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Is electric really the answer?


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Is it wise to put all "our" faith in electric only cars which will require probably 25 million charging stations minimum from 11 thousand today. Shouldn't we also be looking at other alternatives hydrogen maybe or even liquid nitrogen :-

https://dearman.co.uk/dearman-technologies/dearman-engine/

hindsight: the science that is never wrong

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Well if you listen to your DAVOS corrupted PM its the only answer... good luck with that, The last Australian Federal election the Opposition wanted to do the same, they completely lost an unloose able election.

The Energy elites from DAVOS are winning, look what happened in Germany their 8 EURO recharge will soon be 47 to 74 and that's buy the dominant electric car charging company.https://www.androidpit.com/electric-cars-price-charging-increase-ionity

 

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I just ordered a new company car replacement , a Toyota Corolla hybrid estate 2 litre to give me some performance on long motorway trips.

its not ideal when it comes to environment but it’s more practical than equivalent priced EV cars , better than newest diesel and lower company car tax 

toyota fleet rep told me the hybrid cars are stepping point as the Toyota will be producing hydrogen cell cars in the next 5-10 years therefore only petrol stations need to modify to make hydrogen on forecourt. This will remove the need for the charging points and if you live on terrace streets or block of flats how do you charge ? 

i had to fight my own company to get a greener car and I am supposed to be their environmental champion ! It’s going to take a big mind culture shift to move away from fossil fuel based economy 

personally I don’t think  governments in developed nations have really endorsed the need to change and quickly unfortunately I think our grandchildren will be paying the penalty ? 

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I personally think electric only is chasing a white rabbit down a hole...

The only way to 'push' people away from fossil fuels is to deliver a solution that works as close to our current (no pun intended!) set up as possible.

However you cut it, raping the world for battery minerals still has a massive downside and as I see it, we are just moving the problem to poorer Countries who are economically desperate to develop and will snatch at anything. City dwellers in rich developed Countries can then feel smug about their 'clean' cars.

I also believe that the charging infrastructure planning over here, especially, is deeply unsatisfactory. Watch recent output from 'Harry's Garage' on youtube (someone I really rate) who has just done a living comparison between a Rangerover Hybrid and a Jag Ipace all electric. His experience between Oxford and London to get recharged is a total joke. If you need to sign up to an app (some cost!) and cannot just pay for fuel with a debit card then forget it. Ignore the choice of specific vehicle he uses, he is a little 'high end' but none the less it exemplifies the point well. 

I heard on the radio yesterday, someone talking about aluminium based battery packs which could be swapped out at a service station - this sounds like an interesting concept and would mean adding range more quickly.......

Biggest issue of all is where does the power come from? This is not going to be addressed anywhere near in time for this new ban. There's an age old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket (see @Kimbers 'Are you superstitious thread lol) - usually these old saying are based on good sense. Once everyone is sucked into the EV con, watch charging prices get taxed and costs rocket. 

With the therefore forecast demise of fossil fuel stations, why are we all keeping old petrol powered cars and what will they be worth as undriveable relics of a past era?

Living, as I do, in a rural area, I'm not sure EV would provide me with a reliable alternative. I think hydrogen will win out in the end and I don't fancy being stuck with an expensive 'betamax' loser

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Is the price for that bit in Yen or £?

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EV's are another golden egg for the Motor industry supported by legislation with multiple governments. Batteries are short term stepping stone and are not a viable or sustainable option.

The problem is that there is too much money to be made first by multinationals to have the best option for the planet as the number one choice ............. just at the moment.

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Smoke and mirrors like politics always seems to have been.

Absolute agree with Andy - Tesla are working on ways to recover/recycle all the nasty metals in their batteries, but nobody has the answer yet. Let’s just trust that we’ll find a way and blitz on eh?

Environmentalists claim we’re not just moving the pollution elsewhere - talk about pushing further towards fully renewable energy sources, but if we are all driving EV’s we’re going to need some SERIOUS increase in capacity within the national grid... so let’s take today in the UK as a reference point.... we’re going to need to replace all our houses with wind farms and hope for storms.

 

Edited by mik
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On 05/02/2020 at 00:28, oilmagnet477 said:

I personally think electric only is chasing a white rabbit down a hole...

The only way to 'push' people away from fossil fuels is to deliver a solution that works as close to our current (no pun intended!) set up as possible.

However you cut it, raping the world for battery minerals still has a massive downside and as I see it, we are just moving the problem to poorer Countries who are economically desperate to develop and will snatch at anything. City dwellers in rich developed Countries can then feel smug about their 'clean' cars.

I also believe that the charging infrastructure planning over here, especially, is deeply unsatisfactory. Watch recent output from 'Harry's Garage' on youtube (someone I really rate) who has just done a living comparison between a Rangerover Hybrid and a Jag Ipace all electric. His experience between Oxford and London to get recharged is a total joke. If you need to sign up to an app (some cost!) and cannot just pay for fuel with a debit card then forget it. Ignore the choice of specific vehicle he uses, he is a little 'high end' but none the less it exemplifies the point well. 

I heard on the radio yesterday, someone talking about aluminium based battery packs which could be swapped out at a service station - this sounds like an interesting concept and would mean adding range more quickly.......

Biggest issue of all is where does the power come from? This is not going to be addressed anywhere near in time for this new ban. There's an age old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket (see @Kimbers 'Are you superstitious thread lol) - usually these old saying are based on good sense. Once everyone is sucked into the EV con, watch charging prices get taxed and costs rocket. 

With the therefore forecast demise of fossil fuel stations, why are we all keeping old petrol powered cars and what will they be worth as undriveable relics of a past era?

Living, as I do, in a rural area, I'm not sure EV would provide me with a reliable alternative. I think hydrogen will win out in the end and I don't fancy being stuck with an expensive 'betamax' loser

👏 The wife read out a headline to the effect that Japan was lining up to commission some 30-odd new coal powered generating plants. That ought to serve a fair sized fleet of oh-so clean EV's, right? 

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Living and working in the suburbs of NYC, almost all my driving is journeys of 20 miles or less.  I swapped my 7 year old Hyundai for a 3 year-old Nissan Leaf last year.  It's been fine, I only have to charge up at home and we have solar panels on the house that have generated more electricity per year then we have used for the past 10 years.  So a small and quite boring electric car works for me.  We still have the wife's Subaru for longer journeys and the Esprit for fun...

 

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It's a 22 mile round trip for me for a pint of milk and the grocery basics (beer, wine and a couple of Terry's chocolate oranges - gotta get that fruit right) so an EV would work I guess. But they are twice the price of an equivalent size/quality car in the UK and the batteries don't like small journeys and high cycle frequencies.

It's bloody hard to sell a 4 year old Tesla in the UK and getting harder. And a lot of the older BEVs are getting to the point where the batteries are going end of live.

I predict next year there will be loads of stories about people being hammered for thousands, often more than their car is worth, for new batteries!

A round of drinks on me at 2021s TLF xmas dinner if I'm wrong!

I came into this world screaming and covered in someone elses blood. I'll probably leave it in the same way. 

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33 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

.

It's bloody hard to sell a 4 year old Tesla in the UK and getting harder. And a lot of the older BEVs are getting to the point where the batteries are going end of live.

Disposed of our Nissan Leaf last year. Was a 13 plate and we took it from 4k to 115k miles on the clock. Real world range dropped from 90 ish to 60 ish which you could argue puts the cost of running the car up.

it sold really really easily 

Only here once

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On 04/02/2020 at 22:37, pete said:

Is it wise to put all "our" faith in electric only cars which will require probably 25 million charging stations minimum from 11 thousand today. Shouldn't we also be looking at other alternatives hydrogen maybe or even liquid nitrogen :-

https://dearman.co.uk/dearman-technologies/dearman-engine/

People are looking in hydrogen but for the moment and unless physics makes a giant leap, this is the worst of all worlds.

You can produce hydrogen through regasification but that still produces lots of CO2 and the cost is much higher than petrol. It also is a nightmare to transport.

Producing renewable hydrogen can be done through electrolyse (mostly theoretically as it is totally uneconomical) and it would require a lot more electricity than charging all the batteries of all the EVs in the world. This takes the production problem and multiply it few folds.

In reality car makers aren’t investing much in this as they know the hydrogen production doesn’t work for the purpose of reducing emissions.

i think as a starting point they should have mandatory Cx reduction and ban on SUVs! That will have more impact!

 

 

 

Edited by PAR
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I looked around for a used Tesla and they are practically non-existent here.  And, they seem to be holding their value well.  I couldn't justify the upfront cost of one in my mind.  It will be interesting to see what the used EV values are in a few years.  My used Leaf still charges up to the original spec range after 3+ years, and it seems to be fairly good estimate of the actual range I'm getting, just over 100 miles.  It's only done 20,000 miles since new though.  

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55 minutes ago, PAR said:

People are looking in hydrogen but for the moment and unless physics makes a giant leap, this is the worst of all worlds.

You can produce hydrogen through regasification but that still produces lots of CO2 and the cost is much higher than petrol. It also is a nightmare to transport.

Producing renewable hydrogen can be done through electrolyse (mostly theoretically as it is totally uneconomical) and it would require a lot more electricity than charging all the batteries of all the EVs in the world. This takes the production problem and multiply it few folds.

In reality car makers aren’t investing much in this as they know the hydrogen production doesn’t work for the purpose of reducing emissions.

i think as a starting point they should have mandatory Cx reduction and ban on SUVs! That will have more impact!

 

 

 

What about the link to liquid nitrogen powered engine

hindsight: the science that is never wrong

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having never spent much more than £10k on any car I've owned (save a yr 2000 Disco!), I really struggle to see how the 'average' joe can afford to go electric?

My yr 2000 Mk2 Range Rover has done 120k miles and cost me £1650. I currently do 4-5k miles a year. Given that I am maxing out the production cost in carbon terms, the fact it does 18mpg is irrelevant. People seem to conveniently ignore the planetary impact of battery production (as well as all the other components of the new cars).

In old days, people kept white goods going by whatever means - no one can persuade me that our 'throw away' society of today can be off-set by suddenly driving electric cars.

I firmly believe we will disappear up our own backsides as we all focus our attention in the wrong direction..........

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Is the price for that bit in Yen or £?

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41 minutes ago, pete said:

What about the link to liquid nitrogen powered engine

Sounds pretty challenging in cars. Storage in cryogenic tanks with explosive potential combined with daily evaporation anyway makes it more of a shipping solution than a car one.

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Just think, that 5.5% biomass figure that @mik showed was probably from wood.

In 2018 the Drax power station near Leeds burned 7,200,000 tonnes of pellets which was made from at least 14,400,000 trees. So much for "save the trees, drive electric". I hear that there is an increasing drive around the world for wood fired power stations to fuel this burgeoning electricity demand. Seems a bit crazy to me, cutting down one of natures best carbon capture devices, then burn them which releases the carbon they originally captured. Takes a while for 14 million trees to grow back.

How would you feel about a number of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in the UK? That's Rolls-Royce's  proposed plan.

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2 hours ago, C8RKH said:

....and the batteries don't like small journeys and high cycle frequencies.

It's bloody hard to sell a 4 year old Tesla in the UK and getting harder. And a lot of the older BEVs are getting to the point where the batteries are going end of live.

I predict next year there will be loads of stories about people being hammered for thousands, often more than their car is worth, for new batteries!

Where are you getting your prompts for these thoughts Andy?  We've run an i3 for nearly 2 years and as a result I spend some time on the SpeakEV forum (which is a bit painful I admit) and these sorts of rumours are regularly flamed there.   

Its certainly not true that the batteries in the i3 react badly to small journeys and frequent recharging.  That is exactly how we use ours and have had absolutely no degradation in 2 years, which is still only 10k miles.  There are many reporting i3s from as early as 2014 with no battery degradation and there have been no battery swaps so far under the "80% of capacity in 8 years or a free swap" BMW warranty.  Some cars reported coming up to 200k miles now.  (This good news is for the BEV version - the version with the Range Extender motor has a bit of a - petrol engine - reliability reputation and was dropped by BMW last year)

I've been looking at Tesla as a poss replacement for my 5.0SC RangeRover.  I've seen that depreciation on them is actually slightly less than on the Rangey.  Both £100k+ new for a top spec so otherwise comparable financially.  I tend to buy at 4/5 years old and the Teslas I've looked at appear to have sold - or at least moved on from the dealers where I've seen them.  They are however not a patch on the Rangey as a place I'd like to spend a lot of time.

I'm not clued up on the Zoe, Leaf, and low end stuff so maybe that's where all the dud batteries are, but I doubt it.  I think the industry generally has been pleasantly surprised by how well batteries have maintained performance over their life (predicted as 8+ years), so while there will no doubt be some stories, I shall be very surprised if its many.  It is also true that batteries are improving all the time (the current i3 has about a 30% battery improvement over ours - which is itself 50% better than the original i3 of 2014-2016) so our view of the early cars may be that their batteries are useless, whereas they may in practice still be performing as they originally did.

 

Loving Lionel and Eleanor......missing Charlie and Sonny

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5 hours ago, C8RKH said:

I guess. But they are twice the price of an equivalent size/quality car in the UK

Tesla 3 seems very good value for money to me!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmiZ6ayCBB0&t=184s

This video also makes some good points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXkRcuwoIm4&t=4s

It seems to me the future is electric......

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@MPx - I was fortunate enough to spend two days at Silverstone classic last year in Hospitality. The Tesla Owners club provided the VIP shuttle service around the location. So real owners in their own cars.

I chatted to every driver I got a lift from and the insights were fascinating and I trusted them as owners and not corporate bs. To a driver every one of them was a Tesla fanatic and fan boy. Their love of the car and brand was absolute. However talking and listening you got some real insights:

Tesla S over the air, no choice but to take it, software upgrades were reducing the performance and range of their batteries. Apparently this was to protect them longer term.

Several owners had been promised new batteries under warranty but months later still nothing.

Several owners were concerned re battery replacement costs having received quotes from Tesla.

Quite a few had issues with batteries over heating when cars used hard.

Many comments about charging being more of a pain as Tesla chargepoint volumes not keeping up with demand from new car owners.

Reports of Tesla chargers (public ones) not always in service or not charging at highest speed levels.

The issue with all Lithium batteries and high cycle frequencies due to top up charges is well documented and is a chemical issue.

So most of my information was gleaned from enthusiastic owner drivers, not manufacturers etc.

Hope this helps to clarify.

Final point is, buy a current EV to save on running costs. But please do not try to justify on current eco grounds as it just does not wash.

6 hours ago, KAS-118 said:

It seems to me the future is electric......

I disagree. The future is a mix of BEV for local use and green hydrogen with green hydrogen winning in the long term as it is cheaper and less environmentally damaging longer term.

But. It's OK to disagree.

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I came into this world screaming and covered in someone elses blood. I'll probably leave it in the same way. 

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