Is this the end of diesel?

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Yes the popularity will dwindle but then so will the petrol driven car as well!

The electric driven car is getting very close nowadays to passing the range anxiety associated with them.
I have been in the motor industry since a school leaver and for many years working in the UK manufacturing sector of trucks and buses. I started repairing cars at 9 years of age in Gloucester with my dad ex WW2 paratrooper who had a shop. I fixed the rod brakes on a 1946 Hillman.

Nowadays I have a 9 bay repair shop fixing MB, Landrover, diesel powered vehicles and Hybrids. My special focus these days is the Prius and Leaf.
Looking back we have gone in the late 90's with the Gen 1 Prius to getting about 3 miles in reverse on its nicklemetal Hydride traction batteries. Then to about 10 in the Gen 2 emerged in 2004 !
Reverse ??? you mighty ask????
Simply because on the Prius the full electric feature is only in reverse , the forward gears are by ICE AND TRACTION MOTOR ASSIST through a single eppicyclic gear stack or pack.
Then in quick succession with Li Ion batteries to about 40 miles. Eclipsed of course is the Leaf giving between 50 and 90 miles in forward gears .
The Tesla is giving as much as 350 miles to a battery charge
Now this year in the USA comes an even more impressive range`with the Chevrolet Bolt at a claimed 285 miles on a small family sized car! Introduction is slated for late 2017.

The change to electric will I believe happen very fast!
I was looking at a photo of a big street in New York City the other day, the year was 1892 ! Full of horse drawn vehicles. Then ten years later not a horse to be seen! --All gone I suppose to the knackers yard !
!Turned into glue for Henry Fords Model T production line!:dk:)

When the change comes the public will drop the ICE car for electric power.
Its about ten years away on current track -or trajectory !
Tuercas Viejas l
 
Something will have to change with the countries electrical infrastructure because at the moment any spare generation capacity we have is the least green and the most expensive which doesn't stack up with the declared purpose of electric cars.
 
When I can drive an electric-powered five-seater car 300 miles in bad weather with lights, air con, wipers and demisters going, and am able to recharge the batteries sufficiently for another 300 miles' driving in five minutes at any filling station, then I'll consider range anxiety to be conquered. I don't believe we are anywhere near solving the battery issues yet. Just my humble opinion.
 
Fitted a Kitchen not so long back and the Guy there worked at the new Black Cabs Factory in Coventry.


Apparently new Taxi's are alloy bodies and chassis, and have water cooled battery's and are electric.
Said it was because of no emission penalty so beneficial for London type city.
it has a small engine for charging main battery's quickly as water cooled so can put a lot of Amps in them , and charge relatively quickly.


Think until battery technology is better, this type would be the next step, you would not be hindered by a fixed charging point , but otherwise its impractical.


I am a sparky and I couldn't see how unless a major change was made , how you could have a charging point at your house, with the lead trailing across path into your car .
Fair enough if you have a detached house or a garage , but there are plenty of terraced houses without and flats /high rise accommodation - how would you get to your charging point?


I am sure with the advances in technology it will happen ,but with the cost of somehow putting in millions of charging points ,who would pick up the bill?


I think my current diesels will have fell to bits anyway by then :)
 
Fitted a Kitchen not so long back and the Guy there worked at the new Black Cabs Factory in Coventry.


Apparently new Taxi's are alloy bodies and chassis, and have water cooled battery's and are electric.
Said it was because of no emission penalty so beneficial for London type city.
it has a small engine for charging main battery's quickly as water cooled so can put a lot of Amps in them , and charge relatively quickly.


Think until battery technology is better, this type would be the next step, you would not be hindered by a fixed charging point , but otherwise its impractical.

Self charging cars Jonny,just a thought,technology is moving so fast i assume plug ins will soon be a thing of the past. Just a thought.




I am a sparky and I couldn't see how unless a major change was made , how you could have a charging point at your house, with the lead trailing across path into your car .
Fair enough if you have a detached house or a garage , but there are plenty of terraced houses without and flats /high rise accommodation - how would you get to your charging point?


I am sure with the advances in technology it will happen ,but with the cost of somehow putting in millions of charging points ,who would pick up the bill?


I think my current diesels will have fell to bits anyway by then :)

Self charging cars Jonny,just a thought,technology is moving so fast i assume plug ins will soon be a thing of the past. Just a thought.
 
Yes I get it, in the last Electrical Regulations, the main 'NEW' part was about Solar and Charging points.
To include them ,the IEE must have noted the popularity and upsurge of fixed charging points to bother to include it.
A friend of mine set up a business to install them but it has petered out now.
I guess because they have worked out they were impractical hence the RD in new self charging systems.


But how many cycles will the new battery's take until they fail?
And when they do is it cheap to replace them-at the moment defiantly not, although I appreciate if made in millions in the future they would be.


I do think it will happen -lipo battery's and brushless motors are amazing technology and seem to get better every week.


If someone could invent a battery that was super efficient and could last for years, it would happen overnight :)



if I bought a new car now though it probably would be petrol over diesel just because the tax will probably rise on them in the next few years.
 
I can't help wondering if 'charge overnight at home' electric cars will be merely a stop gap until hydrogen fuel cells are developed sufficiently for everyday automotive use.

HMG will like them because the fuel will be easier than electrickery to tax.
 
I still can't take EVs seriously as 'green' - they have a much larger environmental impact on manufacture than traditional cars (those batteries take some making!), have a much shorter working lifespan (those batteries once again) once again create a larger environmental impact when the vehicle is disposed of, and don't really solve anything anyway since their power still has to be generated by conventional means...

They're a kind of environmental NIMBY-ism. Great for solving short-term pollution issues in town, not so great when the next inevitable Bhopal occurs during manufacture / disposal, or the next Chernobyl during power generation...

Fuel cells (if they can be made without creating millions of mini Hindenburgs) will solve some issues, though the hydrogen fuel still needs to be produced by conventional means somewhere. The other alternative is more efficient diesels which are actually able to run off 100% biofuel again, though with the diesels once again you're creating localized pollution until somebody comes up with something genuinely clever to fix the NOx and PM issues.
 
Apparently new Taxi's are alloy bodies and chassis, and have water cooled battery's and are electric.
Said it was because of no emission penalty so beneficial for London type city.

More likely it's because no diesel taxis can be registered after 1st Jan 2018, by order of the Mayor of London. So they are all going to be electric no matter if the technology works or not.

While older diesel engines are not the cleanest, modern Euro 6 ones are very clean. If they try to ban ALL diesels the worlds economy would collapse overnight, not sure people realise how many diesel engines are at work in the world, from irregation pumps, tractors, lorries, trains, shipping etc etc, there is no alternative technology ready to replace any of these.

Russ
 
More likely it's because no diesel taxis can be registered after 1st Jan 2018, by order of the Mayor of London. So they are all going to be electric no matter if the technology works or not.

While older diesel engines are not the cleanest, modern Euro 6 ones are very clean. If they try to ban ALL diesels the worlds economy would collapse overnight, not sure people realise how many diesel engines are at work in the world, from irregation pumps, tractors, lorries, trains, shipping etc etc, there is no alternative technology ready to replace any of these.

Russ

The last applies to petrol engines.
 
More likely it's because no diesel taxis can be registered after 1st Jan 2018, by order of the Mayor of London. So they are all going to be electric no matter if the technology works or not.

While older diesel engines are not the cleanest, modern Euro 6 ones are very clean. If they try to ban ALL diesels the worlds economy would collapse overnight, not sure people realise how many diesel engines are at work in the world, from irregation pumps, tractors, lorries, trains, shipping etc etc, there is no alternative technology ready to replace any of these.

Russ

The last applies to petrol engines.

It applies to both, though the common rail technology originally created to comply with the Euro-x specs, have 'corrupted' diesel vehicles so they can no longer run on green fuels.

Diesels are being scapegoated much the same as 4x4s were about a decade ago, before everyone decided they'd rather fancy driving a mini-4x4 themselves.

Well, it sells new cars... :dk:

The real solution is to enable home working so commuting is less necessary, improve / electrify public transport, ban all non-essential vehicles from cities and force freight back onto the rails. Then the localized pollution issue which is causing such furore at the moment will disappear.
 
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Yes the popularity will dwindle but then so will the petrol driven car as well!

The electric driven car is getting very close nowadays to passing the range anxiety associated with them.
I have been in the motor industry since a school leaver and for many years working in the UK manufacturing sector of trucks and buses. I started repairing cars at 9 years of age in Gloucester with my dad ex WW2 paratrooper who had a shop. I fixed the rod brakes on a 1946 Hillman.

Nowadays I have a 9 bay repair shop fixing MB, Landrover, diesel powered vehicles and Hybrids. My special focus these days is the Prius and Leaf.
Looking back we have gone in the late 90's with the Gen 1 Prius to getting about 3 miles in reverse on its nicklemetal Hydride traction batteries. Then to about 10 in the Gen 2 emerged in 2004 !
Reverse ??? you mighty ask????
Simply because on the Prius the full electric feature is only in reverse , the forward gears are by ICE AND TRACTION MOTOR ASSIST through a single eppicyclic gear stack or pack.
Then in quick succession with Li Ion batteries to about 40 miles. Eclipsed of course is the Leaf giving between 50 and 90 miles in forward gears .
The Tesla is giving as much as 350 miles to a battery charge
Now this year in the USA comes an even more impressive range`with the Chevrolet Bolt at a claimed 285 miles on a small family sized car! Introduction is slated for late 2017.

The change to electric will I believe happen very fast!
I was looking at a photo of a big street in New York City the other day, the year was 1892 ! Full of horse drawn vehicles. Then ten years later not a horse to be seen! --All gone I suppose to the knackers yard !
!Turned into glue for Henry Fords Model T production line!:dk:)

When the change comes the public will drop the ICE car for electric power.
Its about ten years away on current track -or trajectory !
Tuercas Viejas l

Yes we are nearly there with pure EVs.

Just need to see who will pick-up the estimated £2bn tab for building the charging infrastructure and we're good to go. :eek:

Err... on second thought seems like we'll be hanging on to our fossil fuel cars for a little longer. :thumb:
 
Power generation - not charging infrastructure - is the biggest challenge for EVs.
 
Power generation - not charging infrastructure - is the biggest challenge for EVs.

Both.... you can build more nuclear power plants but how will this power get to your car parked overnight on a busy London street?

I have seen residents in my area running long extesion leads across the pavement from their front windows to their electric cars, but this only works for ground floor flats and assuming you get home from work early enough to catch the parking spot right in front of your block of flats.

Unless you live outside city centre and have a house with a drive of course

But for everyone else, it's petrol or diesel for the foreseeable future....
 
The other thing I just thought about is the fact that battery output seriously drops off in cold climates.
I know you can take Pro SLR/Video cameras to Siberia, but it's the batteries that will cause the problems not the actual equipment.
So the efficiently would be seriously impaired with colder climates, and in severe minus conditions it might make it un-usable.


Coreless power tools have remained the same technology for years -brushless motors have been the only major advancement-when you pay top money for expensive tools it's the battery technology you pay for , not so much the mechanics of the tool if that makes sense.


Drones are fantastic electronic technology as well-its only the battery's that limit them.


As the future of warfare is unmanned robots drones etc, it's probably the Military R&D which will push the battery technology first, which ultimately we would get for other consumer things later on.


Also the loss of revenue from fossil fuels is worth quite a bit, so I don't know where all the loss of revenue that Governments would then lose would then come from?


More than likely a massive battery tax :)
 
Just a thought for everyone to ponder on. FACT, there are not enough rare earth minerals known to be recoverable from planet earth as we currently know it to replace every single combustion car on the planet today. This is worth bearing in mind. Also the extraction methods used for 1, recovering these rare earth minerals and then processing them into fancy battery pacts is extremely polluting and hugely environmentally unfriendly.

Just my thoughts but we are barking up entirely the wrong tree with current technology.
 
My worry is every time the government subsidies one form of energy over another they seem to stuff up big time. That's what they effectively did with diesels and they got it wrong. Who's to say they have properly assessed the green credentials of electric vehicles. I'm not saying ignore global warming and pollution issues but you had better have the facts right before providing excessive subsidies that distort the market so much.
 
"Current technology"

Tee hee :) I saw what you did there!

Ted, you've got potential!
 

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