The Electric Vehicle Disruption - End Of Oil by 2030

[Draigflag]

Originally Posted by ChewChewTrain

Hmmm. I was wonderin' why the air smelled like an Irish spring, Gary.

Hey, Paul! Do you guys have a hand / bath soap called Irish Spring?

I don't know Doug sorry, don't really buy soap, I thought it was just for grannies?

[OliverGT]

For me the biggest elephant in the room is the number of people on the planet, which is increasing all the time.

If the number of people was halved we could all pollute twice as much and be in the same place. I'm not advocating pollution, but you see what I'm getting at, less people = less pollution.

The other thing is the vested interest of governments in promoting greener cars for example. Here in Ireland, about 40% of the retail price of the car goes to the Government in Vehicle Registration Tax(VRT) and VAT, which is also applied to the VRT tax! There is also the business of keeping the car factories going and all the tax revenue that they generate. For example, it must be better for the environment if I continue to drive my 13 year old car, it does use a little more fuel than a new car, but what is the environmental cost of building that new car.

So, are governments really interested in looking after the environment, or their Tax revenue?

Oliver.

[R.I.D.E.]

The US pioneered personal transportation and the stupidity of many drivers here is astounding, but it gives the rest of the planet a great example to NOT follow. It took Britain some dying to learn many lessons as far as being a global partner versus empire builder.
It's truly sad to see the neighbors F350 diesel remote started every day, massive pollution during that cold (no loads to expedite warm up).
That versus my car cranked and moving within a second of that start. That same neighbor probably burned through enough fuel to cover my two days driving.
I once told one neighbor, my car will go 40 mph on the same fuel your uses to just sit there and idle and it was the truth.
Plant some trees over there buddy to replace those that were used to embark on a global colonization effort some time ago, another example of how to NOT be a world member of the global community.

[trollbait]

Originally Posted by OliverGT

For me the biggest elephant in the room is the number of people on the planet, which is increasing all the time.

If the number of people was halved we could all pollute twice as much and be in the same place. I'm not advocating pollution, but you see what I'm getting at, less people = less pollution.

The other thing is the vested interest of governments in promoting greener cars for example. Here in Ireland, about 40% of the retail price of the car goes to the Government in Vehicle Registration Tax(VRT) and VAT, which is also applied to the VRT tax! There is also the business of keeping the car factories going and all the tax revenue that they generate. For example, it must be better for the environment if I continue to drive my 13 year old car, it does use a little more fuel than a new car, but what is the environmental cost of building that new car.

So, are governments really interested in looking after the environment, or their Tax revenue?

Oliver.

It's complicated.
In most capitalist countries the government tends to be the one on the hook to clean up when a company closes shop. Even with direct clean up costs, there are public health and quality of life cost increases from pollution. Not only does the government not get tax revenue when you keep an old car on the road, but it might be costing them or society by the extra pollution it emits.

On the the old car, there is an environmental cost to making a new one, but over an ICE one's lifetime, the fuel use is the major contributor to environmental damage.

[R.I.D.E.]

Attributing a countries irresponsibility to any individual is guilt by association, a form of propaganda under the classification of "killing the messenger".

In 1967 my 170 cubic inch Valiant got 28.5 mpg US, 50 YEARS AGO. Bump that by the 20% increase in volume of the British gallon and I was getting the same mpg as Draigflag is currently.

Who does that make irresponsible? Certainly not the whole country in which that individual resides.

The country cleans up the mess when the closed business owner has no assets to seize to cover the cleanup costs.

Of the attorneys, by the attorneys, for the attorneys = wealthy attorneys, a scenario that should scare all of us to death as it did Jefferson.

[Draigflag]

Originally Posted by R.I.D.E.

In 1967 my 170 cubic inch Valiant got 28.5 mpg US, 50 YEARS AGO. Bump that by the 20% increase in volume of the British gallon and I was getting the same mpg as Draigflag is currently.

Not sure if you are trying to make things personnel, but as I said before, my car is exceptionally good on fuel for a performance car that has a 0-60 time of just over 5 seconds. If you can find a quicker more efficient one currently on sale, other than a big German diesel, please let me know. Plenty of small diesels that do 100 MPG when hypermiled, if I wanted one, I'd drive one.

Originally Posted by R.I.D.E.

It's truly sad to see the neighbors F350 diesel remote started every day, massive pollution during that cold (no loads to expedite warm up).
That versus my car cranked and moving within a second of that start. That same neighbor probably burned through enough fuel to cover my two days driving.
I once told one neighbor, my car will go 40 mph on the same fuel your uses to just sit there and idle and it was the truth.
Plant some trees over there buddy to replace those that were used to embark on a global colonization effort some time ago, another example of how to NOT be a world member of the global community.

Diesels barely use any fuel when idling and warm up faster than petrol engines too. Just one of the many benefits of diesels. Not sure why you'd compare a cheap city car to a commercial truck anyway?

[luv2spd]

Getting back to EV cars, I think they will eventually take over, but it will not be as fast as people think. I thought I provide an example that I have been observing. I’m happy to tell you that in the past five years all the commercial buildings that I worked on have electric car chargers, and most of them can be used for free. The idea is that the building owner provides an environmentally built building, and the tenants using it have an access to free charging. If you have an electric car, you can park it inside and have a spot next to the free charger. Here are some pictures of the building that was completed April 2012.







Having said the above, I tend to go back to the buildings that I worked on and talk to the building managers to see how everything is performing. When I asked the building manger with regards to the use of these chargers, he said that they were never used in the past five years. When I looked around the parking lot, there were cars there that were twice and three times the price of an electric car, so it probably wasn’t about money either why people working there don’t drive electric cars. If I worked there, I would probably have an electric car by now; this also doubles your EVs range if you have a charger at work and home. Anyways, it’s nice to see that changes are coming for EVs, but it’s still a bit further away in Canada.

I took this picture as a joke (blue AMG pretending to be green)

[Draigflag]

The thing I like about EV'S is the sheer simplicity, 18 moving parts V's 2000+ on a conventional ice car. That alone makes them extremely reliable, easy to diagnose if there's an issue, and cheap to fix too. Assume a 30 year old EV needs a rebuild. New battery, usually comes in one piece, easy to swap, new motor, can be lifted by one guy, and probably rebuilt in a day. How long does it take to source a new engine, transport it, unwired it, remove it etc etc. So labour intensive, labour = cost. An EV, most amateur mechanics would be able to swap the two key components, battery and motor in a day if that.

I'm not quite ready for one yet, not cost effective just yet and I don't do the miles, plus I am enjoying performance now. The Tesla Model 3 would be on par with my GTi, but it's too expensive for me.

[Draigflag]

Originally Posted by OliverGT

So, are governments really interested in looking after the environment, or their Tax revenue?

Oliver.

Tax mostly. If it were anything to do with pollution, they wouldn't be building a new runway at London's already heavily polluted Heathrow. There are around 1400 flights a day from there as is, each plane will be burning through almost 4000 gallons of Nitrogen rich highly toxic jet fuel and dumping the chemicals all over the people below (that's almost 6,000,000 gallons just to take off every day) Then factor in the extra traffic, buses taxis taxing passengers there. Will any of that help London's air quality?

If it were about pollution, why have they changed road tax so that people driving smaller cars will be paying more? Revenue.

[luv2spd]

I finished watching the last episode of The Grand Tour last night, and I really liked the VW GTI vs BMW i3 bit. It just shows how the infrastructure is still not there for electric cars. If car makers want to eliminate ICE cars by 2020, the governments better get their sh** together and start building more electric car chargers. So out of the four car chargers that James used, two didn't work.

Sidenote: Paul, how do you make your signature show up centered instead of being to the left indent like mine?