The Elephant in the room

[Andy8421]

Andy8421,
“Peak to trough in the UK is currently about 18GW. Lets say that averages to 9GW over a 12hour period, so the UK has spare capacity of 108GWh per day.”

Unless the power required to charge EV’s comes from non-fossil fuels the arguments for the electric vehicle mostly disappears, so the need to meet demand is still a challenge.

The UK grid has been significantly cleaned up over the last few years, and is now approaching 50% low/no carbon. We are down to our last 4 coal fired power stations, and there have been extended periods this year (over a month at a time) where no coal has been burned. The remaining coal stations are due to close by 2024. The big slug of fossil fuel burn on the grid is natural gas in combined cycle gas turbine power stations, which is about as clean as you can get if you still need to burn fossil fuel.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb

I am no EV evangelist, but I can see the positive arguments - even if the pollution per mile was no better for a battery car, at least the fuel in a power station is being burnt away from the high street and the exhaust not discharged at street level. You also have the benefit as an EV driver that as the grid gets cleaner, so does your car.

[Craven]

Andy8421.
Going round in circles here!
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=45940&start=45

[richardcox_lotus]

Thought I’d add this into the discussion. It’s behind a paywall but you get the gist.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/news/porsche-reveals-climate-neutral-synthetic-fuel-use-within-two/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

Are we all reprieved ?

Regards,
Richard

[trw99]

With regard to the elephant, Harry Metcalf's latest video (released last evening) on the future of classic car motoring is well worth viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CUA2imRYRM

Tim

[gherlt]

Thumbs up for Harry's comments, totally agree with him [except for the CO2 amount of buying cars every 3 years (not me), that should be changed to the cars lifespan (10 years)].
A very very good and realistic view of the imminent future.

[Andy8421]

Andy8421.
Going round in circles here!
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=45940&start=45

Glad to see I still agree with myself!

[Andy8421]

With regard to the elephant, Harry Metcalf's latest video (released last evening) on the future of classic car motoring is well worth viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CUA2imRYRM

Tim

I watched Harry's video. I would certainly agree that the classic car hobby will continue post the demise of ICE production, people after all still drive around in Stanley Steamers for fun. I do wonder however if the same level of popularity and collectability will continue when it is major undertaking to obtain fuel (which is of course carcinogenic and explosive). My guess is the marginal 'modern classics' will fade away, but iconic collectables will endure. At the dawn of motoring, gasoline was purchased in cans from hardware stores. Perhaps we will eventually go back to a similar situation, though probably not in my lifetime.

I do have issue however with Harry's CO2 calculations. He considers the CO2 impact of producing the electricity (fair enough) for electric cars, but then ignores the CO2 impact of producing the fossil fuel for ICE cars. There are many different studies around, but figures would indicate you need to add at least 30% on to the CO2 produced per mile by an ICE car to cover the CO2 produced during the extraction, refining and transportation of the fuel.

I am also not sure he fairly represents the concept of purchasing green electricity or the 'cleanliness' of the grid. In the UK we have a national synchronous grid. If your 'green' supplier adds a KWh to the grid, and you use a KWh, it is of course not the same electrons (AC doesn't actually work that way anyway) but at the margin, the supplier has displaced an otherwise dirty KWh, and you have effectively used clean energy. He does have a point about where the electricity is generated and copper losses in the grid, but the National grid estimate that losses in 2019 were 1.7% of the total power supplied, so not that significant. Clearly if all the electricity was generated off the coast of Scotland and used in London, this would be greater.

Overall, I like Harry's podcasts, but when it comes to energy comparison, the devil is in the detail.

[elanfan1]

Mark,

It’s not likely to affect me much but I was wondering that government project you were involved in - how do they propose to charge folk on their mileage? The infrastructure to install cameras everywhere would be immense and impossibly costly. If you just pootle about in your classic I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to avoid roads with cameras. If it was based on mileage reading at an MOT folk will disconnect their odometers. I can’t imagine it’s a realistic prospect. Educate me if you wouldn’t mind please.

[billwill]

It's quite likely that most car buyers don't know what the word Odometer means, let alone how to disconnect one.

[Craven]

Most of our cars can be MOT exempt so that one won’t fly.

[Elanintheforest]

Mark,

It’s not likely to affect me much but I was wondering that government project you were involved in - how do they propose to charge folk on their mileage? The infrastructure to install cameras everywhere would be immense and impossibly costly. If you just pootle about in your classic I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to avoid roads with cameras. If it was based on mileage reading at an MOT folk will disconnect their odometers. I can’t imagine it’s a realistic prospect. Educate me if you wouldn’t mind please.

In the main it's pretty straightforward, but as usual it is the exceptions that get rather complex.

Essentially, every vehicle is fitted with a device that monitors and records the location of that vehicle at any one time. This is done three ways...with satellite positioning, road section coverage and with RFID technology on the major roads and in built up areas. No cameras are harmed in the implementation of this system.!

An individual car is assigned an identification, and it can then be tracked wherever it goes by any one or all three of the methods.. One party is responsible for the usage of that car, and they are the bill payer unless the car is reported stolen.

There are many safeguards to make the system tamper-proof. These are very simple measures for new cars with the technology built in (at a tiny on-cost) to a more complex system for units that have to be retro-fitted to older cars. The most complex system is the installation of a temporary unit, for vehicles visiting the UK on a temporary basis, in particular the large trucks that fill up in Calais with cheap diesel, can then travel 1000 miles or so in the UK without buying any fuel, and then get back in the tunnel and fill up again in France.

As the vehicle is being driven, data is collected in the onboard unit regarding what road sections the car has driven on and when. That data can be downloaded on demand or in batch mode via roadside equipment and / or simple mobile phone technology in many different modes; for example at quiet times of the day (on the network), when the traffic is crawling on jammed-up roads, when the car is parked up or in the garage.

Because road charging is a tax, the basis of the charging has to be absolutely bullet proof. That's why there are three main methods for monitoring a vehicles location, and consequently calculating charges. Each of these methods records information that is converted into miles covered per chargeable road section, cross-checked in several different ways. The Galileo satellite array would be used, rather than the American defence satellites currently used as relying on the technology of another country to calculate and collect taxes isn't seen as a very good idea. Galileo is also 'overhead', allowing reliable triangulation in cities with tall buildings.

Again, very simple for manufacturer-fit vehicles which can also employ odometer readings as a 4th cross check, and very simple to tie in to HGVs that have a tachograph to determine speed and distance.

The big stick is the enforcement of the usage of the system, with roadside equipment being able to detect tampering or other illegal use, combined with mobile enforcement to check out the functioning of equipment as cars are going along. There are a few more covert methods of inspection that would also be employed of course.

The bottom line is that this is a tax, and taxation authorities around the world have very scary powers to protect their income, as Al Capone found out.!!

[h20hamelan]

In the USA, and since the VW diesel scandal. MoT has been scrutinizing diesel vehicles more, a recent report

https://dieselnet.com/news/2020/11epa.php

“50% of tampering occurs when vehicles are three years of age or less, and over 85% of tampering occurs by the time vehicles are eight years old.”

I suspect a few things will happen. We will need better exhaust filters, and catalytic converters. Most likely high pressure diesel or fuel injection at some point, as we need to have the most clean/lowest footprint as possible. May not be soon, as Harry points out. The millions of cars still on the road are not electric, out of these, the classic market is low. But, what if everyone recognized this and bought a pre 1990 car so they would be exempt.

I also agree with Harry, that developed countries footprint has decreased. Obviously, all our factories have moved to the 3ed world. This is a big topic, as it ALL should be based on consumption and local production. Covid has heightened this, in that the supply chain is easily disrupted, further, the transport of commodities is hyper carbon intense. The 100 mile diet could be the 100 mile everything. Why cant there be synthetic fuel factories/refinery’s locally. Mass transit in the cities... The age of entitlement and corporate capitalism.

[The Veg]

Thought I’d add this into the discussion. It’s behind a paywall but you get the gist.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/news/porsche-reveals-climate-neutral-synthetic-fuel-use-within-two/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

Are we all reprieved ?

Non-paywall version: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/porsche-revea ... 16608.html

I'm not optimistic that it will be cost-effective.

[SENC]

I'm not optimistic that it will be cost-effective.

Porsche?!? Not sure why you're such a pessimist!

[2cams70]

Porsche?!? Not sure why you're such a pessimist!

Porsche?? Part of VW group. Same mob responsible for the Dieselgate scandal. Do you trust them this time around??