Volvo

[Chippy_Tea]

To go all electric or hybrid by 2030 which sounds great for the environment but what about the batteries, they are saying they cannot be recycled if this is true then it's hardly the green option.

Where I live an electric car would be pointless as I have no way of charging it in my street and the hybrids range on the petrol engine is a joke.

 

[Gunge]

They ought to be bloody well ashamed of themselves and lose all sales. Who wants an electric car except tree-huggers fercrissake? Looks like my time will be coming to an end to coincide with the death of the internal combustion engine, way things are going. Good.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I have driven a hydrid and they are good but if we are going green having an engine to power the car when the battery runs out is not really the answer, I guess they assume by 2030 battery technology will have moved on a lot and miles per charge and charging times will be a lot better than they are today.

 

[Linalmeemow]

To go all electric or hybrid by 2030 which sounds great for the environment but what about the batteries, they are saying they cannot be recycled if this is true then it's hardly the green option.

Where I live an electric car would be pointless as I have no way of charging it in my street and the hybrids range on the petrol engine is a joke.

That's not exactly how hybrids work - the electric motor only works below a certain speed (30 mph in the Prius I had) and is used to get you moving. If I understand correctly it's the initial acceleration from a standing start that is the most thirsty in a standard combustion engine. Once you hit 30mph or so the petrol engine kicks in. The battery is recharged every time you touch the brake, so you never have to plug it in anywhere.

Of course with all-electric cars (the Nissan Leaf for example) you DO have to plug them in every day.

 

[Gunge]

They sound like ****, don't smell and are as far removed from the spirit of the motor car as is possible to get. "Well yah we're saving the planet". And???? Total cobblers anyway. How's the electricity generated and everything that goes into making the batteries / cars / transportation of them from source etc etc etc?

 

[Clint]

In work we were involved in some pioneering work for hydrogen cell batteries for use in cars. The company also manufacture the platinum cat on exhaust systems so they could probably see this coming.
I would say though unless all these components are made in one place what's the point? Most parts will be made in China where there are no pollution or health and safety laws as such....green my ****!

 

[Vambrace]

I drove an electric car for 5 years (1998-2003) and it was utterly ****. I literally left it in a car park at the side of the road and walked home, called the garage to tell them where it was and never saw it again. I've rarely been more pleased to see the last of something.

Presumably they've improved significantly in the intervening 19 years but I'll take some convincing.

 

[Croni486]

I have a few electric and hybrid vehicles (approx. 35%) on the fleet that I run.

Overall the electric ones have been pretty good for us and are used daily. The only issue is staff not listening to advice on how to maximise their range. I took one from Edinburgh to Silverstone last year and blogged about it for our intranet. The drive went OK and luckily managed to get into a working charging station when required. It did take me 10 hours to get down there but I was being paid for it.

Hybrid vehicles are hit and miss, I have a number of Mitsubishi Outlanders that can do 70MPH on battery power but at that speed you get nowhere near the 30 mile range. Once this is used you are down to approx. 30-32 MPG running around using the 2 Ltr petrol engine. I visited Mitsubishi prior to the launch of the Outlander PHEV and they were very honest with regards to its suitability. They showed me a nice graph and basically said if you are going to do more than 80 miles in a day don't bother with the hybrid, get yourself a diesel.

The Lexus GS450 Hybrid we have is a totally different beast with a 0-60 time of under 6 secs. As it is not a plug-in hybrid its limited to operating in battery mode at lower speeds and for short periods at a time.

I was at Millbrook proving ground recently for a fleet show where I managed to drive quite a number of hybrids around the alpine track. Probably the worst one there was the Toyota's. Their use of a CVT gearbox meant that the engine was screaming its head off and was not a good match for the route.

 

[Brew_DD2]

The technology is just about there for this to be the right time to roll it out. I do love a petrol engine but we are moving on now as we did from steam.

 

[Clint]

I wonder,for the plug in types,where is all the electricity coming from? Gas,coal....nuclear power...or them great big windmills? Also how long do they take to charge? It would be a right fiasco at the filling station...then there's the countries that won't be doing the environment thing...lots of cheap cars and fuel to boot. I think there's more to it than just clean cars....

 

[Chippy_Tea]

That's not exactly how hybrids work - the electric motor only works below a certain speed (30 mph in the Prius I had) and is used to get you moving. If I understand correctly it's the initial acceleration from a standing start that is the most thirsty in a standard combustion engine. Once you hit 30mph or so the petrol engine kicks in. The battery is recharged every time you touch the brake, so you never have to plug it in anywhere.

Of course with all-electric cars (the Nissan Leaf for example) you DO have to plug them in every day.

It is for the on i read about -

Keen minds — Okay, geeks like me with no life and bored of seeing the same scenery every three weeks for 10 years — will quickly pick up that by comparing the amount of recharging (in negative kW-h/100 km) and the instantaneous fuel economy (in L/100 km), we can actually figure out how much fuel is being consumed when the i8 is using its 1.5-litre three cylinder gas engine to recharge the batteries. BMW makes this especially easy since its Comfort mode doesn’t recharge the battery using the engine and the Sport mode does. All that I had to do was cruise down the highway at a cop-avoiding 120 km/h and flip back and forth between Comfort and Sport mode, record the difference in fuel economy and I would know the “parasitic” loss associated with using a gas engine to recharge a lithium-ion battery.

 

[Dutto]

The technology is just about there for this to be the right time to roll it out. I do love a petrol engine but we are moving on now as we did from steam.

Oh, that struck a chord!

Back in the 1970's they invented a steam engined car that could be fuelled with everything from wood to peanut butter to paraffin.

If fell at the first hurdle.

Why?

Consumers just wouldn't wait for the five minutes it took to warm up the water to produce "steam"!

 

[simon12]

Just a few approximate nos efficiency=amount of potential energy converted and used:
Petrol car 20% of energy in petrol turned to power at the wheels
VS
Fossil fuel power station 50% of fuel turned to electricity (coal is 30-40% gas/oil 50-60% no idea what we use most in UK)
Losses in electricity going from power station to home 6.5% (US figure I would assume the UK being smaller this no could be)
Electric car 60% electricity turned to power at the wheels (includes charging efficiency)
Total 28% efficiency
This is very simplistic and doesn't take into account many factors including the power stations can use carbon capture and stuff so are likely much more friendly to the environment. I also think the efficiency of the cars is not directly comparable as electric cars are much more efficient when maintaining a constant speed and less when accelerating and braking all the time.

 

[Irishwizard]

Oh, that struck a chord!

Back in the 1970's they invented a steam engined car that could be fuelled with everything from wood to peanut butter to paraffin.

If fell at the first hurdle.

Why?

Consumers just wouldn't wait for the five minutes it took to warm up the water to produce "steam"!

I remember, during the fuel crisis, a guy who put a pressure cooker full of chicken droppings in his boot with a tea light under neath and fed this to the engine and it ran fine. Lots of eggs as well.

 

[Linalmeemow]

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/france-petrol-diesel-ban-vehicles-cars-2040-a7826831.html

France is getting rid of all combustion engine cars by 2040!!!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

One of the big concerns with electric cars becoming commonplace was pedestrian safety especially for blind people, looks like they have got that covered.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO1F1ssr-LI[/ame]

.

 

[Norfolk79]

Don't know what the fuss is about really, milkmen have been using electric vehicles for years! [emoji23]

 

[Chippy_Tea]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDrgfcZHmos[/ame]

 

[Norfolk79]

Surprised Top Gear didn't try that with the Stig. They did do a stupidly quick lawnmower tho.

 

[Dutto]

Youngsters won't remember the fuel crisis of 1974 but, to reduce the amount of fuel that we used, the government dropped the speed limit on a number of road types.

Motorway speed limits and dual-carriageways remained the same at 70mph and 60mph but all other roads (except those already at 40mph and 30mph) were dropped to 50mph.

This move not only reduced the UK consumption of fuel, it also resulted in a major reduction in vehicle accidents as well. :thumb:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/15/newsid_2559000/2559807.stm


BTW

Take a look at the list of links to the right of the main story and click on the one about David Blunkett where ...

"The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has resigned amid accusations
that he used his position to fast-track a visa application
for his ex-lover's nanny."​

Remember the days when Government Ministers resigned when they were found to be at fault? :whistle: :whistle:

Ah, nostalgia isn't what it used to be! :lol: :lol: