- Joined
- Jan 10, 2019
- Messages
- 2,340
- Location
- Cardiff / London
- Car
- 2x E350 CDI Sport W212s... for a bit
Makes an argument that's hard to... argue with - especially just because 'we like car that go VROOM VROOM!'
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Mining for the next new age fuel.
Agree.As I’ve said before, I’m not dodging pollution, just tired of listening to successive governments pointing me in the direction of their next expensive pollution holy grail, and expecting me to swallow it. Energy = pollution.
I have a serious problem with people like Robert Llewelyn. A celebrity who almost certainly has a lot of personal wealth, able to afford to go full electric and continually preaching about the virtues of electric cars (Tesla in his case as I remember) and the devil that seems to be the internal combustion engine. Getting very tired of regular motorists being demonised for not wanting to throw our (perfectly good) ICE cars away and buy something with absolutely zero appeal (to me at least as a keen driver).Makes an argument that's hard to... argue with - especially just because 'we like car that go VROOM VROOM!'
Quite,I have a serious problem with people like Robert Llewelyn. A celebrity who almost certainly has a lot of personal wealth, able to afford to go full electric and continually preaching about the virtues of electric cars (Tesla in his case as I remember) and the devil that seems to be the internal combustion engine. Getting very tired of regular motorists being demonised for not wanting to throw our (perfectly good) ICE cars away and buy something with absolutely zero appeal (to me at least as a keen driver).
Just a small point, but people blame eating meat/driving dirty cars etc etc for the problems the planet has. Yes, it's true, but the biggest problem is, by far, simply too many consumers.
Oh, agree absolutely!but the biggest problem is = global corporate greed ( koch bros etc only one now, but damage done )
too many consumers = yes, but in the so called developed world. We are the disproportionate major consumers of shite ... click click .. bing bong .. your amzon order arrives.
Finally, some common sense.I would like to contribute to this, as it's a topic I have a great interest in. I work in the automotive industry at a manufacturer of electric vehicles - In fact one of our vehicles was featured in the video which amused me.
Some points not covered in the propaganda video:
There are two environmental issues of note.
- The most environmentally friendly vehicle is the vehicle you own now, almost regardless of what it is. If it's over 15 years old then it should be considered at 'end of life' by most manufacturers and so every year you drive it, you are benefitting the environment by not fuelling consumerism. Mend and make do is what true environmentalists used to understand. Your 15year old S600 is more environmentally friendly than a new Tesla.
- Electric vehicles pullute more in their manufacture, and you have to drive a distance of 50,000 miles (most conservative estimate - Volvo study) before you reach equivilence with a ICE vehicle at point of manufacture. (A Dutch university study said equivilence was more than 150,00km when factoring in realistic current grid and refinery profiles over europe...which can often be more than the vehicles life.
- No vehicle is zero emission - with the latest ICE vehicles, the tailpipe emissions are only 1/3 of the total emissions. Brakes, plastics and tyres pollute enormously, by 'gassing off' and through wear. These are all things which still exist in EV's.
- Doesn't matter what car you buy, it will still be delivered to you by a diesel truck, so you can get off your high horse right away about not contributing.
- Norway is able to subsidise EV's due to their soverign wealth fund revenue which invests heavily in oil, so if Norway dares preach to anyone remind them of that.
With that in mind the right technology needs to be used for the right application - This is the engineering approach and I would propose the following:
- Local pollution and
- Global emissions
There is an economic argument about the use of scarce resources that have alternative uses which heavily influences the above. If you have a battery with a range of 300miles but you only do 30miles, then the battery in the vehicle is underutilised and so wasted resources and an evironmental disaster, this makes the case for family cars as EV's very weak. Imagine 30miles per day and then occasional 150 miles weekend trip or airport run - EV makes no sense here, wheras a PHEV really does. You can apply the same logic to any of the above to understand the choices. This decision doesn't effect ICE vehicles because the fuel sorage device isn't a scarce resource.
- Pure city cars doing high miles should be EV. (ie ride hailing)
- City cars that do low miles should be small petrol engines (think Citroen C1 doing <5k a year)
- City-Buses should be EV
- Delivery vans should be EV
- Taxi's should be petrol-hybrid
- Coaches should be diesel-MHEV
- Family cars should be PHEV (~12k pa)
- Rep cars - diesel-MHEV (20k +)
- Trucks should be hydrogen (although debatable...) diesel MHEV makes sense.
- Sports cars, probably lightweight Petrol/MHEV (<5k)
The economic argument is often overlooked, but was originally behind the push for hybrids, because Li batteries were so expensive.
If you have a classic car and are thinking of converting it to EV that is probably the most absurd environmental decision you could make when considering the useage case and application of scarce resources. The above should explain why this is.
The issue is really that the conversation is rarely honest and there are so many factors to consider that aren't being covered by the media/governments because they simply don't understand. The speed at which the decision was made to pull the EV date to 2030 speaks volumes.
I don't often see the topics above mentioned in the EV conversation and so I thought I would contribute.
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