It will be a second hand car purchase. I don’t intend to buy after that. One car to last for retirement. I do around 15000km or so. It’s not about suitable. I’m not paying an EV premium, plus EV drivewayset up, queuing for recharge hassle, plus/ minus Solar panels just to suit an agenda.
Buying a diesel car nowadays
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Blackrock1
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I’m not sure why you keep bringing solar panels into the discussion and I’d suggest of you do 15k per annum 90 odd percent of your charging would be done at home. Anyway an ev is a much more pleasant drive than a diesel.
The world plans to burn more than 8 billion tonnes of coal in 2023. More than any previous year in history. Coal is cheap and readily available. It doesn’t depend on sun or wind. Germany is reopening coal fired electricity plants. Renewables are too expensive to set up and not a priority right now with debt so high, healthcare in crisis and war still ongoing. With rising unit costs of electricity EVs are down the list of priorities in my view. At least you know at the diesel pump where you stand. Most are dreading their winter utility bills right now.
That's not correct the efficiency of thermal power stations is between 35 and 40% , maximum maybe 50%.
It's impossible to get that high efficiency from fossil fuels because there is always waste heat generated in any energy conversion due to entropy and the laws of thermodynamics.
Yes electric cars are very high efficiency due to the fact that there is no energy conversion because its stored as electric energy. The problem is getting it into the battery in the first place, its never going to be 100% renewables, the only renewable sources we have that are dependable were built in the 1920s and 1950s the hydro power stations and they maybe can get to 85% efficiency
Sorry I took that figure from memory, creating a bit of misinformation myself! GE/EDFs latest combined cycle gas power station is 62% efficient, a long way from the 90% I quoted.
This just goes to show why we should not trust our memory, intuition or ‘doing your own research’ on stuff like this; studies of real data by disinterested experts/scientists is what matters. All of these that I’ve seen show that even on some of the dirtiest electricity grids, EVs significantly reduce CO2 emissions over their lifetimes, for example:
"While there are emissions from making and using electric vehicles, when you take into account all the factors they are much, much cleaner than a gasoline vehicle," David Reichmuth, a senior engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Insider. "They're not perfect. They're just much, much better."
The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) estimates that a medium-sized EV registered in the US in 2021 will pollute 60-68% less over its life than a comparable model burning fossil fuels. Its analysis assumed that EVs will use increasingly clean electricity over time.
Blackrock1
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renewables are too expensive and not a priority? i think we are probably finished here !
I've a 15 yr old and an 11 yr old kid. Reality for the 11 yr old is that she will probably never drive a gear shift and she is unlikely to ever fill a car from a petrol/diesel pump. In 10/15 years time, petrol pumps and stations as we know them will have gone the way of Xtravision.
Blackrock1
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im not even sure if my 4 year old will ever drive a car we could have moved to self driving at that stage.
EV premium? In your case would an EV not make financial sense? Lower fuel costs (even without solar panels), lower servicing costs, lower tolls. The hassle you mention queuing to recharge is probably not a concern with your yearly mileage. And if time is so precious you'd save time by never having to refill at a petrol station again. On those cold winter mornings you could heat the car remotely without leaving your house.
Come to think of it. Using filthy petrol stations and scraping ice of windscreens in the winter sounds like something from the Victorian age.
Things never advance that quickly, making bold predictions like that are bound to be unfulfilled.
Yes there will probably be less petrol stations and many more electric cars and hybrids but this transition is going to happen much slower than many commentators think or say.
You can't legislate for massive technology and infrastructure change. Look at the health and hospital crisis now , surely they could solve that much easier than converting the entire energy and transportation infrastructure that has taken 100years to put in place .
What were you doing in 2013 ,your lifestyle is not that much different in 2023, yes you have a few nicer gadgets but that's the height of the change. People think updating a smartphone or zoom meetings is the same technology change as overhauling the entire energy infrastructure of the world, they are completely different things and levels of difficulty
My life is very different from where it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I commuted into the office daily in a diesel car, bought DVD's and CD's, used a digital physical camera, stored images on DVD's and discs and used a physical card or cash for paying for things. Nowadays, I work from home, stream movies and music, store everything in the cloud and pay for things using my mobile phone.
Some countries are further ahead then we are, Almost half the cars sold in Sweden in August was PHEV/BEV and the technology is only going to get better and the % is only going to increase.
Blackrock1
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In 2022, 79.3 percent of all new cars sold in Norway were 100 percent battery-electric powered vehicles.
Norway only has a population of 5 million and is one of the richest countries in the world from selling its oil and gas. It is not a comparison to Europe or even the rich world. Norway does alot if things that nobody else does due primarily to its sheer wealth and very low population
Blackrock1
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even so, it shows what can be done with the right planning and incentives, things are only going one way and itll happen relatively quickly imo.
The FT is reporting today that:
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Irish car stats: https://stats.beepbeep.ie/
Diesel market share fell 20%, Petrol fell 6%, BEV increased 81%.
However, 57% of all sales in 2022 were either Petrol or Diesel so there's a way to go despite the rapid trends. Ireland's car market is also very heavily driven by trends in the UK, which are noted above.
As regards the UK electric car sales, there were a total of 267,000 pure electric cars sold last year, yes that's a big number but it's still a small fraction of the total number of passenger cars on UK roads, 32.5 million passenger vehicles.
What's really happening is that new car sales have dropped considerably since the start of the pandemic therefore the age of cars is getting older because new cars have become so expensive and unaffordable.
Basically we have the Cuba effect where people will have to keep older cars on the road much longer due to the lack of capacity in producing new cars.
Established car companies have been starved of capital so cannot afford to spend huge sums of money on new factories to produce all those electric cars like they could in the 60s and 70s for new production models. It's a very capital intensive but low profit business. Tesla itself is now in bother and its share price is down 70% this year, can't see massive increase in production coming from there either.
It doesn't matter what the government says must happen by 2030 if the car companies don't have those facilities up and running the cars won't be produced. There will be alot of backtracking and reevaluation come 2030
The car companies won't have the manufacturing capacity, the energy companies won't have the generation or grid infrastructure in place. The government won't have the money due to the massive commitments they already have and the debt burden will be rolling over at much higher interest rates in a few years. Corporation tax has peaked .Just look at the hospital and health crisis now, do you seriously believe that this government can deliver on all these zero carbon promises
What's really happening is that new car sales have dropped considerably since the start of the pandemic therefore the age of cars is getting older because new cars have become so expensive and unaffordable.
Basically we have the Cuba effect where people will have to keep older cars on the road much longer due to the lack of capacity in producing new cars.
Established car companies have been starved of capital so cannot afford to spend huge sums of money on new factories to produce all those electric cars like they could in the 60s and 70s for new production models. It's a very capital intensive but low profit business. Tesla itself is now in bother and its share price is down 70% this year, can't see massive increase in production coming from there either.
It doesn't matter what the government says must happen by 2030 if the car companies don't have those facilities up and running the cars won't be produced. There will be alot of backtracking and reevaluation come 2030
The car companies won't have the manufacturing capacity, the energy companies won't have the generation or grid infrastructure in place. The government won't have the money due to the massive commitments they already have and the debt burden will be rolling over at much higher interest rates in a few years. Corporation tax has peaked .Just look at the hospital and health crisis now, do you seriously believe that this government can deliver on all these zero carbon promises
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In real terms, Ireland is no where near the level of car sales, that it needs.
"SIMI said that Petrol accounted for 30.2% of new car registrations, Diesel 26.8%, Hybrid 19.3%, Electric 14.9%, and Plug-In Hybrid 6.8%.
Petrol remains the most popular engine type for 2022, despite a decline in its market share last year from 32.2% in 2021, while hybrid, electric and plug-in hybrid continued to gain market share in 2022 and now account for 41% of the market.
A total of 15,680 new electric cars were registered in 2022, an increase on the 8,650 registrations seen in 2021 and 3,440 in 2019."
Sourced from the article, below:
businessplus.ie
Acquisition cost and lack of supporting infrastructure, are the two key problems - both of which the Government could influence quickly, and significantly, if it was serious about getting people to move over to EVs / Hybrids. The pressure on motor manufacturers to supply cars, ranks, thereafter...
"SIMI said that Petrol accounted for 30.2% of new car registrations, Diesel 26.8%, Hybrid 19.3%, Electric 14.9%, and Plug-In Hybrid 6.8%.
Petrol remains the most popular engine type for 2022, despite a decline in its market share last year from 32.2% in 2021, while hybrid, electric and plug-in hybrid continued to gain market share in 2022 and now account for 41% of the market.
A total of 15,680 new electric cars were registered in 2022, an increase on the 8,650 registrations seen in 2021 and 3,440 in 2019."
Sourced from the article, below:
2022's top selling car models, along with the nations favourite car colour revealed
New car registrations for 2022 totalled 105,250, a marginal 0.3% increase on 2021 but down 10.1% on the pre-pandemic outcome in 2019.
businessplus.ie
Acquisition cost and lack of supporting infrastructure, are the two key problems - both of which the Government could influence quickly, and significantly, if it was serious about getting people to move over to EVs / Hybrids. The pressure on motor manufacturers to supply cars, ranks, thereafter...
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I have an 8 year old Leaf, the battery ‘state of health’ or life is at 85%, 70k kilometres on the clock. The original Leafs (and even the later ones to a certain extent) have very poor battery chemistry and management, a ‘modern’ EV will last significantly better than mine has even.
I’d have zero concerns buying a 4-5 year old EV, I have done a couple of times and know plenty who have. To be honest I’d be more confident than buying a petrol/diesel because you can easily read-out the condition of the battery from the computer. Getting a sense of the condition of the timing chain or head gasket in a petrol/diesel is much more difficult.
Note most EVs come with an 8 year warranty on the battery/powertrain.
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That's a great point
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