Something about Car pollution

Everyone News and Current Affairs
41

but it does charge them if they charge at home - so like the rest of us use a free source.

if i offered you the chance of 40litres of premium diesel at no cost at work whenever you wanted it to counter the £50 you put in once a week at the local BP filling station which would you take?

why??

the average car journey in the UK is less than 100 miles, why do you need more than 4x that duration?
how often do drivers fill up and drive until the fuel light comes on in one journey?

back in the late 90s/early 00s it was common place to have a (Nokia) mobile phone last 2-3 or more days on a single charge.

then technology on mobile phones increased, at the cost of battery life, but people didn’t care, people’s attitude to charging a mobile phone soon swapped over from charging twice a week to charging everyday.

The same will happy with E-cars - society will get used to plugging in a car in the same way we plug in a mobile phone daily.

let me introduce you to this “decent sized car” with ample boot space, suitable for a family holiday/day out.
I don’t speak of personal experience but know a fellow CFAV who has three kids and manages perfectly with one.

I also offer this just shy of your 400mile limit, but 348miles is a close match

ignoring range/duration of the driving period, in my opinion the one item which will generate a big step change in societies move to electric cars is the ease and speed in recharging.

it takes less than 8 minutes to full up a ICE car which will have 300+ miles, yet a e-car with half that range takes 8 times longer to “refuel”.
once a convenient recharging process has been considered i cannot see adoption of e-cars being readily accepted unless, like the mobile phone, society is happy to change it’s approach to how often it “refuels” a car

42

The latest Which report on e-cars & range was quite illuminating - I think that about 25% needed to be taken off the quoted figures. I bet they took a big hit recently coping with air conditioning for the 30+C temperatures!!

There will be major changes to Government policy for e-cars - all the bonuses (zero VED, no fuel tax, etc), will disappear, otherwise too much revenue will be lost. As it is, the cost of e-cars is too high for most people; personally, I think that hybrids offer the best of both worlds.

At some stage, car manufacturers will have to look at some kind of “transitional” chassis / bodywork (& phase down of number of liquid fuel cars made) that can be used on both liquid fuel & e-cars. Come the big “no liquid cars from now on” day, there will be a huge number of liquid fuel cars that immediately become scrap! As it is, the engines will be scrap as far as use in the UK (& probably most / all of EU).

Yep, I quite agree - but looking at home “self-generation” options, it’s not a player. Equally, it’s a fossil resource that has to be considered to run out at some stage - & supply is also under the control of major players, Russia for example.

43

i completely disagree (my bold)

if only because you’ve include “a huge number” - there is little point to state a “no ICE cars after this date” if on that date there still is a “huge number” of them, it will be a transition into “clean” cars

from 2040 manufacturers are not allowed to sell ICE cars in the UK, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll not be driving ICE cars in 2041…

Read around the subject and by mid-2020s and in 2030s e-cars will become higher sellers as we reach the 2040 deadline - but only for new car sales.
there is still likely to be a large and thriving used-car sales market.

Once such a date is set that ICE cars will not be used i would expect the vast majority of vehicles would be e-cars leaving only a small number of ICE reverting to scrap - but even then don’t believe we’ll ever stop burning petrol or diesel in my lifetime.
Why am i so sure? because from an industrial point of view I can’t see it happening, although many buses are getting greener, i cannot see the haulage industry being in the same no ICE trucks by 2040 as the time required to recharge the vehicle is time it is not on the road and thus not making money.

a quick example of transitioning from one technology to another i can think of is the transition from FM/AM radio to DAB - the Govn have suggested several times to indicate switching off the FM/AM signal as DAB becomes more popular but are yet to actually set a date but have tried several times to set one, and there is still not date suggested 20+ years after DAB technology was brought to the masses.

switch off FM/AM in 2015, reported in 2010 - 9 years ago it was expected to have happened 4 years ago

Digital Switch over by 2020, reported in 2013 - 6 years ago (3 years later) it was already put back, but still within the decade.

The transition to digital television took 5 years and although very different technologies and reasons for changing, the transition was not made or completed in such a way to create a mass obsolete pile of kit - certainly when looking at the TVs, many simply could carry on by the use of a set-top box or similar device.

I predict there will be high penalties for continuing with an ICE car, high road tax and fuel prices, but i don’t think it will stop. There are still cars on the roads which are 25-30+ years old which are seen despite the high Tax placed upon them…once the date is set i expect a very small % of vehicles will be ICE cars

1 Like
44

I should have said “new” liquid fuel cars. Undoubtedly, there will be thousands sitting in car show rooms on 31 Dec 2039.

If no changes to e-car introduction, if I’m still driving on 31Dec 2039, I shall make a suitable (very low!) offer on a 6 litre turbo-nutter car that will be “illegal” the next day. :laughing:

45

This is a sobering read for all those advocating alternative electricity generation and the use of electric cars.

46

They’re already phasing it out. There’s a manufacturer in Holland (I think) that only manufacturers SF6 free components.

Talks of legislation are already beginning to create a formal change - much like the phasing out of various refrigerants such as R22 which I believe is already out for new products, maybe R123, 314 might be in the future firing line but tbh there’s so many I can’t remember all of the details.

47

Phasing out … think about how long it takes to “phase” things out, this will be around for years. Also as in the article companies are not willing to make the change as alternatives are not proven.
What makes me smile is they’ve been rambling on about CO2 emissions to push the crap electric cars onto motorists and this hasn’t been mentioned in terms of its climate effect, given its increased use is down to all the OTT subsidised electricity generation methods. That would blow holes in putting up poxy windmills scamming money out of taxpayers to promote scarring the landscape. The irony is that the “carbon footprint” of a collection of these windmills and the trace metals used in “green” items and the technology people are overly reliant on, is more damaging, than just doing what we were, the old ways. But that doesn’t fit the bleeding heart liberal agenda we seem to have been sucked into.

The climate changes hence we have coal, salt, coral, chalk and other limestone formations all over the UK. Plants and animals adapt to different conditions, this is why they exist now. The fact we get overly excited about it and think we can change things is part of the conceit of the human race.

48

I found it. Holec, part of a little company called Eaton, has been producing SF6 free switchgear but only since since the 1980s.

Western Power appear to be quite willing to change and even convert/retrofit and are simply carrying out due diligence. There’s a full feasibility review online for several alternatives which identifies their likely preferred options.

“not willing” is probably not the right phrase, because no company is going to drop a method for a new one without testing and prototyping.

The parallel with refrigerants is fair, it’s a gas/material that you pump into something and if it leaked the ozone layer would yawn a bit more (for HCFCs) or contribute to CC (HFCs). There was a similar reticence with manufacturers and installers… But the changes were made and continue to be made.

49

Alternative available since 1980s (so at least 30 years) and it’s not being used exclusively says it all. It’s either too expensive and or not as good. I would say the latter.
Most marked though there hasn’t been governmental interference by introduction of legislation and or via taxation and subsidies to make it cheaper and make taxpayers pay more in one way of another. Like so much relating to the mithering about changing climate that gets rammed down our necks, it’s something else to fleece people to make them change what they do.

50

Eaton is not an HV approved supplier to the grid companies and there for will not be considered.

51

It has nothing to do with electric cars…

52

It has, electric vehicles are and will create greater demand for electricity that has to be generated by alternative methods (given we can’t have proper ways of doing it anymore) which require more connections, which need to be protected by some form of fire extinguisher, eg sulphur hexaflouride.
Since we’ve had all the waffle about alternative less reliable so called sustainable methods of electricity generation to replace more reliable traditional forms, they have only happened at huge cost to the taxpayer via subsidies and bill hikes just to ensure we feel the pain even more. The number of connections has increased, all the windmills need a connection unless it’s all done by fairies and pixies.
So as electric / part electric cars become the norm and eventually the total reliance on electric cars, vans, buses, coaches, mini-buses, lorries et al, the demand for electricity will increase the number of connections in the alternative electricity generation industry. Unless governments legislate and introduce punitive taxes aimed at the taxpayers, nothing will change in the industry with regard to extinguishers and if it does the cost will be passed onto consumers, rather than the industry taking it on the chin. If you take windmills, electricity generators have been given money hand over fist by UK governments rather than funding their own R&D via money via shareholders.
When you see cities going on about stopping proper vehicles in favour of electric cars with even more punitive so called congestion / pollution charges, you get a real sense that there is no understanding of the impact and cost of electric vehicles, their unsuitability for ordinary people and the infrastructure needed to allow electric cars to be charged. These plug-in points pop up in the streets and car parks and magic happens. As long as it’s nowhere near the soft shoe latte sippers everything’s OK. I tend to regard environmentalists and greens as being pie in the sky dreamers with no grip on reality and it’s this lot that are driving this rubbish and pushing politicians to do it, to keep votes. When this starts to hit the more rural areas, where greater distances have to be covered to conduct day to day life and public transport is to all intents non-existent, then there will be a backlash.

53

Not at the generation level they won’t.

It takes around the same energy to refine petroleum to drive an ICE vehicle as it does to directly drive a full-electric vehicle. Combined with the ability to generate electricity locally using low-power sources such as home solar panels and small turbines, there’s no reason that switching to electrical vehicles will put more demand on generation (although it is a known issue that it may require modifications downstream to the grid).

I didn’t bother to read the rest of your post, I assume it’s some sort of angry rant at the modern world and people who don’t want things to remain exactly the same as they were in 1974.

2 Likes
54

Not as such. Home solar + small wind turbines = useful options. However, plug in 2 - 3 ICE vehicles into your home network in the evening = problems. Solar has gone to bed for the night & one small wind turbine won’t produce enough juice. A “home battery bank” will not have enough capacity unless you fill up your garage with lithium ion batteries (not very green). Hit that national power network for your juice.

Now, it would seem that recent thoughts might show that ICE vehicles are maybe not quite so green?

“Conventional ICE =- heaviest polluter in almost every instance…”

55

It’s not a matter of producing “enough juice”, it’s about the cumulative effect. Clearly solar won’t help much at night, but all of the other renewables will and the main ones powering the grid won’t be powering so many other things in the middle of the night.

1 Like
56

I (well, the wife) have a BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle); have done for just over two years. Principally we got it because it’s a great car & much cheaper to run than her previous (diesel) - I have PCP’d this for less than the monthly cost of putting diesel in (there are many other cost savings). I didn’t buy it because it will soon be obsolete in terms of range/autonomy etc - why would I?

We are about to get solar panels & a Tesla Powerwall - again for cost reasons. The investment in panels etc will pay off in <10 years, (the warranty is for 25 years) and the monthly reductions in electricity cost will be substantial.

All environmental concerns were secondary. This is a better product at a cheaper price - the free market works :slight_smile:

57

I’d never buy a Tesla just because I don’t like their artificial throttling. The Hyundai IONIQ is quite nice, however.

58

I’m not getting a Tesla until they fix their build quality

59

That’s on me, I’d never looked into the powerwall thingy and thought it only worked with actual Teslas.

I’d still stick a strip of tape over the name. I very much do not like that company.

60

@MattB You’re missing the point and looking at it from the current perspective. This latter point is where the greens and environmentalists sit. It’s not now, it’s 10, 20, 30+ years into the future, when the policies etc being driven will kick in. But this is the problem of having policy driven directly or indirectly by these groups as they operate in a fantasy land and are very do as I say not as I do. Other politicians jump on it as ways of screwing money out of people all the name of being “green”.

Predicting is difficult, but by reading and listening to the news if the move to have all vehicles electrically powered and do away with petrol and diesel engines entirely, comes about. This means not just cars, but everything that is currently powered using fossil fuels. If as has been suggested gas is phased out that means all home cooking and heating will be electric, I would say the fact many homes currently use gas for cooking and heating, removes stress from the grid.

So not only personal vehicles but lorries, buses, mini-buses, taxis etc will need to be plugged in for the daily commute and business. You could even extend that to aircraft and ships. Having a little windmill or some south facing solar panels on your house isn’t going to do it. Then there is the technology to provide refuelling on a long journey. The average family car will get you say 400 miles on a tank, to get another 400 miles takes 2-3 minutes to fill the tank. I’ve not seen many electric cars suggesting even 10 times this as a maximum for a recharge. Then there is the lack of standardisation, different charging networks and it seems Tesla will be the Apple of the electric car industry with bespoke connectors.

While I may be mocked, in the 1970s (if it not before) it was predicted that fossil fuels would run out in the 1990s/2000s and we’d all be driving electric cars.