Electric Cars.

[Levanter]

Posted by Keith Miles 2 on 24/07/2019 10:56:43:

Posted by ken anderson. on 24/07/2019 10:43:50:

84 pages....this thread has some mileage?

ken anderson...ne..1....motoring dept.

I wonder how much of it has been fossil fuelled?

😊

Hard to say, but a lot of it has been wind powered!

Levanter

[Rich too]

Posted by Cuban8 on 21/01/2018 11:48:05:

Will we eventually be cutting off a whole section of society from owning the examples of practical and relatively inexpensive personal transport that's available today?

It's all very well offering those of us who can afford new cars, incentives to ditch our conventional vehicles through scrappage schemes, tax breaks etc, but spare a thought for the poorly paid workers who will never be in a position to afford many thousands of pounds on new or nearly new cars, electric or otherwise.

Back to the original question! It won't happen, not least because there's no alternative. Public transport is a joke.

It also annoys me that the UK is considering such drastic action, when the UK's carbon emissions is a drop in the ocean compared to other countries - although its interesting to note a lot of early EV adopters are not doing it for the good of the planet.

I've also just been reading (I'm a bit behind!) about China's targets - they've got a target that their emissions will not keep rising beyond 2030!!!

It reminds me of what comedian Sean Lock said:

"Thirty million acres of rainforest are being destroyed each year and I'm attempting to recycle a jar of Marmite. It's like turning up at an earthquake with a dustpan and brush"

Quite. Our country really is run by morons.

Edited By Rich too on 25/07/2019 12:35:59

Edited By Rich too on 25/07/2019 12:40:57

[Erfolg]

My thoughts with respect to electric vehicles seem to remain constant.

I am not opposed to electric vehicles per se. I keep returning to the same issues, that are the elephant in the room, that Acolytes of electric vehicles mostly cannot see,

The first is that if carbon fueled vehicles are removed from the roads, where is the tax revenue from the vehicles fuel going to came from?

The next issue is given the restricted head room of the UKs generating capability, how will the extra capacity be found. Perhaps the real question is where will the money come from to pay for the new infrastructure? The general tax payer, the user of the extra capacity?

The next issue becomes one of distribution net work capacity, who will pay for the re-enforcement of the national grid.

Finally you return to Riches question, in the context of world emissions, where the total UK emissions are less than some countries annual increase in emissions, is the UKs position gesture politics?

Even the simple question of charging points has similar issues, who should and will pay for the public access charging points?

Given the threats to nationalise what exists today, I cannot see private business being in any rush to invest without very good guarantees that their assets will not be seized, particularly if at below market or true asset value.

Then you finally come to the car and truck producers, will some if not all choose to cut their losses and close factories that produce engines, perhaps gearboxes etc. employing many less, although charging a higher price than at present. The problem here there are many scenarios and permeations that are possible.

Yet at the end of the day will we be saddled with a vehicle of much lower capability when compared to the versitility of the IC vehicle and will it result in higher running costs to the user, Reducing the standard of living and increasing food stuffs etc. distribution costs, further reducing living standards.

If you start to think through environmental impacts, the questions just keep increasing.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

[Trevor Crook]

Erf, electric cars won't be the only extra stress on the grid. The government announced a little while ago that from 2025, new build homes would not be connected to mains gas, so plenty of extra power required for all of those to be heated!

Not sure what you mean by ev's higher running costs, low cost fuel and less maintenance are their strongest selling points at present. Of course, none of us know what new tax regimes will be brought in, as you say the fuel duty hole will have to be plugged somehow.

[Engine Doctor]

Posted by Pete B - Moderator on 24/07/2019 10:01:13

Believe me Tom, given the amount of time the mods have had to devote to monitoring this thread, there won't be an opportunity for a second electric car thread.....

Pete

Well said Pete. I dont mind new developments but a few enthusiastic electric car users wont save the planets and the old ic technology will only be sold to other countries to continue poluting .

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Erfolg]

Trevor, I cannot see that the present position with respect to the minimal charge (financial) being allowed to continue with respect to EVs.

When I rather nebulously make reference to extra cost, I am generally making reference to all the facilities that will be required to get and keep electric vehicles powered. That is generating capacity, distribution capacity nationally, local charging capacity etc.

Everything has to be paid for,

What tends to distort the issue is that IC vehicles are in general more efficient than electric vehicles when all the losses are considered. We have touched on the issue much earlier. Taking heat engine type generation approx. 30% efficient, the the losses compound as the electrons get to the point of use. Wind power also is not straight forward, hence all the derelict grinding and pump wind mills around Europe, not quite as efficient as at first sight. If it were not for the Carbon taxes and Wind Turbine grants and feed in tariffs, the true cost of electric power would be much clearer today, The recent issues with the Steel Industry demonstrates that there are costs associated with playing fields that are distorted. Where some get Carbon Credits others do not and so on.

All inefficiencies leads to higher costs to some one, often seen in our standard of living. We may become acutely aware when we compare our personal position, with others, particularly abroad.

[Erfolg]

Marten

We should all be aware of the big issues in forming judgment as to the balanced argument.

I do agree with respect once the rules are set it is up to all to adapt and take advantage of them. Although we need always to keep a cautious eye to the bigger picture, as that will often determine a lot of the future rule changes. Which is often a balance of politics, self interest and sometimes logic.

With respect to vehicle developments. The most obvious is the lack of range. The very obvious solution is to increase the total battery capacity by a factor of two. The obvious down size is cost, weight, and space. The wight issue results in more energy usage as good old Newton told us that F=ma, then his first law comes into play needing better brakes and so on. The Space issue just means we all would need a SUV type bodied vehicle.

Again on these basic issues all the manufacturers are considering. Then the boring issues to most, it comes down to electric control systems. Motors, which are best discussed at the bar, after a pint or two, the motors in my car are the best being Zeilithium Hysteresis loop augmented etc. Differential units, a complete turn of, unless two motor drive with limited differential movement, operating in conjunction with a 20Gbyte processor to enhance cornering and low friction conditions. That is before all the quirky ideas are investigated.

It could be a good 5-10 years until the optimum set up emerges. Until then the Lohner-Porshe and the equivalent of the Wooler Beam Engine, will be tried and disappear in search of a viable product.

IMO all far to early to be certain, all the big boys will be playing the ball with a straight bat. Hence all the surreptitious test vehicles that we barely notice.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Frank Skilbeck]

Posted by Erfolg on 27/07/2019 11:39:36:

What tends to distort the issue is that IC vehicles are in general more efficient than electric vehicles when all the losses are considered.

Can you back that up, the best fossil fueled power plants, gas fired combined cycle plants, have a thermal efficiency of over 60%, and an electric car is over 85% efficient, so that's an overall efficiency of 50% or so. And the engine thermal efficiency you quote is an engine running at optimum conditions, say cruising at 55 mph maybe, plus that doesn't include the losses in extraction, transportation, refining and then distribution of liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

[Cuban8]

Forget motors, compare the volume of a single gallon of diesel (gallon fuel can dimensions) that can take my Mondeo....easily 50 miles. How far would your typical EV get on a battery of similar size / volume. Scale it up to your heart's content, the figures are still against batteries. I've gone 500 miles when working in Scotland (reminds me of the Proclaimers song) between fill-ups of the Mondeo's large tank, batteries don't come close. The energy density of batteries still needs work as does the time taken to fill them.

[Nigel R]

Frank

You've missed the grid transmission efficiency and battery charging efficiency.

I've read that the oil we use in our cars, as much is used again to get it there. I'm unsure how accurate that is though.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Posted by Cuban8 on 27/07/2019 21:35:47:

Forget motors, compare the volume of a single gallon of diesel (gallon fuel can dimensions) that can take my Mondeo....easily 50 miles. How far would your typical EV get on a battery of similar size / volume. Scale it up to your heart's content, the figures are still against batteries. I've gone 500 miles when working in Scotland (reminds me of the Proclaimers song) between fill-ups of the Mondeo's large tank, batteries don't come close. The energy density of batteries still needs work as does the time taken to fill them.

Yep a 60 litres of diesel has around 640 kwh or energy compared to the 60 kwh battery in a new Nissan Leaf+ that is only good for upto 240 miles.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Posted by Nigel R on 27/07/2019 22:22:19:

Frank

You've missed the grid transmission efficiency and battery charging efficiency.

I've read that the oil we use in our cars, as much is used again to get it there. I'm unsure how accurate that is though.

Yes, but I didn't take account of the losses in the supply of petrol/diesel either.

An interesting concept is EORI which the a measure of the energy ratio to extract fuels, which is going down as oil extraction is become more difficult as the easy to access reserves have been exploited, renewables are becoming competitive on this basis, **LINK**

Edited By Frank Skilbeck on 27/07/2019 22:54:52

[Erfolg]

Frank

We will go round in circles trading potential efficiencies. Electric power is no miracle with respect to efficiencies as a system. I am sure you will recognise that refineries can make claims to incredibly high affiances if all the associated plants are combined. Which potentially leads into a discussion of most combined Heat and Power plants more often than not are special cases, not the norm.

Wether we like it or not electric power generation and transmission incurs significant losses.

Perhaps a good comparison is comparing the cost of boiling a kettle of water using Gas and electricity, Using gas is significantly cheaper. Of course some want to tax gas more, but taxing does not change the basic system efficiency, just distorts our perceptions.

I think we all recognise that some things are better than others for certain things, gas lighting is not generally ideal, whereas electric lighting ticks all the boxes.

More likely than not, electric cars will become the norm, generally because pollution from IC vehicles is seen as a major issue, Yet the real underlying problem is to many people already on the planet, in ever larger and polluted cities. This leading to campaigns to stop eating meat, having no dairy herds, Yet when all the animals have been eliminated, one day, plant based diets will also be exhausted.

I also note that high speed trains are an issue, as the Mega watts of power necessary to power one, puts into perspective the power usage of all the combined road going vehicles, however powered..

[Trevor Crook]

Frank, your response to C8's Mondeo figures points out that an ev will go about half as far on 60kWh as a diesel will on 640kWh, which emphasises the tremendous effeciency of evs. I'm sure a great many people haven't looked at those figures. The cars are getting better and cheaper all the time, the infastructure and supply effeciency are a different matter.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Ereflog, boiling a kettle is a poor analogy as the thermal efficiency of this is typically 80% plus, now when you convert that energy to mechanical efficiency then that is not very efficient because you can't recover most of the energy, which is just expelled as heat.

Also combined cycle gas power generation is a gas turbime running at circa 30% efficinency and using the exhaust gas to generate steam to run steam turbines, to being up the overall efficiency. This is now most of the fossil fuel power generation in the UK.

[Erfolg]

Frank

The kettle is a very good example of real world economics. It is considerably cheaper to use gas than electricity to boil a kettle.

Perhaps the other thing that needs to be done, is to consider that you should not pick and choose which bits of a system you choose for efficiency comparisons. Combined heat and power are parts of a system. Gas, steam turbines have specific efficiencies at best, as a component in a system.. The Rankin Cycle will indicate the best that can be achieved, although real world results will never equal or match the cycles. Of the closed systems I believe that the Stirling cycle would be the best, except for the regenerator never come close. It is the same with Wind Turbines, they have at best an efficiency. Steam turbines are about 30% efficient, that excludes the alternator, which is just another part of the system

Yet in the real world it is not the individual components that matter, it is the system as a whole. There are fixes that can is specific cases improve some aspects under particular set ups. Just as oil refineries do.

Only today there are suggestions that wind turbines could drive up the cost of electricity by a factor of two when compared to todays cost.

Do not get me wrong, I am not against electricity, I am against blinkered and selective approach as to the real situation, both from system. life time costs and the bottom line of what it costs society, industry and the environment.

There is something wrong with Trevors maths,  as there is a factor of 10 difference in efficiencies between Diesel and electric cars. Not even the most selective use of efficiencies bares that out.

Edited By Erfolg on 28/07/2019 11:11:29

[Bob Cotsford]

One aspect to be born in mind that much of the power used in charging EVs will effectively be a by-product of domestic power production as much charging will be done overnight which. as I undestand it, is currently a low demand period. It also means power distribution requirements come down too.

Regardless of efficiency comparisons, the very real fact is that EVs shift most of the airborne polution out of the cities where it harms a great many people so it's worth moving away from IC forthat fact alone.

[Cuban8]

It's all very well talking about EV efficiency, but the fact remains that a reasonably sized family car that is electric only, ceases to be a very good family vehicle because of its inferior range compared to an IC car.

I'm not trying to rubbish the technology, far from it; in fact a small Fiesta sized EV with a range of a hundred miles or so might well find a place on my driveway in the coming years for general running about town and other fairly local trips as a second vehicle.

I don't see how I could manage without a decent sized IC car or possibly a hybrid, that will give me several hundred miles range, non stop at the drop of a hat and can tow a caravan for a couple of hundred miles, again non stop and can transport the models and paraphernalia that gets swallowed by my Mondeo Estate at present.

[Keith Miles 2]

EVs, by definition, can only increase electricity demand, especially if their availability and price eventually equals that of current vehicles and eventually replaces them.

Batteries have to be manufactured and raw materials sourced and processed. Batteries, therefore, will have an increasing environmental impact and the resources are not limitless nor, necessarily, easily accessible.

Even if we can reduce or eliminate CO2 and particulates I doubt that our ability to produce electricity is limitless and I doubt that ever increasing demand, even existing demand, can be met with solar, wind, wave or hydro power. That leaves nuclear energy as the most realistic option with its own potentially extremely serious environmental risks as already seen with Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The harsh reality is that ever increasing population and aspiration as well as current expectation can only eventually outstrip our planet’s ability to cope and therein lies the real dilemma.

[Shaun Walsh]

Just had a look at the Gridwatch website.

Currently there is approximately a 20 gigawatt difference between daytime and night time electricity demand.

Lets assume that people charge their cars overnight using a 3 KW slow charger over 12 hours.

This means that if 6.66 million cars are charged overnight it brings the night time demand up to peak daytime levels.

There are currently 31.5 million cars registered in the UK so it would only take 21% of all cars (assuming we all eventually change to electric) to be plugged in overnight to bring the night time consumption up to day time levels.

If all cars in the UK were now electric and by some fluke were all plugged in to charge overnight (I know, very unlikely) instantaneous demand would be 94.5 GW, current grid capacity is approximately 85 GW

Gas generation as I type this is running at almost 40% of total electricity generated, wind is 13.5% and solar 13.4% the rest is provided by nuclear and interconnections with other countries' grids. At night, solar will be off-line and the slack will need to be taken up by more CCGT generation. I think this highlights that we will need to invest in more baseline capacity to ensure that the lights don't go out if electric vehicles achieve high market penetration or we will have to pay companies to shut down at night to lessen the load.

 

Edited By Shaun Walsh on 28/07/2019 13:23:42

Edited By Shaun Walsh on 28/07/2019 13:24:22

Edited By Shaun Walsh on 28/07/2019 13:24:57

[Paul Marsh]

Just saw one of the cooling towers being demolished at Ferrybridge power station.

So, this facility closed down, and lost another power station, yet plans to put 31 million cars on the National Grid by 2040.

Yeah, right... Missing something here, oh, yeah, electricity when it goes dark. One plus One isn't five!

Had a look, we've lost or about to lose 12GW in the last 3 years! (Radcliffe-on-Soar is due to close by 2021ish

 

 

Edited By Paul Marsh on 28/07/2019 16:18:39

Edited By Paul Marsh on 28/07/2019 16:22:20

[Frank Skilbeck]

Posted by Erfolg on 28/07/2019 11:07:31:

Frank

The kettle is a very good example of real world economics. It is considerably cheaper to use gas than electricity to boil a kettle.

 

Edited By Erfolg on 28/07/2019 11:11:29

Agreed, using gas for heating is quite efficient, but using gas or liquid fossil fuel to provide mechanical energy isn't and thats what I was referring too.

As regards power generation a combine cycle gas turbine which uses the exhaust gas to produce steam to drive a steam turbine give an overall thermal efficiency of over 60%.

Trevors maths were not 10:1 but 5:1, but one of the advantages of electric cars is that they recover kenetic energy when they slow down and don't use fuel when they are stopped in traffic, plus an IC engine is only at it's best efficiency when it's running at a specific point, so real world efficiency is much less.

I'm not trying to be selective I understand the limitations of electric cars and drive a diesel myself, but have to admit that in terms of overall pollution per mile driven then an electric car produces less pollution. Note the average CO2 emissions per kwh in 2018 were 270 g/kwh ( last 24 hrs 212 g/kwh), a Nissan Leaf will do 200-240 miles, say 320 km on 60kwh, so that equates to 51g/km. Not great and the UK has one of the lowest power generation CO2 emissions of all developed countries (down from over 500g/kwh a few years ago), mainly due to the switch from coal to combined cycle gas.

Edited By Frank Skilbeck on 28/07/2019 17:09:29