How long the future EV's

[Zforbes]

I've read some posts tonight promoting EV's as the future, not convinced it is so what the general opinion.

Is the next Zed going to be plugged in or fossil fueled?

I have some thoughts on this subject but before I bore you please let me know the general consensus oke:

 

[mr.tourette]

its inevitable isnt it? once they stop making fossil fuel cars its only a matter of when most start degrading/crashed or traded in on a government scheme that gives you strong price to get shut.
It will only be the old or even young petrol heads that keep them going as collectors items that will have them and even then the government will likely be taxing petrol so highly it will become very expensive to drive them.
Us old farts will be able to continue enjoying them for a few more decades, our kids not so long, our grandchildren and great grandchildren will see them as museum pieces eventually

 

[Z4paul]

With the growing acceptance that fossil fuel use is part of climate change this has to change surely. I have children and cant be the only parent thinking about what they might face in 30 or 40 years times. The answer looks like EV /hydrogen perhaps. I think an electric Zed would be a brilliant idea and be smart so charging when demand on the grid is low and selling to it when demand is high.
The need for lithium and the many holes in the ground will probably be pushed of the agenda...

 

[Bottom]

I've had an i3 fully BEV for 4 years. It's fantastic, I will change my other main car to BEV as soon as somebody makes one that will do what my Velar can do, 4x4, decent room in the boot for my 2 dogs and reasonable range, 200 miles will do. Once you've driven an electric car, you realise how rubbish ICE engines are for normal driving. Quiet, smooth, instant torque, no faffing about with gears, pre-heated and defrosted any time, fully refuelled and ready to go every morning, no more smelly diesel on your hands...

Obviously the lovely straight 6 in my Z4m is different, for pure fun driving, but for routine driving an electric engine beats the pants off ICE.

I think the latest survey shows more than 90% of electric car owners would never go back...

 

[Zforbes]

The reason I posed the question is because I can't see much being done to provide an infrastructure that is going to make is feasible for the masses.

My home has a very large drive and I have provided the ability to run 13amp power supply when I resurfaced the area. It the folk that live in cities or terraced houses that will have a problem with home recharging, unallocated parking and running an extension lead down the street to charge the car.

There are going to be many charging stations replacing fossil fuel stations but waiting 30 mins maybe twice a week drinking costas to get the car charged is not my personal preference.

I read somewhere recently that the carbon offset for manufacturing batteries for an EV is 6 years before it is the same as a similar petrol car, do the batteries even last that long?

I’ve never bought a new car and to be honest the cars I like are usually far too expensive until a few years old. My recently purchased Zed is 10 years old and if it was an EV I’d need to replace the batteries to get the range I require. How much would that cost, probably not cost effective and going to scrap perhaps.

I agree that in heavy traffic areas the use of EV’s is unbeatable for clean air but is the impact on the environment actually better, I’m not convinced.

 

[Flyingfifer]

EV is already obsolete imo, with Honda creating the hydrogen fuel cell and it being more and more widely explored and developed it will likely put to bed the need for EV. Given the horribly dirty and toxic nature of the batteries in EVs I have never really seen them as a legitimately green alternative especially given they are also charged using a grid still strongly reliant on fossil fuelled power stations (UK).

 

[TitanTim]

I would only buy one once the ridiculous prices come down and then only useful for around town, apart from that pretty useless for anything else unless you want to spend all your life charging the thing and what about lorries, busses, taxis and everything else that do 100s of miles per day, how do you go about charging when on the move?

Unless you can charge in 2 minutes I can't see it working.

Perhaps we should be planting more trees or laying the climate change blame on Brazil.

Tim.

 

[Nanu]

The target dates for getting rid of petrol / diesel cars will be put back because we will not have the infrastructure to cope with everyone having EV's. If you have a house with a drive or garage OK but what about those in terraced housing, tower blocks and the like. When people begin to realise the pollution caused by EV's in their manufacture and disposal of batteries, not to mention the overall increase in demand for electricity pushing the prices up. EV's appear cheap to run because they don't attract road tax. Road pricing or something similar will have to be introduced to make up for the loss in road tax. Perhaps then they will go for hydrogen technology. The future not electric.

 

[Zforbes]

charged using a grid still strongly reliant on fossil fuelled power stations

Use fossil fuels to generate electricty to charge your car :rofl:

Lets just cut out the middle man eh

My point with the question was to open the thoughts of EV's for those who are considering spending their hard earned on a next vehicle. IMO hydrogen fuel cells are the future and our governments are generating an industry out of EV's for economic reasons.

Not saying they are rubish, they are certainly not especially the power they generate compared to petrol or diesel for driving pleasure.

If EV's do last longer than my expectations then I can see a whole new way of car ownership with the leasing cars the only viable option and cars either refitted with batteries or scrapped.

If this is the case then we will do more harm to the environment unless battery production and the chemical usage is made more green.

There have been a few shifts from Petrol to Diesel to Petrol to EV to .....

I'll always be a petrol head and maybe a voltage head (or whatver you call them) one day but no time soon

 

[Flyingfifer]

Exactly its barmy when you think about it lol

I dont have an issue with hybrid cars, in fact I think for things like taxis and company vehicles it should almost be a requirement as its a good balance of being green yet being useful, as TimTim said the thing with an EV is they are only really useful around town although admittedly I saw a DPD electric delivery van, I really am curious how far those will go, do they last a whole shift do they need swapped out mid way through?

And as Nanu said EV is kinda the preserve of those with houses and garages or at least driveways.

 

[Zforbes]

Hybrid, I know people who have them to reduce their company car tax, never plug them in and get less MPG than the cars they replaced.

 

[Flyingfifer]

Hybrid, I know people who have them to reduce their company car tax, never plug them in and get less MPG than the cars they replaced.

oof! less MPG, hmm well thats obviously no good :thumbsdown:

 

[Mr Tidy]

I'm not convinced that EVs generate less emissions over the course of their life than ICE cars given how much is generated manufacturing them and our heavy reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation. Although that should reduce in time.

But I don't think we know yet how long a set of batteries lasts - would new batteries even be economic on a 10 year old EV or would it be cheaper to just scrap it?

I could use one as my daily, but I only have allocated parking spaces so would need to chuck a cable over the fence - how long would it be before someone tripped over it and wanted some compensation, or some scrote decided it would be fun to unplug it?

Thankfully (maybe) I'm old enough to be able to see my driving days out with straight 6 petrol engines! And we're hardly allowed out these days anyway.

 

[ben g]

I work on a major diesel engine production line producing engines for Ford and PSA group and we have approximately 3 years of life left before we switch to electric production (hopefully). Brexit has chucked a spanner in the works, but it certainly does look like electric is the future, at least for the next 25-30 years anyway.

I remember about 10 years ago we were building 2400+ engines per 24 hours (3 shifts each hitting 800+), crazy times and crazy pressure from supervisors :lol: These days we average 1100 engines produced in a 24 hour period (over 2 shifts) and it's only going to get worse.

 

[Mr Tidy]

And I'm pretty sure I remember that not too many years ago that site made complete cars - it's already got worse.

 

[Nictrix]

Heres a small story about electric v diesel.
My wife and a few friends had to take a trip to Birmingham a few years ago. There were about 7 of them in total so were going in 2 cars.
My wife took my X6 and one of her friends took her Zoe. (it may have been a Leaf but cant remember)
The friend with the Zoe left on the Friday night and planned to stay in a hotel halfway to break the journey up and to charge the car overnight.
On the way to the hotel the motorway was closed with a huge diversion and the girls in the car were panicking as it was looking like they didnt have enough charge to get them there in the middle of the night. Luckily they made it and all was well, hooked the car up to the charger and went to bed.
My wife and other friends left at 6am and headed directly to Birmingham stopping only at a services for breakfast.
The girls in the Zoe got up in the morning to find the car charger didnt work and then had to find somewhere local to charge before heading off and completing the journey to Birmingham.
My wife beat them to Birmingham.
Thats half the story.
Next day they left at the same time and due to the Zoe needing charged again on the way home, the girls in the Zoe got home 3 hours leter than my wife.
For me until they fix these king of issues electric is not the way forward.

Oh and through all this Covid nightmare the amount of delivery vans working more than 12 hours a day would struggle using electric vehicles.

 

[ben g]

And I'm pretty sure I remember that not too many years ago that site made complete cars - it's already got worse.

Yeah that's correct, I think 2004 was when vehicle production ended at Dagenham I started in 2007 at the grand age of 19, straight onto a 3 shift pattern and loads of overtime :lol: How the mighty has fallen.

 

[Mr Tidy]

Yeah that's correct, I think 2004 was when vehicle production ended at Dagenham I started in 2007 at the grand age of 19, straight onto a 3 shift pattern and loads of overtime How the mighty has fallen.

Too true - like most of British manufacturing, although Abingdon seems to be doing better than it did in the BL era (couldn't do much worse that that though really)!

Hopefully Daganham will get to make the electric motors.

 

[Zforbes]

Heres a small story about electric v diesel.
My wife and a few friends had to take a trip to Birmingham a few years ago. There were about 7 of them in total so were going in 2 cars.
My wife took my X6 and one of her friends took her Zoe. (it may have been a Leaf but cant remember)
The friend with the Zoe left on the Friday night and planned to stay in a hotel halfway to break the journey up and to charge the car overnight.
On the way to the hotel the motorway was closed with a huge diversion and the girls in the car were panicking as it was looking like they didnt have enough charge to get them there in the middle of the night. Luckily they made it and all was well, hooked the car up to the charger and went to bed.
My wife and other friends left at 6am and headed directly to Birmingham stopping only at a services for breakfast.
The girls in the Zoe got up in the morning to find the car charger didnt work and then had to find somewhere local to charge before heading off and completing the journey to Birmingham.
My wife beat them to Birmingham.
Thats half the story.
Next day they left at the same time and due to the Zoe needing charged again on the way home, the girls in the Zoe got home 3 hours leter than my wife.
For me until they fix these king of issues electric is not the way forward.

Oh and through all this Covid nightmare the amount of delivery vans working more than 12 hours a day would struggle using electric vehicles.

Thats always my concern, EV owners will tell us that this becomes the norm to know when to recharge.

Your Mrs tavelleved in style in the X6 in comfort relaxed ready for the day ahead whilts her friends were miserable shoe horned into a small box stressed at the thought they may not make it. I know how I'd prefer to travel.

I work in aerospace engine manufacturing and whilst the complexity of a jet engine always makes you think, are these actually safe. Lets just say, If someone was offering a free trip to the Maldives on an electric plane how may folk would put there hand up oke: oke:

 

[sw4nny]

The future is not Ev or hydrogen or fossil fuels,the future is in a decrease in all there usage,by this i mean the global population is too large and growing dramatical thus more and more people consuming .
As titan tim stated earlier maybe in jest we should plant more trees,not a bad idea or at least stop chopping down the ones we still have,the problem needs to be stopped at source.
Then we could drive with a v12 with no remorse if the planet was left intact enough to deal with it.
The population explosion in the last 100 years and all the devastation and need for consumption this causes is the main reason we are having this dilema.
Sorry for a rant i am no lefty eco warrior and if a couple of penguins have to take one for the team so i can drive a 3.0 then so be it ,however there should still be a balance.