Today i was amazed

[roofman]

Ime always a skeptic over various things that seem to go viral or hammered to death in the press but today i was amazed. We had a roof job on a pretty well to do geezer,s house and in the driveway was a car that i have not took much notice of when i have heard or seen all the hype and often wondered what was the fuss about...Well not any more because the guy who owns it reversed out of his drive and drove off with what i can say is the fastest accelerating road car i have ever seen and ive been a petrol head all my life. Plus he has just ordered the latest roadster model which gets to 0-60 fast than a veyron. If i ever win the lottery or come into money i am buying a Tesla and i want a black one

 

[cumbriasteve]

There are some youtubes of the Tesla beating all sorts of supercars...very interesting to watch.

 

[zx9]

The owner of the hotel we stayed in at Kuhtai, Austria had a Tesla on skinny deeply threaded snow tyres, on hard packed snow it set off like a group B rally car, I was well impressed.

 

[130]

Electric - Plan your road trip by charging stations and charging times.

Petrol - do whatever the heck you want.

Not to mention the adverse effects to range / battery output allegedly experienced by a load of folk last decent cold spell http://info.fuelincluded.com/blog/renault-zoe-range-estimator

 

[Johnnybravo]

Drove one in Australia. Around town it was like a Fisher Price kiddies toy with a flat battery. Onto a clear road and you cannot believe how rapid it accelerates. Range of 450km wasn't bad..

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

Wont get me on a leccy van.

Seriously considering am electric trials bike though.
Kids have small wheel bikes and there excellent. Waiting for the second hand market to open or gonna buy one with a knackered engine and convert.

 

[armalites]

You can spend an entire evening just watching Teslas with ludicrous mode beating just about everything out there as well as the usual attractive young lady's reactions

 

[nickk]

if you think the cars impressive ,.....just wait for the trucks.

 

[brewdexta]

We have a leckie car, a 40kw Leaf and it's the mutts nuts. About 150 mile range without a charge. 60kw comes out soon. 2 quid for 150 miles, lower maintenance costs as no combustion engine and most of the braking is charging the battery. And it's bloody quick.

I like the sound of a V8 like the next man but for day to day it is the future. There is all sorts of rubbish out there about lithium batteries not being as clean as xyz but most of it is biased BS. Nothing is perfect but so far we are loving it. If this is anything to go by then the future is electric.

 

[130]

^ Don't forget that zero emission cars are no such thing...………...the exhaust pipe is at the power station, no free rides.

You have the inefficiencies of the power station, and it's environmental foot print, and everything that services it.
Transforming losses
Then the car itself.
Also, if you use full range, many lose the ability to do a quick charge and leave you on a loooooong charge.
Potential winter issues as mentioned.

Now a good long time ago the green party said if you extend a cars life from 10 years to 20 years you reduce carbon foot print by 40%

Also you have the concept of spent carbon, replacing an inefficient working thing with a new thing you have to make doesn't necessarily lower total foot print even if the new item is more efficient (scrappage schemes probably environmentally bad taking out mid tier cars that would be passed down not the worst polluting oldest cars from folk that can't afford new even with scrappage)

Add to that my 328 is now 23 years old, runs on LPG that they burn off the top of refineries as they have nowhere to store it...……..the gas that moves my car would be burnt off into the air whether it moved a vehicle or not so that's a win.

If you liken it to an electric drill, my favourite Bosch one (now a nibbler table)all three batteries went bad over time.
I now have a Makita and it is good but, the batteries will probably go bad eventually. They have transforming losses and an environmental impact.
Meanwhile my £25 performance power drill from B&Q bought in 2003 has outlasted the usable life of my Bosch rechargeable. No batteries and toxic stuff
Repaired with a £5 chuck to keep it in service rather than replace. Ok no transforming losses to charge and backed by infinite power source at power station on tap (ok remote engine with transformation losses) and no recharge time. No batteries going flat in the box when charged delivering nothing, or permanently using power on a conditioner. Exactly what you need when you need it no more.

They are the future but at present if everyone went electric the government would be promoting "drive your classic to work days" with our current power capabilities (a though based on no hard facts)

You have to remember there was a time horse power was cheaper and more reliable when delivered by horses and automobiles were the opposite, but we had to keep making them long enough for them to get good in spite of that. Same applies.

 

[500e]

Couple of reads, to get price per mile you have to factor in new\ re built battery cost or the residual price

https://electrek.co/2018/03/26/nissan-leaf-battery-pack-replacement-program/

https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/nissan-leaf-battery-capacity-range

Or rent battery like Renault Twizy

Quite like the idea of lecky but did the sums with initial cost, value of vehicle at end of 5 years with battery at 15\20 % of capacity so either take a big hit on price or new\ rebuild battery either way for my mileage it did not work, + you cant just get in & go you have to plan journeys unless all short,
Friend has a base line Tesla will get from London to W-s-M ok then has to charge to get back, would not do that journey in hooligan mode either .
When we all have lecy cars how do we charge them generation is supposed to be borderline as it is, where will people park to charge then a. not enough charging points b. you cant run a cable over the pavement even if you could ALL park outside your house

 

[brewdexta]

^ Don't forget that zero emission cars are no such thing...………...the exhaust pipe is at the power station, no free rides.

You have the inefficiencies of the power station, and it's environmental foot print, and everything that services it.
Transforming losses
Then the car itself.
Also, if you use full range, many lose the ability to do a quick charge and leave you on a loooooong charge.
Potential winter issues as mentioned.

Now a good long time ago the green party said if you extend a cars life from 10 years to 20 years you reduce carbon foot print by 40%

Also you have the concept of spent carbon, replacing an inefficient working thing with a new thing you have to make doesn't necessarily lower total foot print even if the new item is more efficient (scrappage schemes probably environmentally bad taking out mid tier cars that would be passed down not the worst polluting oldest cars from folk that can't afford new even with scrappage)

Add to that my 328 is now 23 years old, runs on LPG that they burn off the top of refineries as they have nowhere to store it...……..the gas that moves my car would be burnt off into the air whether it moved a vehicle or not so that's a win.

If you liken it to an electric drill, my favourite Bosch one (now a nibbler table)all three batteries went bad over time.
I now have a Makita and it is good but, the batteries will probably go bad eventually. They have transforming losses and an environmental impact.
Meanwhile my £25 performance power drill from B&Q bought in 2003 has outlasted the usable life of my Bosch rechargeable. No batteries and toxic stuff
Repaired with a £5 chuck to keep it in service rather than replace. Ok no transforming losses to charge and backed by infinite power source at power station on tap (ok remote engine with transformation losses) and no recharge time. No batteries going flat in the box when charged delivering nothing, or permanently using power on a conditioner. Exactly what you need when you need it no more.

They are the future but at present if everyone went electric the government would be promoting "drive your classic to work days" with our current power capabilities (a though based on no hard facts)

You have to remember there was a time horse power was cheaper and more reliable when delivered by horses and automobiles were the opposite, but we had to keep making them long enough for them to get good in spite of that. Same applies.

Our Disco 3 is about 12 years old of which 11 year is my ownership and I shall be keeping it for another 2 or 3 years yet despite the manufacturers efforts to make it as complex/costly as possible. In terms of charging, we have spent up this year but early next year solar PV and recycled forklift batteries are on the cards. FITS comes to an end in April 2019 however I have already spent loads on the renewable ethic and want a future for my kids so will continue irrespective of FITS.

I know that electricity doesn't come in a box, the same way that converting Drax power station to biomass is green as they are shipping primary US forest across the pond to Selby, makes no sense

However that doesn't mean the concept is bad. We need more positivity not negativity. Every time I fill up I remember kids in Syria and Yemen being bombed and starved and however you want to dress it up it is all about oil. Without the demand this would go away, you can't put a price on that.

 

[bricol]

There's a lot on the net about bent gearbox internals on Teslas from too many "ludicrous" acceleration tests.

Coincidently, I was moderately amused going into work in Sugar Land, Houston this morning - black sleek Tesla in front of me . . . in a 5.7 ltr V8 Dodge Challenger . . . bet I had a bigger grin that the Tesla driver just sat at the red light . . . :-)

 

[pedrobedro]

One passed me the other day, a big black limo style thing. I was on my pushbike. Now who's saving the planet ?

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Now who's saving the planet ?

I fear it's already too late for that.

 

[armalites]

I would how long before "petrol heads" become "battery heads"

 

[Farside]

I would how long before "petrol heads" become "battery heads"

As long as I can stick a lolly stick in the spokes.

 

[Hopefuldave]

Something that seems to be ignored here: although no ludicrous mode the hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai on the fleet at work is still moderately-hot-hatch quick and can be fuelled in a few minutes just like an oil-burner, although hydrogen pumps are a bit scarce (we have our own, public can access it - if you look at the hydrogen stations in west London you'll find it and the location of the World's Best Skip*!) they're pretty low-infrastructure, they need 3-phase power and water fed to 'em, space for a storage tank, so pretty much any petrol station *could* install one. Hydrogen's also a lot safer than petrol to store, if it leaks it disappears into the atmosphere instead of hanging around in ditches and drains witing for a stray spark...

That leaves the "moving pollution to the power station" - if the power station's a wind turbine, a tidal barrage, nuclear, then I have no worries about the pollution generated, and processing peak availability into hydrogen when there's excess supply would get around the big problem of renewables, it's hard to store up wind and waves for peak demand, pretty easy to store hydrogen and use fuel cells to deliver electricity?

Mates of mine live near the "Parc Naturel Millevaches" national park in France, where they store excess electricity by pumping water into dammed valleys in the mountains (Lac de Vassiviere), then let it out through hydroelectric turbines for peak demand - a bit more intrusive than storing some compressed/liquefied gas...

Agreed about keeping old vehicles going being greener than replacing with new "Green" vehicles, though, sadly most produced in the last 15 - 25 years aren't designed for maintenance and can be permanently disabled by the uneconomic parts required (I'm thinking ECUs etc. forced on us by environmental legislation originating in the US and Japan that the EU and rest-of-world are adopting).

Dave H. (the other one)

* Beyond the security guards, bad luck

 

[slim_boy_fat]

BMW produced a hydrogen 7 series some time ago, but iirc as a test bed which may go into full production.

 

[130]

However that doesn't mean the concept is bad. We need more positivity not negativity. Every time I fill up I remember kids in Syria and Yemen being bombed and starved and however you want to dress it up it is all about oil. Without the demand this would go away, you can't put a price on that.

Positivity dictates the ice berg that sunk the titanic was, in fact defective. The positive view was that in a maritime collision between two ships one would stay afloat and each could have half the necessary lifeboats. The ice berg did float but alas was missing it's life boats.

Re the oil, no simple answers. However there are many countries with no natural product without oil revenue which, if the population has increased the same way and oil never been found, would have starving people.

Something that seems to be ignored here: although no ludicrous mode the hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai on the fleet at work is still moderately-hot-hatch quick and can be fuelled in a few minutes just like an oil-burner, although hydrogen pumps are a bit scarce (we have our own, public can access it - if you look at the hydrogen stations in west London you'll find it and the location of the World's Best Skip*!) they're pretty low-infrastructure, they need 3-phase power and water fed to 'em, space for a storage tank, so pretty much any petrol station *could* install one. Hydrogen's also a lot safer than petrol to store, if it leaks it disappears into the atmosphere instead of hanging around in ditches and drains witing for a stray spark...

That leaves the "moving pollution to the power station" - if the power station's a wind turbine, a tidal barrage, nuclear, then I have no worries about the pollution generated, and processing peak availability into hydrogen when there's excess supply would get around the big problem of renewables, it's hard to store up wind and waves for peak demand, pretty easy to store hydrogen and use fuel cells to deliver electricity?

Mates of mine live near the "Parc Naturel Millevaches" national park in France, where they store excess electricity by pumping water into dammed valleys in the mountains (Lac de Vassiviere), then let it out through hydroelectric turbines for peak demand - a bit more intrusive than storing some compressed/liquefied gas...

Agreed about keeping old vehicles going being greener than replacing with new "Green" vehicles, though, sadly most produced in the last 15 - 25 years aren't designed for maintenance and can be permanently disabled by the uneconomic parts required (I'm thinking ECUs etc. forced on us by environmental legislation originating in the US and Japan that the EU and rest-of-world are adopting).

Dave H. (the other one)

* Beyond the security guards, bad luck

A couple of things here, using off peak renewables to split hydrogen is a good idea.

But, it takes 1600 joules of energy to separate 1000 joules of Hydrogen, so currently it digs a big carbon hole.
The only other way to commercially separate hydrogen is catalyctic cracking. And the only substance plentiful enough to crack on a commercial scale is...…..

…………..natural gas


Re old cars, RWD is the future, always the engine swapper of choice due to ease of installation. Old RWD cars just need modern power units. If the governments of the world used the stupid powers used to burn power with DRLs to define the engine interface patterns for basic size and layout it could be done