Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK from 2030 under PM's green plan

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In reality, the annual emissions from my Smart are far higher than the Mercedes as I do a 70 mile round trip to work in it every day. The Mercedes is used by my wife who's a childminder and only does About 20 miles a week.

You pay far more in petrol duty than car tax....
 
Electric vehicles will set us back to before WW2. Only the well off will be able to stay mobile. What about those who can't charge at home? A bus ride to a car park where your car's charging? Imagine if the energy could be stored in a highly efficient liquid rather than a battery? That's something that would suit everyone.
 
No, it will just mean that the excess fossil fuels will be exported cheaply to China, India, Russia, Africa etc. and used without guilt.
This was Trump's main objection to the Paris Agreement. It didn't reduce CO2 emissions and most likely increased them since through a system of exchanges less developed countries could buy carbon credits and use fossil fuels in older power stations and motor vehicles. At the same time it reduced jobs in the USA.
 
UK electricity network needs upgrading to cope with rising EV demand So the national grid will crumble with this sort of demand

Strangely enough, the National Grid tell a very different story to the Daily Mail - TLDR they're pretty relaxed about it on the capacity side - demand is down 16% since 2002 and they reckon electric cars would increase demand about 10%.

There's a bit of an issue with the timing of demand but that's easily fixed with smart charging.

Electric vehicles will set us back to before WW2. Only the well off will be able to stay mobile. What about those who can't charge at home? A bus ride to a car park where your car's charging?

Why not actually read this thread? How about the example I quoted of my relative who could lease an electric car for the price of her monthly petrol costs?

And while EVs will obviously work more easily for the people who can easily charge at home in the early days, there will be other options by 2030, from charging at work to cars self-driving to charging points overnight.
 
Strangely enough, the National Grid tell a very different story to the Daily Mail - TLDR they're pretty relaxed about it on the capacity side - demand is down 16% since 2002 and they reckon electric cars would increase demand about 10%.
I detect a certain amount of marketing guff in their piece. Clearly, they would love everyone to go electric for everything, as they would be minted. So let's look at their premise;

1. They say 100% EV's would increase electricity demand by only 10%. Mmmmm, ok, let's not dispute that for a moment, apart from to say that figure is from only one of their possible scenarios.
2. They say demand has dropped since 2002 by 16%, so, bingo! No need to worry....... except....
3. In 2002 we had loads of coal powered power stations that have been retired. These have largely been replaced by wind and solar. Not as predictable / easy to match with demand.
4. The 100% EV scenario is part of net zero. So the grid would also be increasingly asked to provide heating, cooking, and whatnot as gas is phased out. I may be wrong, but I can't see that in their numbers.

Now, if you look at the national grids Future Energy Scenarios, the one that predicts a 10% increase in demand, in fact predicts a 10% increase in demand compared with winter peak, providing there are things such as smart charging and shared autonomous vehicles. This is significant; it means much less flexibility (reduced use of rapid chargers) and the assumption that autonomous vehicles are market ready by then.


So, I've no doubt it's possible, but I don't think it's going to be a cakewalk, and people (mainly the less well off) might have to stomach noticeable reductions in flexibility and choice.

However, on a brighter note, the ability of the free market and entrepreneurs to invent solutions to unknown problems never ceases to amaze me so as long as the dullards in the government set the targets then get out of the way, we may well be ok.
 
interesting read here looks like they are not as green as in the adds It’s time to get serious about recycling lithium-ion batteries (acs.org) so its land fill for most of them

It's early days - don't forget the average car lasts around 14 years, and that article points to all the research that's being done on recycling, one company aiming to 10x capacity and so on. And it looks like modern batteries will still have 80+% of capacity when the car is scrapped, so they will be too valuable for use in grid regulation to be thrown in landfill.

Going back to the National Grid thing, here's a Top Gear interview with their EV guy. Skirts around some of the tough questions like capex for charging stations, on the other hand he's obviously been to meetings that we're not party to....

The taskforce he refers to with the 21 proposals is the Phase One Report of the Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce, which centre around three main themes - interoperability, coordination/planning and smart charging. The same page also has separate reports on supply issues, smart charging and so on.
 
UK electricity network needs upgrading to cope with rising EV demand So the national grid will crumble with this sort of demand, hydrogen is the way forward France devotes €30 billion to energy transition This is also happening in Germany and Holland

Anything on the This is Money website should be taken with a pinch of salt. It's owned by the company which publishes The Daily Mail, a publication so unreliable Wikipedia has banned it quotation as a source.
 
Anything on the This is Money website should be taken with a pinch of salt. It's owned by the company which publishes The Daily Mail, a publication so unreliable Wikipedia has banned it quotation as a source.
The Daily Mail core readership is made up of people who drive half mile to the paper shop and get under their cars every Sunday morning to do routine maintenance. A battery operated car would deny them their weekly oil change.
 
I just bought a new (to me) petrol car as someone drove into me (through a red light) 11 days ago. I didn't even consider electric but have just checked and as I suspected there are only 2 places remotely convenient for me to charge one with 4 spaces each and nothing to do while I wait for it to charge, I can't charge it at home or work. The car I bought does 65mpg combined has free road tax and still manages to get to 60mph in 9.4 seconds so should do fine until electric becomes more viable.
 
I just bought a new (to me) petrol car as someone drove into me (through a red light) 11 days ago. I didn't even consider electric but have just checked and as I suspected there are only 2 places remotely convenient for me to charge on

My next car will be a petrol (i currently run a diesel) i am looking at a 1.0L - 3 cylinder turbo petrol as you get low tax and good economy, if i could afford a new (ish) electric car i would buy one as my commute is only a few miles and i do not do the long distances i used to, i think even though i don't have my own place to charge it i could still get along fine with it as there are plenty of places to charge in my town.
 
Even if we give EVs the benefit and imagine they only consume 300Wh per mile. Each EV does a mere 8,000 miles per year. That's 300*3600*8,000 or 8,640,000,000 joules per year. Each car therefore draws a continuous average of 274 watts from the grid. so a mere 10,000,000 cars will need 2,740,000,000 watts all day ever day. Current peak demand is 61,900,000,000 watts so it's a small fraction but.....everyone will expect to charge in one hour between 6 and 7pm so we need to multiply the first figure by 24! It gives 65,760,000,000. Better cook me tea on gas in the dark.
BTW my figures are very conservative. We own more than 20,000,000 cars. Then there's trucks, busses, bikes. Then there's the fact that 300Wh per mile means you have to drive very slowly all the time. On average we cover 12,000 miles per year. We need to treble generating capacity and have reserve ability for when it's not windy. Give me a 2 stroke scooter any day. It wastes a gallon in 45 miles but who cares?
 
If we were all given a brand new EV tomorrow it would be a huge failure but as time goes on range will get better and charging will become much faster and more widely available, solar panels will become commonplace and then there is the fact most of us don't do 12000 per year and those that do wouldn't buy one, we will not charge them like we do our mobile phones we will charge them when we need to like we fuel our cars i doubt many here fill our tanks every time we use a quarter of a tank.

I posted this earlier in the thread EREV's could be the short term answer.

EREVs are essentially another type of plug-in hybrid, although the combustion engine plays a smaller part in the process than in other types of hybrid cars. The engine can’t actually drive the wheels, but is purely there to recharge the car’s battery when needed.



THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HYBRIDS, PHEVS, EVS & EXTENDED RANGE EVS (EREVS)

When it comes to the fairly new world of EVs and hybrids, there’s already more jargon than you can shake a stick at. Any vehicle that has two different types of motor can be called a hybrid, so we have mild hybrids, full-hybrids and plug-in hybrids, as well as EVs and EREVs; understanding the differences between them will help to determine the best fit for your lifestyle and driving needs.

Mild hybrid cars have a regular petrol combustion engine as well as an electric battery, with the engine being the primary source of power and the car having the ability to charge its own battery when driving using the petrol engine. The electric power in this type of hybrid is not used to actually power the car’s motion, but instead to assist the engine, giving it additional power when accelerating, for example. It improves fuel economy but does not offer any zero emissions driving at all.

Full hybrids have a larger capacity battery and an electric motor that can power the vehicle alone over very short distances, and usually only at fairly low speeds e.g. busy city driving or in traffic jams. The combustion engine in a full hybrid car does most of the work, and will kick in as soon as the car speeds up or travels as far as the battery power can take it. The battery will then recharge itself for the next time the vehicle slows down or stops. Again, fuel economy is usually the main motivation for drivers buying this type of hybrid, as it only offers a small amount of zero emissions driving.

PHEVs are hybrids that have a larger battery alongside their petrol engine; too large a battery to be recharged by the engine and regenerative braking alone, so they need to be plugged in, hence the name. The larger battery gives the PHEV the ability to travel much further and faster than a full hybrid on the electric motor alone. The 100% electric powered range in a PHEV will vary, depending on the model of car, but is usually under 30 miles, at a max speed of 70mph, at which point the petrol engine will take over and the vehicle then acts in a similar way to a full hybrid. Not only making a huge difference to petrol economy, PHEVs also offer significantly more zero emission driving than full hybrids.

EREVs are essentially another type of plug-in hybrid, although the combustion engine plays a smaller part in the process than in other types of hybrid cars. The engine can’t actually drive the wheels, but is purely there to recharge the car’s battery when needed. It is the electric motor that actually powers the car’s motion. Until the battery runs low, this type of vehicle acts just like an EV. When the battery needs additional help, the small petrol engine kicks in to recharge it as you drive, extending the range before needing to plug in again. EREVs offer considerably more zero emissions driving than the other types of hybrid and can have an electric-only range of up to 125 miles, depending on the model. Therefore, shorter journeys could be completely powered by electricity alone.
EVs only have an electric motor and their single source of power is their battery pack; thus, they offer zero emission driving 100% of the time.
 
we cover 12,000 miles per year.

Not true - the average UK car covered 7,400 miles in 2019.

We own more than 20,000,000 cars. Then there's trucks, busses, bikes.

According to the RAC :
31.6 million cars
4.1 million LGVs
0.47 million HGVs
1.3 million motorcycles
0.12 million buses & coaches
0.74 million other vehicles

But just look at the cars for the moment.


Then there's the fact that 300Wh per mile means you have to drive very slowly all the time.

Most of the cars doing the What Car? test route which is 20 miles simulating everything from urban to motorways range from 275Wh to 500Wh per mile, but most of the "average" ones seem to be a bit over 300Wh/mile on that test which I think we can assume to be representative of the average driver. The Kona could do 3.6 miles/kWh (278Wh/mile), the Tesla 3 Performance (capable of 0-60 in 3.5s) could do 2.8 miles/kWh (357Wh/mile). Call it 330Wh average by the time we're at 100% electric cars.

So call it 330*3600*7400 = 8.79GJ per car annually=279W on average, or 8.8GW on average 24/7.

Tesla are quoting <2000Wh per mile for their truck, let's say that LGVs do 600Wh/mile.

In the year to March 2020, the UK HGV fleet did 17.2 billion miles, the LGV fleet did 54.9 billion and cars and taxis did 272.1 billion. In comparison 120k buses and a million motorbikes are rounding errors.

But if that lot was 100% electric (some time after 2045 or so) then we're looking at
HGVs - 34,400GWh
LGVs - 32,940GWh
Cars/taxis - 89,973GWh
Total - 157,133GWh

So 100% electric trucks, vans and cars together require a 24/7 average of 17.93GW.

We need to treble generating capacity

No we don't. Current generation capacity is 77.92GW, compared to last year's peak of 48.815GW. We do not need 234GW of capacity.

.....everyone will expect to charge in one hour between 6 and 7pm

Why on earth would they want to do that? All people care about is that their car is ready for work the next morning, they'll just plug it in (or park over an induction coil or whatever) and leave it to the car computer to talk to the charger. If anything the electric car fleet will be net contributors to the grid at teatime, then they'll charge overnight.

1606349662733.png

If you look at the charts, you'll see that we use less than 30GW from ~10pm to 7am. So if all the trucks, vans and cars in the UK were electric, had efficiencies similar to current vehicles and were charging only between 10pm and 7am, then they'd be using 47.8GW in those 9 hours, implying a total demand of <77.8GW during that period - less than our current generation capacity.

Now obviously you can't run your entire generation system that close to full capacity in the real world, you need way more slack in the system than that. At least the numbers aren't so wildly out. But we aren't talking about 100% electrification overnight, it won't happen until 2045 or so - and a lot of electrical kit only has a 25 year lifespan, so we'll have to replace much of it anyway by the time it's needed. And for instance, much of the cost of a wind farm is actually in all the startup costs - planning permission, building roads and the bases, which don't need to be done again if you're just replacing the turbine heads when they get too old. In just the next 6 years it's planned to install another 17GW of offshore wind and 10GW of onshore wind capacity - and Carrie is talking about another 13GW of offshore wind by 2030.

(and yes, capacity is not the same as actual contribution, but last year UK offshore wind managed a load factor of 40.4%, compared to 26.6% for onshore).

So we will need a bit more capacity, but it's within plausibility - the issue is more on the transmission side and last mile.
 
If we were all given a brand new EV tomorrow it would be a huge failure but as time goes on range will get better and charging will become much faster and more widely available, solar panels will become commonplace and then there is the fact most of us don't do 12000 per year and those that do wouldn't buy one, we will not charge them like we do our mobile phones we will charge them when we need to like we fuel our cars i doubt many here fill our tanks every time we use a quarter of a tank.

I posted this earlier in the thread EREV's could be the short term answer.

EREVs are essentially another type of plug-in hybrid, although the combustion engine plays a smaller part in the process than in other types of hybrid cars. The engine can’t actually drive the wheels, but is purely there to recharge the car’s battery when needed.



THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HYBRIDS, PHEVS, EVS & EXTENDED RANGE EVS (EREVS)

When it comes to the fairly new world of EVs and hybrids, there’s already more jargon than you can shake a stick at. Any vehicle that has two different types of motor can be called a hybrid, so we have mild hybrids, full-hybrids and plug-in hybrids, as well as EVs and EREVs; understanding the differences between them will help to determine the best fit for your lifestyle and driving needs.

Mild hybrid cars have a regular petrol combustion engine as well as an electric battery, with the engine being the primary source of power and the car having the ability to charge its own battery when driving using the petrol engine. The electric power in this type of hybrid is not used to actually power the car’s motion, but instead to assist the engine, giving it additional power when accelerating, for example. It improves fuel economy but does not offer any zero emissions driving at all.

Full hybrids have a larger capacity battery and an electric motor that can power the vehicle alone over very short distances, and usually only at fairly low speeds e.g. busy city driving or in traffic jams. The combustion engine in a full hybrid car does most of the work, and will kick in as soon as the car speeds up or travels as far as the battery power can take it. The battery will then recharge itself for the next time the vehicle slows down or stops. Again, fuel economy is usually the main motivation for drivers buying this type of hybrid, as it only offers a small amount of zero emissions driving.

PHEVs are hybrids that have a larger battery alongside their petrol engine; too large a battery to be recharged by the engine and regenerative braking alone, so they need to be plugged in, hence the name. The larger battery gives the PHEV the ability to travel much further and faster than a full hybrid on the electric motor alone. The 100% electric powered range in a PHEV will vary, depending on the model of car, but is usually under 30 miles, at a max speed of 70mph, at which point the petrol engine will take over and the vehicle then acts in a similar way to a full hybrid. Not only making a huge difference to petrol economy, PHEVs also offer significantly more zero emission driving than full hybrids.

EREVs are essentially another type of plug-in hybrid, although the combustion engine plays a smaller part in the process than in other types of hybrid cars. The engine can’t actually drive the wheels, but is purely there to recharge the car’s battery when needed. It is the electric motor that actually powers the car’s motion. Until the battery runs low, this type of vehicle acts just like an EV. When the battery needs additional help, the small petrol engine kicks in to recharge it as you drive, extending the range before needing to plug in again. EREVs offer considerably more zero emissions driving than the other types of hybrid and can have an electric-only range of up to 125 miles, depending on the model. Therefore, shorter journeys could be completely powered by electricity alone.
EVs only have an electric motor and their single source of power is their battery pack; thus, they offer zero emission driving 100% of the time.
as i see it "probably the best lager in the world" is likely more accurate than "zero emission driving"
 
as i see it "probably the best lager in the world" is likely more accurate than "zero emission driving"

As i see it "probably the best car for the environment when compared to those that burn fossil fuel" is likely more accurate.
 
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