Electric cars
 

It may do 200 miles on a full charge but everything that is turned on will use electric thus reducing the distance that can be covered.

I bet a number of electric car drivers will forget/not realise that


macafee2

The only thing to affect the range is the cabin heater, lights, wiper, heated seats etc etc won’t as they aren’t powered by the high voltage battery. The obvious thing to do in winter is to pre heat the car whilst it’s charging thus not affecting the range once charged. The range will drop in winter and rise in summer but that’s just physics...

Not true ;)

It is true that EV range drops in the winter however most newer EV's still have ample range for most commutes even in the depths of winter. We do around 60 miles a day in our ZS and even in the depths of winter we'll still get back with over 50% of the battery left. Yes EV's may run out of power however the last time I forgot to put petrol in my car it didn't fare too well either!

Not strictly true as the 12v battery is charged from the high voltage battery via a DC to DC convertor so a high 12v drain will have some impact on the traction battery however not very much.

We bought our MG ZSEV in December last year. During the winter the range does drop, instead of showing 160 miles on a full charge it shows 145 ( in the summer that increaito 170).
Driving with the heater and fans on takes off around 10-15 miles on the range.
In real terms it means that we need to charge our car after Mrs Simondi has made two trips to work instead of three. Cost wise this is around £2.90 a charge. Compared to her petrol costs of around £10 for the two journeys.
She loves her MG and would happily buy another one

Thanks for this James; very interesting. Do you, or sworks (Mark), happen to know the voltage of the high voltage battery? I'm just curious.

Simon

Our ZS shows 456 Volts on the display, I believe this will change slightly when the next update is applied

Small enough to be difficult to measure in terms of range use

It can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer but 360 to 400 seem to be the ball park figure. However, as Simon says the MG ZS is around 450 and the newly launched IONIQ5 is 800. With the correct dc charger you can go from almost empty to around 80% charged in around 18 minutes.

There are quite a few untruths regarding EV cars that get banded about but I’d say try one? I currently have an ioniq hybrid which has a 240 volt battery and a petrol engine and next year i’m looking to go full electric. My biggest concern is my house electrics as we live in an older property. Normaly I don’t recommend going EV unless you have a home charger but even paying to charge away from home is cheaper than petrol or diesel so I’m looking at the ioniq5 or the new ZS long range that has just been launched. The 75 will of course stay ;)

I think people who buy full-electric are the pioneers for the rest of us!

There are still massive problems facing us with the infrastructure etc., but it's getting better. Watching the Guy Martin C4 programme on Ecars I totally agree that it's too soon for joe public to be investing in electricity but it needs to start somewhere, hence the pioneer at the start.

I have a PHEV for that reason. Best-ish of both worlds. The perfect world would be..................my V8 running on hydrogen!!!

i read with interest that in the north of the UK there has been no power for a week due to storms and the power companies are struggling to get the grid back up in freezing weather , even getting the army checking on peoples welfare.
I wonder if people with EV cars are still thinking its a great idea, they are totally
stuck and isolated. Dont tell me these sort of events wont happen again and again in the future.
Total stupidity relying on such a fragile technology to be mobile.

I think the people up north without power are more likely to be worried about the need for a hot drink/meal and a warm house/bed than the range of their EV.

The rest of you chaps are just ruining the naysayers' fun with factual accuracy. Please stop, it's awfully boring! :icon_lol:

Um, yes I still think EV's are a great idea. Mine is usually sat on the drive fully charged and in the event of a prolonged power cut I've always got 160 miles of range and if I really had to I could always use a public charger which is no different to having to fill the ZT or X5 with fuel so I don't really see your point?

As said previously the new ZS which I'm aiming to upgrade to early next year has 270 miles of range and more importantly has vehicle to load which means I can power things like my heating system from the car in the event of a power cut.

That said we're lucky that a few years back they upgraded the power network here moving most of the cables underground which means we get less power cuts. Previously as soon as the wind got up we knew the power would go off, sometimes for quite a while whereas now we maybe have a couple of power cuts a year which just goes to show if power companies invest in the infrastructure then it can be made much more resilient, it's just a shame they are slow to do so.

A few useful statistics
 

Here are a few useful statistics that demonstrate why EV range will not be a limiting factor in over 99.9% of travel needs.

Percentage of journeys less than 10 miles 83%

Percentage of journeys less than 25 miles 95%

Average traveled distance of all journeys 8.4 miles

Like others, I enjoy being able to get in the car once or twice a year and drive 200+ miles. If necessary, this could still be achieved by adjusting my mindset about long distance travel and using the available means.

In the long term, perhaps there will be a regulated car hire scheme for the odd occasion that people wish to travel long distances and public transport is not a viable option. We could quite easily take the train to say York or Exeter and hire an EV for driving around whilst on holiday.

If I was in that situation the first thing I would do would be to drive to a friend/relatives house where there was power (nearest 18 miles, next 90 miles and furthest 125 miles) At least with a conventional car I can do that.

That is well within the range of the majority of EV's so you would be able to do it in an EV also.

There is also the need to exercise something that we all do without even realising, which is to buy intelligently. If a person lives out in the sticks, 75 miles from the nearest civilisation, then buy an EV with a 200+ mile range. Equally, if you are living on the outskirts of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds...then something with a 50 mile range will satisfy 99.99% of travel requirements. It is all about buying intelligently.

Very similar to sticking your hands in the belts of an ICE car with the engine running! :eek::eek::eek:

I think the problem is that some members still view electricity as some form of witchcraft. :eek::eek::eek:

As somone mentioned, the good people up north are cold and do indead need warmth i dare say it wont be solar or a wind power generator providing it at this time.
To many clouds and to windy for a wind turbine.
As for driving to mates place to get a recharge, nice if you have sone charge left to get there.
Hey, if Ev is your thing, great, but its only an interim technology and only good for high density type residential settings.
As said, if you dont have a base load power capacity it aint gonna work.
Think of the current power grid now then lets add a few million ev xars to it and see how it goes.
The irony is the very thing Ev’s are trying to address , climate change, is the very thing that is going to cause more freak weather events that will more regularly disrupt power supplies in the future.
Ev’s are great fun to drive- when you can charge them!!!
Hydrogen fuel cell, only long term way to go!!

Unlike Australia, the whole of the Uk is a high population density location.

Also, one of the most irresponsible and selfish things a person can do is to travel 100 odd miles to be with friends following poor weather conditions that have led to chaos and advice against travel. Traveling in such conditions risks the lives of emergency and rescue agency workers/volunteers.

All technology is interim due to constant progress.

This may surprise people, but EV are not my thing. They do not sound like V6 or V8 engines. But, the majority of drivers are not into engines as I am and an EV would perfectly suit their needs as well as contribute to protecting the environment.

Something I have wondered about for a while.

In winter, I often have the AC running to keep the windows clear. Obviously this has to have the heater on as well to avoid me freezing to death. How would an EV cope with this, as well as having lights on, heated rear window on, charging my phone, and maybe the radio?

I could prove this point with a photograph taken whilst walking on a Welsh mountain 2 years ago. I met four teenagers at the top - two boys and two girls.

I was fully kitted out in waterproof gear and carried a map, hiking GPS, food, two flasks of hot drinks etc. Of the teenagers, one girl was in torn jeans (modern fashion type) and the other in a tight miniskirt and slippers. They looked the part but were not dressed for even moderate hill walking. Imagine if the weather had turned, which it can easily do on a mountain.

I did take a photograph with a telephoto lens when they were a sufficient distance away to show my teenagers how not to dress for a hill walk but will not post it up in order not to incriminate myself. The photograph was taken purely for educational purposes, Me Lord.

I would most certainly categorise driving 80 or 100 miles after a storm with live advice to avoid travel as being irresponsible. Unless of course it is to Barnard Castle to check eyesight during travel restrictions. :icon_lol:

EV charging concerns?
 

Interesting reading, but there are huge concerns over Evs, batteries, what they made of (where it comes from) the generation of electricity and so on.
There is a government grant to have a charging point installed but as usual it's not as straightforward as one would like, especially if living in a development of flats or a house without off-street parking.
I have as it happens been looking into this for the flats where I live for submission to Grant Shapps MP the transport minister and Michael Gove MP minister for housing etc.

I tried pasting it here but it wouldn't, so have attached a PDF of it if anyone wants to read it, I'd be interested to hear thoughts.
Thanks Ray

Then the manufacturers will be able to claim the car has a lifetime warranty, if its written off so is the driver.

In the event of a collision the 12v powered contactor in the battery pack is 'turned off' which means that the 450v battery is isolated. This is why EV's still have 12v batteries and why if the 12v battery goes flat an EV won't 'start'.
In the event of a severe collision pyrotechnic fuses in the battery pack disconnect the modules so that 450v is not present even in the pack.

Compared to the power required to move the car things like the heater and AC take very little power and don't really impact on the range. What does however is the battery being cold in the winter.

and towing anything!!
Funnily enough, we currently have power outages here in western australia, 10,000 homes with no power- a 40c day- power grid issues.
As said, glad im not trying ti charge an ev, just jump into my good old fossil fuel car, switch the aircon on and drive to the nearest servo that has power!!

Which is exactly how people with EV's manage to travel long distances without much worry. They accept the charging time during the journey or hire a non-EV car!

Other approached to traveling are possibe.

In the 1980's I used to travel to Geneva every three months for technical meetings at the ITU/CCITT. Sometimes I flew. Other times, I would drive in my Austin Montego. I used to take 3 days to get there, stopping off at various Chateau in France in order to sample the French hospitality and way of life. Looking back, I could have done the same in an EV.

Travel does not need to be rushed - it can be turned into a cultural experience. We just need to get into a different mindset.

Yes indeed it can when you have the time, Spending 3 days getting to some where and another 3 day bac sounds good but probably only when I retire, if I go on holiday I dont want to spend the week traveling, a day to get there, a day to get back and the rest of the time the car will probably sit in the car park.


As I have previosly said EVs do have there place, for longer journeys that people do make something that either has a range of 400 hundred or more miles or something that can be refueled in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffe and have a comfort brake is needed.


I have a diesel Transit Van for work and this will comfortably travel 450 miles between fuel stops, the new Electric version has a range of less than 150 fully loaded on a full charge and needs 45 mins to give it an 80% charge. Today I have done about 300 miles and I would have no time to stop let alone for over an hour.

I think that ev's could become obsolete relatively quickly and replaced by diesel electric technology. A small diesel generator for on the go charging as required of a much smaller battery for electromotive traction could I think prove to be more practical, affordable and sustainable. Boris I think has had his pants pulled down on this issue by maybe his father, Stanley, and his wife together with the many activists who are vociferous on ideas but not so good on substance. There will I think be some pushback over ev's if not a backlash when reality begins to hit as the clock ticks down towards what seems to be overly short deadlines towards zero emissions. Personally I'm not sure that zero will prove to be affordable and practical for many. :Snowman2:

I very much doubt EV's will become obsolete any time soon, The majority of car manufacturers have spent €billions on retooling their car plants for EV manufacture, There are 38 battery/gigafactories in the process of being built right now across Europe & in the UK.

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/03...gigafactories/



Nissan Sunderland is building one next door to their car plant, Britishvolt is building one in Teeside & a joint venture between Coventry council/Coventry airport are building a gigafactory on the Coventry airport site.


This is the list of car manufacturers who are phasing out ICE vehicles between 2024 - 2035.
JLR, BMW, VW, Volvo, Ford Europe, Mitsubishi, Honda, GM, Fiat, Peugeot, Citroen, Opel, Toyota, Daimler as the list stands right now.

We will see. Currently they are neither affordable nor practical for the masses and it is the masses who will ultimately decide the outcome - not an expenses fiddler, an activist or a non-jobber. They together with the whole ev scenario are utterly dependent on subsidy from the masses, which in the case of ev's cannot be sustained forever. No subsidies and relatively few customers will collapse the whole house of cards regardless of how much of other people's money has been flung at the idea. :shocked:

That's the rub! they know full well they're not going to be affordable for the masses, They're going to be spending £billions on public transport & active travel infrastructure over the coming years, they want people out of private cars & onto trains, buses, trams & bicycles.
The new VED 'road pricing' plan is going to be made up of three different categories, Weight of vehicle, emissions & time of use to curtail congestion, Does this mean they're going to retrofit all cars with GPS black box to know when & where you've driven to bill you annually? “It should be based on a simple distance-driven model that considers vehicle weight, emissions and use case with discounts given to shared mobility solutions – such as car clubs, rental cars, buses and taxis – to incentive more sustainable travel choices.”
https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/lat...o-drive-change

The latest from the COP 26 is they want all ICE cars to travel 30% less/annum to reduce emissions https://airqualitynews.com/2021/12/0...ions-on-track/ & a government transport minister wants an end to car ownership culture & join a car sharing club. https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/env...-car-ownership

Neither of these are vote winners, we have got used to having this freedom and I think any thought from the masses this will be restricted or cost them more will loose who ever brings it in the vote.

Yes agreed, I've read a few times in reports from the UK government & the European parliament saying this disruption is going to be more of a disruption than the first industrial revolution was :eek:
The 'Green Alliance' think tank who wrote that piece is a very influential group made up of Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen & independent environment specialist with quite a few sitting Conservative MP's, Their big cheese chairperson is Lord Howard, Michael Howard.

If that is the case why not push another option like Hydrogen then? They have already got it to work in cars, it will work in aircraft, homes and even ticks the green box. No crazy lengths of time charging up or putting a demand on the grid that it wont handle. Apart from the money that already has been waisted on the EV option it has to be the logical step forward especially as they are already predicting a problem.


Another electric problem is forgeteting to charge them up, two doors down from me his daughter has something French and electric, she forgets to charge it when she gets home so has to borrow her Mothers ICE car so she is not late for work, it has got to the stage her father is putting it on charge for her because she keeps fogetting. At least with a liquid fuel it only needs a Jerry can to get you out of that problem not an hour or more sitting.

Be fair though, that's not a problem with electric cars, but a problem with the owner. How hard is it to get in the habit of plugging it in? No harder than getting used to locking it when you get out, or putting a seatbelt on when you get in.

Compared with when I was still at work, my milage has reduced by 85%, why should I be penalised?

What about those who cannot cycle, walk and must still travel from time to time. Public transport comes nowhere near my front door, the next street or anyway near enough. My nearest Hospital is 2 bus rides and 1.5 hours time. The cost of investment in enough public transport is not sustainable, even London has a near £2bn black hole at present.

If you live in a big city "Jack's alright", once away from there, good luck to you.

Yes I agree but with an ICE powered vehicle a lack of fuel is remedied in a couple of mins.


The mind set will need to change a lot, the wife offen leaves her ICE car with enough fuel for a couple of trips to the Supermarket or a trip to work. When she goes further afield I am often sent to fill it before she leaves. Planning ahead for longer journeys will need to be a thing, maybe we will have to leave these vehicles fully charged at all times just incase?

It does take a change in mindset however a year and a half in I can tell you it's not a difficult one. We tend to always plug the car in which means it's fully charged and ready to go. It's a minor inconvenience which is more then offset by never having to drive to a petrol station and exchange vast amounts of cash for fuel.

It's diesel emmisons that is causing the most health issues. A small petrol engine would be better.

Kev

Why not just a flat rate like there used to be? Much simpler to administer but hey, why not employ, at the tax-payers expense, a load of incompetents (like the Special Advisors, to any government) to introduce a 'never will work' system.

Kev

There's just not enough "Green Hydrogen" being manufactured from renewable energy for mass adoption & "Blue Hydrogen" will carry the carbon pricing tax same as petrol & diesel etc.
Carbon pricing & the EMT (emissions trading system) is going to kick in between eighteen months to twenty four months time.
BP are planning a green hydrogen site to go with their green hydrogen site on Teeside. https://www.edie.net/news/8/BP-plans...n-plant-in-UK/


Even with carbon capture & storage systems installed on the production of blue hydrogen it will be much more expensive than green hydrogen. Freight will get the first bite of hydrogen technology as they are the hardest form of transport to reduce emissions from what I've read.

True but in my experience commercial vehicles and buses have always been the most noticeable inner-city belchers. I'm talking about a much smaller diesel for on the go battery charging as required with plug-in mains charging still being the main and preferred option. It will be tiny in comparison to a main diesel engine of today's vehicles and it will be used by most for a fraction of the time. Being so small any emissions will be easier to deal with, smaller cats and therefore less use of precious metals. In fact smaller everything re emission controls and with BHP removed from the equation the need for some to cheat by removing safeguards will be defunct. That coupled with what should result in smaller cost for smaller items should also incentivize best practice when any main emission control parts need replacing. The technology has been around in other applications for a long time and is well understood. Used on trains and many subs the world over and I believe that our navy's newer ships are now using it with electric motors driving the props. :Holly1:

Yeah, but the manufacturers have seen sense and most hybrids are petrol!

The electric motors in the Navy's newest keep breaking down but it keeps Rolls Royce and their partner in profits...:smiley:

Kev

I think you have hit the nail on the head. We have become accustomed to cheap natural resources, leading to excessive consumption, leading to people thinking only about how they are going to maintain their lifestyle of excesses. The public is going to have to rethink their ways of living and lifestyles. Alternatively, accept increasing health problems in the young, chronic illnesses affecting the old, lowering of the average human lifespan and so on.


Why should the newborn and future generations suffer because of your lifestyle? The simple answer should be that if the new norms don't support your ways of living, then adjust your ways of living.

Yes I had read that but if there is a demand they can set up the infastructre to make it. Off shore wind farms and enough demand would see the price drop.


On the same note if you had to start from a clean sheet extracting oil from the ground after drilling a well in the North Sea, transporting it to the oil refineries and extracting it from crude oil and then transporting it to the petrol stations would cost a fortune.



Oil is only cheap because of the volume that is used, if Hydrogen was on the same scale I am sure once the set up cost had been absorbed it could be a lot cheaper.



One of the reason EV's look a good option is because we already have Electricity.



Personally I think we need both EV's and a liquid fuel option, some will find an EV does everything they need it to do but others will need something with a longer range and quick refilling. Coomercial vehicles as has been said will work well with Hydriogen but I am sure others will take this option.

Yes battery/charging technology is changing so fast now, The Hyundai Ioniq 5 can charge at 800V on those fast 350v chargers which puts 60 miles of range into the traction pack in 5 minutes. The huge Chinese BYD company have just launched a 1200 volt power chip system presumably for their electric bus & trucks to fast charge.

60 miles of range in 5 minutes? Well that's an improvement.

My old diesel 75 can fill up in well less than 5 minutes and is then good for another 600 odd miles.

That's progress for you ;) :D









.

The powers that be only want you to do 600 miles on public transport in the brave new decarbonised world. :xmas-smiley-008:

Have they seen sense or are they chasing subsidy and attempting to placate the woke? We will see.

:smilie_re: BTW, what I mentioned is not a hybrid in the conventional sense and my understanding is that it was the yanks who designed and made the problematic intercoolers for the affected RN ships and not RR. Many new ways of doing things present teething problems from which lessons can be learned and modifications implemented. I believe that a refit for the affected ships will go some way in mitigation. Regardless of any possible problems it did not stop one of our Daring class showing a clean pair of heels in the Black Sea to what was in comparison a Russian tub trying and failing to intimidate it. Lol. :laugh:

No Foreign Holidays for any of use then or does public transport not include flying?


Where is all this electricity going to come from especially at these high amps and voltages?

Aviation is another industry that's in for a disruption Their holiday of never paying tax on aviation fuel is coming to an end. Sustainable renewable bio fuels will play a big part from now on. Shipping is also in for the same disruption on the fuels they use too. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/...esri-1.4757029



We have the biggest wind farms in the world off the north sea, The three Hornsea wind farms off the east coast of the UK will be complete by next year then the giant Dogger Bank wind farms will be complete by 2026. https://electrek.co/2021/12/16/world...m-hornsea-two/

Maybe but . . . as of just now wind is only generating 3.7% of our needs. Everybody blow. 1,2 3.

But that percentage will increase rapidly with all the hot air being released by the anti-EV contingent. :laugh::laugh::laugh:

Sorry! :getmecoat:

Some one in our local car club is involved with the Nuclear generation industry. he was telling us in the summer that by the time we have 50% of the cars on our roads as EV's they are forcasting a problem, short term power cuts will be the first thing we will notice at peak times.


The Nuclear industry have forcast we need too build a new Nuclear power station every year for the next 10 years for the anticipated demand if we all go electric. Even if that is being over pessimistic I cant see them building even half of that.


Maybe we will all be working from home permenatly by then so it wont matter

Yeah investment might be a problem! There's a big brouhaha going on at present as to whether Nuclear & Gas can be classed as climate friendly investments through the International Platform on Sustainable Finance. The UK aligns itself with the EU “sustainable finance taxonomy” https://www.euractiv.com/section/ene...inance-fights/

Many turbo electric ships were built during World War 2. Cutting reduction gearwheels was time consuming but electric motors could be wound relatively quickly. Some even ended their time being used as shoreside power stations for remote towns.

I wonder if the wind stops blowing or is blowing to hard so wind turbines cant then produce power and you have cloudy weather reducing solar panels to 50%
in this brave new world of sole reliance on electrical consumption, i doubt there
will be enough base load power supply to keep the power grid operating.
My guess is it will still be fossil fuel power generation that will be needed to bail out the green power consumption at times like that.
Im sorry to say, all these people talking this green new revolution as the fix all
are in for a reality check.
In the end,One thing you cant fudge is reality!

Probably the reason they are spending Millions on developing Fusion. I am sure it will happen but probably not for a long time.

I was out for a 250+ miles drive on Saturday, including 100+ miles on the M25. I was surprised at the number of Tesla and Jaguar I-Pace on the M25. None of the drivers, all in the outer one or two lanes, looked particularly stressed about running out of charge.

I think many contributors are incorrectly thinking about electric cars primarily in terms of replacing fossil fuel with an alternative. Yet anyone who drives around our cities will see them also as a means of diluting high concentrations of air pollution in our cities.
Anyone not convinced need only drive along the North Circular and look at the colour of houses that were painted white or cream only a few years ago. The same stuff that has changed the wall colours ends up inside lungs in high concentrations.

It would be unaffordable with the upcoming ETS carbon pricing carbon pricing levied on it, It hasn't started yet & the price of carbon credits is already at a record high & slated to top €100/metric tonne by the end of this month, That's enough to put 80p on the gallon of petrol/diesel right now, What it will be in two years time is anybodies guess but I doubt it will be coming down.


Reading the latest news from transport minister Trudy Harrison yesterday, we probably wont need any more electricity production.




"Shared mobility must become ‘the norm’ across the UK, says Transport Minister, Trudy Harrison.
Addressing the Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK) annual shared transport conference, Trudy Harrison said the country needs to move away from ’20th-century thinking centred around private vehicle ownership’ and introduce ‘greater flexibility, with personal choice and low carbon shared transport.’ "



https://airqualitynews.com/2021/12/2...says-minister/

Yes, I can believe that because as you know motors and generators are not that dissimilar in construction and can be run in either mode. This seems to have escaped the attention of the motor industry which I think has always used a separate starter motor and a generator/alternator configuration. A dual-role starter-generator is not uncommon in the aviation industry and safeguards do have to be put in place in multi-engine configurations to prevent say one AC generator driving another as a motor when their outputs are combined. Allegedly. :getmecoat:

:smilie_re: They also made ships out of concrete during WW2 because of metal shortages. We still have the sunken hull of a concrete tugboat in our local river, it is The Cretehawser and a few of them were built with "Crete" incorporated into their name because of what they were made with. It was deliberately beached on the river bank at the end of its life. Click

Several manufacturers have fitted dynastart systems to their vehicles over the years - early Talbots, Morris (Bullnose), BMW Isetta, Heinkel Trojan, Goggomobile, Messerschmitt and Berkeley to name a few. :smiley:

That is a a great idea but totally inpractical, so when you get you car out you start ringing round to see who else needs a lift to where you are going? I can see the shared lift to work as a good idea but if anybody else has tried that in the past rarely works unless you all work the same shifts and live within a few miles of each other.


For me part of the driving experince is having what I want on the radio or what ever I am listening too, probably louder than a passenger would like and I want the car the temp I want not someone in the passenger seat saying it is too hot or cold.

I don't doubt they will be excluding themselves from anything unclean as that!

Kev

Shared transport, how does that work with Covid/Omicron which isn’t going away anytime soon? (Share a vehicle with effective strangers whilst distancing for any given time during a journey on a daily basis!).
Is that a case of ‘do’ and ‘don’t’ simultaneously?

It feels like some members are just not in tune with the problems that the planet and mankind faces. They are thinking in terms of 'how will I do the things that I do now' as opposed 'how will we need to change in order to survive and make sure that our grandchildren are not born with serious health issues and deformities'.

Addressing the critical problems that the planet and mankind faces will require us to think differently and readily embrace change of lifestyle.

At the moment the imminent problem mankind faces is the virus, although I suppose if enough of us succumb to it that would benefit the planet with reduced use of resources and less emissions.
Remember we need to change to limit the spread of the virus, or there may be no grandchildren to worry about, regardless of the state of the environment. :getmecoat:

Not really. Mankind has solutions to protecti the majority of humans from the virus - either through natural immunity or artificially induced immunity. There is no such natural or technological solution to climate impacts, other than changing our behaviours so that future inhabitants of the planet can survive.

Maybe in your world, unfortunately not in mine.

Oh, by the way, this is only the begining!!
Once we have all been railroaded into having everything electrical we will be held to ransom by either somone high hacking the power grid or having to pay whatever the service provider says or the wind or solar stops working ,you wont be able to move anything.
All your eggs in one basket, good luck with that!!

Yes agreed it's going to upset a lot of people. I was reading Carbon Briefs Q&A with the governments 'Net -Zero' policy chaps a few weeks ago & it's an eye opener.


As this net-zero stretches out to 2050 I was surprised at some of these timelines being within the decade. These three paragraphs jumped out at me :eek:


"The plan explicitly states that “we want less motor traffic in urban areas” and says the aim is for 50% of all trips in towns and cities to be on foot or by bike by 2030."



"Even if all combustion engine car sales end, various modelling exercises have demonstrated that car traffic will need to drop 2-4% each year over the next decade to align with net-zero."


"However, it does note that in the future “additional targeted action” – such as “steps to reduce use of the most polluting cars and tackle urban congestion” – may be required to meet climate targets. Another transport decarbonisation plan in five years’ time will assess progress." :eek: https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth...-for-transport

This is exactly what is needed, so thank you for finally recognising the obvious. It is not the richest few percent that are responsible for our pollution problems. It is the ordinary 95%+ of citizens - we peasants as I call ourselves - and the richest few percent.

Of course, there may be many other reasons for hating the top few percent of the richest people, but pollution is probably not that reason.

That's one way to reduce the population, cycle into town and get mown down by the electric car you didn't hear coming.

LOL There is a pedestrian warning sound under 12 mph on this MG ZS EV, It's very hard to hear inside the car, I've stood at the side of the car whilst my missus pulled away & could barely hear it, Mind you my hearing is pants these days.


Might get run over by a zero emission motorcycle a few years after EV's too! as new petrol category L vehicles (motorbikes,mopeds etc) will no longer be sold in the UK from 2035.

https://www.britishmotorcyclists.co....o-end-in-2035/

I wonder how the rising power prices will be affecting the electric car owners.
See tesla just had 450,000 car recalled for safety issues!!

I'm on a fixed tarrif with EDF till August 2023, so I'm ok till then.
TBH, it affects EV drivers in the same way it affects ICE drivers when petrol and diesel go up - you pay more for less.

I was having an interesting conversation with my neighbour yesterday, he used to be in new car sales and one of the other neighbours daughters has an electric car. He said '' I wonder what the hole life cost is compared to a proper car " (his words).
We know they have a higher purchase price and potentially a shorter life before they will need big expenditure ( new battery). On the positive side, they are free to tax and electricity is cheaper as long as you can recharge at home or have a deal. I have no idea what they cost to insure if you do the national average mileage or the cost of the annual service? Also what is a the depreciation like? I know I have seen Teslas advertised for what appears to be a bargain price.

the free road tax is wrong they travel the roads just like very other vehicle but then it s no longer a road fund licences. IT cannot go on for life as eventually the amount of ICE cars will be minimal and the vast majority electric, money will need to be raised somehow and so I am sure they will be having to pay tax at some point in the future.

macafee2

Thats fine IF you have all the time in the world, Some of us have to get from A-B and DONT have all the time in the world.

VED (tax) rates are always a transitory mechanism i.e. where the actual amount will change. VED differentiation between different types of cars is a good way of changing consumer behaviour. You are right that EV will not be zero rated for ever. But then in 99.9% of case VED is a very small part of the cost of owing and running a car.

Do most people really need to travel in as short a time period as they do?

I would think that most people could easily double their travel time without significant detriment. The whole time thing is an artificial concept driven by our lifestyles.

I worry about my X5 needing a new engine and / or gearbox more then our electric car needing a new battery!

Our ZS EV has just ticked over 20,000 miles so I thought I'd check the battery's state of health which turns out to be 98.4% so it's lost just 1.6% of its capacity in that time. I'd consider the car no longer of use to use when it can't make the 60 mile daily commute without charging which means it will need to lose at least 50% before we'd consider changing the battery.

By my calculations this means we could cover roughly 625,000 miles before needing to replace the battery! This equates to about 41 years so suffice to say I'm not too worried about it.

i think the things that bother me the most are-
re tesla, only a tesla dealership is able to work on a tesla car,
the trade in value on a 8 year old tesla which is when the battery warranty finishes will be very little as the battery replacement is about $22,000 aud so the car is virtually worthless as a trade in.
So does the car become scrap value?
Further being as the car is still built using vast amounts of petroleum products,
seats, dash,trim, head unit, tyres, suspension,mirrors, body panels,battery casings, wiring etc, cant see how it is being marketed as this green new machine.
After you factor in the mining and processing the lithium for the batteries, i think
it takes about 5-6 years of use for the car to be carbon neutral, just in time for the new batteries-$22,000 aud later then you have just added another few years of carbon to zero emissions - so your getting up 8-10 years before being any benefit climate wise - here we go again!!

Expected battery life is 15 to 20 years.

What is the average lifespan of an ICE car?

Any EV trained tech can work on any EV car, the problem being education and training. Main dealers have to do this to fall in line with manufacturer standards. Many independents are now also investing in training as wether you like it it or not ev’s are coming and hybrids and ev’s are probably outselling ice cars allready. A lot of new cars are also made using recycled products in manufacturing interior cloths and plastics. As for the value of an 8 year old Tesla, have a look on eBay and they hold values well like all EV’s do. It’s no different to buying an 8 year old Range Rover which has the potential to ingest it’s own supercharger at great cost.

The Germans may not want you in Germany with your ICE powered polluter ;)



Which equates to about 20 years of motoring for 90%+ of cars!

I think tesla only warranty their batteries for 8 years?
Not sure but at $22,000 aud a go, would not like to hedge my bets on replacing a bad battery just out of warranty.
Saw recently a bloke have this happen with his tesla, faulty battery just out of warranty , had a massive fight with tesla who refused to help so the owner blew up his tesla with dynamite as the car was effectively worthless!!
Re hybrid cars- crazy to buy one as the EU has already flagged to outlaw them by 2030, so where is the value in that!!
Ev’s have their use in places where your doing short distances daily or high density populations with being able to charge at each end of the journey such as the UK but in a place like Australia,
apart from to and from work city driving, absolutely useless over distances here.
Also not so good where the power grid is not in good shape either.
Hydrogen fuel cell is the only way to here hence the billions of $ currently being invested here in hydrogen production.
700km for s fuel cell, 2 minutes to refill.

[QUOTE=genpk;2914927]I think tesla only warranty their batteries for 8 years?
............/QUOTE]


No company will warranty their product for a period anywhere near the expected life. So an 8-year warranty would be consistent with a 15-20 year expected life.

[QUOTE=MSS;2914928]Not sure about that as most current battery suppliers seem to make batteries that seem to start failing within 12 or 24 months of warranty expiry.
I think there are already cases of tesla owners having to replace their batteries.

If batteries are so long lasting in EV powered cars how come the one in Mobile phones struggle to last more than 30 months before they struggle to last a day.

[QUOTE=genpk;2914932]We need to differentiate between expected operational life and failure. Failure occurs in very small percentage of production and the bath tub curve generally applies in some form. Warranty periods are set to provide risk mitigation against the early failures and to generally provide confidence in the purchase.

Expected operational life is, on the whole, determined by operational/performance degradation. This would normally be expected to be much longer than the warranty period.

In general, I don't think any one is saying that some manufacturers have not had teething troubles with a small percentage of their batteries. But this occurs even with new engines - read all the horror stories about replacement engines needed on new or nearly new LR, Mercedes etc.

It is interesting to note that those on here who own an EV are not highlighting any major regrets and most of the negativity is from others who do not own the technology. This is a pattern we saw with catalytic converters, DMF and so on.

Finally, and once again, an EV will not be ideal for every potential buyer. But for many situations, it may be the ideal technology.

Post above re battery lifetime - my Nikon D100, purchased around 2008, is still running happily on its original two batteries in the grip.


I see the double nesting of quotes is playing up. The above quoted text is from genpk rather than myself.

[QUOTE=MSS;2914928]I can not see the logic in an 8 warranty meaning it’s ok for 15/20 years.My maths are not very good, but would love to know how that calculation was achieved?

Think about why independent companies are so keen to sell you 3-year extended warranties after the manufacturer's warranty runs out. It is because they know the chances of the product failing during that period is very small. The statistically significant expected life of the product is much longer than the manufacturer's warranty period.

[QUOTE=MSS;2914944]I think that people on here that dont own an ev are asking logical questions regarding things such as are ev’s really as green as they make out to be, are they really a viable option factoring in large battery replacement costs and will you be able to be mobile when there are power outages etc.
Im sure some people are curious about these issues and more thus the vigorous discussion.
If all current ev users are happy ,great but im sure there are some owners questioning their purchase as well, as can be evidenced by a recent report of a
tesla owner blowing his car up with dynamite after a long dispute with tesla over battery warranty .

[QUOTE=genpk;2914973]No, the Tesla owner blew up his car as a publicity stunt and to get views for his youtube channel. It's worked as well, currently at 1.3 million views and counting which will probably net him quite a tidy sum!

The quote nesting in the above post has gone a bit astray. The quoted text was from genpk rather than myself. :xmas-smiley-008:

[QUOTE=guru;2915207]
My daughter currently has one that's at 1.4 million views on Facebook and has made around 500 quid, so even if he can double or treble that on Youtube it still doesn't value his Tesla at much. :}







.

It might not be palatable for many, but on page 17 in today’s Mail there is a lengthy article giving a logical view of the pro’s and con’s on EV’s by Bjorn Lomborg. Sort-of lifting the well-screwed down lid on a wider view.

Another major car maker Nissan has just announced it's ending combustion engine development everywhere except for the USA where it has a lucrative market in the pick up truck market. :eek: https://www.thedrive.com/news/44190/...-the-us-report

Just read today that a pilot scheme is starting that will eventually be rolled out nationally to use smart charges to drain the batteries of EVs when demand on the grid exceeds supply and at peak times. A refund will be paid for the electricity taken similar to solar panels.

So if you put your EV on charge ready for a long trip you may not have enough power to go because they drained it instead of charging it. Then all the cars that now need charging again overloads the system again so they drain them again. Could very easily happen if the infrastructure isn't there, and this looks to me like it will not be, otherwise why need to do it.

Prior to recently getting my new car I looked very hard at what to buy. I ended up with petrol, very very economical and at an affordable price. I wanted to be green, electric would be great plug in hybrid a real possibility but in the end I went petrol. I seriously consider hybrid but the extra cost didn't make sense, the saving on fuel would not cover the extra cost to buy.

Full electric, high cost price making them not affordable for most especially an OAP. Still lets look at the affordable ones, they are green but still very pricey compared to petrol. For:- green or are they, mining lithium, end of life battery scrapping? Against, charging infrastructure. In some areas its almost non existent. On my travels I looked for it and some parts non at all where I go to. Mileage between charges, well the affordable ones are not great so on my motorway trips to my family in the south west would need lots of stops. Friends horror stories of setting off on a planned journey to find charges not working leaving them waiting for the AA to rescue them only to then find the next services the same. AA out again with three vans charging up a queue of stranded EVs. Next trip out to lakes got there OK but couldn't find a charger to get home. Nearly out of power when they did. The now use this car in the city only and got a second hand deisel for long trips sort of puts me off.

Then we have the recommendations of how to attain the long life stated by some posts. Well do not use fast charges unless you have to, these will shorten the life. Do not drive fast or use the acceleration offered by these cars too often it reduces the life also and by a fair bit from what I read. Recharge when the battery is between 40% and 60% ie 50% and charge it up to 80% even on your home charger to maintain the life. So a 200 mile range is really only about 80 miles if you want the battery to last. All of the above heats up the batteries and shortens there life.

Mind made up new electric out of the window.

What about second hand? well with the information I found no chance. The cars probably been company owned, charged up all the time on fast chargers, driven at high speeds up and down the motorway, the acceleration used to good effect and charged from 10% to 80% on a fast charge or 100% at home, so battery life questionable on a 3/5 year old one. Just yesterday I saw a Leaf for sale, 10 years old, firm £4200 wanted only 50 mile range left. Advertised as good for short commutes or shopping trips, cheap to charge. Or really batteries too expensive to replace and cost to much to scrap.

Yeah I was reading that they want more EV's equipped with V2G (vehicle to grid) technology as January 2022 saw 1 in 3 new car registrations were either BEV or PHEV & set to grow exponentially this year.
You can opt out of V2G whilst charging if you need the full charge. The national Grid will have (X) amount of GWH's on tap to balance out the grid at peak times, Off peak charging will come with small rewards if it suits your needs.



OLEV would only install these Smart Chargers that were capable of doing that but that £350 grant is ending 31st March.



The UK is signed up to Net Zero & one of the mandates of that policy is the UK has to build 143000 public e-chargers per year through to 2030, They are nowhere near that number as of yet & just above Germany's efforts, Germany are mandated to build 2000 public e-chargers per week through to 2030, at present they managing 250/week :eek:,



Cleevely EV's are now refurbishing BEV traction packs at a fraction of the cost at a Nissan dealership, The majority of low range problems come from just one bad module in the pack which will bring the overall range of the traction pack down to that bad module. The Leaf in this video is a taxi with just under 120K miles which was fast charged four times/day & had a faulty module replaced & is now back to normal.

Another aspect on this is the home charger. [BTW, I appreciate not everyone has a drive to put their car on to do a charge, which is another issue in itself.....!]

My neighbour is wanting to change his 8 year old Volvo V40. He is looking for an electric equivalent and we chatted about it. I then asked about a home charger which he hadn't thought about but thought great idea... Anyway, he did some checks to see if the house supply is OK to order one and get one fitted, but there appear to be problems with the supply and a big delay in getting anything fitted. As he's wanting to do some house alterations soon which is likely to affect charger installation, I think he's sticking with the Volvo for the time being. He also does a more than 100 mile trip each way at least once a month....will also advise him of the "away from home" charging problems when I next see him....

Gawd n Bennett :duh: I don't know where you guys get your outdated facts from but my "abomination" & Me & your house lights will be just fine.


From Graeme Cooper the head honcho at the National Grid. "the most demand for electricity we’ve had in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002. Since then, due to improved energy efficiency such as the installation of solar panels, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16 per cent. Even if the impossible happened and we all switched to EVs overnight, we think demand would only increase by around 10 per cent. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002 and this is well within the range of manageable load fluctuation." https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories...ehicles-busted

It's a hard one to call for the length of time to the tipping point between ICE cars & BEV's but the powers that be want to speed up that equation. The ETS (emission trading system) i'e. carbon pricing is at record levels & if it was linked to the road transport & buildings ETS it would put 80p/gallon on petrol & diesel right now. :eek: The SMMT said new car registrations for January 2022 were 1 in 3 new car registrations were electrified & set to grow exponentially this year.




The UK has it's own ETS since the 'B' word but is still intertwined with the EU ETS standards & underpins all these emission standards. In fact the UK's ETS is more strict than the EU's :eek:



The 'Fit for 55' policy (have a look up on that it doesn't make for good reading) has gone back to the drawing board to be amended regards the road transport & buildings ETS from 2026.
It just depends on how much you're willing to pay for a gallon of petrol or diesel in the coming years. I've been reading/following this stuff since 2015 as the disruption is going to be huge.



"As part of its Fit for 55 proposals, the European Commission has proposed including the road transport and buildings sectors into the bloc’s carbon market from 2026 (known as the Emissions Trading System “ETS2”). Fuel suppliers like Total and Shell would need to buy pollution permits for each litre of fuel they put on the market. As the market is currently designed, they could then pass this cost on entirely to end-consumers. This could disproportionately impact poorer citizens driving their cars or heating their homes."

"Carbon pricing for road transport and buildings is necessary to ensure the EU meets its 2030 climate targets, as it will reduce the demand for fossil fuels and private cars[1]. But the burden shouldn’t only fall upon the consumer." https://www.transportenvironment.org...nalysis-shows/

Most of the comments about use profile vs range apply also to ICE vehicles. At 55MPH most cars achieve around 20% greater range than at 70MPH.

As has been stated a number of times on this forum, an EV may not suit everyone's desired needs or lifestyle as they are now. But most people recognise that in order to become environmentally friendly we all need to rethink our lifestyles. Perhaps EV adoption will be the catalyst for that.

As for OAPs being impacted by the performance or range restrictions, I would have thought that most OAPs don't need anything other than an electrified Honda Jazz which can be charged between episodes of Coronation Street or Call the Midwife! :}

Point one raised by you. I was not talking about how far you can travel on a charge related to speed but the fact that speed and high acceleration relates to heat generated in the battery which reduces its overall life i.e. fries it, which is well known. Most new owners will not be bothered about these facts, unless you are looking to long term ownership. But buy one second hand and they may well come to be the hidden problems that hits you hard financially. It may well reduce the life span of an EV making a second hand purchase not cost effective at all. On this we will have to wait and see, for me though today to great a risk.

I entirely agree with your second comment but my point is that they are now for most people, who unlike you are of more modest means, not affordable and impractical due to infrastructure however much, like myself, they would like to own one for all of the correct reasons.

Your third point probably sums you up lumping all types, sexes etc. under the same banner. OAPs do have a life you know, I'll bet a fair few members on here fit that bill and have enough health and wealth to live it. My friends who I quoted their experiences of finding enough working and or available charges to reach their destinations are OAPs.

A journalist I know was covering the COPEC talks in Glasgow so hired an electric car to get there thinking he would do his bit for the environment. He had the same issues and said it was far more stressful getting there due to finding it difficult to charge on route. Another friend went from Lancashire to the Classic Car Show in Birmingham planning his route to get there and half way back before needing to charge. Then he ran into problems as the others had and found no available charges.

Sorry but these peoples experiences helped put me off and to decide against electric for now. The majority of private vehicle buyers today can only afford second hand or modestly priced new. Most electric vehicles are priced well above the affordability level for the masses and massive improvements in infrastructure and reductions in costs need to be made before the uptake required will be met. Hopefully we will see all of this happen sooner than later but I will not hold my breath.

My clean green as I can afford petrol vehicle which has all the up to date kit, including the new EU speed limiter which is permanently switched off, giving me 56 MPG at motorway speeds and 45 MPG in every day driving will have to be the best I can do, well for now anyway. I think that the long term will see a reduction in private ownership with vehicles being supplied when needed by car share groups on an hourly/daily basis.

You can get an App & OBD2 dongle to check an EV's charging/balancing history & exactly how many L1/L2 & fast charging sessions the cars had & everything else in between, I got the Nissan Leaf Spy Pro years ago as I thinking of getting one, It never came about but they are an handy tool to check exactly the cars history & battery health, If it's had 'X' amount of hundreds or thousands of fast charges in it's life you might want to walk away from the deal or use the data to bargain with.

Just scroll through the images on this Google play app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...hl=en_US&gl=US

Reduce the worlds air pollution a great idea.


It will only work if all the world takes part.


As it is, those that are taking it seriously are only doing something in the wind, when you compare what many large countries and continents aren't doing.

Blimey! Hot off the press. Another one bites the dust :eek: "Volvo Cars has shoved its carbon-emitting engine business off its books by moving all of its internal-combustion powertrains to a new joint-venture company called Aurobay.
A creation of Volvo and its Zhejiang Geely Holding Group parent, the Aurobay joint venture means there are no more combustion engines within the Volvo Cars Group, with the carmaker keeping only its electric powertrains on its balance sheet." https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltay ... c672683b48

Until they ban air travel that uses Hydro carbon fuels, ships that burn vast quantities of fuel unfiltered and the major poluters on this planet like China, India and North America nothing is going to change. Even if we all switched to EV's tomorrow in Europe all the other poluters will more than cancel out the benefit and we will just be poorer for trying.


Hopefully I wont be here to see the consequnce of this but unless all 9 Billion of us do the same thing it is like taking a bucket of water out of the sea and saying that will stop all the floods around the world.

The planet has been going into ice ages then warming up in cycles for thousands and millions of years long before humans came along with aeroplanes, ships, cars and industry. When the majority of these ground to a halt globally for months during the first covid pandemic it didn't make a jot of difference whatsoever even though one scientist claimed we wouldn't feel the effects of the reductions for another couple of hundred years!
I'm all for cleaner air but this global warming thing being caused by ourselves and not a natural earth weather cycle is a nonsense.

The government have announced today that the PICG (plug in car grant) has been withdrawn forthwith & the grant going to the diesel delivery van owners to transition to BEV vans to ween them off diesel :eek: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/lat...-by-government

Good post. I would prefer to have the brand 'climate change' dropped and replaced with 'pollution reduction' which would make more sense.

At the weekend there was an EV parked in the layby opposite my house. He had been to the couple of local charging points and both were faulty, he had tried the local supermarkets but none of them have EV charging points.


There were no others showing on his panel but he asked if I knew of any that might have been newly installed.



He had run out of Electricty, I said he could plug into my house if that helped but he said it would take to long.


An hour or so later an RAC van arrived and he was towed away I presume to a functiong charging point.


If this is the future god help us, its bad enough running out of petrol but a small container of the very valuable juice can be poored in and you are on your way.

I'm just waiting for the day I see a line of broken down EV's while I slowly drive past them in a fully functional petrol.

Oh how I'll laugh.

Our EV is great. Fun to drive and saving my wife a fortune on her daily commute.

Are you a climate scientist?

Are you a climate scientist?

I am.... Iv looked outside my window for 60 odd years and thought.. Mmmm things are changing.

Did you ever think of relating that insight to the smoke belching out of your lorry's exaust as you enjoyed the Yorkie bars? :}

Please try not to spoil our fun with facts based on first-hand experience and knowledge. It just doesn't work like that.

Young born with three ears and one eye will be able to live happily, with one semi-functional lung, on the planet for thousands of years to come.

We are cool with the way things are. :cool:

Will be a cold day in hell before I have an EV.

Too late old chap! Us EV drivers have had so many chances to laugh at the luddites reliant on lots of little explosions to move them down the road recently. I remember being amused by the poor sods trying to find petrol stations with fuel so they could join a long queue in the hope some would be left for them! In these days of petrol and the devil's fuel costing over £8 a gallon, I am further amused as my car has been powered by free sunlight for nearly the last 3 months from our PV panels. Not so cheap in the winter when we might have to buy £15 (less than the cost of 2 gallons...) of electricity to propel us 250 miles.

I would state also that I think to "climate catastrophe" is merely the latest Doomsday cult and will turn out to be no more true than any of the previous ones! Our EV is the fastest, quietest, most comfortable car I have had in over 50 years of motoring. I also suspect it is the cheapest to run!

Says th champagne socialist...;)

WE... who's we. Dont make assumptions about other's without permission.

electic cars
 

I hate to be party pooper but, it may be cheaper to charge a vehicle now but what happens when we take to electric cars and the cost of charging when the government coffers have reduced because of loss of tax on fuel. I remember the Blair government encouraged us to go diesel.