Discussion
Phil. said:
Thanks Rob
You appear to be in an enviable position in NZ. You generate you own electricity though renewable means and fuel your EV from this.
The UK and other highly populated countries have a way to go. EV’s do appear to improve overall emissions but the amount it is dependent on the source of the electricity. Battery production and mineral mining remains an environmental concern.
I take this that EV’s are a marginal step forward but not a holy grail. Ultimately people will have to adopt a change to their lifestyle and transportation if they wish to reduce emissions significantly and positively effect climate change.
Let me so bold to say they eating less meat (adopting a plant based diet) will probably have more of an impact on environmental issues than adopting EV’s. Something for another thread
UK grid is changing quickly.You appear to be in an enviable position in NZ. You generate you own electricity though renewable means and fuel your EV from this.
The UK and other highly populated countries have a way to go. EV’s do appear to improve overall emissions but the amount it is dependent on the source of the electricity. Battery production and mineral mining remains an environmental concern.
I take this that EV’s are a marginal step forward but not a holy grail. Ultimately people will have to adopt a change to their lifestyle and transportation if they wish to reduce emissions significantly and positively effect climate change.
Let me so bold to say they eating less meat (adopting a plant based diet) will probably have more of an impact on environmental issues than adopting EV’s. Something for another thread
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/0...
EVs on their own are not a silver bullet, just one thing out of many we need to change to have the best chance of limiting climate breakdown. Its not an area we can ignore but also thee are other aspects we need to look at.
RobDickinson said:
UK grid is changing quickly.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/0...
EVs on their own are not a silver bullet, just one thing out of many we need to change to have the best chance of limiting climate breakdown. Its not an area we can ignore but also thee are other aspects we need to look at.
I get that Rob. Things are moving I the right direction in the UK from a generation perspective. All we need to do now is decide if we are in/out the EU so our politicians can begin focusing on the important issues we face rather than playing politics! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/0...
EVs on their own are not a silver bullet, just one thing out of many we need to change to have the best chance of limiting climate breakdown. Its not an area we can ignore but also thee are other aspects we need to look at.
RobDickinson said:
There have been other studies showing the payback on an electric vehicle is 6-12 months of use, in NZ our cars have an average age of 15 years.
At the risk of going off topic slightly...The end of life of a car in NZ is invariably mechanical failures, compared with the UK rust is a non issue.
Second hand Leafs (ex Japan) are flooding into NZ - fit a new battery to an EV and it is to all intents and purposes a new car.
Hence there is no reason why the life of an EV in NZ won't be in the tens of years.
Someone here could buy a new 64kW Kona, and never need to buy another car for the rest of their life.
@Phil, is this of any interest? https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM It looked like a reasonable effort to me.
caziques said:
At the risk of going off topic slightly...
The end of life of a car in NZ is invariably mechanical failures, compared with the UK rust is a non issue.
Second hand Leafs (ex Japan) are flooding into NZ - fit a new battery to an EV and it is to all intents and purposes a new car.
Hence there is no reason why the life of an EV in NZ won't be in the tens of years.
Someone here could buy a new 64kW Kona, and never need to buy another car for the rest of their life.
This sounds like a good thing. But it does have a slight flaw. We’ve actually been able to eek huge longevity from cars for decades, even quite badly built ones or ones that live in quite hostile environments. The key is that the owner has to give a crap and actually put some effort in to maintaining the vehicle. The end of life of a car in NZ is invariably mechanical failures, compared with the UK rust is a non issue.
Second hand Leafs (ex Japan) are flooding into NZ - fit a new battery to an EV and it is to all intents and purposes a new car.
Hence there is no reason why the life of an EV in NZ won't be in the tens of years.
Someone here could buy a new 64kW Kona, and never need to buy another car for the rest of their life.
The problem is that this is 100% at odds with modern mass consumption which is all based on not giving a damn, leasing for 3 years and chucking it on as quickly as possible to gorge ourselves on the next fat chunk of excessive consumption.
It’s actually remarkably illogical to assume that because a product has a battery pack instead of a petrol tank that this will somehow manifestly redefine how the entire planet consumes its goods. There’s no logical connection or correlation.
Consumers will still be destroying/consuming EVs as quickly as they are other vehicles. In fact we should probably worry that as the EV is accelerating the importance of in-car tech that the pace of disposal due to on trend redundancy could even increase this rate even though it could be used to retard it.
What we should always keep clear in our minds is that if any of this was truly about the environment and society then we would not be focussing per se in particular fuel types at all but focussing on reducing the use of all fuel types and the individual impact of each product.
Two very simple taxes could define a genuine environmental change and those taxes would be firstly a tax on weight. The enormous weight of vehicles is hugely damaging. It results in the use of more materials, more fuels to transport those materials for a lifetime, more damage to the roads, more damage to each other. A tax that incentivised massive weight reduction would be incredibly environmental in its massive reduction of resource consumption and the applied consumption of the lifetime of the vehicle.
The second simple tax is one of reward for ownership. Reducing the annual tax on a vehicle each year that an individual owns it so as to reward and incentivise reduced consumption. The ramifications of massively reduced vehicle manufacturing and what is produced no longer designed to live through just two 3 year financing contracts but have to be able to live through 10-20 year mortgage like funding deals is immense.
But just thinking laterally about true taxes and incentives to be environmental does make you realise that absolutely nothing that we are doing at all in the realm of personal transport is environmental. It is all about ensuring consumption increases year on year, that taxes grow that wealth flows from the weak nations to the strong.
Modern environmentalism is nothing more than a rebranding and turbocharging of capitalism and excess consumption. Every company in the West is investing in ‘environmental’ marketing to increase the sale of goods, to fuel increasing consumption.
I spent 5 days watching the people of the Extinction Rebellion in London walking in and out of coffee shops, food shops, wandering around drinking bottled water and creating huge amounts of packaging litter and wearing clothes made in the furthest reaches of the third world while screaming their rage at a generation that never bought takeaway coffee, never bought sandwiches in plastic packaging, never bought bottled water etc etc. The failure to comprehend that our excess consumption is not a generational thing but an issue that impacts everyone and is caused by everyone is just another deep issue that clouds true environmentalism.
Something that would truly set Dyson apart would be if they built an EV that was marketed as a ‘car for life’. To be the first firm that didn’t look to sell its customer a new product every 3 years but specifically sold a product intended to last 30 years. A product where you could even exchange bodies on the skate board chassis to ensure that the vehicle fitted with any of your life requirements. Sporty coupe being switched for an estate when the kids come along etc.
But no EV is actually ‘environmental’. It is just another product designed to be consumed and disposed of as quickly as possible so another can be made, more taxes generated, more financing deals written and economic growth expanded.
The old boy in his 30 year old Metro that he has cherished and maintained while always leaving the house with a thermos of drink and home made sandwiches in the same container he has used for 30 years and who doesn’t jet off for foreign holidays nor have any desire to own the latest gadgetry. He is the environmentalist. It’s not the chap who wants the latest car, latest gadget, buys bottled water, buys pre-prepared foods, flies on holiday and buys everything that says it is environmental.
Chris-S said:
@Phil, is this of any interest? https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM It looked like a reasonable effort to me.
Thanks Chris. Interesting. All the figures used are US based and as one comment observes, the video uses an average of 500g CO2 emissions whereas in Europe the average emissions is nearer 150-160g CO2, which changes the comparative figures in the video by 2-3 times in the favour of fossil fueled cars.
The lithium mining issue was glossed over, and there was little mention of the environmental cost of mining fossil fuels.
This video reinforces the argument that the source of the electricity is absolutely key to the EV equation, and that driving a 100KW vehicle isn’t that helpful to the environment.
Small electric cars with (currently) limited ranges powered by renewable energy are definitely a good thing. However, replacing like for like our current transportation needs (cars and HGV’s) with EV’s is far less clear cut when it comes to environmental issues.
I’m not convinced that EV’s are the holy grail that some people are being led to believe they are, but nor do I think fossil fuel transportation is viable in the longer term. Whatever the eventual solution I think society will have to change (reduce) it’s need for individual transportation to which it has become accustomed over the last 50-60 years.
DonkeyApple said:
This sounds like a good thing. But it does have a slight flaw. We’ve actually been able to eek huge longevity from cars for decades, even quite badly built ones or ones that live in quite hostile environments. The key is that the owner has to give a crap and actually put some effort in to maintaining the vehicle.
The problem is that this is 100% at odds with modern mass consumption which is all based on not giving a damn, leasing for 3 years and chucking it on as quickly as possible to gorge ourselves on the next fat chunk of excessive consumption.
It’s actually remarkably illogical to assume that because a product has a battery pack instead of a petrol tank that this will somehow manifestly redefine how the entire planet consumes its goods. There’s no logical connection or correlation.
Consumers will still be destroying/consuming EVs as quickly as they are other vehicles. In fact we should probably worry that as the EV is accelerating the importance of in-car tech that the pace of disposal due to on trend redundancy could even increase this rate even though it could be used to retard it.
What we should always keep clear in our minds is that if any of this was truly about the environment and society then we would not be focussing per se in particular fuel types at all but focussing on reducing the use of all fuel types and the individual impact of each product.
Two very simple taxes could define a genuine environmental change and those taxes would be firstly a tax on weight. The enormous weight of vehicles is hugely damaging. It results in the use of more materials, more fuels to transport those materials for a lifetime, more damage to the roads, more damage to each other. A tax that incentivised massive weight reduction would be incredibly environmental in its massive reduction of resource consumption and the applied consumption of the lifetime of the vehicle.
The second simple tax is one of reward for ownership. Reducing the annual tax on a vehicle each year that an individual owns it so as to reward and incentivise reduced consumption. The ramifications of massively reduced vehicle manufacturing and what is produced no longer designed to live through just two 3 year financing contracts but have to be able to live through 10-20 year mortgage like funding deals is immense.
But just thinking laterally about true taxes and incentives to be environmental does make you realise that absolutely nothing that we are doing at all in the realm of personal transport is environmental. It is all about ensuring consumption increases year on year, that taxes grow that wealth flows from the weak nations to the strong.
Modern environmentalism is nothing more than a rebranding and turbocharging of capitalism and excess consumption. Every company in the West is investing in ‘environmental’ marketing to increase the sale of goods, to fuel increasing consumption.
I spent 5 days watching the people of the Extinction Rebellion in London walking in and out of coffee shops, food shops, wandering around drinking bottled water and creating huge amounts of packaging litter and wearing clothes made in the furthest reaches of the third world while screaming their rage at a generation that never bought takeaway coffee, never bought sandwiches in plastic packaging, never bought bottled water etc etc. The failure to comprehend that our excess consumption is not a generational thing but an issue that impacts everyone and is caused by everyone is just another deep issue that clouds true environmentalism.
Something that would truly set Dyson apart would be if they built an EV that was marketed as a ‘car for life’. To be the first firm that didn’t look to sell its customer a new product every 3 years but specifically sold a product intended to last 30 years. A product where you could even exchange bodies on the skate board chassis to ensure that the vehicle fitted with any of your life requirements. Sporty coupe being switched for an estate when the kids come along etc.
But no EV is actually ‘environmental’. It is just another product designed to be consumed and disposed of as quickly as possible so another can be made, more taxes generated, more financing deals written and economic growth expanded.
The old boy in his 30 year old Metro that he has cherished and maintained while always leaving the house with a thermos of drink and home made sandwiches in the same container he has used for 30 years and who doesn’t jet off for foreign holidays nor have any desire to own the latest gadgetry. He is the environmentalist. It’s not the chap who wants the latest car, latest gadget, buys bottled water, buys pre-prepared foods, flies on holiday and buys everything that says it is environmental.
I agree DA. You have made some good points that our politicians and society should be seriously considering.The problem is that this is 100% at odds with modern mass consumption which is all based on not giving a damn, leasing for 3 years and chucking it on as quickly as possible to gorge ourselves on the next fat chunk of excessive consumption.
It’s actually remarkably illogical to assume that because a product has a battery pack instead of a petrol tank that this will somehow manifestly redefine how the entire planet consumes its goods. There’s no logical connection or correlation.
Consumers will still be destroying/consuming EVs as quickly as they are other vehicles. In fact we should probably worry that as the EV is accelerating the importance of in-car tech that the pace of disposal due to on trend redundancy could even increase this rate even though it could be used to retard it.
What we should always keep clear in our minds is that if any of this was truly about the environment and society then we would not be focussing per se in particular fuel types at all but focussing on reducing the use of all fuel types and the individual impact of each product.
Two very simple taxes could define a genuine environmental change and those taxes would be firstly a tax on weight. The enormous weight of vehicles is hugely damaging. It results in the use of more materials, more fuels to transport those materials for a lifetime, more damage to the roads, more damage to each other. A tax that incentivised massive weight reduction would be incredibly environmental in its massive reduction of resource consumption and the applied consumption of the lifetime of the vehicle.
The second simple tax is one of reward for ownership. Reducing the annual tax on a vehicle each year that an individual owns it so as to reward and incentivise reduced consumption. The ramifications of massively reduced vehicle manufacturing and what is produced no longer designed to live through just two 3 year financing contracts but have to be able to live through 10-20 year mortgage like funding deals is immense.
But just thinking laterally about true taxes and incentives to be environmental does make you realise that absolutely nothing that we are doing at all in the realm of personal transport is environmental. It is all about ensuring consumption increases year on year, that taxes grow that wealth flows from the weak nations to the strong.
Modern environmentalism is nothing more than a rebranding and turbocharging of capitalism and excess consumption. Every company in the West is investing in ‘environmental’ marketing to increase the sale of goods, to fuel increasing consumption.
I spent 5 days watching the people of the Extinction Rebellion in London walking in and out of coffee shops, food shops, wandering around drinking bottled water and creating huge amounts of packaging litter and wearing clothes made in the furthest reaches of the third world while screaming their rage at a generation that never bought takeaway coffee, never bought sandwiches in plastic packaging, never bought bottled water etc etc. The failure to comprehend that our excess consumption is not a generational thing but an issue that impacts everyone and is caused by everyone is just another deep issue that clouds true environmentalism.
Something that would truly set Dyson apart would be if they built an EV that was marketed as a ‘car for life’. To be the first firm that didn’t look to sell its customer a new product every 3 years but specifically sold a product intended to last 30 years. A product where you could even exchange bodies on the skate board chassis to ensure that the vehicle fitted with any of your life requirements. Sporty coupe being switched for an estate when the kids come along etc.
But no EV is actually ‘environmental’. It is just another product designed to be consumed and disposed of as quickly as possible so another can be made, more taxes generated, more financing deals written and economic growth expanded.
The old boy in his 30 year old Metro that he has cherished and maintained while always leaving the house with a thermos of drink and home made sandwiches in the same container he has used for 30 years and who doesn’t jet off for foreign holidays nor have any desire to own the latest gadgetry. He is the environmentalist. It’s not the chap who wants the latest car, latest gadget, buys bottled water, buys pre-prepared foods, flies on holiday and buys everything that says it is environmental.
The thing about the environmentalists at the moment is they are stamping their feet but not offering any strategies or ideas for change that will be acceptable to society, can be implemented and have impact.
Phil. said:
Thanks Chris. Interesting.
All the figures used are US based and as one comment observes, the video uses an average of 500g CO2 emissions whereas in Europe the average emissions is nearer 150-160g CO2, which changes the comparative figures in the video by 2-3 times in the favour of fossil fueled cars.
The lithium mining issue was glossed over, and there was little mention of the environmental cost of mining fossil fuels.
This video reinforces the argument that the source of the electricity is absolutely key to the EV equation, and that driving a 100KW vehicle isn’t that helpful to the environment.
Small electric cars with (currently) limited ranges powered by renewable energy are definitely a good thing. However, replacing like for like our current transportation needs (cars and HGV’s) with EV’s is far less clear cut when it comes to environmental issues.
I’m not convinced that EV’s are the holy grail that some people are being led to believe they are, but nor do I think fossil fuel transportation is viable in the longer term. Whatever the eventual solution I think society will have to change (reduce) it’s need for individual transportation to which it has become accustomed over the last 50-60 years.
They are not but here is what is important: They are less polluting for wealthy people. Lithium is extracted in third world countries such as Chile. No one gives a damn if they are all poisened or their country is ruined. Cobalt comes from the DR Congo. That’s just a bit of land for the West and Asia to strip of its resources to fuel its economic growth. No one cares about the worthless humans that live there. And how the power is generated for EVs is totally irrelevant. Look at where power stations are situated. Next to a handful of poor people absolutely no one cares about. It really doesn’t matter if they all die as a result. All the figures used are US based and as one comment observes, the video uses an average of 500g CO2 emissions whereas in Europe the average emissions is nearer 150-160g CO2, which changes the comparative figures in the video by 2-3 times in the favour of fossil fueled cars.
The lithium mining issue was glossed over, and there was little mention of the environmental cost of mining fossil fuels.
This video reinforces the argument that the source of the electricity is absolutely key to the EV equation, and that driving a 100KW vehicle isn’t that helpful to the environment.
Small electric cars with (currently) limited ranges powered by renewable energy are definitely a good thing. However, replacing like for like our current transportation needs (cars and HGV’s) with EV’s is far less clear cut when it comes to environmental issues.
I’m not convinced that EV’s are the holy grail that some people are being led to believe they are, but nor do I think fossil fuel transportation is viable in the longer term. Whatever the eventual solution I think society will have to change (reduce) it’s need for individual transportation to which it has become accustomed over the last 50-60 years.
They are all expendable so as to achieve cleaner local air where we live. We are not expendable. We are much more important. If we need to poison 1000 third world children to reduce the risk of our child having a bit of asthma then done. Done in a heartbeat. Besides who do they think they are to tell us what we can or cannot buy?
I don’t think anyone sees EVs as the holy grail. I don’t think anyone realistically thinks they can replace ICE at any kind of enormous rate. They have their good points and their bad points and lots of us will be happy to migrate over to EV as and when appropriate as they are generally more efficient than the typesnofnICE alternatives being built but someone would have to be quite stupid or deluded to actually think they are an actual solution to anything significant.
DonkeyApple said:
caziques said:
At the risk of going off topic slightly...
The end of life of a car in NZ is invariably mechanical failures, compared with the UK rust is a non issue.
Second hand Leafs (ex Japan) are flooding into NZ - fit a new battery to an EV and it is to all intents and purposes a new car.
Hence there is no reason why the life of an EV in NZ won't be in the tens of years.
Someone here could buy a new 64kW Kona, and never need to buy another car for the rest of their life.
This sounds like a good thing. But it does have a slight flaw. We’ve actually been able to eek huge longevity from cars for decades, even quite badly built ones or ones that live in quite hostile environments. The key is that the owner has to give a crap and actually put some effort in to maintaining the vehicle. The end of life of a car in NZ is invariably mechanical failures, compared with the UK rust is a non issue.
Second hand Leafs (ex Japan) are flooding into NZ - fit a new battery to an EV and it is to all intents and purposes a new car.
Hence there is no reason why the life of an EV in NZ won't be in the tens of years.
Someone here could buy a new 64kW Kona, and never need to buy another car for the rest of their life.
The problem is that this is 100% at odds with modern mass consumption which is all based on not giving a damn, leasing for 3 years and chucking it on as quickly as possible to gorge ourselves on the next fat chunk of excessive consumption.
It’s actually remarkably illogical to assume that because a product has a battery pack instead of a petrol tank that this will somehow manifestly redefine how the entire planet consumes its goods. There’s no logical connection or correlation.
Consumers will still be destroying/consuming EVs as quickly as they are other vehicles. In fact we should probably worry that as the EV is accelerating the importance of in-car tech that the pace of disposal due to on trend redundancy could even increase this rate even though it could be used to retard it.
What we should always keep clear in our minds is that if any of this was truly about the environment and society then we would not be focussing per se in particular fuel types at all but focussing on reducing the use of all fuel types and the individual impact of each product.
Two very simple taxes could define a genuine environmental change and those taxes would be firstly a tax on weight. The enormous weight of vehicles is hugely damaging. It results in the use of more materials, more fuels to transport those materials for a lifetime, more damage to the roads, more damage to each other. A tax that incentivised massive weight reduction would be incredibly environmental in its massive reduction of resource consumption and the applied consumption of the lifetime of the vehicle.
The second simple tax is one of reward for ownership. Reducing the annual tax on a vehicle each year that an individual owns it so as to reward and incentivise reduced consumption. The ramifications of massively reduced vehicle manufacturing and what is produced no longer designed to live through just two 3 year financing contracts but have to be able to live through 10-20 year mortgage like funding deals is immense.
But just thinking laterally about true taxes and incentives to be environmental does make you realise that absolutely nothing that we are doing at all in the realm of personal transport is environmental. It is all about ensuring consumption increases year on year, that taxes grow that wealth flows from the weak nations to the strong.
Modern environmentalism is nothing more than a rebranding and turbocharging of capitalism and excess consumption. Every company in the West is investing in ‘environmental’ marketing to increase the sale of goods, to fuel increasing consumption.
I spent 5 days watching the people of the Extinction Rebellion in London walking in and out of coffee shops, food shops, wandering around drinking bottled water and creating huge amounts of packaging litter and wearing clothes made in the furthest reaches of the third world while screaming their rage at a generation that never bought takeaway coffee, never bought sandwiches in plastic packaging, never bought bottled water etc etc. The failure to comprehend that our excess consumption is not a generational thing but an issue that impacts everyone and is caused by everyone is just another deep issue that clouds true environmentalism.
Something that would truly set Dyson apart would be if they built an EV that was marketed as a ‘car for life’. To be the first firm that didn’t look to sell its customer a new product every 3 years but specifically sold a product intended to last 30 years. A product where you could even exchange bodies on the skate board chassis to ensure that the vehicle fitted with any of your life requirements. Sporty coupe being switched for an estate when the kids come along etc.
But no EV is actually ‘environmental’. It is just another product designed to be consumed and disposed of as quickly as possible so another can be made, more taxes generated, more financing deals written and economic growth expanded.
The old boy in his 30 year old Metro that he has cherished and maintained while always leaving the house with a thermos of drink and home made sandwiches in the same container he has used for 30 years and who doesn’t jet off for foreign holidays nor have any desire to own the latest gadgetry. He is the environmentalist. It’s not the chap who wants the latest car, latest gadget, buys bottled water, buys pre-prepared foods, flies on holiday and buys everything that says it is environmental.
The genie is out and big business don't know how best to deal with it, the GM EV1 terrified the motor industry, why else would it have been cancelled and destroyed as quickly. but thing was they opened the door and it got out. Can you imagine just what the electric car is going to do to the motor industry ? its going to rip it to pieces and they are going to have to start all over again. GM saw that and retracted very quickly from the table,
It wouldn't be impossible to buy an ev and never have to visit the garage again, what serviceable parts does it need ? with programming you wont even need brakes, the electric motor can slow you down as well as speed you up. So we will mourn the demise of a glorious V12 ? Honestly I don't think so, we wont mourn the expense of keeping a car on the road. Can you imagine 250,000 miles with only ever having to change tyres.... over 20 years of motoring only ever having to pay for electricity to recharge your battery....I know a bit wild but not that far from it..... fuel filters air filters spark plugs
DonkeyApple said:
They are not but here is what is important: They are less polluting for wealthy people. Lithium is extracted in third world countries such as Chile. No one gives a damn if they are all poisened or their country is ruined. Cobalt comes from the DR Congo. That’s just a bit of land for the West and Asia to strip of its resources to fuel its economic growth. No one cares about the worthless humans that live there. And how the power is generated for EVs is totally irrelevant. Look at where power stations are situated. Next to a handful of poor people absolutely no one cares about. It really doesn’t matter if they all die as a result.
They are all expendable so as to achieve cleaner local air where we live. We are not expendable. We are much more important. If we need to poison 1000 third world children to reduce the risk of our child having a bit of asthma then done. Done in a heartbeat. Besides who do they think they are to tell us what we can or cannot buy?
I don’t think anyone sees EVs as the holy grail. I don’t think anyone realistically thinks they can replace ICE at any kind of enormous rate. They have their good points and their bad points and lots of us will be happy to migrate over to EV as and when appropriate as they are generally more efficient than the typesnofnICE alternatives being built but someone would have to be quite stupid or deluded to actually think they are an actual solution to anything significant.
Can’t agree more. I’ve seen first hand how cheap life is in parts of Africa and how rich countries continue to abuse these people and the planet. They are all expendable so as to achieve cleaner local air where we live. We are not expendable. We are much more important. If we need to poison 1000 third world children to reduce the risk of our child having a bit of asthma then done. Done in a heartbeat. Besides who do they think they are to tell us what we can or cannot buy?
I don’t think anyone sees EVs as the holy grail. I don’t think anyone realistically thinks they can replace ICE at any kind of enormous rate. They have their good points and their bad points and lots of us will be happy to migrate over to EV as and when appropriate as they are generally more efficient than the typesnofnICE alternatives being built but someone would have to be quite stupid or deluded to actually think they are an actual solution to anything significant.
It’s interesting to see how clothing buying behaviors are just beginning to change now that it’s been exposed by some social media stars how environmentally damaging and exploitative the manufacturing process is in third world countries. My wife and daughter have both decided to adopt a new approach to their clothing needs, recycling clothes (buying used), making their clothes last longer, buying clothes more responsibly (not buying cheap throw away stuff) and generally buying much less. The fact that this behavior is becoming trendy with some young people is encouraging. We just need to adopt the same attitude to transportation.
Unfortunately I’m still as guilty as the rest when it comes to cars but I have reduced the number of miles I drive massively this year and do use Skype/phone far more now rather than traveling to a meeting even if the other party wants to meet.
ruggedscotty said:
The enviromentalists are foot stamping rebellionists, the ones that like to be a rebel and kick up the dust before they go back to their normal life, their little chance to be different and going against the norm.
The genie is out and big business don't know how best to deal with it, the GM EV1 terrified the motor industry, why else would it have been cancelled and destroyed as quickly. but thing was they opened the door and it got out. Can you imagine just what the electric car is going to do to the motor industry ? its going to rip it to pieces and they are going to have to start all over again. GM saw that and retracted very quickly from the table,
It wouldn't be impossible to buy an ev and never have to visit the garage again, what serviceable parts does it need ? with programming you wont even need brakes, the electric motor can slow you down as well as speed you up. So we will mourn the demise of a glorious V12 ? Honestly I don't think so, we wont mourn the expense of keeping a car on the road. Can you imagine 250,000 miles with only ever having to change tyres.... over 20 years of motoring only ever having to pay for electricity to recharge your battery....I know a bit wild but not that far from it..... fuel filters air filters spark plugs
Indeed but what I am saying is that it is important to understand that we could have been building ‘cars for life’ decades ago without EV. It’s important to actually separate the two and ask why we don’t make our cars to last longer. Before any ICE or EV can be sold on that basis first we need to comprehend why no one is interested in buying a vehicle that can last that long. The genie is out and big business don't know how best to deal with it, the GM EV1 terrified the motor industry, why else would it have been cancelled and destroyed as quickly. but thing was they opened the door and it got out. Can you imagine just what the electric car is going to do to the motor industry ? its going to rip it to pieces and they are going to have to start all over again. GM saw that and retracted very quickly from the table,
It wouldn't be impossible to buy an ev and never have to visit the garage again, what serviceable parts does it need ? with programming you wont even need brakes, the electric motor can slow you down as well as speed you up. So we will mourn the demise of a glorious V12 ? Honestly I don't think so, we wont mourn the expense of keeping a car on the road. Can you imagine 250,000 miles with only ever having to change tyres.... over 20 years of motoring only ever having to pay for electricity to recharge your battery....I know a bit wild but not that far from it..... fuel filters air filters spark plugs
The EV has much going for it in that it should be cheaper for us to own over its lifetime and less toxic to important local people but are we actually heading in that direction?
ruggedscotty said:
. Can you imagine 250,000 miles with only ever having to change tyres.... over 20 years of motoring only ever having to pay for electricity to recharge your battery....I know a bit wild but not that far from it..... fuel filters air filters spark plugs
Can you imagine the levels of unemployment and economic damage that is going to cause.Nit servicing cars is going to make the vast majority of dealerships economically unviable leading to reduced numbers of places you can buy a car or get any warranty repairs done.
Those remaining dealerships will need less techs, less parts staff etc and that's before you take into account the associated losses of parts manufacturers, distributors and oil industry losses.
Less sales of parts, labour and fuel, added to the reduction in VAT, PAYE and NI, reduced RFL income, busines taxation/ rates and increased Job Seekers Allowance is going to be a national problem.
Let's not even talk about the state of the National Grid and our generation capacity...
There are numerous elephants in the room which some people want to ignore.
Jazzy Jag said:
ruggedscotty said:
. Can you imagine 250,000 miles with only ever having to change tyres.... over 20 years of motoring only ever having to pay for electricity to recharge your battery....I know a bit wild but not that far from it..... fuel filters air filters spark plugs
Can you imagine the levels of unemployment and economic damage that is going to cause.Nit servicing cars is going to make the vast majority of dealerships economically unviable leading to reduced numbers of places you can buy a car or get any warranty repairs done.
Those remaining dealerships will need less techs, less parts staff etc and that's before you take into account the associated losses of parts manufacturers, distributors and oil industry losses.
Less sales of parts, labour and fuel, added to the reduction in VAT, PAYE and NI, reduced RFL income, busines taxation/ rates and increased Job Seekers Allowance is going to be a national problem.
Let's not even talk about the state of the National Grid and our generation capacity...
There are numerous elephants in the room which some people want to ignore.
Thee are towns up and down the country where major businesses employing 1000's shut down
I've seen it plenty of times in my own lifetime!
It won't happen overnight, and the market will adapt.
As to your point about the national grid, they are pretty cool with the idea of electric cars. The average driver needs 7kWh per day. O Level physics will tell you that's easily delivered by the current infrastructure. The only issue we would have is if everyone wants to fast charge at the same time as everyone is cooking their evening meal. That's not even remotely hard to control though.
@Phil, is this of any interest? https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM It looked like a reasonable effort to me.
DonkeyApple said:
Two very simple taxes could define a genuine environmental change and those taxes would be firstly a tax on weight. The enormous weight of vehicles is hugely damaging. It results in the use of more materials, more fuels to transport those materials for a lifetime, more damage to the roads, more damage to each other. A tax that incentivised massive weight reduction would be incredibly environmental in its massive reduction of resource consumption and the applied consumption of the lifetime of the vehicle.
I just want to mention that for vehicles with bi-directional powertrains (ie BEVs) their mass is actually largely irrelevant, as they can recover around 70% of the energy they use to accelerate that mass. That means todau, a 2,000kg Tesla is actually identical in terms of "losses due to mass" as a 600kg car, which todau, doesn't even exist (even an elise is around 900kg these days). So if you're applying your mass tax, then ICE are going to get absolutely taxed out of existence as they can't recover ANY of their KE.......(what matters for BEVs is actually drag, and not mass, and while yes, drag does have a mass proportionate component, it's actually fairly small, and drag is dominated by aero loses mainly. So if we are going to tax things like that, then we need to tax CdA really!)
Jazzy Jag said:
Can you imagine the levels of unemployment and economic damage that is going to cause.
Nit servicing cars is going to make the vast majority of dealerships economically unviable leading to reduced numbers of places you can buy a car or get any warranty repairs done.
Those remaining dealerships will need less techs, less parts staff etc and that's before you take into account the associated losses of parts manufacturers, distributors and oil industry losses.
Less sales of parts, labour and fuel, added to the reduction in VAT, PAYE and NI, reduced RFL income, busines taxation/ rates and increased Job Seekers Allowance is going to be a national problem.
Let's not even talk about the state of the National Grid and our generation capacity...
There are numerous elephants in the room which some people want to ignore.
Ah, capitalism and the need for continuous economic growth. The elephant in the room and what we will all have to come terms with changing!Nit servicing cars is going to make the vast majority of dealerships economically unviable leading to reduced numbers of places you can buy a car or get any warranty repairs done.
Those remaining dealerships will need less techs, less parts staff etc and that's before you take into account the associated losses of parts manufacturers, distributors and oil industry losses.
Less sales of parts, labour and fuel, added to the reduction in VAT, PAYE and NI, reduced RFL income, busines taxation/ rates and increased Job Seekers Allowance is going to be a national problem.
Let's not even talk about the state of the National Grid and our generation capacity...
There are numerous elephants in the room which some people want to ignore.
Phil. said:
RobDickinson said:
Yes the report quoted typically uses the worst electricity generation mix in the USA and assumes no improvements.
Grid electricity is improving rapidly.
Plus it assumes battery production uses that same electricity, where almost every EV plant is looking to use renewable (tesla is close to entirely renewable for gigafactory 1 , but not fremont).
Consider myself, all my electricity is renewable (hydro), that changes the equation massively.
Also people often install solar to power their own cars/houses.
There have been other studies showing the payback on an electric vehicle is 6-12 months of use, in NZ our cars have an average age of 15 years.
I am correct in understanding that a 20% overall emissions improvement (excluding the mining and mineral issues) is the starting point and as various countries move towards renewable energy generation this figure will improve? Grid electricity is improving rapidly.
Plus it assumes battery production uses that same electricity, where almost every EV plant is looking to use renewable (tesla is close to entirely renewable for gigafactory 1 , but not fremont).
Consider myself, all my electricity is renewable (hydro), that changes the equation massively.
Also people often install solar to power their own cars/houses.
There have been other studies showing the payback on an electric vehicle is 6-12 months of use, in NZ our cars have an average age of 15 years.
Any idea what the comparative emissions figure would be if we achieved 100% electricity generation from renewables?
That major reduction comes from factors such as:
1) Our year round average temperature is around 10 degC - perfect for Batteries, horrible for ICEs (cold start emissions and friction is massively higher) and a lot of energy is used just warming up the powertrain itself, none of which is used to actually move the vehicle along.
2) On average People drive badly. If you hyper-mile an ICE you can, in a modern car, actually get very good efficiency. Drive poorly, and that efficiency tumbles. Ever tighter emissions rules have narrowed the high efficiency, low emission operating zone to a tiny, and difficult to maintain, operating window. Most drivers fail to observe and anticipate, and a large number fail to even drive at a constant throttle. An EV really doesn't care, it's massively efficient at all speeds, and as long the driver doesn't use the friction brakes, even maintains that low consumption when driven pretty erratically.....
3) Most journeys are actually really short. Literally millions of people get in a car, start it, and drive just a few miles. To the shops, to drop kids off at school, round the corner to visit a friend, to post a letter, to get top work. Millions and millions of miles all under conditions where the ICE car is even less efficient that when it is fully warmed up. Before the exhaust after-treatment starts working (ie when it's hot) tail pipe emissions are several thousand (yes, thousand!) times higher, so local air pollution is adversely affected. An EV is equally efficient on a 100 yard trip to a 100 mile one.
4) ICEs wear out continuously. People always say "don't buy an EV the battery will wear out" and then jump into their ICE, start the engine and drive off, somehow oblivious to the fact that every single second their engine runs, it wears out! But unlike an EV, which broadly either works or doesn't, an ICE looses efficiency as it wears. Modern ultra high tolerance engines have a myriad of complex, finely machined parts, like high pressure fuel injectors, that as they wear, experience a significant reduction in efficiency. Follow a 10 year old Tdi as they boot it and you'll know exactly what i'm talking about, but actually, that extreme "old smoky" example is not really the problem. We emissions tested a large number (>100) second hand cars up to 10 years old at various ages and mileages and found exhaust emissions as much as 1000 times the new value, and Co2 emissions up to 5 times higher, all on cars that outwardly, looked and drove appropriately to their age / mileage. An EV is pretty much is precisely as efficient at 10 years / 150K miles as it is at 0/0. It's battery wearing out is really only the same as the fuel tank getting smaller on an ICE as it gets older, it does not loose any mark-able efficiency as it wears because it really has few wearing parts that have that much loss. For example, a wheel bearing might, when new, loose 50 watts, and when completely knackered, loose 5 times that, say 250w, but as the road load of car is on average around 15,000 watts, that's actually irrelevant!
5) Traffic. In case you haven't noticed, or are lucky enough to live in North Scotland, our traffic situation is getting worse. Congestion is now normal, pretty every single commuter will at some point in their drive get stuck in traffic. Maybe for 30 seconds, maybe for 3 min, or perhaps for 2 hours! EVs have a consumption profile that continues to fall as average speed falls. A typical ICE engine has a frictional loss of between 3 and 5 kW at idle, which is the same amount of power used to drive that car at around 35 mph! So, once below around 35 to 40mph, an ICE's consumption increases. Get stuck in traffic in an EV and your consumption plummets, turn off the A/C and you can realistically consume just a few watts and still roll along at a few mph as dense traffic stops and starts. As EVs are capable of very slow speed creep (no clutch, gears or min engine speed etc) they are terrifically efficient at moving in heavy traffic, while any ICE, even with stop start, must start and run it's engine to move, which brings a massive consumption (and tailpipe emission) penalty.
Factors like these ^^^ i have mentioned drive that conclusive study figure of around 2.5 times less carbon emissions for an EV used identically to an average UK ICE vehicle.
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 19th May 12:36
Max_Torque said:
In my roll as a transportation technology consultant, i was co-author of a UK centric study for the actual effects on the introduction of EVs. In summary (sorry i'm not at liberty to go too deeply into the sources, facts and figures because it was a privately funded study) we found that a typical ICE used for an average UK commute, if replaced by an EV would reduce that users carbon emissions over 150k miles by 2.5 times. This was based on our grid status (as of end of 2017) and real data from fuel consumption of real cars.
That major reduction comes from factors such as:
1) Our year round average temperature is around 10 degC - perfect for Batteries, horrible for ICEs (cold start emissions and friction is massively higher) and a lot of energy is used just warming up the powertrain itself, none of which is used to actually move the vehicle along.
2) On average People drive badly. If you hyper-mile an ICE you can, in a modern car, actually get very good efficiency. Drive poorly, and that efficiency tumbles. Ever tighter emissions rules have narrowed the high efficiency, low emission operating zone to a tiny, and difficult to maintain, operating window. Most drivers fail to observe and anticipate, and a large number fail to even drive at a constant throttle. An EV really doesn't care, it's massively efficient at all speeds, and as long the driver doesn't use the friction brakes, even maintains that low consumption when driven pretty erratically.....
3) Most journeys are actually really short. Literally millions of people get in a car, start it, and drive just a few miles. To the shops, to drop kids off at school, round the corner to visit a friend, to post a letter, to get top work. Millions and millions of miles all under conditions where the ICE car is even less efficient that when it is fully warmed up. Before the exhaust after-treatment starts working (ie when it's hot) tail pipe emissions are several thousand (yes, thousand!) times higher, so local air pollution is adversely affected. An EV is equally efficient on a 100 yard trip to a 100 mile one.
4) ICEs wear out continuously. People always say "don't buy an EV the battery will wear out" and then jump into their ICE, start the engine and drive off, somehow oblivious to the fact that every single second their engine runs, it wears out! But unlike an EV, which broadly either works or doesn't, an ICE looses efficiency as it wears. Modern ultra high tolerance engines have a myriad of complex, finely machined parts, like high pressure fuel injectors, that as they wear, experience a significant reduction in efficiency. Follow a 10 year old Tdi as they boot it and you'll know exactly what i'm talking about, but actually, that extreme "old smoky" example is not really the problem. We emissions tested a large number (>100) second hand cars up to 10 years old at various ages and mileages and found exhaust emissions as much as 1000 times the new value, and Co2 emissions up to 5 times higher, all on cars that outwardly, looked and drove appropriately to their age / mileage. An EV is pretty much is precisely as efficient at 10 years / 150K miles as it is at 0/0. It's battery wearing out is really only the same as the fuel tank getting smaller on an ICE as it gets older, it does not loose any mark-able efficiency as it wears because it really has few wearing parts that have that much loss. For example, a wheel bearing might, when new, loose 50 watts, and when completely knackered, loose 5 times that, say 250w, but as the road load of car is on average around 15,000 watts, that's actually irrelevant!
5) Traffic. In case you haven't noticed, or are lucky enough to live in North Scotland, our traffic situation is getting worse. Congestion is now normal, pretty every single commuter will at some point in their drive get stuck in traffic. Maybe for 30 seconds, maybe for 3 min, or perhaps for 2 hours! EVs have a consumption profile that continues to fall as average speed falls. A typical ICE engine has a frictional loss of between 3 and 5 kW at idle, which is the same amount of power used to drive that car at around 35 mph! So, once below around 35 to 40mph, an ICE's consumption increases. Get stuck in traffic in an EV and your consumption plummets, turn off the A/C and you can realistically consume just a few watts and still roll along at a few mph as dense traffic stops and starts. As EVs are capable of very slow speed creep (no clutch, gears or min engine speed etc) they are terrifically efficient at moving in heavy traffic, while any ICE, even with stop start, must start and run it's engine to move, which brings a massive consumption (and tailpipe emission) penalty.
Factors like these ^^^ i have mentioned drive that conclusive study figure of around 2.5 times less carbon emissions for an EV used identically to an average UK ICE vehicle.
Many thanks for sharing. That major reduction comes from factors such as:
1) Our year round average temperature is around 10 degC - perfect for Batteries, horrible for ICEs (cold start emissions and friction is massively higher) and a lot of energy is used just warming up the powertrain itself, none of which is used to actually move the vehicle along.
2) On average People drive badly. If you hyper-mile an ICE you can, in a modern car, actually get very good efficiency. Drive poorly, and that efficiency tumbles. Ever tighter emissions rules have narrowed the high efficiency, low emission operating zone to a tiny, and difficult to maintain, operating window. Most drivers fail to observe and anticipate, and a large number fail to even drive at a constant throttle. An EV really doesn't care, it's massively efficient at all speeds, and as long the driver doesn't use the friction brakes, even maintains that low consumption when driven pretty erratically.....
3) Most journeys are actually really short. Literally millions of people get in a car, start it, and drive just a few miles. To the shops, to drop kids off at school, round the corner to visit a friend, to post a letter, to get top work. Millions and millions of miles all under conditions where the ICE car is even less efficient that when it is fully warmed up. Before the exhaust after-treatment starts working (ie when it's hot) tail pipe emissions are several thousand (yes, thousand!) times higher, so local air pollution is adversely affected. An EV is equally efficient on a 100 yard trip to a 100 mile one.
4) ICEs wear out continuously. People always say "don't buy an EV the battery will wear out" and then jump into their ICE, start the engine and drive off, somehow oblivious to the fact that every single second their engine runs, it wears out! But unlike an EV, which broadly either works or doesn't, an ICE looses efficiency as it wears. Modern ultra high tolerance engines have a myriad of complex, finely machined parts, like high pressure fuel injectors, that as they wear, experience a significant reduction in efficiency. Follow a 10 year old Tdi as they boot it and you'll know exactly what i'm talking about, but actually, that extreme "old smoky" example is not really the problem. We emissions tested a large number (>100) second hand cars up to 10 years old at various ages and mileages and found exhaust emissions as much as 1000 times the new value, and Co2 emissions up to 5 times higher, all on cars that outwardly, looked and drove appropriately to their age / mileage. An EV is pretty much is precisely as efficient at 10 years / 150K miles as it is at 0/0. It's battery wearing out is really only the same as the fuel tank getting smaller on an ICE as it gets older, it does not loose any mark-able efficiency as it wears because it really has few wearing parts that have that much loss. For example, a wheel bearing might, when new, loose 50 watts, and when completely knackered, loose 5 times that, say 250w, but as the road load of car is on average around 15,000 watts, that's actually irrelevant!
5) Traffic. In case you haven't noticed, or are lucky enough to live in North Scotland, our traffic situation is getting worse. Congestion is now normal, pretty every single commuter will at some point in their drive get stuck in traffic. Maybe for 30 seconds, maybe for 3 min, or perhaps for 2 hours! EVs have a consumption profile that continues to fall as average speed falls. A typical ICE engine has a frictional loss of between 3 and 5 kW at idle, which is the same amount of power used to drive that car at around 35 mph! So, once below around 35 to 40mph, an ICE's consumption increases. Get stuck in traffic in an EV and your consumption plummets, turn off the A/C and you can realistically consume just a few watts and still roll along at a few mph as dense traffic stops and starts. As EVs are capable of very slow speed creep (no clutch, gears or min engine speed etc) they are terrifically efficient at moving in heavy traffic, while any ICE, even with stop start, must start and run it's engine to move, which brings a massive consumption (and tailpipe emission) penalty.
Factors like these ^^^ i have mentioned drive that conclusive study figure of around 2.5 times less carbon emissions for an EV used identically to an average UK ICE vehicle.
Edited by Max_Torque on Sunday 19th May 12:36
Max_Torque said:
I just want to mention that for vehicles with bi-directional powertrains (ie BEVs) their mass is actually largely irrelevant, as they can recover around 70% of the energy they use to accelerate that mass. That means todau, a 2,000kg Tesla is actually identical in terms of "losses due to mass" as a 600kg car, which todau, doesn't even exist (even an elise is around 900kg these days). So if you're applying your mass tax, then ICE are going to get absolutely taxed out of existence as they can't recover ANY of their KE.......
(what matters for BEVs is actually drag, and not mass, and while yes, drag does have a mass proportionate component, it's actually fairly small, and drag is dominated by aero loses mainly. So if we are going to tax things like that, then we need to tax CdA really!)
I’m more thinking about the amount of materials used and how that mass then impacts on wear and tear on not just the vehicle but also roads etc. Space taken up, the arms race to protect ever heavier vehicles. (what matters for BEVs is actually drag, and not mass, and while yes, drag does have a mass proportionate component, it's actually fairly small, and drag is dominated by aero loses mainly. So if we are going to tax things like that, then we need to tax CdA really!)
A car that is built using 50% less raw material, is less stressed by weight, exerts less wear on its surroundings and takes up less physical space is overall more beneficial than continuing to produce 2 tonne whales designed for 3 year credit deals.
We would all be better off if we started to end the absolutely enormous and recent cultural shift that has seen consumers completely naturalising the concept of a new toy every few years and these toys getting ever larger and heavier.
We aren’t talking lefty communism here but more a recognition that unfettered capitalism is just as dangerous and destructive.
Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff