Are we likely to see an all electric IS300?

[ganzoom]

1 minute ago, dutchie01 said:

 Why would i need to charge at home? 

Time.

I have 'free for life' Supercharging for our Tesla, and there is now a Tesla Supercharging site about 15 mintues drive away where I could intheory refuel for free forever in our car.

But I've got use to the luxury of never having to worry about refuelling day to day. The car refuels at home whilst I sleep at the cost of 2.5p per mile. 

Having to refuel our IS300H now seems like a massive chore in comparison!!! (Not to mention costly at over 10p per mile).

Once you get to having a fuel station at home the idea of visiting a fuel station away from home really becomes an odd one.

[Linas.P]

48 minutes ago, ganzoom said:

You are joking right??!!

The trip was planned for last year before Tesla even started building the Supercharger. Fort William is a great location because you are literally in the middle of the Highlands, not that far from Loch Ness. 

The fact Tesla managed to build a Supercharger site there during the pandemic shows just how easy it is to deploy compared to say a hydrogen fuel station.

Once again given you think hydrogen is so great, please tell us how easy it is to drive from Leicester to Scotland in a hydrogen fuel cell car. 

Again you playing same hypocritical line. I have already answered your question - it is impossible, because there are no hydrogen stations near Leicester.

... and no I am not joking at all... and you know that without Supercharger being at Fort William it would be nearly impossible to visit it with average BEV. Only very few long range BEVs can actually make that journey and comeback to either Glasgow or Inverness. Looking at the map is kind of obvious realistically you need 240 miles of actual range (so ~280 miles claimed) to go from Glasgow and back, otherwise you have to go around via Perth>Aviemore/Inverness where you will still need BEV with 140 miles or more of actual range which most of BEVs can do nowadays:

If you say having Supercharger in your destination does not affect your planning, then I just don't believe you. 

That is the same as it is impossible for me to drive BEV anywhere at all, because I can't charge it at home. Yet I can easily own HCV and go to both Fort William and good 200 miles in any direction from London. Not to mention Hydrogen network is in complete infancy at the moment and playing the same line as you I can say that "in future you can simply fill hydrogen in any petrol station".

[Las Palmas]

1 hour ago, ColinBarber said:

To power your hydrogen car you need to take vast amounts of energy for electrolysis, then compression, then transportation before you can fill up, and then you waste a little bit more energy converting back to electricity for the vehicle to move. Only about 30% of the power at source actually is used to move the vehicle. It is extremely inefficient and if people think the electrical infrastructure won't cope with BEVs then it certainly won't with hydrogen vehicles.

The only advantage to hydrogen is the quick filling time, but if the majority of vehicle owners can charge a BEV overnight and the vast majority of their trips are within the range of a single charge then it really isn't an issue. Stopping for charging on long trips is probably a good thing, it will force drives to take a break more often which will make the roads a safer place.

Except for the rarity of material to make the huge quantity of batteries needed and the dangers for the environment finding them, you are right.

Electric energy is possible to make from the power of tide so if some is wasted that is a minor problem. Destroying health and environment in search for rare earth needed for batteries is a major problem.

[doog442]

.

[Las Palmas]

36 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Not to mention Hydrogen network is in complete infancy at the moment and playing the same line as you I can say that "in future you can simply fill hydrogen in any petrol station".

And filling could be faster and probably without needing to wait til there is a free charger.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, ColinBarber said:

To power your hydrogen car you need to take vast amounts of energy for electrolysis, then compression, then transportation before you can fill up, and then you waste a little bit more energy converting back to electricity for the vehicle to move. Only about 30% of the power at source actually is used to move the vehicle. It is extremely inefficient and if people think the electrical infrastructure won't cope with BEVs then it certainly won't with hydrogen vehicles.

The only advantage to hydrogen is the quick filling time, but if the majority of vehicle owners can charge a BEV overnight and the vast majority of their trips are within the range of a single charge then it really isn't an issue. Stopping for charging on long trips is probably a good thing, it will force drives to take a break more often which will make the roads a safer place.

This is actually very flawed assumption - look again at the graph I have already copied in this thread. 48% of electricity produced is wasted due to transmission loses and fluctuation in demand e.g. electricity demand suddenly drops at night, but you can't just reduce the output of nuclear reactor, or there is high wind during all the night, but nobody needs the electricity from wind turbine - so this electricity will be wasted.

The alternative is to have hydrolysis plant near the station and as soon as there is excessive demand you can start converting water into hydrogen. Not only this saves wasted energy, but as well it produces basically free hydrogen and still allows to have enough capacity for periods of high demand. Not to mention such hydrogen would be easier to store and transport than current solution (used Tesla batteries). Likewise it does not require installing recharging infrastructure in residential buildings.

Overall - the energy required to produce hydrogen is similar to that need to charge BEV if we start producing hydrogen on large scale from excess energy we produce. The reason why hydrogen production is so inefficient currently is because we take electricity as end product and use it to make hydrogen after transmission, instead of making in the power plant itself as soon as there is excess.

Finally, you repeating same debunked claim - NO majority of car owners CAN'T charge BEVs at home. Your second paragraph just doesn't make sense overall. What is more tiring?.. to drive 600 miles with 3 coffee stops in 8 hours, or to drive same 600 miles with 3 coffee and charge stops in 11 hours? Both would be tiring, but I am sure adding 3 extra hours required to charge car will make last 200 mile stint impossible after 8 hours already on the road.  

 

[Linas.P]

15 minutes ago, Las Palmas said:

And filling could be faster and probably without needing to wait til there is a free charger.

In theory yes - because currently you only share the station with 100 odd people in the entire country. But the main advantage is that filling hydrogen takes ~2 minutes per tank, so single pump has like 30 times the capacity of BEV charging point.

Actually, I tried to plot the range of where you can get in HCV today... and you can get to absolutely any part of UK with some range to spare (400+ miles range, meaning you can go 200 miles from the station and back).

However, assuming you need to live within 20 miles from hydrogen station to make it viable to own HCV... this means very few people can do it - basically only cities of Aberdeen, London, Sheffield and Swindon are covered... however this already means there are more people with access to Hydrogen fuel (~11 million) then there are people with access of car charging at home (~9.9 million), because obviously unlike with BEV you don't need to charge HCV at home!

[Las Palmas]

4 hours ago, ganzoom said:

I look forwards to your review of a doing a road trip in a hydrogen fuel cell car......oh wait even they have a battery.

Please demonstrate with real life experience why hydrogen fuel cells cars are better than EVs. 

We are going to be going on a 1000mile+ road trip from Leicester to Fort William in a few weeks. In our EV its a simple journey, please show me how I could such a trip in a hydrogen fuel cell car, I would love to hear your advice.

When still working we changed cars rather often plus having company cars available. Now we are going to keep the one we have till we need to change it. But next will be hydrogen combustion or fuel cell powered without a large Battery if nothing better is available when that happen. And to make it understandable I am not only talking about personal transportation in own or company cars. When I mention batteries as power source for transport I earlier mentioned that I mean for transport complete including transport of goods across continents and there will not be material enough on this planet to make batteries enough for that with the technology we have today. While more people are starting to see that our consumption is damaging the planet with climate change, it seems that very few are ready to start to think of how to change our behaviour. Living the luxury lives we live is hard to give up in order for coming generations to have the chance to live with clean air and water.

[Las Palmas]

14 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

This is actually very flawed assumption -

The alternative is to have hydrolysis plant near the station and as soon as there is excessive demand you can start converting water into hydrogen. Not only this saves wasted energy, but as well it produces basically free hydrogen and still allows to have enough capacity for periods of high demand. Not to mention such hydrogen would be easier to store and transport than current solution (used Tesla tesla batteries). Likewise it does not require installing recharging infrastructure in residential buildings.

Overall - the energy required to produce hydrogen is similar to that need to charge BEV if we start producing hydrogen on large scale from excess energy we produce. The reason why hydrogen production is so inefficient currently is because we take electricity as end product and use it to make hydrogen after transmission, instead of making in the power plant itself as soon as there is excess.

Finally, you repeating same debunked claim - NO majority of car owners CAN'T charge BEVs at home. Your second paragraph just doesn't make sense overall. What is more tying to drive 600 miles with 3 coffee stops in 8 hours, or to drive same 600 miles with 3 coffee and charge stops in 11 hours? Both would be trying, but I am sure adding 3 extra hours required to charge car will make last 200 mile stint impossible after 8 hours already on the road.  

 

Brave man my friend. Go against Colin. But you are right.

Very few looks for other interests than their own.

I have been living many years in Africa and seen that we are not living up to the old saying that we have borrowed the earth from our children and it is our obligation go deliver it in as good (and if possibly better) condition as we received it.

[Linas.P]

1 minute ago, Las Palmas said:

Brave man my friend. Go against Colin. But you are right.

Very few looks for other interests than their own.

I have been living many years in Africa and seen that we are not living up to the old saying that we have borrowed the earth from our children and it is our obligation go deliver it in as good (and if possibly better) condition as we received it.

Colin is knowledgeable man and well respected, but I if he is talking non-sense then it is non-sense! That does not mean I don't agree with him on 100 other topics 🙂 

[Las Palmas]

10 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

You can stick to your own deluded conclusions but there has been plenty of research that suggests over 50% of households have access to off-street parking, some putting it as high as 75%, and for those that can only park on-street there are many councils that are starting to provide lamp-post charging points etc.

 

London, and other inner-cities, aren't a valid representation of the country as a whole. 50% of households don't have a car in London so it doesn't really matter if half the flats don't have parking spaces or charging points, and that percentage continues to fall as young adults are less likely to want car ownership than the older generations.

Where we live there is 32 parking places for 32 flats. We can all charge cars in the garage but with a maximum of 10A charging will take a couple of days I believe. That is enough to charge a 12V starter Battery and that is OK.

[ganzoom]

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

If you say having Supercharger in your destination does not affect your planning, then I just don't believe you. 

So now the only reason any one visits Fort William is for a Tesla Supercharger??

It may even suprise you I don't even plan on using that charger because we will charging at the hotel accommodation.

Once again you totally fail to show any real life experience of easy (or not) owning a hydrogen fuel cell is.

So why not act on your own advice and buy a hydrogen fuel cell car?? 

Or are you simply someone who talks the talk but cannot walk the walk??

[ganzoom]

1 hour ago, Las Palmas said:

 Living the luxury lives we live is hard to give up in order for coming generations to have the chance to live with clean air and water.

I 100% agree with this, and why I try to commute to work on a pedal bike where possible (though some on here find the thought of cycling even worse than owing an EV;)).

I have never suggested EVs are better for reducing consumption or even pollution. But having owned one for 6 years they are better than any combustion car I have owned before.

[Linas.P]

Actually, I finally find the type of research I was looking for... sadly it is 2010, but  we can only assume situation got worse in last 11 years, certainly didn't improve.

The key take away for me - arguing "off-street" vs "on-street", or counting parking per household is pointless, actually what we should be counting is actual number of registered cars vs. number of available spaces with charging facility.

Key table is here:

By looking at the table - it would be easy to assume that 41% of garages and 26% of off-street parking means there is 67% of spaces where charges can be installed, however this could not be further for the truth.

The definition "off-street" does not mean car is parked in the place outside of home with charger for BEV or even possibility to have one. What it means is simply that car is not parked on the public road... that is all! For example my parking space in garage is considered "off-street" parking, likewise neighbours parking spaces outside of the building on the road are considered "off-street", because they are on private land. Clearly neither could be used to charge BEV despite being off-street.

Another interesting fact - in UK there are over 10 million garages, but as we know almost no council garages have provision for electricity and frankly they are not suitable to park the car at all. I was once offered council garage and my car literally could not fit thought the gate (like majority of modern cars). This means that number of garages skews the number of available "off-street" parking, because let's face it - most of the people who have council garage uses them as a storage, but actually parks their cars on the street.

Sadly, this research was done before BEVs were relevant, but based on few sources we can try to get some picture. We know how many parking spaces there are (or were in 2010), but we don't know how many of them are suitable for charging.

Based on following source, currently there are ~300k private chargers and ~42k public chargers in UK. Another source estimate suggested that 350k more will be installed in next 4 years (with caveat that they quote only 120k chargers currently exists). What does that mean? Even with optimistic predictions there will be ~800k chargers in UK by 2025. It means that industry is estimating far less charging points than I did! I said that I would assume ~15% of household would have access to charger (now) ... industry itself is estimating only about 800k in 2025, out of 26 million parking spaces (going by 2010 stats) - that is less than 3%! And here we have people saying "simple - just charge at home"... "majority of people can charge at home"... yes if "majority" is 3% maybe... but last time I checked my English the "majority" had different meaning.

In summary

If we distil the question to "how many households have access to off-street parking", this answer is 67% (in 2010) and I guess that means Colin is technically right. But if we ask what actually matters - "how many of 32 million cars in UK could be parked in the space at home which is suitable for charging"... Then the answer is completely different - firstly there are no research to answer this questions and secondly - it is quite clear there are not many. 

[Linas.P]

26 minutes ago, ganzoom said:

So now the only reason any one visits Fort William is for a Tesla Supercharger??

Once again you totally fail to show any real life experience of easy (or not) owning a hydrogen fuel cell is.

So why not act on your own advice and buy a hydrogen fuel cell car?? 

Or are you simply someone who talks the talk but cannot walk the walk??

No I just said, that it would be much more difficult to visit it with EV without Supercharger being there. For many older/lower range EVs it would be actually impossible. And I still believe that you decided to visit Fort William (instead of literally any other beautiful place in UK), because BEV charger network allows it.

It is not my issue that you have totally failed to understand what I said. Simply said - you currently can reach any part of UK with HCV, but you would have to start your journey, or drive via one of 4 locations - Aberdeen, London, Sheffield or Swindon. That said with 400 miles range, this isn't as much of an issue at it may seem. Likewise you probably would need to live no more than 20 miles from those locations to make it viable, so it limits the access somewhat.

I never said I am planning to buy hydrogen car - good old petrol completely satisfies my needs. However, contrary to what you said "most of drivers could charge at home" - I said "it would be easier for me to own HCV, than BEV". And that is true, because I live 5 miles from Hydrogen station, meaning I can own HCV and reach any part of UK in it, yet I can't charge car at home, so I can't own BEV.

Going back to the topic - if there would be new IS BEV and assuming I would like to buy it, I just can't buy it because I can't charge it. But if new IS would be HCV, and again assuming I would like to buy it... I can buy it and use it without any issues. So for me HCV is better than BEV... 

[ganzoom]

@Linas.PYour posts literally make zero sense. You can go on thinking what you like because its pretty clear all you do is talk and never follow up with action. 

You also seem to think Glencoe and its surroundings areas are now defined by Tesla Superchargers??!! Have you even been to Fort William? Have heard of Ben Nevis?

I've been to pretty much every where in the UK, bu the last time I went to past Glencoe was nearly a decade ago, whilst on a pedal bike. It's one of the most memorable road trips I have ever done, second only to the Swiss Alps. I've been dying to revisit for a while. Its simply one of the most stunning places I've ever been to in the UK.

@Las PalmasWhilst I agree with sentiments consumerism is killing our planet, and I had planned to NOT swap cars again for a long while for that reason......A family car that is literally too fast for a drag strip without having a parachute (0-100mph in 5 seconds), but costs around 2p per mile in fuel. I managed to resist the pull of the old 'Performance' Tesla's, but the numbers achieved by the Plaid car though are literally ou8t of this world. Apparently it can accelerate harder up to 100mph than the brakes can slow it down from 100mph!! And wrapped up in a practical family wagon shell.......oh the temptation.

If we weren't about to start a very expensive house renovation project next month, I have to be honest and say the urge to upgrade our current Tesla to a Plaid version would be very very very hard to resist. Does anyone need a car that quick, hell no, is it a massive waste of resources and batteries, 100%, but do I want to own one, hell yes :). 

 

[Las Palmas]

Biking is more fun off-road. No cars, fresh air. Beautiful view. Paved roads are boring.

[ColinBarber]

12 hours ago, Linas.P said:

48% of electricity produced is wasted due to transmission loses and fluctuation in demand e.g. electricity demand suddenly drops at night, but you can't just reduce the output of nuclear reactor, or there is high wind during all the night, but nobody needs the electricity from wind turbine - so this electricity will be wasted.

sound like we need something that could use all that electricity at night, something that could be charged up maybe?

 

11 hours ago, Las Palmas said:

Where we live there is 32 parking places for 32 flats. We can all charge cars in the garage but with a maximum of 10A charging will take a couple of days I believe. That is enough to charge a 12V starter battery and that is OK.

Not ideal but could be enough for people that don't travel a lot. I'm sure that once EVs are more popular the property owner would upgrade the supply to provide 32 A charging. If not, people will find somewhere else to live, in the same way that many people wouldn't live something where there is no broadband internet.

 

10 hours ago, Linas.P said:

I said that I would assume ~15% of household would have access to charger (now) ... industry itself is estimating only about 800k in 2025, out of 26 million parking spaces (going by 2010 stats) - that is less than 3%! And here we have people saying "simple - just charge at home"... "majority of people can charge at home"... yes if "majority" is 3% maybe... but last time I checked my English the "majority" had different meaning.

Why would 15% of households have an EV charge point if 15% of households don't own an EV? No one is going to install one until they purchase an EV.

Many people wouldn't even need a dedicated charger. The average mileage in the UK is less than 8,000 miles per year, so less than 40 miles per working day. You can charge for that just using a 13 A domestic socket (which gives you around 7 miles per hour @ 10 A).

[Malc]

14 hours ago, ganzoom said:

Anyone who actually believes hydrogen is the future need to show their belief by backing the technology with their own ££££,

I was reading a couple of weeks ago that BP is investing in developing a Hydrogen Fuel Plant somewhere in the north of England 

Malc

[Malc]

.............. and of course all this EV BEV HCV stuff is a bit nonsensical when all we really need is a good old fashioned petrol car to fill up absolutely virtually anywhere in the country, or worldwide, and get there and back after many many hours of driving ( bar useful driver rests to overcome tiredness ) ..........  and us making better use of the carbon footprint already spent in creating the existing steam of vehicles, properly maintaining and servicing them .....  and NOT depleting the planet of it's precious materials to make super batteries ...  and new cars too

Just use them all less a little and improve, somehow, the emissions from existing vehicles on the roads .....  you're never going to get the majority of the world population to change to anything other than a good old fashioned robust hardworking petrol / diesel methinks ...  no matter how hard you, me and the politicians might try 

Speed is not of the essence for most vehicle users globally ........ it's actually getting there ..  and back

Malc

[ganzoom]

14 minutes ago, Malc said:

Speed is not of the essence for most vehicle users globally .......

I agree, but the Plaid versions of the S is hitting figures that are literally insane. You are talking about F1 car acceleration but in a family friendly package and running costs of LESS than a IS300H without need for a whole support team.

Anyone with even the remotest interest in performance cars will need to at least experience it once. 

The fact that 'Performance' EVs have barely been developed for 5 years versus 50 years+ for current combustion cars can you imagine how much faster these things can get??

0-100mph in under 4 seconds must be on the cards soon!!! Astounding levels of performance.

[ganzoom]

39 minutes ago, Malc said:

I was reading a couple of weeks ago that BP is investing in developing a Hydrogen Fuel Plant somewhere in the north of England 

Malc

So when are hydrogen supporters on this forum buying a fuel cell car :).

 

[dutchie01]

41 minutes ago, Malc said:

.............. and of course all this EV BEV HCV stuff is a bit nonsensical when all we really need is a good old fashioned petrol car to fill up absolutely virtually anywhere in the country, or worldwide, and get there and back after many many hours of driving 

Just use them all less a little and improve, somehow, the emissions from existing vehicles on the roads .....  you're never going to get the majority of the world population to change to anything other than a good old fashioned robust hardworking petrol / diesel methinks ...  no matter how hard you, me and the politicians might try 

 

If only it was that simple Malc. Car manufacturers are not producing BEVś out of free choice they are forced into this by government regulations. The upcoming Euro 7 standard will even be more strict and is likley to be implemented in 2025 thats in 4 years time. It basically means that developing an engine meeting those criteria will be so expensive and complicated it will not make its way into the showrooms. Currently the only way forward seems to be electricity whatever you and me might think if that.

Improving existing vehicles to even Euro 5 is technically or economically not possible.  

 

[dutchie01]

23 minutes ago, ganzoom said:

So when are hydrogen supporters on this forum buying a fuel cell car :).

 

Toyota and i think Kia/Hyundai have one  1) model. Should be doable if you live close to a fillingstation and only use the car for short trips so only using that station?

VHS/Betamax story maybe but in the near future i do not see a role for hydrogen other than experimental use. 

[Las Palmas]

1 hour ago, ColinBarber said:

Not ideal but could be enough for people that don't travel a lot. I'm sure that once EVs are more popular the property owner would upgrade the supply to provide 32 A charging. If not, people will find somewhere else to live, in the same way that many people wouldn't live something where there is no broadband internet.

Doubt people here will move as EV is not the only solution. Most living here have a gigantic SUV with big diesel engine or smaller cars with gigantic engines.

Who would move from a view like this in the morning?

Not every morning. Actually have only seen it once. I do not always get up early.