Diesel & petrol alternatives? Your thoughts please
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I trust that all you advocates of 'clean' energy have put your homes in order ? Converted entirely to LED lighting, ensured that your heating is of the most energy efficient, home white goods likewise - or are you simply 'dedicated followers of fashion' ?
Oh - and that log burner- nooooo!
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Not me I’ll never get rid of my wood stove👎🏻. We don’t have gas out here, we lose the Lekky every few weeks so the stove stays😊
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That’s a yes, it’s been a yes since I found the spiral bulbs with fluorescence. The ceiling strips are all LED, way better than the fluorescent ones that flicker. I hope I’ve passed🤣🤣👍🏻
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Hi All,
We're thinking of our next Car which is to be a Skoda Superb with an Auto gearbox.
The diesel and petrol engines both offer 150 bhp. The petrol version is cheaper to buy so I'm inclined to that, but will a petrol engine with the exact same bhp as a diesel pull a Caravan? Thanks
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How big is the caravan? 🙄 It's torque that does the work .... in general (I've not looked at the VAG numbers) diseasals produce more toque at lower revs than a similar petrol engine. The DSG/automated manual gearbox is another topic 😉
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I'd go for the diesel every time but I'd only go for the DSG if it's a 'wet' clutch system.
Do I remember you asking this before, FB?
Edit: Yes, you did so this current post is rather a duplication and also doesn't concern alternative fuels.
Same answers apply - the 190 diesel wins.
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Maybe FB really wants to purchase the petrol model and is looking for assurance that it will do the job that he wants from it? Perhaps he wants other members to say that it's fine so that he can go ahead and get his preferred choice without can't qualms.
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How big is the caravan, and how much do you tow are two key questions. If the answer is a lighter van (sub1500kg) and occasionally (say 1/8th of your annual mileage) maybe neither petrol or diesel, but electric is the answer? 😀 (Keeping us on topic for TW 😎). The Skoda Enyaq can tow up to a certain weight (1000kg 2wd, 1200 AWD). Other EVs can tow more.
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Chocolate trees we have been following your post with interest, in early 2020 (18 months ago) we made the change from a Ford Kuga diesel to a Mitsubishi outlander PHEV, following all the negativity on the internet we were expecting some problems to date we have experience none to the point we would not go back to a diesel our fuel cost have more than halved over the past 18 months.
Hopefully our next step will be a fully EV, for us there is very little difference between a decent PHEV/EV, we just need the push in the right direction.
Our only problem is unhitching the caravan on the motorways (a) I am on 2 crutches or my walker and (b) we realise we will have to fit the AL-KO wheel and hitch locks, but do we stand with insurance leaving the caravan unhitched/unattended whilst charging up the EV ?
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This will make the EV roll out move apace
https://www.moveelectric.com/e-cars/government-rolls-back-electric-charger-requirement
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The negativity is mainly to Petrol engine vehicles which I find surprising. The Diesel may have more torque but that doesn't make it a must have as far as I am concerned. I have towed with both and some small engine Petrol cars have done the job. You have to use the gears more and drive ahead rather than just in front, but so what, that to me isn't hardship. If the guy with a Diesel is a bad driver, his so called advantage of that torque will be lost anyway as I see it !....................just my personal opinion and previous experiences.
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So, if you already have a PHEV and it’s working for you (esp for the local journeys), I would think hard about the move to full EV if hitching and unhitching is a problem.
We don’t fit locks to the van when charging, but then we don’t leave it alone at all unlocked. We always leave one person with it so it’s always attended for insurance purposes.
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A question for the experts
I have been told by an EV owner the difference between Hibrid vehicles batteries and full EV vehicle batteries is that a hybrid has to have a full battery if a replacement is needed ,where as the batteries on EVs can have individual cells disabled (reducing capacity) ,rather than having to spend very large amounts of money ,dismantling the whole vehicle to put in a new battery
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JVB66...... No as mostly all were company cars. My present car a Lexus and a previous personal car a Granada Ghia were automatics. Now that is something that I am a big fan of. I would not want to tow with an automatic gearbox with those smaller engines however.
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Not sure it's as simple as PHEV this and BEV that. Its totally dependant on the specific manufacturer and model. It is true that BEVs (generally) have bigger batteries than PHEV, and that means they are (generally) formed in modular "packs" that can be individually replaced. But there is no hard and fast rule either way...
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Apart from the current range issues which I am sure will be resolved with increasing power density of batteries the other concern is the infrastructure required for the transition to EVs. If I imagine the not too distant future where 30% of cars are electric. Consider a motorway services say 100 fast chargers are required to cope with demand, that's around 500V at 100A per plug =50kW.Thats 5 Megawatts peak per service area. With around 100 service areas on the motorway network that's 500 MW a whole power stations worth, plus the extra distribution hardware requirements not cheap. Just a thought.
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Your figures of a 'whole power stations worth' of 500MW doesn't ring exactly true, as your calculations are based on a power stations voltage output of 500v.
Given that the average power station outputs a voltage of 25,000 volts, transformed up then transformed down near source, then the figure at the power station would be in the region of 10MW.
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@ Metheven Hmm - power (AxV) is constant through transformers (excluding loss).
@ viatorem - 100 chargers per MSA? That's a LOT. Not that I would not love to see them, but I am not sure 100 per MSA is necessary - perhaps 30 or so.
But the key here is that not all chargers are used all the time. The MSAs that HAVE got dense deployments (Rugby, Corley, all Tesla supercharger v3) and the charging hubs that are off the MSA network (Gridserve @ Braintree, MFG @ Crow orchard, Ionity @ Skelton Lakes), don't rely on the direct grid connection for peak power draw. They have very large battery arrays that act as a buffer between the chargers and the grid. So while Braintree has a 5MW grid connection, it also has 200KW (peak) of solar and a 5 MWH battery (re-using older car batteries is a great use case here).
The batteries can be charged over night (low demand for both generation and car charging) and support the charging of cars at peak times.
That local battery allows Gridserve to export back to the grid to offer local stabilisation at peak times.
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