Joining the electric car club

If you want to argue against EVs use real arguments. Like lifecycle CO2 or raw materials. Using power gen for 2 weeks of the year in the second most polluting country in europe isn’t helpful, it’s the sort of thing the Daily Mail does.

Oneball said:

If you want to argue against EVs use real arguments. Like lifecycle CO2 or raw materials. Using power gen for 2 weeks of the year in the second most polluting country in europe isn’t helpful, it’s the sort of thing the Daily Mail does.

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The real arguemnt was as I said, for periods of time even the fuelling of them is more carbon dense. They arent ready

P R said:

The real arguemnt was as I said, for periods of time even the fuelling of them is more carbon dense. They arent ready

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Again it isn’t. The real argument is for 2 weeks in Germany in the middle of a war in Ukraine the fuelling is more carbon dense.

What you’re saying is the equivalent of wear a bikini in Svarlbard because for periods of time it’s 20c

The real argument which is the CO2 footprint from production is rarely considered.

Secondly, as most people on here admit, they’re bought as a tax-efficient purchase. People bought them as they’re considered cheap to fuel and tax (both increasing). Running costs must factor in depreciation which is eye-watering on some/most EV’s.

It’s considered that over 4 years a Tesla 3 will lose £1k pcm, so if that is money-saving they’d have to have been driving some exotica as their previous car. A lot are bought on PCP/lease (98%) so when they’re dumped into the system in 10 weeks time watch the values fall through the floor. Same for Taycans, E-Trons, EQC’s and so on. Novelty’s worn off, those who really wanted one have one, and the market for them won’t improve until prices are significantly reduced.

Oneball said:

To get an ICE equivalent you’d have to pick a supercharged Range Rover towing a 3.5t trailer over the alps in the middle of a blizzard.

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... and running on anthracite.

The lifetime figures produced by the likes of Volvo (that give carbon breakevens around 60k miles) do include embodied carbon from production. The comparisons between grid CO2 and tailpipe CO2 are also a bit misleading. There is the embodied carbon of the drilling, recovering refining and transport to point of use of the petrol. None of these numbers consider that. It’s fairly abundant that even for fossil fuel generation the transportation of fuel to a single point of use (power station) is much less carbon intensive than distributing it to be decanted into individual vehicles. This is also the elephant in the room of mass adoption of hydrogen for personal transport.

The other point to consider is that the vast majority of comparisons like those above compare the current energy mix, but not the energy mix variation over the (probably) 15-20 year life span of a vehicle. So even if, right now, the emissions are comparable as an ICE engine ages it will stay the same or get worse due to wear and tear, where a BEV will get better as the grid decarbonises, potentially down to zero in that timeframe.

Add to that developments like the dual chemistry battery being deployed by Out Next Energy will give proven 700 mile range with a chemistry that eliminates Cobalt and reduces nickel and graphite by 75%.

It is, genuinely and disappointingly, all over for ICE in efficiency terms. All the twisting and turning around embodied carbon and grid mixes cannot hide the fact that ICE is very close to its (very poor) peak efficiency, while there are still big leaps in electric vehicle tech to come, and they are already at least a match. And has been said before, 85% of the population don’t know or care what makes their boring metal box move forward, so let them have it.

Petrol engines are still awesome, so just like horses are an inefficient way of turning food into forward motion and turds, there will, I hope, always be space for a petrol car, with the great white hope of e-fuels to boot.

"As of this month, the cumulative loss for the last 12 months means the Model S has lost £17,916"

Ye gods, you can get a seriously good QPV for £17k - and they don't induce range anxiety.

dickygrace said:

The real argument which is the CO2 footprint from production is rarely considered.

Secondly, as most people on here admit, they’re bought as a tax-efficient purchase. People bought them as they’re considered cheap to fuel and tax (both increasing). Running costs must factor in depreciation which is eye-watering on some/most EV’s.

It’s considered that over 4 years a Tesla 3 will lose £1k pcm, so if that is money-saving they’d have to have been driving some exotica as their previous car. A lot are bought on PCP/lease (98%) so when they’re dumped into the system in 10 weeks time watch the values fall through the floor. Same for Taycans, E-Trons, EQC’s and so on. Novelty’s worn off, those who really wanted one have one, and the market for them won’t improve until prices are significantly reduced.

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well said and eventually the government will need to heavily tax EV's anyway, otherwise how else are they to regain the lost revenue from ice cars and the fuel etc, and another thing i cant see the charging infrastructure being in place by 2030, how the **** are flat dwellers supposed to charge their cars from home, think about it, 20/30 residents all owning cars and all needing to charge their own cars overnight ?????

It just be easier to produce CO2 free energy at point of generation, i.e. a power station, regardless of the fuel it's building there are ways to reduce the CO2 produced or at least output. Trying to do this in individual ICEs is never going to be effective despite all the tech put into new cars.

However the cost of production of new vehicles, EVs or ICE is surely the bigger issue the only difference is that maybe EV lifespan is shorter.

lifes2short said:

well said and eventually the government will need to heavily tax EV's anyway, otherwise how else are they to regain the lost revenue from ice cars and the fuel etc, and another thing i cant see the charging infrastructure being in place by 2030, how the **** are flat dwellers supposed to charge their cars from home, think about it, 20/30 residents all owning cars and all needing to charge their own cars overnight ?????

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To be fair, I don't fill my car with petrol overnight either. I go to a fuel station. In a one-day work where EV drivers can fill up a battery fast at a fuel station then that's precisely what many of them will do.

Ewan said:

To make a real difference, let's get shipping moved over to MSAR fuel from Quadrise Fuels PLC. Why this hasn't taken off is beyond me. Seems like a no-brainer and something Governments should be forcing the shipping companies to adopt. And if they did, it would do wonders for the value of my shares in the company!!!

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Isn't this a case of inventing something that is an improvement of what is currently being used, yet it still isn't 'green' whereas biofuels are?
There's a huge amount of money going into biofuels for both shipping and aviation at the moment. With the likes of Maersk signing up every biofuel contract they can get their hands on and all of the large airlines wanting the same for aviation fuel.

Felonious Crud said:

To be fair, I don't fill my car with petrol overnight either. I go to a fuel station. In a one-day work where EV drivers can fill up a battery fast at a fuel station then that's precisely what many of them will do.

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exactly, we all fill up our cars when we need to because that's how it is for ice cars and it takes a few minutes to fill up, thought the idea was to charge at home otherwise you would be shafted by the tariff at fuel stations, i simply cant get to grips with thousands of flat dwellers, h0ome owners with only communal parking etc etc nationwide charging up at fuel stations in the morning and the infrastructure being in place by 2030 for that ?

by the way, how fast can the batteries be charged at petrol stations ??

lifes2short said:

exactly, we all fill up our cars when we need to because that's how it is for ice cars and it takes a few minutes to fill up, thought the idea was to charge at home otherwise you would be shafted by the tariff at fuel stations, i simply cant get to grips with thousands of flat dwellers, h0ome owners with only communal parking etc etc nationwide charging up at fuel stations in the morning and the infrastructure being in place by 2030 for that ?

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Doesn’t need to be in place by 2030 for two reasons:

1 they’re not scrapping every ICE car ever made
2 you’ll still be able to buy a hybrid and fill it with petrol.

Oneball said:

2 you’ll still be able to buy a hybrid and fill it with petrol.

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Yep. They don't get banned until 2035.

There were some interesting numbers in the paper yesterday that BEV ownership is likely to increase at a far greater rate than charging stations are deployed.

I think we're heading in the right direction, and probably shouldn't be distracted but as with everything (yes even the ICE vehicle. I mean who's going to run all the chemists so these crazy people can buy their petrol!) there are going to be challenges

C

DLax69 said:

Well, parts of Italy still use horses and carts (my father was born in Calabria!).

I don't know this, and have no dog in this fight (except to hope that the same technology that powers my leaf blower also isn't also the sole technology available to take my geriatric a$$ to Sunday dinner two score hence)...but what about the cost to build an EV/ship an EV to point of sale vs. ICE cars? That also needs to be part of the math, correct?

Also...am now going to the "Differences" thread to post a question about "man maths." Thanks.

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The correct co2 comparison is complicated and dependent on lifetime use, location of resources used, location of production, distance to end market and life span of vehicles in km. So a combination of fixed and variable costs which means you need to calculate emissions per km based on an assumed lifetime average usage of a vehicle.

ICE:
Fixed:
emissions of sourcing materials & building an ICE car & transport to destination (per average lifetime km usage) less any recovery from recycling

Variable:
emissions of prospecting for oil (per liter fuel over lifetime usage)
emissions of building oil platform/well/storage facility (per liter fuel over lifetime usage)
emissions of operating the oil platform/well (per liter fuel)
emissions of oil transport to refinery (production & operation) (per liter fuel)
emissions of building refinery (per liter fuel over lifetime usage)
emissions of operating refinery incl. actual refinery process (per liter fuel)
emissions of transport to fuel station including production cost of transport method (per liter fuel)
emissions of building fuel station (per liter fuel over lifetime usage)
emissions of operating fuel station (per liter fuel)
emissions of average extra km’s made travelling to fuel stations to fill up (per liter fuel)

phew…. And then of course the emissions per km of the car/engine which is the number we see published and which then is only one part or the equation.

EV:
Fixed:
emissions of sourcing materials & building an EV car & transport to destination (per average lifetime km usage) less any recovery from recycling

Variable:
emissions of building the power plant (per KWh over lifetime)
emissions of operating the power plant incl. actual power generation process (per KWh - this one is the crux of course)
emissions of producing/transporting/prospecting fuel mix for power plant (per KWh)
emissions of building distribution network (per KWh over lifetime)
emissions of operating distribution network (per KWh)
emissions of extra km’s made travelling to charging stations (per KWh)

Oneball said:

Doesn’t need to be in place by 2030 for two reasons:

1 they’re not scrapping every ICE car ever made
2 you’ll still be able to buy a hybrid and fill it with petrol.

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i get that, but clearly the government want everyone to be in ev's eventually and encouraging the public to buy ev's, but there's been no talk by the government as far as i know about how they will tackle the task of updating all the cabling infrastructure, the huge load requirements when everyone is charging overnight etc, if everyone went out and bought an ev now or in the next few years there would be mayhem at charging points and probably a good few fisticuffs as well

lifes2short said:

by the way, how fast can the batteries be charged at petrol stations ??

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From what I understand it depends on the charging system. The 'old' (slower) chargers can take up to an hour to get 100-200 miles of range.
The newer 'fast chargers' can take between 20-30 minutes to get the same range.
There are 'super fast' (wonder if Ferrari with call copyright on the name) chargers which are coming in that can do the same range in around 10 minutes.

Obviously the super fast chargers will cost more (time's money and all that) but it will make the EV more palatable for some. But then how many super fast chargers will be installed? as they're not cheap.

GeoffCapes said:

Obviously the super fast chargers will cost more (times money and all that) but it will make the EV more palatable for some. But then how many super fast chargers will be installed? as they're not cheap.

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and the public will be shafted at the charging points, there needs to be a huge number of charging stations as far as i can see to accommodate folk that cannot charge at home otherwise can you imagine the queues building up especially when more and more people buy ev's and a wait time of 20/30 minutes