“Can’t help you, pal. You’ve got a software issue there. I’m just a car mechanic. And this isn’t a car, it’s a laptop on wheels.”
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Buying a diesel car nowadays
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“Can’t help you, pal. You’ve got a software issue there. I’m just a car mechanic. And this isn’t a car, it’s a laptop on wheels.”
They are heavier so you’ll be going for the higher weight-rated tyres, I’m sure it makes a difference but I didn’t my really notice the difference so must be minimal enough. While you can buy EV specific tyres, there’s no need to do you’re buying fairly off-the-shelf stuff.
Tyres definitely more expensive but have found them to last a lot longer. 50k km on the clock, rear tyres replaced at 45k, still a bit to go on original front tyres.
Interesting conversation and it came to mind when I saw a 2016 What Car guide. (edit - Winter 2016 showcasing 2017 models)
They were saying that Nissan Note at 100 mile range was a very good range and ideal for town driving.
They literally fell over the fact that a Tesla gave them 200 miles in real world driving on one charge.
Average range was about 75 miles
2023 and any range under 200 miles / 350 km would be considered poor.
Next generation batteries due later this year are set to have 500+ mile ranges and 1,000 charges before any discernable fall off (that's 500,000 miles!!!) and these are being developed by general motors.
It won't be governments that push ev into being the default choice - it will be the technology and price. Cost of production is expected to fall below ice cars fairly soon and then soon after they will be cheaper to produce. Some say substantially cheaper.
So in 2026/7 when I expect to change car, I reckon an ev will be the more sensible and cheaper option.
They were saying that Nissan Note at 100 mile range was a very good range and ideal for town driving.
They literally fell over the fact that a Tesla gave them 200 miles in real world driving on one charge.
Average range was about 75 miles
2023 and any range under 200 miles / 350 km would be considered poor.
Next generation batteries due later this year are set to have 500+ mile ranges and 1,000 charges before any discernable fall off (that's 500,000 miles!!!) and these are being developed by general motors.
It won't be governments that push ev into being the default choice - it will be the technology and price. Cost of production is expected to fall below ice cars fairly soon and then soon after they will be cheaper to produce. Some say substantially cheaper.
So in 2026/7 when I expect to change car, I reckon an ev will be the more sensible and cheaper option.
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That will be great if it happens however the big car companies including GM are struggling to get capital and funding look at their share prices over the last decade, they have recovered a little over the last year as investors get out of stocks like Tesla.
The ESG movement where people only invest in ethical investments is also a factor starving the big auto makers of funding for electric cars
The fact that interest rates have risen significantly and are still rising and that money is flowing out of technology stocks is not conducive to rapidly evolving technologies in my opinion. None of the big tech companies went near it when they were awash with money, Apple had a brief look a few years ago but went away from it
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Blackrock1
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hatchet piece by an idiot to be honest, he isnt even trying to hide his bias.
“Can’t help you, pal. You’ve got a software issue there. I’m just a car mechanic. And this isn’t a car, it’s a laptop on wheels.”
Ah, I misread your 'arriving' at and thought you meant they arrived in the country at that age
I'd suggest the NCT has a more significant bearing on when cars are scrapped here. It's no surprise that fatality rates are higher in those countries with significantly older cars.
GM have absolutely no trouble getting funding. The share price doesn't matter unless they're trying to issue new shares. They're currently buying back shares, reducing the amount of capital they have.
They also have no issue raising funds under ESG rules, by issuing 'Green' bonds. GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda have all issued investment grade sustainable bonds in the last year.
For us, were in a regional town where we do most of the driving. If we drive to Dublin its a ~100km round trip and we have a 1st gen PHEV so the real range is only 20km (9kWh) . Roughly, 60% of our driving <20km, 90%<100km (by no. of trips rather than by distance), maybe 4/6 long drives a year i.e. West Cork/Connemara c. 350km. We do c. 18k km p.a.
On a kWh basis, the difference between the electrical vs. petrol cost is minimal. Our electrical capacity in the car is such that there is no incentive to adjust our lifestyle e.g. avail of night rates etc. Our capacity to enjoy those benefits is limited by the size of the battery anyway. If we had a BEV we could benefit from a "full tank" at low night rates, no point in that with a small battery (Say 75kWh vs. 9kWh in the PHEV). We do plug in at home and we do drive in EV mode for most of our driving but on an economic basis, there is no advantage or its small. (Considering buying the home charger on top of the car basically removes any economic benefit given our low mileage).
Practically this means that you have to remember to plug in all the time (so doesn't happen sometimes i.e. you get distracted). The marginal benefits of plugging in don't incentivise us to be disciplined about it! With BEV you can charge to 80% and just manage it over the week, topping up now and again. The great thing is that our (my) time visiting the petrol station is significantly reduced, topping up by 20km every time you get home is great. A BEV would have pretty much eliminated going to the garage at all i.e. charge at home as needed and use of public charging on long journeys.
Regarding the extent of public infrastructure, that turned out not to be an issue. It's a nice to have realistically. I don't use it anymore given the price of electricity, there used to be a parking benefit also but not anymore. No marginal benefit for us. My father is driving an etron and living in West Cork. He travels up maybe once a month. So he doesn't have the greatest range out there (c. 300 km) but he's stopping in Cashel for half an hour, using Ionity, and back on the road. It's low hassle, rarely full and very low trade off for the benefits of having the EV the rest of the time. On the downside, Ionity is basically more expensive than petrol/diesel for the range you get. Again, trade off is worth it, using it twice a month or so. He has the night rate the rest of the time.
We have none of the maintenance benefits that you get from owning a BEV. In fact, as mentioned previously, there is additional complexity. In our car there was a problem with the A/C. The system is used with the electrical system AFAIK. So last summer the car refused to drive in EV mode when the temperatures were very high as the battery couldn't be cooled sufficiently. No major hassle but it wasn't functional for a few days (Would we have had no car if it was a BEV, not sure?).
Agree with @Blackrock1, overall its a gimmic. Even if I upgraded to a higher range PHEV, it wouldn't be worth it. I would still have all the downsides i.e. maintenance, complexity, limited economic benefits. The BEV makes so much sense for our car use. A PHEV could be worth it if you have very high frequency, low distance trips and you require the facility to travel long distances but do so rarely. We have low frequency, low distance trips. If we committed to hiring a car when we needed to go West, we would only need a range of 200km in a battery to meet all our driving needs, 99% of the time.
Good points there, yes the green bonds will provide some funding. However even with all this funding etc battery technology will hit a wall because of physical constraints with regard electrical energy storage.
Currently lithium ion batteries have an energy density of 0.26kWh per kg of battery compared to diesel which has an energy density of 12 to 14 kWh per kg.
That's a factor of 100 times which is an enormous gap to bridge, its down to the fundamentals with regard to the energy density associated with chemical and electrical energy and the energy stored in hydro carbon bonds.
Of course the finest minds working in this area know all the constraints but if you can increase the storage capacity of a battery marginally we'll then there is alot of money and great job for you. This is where the money is and this is where the politics is.
Why does the gap need to be bridged?
Its a standalone company that GM have invested in and recently was reversed into a SPAC and has $450m cash.
https://ses.ai/our-history/
Honda & hyundai are also investors.
Prototypes are due this year and batteries for full car testing next year with full commercial production by 2025.
If they get to 700km as a standard range and quick recharge (they are looking at wireless charging - park and go), you can easily see EV's being the predominant vehicle by 2027
If you're interested search on the internet for images of how much copper gets extracted from an open cast mine, none of these are in Europe. Now I know copper is used in a multiple of industries and in regular ICE cars too however with the high DC voltages in electric cars you need heavier cables for the power. A second search worth doing is the mining of the materials for the car batteries e.g cobalt. So while we all might like to believe we're doing amazing work for the environment driving electric cars. What it takes to get it here and the damage being done to other areas of the world is a story we do not see. Just some food for thought.
Britain’s EV revolution risks coming unplugged
When large numbers of electric cars first went on sale a few years ago buyers complained of “range anxiety” — the fear that the battery would run out of charge before they reached their destination
www.thetimes.co.uk
“Will I be able to recharge? Will chargers be available and working when and where I need them? Those are the questions new car buyers are increasingly asking themselves and may well act as a barrier to buying new EVs,”
It’s not hard to see why. Over Christmas and new year newspapers and websites published photographs of long queues of angry drivers waiting to plug in at charging stations. At Gretna Welcome Break Services, dozens of Tesla drivers trying to get to and from Scotland queued for three hours.
I think this had been discussed many times on here. I doubt there is anyone unaware of the environmental damage caused by the manufacture of EVs.
I still think they are preferable to ICE and the fossil fuel industry.
Until recently if you drove an EV in this country is was partially powered by turf. At the moment it's powered by coal, oil (about half of the total) and gas with around 11% from renewables (source). Oh, and around 40% of the power we generate in our stations in lost in the transmission network.
If we do all drive EV's then all we'll need is the electricity generation infrastructure to "make" all that extra power. I'm open to correction but I think we'd need to double our generation capacity if we were to replace all our ICE vehicles with EV's.
They are a great idea but until we have a sustainable clear power supply then they aren't really solving the problem as you are using the same fuel, you're just burning it in a power plant rather than in the car (and losing that 40% through the transmission network).
Ah please @Purple statements to that effect have been made so many times on AAM, numerous times in this thread alone, and refuted with readily available data/studies. Let’s not take yet another useful thread into pointless circular discussions that will inevitably end up closed by the moderators.
Battery powered car experiment starts to wobble.
Blackrock1
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Is the article not about a decrease in production in the uk ?
Battery powered car experiment starts to wobble.
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