Transitioning to a low carbon life

[John Lee]

1 hour ago, Ron Gray said:

Honda are working on a Wankel generator in an EV.

 

Are you thinking of the Mazda MX-30 R-EV?

 

I've got one on order, due to be delivered next month to replace my Kia Soul EV. It should suit me perfectly, 95% of my journeys will be within the electric range with the other 5% being able to be completed without the need for recharging.

[MattyB]

13 hours ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

if an objective look at the merits (or not) of anything ends up looking like bashing it then perhaps there is an underlying issue with that product. As MattyB pointed out, we know the current crop of evs will not suit everyone so discussing the use cases where they are and are not good is hardly bashing them. The only thing i will bash about them is the notion that they will solve the climate problem. 

 

There are many EV evangelists who go too far and do come across as believing that, but that is clearly that is nonsense. However, zero tailpipe emission vehicles of one type or another do have to be part of the solution, along with more renewable generation, improved home insulation, shortening supply chains, using the power we have more efficiently, etc. etc.

 

Put simply all the science tells us we cannot just keep burning stuff and crossing our fingers the planet will heal itself - doing nothing and continuing as we have done for the last 100+ years of industrial development is not an option. This is why we have chosen as a family to try and decarbonise our lives as much as possible; yes, it is a microscopic contribution on a global scale, and won't make any realistic difference if Governments worldwide don't address the really big issues around fossil fuel generation, aviation etc, but it is all we can do. Given we are in a position to make some of these changes (with the by-product that it should save us money in the long term versus continuing as we were) then I want to be able to tell my future grandchildren we did what we could. 

[MattyB]

14 minutes ago, John Lee said:

Are you thinking of the Mazda MX-30 R-EV?

 

I've got one on order, due to be delivered next month to replace my Kia Soul EV. It should suit me perfectly, 95% of my journeys will be within the electric range with the other 5% being able to be completed without the need for recharging.

 

I hope they have improved them since the last generation of Wankels - my then boss had an RX-8 in the mid 2000s, and it turned into a bit of a maintenance nightmare (as had the previous generation I believe). I do (unsurprisingly) agree that plug in hybrids are still a sweet spot for many people who have mixed usage patterns, and it does look like that car has a longer pure-EV range than my Passat which should make it even more efficient in real world terms.

Edited September 1, 2023 by MattyB

[Tim Kearsley]

3 hours ago, Learner said:

Now there's a thought, a Tesla with a 7 litre v8.

I could park outside a JSO protesters house just revving it up for hours😉

Why would I want to degrade the performance of my Tesla by putting a 7 litre V8 in it?

[John Lee]

30 minutes ago, MattyB said:

 

I hope they have improved them since the last generation of Wankels

 

I hope so too!

 

They have made quite a number of changes since the RX-8 went out of production( wider apex seals, direct injection, plasma coatings etc). However I think the biggest contributor to a trouble free life will be the fact that the driver will have no direct control of the engine. No hitting the 8500RPM limit on the upshifts any longer, the computer will control the start up, warm up & cool down while the engine will always operate around peak efficiency at about 4500rpm, with the battery pack being able to smooth out demand.

[Ron Gray]

1 hour ago, John Lee said:

Are you thinking of the Mazda MX-30 R-EV?

No but it’s the same idea.

[Learner]

45 minutes ago, Tim Kearsley said:

Why would I want to degrade the performance of my Tesla by putting a 7 litre V8 in it?

Same reason I would rather see a full size Spitfire with a merlin rather than an electric motor and dont watch formula E.

 

[Tim Kearsley]

33 minutes ago, Learner said:

Same reason I would rather see a full size Spitfire with a merlin rather than an electric motor and dont watch formula E.

 

Ah, OK, the whole "engines have soul" and "listen to that lovely exhaust sound" bit. Thankfully, I've never been afflicted with that condition.  I just like having a car that goes VERY fast, makes not a lot of noise and costs me, currently, 2.5p per mile in fuel.

[Learner]

1 minute ago, Tim Kearsley said:

Ah, OK, the whole "engines have soul" and "listen to that lovely exhaust sound" bit. Thankfully, I've never been afflicted with that condition.  I just like having a car that goes VERY fast, makes not a lot of noise and costs me, currently, 2.5p per mile in fuel.

Handy if your at a drag strip but a bit heavy for cornering.

2.5p is impressive though are you plugged into next door😊

[Tim Kearsley]

1 hour ago, Learner said:

Handy if your at a drag strip but a bit heavy for cornering.

2.5p is impressive though are you plugged into next door😊

Hadn't thought of that - what a good idea!  I charge the car overnight at a rate of 7.5p per kWh and over the 13,000 odd miles the car has done it has averaged 287Wh per mile.  By my maths, that’s just under 2.2p per mile.  No doubt when my Octopus Go deal renews next month the 7.5p rate will increase.

[Ron Gray]

Octopus Go - 9.50p, Intelligent Octopus 7.5p 

[Tim Kearsley]

16 minutes ago, Ron Gray said:

Octopus Go - 9.50p, Intelligent Octopus 7.5p 

Thanks Ron.  I've been thinking about IO, just not sure if I can be bothered with the extra complexity.  It would interface with the Tesla API, so should work OK.  I'll revisit it when my current Go deal ends at the end of October.

[Learner]

34 minutes ago, Tim Kearsley said:

Hadn't thought of that - what a good idea!  I charge the car overnight at a rate of 7.5p per kWh and over the 13,000 odd miles the car has done it has averaged 287Wh per mile.  By my maths, that’s just under 2.2p per mile.  No doubt when my Octopus Go deal renews next month the 7.5p rate will increase.

Thats quite a saving even over my 11p a mile (fiesta diesel but I've got a cd that plays v8 noises lol) and a no brainer if it wasnt for the low miles we do.

[Ron Gray]

27 minutes ago, Tim Kearsley said:

just not sure if I can be bothered with the extra complexity.

If it could interface with my Ioniq5 I would go for it as I like the idea of it charging when there is ‘cheap’ electric plus you get 6 hours of the stuff and at the lower rate too. Octopus have told me that the API is in the pipeline and there’s no penalty for changing.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Ron Gray

[MattyB]

4 hours ago, John Lee said:

I hope so too!

 

They have made quite a number of changes since the RX-8 went out of production( wider apex seals, direct injection, plasma coatings etc). However I think the biggest contributor to a trouble free life will be the fact that the driver will have no direct control of the engine. No hitting the 8500RPM limit on the upshifts any longer, the computer will control the start up, warm up & cool down while the engine will always operate around peak efficiency at about 4500rpm, with the battery pack being able to smooth out demand.

 

Yep, it should certainly have an easier life than those engines in the old RX-8s. My Dad's hybrid CR-V works on a similar fashion (4cyl petrol engine on the Atkinson cycle, tiny battery acting as a buffer, and no direct drive from the engine to the wheels at any speed below about 75).

Edited September 1, 2023 by MattyB

[Jon H]

8 hours ago, MattyB said:

 

Put simply all the science tells us we cannot just keep burning stuff and crossing our fingers the planet will heal itself

 

Oh i absolutely agree. The problem is we simply do not have the technology to make a substantial difference at the moment, especially when companies like car makers are more interested in making money and appearing green than actually being green. Toyota gets a big thumbs up from all the greens for their hybrids and what not. But they will also gladly sell you a 5 litre V8 landcruiser even if you only need it for taking little timmy to school. The disposable world we live in is also a problem and with people like apple designing products to die just in time for the new model to come out its hardly a wonder folk are always going go for the newest thingo. 

 

I am also with you on zero tailpipe emissions. As i said before, they are great for clean air in towns etc. However, currently electric cars are best considered remote combustion as the burning is going on at the power station and not in an engine. If your rooftop solar can charge the car that is a good thing, but the manufacturing of the car needs to be cleaned up too for it to really matter, and even then it would solve barely 10% of the problem assuming every car was electric and solar charged. The scale of the issue is so vast its difficult to work out where to start. 

 

I get super angry with  just stop oil and other similar groups. I dont think they understand the magnitude of the problem and how it cannot be solved over night. I agree with their goals, but we are 200 odd years into hydrocarbon dependency and that is not something you can just turn off. I do however think there is some low hanging fruit we can easily address to tackle various issues including carbon and plastic. 

[Ron Gray]

1 hour ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

as the burning is going on at the power station

Not all of it! As I type this, for my region (Norfolk), 15% is from renewables, 33% from nuclear and 52% from fossils. With smart apps now available that show the best (greenest) times to plug in you can be clever.

 

[Zflyer]

So much myth, so much data,  so much bias interpretation. I am transitioning to carbon slowly, i might do my bit by being buried rather than cremated.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

10 hours ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

especially when companies like car makers are more interested in making money and appearing green than actually being green.

It's not only that it's keeping the economy running and people in jobs, which in turn it stops rioting.

[Jon H]

10 hours ago, Ron Gray said:

Not all of it! As I type this, for my region (Norfolk), 15% is from renewables, 33% from nuclear and 52% from fossils. With smart apps now available that show the best (greenest) times to plug in you can be clever.

 

Being curious i looked up the numbers and apparently the uk average is 225g co2 per kwh. 

 

Using the mazda MX30 being discussed as a reference, that means it farts out just over 4kg of co2 per 100km based upon the uk grid average. Better than my petrol car for sure (11.4kg) but you need to drive a fair old way to offset the co2 emitted making the battery. Figures for this vary greatly but somewhere between 1.2 and 6 tons of co2 for a 30kwh battery. Assuming the middle of that range you are somewhere near 38k miles of driving to break even with the petrol car. If the battery lasts longer than that you are winning, but its pretty meagre returns for all that effort.

 

I did some comparisons with other countries too and it seems we have a pretty clean grid here in the uk. The us grid is rocking on at 400g/kwh and down under the aussies are at 656g/kwh. This has a big impact on how effective ev's would be as the same MX30 down under would emit 11.7kg/100km and that is more than the petrol car!  

 

 

[MattyB]

3 hours ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

 

I did some comparisons with other countries too and it seems we have a pretty clean grid here in the uk. The us grid is rocking on at 400g/kwh and down under the aussies are at 656g/kwh. This has a big impact on how effective ev's would be as the same MX30 down under would emit 11.7kg/100km and that is more than the petrol car!  

The Nordic countries are hands down the best at this globally, as they generate a huge percentage of their electricity via renewable sources, mostly hydro. Norway is apparently at 99% renewable generation, so the carbon equality crossover point between anI ICE and EV is super low there at <10k miles. They are also going to be very early to stop the sale of all new ICE cars in 2025.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/

 

https://roadmapsforenergy.eu/norway-fossilfuel-car-ban/

[Jon H]

Yea they have lots of opportunity to use hydro up there.  But they also have a population of about 5.5million people and that is only about half the population of london alone. 

 

As with most of the 'fixes' for climate change, the problem is scale. Stopping the sale of ICE cars by 2025 might work up there (not all classes of vehicle have electric equivalents) but here in the UK any similar notion is a fantasy. 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Jon - Laser Engines

[Graham Bowers]

I,ve followed this thread and unless I’ve missed it, there’s been no mention if bicycles. Sometimes what is not said is as poignant as what is 😉

[Rich Griff]

Loved that map Ron, 209 hovering over traws, a magnox or two that shut down years ago, but hay, lots of hydo plants here, one being over 100 years old and still using water from traws lake !

 

There are other hydro plants here even older and still going strong. It rains a lot here.

 

The farming program this morning suggested imported fruit and veg has a huge carbon footprint.

 

Another good "solar" day in the valley today.

[IDD15]

20 hours ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

 

 

As with most of the 'fixes' for climate change, the problem is scale. Stopping the sale of ICE cars by 2025 might work up there (not all classes of vehicle have electric equivalents) but here in the UK any similar notion is a fantasy. 

 

Oh I don't know.

 

In June this year the SMMT reported that sales were 117,266 vehicles. EV sales were 31700 (There were barely 40,000 EVs in total when I started driving one in 2016)  units with a market share of 17.9%. When compared to the same month last year EV sales have grown 39.4%. Significantly the various flavours of hybrid vehicle also performed strongly, so much so that around 100,000 of those vehicles sold use electrons to help propel them to varying degrees . More detailed figures can be found on the SMMT  website.

 

Significant things can happen when people start exerting their wallets...

 

idd