob may well be right, we may have to adapt to the idea of restricting a lot of what is, let's face it, largely unnecessary travel. But I see a lot of talk(not just here, specifally) from people who seem to be trying to find any excuse to carry on driving conventional ICE vehicles.


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## Spectric

John Brown said:


> from people who seem to be trying to find any excuse to carry on driving conventional ICE vehicles.


I don't think anyone will mind driving EV's if the whole thing had been properly planed and the right infrastructure put in place but at the moment it is chaos. Round here no main dealers will repair an EV, they get sent many miles to one of the OEM's repair centres who specialise in that type of vehicle, ok one day things will change but just like when ICE's came onto the scene it took a while to get them to a good all round standard so why be one of the first to jump on the bandwagon and try new technology at the higher cost, wait until it falls.


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## Terry - Somerset

Facts are boring but important to avoid selective generalisations which simply reinforce pre-conceived views. *The requirement will not be for all EVs to have access to fast chargers.*

The total housing stock in the UK is 28m, of which 15m are detached, semis, and bungalows. These will largely have off road parking and thus the capacity to charge at home.

Of the remainder, 8m are terraced, and 6m flats. The former generally don't have off street parking. Modern flats are often designed with residents parking which could be equipped with charging.

*Overall I would estimate that ~55% of dwellings could charge off road.* Charging at work, shops, hotels, park and ride etc may satisfy many (but not all) of the rest. 

It will be ~20 years before the full transition to EV is complete. Currently EV and hybrids account for ~2-3% of cars on the road and ~ 30% of current sales. By 2032 (10 years) I would guess ~40-55% of cars on the road will be EV or hybrid. 

*Complacency is not acceptable, but green electrical generation and distribution entirely soluble - a plan and incentives need to be put in place.*

There are challenges to be overcome in battery costs, capacity, use of expensive/rare minerals, recycling etc. Progress has already been rapid - over the last 10 years the cost of batteries has fallen by over 80%, and the range of a typical EV increased 3-5 fold.

I tend to be glass half full but - *it seems unlikely the progress made over the last two decades will come to a sudden grinding halt, even if the rate of progress changes.*

There will be some for whom EV will still not be a solution - possibly very high mileage, farming and very rural, towing caravans, boats and horses etc. There may need to be very limited exceptions.

That new EVs are unaffordable for most is not a barrier - most folk buy s/h cars. Availability of s/h EVs are a function of new sales 1-4 earlier. * I fully expect as new EV sales grow, so will availability of affordable s/h EVs.*


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## selectortone

Spectric said:


> I think that for any serious fast charger you will need three phase, that can be a lot more than £900 and we must not forget that the electrical distribution system that supplies many housing estates will not have been designed to handle a large proportion of them charging electric vehicles. This issue will continue back up the grid with each supply point potentially being stretched to it's limits.


My daughter has an EV, provided by her company. She travels around the UK doing sustainability studies for companies who wish to improve their environmental footprint. Her company wishes to demonstrate that they practice what they preach, hence the EV.

It's a Kia e-Niro. With a little planning she manages to travel throughout the UK with little range anxiety. It does around 250-260 miles between charges.

She lives in a flat with no on-site parking, so her company has paid for a single-phase charge point to be fitted at my house, a half-mile walk away. The car charges overnight at the cheap rate and it's no hassle for me at all - an app tells her how much it costs (a LOT less than a petrol or diesel fill-up!), and she reimburses me monthly.

The car itself is amazing. A very comfortable mid-size SUV. Every modern bell and whistle imaginable. The performance in sport mode is quite something.

I'm an old petrol head, love my old MX-5, but it's the future, there's no getting away from it.


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## sawtooth-9

John Brown said:


> But the wind does blow some of the time, and the sun does shine sometimes. Just need a way to store it all. That's where electric cars and smart chargepoints come into their own.
> Child labour in lithium mines is surely a soluble problem, albeit incurring extra costs, but it's not some immutable law of physics that states lithium has to be dug out by children.
> As for efficiency, show me an ICE engine with near 100% efficiency and I'll show you my everlasting bottle of Guinness.


It just might be that the fundamental issue ( which no one seems to talk about ) is that there are just too many people.
To halve the world pollution ( of any energy supply ) - just halve the population !


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## Jacob

sawtooth-9 said:


> It just might be that the fundamental issue ( which no one seems to talk about ) is that there are just too many people.
> To halve the world pollution ( of any energy supply ) - just halve the population !


Yebbut/maybe but which half? It would make much more sense if the wealthy "first world" and all it stands for/consumes was decimated. And the meat eaters! They are just not sustainable.


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## Jacob

selectortone said:


> My daughter has an EV, provided by her company. She travels around the UK doing sustainability studies for companies who wish to improve their environmental footprint. Her company wishes to demonstrate that they practice what they preach, hence the EV.
> .....


It sounds like she is utterly unsustainable and a complete contradiction in terms. It's become known as "greenwashing".


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## John Brown

sawtooth-9 said:


> It just might be that the fundamental issue ( which no one seems to talk about ) is that there are just too many people.
> To halve the world pollution ( of any energy supply ) - just halve the population !


Why does everyone who brings this up have to add a parenthetical "which nobody wants to talk about"? I know lots of people who talk about it, and I disagree with most of them. Why? Because those people, the ones you don't want to talk about, they're not the ones driving Range Rovers, or flying about in private jets, or living in air conditioned houses.
If you think we should have a cull, or compulsory birth control, (which I don't)maybe it should be based on carbon footprint.


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## John Brown

Jacob types faster than I do...


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## Jacob

John Brown said:


> Jacob types faster than I do...


Blessed are the fast typers: for they shall inherit the earth.


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## Terry - Somerset

_Yebbut/maybe but which half? It would make much more sense if the wealthy "first world" and all it stands for/consumes was decimated. And the meat eaters! They are just not sustainable._

The problem is reproduction, not the already reproduced who will ultimately cease to be, and may already be too old to reproduce more.

We can target meat consumption. We can also recycle water, provide balanced nutrition through full industrialisation of of food production, restrict travel, build smaller housing units etc etc.

This has all the characteristics of a factory farm for humans - maximising the number who can be clothed, housed, fed and watered at the minimum environmental cost and maximum efficiency. 

It is a somewhat philosophical point - is the purpose of life to just exist, or explore and enjoy the diversity of experiences which culture, climate, geography, food etc have made possible.

Personally I would choose the latter every time - the problems wrought by over population have been evident for centuries. Engineering ever more complex artificial technological solutions is treating the symptoms not the cause of the stress.


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## John Brown

I think purpose is a human construct. There is no purpose to life.


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## Sirenity

pe2dave said:


> Many thanks, v.clear.
> Looking round at (nearly) new PHEV cars, I don't see anything under £10K though.
> 30-40 m/day would do me 95% of the time.
> It's just the initial cost that hurts :-(


Autotrader has a decent selection. I'm not up on which are the best PHEV, but I know that the usual "EV's need far less maintenance" is still true for the electric half and that the issue with longer EV range PHEV's longevity wise can be lack of use of the engine side. Often they are barely used, so the equivalent to leaving a traditional car unused for months except the 12v would still be fine. 
I saved so much money running my low range first EV that I was able to put a substantial chunk into my savings for my Tesla. I'd recommend sucking up a slightly older one and see it as a stepping stone. ATrader has 6 under 12k that are 2016 or newer atm.


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## MikeJhn

If we stopped paying people to have children, maybe, just maybe some would think twice, I think it is an antiquated means of increasing the work force.


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## Jacob

Terry - Somerset said:


> _Yebbut/maybe but which half? It would make much more sense if the wealthy "first world" and all it stands for/consumes was decimated. And the meat eaters! They are just not sustainable._
> 
> The problem is reproduction, ......


No it is not. Reproduction is the solution.
The greater the population the more likely the chance of survivors when things go pear shaped.
It's nature's way - individuals don't matter and are disposable, as long as there are survivors
It's common throughout the living world that stressed populations have strategies to survive. The first organism you learn about at school is the amoeba. When things are OK they reproduce steadily by budding, when the pond dries up they "encyst" and subdivide many times over. Come wetter weather and the cyst expands breaks up and there's millions of the little boogers.
Works similarly with homo sapiens, destabilised societies (e.g. war etc) tend to reproduce more. Stable societies even have falling populations causing them anxiety.
Think on!


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## John on the Wirral

I have had two Kia Niro selfcharging hybrids with which I have been more than pleased and driven properly return over 70 mpg in the the summer. However,I am about to take delivery of the PHEV version which I can charge at home at a very good rate 7.3 p/unit instead of about 29/30p/unit. Also,because the off-peak time I am offered -9-30pm to 12.30am - I can run my washers at that rate and everything else (lights,TV etc. at that rate. I have fixed the tariff for 12 months so,although the daytime rate is 7p a unit dearer I think this will soon be swallowed up by the October and April price cap hike.
One of the reasons I have invested ( PHEVs are more expensive) in PHEV is that,being retired,most of my journeys are short so can charge at home cheaply and when I go on longer journies I might set the regen braking at level ! and get the first 30 miles or so for free but I believe that you know when you have lost EV power as the car seems to lose power as it reverts to it's 1.5 litre engine. 
As a tech teacher,we raced hybrid and electric vehicles nationally inclluding Goodwood endurance and Huddersfeild University hill climbiing endurance and the one thing we had to strees to the kids was NOT to push the pedal down as the wheels would simply spin and eat up the amps! I believe EV cars get through tyres very quickly!
Ironically, I don't believe that full EV is the answer in the long term and the infrastructure will continue lag so "range anxiety" will not go away - I have several full EV neighbours who have come unstuck.


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## Jacob

MikeJhn said:


> If we stopped paying people to have children, maybe, just maybe some would think twice, I think it is an antiquated means of increasing the work force.


Nonsense. It's the poor and deprived who tend to have more children, around the globe.
In stable "welfare" states you tend to get falling populations causing anxiety.
One way to increase the work force is to allow free movement - people go where the work is. Always have, always will (or try to). And as a result economies flourish wherever there are immigrants.


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## Sirenity

Spectric said:


> I think that for any serious fast charger you will need three phase, that can be a lot more than £900 and we must not forget that the electrical distribution system that supplies many housing estates will not have been designed to handle a large proportion of them charging electric vehicles. This issue will continue back up the grid with each supply point potentially being stretched to it's limits.
> Jacob said:
> Even home charging needs an installation (£900 or so?) unless 2.4kw and 30 hours plus is acceptable



Home chargers don't need 3phase, they use a 12mm lead and cost £600 now all the subsidy has gone but Direct Line and others offer discount bundles bringing the real price down to around £450.
They charge overnight, very few need it every night, but even if you did, this is an actual calculation for our second EV on our home 7kW charger assuming it needed a 0-100% charge (which you would almost never do) from EV Carshop | Electric Car Lease Deals and EV Charging
Your charging time4.2h
kWh added30kWh
Range added216.0 miles
Your charge cost£7.13
Cost per mile3.3p

There's a thriving market in charger/parking space sharing (Chargy, Plugsurfing etc). I live on a terraced street where few have off road parking, there are chargers each end of the road and since most EV drivers only need to charge about once a week, with the combination of these, there will be enough chargers for the next 3-6 years by my observations of EV take-up locally. The council are planning to install more roadside chargers as take-up increases to stay ahead of the need. 

The impact on the grid is actually the opposite of the concerns which were initially quite understandably raised. The pilot for car to grid peak demand management scheme went well and is being rolled out now. So for many, you will get home, plug in, donate your excess to the grid 5.30pm to 9.30 for a good return then charge up overnight when demand is low and prices are much cheaper. The National Grid often currently have to turn off wind overnight because they've not got the storage for, so it's likely to take our renewable average generation from just above 50% where it is now to 70% plus as it takes out the need to spin up peaker plants early evening which are most of the non renewable need.


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## pe2dave

Sirenity said:


> Home chargers don't need 3phase, they use a 12mm lead and cost £600 now all the subsidy has gone but Direct Line and others offer discount bundles bringing the real price down to around £450.
> They charge overnight, very few need it every night, but even if you did, this is an actual calculation for our second EV on our home 7kW charger assuming it needed a 0-100% charge (which you would almost never do) from EV Carshop | Electric Car Lease Deals and EV Charging
> Your charging time4.2h
> kWh added30kWh
> Range added216.0 miles
> Your charge cost£7.13
> Cost per mile3.3p


So that's a 30A feed for the charger? With a 32A cabled to my garage, I'd better not do anything else (also need a new dist board!).
Not workable overnight on a 13A plug? Did you consider that?


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## Sirenity

pe2dave said:


> So that's a 30A feed for the charger? With a 32A cabled to my garage, I'd better not do anything else (also need a new dist board!).
> Not workable overnight on a 13A plug? Did you consider that?


They run a dedicated 30A 12mm cable from the board to the Charger as they install it. Unless your board is very old it doesn't need a new one. 

Yes it's OK on 13A plug, just very slow and is a big draw over a long time from thin cabling to use it as a permanent solution. You use the 13A plug adapter when you visit friends overnight etc. or when you first get your EV/PHEV if the charger is not installed first.

The dedicated chargers also have smart features that let it manage things like Vehicle to Grid, so as that's now rolling out from trial to mainstream, a dedicated charger will save it's cost pretty quickly in selling back electricity at peak prices and buying overnight on the cheap.


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## pe2dave

Sirenity said:


> The dedicated chargers also have smart features that let it manage things like Vehicle to Grid, so as that's now rolling out from trial to mainstream, a dedicated charger will save it's cost pretty quickly in selling back electricity at peak prices and buying overnight on the cheap.


Why would you want to put charge into the grid from the vehicle? Doesn't seem to make sense? Just stock market type jockeying?


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## John Brown

pe2dave said:


> Why would you want to put charge into the grid from the vehicle? Doesn't seem to make sense? Just stock market type jockeying?


Because the wind and sun don't always coincide with demand.


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## Jacob

Have got 3 phase here. Is that an advantage for EV charging?
Haven't actually got an EV but thinking of selling up (down sizing) and installing a charger before we go, as an added sales feature.


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## Sirenity

pe2dave said:


> Why would you want to put charge into the grid from the vehicle? Doesn't seem to make sense? Just stock market type jockeying?


At first glance it looks stupid doesn't it. The issue is peak demand. The actual total amount supplied doesn't need to be that big, but it needs to be available immediately. It's the classic kettles on in the Eastenders ad break scenario. Grid demand 5.30-9.30 is where most of the coal and gas generation is used and they spin some of it up just in case as it takes an appreciable number of seconds to be drawable. In contrast, EV's can dump instantaneously, they are just a big battery with a 7kW pipe so if the National Grid know they have that as peaker backup, they don't need to spin up the gas/coal power station. 150k EV's at 7kW is a Gigawatt of instantaneous supply if I've done my maths right (corrections welcomed!). So say Ratcliffe Nottingham coal plant (2Gigawatts) could be needed far less often if 300k EV's were signed up to Vehicle to Grid.

It's not a panacea but it does sort the daily problem that means a significant % of plants could go leaving just a few to cover the issue of a series of dark windless days across the whole of Europe. We have a pan Europe supply system that covers most days like that here as the wind and sun are somewhere, but with the changes to the jet stream, those blocked times when everything goes sluggish across vast areas will be more common, so some coal/gas will be needed for some time to come regardless of how many EV's on the road. Keeping it to occasional use is what will make the massive difference to emissions.

When I was on the trial, I made £150 cash payment over 6 months, but I think they were paying us at a premium over the actual supply value, so say it was £75 at pre 2021 prices say 14p/kWh that's roughly 19kW/week I supplied.


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## johna.clements

pe2dave said:


> Why would you want to put charge into the grid from the vehicle? Doesn't seem to make sense? Just stock market type jockeying?



It is difficult to store wind and solar. Batteries can be used for short term smoothing in demand. If the unwanted renewable energy can be used to charge you car at night it will be cheaper than the electricity during the day when everybody is working cooking etc.


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## Sirenity

johna.clements said:


> It is difficult to store wind and solar. Batteries can be used for short term smoothing in demand. If the unwanted renewable energy can be used to charge you car at night it will be cheaper than the electricity during the day when everybody is working cooking etc.


You say in 1 sentence what I took an essay to say - thank you!


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## John Brown

Which I'd already said in a much shorter sentence


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## johna.clements

Sirenity said:


> You say in 1 sentence what I took an essay to say - thank you!


I think both approaches are best. My reply may lack substance to some.


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## Sideways

Do the math on the actual pence per KWh depreciation of a Lithium car battery.
It makes no sense at all to allow the grid to lean on your car battery and pay you a pittance compared to the cost of depreciation.
The only winners are the Electricity Retailers and a few people with EV leases who won't have to care about the state of the battery when they hand the car back.

If grid support becomes even slightly popular watch it (i) get written into lease contracts that you're not allowed to do it and (ii) cars be modified so that they can't do it without it being logged in the diagnostics.


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## Sirenity

Sideways said:


> Do the math on the actual pence per KWh depreciation of a Lithium car battery.
> It makes no sense at all to allow the grid to lean on your car battery and pay you a pittance compared to the cost of depreciation.
> The only winners are the Electricity Retailers and a few people with EV leases who won't have to care about the state of the battery when they hand the car back.
> 
> If grid support becomes even slightly popular watch it (i) get written into lease contracts that you're not allowed to do it and (ii) cars be modified so that they can't do it without it being logged in the diagnostics.


The depreciation will be negligible compared to use to drive - this is not the main supply to the grid - 19kW/week is an 80 mile drive. The last generation of batteries are doing far far in excess of expectations mine is 5yrs old, 100k miles and barely dented the range, there are some that are on million miles plus. The current generation are way cheaper and better and still improving fast.

No-one but Renault offers battery lease still - it's a totally outmoded way of doing things from back in the early 2010's when we all thought batteries would not last 5 years or more. 

Tesla are already working with Octopus energy on the VtG roll out. They are sorting it so the grid will communicate with the car, tell it there's a high chance of a draw on the car in the next 10 mins and the car will prepare the batteries for use (prewarming them reduces wear). Other manufacturers are looking to get in on the act - it's a source of income for your car so it makes them more attractive.

I do understand your concerns, they were valid 10 years ago, but real life billions of electric miles driven has revised them. The real world battery longevity data were already way better than anyone thought, but with the cost of fuel going up so dramatically this year, it's reached the tipping point, EV's as a core of independent travel is happening. 

Things like VtG won't be perfect first time round, there will be improvements, but as a way to reduce our carbon footprint, "peaker plant" VtG is an important element and it's available now with no capital cost to electricity users. In contrast, Drax conversion to biofuel, cost billions, which goes straight onto our bills.

I would be happy to agree to disagree if you are, I'm here in UKworkshop to learn - and I truly appreciate the knowledge and skills that you and others here share. EV's are my skillset, I'm passionate to share knowledge about them, but this isn't an EV forum, so I think I should end my preaching here and get back to listening, learning and saying thank you for the help to develop my very amateur and uniformed woodworking skills.


----------



## John Brown

I can't reel off figures, but if you believe climate change is a reality, then "the maths" starts to become irrelevant.


----------



## Jacob

John Brown said:


> I can't reel off figures, but if you believe climate change is a reality, then "the maths" starts to become irrelevant.


Inclined to agree. EVs more like fiddling while Rome burns.


----------



## Spectric

pe2dave said:


> Why would you want to put charge into the grid from the vehicle? Doesn't seem to make sense? Just stock market type jockeying?


If they were hybrids and had the potential to plug in then they could in effect become a generator which if left running could provide energy into the grid which you could get paid for, whether the cost of fuel outweighs the feedin tarif is another matter! 

But for a pure EV that you have paid to charge then why would you give it back and make your vehicle unusable until recharged, yes as Dave has said it makes no sense.

Perhaps in the future a new excuse for being late for work will be " sorry my car had not charged in time" or " sorry someone stole my charging cable last night " ! 



Sirenity said:


> They run a dedicated 30A 12mm cable from the board to the Charger as they install it.


Not as simple as that, you cannot just take a new supply off an existing board without checking the total existing loads, it is not an infinate supply of power and could well be on it's limits even taking diversity into account.


----------



## johna.clements

Jacob said:


> Inclined to agree. EVs more like fiddling while Rome burns.


Cars release about 25% of the CO2 in the UK.
If half those with off street parking charged their EVs with "Economy 7" from unwanted wind at night that would reduce emissions by 6%.


----------



## Jacob

johna.clements said:


> Cars release about 25% of the CO2 in the UK.
> If half those with off street parking charged their EVs with "Economy 7" from unwanted wind at night that would reduce emissions by 6%.


I think it's questionable whether we would be able to afford the luxury of personal EVs if we ever get to the point of 100% green electricity.
Particularly bearing in mind the other major changes on the way.








CO2 emissions from cars: facts and figures (infographics) | News | European Parliament


Ever wondered how much CO2 is emitted by cars or whether electric vehicles really are a cleaner alternative? Check out our infographics to find out.



www.europarl.europa.eu


----------



## Spectric

Sirenity said:


> It's the classic kettles on in the Eastenders ad break scenario.


To meet those rapid high demands we have to thank the welsh, they have a big sort of hydro power plant at Dinorwig. Those turbines can spin up in less than a minute to meet sudden demands on the grid.

I would say the cost of batteries is a major factor in buying an EV, batteries do deppreciate and lose ability to both accept a charge and to provide power, EV's could become like cordless powertools where it is not economical to buy a new battery but better to buy a new tool, and it is not a simple job to change the EV batteries.



Jacob said:


> Inclined to agree. EVs more like fiddling while Rome burns.


Or peeing in the ocean to see how far it will rise, but yes when we see how much coal is being mined in Australia and the states and how much coal is still being used to generate power then even the UK's closure of all coal fired power stations and with everyone using EV's would make zero difference. To fix a massive problem requires a massive effort and change and not just nibblng round the edges.


----------



## johna.clements

Spectric said:


> If they were hybrids and had the potential to plug in then they could in effect become a generator which if left running could provide energy into the grid which you could get paid for, whether the cost of fuel outweighs the feedin tarif is another matter!
> 
> But for a pure EV that you have paid to charge then why would you give it back and make your vehicle unusable until recharged, yes as Dave has said it makes no sense.
> 
> Perhaps in the future a new excuse for being late for work will be " sorry my car had not charged in time" or " sorry someone stole my charging cable last night " !
> 
> 
> Not as simple as that, you cannot just take a new supply off an existing board without checking the total existing loads, it is not an infinate supply of power and could well be on it's limits even taking diversity into account.



ICE engines in hybrids will not be used to generate power for the grid. If this was a thing then larger more efficent generators in hospitals etc would be used.

With these new fangled smart meters that monitor your electricity usage why don't they use them to monitor your electricity usage and stop charging the car when you are boiling the kettle and the fridge freezer compressor is running.


----------



## johna.clements

Jacob said:


> I think it's questionable whether we would be able to afford the luxury of personal EVs if we ever get to the point of 100% green electricity.
> Particularly bearing in mind the other major changes on the way.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CO2 emissions from cars: facts and figures (infographics) | News | European Parliament
> 
> 
> Ever wondered how much CO2 is emitted by cars or whether electric vehicles really are a cleaner alternative? Check out our infographics to find out.
> 
> 
> 
> www.europarl.europa.eu


I was referring to 25% of vehicles using unwanted off peak wind power. What has that got to do with the other 75%.


----------



## Jacob

This is interesting Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem
There are a lot of unknowns about the future, not only the details of the impending crisis but perhaps new and viable energy solutions, looking on the bright side!


----------



## Jacob

johna.clements said:


> I was referring to 25% of vehicles using unwanted off peak wind power. What has that got to do with the other 75%.


Just the scale of the problem.


----------



## Spectric

johna.clements said:


> With these new fangled smart meters


They have one thing in common with a smart phone and that is they are not very smart!

I will avoid at all cost, already know several people that were conned into having them and none of them actually communicate readings and others that have had failed displays so you cannot even manually read them. 



johna.clements said:


> With these new fangled smart meters that monitor your electricity usage why don't they use them to monitor your electricity usage and stop charging the car when you are boiling the kettle and the fridge freezer compressor is running.


That will be what they are calling the Internet of things IOT, a totally connected house and again something to avoid, would you want Alexa in total control or rely on it to ensure your house does not freeze whilst you are away, forget it still early days and I don't believe in being a guinea pig at my expense.


----------



## johna.clements

Jacob said:


> Just the scale of the problem.


If you can easily fix part of a problem why shouldn't you do it.

In the distant past when I was at school I was told to do the parts of the exam I could do then look again at the harder parts.


----------



## johna.clements

Spectric said:


> They have one thing in common with a smart phone and that is they are not very smart!
> 
> I will avoid at all cost, already know several people that were conned into having them and none of them actually communicate readings and others that have had failed displays so you cannot even manually read them.
> 
> 
> That will be what they are calling the Internet of things IOT, a totally connected house and again something to avoid, would you want Alexa in total control or rely on it to ensure your house does not freeze whilst you are away, forget it still early days and I don't believe in being a guinea pig at my expense.



You are over complicating things. If you need to limit electrical demand the car you do not need to know that the kettle, oven etc is on. All the car needs to know is to stop charging when the rest of the house is drawing more than X. No Alexa or other such technology required, all you need is an electricity metre that measures the rate of usage not just the cumulative amount. It is fairly old tech to measure the speed with which a wheel goes around, there are devices like that in cars.


----------



## Spectric

You will now need the meter to communicate with the car, these meters have issues with communicating at the best of times.


----------



## johna.clements

Jacob said:


> This is interesting Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem
> There are a lot of unknowns about the future, not only the details of the impending crisis but perhaps new and viable energy solutions, looking on the bright side!


Sounds like an interesting idea.

I have seen proposals to cool buildings in the summer by running water through them then down into the ground. Then in the winter run it to take the heat back. 

There have been similar ideas to use the heat in the ground around the deep tube lines to heat the buildings above in the winter. Cooling the ground in the winter would make the tube cooler the following summer which would make sence as it is difficult to cool the train itself whilst it is underground. The channel tunnel is cooled by water that is pumped back and forth.


----------



## johna.clements

Spectric said:


> You will now need the meter to communicate with the car, these meters have issues with communicating at the best of times.


Like the sensor that measures a cars speed communicates with the display on the dashboard. Does not seem to be too difficult.


----------



## pe2dave

Sirenity said:


> You say in 1 sentence what I took an essay to say - thank you!


It does assume solar (at least). Not a wanted additional £Nk on top of the car?
I agree without it, it sort of makes sense (cost of installed hardware?).
A well worked out balance sheet may not look so rosy today?


----------



## johna.clements

pe2dave said:


> It does assume solar (at least). Not a wanted additional £Nk on top of the car?
> I agree without it, it sort of makes sense (cost of installed hardware?).
> A well worked out balance sheet may not look so rosy today?



The cost of running a wind turbine will be made up of the wear and tear and other day to day costs and the return on the capital to build the thing and remove it at the end of the day.

If there is no demand at 3am they can reduce the wear and tear by turning it off but it is just sat there producing no income to pay off the capital costs. If you find a use for the electricity (charging EVs etc) and cover the wear and tear plus something towards the capital you are better off.


----------



## pe2dave

johna.clements said:


> The cost of running a wind turbine will be made up of the wear and tear and other day to day costs and the return on the capital to build the thing and remove it at the end of the day.


Maybe. If you have the real estate to mount one, the finance to erect one, the finance to integrate it with your house electrics.
Too many ifs for me John.


----------



## Droogs

John Brown said:


> Why does everyone who brings this up have to add a parenthetical "which nobody wants to talk about"? I know lots of people who talk about it, and I disagree with most of them. Why? Because those people, the ones you don't want to talk about, they're not the ones driving Range Rovers, or flying about in private jets, or living in air conditioned houses.
> If you think we should have a cull, or compulsory birth control, (which I don't)maybe it should be based on carbon footprint.


This argument is totally mute anyway. As the most recent demographic studies have already shown and been discussed ad nauseum at many high brow confrences the birth rate for the last 2 generations Gen X on has been way below that needed to maintain let alone increase the world's population post 2050. What has kept the numbers going up over the last 30 years has been increased longevity due to better overall health, nutrition and living conditions. China for example has around 1.2 billion people currently most of whom are in fact over 50 in a nation with an expected lifespan of 70, by 2050 they will have under 500 million people. Of which over 40% will be about to retire and leave the working populace.
The birth rates in the west have been nearly as bad. Russia is even worse, this being one of the underlying drivers of their current dispute with Ukraine (if they don't do it now - they will wont have the manpower to succeed for at least 2-3 generations after 2030). The 2 generations born since the 90s in Russia have been the smallest in the country's history and will see their populace fall to around 80 million equal to Germany's now. The Germans along with most of western european nationalities will fall to their lowest numbers in over 150 years by the 2070s. It is the same for South America for the most part with the main exception being Argentina who has not had a significant drop in birthrate over the last 50 years, the US being much the same. As for Africa the birth rate is almost as high as ever but with the prospect of a massive increase in general mortality expected over the next 20 years due to starvation and resource wars.

So there will be enough resources to provide EVs and power generation for those lucky enough to be left. But and this is a big but, they are gonna have to go through hell to get there.


----------



## johna.clements

pe2dave said:


> Maybe. If you have the real estate to mount one, the finance to erect one, the finance to integrate it with your house electrics.
> Too many ifs for me John.


Not sure what you are talking about. Few have there own wind turbine. The wind turbine owner will want to make money no ifs involved.


----------



## Spectric

johna.clements said:


> Like the sensor that measures a cars speed communicates with the display on the dashboard. Does not seem to be too difficult.


Yes it may appear that simple but have you ever worked on Canbus? On most cars now the vehicle speed is supplied by the ABS module which puts that message onto the bus and the instrument cluster just reads it and displays. That message is also available to any other module that requires road speed data and the bus carries many messages between modules. Recently a module failed on my car, picked up a known working module and then got the guy round to reset the system so as it reconises my keys. It refused to function until we realised the module came of a two door motor and this one has four doors so it now had unreconised parts in the door locking system, the only solution was to download the original configuration file for the car. You can only do this if you have a valid account and pay. So what may appear simple can often be a lot more complicated and takes us back to standards, ie we use common protocols which just does not happen, can you imagine getting the EV OEM and the ultility meter suppliers to use a common protocol so they can communicate!


----------



## pe2dave

Spectric said:


> can you imagine getting the EV OEM and the ultility meter suppliers to use a common protocol so they can communicate!


 Open standards vs commercial interests? Always a touchy debate!


----------



## Spectric

Droogs said:


> This argument is totally mute anyway. As the most recent demographic studies have already shown and been discussed ad nauseum at many high brow confrences the birth rate for the last 2 generations Gen X on has been way below that needed to maintain let alone increase the world's population post 2050.


So why have people stopped wanting kids, could be many reasons and the obvious is the long term commitment and expense or maybe they look at the current ones and just don't want one of them or they are so confused with all this shieete about gender they no longer understand the birds and the bee's.

Now look at the boomers, we have done our bit and are now all either approaching or at retirement age so just think how many businesses will be impacted, either closures or staff shortages. Then we already have a skills shortage, take us lot out and it gets much worse because we were a generation of doers and straight talkers rather than the latest lot of screen starrers and thumb wigglers. 

But a massive reduction in populations can only be good for the planet, we are over crowded and puting to much strain on resources so that will be a great benefit to the planet.


----------



## Spectric

pe2dave said:


> Open standards vs commercial interests? Always a touchy debate!


Yes that good old balance between letting people have something or making it a money spinner. Good example here is the Android OS, started of life as a completely open source piece of software and now becoming so googlised for there data collection business that it is becoming bloatware and so unfreindly.


----------



## johna.clements

Spectric said:


> Yes it may appear that simple but have you ever worked on Canbus? On most cars now the vehicle speed is supplied by the ABS module which puts that message onto the bus and the instrument cluster just reads it and displays. That message is also available to any other module that requires road speed data and the bus carries many messages between modules. Recently a module failed on my car, picked up a known working module and then got the guy round to reset the system so as it reconises my keys. It refused to function until we realised the module came of a two door motor and this one has four doors so it now had unreconised parts in the door locking system, the only solution was to download the original configuration file for the car. You can only do this if you have a valid account and pay. So what may appear simple can often be a lot more complicated and takes us back to standards, ie we use common protocols which just does not happen, can you imagine getting the EV OEM and the ultility meter suppliers to use a common protocol so they can communicate!


You could of course set up you electric meter to communicate by your broad band to California to talk to the manufactures main frame. The computer could then contact your car via the mobile phone network and tell it to stop charging.

Alternatively you measure the speed that wheel goes around with a simple electrical mechanical device and when it gets to fast a switch cuts off the electric supply with to the car. When the wheel slows down the supply gets switched back on. I would be surprised if such a device cost as much as a £100.

There is no need to complicate things, unless you wish too. I personally see no benefit in the switch knowing the reason why it is operating.


----------



## pe2dave

johna.clements said:


> Not sure what you are talking about. Few have there own wind turbine.


And to invest 'for an EV' makes no sense to me(mainly financial). That was my point.


----------



## DRC

Spectric said:


> I don't think anyone will mind driving EV's if the whole thing had been properly planed and the right infrastructure put in place but at the moment it is chaos. Round here no main dealers will repair an EV, they get sent many miles to one of the OEM's repair centres who specialise in that type of vehicle, ok one day things will change but just like when ICE's came onto the scene it took a while to get them to a good all round standard so why be one of the first to jump on the bandwagon and try new technology at the higher cost, wait until it falls.


OEM's being what another b*****y acronym????


----------



## Spectric

Original equipment manufacturer, the company that produces something but may not necessarily sell directly to the public. 

I should have said one of the OEM's authorised repair centres.


----------



## Spectric

pe2dave said:


> And to invest 'for an EV' makes no sense to me(mainly financial). That was my point.



I think that many companies producing all sorts of products have cut back on inhouse testing and even quality control so that it is the customer who now completes the testing and is exposed to early product failures, so at this point in time EV's may not be a good investment even if you want one.


----------



## pe2dave

Spectric said:


> I think that many companies producing all sorts of products have cut back on inhouse testing and even quality control so that it is the customer who now completes the testing and is exposed to early product failures, so at this point in time EV's may not be a good investment even if you want one.


How far up the dev curve should we go? Old expression, you pays your money and makes your choice?
Fair point about user beta testing though... Sadly.


----------



## selectortone

Jacob said:


> It sounds like she is utterly unsustainable and a complete contradiction in terms. It's become known as "greenwashing".


I have thought about this comment for two days now, and still can't get my head around it.

My daughter studied ecology at university and then went on to do an MSc in sustainability. She worked unbelievably hard at her Masters, holding down a day job and studying at night for two years for it. I'm very proud of her. She cares very deeply about the future of the planet and changed careers to do a job that she believes makes a difference, albeit a small one. Reports she produces help companies improve their environmental footprint and reduce the damage they do.

How you expect her to do a site audit of companies' energy usage, waste management et al without physically attending is debatable, but to flippantly dismiss her life's work as "greenwashing" is highly insulting. I can take your insults, but leave my daughter out of it.

Your post just demonstrates what a nasty spiteful troll you are.


----------



## Jacob

selectortone said:


> I have thought about this comment for two days now, and still can't understand it.
> 
> My daughter studied ecology at university and then went on to do a masters in sustainability. She cares very deeply about the future of the planet and is doing a job that she believes makes a difference, albeit a small one.
> 
> How you expect her to do a site audit of companies' energy usage, waste management et al without physically attending is debatable, but to flippantly dismiss her life's work as "greenwashing" is highly insulting. I can take your insults, but leave my daughter out of it.
> 
> Your post just demonstrates what a venal nasty troll you are.


Sorry - I intended to insult the company, not your daughter!
A lot of companies are spending big money on "greenwashing", including the oil industry itself.
Could be a way of avoiding the real issues and ignoring the necessary major changes being forced upon is by Climate change.


----------



## John Brown

Spectric said:


> You will now need the meter to communicate with the car, these meters have issues with communicating at the best of times.


I don't believe that's the case. I think it's usually a simple current transformer(CT) around one of the supply tails which measures the total load, or indeed export, if you have PV.


----------



## selectortone

John Brown said:


> I don't believe that's the case. I think it's usually a simple current transformer(CT) around one of the supply tails which measures the total load, or indeed export, if you have PV.


I don't have a smart meter. The Podpoint charger communicates via a phone app and provides all the info we need. It has a dumb two-wire connection (plus earth and a circuit breaker, fuses etc) to my electrical system.


----------



## John Brown

selectortone said:


> I don't have a smart meter. The Podpoint charger communicates via a phone app and provides all the info we need. It has a dumb two-wire connection (plus earth and a circuit breaker, fuses etc) to my electrical system.


That's great, but I was specifically referring to a discussion about chargers which respond on the fly to the usage of other appliances, such as dryers or kettles. Spectric was theorising that such chargers would need to communicate with smart meters, and I was explaining that, as far as I know, they don't. As to why you might need such a device: your property has a limited electricity supply, and you already have an induction cooker, electric shower, ASHP heating etc., or maybe you have solar panels, and want to charge while the sun's shining.

As an aside, we call them "chargers", but they're really just switched power supplies. The charging intelligence is all in the car.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

In the fullness of time (probably not far off) there will be a simple smartphone app to control EV charging which will need inputs for:

level of charge required - next day simple commute will justify only a 30% charge, a long journey next day may mean charging to 100%. User could always default to 100% charge anyway.
price per KWh - eg: charge when price is less than XXp
if PV fitted - prioritise - (1) household appliances, (2) car charging, (3) sale to grid
integrate with domestic energy tariff terms - variable 30 min charges, peak/off-peak rates, etc
integrate with forecast demand, weather impacts, green energy generation, pricing
This is all completely feasible. Data connectivity between house, car, electricity supplier, forecast price, weather (affects range), traffic conditions etc may need some improvement for resilient performance but is not insuperable.

Alternatively EV users can simply get home, plug in, and pay whatever it costs. Needs no internet connection (unless EV charging is taxed), but as plug in will be at a peak demand time (17.00 - 21.00 hrs) costs will be materially higher.


----------



## Spectric

John Brown said:


> Spectric was theorising that such chargers would need to communicate with smart meters, and I was explaining that, as far as I know, they don't.


The only other way a smart charger would know the demand that the property is currently using would be it's own transducer that is either hard wired or using wireless to the charger but if the charger is restricted by other demands then it is possible that it may not fully charge your EV. If all the charging inteligence is within the car then why not also have the AC - Dc conversion within the car so all you would now require is a cable to supply 230Vac.


----------



## selectortone

Spectric said:


> If all the charging inteligence is within the car then why not also have the AC - Dc conversion within the car so all you would now require is a cable to supply 230Vac


My charge point IS ac 230v. Ac to dc conversion is done by the car. All modern EVs do this. The difference is that it is a dedicated 30A connection capable of charging at 7kW, as opposed charging from my 13A ring main (at around 3kW).


----------



## Spectric

Jacob said:


> A lot of companies are spending big money on "greenwashing", including the oil industry itself.


Does this not also give them financial benefits so it is worth trying to camourflage dirty ones like oil & nuclear.


----------



## selectortone

Here's a screen shot of the charger app...


----------



## Spectric

selectortone said:


> My charge point IS ac 230v. Ac to dc conversion is done by the car. All modern EVs do this.


So why the special plugs that are not common to all EV's, much easier to just use a standard plug.


----------



## John Brown

Spectric said:


> The only other way a smart charger would know the demand that the property is currently using would be it's own transducer that is either hard wired or using wireless to the charger but if the charger is restricted by other demands then it is possible that it may not fully charge your EV. If all the charging inteligence is within the car then why not also have the AC - Dc conversion within the car so all you would now require is a cable to supply 230Vac.


The AC to DC conversion is in the car, in all but the super fast chargepoints.


----------



## John Brown

The chargepoint also supplied 1kHz PWM signal that indicates to the charging system (in the car) his much current is available. The PWM signal goes negative and positive with respect to ground. I imagine this provides a bit more safety, being slightly more complex than a positive only waveform.


----------



## John Brown

Spectric said:


> The only other way a smart charger would know the demand that the property is currently using would be it's own transducer that is either hard wired or using wireless to the charger but if the charger is restricted by other demands then it is possible that it may not fully charge your EV. If all the charging inteligence is within the car then why not also have the AC - Dc conversion within the car so all you would now require is a cable to supply 230Vac.


As for it's own transducer, that's what I was trying to tell you about the current transformer on the incoming supply. I guess you didn't bother reading it.


----------



## Spectric

John Brown said:


> The chargepoint also supplied 1kHz PWM signal that indicates to the charging system (in the car) his much current is available


I assume this is superimposed on the Ac as from what I have seen there are not enough pins for a seperate circuit. Again there may be easier ways for the EV to determine available current but EV chargers are going to make some people very wealthy.


----------



## Spectric

John Brown said:


> I guess you didn't bother reading it.


Having spent a lifetime in engineering I read everything


----------



## John Brown

It's all documented . J1772 I think. Alternatively Wikipedia has details. There is also a safeguard against you driving off while plugged in, which a standard mains plug wouldn't provide.

Edited as I mistyped the reference..
And again.. my fingers are very clumsy today!


----------



## John Brown

Spectric said:


> I assume this is superimposed on the Ac as from what I have seen there are not enough pins for a seperate circuit. Again there may be easier ways for the EV to determine available current but EV chargers are going to make some people very wealthy.


No. It's a separate signal.


----------



## John Brown

Spectric said:


> I assume this is superimposed on the Ac as from what I have seen there are not enough pins for a seperate circuit. Again there may be easier ways for the EV to determine available current but EV chargers are going to make some people very wealthy.


Interesting. How dou you think the EV might determine available current from a 3 wire mains feed?


----------



## selectortone

Spectric said:


> So why the special plugs that are not common to all EV's, much easier to just use a standard plug.


Why are the mains plugs different in many countries? Why do they serve beer in different measures around the world?

There are moves to standardise EV connectors but don't hold your breath. Adapters are available.


----------



## Spectric

By using power line communication, where you can use the mains to carry data by superimposing it onto the Ac.


----------



## selectortone

John Brown said:


> The chargepoint also supplied 1kHz PWM signal that indicates to the charging system (in the car) his much current is available. The PWM signal goes negative and positive with respect to ground. I imagine this provides a bit more safety, being slightly more complex than a positive only waveform.


From what the installation guy told me, the chargepoint is clever enough to reduce the current available to the car (or tell the car to reduce demand? One of the two...) if there is a significant demand elsewhere in the house - for example if the washing machine and the power shower are on at the same time and I go out to the workshop and start using my lathe or whatever.


----------



## John Brown

Spectric said:


> By using power line communication, where you can use the mains to carry data by superimposing it onto the Ac.


Well of course, but you said "for the EV to determine how much", which is not the same thing. Power line signalling is the EV being told how much power is available.


----------



## Just4Fun

John Brown said:


> There is also a safeguard against you driving off while plugged in, which a standard mains plug wouldn't provide.


Why not?
I would have thought the car would detect that the cable is connected and disable the drive system until it is unplugged. What would be needed outside the car?


----------



## John Brown

selectortone said:


> From what the installation guy told me, the chargepoint is clever enough to reduce the current available to the car if there is a significant demand elsewhere in the house - for example if the washing machine and the power shower are on at the same time and I go out to the workshop and switch my latge on.


Some are, some aren't. If they are, then they need to be able to measure that loading, usually with a current transformer.
There may be units that communicate with smart meters, as in Spectric's original assumption, but I doubt it.


----------



## John Brown

Just4Fun said:


> Why not?
> I would have thought the car would detect that the cable is connected and disable the drive system until it is unplugged. What would be needed outside the car?


The cable could be connected at the car end, but disconnected or turned off at the other end.


----------



## John Brown

The other point to consider is that the EV applies a load to the 1kHz pilot signal (IIRC), which tells the power supply to switch the mains through. That way the plug doesn't become live until is all plugged together. There are mechanical switches as well, when you press the lever to detach the plug from the EV.


Somebody thought about it a bit, I suppose, instead of just saying "let's just stuff a kettle plug into the end of a cable".


----------



## pe2dave

This thread is becoming rather 'points scoring' don't you think?


----------



## John Brown

Sorry, I was just attempting to explain how EVSEs work, and people keep asking questions.
It's all there on Wikipedia, folks fill your boots with J1772.
I'll shut up now.


----------



## MikeK

John Brown said:


> There is also a safeguard against you driving off while plugged in, which a standard mains plug wouldn't provide.



I didn't go to EV Charging System Cable and Port Design school, but all of the EVs I've seen have doors that have to be opened to access the car's charging port. A sensor on the door should easily determine if the door is open, whether or not a cable of any type is attached. I think my friend's Audi had a warning lamp on the dash if she didn't close the fuel door.


----------



## John Brown

MikeK said:


> I didn't go to EV Charging System Cable and Port Design school, but all of the EVs I've seen have doors that have to be opened to access the car's charging port. A sensor on the door should easily determine if the door is open, whether or not a cable of any type is attached. I think my friend's Audi had a warning lamp on the dash if she didn't close the fuel door.


Since you're actually addressing me, I'll temporarily un-shut up.
Yes, our PHEV has a sensor on the door as well. I guess the designers thought the electrical connection in the plug and socket would be more reliable. Our PHEV lets you drive off with the door open, but does warn you.
But I didn't write the spec.


----------



## morqthana

John Brown said:


> Interesting. How dou you think the EV might determine available current from a 3 wire mains feed?


Disclaimer - I've not rewound to find the start of the sub-discussion on charge point management.

But surely an on-board charger designed to plug into a regular domestic socket wouldn't do any determination of "available" current. It would manage the back-end output to ensure the batteries were looked after, but the front would basically be a switch mode power supply, designed to draw at most 13A in the UK and 16A sur le continent? Probably less, actually, to avoid loading outlets at the max supported for extended periods.

If the response to my "Disclaimer" is "That's obvious. You should have.", apologies.


----------



## morqthana

Spectric said:


> I think that for any serious fast charger you will need three phase, that can be a lot more than £900 and we must not forget that the electrical distribution system that supplies many housing estates will not have been designed to handle a large proportion of them charging electric vehicles. This issue will continue back up the grid with each supply point potentially being stretched to it's limits.


Well you can go to 14.5kW with a single-phase supply (63A circuit).

I read somewhere once that some DNOs are now installing 125A single-phase domestic supplies, but where they are with their diversity assumptions at the 11k/400 distribution substation level IHNI.


----------



## morqthana

Jameshow said:


> I will miss ice cars though esp V8!


They can sound great


----------



## Spectric

Yes but a single load, you have to sum all loads, resistive loads can be larger but reactive are limited, hence why you cannot power larger machinery from an inverter and have to use a convertor. If upgrading a supply then you would go three phase, solves many issues and helps balance the grid.


----------



## johna.clements

morqthana said:


> Disclaimer - I've not rewound to find the start of the sub-discussion on charge point management.
> 
> But surely an on-board charger designed to plug into a regular domestic socket wouldn't do any determination of "available" current. It would manage the back-end output to ensure the batteries were looked after, but the front would basically be a switch mode power supply, designed to draw at most 13A in the UK and 16A sur le continent? Probably less, actually, to avoid loading outlets at the max supported for extended periods.
> 
> If the response to my "Disclaimer" is "That's obvious. You should have.", apologies.



I am not sure who started it but in a reply i stated that you could measuer what other devices were using so that the car does not over load the house circuits. this could be done with a simple electrical mechanical device.


----------



## morqthana

Jacob said:


> No it is not. Reproduction is the solution.
> The greater the population the more likely the chance of survivors when things go pear shaped.
> It's nature's way - individuals don't matter and are disposable, as long as there are survivors
> It's common throughout the living world that stressed populations have strategies to survive. The first organism you learn about at school is the amoeba. When things are OK they reproduce steadily by budding, when the pond dries up they "encyst" and subdivide many times over. Come wetter weather and the cyst expands breaks up and there's millions of the little boogers.
> Works similarly with homo sapiens, destabilised societies (e.g. war etc) tend to reproduce more. Stable societies even have falling populations causing them anxiety.
> Think on!


If what I heard once is true we should be seeing a skew towards more girls/fewer boys being born. Stress does that, because at a population level increasing stress coud be a sign of impending population-level catastrophe, and if a population is to recover from a massive de-populating situation you need more women than men.


----------



## Spectric

johna.clements said:


> this could be done with a simple electrical mechanical device.


I have worked on projects where motor control panels were linked so contactors would be inhibited so you could not run all six 100Kw motors simultanously because a) there was no need and b) the supply was only 620 amps.


----------



## morqthana

Spectric said:


> Yes but a single load, you have to sum all loads, resistive loads can be larger but reactive are limited, hence why you cannot power larger machinery from an inverter and have to use a convertor. If upgrading a supply then you would go three phase, solves many issues and helps balance the grid.


Yes - I was forgetting that SMPSUs aren't resistive, but you ought to be able to get to a .95 power factor.

And anyway - a street of houses taken as a whole is a 3-phase load....


----------



## morqthana

John on the Wirral said:


> I believe that you know when you have lost EV power as the car seems to lose power as it reverts to it's 1.5 litre engine.


See if you can lay your hands on a BMW M12/13 1.5l engine...


----------



## morqthana

Sirenity said:


> Home chargers don't need 3phase, they use a 12mm lead





Sirenity said:


> They run a dedicated 30A 12mm cable from the board to the Charger as they install it.
> Unless your board is very old it doesn't need a new one.


You sure about that size? It's non-standard and bigger than needed for a 32A circuit.

And even if the CU is very old, it can be easier to just install a new, small one just for the charging circuit - physical space and shonky old supply fuses that shouldn't be fiddled with are the only issues I can think of.





Sirenity said:


> There's a thriving market in charger/parking space sharing (Chargy, Plugsurfing etc).


If that involves reselling electricity I'm pretty sure there are rules'n'regs to consider? Or is that only for landlord/tenant situations?


----------



## morqthana

Sirenity said:


> So for many, you will get home, plug in, donate your excess to the grid 5.30pm to 9.30 for a good return then charge up overnight when demand is low and prices are much cheaper.


Hoping all the time that no unforseen event arises which means you need to go out again in your car which would have had enough charge had you not flogged it back to the grid...


----------



## johna.clements

morqthana said:


> If that involves reselling electricity I'm pretty sure there are rules'n'regs to consider? Or is that only for landlord/tenant situations?


I would assume it would be no different to a motorhome connecting up to a socket on a campsite. 

I don't know if there are different installation regulations for a purely domestic charger and one for limited commercial use. I would think that the main problem would be insurance, are you covered if they slip on ice on a winter morning etc. I would hope that the sharing sites provide public liability insurance or the hose holder checks with their house insurance.


----------



## morqthana

Sirenity said:


> a dedicated charger will save it's cost pretty quickly in selling back electricity at peak prices and buying overnight on the cheap.


That may be a case of "watch this space". The govt are not going to just wave goodbye to all the petroleum revenue tax they currently get.


----------



## morqthana

Jacob said:


> Haven't actually got an EV but thinking of selling up (down sizing) and installing a charger before we go, as an added sales feature.


I'd be gobsmacked if you got your money back on that. Let the new owner do *it if they want*.


----------



## morqthana

.


----------



## morqthana

Spectric said:


> To meet those rapid high demands we have to thank the welsh, they have a big sort of hydro power plant at Dinorwig.


They do, and well worth a visit it is too, if ever you're in the area.


----------



## morqthana

johna.clements said:


> unwanted wind at night


Must... resist.... must.... resist....


----------



## morqthana

Spectric said:


> That will be what they are calling the Internet of things IOT, a totally connected house and again something to avoid, would you want Alexa in total control or rely on it to ensure your house does not freeze whilst you are away, forget it still early days and I don't believe in being a guinea pig at my expense.


Seriously out of date, technology reference-wise, but still relevantly funny.



Diary of a Digital Homeowner


----------



## Jacob

Spectric said:


> They have one thing in common with a smart phone and that is they are not very smart!
> 
> I will avoid at all cost, already know several people that were conned into having them and none of them actually communicate readings and others that have had failed displays so you cannot even manually read them.
> 
> 
> That will be what they are calling the Internet of things IOT, a totally connected house and again something to avoid, would you want Alexa in total control or rely on it to ensure your house does not freeze whilst you are away, forget it still early days and I don't believe in being a guinea pig at my expense.


Could connect the drinks cabinet and have G&Ts on the dot?


----------



## Fergie 307

MikeK said:


> I didn't go to EV Charging System Cable and Port Design school, but all of the EVs I've seen have doors that have to be opened to access the car's charging port. A sensor on the door should easily determine if the door is open, whether or not a cable of any type is attached. I think my friend's Audi had a warning lamp on the dash if she didn't close the fuel door.


Or simply a plunger switch depressed by the connector when it's plugged in, you could probably dual purpose one of the actual charging connectors to perform this function as well.


----------



## morqthana

johna.clements said:


> With these new fangled smart meters that monitor your electricity usage why don't they use them to monitor your electricity usage and stop charging the car when you are boiling the kettle and the fridge freezer compressor is running.


In theory that sort of regime is coming. The ultimate direction of travel for smart meters and smart appliances is an integrated system to provide demand management, continuous real-time price changes, priority driven usage policies etc.




Spectric said:


> You will now need the meter to communicate with the car, these meters have issues with communicating at the best of times.


You'll need the meter to communicate with *all *your appliances, and they with each other and the meter. Johna mentioned a F/F compressor. Assuming you don't open the door, or open it much, there's no reason why that needs to run at all while the WM is heating the water, for example, or the kettle is on. But the F/F needs to know what the other appliances are doing.

Until then all you have is fancy remote meter reading and the ability (be afraid) for suppliers to easily implement rationing via targeted short-term disconnections.




John Brown said:


> That's great, but I was specifically referring to a discussion about chargers which respond on the fly to the usage of other appliances, such as dryers or kettles. Spectric was theorising that such chargers would need to communicate with smart meters, and I was explaining that, as far as I know, they don't.


They don't, but the papers I've read have said that that sort of thing is where (at least some) people see it going. John Brown talks about a limited electricity supply - there's a good chance that we are all going to have to deal with one of those.



John Brown said:


> your property has a limited electricity supply, and you already have an induction cooker, electric shower, ASHP heating etc.



Terry makes a number of points about how it will/could/might all hang together.



Terry - Somerset said:


> In the fullness of time (probably not far off) there will be a simple smartphone app to control EV charging which will need inputs for:
> 
> level of charge required - next day simple commute will justify only a 30% charge, a long journey next day may mean charging to 100%. User could always default to 100% charge anyway.
> price per KWh - eg: charge when price is less than XXp
> if PV fitted - prioritise - (1) household appliances, (2) car charging, (3) sale to grid
> integrate with domestic energy tariff terms - variable 30 min charges, peak/off-peak rates, etc
> integrate with forecast demand, weather impacts, green energy generation, pricing
> This is all completely feasible. Data connectivity between house, car, electricity supplier, forecast price, weather (affects range), traffic conditions etc may need some improvement for resilient performance but is not insuperable.
> 
> Alternatively EV users can simply get home, plug in, and pay whatever it costs. Needs no internet connection (unless EV charging is taxed), but as plug in will be at a peak demand time (17.00 - 21.00 hrs) costs will be materially higher.


So you might tell the washing machine to run at some point while you are at work, when the price drops below 'x' p per unit, but at 15:00 to start looking at predicted prices over the next few hours and to book a slot with the supplier for a given number of units before 18:00 because when you get home you need the washing to be finished.

As above, the kettle pre-empts the freezer, which in turn pre-empts the dryer.

And yes - different loads might have to cost more than others to run. Electric showers might always be more expensive to run, per kWh, than an induction hob.

And yes - power to charge EVs might be priced differently to other uses. Fuel taxes raise considerable sums - they will need to be replaced. Per device usage monitoring and pricing is not a difficult technical problem to solve.


----------



## morqthana

Rorschach said:


> I have to disagree there. I have no range anxiety in my petrol car.


Mmm.

I remember one trip over Hardknott Pass in my petrol car which on roads like that does less than 20mpg....


----------



## Terry - Somerset

A house will only need to load shed if the incoming supply is limited. Currently for most houses the incoming fuse comfortably covers all demands. It is rare that the 60+ amp fuse blows!

With more EVs network capacity may fail to keep pace with demand. Demand reduction could be through (a) clear prioritisation within a household of priorities, (b) centrally mandated action to switch off certain items (eg: EVs) or (c) an increased cost per unit.

Neither (a) or (b) will be satisfactory. Some may intelligently prioritise usage to limit peak demand but cannot be relied upon by energy networks. Central control removes individual choice and is completely insensitive to individual requirements - eg: shift workers etc.

Price is probably the one which will be most effective. If folk want to charge the car at 17.30 - 21.00 and pay £1 a unit rather than £0.15 at 02.00 - 05.00 that is their choice. Folk prioritise as they see fit. All control is local using a price data feed. Other data - weather, etc - is optional.

With all change early adopters are excited to get on board before the technology is resilient. Most transition when technology approaches tested maturity. Late adopters (some on this forum) come to the party late, apprehensive, unsure, and with multiple reasons why it won't work..


----------



## morqthana

lurker said:


> How many chargers do you need to replace a forecourt of pumps?


Moving away from the fag-packet figures a little, 1l of petrol is 9.5kWh, 1l of diesel is 9.9 (Energy density - Wikipedia).

Assume that a pump transfers 1l/s, , that makes a petrol pump a 9.5kWh/s, i.e. 34.2MW appliance. 

You need though to factor efficiency - someone earlier said 60% for an ICE. Hmm.

All-Electric Vehicles - "Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12%–30% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels." OK- US cars, but 60%??

I've also heard a rule of thumb of ⅓ mechanical power, ⅓ heat, ⅓ noise.

So let's say the petrol pump is about 11MW?

Then there's efficiency the other way for an EV Where the Energy Goes: Electric Cars 60-73%? 

So twice a petrol car, making the petrol pump a 22MW appliance. 


Ouch.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

morqthana said:


> I remember one trip over Hardknott Pass in my petrol car which on roads like that does less than 20mpg....



Even at 20mpg most cars will have a range of 150 miles or more. There is no excuse for running out of fuel - fuel strikes, crossing the Sahara, etc excepted. Even then it is dumb.

An EV bereft of amps is more inconvenient due to recharging duration and currently some charging network constraints. But grinding to a halt as the battery runs flat is equally dumb.

Some folk fill up the car when it is still a quarter full with over 100 miles range (like me) - those who wait for the fuel warning light and test its accuracy get punished!


----------



## morqthana

Terry - Somerset said:


> A house will only need to load shed if the incoming supply is limited.


Load-shedding is used in France. The consumer has the choice of what capacity supply to have - the bigger it is the higher the standing charge.




Terry - Somerset said:


> Currently for most houses the incoming fuse comfortably covers all demands. It is rare that the 60+ amp fuse blows!


Particularly as it will probably pass 90A for several hurs.




Terry - Somerset said:


> Some may intelligently prioritise usage to limit peak demand but cannot be relied upon by energy networks.


But what can be relied on is a regime which tells people that either you limit your use by your actions or we will limit it to zero for you.




Terry - Somerset said:


> Central control removes individual choice and is completely insensitive to individual requirements - eg: shift workers etc.


Actually those individual circumstances can be easily accommodated. The childless couple who are are work all day can be treated very differently to the elderly person who is at home and needs an oxygen machine.




Terry - Somerset said:


> Price is probably the one which will be most effective. If folk want to charge the car at 17.30 - 21.00 and pay £1 a unit rather than £0.15 at 02.00 - 05.00 that is their choice. Folk prioritise as they see fit.


Yes- choice will be a factor, but subject to overall constraints.


----------



## morqthana

Terry - Somerset said:


> Even at 20mpg most cars will have a range of 150 miles or more. There is no excuse for running out of fuel - fuel strikes, crossing the Sahara, etc excepted. Even then it is dumb.


Oh I'm blaming nobody but myself and expecting sympathy from precisely nobody. I live in London, and I'm conditioned to an environment where I'm never more than a few miles from a petrol station. When that changes and I don't adapt....


----------



## morqthana

Terry - Somerset said:


> Some folk fill up the car when it is still a quarter full with over 100 miles range (like me) - those who wait for the fuel warning light and test its accuracy get punished!


Every time there's a shock to the system which results in the pumps running dry, I tell myself I'll never let the tank get less than half-full again. And that determination lasts for a while, then ebbs away, as I hate filling up.


----------



## Sideways

Energy network operators (DNOs) plan on an average demand of just 2-3kW (8-10Amps) per household across residential areas. Yes we have 60, 80, 100A or greater fuses in our homes but we can't all draw that at the same time. EV charging by many customers at 7kW for hours at a time is not something the distribution network can support without sizeable investment. Consumers will have to pay for this. I wouldn't expect the cheap overnight tarrifs to persist as home charging becomes more widespread.


----------



## Spectric

Terry - Somerset said:


> A house will only need to load shed if the incoming supply is limited. Currently for most houses the incoming fuse comfortably covers all demands. It is rare that the 60+ amp fuse blows!


A protective device like a BS1361 HRC type fuse will require a very high current to blow, it's purpose is to protect your incoming supply cable and not your loads. It will take 100 amps no problems and the issue you need to address is overload current if you have to many circuits taken from your supply which can result in thermal events and not prospective fault current which will blow a fuse.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

I am aware average domestic demand 1-3 KW per hour per household - depends on time of day and size of property etc. Adding a 7KW EV charger will not overload the house, but it would give the network a problem if they all come on at the same time.

There are ~30m households and ~30m cars in UK. Average mileage is 9000 pa (180 per week) - below the range of most EVs. Assume each EV needs charging once per week. 

A typical EV does 3-4 miles per kWh. Weekly charging need is 45-60 kWh (2000-3000 kWh pa). An average household uses ~3800 kWh pa - thus EV charging adds ~60% to demand.

In 20 years as EVs become the norm, domestic network capacity will need to increase by ~60% - approx. 3% pa - feasible if addressed with commitment.

There has also been some debate over the number of charging points required to replace fuel pumps - in most respects this is a nonsense debate:

all ICE cars need to be refuelled at a forecourt
most EV charging will be at home, work, car parks, shopping malls, etc. Note 50% of properties are detached or semi probably with capability for home charging.
fast charging capability will be needed for those travelling long distances, or who have no other options. I would guess between 10 - 30% will need "forecourt" fast charging
on the basis that filling with petrol or diesel takes 5 minutes, and a 75% fast charge takes (say) an hour, the charger will be occupied for 20 times as long as a petrol pump. 
the number of chargers required will be (say) 20% of EVs which need fast charging x 20 times as long - 4 times as many charging points as petrol/diesel pumps
EV charging points need network capacity - but otherwise limited investment. 
Installation of charging points may represent a profit source - attracting folk to health clubs, hotels, theme parks, airport parking, theatres, concert venues etc etc.
All the above are guesstimates. Some folk may have have very skewed circumstances - living 30 miles from the nearest civilisation, two miles up a muddy track, towing horse boxes, travelling 40k pa etc etc. But note the average UK car commute is 10 miles.


----------



## Scruples

DRC said:


> OEM's being what another b*****y acronym????


Thw world is full of TLAs. (three-lettered acronyms)


----------



## MikeJhn

It's time to use our coast line, why we don't have turbines in the Thames barrier always baffled me, lack of foresight perhaps, but then it was discussed at a pre-planning meeting and dismissed as too expensive, don't think that conclusion would be reached today.


----------



## clogs

MikeJhn.....
the planners are morons who only look as far as their bank account....
DEF not out of the box or the future....


----------



## morqthana

Terry - Somerset said:


> In 20 years as EVs become the norm, domestic network capacity will need to increase by ~60% - approx. 3% pa - feasible if addressed with commitment.


Except the actual process of increasing capacity is not a uniform, gradual one. It comes in discrete, disruptive chunks.

New generating capacity.

New pylons and HV cables to distribute it.

New substations or expansion of existing ones to accommodate more or larger transformers - where I live that will mean knocking down houses or compulsorily purchasing bits of gardens.

Digging up roads and pavements to beef up cables.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Individual projects will happen in chunks. But across the country it will seem a steady change:

priorities depend on current capacity, demand changes, availability of skilled resources etc
some will create disruption. Many will simply expand the scope of work already scheduled.
There may be several hundred major projects of varying complexity with start and completion dates spread evenly over the 20 year window - eg: new wind farms, power stations, grid upgrades etc. 

They will create local disruption, but simple resource constraints and sourcing major bits of kit means it will not all happen as a "big bang".

The alternative is to not bother. The "its all too difficult" philosophy consigns the country to a sort of technological paralysis. We would still be cooking food over an open fire, the horse and cart would dominate transport, and air travel would literally be for the birds!


----------



## morqthana

Terry - Somerset said:


> We would still be cooking food over an open fire, the horse and cart would dominate transport, and air travel would literally be for the birds!


Watch this space....


----------



## johna.clements

Terry - Somerset said:


> the number of chargers required will be (say) 20% of EVs which need fast charging x 20 times as long - 4 times as many charging points as petrol/diesel pumps
> Installation of charging points may represent a profit source - attracting folk to health clubs, hotels, theme parks, airport parking, theatres, concert venues etc etc.



I would assume that overstaying at fast chargers will be greater than at a petrol pump. At the petrol pump you queue (sometimes) fill up, maybe pick up some bread and milk then pay.
At a fast charging station people will want to do something with those thirty minutes. If they are at the supermarket they are unlikely to be back that quickly, unless they just want bread and milk.

But the increase in number and hence space required by charging points is a bit of a red herring. Just looked at the Morrisons in Teignmouth on satellite view. They appear to have about 182 parking spaces (it is a bit difficult to count and I did not check) of which about 70 where next to the building or landscaped areas. No additional land would be required, or parking spaces lost, to install charging points in the landscaped area or fixed to the building for a third of the parking spaces.


----------



## Spectric

Motorway services could be an issue, they would need to increase there capacity to accomodate many cars filling up for maybe thirty minutes rather than just five. Also they would have issues with available electrical infrastructure because when they were built EV's were not on the horizon. If as you say some supermarkets have large parking areas that are underused then it could be a case of diverting EV's to charging points installed here. 

Looking further ahead there will become a point where maybe personal transport becomes history, just no way to make it efficient unless you can ensure full occupancy. What is more efficient, an electric bus carrying fifty people or twenty five cars each carrying two people?


----------



## johna.clements

Spectric said:


> Motorway services could be an issue, they would need to increase there capacity to accomodate many cars filling up for maybe thirty minutes rather than just five. Also they would have issues with available electrical infrastructure because when they were built EV's were not on the horizon. If as you say some supermarkets have large parking areas that are underused then it could be a case of diverting EV's to charging points installed here.
> 
> Looking further ahead there will become a point where maybe personal transport becomes history, just no way to make it efficient unless you can ensure full occupancy. What is more efficient, an electric bus carrying fifty people or twenty five cars each carrying two people?


Just had a look at Exeter services. There are about 500 spaces of which about 136 (27%) are next to landscaping or footpaths. There appear to be six chargers in a hatched off area which may be wider than normal bays which would effect the number of spaces available. I would assume that in the charging point was on the front or rear of a vehicle then normal width bays could be used but if the charge point was on the side it could be a problem.


----------



## Droogs

Spectric said:


> What is more efficient, an electric bus carrying fifty people or twenty five cars each carrying two people?


The cars as the passengers go a - b unlike to bus users who have to go make arrangements to get from a - b wait ages then travel to c then make other arrangements to get to d


----------



## johna.clements

Droogs said:


> The cars as the passengers go a - b unlike to bus users who have to go make arrangements to get from a - b wait ages then travel to c then make other arrangements to get to d


That will be a problem for some but not for others.

If you are able bodied and not carrying lots of stuff*** and live close to the bus top it is easy to walk.
With GPS trackers in buses there would be no reason to wait for long as you would know how far away the bus was and how long it took you to walk to the bus stop. 
at the other end you just get off the bus, no need to find somewhere to park and maybe pay 9and when you return your parking space is still there)

** I have taken 2.1m long roofing battens, office chairs and small tables on the bus.


----------



## Sideways

** I'll bet your fellow passengers loved you for that !


----------



## Ozi

Lots of reasons above why we need smaller cars. The first law of green energy is find ways to use less - sorry I have said this too many times


----------



## morqthana

Ozi said:


> Lots of reasons above why we need smaller cars. The first law of green energy is find ways to use less


So should I not buy an AMG E-Class estate?


----------



## johna.clements

Sideways said:


> ** I'll bet your fellow passengers loved you for that !


They weren't at the same time! but I did get a few strange looks sat on the chair at the bus stop and in Exeter bus station. The office chair and small table did involve two changes of bus. I am currently sat on the chair and the table forms a utilitarian bedside table.

The office where I was working in Exeter did not want them, they filled up a skip with furniture they did not want. I put some out the back with notes on saying please help they want to put me in the skip, some items went some did not get saved.


----------



## Terry - Somerset

Spectric said:


> Looking further ahead there will become a point where maybe personal transport becomes history, just no way to make it efficient unless you can ensure full occupancy. What is more efficient, an electric bus carrying fifty people or twenty five cars each carrying two people?


I am not a bus user - but a general observation would be that they are rarely full outside of morning and evening rush hour. 

Buses are inherently time inefficient - travellers need to get from origin to bus stop, from bus stop to destination, and are constrained by timetables. 

When self driving cars become available buses will rapidly become obsolete - why haul around a 50 seater bus when only 15 seats are occupied.. Automated EVs will operate only when needed from origin to destination.


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## johna.clements

Terry - Somerset said:


> I am not a bus user - but a general observation would be that they are rarely full outside of morning and evening rush hour.
> 
> Buses are inherently time inefficient - travellers need to get from origin to bus stop, from bus stop to destination, and are constrained by timetables.
> 
> When self driving cars become available buses will rapidly become obsolete - why haul around a 50 seater bus when only 15 seats are occupied.. Automated EVs will operate only when needed from origin to destination.


Most cars have no people in them what so ever outside rush hour.

When I was working in London I could get from site to site quicker on the bus than the people I was supervising in their van. I did not have to look for a place to park which is inherently time inefficient. I could also work on the bus, phone people and make notes etc .


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## Spectric

Terry - Somerset said:


> Buses are inherently time inefficient - travellers need to get from origin to bus stop, from bus stop to destination, and are constrained by timetables.


But they do not have to be, I can remember when Eastern national used to work with Marconi's so that buses would be waiting at various pickup points to collect workers from outlying towns and then bring them back at the end of the day. Trouble now is that we no longer have such huge employers on massive sites with a large workforce.

The issue with travel cannot be addressed as a collection of individual problems but must be taken as one big problem, one of the big ones is the daily commute. This is just bad news in so many ways, often single occupancy, this person traveling east to work passes many traveling west to work and then the vehicle sits parked all day doing nothing and this cannot be sustainable. 



Terry - Somerset said:


> When self driving cars become available buses will rapidly become obsolete - why haul around a 50 seater bus when only 15 seats are occupied..



Coming at a problem from the wrong direction, when the cost of individual car ownership becomes so high then 50 seater buses will be cramed. Self drive, EV or whatever, single occupancy is wasteful and not cost effective. Maybe if no one owned a self driving EV and it was a borrow scheme then with the right system the vehicle would collect people going to the same destination so it was full, drop them off and go and do something else. The people would then do the opposite when they needed to get home.


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## morqthana

Spectric said:


> Maybe if no one owned a self driving EV and it was a borrow scheme then with the right system the vehicle would collect people going to the same destination so it was full, drop them off and go and do something else. The people would then do the opposite when they needed to get home.


That may well be the model we need to adopt.


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## Terry - Somerset

Assuming EVs become self driving, the probability is that car ownership amongst typical urban dwellers will decline. Why own a car (hassle and cost) when a simple app will put one at your front door within (say) 5 minutes. 

Cars in a "car pool" may be in use (possibly) 4-12 hours a day, noting that the fluctuations in demand over the 24 hour period makes even close to 100% utilisation implausible. 

Cars owned outright currently averagely sit idle for 22-23 hours a day. Simply changing the owner/user model could reduce the national car "fleet" of ~30m by 50-75% over time releasing huge amounts of capital for alternative uses.


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## pip1954

Some years back I used to work for a car rental company we used to valet cars after each rental and a lot of the time they were a mess people just don't care I can just see this utopia knee deep in rubbish.i have seen it when people don't own it they just trash it .


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## Just4Fun

Terry - Somerset said:


> Assuming EVs become self driving, the probability is that car ownership amongst typical urban dwellers will decline. Why own a car (hassle and cost) when a simple app will put one at your front door within (say) 5 minutes.


5 Minutes to deliver a car seems optimistic when the Nuffield Trust says:


> Category 1 ambulance calls are those that are classified as life-threatening and needing immediate intervention and/or resuscitation, e.g. cardiac or respiratory arrest. The national standard sets out that all ambulance trusts must respond to Category 1 calls in 7 minutes on average, and respond to 90% of Category 1 calls in 15 minutes.


I would be amazed if delivering a shared car could be significantly quicker than an ambulance racing with blue lights & sirens to a life-threatening situation.


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## johna.clements

pip1954 said:


> Some years back I used to work for a car rental company we used to valet cars after each rental and a lot of the time they were a mess people just don't care I can just see this utopia knee deep in rubbish.i have seen it when people don't own it they just trash it .


I would assume that you would have to have cameras in them to detect vandalism etc. They would then get the cleaning bill just like you would get for a hire car.


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## johna.clements

Just4Fun said:


> 5 Minutes to deliver a car seems optimistic when the Nuffield Trust says:
> 
> I would be amazed if delivering a shared car could be significantly quicker than an ambulance racing with blue lights & sirens to a life-threatening situation.


There aren't that many ambulances. There would be far more shared self driving cars. A vehicle would park when not in use except if it dropped off at an isolated house. Outside of rush hour I would thought that most streets would have a self driving car parked in them. 

I would assume that during rush hour most people would prebook their seat in a vehicle so there would be less flexibility. but if a person was running late they would give up their booking and the car would pick up someone who had missed an earlier slot.


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## Spectric

pip1954 said:


> Some years back I used to work for a car rental company we used to valet cars after each rental and a lot of the time they were a mess people just don't care I can just see this utopia knee deep in rubbish.i have seen it when people don't own it they just trash it .


I wish all problems were so easy to solve, when you buy fuel often they hold money on your card so you don't run away and not pay so with a vehicle you make it clear that if the vehicle is not left in an acceptable condition then a certain amount of money wll be deducted automatically from your card.


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## Geoff_S

We could adopt the same principle for washing machines & tumble dryers. They sit idle for hours on end, so why not have a central location of washing machines & table dryers open to the general public?

And then what about tools? Woodworking tools for example, that spend hours on end, idle in a workshop. A central location of tools or even somewhere where you could hire tools as and when needed?

Goodness, where could it all end?


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## clogs

I liked the talk of ev charging points....we need more of em...
they can't even organize decent broadband for the nation....
charging points ....pahhhhh...


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## morqthana

Geoff_S said:


> why not have a central location of washing machines & table dryers open to the general public?








Why communal washing area ?


Why does the apartment building have a communal laundry area ? Yes, I know it's a plot device for chance encounters and such but surely Sheldon can afford a washing machine of his own, especially given his fear of contracting diseases and stuff. In the UK, a communal laundry area like this would ...




forum.the-big-bang-theory.com


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## fred55

I'm must be getting old and grumpy which is my right as its a free country and I'm getting old - But what a Utopia it would be if the majority of workers could live within walking distance of employment; less traffic, pollution, time to get to know your workmates, oh just a thought Thats what life used to be like upto the 80s but Financial managers and the Profit Board decided it was cheaper to import coal, globally!! , steel, Russia!! , good from china, textiles, be more European! fishing!! the list goes on - oh ! where are you now Managers of the past - what have you left us with ! travelling miles for work and arguing about Scalextric cars, the people expect heating, electricity, own home, cars apiece, holidays and cruises in the sun, 65" Tvs. -- Thant's just my getting old bit; just don't get me started on my grumpy side. to add China and India have just recorded their highest fossil burning year ever.


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## John Brown

Just4Fun said:


> 5 Minutes to deliver a car seems optimistic when the Nuffield Trust says:
> 
> I would be amazed if delivering a shared car could be significantly quicker than an ambulance racing with blue lights & sirens to a life-threatening situation.


Around these parts, there may well be a shortage of ambulances, but the real bottleneck is beds. At Gloucester A&E there are lines of Ambulances queued up with emergency cases on board, because they don't have anywhere to unload them to.

Not that this has anything to do with electric cars as such, but the subject was raised.


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## morqthana

Maybe Elon Musk could be persuaded to invent a new type of bed.


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## Terry - Somerset

Self driving cars can be parked on urban streets or local car parks when not in use. They do not need a driver to get from parking bay to front door - they simply respond to an app request.

Comparison with ambulance - far fewer in number and equipped with flesh and blood drivers - is completely irrelevant.

There is a better comparison with electric scooter trials going on around the country at present. Wave card at scooter, go to destination (or adjacent scooter parking point), bill paid electronically, scooter ready for next user.


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## ian33a

Yes, the ambulances issue is mostly, but not exclusively, down to bed capacity.

My dad has been unwell for some time and has had the pleasure of hospital stays on several occasions during the past few years. 

Only a couple of weeks ago he was admitted. The ambulance took six hours to arrive (category one) and he was rushed in. I then spent the next four hours sat in the back of that ambulance with him and two paramedics while we waited for a space in A+E. After a four hour period he was transferred to another ambulance as that ambulance was going off shift and needed to return forty miles to the station from which it was despatched (my dad lives seven miles from the hospital - the ambulance came from a different trust area). He spent six hours in the next ambulance. He then spent a further 24 on a trolley in A+E. 

When I had to return home I counted the number of ambulances in the hospital car park, fifteen of them! Fifteen ambulances that could have been out supporting emergencies in the vicinity. 

I've been back a couple of times to see dad in the past week or so. Seventeen ambulances waiting on one occasion, twenty two on the other. 

It's not a lack of ambulances in the system, it's largely down to having enough of them physically driving along the roads and not sitting in hospital car parks.

This isn't a one off - we've experienced this six or seven times (I've lost count) in the past two years.

I understand that this scenario is repeated country wide. Nursing and care homes have closed down or are short staffed making the movement of patients out of hospital into community facilities slower. This means that hospitals are full and patients can only be admitted through the front door when a bed becomes empty.

All of the ambulance services understand the required response times, but there is very little that they can individually do to improve the response. The press and politicians blame them. This seems blatantly unfair as the paramedics are excellent, the despatchers do their best, but the system is in crisis. How we will address this sorry situation, goodness knows.

But I digress, sorry. 

As for EV's, yes, one day I will take the plunge. ATM my journeys tend to be longer and less frequent. My car is three years old and has done just 25,000 miles or so. I can't justify changing it. I've embraced the effortless torque that my three litre diesel has - most probably an EV will be an easy transition, in that regard, when the time comes.


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## MikeJhn

Sirenity said:


> Yes it's OK on 13A plug, just very slow and is a big draw over a long time from thin cabling to use it as a permanent solution. You use the 13A plug adapter when you visit friends overnight etc. or when you first get your EV/PHEV if the charger is not installed first.


With the rising costs of electricity, they will not stay friends for long.  How many of you visit friends and stay overnight?


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## Geoff_S

MikeJhn said:


> With the rising costs of electricity, they will not stay friends for long.  How many of you visit friends and stay overnight?


Especially if you burn their house down!

Seriously, I wouldn’t plug my EV charger Into any random 3 pin socket without having had it professionally checked as safe. You are plugging the equivalent of a 2kw+ heater into the socket at full blast for potentially a number of hours. And don’t use an extension lead that hadn’t been checked either. Just be on the safe side.

As for the price, as long as the socket was safe I would absolutely insist on paying, no question.


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## Lazurus

What are EV`s like for towing? I have a folding camper many others drag sheds (caravans) boats, trailers and the like on a daily basis, especially in holiday season, how will EV`s affect the holiday business I wonder.


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## morqthana

Can electric cars tow? A guide and tips for caravans | RAC Drive


One of the biggest reasons for people not to consider an electric car, is that it simply doesn’t meet their requirements.




www.rac.co.uk


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## treeturner123

Just read the Sunday Times Colour supplement today.

Pretty good reason for not buying at the moment

Phil


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## Droogs

Lazurus said:


> What are EV`s like for towing? I have a folding camper many others drag sheds (caravans) boats, trailers and the like on a daily basis, especially in holiday season, how will EV`s affect the holiday business I wonder.


Watch this chaps latest series


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## Kittyhawk

Geoff_S said:


> And then what about tools? Woodworking tools for example, that spend hours on end, idle in a workshop. A central location of tools or even somewhere where you could hire tools as and when needed?


True, but I know my tools and they know me and I'm not sharing with anyone.


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## MikeJhn

When ever I have loaned tools to anyone they come back in such a state it takes me ages to get them right again, I try to avoid it.


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## Geoff_S

MikeJhn said:


> When ever I have loaned tools to anyone they come back in such a state it takes me ages to get them right again, I try to avoid it.


Exactly. Can you imagine that with a car? Especially if most of the time we are sharing with someone we don’t know


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## johna.clements

Geoff_S said:


> Exactly. Can you imagine that with a car? Especially if most of the time we are sharing with someone we don’t know



I would be surprised if you are forced to share as in sat next to each other on the back seat of a cab.


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## Terry - Somerset

There are many companies, certainly in London and I suspect many large cities, where rent a car by the hour is the norm for many.

Cost per hour is less than £9, and for a day ~£60 for a small car. No worries about insurance, parking, servicing etc. Much cheaper and less hassle for occasional use than ownership.

In larger cities travel is otherwise by tube, train, bus (+ bike and feet) where proximity to the unwashed is unavoidable. Why should cars be materially different - except that if a user leaves a vehicle in a poor state they can simply have access removed.


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## ian33a

Many of us live with a different mentality. I was always of the opinion that I should not buy something that I cannot afford.

So many people today, younger than me especially, have come through the school of hire purchase. More recently, car owners especially, have come through the school of lease, lease-purchase or pure rental. While they get exclusive use of the vehicle, for many it is not their own and never will be. In any case, after a few years, so many of them want something different anyway.

I know plenty of people, recent graduates and the like, who can't drive and have little wish to learn. With insurance costs for young drivers as they are and the costs of running a car, who can blame them.

I suspect that the UK will have to be pulled, kicking and screaming, rather too gradually, into a society where public transport is seen as an integral part of life and not something that poor people use. In that regard, for those who have a driving licence, an occasional car rental would probably be just fine and a better public transport infrastructure will do the rest.

How we get to that stage with the current infrastructure as it is, god knows!


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## Spectric

ian33a said:


> More recently, car owners especially, have come through the school of lease, lease-purchase or pure rental. While they get exclusive use of the vehicle, for many it is not their own and never will be. In any case, after a few years, so many of them want something different anyway.


The big problem with lease is that if you do high mileage then it becomes less attractive as you are penalised but for the right person it saves so much hassle with associated running cost. There is nothing wrong with not owning something providing it works out financially and maybe this attitude will move us in the direction of property rental rather than purchase as it will give people more spending money providing the regulations for landlords are regulated.



ian33a said:


> I suspect that the UK will have to be pulled, kicking and screaming, rather too gradually, into a society where public transport is seen as an integral part of life and not something that poor people use.



If fuel reaches £5 a litre I think it would happen much quicker but public transport needs massive investment and to be seen as critical infrastructure rather than a route to making a fast buck. I think the Japanese have the right idea, transportation is key to getting people to and from work efficently and without stress and that is great for the economy overall so don't treat the infrastructure as a means to make money, run it at cost.


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## ian33a

Spectric said:


> The big problem with lease is that if you do high mileage then it becomes less attractive as you are penalised but for the right person it saves so much hassle with associated running cost. There is nothing wrong with not owning something providing it works out financially and maybe this attitude will move us in the direction of property rental rather than purchase as it will give people more spending money providing the regulations for landlords are regulated.
> 
> 
> 
> If fuel reaches £5 a litre I think it would happen much quicker but public transport needs massive investment and to be seen as critical infrastructure rather than a route to making a fast buck. I think the Japanese have the right idea, transportation is key to getting people to and from work efficently and without stress and that is great for the economy overall so don't treat the infrastructure as a means to make money, run it at cost.



Generally, lease, rental, whatever, funds the depreciation plus administration charges so, if you do high mileages and buy your own car, it's value drops accordingly in the same way that by signing up for a lease, you need to state your mileages.

I've always tended to buy our vehicles (since leaving a company car scheme about a dozen years ago). It's always worked out well buying stuff which was owned by the manufacturer and then leased to employees for six months or so. We've generally paid outright for them on purchase but our mileages are low. 

Used EV's may end up being a different proposition until we reach a point where people trust longevity of batteries and there is some way to replace them, recondition them, whatever, and not have to scrap the car. 

At the moment, our lifestyle suits remaining with ICE. This gives time for the technology, the costs and sustainability of the power trains to become more mature.

Agree with the public transport though - we've a monumental curve to climb in order for our systems to become world class and this probably needs unleashing companies from franchising models and union strangle holding. - won't happen any time soon!


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## Jester129

We get one bus per hour, each way, in our village. Better than some around here that get one bus PER DAY.
You could say the infrastructure needs to improve!


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## clogs

as a kid (now 73) I remember the 2 bob ticket at the weekend where u could use the buses or the underground for 24hrs in London....to go anywhere.....
Fast forward living in Greece...they have a good metro system in Athens plus a decent bus service...
the cost when I was there was €1,50 for I think 2hrs travel and a fiver for all day.....all tickets transferable....but it was all one company.....prob state owned ......
If u make pricing and timetables realistic and affordable people will use the system....
as for inner London, all private vehicles should be banned, buses, taxi's, del trucks and emergency vehicles ONLY...then the transport system would have to be upgraded....
and like the flight controllers, contractually no strikes......

Last time I wanted to go to Manchester from Colchester it was £260 one way on the train...
on 24 hours notice.
2 coaches but on offer £30 and if I could get to Ipswitch airport it was £75....all one way....

as for HS2, what a load of dogs dangly's.....it's only for those at the top to steal/cream all the money they can....
What about wifi conferencing....??
It'd be cheaper for the gov to pay for a ticket for anyone who wants to travel up there than fund this disaster.....
How about spending the money on new SAFER signaling system and better flood defences of the railway....

among other reasons this is why I and so many skilled people are leaving the UK....
who can blame them.....
as for electric cars, no probs at all for my needs but for the initial costs....
as for recharging and the inevitable taxes for the same I would actually have my own solar system on the roof, so stuff em....
those B''s have been planning this for years, smart meters ....what a con....
good day....I'm of to the garden.......


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## johna.clements

clogs said:


> and like the flight controllers, contractually no strikes......
> 
> Last time I wanted to go to Manchester from Colchester it was £260 one way on the train...
> on 24 hours notice.


What do you mean about flight controllers?

There is a train leaving Colchester in 7 minutes for £85.50 which appears to be the normal price for off peak. If you wait until11.12 you can do it for £66.50 one way. First class is £197.50 or £144.30 at 11.12 but there are only 7 tickets left.


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## johna.clements

Jester129 said:


> We get one bus per hour, each way, in our village. Better than some around here that get one bus PER DAY.
> You could say the infrastructure needs to improve!


 One bus a day the luxury.

There are some villages around here that a bus one day a week. Once in the morning to take you into town then latter to return you to the village. Unless someone can drive you or you can walk to the main road your stuck.

Self driving cars could well end up cheaper and more frequent than buses or taxi type buses that follow routes in rural areas.


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