Styling I've never been a fan of electric cars........

[PuntoHowTo]

Re: I've never been a fan of electric cars.....

True..
But I'd been talking about getting a Renault

Which is why I’d not say you’re a skeptic.

As I said there are draw backs to electric cars and while some make them a massive problem or barrier, others like your self try to work around them

What really irritates me is the awful habit of making cars bigger, wider, heavier with each new release. I accept the weight increase in an electric car, but otherwise cars should rater get smaller than bigger, space in the streets is the biggest problem these days.

And most of the time, it's only 1 person in the car these days while the old 500 used to carry families with 3 kids.:

All comes down to safety, has nothing to do with electric cars, pitch a 1960’a fiat 500 against a 2020 version in a head to head collision and you’ll soon see why they don’t make the small cars like they use to.

For me, one of the clever aspects of the new 500 is giving buyers the choice of battery size. Like the Mini, many 500s are used as a second cars or city cars, so the cheaper, smaller battery version will be fine. Those who use it for longer runs will have to spend extra, but at least there is the option.

sadly in the Mini (at least at the moment) they only have one battery size with a relatively small range, then again maybe that’s clever and they know most people as you point out will only use them round town ?

At least the 500 has a reasonably useable range.

Not sure I was 'claiming' anything re batteries just passing my opinion why I am not ready for an electric car from experience with many other items that the batteries just don't last


I appreciate rechargeable batteries have come a long way over the years and if what you say is correct then the battery could/should then be given a lifetime warranty and that would be a good starter. Lots of complaints though still live online re Apple iPhone battery life so why should we believe the car industry has suddenly got it all sussed out.

Go back an read what g8rpi said

“ You cannot compare batteries in consumer items with those in EVs. The batttery management in EVs ensures that they are never over discharged or over charged.

Over discharging and over charging cells is very harmful to them. Due to the size and cost of EV batteries they are never charged or discharged to their maximum capacity. The slight loss in range per charge is far outweighed by the dramatic increase in battery life. With a torch, drill, cellphone etc the working life and cost of the item means using the full battery capacity at the expense of life is appropriate.”

New iPhone batteries do last and work a lot better than they did on the iPhone 6 and 6s which is the model that caused a lot of controversy with rapidly losing capacity and shutting down in use.

New iPhones (like the one I own now) will stop charging in the night at 80% and then will intelligently charge the last few percent in the hour before you are due to wake. You can also set some goods to not fully charge, my laptop (Lenovo) will do this and the battery is still good in that after 3 years.
Seriously rather than making assumptions go and do some research into this and you’ll see that after 100,000 miles electric cars see very little degradation in the battery. Most manufacturers will give an 8 year battery warranty, no one is going to give a life time warranty on a battery but if you buy a car new then what’s the likelihood most people won’t have replaced it twice by 8 years.

An electric drill will wreck its battery and at £50 a time for a replacement it’s not a bad cash cow for the makers, but when you up that to £8k for a new electric car battery suddenly you find consumers are not going to buy your car if it does destroy its own battery.

Tesla tried the battery swap system, it didn’t work and it’s expensive.... very very expensive, also who owns the battery in that situation, who is liable of the battery breaks down. It’s very difficult to swap electric car batteries out mainly because they weight hundreds of KG. It’s a kin to suggesting rather than fill your tank with petrol you swap a full tank for the empty tank every time you go to the petrol station. New electric cars will charge to 80% range in under an hour and if charging the car at home, most would not need to charge away from home unless on a very long journey, in which case you’ll plan your charge stops. After 200 miles of driving most people would want to stop for a coffee and something to eat.

That is probably the worst comment I have ever seen.....and from a moderator....tell you what I will just leave the forum

Perhaps a bit overkill, I can’t see anything I JRKitching’s post to warrant that?

 

[Gina500]

All comes down to safety, has nothing to do with electric cars, pitch a 1960’a fiat 500 against a 2020 version in a head to head collision and you’ll soon see why they don’t make the small cars like they use to.

Then pitch 2020 against a 1995s vehicle (where airbags and ABS are included) and the difference will become marginal. So we might as well stop heaping safety features on safety features and some bureaucrats inventing even more mandatory requirements. Bringing risk down to zero comes at a infinite cost. Which is neither realistic from an engineering and commercial point of view, nor is it ecologically sustainable.

An electric drill will wreck its battery and at £50 a time for a replacement it’s not a bad cash cow for the makers, but when you up that to £8k for a new electric car battery suddenly you find consumers are not going to buy your car if it does destroy its own battery.

Same thing - not sustainable thinking. Planned obsolescence by the makers and ignorance or plain lazyness by the consumers (power drill).
On the car, the price is big enough that at least the consumers get focused a bit more and start thinking. This is much more relevant than the useless range discussions that are totally irrelevant for probably 90% of drivers in 90% of their use cases.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Then pitch 2020 against a 1995s vehicle (where airbags and ABS are included) and the difference will become marginal. So we might as well stop heaping safety features on safety features and some bureaucrats inventing even more mandatory requirements. Bringing risk down to zero comes at a infinite cost. Which is neither realistic from an engineering and commercial point of view, nor is it ecologically sustainable.

This video features a lot of older cars from the mid 90s with airbags and either put through modern tests or crashed into new cars, demonstrate how the progress on car safety has improved massively, it’s certainly not a marginal improvement

https://youtu.be/TikJC0x65X0

This is why NCAP like to retest cars that have not been updated for a long time like the panda and the Punto and they score a lot worse than they did first time round.

Just one example is that fiat updated the 500 safety features a few years back and while the overall shape of the car doesn’t change the safety of the car did improve.

Same thing - not sustainable thinking. Planned obsolescence by the makers and ignorance or plain lazyness by the consumers (power drill).
On the car, the price is big enough that at least the consumers get focused a bit more and start thinking. This is much more relevant than the useless range discussions that are totally irrelevant for probably 90% of drivers in 90% of their use cases.

I agree that planned obsolescence is wrong it is done deliberately to make sure people buy new items and companies keep making money, they make very carful plans to make sure that things fail but not so soon that it upsets there customers.
It’s wrong both for the customers and the environment because stuff still ends up in land fill, but if you think like this than start to look around at other massively wasteful things that we do that really shouldn’t be sustainable. Go and do the maths on how many tea bags we use every year in the uk, it’s something like 100, million every day !

As for range this is a very relevant question for most people, if you charge your car you want to know that it will get you where you want to go and also get home again. My wife drives 65 miles to work, so 110 mile round trips every day, you might also want to go via some shops drop into a friends house etc, so maybe you want 150 miles range, running heaters, rain. And other poor weather results in reduced range, which is why fiat, vw and other companies are aiming for around 200 miles range in their first electric car efforts, if you want more range then some companies are offering bigger battery options.

The batteries have long warranties and the likes of Vw and tesla are planning million mile batteries, so the durability of the battery should be the least concerning thing when buying electric.

 

[Gina500]

This video features a lot of older cars from the mid 90s with airbags and either put through modern tests or crashed into new cars, demonstrate how the progress on car safety has improved massively, it’s certainly not a marginal improvement

ok, You´re right, compared to 1995, there´s a clear improvement in traffic related deaths. However, it is nearly constant since 2010. So maybe we have reached a sensible limit.

This is why NCAP like to retest cars that have not been updated for a long time like the panda and the Punto and they score a lot worse than they did first time round.

Now what does this mean ? The cars haven´t changed, so someone moved the goalposts ??

Go and do the maths on how many tea bags we use every year in the uk, it’s something like 100, million every day !

As long as they are biodegradable (and most of them are), that´s fine. I do have issues though when they start using plastic on them.

And for the range - yes, I agree, the range up to 200 miles may be relevant for quite a few people, and this is a practical number. But most of the discussions and wish lists center around distances that most people drive once in a year on vacation.
Again, it is not economical to design for the worst case that occurs in less than 5% of times. In that type of situation, I would rent a different car for 2 weeks...

 

[PuntoHowTo]

ok, You´re right, compared to 1995, there´s a clear improvement in traffic related deaths. However, it is nearly constant since 2010. So maybe we have reached a sensible limit.

"This is because killed or seriously injured casualty numbers have declined slightly since 2010 while traffic has increased over the same period. The casualty rate per billion vehicle miles travelled has decreased throughout 2008 to 2018 from 735.7 to 484.5 casualties per billion vehicle miles, a decrease of 34%"

Now what does this mean ? The cars haven´t changed, so someone moved the goalposts ??

Of course the cars change. People with Grande puntos think their cars are as as safe as a Punto Evo yet one simple example of how the two cars differ is that the EVO had a completely redesigned dash with a new knee airbag. The way the seatbelts were mounted to the car and not the seats also differs. Little tweeks like these make a newer model of the same car safer. The other thing that Fiat has done is introduce stronger materials without changing the design of the car, Boron Steel is often used in hig stress areas to make a body stronger and more resistant against accidents. without increasing weight, it does however increase costs.

As long as they are biodegradable (and most of them are), that´s fine. I do have issues though when they start using plastic on them.

Sorry to say but Tetley, Twinings, PG Tips, Clipper and yorkshire tea all have some forms of plastic in their tea bags, I have no information but I think its fair to assume many of the own brand and budget bags also do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50260687

I'm guessing you'd not realised this?

And for the range - yes, I agree, the range up to 200 miles may be relevant for quite a few people, and this is a practical number. But most of the discussions and wish lists center around distances that most people drive once in a year on vacation.
Again, it is not economical to design for the worst case that occurs in less than 5% of times. In that type of situation, I would rent a different car for 2 weeks...

I think i know what argument you're making here. but i'm not sure why you're making it. There are the Skeptics that will whine that there diesel vauxhall insignia will do 600 miles on a tank and take seconds to fill, but then as you say who needs to do that sort of distance every day.

Electric cars and people who are buying them are using their brains and adapting their ways to make it work so as a consequence the people who buy them are not letting a 200 mile range bother them. The people who want a 600 mile range from a single charge are just using that as an excuse not to buy one.

My experiance from my ID.3 test drive on Saturday is that the car will do 200 miles on a charge. There is nothing in the way the car is made or drives, that feels vastly different to any other car. It will charge at home on a 7kw charger in around 7 hours. So if you're a person who sleeps (and most people are) you can do a reasonable 150 miles a day. over 1000 miles a week and never be concerned about running out of juice. If you really needed a car to do a longer Trip VW (and i'm sure other companies will) include a car loan so many times a year for a long distance journey.

Most people who buy something like a Fiat 500 would, maybe not even need to charge once a week. Could charge it off a domestic 3 pin plug and still not run into trouble.

There may even be a time in the future when people want a smaller battery with a smaller range because 80 year old Fred who drives once a week to the shops and once a month to the doctors, doesn't need anything more than a 50 mile range for that once a year trip to the hospital for something or to visit family for Chrismas.

 

[Gina500]

The tea bag story is shocking indeed. Didn't know that, you're right. Good that I make my tea from loose leaves because I probably drink more of it than the average Englishman.

I still don't see why a car that was rated safe should be worse or unsafe 10 years later. If the test criteria have changed, then that merely means someone's definition of "safe" has changed. But that's just another subtle way of planned obsolescence, scaring people into buying a new car and scrapping the old one. Safety arguments stop people from thinking, even if the probability of being stricken by lightning is higher.

I partially concur on the range discussion, indeed for the sceptics it will always be a killer argument. I still believe ist is in general overrated because most people will be fine with 150-200 miles. It is similar to GBs on the mobile - people buy massive data plans just in case and most of them hardly ever need them.

 

[jrkitching]

I still don't see why a car that was rated safe should be worse or unsafe 10 years later.

It's not that older cars are any more dangerous than they once were; it's that the alternatives you can buy now are safer than the alternatives you could buy then.

As manufacturers develop safer products, safety standards move on. The accident statistics over time reflect this.

 

[g8rpi]

The other thing that has changed is the NCAP now takes account of accident prevention systems like auto braking, lane drift alerts etc. Older models don't have these so score lower on the latest tests.

Robert G8RPI.

 

[The Panda Nut]

or will that just be put on the cost of electricity so even our homes start having to pay more.:idea::idea:

Keep your ideas to yourself! Dont give the silly ******* any ideas. Such thoughts are not meant to be shared out loud! I shall hold you to blame when this happens.

Note I said when not if! I thought it, you thought it........

 

[TrevC]

https://youtu.be/kaUw4hNVr5s

This is a very interesting video from an EV specialist talking about battery degradation on a few 7 year old cars. There are a couple of low mileage Zoes that have only lost 2 or 3 percent of their capacity, and a 95,000 mile Leaf that has lost about 15%. Leafs (Leaves?) don't have thermal management of their battery packs, so they are known to degrade more than most others.

It supports what I have gleaned from various other places - EV battery degradation is not a major issue, and can in no way be compared to drills, phones etc.

I watched another video a few days ago that showed another EV specialist replacing a cell pack in a 10 year old Leaf. Took about 2 hours and cost £500, and full range (albeit only 100 miles) was restored, so you don't necessarily have to scrap the car if the battery develops a fault out of warranty.

 

[Goudrons]

The 500 EV is a good looking car and I'm sure it'll sell really well, though I still not convinced by the battery EV's and it has nothing to do with range or battery degradation.

The electricity to charge them has to come from somewhere and at the moment around 45% of that comes from fossil fuels, mainly gas and coal.

Around 25% comes from nuclear.

We import around 5 to 6% from Holland and France as our grids are connected, mainly nuclear and fossil generated (we also sell some to Ireland).

The rest is from renewables, wind, solar, wave, hydro and biomass.

At the moment we balance our grid with supplies that we can control.
When demand is high we throw a few more rods into the reactor or burn something to meet that demand.

With most renewables we can only increase the output by adding more generation stations but we already have an off peak inbalance from wind and solar of around 9 twh's (some £650 million) in the UK with what we have already.
They produce electricity when the wind blows or the sun shines which isn't always when we need it.

Wind and solar farms will continually generate when demand is low (off peak) we can't store that power so we turn them off.
Adding more and more obviously has costs and if they aren't efficient enough due to the waste, then no one will build them.

As demand changes to store more electricity in batteries we'll need some ways of turning it up and down to meet demand and that comes from fossil and nuclear in it's inefficient to use anything else.

If it's going to have to come completely from renewables, we'll have to totally rethink how we do it or do something else.

We already have the technology to generate clean electricity, but we know some of it is wasted.
If we can use that waste power and somehow store it to use when demand changes, we'd be laughing.

We can actually do this, we can use renewables to generate clean electricity and any wasted supply can then be used to produce hydrogen.
We can store that and use it in fuel cells.

Most wind farms are out at sea and that is packed with hydrogen.

We could even go further and just use the cleanly generated electricity to produce hydrogen, that then is used in fuel cells to power anything and everything, cars, lorries, buses, trains and ships, homes, factories and offices and so on.

This isn't as far fetched as it sounds, power companies are already gearing up for this, as are oil and petrol companies.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

The 500 EV is a good looking car and I'm sure it'll sell really well, though I still not convinced by the battery EV's and it has nothing to do with range or battery degradation.

The electricity to charge them has to come from somewhere and at the moment around 45% of that comes from fossil fuels, mainly gas and coal.

Around 25% comes from nuclear.

It’s more like 39% from gas and coal of which it’s only about 1% from coal as many of the coal fired plants have closed or been converted for biomass.

It’s 19% for nuclear, and currently there are some massive renewable energy projects underway with massive solar and wind farms being built the renewables generation capacity is due to more than double by the mid 2020s and then triple by the end of the decade.

Yes some power is still generated by burning fossil fuels.... however the logic is somewhat distorted when you consider any petrol or diesel car is using 100% of fossil fuels and no where near as clean as gas.

The power station burning gas is out in the country side and the exhaust for this is hundreds of feet in the air, where as the tail pipe of any car is right outside your house on your street pumped into your lungs.

Yeah you could buy a hybrid but no matter you’re still having to use fossil fuels (petrol or diesel) and even if it had the plug in option the car is still going to be effectively burning more fuels and creating more emissions than a wholly electric car.

To say that electricity production still produces some emissions is in all honesty a strawman argument. Because once’s that’s resolved people will then attack the emissions from building wind turbines or from machines installing cables. Regardless of the set up with energy production electric cars still represent the cleanest way to get about, even with 39% coming from coal and gas. What a lot of owners of electric cars do is have a power wall installed and a solar array on their roof and now they are producing their own clean energy and storing the excess. More and more people are doing this and the power from storage batteries is now able to be filtered back into the grid at peak times saving the need for as much fossil fuel back up.

Also in the uk where there is an over production of electricity it is being filtered into hydrogen production mainly to then power things like hydrogen powered Ferries with future plans for hydrogen powered trains on their way.

It’s all already happening. The one thing to point out is hydrogen generation is very inefficient so you get far less power from your hydrogen than you would from the electricity needed to make it. Therefore if you can make busses homes, shops planes etc all that run on electricity from batteries rather than hydrogen then you won’t need to produce as much electricity in the first place.

Most waste comes at night when the lights are off people are sleeping but the wind turbines still spin, in a future of electric cars, most people will want to charge there cars over night so this again will lead to less waste and more renewable energy being used to power electric cars.

So at what point with battery electric vehicles would you become “convinced” ? Turn off all the gas and coal power stations would you then be convinced enough to immediately go and buy an electric car?

 

[g8rpi]

Getting a bit off topic, but I think "biomass" as a fuel source needs expalnation. For a lot of people this brings up visions of waste materials, the reality is the majority used for power generation is wood pellets, mostly imported. While this is "renewable" how much is being renewed and at what rate is debatable. Cutting down mature trees in North America, converting to pellets, drying and shipping to the UK (using ships burning high sulphur heavy bunker oil) is NOT low emissions even if the carbon bean counters say it is zero carbon. Biomass releases more CO2 per kW generated than gas.

At least some of the power used in producing the pellets comes from non-renewables.


Robert G8RPI.

 

[John202020]

An electric car would suit us we given our driving style, generally, what I can't understand is just how the millions of owners are going to charge their car when they're parked "on street" with a public pavement between the house and car let alone it parked several cars down the road when you get home?

 

[chris3234]

Getting a bit off topic, but I think "biomass" as a fuel source needs expalnation. For a lot of people this brings up visions of waste materials, the reality is the majority used for power generation is wood pellets, mostly imported. While this is "renewable" how much is being renewed and at what rate is debatable. Cutting down mature trees in North America, converting to pellets, drying and shipping to the UK (using ships burning high sulphur heavy bunker oil) is NOT low emissions even if the carbon bean counters say it is zero carbon. Biomass releases more CO2 per kW generated than gas.

At least some of the power used in producing the pellets comes from non-renewables.


Robert G8RPI.

Better then the multi fuel plant near be currently running with a second under construction
That can burn anything from household waste medical waste wate from food and drinks maufacturing and wood
All shipped in hundreds of hgvs a day

 

[TrevC]

My petrol car, on a good run, will travel about 10 miles on 1l of fuel (about 45mpg). 1l of petrol or diesel contains about 10kWh of energy, so the car travels 1 mile/kWh. A similar size EV will travel about 4 miles/kWh due to the far better thermodynamic efficiency of an electric power train. Even if half of the electricity is from fossil fuels, the EV will use 1/8 the amount that an IC car does.

Servicing of EVs should be much cheaper, far less fluids to change, no clutch or cambelt to wear out, no dpf worries. Even brake pads and discs should last much longer as much of the braking is regenerative.

Those are the reasons I will seriously consider electric in a couple of years, depending on whats around.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Getting a bit off topic, but I think "biomass" as a fuel source needs expalnation. For a lot of people this brings up visions of waste materials, the reality is the majority used for power generation is wood pellets, mostly imported. While this is "renewable" how much is being renewed and at what rate is debatable. Cutting down mature trees in North America, converting to pellets, drying and shipping to the UK (using ships burning high sulphur heavy bunker oil) is NOT low emissions even if the carbon bean counters say it is zero carbon. Biomass releases more CO2 per kW generated than gas.

At least some of the power used in producing the pellets comes from non-renewables.


Robert G8RPI.

In many respects biomass is not an idea fuel source and everything you point out is correct, however biomass was introduced mainly by converting coal power stations like drax in North Yorkshire, to biomass to avoid burning coal which is not renewable, also we don’t mine coal in the uk anymore so we import that as well (also from places like america) and while biomass releases CO2 like burning anything that co2 was captured by the trees cut down to make the pellets so the CO2 it releases was already in the atmosphere and not locked in coal gas or oil deep in the ground.

Biomass isn’t meant to be a CO2 free fuel but a net zero emissions and greener alternative than burning coal, oil or gas.

As capacity grows for wind and solar as well as other forms of energy generation that does not rely on burning things, grows, biomass is meant to be phased out. Many of the biomass stations in use now are converted coal fire stations at or near to the end of their lives anyway.

 

[Goudrons]

An electric car would suit us we given our driving style, generally, what I can't understand is just how the millions of owners are going to charge their car when they're parked "on street" with a public pavement between the house and car let alone it parked several cars down the road when you get home?

There's more, around 14% of the uk live in flats or apartments, the figure is even higher on mainland Europe.

Unless there's another solution it rules out home charging and home generation and power storage.
I'm lucky to park my car in the same post code I live in, let alone park it outside my property and charge it, I'm not the only one, millions in the city I live in have the same issue.

I do utilise solar to heat water on our retirement property and we've looked into fitting more solar panels to generate electricty to either use or sell back to the grid. (where it is you can't do both).
At the moment it's not effective to do either, the grid no longer want the power so offer virtually nothing for it as we know, they can't store it and the we feel the resourses needed to supply ourselves is wasted as there is already an abuntent supply of clean wind and solar from the grid.


Going back to my original point, I and a lot of other people are not convinced we as a planet can produce clean electricity on demand (a balanced grid) without something in the middle to store it before use.

At the moment the storage on offer seems to be batteries and I can't see using limited resources to make batteries is a long term solution particularly if there are questions over their life cycle.
Yes they have some benefits over what we mainly use at the moment, though the point of moving emissions out into the country is pretty weak, can't we just use hybrids then? Electric in town, petrol in the country!

I can grasp the arguement their life cycle might be far longer than the doom mongers say, but their life is unquestionably finite as are the resources to make them.
In the short to medium term we are ok with the current level of use, but that will change quickly as usage expends exponentialy.

They obviously have some thermal management requirements as well, which effects how efficient they are as you need some power to control their temperature, so they won't be as efficient for everyone on every situation.

I'm not knocking what we have now, the battery is cheap enough and profitable which is what is driving it's use, but I am worried the path it takes us on is a similar one we have now, higher power demands and an unbalanced grid that needs unclean supplementation as well as ever depleting resources.

 

[John202020]

Just where will all the extra generation of power come from?
And what "back up supply" is being installed when the sun goes in or the wind stops blowing, you need surplus generation for these situations or when people put the kettle on between programs.
What happens when we're all forced to ditch our gas boilers(eventually) banned from gas cookers and need to charge our electric cars, frost on pavements will be history as they steam with heat! If we truly want to go green why is the distribution system not being replace now not when it goes up in a flash?

But it won't worry me as I'll never be able to afford an electric car anyway.

 

[g8rpi]

In many respects biomass is not an idea fuel source and everything you point out is correct, however biomass was introduced mainly by converting coal power stations like drax in North Yorkshire, to biomass to avoid burning coal which is not renewable, also we don’t mine coal in the uk anymore so we import that as well (also from places like america) and while biomass releases CO2 like burning anything that co2 was captured by the trees cut down to make the pellets so the CO2 it releases was already in the atmosphere and not locked in coal gas or oil deep in the ground.

Biomass isn’t meant to be a CO2 free fuel but a net zero emissions and greener alternative than burning coal, oil or gas.

As capacity grows for wind and solar as well as other forms of energy generation that does not rely on burning things, grows, biomass is meant to be phased out. Many of the biomass stations in use now are converted coal fire stations at or near to the end of their lives anyway.

Gas releases the least CO2 of the four, Biomass is second, So even without counting production or tranport energy gas is greener. The length of time carbon was bound in oil gas or wood is immaterial, we are releasing it and need to minimise that release. Rather than cutting down existing forrests (I'm not going to get into if they are being re-planted properly) we would be bettor off planting new fast growng trees for use as local future fuel while burning gas now. Unfortunatly that does not meet the requirements to claim zero carbon. Mid term we need more new technology nuclear fusion "burning" stored part used fuel (it's not waste) and depleted Uranium.
Hydrogen has it's place but it has issues. The big issue with H2 as a energy store to fill wind and solar gaps is storage of the hydrogen itself.


Robert G8RPI.