The future of Diesel cars

The UK has 1/4 million miles of roads, times that by the number of lanes (single carriageway x 2, dual carriage way x4, motorway x6) the cost of installation would be staggering. Also peak time for vehicle charging demand would then be the same as peak time electric demand. Roads are busy from 7am until 7pm most often, as is peak commercial electric demand.
We wil still need the extra electricity generating capacity. 24 miles a day at about 100K/wh per car per day (approx 4 miles per K/wh) and unless it is 100% real green energy then we are just moving the pollution around.
 
The key is properly harnessing renewable energy or properly creating more nuke power stations (or both) When that happens, for sure we will fully convert to leccy motors. Until then, or more likely until fossil fuels are eroded to the point whereby someone cannot make filthy money from it, we shall continue to use the internal combustion engine
 
As the topic has shifted to electric instead of diesel - I will just say I don't ever see if happening. Electric vehicles assumes two things that I can never see happening.

First - large countries will need to physically shrink. Seriously though, I can see electric working in smaller and densely populated environs - but the technology is still light years away from allowing someone to drive across the American west (or Australian outback, or most of Russia).

Secondly, and more substantial - wars will still be fought, and they will be fought in far reaches and in populated areas. In those developed and populated areas, the electric grid will be one of the first targets. Fossil fuel based transportation will still reign supreme if you wish to be a militarily effective country.
 
95% of Australia lives in a city. It is the most urbanized country on the world. Electric vehicles will do fine.

Edit to add. Change that to 89% and not most urbanized but its up there for continent.
 
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Ev's are part of the power production solution, rather than a problem. They will allow the grid to work in a smarter way and help with ironing out the peeks reducing the ultimate need for new power stations (although we will still need some).

"they will allow the grid to work...." etc assumes an awful lot that currently doesn't happen and may never happen under current UK operating regimes. They do not iron out any peaks unless you happen to have the diurnal demand to generation data for every region in the UK. The estimated total demand if we all switch to EV is more than the grid is capable of producing along with the required spinning reserve at any time of day or night. The unpalatable truth is that the UK simply does NOT have the infrastructure or reserves to handle this.

All recent studies done by independent experts writing on this subject for government assessment of power security come to the same conclusions. Even without a switch to EVs, the rate at which we're currently going with demand and the decline of current power stations which aren't being replaced fast enough mean power outages as a planned operating feature of power delivery will become the norm, a sort of 5 day week for power generation. That will start to happen within the next decade unless power station replacement is sped up a lot. The knee-jerk closure of so many coal fired stations in such quick succession was done without thought to medium term impacts it seems without a long term procurement strategy already in place. That was a great example of planning to fail.
 
Right on ChesterP and I can tell you Australia is in the same boat with both sides of politics pointing the finger at each other as they turn off station after station. Why on earth Australia exports uranium to France for nuclear power but don't have any running in the middle of the desert where we have tested nukes is beyond comprehension for most logical people.
 
It's not one size fits all. Induction charging will be next, charging as you drive.

Induction charging? as in for each intake of breath you make?

We're all just being financially conned!
 
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Induction charging? as in for each intake of breath you make?

Induction charging while the vehicle is stationary is a good idea.
There are stationary EV charging systems that can handle 3KW and transmit 93-95% of their power with an 8 inch gap between the transmitter and receiver.
The problem is that to get that sort of efficiency, the receiver has to be perfectly aligned with the transmitter, move the vehicle a foot away in any direction and the efficiency drops drastically.
How do you propose keeping the transmitter and receiver coils aligned when the vehicle is moving ?
Also, anyone in the moving vehicle who has a pacemaker fitted had better watch out :D

Cheers

Bruce
 
The induction technology is beyond me but i have seen it work both driving and stationery.
We were not even asked about pacemakers :confused:
 
Tools in our hydraulic presses are mounted with monsterous powered elctro magnets from induction coils and are covered in warnings .Kills your pacemaker ,bank card ,phone and is as safe as a flamethrower in an oil refinery
 
Who pays for all the new infrastructure needed and how long before that's ready? Three guesses. That's before we get onto public safety and maintenance costs on a large scale. Perhaps it's viable a decade into the future but the main points I feel are being missed. We do not have the wherewith-all to flick any switch and provide what is needed for EVs on a large scale should that happen over the next 2 to 5 years. It will take massive reinvestment, political change and massive amounts paid out ultimately by consumers. Then there's the current petro-chemical industries and associated business and job losses which for hi-tech replacement industries may never satisfy the job creation (compensation) needed. None of this has been thought out and it will take sorting at a central governmental level and supported by both legislative changes and via huge government subsidisation paid for from taxes.

Why do people suppose that Ford is actively chasing the major market in solid state hybrid technology? That, at least superficially, seems to be the only truly sustainable and sensible answer until the UK (and other countries) are ready for a switch to electric only. Toyota/Lexus are current world leaders in hybrid technology and I'd expect them to come up with a new generation of solid state hybrids to replace current, aged technology (however good they are at it). It's an interesting subject to debate but there are good reasons why EVs haven't succeeded in market domination nor are they proved to be any more carbon footprint friendly in whole life costs, let alone in total recyclability. Indeed, disposal of current batteries would create more pollution than current recycling of metal alloys.
 
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