Pig in a poke?

[wraymond]

I would be happy to suspect references to the production of Scottish electricity emanate from the old tales of the witchery of Nicnevin (the daughter of frenzy). But don't look her up, she might just respond by materialising.

My Grandma, a Scottish lady who was very elderly when I was a nipper used to to scare me purple with those tales. Wonderful.

[chicochapman]

In this month's MG owners club magazine, the Secretary relates the story of finding a 2020 electric MG ZS advertised on line for £21,600.
It only had 2846 miles on the clock but THREE previous owners.
'nuff said.
Malc

[ZedTeeT]

Well I'm a total petrol head but I think my ZS ev is great. I'm not on a one man mission to save the planet and I wouldn't preach to anyone of they're virtues, as I feel it would fall on deaf ears. It's simply a different way of getting around, a very nice quiet comfortable and refined way to get from A to B. It won't suit everybody, but it suits me, and that's all I'm concerned about. My other ice cars give me the fun, and the ev the transport. They have a place, they're coming so suck it up.

[coab]

My friends wife has been given a Smart car EV the 5 door version as a company car. My friend does not drive and his wife only travels into town 3 miles to work. They catch the train whenever they go out of town as they both like a tipple etc!
80 mile charged range costs £2.50 from home.
Full leather heated seats etc a lovely spec car but not for everyones needs but they are delighted with it. Whether we like it or not this is the way we are going and over time the efficiency will improve. House hold appliances are far more efficient these days which have reduced the load on the grid so some you win some you lose.

[Saga Lout]

Originally Posted by wraymond

It’s a funny old world. Electric cars are given the electric treatment by the ad men and manufacturers by lauding them as being everything from magic carpets to planet savers.

Most of them carry prices that bring tears to your eyes, there is an absence of adverts concerning future longevity or even, bless ‘em, the cost of regular services or component replacement. Pigs in a poke?

Unfortunately pigs come in various sizes and colours. A report today, I forget where I heard it I was so busy laughing, a commentator raised the question of daily charging and the necessity of having a domestic charging point at owners’ homes.

Think of it, every electric car owner with their shiny progressive greenie machine coming home from work, then the evening meal, then a snatch of telly, then the charging switch in the garage or on the driveway. And, er, what about the poor blighter with only the road to park in?

Multiply that by a growth factor as yet unknown and suddenly the Grid network is in crisis and could be compromised overnight, the only possibility being selective shutdown of the national grid.
All that coming straight after so many current warnings of large rises in energy costs.

What price progress. That particular pig can get poked.

It's not being reported but there are sub stations blowing in many areas of London due to the demands from charging electric cars and other vehicles, the electricity network is not equipped to take the load that is going to be asked of it. The electric car is a good idea in theory but the practicality of them makes a recipe for disaster in the long term.

[MSS]

I know three people with EV and the cars suit their needs perfectly. One has just traded in his 3-year old Audi E-Tron hybrid for a newer and larger proper EV - he had only used about £100 worth of petrol in 3 years living in Greater London.

We need to get away from thinking that it has to be one type of motive power or the other. There will be a mix that provides for everyone's needs yet helps with reducing pollution in our towns and cities.


Addendum: I also know a car dealer who sells prestige cars and has a very nice car plus a Canam Spyder trike but his daily means of travel to/from work is a Renault Twizy. He says it perfectly suits his 6-7 mile x 2 daily commute. Imagine what a diesel would be spewing out and clogging on such daily commute.

[rab60bit]

That is just the day to day running, convenience and maintenance aspects.
I may have some numbers wrong but I recently read a rather sobering clutch of statistics.
The annual fuel costs for US domestic flights was 21B$ and the cost of producing 250000 electric car batteries 23B$. I'm not sure for how long a really hi-tech mass produced electric car battery remains efficient but I'd be very surprised if it were much more than 5 years.
So far the only source of disposal for depleted car batteries is (in terms of materials utilised), 80% landfill!! Even if my 'quotes' are only 50% accurate that sum nor green credentials just doesn't make sense - does it?
Long term the future is probably hydrogen cell or similar but my thoughts tend towards the 1st Law of Energy (thermodynamics) which the add. men and 'mean greens' seem to completely disregard (and if my numbers above are anything like meaningful) is it any wonder - energy is finite within our closed system (the world as we know it) and can be neither created nor destroyed.
OK, how 'we' get there is an arguement to be resolved but up north that translates to "nowt for owt" and so far battery cell powered vehicles ain't the way forward.

[wraymond]

99% of the manufactured hyperbole surrounding the concept of 'clean' is cobblers born of investment opportunity (first law of finance). That's consumerism in a nutshell.

Prediction: within 20 years the hydrogen cell, as mentioned above, will be the latest 'innovation' and as H is the most prolific and reactive element in the universe we might think it will be considerably cheaper than hydroelectric/oil/wind/atomic generated energy. Think again, has there ever been anything new that was significantly cheaper than whatever it replaced? The ever present all-consuming naivete of impressionable minds continues to amaze.
It's bigger! Better! Faster! Chea... er, no, but hey, you can have any colour you like!

[Simondi]

My wife has a 40 mile round trip to work a day.
Her previous car averaged around 40mpg so she used roughly a gallon a day which works just under £6 a day in petrol.Her ZSEV uses around £1.50 of electricity a day ( as we live in Scotland the majority of this is produced from renewables). Over a month this saves us around £100 a month on fuel. The car costs us around £60 more a month on the interest free loan from Scottish Government as compared to her petrol ZS. So all in all having an electric car saves us around £480 a year ( based on a saving of £40 a month). Great news as that covers the road tax on my ZT and TF

[Kevin Williams]

I heard that, last week, due to the overcast, still days very little wind produced electricity available and the same from solar. The normal default is to fire up some gas fuelled power stations but this is a "no no" at the moment due to gas cost [echoing domestic price rise hikes] and so the answer was fire up West Burton PS which is a coal fired plant on standby.

It's still relatively warm temperatures out there-roll this forward if we get some sub zero foggy days in winter......

One partial solution to this and the old battery disposal problem is to use them to store electricity in the home and use if the power goes off [or to recharge the EV??!!]

Happy days