BEVs

Use this board for general non-cycling-related chat, or to introduce yourself to the forum.

I appreciate the BEV mostly because they...

cost less to run than an equivalent petrol or diesel car
9
12%
are reducing the harm done to our planet and its lifeforms
10
14%
are quiet and smooth
7
10%
can be refuelled with my own renewable energy production
10
14%
can supply energy to the home and Grid
4
5%
No! I am concerned they are just another way of making the car seem acceptable
33
45%
 
Total votes: 73

pwa
Posts: 17370
Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: BEVs

Post by pwa »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 21 Mar 2023, 5:15pm In the lowest household income decile in this country car ownership is definitely a minority.
In the next decile it's only just not a minority.
I expect a lot of those without a car are the very elderly, reliant on car owning carers and family, as my mother is. Or people with disabilities that leave them unable to drive. And I know one bloke who cannot drive, for medical reasons, but he relies on a colleague for a lift to work in his car. Those basic figures hide a lot of different reasons for not having a car.
Nearholmer
Posts: 3929
Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: BEVs

Post by Nearholmer »

Indeed they do, and the only way to understand the nuances in a particular locality is to investigate travel, work, social, economic, and other patterns in depth.

In one place not owning a car may be a person’s choice, because one is unnecessary and practically useless, while in another it may be a dreadfully limiting constraint on a particular individual.

Unless you understand Cambridge and it’s travel hinterland in real depth, which I certainly don’t, comments about the particular case may fall well wide of the mark.
Biospace
Posts: 2008
Joined: 24 Jun 2019, 12:23pm

Re: BEVs

Post by Biospace »

Mark R wrote: 20 Mar 2023, 8:32pm
The single biggest problem for the diesel engine is that the green lobby convinced politicians to promote it for use in private vehicles which didn't make best use of it.
How was it the "green lobby"?

I think you would find it was the "motoring lobby"......They were told they had to lower the CO2 emissions of their products - they didn't like the sound of being forced to make smaller, lighter vehicles ( larger vehicles are much more profitable ). No problem, they could just start fitting diesel engines, motorists could be convinced that by buying a diesel they were "doing their bit" and business could continue unabated.

At the time medical experts (the "health lobby"?) raised the alarm over the extra pollution this would cause but our leaders were assured by the motor industry that advanced emission controls would soon be available and diesel exhaust pollution would cease to be a concern. Well we all know how that turned out don't we?
The motoring lobby were in significant part, the Germans. Germans politicians look after their own industries very carefully, their car industry had a technological lead with CI engines at the time. Additionally, the Green Party held just under 50 seats in the Bundestag in the 90s, their Vice-Chancellor and foreign minister from 1998-2005 was Green Party, as was their health minister. Almost worthy of a 'Yes, Minister' episode?
UpWrong
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Location: Portsmouth, Hampshire

Re: BEVs

Post by UpWrong »

Biospace wrote: 22 Mar 2023, 12:14pm
The motoring lobby were in significant part, the Germans. Germans politicians look after their own industries very carefully, their car industry had a technological lead with CI engines at the time. Additionally, the Green Party held just under 50 seats in the Bundestag in the 90s, their Vice-Chancellor and foreign minister from 1998-2005 was Green Party, as was their health minister. Almost worthy of a 'Yes, Minister' episode?
And now the Germans want to keep using cars with ICEs, https://www.politico.eu/article/electri ... sels-2035/
Carlton green
Posts: 3645
Joined: 22 Jun 2019, 12:27pm

Re: BEVs

Post by Carlton green »

UpWrong wrote: 22 Mar 2023, 1:35pm
Biospace wrote: 22 Mar 2023, 12:14pm
The motoring lobby were in significant part, the Germans. Germans politicians look after their own industries very carefully, their car industry had a technological lead with CI engines at the time. Additionally, the Green Party held just under 50 seats in the Bundestag in the 90s, their Vice-Chancellor and foreign minister from 1998-2005 was Green Party, as was their health minister. Almost worthy of a 'Yes, Minister' episode?
And now the Germans want to keep using cars with ICEs, https://www.politico.eu/article/electri ... sels-2035/
I’d have thought that this is just the start of problems. People agree to popular ideals and sometimes do so with little to no idea how some change can be reasonably implemented.

As I’ve said before if the EU was really concerned about reducing emissions - and being generally greener - then rather than move to BEV’s it would restructure society to remove reasons requiring travel; the least polluting journey is the one that we don’t (need to, have to or choose to) make.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Stevek76
Posts: 2085
Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: BEVs

Post by Stevek76 »

pete75 wrote: 21 Mar 2023, 4:37pm If very few of the lowest paid own and drive cars , why do all the minimum wage and close to minimum wage food processing factories round here have large car parks full of cars?
Yep , I'm sure you know more about workers in the Cambridge area than their union reps.
Because not everyone in them is minimum wage? Or are there no supervisors, managers and so on on site? What % of those factories staff is there actually space for in those car parks? Cars are notoriously space inefficient and car parks are rather like queued roads, they look like they're supporting far more activity than they actually are.

And no, I don't trust most union reps to have much idea about their workers. Like other representatives they inherently work off self selecting and entirely biased samples, the people who respond to (e)mail shots and those who go along and grumble get overrepresented.

Also, where is 'round here'? Get the impression no where near Cambridge. There are alternative transport options there and really even for the odd minimum wage case, being low income is not an excuse for externalising your costs onto other, equally low (or worse) income people.

[XAP]Bob wrote: 21 Mar 2023, 5:15pm In the lowest household income decile in this country car ownership is definitely a minority.
In the next decile it's only just not a minority.
Yes but a single car in a household is not free car access for all, similarly car usage scales even more dramatically than ownership, that single car often only does a 10k miles a year tops, usually less. Same for lift sharing, again we have statistics on km travelled as a passenger. Cambridge will be doing plenty more work on their scheme, including reimbursements for carers etc. If anything they're dragging it out rather with a current start date way off in 2027
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
pete75
Posts: 16370
Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 2:37pm

Re: BEVs

Post by pete75 »

Stevek76 wrote: 22 Mar 2023, 8:24pm
pete75 wrote: 21 Mar 2023, 4:37pm If very few of the lowest paid own and drive cars , why do all the minimum wage and close to minimum wage food processing factories round here have large car parks full of cars?
Yep , I'm sure you know more about workers in the Cambridge area than their union reps.
Because not everyone in them is minimum wage? Or are there no supervisors, managers and so on on site? What % of those factories staff is there actually space for in those car parks? Cars are notoriously space inefficient and car parks are rather like queued roads, they look like they're supporting far more activity than they actually are.

And no, I don't trust most union reps to have much idea about their workers. Like other representatives they inherently work off self selecting and entirely biased samples, the people who respond to (e)mail shots and those who go along and grumble get overrepresented.

Also, where is 'round here'? Get the impression no where near Cambridge. There are alternative transport options there and really even for the odd minimum wage case, being low income is not an excuse for externalising your costs onto other, equally low (or worse) income people.

[XAP]Bob wrote: 21 Mar 2023, 5:15pm In the lowest household income decile in this country car ownership is definitely a minority.
In the next decile it's only just not a minority.

Yes but a single car in a household is not free car access for all, similarly car usage scales even more dramatically than ownership, that single car often only does a 10k miles a year tops, usually less. Same for lift sharing, again we have statistics on km travelled as a passenger. Cambridge will be doing plenty more work on their scheme, including reimbursements for carers etc. If anything they're dragging it out rather with a current start date way off in 2027
Most of those sites have massive car parks full of fairly elderly vehicles including evenings and weekends. Managers tend to have separate car parks outside the offices and ain't usually there outside 8-5 working hours moreover the management to employee ratio in those places is quite sparse. Supervisors might get a couple of quid an hour more than the line workers.
It's the same with field work - a dozen folk picking daffs in a field and there'll usually be 7 or 8 oldish cars parked there.

You're obviously an anti-union man - we'll just have to agree to differ.

Round here, ie where these processing factories are, is in the fens. Cambridge, much as it doesn't like to admit it, is in the fens.

If the cars you mention are used for 10,000 miles a year that's almost 50% more than the UK average - 7,200 miles according to the car analytics website.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Stevek76
Posts: 2085
Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: BEVs

Post by Stevek76 »

Think I slipped a zero there...

At any rate, whilst I'd be interested to see some decent numbers on such locations, I'm struggling to see how any of that relates to a proposed charge purely for the city of Cambridge which doesn't affect rural/semi rural people driving to (semi)rurally located factories? I'm also not quite sure how a quite specific criticism of union reps translates to being anti union as a whole, these aren't binary matters.
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
pete75
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Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 2:37pm

Re: BEVs

Post by pete75 »

Stevek76 wrote: 23 Mar 2023, 4:47pm Think I slipped a zero there...

At any rate, whilst I'd be interested to see some decent numbers on such locations, I'm struggling to see how any of that relates to a proposed charge purely for the city of Cambridge which doesn't affect rural/semi rural people driving to (semi)rurally located factories? I'm also not quite sure how a quite specific criticism of union reps translates to being anti union as a whole, these aren't binary matters.
Saying unions reps have little idea about their members sounds pretty anti-union to me, particularly as it's wrong. IME they're usually people working alongside members in the same jobs in the same factories. I was one myself some years ago doing the same job, in the same place with the same management as the people I represented.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
offroader
Posts: 114
Joined: 18 Dec 2018, 4:47pm

Re: BEVs

Post by offroader »


UpWrong wrote:
Biospace wrote: 22 Mar 2023, 12:14pm
The motoring lobby were in significant part, the Germans. Germans politicians look after their own industries very carefully, their car industry had a technological lead with CI engines at the time. Additionally, the Green Party held just under 50 seats in the Bundestag in the 90s, their Vice-Chancellor and foreign minister from 1998-2005 was Green Party, as was their health minister. Almost worthy of a 'Yes, Minister' episode?
And now the Germans want to keep using cars with ICEs, https://www.politico.eu/article/electri ... sels-2035/

Why is this necessarily a problem?

Despite what the battery or bust lobbies say there are viable zero emissions ICEs available right now
You need look no further than the UK's own JCB to see a company pioneering the tech

Of course if the legislation is intended to prolong the use of squashed dinosaur it's a problem but lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater

User avatar
[XAP]Bob
Posts: 19793
Joined: 26 Sep 2008, 4:12pm

Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

No there aren’t - at least not sensibly.
For one thing combustion is never perfectly clean, particularly not in small engines - for another the fuel source of choice is currently usually hydrogen - which is generally made by steam reformation.

If you’re going to go to green hydrogen then you are going to use at least twice as much energy to run your vehicle as you would with a BEV.
Hydrogen has a place - but it’s not in vehicles, it’s in seasonal storage.
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.
reohn2
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Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: BEVs

Post by reohn2 »

Mike Sales wrote: 20 Mar 2023, 5:45pm I have just listened to a summary of the latest IPCC report on PM.
I doubt we will be able to reach net zero soon enough without changes in how we live.
Much of this discussion is about whether BEVs can replace ICVs with no impact on our lifestyle in this relatively rich country, which got its lead in industrialisation by burning fossil fuels.
I do not have much knowledge of this corner of a much bigger question, but I would surprised if we can escape climate catastrophe without what many might see as a big sacrifice in the conveniences of our comfortable lives.
And that is it in a nutshell.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Jdsk
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Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: BEVs

Post by Jdsk »

Mike Sales wrote: 20 Mar 2023, 5:45pm ...
Much of this discussion is about whether BEVs can replace ICVs with no impact on our lifestyle in this relatively rich country, which got its lead in industrialisation by burning fossil fuels.
...
The discussion in this thread? In this forum?

Please could you give some examples of someone asserting that.

Thanks

Jonathan
offroader
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Joined: 18 Dec 2018, 4:47pm

Re: BEVs

Post by offroader »

[XAP]Bob wrote:No there aren’t - at least not sensibly.
For one thing combustion is never perfectly clean, particularly not in small engines - for another the fuel source of choice is currently usually hydrogen - which is generally made by steam reformation.

If you’re going to go to green hydrogen then you are going to use at least twice as much energy to run your vehicle as you would with a BEV.
Hydrogen has a place - but it’s not in vehicles, it’s in seasonal storage.
If perfectly clean is a requirement then you can also rule out the current battery technologies. Lithium extraction and global transportation is far from zero emissions. Lithium battery creation is also very energy intensive. Disposal of dead lithium batteries is currently a problem, albeit one which is solvable. The main advantage I see to a lithium dependency is all the environmental damage is hidden in a far away place where it's easily overlooked by consumers, out of sight, out of mind

We do not currently have a problem free solution to global transportation that I'm aware of. If the consumption of fossil fuels was banned tomorrow how will the components of batteries be delivered from the far side of the world on Monday?

We have batteries that can plug the short distance journeys but their lack of energy density makes them problematic for many situations.
We have hydrogen technology which has the energy density but may produce some emissions
We have nuclear technology which is emissions free during it's working life - hopefully.

I don't see a way the world at large can switch to zero emissions overnight. We have spend centuries developing an addiction to fossil fuels in every aspect of life. Steel requires carbon, plastics are wholly reliant on recycled raptors. The list goes on.

We must and will find solutions and we absolutely need targets to drive development but along the way some interim compromise seems inevitable.
People seem happy to embrace that compromise to produce lithium batteries, why not consider others?
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[XAP]Bob
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Joined: 26 Sep 2008, 4:12pm

Re: BEVs

Post by [XAP]Bob »

offroader wrote: 24 Mar 2023, 11:10am
[XAP]Bob wrote:No there aren’t - at least not sensibly.
For one thing combustion is never perfectly clean, particularly not in small engines - for another the fuel source of choice is currently usually hydrogen - which is generally made by steam reformation.

If you’re going to go to green hydrogen then you are going to use at least twice as much energy to run your vehicle as you would with a BEV.
Hydrogen has a place - but it’s not in vehicles, it’s in seasonal storage.
If perfectly clean is a requirement then you can also rule out the current battery technologies. Lithium extraction and global transportation is far from zero emissions. Lithium battery creation is also very energy intensive. Disposal of dead lithium batteries is currently a problem, albeit one which is solvable. The main advantage I see to a lithium dependency is all the environmental damage is hidden in a far away place where it's easily overlooked by consumers, out of sight, out of mind
No - the main advantage is that it's a one time cost for very long term reuse - and of course lithium isn't the only game in town.
I note that you ignored the steam reformation issue.
We do not currently have a problem free solution to global transportation that I'm aware of. If the consumption of fossil fuels was banned tomorrow how will the components of batteries be delivered from the far side of the world on Monday?
By all your straw men in sailing boats.
We have batteries that can plug the short distance journeys but their lack of energy density makes them problematic for many situations.
We have hydrogen technology which has the energy density but may produce some emissions
We have nuclear technology which is emissions free during it's working life - hopefully.
Many? Care to elaborate?
They deal with basically any on road traffic, and anything on rail.
That leaves aviation and shipping, and whilst nuclear shipping is well established, the risks of piracy are probably too high for it to be taken seriously as a bulk proposition.

Hydrogen's volumetric energy density is atrocious, it might be good gravimetrically, but it's a real pain to store, and an even bigger pain to transport.
I don't see a way the world at large can switch to zero emissions overnight. We have spend centuries developing an addiction to fossil fuels in every aspect of life. Steel requires carbon, plastics are wholly reliant on recycled raptors. The list goes on.
Again - the overnight straw man.
We can't possibly eat this whole elephant in one sitting, so we'll sit and starve instead of biting off what we can achieve.
We must and will find solutions and we absolutely need targets to drive development but along the way some interim compromise seems inevitable.
People seem happy to embrace that compromise to produce lithium batteries, why not consider others?
Because physics isn't on the side of H2 as a domestic transport option.
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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