Electric, Hybrid and Alternative fuelled vehicles - News and Discussion

[Grovenor]

Did you include state sales tax in those US figures, I found it not mentioned until you reached the till and got a nasty surprise.

But no idea how it applies to cars.

[BR traction instructor]

We’ve taken the all electric plunge with a new VW ID3 tonight. We need the 200 mile range for our journeys between Cumbria and Cheshire & will be installing 7Kwh chargers at each end.

 

BeRTIe

Edited June 24, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Ron Ron Ron]

19 hours ago, Grovenor said:

Did you include state sales tax in those US figures, I found it not mentioned until you reached the till and got a nasty surprise.

But no idea how it applies to cars.

Sales taxes combined, total 7.5% on cars in most of California (I believe there are local tax variations).

Offset by the EV grants and rebates.

[BR traction instructor]

Entertaining journey to get our ID3…the one above turned out to be a new demonstrator and wasn’t actually available to buy. We found out midway through the purchase process…red faces & returned deposit. However, this white one was a cancelled order and we are collecting it shortly…

 

BeRTIe

Edited June 26, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, BR traction instructor said:

Entertaining journey to get our ID3…the one above turned out to be a new demonstrator and wasn’t actually available to buy. We found out midway through the purchase process…red faces & returned deposit. However, this white one was a cancelled order and we are collecting it shortly…

 

BeRTIe

 

Well, at least you should have saved £645 as White is a base colour compared with Stonewashed Blue...   :-)

 

 

[BR traction instructor]

…a cancelled order with extra kit already added on a metallic white car…no wriggle room. Advantages were the extras and waiting just 2 weeks instead of over a year.

 

BeRTIe

[idd15]

6 hours ago, BR traction instructor said:

…a cancelled order with extra kit already added on a metallic white car…no wriggle room. Advantages were the extras and waiting just 2 weeks instead of over a year.

 

BeRTIe

Good move. Friend has just ordered a Volvo xc40 recharge and delivery is 12 months!!!

 

idd

 

[BR traction instructor]

The VW guys are saying that inquiries for these are now very high with delivery times growing. The current diesel prices, unlikely to drop soon made waiting til 2025 for the ID1 seem an eternity.

 

BeRTIe

[mezzoman253]

I came acrosss this whilst browsing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E8SQde5rk

 

Interesting and though provoking.  Perhaps the electric car isn't the panacea it's made out to be......................................yet.

 

Rob

[Pete the Elaner]

24 minutes ago, mezzoman253 said:

I came acrosss this whilst browsing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E8SQde5rk

 

Interesting and though provoking.  Perhaps the electric car isn't the panacea it's made out to be......................................yet.

 

Rob

 

For me, there is nothing new in that.

He makes some very good points but misses a few:

Most cars rely on engines performing over a wide range of conditions which is inefficient. Storing & recalling energy which is produced on a larger scale is much more efficient & therefore cleaner.

Producing energy in a large scale in a cleaner manner is another problem which can be addressed in parallel. Once you use electricity, you can change your supply of it to however becomes available.

 

The need for an EV which does 400 miles on 1 charge is very small. How often do many of us drive more than 200 miles on 1 charge? Anything over that will want a recharge, but this is 3 hours. I have driven for more than 3 hours non-stop & felt quite alert but a short stop usually increases concentration. What we do need is the availability to charge wherever the vehicle is out of use.

How many of us can remember filling their tank twice in a day? With an EV, you would usually start with a full charge having topped up overnight & as long as you have something left when you arrive (& leave it to charge of course), you only need to top up during the journey.

[BR traction instructor]

The perfect solution to global warming is likely to include people not moving around but seeing that just ain’t going to happen we’ll have to lurch through the learning curves together and just hope that there is enough time available to get far enough down the green road to avoid making our planet uninhabitable.

 

BeRTIe

Edited June 28, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[boxbrownie]

When he did the “boxed Co2” example I didn’t  see the box around the Co2 produced on finding, drilling, refining and delivering the oil based fuel, did he include that later?  Because I didn’t watch the rest 😄

[rocor]

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

When he did the “boxed Co2” example I didn’t  see the box around the Co2 produced on finding, drilling, refining and delivering the oil based fuel, did he include that later?  Because I didn’t watch the rest 😄

 

I stopped watching when his supposition for the method of producing the electricity to power the electric car, involved the burning of coal. Surely, most people are on board now, with the proposition that the production of energy must move away as soon as possible from the burning of fossil fuels. 

[admiles]

16 minutes ago, rocor said:

 

Surely, most people are on board now, with the proposition that the production of energy must move away as soon as possible from the burning of fossil fuels. 

 

Try telling large swathes of the planets population that....

[rocor]

16 minutes ago, admiles said:

 

Try telling large swathes of the planets population that....

 

There is so much entrenched large scale self-interest preventing the message from getting across (looking at you in particular oil producing countries/companies).

[black and decker boy]

Tarmac Concrete buy battery electric ready mix HGV:

 

tarmac-buys-first-electric-concrete-mixer-truck

 

Tarmac has placed an order with Renault Trucks for the first battery electric concrete mixer in the UK.

 

As Tarmac procures 100 per cent of its site electricity from clean energy sources – wind, solar and hydro power only – the new vehicle will operate as carbon neutral.

Electric mixers also reduce noise and vibration, while contributing to improving air quality, particularly when operating in urban areas and low and zero emissions zones.

The truck will have a range of 120km and the the ability to fast charge two hours if needed.

 

 

[57xx]

9 hours ago, mezzoman253 said:

I came acrosss this whilst browsing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E8SQde5rk

 

Interesting and though provoking.  Perhaps the electric car isn't the panacea it's made out to be......................................yet.

 

Rob

 

Very spooky! I watched this exact video last night and just came on here to post the same link.

[57xx]

4 hours ago, rocor said:

 

I stopped watching when his supposition for the method of producing the electricity to power the electric car, involved the burning of coal. Surely, most people are on board now, with the proposition that the production of energy must move away as soon as possible from the burning of fossil fuels. 

 

Which is exactly what happens today, so is totally relevant to his point. We (the world) are a long way still from the stage stopping coal fired electricity being generated.

[boxbrownie]

53 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

Which is exactly what happens today, so is totally relevant to his point. We (the world) are a long way still from the stage stopping coal fired electricity being generated.

We (the U.K.) has used no coal for a while, which is relevant to those in the U.K. who choose EV, we cannot contol what the Russia, China, India etc use in their mix.

https://grid.iamkate.com

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

Tarmac Concrete buy battery electric ready mix HGV:

 

tarmac-buys-first-electric-concrete-mixer-truck

 

Tarmac has placed an order with Renault Trucks for the first battery electric concrete mixer in the UK.

 

As Tarmac procures 100 per cent of its site electricity from clean energy sources – wind, solar and hydro power only – the new vehicle will operate as carbon neutral.

Electric mixers also reduce noise and vibration, while contributing to improving air quality, particularly when operating in urban areas and low and zero emissions zones.

The truck will have a range of 120km and the the ability to fast charge two hours if needed.

 

 

 

Doesn't concrete emit CO2 as it sets?

How do they offset that...

[black and decker boy]

3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Doesn't concrete emit CO2 as it sets?

How do they offset that...

No, I don’t believe it does. It’s a chemical reaction that causes it to set but no bubbles form.

 

cement requires vast amounts of energy (=CO2) to create it, add in more CO2 for the sand & gravel and you have a high embedded CO2 measure.

 

a lot of R&D ongoing to reduce cement % to improve the CO2 footprint in construction 

 

low / zero carbon transport has a big part to play in lowering construction emissions (and it’s not greenwash). Today it’s battery electric readymix trucks, tomorrow it could be low carbon 8 leggers (muck shifting  HGVs)  or articulated dump trucks which burn vast amounts of diesel. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, black and decker boy said:

Tarmac has placed an order with Renault Trucks for the first battery electric concrete mixer in the UK.

 

An electric cement truck is like a vegan murderer 🤔

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

cement requires vast amounts of energy (=CO2) to create it, add in more CO2 for the sand & gravel and you have a high embedded CO2 measure.

 

a lot of R&D ongoing to reduce cement % to improve the CO2 footprint in construction 

 

There was a passive underground house on Grand Designs or some such a few years ago.

It needed no heating at all but was made from concrete. The payback in energy savings vs the concrete production was IIRC fifteen years.

[boxbrownie]

I believe the Co2 is given out with the manufacture of concrete, as you say there is a lot of research and some practical alternative “ingredients” some companies are using to cut down Co2 during manufacture but it’s small picking at the moment. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by boxbrownie

[Nick C]

I'd have thought the bigger impact from switching plant to electric power would be the air quality - as a large proportion of construction occurs in urban areas, reducing the particulate emissions should make a big difference there. It ought to help a bit with the noise pollution too, as you'll only get noise when they're actually operating, not when they're idling?