Electric cars

Martyn1981

Gloomendoom wrote: »

It took a bit longer than that. I had my first smart phone in 2002 and it was years before everybody else followed suit.

The disruption part of the "S" curve (from about 10% to 80%) was in the late naughties and was about 2yrs, pretty much led by Apple as they took the market by storm.

Nokia, the great disruptor with the mobile phone, was then disrupted by the smart phone ..... complacence!

Edit - Apologies, on reading back I can see I'm mixing the terms displace and disrupt, which is not clear at all.

Interestingly, EV's and PV are very old technology, something like 120yrs and 60yrs, and neither have reached disruption yet, though the last 10yrs has seen them rise to about the point (and cost) that they should start to accelerate quickly. PV is expected to be the single largest source of leccy by 2040/50 (not in the UK though I suspect, where it'll be wind), and EV's to dominate sales perhaps by 2025-30(ish .... rather vague).

Martyn1981

stator wrote: »

If you actually read what I had said you would see that I said the nuclear is the cheapest clean and reliable source of energy. Coal and gas are not clean but very reliable. Wind is clean but not reliable. Solar is useless at providing energy when you need it. The only alternative to nuclear that is clean is hydro and you'd have to flood half the country to provide our energy needs from hydro.

If you leave your house once and a while you'll see with your own eyes why everyone can't own an electric car.


EVs have nowhere to go. Batteries are expensive and heavy.
If someone invents a new type of battery that costs half as much and stores twice as much energy without weighing any more, then EVs will be viable. Lithium technology will never drive EVs to the majority of vehicles in the UK because for most people they are crap.

If you want sources, learn to use google. I'm not pretending to write a dissertation here.

Nuclear isn't the cheapest, I've given you cost figures, you are welcome to provide some evidence.

Regarding reliability, that's why we need a good mix of RE, plus storage, and if necessary some gas back up (ideally bio-gas) to fill in any holes.

Nuclear can't demand follow, so it also needs storage/gas back. And please don't tell me that HPC can ramp down to 60%, I know it can, but 1. it won't that would lose them £3m per day, and 2. they have stated that they don't intend to ramp down.

For RE + storage, please may I refer you to the auction prices in the states where PV, wind and storage are being offered at $21 to $36/MWh with 4-10hrs of storage.

Wind & Solar + Storage Prices Smash Records

Please explain why you think I don't leave my house, and why that means folk can't own EV's? They have to park them somewhere, don't they? Your opinion that the majority can't charge at home is false and unsupported. Charging can be done at the supermarket during a weekly shop ...... your claim is false and unsupported/unsubstantiated.

EV's have every where to go, or have you missed the fact that take up has now begun to ramp up, and battery costs are expected to continue their dramatic price drop ...... or like nuclear costs, are you also unaware of batt prices and the price cost curve?

Sorry, but referring me to Google doesn't work in this situation. You have made, and continue to make claims of fact regarding costs for EV's and RE/nuclear, those claims do not match any given facts, so therefore it is for you (not me) to support your claims.*

*In much the same way that Adrian has made many 'factual statements' about Tesla and their trucks, but is unable to support any of them, thereby making his statements worthless, argumentative and pointless.

AdrianC

AdrianC wrote: »

<starts stopwatch>

<stops stopwatch>
Too damn easy.

ElefantEd

Nuclear isn't cheap if you take into account the costs of dealing with the spent fuel.

Renewables are perfectly reliable (hint: other types of power stations don't generate electricity 100% of the time either), though better energy storage would help improve this.

As for nowhere for EVs to go, I am confident that they will be the majority form of transport within 20 years. They are cheaper and much less polluting than other forms of engine already, and this will only improve.

The vast majority of car journeys in the UK are quite short (average is about 10 miles) - absolutely perfect for an EV. They are not (currently) as good for long trips, but for most people this isn't a consideration 99% of the time.

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

<stops stopwatch>
Too damn easy.

Are you only posting on here to start arguments and spread anti-Tesla propaganda? You could play nice, if you really wanted too.

almillar

Solar panels, Wind farms, Gas and Coal all have annual deaths in the UK attributed to them.
Number of people killed in the UK from nuclear power: 0 (year after year after year after year).

Quite a claim. Evidence? Interesting that you choose to ignore nuclear meltdowns on the rest of the planet.

I don't know why you keep repeating charge at home electric can solve any problems. Most people can't charge at home and never will be able to.

Charging at home solves loads of problems, yes it does. Plenty of people can't charge at home, that's true, so they're stuck charging in public at destination chargers, for example (I already said this, aren't you reading?), until other options come along, like building chargers into street furniture, where and if appropriate.

(public charging)

For everyone else it is a rip off.

I might agree a bit here. It's free in NI at the moment, and there are umpteen different systems on the mainland, but all they have to do is make it cheaper per mile than ICE.

Look at the second hand electric cars you can buy now. The batteries are knackered

Utter, complete rubbish. Any rare cases where batteries have failed or lost enough capacity, have been replaced by manufacturers.

you can't go 50 miles without stopping

If I did 70 down the motorway in freezing weather, that was the range of my Renault Zoe. Not faulty, that's just the range of its 22kWh battery).

I can go out and buy a petrol/diesel car for £500 and away I go.

Not at the same age/mileage/spec as an electric car. And you have to add fuel. Anyway, you argued that 'poor people' will NEVER own electric cars. I'm trying to tell you they will, when electric cars (a new thing on our roads) have trickled down to the same age, mileage and value as ICE cars. You're also arguing that the batteries are knackered and they have no range, surely that would make them really cheap?!

Blackouts in winter when the wind stops blowing are unavoidable if try to build a grid on them without 100% redundancy from a reliable source of fuel like coal or gas. Especially if everybody had an electric car, got home at 7pm when it's dark and plugged in their car.

Now, I repeat that I'm not saying we can run a country on 100% renewables, but you have GOT to acknowledge the existence of batteries, which are a buffer/peak management, They're in use on the grid right now.

But with crap batteries on second hand electric cars, I won't be getting one soon.

If your complaint is that the cars are too expensive and don't go far enough, that's perfectly valid. Plenty of people are the same. But improvements are coming thick and fast.

EVs have nowhere to go. Batteries are expensive and heavy.

Do yourself a favour and find out how much 1kWh of lithium battery would have cost 10 years ago. And how much it would cost now.

If you want sources, learn to use google. I'm not pretending to write a dissertation here.

You're just spouting rubbish that's patently untrue, for quite a lot of the time. It's your job to back up these wild claims, or accept them for what they are.

stator

A weekly shop? You think people with electric cars would only need to charge them once per week?
You seriously think that Tesco and Sainsburys are going to roll out free charging points for all the parking spaces in their car park?
If you want EV to really be a replacement for the ICE you have to find a solution for everyone to charge their car. One free charging spot at the local LIDL won't do it.

A fleet of nuclear power stations producing hydrogen don't need to reduce their output. When demand for electricity is high, they sell it to the grid. When demand is low they use the power themselves to produce hydrogen on site and sell that. If the government built the power stations and hydrogen production, once they had banned the ICE, they would be able to sell the power stations off at a profit

stator

ElefantEd wrote: »

The vast majority of car journeys in the UK are quite short (average is about 10 miles) - absolutely perfect for an EV. They are not (currently) as good for long trips, but for most people this isn't a consideration 99% of the time.

That 1% of the time that people care about how far they can drive is the 1% of the time they are thinking about buying a new car.

I may make most of my journeys in town. But sometimes I need to drive on long journeys, and sometimes suddenly with no planning in advance. And I want to take my own car. So I will buy a car that meets all of my needs all of the time and not just most of my needs most of the time.

Martyn1981

almillar wrote: »

Quite a claim. Evidence? Interesting that you choose to ignore nuclear meltdowns on the rest of the planet.

Technically he has a point, but it's a nasty misuse of information that comes up every now and then by those attacking renewables.

PV and wind do have deaths, mostly from working at height. I forget the exact figures but I think PV is worse than wind, which sounds odd, but I suspect folk take risks at 8m on a roof, but wear proper safety harness' at 50m+ up a wind turbine.

If you really want to go down the anti-RE rabbit hole, then the worst technology by far, simply standing alone compared to all others is hydro, this is due to the enormous loss of lives over the last century from dam failures.

Yes it's a construed argument, yes it's desperate nonsense, but if you are desperate enough, you can make the case for lives lost in the RE industry v's nuclear. But at the same time it's also worth noting that RE is highly labour intensive, so it employs far more people, which is generally considered a plus. I also suspect that the approx $200bn clean up cost for Fukushima would buy a lot of clean air generation, health and social care, and many other ways to extend current lives, which is a reasonable flip (I think) on the deaths from RE v's nuclear claims.

IRENA: Renewables can account for up to two-thirds of total energy use, and 85% of power generation by 2050

Another key benefit of the energy transition would be the employment boost in the energy sector. The report finds that while 7.4 million jobs in fossil fuels will be lost by 2050, 19 million new jobs will be created in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid enhancement and energy flexibility, for a net gain of 11.6 million jobs.

s0mojo

As much as I'd like to love to own a an EV, I just don't feel comfortable with our infrastructure so instead I'd go for a hybrid such as a Golf GTE