Electric Cars.

[Erfolg]

I found the Nissan Leaf link interesting.

Not particularly the car itself,although much more appealing than many of the boxes on wheels that proceeded it.

It was the numbers intended for the various markets. After some pondering, I thought the numbers allocated to specific markets are small, that is when considered to something like a Golf. Could it be there are two aspects to what Nissan are doing.

The first could be the assembly of an electric vehicle,in quite small numbers, to ensure that if push comes to shove, there are no nasty assembly surprises.

The second, could well be assessing how specific markets react and receive electric vehicles.

In this era where a million vehicles of a specific model is no longer remarkable. The numbers mentioned although much greater than Trevor ever produced (oh, that is TVR, when made near here in Blackpool), is probably nearer to Bentley who produce 10, 000 cars a year, aimed at a niche market, where to many of them devalues the brand.

[Former Member]

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[Trevor Crook]

Yep, and Sue lived all the way down Linley Lane at number 22!

According to the Carwow video, a Leaf is sold every 12 minutes, so that's around 44,000 a year.

[Former Member]

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[Alan Jarvis]

Percy

I have hired a couple of Hybrids when on holiday in Spain the last one being a Toyota Auris. I am not impressed with them. They are ok when running on the battery but that will only get you a couple of miles before the engine kicks in but if you exceed about 35mph the engine cuts in anyway and if there is a small hill the engine takes over. We have plenty of hills in the Lake District don't we. They would be ok in a big city.

 

 

Edited By Alan Jarvis on 25/03/2018 10:50:24

[Former Member]

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[Alan Jarvis]

To be clear Percy I am not parting with my Audi. I am looking to change my wife's 9 year old very low mileage Fiesta. Only goes to the shops and back about 3000 miles per year.

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[Former Member]

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[Nigel R]

"Although I fear that by then, doorstep deliveries may be a thing of the past."

We're buying more stuff by mail order than ever before, so I read.

Doorstop milk deliveries? Ours come by Tesco lorry along with most of the rest of the week's groceries. Not so very different, perhaps.

[Former Member]

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[Former Member]

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[john stones 1 - Moderator]

If lecky cars do mileage this thread has, we're sorted.

[Denis Watkins]

Just got this link about electric cars by email from the AA

**LINK**

[Former Member]

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[Denis Watkins]

Good advice thanks Percy. I will do the research.

Electric cars have now gained enough momentum to get investment involved, and the necessary infrastructure is gaining pace everyday.

[Former Member]

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[Simon Chaddock]

I save my self even more and are not, and never have been, a member of a rescue service in 55 years of motoring.

[Former Member]

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[Erfolg]

Oh Dear, if the momentum is there, it must also be near the time when all the subsidies are removed.

I noted two announcements yesterday. The first was that Jaguar are investing/ or is that developing commercial vehicles for electric power. Not apparently as a consequence of lower energy cost (as they seem to recognise that some charges are going to be imposed) rather more as pressure on Government to meet air quality requirements in cities. As buses are apparently the greatest contributors to pollution, dependant on criteria used (due to the stop start and long waits while payments are made etc), followed by delivery vehicles. If my interpretation of the Jaguar announcement is correct, it is the local white van, rather than the large capacity long distance goods that they are targeting.

The second announcement was ground braking step change battery pack technology from a UK company. Reading another source, this became an innovation in that a standard pack and connector system was being marketed that made battery pack changing a viable option. Whereas at present the battery packs are generally built in it seems.

I assume that the second option makes the Jaguar scheme a viable option for local deliveries, as 100 miles of foot to the floor deliveries, will both stress batteries, and the drive train. This could make the milk float drive back to the depot a familiar sight unless regular battery packs are changed.

For me the big elephant in the room is both the National Grid distribution and the ability to Generate. Unless these things are being planned now and implemented next week, much is pie in the sky. It typically takes in the region of twenty years to get all the ducks in place, from scoping papers, panning through to delivery. I was told on Sunday so much nascence about renewables I came close to total despair. For some it is a religion. For others it is about a developing rational and affordable resource, where the thinking is that others must pay is not part of the deal. We all need to pay, for what we use, so we buy into sensible arrangements.

[Simon Chaddock]

I basically have to agree with Erfolg

Once electric "takes off" not only will the subsidies be removed but it will then gradually become taxed.

Green energy is fundamentally not that cheap when compared to simply extracting 'stored' energy out of the ground so instead of "The polluter pays" it will become the "The user pays". In this way demand and supply can be regulated.

[Frank Skilbeck]

But electric cars could make better use of re-newables and help the load on the national grid http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42013625

BTW we are now a net importer of oil and gas and while we could extract more by fracking, it's not a popular option.

And EROI is declining as the easy oil has all been discovered and most of it produced https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/One-Of-The-Most-Worrying-Trends-In-Energy.html so the ratio on energy returned for energy invested are a lot less and will get lower and lower over time.

[Erfolg]

Hmm Frank I have read the link.

I would like to say I am impressed, I am not. It is back to we need a quick fix to solve a problem that is inherent and substantial. It is there was an old woman who swallowed a fly concept.

Smoothing the national grid has been an inherent feature of it since, well, a long, long time. Thatcher relaxed the band that the grid must legally operate within, to make the task easier. The issues at present are not that clear cut. The first is establishing which sources are the cheapest, the second will be characteristics of output, thirdly response to demand and so on. In the past Coal type stations were both cheap and delivered a constant base load. Green Taxes changed the economics, they have been now closed as the UK had the highest Carbon Taxes in Europe by far. The Germans apparently maintain low carbon taxes. Take away the Green Subsidies, it seems that wind power is still not cheap compaired to what coal could deliver. The problem also with wind power, apparently it does not follow the load with the certainty of oil, coal or gas. Some of the supporters have quoted values, that have not represented what most people would have thought they indicated, such as transitory peak values, rather than a sustained value etc. It seems that gas stations will be necessary for some time to follow the load.

As has been suggested there has been schemes designed to provide power at peak times by acting as a storage system. Dinorwig being one, where off peak base load was used to pump water uphill, to drive hydro turbines at peak times. It is not without a cost, using many measures, including £s.

The car solution seems great, unless your battery is flat when you want to do that 100 miles or is it 20 mile journey. It also comes at a cost, in that your battery life will be used for a purpose other than driving and requires your car and connection point to have the necessary infrastructure.

I do want a car. one that I can afford to run, not as a means of providing or giving a subsidy, it matters little if it is IC or electric as both will and do impact on the environment in many less that immediately obvious ways.

The consequences of some taxes, many berate, such as the issues with Steel and aluminium production and processing. Many who support the carbon taxes then blame government in handicapping industry. Often we pay a price for not living in a cave.

At present it is very difficult to really understand how much each energy sources is costing, even just financially. Some sources have subsidies to build and in what they generate, some are taxed without any subsidies. Some subsidies are disguised in that infra structure is not in the generation price, but appears in the distribution cost (where they are buried).

I just know that motoring taxes will continue, even if 100% electric, just to pay for the up keep of the roads. Where the damage to them could be greater if the Chairman of Jaguar is correct in that all electric vehicles will be heavier (for commercial vehicles). Apparently he also suggested that they are still developing Hybrid vehicles for the foreseeable future. Which were suggested would be diesel powered as they omit less Co2 than Petrol engines. We will see, or in my case, probably not.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Not convinced it was green taxes that killed off coal fired power stations, CO2 targets had some blame, but the Government of the time was in a big fight with the coal industry unions, we had plenty of gas and gas fired station are cheaper to build as well as more thermally efficient, true they also emit way less CO2 than a coal fired power station (as well as a lot less other nasties) but a lot of the motivation to go away from coal was political.

[Nigel R]

"For some it is a religion."

And from them you can expect neither unbiased fact nor reasoned debate nor usually understanding of subject matter.