electric cars,,,,
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I believe it was a long term strategy to a manage transition to a situation where cheap energy is no longer available without it causing social turmoil and a short term strategy to manage a time where energy security was in jeopardy
I'm not trying to convert - I'm merely telling you what the thoughts of the day were
The problems with 'global warming' are far more nuanced than the cobblers the media fill our heads with
The solution(s) on offer are more about social control than they are about protecting the planet or environment
Those that pontificate about the global emergency have nothing to offer in terms of solution but plenty to offer in terms of a social and political agenda and control
I am suspicious that it is the age old tactic of inventing a wolf to herd the sheep into the pen
I don't suggest that we are not damaging the planet - I'm suggesting that most of the hot air I hear will make little difference
I also wonder what the motive is of institutions that promote agendas they know to be simplistic at best and fallacious at worst
I'm not trying to convert - I'm merely telling you what the thoughts of the day were
The problems with 'global warming' are far more nuanced than the cobblers the media fill our heads with
The solution(s) on offer are more about social control than they are about protecting the planet or environment
Those that pontificate about the global emergency have nothing to offer in terms of solution but plenty to offer in terms of a social and political agenda and control
I am suspicious that it is the age old tactic of inventing a wolf to herd the sheep into the pen
I don't suggest that we are not damaging the planet - I'm suggesting that most of the hot air I hear will make little difference
I also wonder what the motive is of institutions that promote agendas they know to be simplistic at best and fallacious at worst
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And the relevance to electric cars is?
Cheers
Bruce
Cheers
Bruce
Yeh - bit of a stretch 
Odders
Well-Known Member
I'm still waiting to hear where all the "green" electricity is going to come from unless we start building eight or ten new nuclear power plants NOW.
The two in Cumbria have been binned & private companies (apart from RR, who seem to have a very good idea) are running away from the idea.
So - 20 million electric cars, averaging say, 6,000 miles to exclude sales reps etc.
Current average is 300w/mile, so it'll need 36 Terawatt- hours just to charge those cars - not including losses.
That's a 10% increase in demand, which is equivalent to the output of seven nuclear power stations, or ALL the capacity of the UK's wind power, both on & offshore.
Then of course there's the problem of those needing to charge their vehicles every night being able to do so, plus that charging tending to happen at the same time, so we'll probably need fifteen, rather than five new nuke plants...
Oh & there's actually 33 million cars & 1.2 million motorcycles, so make that at least 20 new nuke plants, or one a year for the next 20 years (plus ten more to replace old, obsolete ones...).
The two in Cumbria have been binned & private companies (apart from RR, who seem to have a very good idea) are running away from the idea.
So - 20 million electric cars, averaging say, 6,000 miles to exclude sales reps etc.
Current average is 300w/mile, so it'll need 36 Terawatt- hours just to charge those cars - not including losses.
That's a 10% increase in demand, which is equivalent to the output of seven nuclear power stations, or ALL the capacity of the UK's wind power, both on & offshore.
Then of course there's the problem of those needing to charge their vehicles every night being able to do so, plus that charging tending to happen at the same time, so we'll probably need fifteen, rather than five new nuke plants...
Oh & there's actually 33 million cars & 1.2 million motorcycles, so make that at least 20 new nuke plants, or one a year for the next 20 years (plus ten more to replace old, obsolete ones...).
At present there are around 32.5 million cars on the roads in the UK with about 2 million new cars being registered each year.
In 2019 just 72,700 new electric cars were registered and the total number of electric cars on the UK roads is 265,000
Even allowing for rapid growth in the sales of electric vehicles (which will be slowed by the battery supply situation and the relatively high price of the vehicles) it's going to take a long, long time until there are 20 million electric cars on our roads, so there will be no sudden increase in demand for electricity
Secondly, there is already plenty generating capacity to handle the growth in electric vehicle use for many years to come.
As has been said already, most electric vehicles are charged at night when the demand on the grid is at it's lowest.
If you have an electric vehicle and you get your electricity from Octopus, then there can be times during the night when they pay you to use their electricity!!
The UK grid is also connected by undersea cables to the grid in Europe and Norway and we both buy and sell power to them as our and their demand for power fluctuates.
I happen to think that we should build a few nuclear power stations to provide a guaranteed base load and to replace the remain coal stations and some of the gas powered stations, but we don't specifically need them just because there will be an increase in electricity demand due to more electric vehicles being used.
Also, to get enough crude oil out of the ground and then turn it into 1 gallon of petrol takes about 6KWH of energy
1 gallon of petrol will drive a typical car 30-40 miles.
Your number of 300w/mile might apply to to a Jaguar I Pace or Audi E tron when being driven at motorway speeds, but an electric car equivalent to a petrol car that can do 30-40mpg, would be using somewhere between 150-200w/mile
At 150w/mile, 6KWH will take you 40 miles.
So, by not taking the oil out of the ground and turning it into petrol, the energy you save could be used to charge the electric vehicles' battery and let it travel the same distance as it would on petrol, but without the tail pipe emissions.
Cheers
Bruce
In 2019 just 72,700 new electric cars were registered and the total number of electric cars on the UK roads is 265,000
Even allowing for rapid growth in the sales of electric vehicles (which will be slowed by the battery supply situation and the relatively high price of the vehicles) it's going to take a long, long time until there are 20 million electric cars on our roads, so there will be no sudden increase in demand for electricity
Secondly, there is already plenty generating capacity to handle the growth in electric vehicle use for many years to come.
As has been said already, most electric vehicles are charged at night when the demand on the grid is at it's lowest.
If you have an electric vehicle and you get your electricity from Octopus, then there can be times during the night when they pay you to use their electricity!!
The UK grid is also connected by undersea cables to the grid in Europe and Norway and we both buy and sell power to them as our and their demand for power fluctuates.
I happen to think that we should build a few nuclear power stations to provide a guaranteed base load and to replace the remain coal stations and some of the gas powered stations, but we don't specifically need them just because there will be an increase in electricity demand due to more electric vehicles being used.
Also, to get enough crude oil out of the ground and then turn it into 1 gallon of petrol takes about 6KWH of energy
1 gallon of petrol will drive a typical car 30-40 miles.
Your number of 300w/mile might apply to to a Jaguar I Pace or Audi E tron when being driven at motorway speeds, but an electric car equivalent to a petrol car that can do 30-40mpg, would be using somewhere between 150-200w/mile
At 150w/mile, 6KWH will take you 40 miles.
So, by not taking the oil out of the ground and turning it into petrol, the energy you save could be used to charge the electric vehicles' battery and let it travel the same distance as it would on petrol, but without the tail pipe emissions.
Cheers
Bruce
Odders
Well-Known Member
If it's true, it's f***ing criminal!
Odders
Well-Known Member
6kw/h to produce a gallon of petrol?
Please cite your source.
The 300w/mile figures are for urban/extra urban driving, not motorways & are the manufacturers estimates & thus almost certainly "overly optimistic".
Source for the 6KWH The 6 kWh electricity to refine gasoline would drive an electric car the same distance as a gasser?
but I'll agree that there are numbers both higher and lower quoted for this, partially depending on where the oil is coming from (shallow on shore wells, or deep offshore wells)
I also note that there are loads of sources rubbishing these numbers. However these "rubbishing" sources only look at the direct refining energy needs , and maybe the transportation energy required to get the fuel to the point of sale - they ignore the exploration and production costs of finding the oil, getting it out of the ground and getting it to the refinery.
If you download and open this UK government data base and then filter the result to list the energy consumption of vehicles in wh/km.
(I used this conversion: 300 wh/mile equates to approx 185 wh/km)
There are a total of 67 pure electric vehicles listed and of those, only 23 have consumption figures higher than 300wh/mile.
However, for the sake of argument I'll accept your figure of 300wh/mile.
Your 36 terawatt hours figure is totally misleading because it assumes that very one of those 20 million electric cars is going to be on charge at the same time.
You know that's not true.
In fact most electric cars are not even charged every day. An electric car with a range of 250 miles driven by someone who has the average daily commute of 32 miles would only need to charge the car once per week, and that would most likely be done in a single overnight session with the car charging at 7KW
The daily commute figure comes from the average mileage per year for cars (7600 Average Car Mileage UK 2020)
divided by the number of working days (48 weeks at 5 days per week)
Anyone not happy about the rise of electric vehicles is now going to be a bit more unhappy Ban on petrol and diesel car sales brought forward
Note that this ban applies to hybrids and plug in hybrids - only pure electric cars will be available for sale from 1 January 2035.
I suspect this ban will not apply to commercial vehicles
Cheers
Bruce
but I'll agree that there are numbers both higher and lower quoted for this, partially depending on where the oil is coming from (shallow on shore wells, or deep offshore wells)
I also note that there are loads of sources rubbishing these numbers. However these "rubbishing" sources only look at the direct refining energy needs , and maybe the transportation energy required to get the fuel to the point of sale - they ignore the exploration and production costs of finding the oil, getting it out of the ground and getting it to the refinery.
If you download and open this UK government data base and then filter the result to list the energy consumption of vehicles in wh/km.
(I used this conversion: 300 wh/mile equates to approx 185 wh/km)
There are a total of 67 pure electric vehicles listed and of those, only 23 have consumption figures higher than 300wh/mile.
However, for the sake of argument I'll accept your figure of 300wh/mile.
Your 36 terawatt hours figure is totally misleading because it assumes that very one of those 20 million electric cars is going to be on charge at the same time.
You know that's not true.
In fact most electric cars are not even charged every day. An electric car with a range of 250 miles driven by someone who has the average daily commute of 32 miles would only need to charge the car once per week, and that would most likely be done in a single overnight session with the car charging at 7KW
The daily commute figure comes from the average mileage per year for cars (7600 Average Car Mileage UK 2020)
divided by the number of working days (48 weeks at 5 days per week)
Anyone not happy about the rise of electric vehicles is now going to be a bit more unhappy Ban on petrol and diesel car sales brought forward
Note that this ban applies to hybrids and plug in hybrids - only pure electric cars will be available for sale from 1 January 2035.
I suspect this ban will not apply to commercial vehicles
Cheers
Bruce
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Heard the revised date for banning fossil fueled cars on the radio this morning. All well and good (and I have nothing against pure electric cars if it suits your needs) but unless battery technology takes a huge leap forward in capacity and recharging time requirements this ban will be revoked/pushed back or life for some could become a nightmare. The most annoying thing about politicians is they always assume that society and business is urban based, they fail to take on board the fact that many people have to travel hundreds of miles daily such as reps etc. What about the likes of me, and there are many out there who sometimes need to make a journey of well over 500 miles in one day. In a nutshell unless there is a massive increase in the provision of very fast charging points all across the country how the hell is society going to function. Imagine if all cars were electric and only 10% of them needed to be charged whilst out and about there would have to be a massive land take just to provide space for charging points. The other point I have yet to see raised is how we are going to deal with what will undoubtedly be a huge number of cars who simply run out of juice on a journey due to either lack of planning or just an oversight on the range left in the battery, at the moment its a quick fix of a gallon of petrol gets you going again. If they had any sense the ban would not include plug in hybrids, just my take on things applying a little bit of common sense which always seems severely lacking with politicians.
enfieldspares
Well-Known Member
Errm. Yes. But the answer was this. You got out of the car. Walked around to the back or the nearside mudguard and took your full can of "motor spirit" and filled the car up. Got back in. Set off again. Five minutes delay at most. And it didn't matter where you were or how far from somewhere to resupply fuel as you could carry your own resupply. In a metal can.
Before petrol stations with petrol pumps, petrol tankers, and underground storage tanks in garages, petrol was sold, like lubricating oils still are today, pre-packaged in metal cans.
What's the answer with electric cars if you run out of fuel and there's nowhere within short distance to supply fuel? But Attenborough doesn't care as at 93 he'll be long dead and even if he wasn't he has the money to buy one of these electric cars. So yet again a virtue signalling knob who isn't ever likely to be personally financially impacted by his own preachings. And where's the lost fuel excise duty going to be replaced from?
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Battery technology has already improved significantly in the last 5-10 years. The first Nissan Leafs had a 24KWH battery pack. The current Nissan Leaf has a 40KWH battery pack, but both packs are the same size - that's a 166% increase in energy density in less than 10 years
There is a huge amount of work going on to produce higher energy density batteries and I have no doubt that by the time 2035 comes around, range anxiety will be a thing of the past
You can travel 500 miles in one day in an electric car at the moment, but it will take you a few hours more than it will in a fossil fuelled car.
As the charging infrastructure improves - and it will, the time difference will reduce, but I doubt it will ever be as quick as a fossil fuelled car.
Having said that, if I were driving 500 miles, I'd need at least 2 stops to get food, have a pee and stretch my legs. During that time, the car would be charging, and if the car and the charger were both capable of handling a 100-150KW charge rate, then the car would be easily at 80% charge by the time I would be ready to set off again
Cheers
Bruce
Well, you could be Boy Scout prepared and carry a generator around with you in the boot of the car - or you could put your brain in gear, stop thinking negatively, and learn how to plan your journey a bit better.
Cheers
Bruce
It would not be beyond the wit of man to have a battery exchange system set up. Just swap for a fully charged one at the services...bit of forward thinking by the authorities to insist on a few universal forms...like the EU did with mobile phone chargers...all USB.
That would deal with not only perceived range issues but also fears of short battery life.
A pool of batteries could be charged at off peak times and/or provide grid support...
Alan
It wouldn't be too difficult to have a spare battery similarly in bulk to that petrol can in the boot...or for the AA or RAC guys to be carrying one.
My old Volvo has a weird thing with dying from fuel starvation when there is still 15 litres in the tanks...I must get around to having a look at the in-tank filter...but meanwhile I carry the proverbial 5 litres fuel can in the back.
Alan
