I love electric vehicles & was an early adopter but increasingly I feel duped - Rowan Atkinson

[mab01uk]

"Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV. There are sound environmental reasons not to jump just yet. Electric vehicles may be a bit soulless, but they’re wonderful mechanisms: fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run. But increasingly, I feel a little duped. When you start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn’t seem to be quite the environmental panacea it is claimed to be.
As you may know, the government has proposed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. The problem with the initiative is that it seems to be based on conclusions drawn from only one part of a car’s operating life: what comes out of the exhaust pipe. Electric cars, of course, have zero exhaust emissions, which is a welcome development, particularly in respect of the air quality in city centres. But if you zoom out a bit and look at a bigger picture that includes the car’s manufacture, the situation is very different. In advance of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, Volvo released figures claiming that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are 70% higher than when manufacturing a petrol one. How so? The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, many rare earth metals and huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they only last about 10 years. It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis."
The Full Article here:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... n-atkinson

[mk1]

There is nothing there that hasn't been said a million times before.

All of which is perfectly true.

[Pandora]

synthetic fuels seem to be coming on in leaps and bounds. I hadn't realised the WRC has run exclusively on it this year (and maybe last year too?) and the same stuff was used by William Metcalf in his 4 1/2 Litre Bentley to a race win recently, and will be used in a number of vehicles at the Goodwood Festival of greed, including in Sebastian Vetel's '80s & '90's F1 cars he will demo.

For the same fuels to be running well in such a variety of vehicles surely shows that for the mainstream motorist, there is a certain amount of life left in the ICE that is not based on dredging up ancient dinosaur juice. I don't know the emission figures, but I'm sure it's no worse than current ICEs, and the world economy is not ready for a wholesale switch.

It strikes me that the EV infrastructure is the biggest challenge, and it's at least a decade behind where it needs to be. to my mind, synthetic fuels and / or hydrogen are the best options at the moment, with EVs perhaps growing progressively, but a simple switch? Nope.

Al

[Polarsilver]

Anyone tried Synthetic Fuel in a A Series Engine yet ?

[Exminiman]

here you go, Synthetic fuel, just a quick search, there must be better deals/solutions... https://www.frjonesandson.co.uk/product ... EnEALw_wcB

Just over double the price or 200 litres - this looks like good news if the price is £3.40 (plus VAT) a litre now, economies of scale should bring price down dramatically.

An A series is not a million miles from a lawn mower engine is it...so might work ok

[Rolandino]

What a lot of people dont know it yet, but its not just CO2 gases that are environmentally bad. Its been said that tyre particles and brake dust are just as bad and maybe even worse. What next ? Wooden wheels and brakes ? I am looking forward to Hydrogen powered cars, they will be slower but that is no bad thing, just means less speeding fines for us! Also now the Government are going to lose so much revenue from Oil taxes, soon we will be paying road tax by the mile we use.
There is a thought !

[mk1]

You are not wrong there. Pay per mile have been on the cards ever since the push for electric started.

[mab01uk]

This document linked below on 'London Road Charging' recently appeared online and no doubt Mayor Khan's expensive ULEZ cameras will allow it to happen soon:-

'Call for Evidence: The future of smart road user charging February 2023.'
"The London Assembly Transport Committee has launched an investigation into the future of smart road user charging in London. We will consider the practical issues around the potential introduction of smarter road user charging in London. Below is information about the investigation and Call for Evidence, as well as key questions the investigation is interested in hearing about."
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default ... e%20_0.pdf

[mab01uk]

Rise in EVs could have implications for car park structures.

"Of course, new technologies require a rethink of different aspects of our infrastructure systems. For EVs, there the creation of charge point infrastructure, the impact of additional usage on our power networks and, while this may not seem obvious at first, there are car park structures too.
Yes, car park structures. When EVs were first introduced, they were essentially city cars, with a relatively short driving range. To increase desirability, manufacturers have had to offer more – a wider choice of models and an extended range between re-energising.
To achieve this greater power, resource is required and vehicles are being designed to house the largest battery that will fit between the front and rear axles. And batteries – are heavy. They are around 10 times heavier than the same volume of fossil fuel and three times heavier than an aluminum engine. And this additional weight needs to be considered against structures, such as car parks.

When the first edition of the design standards multi-storey and underground car parks was published in 1976, the average weight of the vehicle fleet was considered to be 1,500kg and the maximum gross weight for design purposes was 2,500kg.
The bestselling car in 1976 was a family saloon, the Mk 3 Ford Cortina. Its kerbweight (empty car with a full tank of fuel) was approximately 980kg and the gross weight (including passengers and luggage) was around 1,300kg.
Currently the Tesla Model 3 is the best-selling EV family saloon. Its kerbweight is around 1,800kg (depending on the capacity of the battery) – almost twice as heavy as the Mk3 Cortina.
Large electric cars which are coming on stream have a kerbweight of around 2,500kg and the larger SUVs can be over 2,800kg, which with the addition of passengers and luggage the gross weight can exceed 3,200kg. The average weight of vehicles has therefore rapidly increased from 1,500kg to 2,000kg.

Updating the standards would help ensure that any new car park structures are being future-proofed. Of course, we must also consider how best to retrofit existing structures.
Currently, for simplicity, the installation of charge points tends to be in one location, thus putting all the heavyweight vehicles together, rather than randomly distributed throughout the car park. This could cause overloading in certain areas. Also many vehicle manufacturers have plans to offer fully autonomous vehicles by 2030, which will be capable of parking closer together. As a result, the loading on car park decks will further increase.
The increase in loading has significant implications for existing car parks, especially older ones which may have been weakened by structural deterioration or have issues of concern. Should the structure fail, it would be difficult to blame the owner or driver of the vehicle and the onus would be on the owner/operator of the car park to ensure that it is safe....."
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest ... 4-04-2023/

[Lakeland997]

There is no easy solution to motor car CO2 emissions (if indeed you believe that a 'solution' is necessary).
I think that all contributions to the debate are valid but comic actors should probably stick to what they are good at.

With regard to manufacturing CO2, some car makers (Volkswagen for example) are building their electric cars to be net zero carbon in their manufacture so it can be done.

Lithium battery-powered electric cars will be a transient technology but it's currently the only viable technology in the mix (for zero CO2 emissions in use). But with the UK's self-imposed (and entirely uncosted) target for 'net-zero' by 2050 we have no choice.
Like it or not, car manufacturers have committed and thrown billions into battery car technology, and like an oil tanker, will not now be turned around for decades.
Probably, as Rowan says, the next big leap will be to 'solid-state' batteries with higher energy storage density.

Hydrogen is not viable - at least not for passenger cars. Watch this to understand why:
https://youtu.be/f7MzFfuNOtY

And I'm afraid biofuel is only viable for small volumes (Porsches and classic cars) as otherwise we would have to accept turning over half the planet to bio-mass production with the resultant destruction of rain forests and exponential rise in food costs.

If you want to be astounded by what is going on with regard to climate change in this country then I can highly recommend this new book:

'Not Zero' by Ross Clark