The push for us to have electric cars
Discussion
Evanivitch said:
Garvin said:
It is a retrograde step. We usually encompass technology to move forwards not backwards! There are lots of things that technology has provided for us, are we to feel over entitled using them all? If we go right back to the Stone Age then we shouldn’t have any climate change worries at all!
EVs are a big step forward step for local pollution.A bit like not having coal fire places. Or open sewers. Or untreated water.
Coal fires were replaced by gas/oil/electric heating. Coal required a lot of manual intervention, cleaning and removal of waste and was pretty dirty and smelly. What replaced it was quick, easy, instantaneous and clean. A step forward on every level.
Open sewers were filthy, smelly, health hazards that, more often than not, were subject to the manual tipping of bodily waste into them. They were replaced by closed underground sewers and modern flush toilets and drains that were cleaner, healthier and much quicker and easier to use. A step forward on every level.
Untreated water was a Heath hazard that was replaced by properly treated water that was clean and fully potable and delivered to the tap in your home by pipes. It is cleaner, healthier and easier to use. A step forward on every level.
The replacement of the ICE by BEV is not a step forward on every level.
Garvin said:
No it isn’t.
Coal fires were replaced by gas/oil/electric heating. Coal required a lot of manual intervention, cleaning and removal of waste and was pretty dirty and smelly. What replaced it was quick, easy, instantaneous and clean. A step forward on every level.
All of which are more expensive than coal, and. One of which can be as easily stored as a shed of coal. And I have to pay a standing charge for gas even if I'm not using it!Coal fires were replaced by gas/oil/electric heating. Coal required a lot of manual intervention, cleaning and removal of waste and was pretty dirty and smelly. What replaced it was quick, easy, instantaneous and clean. A step forward on every level.
Garvin said:
Open sewers were filthy, smelly, health hazards that, more often than not, were subject to the manual tipping of bodily waste into them. They were replaced by closed underground sewers and modern flush toilets and drains that were cleaner, healthier and much quicker and easier to use. A step forward on every level.
But I have to pay the water board for it! And then I have to pay some person to unblock it for me. Never had to pay anyone to unblock my bucket, and if the sewer was blocked we just got the poor bloke to shovel it out.[quote]
Untreated water was a Heath hazard that was replaced by properly treated water that was clean and fully potable and delivered to the tap in your home by pipes. It is cleaner, healthier and easier to use. A step forward on every level.
The replacement of the ICE by BEV is not a step forward on every level.
Garvin said:
The replacement of the ICE by BEV is not a step forward on every level.
I disagree, diseasel has been an utter disaster.All those d
heads driving those 2.0D stboxes doing 7,000 miles p.a. need to have that choice removedWe will look back at ICE and laugh in a "for mash get Smash" way
Edited by dmsims on Wednesday 21st July 14:45
dmsims said:
Garvin said:
The replacement of the ICE by BEV is not a step forward on every level.
I disagree, diseasel has been an utter disaster.All those d
heads driving those 2.0D stboxes doing 7,000 miles p.a. need to have that choice removedWe will back at ICE and lauch in a "for mash get Smash" way
I did drive a diesel for a few years. I agree, terrible things and reverted to petrol, particularly when, having enticed the population towards diesel with cheap fuel it then ramped the duty up! I wonder where the duty/tax receipts are going to come from when everything is BEV?
Today ICE, tomorrow it’ll be the gas/oil fired boilers! Everything electric with all eggs in one basket - can’t wait for the inevitable power cut that will stop everything dead in its tracks!
JonnyVTEC said:
Nah, the car will power the house for a few days.
Funnily enough my gas boiler stops working without electricity anyway...
How do you then get to work? Best keep the BEV fully topped up. Not sure the grid will like that if we all do it!Funnily enough my gas boiler stops working without electricity anyway...
Most boilers stop with no electricity but if you’ve a gas stove you can still heat some water for a cuppa!
JonnyVTEC said:
Nah, the car will power the house for a few days.
Funnily enough my gas boiler stops working without electricity anyway...
Yep! Average home draws 10kWh a day. Most EVs are circa 50kWh at the moment. Hopefully the CCS V2H standard will be bottomed out soon enough, the chargers won't be so expensive and more grid isolation devices will be approved.Funnily enough my gas boiler stops working without electricity anyway...
Hyundai Ioniq 5 comes with a 3 pin adaptor to export power. Honda e has UK 3 pin outlet in the dashboard!
Garvin said:
How do you then get to work? Best keep the BEV fully topped up. Not sure the grid will like that if we all do it!
Most boilers stop with no electricity but if you’ve a gas stove you can still heat some water for a cuppa!
The grid hasn't got any issue with people topping up from their commute every day. It's about 7kWh for most people, or one hour charging...Most boilers stop with no electricity but if you’ve a gas stove you can still heat some water for a cuppa!
Garvin said:
I never said ICE was perfect I said that BEV is not a step forward on every level, even over a diesel!
If I've got this right, you literally go around evaluating whether item A is "better" in every way than item B?How on earth did you ever manage to choose your mobile phone? Or your computer? You're telling me that your choice was, in every single respect, better than every other one? Really?
The world doesn't work like that. You evaluate the item and work out whether the pro's outweigh the cons. And when you do that for BEV and ICE, you end up with the very same list. Trying to persuade everyone that BEV is a failure because it doesn't do better on every single aspect of something is just daft.
jagfan2 said:
To be fair the whole point about 2nd life batteries in powerwalls/banks is domestic charging cycles are much lower power, EVs have much higher charge/discharge rates so harder on the batteries. Fairly sure you don't pull/push 100+kW regularly in an house
That's true. The most I can pull is around 20kW for an hour before the inverter shuts down. But my battery bank is not a recycled car battery pack, it's made up of new 200 amp cells, so not really a fair comparison.phil4 said:
Garvin said:
I never said ICE was perfect I said that BEV is not a step forward on every level, even over a diesel!
If I've got this right, you literally go around evaluating whether item A is "better" in every way than item B?How on earth did you ever manage to choose your mobile phone? Or your computer? You're telling me that your choice was, in every single respect, better than every other one? Really?
The world doesn't work like that. You evaluate the item and work out whether the pro's outweigh the cons. And when you do that for BEV and ICE, you end up with the very same list. Trying to persuade everyone that BEV is a failure because it doesn't do better on every single aspect of something is just daft.
The distance capability and recharging times are, I would suggest, quite an important aspect for a large proportion of people and are for me and both these are, currently, a retrograde step.
I also did not say that BEV was a failure. For city cars they seem ideal (apart from the on street charging issue) but for a country boy like myself and many others BEV does not currently offer the same advantages as ICE and it’s not clear to me how these will be resolved.
Garvin said:
You might, I don’t. I look at my requirements for a phone or computer and then choose the one that meets, or closest meets, those requirements.
Cool, it was your use of "every level" that I misunderstood, it sounds like you're doing what most do then, and working out the best fit, fair enough.Garvin said:
The distance capability and recharging times are, I would suggest, quite an important aspect for a large proportion of people and are for me and both these are, currently, a retrograde step.
I also did not say that BEV was a failure. For city cars they seem ideal (apart from the on street charging issue) but for a country boy like myself and many others BEV does not currently offer the same advantages as ICE and it’s not clear to me how these will be resolved.
Sure, distance and recharge times are reasonable to know, but for many current EV owners they're adequate and all the other benefits make them the right choice. It goes back to what you're saying about meeting needs.I also did not say that BEV was a failure. For city cars they seem ideal (apart from the on street charging issue) but for a country boy like myself and many others BEV does not currently offer the same advantages as ICE and it’s not clear to me how these will be resolved.
I can only talk for me, but with a daily commute of 40 miles, and occasional trips of 160-320 miles an EV works just fine. It charges at home every night, so with the exception of the long trips, I've no need to charge anywhere else. On the longer trips, the charging is fast enough, that I stop to stretch my legs, have a pee, grab a snack and I'm off again.
If that doesn't work for you personally, then that's cool... it should do someday.. but there's also no reason for either of us to assume that "many others" have the same issues, or none issues we do.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Completely agree. The message pushed by many, especially politicians, is that a BEV is good and an ICE is bad. And unfortunately with our modern news media, we are stuck in a world of 1/0, right/wrong or good/bad.... when in fact, things are much more nuanced than that. Add to that, giant global corporations with marketing teams and budgets of millions, its all adding up to an unclear and divisive story on what is real and what needs to be done.Dont get me wrong though - I am for BEV's, where appropriate and ICE is here to stay for some time to come. It comes down to the use case, situation and in a lot of situations, personal choice. But when we have a public who insist on buying big luxury SUV's that never leave the pavement, its clear that this is going to reflect on the BEV market too. Do we need a BEV that can go 400 miles between charges when 99% of our journeys are 10 miles a day? The same can be said for an ICE too of course, since why do we need to carry around so much fuel (big fan of long range tanks by the way) and have it sat on our driveways? If we ripped up the rulebook, I am pretty sure we could come up with a different way to do a lot of this!
Localized pollution is a problem and a relatively easy thing to solve. But the difference between gasoline and electricity is that the generation (while still not great) is going to improve the fastest and most effectively with electricity generation. National grids are getting cleaner quicker and more effectively and ultimately will have a bigger impact in the shortest time period. Switching to renewables in generation means those BEV's are getting cleaner year by year, albeit slowly. Gasoline production IS getting better and cleaner, but isnt improving as fast (as far as I was aware). Therefore as a way to improve local emissions, overall emissions and dependence on a depleting resource, the use of BEV's is good. However, it absolutely isnt THE answer though. Its part of the solution, but just that.
What concerns me is the entrenched aspects on both sides though. There is no right or wrong here, just a shift. I am not going to tell some minimum wage fast food worker that they MUST switch to a BEV that they cant afford. Neither am I going to tell that middle aged couple who drive 500 miles every weekend to look after their elderly parents that they MUST have a BEV (thats actually someone we know!). I am also dead against penalizing people through tax or fines too - but, and this is where my point falls down, why cant we have an honest and realistic discussion and allow people to make educated choices for what fits them? Why must it be one or the other? Why cant we have a choice? You want to buy a Tesla? Fill your boots, I dont care. Want to run a 35 year old Porsche 911, go for it!
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Polestar say the crossover point for whole lifecycle pollution being lower in their 2 compared to the equivalent Volvo Is around 27,000 miles (best case, running on 100% wind turbine energy) to 48,000 (running on the European energy mix, which is slightly higher co2 than the UK).That's based on comparing manufacturing both vehicles and fuelling them.
rscott said:
Polestar say the crossover point for whole lifecycle pollution being lower in their 2 compared to the equivalent Volvo Is around 27,000 miles (best case, running on 100% wind turbine energy) to 48,000 (running on the European energy mix, which is slightly higher co2 than the UK).
That's based on comparing manufacturing both vehicles and fuelling them.
I still struggle to understand the details on a lot of these statements from manufacturers. For example, BMW made a whole bunch of claims for the i3 production and the renewable stuff that it is made of (I own an i3). But, according to the media releases and Wiki pages - raw materials come from Japan. Go to Washington State in the US to be made into some of the body / chassis components (CFRP) and then shipped to Germany where final construction is carried out. If you have the Rex version, the extender comes from Taiwan.... That's based on comparing manufacturing both vehicles and fuelling them.
Yeah, do their green credentials factor in the environmental costs of shipping? No idea. And yeah, I know that everyone else does this too, but my point is that selective cherry-picking of data points doesnt help in an accurate view of what is going on here. Polestar might be able to hit those numbers, but (and call me a cynic here), I smell something a bit fishy here.....
off_again said:
I still struggle to understand the details on a lot of these statements from manufacturers. For example, BMW made a whole bunch of claims for the i3 production and the renewable stuff that it is made of (I own an i3). But, according to the media releases and Wiki pages - raw materials come from Japan. Go to Washington State in the US to be made into some of the body / chassis components (CFRP) and then shipped to Germany where final construction is carried out. If you have the Rex version, the extender comes from Taiwan....
Yeah, do their green credentials factor in the environmental costs of shipping? No idea. And yeah, I know that everyone else does this too, but my point is that selective cherry-picking of data points doesnt help in an accurate view of what is going on here. Polestar might be able to hit those numbers, but (and call me a cynic here), I smell something a bit fishy here.....
Absolutely right! Carting all those EV components around the world - they’ve completely forgotten about the ecological impact of shipping. Yeah, do their green credentials factor in the environmental costs of shipping? No idea. And yeah, I know that everyone else does this too, but my point is that selective cherry-picking of data points doesnt help in an accurate view of what is going on here. Polestar might be able to hit those numbers, but (and call me a cynic here), I smell something a bit fishy here.....
Idiots!
Obviously no ICE vehicle components, from raw materials to finished components are sourced other than locally. Far more eco.
Edited by Dog Star on Wednesday 21st July 20:45
bigothunter said:
Garvin said:
It is a retrograde step. We usually encompass technology to move forwards not backwards! There are lots of things that technology has provided for us, are we to feel over entitled using them all? If we go right back to the Stone Age then we shouldn’t have any climate change worries at all!
Exactly 
Truth is, we've reached the stage where ICEs have never been cleaner, so what do we do? Get rid of them in a notional period of just 10 years. Bonkers.
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