Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Yeah, but they are unusual. Near me is a bridge built in the 1200's, it is a scheduled ancient monument and even that can take a 7.5 tonner...
Electric cars
- Thread starter ch750536
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Yeah, but they are unusual. Near me is a bridge built in the 1200's, it is a scheduled ancient monument and even that can take a 7.5 tonner...
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
EVs are a great idea... In a fantasy utopia. Excellent in theory but once everyone owns one we're going to be facing huge, possibly insurmountable problems. There will never be enough charging points. Sure, there are plenty now while hardly anybody owns an EV, and most people who do own them live in a nice leafy suburb with off-road parking and their own private charging point, but once everyone owns one and they're taking 20 minutes for a rapid charge refuel at a filling station, the queues outside the stations are going to be 10 miles long, and although I'm sure charging points will start popping up everywhere, finding a working one that hasn't been vandalised might be an issue.
Then there's little things like the battery issues. Constant rapid charging at filling stations will dramatically shorten the life and capacity of the battery. (The battery that's being manufactured from materials mined by child slave labour). But maybe, as we've been hearing for the past couple of decades, we're only a couple of years away from a big breakthrough in battery technology... Still tapping fingers here.
Towns and cities need to be designed and built to accommodate EVs, not adapted. Just look at the streets lined with cars next time you're out, and ask yourself where will they all recharge. Cables running from houses and across footpaths to cars? I don't think so. I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be an absolute disaster.
Then there's little things like the battery issues. Constant rapid charging at filling stations will dramatically shorten the life and capacity of the battery. (The battery that's being manufactured from materials mined by child slave labour). But maybe, as we've been hearing for the past couple of decades, we're only a couple of years away from a big breakthrough in battery technology... Still tapping fingers here.
Towns and cities need to be designed and built to accommodate EVs, not adapted. Just look at the streets lined with cars next time you're out, and ask yourself where will they all recharge. Cables running from houses and across footpaths to cars? I don't think so. I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be an absolute disaster.
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beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
It’s almost as if the problem is cars themselves, rather than what powers them
BigTom
Well-Known Member
It’s almost as if the problem is cars themselves, rather than what powers them
agreed, although there's a whole other nightmare about actually generating the power (and managing the national grid and local subgrid) if we have anything like the number of EVs as we do ICE vehicles.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
What does that have to do with electric vehicles?
I can pull into a petrol station and refuel in 2 minutes enough to travel 500 miles. EVs take over half an hour to refuel enough for 100 miles with a 50kW rapid charger, and all the whataboutery in the world isn't going to change that. We're going to need probably 10x as many filling stations as we currently have, and even that isn't going to cut it. Who's going to want to sit in a filling station for half an hour every morning on their way to work? We're going to need charging points wherever vehicles normally park, whether that's at work, home, shopping centres, etc, it doesn't matter, but at a guess, we're probably going to need charging points for a third or half of all EVs. There are currently around 40 million cars on the road in the UK, so the maths isn't hard, and when you consider how long broadband has been available and how relatively inexpensive it is compared to kitting out a country for EVs, yet there are still so many people who have little or no access to it, it doesn't take a genius to realise how much of a disaster the whole EV thing is going to be.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
I note that Landrover are doing a hydrogen model. 
Hydrogen, not electricity is the way forward.
Hydrogen, not electricity is the way forward.
Yes, this is the interesting thing. I don't really know much about it all hence the question but what I have read is loads of people saying you really need at home charging. As you say it means changing a mindset around not always having the thing ready to go each morning and having to find time during the day.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
That comes with its own set of problems, the biggest of them being that it takes about 3x as much power to produce the hydrogen as you get at the wheels of the car.I note that Landrover are doing a hydrogen model.
Hydrogen, not electricity is the way forward.
I note that Landrover are doing a hydrogen model.
Hydrogen, not electricity is the way forward.
I've been reading up on hydrogen and it really depends where the hydrogen comes from. There is a real danger with it just repeating many previous mistakes in swopping a massive problem for another massive problem. I suppose you could save the same about electric and how the electricity is generated but with 95% of the world's current hydrogen being generated via fossil fuels (grey hydrogen) its not an auspicious start.
Anyway, its even less practical then electric right at this moment.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
You’re getting there, slowly
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Yes, you would need a lot more charging stations than petrol pumps, but it's easier to place charging stations in existing places in a distributed fashion because you don't have to deal with the explosive/flammable petrol issue.
Like you say, you wouldn't sit in a filling station on your way to work. Many would charge at home. Your work car park would have a charger for every spot and you would charge there. Ditto car parks for shops etc. Of course we are nowhere near this point now but it can be built towards. It's certainly not an insurmountable problem and the cost is minor compared to the costs of climate change.
Whether the electrical grid can handle that is another question.
And it doesn't remove all the other problems that cars cause either. It just removes the climate change issue (once our grids are carbon free), pollution from burning oil and all the associated issues with producing oil, and swaps them for the pollution and issues associated with making batteries and running power stations.
All in all it's far more important to try to get people to swap their cars for bicycles wherever possible, I'm sure you will agree on that since it solves all the problems you are putting forward here.
dessiato
🇪🇸 my spirit is crying for leaving
I'm curious about this whole situation. I keep looking at various EV and hybrid options, but I can't see how they will work for a significant number of people.
I'm not completely unusual among my friends. An EV or PHEV would work about 50% to 75% of the time. But the rest of the time I am doing 300km round trips, and additional journeys of Seville to London, to Edinburgh. I wonder about the amount of extra travel time that would add.
If EV is not practical in my case, what about the number of people driving delivery vans? What will happen to them?
I'm not completely unusual among my friends. An EV or PHEV would work about 50% to 75% of the time. But the rest of the time I am doing 300km round trips, and additional journeys of Seville to London, to Edinburgh. I wonder about the amount of extra travel time that would add.
If EV is not practical in my case, what about the number of people driving delivery vans? What will happen to them?
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Also, 300km is within range for a lot of EV’s. And you’d charge it at any point you stopped - at services, wherever your destination was etc. Like I said earlier, it will take a mindset/behavioural shift as well as the required infrastructure construction.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
The problem with storing all that energy in a battery isn't too dissimilar to storing it in a tank of petrol, they're both quite volatile, and the only reason we're not seeing more EV battery fires is because there are relatively few of them on the road. Lithium batteries do have a bit of a habit of spontaneously combusting, especially so when being charged, and the higher the charge rate, the greater the chance of something going wrong. They do burn quite well, and can take hours if not days to extinguish.
EVs are perfect for delivery vans but it'll mean replacing one diesel van with about 5 electric vans and drivers.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
Modern EV's use lithium-ion batteries which have a theorectical limit of 406 watt-hours/kg (currently only about half that but they're improving all the time), aluminium-ion batteries have a theorectical limit of 1060 watt-hours/kg. They're currently in the experimental stage and not yet in production but they also hold the advantage of being less polluting to make and easier to recycle. There is always going to be the problem of charging time but since a-ion batteries can't overheat they can be charged faster than l-ion ones anyway. Battery ranges are going to get a LOT more over the next decade or two and will certainly exceed fossil fuels at some point.
Hydrogen offers promise in the longer term rather than the short/medium not only is it totally clean but it can be used in different ways, you can use it in a fuel cell or just burn it in an internal combustion engine. Of course you can also burn it in a fusion reactor though I can't really see such a thing as a fusion powered bus ever being a reality (maybe for really big vehicles likes ships and of course spacecraft)
Current solar cells produce roughly 200w per square metre but the amount of sunlight reaching the surface is about 1kw per sq m (At the Earths distance from the Sun it's actually 1368w per sq m but the rest gets lost in the atmosphere)
So still plenty of room for improvement there, a solar powered car is not very realistic (surface area is too small) but something lke a bus or truck could have solar cells on top to at least generate some of its power.
High efficiency solar cells on roofs could charge a-ion batteries in the day to transfer to a-ion vehicles at night.
The "It will never replace petrol" brigade are in the same position as the people who reckoned the automobile would never replace the horse and cart.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Marketing bullshit. You might get close to that on a sunny day in California, but on a cold day in the UK you won't get half that.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Has anybody ever actually said that? Seems like a rather silly hill to die on.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
BMW are claiming up to 367 miles for the new i4. Even allowing for a bit of manufacturer truth stretching that puts it well over 300km. Certainly more than enough for all but the most outlier of users.
dessiato
🇪🇸 my spirit is crying for leaving
When I do these 300km trips they’re crossing the mountains. I understand that this will very quickly flatten the batteries, and, therefore, significantly reduce range.
Aladdin
Well-Known Member
Are we going to become reliant on electricity as our only energy source for homes heating and transport?
Seems a tad...many eggs in one basket no?
I mean its great in a world where hackers are not hacking every system going.
As it is new homes over here are not allowed have an open fire. And as far as I am aware stoves have to burn special pellets.
All heating in new homes is electric or heat exchange.
Solar panels grants etc but really only enough for heating water. Wind farms are cropping up all along the coast.
So electricity looks to be the way forward.
Seems a tad...many eggs in one basket no?
I mean its great in a world where hackers are not hacking every system going.
As it is new homes over here are not allowed have an open fire. And as far as I am aware stoves have to burn special pellets.
All heating in new homes is electric or heat exchange.
Solar panels grants etc but really only enough for heating water. Wind farms are cropping up all along the coast.
So electricity looks to be the way forward.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Ford F150 long range model claims 300 miles (220 standard model).
Ford F-150 Lightning: 563bhp EV pick-up to go on sale in Norway | Autocar
The electric version of US's best-selling vehicle is heading to Norway in limited numbers
No what the American EPA test cycle is though, how easy it is to cheat or what conditions that claims to represent.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Of course, all these things would go further if drivers didn’t insist on them having several hundred BHP 
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Even if they do manage to achieve anywhere near those miles, it really isn't going to help much. Nobody is going to run fully charged to fully flat. Everybody is going to charge them every day to keep them sufficiently charged for any eventuality and to prolong battery life. Fully charged to fully flat range will be pretty meaningless to all but a tiny percentage of drivers.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Sure - I was thinking about the problem of storing large amounts of petrol in the tanks at the petrol station - the batteries on an EV and the fuel tank on an ICE isn't what I was thinking about. Battery fires take hours to fully extinguish, but make sure you properly understand what that term means to fire fighters, it doesn't mean having visible flames.
Tesla Fire in Texas Crash Was Not How It Was Reported, Says Fire Chief
Persistent news reports that the 2019 Model S burned for hours and stymied fire officials are wrong, he says.
This is about the widely report fire earlier this year
and fire services will get better at dealing with these as they get more experienced at it.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
Electricity has the great advantage that it can in theory at least be generated from 100% non-polluting sources (long way to go yet but slowly heading in that direction) combustible fuels can be manufactured synthetically we use fossil fuel oil because it's cheap and plentiful rather than any other reason. Rudolf Diesel originally envisaged his engine burning fuel made from peanut oil.
Come January 2030 we're not going to wake up and find all the petrol/diesel cars stranded in people's driveways because only electric will be allowed. ICE will probably still be in the majority and I can forsee a bumper year for car sales with 29 and 79 plates. The last ICE vehicles are going to remain serviceable until pushing 2050 (my wife's Micra is 2007 and it's still going great) but every one that goes to the scrapyard will reduce the number on the roads. At some point in the 2040's it will start to get uneconomical for retailers to stock fossil fuels and that will accelerate the phasing out. I'm sure there will be some ingenious souls brewing their own ethanol but they won't be enough to be significant.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
I’ve noticed that the lamppost closest to my front window has recently been modified and fitted with a charging socket. I haven’t checked the other lampposts on my street, but a mate who lives in Fulham reports that all of them on his street are being fitted with car charging sockets.
Like you say, it’s an evolutionary process. And let’s be honest, I suspect the overwhelming majority of car journeys in this country are anywhere near several hundred miles in length. Hell, I’d be surprised if 90% of all single car journeys are longer than 60-70 miles. If a small proportion of people are inconvenienced by not being able to complete a 200+ mile trip without recharging, it doesn’t mean electric cars are unfit for purpose overall ffs.
It might come as no surprise to regular readers of this thread that I am not exactly against private vehicle ownership and use. But I do think it’s inevitable and completely the right thing to do to eventually switch from internal combustion engines to electric, or any other sustainable technology that might become feasible.
I don’t think having a 2030 deadline for an end to petrol & diesel vehicles is a realistic target at this moment in time though, but we should keep pushing in that direction.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Average car journey in the U.K. is 8.4 miles. The majority of course are far less than that.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
Exactly my point. Refuelling stops are as much of a drag in a car than on an airplane, but it’d be rather silly to dismiss existing aircraft as an undesirable mode of long distance transportation because you cannot do some ultra long haul destinations without refuelling, when most routes as used by most passengers don’t have to.
