the truth about electric cars

[Graham Butcher]

@Ootohere My son purchased a Ford Focus a couple of years ago and he was not impressed with the level of service or the preparation of his car and swears he would never buy from them again. I have heard many similar tales about them as well from other folks.

[Graham Butcher]

12 hours ago, lol-lol said:

 

Let stop both BS, Burning Stuff and Bull ****..

 

In other good news it has been said that TESLA Berlin is starting to make RHD model Ys. Yippy, should now be soon a grand or two off the RRP !!  

If TESLA would sell Model Ys Standard Range for less than £40k that would be great.  Still prefer Model 3 Highland looks but nice to have choice especially one might be thinking about carrying extended family and their kit ie prams etc.

 

 

Well thats rather odd, he claims EV sales are up in April 2024, I just had a quick look at the SMMT figures and report for April 2024 and they say that sales to actual consumers are down by -21.9%.

 

ICE>

Petrol sales are down by -3.1%

Diesel sales are down by -25.3%

 

Now, lets put this into perspective--

HEV sales are up by +16.7%

PHEV sales up by +22.1%

 

That is good news I hear you say, but both of these types of vehicles still have internal combustion engines and it is also highly likely that most of these will never be used in electric mode, they are just a way of getting green credentials and advantages on the fleet markets, and it was discovered recently that many PHEV's never are charged.

 

BEVs this is the only sector that has been broken down into fleet and private buyers, so fleet sales are up +10.7% while private sales are down by 21.9%.

 

Also there as always these days many of these "sales" are pre-registrations done by the dealers themselves. I know of hundreds of pre-registered cars standing around on small airfields, many are sporting last year's plates, so the SMMT figures are not a true reflection of the market, the figures are being manipulated, so I'd hold off with the champagne for the time being at least.

 

 

Edited 8 May by Graham Butcher

[Graham Butcher]

@wyx087 I think that we are going to have to agree to disagree about if BEV is the golden ticket, there are still so many variables with them yet, we might just find that we exchange one highly damaging thing for the planet with another, the full impact I believe might still be around the corner. I do agree however that at the point of them deployed, there are advantages in reduced emissions. In this country, we already have just about the best air quality of any country anywhere in the world. If we could get the rest of the world, including some parts of Europe to clean up their act, then the pending doom that some are predicting would probably never happen.

 

As to ICE vehicles not performing as well either in the winter, no argument on that score from me, it's perfectly logical, both kinds of vehicles also perform worse in rain than they do in the summer months on dry roads and I've pretended otherwise.

[Graham Butcher]

@Ootohere If you are referring to the McMaster picking up the keys to another EV, then yes I do know about it. He and Geoff Buys cars are doing a road trip to Benidorm and his Taycan is going into the dealers to replace his cooling fans (I think for the 2nd time) under warranty and they need the car for a day or 2 to do it. So  the dealer is lending him another electric car while his off the road, having the fans replaced and other bits down in preparation for this road trip.

[lol-lol]

5 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Well thats rather odd, he claims EV sales are up in April 2024, I just had a quick look at the SMMT figures and report for April 2024 and they say that sales to actual consumers are down by -21.9%.

 

ICE>

Petrol sales are down by -3.1%

Diesel sales are down by -25.3%

 

Now, lets put this into perspective--

HEV sales are up by +16.7%

PHEV sales up by +22.1%

 

That is good news I hear you say, but both of these types of vehicles still have internal combustion engines and it is also highly likely that most of these will never be used in electric mode, they are just a way of getting green credentials and advantages on the fleet markets, and it was discovered recently that many PHEV's never are charged.

 

BEVs this is the only sector that has been broken down into fleet and private buyers, so fleet sales are up +10.7% while private sales are down by 21.9%.

 

Also there as always these days many of these "sales" are pre-registrations done by the dealers themselves. I know of hundreds of pre-registered cars standing around on small airfields, many are sporting last year's plates, so the SMMT figures are not a true reflection of the market, the figures are being manipulated, so I'd hold off with the champagne for the time being at least.

 

You should take a ride in a Full Hybrid because your comment that "  highly likely that most of these will never be used in electric mode" is just plain wrong.

 

I imagine that the Renault e-tech range of Full hybrids are typical and they move off in electric mode and the ICE only kicks in when the traction battery drops below 40% and it also considers ambient temperature ie if low then the electronics seem to say that the one good feature of an ICE engine is it produces lots of waste heat, more than it actually produces traction power of course, so the power management software fires up the ICE to "prioritise thermal comfort" a message can sometime be seen.

 

This is great ie the starting up in EV mode as Full Hybrids go singing down the road in EV mode, not waking the neighbours and then only firing up the ICE a few hundred meters down the road, good for pollution in my home street.  Worth remembering that your ICE car does not meet emission standards until it Catalytic converter is up to temperature which could be miles down the road if even in cold conditions. 

 

My lad's Clio etech he belts it over from Worcester to Kidderminster, much A road and not hanging about, he leaves it in MySense so the onboard computer chooses whether to be EV ie at the start always, mixing it to give the full 145 hp or just use ICE and use regen and ICE to top the traction battery back up to 3/4's full si when one comes down from highway speeds it drops in to EV mode which is great so it is not adding to all the pollution that pure ICE cars are making.   If one is relaxed, not in a rush and toddling through mainly urban areas the percentage of time in EV can be over 3/4s and the fuel consumption better than vast majority of ICE cars I am aware of, as below, almost 86 mpg and the pollution noly tending to be dropped outside built up areas, brilliant and as Hannah Montana said "The best of both worlds", engine sends quite fruity when one cracks on a bit.

Be interesting to see how the new MG3 sell as this is a quite powerful EV and ICE combo, a bit crudely put together, but cheapish and be interesting to see its "True MPG" figures.      

 

 

[Graham Butcher]

@lol-lol sorry, I meant PHEV, a full hybrid I think is like the mild hybrids such as the Qashqai I had for 2 months. If I'm right they are fully automatic in there switching into and out off electric mode, is that correct? 

[wyx087]

7 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

I think that we are going to have to agree to disagree about if BEV is the golden ticket, there are still so many variables with them yet, we might just find that we exchange one highly damaging thing for the planet with another, the full impact I believe might still be around the corner.

What variable is there that might present itself? 

 

People are working on scaling up recycling battery, battery production can already use recycled material. We would have moved away from consuming single use mined material to a circular economy. 

 

During use, it doesn't produce more emissions of any type than equivalent (similar size weight) ICE vehicle it replaced. Its fuel can come from 100% renewable. 

 

As direct replacement, it's the golden ticket. As overall solution to transportation, there is better solutions than private transport. 

[lol-lol]

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

@lol-lol sorry, I meant PHEV, a full hybrid I think is like the mild hybrids such as the Qashqai I had for 2 months. If I'm right they are fully automatic in there switching into and out off electric mode, is that correct? 

 

Indeed.  Some PHEV drivers have never unwrapped the charging cable in the boot.  Have no intention of ever charging it up, either at home on AC charging or Rapid DC charging.

 

Even worse, and this is something one can setup in the menu's of some PHEVs is they can choose to have the electric power to mostly be there to assist the acceleration, say adding 100 hp to the 250 hp ICE.  Driving the PHEV like some F1 car to do the fastest times from A to B. 

 

Now I would expect even with this setup the PHEV would go in to pure EV mode when they enter a 30 mph zone and the cabin is toastie etc but these drivers get unbelievably bad fuel consumption ie down towards 30 mpg by having the car setup this way and driving briskly.  Perhaps they think time is money and have a PHEV for tax avoidance and with a big salary are not worried about fuel consumption, maybe have a company fuel card too.

 

Such is life.  I imagine this cars are semi-automatic like my hybrids ie have a gearbox with a bunch of fixed ratios but an auto changing gear changing system which works in combo with the electric assist and sometime solo EV mode.  

 

[wyx087]

33 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

Indeed.  Some PHEV drivers have never unwrapped the charging cable in the boot.  Have no intention of ever charging it up, either at home on AC charging or Rapid DC charging.

This is why I feel it's important for PHEV to ditch reliance on ICE, make it an EV first and ICE only as backup. 

 

It's not 2010's anymore. Today's PHEV architecture should now be similar to i3 REx. 

[Winston_Woof]

Does the "P" in "PHEV" stand for "Pointless" ;o)

[Graham Butcher]

53 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

Indeed.  Some PHEV drivers have never unwrapped the charging cable in the boot.  Have no intention of ever charging it up, either at home on AC charging or Rapid DC charging.

 

Even worse, and this is something one can setup in the menu's of some PHEVs is they can choose to have the electric power to mostly be there to assist the acceleration, say adding 100 hp to the 250 hp ICE.  Driving the PHEV like some F1 car to do the fastest times from A to B. 

 

Now I would expect even with this setup the PHEV would go in to pure EV mode when they enter a 30 mph zone and the cabin is toastie etc but these drivers get unbelievably bad fuel consumption ie down towards 30 mpg by having the car setup this way and driving briskly.  Perhaps they think time is money and have a PHEV for tax avoidance and with a big salary are not worried about fuel consumption, maybe have a company fuel card too.

 

Such is life.  I imagine this cars are semi-automatic like my hybrids ie have a gearbox with a bunch of fixed ratios but an auto changing gear changing system which works in combo with the electric assist and sometime solo EV mode.  

 

Correct, I think that most of the EVs of all types are largely purchased as company cars because of the lower BIK and other tax concessions that business users can claim and the lets be 100% honest here we keep on hearing that the average private buyer does not want them, so why would the company car driver be any different? They don't pay for their fuel so have zero interest in saving fuel so it is even possible for these hybrid cars to actually pollute more than their pure ICE equivalents because they are driven harder to compensate for the lack of power, thus use far more fuel. Plus of course, they have been enjoying the benefits of being able to drive in the congestion zone and low emission zones freely when in reality many should have been paying. 

[lol-lol]

2 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Does the "P" in "PHEV" stand for "Pointless" ;o)

 

Not pointless if you get a massive reduction in BIK for UK taxation I suppose.

 

[wyx087]

My neighbour got a X1 PHEV and plug it in at home all the time. They do very local journey most of the time, transporting stuff for kids birthday party as entertainer. Car also used for odd road trips. These type of driving fits current type of PHEV nicely. Their previous Euro 5 diesel only done ~30k miles in 9-10 years when they swapped to the X1 PHEV before ULEZ expansion came into force. 

 

But apart from that particular use-case, PHEV doesn't work very well if need to drive longer distance daily. I need to commute 60 miles a day, 30 miles PHEV that is usually 20 miles is completely useless to me. 

 

 

edit: CTRL + Enter submits a post. 

Edited 8 May by wyx087

[Graham Butcher]

1 hour ago, wyx087 said:

What variable is there that might present itself? 

 

People are working on scaling up recycling battery, battery production can already use recycled material. We would have moved away from consuming single use mined material to a circular economy. 

 

During use, it doesn't produce more emissions of any type than equivalent (similar size weight) ICE vehicle it replaced. Its fuel can come from 100% renewable. 

 

As direct replacement, it's the golden ticket. As overall solution to transportation, there is better solutions than private transport. 

I'm speaking about the huge amounts of pollution and highly toxic lakes which are seeping into the water tables where these minerals are mined, rendering the ground unsuitable for the production of food crops, the health issues of the workers doing the mining to say nothing of the vast amounts of water that the mining process uses, in an area that is already suffering from water shortages as these minerals are often located in deserts for instance. This is what I mean about the pollution being created away from the point of usage, we in this country and most other, never get to see the vast damage that these batteries are creating in other areas.

 

Not to mention the other issues like devastating fires, rare maybe but as EVs become the largest share of vehicles on the road in the fullness of time, these will grow in intensity and may have far more consequences. Yes, I know that oil also burns and that there have been some simply horrific fires and explosions around the world caused by oil, but don't for a single moment think that oil is going away anytime soon, if ever. The world relies on oil for plastics etc, so, the battery risks will be in addition to the oil ones.

 

Then there is also the problem with the highly contaminated water resulting from fighting a battery fire with water, it has to be prevented from running away seeping into the ground etc. These are variables I refer to, ones that we are still grappling with but are not in our vision as many of these are happening thousands of miles in the middle of nowhere, out of plain sight. 

[Graham Butcher]

13 hours ago, Ootohere said:

I posted his videos in case someone might not know the context of the 2nd video. 

This is why I thought you wanted to know about the McMaster getting the keys to a new EV in the video that you posted, so if it wasn't that, what is the context of what video are you referring to?

[wyx087]

9 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

I'm speaking about the huge amounts of pollution and highly toxic lakes which are seeping into the water tables where these minerals are mined, rendering the ground unsuitable for the production of food crops, the health issues of the workers doing the mining to say nothing of the vast amounts of water that the mining process uses, in an area that is already suffering from water shortages as these minerals are often located in deserts for instance. This is what I mean about the pollution being created away from the point of usage, we in this country and most other, never get to see the vast damage that these batteries are creating in other areas.

 

Not to mention the other issues like devastating fires, rare maybe but as EVs become the largest share of vehicles on the road in the fullness of time, these will grow in intensity and may have far more consequences. Yes, I know that oil also burns and that there have been some simply horrific fires and explosions around the world caused by oil, but don't for a single moment think that oil is going away anytime soon, if ever. The world relies on oil for plastics etc, so, the battery risks will be in addition to the oil ones.

 

Then there is also the problem with the highly contaminated water resulting from fighting a battery fire with water, it has to be prevented from running away seeping into the ground etc. These are variables I refer to, ones that we are still grappling with but are not in our vision as many of these are happening thousands of miles in the middle of nowhere, out of plain sight. 

So in summary: car fire and mining. 

 

As I pointed out, unlike consumption of fossil fuel. Mining pollution will be a temporary problem until there is enough battery to be recycled to build up circular economy. 

https://rmi.org/battery-circular-economy-initiative

 

Car fire are devastating whatever the source. But data so far have proven that chance of self-ignition, probability is much lower than ICE vehicles. 

Also, pollution from car fire events are a tiny drop in the bucket of transportation pollutions. 

 

[Graham Butcher]

10 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

So in summary: car fire and mining. 

 

As I pointed out, unlike consumption of fossil fuel. Mining pollution will be a temporary problem until there is enough battery to be recycled to build up circular economy. 

https://rmi.org/battery-circular-economy-initiative

 

Car fire are devastating whatever the source. But data so far have proven that chance of self-ignition, probability is much lower than ICE vehicles. 

Also, pollution from car fire events are a tiny drop in the bucket of transportation pollutions. 

 

So have we ceased mining for iron, copper and other metals, after all we already have a circular economy going in that sector, and yet... we still need ever-increasing amounts. The worlds population keeps growing and this growth will lead to increased demand on everything from water, food right down to metals, oils and batteries. Are seeing or planning a cull on humans, then?

Edited 8 May by Graham Butcher

[Ootohere]

@Graham Butcher  The video under his (London to Edinburgh) where the Scottish person drives from Lockerbie to his home in the south of the UK in a Renault EV with some charging sessions including at a Porsche Dealership The MacMaster uses, but using a Shell Recharge card.  (As i used a Shell Recharge card yesterday at Ionity.)

I posted the video below the BMW i3 vid where The MacMaster is with the people who are collecting a New Skoda Enyaq.

(His titles are usually click bait.)

 

When we use chargers so often even though they are different with different providers anyone with a bit of a memory remembers the sequence.

 

As to the 1/5 th of EV,s needing to be First Registered it is more than a 1/5th, 22% this year in the UK.

Hard to believe he has not ready that and has no need to be asking other, and repeating and repeating.  But Clicks means prizes.

 

10% of vans. 

Edited 8 May by Ootohere

[wyx087]

40 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

So have we ceased mining for iron, copper and other metals, after all we already have a circular economy going in that sector, and yet... we still need ever-increasing amounts. The worlds population keeps growing and this growth will lead to increased demand on everything from water, food right down to metals, oils and batteries. Are seeing or planning a cull on humans, then?

Population decline is coming in this decade. It has already started with some countries. 

 

Just because not all battery material supply lines are established, ethical and eco-friendly mined today, does not mean it will stay like that. 

 

Just because we do have established supply lines for oil mining does not mean it started out to be ethical, 100+ years ago. 

In fact, there's still many flair ups with oil mining that is hugely damaging on a different magnitude than mining for battery materials: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_war#Gulf_War_and_Iraq_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#Environmental_impact

Imagine if oil were a recyclable resource that isn't consumed when used. I think in such world, the above 2 events wouldn't happen because after 100+ years of mining this recyclable resource, we wouldn't need to go to war or continue mining at such a large scale. 

 

Whenever talking about battery material mining problems, need to remember we are comparing to 100+ years old established industry that cannot be allowed to continue due to climate change. 

 

Edited 8 May by wyx087

[Ootohere]

This weeks i watched the Native Americans riding their horses across the very beautiful sacred lands that are going to have lithium mining on them or near them.

I watched a longer version later on and there was there Pick Up Trucks and Horse Trailers.

 

Built from materials mined at other people lands, and maybe from fuel from there. 

 

 

Edited 8 May by Ootohere

[wyx087]

Same for oil mining on sacred land, just doesn't make as big news. Quick google comes up 2 in the last 12 months: 

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/on-indonesias-seram-island-a-massive-oil-find-lies-beneath-sacred-land/

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4194271-dont-sacrifice-sacred-lands-to-the-oil-industry/

 

 

[Graham Butcher]

7 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Population decline is coming in this decade. It has already started with some countries. 

 

Just because not all battery material supply lines are established, ethical and eco-friendly mined today, does not mean it will stay like that. 

 

Just because we do have established supply lines for oil mining does not mean it started out to be ethical, 100+ years ago. 

In fact, there's still many flair ups with oil mining that is hugely damaging on a different magnitude than mining for battery materials: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_war#Gulf_War_and_Iraq_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#Environmental_impact

Imagine if oil were a recyclable resource that isn't consumed when used. I think in such world, the above 2 events wouldn't happen because after 100+ years of mining this recyclable resource, we wouldn't need to go to war or continue mining at such a large scale. 

 

That is precisely why I said variables, nothing in life is 100% guaranteed except of course death will come to us all at some point, the ethical supply lines may or may not happen, someone could start a nuclear war, or some other event may take place. You cannot be certain that population decrease will occur within the next decade, unless there is some sort of nuclear affect across large parts of the globe, I doubt that will happen.

[Graham Butcher]

9 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Same for oil mining on sacred land, just doesn't make as big news. Quick google comes up 2 in the last 12 months: 

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/on-indonesias-seram-island-a-massive-oil-find-lies-beneath-sacred-land/

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4194271-dont-sacrifice-sacred-lands-to-the-oil-industry/

 

 

You can rest assured that if push comes to shove and the world needs that oil, they will find a way of extracting it without doing too much damage to the sacred lands.

[Ootohere]

The world does need the oil, but not necessarily to run Pick Up Trucks as an image booster rather than as work horses.

 

But then there are places that want the oil from elsewhere, like the UK. 

From Russia still via other countries where it goes to be refined.

 

Oil & Gas from  the UK heads off to other countries and then maybe comes back or just leaves and oil from other world regions comes back.

 

High time England got the oil out of the ground that is supposedly there, and frack the f**k out of where ever the gas is, coal gas etc.

Get on with getting the lithium needed as well.

 

Good luck with the drinking water then.   Good luck with clean air as well. 

Edited 8 May by Ootohere

[Stonekeeper]

55 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

That is precisely why I said variables, nothing in life is 100% guaranteed except of course death will come to us all at some point, the ethical supply lines may or may not happen, someone could start a nuclear war, or some other event may take place. You cannot be certain that population decrease will occur within the next decade, unless there is some sort of nuclear affect across large parts of the globe, I doubt that will happen.

 

 

If the UK did not promote immigration, population would be decreasing now.

 

The birth rate in the UK is below Two per Woman.

 

So as the globe becomes more advanced the birth rate in more Countries will drop

 

It is true that Global population has been predicted to start falling in the next decade by more than one set of genius'

 

Having said that the Office for National Statistics has projected that the UK population would grow to 72.4m by mid-2045.