RE: Final EU vote on 2035 engine phaseout delayed

[GT9]

pheonix478 said:

GT9 said:

Which begs the question why a consumer would support the idea of e-fuel, unless they are shilling for the oil and gas sector.
...

In the event we can't get our hands on fossil fuel, you're damn right I want efuel to keep my classics running. Yes I appreciate they will probably cost 3-5x, but that's still a lot cheaper running cost than a race horse!

Genuinely renewable e-fuel is many decades away from being either available in reasonable quantities or actually necessary to replace petrol.

What it definitely will not do is stop the electrification of cars in general, or offer an alternative way to decarbonise existing ICE cars on the roads.

Unless those cars are still in use in 25 years time, which will be a tiny %.

I think we should stop pretending that it is some sort of short term alternative, it just isn't.

E-fuels will happen anyway, and if petrol is no longer available in 25 years or so, great we have another option to run whatever remains of the petrol ICE cars.

In the mean time, let's focus on what's important, getting the consumption of diesel down and increasing the number of EVs on the roads so buyers at all price points will be able to choose between EV or ICE.

[havoc]

SpeckledJim said:

If I can’t afford the used car at £30k, that doesn’t indicate that the market is dysfunctional or that there’s something wrong with the pricing of the car. It’s been advertised at £30k because someone is realistically anticipated to buy it. The market is working fine, it’s just that I’m not in that bit of it.

I think you just made my point for me.

[SpeckledJim]

havoc said:

SpeckledJim said:

If I can’t afford the used car at £30k, that doesn’t indicate that the market is dysfunctional or that there’s something wrong with the pricing of the car. It’s been advertised at £30k because someone is realistically anticipated to buy it. The market is working fine, it’s just that I’m not in that bit of it.

I think you just made my point for me.

Not at all. There's no merit in complaining that a used car is too expensive, because whatever the high price is, someone] is buying it. The market is working, it's just not working the way you/I/whoever might want it to.

I might wish that there's nobody around who'll pay more than I will for the car I want, but that's life, and it's not something we invented with EVs.

The essential point is that the sooner there are lots of used EVs around, the sooner they'll become more affordable. That only happens a number of years after we push/pull a LOT of expensive, brand new EVs into the market.

At the moment there are more people who want a 6-year old EV than there are 6 year-old EVs out there to buy. That situation will change with time.

[500TORQUES]

braddo said:

For a race and then the tank is emptied.

Every racing car has the fuel drained post event, petrol or methanol.

Residual fuel stays in the system. Its built to use it.

[SpeckledJim]

500TORQUES said:

braddo said:

For a race and then the tank is emptied.

Every racing car has the fuel drained post event, petrol or methanol.

Residual fuel stays in the system. Its built to use it.

How is that useful for my commute?

[GT9]

SpeckledJim said:

The essential point is that the sooner there are lots of used EVs around, the sooner they'll become more affordable. That only happens a number of years after we push/pull a LOT of expensive, brand new EVs into the market.

At the moment there are more people who want a 6-year old EV than there are 6 year-old EVs out there to buy. That situation will change with time.

You could explain this 50 times, and it still won't sink in for some people. Not directed at havoc btw.

[havoc]

SpeckledJim said:

havoc said:

SpeckledJim said:

If I can’t afford the used car at £30k, that doesn’t indicate that the market is dysfunctional or that there’s something wrong with the pricing of the car. It’s been advertised at £30k because someone is realistically anticipated to buy it. The market is working fine, it’s just that I’m not in that bit of it.

I think you just made my point for me.

Not at all. There's no merit in complaining that a used car is too expensive, because whatever the high price is, someone] is buying it. The market is working, it's just not working the way you/I/whoever might want it to.

In which case you've completely missed my point.

You commented that EVs were losing too much value but were still too expensive to buy, as a sarcastic statement that both complaints are levied at EVs right now yet are contradictory.

I gave you a scenario where both CAN be the case without being contradictory. I'm not talking about the future. I'm talking about the market right now
- Early adopters ARE losing a lot of cash in depreciation, as the purchase prices are (or certainly were, up to the last year or two) notably higher than an ICE equivalent.
- Those in the second-hand market still see EVs as very expensive for what you get.


Simple. Like braddo.

[otolith]

We're still in very early days, with another 12 years to go before we even stop making new ICEs. Most cars on the road will still be petrol or diesel in 2035, even when all new cars are not. The people who will have no choice over whether to buy an electric or ICE used car aren't born yet.

[SpeckledJim]

havoc said:

SpeckledJim said:

havoc said:

SpeckledJim said:

If I can’t afford the used car at £30k, that doesn’t indicate that the market is dysfunctional or that there’s something wrong with the pricing of the car. It’s been advertised at £30k because someone is realistically anticipated to buy it. The market is working fine, it’s just that I’m not in that bit of it.

I think you just made my point for me.

Not at all. There's no merit in complaining that a used car is too expensive, because whatever the high price is, someone] is buying it. The market is working, it's just not working the way you/I/whoever might want it to.

In which case you've completely missed my point.

You commented that EVs were losing too much value but were still too expensive to buy, as a sarcastic statement that both complaints are levied at EVs right now yet are contradictory.

I gave you a scenario where both CAN be the case without being contradictory. I'm not talking about the future. I'm talking about the market right now
- Early adopters ARE losing a lot of cash in depreciation, as the purchase prices are (or certainly were, up to the last year or two) notably higher than an ICE equivalent.
- Those in the second-hand market still see EVs as very expensive for what you get.


Simple. Like braddo.

This is where I think we differ. The people PARTICIPATING IN the second hand market are seeing them as fair value. Otherwise they wouldn't be swapping lots of their hard-earned money for them. (with a nod to the current blip/hiccup/correction)

The people OBSERVING the second hand market, I agree with you, think they're very expensive for what you get. That doesn't really matter at the moment though, because there's already too many used buyers and not enough used cars without millions more deciding that 'now's the time'. (again, with a nod to the current blip/hiccup/correction)

[braddo]

havoc said:

Simple. Like braddo.

In that I don't waste loads of words and formatting arguing about the wrong thing and missing the point, yes, I am simple compared to you.

[kambites]

otolith said:

Most cars on the road will still be petrol or diesel in 2035

I'm not sure that's necessarily a given. With EVs now making up roughly one in six new car sales and many people predicting they will be over one in four by the end of this year and 50% by the end of 2025 it's possible we'll see the majority of cars on the road being electric by 2035.

I guess the big question is when EV market share will start to stall due to charging infrastructure not keeping up.

[Pan Pan Pan]

GT9 said:

pheonix478 said:

GT9 said:

Which begs the question why a consumer would support the idea of e-fuel, unless they are shilling for the oil and gas sector.
...

In the event we can't get our hands on fossil fuel, you're damn right I want efuel to keep my classics running. Yes I appreciate they will probably cost 3-5x, but that's still a lot cheaper running cost than a race horse!

Genuinely renewable e-fuel is many decades away from being either available in reasonable quantities or actually necessary to replace petrol.

What it definitely will not do is stop the electrification of cars in general, or offer an alternative way to decarbonise existing ICE cars on the roads.

Unless those cars are still in use in 25 years time, which will be a tiny %.

I think we should stop pretending that it is some sort of short term alternative, it just isn't.

E-fuels will happen anyway, and if petrol is no longer available in 25 years or so, great we have another option to run whatever remains of the petrol ICE cars.

In the mean time, let's focus on what's important, getting the consumption of diesel down and increasing the number of EVs on the roads so buyers at all price points will be able to choose between EV or ICE.

People will probably `prefer' to be given the choice between using an EV or an ICE vehicle for a very long time to come.
`Some' proponents of EVs sound like someone who has bought the Betamax version of a motor vehicle, and who is desperate for others to do the same, so they dont get left holding the Beta max version of a vehicle,
Not least because they jumped the gun, and bought an EV before the practicalities, and the future of motoring was was properly determined.
As a friend once said, learning from one's mistakes is not really much good, but learning from `other peoples' mistakes is always much, much better.

[pheonix478]

DonkeyApple said:

pheonix478 said:

GT9 said:

Which begs the question why a consumer would support the idea of e-fuel, unless they are shilling for the oil and gas sector.
...

In the event we can't get our hands on fossil fuel, you're damn right I want efuel to keep my classics running. Yes I appreciate they will probably cost 3-5x, but that's still a lot cheaper running cost than a race horse!

Which seems logical but is just a line being promoted by a group of people involved in the industry so as to get public support for their motorsport plans and personal investments.

Frankly, some of the names involved should be ringing alarm bells for the most benign of people. It's a who's who of 20th century robber barons.

Efuel is just a fancy rebranding of the word alcohol.

One takes green hydrogen made at huge cost from constant and predictable wind generation (only really three core geographic locations on Earth where the criteria fit) and then one finds an enormous and constant supply of carbon monoxide (fossil fuels are the only true source) and one creates syngases. This process produces cO2 and methane as byproducts. Two quite popular green house gases but one keeps quiet about these for fear of scaring polar bears. It also leads to high hydrogen leakage which is also a robust secondary green house gas.

But also side all the gaseous pollution you get the gaseous raw ingredient for ammonia/fertiliser. But for fancy and exotic eFuels you catalyse this into methanol. Done.

Methanol. The stuff tramps drink. The sort of muck that no sane owner of a classic car would ever put anywhere near their treasured car.

No sane person would ever buy hugely expensive Chilean tramp juice so you need to rebrand it. And you can tell the age of the folk doing the rebranding because they just stuck the letter è un front of another word like somehow we are still in the 1990s!! So we now have sexy, awesome, planet saving, ICE eFuels and no one talking about ghastly muck that tramps drink.

So, you drive you classic car to the petrol station and there is your sexy, planet saving, hugely expensive tramp juice that in order to use you will have to redesign your fuelling system and probably your heads. It's also more hygroscopic than ethanol so you will have to empty the fuel tank of your classic when not using it. Filthy, expensive muck no sane owner would put near their classic. And then next to that pump is a row of pumps just selling petrol because half the nation is still using petrol powered cars.

Do you A: pay a fortune to fill your valuable car up with toxic tramp juice or B: just fill it with normal petrol?

You could have saved yourself a lot of typing if you read what I wrote!

[otolith]

kambites said:

otolith said:

Most cars on the road will still be petrol or diesel in 2035

I'm not sure that's necessarily a given. With EVs now making up roughly one in six new car sales and many people predicting they will be over one in four by the end of this year and 50% by the end of 2025 it's possible we'll see the majority of cars on the road being electric by 2035.

I guess the big question is when EV market share will start to stall due to charging infrastructure not keeping up.

The projections I've seen before assume a minority share for EV in 2035, but it obviously depends on what the market does.

[DonkeyApple]

500TORQUES said:

Methanol is used extensively in historic racing cars and in modern US racing cars.

Yes. So what though? Petrol is used extensively in road cars across the whole planet and will remain freely available in markets such as the U.K. for decades to come. Methanol is a rubbish fuel for general road car use for multiple reasons.

For road cars you need to run FT on the basic alcohol, adding huge amounts of carbon to create a synthetic blend of C6+ long chain hydrocarbons ie a petrol. And we can guess the required carbon source and the comical end price.

[DonkeyApple]

braddo said:

500TORQUES said:

Methanol is used extensively in historic racing cars and in modern US racing cars.

For a race and then the tank is emptied.

And engine parts junked during the rebuild.

[kambites]

otolith said:

kambites said:

otolith said:

Most cars on the road will still be petrol or diesel in 2035

I'm not sure that's necessarily a given. With EVs now making up roughly one in six new car sales and many people predicting they will be over one in four by the end of this year and 50% by the end of 2025 it's possible we'll see the majority of cars on the road being electric by 2035.

I guess the big question is when EV market share will start to stall due to charging infrastructure not keeping up.

The projections I've seen before assume a minority share for EV in 2035, but it obviously depends on what the market does.

Yes it's a very difficult thing to predict. My gut feeling is that we'll see a fairly quick rise to somewhere around 50% market share, at which point every new car buyer for whom EVs are currently suitable will have one and things will stagnate until someone finds a solution to the problem of home charging for people with no private off-street parking. Whether that happens in 2030 or 2070 remains to be seen...

[havoc]

SpeckledJim said:

This is where I think we differ. The people PARTICIPATING IN the second hand market are seeing them as fair value. Otherwise they wouldn't be swapping lots of their hard-earned money for them. (with a nod to the current blip/hiccup/correction)

The people OBSERVING the second hand market, I agree with you, think they're very expensive for what you get. That doesn't really matter at the moment though, because there's already too many used buyers and not enough used cars without millions more deciding that 'now's the time'. (again, with a nod to the current blip/hiccup/correction)

Fair points. You can discuss what's driving those participating to step-in at that price (acute need / financial benefits / social or moral decision...), but it sort of doesn't matter...they are in there, and (presumably, unless cars are sitting on forecourts for months) they are paying the prices.

kambites said:

otolith said:

Most cars on the road will still be petrol or diesel in 2035

I'm not sure that's necessarily a given. With EVs now making up roughly one in six new car sales and many people predicting they will be over one in four by the end of this year and 50% by the end of 2025 it's possible we'll see the majority of cars on the road being electric by 2035.

We've >30m cars on the road in this country and ~1.6m new car sales per year. So even if 100% of new car sales were EVs, it'd take (roughly) 10 years to achieve 50% penetration of the total population of cars. Assuming that write-offs of EVs are immaterial and that all replaced/scrapped vehicles are ICE.

If we do work on 50% of new sales being EVs from (say) 2024 to 2035, it'll add a little over 25% to the current fraction (<2%), so we'd still be shy of 30% of total cars by 2035.
Personally I think it'll take a fair bit longer than 2 years to get from 16% of new-car sales currently to the 50% you suggest.

[DonkeyApple]

kambites said:

otolith said:

kambites said:

otolith said:

Most cars on the road will still be petrol or diesel in 2035

I'm not sure that's necessarily a given. With EVs now making up roughly one in six new car sales and many people predicting they will be over one in four by the end of this year and 50% by the end of 2025 it's possible we'll see the majority of cars on the road being electric by 2035.

I guess the big question is when EV market share will start to stall due to charging infrastructure not keeping up.

The projections I've seen before assume a minority share for EV in 2035, but it obviously depends on what the market does.

Yes it's a very difficult thing to predict. My gut feeling is that we'll see a fairly quick rise to somewhere around 50% market share, at which point every new car buyer for whom EVs are currently suitable will have one and things will stagnate until someone finds a solution to the problem of home charging for people with no private off-street parking. Whether that happens in 2030 or 2070 remains to be seen...

We buy 2m new cars a year in the U.K. it varies by a few hundred thousand either side based on the economy. At the moment it's about 1.7m and not predicted to go back over 2m for some time.

EV sales are about 400k/annum now? That'll get to around 1m but it's really not likely to go much higher than that as so many potential car buyers cannot yet use an EV.

A fair projection based on economic/GDP per capita projections would suggest somewhere between 10-15m EVs by 2035. So about one third of cars.

We can also predict that the scrapping rate of ICE is going to decline which will further suppress EV percentages.

What will skew sales to EV quicker than predicted will be if cheap and usable EVs appear in the next decade that offer clear savings over ICE. That's the unknown factor that the higher predictions are relying on.

[500TORQUES]

DonkeyApple said:

braddo said:

500TORQUES said:

Methanol is used extensively in historic racing cars and in modern US racing cars.

For a race and then the tank is emptied.

And engine parts junked during the rebuild.

No more than any other race engine. Methanol helps the engine run safer, it's a cooler burn, so you tend to have less issues with things like det induced failures as the engine is not knock limited.