Fuel panic!

[dutchie01]

Below link is from the German carmagazine AutoBild. It is a long read about the current batteries in electric cars and the developments in the near and distant future. I do hope you can have it translated into English. I have a Google Chromebook and it automatically asks me if i want it translated if it detects a foreign language but i do not know how to send the english version so maybe someone can help? 

https://www.autobild.de/artikel/elektroauto-batterie-akku-tauschen-co2-abdruck-kosten-recycling-16202315.html

 

 

 

[Bluemarlin]

3 hours ago, J Henderson said:

This showed up in my youtube recommendations the other day, although it appears that it was originally aired in 2021.

For a variety of reasons, I don't plan to ever buy an EV and this doc highlights a few of them.

Most of the issues are concerning batttery and charging technology. Issues that will no doubt be resolved in time.

In the late 1980's the finance director of a large multinational told me that he could see no point in his company's  future that they would ever use mobile phones.

In 1946 Daryl Zanuck, of Fox, said "Television won't be able to hang on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."

And in 1977 Ken Olson, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation said there was no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.

If internet forums existed in those times then many Luddites would have been agreeing and cheering them on. If history tells us anything though, it's that things change, and that current perceptions become quickly outdated, as innovation rapidly transforms the landscape.

There are valid reasons to question the benefits of today's EV's, but few reasons to think that situation won't dramatically change in time. Today my preference is largely towards ICE and hybrids but, when 500-1000 mile range, and fast charging becomes the norm, then my preference will likely change.

[Malc1]

is there a good and valid reason why petrol, diesel, fuel cars and coal power stations can't be clean emission usage ?

Surely it only needs good technology and research to develop sensible filtration of the emissions to negate baddies into the environment

Surely we're a long way towards it already with catalytics stuff and washing power station emissions already

Couldn't it be a factor of a tiny tiny % of the current spend on EV technologies to get to grips with fossil fuels ...  which we all love and adore with our V8s

Surely the UK  Europe is just blindly going along with Musky'ites endeavour ................ it would help, the rest of the world and humanity hugely to improve the Climate Change factors if the rest of the world's emissions, the vast bulk of it all no doubt , could be properly cleaned -up

Why can't we encourage the improved " clean-up " of existing technologies  ?

Malc

Short answers on a postcard or two please 

[dutchie01]

Maybe its technically possible but the cost to reach that will mean cars will become so expensive nobody will buy them.

Remember  a car manufacturer is allowed 95 grams co2/km average. this is for all cars sold in a year, add them all up and average must be 95 grams. Every gram above that is a fine. If you produce several million cars per year this fine can easily reach billions of Euros. Slow selling gas guzzlers are not so important ( audi R8/ BMW M5 etc) as these do not influence the overall picture. Volume sellers like the VW Polo Citroen C1 etc are a real problem. These cars are designed for a certain pricepoint and any priceincrease wil;l kill them. The dramatic effect of the 95 grams rule ( from 2025 it will be 80) is that the cheap bottom end of the range cars will all disappear. Transport for the masses? no longer!

[Mr Vlad]

What's killing the car manufacturers is that ruddy unreasonable low CO2 emissions farse figure 95 blah blah blah. The final fuel engines can actually reach that stupid low figure But the cost of that is the killer. The cost of filters for this, filters for that and filters for the other. The electronics behind the filters. They're ruddy expensive and it's that that's choking the car manufacturers and that's what they've stated. 

That expense I'm sure could be found somewhere somehow and for one making fosil fuelled power stations cleaner is a massive help. 

It's those countries that use power stations that chuff out tons of krap each day who can't afford to clean up their act or can't be farsed to more like. Asian countries are the culprits. 

[Malc1]

1 hour ago, Mr Vlad said:

What's killing the car manufacturers is that ruddy unreasonable low CO2 emissions farse figure 95 blah blah blah. The final fuel engines can actually reach that stupid low figure But the cost of that is the killer. The cost of filters for this, filters for that and filters for the other. The electronics behind the filters. They're ruddy expensive and it's that that's choking the car manufacturers and that's what they've stated. 

That expense I'm sure could be found somewhere somehow and for one making fosil fuelled power stations cleaner is a massive help. 

It's those countries that use power stations that chuff out tons of krap each day who can't afford to clean up their act or can't be farsed to more like. Asian countries are the culprits. 

Well, there’s a darned sight more Asian countries  African countries. China India South America too than us in the west ....... so more important than ever to work on getting those, their  coal power stations better at polluting less 
 

nuclear power stations certainly have their drawbacks when falling into the hands of world class NUTTERS 
 

our western fossil fuel car emissions aren’t even a drop in the mighty ocean comparatively 

EVs surely, certainly aren’t the answer to the world pollution issues with transport or indeed anything else ........ 
 

methinks it’s just a whim, a fallacy of politics with no credible discernible justification for driving this EV concept forward with such incomprehensible pollution benefits vis a vis making a much less costly investment in reducing polluting emissions in conventional vehicle propulsion 

ALL the motor manufacturers will be producing more fossil fuel vehicle production plants globally ...... just not in the UK nor Europe 

were shooting ourselves in the foot by not embracing better fossil fuel emission technologies ....... whatever and whenever they can come forward 

I despair ....... lucky me I can run my V8  4ltr  Ls400 for the rest of my driving days methinks ...... I pray 🙏

Malc 

sorry to go on a lot !

i do believe in Climate Change  I just don’t believe EVs help much   MB 

[Bluemarlin]

24 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

i do believe in Climate Change  I just don’t believe EVs help much   MB 

I agree with you Malc. I don't believe EVs help much with regards climate change.

It's not just that that's driving the push though, as ICE vehicles produce other directly harmful pollutants, like nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, all of which are eliminated by removing the combustion process. NOx emissions are a big problem in European cities, and apparently result in around 50,000 premature deaths a year Europewide. That to me seems to be where the urgency is coming from.

It's possible that there might be ways of cleaning up the emissions to some degree but, as Bernard says, the costs may well make it impractical, especially when there's a clean alternative already available. So, that ship appears to have already sailed.

As you say though, most of us here will be able to drive prettty much what we like, until our time comes to pull into the big service station in the sky.

[toffee_pie]

EVs are a scam, nothing more than garbage to fulfil the needs for the controlling World Economic Forum, using net zero drivel to drive the panic and scaremongering amongst people, all the climate change protestors are all unemployed lunatics and buying into what trash experts are saying

If the mad plans every come to fruition the planet won’t even be able to sustain the batteries needed for EVs in 2040 as the natural resources will be depleted, Confirmation by experts not funded by third parties

I will stick to reliable large cylinder NA petrol cars than will last forever and plough through miles with consummate ease and can poddle along at 80mph just ticking over and they can tow a variety of attachments also.

I can’t afford a tank of diesel so let’s get an EV for £60k, sounds a great idea

[peniole]

https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore

Have some maths based fun with this interactive cost and CO2 counter comparing ICE, hybrid, PHEV and electric from our friends at MIT.

Admittedly these are US numbers for new car costs, but the CO2 numbers are brilliant fun to see over the length of a vehicle lifetime and how long you own it. There's also plenty to tweak from fuel costs, to how polluting the electric mix is...etc.

I compared our ES300h (the second most efficient car I've owned) to a Tesla model 3 (one of the most efficient electrics out there). It will take about 7 years of ownership and driving at 13k miles per year for the lifetime CO2 emission to be equal! Anything less than that the upfront CO2 bill for making the Tesla outweighs the benefits. Compare it to a Toyota Pruis prime and it will take 16 years!

As for costs, that's a bit trickier. I only tweaked fuel and electric price. Ownership costs at US new car prices were the same, again at about the 7 year mark! Mind you Teslas cost a heck of a lot less in the US than they do here and our ES300h cost about the same as it did in the US taking into account the GBP/USD conversion rate at the time I bought it (it's even cheaper now).

Remember I'm comparing to a luxury hybrid car. The civics and the like, wipe the floor with most electrics cost wise over the lifetime of a vehicle.

[First_Lexus]

16 hours ago, Bluemarlin said:

If internet forums existed in those times then many Luddites would have been agreeing and cheering them on. If history tells us anything though, it's that things change, and that current perceptions become quickly outdated, as innovation rapidly transforms the landscape.

There were methods for the population to understand the political and social landscape before the internet! Newspapers, pamphlets, local meetings…lots of people absolutely were cheering on the Luddites. Not the ruling class, obviously, but normal downtrodden working people who are all too often ignored by history.

We should be careful in assuming that (what we call) progress is always positive. It’s interesting that the term ‘Luddite’ is now used in the negative. All they were doing was standing up for their craft and employment rights against mechanisation which was to see their wages and (limited) rights eroded for the benefit of mill owners. Yes, progress was - at a macro level - achieved with the growth of the UK economy, but at what human cost?

I appreciate I may sound like a socialist, or a conspiracy theorist - perhaps even a socialist conspiracy theorist - but what we call ‘progress’ is often just a way of making a small group of people richer at the expense of the majority.

Progress LED to colonisation, Empire, subjugation and many other very bad things. But hey, at least ‘progress’ meant that we ‘gave’ those countries railways. Funny that they aren’t more grateful isn’t it?!

Even so, I do believe that the climate crisis means fossil fuels are doomed, and rightly so. Funny thing though…it was industrial innovation - the industrial revolution - that saw the mass extraction and burning of coal, then oil, which is, as I understand it, one of the major factors behind global warming.

EDIT: for context, I am exceptionally grumpy this morning!

[Boxbrownie]

I am amazed people still don’t get the major factor regarding EVs, it’s the local pollution (forget world climate change for a second, just about nothing we do is going to change that, but no one wants to admit it) it’s driving in towns and cities, outside schools, traffic jams etc etc where EVs will produce no pollution and the local air quality is dramatically improved.

 

 

[Mincey]

Apparently Peterborough City Council have ended free parking and charging for electric vehicles. This is the same council (probably not the same people though) who once told Russia that Peterborough was a nuclear free zone and they'd better think twice about sending a nuke our way. 

[Malc1]

2 hours ago, First_Lexus said:

the industrial revolution - that saw the mass extraction and burning of coal, then oil, which is, as I understand it, one of the major factors behind global warming.

methinks there should be a build penalty, say 100% for every home built with central or any form of home heating ...... nor water heating  ....  the sale of replacement boilers must be banned and all plumbers fixing central heating should go to prison for a week per job  ...  cold showers and rations to match

cold showers and scraping the ice off the inside of the bedroom windows never did any one harm

Malc

[dutchie01]

46 minutes ago, Boxbrownie said:

I am amazed people still don’t get the major factor regarding EVs, it’s the local pollution (forget world climate change for a second, just about nothing we do is going to change that, but no one wants to admit it) it’s driving in towns and cities, outside schools, traffic jams etc etc where EVs will produce no pollution and the local air quality is dramatically improved.

 

 

Hear hear! This week i had to be in a southern european city and the pollution from traffic was just horrible. City center, trucks spewing out black smoke and the constant stream of cars made your eyes tear. Imagine living on a street like that.

[dutchie01]

11 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

methinks there should be a build penalty, say 100% for every home built with central or any form of home heating ...... nor water heating  ....  the sale of replacement boilers must be banned and all plumbers fixing central heating should go to prison for a week per job  ...  cold showers and rations to match

cold showers and scraping the ice off the inside of the bedroom windows never did any one harm

Malc

I am reading in the press that the UK is heading in that direction anyway, no need for penalties just install a government that handles the economy like a highschool project?

[dutchie01]

22 minutes ago, Mincey said:

Apparently Peterborough City Council have ended free parking and charging for electric vehicles. This is the same council (probably not the same people though) who once told Russia that Peterborough was a nuclear free zone and they'd better think twice about sending a nuke our way. 

So far it worked!

[Mincey]

1 minute ago, dutchie01 said:

So far it worked!

That's a very good point!

[Malc1]

7 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

just install a government that handles the economy like a highschool project?

oh that we had such politicians with those highly capable inherent levels of competency

infantile, fairyland thought processes have gone on with Truss and Kwasi these past weeks .......  so much damage done and all avoidable had those two clowns read the OBR paperwork that they refused to even acknowledge existed  ................... methinks the Conservative Party is now forever doomed ...  well until someone spills the beans on Sir Keir , the Unions and their shaft of onions ........

Boris and Rishi might have had their faults but blimey they were tiny tiny tiny compared to the clowns now in charge ...........  may the partying continue with whomsoever shows just one jot of competency to lead us Great Britons forth.......................

 ................ I'll be in the lead with my quiet as a mouse raging V8 Ls400   😇

 

Malc

[First_Lexus]

16 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

infantile, fairyland thought processes have gone on with Truss and Kwasi these past weeks .......  so much damage done and all avoidable had those two clowns read the OBR paperwork that they refused to even acknowledge existed  ................... methinks the Conservative Party is now forever doomed ...  well until someone spills the beans on Sir Keir , the Unions and their shaft of onions ........

Boris and Rishi might have had their faults but blimey they were tiny tiny tiny compared to the clowns now in charge ...........  may the partying continue with whomsoever shows just one jot of competency to lead us Great Britons forth.......................

…and anybody watching Rachel Reeves’ interview performance as Shadow Chancellor this morning can see that we’re totally doomed either way.

Clowns to the left of us, clowns to the right of us…

DOOOOOOMED!

[dutchie01]

14 minutes ago, First_Lexus said:

…and anybody watching Rachel Reeves’ interview performance as Shadow Chancellor this morning can see that we’re totally doomed either way.

Clowns to the left of us, clowns to the right of us…

DOOOOOOMED!

Calm down private Frazer!

[Las Palmas]

2 hours ago, Boxbrownie said:

I am amazed people still don’t get the major factor regarding EVs, it’s the local pollution (forget world climate change for a second, just about nothing we do is going to change that, but no one wants to admit it) it’s driving in towns and cities, outside schools, traffic jams etc etc where EVs will produce no pollution and the local air quality is dramatically improved.

 

 

Good for the rich living in cities where all drive EV's that have left their polluting elsewhere.

Not good for the people mining the minerals to the batteries, the people living where the pollution to manufacture the batteries are made, no good to let renewing batteries be in the hands of China, that make a very big part of them.

We are not poor. We are rich. We have no cars. We take the day as it come:

Are people that have been living like this since forever meant to pay for the luxury we think is our right?

[peniole]

3 hours ago, Boxbrownie said:

I am amazed people still don’t get the major factor regarding EVs, it’s the local pollution (forget world climate change for a second, just about nothing we do is going to change that, but no one wants to admit it) it’s driving in towns and cities, outside schools, traffic jams etc etc where EVs will produce no pollution and the local air quality is dramatically improved.

Get it. Hybrids do the same. In town, at standstill mine does not run the ICE. Unless one is lead footed or climbing a steep hill that is. With the added bonus that it does not weigh ~3tonnes and does not produce increased particulate matter (especially health damaging PM2.5) from the tyres/brakes. See: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/4a4dc6ca-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/4a4dc6ca-en

Admittedly less PM from light EVs. They still have some way to go to ensure range without overloading the scales.

Honda e 1.5Ton vs Jazz hybrid 1.2Ton

Model3 1.8Ton vs Civic hybrid 1.5Ton

and that's comparing light like for like models on size. The new EQS450 that journalists are raving about is 2.5Ton (the weight of an F150 pickup truck), and we haven't been talking SUVs yet!

[wharfhouse]

9 minutes ago, peniole said:

Get it. Hybrids do the same. In town, at standstill mine does not run the ICE. Unless one is lead footed or climbing a steep hill that is. With the added bonus that it does not weigh ~3tonnes and does not produce increased particulate matter (especially health damaging PM2.5) from the tyres/brakes. See: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/4a4dc6ca-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/4a4dc6ca-en

That was one of the main reasons why I chose my IS 300h - I do want to reduce pollution in populated areas and it does a very good job of that but without the other issues that for my use EVs would currently cause me. I don't rule out one day going to something else that goes further on reducing pollution in the wider sense but whether that is EV or another technology the jury is out.

[peniole]

9 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

That was one of the main reasons why I chose my IS 300h - I do want to reduce pollution in populated areas and it does a very good job of that but without the other issues that for my use EVs would currently cause me. I don't rule out one day going to something else that goes further on reducing pollution in the wider sense but whether that is EV or another technology the jury is out.

Thank you. I was also shopping EVs. I do like them. But for the compromises they bring and the environmental credentials they have, or don't have, they are not the silver bullet they are made out to be.

[Las Palmas]

2 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

That was one of the main reasons why I chose my IS 300h - I do want to reduce pollution in populated areas and it does a very good job of that but without the other issues that for my use EVs would currently cause me. I don't rule out one day going to something else that goes further on reducing pollution in the wider sense but whether that is EV or another technology the jury is out.

I do not rule out going to another fuel, but if the only possibility to drive a car is to have a Battery produced harming people mining the materials for the batteries, making a lot of pollution, needing to be replaced buying the next Battery from China, then I prefer to walk.

Another technology is possibly the better answer. Electric engines (brush free) last a very long time and when so many major companies are investing in hydrogen, that can be made environmentally friendly, that could be the answer. So many combustion cars made the jump from fossil fuel to liquid gas so jumping from diesel to hydrogen should not be impossible.