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Dec 14, 2020 23:45:25 GMT
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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. This is why I work for the food company I do, organic, absolutely no air miles on anything and we support the small guys.
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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Anyone near Oxford who wants to try an EV is welcome to message me when Covid is over and have a go in my Zoe. It's not the most scintillating of driving experiences, but it is among the cheapest, easiest to live with EVs around. There are times when easy to live with is good (it beats having to choose your route based on the height of the speedbumps!).
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Dec 15, 2020 11:10:35 GMT
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The problem I have with EVs is that they are rather like a fridge, I appreciate what they do and accept that I may, one day, need one out of necessity. I can even acknowledge the design/aesthetic but they aren't an aspirational commodity. They have, beyond the initial 'look how fast they accelerate', absolutely no visceral interest at all. From the perspective of driving dynamics they are the ultimate one-trick pony. That's not to say I wouldn't own one, under the right circumstances and budget, merely that I've no burning desire to do so whilst other products that do the job better are still available.
I'm pretty sure I'll still be able to drive a petrol engined car, or at the very least a hybrid, for the remainder of my driving life. EVs aren't the solution to the problem, or even the solution to a problem. What they do represent however is the simplest, most politically expedient solution to a demand being made that neatly sidesteps the actual issues that need to be addressed, but that no politician who wishes to stay in office will address, top of which is global overpopulation. The EV is merely the path of least resistance, to facilitate putting off the bigger questions until later, when it isn't our/their problem.
Unless we want to simply pay lip service to the problems humanity faces (not the planet, the planet will survive our extinction and thrive, it's us who are under threat in the long term) then we need to fundamentally change how we live, travel, eat and even procreate. Of course, we won't, until the 11th hour, as we are an entirely self-aggrandising species.
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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Dec 15, 2020 12:09:32 GMT
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Unless we want to simply pay lip service to the problems humanity faces (not the planet, the planet will survive our extinction and thrive, it's us who are under threat in the long term) then we need to fundamentally change how we live, travel, eat and even procreate. Of course, we won't, until the 11th hour, as we are an entirely self-aggrandising species. My bold. What are EVs, except a tiny attempt to change how we travel? Looking at the resistance to this, which is probably one of the most palatable changes required to travel towards zero carbon, no wonder we're in such a mess. This thread is off down the political rabbit hole, and I have no wish to contribute to that (I come here to avoid that), so I'll not be contributing further to this thread.
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Dec 15, 2020 12:27:58 GMT
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Unless we want to simply pay lip service to the problems humanity faces (not the planet, the planet will survive our extinction and thrive, it's us who are under threat in the long term) then we need to fundamentally change how we live, travel, eat and even procreate. Of course, we won't, until the 11th hour, as we are an entirely self-aggrandising species. My bold. What are EVs, except a tiny attempt to change how we travel? Looking at the resistance to this, which is probably one of the most palatable changes required to travel towards zero carbon, no wonder we're in such a mess. This thread is off down the political rabbit hole, and I have no wish to contribute to that (I come here to avoid that), so I'll not be contributing further to this thread. I don't disagree. See my comment about humans being an entirely self-aggrandising species. The thing is, they are being marketed as a solution in itself, both by governments desperate to look as if they are actually doing something and manufacturers who are desperate to generate as much profit out of this technology to refill the coffers before this generation becomes obsolete, or forced into competition with another power-train solution. In most cases it isn't resistance, it's practicality. These cars are expensive, require domestic infrastructure that most do not have (i.e. a driveway) and remain totally inaccessible to those on low incomes who need a car to survive because of the way society has evolved both in terms of working practices and urban planning. So to say it's the most palatable step is to ignore the realities of life. Public transport is a mess, expensive, dirty, slow, late and impractical. That's if it even serves where you live, which is all too often no longer the case. Ultimately, demand for cars is driven entirely by population. Until some nations are brought into line, we may as well not bother. Overpopulation is the problem that needs to be addressed and that nobody wants to deal with. At this stage in planetary change, tiny changes are no longer adequate, so whilst the charge (ha!) toward EV adoption is entirely laudable, it's just more p*****g into the wind without at least some form of acknowledgement that there are simply too many of us, no matter how unpalatable that may be to the liberally minded politicos and think tanks. Politically related retro, as penance.
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slater
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,390
Club RR Member Number: 78
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Dec 15, 2020 17:02:35 GMT
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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.......... Mmm kind of but your only looking at the one potential downside vs the several massive upsides. Energy will be more expensive at peak time yeh but that will have a knock on effect of pushing manufacturers to devise ways of you being able to use energy at off peak times insted so you wont need to buy it.. which in turn brings down its price... Remember economy 7? It will save you more than it costs you.. infact it will save the grid a massive amount over all and that means savings can be passed on to consumers.. (yes I hear all you mr cynicals out there.. 'oh but the savings wont get passed on..' drone.. it doesnt change the reality of it being massivly cheaper overall) As far as the car goes the charger itself will be like a smart meter. The charger will know the load on the grid and in 'economy 7 mode' will only charge your car at low loads. Infact at high loads you will probably find your car will sell energy back to the grid to fill the gaps! This is a pretty essential technology for the whole electric car thing to work and if implemented is actually a real asset and a really significant "side benifit" of the whole thing. I'm sure there will be an option to over ride that kind of load following and get a 'fast charge' but it will cost more ofcourse so you will only use it if you come unstuck..
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slater
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,390
Club RR Member Number: 78
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Dec 15, 2020 17:10:38 GMT
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Also stop banging on about not being passionate about EVs.. I'm passionate about my Enfield 8000 project.. I'm just not passionate about some modern mass produced shopping trolly.. Its not the EV thats the issue. Does anyone on here actually get passionate about modern petrol cars? All boring as hell, even the so called 'performance' (cars which is just another word for 'look how much finance I can afford posermobile')
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duncanmartin
Club Retro Rides Member
Out of retro ownership
Posts: 1,320
Club RR Member Number: 70
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Dec 15, 2020 17:22:51 GMT
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As far as the car goes the charger itself will be like a smart meter. The charger will know the load on the grid and in 'economy 7 mode' will only charge your car at low loads. Infact at high loads you will probably find your car will sell energy back to the grid to fill the gaps! This is a pretty essential technology for the whole electric car thing to work and if implemented is actually a real asset and a really significant "side benifit" of the whole thing. I'm sure there will be an option to over ride that kind of load following and get a 'fast charge' but it will cost more ofcourse so you will only use it if you come unstuck.. All this stuff for smart charging your car already exists. An example would be a charger called a "Zappi" - it's designed for people with solar panels so they can charge the car exclusively from that power source. Or you can over-ride that and charge at the maximal possible speed from the grid. There are definitely some homebrew chargers that will actively monitor electricity price from agile suppliers and only charge below a certain price - I don't know if there are any commercial applications yet. Vehicle to grid is still experimental at the moment - I'm not sure if UK smart meters will be able to handle it, but Nissan have an experimental scheme doing it with the Leaf in Japan. I'm not sure if anyone's doing it with CCS yet.
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Dec 15, 2020 20:14:26 GMT
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It is a long video, but shows quite interestingly where the historic and classic car industry is in terms of economics and ecologics.
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Click picture for more
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Dec 15, 2020 23:08:15 GMT
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Wrt to home charge points there are various types, some are just power outlets but others (usually the higher power ones) can vary the charge rate, all bev vehicles also have on-board charge controllers some of these can also be programmed and controlled externally to vary the rate.
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Dec 16, 2020 12:28:02 GMT
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My 2pence from working in power generation and renewables for a couple of decades - Local Air quality - yes it is a massive plus point and not just 'moving the issue'. 6k people in London die prematurely from air pollution every year. Don't want to draw comparison to Covid but people with pre-existing conditions passing on early due to Bob wanting to drive his petrol car 2 miles to the shops is socially acceptable (although becoming less so). That same person dying from Bob refusing to wear a mask or socially distance is not fine. The simple act of swapping his car for an EV (or walking, the lazy ) would solve his affect on issue 1. Wider air quality - yes we still have a fair degree of fossil fuel for power but it's typically large power stations with strict emissions limits, continuous emissions monitoring with full redundancy so EA can see exactly what the plants are doing. Compare that to Bob who winds his carb back once a year so it huffs and puffs and just scrapes the MOT test, and then immediately resets to a richer setting for his 20,000 miles of the year, blowing directly into peoples faces. Transmission Losses - yes shifting power around incurs losses. Alleviated with localised renewables, combined heat and power plants, district heating and localised storage. Of course Bobs petrol appears magically in his fuel tank every morning and definitely hasn't been shipped from the middle east or Russia. Batteries - more and more second life uses for these from domestic to commercial, grid scale storage. Coupled with the smart meters and local renewables can have a massive impact on the local grid. They will ultimately reach end of life and be an issue, but this is being worked on. Use Changes - Had a few interesting chats with BEIS and similar. They are seeing the ownership model of cars as a whole decline. The lockdown has shown we spend a lot of money on mobile sheds that sit idle for 95% of the year and then when needed have a flat battery and don't work. It won't be the death of petrol or diesel that kills off the car as we know it, it will be the death of the need for a car. Home delivery, uber, self driving vehicles, local 'self direct bus' schemes, and in Milton Keynes the Starship home delivery robots all eat into the typical two car household. There was a great US study into how many miles covered and pollution emitted by cars looking for spaces to park. You want to stop using your car but can't as other the other cars not being used are in the way. Imagine how much better the streets of most towns and cities would be with 50% less cars? More pavements to walk on, easier parking, better air quality, less noise. Why complain you have nowhere to charge your electric car if you don't even need a car? And I say all this as someone that drove 300 miles round trip for work yesterday in a sporty diesel.
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Dec 16, 2020 13:20:25 GMT
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As I said, I don't resent the electric car - hell, when I'm old it may be the difference of still going out or being stuck in (with the self drive models).
It's the forcing it on us (imo) prematurely that I resent. Banning the sale of ICE engines I'm mostly ok with (well, as much as a dinosaur petrolhead can be) but its the premature forcing off the road of current ownership I resent.
Ownership of cars is declining more because of social engineering rather than wanting to not own one - pushing hard for lease ownership and as you say UBER etc is all designed to walk us into the 'Johhnycabs' that we saw in Total Recall.
With this the govt can watch/control/track the movement of people - the govt's ultimate aim.
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Dec 16, 2020 14:56:41 GMT
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As I said, I don't resent the electric car - hell, when I'm old it may be the difference of still going out or being stuck in (with the self drive models). It's the forcing it on us (imo) prematurely that I resent. Banning the sale of ICE engines I'm mostly ok with (well, as much as a dinosaur petrolhead can be) but its the premature forcing off the road of current ownership I resent. Ownership of cars is declining more because of social engineering rather than wanting to not own one - pushing hard for lease ownership and as you say UBER etc is all designed to walk us into the 'Johhnycabs' that we saw in Total Recall. With this the govt can watch/control/track the movement of people - the govt's ultimate aim. I think you credit the government (or our civil service and any other political party we have come to that) with far more organisational ability that they have, look at all the large computer system fiascos various governments have tried to implement, I'd be more worried about google, amazon, tesla, apple and china. I can't help thinking the real push behind all of this is to get as many people out of cars as possible especially in cities, with ultimately only the rich being able to afford them, with car sharing and cheap uber style taxis perhaps this is ultimately the right route for society. Interestingly the discussions around mobility I have had indicate that covid has put the move away from cars back with many people shunning public transport and returning to their cars. The one thing for me which has not been answered is how they are going to tax electric vehicles, at the moment governments across the world take billions from motorists and are subsidising heavily electric vehicles, this is not sustainable they will want their money from somewhere. On the classic front give it a few years and secondhand batteries and motorsplus universal inverters will be plentiful, making conversions relatively affordable.
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Dec 16, 2020 16:36:00 GMT
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As I said, I don't resent the electric car - hell, when I'm old it may be the difference of still going out or being stuck in (with the self drive models). It's the forcing it on us (imo) prematurely that I resent. Banning the sale of ICE engines I'm mostly ok with (well, as much as a dinosaur petrolhead can be) but its the premature forcing off the road of current ownership I resent. Ownership of cars is declining more because of social engineering rather than wanting to not own one - pushing hard for lease ownership and as you say UBER etc is all designed to walk us into the 'Johhnycabs' that we saw in Total Recall. With this the govt can watch/control/track the movement of people - the govt's ultimate aim. I think you credit the government (or our civil service and any other political party we have come to that) with far more organisational ability that they have, look at all the large computer system fiascos various governments have tried to implement, I'd be more worried about google, amazon, tesla, apple and china. I can't help thinking the real push behind all of this is to get as many people out of cars as possible especially in cities, with ultimately only the rich being able to afford them, with car sharing and cheap uber style taxis perhaps this is ultimately the right route for society. Interestingly the discussions around mobility I have had indicate that covid has put the move away from cars back with many people shunning public transport and returning to their cars. The one thing for me which has not been answered is how they are going to tax electric vehicles, at the moment governments across the world take billions from motorists and are subsidising heavily electric vehicles, this is not sustainable they will want their money from somewhere. On the classic front give it a few years and secondhand batteries and motorsplus universal inverters will be plentiful, making conversions relatively affordable. If the aim is to get rid of cars, why should the wealthy be able to 'afford them' any more than the rest of us plebs? Shared transport etc is all very socialist so if privately owned cars are that bad for the planet then ban them for all, wealth should have no say in the matter. Either we all get them, or nobody does and we all get to use 'car sharing' or whatever miserable public transport future lies in wait, irrespective of income or social status. Sharing anything with 'the public' is my idea of hell.
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slater
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,390
Club RR Member Number: 78
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Dec 16, 2020 17:50:50 GMT
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The only aim for the government is to win votes. Thats all the aim ever is. Torys have been scrambling to be seen as the 'eco party' for a decade or more now.
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Dec 16, 2020 18:11:39 GMT
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I think you credit the government (or our civil service and any other political party we have come to that) with far more organisational ability that they have, look at all the large computer system fiascos various governments have tried to implement, I'd be more worried about google, amazon, tesla, apple and china. I can't help thinking the real push behind all of this is to get as many people out of cars as possible especially in cities, with ultimately only the rich being able to afford them, with car sharing and cheap uber style taxis perhaps this is ultimately the right route for society. Interestingly the discussions around mobility I have had indicate that covid has put the move away from cars back with many people shunning public transport and returning to their cars. The one thing for me which has not been answered is how they are going to tax electric vehicles, at the moment governments across the world take billions from motorists and are subsidising heavily electric vehicles, this is not sustainable they will want their money from somewhere. On the classic front give it a few years and secondhand batteries and motorsplus universal inverters will be plentiful, making conversions relatively affordable. If the aim is to get rid of cars, why should the wealthy be able to 'afford them' any more than the rest of us plebs? Shared transport etc is all very socialist so if privately owned cars are that bad for the planet then ban them for all, wealth should have no say in the matter. Either we all get them, or nobody does and we all get to use 'car sharing' or whatever miserable public transport future lies in wait, irrespective of income or social status. Sharing anything with 'the public' is my idea of hell. Didn't say I agreed with it , but the world we live in isn't equal on almost any level (even in the communist states).
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Dec 16, 2020 23:28:42 GMT
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We are all equal - just some are more equal than others - Joseph Stalin.
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Dec 16, 2020 23:50:32 GMT
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We are all equal - just some are more equal than others - Joseph Stalin. I keep hearing the word "equality", but I don't think I've ever met two equal people. I've known identical twins who weren't equal! Simple things, like I can get things off the top shelf, my wife has to run off to get the steps. However, she finds it much easier to get under the stairs than I do to retrieve the Christmas decorations! I say we play everyone to their strengths!
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Dec 17, 2020 11:56:29 GMT
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Well this isn't about cars any more. Original post is definitely worth a watch still. Going to lock the thread as it is descending.
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