Harrys Garage - The future and electric and classic cars

[juggernaut]

Good video here on the future of cars of all kinds. I've put it here as the video section doesn't see as much traffic as here and I think this is worth a watch. Stick with it you might learn something.

[pseudonymous]

Dec 8, 2020 6:10:57 GMT juggernaut said:

Good video here on the future of cars of all kinds. I've put it here as the video section doesn't see as much traffic as here and I think this is worth a watch. Stick with it you might learn something.

That was genuinely interesting, he echoed what I've been saying about the future of classic cars and car ownership in general for some time.

[keithyboy]

Very interesting viewing. It's nice to see EVs being discussed with some balance. Usually it's either EVs are panacea to all of the planet's problems or EVs are the spawn of the devil.

[blackpopracing]

Very interesting.
It does back up many of our opinions of how ungreen the 'green' cars are though. As well as how ungreen modern society is with its constant replacement of goods.

[duncanmartin]

It is a good piece. I think he is slightly disingenuous in that how many people buy an electric car in order to do a couple of thousand miles a year? Also, when you hand back your 3 year lease car, it continues to exist and transport other people for another x years - without this churn the secondhand market would be very different and there would be even fewer EVs available secondhand. However, it is nice to see a mainstream motoring journalist point out that a modern EV is a good car (by the standards of new cars).
Ultimately, the only green personal transport is by foot. After that it's all a matter of diminishing returns - bike, e-Bike, e-motorcycle before you get to cars. If you do a significant distance each year, then an EV is more green than a petrol car (even a secondhand one), providing you keep it for several years.

It's an interesting conundrum, and one that I'm thinking about for my own personal transport post Covid. I have an EV, I've done 32,000 miles in it over 3 years, but when normality returns my wife and daughter will be getting the bus to school and I will (hopefully, if I am injury free) cycle when I need to go to the office. This will result in a massive reduction in the miles I put into my EV, and make a much higher percentage the sort of long journey that it is less good at. So, maybe I should get rid of it to someone who will continue to put significant miles on it, and get myself a nice retro petrol car. Hypothetically, if I did a direct swap with someone doing my old commute in an Alfa 164 (or whatever), both of us might enjoy our driving more and it would be better for the environment too. Post Covid is quite a while away though.
Picture for wordiness penance:

[blackpopracing]

Not really disingenious - if 'someone' goes through 3 cars a decade 'someone' are not being very green. Whether that car goes on to be used after is not the point.
Petrol cars also get used after so its a balanced viewpoint.

Thre 'ungreen' part is the rampant consumerism of constantly upgrading cars every 3 years.

[kevins]

I can't see that it matters if a car has one owner or 10 in it's life, I would have thought the length of that life is the issue with many pefectly good cars being scrapped often with no or minor faults.

The big question will be how long ev batteries last and will the complex electrics become unreliable.

[duncanmartin]

Dec 12, 2020 18:21:12 GMT blackpopracing said:

Not really disingenious - if 'someone' goes through 3 cars a decade 'someone' are not being very green. Whether that car goes on to be used after is not the point.
Petrol cars also get used after so its a balanced viewpoint.

Thre 'ungreen' part is the rampant consumerism of constantly upgrading cars every 3 years.

Don't get me wrong, constantly upgrading anything before it's worn out is not very green. But if the lifetime of a car is 10 years, to put all the emissions used in manufacture on the first 3 is doing the math wrong, even if that is how long the first owner has it for. Also, the disingenuous point was about the number of miles - buying a new EV to do 3000 miles a year is daft, so comparing the CO2 cost of constructing an EV with that of travelling low miles in a classic is apples and oranges...

Dec 12, 2020 19:23:05 GMT kevins said:

The big question will be how long ev batteries last and will the complex electrics become unreliable.

Surprisingly long, and about the same chance as with all the other new cars I suspect.

[blackpopracing]

I'm not sure I agree. The carbon footprint is in the making of, not the lifetime of anything.

[duncanmartin]

Dec 13, 2020 16:01:58 GMT blackpopracing said:

I'm not sure I agree. The carbon footprint is in the making of, not the lifetime of anything.

The full carbon footprint is that created by the making of, the use of, and the disposal of. That's the full lifetime of a thing. Harry was acknowledging that (mostly - the disposal bit is complicated) and comparing the emissions created when building an EV and with those of running a classic. And he's right, if you don't do many miles, running a classic creates less CO2 than building a new EV every 3 years. It's just a bit more complicated than that math suggests.

[mr2fc]

People have got it all wrong. Might as well forget about which fuel source is better or cleaner, stop having so many flipping kids! Two is enough for anyone!!! People are the biggest drain, everything is easier and less polluting with fewer people!

It appears we can only move the pollution to a different place or change it into a different form? So instead of going all NIMBY, just have less people to provide for, less people to travel around. Easy!

[blackpopracing]

The real issue to me is globalisation.

If we really want to save the planet then stop flying Avacado's or Strawberries from South Africa to the UK so we can eat them.

If his facts are correct and one flight to LA return is as much CO2 as running a classic for 10,000 miles then buying avacado's must have a similar footprint???

Stop that first, it would have a far higher impact.

[slater]

Spot on. There are far bigger issues for the world than what car youre driving! (Yet cars is the only one we seem to see much action on..)

One thing he kind of ignores is the whole reason to go electric, its not really CO2 emissions, its air quality! Everyone confuses these two issues. He basically states going electric will worsen CO2 output without changing the way the electricity is produced... Great but that's not the main reason to persue electric vehicles so it's not the be all and end all. It's about cleaner air. Whether you think that matters seems to still be up for debate but it certainly doesnt matter as much as stopping climate change does. One thing I do know is, sadly in the silly logic vaccume of a world we live in it's the air quality issue that's currently being used as an excuse to destroy motor vehicle transport so personally I quite like the idea of the electric car coming along and blowing all those leftie cyclist dickhead ideas out the water..

For me the electric car isnt about saving the planet. It's about winning the war on the car.

[duggers]

I'd actually like to have an EV as my daily, 30 miles each way to work would be ok with most available at the moment, however I have two issues that don't make that viable;

1. I do not have a drive I have a parking space which is 20 metres from my house, down a public footpath and past some houses, and thus nowhere to put a proper charging point and I will not sit in Tesco recharge point for an hour every day as 60 miles is about all any of them would do this time of year (at any price point I could get near) when I leave at 0645 (dark and cold)leave for home when its dark and cold, using dual carriageways and A roads before i had less than a one way journey to work left in charge.

2. I don't have the finances to fund such a car even if I went PCP which is the slow road to financial servitude having to keep paying ad infinitum to keep driving.

So I'll run ICE vehicles until they make it massively too expensive to do so. Then I'll be old enough to retire anyway.

[blackpopracing]

For me - I'm not against electric vehicles per se, I'm just against being forced to have one.

I've not driven one so it's hard to be objective, but while I'd like the power I'm not sure I'd like the driving experience? Not being able to change gear, downshift, hear the engine growl etc is as the chap in the video suggests, a two dimensional experience.

[keithyboy]

The cleaner air part is what everyone forgets. I work in Manchester but since March I've been at home. When I do go into Manchester you can taste and smell the difference in the air quality because there's so much less traffic. When it rains you get that fresh smell and when you get home your clothes still smell of detergent. Eventually normality will return, along with the traffic. Increasing numbers of EVs will hopefully have a similar effect though.

[henryb]

A few of my mates own EV's one has a Mini E and the other has a BMW I3..

The biggest issue I have is the power and performance is all delivered in the same Black and white delivery, foot down and it goes, which is great for some, but there is very little to individualise the car..

And I fear the same will happen when more and more manufacturers start pumping out high performance Saloons or sports cars, what will make them special? or different?

To be honest in my book they're disposable white goods, they drive fine, but the experience is boring, no gear changes no engine noise, no growly cold start in the morning nothing really endears it you don't even have to steer some of them!!

The one constant argument is the "immediate performance" yep so what? My P38 or old Land rover doesn't have neck snapping performance yet I still have a stupid grin on my face when I drive them..

The biggest selling point for EV's is the lack of Tax and fuel to pay for, but Rishi is already looking to close the gap once ICE fuel duty drops off, so in reality no one will be able to drive for nothing.

Once you lose the cheapness of transport that the EV so proudly boasts what will be left?

nowt really..

I don't hate them, i'll probably have to have one someday..

[blackpopracing]

Why do you think they are pushing smart meters on everyone?

Smart meters will know when your car is plugged in and charge 10 x the price for the electric..........

[mr2fc]

Dec 14, 2020 19:14:53 GMT blackpopracing said:

For me - I'm not against electric vehicles per se, I'm just against being forced to have one.

I've not driven one so it's hard to be objective, but while I'd like the power I'm not sure I'd like the driving experience? Not being able to change gear, downshift, hear the engine growl etc is as the chap in the video suggests, a two dimensional experience.

I've not driven one either, but I have a fantasy of someone making an affordable seven-esque think, like a scaled up version of the RC touring cars I used to race! I think if you make it light and don't worry about sound proofing the noise would be different but you'd at least hear something.

I would miss changing gear, I can't bring myself to have an automatic unless I lose a leg

[mr2fc]

The cleaner air bit is "NIMBY"

The air is cleaner here, but extra mining and production pollution goes somewhere! Someone, somewhere is feeling the opposite of the clean air we'll be benefiting from!