Is electric really the answer?

[Mysterae]

At this rate folk will be sat on their dyno-bike peddling like billy-o to charge their cars to drive to work 

Or running a diesel generator at home...

[Barrykearley]

Finally a use for the unemployed 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I dipped out of this thread long ago, because I had no interest in the subject matter. However, I have now turned partially to the dark side, by buying a brand new 71 plate Passat Estate GTE PHEV to replace a long line of TDi Passats, going back 20 years. The main driver for me was the lower BIK value as it is effectively my company car. It should be about 1/3 of the income tax that I had been paying. I will use electric-only mode for local journeys and enjoy the combined 218 PS of both motors for longer trips, by configuring it to use the ICE to both drive the car and keep the battery fully charged for overtaking blasts. This is the polar opposite of how VW wants you to drive the car, since it is the least economical way. Since it will be primarily used for long journeys, it will be interesting to monitor the real world MPG that I achieve long-term. The last TDi managed a mileage driven / fuel purchased confirmed 46 MPG over 4 years. I’ll be happy with 45 MPG, bearing in mind that petrol is cheaper than diesel here anyway and I’ve now got a combined 218 PS to play with, compared to the 190 PS of its predecessor.

[williamtherebel]

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

On 14/09/2021 at 12:28, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

I dipped out of this thread long ago, because I had no interest in the subject matter. However, I have now turned partially to the dark side, by buying a brand new 71 plate Passat Estate GTE PHEV to replace a long line of TDi Passats, going back 20 years. The main driver for me was the lower BIK value as it is effectively my company car. It should be about 1/3 of the income tax that I had been paying. I will use electric-only mode for local journeys and enjoy the combined 218 PS of both motors for longer trips, by configuring it to use the ICE to both drive the car and keep the battery fully charged for overtaking blasts. This is the polar opposite of how VW wants you to drive the car, since it is the least economical way. Since it will be primarily used for long journeys, it will be interesting to monitor the real world MPG that I achieve long-term. The last TDi managed a mileage driven / fuel purchased confirmed 46 MPG over 4 years. I’ll be happy with 45 MPG, bearing in mind that petrol is cheaper than diesel here anyway and I’ve now got a combined 218 PS to play with, compared to the 190 PS of its predecessor.

Well not sure if anyone cares, but I have just completed one 300 mile motorway round trip in sporty GTE and self-charging mode, plus a bit of local driving for a total of 342 miles and then did a petrol top-up. Overall it achieved 46.5 MPG, so the same as its TDi predecessor and exactly what I expected. Not really saving the polar bears though, is it?

[exeterjeep]

EV taxes  -

EV tax proposals backed to plug Government's £40bn car tax shortfall

Proposals that an electric vehicle (EV) tax should be introduced to help counter the loss of Government funding from the ban of diesel and petrol vehicles is supported by 38% of motorists.

That is according to the findings of a survey of 300 motorists conducted by Venson Automotive Solutions.

The research found that 87% of respondents agreed that a financial solution to recoup the Treasury’s anticipated ‘fuel tax’ loss of £40 billion as a result of growing EV adoption, is needed.........

https://www.am-online.com/news/market-insight/2021/09/21/ev-tax-proposals-backed-to-plug-government-s-40bn-car-tax-shortfall

[Bibs]

On 29/01/2021 at 12:37, Bibs said:

My first new car!

10,000 miles later, about £120 in electric and the car has just been in for it's first service. Took 30 mins and that included a free valet from Kia!

[Barrykearley]

One pollen filter and a clean later 👍

[Bibs]

Just checked and the service took 13 mins, including making a 4 min walkaround video of the car

1 minute ago, Barrykearley said:

One pollen filter and a clean later 👍

The clean was after, that took 7 mins!! 

[Kimbers]

Awesome! Glad you love it mate. Great car!

[pete]

China's largest ev manufacturer is moving into Europe, Norway will be the first the country,the largest percentage of ev s sold every year. Could be a major player soon especially if the range of 1000km is true.                                         https://www.nio.com/ 

[KusaKusa]

Nio has a financial stake in Lotus now, right?  News outlets were speculating Lotus could utilize Nio's technologies, so Nio expanding and being more competitive is good news for Lotus EVs down the line.

[eUKenGB]

 

 

I have previously made clear my feelings about our polluting the planet and how much better an EV is to ride/drive and that what many currently perceive as problems for EV adoption will be solved in time. However there are still some 'holes' in that philosophy. Namely:-

Aircraft are the biggest problem as the power density of batteries is still so far from allowing anything but the smallest of light aircraft to be solely battery powered. There are also some other commercial vehicles whose usage still precludes their being replaced by EVs - yet. However both those could be solved if the energy density and re-charge times can be sufficiently improved, but for those specific uses, that's a tall order and how long will it take.

 

There's another group of vehicles that can NEVER be replaced by any sort of EV. Classic and Historic vehicles whose very existence depends on their continued use of their current ICE power. Not to say that some EVs won't one day become classics, but an E-Type is a classic ICE car and that can never change. Sure, it can be converted to electric, but for most classic enthusiasts, the joy of a classic vehicle is largely dependent on its liquid hydrocarbon fuel burning ICE.

 

So where does that leave us? Electric power is certainly the best answer for most transportation uses (don't get me started on the Hydrogen dead end), but not for 100%, not for a long time and for some, never.

 

Bio-fuels are another dead end but Porsche have partnered with Siemens in a synthetic fuel production facility in South America. However, their claim to want to satisfy the demand for keeping classic Porsches on the road is at odds with their extortionist tendencies to continually raise those classics' parts prices as stocks decrease and finally to simply discontinue the parts, leading me to rather suspect that their aim is purely for financial profiteering.

 

But then I saw this which looks to me very much like it is perhaps the answer for when an electric powertrain is not practical or possible:-

 

https://youtu.be/y6iQlkUXUsE

Ken  G i l l e t t

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
 

[pete]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59107805 Interesting that a company likeJCB are investing millions in hydrogen

[Bravo73]

22 hours ago, pete said:

Interesting that a company likeJCB are investing millions in hydrogen

If you watch this Harry Metcalfe vid, it explains why:

 

[C8RKH]

22 hours ago, pete said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59107805 Interesting that a company likeJCB are investing millions in hydrogen

I said this 18 months ago.  Large machinery (big diggers, trains, lorries, even buses) is not a good base for battery power, hydrogen makes more sense.

Keep seeing people banging on about electric induction loops in roads to continuously charge/power buses and lorries but the one they seem to not be able to comprehend is the disruption and infrastructure costs associated with laying these into the roads. It'll cause more disruption than Insulate Britain on the roads.

Also been doing some research re retrofitting an air source heat pump into my 1960's house - the cost benefit analysis just does not stack up at all even over  a 20 year period, and it was not hard to find research showing that many who had made this change were massively disappointed with heat output, cost, and savings.  It's another "scam" to make you think you're being green by using up yet more precious resources on something that really just does not work / is not there yet. 

[pete]

Heat pumps are nothing to do with saving you money,the government are only interested in their green targets

[electro_boy]

A lot of eco friendly or green ideas are more expensive than the normal options.  You do it because you think it's the right thing to do and want to reduce your impact on the earth not because it will save you money.

The main stream public will need to start transitioning to that mentality in the years to come as I think the current normal options may end up being banned and taken off the market ie ICE car engines.

But I agree with @C8RKH in that I'm not sure all the new solutions are viable or deliver on the promises they claim.  We have limited resources and we need to choose wisely, we can't just keep jumping on every new bandwagon that comes along otherwise we end up using even more of those resources.  After all in a lot of cases the greenest thing you can do is just keep using your old thing and not buy a new thing even if the new thing is "green".

[C8RKH]

17 minutes ago, electro_boy said:

A lot of eco friendly or green ideas are more expensive than the normal options.  You do it because you think it's the right thing to do and want to reduce your impact on the earth not because it will save you money.

The problem with this though is that you are being encouraged to "bin" stuff that is working perfectly and the carbon deposits have been "burned", for invariably an a brand new solution with a brand new carbon footprint using brand new precious resources!   Mostly, it would be more environmentally friendly to keep what you have, maintain it, and extend its life as opposed to just binning it.  The whole "eco green" movement is not founded on sustainable thinking. It's like a US bible bashing channel.

[exeterjeep]

8 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

The whole "eco green" movement is not founded on sustainable thinking. It's like a US bible bashing channel.

Like these LED light fittings where the actual LED is not replaceable, so have to bin the whole unit. I have had loads of GU1-0 LED's fail - luckily I could just replace them.  And how many car parts - the whole unit needs to be replaced for the sake of a small component.

[amoss]

The Toxic Cost of going green - Unreported World on Channel 4 - about Cobalt mining in Africa

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/unreported-world/on-demand/72426-004

[yeller77]

It's a bit like the compact fluorescent light bulb craze of the previous decade or so, was going to save the planet with all the juice saved from incandescent, some places even mandating their use. Oh wait, turns out they don't last forever (less than incandescent in my experience) and, what do you know, CFLs are toxic waste and have to be disposed as such! No doubt with greater use of resources to manufacture and dispose of them than a 50 cent glass bulb and tungsten filament. Fortunately, now we have $10 LED bulbs to light our homes, even more if they're "smart." Progress! 🤦‍♂️

[Barrykearley]

CFLs were always crap. Slow to warm up and a rapid slump in light output over time.

modern LEDs are far superior. A 90% reduction in power consumption for the same light output levels. They do last longer then a tungsten lamp and the energy savings they provide are very real.

the costs in recycling - I’ve no idea about im afraid.

7 hours ago, exeterjeep said:

Like these LED light fittings where the actual LED is not replaceable, so have to bin the whole unit. I have had loads of GU1-0 LED's fail - luckily I could just replace them.  And how many car parts - the whole unit needs to be replaced for the sake of a small component.

It’s for this reason I’d only ever fit GU10 firecans. The typical led units you will be lucky to see 5 years life out of.

[RobinB5]

There's no money to be made by making something that would last 30+ years. More due to the loss of repeat sales than the cost of design and manufacture. Having said that I wonder if there's a green business model that would provide aero/military grade consumer products at very high cost with a 30 year warranty, marketed as the only way to address the environmental failings of our capitalist consumer society. I'm sure there's a well to do middle class market that would gobble that stuff up as opposed to gluing their faces to roads.  

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I know a couple of worthy households, who have boxes of recycled toilet rolls delivered to their homes. Each roll is individually wrapped in its own sheet of paper. The toilet roll paper itself is very poor quality and the perforations useless, so you end up using far more than you normally would. Added to the fact that each shipment is delivered directly to the user, I really don’t see the environmental benefit. Good news for the manufacturer though, that people like this are happy to pay over the odds for something that gets flushed down the toilet.