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I'd be happy to drive an electric van for my work were it feasible. But I don't have off street parking and there are a grand total of two fast chargers in town, plus about another four medium speed(?) ones.
In terms of budget, I could get an early Kangoo for around £5k, but while its range would be fine most of the time, there are 4 days in my monthly round where it would be touch and go in the summer and a no no in the winter!. Plus, most Kangoo's don't have fast charging capability, so circa 12 hours on a 3 pin plug (with the cable across the pavement).
A new Nissan eNV200 would certainly have the range, and the payments could (haven't looked into the figures fully) easily work out cheaper than my current overall running costs, but that still leaves the potential problem of charging it up.
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If electric does take off in a big way it will mean more and more fields full of solar arrays and wind farms which will take up room we really need for housing, so IMO more Nuclear should be built to take the place of them
Or concentrate on Hydrogen which appears to be coming on well with Toyota Honda and Hyundai, much better range than all electric and even green Hydrogen being researched and being produced in some countries
Large lorries will benefit from Hydrogen as they wont need a trailer full on batteries to pull the load which will have decreased with all electric due to weight restrictions and the danger of accidents
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If electric does take off in a big way it will mean more and more fields full of solar arrays and wind farms which will take up room we really need for housing, so IMO more Nuclear should be built to take the place of them.
We are edging towards the excess-population question. I don't like the idea of huge solar arrays either, but those found in parts of Europe are vast by comparison with ours. But neither do I like the idea of steadily eating into green belt with big housing estates, with all their associated problems of extra traffic on inadequate roads. Countryside is needed to feed (and entertain) people rather than be covered with swarms of houses - and worse, enormous hangars mostly used to store huge amounts of imported stuff for distribution.
Everyone assumes we can just go on getting our food from somewhere else. Foreign of course, it's more interesting.
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If electric does take off in a big way it will mean more and more fields full of solar arrays and wind farms which will take up room we really need for housing.
Is there a great deal of overlap between land suitable for wind and that needed for housing? Even solar arrays are usually in places where building houses would provoke a revolution.
There are certainly some wildernesses, Barvas Moor on the Isle of Lewis springs to mind where proposed windfarms should be discouraged but a lot og the mega watt developments are off shore.
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Or of how these electric cars are out of almost everyone's budget
I just picked this one but agree with the others. The prices are far to high for most to consider and I think the prices of ICE cars are being engineered to meet the EV prices.
We have been talking this subject for a number of years now and I do not see any great movement in the charging infrastructure, it is almost as if gov are waiting for something else to come along. I have seen but one electric transit size van operating in my area.
If you read about the mining of the "rare" minerals that are needed for the batteries it seems morally wrong but never stops anything driving the human race. Apparently it takes twice the energy to make an equivalent EV.
On balance my next car would be EV but STILL way way a way from being a sensible purchase.
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I feel bad about my 2005 VW diesel van's emissions, particularly noticeable on start up, but know if I part with it the emissions it puts out are likely to be greater, given I cover only about 3,800 miles a year.
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Let's face it, the biggest thing that petrolheads and boy racers fear from electric cars is that they don't make a brrrm-brrrm noise. And yet the motor industry has been striving since the very beginning to make most cars as quiet and smooth as possible and electric cars do this without even trying. Also I suppose petrolheads will miss changing gear but the motor industry is moving towards automatics anyway - even the new Land Rover Defender comes with automatic as standard.
All the usual arguments about electric cars might have been true 10 years ago but now the only ones that still stand are high purchase price and limited access to rapid charging, but both these situations are improving.
Just imagine in the early days of petrol cars, when there was no infrastructure for them and you had to get your 'motor spirit' from the chemist'shop.
As we move towards a renewable and clean electricity, electric cars will be virtually pollution free, apart from particulates from tyres as they wear.
Edited by Sofa Spud on 30/01/2021 at 14:25
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Yes SS, they're sterile, sounding too much the same as each other.
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Yes SS, they're sterile, sounding too much the same as each other.
My mountain bike doesn't make any noise, apart from a few rattles and the click of the chain and maybe a slight hum from the tyres on tarmac. But that doesn't stop me enjoying riding it .
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My mountain bike doesn't make any noise, apart from a few rattles and the click of the chain and maybe a slight hum from the tyres on tarmac. But that doesn't stop me enjoying riding it .
Comparing a bike that's never made a noise with a car, has no validity.
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Let's face it, the biggest thing that petrolheads and boy racers fear from electric cars is that they don't make a brrrm-brrrm noise. And yet the motor industry has been striving since the very beginning to make most cars as quiet and smooth as possible and electric cars do this without even trying. Also I suppose petrolheads will miss changing gear but the motor industry is moving towards automatics anyway - even the new Land Rover Defender comes with automatic as standard.
All the usual arguments about electric cars might have been true 10 years ago but now the only ones that still stand are high purchase price and limited access to rapid charging, but both these situations are improving.
Just imagine in the early days of petrol cars, when there was no infrastructure for them and you had to get your 'motor spirit' from the chemist'shop.
As we move towards a renewable and clean electricity, electric cars will be virtually pollution free, apart from particulates from tyres as they wear.
Its going to take a few years to get fully renewable electricity and the ugly wind farms will get more to cope, also fields full of solar arrays which are not that great to look at, unless you like scenery like that.
batteries are worse for the environment yet we want more and we still do not know if it will make a difference, everyone goes on about the price of electric cars but it seems not many are concerned about battery production and mining
there must be some concern over all EVs for the Toyota boss to talk about it in the way he has done. but maybe no one is listening which appears to be the case?
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ust imagine in the early days of petrol cars, when there was no infrastructure for them and you had to get your 'motor spirit' from the chemist'shop.
At least then people would carry their fuel around in a jerry can! Try carrying around a spare 750kg battery!!
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ust imagine in the early days of petrol cars, when there was no infrastructure for them and you had to get your 'motor spirit' from the chemist'shop.
At least then people would carry their fuel around in a jerry can! Try carrying around a spare 750kg battery!!
The way its going with battery tech you could fill a battery with liquid already charged, the old is removed within seconds and refilled in seconds just like filling your tank, OK a few minutes but you get the idea....if it comes off as hoped!
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ust imagine in the early days of petrol cars, when there was no infrastructure for them and you had to get your 'motor spirit' from the chemist'shop.
At least then people would carry their fuel around in a jerry can! Try carrying around a spare 750kg battery!!
The way its going with battery tech you could fill a battery with liquid already charged, the old is removed within seconds and refilled in seconds just like filling your tank, OK a few minutes but you get the idea....if it comes off as hoped!
Are you doing this in your shed?
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ust imagine in the early days of petrol cars, when there was no infrastructure for them and you had to get your 'motor spirit' from the chemist'shop.
At least then people would carry their fuel around in a jerry can! Try carrying around a spare 750kg battery!!
The way its going with battery tech you could fill a battery with liquid already charged, the old is removed within seconds and refilled in seconds just like filling your tank, OK a few minutes but you get the idea....if it comes off as hoped!
Are you doing this in your shed?
lol, a university, is, according to you tube doing research into it, like so many others, to find a quicker way of charging EVs, apparently it is being tried out on lower voltage batteries which they reckon are having limit success.
IMO, Hydrogen will get more popular gradually as the tech improves, as a few companies are now starting to experiment with HGVs and Vans abroad. some I gather are here in UK but don`t know much about it at the moment, info on that is rather vague to say the least
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also fields full of solar arrays which are not that great to look at, unless you like scenery like that.
It's a shame that building regs did not insist upon every warehouse, factory and supermarket roof having solar panels. I live in Northants which probably has enough shed roof acreage to provide power for every electric car in the country. Better than wasting our prime agricultural land on solar arrays.
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<< It's a shame that building regs did not insist upon every warehouse, factory and supermarket roof having solar panels. >>
I'm with you 100% John. But why not include houses ? Most semis and bungalows can easily accommodate a useful array (as ours does), but I suppose a tower-block couldn't generate much per flat.
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also fields full of solar arrays which are not that great to look at, unless you like scenery like that.
It's a shame that building regs did not insist upon every warehouse, factory and supermarket roof having solar panels. I live in Northants which probably has enough shed roof acreage to provide power for every electric car in the country. Better than wasting our prime agricultural land on solar arrays.
Even an installation of 120 x 2,2 square metre panels, allowing for electrical DC /AC inverter losses has a peak output of 30.5 kw but only has an average output year round of 5 kw.
And that's in Santa Cruz California by the way!
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I feel bad about my 2005 VW diesel van's emissions, particularly noticeable on start up, but know if I part with it the emissions it puts out are likely to be greater, given I cover only about 3,800 miles a year.
When I think back to the 1st diesel car we bought I often wonder what we were thinking. It was a Golf TDi 90 PS and on 1st start or hard acceleration the amount of dense black smoke produced was biblical. The 3rd one we bought, a Mondeo TDCi 130 PS appeared smoke free as was the Focus TDCi that followed. The last 2 had DPF's and after over 6 years both had clean exhausts which clearly proved the technology worked.
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<< on 1st start or hard acceleration the amount of dense black smoke produced was biblical. >>
Really, Skidpan ? Which book were you thinking of ? :-)
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Sorry to touch on the easily validated.
Your comment that charging infrastructure has seen no great movement is wrong (better described as complete rubbish)
Depratment of Transport report - charging points for EV have grown fivefold since 2015.
If you are going to make comments they would have more credibity if they were vaguely connected to reality.
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Increased 5 fold, what was the starting point? A 5-fold increase of 1 isn't going to mean much. If you are going to patronise (like so many of your eco brethren), at least be precise :)
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<< It's a shame that building regs did not insist upon every warehouse, factory and supermarket roof having solar panels. >>
I have seen the sun on only about 3 days in the last 60. I cannot see the benefit of panels in winter with at best 8hrs of daylight. Large solar farms are still applying for planning but the smaller scale seems uneconomical. Didn't the gov pull the rug on subsidies. There's that word again the gov throwing tax payers money at their pet projects. Is it £3k on EV cars!
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Our solar panels (through the feed-in tariff) pay for nearly all our electricity bill. You need to look at it year-on-year.
We were lucky to get ours in 2015 before the idiot government stopped the subsidies. The payback period after the initial cost is about 7 to 8 years, so no go if you don't intend to stay in a house for very long.
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Our solar panels (through the feed-in tariff) pay for nearly all our electricity bill. You need to look at it year-on-year.
We were lucky to get ours in 2015 before the idiot government stopped the subsidies. The payback period after the initial cost is about 7 to 8 years, so no go if you don't intend to stay in a house for very long.
Ours likewise - it was installed in late 2011 so we are locked into the original tariff of 44p/unit payback, which with only 9 panels pays for our grid intake. In essence we bought about 10 years' grid leccy up front, after that it's free.
But the original subsidy was really to get the installation business up and running, which it did. Some went out of business or diversified soon after the tariff was halved.
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"There are now more than 35,000 charge point connectors across the UK in over 13,000 locations - that's more public places to charge than petrol stations, with around 7,000 charge point connectors added in 2020 alone"
tinyurl.com/y32kfts3
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I’m a big fan of EV’s, and looking forward to their increased use, but that’s a slightly misleading figure in that I’ve just filled up with diesel at one petrol station that had 16 pumps.
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"There are now more than 35,000 charge point connectors across the UK in over 13,000 locations - that's more public places to charge than petrol stations, with around 7,000 charge point connectors added in 2020 alone"
tinyurl.com/y32kfts3
Thats a lot of wasted time if it takes 1 hour to charge a car, even 20minutes is a long time waiting when a hydrogen will charge in much less time....
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"There are now more than 35,000 charge point connectors across the UK in over 13,000 locations - that's more public places to charge than petrol stations, with around 7,000 charge point connectors added in 2020 alone"
tinyurl.com/y32kfts3
Thats a lot of wasted time if it takes 1 hour to charge a car, even 20minutes is a long time waiting when a hydrogen will charge in much less time....
But you will spend a lot of time looking for an H2 filling station..........!
According to ZapMap, which provides information on the electric-car recharging and hydrogen-car refuelling points, there are only 13 hydrogen stations in the UK. Five of these are located within the M25, with others in the Southeast and Midlands.
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Has anyone on here considered the infrastructure needed to supply all the cars, buses, lorries etc with Hydrogen. Fuel is not simply moved around in tankers, there is a huge network of underground pipelines from the refineries to the distribution depots as well as direct to airports. I have no idea if its feasible to transport Hydrogen by pipeline, if it is imagine the upset caused replicating the existing network, if its not imagine the disruption of the extra tankers on the roads.
No solution is perfect but lets stop pretending Hydrogen is the answer to all our problems because its not.
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Has anyone on here considered the infrastructure needed to supply all the cars, buses, lorries etc with Hydrogen.
Actually I have, one point made was that an HGV will have to carry almost half its weight in batteries to travel any reasonable distance, a Hydrogen tank is a lot less bulky and can triple an HGV mileage, which also means the transport company will save costs as it can take a bigger payload, which for us is cheaper goods
the infrastructure needed even if its green Hydrogen may work out eventually cheaper and as easy as electric could be, I have no objection to battery electric cars but seems a waste of space in a car, where a Hydrogen car or any vehicle would be less space taken up and more miles
we also don`t know if our system will take all cars that hit the grid, no 2 chargers and software are the same and anything where electricity is concerned is unpredictable no matter how well its installed!
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I have no idea if its feasible to transport Hydrogen by pipeline,
There used to be a hydrogen pipeline from Runcorn to Ellesmere Port (just a few miles). It was a by-product from chlorine production and was used for hardening fats to make margarine. But it was a low-pressure gas pipe (obviously). I hate to imagine the risk of a high-pressure line supplying fuel stations, which might be important for transporting any liquid amounts.
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I'm sure I heard part of an interview on R4 a few weeks ago featuring some clever scientisty person. He was saying something about testing the feasibility of using the current gas supply pipe network to carry hydrogen. This was in respect of converting household boilers to hydrogen. But, if that could be done, then it seems possible that it could potentially also service hydrogen vehicle refuelling.
But I have no idea if it could work, or indeed if he did. Might just have been a bloke with no clue who managed to get on the radio because it sounded a bit interesting for all I know.
Seem to think ( like I say, I didn't catch the whole programme) he was something to do with a wind powered hydrogen production facility that is either proposed or maybe even underway in the South East of England somewhere.
Apologies for the utter vagueness of the above, but maybe there is a cunning plan afoot.
;-)
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The supply of hydrogen in gas form is presumably possible for domestic boilers via the present pipes. For a car to store a useful amount it needs to be supplied in liquid form which will be at a much higher pressure I assume. Perhaps somebody with greater knowledge of this subject can enlighten us further.
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The supply of hydrogen in gas form is presumably possible for domestic boilers via the present pipes. For a car to store a useful amount it needs to be supplied in liquid form which will be at a much higher pressure I assume. Perhaps somebody with greater knowledge of this subject can enlighten us further.
Gases cannot be liquefied above their 'critical temperature'. As hydrogen is the smallest, lightest molecule, that temp is very low - a lot colder than liquid nitrogen - which means transporting liquid H2 requires a high-pressure low-temperature container, as would any vehicle using it as fuel (still want such a car ?). Pipelines for liquid H2 might also be problematic.
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Whenever hydrogen gets discussed, someone always starts banging on (PI) about how horribly dangerous it is, yet they see no problem with the MUCH more horribly dangerous petrol, because its been a familiar part of life for 100 years or so.
They make NAPALM with it, y'know?
That's a clue..
Skunkworks looked at this when working on a hydrogen-fuelled U2 replacement, and concluded there was no safety issue relative to existing jet kerosene.
Jet kerosene is a lot less dangerous than petrol.
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