Kitz Forum
Chat => Chit Chat => Topic started by: chenks on November 18, 2020, 09:33:19 AM
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so the government has decided to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 (9 years from now).
well that's all very well and good, but do we really think we'll have the electrical charging infrastructure in place to facilitate that?
and, of course, where does a lot of our elecrtricity come from? nuclear power, which ain't exactly "clean".
And let's now even talk about how dirty the process is to create the batteries that will power these vehicles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54981425
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It’s only cars that run purely on petrol or diesel, hybrids will still be allowed. And it’s only a plan, I’d bet my bottom dollar it won’t be implemented.
Reasons for my scepticism include...
1 Shortages of rare earth elements, used in motors.
2 Lithium batteries still being used, but no economically viable process for recycling the lithium, so we create waste mountains (usually sent to China) as well as depleting non renewable lithium resources.
I think cobalt and copper resources might be under threat too, not so sure.
For the longer term plans, of banning petrol/diesel completely, nobody has convinced me that the power generation and distribution network is up to it. That’s especially as it’s becoming fashionable to switch off the big power stations, and to discourage use of gas for home heating.
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"some" hybrids will be allowed.
"electric" cars will only become a viable solution when we are able to re-charge the batteries in the same time as it would be re-fill the fuel tank.
having to wait for 30-40 minutes to not even get to 100% charge is simply not workable.
in reality, hydrogen fuel cell cars are probably the more sensible solution.
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I'm inclined to agree with 7lm. The other big issue with electric cars is range and until they crack that at a reasonable price point they will not be hugely popular. I think we need some other solutions to this issue. I'm pretty sure that the biggest polluters are in fact HGVs and long distance coaches, there is no way they can phase those out for decades to come! Local buses etc are less of a problem as they don't need the range and in some areas they already have electric buses.
I agree with chenks that hydrogen is a better solution.
If this happens I'll join the queues for a new petrol car in 2029 (assuming I'm still around ;) ::) )
Stuart
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in reality, hydrogen fuel cell cars are probably the more sensible solution.
Spot on!
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We have been lucky enough to own an EV as our only car for over 4 years now, its an interesting area of debate as there is so much 'politics' in the whole area of discussion, not least from the established vehicle manufacturers, many of whom are struggling to understand how to make money selling EV's
Here's my point of view :
- The current issue is that cheap EV's have tiny batteries which relegates them to run-arounds. Until affordable EV's have 80Kwh batteries and 250 mile+ range then EV's are not going mainstream
- If your EV has a range of 250+ miles and you have a home charger its really a non-issue, I wake up every morning with a full tank and the fact that it takes 8 hours to charge while I am sleeping is really of no consequence.
- I have been able to charge almost everywhere I have ever over-nighted, have never run out of juice and never got stranded. There are chargers on motorways and major routes and its fine.
- EV's are currently a big problem if you don't have a drive or place to charge them on - this makes life very difficult for people who can't charge overnight.
- The 'charge-network' / 'charge speed' discussion is really a subset of the 'tiny batteries' issue. In fact to me it makes no sense to build a massive charge network so that cars can have tiny batteries and short ranges. Thats like putting a petrol garage every 6 miles so that we can all have cars with tiny fuel tanks.
- Often overlooked is the fact that Electric cars are much more efficient than ICE cars, the environmental cost of manufacture is very similar to an ICE (possibly lower due to their simplicity) but an electric motor turns stored energy into power at the wheels with 85-90% efficiency vs 20% of an engine.
- The impact on the electricity grid is also over-stated, most EV owners charge overnight when the problem is mostly lack of demand, furthermore EV batteries can also be used to support the power network at high demand
- Hydrogen power - as an engineer this idea is a strange one, producing hydrogen is very inefficient, as a fuel its less efficient than batteries, and its bad for the environment (most is currently made from hydrcarbons) - I guess it appeals to some car manufacturers because they can keep making engines
- Toxic metals etc = this is also overstated, most EV batteries contain very few toxic materials and can be recycled (just google it)
- Electric cars don't require much maintenance and can be made with very little drive-train and moving parts - this is why the industry doesn't like them - no oil/filter changes and spark plugs every year, not much spare part sale
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- Hydrogen power - as an engineer this idea is a strange one, producing hydrogen is very inefficient, as a fuel its less efficient than batteries, and its bad for the environment (most is currently made from hydrcarbons) - I guess it appeals to some car manufacturers because they can keep making engines
Producing hydrogen from water may not be that efficient but has other significant advantages.
- It can be stored
- It can be produced when renewable energy is producing excess electricity
- It can be shipped so it can be produced where there is plenty of renewable power and distributed where needed
- The time to refill a car tank is similar to filling a car with LPG
- Hydrogen cars have far greater ranges than those depending on batteries
When you are saying hydrogen is less efficient are you referring to when it is used in an ICE or in fuel cells?
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For me the biggest issues with EVs are range and charging speed 250 miles is simply not enough range when you consider how long you have to wait to charge it when it runs down. OK petrol cars often have 300 or so mile range but it takes 5 minutes to fill up and you're on your way again, currently no affordable EV can do the recharge is anywhere near the time needed to make it viable.
Stuart
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- If your EV has a range of 250+ miles and you have a home charger its really a non-issue, I wake up every morning with a full tank and the fact that it takes 8 hours to charge while I am sleeping is really of no consequence.
just to pick on 1 of your points
where are people to charge these cars if they, for example, live in a block of flats, or only have on-street parking, and use their car every day to get to work (because there is no suitable public transport) and the car is parked in a carpark during the day.
they have no means of charging at home, and no means of charging whilst the car is sitting at work.
at the moment you pop into a petrol station and fill it up and 2-3 minutes later you've got a full tank.
best case scenario if an EV can't be fully charged overnight or during the day is to keep charging it up with enough to get you to where you're going hoping you don't have to detour or have an emergency where you need to get to somewhere quickly/urgently.
or is someone going to install chargers on every street and carpark so that everyone who has an EV has the ability to charge overnight? (cue idiots having a joke going around unplugging everyones car that is charging).
EVs are a good idea, but that's all they are at the moment, a good idea.
in practice for the vast majority it's not going to be a workable solution.
i've watched quite a few of the tesla owners videos on youtube (they are advocates of tesla cars and EV in general), and the amount of pre-planning and worrying about managing to get to your next charging point (and hoping that's it's working and not in use by someone else) when anything other than short runaround distances is simply not the way forward.
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Totally agree with the general lack of infrastructure to support full electric vehicles.
I would have liked to have gone full electric this year but settled for a petrol/electric/regenerative charging hybrid on the grounds of perceived non-availability of re-charging facilities in my local and wider area.
I'm lucky enough to have off road parking and a large garage so home charging would not have been an issue, even so, I still felt that the range of virtually any full electric vehicle on offer was not enough to sway my decision between hybrid and full EV considering the limited and unreliable availability of re-charging facilities.
Was also surprised by the lack of government incentive to purchase hybrid's, £5 reduction on road fund tax !
Do love my hybrid as does the wife, next time around (covid permitting) will very likely go for a "plug in petrol/hybrid", ie., much larger capacity battery, greater range, re-charge every night at home and an engine to fall back on between charging points.
Lets hope these will still be available and government acceptable in a few years time.
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As it happens I have a Tesla, although my next car will probably not be one. I don't want to come across as some kind of evangelist, I didn't even buy my car because of the environment
But I can't resist a few more comments on the comments ....
Hydrogen is very difficult to store, its not the same as LPG, to liquify it takes a huge amount of energy (I think its something crazy like -250C?) and fuel cells convert it at 60% efficiency to electricity to then use in an electric motor like an EV :'(? Or you can store it in hugely high pressure vessels in your car, which is also a bit nuts. Why not just use charge a battery and cut out all the inefficiency? I guess I am with Elon Musk (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/musk-calls-hydrogen-fuel-cells-stupid-but-tech-may-threaten-tesla.html) on this one, although certainly not on other things. Personally I think its a technology that more likely to find its niche in things like ships or large scale applications.
I agree that EV charging is a big issue for people living in city centres (I made the same point in my earlier post)
4 years ago, with almost no charging infrastructure in the UK a long journey did need careful planning, its simply no longer the case now. The subset of people who drive more than 250 miles / day is tiny - the number of those people who don't stop for 45 minutes during a 6 hour drive to have break and charge is even smaller. I am sure they are out there but there can't be many.... and they probably shouldn't be doing it :)
The main difference on the range thing, is that if you charge at home, then every day you wake up with full range of 250+ miles. Most people wake up and happily drive around on half a tank of normal fuel and less range without giving it a second thought....
I'm sure there are cases and situations where an EV wouldn't suit - but as someone who has been driving an EV for the last 4 years I can tell you that if you can afford a car with a real range of greater than around 250m its just not much of issue, plus I saved £200/month on diesel compared to the Audi I had before and pay no road tax .
And to cap it all, they are much easier and more relaxing to drive ... go and test drive a Model 3, you'll see what I mean. My wife has basically said she never wants another car with an engine and a gearbox as its 'old-fashioned'
OK, I'll get off my soapbox now ...
C
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I have a Landrover Discovery which has no lithium battery and an enormous engine, the least eco thing imaginable, but we only ever go five miles into Broadford and very occasionally to Inverness which is some 182 miles and round trip, roughly and takes about five hours. it can go across the field and copes with the appalling potholes on the minor road to our house. I suggested it as something that would transport me to hospital in comfort as it has a superb ride quality, much better than an ambulance crashing over every bump. And we needed to put three dogs in it too. We could charge an electric vehicle in our garage. The stupidest thing is that we built the garages for much smaller cars and would you believe when we got the Landrover it wouldn’t fit for height, so it now lives outside the (north-facing) garage, under an overhang, where it’s sheltered from the rain. In any case, now the garage is largely a barn storing donkey straw and other animal feed, as we had a stable but no barn and the stable’s tack room isn’t bing enough for all feed storage. So poor planning all round.
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I have a Landrover Discovery which has no lithium battery and an enormous engine, the least eco thing imaginable, but we only ever go five miles into Broadford and very occasionally to Inverness which is some 182 miles and round trip, roughly and takes about five hours. it can go across the field and copes with the appalling potholes on the minor road to our house. I suggested it as something that would transport me to hospital in comfort as it has a superb ride quality, much better than an ambulance crashing over every bump. And we needed to put three dogs in it too. We could charge an electric vehicle in our garage. The stupidest thing is that we built the garages for much smaller cars and would you believe when we got the Landrover it wouldn’t fit for height, so it now lives outside the (north-facing) garage, under an overhang, where it’s sheltered from the rain. In any case, now the garage is largely a barn storing donkey straw and other animal feed, as we had a stable but no barn and the stable’s tack room isn’t bing enough for all feed storage. So poor planning all round.
I like old LandRovers.
I think the big question for a lot car-nuts is ... which petrol powered car shall I buy cheap over the next 10 years and keep for fun before they all disappear or become museum pieces? For me it would be something European, with a V6/V8 (preferably no turbo), with decent brakes and preferably open-top.....hmmm
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The main difference on the range thing, is that if you charge at home, then every day you wake up with full range of 250+ miles. Most people wake up and happily drive around on half a tank of normal fuel and less range without giving it a second thought....
the point is they don't need to worry as you can fill up with petrol very easily and quickly. you are never too far away from being able to resolve that half a tank issue.
and my half a tank would do me around 250-300 miles.
as it stands right now, someone could easily drive 250 miles in 1 week and never comes across a public EV charger.
other than at the service station in Gretna (which is 94 miles away form me) i've never seen one, and there is no possibility of home charging for me anyway.
EV cars and the infrastructure as it stands right now is of no use to vast majority of car users. for those that potter about the town and can charge at home then fine, but those are not the majority.
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Another aspect I don’t we’ve covered much is that of cabin heating. Every car my family ever owned, from a 1950s Morris Oxford onwards, had nice cosy heaters. Since the heating doubled as the engine’s cooling system, it added nothing at all to fuel consumption.
With an EV, heating depletes the battery faster. Car makers can spin it any way they like, but it’s a pretty inescapable fact.
I know of people who refuse to ever use aircon, because they think (partly true) that it increases fuel consumption. With EVs, will these same people turn into heating misers who drive around in furry coats, scarves and gloves, to drive down battery consumption?
There may also be an unhealthy temptation to set the system for recycling warm air, rather than opening the vents and heating the fresh air.
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As a relatively recent hybrid owner I certainly have noted that deployment of the cabin heater will immediately start the engine and keep it running for longer periods during urban driving, not so noticable on non urban driving as the engine is usually active most of the time at the higher speeds.
Use of the AC produces the same effect but to a greater extent likely due to the compressor loading, not sure if the AC compressor is engine driven as per a normal pertol/diesel vehicle or electrically driven as per the power steering pump in a hybrid, either way, more energy is required.
So yes, SLM is correct, without really thinking about it I am less inclined to use the heater or AC and more inclined to drive around with my jacket on and /or with a window open than I did with my previous diesel vehicle, perhaps just the over enthusiasm to try and achieve max MPG and early novelty with the hybrid which will eventually wear off with the winter chill ?
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I just switch the pre-heat on remotely in the morning using my phone and the car is still plugged in so minimal battery usage. Its true that EV's use more power per mile in the winter due to lights / wipers etc (just like a petrol car does), the range is reduced but not significantly, say 10-20 miles.
A/C is on all the time so in winter its heat and in summer its cooling, I don't notice much difference tbh.
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Its true that EV's use more power per mile in the winter due to lights / wipers etc (just like a petrol car does), the range is reduced but not significantly, say 10-20 miles.
Energy for lights and wipers should be an immeasurable drop in the ocean compared to energy for propelling the vehicle. If you notice any difference whatsoever from lights and wipers, in a petrol diesel or electric car, I’d suspect there may be a fault.
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What nobody's really mentioned is the cost to repair these vehicles. I'm a workshop manager for a haulage company, and have been repairing vehicles for over 30 years, they have gradually become more and more complicated and even main dealers struggle with diagnostics so as a small business we have no chance. It's all well and good for the people that can afford a brand new car every few years when the warranty runs out, or lease their car but the majority of people simply can't afford to do that and run the lottery of very expensive repairs (my brother had to dispose of a car recently because it was too expensive to repair and no one really knew what was wrong with it), and that's just internal combustion engined cars. I can only imagine that EV cars are going to be even worse, and even more expensive to repair, what are they going to be like when they are 5 to 10 years old, beyond economical repair? That's what worries me, my wife's car is 13 years old, and my car is 11 years old, my brothers even older, how many EV's are going to manage that, and who at that age of car is going to afford to replace the batteries?
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EV's a way, way less complicated than combustion engined vehicles - that is one of the advantages, cheaper servicing.
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It’s not necessarily a question of complexity, it is also of feasibility.
I still have the owner’s manual for my father’s 1971 Ford Escort. It includes full instructions on how to service the vehicle including how to change and adjust the brake shoes, and how to adjust the carb idle mixture screw, among other things. Emphasise, that’s just the glovebox owner’s manual provided with the car, not a workshop manual.
Modern cars, even fossil fuelled, tend now to have ‘electrically operated’ parking brakes, not user-serviceable. And the authorities in both EU and US have long since outlawed user-adjustable mixture screws. Even on lawn mowers and hedge cutters, if the carb needs adjusted, you’re meant to pay somebody to do it. You’ll need some quite special tools (available on Ebay) to do it diy, and risk prosecution if caught.
I’m not really sure how any of that relates to EVs but they are by definition high tech, which makes it very easy for the manufacturer to impose a ‘ransom’ on any repairs or adjustments.
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EV's a way, way less complicated than combustion engined vehicles - that is one of the advantages, cheaper servicing.
I wasn't talking about servicing, I'm talking about when something goes wrong, especially once out of warranty.
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In general electrical / solid state is generally considered more reliable than mechanical, this is born out in the general improvement in vehicle reliability since we started to go solid state on stuff like fuel injection, ignition, Ecus's since the 70's. Basically, the fewer moving parts the better.
Electric car drive-trains are notable for being simple,having fewer moving parts e.g. no clutch, no gearbox. I guess we won't know for sure but I think its a reasonable assumption to say that they will be more reliable than their ICE equivalents.
From a maintenance point of view the motor of EV's are relatively small and light compared to a combustion engine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=wvLmBfwmA04&app=desktop).
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more reliable, who knows.
have we had any EV cars yet where the battery has reached "end of life" and requires replacing? and at what cost?
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In general electrical / solid state is generally considered more reliable than mechanical, this is born out in the general improvement in vehicle reliability since we started to go solid state on stuff like fuel injection, ignition, Ecus's since the 70's. Basically, the fewer moving parts the better.
Chunkers I think you're looking at this from a new car owners point of view, I've been maintaining trucks, vans and to much lesser extent cars for over 30 years. The older trucks we maintain simply don't have the electrical faults that more recent vehicles have especially as they get older. Yes some of it is is related to the emissions systems, but an awful lot is with other systems which will still be present on EVs. EVs will then have a lot of electronics controlling charging and the motors which will given time go wrong. The motors still have cooling systems and lubrication systems, which may be sealed for life, but that's just a fallacy as oil degrades and should always be changed.
If your that convinced that your car is going be cheap to repair then keep it long term, 10 to 15 years.
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Possibly some bad physics here? The heat lost from a combustion engine is energy wasted/lost. Energy lost is what it it.
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I think at present for anyone who needs a car with a guaranteed 300 mile minimum range the only option at present which is anywhere near affordable is a hybrid and even then the price point is at the high end. Currently the technology needs to get probably two orders of magnitude better before I'd even consider an EV and only then if the price was comparable with an equivalent petrol car. That also assumes I can afford a new car because there will be no EVs secondhand.
Stuart
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Possibly some bad physics here? The heat lost from a combustion engine is energy wasted/lost. Energy lost is what it it.
Good point, fair criticism.
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Indeed, thermodynamics’ basic laws are why internal combustion engines are currently so rubbish.
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Indeed, thermodynamics’ basic laws are why internal combustion engines are currently so rubbish.
I meant, fair criticism of my own earlier points. :blush:
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Anybody for a Telsa Model 3? Had this email through this morning - I entered a Tesla competition once.
Drive our newest Model 3 Standard Range Plus for only £ 399 p/m*.
Model 3 Standard Range Plus now comes with a new exterior and interior updates, including a power trunk as well as increased range and improved cold weather efficiency. Search our new inventory online to find your match.
*Representative Example | 48 fixed monthly payments of £485 | On-the-road cash price £40,490 | Total down payment £9,100 | Total amount of credit £34,335 | Optional Final Payment £16,071 | Interest charges £5,035 | Fixed rate of interest per year 4.90% | Length of agreement 48 months | Total amount payable £48,470 | Representative APR 4.90% | Mileage per annum 10,000 | Excess mileage charge 14 ppm (Plus VAT).
This representative example applies to new vehicles ordered to November 30, 2020.
Well out of my price band, I've owned my 11 year old dirty VW for just over seven years, done just over 53,000 miles, total cost including purchase of the car, servicing (mostly done myself), fuel (£8600 / 7329ltrs), insurance, road tax, road tolls, mot's, parts, tyres etc comes to just over £30k.
Yes it would be nice to drive a nice new Tesla, but for the time being whilst I'm saving for my retirement I think I'll carry on with my VW diesel as its substantially cheaper.
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It’s easy to be smitten by test drive promotions.
About 20 years ago, Saab offered me a 24 hour loan of a car of my choosing. I chose one of the less common ‘high output turbo’ 9-3s which was delivered to my door the following Friday. It was perfectly detailed, less than 100 miles on clock, and a complimentary full tank of petrol. I used it to visit a friend who lived about 150 miles away, 300 miles round trip.
When they came to collect it there was no hard sell, he just thanked me for the keys and off he drove. No follow up phone calls either.
All of this didn’t cost me a penny. I was so grateful that I even ordered a new car a couple of weeks later. I guess Saab’s marketing pysychologists had me figured out pretty well. :D
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Before I became too ill to drive, I test drove both two wheel drive and four wheel drive versions of a well known german car. I chose the two wheel drive one, having had a number of years driving four wheel drive cars before. I got it wrong. I wasn’t a good enough driver to cope with the two wheel drive one. I should have followed 7LM’s example and secured a 24hr test drive of each. And then later on, despite her having driven it, my wife one day, long afterwards, declared that she found it too scary and had wanted me to buy something else instead, her secret desire, but she never let me in on it at the time.
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. . . I test drove both two wheel drive and four wheel drive versions of a well known german car. I chose the two wheel drive one, . . .
Was that the "blue beast"?
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It was. Mrs Weaver later confessed that she had wanted me to but the late Sean Connery’s on-screen favourite, but she never said anything at the time. I had very much wanted something that she would enjoy driving too. She had liked the Subarus that I had before.