BEVs deals and information

GreatApe

Also oil cars are not a huge fossil fuel user

If there are 32 million oil cars doing 7,100 miles and getting say 120grams/km average that equals 43.5 million tons per year Vs about 400 million tons per year useage or less than 11% of UK fossil fuel useage is from personal cars and taxis

The grid and heating are more important to solve
Plus as already shown by others BEVs manufacturing costs mean they aren't much of a saving anyway and are front loaded

Better to deploy more offshore wind power to decarb the grid and in due course to decarb heating with resistance heaters powered by wind.

Instead of giving rich folk £30k discount on £100k EVs which don't do much to reduce CO2 better to use the funds to deploy more offshore wind. Maybe electrify buses and taxis and HGVs but don't sub personal BEVs.

ABrass

Seriously, this has been analysed to death. Pulling numbers out of thin air isn't useful or helpful and is misleading.

A short range EV has roughly 1,000 kg extra co2 as part of production, a long range one around 6,000kg.

The UK grid is expecting to be between 50g and 100g within the next 15 years. We're currently around the 150g mark.

https://www.icax.co.uk/Grid_Carbon_Factors.html

http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-full-report.pdf

With current technology BEVs are better than ICE in the UK. Could they be even better? Yes.

GreatApe

ABrass wrote: »

Seriously, this has been analysed to death. Pulling numbers out of thin air isn't useful or helpful and is misleading.

A short range EV has roughly 1,000 kg extra co2 as part of production, a long range one around 6,000kg.

The UK grid is expecting to be between 50g and 100g within the next 15 years. We're currently around the 150g mark.

https://www.icax.co.uk/Grid_Carbon_Factors.html

http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-full-report.pdf

With current technology BEVs are better than ICE in the UK. Could they be even better? Yes.

But even using your 1-6 tons let's take the mid point of that and say 3.5 tons and use average 100 grams for the grid for the next 15 years life of a car and 125,000 miles driven before end of life

So oil car 17 tons BEV 20.5 tons to manufacture
Oil car 24 tons to drive, BEV 4.5 tons to drive

Therefore oil car is around 37.5 tons and BEV 28.5 tons
Just 26% lifetime co2 saving and this is with a very clean future UK grid. Most grids like the German grid are still very dirty much more so than the UK grid so the 26% saving is lower perhaps non existent

I doubt many people think a change over to BEVs is only saving 26% (or thereabouts)

UK would be better off deploying more offshore wind more rapidly and electrifying heating more rapidly and doing efficiency more rapidly and building interconntors more rapidly. A commitment to say 40GW offshore wind by 2030 and then 80GW by 2040 would do more than trying to push BEVs for personal useage.

1961Nick

joefizz wrote: »

Double quoting is bad form I know but Ive just checked the average annual mileage for uk cars in 2017 and it was just over 7100 miles.
I did notice down the years the insurance renewal default mileage had dropped from 12000 down to 8000 and thought it was just another attempt to get money out me!
Im genuinely surprised at that.
I know you cant really multiple average years old by average miles and get anything meaningful but that figure comes out at less than 50k miles!

I took the average mileage of a 3 series before it went to the crusher for the purpose of the calculation. The annual mileage is probably a lot higher than average, but than it more relevant to CO2 reduction.

The comparison between a 3 series & a TM3 seemed fair since they share the same market sector.

almillar

No.
One parked on the drive, one parked on the street.... its sometimes the simple things that get overlooked.

Sure, but still quite negative. For the number of miles a lot of people drive, charging each car alternatively, overnight, would be more than sufficient. Assume 10 hours, 7kW charger = 70kWh. If you're lucky enough to have 2 70kWh cars, and we assume a (low) 3 miles per kWh, that means both cars could do 210 miles, every 2 days. That's 420 miles in two days between the two cars. If someone needs more than this, maybe they drive too much.

That will cost the nation the best part of £20-40 billion to do. That's a very big cost
Instead I think a mass deployment of rapid public chargers is necessary
Think of a 150KW rapid charger will mean a half hour charge will fill most cars up from 10-90%

Can you please confirm the cost of installing a 7kW 'home' charger vs a 50, or 100kW rapid?

Have a look on howmanyleft quite a drop off in registered/sorn numbers of some types of leafs (and other ice cars, its not a particular leaf thing) after just a couple of years. They cant all be crashing after 3 years...

So what's your theory? Where are you going with this?

Once that was dealt with, did the infrastructure go away or was it used to take ex-pcp cars prematurely off the road to keep the credit ponzi going or was inbuilt obsolescence the official excuse?

I don't know. Do you? What I do know is that PCP was very popular before the Government Scrappage Scheme came along.

Thats a bit of a non-sequitur to be honest. The cars may not cost more because they run longer. In fact it is likely it might drop the residuals of some second hand cars.... that would be a disaster for pcp...

I don't think it is. What makes you think the cars will last longer? I'm thinking of pure supply/demand. Fewer cars on the used market, cars do get used longer (good) but prices will go up. That's what will make it worth keeping that 'scrapper' on the road, instead of scrapping it and PCP-ing a new one. That must happen, if fewer people buy new cars, and fewer people scrap old ones.

The original scrappage scheme raised the prices of older 2nd hand cars as people were buying them for a few hundred quid less than the scrappage price to get the money off a new one. Cars above that price dropped in price accordingly.

You had to own the car for at least 6 months(?) so the above isn't true, AFAIK.

All to meet emissions, and really to mis sell into the market, diesels shouldnt really be considered for lots of short run trips - blame Gordon Brown for that. I remember talking to someone who was doing a PhD thesis in diesel particulates way back in 1999...

Mis-selling of diesels certainly happened, on a governmental/policy level, but I never heard Gordon Brown, or any car salesman, recommend a diesel for low mileage, or short journeys. None of the gizmos they have fitted over the years have changed the fundamentals - diesels can be more efficient, once up to temperature, and are better suited to long journeys and larger vehicles. Regardless of any emmissions lies.

Presumably cables used for street charging will spend their time lying in the gutter. I would be interested to hear from anyone who charges on the street if putting the cable away is as messy as packing up your electric hook up cable when caravanning or motorhoming. Just the sort of job one looks forward to on a cold wet morning before setting off to work.

You're an expert at thinking of negatives. No, we're usually talking about tarmac, so at worst it's in a puddle, and a shake will get rid of most of the water. Anyone really concerned about it can loop the cable a bit to keep it off the ground.

Comparing an rx8 to a 350z is a strange comparison, the 350 has a cat.

Comparing 2 Japanese ~£25,000 sports cars of the same era is strange? Why? And even your reason for not comparing (cat) is completely wrong! I believe the 350Z has 2 cats, and the RX8 definitely does have one. I've owned both. Maybe you're confused by some people removing the cat from the RX8 (for flames!).

My point about the rex was how polluting it is since it burns around half a litre of oil every 1,000 miles if you are lucky, not about its cost.

Whatever they do burn, is included in the emmissions tests - it'll come out the exhaust, where the emmissions are tested. If they're too high, it'll fail. As I say, I've owned both cars, they're taxed on their emmissions, and whattaya know, they're both in the same bracket (the top one).

but there has to be a workable business model to recover the very substantial investment in installing new public chargers

For a 7kW charger, around £8k. If a supermarket installs one, I'll shop there instead of the one round the corner, so will other EV drivers. They'll soom get that £8k back. Rapid chargers (50kW+) aren't for shops.

Just walk out the door get in the car and drive away and just as easy when coming home at night.

Again lots of negatives about EVs and positives about ICEs. If you had an eGolf, when you get into the car on that frosty morning you could have pre-heated it. You'd get into a nice warm car, with a clear windscreen. In your ICE Golf, you have to get in, switch it on, and waste fuel waiting for it to heat up and the windscreen to clear. Just for a bit of balance.

The difference is those new technologies offered convenience and EVs offer the opposite

No, you're just ignoring the conveniences, see above.

instead of giving rich folk £30k discount on £100k EVs

Eh? I think you mean £4,500 discount.

1961Nick

GreatApe wrote: »

I think your figures assume far too high a mileage and too long an ownership
People like to buy new things. A sofa might last 50 years but few people keep one that long!

Surely the number of owners & the length of ownership is irrelevant? The only figure that matters is the distance it travels in it's lifetime.

I agree that replacing a micro petrol car with a BEV makes absolutely no sense because it would never do enough miles to reach CO2 break even.

The only way you can answer the original question is to look at each sector on it's own merits.

mmmmikey

mmmmikey wrote: »

Picking up on the last couple of posts, does anyone have figures on the amount of CO2 used in producing a car and the lifetime of the car? I'm wondering how this compares with the amount of CO2 emitted as a result of the use of fuel?

Thanks for the various replies to this.

To my way of thinking, it's the order of magnitude that's important here rather than the exact figures. As a very rough and ready approximation, it looks like you can say that a typical ICE car will be responsible for something like 1/3 to 1/2 of it's overall lifetime emissions as a result of the manufacturing process.

I may be stating the obvious here but I think the significance of this is lost in some of the discussion about the role of BEVs in saving the environment.

1. Even if BEVs reduce ongoing/fuel realted emissions to zero, ownership of a car of any kind (BEV or ICE) makes a significant contribution to global warming. So shouldn't we be focusing on reducing the number of cars on the road by reducing the need for transport and/or the use of alternative means of transport rather than putting too many eggs in the BEV basket?

2. The longer we keep our cars for the more value we squeeze out of the CO2 emitted dueing the manufacturing process. So are scrappage schemes a good idea, and shouldn't we be encouraging people to keep their cars longer (with the possible exception of very old gas guzzlers)?

I'm absolutely in favour of encouraging the use of BEVs where these are a viable alternative to ICE cars, but concerned that they're being perceived as a bit of a silver bullet for reducing transport related CO2 emissions.

ABrass

The focus of this thread has been CO2, but that isn't the only form of pollution from cars. In terms of air quality older cars, especially diesels, are much worse for PM2 and NOX.

For CO2 keeping an older car running is better, for air quality a new EV is massively better. (Not perfect due to brake wear and tire wear, but massively better)

joefizz

I'll reply to some of the points in reply to mine below, mmmikeys last post pretty much sums it up though.

almillar wrote: »

Have a look on howmanyleft quite a drop off in registered/sorn numbers of some types of leafs (and other ice cars, its not a particular leaf thing) after just a couple of years. They cant all be crashing after 3 years...

So what's your theory? Where are you going with this?

Not really a theory, according to published government figures each car is on average driving less and lasting the same average length of time on the road for the last 20 years, which is slightly shorter than the previous 20 years.
If you want a theory, then perfectly useable cars are deliberately being taken out of circulation to keep new car sales going.
Ive a 12 year old diesel and Id hardly call it a scrapper.

almillar wrote: »

I don't know. Do you? What I do know is that PCP was very popular before the Government Scrappage Scheme came along.

I dont have the figures to hand but I think something like 94% of new Audis and 95% of new Mercs are now on PCP.

It never used to be _that_ popular.
Certainly overall published figures for 2018 by the finance and leasing association are in excess of 91.2% of new cars across the board on finance with the vast majority being pcp.

It used to be HP and car loans from banks/building societies...

almillar wrote: »

You had to own the car for at least 6 months(?) so the above isn't true, AFAIK.

Someone had to own the car for the previous year to qualify and the scheme ran for a year but was leaked before then.

Three mates did it.

almillar wrote: »

Whatever they do burn, is included in the emmissions tests - it'll come out the exhaust, where the emmissions are tested. If they're too high, it'll fail.

I know this one wasnt in reply to me but if youve motd a diesel here in NI they dont test emissions (even though they legally should).

almillar wrote: »

In your ICE Golf, you have to get in, switch it on, and waste fuel waiting for it to heat up and the windscreen to clear. Just for a bit of balance.

Doesnt the ICE golf have remote start as an option? Hired one I had in Canada had one, might not be an option here or just part of the winter pack there though.
I was in a Jag last week with remote start/climate. Common on mercs I think and a retro fit to any push start or keyless entry car.
Prefer remote heated seats myself... can retrofit that for less than 20 quid, very useful in the camper.

mmmmikey

joefizz wrote: »

Not really a theory, according to published government figures each car is on average driving less and lasting the same average length of time on the road for the last 20 years, which is slightly shorter than the previous 20 years.

Going back to the days when we used to live in shoeboxes on the motorway (which nobody seems to believe), it was very common to do your own servicing - changing the plugs, adjusting the points, fettling the carburettor, etc. Now it's a specialist job involving fault code readers and a knowledge of electronics - for example, a towbar wiring issue on a Volvo I had involved a firmware upgrade. It used to be rust that brought cars to their end - not any more I suspect.

Paying someone with specilist skills and equipment to keep your car going changes the economics radically, and I suspect this has driven some of the decline in lifespan. All part of a throwaway culture that has developed over the last few decades.