Electric powered MH 2021
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there is no simple solution for sustainable transport; it’s a question of the lesser of several evils.
Agreed, but I’d welcome more transparency about the implications of alternative technologies. For example, how long can you reasonably expect EV batteries to last, is replacement viable or, when the time comes, is the EV effectively trash? Is recycling and/or disposing of lithium batteries safe and viable or simply “kicking the can down the road.”
Hydrogen manufacture, distribution and storage on the scale necessary to fuel vehicles must present some safety and environmental issues?
What environmental problems does lithium mining present? There’s a lot of excitement in Cornwall currently about the lithium potential in old tin/lead mines. Is it an economic boost or curse?
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Estimates for battery life are several hundred thousand miles depending on driving style, recharging method etc. That would be to 70%/80% capacity after which there could be a secondary life as power storage which would work well in conjunction with, for example, solar panels.
Lithium batteries also contain Cobalt and Nickel. All of these elements are used in other applications as well. Lithium can be 100% recycled but is not economically viable at present. My car makes extensive use of GRP and plastics, some of which are from recycled materials.
The fact is, we use earth’s resources in many different ways. At least pollution can be minimised with EVs and with Hydrogen fuel cells when compared with petrol and Diesel engines.
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Hitchglitch and the Brues are running similar cars. We've had our EV three years, the batteries should last eight years and they are replaceable and re-usable for other applications. The cars themselves have a very high recycle percentage. We liked a hybrid we had on loan recently and even thought of buying a similar one but basically we pay very little to run our EV and it always comes as a shock to fuel up our motorhome and hear the engine noise. In our EV it's so quiet we can hear the birds singing. Personally, although I find the talk about E motorhomes interesting ( and the quirky designs) I'm hoping there will be innovative developments for cars first and maybe more people will decide to use them.
The fact that we've run our EV for three years now, on long and short journeys shows that we have confidence in this type of vehicle. The arguments about the costs to the environment in their production lessen when you think about the damage we are already doing to the air we breathe, IMHO.
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Interesting....
What about EV service/maintenance costs? Are they comparable (or cheaper) to petrol/diesel and are you limited to a relatively small number of specialist dealers, particularly if you live in the sticks?
My faithful diesel Golf is getting on a bit now, so I’ve been tentatively looking at the Tesla Model 3. I’m what some would describe as a ‘petrol head’ so the performance aspects of the Tesla appeal to me. I know it’s not a very ecological disposition, but hey ho. Obviously times are a changin so question is, do I now take the plunge and go green or indulge my ridiculous desire to own a Golf R which would be quite a bit cheaper? Decisions.....
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It is the infrastructure for charging EVs that will be the expensive part especially where we live, with multiple terraced houses,and no parking except in the roads and to access the vehicles across verges and footpaths, and no dedicated parking for multiple vehicles that each property has some up to five vehicles per house
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Thankfully not a problem for me, but you’re absolutely right. My daughter had a Golf E and had to wrestle with that problem.
Problem #1 is can you readily park outside your own terrace house in central Exeter even with residents on-road parking? Only occasionally, if you’re lucky.
Problem #2 is will the council grant consent to run a charging cable across the payment - too complex a decision for them to deal with! Likelihood is that ‘offending’ resident is liable to prosecution if somebody trips on cable even if resident uses high viz cones and rubber channel to accommodate charging cable.
Problem #3 is does the Council/Government have a purposeful strategy to make charging points widely available e.g. using street lamp posts? Council say not enough money, Government’s (Con) fault. MP (Lab) says Council’s fault, money allocated but not spending on the right priorities!
That situation must be repeated hundreds and thousands of times across the UK. No wonder we’re struggling with climate change targets!
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How would the extra power for the charging be fed to the lamp-posts?
The present wiring is only sufficient for a string of fairly low power light bulbs, and is 240 volt in most places. During daylight it might be possible to provide a singe trickle charge from each post, but not the high voltage/current required for the rapid charge that is needed for the idea to make sense.
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To pick up on a couple of points.
Maintenance
No routine maintenance for motor, battery or electronics. No engine, no oil system, no cooling water system. That just leaves brakes really. EVs will be very cheap to service and maintain once garages become more familiar with them. MOTs ought to eventually be cheaper too - no emissions to test for.
Home charging
Many homes do not have adjacent parking and charging at home will not be possible, however, many shops, leisure centres, petrol stations (Shell, BP) etc. are now installing rapid chargers. It has to be said though, the biggest advantage to be gained is to be able to simply plug in and “fill up the tank” overnight. I use a cheap overnight tariff so my electricity cost is just over 1p per mile. That’s about 650 mpg I think!
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Not my field so I’ll bow to your greater knowledge. However, it does seem to be a reality in some places e.g. Siemens/Ubitricity have apparently installed about 300 charging points in London using existing street light infrastructure. 16 other local authorities have plans to do likewise.
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Where there are underground ducts/conduits for the cables - or the supplier is willing to invest in digging to install new ones - additional cables can be fed through to supply the higher power required for charging. The existing lamp-post is used only for support and to enclose some gubbins.
I have seen some elegant electronic billboards on streets, that have a land-line telephone on the rear. This would be a good item to expand with a couple of charging points on the sides and free wifi on top.
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Many Ev users cable across the street at present, using a pavement protector over the cable.
I think one of the ideas in the future is to pick up a moving charge from underground cables but there will be a lot more developments before then.
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I've got a roof full of solar, so could probably charge an EV for nothing. The dilemma is replacing a perfectly adequate petrol runabout for what may be, for both of us, less than another ten years motoring.
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That’s always the dilemma.... do I want to be the richest, slimmest, ecologically sound person in the graveyard, or shall I enjoy myself?2
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We're using up four billion tons of fossil fuel crude oil per year, just another 53 years to go before they run out. We'll be ok but what about everyone in the future? The figures for coal and gas are worse I think...
(oops no, I tell a lie, coal 150 years left and gas 52 years, so you can see why gas isn't going to be used in new homes soon.)0 -
Untill there is a kerb on the ever expanding , it seems, love of flying every where using thousands of tons of fossil fuel polluting our sky's every day
Also the destruction of the world's forests
, Then what we are likely to achieve by going EV powered is just a "dream" to be pushed by those who it seems, have not really costed the full impact of making it the future mode of transport for the majority, yes by all means the wish of making our large conurbations as poison fumes free as possible, is what is needed and EVs/hybrids will help but far more infrastructure at huge cost to make it workable is needed
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The main aim is to conserve fossil fuels for as long as possible and find alternative sustainable power sources in the mean time. The gain from that is less air pollution.
We might not be using EVs in the future, other ideas are being developed.
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If some of the projections on climate change are halfway accurate, we'll have a whole lot more than our mode of transport to worry about.
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Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, electric vehicles are not has green has we are led to believe. A programme last week was referencing the fact that they need to mine Cobalt from the earth's crust which is used in batteries and the best way to do that is to mine the sea bed, the disturbance to marine life will have huge effect on their habitat, bearing in mind we still have to charge the batteries up by some means, obviously the greener way would be with renewable energy which has we all know at moment are wind farms, most of them are situated out to sea. The Queen will be happy as she owns the sea bed and gets a good return so l am reliably informed. So there's still a price to pay.
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We already mine the “earth’s crust” for all sorts of metals and for all sorts of reasons. The human race has been using resources since life began. There’s plenty of Cobalt elsewhere but it’s probably more cost effective to take it from the sea bed. We don’t have to! Most of these rare elements can be 100% recycled anyway if it gets to the point of scarcity. You don’t see many complaints about copper mining, iron ore etc. All essential to our everyday life.
Regarding charging EVs at Club sites, this has been covered many times on this forum. To properly charge an EV requires a dedicated charging point which you pay to use. You can’t get enough power from your EHU to do anything other than a trickle charge; then you won’t have power for everything else - cooking, heating etc.
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Only the bit between Mean Low Water Springs and Mean High Water Springs belongs to the Crown. That's not to be confused with territorial waters which come under the Governments jurisdiction, IIRC.
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Until there is a kerb on the ever expanding , it seems, love of flying every where using thousands of tons of fossil fuel polluting our sky's every day
Got an email from EasyJet this morning as follows:
........Why flight EJU5841 made history this morning.At 05:20 this morning, easyJet flight EJU5841 took to the skies and made history. Because starting today, we will offset the carbon emissions from the fuel used for every single easyJet flight, domestic and international.
We believe flying is important - the opportunity to go abroad, to spend time with family and friends, to do business face-to-face and experience other cultures. But we have to balance this with the effect we know it’s having on the planet. So for every flight we operate, we’ll offset the carbon it produces by investing in projects that include planting trees or protecting against deforestation......
Maybe cynical hype, who knows? I don’t love flying, I generally hate it, but I do find it very useful. If viable and genuine, I’d rather see this kind of thing than quotas and bans.
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Can see these cables ending up in scrapyard or the river ,justlike the cycles for hire
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These cables contain a lot of copper so are far more likely to be stolen, set on fire somewhere to burn off the plastic insulation to get at the copper, and recycled somewhere on the shady side of the scrap yard.
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