Electric, Hybrid and Alternative fuelled vehicles - News and Discussion

[Guest]

1 minute ago, AndyID said:

 

Good stuff. But where is the energy really coming from? If it's mostly from from renewable sources that's great but if not it's just political arm-waving.

 

UK is currently on about 50% low carbon electricity.

Best thing about EVs is they need no modification to run on zero carbon electricity.

[AndyID]

3 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

UK is currently on about 50% low carbon electricity.

 

 

I agree that "low" is good. But is it only half as bad?

 

IMHO the World needs a lot fewer politicians and a lot more scientists who don't try to spin the numbers.

[PenrithBeacon]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

I agree that "low" is good. But is it only half as bad?

 

IMHO the World needs a lot fewer politicians and a lot more scientists who don't try to spin the numbers.

Science is utterly riddled with politics. That's one of the reasons for peer review. 

[PenrithBeacon]

3 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

This should help:

 

BBC article “ New homes in England to have electric car chargers by law”

 

New homes and buildings in England will be required by law to install electric vehicle charging points from next year, the prime minister is set to announce.

The government said the move will see up to 145,000 charging points installed across the country each year.

New-build supermarkets, workplaces and buildings undergoing major renovations will also come under the new law.

See also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/21/all-new-buildings-in-england-to-have-electric-car-charge-points-from-2022?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[black and decker boy]

10 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Good stuff. But where is the energy really coming from? If it's mostly from from renewable sources that's great but if not it's just political arm-waving.

Not sure of the relevance.

 

seem to be 3 options for 2021 powered vehicles:

1) fossil fuel powered cars

2) EVs powered by a mix of fossil fuel & renewable electricity (depending on your supplier)

3) Hydrogen vehicles powered by hydrogen created using fossil fuels (or if you are amazingly lucky, renewables)

 

so none are 100% green, some though are better than others whilst some aren’t mass market available.

 

Clearly a push bike is best but that won’t get me from home to work in Norwich (155 miles) in 3.5 hours.

[AndyID]

2 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

Not sure of the relevance.

 

seem to be 3 options for 2021 powered vehicles:

1) fossil fuel powered cars

2) EVs powered by a mix of fossil fuel & renewable electricity (depending on your supplier)

3) Hydrogen vehicles powered by hydrogen created using fossil fuels (or if you are amazingly lucky, renewables)

 

so none are 100% green, some though are better than others whilst some aren’t mass market available.

 

Clearly a push bike is best but that won’t get me from home to work in Norwich (155 miles) in 3.5 hours.

 

Here's another one.

 

Vehicles running on liquid fuels that are synthesized from atmospheric CO2 and hydrogen produced by renewable energy.

[PenrithBeacon]

2 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

...

 

Clearly a push bike is best but that won’t get me from home to work in Norwich (155 miles) in 3.5 hours.

Do you really spend 7hrs a day travelling to/from work? 

[shady]

5 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Here's another one.

 

Vehicles running on liquid fuels that are synthesized from atmospheric CO2 and hydrogen produced by renewable energy.

pure comedy gold in 2021 , if we are talking pure fantasy then why not go straight for matter-antimatter, you wont get better than that.

[black and decker boy]

9 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Do you really spend 7hrs a day travelling to/from work? 

No. I travel to Norwich on day 1, local hotel 1 or 2 nights, then to Peterborough & local hotel then home on Thursday or Friday. 
 

I build / improve roads. That is where my current work & teams are located. I’ve spent the previous 5 years mainly in the home countries/ south midlands (generally still not pushbike territory).

[black and decker boy]

9 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Here's another one.

 

Vehicles running on liquid fuels that are synthesized from atmospheric CO2 and hydrogen produced by renewable energy.

And how mass market is that as a technology in 2021?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

And how mass market is that as a technology in 2021?

 

Porsche are developing such a fuel to keep your fancy classic car on the road. They reckon to have the price down to $2 per litre by 2030 (initially $10) which would sound OK but I think that excludes taxes.

Not going to be a mainstream choice any time soon.

[admiles]

3 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

Porsche are developing such a fuel to keep your fancy classic car on the road. They reckon to have the price down to $2 per litre by 2030 (initially $10) which would sound OK but I think that excludes taxes.

Not going to be a mainstream choice any time soon.

 

Sounds ideal for all those for who EVs simply aren't an option

[PenrithBeacon]

2 hours ago, admiles said:

 

Sounds ideal for all those for who EVs simply aren't an option

Don't think those who aspire to a new car will have the option. Ultimately heritage ICE cars will be the preserve of enthusiast ICE motorists and probably not the most reliable machines around for everyday travel. 

[Fenman]

5 hours ago, admiles said:

 

Sounds ideal for all those for who EVs simply aren't an option

Even with BEVs in their current state of development, that must be a minority. 
 

We know most people do 20-ish miles a day at most. We know the majority of people have off-road space (so can have a home charger). We know most people might do a longer trip a couple of times a year (for which there’s a growing public charger network). We know there are roadside chargers beginning to be introduced for those without off-road charging. And we know there are BEVs just coming to market with around 500 miles of range or more. 
 

Anecdotally there are a couple of people on here who insist they must drive 500 miles a day, every day. I can’t imagine how tiny a fraction of the population that must be. 
 

I’m struggling to see how a BEV would be a problem for most people. 
 

Some of these anti-EV arguments remind me of my dear aunt, who insisted she would never wear a seatbelt because she’d invented an implausible fantasy scenario where wearing one was more dangerous than not (I don’t remember the details but it involved drowning while unconscious). But she was just terrified of change. Are there many people who would now argue seatbelts should not be compulsory?

 

Paul
 

 

[PenrithBeacon]

Most BEVs being introduced today have 250-300 mile range. That's enough for me. 

I'm looking forward to Honda's offerings in the new year.

[AndyID]

3 hours ago, Fenman said:

Even with BEVs in their current state of development, that must be a minority. 
 

We know most people do 20-ish miles a day at most. We know the majority of people have off-road space (so can have a home charger). We know most people might do a longer trip a couple of times a year (for which there’s a growing public charger network). We know there are roadside chargers beginning to be introduced for those without off-road charging. And we know there are BEVs just coming to market with around 500 miles of range or more. 
 

Anecdotally there are a couple of people on here who insist they must drive 500 miles a day, every day. I can’t imagine how tiny a fraction of the population that must be. 
 

I’m struggling to see how a BEV would be a problem for most people. 
 

Some of these anti-EV arguments remind me of my dear aunt, who insisted she would never wear a seatbelt because she’d invented an implausible fantasy scenario where wearing one was more dangerous than not (I don’t remember the details but it involved drowning while unconscious). But she was just terrified of change. Are there many people who would now argue seatbelts should not be compulsory?

 

Paul
 

 

 

Just because someone is audacious enough to suggest alternatives does not necessarily mean that they are "anti-EV". Should we expect the Pro-EV Inquisition next?

[Fenman]

8 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Just because someone is audacious enough to suggest alternatives does not necessarily mean that they are "anti-EV". Should we expect the Pro-EV Inquisition next?

I wrote “anti-EV arguments”, not anti-EV people, and nor did I criticise alternatives…

 

Paul

 

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Fenman

[Ron Ron Ron]

By the time anyone has a clear plan about the use of hydrogen for powering motorised vehicles, large or small, or the the widespread adoption of hybrid or bio-fuels, the world will have already moved on.

In fact it's already moving on.

 

Almost the entire global car manufacturing industry is already in the transition to manufacturing BEV's as their primary output.

Quite literally, billions of $$$$$ have already been, are currently being and will continue to be invested over the years to come.

Large manufacturing facilities are already in operation, with many more under construction, or being planned and existing large manufacturing plants are undergoing expensive conversion.

It's quite late to alter course now.

There's little doubt that BEV's will become the mainstream of new car and light commercial vehicle production for the next couple of decades.

 

The biggest proponents of Hydrogen, are the fossil fuel industry.

BEV's cut out the middleman, i.e. the oil companies.

Those oil companies are looking for a new place in the future world, by maintaining their position as middlemen, creating the infrastructure and controlling the supply of fuel. In this case Hydrogen, rather than petroleum products.

 

I've no doubt Hydrogen will have a large role to play, but it seems bats**t crazy to create a situation, where loads of energy needs to be used to create and distribute an intermediate source of energy (Hydrogen), when the same source energy (electricity) can be used directly and far more efficiently, without the unnecessary, artificially created extra stages.

 

 

 

.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I've no doubt Hydrogen will have a large role to play, but it seems bats**t crazy to create a situation, where loads of energy needs to be used to create and distribute an intermediate source of energy (Hydrogen), when the same source energy (electricity) can be used directly and far more efficiently, without the unnecessary, artificially created extra stages.

 

In the case of Porsche's fuel it's manufactured by some wind turbines in Chile.

Then it goes on to a big diesel boat...

[Ron Ron Ron]

30 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

In the case of Porsche's fuel it's manufactured by some wind turbines in Chile.

Then it goes on to a big diesel boat...

 

That just demonstrates the craziness of some of these ideas, when there's ample sources of energy all around us.

 

 

.

[shady]

It probably comes as no surprise that the Porsche plan is in partnership with both ENAP (chilean state owned petrol company) and Exxon Mobile , it's main purpose is to produce fuel to enable Porsche to keep selling ICE sports cars. From an energy usage point of view its even worse than using hydrogen+fuel cells. If you happen to own a fleet of sports cars then fuel cost is probably not your main concern. EPetrol is not much use for running diesel HGV's or heavy plant and nobody expects it to play any significant part in any future transportation method, not even Porsche.

Given that the plant is yet to be completed let alone up and running ,actual costs are not known , but so far every similar plant has cost a lot more than expected to build and the cost of the fuel produced has also been much more than expected. Large scale production (in the next few decades) would be a joke .

[PenrithBeacon]

It's all a bit silly bearing in mind that no new Porsches with an ICE engine will be made in the near future. 

Do Porsche have a plan for BEV?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It's all a bit silly bearing in mind that no new Porsches with an ICE engine will be made in the near future. 

Do Porsche have a plan for BEV?

 

The Porsche Taycan is electric and has been out a couple of years.

People will still be wanting to drive their old Porsches and Ferraris etc for years to come. For a track-day fuel cost won't matter too much.

[shady]

2 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It's all a bit silly bearing in mind that no new Porsches with an ICE engine will be made in the near future. 

Do Porsche have a plan for BEV?

Look at as a good bit of greenwashing , one report suggests that porsche have only invested $24 million in that plant , their north american advertising budget is at least $100 million . They plan to run a GTR racing program with that fuel and can scream look at us we are green , most people wont know any better.

Porsche currently plan on building 50% of their cars as ICE into the 2030's.

 

It would be interesting to be on live TV and ask the question (accepting that lots of the worlds population could not even point to Chile on a map!!)

"given that approx 60% of Chile's electricity is generated by burning , oil, coal and gas , would it not be more green to use the wind turbines being built for this project to simply put green electricity in to the Chilean grid ?"

 

For the record I like 911's and lots of other sports cars (I don't own any), but I will not try and claim they are green.

From an acceleration and handling point of view (you can spread the weight of the batteries) I can't see how you could beat an EV, but there is just something about

the noise of an engine and the whine of a turbo that some of us would miss, the younger generations wont miss what they never had.

 

 

[AndrueC]

On 17/11/2021 at 11:15, 30801 said:

 

The only small EVs you can currently buy in the UK are the Smarts. The four door would make a decent everyday car except for the meagre 70 mile range and no rapid charging.

One of my golfing buddies has one of these:

https://www.mg.co.uk/new-cars/new-mg-zs-ev

That's a 'small family car' and it's range is very reasonable for that duty

Edited November 24, 2021 by AndrueC