The Chocolate Fireguard as designed by Mercedes Benz

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Chaps seem to be assuming that tomorrows world will be much the same as today, and much the same as it was before. Not so, many things are changing.

In the good old days electricity was cheaper overnight because it was difficult to start-up and shutdown coal burning generating plant. Like Nuclear, coal is best run flat out. If you are running an expensive coal power station it makes sense to sell the output at maximum rates when demand is high and to discount prices heavily when no-one wants energy. You can reduce financial losses by encouraging people to change their behaviour by selling energy cheap when it suits the supplier.

In yesteryear the way electricity was generated and used meant off-peak was overnight, hence Economy 7 and other easily metered rates based on clocks. Today green energy is a major contributor; green energy is cheap, but it peaks and troughs with the weather. Now 'off-peak' doesn't depend on the clock – it's whenever surplus energy happens to available. Now it's not beyond the wit of man to change the rate a meter charges for power on the fly, by taking into account the balance of supply and demand. Nor would be it difficult for a customer to arrange car recharging only when the meter tells him it's cheap. Also, the car battery could also be used to return energy to the grid thus supplying the network as well as being a consumer. The smart meter would credit the customer for any reverse flow.

When steam railways started replacing canal barges many old chaps had a fit of the vapours. Similar reaction when cars and lorries started replacing horses, and electric lighting replaced gas. Many explanations for why the latest newfangled nonsense could not possibly work. Anything that threatens the value of my lifetime's experience is unacceptable. Actually, while we moan, look for the brakes and try and turn the clock back, youngsters adapt to whatever today's problem is.

It seems fairly clear that we are seeing the end of internal combustion cars, and generally solving all our problems by burning fossil fuels. Not just cars and electricity, no-one has commented on the forum yet about gas boilers being banned from 2025…

There are several reasons for breaking with carbon. Health, biodiversity and Global Warming apart, I'm expecting the cost of fossil fuels to rise sharply over the next 20 years or so. Any country that still relies on cheap fossil fuels after that will be utterly stuffed. We replaced whale oil with mineral oils, now we need a plan for replacing fossilised carbon…

Dave

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I'm not surprised no-one has commented as it is a total pipe dream. I use a lot more energy as gas than I do as electricity, more than double, and whilst I realise that heat pumps have a coeff of performance such that I can get out around twice the heat as electricity going in that means I will double my electricity consumption. Where is this extra electricity to come from? Perhaps we should burn the gas I'm not going to be using in my boiler in a power station to produce the electricity, but I can't help feeling that this would finish up producing more CO2 as gas to electricity is much less efficient than gas to heat. If they do manage to ban new gas boilers the trade in repairing old ones will thrive. Ground source heat pumps might be all very well if you have a big garden, what if you live in a terraced house with only a small back yard, or even a tower block

There is a proposal to use old mine shafts as an energy storage system, have a 1000 te weight suspended in the shaft and use it like a giant grandfather clock drive to store energy. Sounds OK until you do the sums, the deepest coal mine in the UK were about 1000m deep, and so you'd need over 1000 such setups to equal one Dinorwig, and the winding gear to lift this 1000 te weight through 1000 m would be a thing of awesome wonder

Time for politicians to get real, build some nuclear stations (with government money, stop trying to get private industry to predict future price of electricity for the next 50 years). Then ban the sale of electric space heaters, fan fires etc and fine people for leaving unnecessary lights on all night in office blocks or building floodlights.

There again these are the politicians who encouraged people to burn wood in inner city areas, and encouraged me to buy a diesel car, so I'm not holding my breath

[RMAParticipant @rma]

Politicians getting real?????That'll be the day, none of them have a clue about anything, but they will do anything to get votes, so maybe the hysteria will calm down and some common sense might come into the global discussions.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by not done it yet on 07/05/2019 15:09:11:

Ha ha ha!

…

There are EVs out there costing less than the "luxury tax" band and travelling nearer to 5 miles for each kWh used by the vehicle. Only supercars will use leccy at the rate quoted (by whoever knows nowt about them, above).

…

Yeah, there's a laugh. The Nissan Leaf does about 3.6 – and that's a manufacturer's figure, and we've learned over the last don't know how many years how seriously to take those for real-world driving.

Of course it's clear that things are going to have to change, but it's foolish to pretend it'll be easy fun. Look at the anger and intolerance over Brexit, and imagine what'll happen if people actually can't keep their homes warm, get to work or their food suppliers when they need to. Of course there are possible remedies and workarounds, but it'll take a level of political competence and co-operation we've not seen since the 40s to make sure they're fairly and promptly applied.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Are all the changes that are being proposed a step too far too soon, it’s great to desire an electric powered utopia but it needs to be handled sensitively and intelligently, not sure that will happen, we all witnessed what happened with the introduction of the poll tax ( I am not making a political statement just illustrating how sudden change can precipitate unwanted consequences), I want a cleaner environment to live in, air pollution is a major issue, living on the South Coast we suffer from an extraordinarily high level of air pollution, I blame the French for it, you would expect that a coastal area would have clean sea air, not so here in East Sussex. How much real difference is the advent of all electric vehicles going to change this, I suspect not a lot.

Dave W

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

It took just over ten years for internal combustion cars to effectively replace horses.

Why should it take much longer for electric cars to do the same to internal combustion cars?

Also, why do so many folks insist on shouting that the 'bumblebee can't fly' when we have on this very forum a number of people happily using electric cars without going bankrupt or seeing their houses burn down overnight?

All the technical challenges of making practical electric cars have been overcome. What remains are:

• Scaling production with the commensurate reduction in cost.
• Rolling out charging infrastructure.
• Developing practical, affordable models for battery leasing for people on low incomes (bear in mind electricity+lease doesn't need to be cheaper than, say, diesel cost).
• Standardisation in cartridge batteries would be sensible so quick swapping (and charging out of the car) becomes possible
• Development of a healthy secondhand market

Neil

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

In the days following the 'discovery' of North Sea gas I can remember 'lobbying' Austin Mitchell to restrict

the use of that resource to UK domestic heating only ( efficiency 90% ). Thereby securing 200+years of supply.

Fat chance ! Instead we waste it in a few decades by using it to make electricity ( efficiency 40- 66% max).

All gone, nearly.

[doubletopParticipant @doubletop]

We all know that electric vehicles in one form or other are here to stay. Every day we hear the virtues of this technology or that and benefits and features of one manufacturers approach as opposed to another’s

So, like any project, we’ve seen the brief, we’ve got some sort of business case, we are seeing the proof of concept, you can go and buy one. What we haven’t seen is any solid on-going forecasts or plans for how this is going to play out long term, particularly for the power infrastructure. Which is the point I’ve been making and we are now discussing.

I agree; my calculations are very ‘fag packet’ I cobbled them together from the information I had available, just to make the point. I could well be way off. I would expect that the power companies are working on this but would suspect that the answer could be too unpalatable to be made public. No doubt there are a number of our members from the power industry. Are they aware of anything in the public domain that they can share with us particularly around power consumption forecasting for the introduction of EV’s?

Maybe we should lobby the IET and get them to do an issue of Engineering and Technology (E&T) on the subject?

[JonParticipant @jon]

Not to mention CO2 produced in the building of each electric cars battery is equivalent to driving a petrol powered car around for 8 years!

Quoted mileage from full charge is never anything like, knock off cold weather, wet and night use may see 1/3 drop the norm and thats about 5 months of the year.
Ok for those that can charge daily and do limited mileage.

Lastly take the exorbitant electric cars cost and knock off that cost in electric used to do mileage then factor in new battery every few years approx £5000.

Cmon take a business trip to south coast 200 mile each way. Petrol and diesel there in 3hrs non stop. Electric you wont make it needing at least half the capacity charge again just to get there, that trip is now well over 4 hrs and extra hours labour lost for each employee per journey.

All i can see is AA and RAC called out to boost charge vehicles stranded.

As is nothing adds up but can have fun in petrol and diesels still. Mines £120 tax and an hybrid turbo

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Posted by Jon on 07/05/2019 22:58:44:

Not to mention CO2 produced in the building of each electric cars battery is equivalent to driving a petrol powered car around for 8 years!

Quoted mileage from full charge is never anything like, knock off cold weather, wet and night use may see 1/3 drop the norm and thats about 5 months of the year.
Ok for those that can charge daily and do limited mileage.

Lastly take the exorbitant electric cars cost and knock off that cost in electric used to do mileage then factor in new battery every few years approx £5000.

Cmon take a business trip to south coast 200 mile each way. Petrol and diesel there in 3hrs non stop. Electric you wont make it needing at least half the capacity charge again just to get there, that trip is now well over 4 hrs and extra hours labour lost for each employee per journey.

All i can see is AA and RAC called out to boost charge vehicles stranded.

As is nothing adds up but can have fun in petrol and diesels still. Mines £120 tax and an hybrid turbo

I suppose you could stick a petrol / diesel genny in the boot to help out ??

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Jon,

Not everyone needs to drive a Tesla model S (which would easily get to a 200 mile destination without stopping). So no difference! There are now Hyundia and Kia models with a range far in excess of 200 miles (over 250). Again, no problem. Just recharge, In about an hour, at the destination, to get home without further stops.

The Hyundai Ioniq will travel as much as 174 miles (6.2 miles per kWh). I expect the average is lower, but nowhere near the rediculous 1 1/2 miles quoted in a previous post! The latest model quotes 4.8m/kWh which should be easily attainable. Yes, real mileage is less than the quoted figures in winter, but newer models fare better than your estimate of only 2/3rds. Summer mileage can easily exceed the quoted figures by an appreciable margin, too. It rather depends on the skill of the driver a lot of the time!

Electric vehicles are improving all the time. They will soon be all-round better than the fossil burners.

They can accelerate so much better, already.

They can recover energy when going downhill or slowing down – fossil burners simply waste all that energy via the brakes.

They are less noisy.

Servicing costs are far less than fossil burners.

No engine and gearbox to fail – electric motors and the fixed reduction gear are very reliable.

No variable ratio gearboxes to build.

Overall, far simpler and cheaper to run. The initial costings will be sorted out and they will soon be no more expensive than ICE cars due to economy of scale (more EVS, so reduced manufacturing costs – while ICE versions will get more expensive, in part due to reduced production numbers).

Fmes,

Sure the battery does cost quite a bit, (but far less than your suggestion, I expect), but technology is improving and costs are reducing (by apparently 70% in the last six years).

However they are recyclable – so do not disappear into the atmosphere (like burning fossil fuels – causing further damage to the environment). They will still be around in 100 years time unless the technology changes, which it will undoubtedly do).

Many batteries are already being re-used as simple storage as there is lots of life in them after they become too reduced in capacity for automotive use. There will clearly be a burgeoning industry in recycling these batteries as they become more universal – we are supposed to dispose of small lithium ion batteries for recycling already – but many are too lazy to do that.

Have a read of this report to get yourself up to date with the technology:

**LINK**

Many reports are, to some extent, biased, as this one is, but there are plenty out there – you just need to take a balanced view. Just stop listening to Trump (his support for the coal electricity generation in the US seems to have misfired and the clever money is on renewables). Don’t act like a climate change denier!

The BMW i-3 REX did have a range extending engine/generator built in – so nothing new there. They have since reduced availability of that option, I believe.

Remember, there is more energy arriving at the Earth, from our star about 150 million km distant, than we will ever need (at current energy usage worldwide). We are only just beginning to capture and convert some of that energy to electricity. Unless we stop polluting our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the human race, as we know it may well be doomed to extinction. Coal, oil and natural gas are finite in supply, so should be used more sensibly than they are currently. You should be considering your grandchildren and theirs. We will be gone in another generation or three.

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

A good friend has had a Nissan Leaf for about a year. He basically likes it. He has a home charging unit.
Officially, the range is about 160mls, but speeds greater than 50mph, weather conditions requiring heater or air-con, etc. etc., can reduce that to less than 130m. Short journeys are fine, but long ones require planning.

There is another caveat – when there is only about 15mls charge left there is a warning message. With only 8mls left the top speed is reduced to about 20mph. This could be embarrassing on a motorway.

He recently had to drive to a destination about 140 miles away. With about 30m left "in the tank" he decided to refill at a motorway service station. It was a very sunny day and he couldn't read the display on the charge unit. He phoned the provider he said "No problem, just use this website." He couldn't get an internet connection, so he looked up the nearest Nissan dealer with a charging unit. After verifying that they were open he drove the 15m in the wrong direction, only to find that it wasn't a 1hr charger. They directed him to another place (another 5m drive) where he found that the 1hr charger was in use. He waited and finally got the full charge, but the extra mileage and time added 3hrs to the journey; or 2hrs more than the originally expected 1hr charge. The return journey was less eventful, but still needed a stop to re-charge.

Interestingly, the so-called 1hr charger only fills to about 92%, with the last 8% requiring an extra 25mins. This is to protect the battery from over heating.

From a logistics point of view, how would drivers without home chargers actually cope? Where would all the required charge units be located? Many of the small streets in my town are lined with parked cars day and night. None of them would have a home charger. It takes about 10mins to fill a car with liquid fuel, and that is likely to last for about 400miles. For an electrical car, the same 400 miles will need in excess of 3hrs charging time. How can that possibly work? How many commuters could afford to spend an hour or so every 100-130 miles to charge their car? Assuming that they didn't have to wait (possibly an hour or so) to get to a charging unit.

[doubletopParticipant @doubletop]

Posted by not done it yet on 08/05/2019 10:40:25:

Jon,

…………

The Hyundai Ioniq will travel as much as 174 miles (6.2 miles per kWh). I expect the average is lower, but nowhere near the rediculous 1 1/2 miles quoted in a previous post! The latest model quotes 4.8m/kWh which should be easily attainable. Yes, real mileage is less than the quoted figures in winter, but newer models fare better than your estimate of only 2/3rds. Summer mileage can easily exceed the quoted figures by an appreciable margin, too. It rather depends on the skill of the driver a lot of the time!

So 174 miles at 6.2 miles per kWh is 28.06kWh from a 240v supply 116.9Ahrs. As 35amps have been quoted, as a charging rate, that's 3.35hrs to recharge.

We are not being Luddites here, we know something needs to be done and EV's look to be a promising solution. But the point being made is what is the plan to harness whatever energy source is going to be used and build the infrastructure to get the power to where people will need it?

There does seem to be a lot of “trust us” “she’ll be right” but not a lot of detail about any practical engineered solutions, short, medium or long term

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Gary in respect of the streets lined with cars, unless a miraculous form of recharging in the streets is found and installed, albeit at great cost, then I fear far fewer households will have access to owning an EV in the future. The infrastructure for recharging some 30 million cars daily will require massive expenditure and installation, there is no doubt that EV’s will replace the internal combustion engined vehicles of today but there will be a huge social cost and dissatisfaction because there will be those at the lower end of vehicle ownership who will be excluded from ownership because of the impracticality of costs. I have yet see how freight transport will cope with EV recharging be it on long distance haulage or just the local deliveries of our online shopping where most delivery rounds are 8 to 10 hours continuous running. If the development of the EV revolution is going to be administered by politicians than I fear the going is going to be tough. No one as yet has ventured to mention how much all the infrastructure will cost, the only ones paying will be us, joe public. Dave W

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

I'm amazed that we ever moved away from horse-drawn transport. When you look at the insuperable difficulties of the cost of early motor transport, available only to the wealthy, the need to establish an entire supply chain from exploration through extraction and processing then distribution of the necessary fuel and other infrastructure, it's a wonder that it ever took off at all.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Horses are easy to recycle, they must be one of the earliest totally recyclable modes of transport.

Mike

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

A colleague at work showed me a picture of a EV charging station at a motorway service station, behind the charging stations and connected to them, was a very large silent running diesel generator separated by a discrete hedge…..

Regards

Derek

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by derek hall 1 on 08/05/2019 12:14:45:

A colleague at work showed me a picture of a EV charging station at a motorway service station, behind the charging stations and connected to them, was a very large silent running diesel generator separated by a discrete hedge…..

.

I suppose we could call that a 'distributed modular hybrid'

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Here is the pitch from e-on **LINK**

https://www.eonenergy.com/business/electric-vehicle-charging.html

MichaelG.

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Posted by not done it yet on 08/05/2019 10:40:25:

Jon,

Not everyone needs to drive a Tesla model S (which would easily get to a 200 mile destination without stopping). So no difference! There are now Hyundia and Kia models with a range far in excess of 200 miles (over 250). Again, no problem. Just recharge, In about an hour, at the destination, to get home without further stops.

The Hyundai Ioniq will travel as much as 174 miles (6.2 miles per kWh). I expect the average is lower, but nowhere near the rediculous 1 1/2 miles quoted in a previous post! The latest model quotes 4.8m/kWh which should be easily attainable. Yes, real mileage is less than the quoted figures in winter, but newer models fare better than your estimate of only 2/3rds. Summer mileage can easily exceed the quoted figures by an appreciable margin, too. It rather depends on the skill of the driver a lot of the time!

Electric vehicles are improving all the time. They will soon be all-round better than the fossil burners.

They can accelerate so much better, already.

They can recover energy when going downhill or slowing down – fossil burners simply waste all that energy via the brakes.

They are less noisy.

Servicing costs are far less than fossil burners.

No engine and gearbox to fail – electric motors and the fixed reduction gear are very reliable.

No variable ratio gearboxes to build.

Overall, far simpler and cheaper to run. The initial costings will be sorted out and they will soon be no more expensive than ICE cars due to economy of scale (more EVS, so reduced manufacturing costs – while ICE versions will get more expensive, in part due to reduced production numbers).

Fmes,

Sure the battery does cost quite a bit, (but far less than your suggestion, I expect), but technology is improving and costs are reducing (by apparently 70% in the last six years).

However they are recyclable – so do not disappear into the atmosphere (like burning fossil fuels – causing further damage to the environment). They will still be around in 100 years time unless the technology changes, which it will undoubtedly do).

Many batteries are already being re-used as simple storage as there is lots of life in them after they become too reduced in capacity for automotive use. There will clearly be a burgeoning industry in recycling these batteries as they become more universal – we are supposed to dispose of small lithium ion batteries for recycling already – but many are too lazy to do that.

Have a read of this report to get yourself up to date with the technology:

**LINK**

Many reports are, to some extent, biased, as this one is, but there are plenty out there – you just need to take a balanced view. Just stop listening to Trump (his support for the coal electricity generation in the US seems to have misfired and the clever money is on renewables). Don’t act like a climate change denier!

The BMW i-3 REX did have a range extending engine/generator built in – so nothing new there. They have since reduced availability of that option, I believe.

Remember, there is more energy arriving at the Earth, from our star about 150 million km distant, than we will ever need (at current energy usage worldwide). We are only just beginning to capture and convert some of that energy to electricity. Unless we stop polluting our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the human race, as we know it may well be doomed to extinction. Coal, oil and natural gas are finite in supply, so should be used more sensibly than they are currently. You should be considering your grandchildren and theirs. We will be gone in another generation or three.

Sorry, I don't recall saying anything about battery costs, may have been Jon?

I will add one bit though – Mercedes Blue Efficiency models recapture heat from braking and convert it to electricity to off load the alternator.

Regards

Edited By FMES on 08/05/2019 14:42:56

[Graham TitmanParticipant @grahamtitman81812]

My dealer rang me up and asked if i would like a test drive in a electric car i asked him what it would be like for towing he quickly apologized for troubling me and very quickly put the phone down

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Tesla are claiming to be cutting the price of battery manufacture towards $100/KWH capacity. Their newest Model3 long range has a 75KWH pack built so that sections can be replaced if there's a problem and with a range of over 300 miles and an 8yr warranty. Not only that but their latest superchargers (being upgraded slowly) will be able to tank them up at peak rates of 250KW. Recharging from low to 80% in half an hour. the top 20% time slows more to do with pack balancing than heat issues.

The right hand drive version isn't available yet but popular amongst new buyers in regions it's available. It'll probably cost around £45K here unless you want all the fancy extras.

Yes they're still expensive but the newest models are being designed for a 1 million mile lifespan of heavy usage. My model S is supposed to be good for 300K+ miles with minimal attention (we'll see..)

I apologise for beating the Tesla drum again but of all the EV's out there it is the most practical except for simple short daily commutes where cheaper option will be fine. Power usage depends on many factors.. how you drive, the weight of the vehicle, temperature, other power usage of computers, cameras, heaters etc. If memory serves they claim 97% efficiency on their latest motor design. Many of the manufacturers claims on range just don't wash in real-world usage.

As for driving from east Anglia to Wales and back, say 250 miles each way? Well i can't speak for you guys but i'd have to stop and pee at least once each way and that's an opportunity for a degree of top-up for the car and a leg stretch. There's not many family cars that can do 500 miles without refuelling unless driven very carefully.

My offer stands that if anyone wants to come and have a play they'll see how nice the thing is to drive with zero labouring up hills and very little need for the brake pedal with the regen system. Yes it has it's issues on long trips. here to London and stay with daughter means topping up (perhaps heathrow or oxford services) so there's enough power for parking up a few days and getting back to a supercharger Yes i could use an alternative charger but they really are slow in comparison but can get one out of a range hole.

Indeed they are better suited for California where folk wealthy enough to own one likely have substantial solar arrays on their house too. They're also hugely popular in Norway where power is mostly hydro.

pgk

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by pgk pgk on 08/05/2019 15:31:42:

There's not many family cars that can do 500 miles without refuelling unless driven very carefully.

Most diesel ones.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 08/05/2019 16:14:38:

Posted by pgk pgk on 08/05/2019 15:31:42:

There's not many family cars that can do 500 miles without refuelling unless driven very carefully.

Most diesel ones.

My 3.0l petrol automatic Omega would easily manage more than 400miles on a tankfull. And it was comfortable enough that I didn't need to stop in that distance either.

We all need to accept that EVs won't properly replace ALL current vehicles, although they are getting much better for many users.

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

This Friday I'm driving from Bedford to Ballachulish a distance of 440 miles, I will be most disappointed if I have to refuel along the way, I expect to have fuel left to get me to Fort William on Saturday morning.

Martin P

Edited By martin perman on 08/05/2019 16:52:55

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