Luton Airport car park fire

[ALFAitalia]

I'm amazed they can call them "Zero emissions".....as this clearly is not the case, at least in the UK.....in either fueling, construction or disposal. Close to Zero in actual use is about as much as they can claim.

 

[st13phil]

Really! Well this one has 350 mile range...DAF has one ready to go too.

A friend of mine is a senior technician at a major truck retailer in Germany. He is well versed in current EV truck offerings and while being quite an evangelist for them, readily concedes that the limited range makes them utterly unsuitable for trunk route operations, which is where the bulk of “heavy” vehicle sales sit.

 

[ALFAitalia]

While local “in use” emissions may be lower, I remain completely unconvinced that overall - let alone whole life - emissions favour BEV’s over ICE alternatives

You are wrong.....life time carbon output (construction, fueling, disposal) for an EV over an ICE (even in a country like ours that still generate lots of power from fossil fuels) is WAY, WAY lower. Not even close....and the more miles you do the better the EV gets. There is lots of info about this with varying figures..... but a quick prod of my calculator averages it out that in its lifetime the average EV will push out around 64% less carbon than the average ICE car in its cradle to grave life taking everything into account.....not an insignificant difference. Its only get better with 100% renewable electricity in the mix.

To be blunt if they were not rather lower polluting (carbon wise) than ICE cars why would we be bothering!!!???? Like it or not they are the future.....just not for mine!

Comparative life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of a mid-size BEV and ICE vehicle – Charts – Data & Statistics - IEA

Comparative life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of a mid-size BEV and ICE vehicle - Chart and data by the International Energy Agency.

www.iea.org

 

[markjay]

While local “in use” emissions may be lower, I remain completely unconvinced that overall - let alone whole life - emissions favour BEV’s over ICE alternatives.

Let's assume the zero-exhaust-emissions cars are indeed less environmentally-friendly overall. Should we then be poisoning people in order to save the planet...?

If what you are saying is correct, then - to my mind - the inevitable conclusion is that (a) we should have less private cars, and (b) they should all be zero-exhaust-emissions vehicles.

That's the only formula that ticks both the environmental tickbox and the public health tickbox, no?

 

[st13phil]

You are wrong

Yawn…

 

[ALFAitalia]

Why let the facts get in the way eh!!?? Very mature!!

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[st13phil]

Should we then be poisoning people in order to save the planet...?

A false dichotomy.

A congested city - like London - now has massively cleaner air than it did in the 1960’s (when I was a nipper) yet apparently today’s pollution is an existential risk.

Nowhere is there an honest assessment made of the benefits of mobility vs. the “cost” of pollution. It’s a one-sided argument. We’re being played.

 

[st13phil]

Why let the facts get in the way eh!!??

I suggest a bit of research into cobalt (and other rare mineral) mining would be instructive.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I'm amazed they can call them "Zero emissions".....as this clearly is not the case, at least in the UK.....in either fueling, construction or disposal. Close to Zero in actual use is about as much as they can claim.

The EV itself is zero emission.

The machinery that manufactured its components might not be. The trucks, trains and ships that moved them might not be. Many of the cars and public transport that the manufacturer’s employees used to travel to the factory might not be. I could go on. None of those things are the EV though, they’re associated with the manufacture and distribution of the EV, but they’re not the EV. So zero emission is a fair label for the EV itself.

I find it intriguing that those other sources of emissions are often highlighted in the context of EVs. I find it even more intriguing that the emissions associated with the production of electricity using fossil fuels are often highlighted, but I can’t ever remember anyone highlighting the emissions associated with producing and distributing petrol and diesel.

As oil reserves deplete, we will have to use more and more fossil fuels to find, extract, process and distribute oil to produce it, and eventually that will reach parity. I suspect that we’ll therefore reach a point where fossil fuels are only viable when we use renewable energy to find, extract, process and distribute oil (and refined fuel) for those applications that really need to continue using fossil fuels.

 

[ALFAitalia]

Or use that same renewable fuel to generate hydrogen or E fuels.....both of which are a no go until we have more surplus renewable electricity than we know what to do with.....not my lifetime Id suggest!!!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Or use that same renewable fuel to generate hydrogen or E fuels.....both of which are a no go until we have more surplus renewable electricity than we know what to do with.....not my lifetime Id suggest!!!

We will likely need crude oil for much longer than we need petrol and diesel

 

[st13phil]

I find it intriguing that those other sources of emissions are often highlighted in the context of EVs. I find it even more intriguing that the emissions associated with the production of electricity using fossil fuels are often highlighted, but I can’t ever remember anyone highlighting the emissions associated with producing and distributing petrol and diesel.

It’s now mandatory in some jurisdictions and will likely become mandatory in the near future in most of The West to measure and report “embedded” CO2 in all manufactured goods.

CO2 (wrongly, imo) is now viewed as a proxy for human virtue.

 

[190]

From what I can see insurance companies and owners of car ferries/road tunnels/public buildings will slow down the use of EV's .

We can add hire car companies to that list because if they don't buy them they won't appear in quantity on the used market.

Hire car companies are undeniably an unbiased large scale experiment in the economics of EV's as they are only interested in the bottom line.

Hertz have been stung on their fleet of 35,000 Tesla's due to falling used values and that's understandable after Tesla slashed the retail prices. The more interesting fact is that they reported Tesla's cost double to repair compared to similar IC cars. I'm reading that as mostly accident repairs rather than reliability/maintenance. As a result Hertz are drastically cutting back on the size of their intended EV purchases.

I suppose the higher than expected depreciation could be considered a one off but the double cost of repair will have to be addressed if fleets are going to buy them.

Hertz pulls back on EV plans citing Tesla price cuts, high repair costs

 

[markjay]

A false dichotomy.

A congested city - like London - now has massively cleaner air than it did in the 1960’s (when I was a nipper) yet apparently today’s pollution is an existential risk.

What you seem to be saying is that having improved the air quality in London, we should now accept the much smaller number of deaths and illness that toxic ICE fumes cause. If so, then why not apply this approach also to road accidents fatalities? The number of deaths and injuries went down, so we can stop spending money on enforcement and on making roads safer. Etc.

Nowhere is there an honest assessment made of the benefits of mobility vs. the “cost” of pollution. It’s a one-sided argument. We’re being played.

I am not suggesting that mobility should be kerbed, just that our mode of transport is reconsidered.

I posted earlier that I take public transport when going to the office. We have quite a few people who drive in, for no obvious reason. When I ask them about it, they just shrug it off - they drive to the office because they have always done so, why change now? Some seem to suggest that they drive because they can afford it, public transport is for poor people.

 

[markjay]

We will likely need crude oil for much longer than we need petrol and diesel

True, even in the unlikely event that we ever get to the point where we no longer burn fossil fuel, we'll still need crude oil, because it is being used as raw material in many industries, and not just as fuel.

 

[Dryce]

Hire car companies are undeniably an unbiased large scale experiment in the economics of EV's as they are only interested in the bottom line.

Hire car company fleets and outstation operations are a just too haphazard. I don't think the way they work will prove anything.

They don't manage to deal with automatics sensibly - let alone EVs.

They would really need to commit totally to maintain substantial and consistent EV fleet to build weight of numbers to get over the uncertainty / haphazard aspect. And that's difficult for them where there is a likelihood that a proportion of customers will reject EVs because of uncertainty (they are not used to them) or that it doesn't fit their needs.

I think there is a real experiment going on in the private market right now as customers have multiple offerings from manufacturers and there is now available product and a used market being seeded to the point where it reaches some sort of critical mass.

My suspicion is that for all the doom and gloom regarding sales volumes and used prices - that we may see a sort of bounce as buyers and suppliers and finance come to some sort of balance and the market takes shape properly.

 

[Will]

I think we need a dedicated EV thread on this forum, like the politics one!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I think we need a dedicated EV thread on this forum, like the politics one!

Where’s the double like button?

EV fires, replaced EV range, which replaced COVID-19, which replaced Brexit…

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

We can add hire car companies to that list because if they don't buy them they won't appear in quantity on the used market.

Hire car companies are undeniably an unbiased large scale experiment in the economics of EV's as they are only interested in the bottom line.

Hertz have been stung on their fleet of 35,000 Tesla's due to falling used values and that's understandable after Tesla slashed the retail prices. The more interesting fact is that they reported Tesla's cost double to repair compared to similar IC cars. I'm reading that as mostly accident repairs rather than reliability/maintenance. As a result Hertz are drastically cutting back on the size of their intended EV purchases.

I suppose the higher than expected depreciation could be considered a one off but the double cost of repair will have to be addressed if fleets are going to buy them.

Hertz pulls back on EV plans citing Tesla price cuts, high repair costs

Other interpretations are available.

The original proposition included Hertz renting out a significant number of Teslas to the ride-hail market, but that came unstuck when high miles / utilisation resulted in more repairs than Hertz had expected.

So Hertz then tried to switch cars into the Leisure rental market but found that take-up wasn't great, so it has ended up with too many EVs not rented, and has had to drop its leisure rental price accordingly.

(In the States I was renting the Tesla 3 for less than the cost of renting a VW Jetta (saloon Golf) - at £300 a week, including fuel, for 2500 miles. Arguably that's a net price of £260 a week or £37 a day to drive a car that costs £55k in the UK.

On the repair side, apart from the obvious tyre wear issue (1.85 tonnes being thrown around), the paint is laughably soft. Mine came with a huge amount of scratches all round the body. The rectification cost for that alone will be significant.

 

[zipdip]

Well the government is paying out more money to transport fims to have a EV truck,now I only know one company to run two of these EV's and it is Scotland and the publicity was all about the trucks hauling timber back to base,I thought well thats impressive a heavy load on a EV so they are able to do real work,then the balloon burst it seems these trucks have a 22 mile round trip on that work,the plain fact is if the government stopped paying out to companies then EV's would be dead,in transport what will happen if companies take on EV trucks and put them on local work then they will get trouble with their day drivers because they will look for a local job to make up their hours if say they get back to base at 2pm,and given the shortage of drivers they will find a company without EV's