RE: Bentley confirms end of W12 production

[D4rez]

NGK210 said:

A "crock", how exactly?

Currently, EVs are CO2-positive until they hit 30k miles - although the Musk propagandaministerium would have us believe otherwise.

At time of writing, there're 34 2019 W12 Conti GTs for sale on Autotrader (AT).

For sake of argument, let's assume all 34 W12 GTs were leased and, therefore, now past their 3-year lease period and their initial keepers have moved on to a new leased vehicle.

Of the 34, only 4 have a mileage of over 30k.

So, if they were EVs, only 4 would be aligning with Bentley’s zero-CO2 Beyond100 plan - the other 30, obviously, would still be humongously CO2-positive.

Meanwhile, the initial keepers have leased new EVs, which are also CO2-positive. And round-and-round the CO2-increasing conundrum spins.

Perhaps a more workable solution would've been the banning of fossil fuels in 2035, not ICEs?

In turn, the oil companies would've been forced to invest in the production of carbon-neutral synthetic petrol. But that'd be too cost prohibitive? Erm, no...

How about diverting the $932 billion the world’s 20 biggest oil companies are projected to spend by the end of 2030 developing new oil fields?

If Shell, Exxon, et al, were only producing synthetic petrol, then all existing and new ICEs would be carbon-neutral, their existing and effective refuelling infrastructure could be retained, environment-plundering battery production would be unnecessary, as would CO2-increasing BEVs.

Meanwhile, there'd be sufficient time to develop a green-hydrogen refuelling network for HFCVs. Hydrogen-electric is the desired end-game for the the aviation, shipping and road freight sectors, so why are cars / personal transport being forced into a BEV cul-de-sac?

Age old fallacy - the car isn't going in the bin after 3 years. New cars are going to be bought anyway - they're better environmentally as an EV

[ducnick]

GTRene said:

ow, thats a big difference V12 W12 that way you can make a car shorter or put the engine easier behind the front axle.

A W12 should be 3 banks of 4 cylinders. What vw made was 2 VR 6’s on a common crank shaft. VR stands for ‘short inline’ in German. This engine should be called a ‘short v12’ instead.

[NGK210]

D4rez said:

Age old fallacy - the car isn't going in the bin after 3 years. New cars are going to be bought anyway - they're better environmentally as an EV

I didn't say the car's binned after 3 years, I wrote: "And round-and-round the CO2-increasing conundrum spins." Ergo, a car finishes its lease, then goes to its 2nd owner when it is still CO2-positive, while the original leasee takes on a new CO2-positive car. Rinse and repeat.
"Better", how?
In terms of CO2? As mentioned, BEVs are CO2-positive until 30k.
The destructive environmental impact of mining for lithium, etc, is well documented. (And lithium is a finite resource.)
How is an actual increase in CO2 levels, plus environment destruction and forcibly displacing indigenous communities, "better environmentally"?

Edited by NGK210 on Wednesday 22 February 17:41

[Numeric]

100,000 units?

Gosh that is mighty impressive, imagine the revenue associated with this for the Bentley brand (I apologise if I've missed other brands sales!)

Who would have imagined there was a market for such a large volume, well I for one didn't.

Also while I hear a lot of bad stuff about Bentley reliability, it always seems to be electrical stuff, I don't think I've ever heard anything about the actual core oily bits (happy in my ignorance maybe)

[samoht]

ducnick said:

A W12 should be 3 banks of 4 cylinders. What vw made was 2 VR 6’s on a common crank shaft. VR stands for ‘short inline’ in German. This engine should be called a ‘short v12’ instead.

Previously W12 was used to describe three banks of four, yes.

However one could argue that in most typefaces, the letter "W" more closely resembles two conjoined Vs, as per VW's effort, than it does three rows, like the Napier Lion which is more akin to an inverted 'T' or 'broad arrow' shape.

And in Bugatti's native French, the "W" in W16 would be read 'double-vee', which is a pretty good description of these engines' configuration.

[panholio]

I could be wrong, but didn't this engine start life in the VW Phaeton? Quick google suggests that was launched in 2002.

[rare6499]

‘Bentley says that it’s 54 per cent torquier than in 2003 - it was launched with 479lb ft and will sign off with 737lb ft, which is impressive, especially so given a 25 per cent reduction in emissions as well.’

Amazing engineering there, very impressive.

[Sporky]

NGK210 said:

I didn't say the car's binned after 3 years, I wrote: "And round-and-round the CO2-increasing conundrum spins." Ergo, a car finishes its lease, then goes to its 2nd owner when it is still CO2-positive, while the original leasee takes on a new CO2-positive car. Rinse and repeat.

Each EV is used well past its CO2 neutral point. That multiple owners are involved is a red herring.

[Pyf]

Sporky said:

Each EV is used well past its CO2 neutral point. That multiple owners are involved is a red herring.

Without wanting to get into the discussion too much, the carbon neutral point for an EV is surly only fixed when being charged 100% carbon neutral.

In say Germany the electricity mix is miles away from being carbon neutral…..

So I’d say the most environmentally friendly option is to keep an older car running.

Now if that was to be a W12 Bentley (and therefore back on topic) that would be fine with me. Also I find the number of over 100k W12’s staggering. Wouldn’t have thought that they have yield nevermind sold that many even across the different VW brands.

[Lowtimer]

NGK210 said:

Can’t help feeling this is a short-sighted move, because carbon-neutral synthetic petrol – eg, Zero Petroleum and Coryton’s – seems to be gaining momentum, albeit slowly and it's currently a tad pricey.

And considering EVs are CO2-positive until they accumulate over 30k mileage - I bet very few Bentleys do over 30k during a 3-year lease? – Bentley’s zero-CO2 Beyond100 plan doesn’t exactly ‘add up’.

https://www.evo.co.uk/fuels/205634/synthetic-v-reg...

I have respect for John Barker's grasp of engineering, but, alas, no-one covering this sustainable petrol subject ever looks at the numbers from the point of view of economics or basic industrial capacity. There is just not enough ethanol in the world for ethanol-based fuels to take over from oil-derived liquid fuels in anything but the tinest niche applications (e.g. high level motorsport, aviation for defence purposes, the £1 million-plus Ferraris of the super-rich). And nor is there going to be.

The total capacity of the ethanol industry globally is 18 billion US gallons a year. Which might sound like a lot, and would be if you were drinking it, but isn't enough even to scratch the surface of replacing mainstream liquid fuel usage. The world's current consumption of oil-derived liquid fuels (petrol, diesel, jet fuel etc) is 4.2 billion US gallons a DAY.

[GTRene]

ducnick said:

GTRene said:

ow, thats a big difference V12 W12 that way you can make a car shorter or put the engine easier behind the front axle.

A W12 should be 3 banks of 4 cylinders. What vw made was 2 VR 6’s on a common crank shaft. VR stands for ‘short inline’ in German. This engine should be called a ‘short v12’ instead.

hm, when I look at the pictures I do not see a W12, I see 2 VR6 engines in V, so maybe they could have named it something like VR6V2 hm, but V and V makes VV almost a W hm, or D-VR6 as in double VR6 hm.

it looks indeed massive, a short fat one, I guess a good V8 biturbo can do the same job with les weight.

[sege]

So that's what a W12 looks like. Interesting. I would probably have called it a "Little V inside a slightly bigger V, 12", myself.

Anyway, Goodbye W12!

[AmyRichardson]

GTRene said:

hm, when I look at the pictures I do not see a W12, I see 2 VR6 engines in V, so maybe they could have named it something like VR6V2 hm, but V and V makes VV almost a W hm, or D-VR6 as in double VR6 hm.

it looks indeed massive, a short fat one, I guess a good V8 biturbo can do the same job with les weight.

The graphic is also a bit "for effect."

The bank offset on the vee engines is overemphasised by ~1/2 a cylinder and none is shown for the W12 (each "double bank" is mated much the same as the banks in a V12, with similar offset.)

[The Wookie]

NGK210 said:

So, if they were EVs, only 4 would be aligning with Bentley’s zero-CO2 Beyond100 plan - the other 30, obviously, would still be humongously CO2-positive.

That’s 30k compared to an average vehicle which probably averages 40-50mpg, assuming parity of the rest of the vehicle it’s probably more like 5-6,000 miles, call it 10 for the fact it’s probably got a bigger battery than the benchmark size that would have been used

NGK210 said:

Perhaps a more workable solution would've been the banning of fossil fuels in 2035, not ICEs?

In turn, the oil companies would've been forced to invest in the production of carbon-neutral synthetic petrol. But that'd be too cost prohibitive? Erm, no...

Can’t argue with the first bit once you’ve taken Euro7 into account, there really is no need to ban IC, and to be fair I doubt it will actually happen, but it will end up being niche.

Synthetic fuels are great for us petrol heads to keep our old cars going, but if they’re truly CO2 neutral they need a lot of electricity to produce and they’re not as efficient to use as just putting that electricity straight into a battery, correspondingly means that it would need multiples of the power generation infrastructure required to support a given number of vehicles. It will always be more expensive.

NGK210 said:

Meanwhile, there'd be sufficient time to develop a green-hydrogen refuelling network for HFCVs. Hydrogen-electric is the desired end-game for the the aviation, shipping and road freight sectors, so why are cars / personal transport being forced into a BEV cul-de-sac?

Green hydrogen is ultimately the simplest to produce synthetic fuel and has the same issues as above just to a lesser degree. It’s not impossible but there are huge hurdles to it being cost competitive with cars for road use, and if it is it will need the efficiency of a fuel cell to make it viable. Long story short the best you’re likely to end up with is SUV’s and large vehicles with a fuel cell range extender, basically a PHEV but with a fuel cell instead of an engine.

ETA niche not nice, although the niche is nice!

Edited by The Wookie on Thursday 23 February 09:15

[malaccamax]

AmyRichardson said:

GTRene said:

ow, thats a big difference V12 W12 that way you can make a car shorter or put the engine easier behind the front axle.

Except it was designed short because it was going entirely ahead of the front axle.

Honestly, if you didn't have that constraint you wouldn't design a W12 - split journals, balance shafts and all that stuff (which still don't produce V12 smoothness) that a V12 doesn't need because it's inherently right from the get go.

That is interesting. I wonder if that's because it was initially designed for an Audi (A8)?

[Wab1974uk]

NGK210 said:

Can’t help feeling this is a short-sighted move, because carbon-neutral synthetic petrol – eg, Zero Petroleum and Coryton’s – seems to be gaining momentum, albeit slowly and it's currently a tad pricey.

And considering EVs are CO2-positive until they accumulate over 30k mileage - I bet very few Bentleys do over 30k during a 3-year lease? – Bentley’s zero-CO2 Beyond100 plan doesn’t exactly ‘add up’.

https://www.evo.co.uk/fuels/205634/synthetic-v-reg...

It's because politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels are writing legislation forcing manufacturers to produce EV's only.

And (conspiracy theory time) as they are wanting to restrict car ownership and free movement (Yes, they have written about it and said it on camera) of people, having something that everyone can easily use and fill up within minutes, goes against their Agenda. Agenda 2030.

The sooner people stop laughing at those who has seen the interviews and read the website / documents, and start listening to them, the sooner the masses can raise their voices and try to stop this.

A very good Youtube channel `Geoff buys cars` has done a few very good video's explaining everything, that might make a few people stop laughing and start taking notice.

[anonymous-user]

Sporky said:

NGK210 said:

I didn't say the car's binned after 3 years, I wrote: "And round-and-round the CO2-increasing conundrum spins." Ergo, a car finishes its lease, then goes to its 2nd owner when it is still CO2-positive, while the original leasee takes on a new CO2-positive car. Rinse and repeat.

Each EV is used well past its CO2 neutral point. That multiple owners are involved is a red herring.

And lithium, cobalt etc are recyclable

Unlike petrol

[NGK210]

Lowtimer said:

NGK210 said:

Can’t help feeling this is a short-sighted move, because carbon-neutral synthetic petrol – eg, Zero Petroleum and Coryton’s – seems to be gaining momentum, albeit slowly and it's currently a tad pricey.

And considering EVs are CO2-positive until they accumulate over 30k mileage - I bet very few Bentleys do over 30k during a 3-year lease? – Bentley’s zero-CO2 Beyond100 plan doesn’t exactly ‘add up’.

https://www.evo.co.uk/fuels/205634/synthetic-v-reg...

I have respect for John Barker's grasp of engineering, but, alas, no-one covering this sustainable petrol subject ever looks at the numbers from the point of view of economics or basic industrial capacity. There is just not enough ethanol in the world for ethanol-based fuels to take over from oil-derived liquid fuels in anything but the tinest niche applications (e.g. high level motorsport, aviation for defence purposes, the £1 million-plus Ferraris of the super-rich). And nor is there going to be.

The total capacity of the ethanol industry globally is 18 billion US gallons a year. Which might sound like a lot, and would be if you were drinking it, but isn't enough even to scratch the surface of replacing mainstream liquid fuel usage. The world's current consumption of oil-derived liquid fuels (petrol, diesel, jet fuel etc) is 4.2 billion US gallons a DAY.

Zero Petroleum’s synthetic petrol is manufactured by extracting H2 from water, using energy generated from renewables, and combining the H2 with CO2 captured from the atmosphere.

Zero's is a carbon-neutral 'drop-in' for all current, and future, ICEs

Obviously, Zero needs investment to boost economies of scale and reduce cost/litre to match fossil petrol. Meanwhile, the major oil companies will spend $932 billion by the end of 2030 developing new oil fields. Umm...

[px1980]

sidesauce said:

I guess all good things must come to an end. Having experienced a Bentley with one of these, they actually are something quite special.

What are they like, actually? Quiet and refined? Or exciting and nice sounding, like a proper V8?

[NGK210]

Archie2050 said:

And lithium, cobalt etc are recyclable

Unlike petrol

But the environmental impact of mining lithium, cobalt, etc, is not recyclable:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-copper-min...