Are EVs really the answer in the future? I do not think so.

[Comfortably Numb]

Originally Posted by bl52krz

Why should they offer money for your old car? They will just legislate them to extinction. Tougher and tougher restrictions will see to that.All for what? The real answer is to make more money. Cynicism? You bet your bottom dollar it is. Strategic? Possibly. All for the good of the planet? Definitely not. It’s called Hysteria in its purest form.And a lot of people have fell for it hook, line and sinker. Oh well,it takes all types.

I think Lovel was suggesting that a genuinely more eco way would be to enable you to get the ICE engine in your existing car exchanged for an electric motor and traction battery. If I understand correctly, I understand all 2020 JLR cars onwards are being designed for this type of future modification. Ideally, they would need regenerative braking too. The problem of cobalt would still remain, though.
I don't doubt our city planners are trying to wean us off driving solo our large, 4,5 or even 7 seaters into our city centres. My son has a little Kia Picanto, and lives 2.5 miles from his work in Newcastle city centre. It is cheaper, and quicker for him to catch the bus (or walk) than to drive his car in at rush hour and pay to park it all day. He keeps the car for shopping, visiting his girlfriend, and weekend trips, none of which require him to drive through the city centre. Even if our city planners demolished half the buildings in our city centres and replaced them with dual carriageways and
multi-storey car parks, the rate of increase in car ownership and the amount we drive them means traffic would be as snarled up as ever after a few short years, and we would have ruined even more of our historical heritage. Perhaps when we have reduced our belief in our divine right to drive and park anywhere, and we have all been forced into evs, the authorities will relent a little, as a million evs stuck in traffic produce no pollution while their wheels aren't turning. And perhaps by then, we WILL be totally reliant on renewable resources. We should be showing the Australians and Americans how to do it. With the amount of desert and sunshine they have, they have NO excuse.

[berkshirelad]

See here and here

[bikerdude666]

I’m very late to this thread, and I’ve not read all 30 pages. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think EV’s are the future, I don’t think they’ll last, and I don’t think they’re the best answer. However, my wife was looking at buying a new car this year anyway, and the incentives for buying EV, plus the savings on fuel at today’s rate make it worthwhile. Buy it, run it 7-10 years, and then see what technology is around, and make the decision on the next purchase.

For me, I hope to use her EV when my shifts allow, and keep my ZT going as long as I can. Apart from anything else, the combo of the ZT and our caravan comes in around 30kg under what I can legally tow. So to find a replacement that I like, can tow the caravan, and comes in under 3500kg combined, would be tricky.

[Comfortably Numb]

Originally Posted by berkshirelad

See here and here

Berkshirelad Those 2 "heres" appear to be the same wikipedia site, which gives no immediate corroboration of your assertion - unless you can point to it more specifically. However, given the millions of years it took to produce the fossil fuels we are currently using up, the quantity of new fossil fuels being produced daily is likely to be minimal in comparison to our rate of consumption.

[Comfortably Numb]

Originally Posted by bikerdude666

I’m very late to this thread, and I’ve not read all 30 pages. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think EV’s are the future, I don’t think they’ll last, and I don’t think they’re the best answer. However, my wife was looking at buying a new car this year anyway, and the incentives for buying EV, plus the savings on fuel at today’s rate make it worthwhile. Buy it, run it 7-10 years, and then see what technology is around, and make the decision on the next purchase.

For me, I hope to use her EV when my shifts allow, and keep my ZT going as long as I can. Apart from anything else, the combo of the ZT and our caravan comes in around 30kg under what I can legally tow. So to find a replacement that I like, can tow the caravan, and comes in under 3500kg combined, would be tricky.

An admirably pragmatic compromise, IMHO!

[Simondi]

Originally Posted by bikerdude666

I’m very late to this thread, and I’ve not read all 30 pages. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think EV’s are the future, I don’t think they’ll last, and I don’t think they’re the best answer. However, my wife was looking at buying a new car this year anyway, and the incentives for buying EV, plus the savings on fuel at today’s rate make it worthwhile. Buy it, run it 7-10 years, and then see what technology is around, and make the decision on the next purchase.

For me, I hope to use her EV when my shifts allow, and keep my ZT going as long as I can. Apart from anything else, the combo of the ZT and our caravan comes in around 30kg under what I can legally tow. So to find a replacement that I like, can tow the caravan, and comes in under 3500kg combined, would be tricky.

Originally Posted by Comfortably Numb

An admirably pragmatic compromise, IMHO!

Two good posts.

So, clearly we cannot continue using fossil fuels and the majority on this thread would say EVs are not the answer - then what is?

[Comfortably Numb]

Originally Posted by Simondi

Two good posts.

So, clearly we cannot continue using fossil fuels and the majority on this thread would say EVs are not the answer - then what is?

There is no simple, single solution, perhaps the hydrogen fuel cell, but it presents its own problems, and is probably still several, precious years away. But if we are to go on living in similar numbers on this planet, we may need to temporarily forego our perceived right to limitless consumption (according to our means) until we have put in place the alternative, zero-carbon-in-use, energy production systems that will allow us to manufacture and travel with minimal overall CO2 production, and with enough tree planting, we might actually be able to reduce atmospheric CO2 and methane, the gases most responsible for non-cyclical global warming and excessive climate change. I do not believe we can substantially or sufficiently alter the cyclical pattern of solar heating, but perhaps we can buy enough time to rebuild and restructure our world to mitigate the unpreventable extreme events which have plagued mankind since the dawn of civilisation, but appear currently to be increasing in severity and frequency at an alarming rate.

[bikerdude666]

Originally Posted by Simondi

Two good posts.

So, clearly we cannot continue using fossil fuels and the majority on this thread would say EVs are not the answer - then what is?

I don’t know, if I did I wouldn’t be working in a fairly small chemical factory, I’d be raking it in with ford or another big car maker!

I’ve honestly never properly looked into it, fossil fuels have their place, but at a reduced usage, what about bio-diesel or similar? Hydrogen fuel cells? Don’t know much about them, but I thought the creation of large amounts of hydrogen was where the issue was? EVs, I completely get in a city, where half the time you’re not moving, but, in big old houses that are now converted to 6 flats, where do they all charge? And what about the materials used in the battery packs?
And at the moment already having to physically import electricity from France, through the channel tunnel, we clearly don’t have the ability to charge millions of cars every day.

Green energy is ok, but as always, there’s advantages and disadvantages. With our vast coastline, we could harness tidal energy to create power, but then it affects the wildlife etc.

Wind energy, we supply the composites to 1 of Europe’s largest wind turbine manufacturers. It’s only the last 2 or 3 years they’ve been using styrene free layup resins. And the adhesive they bond the 2 halves of the blade together with? Approx 70% styrene, a material derived from oil. So not exactly green there.

Another product we make for another ‘green’ company, only has about a 50% success rate. The product that is substandard goes into drums, and is buried in a big hole in the ground. Not so green again.

That’s what irritates me. The ‘green’ options are very often not actually all that green after all, or they’re too expensive.

I agree that conversions of older cars would be a great option, saves building new all the time. But I can’t see many people ploughing £20,000+ into their 3 year old car, when they can get a nice shindig new one, and keep up with their neighbours.

[Comfortably Numb]

The most important aspect of analysing data; that of TREND. In almost any recording of data, points will not all lie on an even line, in fact very few will, so we draw a line of best fit, which then records the trend of the data. We have now been recording such data scientifically for over a century, and have some good anecdotal and earlier, more randomly collected, scientific data from earlier times. The now unequivocal view and almost universally held belief by scientists, including most previous doubters, is that this trend is for GLOBAL warming at an increasing rate, and not caused by increased solar activity, but by the actions of man on earth, - whether that is by burning fossil fuels, farming, deforestation, or simply breathing. Picking on 1 year from over 30 years ago when 1 small part of the planet was hotter than you can ever remember or even pointing out that last year's global temperature was less than the year before is misleading and for someone of your apparent intelligence, disingenuous, ignoring the overall trend. I would love to believe that 2019 represents the start of a new downward trend, but I suspect millions of Australians and Indonesians would disagree with you, to name but a few.

[ardvark]

I worked in a vehicle refurb place not so long back.
We had an Email telling us about the way of jacking electric cars up and damaging the batteries. They said in most cases the cost of replacing the battery bank was more than the cost of the rest of the car.
Wait until the public realize the cost of replacing the battery bank on a used electric car. They would'nt touch used electric cars with a barge pole.