EVs (electric cars)

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niggle
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by niggle »

In the absence of a response from Mr Dopestrong I Googled "life cycle assessment electric vehicles"

These are the first two results:

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/e ... CBxzcaYTH4

"Over their lifetime, battery electric vehicles produce far less global warming pollution than their gasoline counterparts—and they’re getting cleaner. "

https://www.transportenvironment.org/si ... _final.pdf

"4.Conclusion
Environmental performance of EVs is today already better than the one of conventionally fueled vehicles. The life cycle analysis shows that even when powered by the most GHG intensive electricity in Europe, the carbon footprint of EVs is lower. This justifies the key role road transport electrification will have in decarbonising Europe, and stresses the benefits of replacing the internal combustion engine by battery electric vehicles. As more renewable electricity enters the European grid, the climate impact of EV will further diminish. Likewise, technological improvement of battery chemistry, the reuse of battery for storage purposes, and the development of a recycling industry for EV batteries will lead to improvements in their sustainability.Resources of critical metals and rare earth minerals will not be constrained in the coming decades and won’t
stop the EV transition, as some have argued. Supply of these materials will have to be diversified to avoid being overly dependent on imports, as
is the case with oil today. Innovation will contribute to reduce the quantity of critical metals used in EVs."
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squeaker
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by squeaker »

Curiously enough, I re-skimmed (!) this report before looking at the forum this morning. This page also explains more.
In my limited experience with a friend's second gen Leaf and a test drive of a Zoe, the driveability and NVH benefits (along with reduced maintenance) are the icing on the CO2 / minimal local emissions cake.
YMMV, of course.
"42"
kwackers
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by kwackers »

wrangler_rover wrote:Maybe slightly off topic.
Yesterday, Saturday 22nd December, I visited my local Tesco around noon to do the weekly food shop, the car park was busy but not full.
I have a Hyundai Ioniq plug in hybrid, I went to plug it in to charge it to discover 3 of the 4 charging point parking spaces were occupied by normal petrol or diesel cars

When you're down with the kiddies (like me) the terminology is "ICE'd".
kwackers
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by kwackers »

niggle wrote:In the absence of a response from Mr Dopestrong I Googled "life cycle assessment electric vehicles"

These are the first two results:

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/e ... CBxzcaYTH4

"Over their lifetime, battery electric vehicles produce far less global warming pollution than their gasoline counterparts—and they’re getting cleaner. "

https://www.transportenvironment.org/si ... _final.pdf

"4.Conclusion
Environmental performance of EVs is today already better than the one of conventionally fueled vehicles. The life cycle analysis shows that even when powered by the most GHG intensive electricity in Europe, the carbon footprint of EVs is lower. This justifies the key role road transport electrification will have in decarbonising Europe, and stresses the benefits of replacing the internal combustion engine by battery electric vehicles. As more renewable electricity enters the European grid, the climate impact of EV will further diminish. Likewise, technological improvement of battery chemistry, the reuse of battery for storage purposes, and the development of a recycling industry for EV batteries will lead to improvements in their sustainability.Resources of critical metals and rare earth minerals will not be constrained in the coming decades and won’t
stop the EV transition, as some have argued. Supply of these materials will have to be diversified to avoid being overly dependent on imports, as
is the case with oil today. Innovation will contribute to reduce the quantity of critical metals used in EVs."

There is one downside.
In removing pollutants from the air and thereby extending the lives of the populace they'll be able to continue consuming for longer and therefore increase their carbon footprint. :wink:

In a slightly more serious note, the simplicity of the drive train means the cars should have an extended life, particularly when replacement batteries become easily available. There's no reason an electric car couldn't continue for several hundred thousand miles.

The batteries are fairly easy to recycle, the main components are copper and aluminium with a handful of other substances which can be recovered fairly easily.

Obviously they're still cars and in an ideal world we'd use them less and rely on other greener transport options. Since that's not going to happen then electric is easily the best way forward.
wrangler_rover
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by wrangler_rover »

To kwackers:
Yes, I appreciate that the term for non electric vehicles is ICE, but, when I first heard the three letter acronym ICE, I thought it meant in car entertainment not internal combustion engine which you refer to.
Hence, if there is any possibility of ambiguity, I choose to use an understandable description.
kwackers
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by kwackers »

wrangler_rover wrote:To kwackers:
Yes, I appreciate that the term for non electric vehicles is ICE, but, when I first heard the three letter acronym ICE, I thought it meant in car entertainment not internal combustion engine which you refer to.
Hence, if there is any possibility of ambiguity, I choose to use an understandable description.


Sorry, should have explained myself a bit more.

When an IC vehicle parks in the charging spot of an EV then the EV owner is said to have been "ICEd"
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661-Pete
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by 661-Pete »

Thread 'bump' coming up.

Yesterday, on the way to do shopping, we were cycling past a nearby residence where I've known for some time that the owner keeps a spanking new, gleaming red Tesla in his driveway, and sometimes parked in the street.

Well, said owner was taking advantage of the fine Bank Holiday weather to mow his front lawn.

One guess - what type of lawn mower was he using? Yep, you've guessed it! :lol: - most illogical Captain, as Spock would surely say if he were still alive....

Prompts the question: what reasons do folks give for buying EVs (especially the expensive, flashy ones)?

[edit] of course it might be a company car....
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by [XAP]Bob »

kwackers wrote: 30 Dec 2018, 7:19pm
wrangler_rover wrote:To kwackers:
Yes, I appreciate that the term for non electric vehicles is ICE, but, when I first heard the three letter acronym ICE, I thought it meant in car entertainment not internal combustion engine which you refer to.
Hence, if there is any possibility of ambiguity, I choose to use an understandable description.
Sorry, should have explained myself a bit more.

When an IC vehicle parks in the charging spot of an EV then the EV owner is said to have been "ICEd"
And the appropriate response is stop directly behind that vehicle, then go into the local shop to ask if they know whose car it is, and get a cup of tea and a biscuit.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Lance Dopestrong wrote: 23 Dec 2018, 11:16am
niggle wrote:Just bought a second hand Nissan Leaf and I have to say it is really good and for any journeys not possible by bike I believe it's eco credentials are far better than any ICE (Internal Combustion Engine), discuss..... :wink:
Cradle to grave, including manufacture, extraction of the raw materials (nothing, but nothing is as polluting and energy intensive as extracting and refining rare earth metals), and end of life recycling and disposal, it consumes more energy and creates more pollution than a Ford focus.

Driving around a 1600kg 5 seat car with mostly 4 empty seats is an utterly riduculous means by which to claim environmental credentials.

One recent authoritative study concluded that using a typical western world mix of renewables and fossil fuel generation methods, small capacity, lightweight petrol cars of 800kg or less are typically less polluting across their life cycle than electric alternatives, and a greater proportion of their mass is recyclable at the end of their life.
Rubbish - EV batteries are exceptionally good at being reused, and then recycled. The issue being that basically none of them are close to end of life yet, so the recycling facilities aren't in demand yet.
The rest of the vehicle is identical, so you are looking at recycling a motor and battery against a fuel tank, combustion engine and clutch.

Tesla initially estimated a 10 year battery "life", where "life" meant 80% usable capacity at high (dis)charge rates. After a few years that was revised upwards quite significantly.
Of course if you choose to replace the battery at that point then the battery that comes out has a long and happy life in front of it as static storage, either in a grid scale farm or as a house scale UPS.


"Driving around a 1600kg 5 seat car with mostly 4 empty seats is an utterly riduculous means by which to claim environmental credentials. "
That we can agree on - but the same is true of an ICE vehicle. In fact the energy efficiency of an electric drive train makes a heavier vehicle still *less* energy intensive to run.
If you really want (motorised) efficiency then you'd get a Q plate on a velomobile. 100kg of vehicle that will get a massive mpkWh figure.

One issue with the "little 800kg" ICE vehicle is that engines tend to be even less efficient than their larger brethren (partly due to their size), so whilst you make some savings based on lower mass, you also lose out on outright efficiency. And for the journeys that vehicle does... an electric twizzy is likely a very good fit.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Jdsk
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by Jdsk »

661-Pete wrote: 1 Jun 2021, 9:10amPrompts the question: what reasons do folks give for buying EVs (especially the expensive, flashy ones)?

[edit] of course it might be a company car....
ONS 2016 (which is a fair time ago on this topic):
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... y-2016.pdf

"Driving licence holders reported that the most important factor that would encourage them to buy an electric car or van were cost (32%). Other factors included battery, distance travelled on charge (19%), convenience of recharging (19%) and environmentally friendly (12%). There were 27% of respondents who reported that “nothing” would encourage them to buy an electric car or van."

Northern Ireland 2019/20:
https://www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/ne ... shed-today

"The main reasons encouraging respondents to buy electric vehicles were ‘Low overall running costs’ (cited by 53% of respondents) followed by ‘up to £3,500 grant towards purchase of an electric vehicle’ (51%)."

Jonathan
niggle
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by niggle »

There is growing evidence that ‘legacy’ car manufacturers were dragging their heels on moving to EV production (notable exceptions being Nissan, Renault and Hyundai/Kia) due to having to totally retool assembly lines etc. plus dealerships have not been keen to sell them due to similar reasons but also because the service and warranty work will be much reduced. One way of dragging their heels has been keeping prices artificially high (now that battery costs are much lower experts are saying that EVs should not be any more expensive than ICE cars). They are also trying to maximise profits from EV sales by only offering them in high specifications/trim levels with all the latest tech and gadgets.

However these mainstream European and Far Eastern manufacturers will have their day of reckoning very soon, the Chinese car manufacturers are poised to flood the market with substantially cheaper and technically advanced EVs having spent several years developing their home market EV vehicles, everything from tiny city runabouts to large luxury SUVs. Of course they are already here to some extent with MG, which is already offering a couple of very good value EV options and is really just a brand of the huge Chinese car manufacturer SAIC, but there are many more well established and new Chinese brands competing in their home market who are no doubt also looking outside to the European and North American markets. Their ability to get on with developing products and bring them to market in months rather than years is astonishing so I see no reason for them not to be arriving in Europe within a year or two.

People who argue that the Chinese manufacturers will have a hard time getting their cars through EU and US safety testing are really somewhat prejudiced, if the Chinese want to sell cars over here I have no doubt they will crack on and get the job done in double quick time, just like they do everything else. The only thing that will help the European manufacturers in particular will be protectionism.
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661-Pete
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by 661-Pete »

niggle wrote: 1 Jun 2021, 10:31am...plus dealerships have not been keen to sell them due to similar reasons but also because the service and warranty work will be much reduced.
This may not be altogether true. Several surveys including Which? have given Tesla - at any rate - an unexpectedly low score for reliability. So the dealerships and garages may well be kept busy fixing things, under warranty or not...

...of course, always assuming they're tooled up to handle EVs. Many backstreet garages probably aren't.
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
--- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
Jdsk
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by Jdsk »

IIRC those ratings for reliability included original build quality.

For me those are two different axes. Low build quality such as poor panel gaps doesn't usually cause breakdowns.

Jonathan
Psamathe
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by Psamathe »

661-Pete wrote: 1 Jun 2021, 12:47pm .... So the dealerships and garages may well be kept busy fixing things, under warranty or not...

...of course, always assuming they're tooled up to handle EVs. Many backstreet garages probably aren't.
Is it very difficult for those backstreet garages to get tooled-up? (genuine question as I have no experience of EVs). I'd guess many aspects of an EV are not dissimilar to ICE vehicles (wheels, steering, suspension, etc.). Are the different aspects particularly challenging for engineers to learn or needing expensive kit to work on?

Maybe it's broader than just the garages themselves, as 3rd party parts suppliers have to get stocked on parts; but without appreciating the complexities I can't imagine there is too much stopping the 3rd party garages adapting along the same timescales as EVs become more widespread.

Might there be contractural/lega aspects as I'd guess the main dealers will be trying to keep all that maintenance work for themselves.

(For my ICE I used to use a Main Dealer but found them a complete rip-off so switched to the small industrial unit places and found them far better).

Ian
Jdsk
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Re: EVs (electric cars)

Post by Jdsk »

Psamathe wrote: 1 Jun 2021, 12:54pmIs it very difficult for those backstreet garages to get tooled-up? (genuine question as I have no experience of EVs). I'd guess many aspects of an EV are not dissimilar to ICE vehicles (wheels, steering, suspension, etc.). Are the different aspects particularly challenging for engineers to learn or needing expensive kit to work on?
They need access to the manufacturer's database and diagnostics. (The EU worked very hard on that as part of market liberalisation.)

They need specialised kit for the high current components.

NB:

1 Service intervals will probably increase.

2 Tesla have a novel approach to servicing.

Jonathan
Last edited by Jdsk on 1 Jun 2021, 1:20pm, edited 1 time in total.
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