262 replies to this topic

[sonscar]

I do not have any hate for electric cars,they suit some people and situations well.I strongly dislike the forcing you to have one approach and the notion that they will save the planet.
Search out a TV program about factories producing"food"and marvel at the scale of use and production.Steve..

[Steam]

Those companies pushing EV technology are now saying that hybrid is the way to go and most now will not charge on your home power supply without major upgrades.
And EV is definately not enviromentally friendly.
And lets not forget the pollies that are forcing the demise of ice cars will be long gone when the acts come in to force.

[johnv]

They seem to be building an entire infrastructure for a flawed technology which will ultimately and possibly sooner rather than later be replaced with a far better solution that actually works. The betamax analogy doesn't quite stand up as IIRC it did actually work rather well, it was just out-marketed. All these extremely expensive electric cars will, though, be as desirable as a betamax recorder when a better solution appears.
IMO obviously ;)

Edited by johnv, 13 February 2023 - 08:36 AM.

[stuart bowes]

I think it was Jay Leno in an interview who was saying once EV's are brilliant because it saves the petrol for the enthusiasts with the interesting cars, instead of it being all used by by the daily drive lot with their boring every day vans and people carriers (I paraphrase slightly) I tend to agree with that

 

also as someone who like the environment and begrudgingly accepts the obvious fact that we need to do more to preserve it, I agree we have to not necessarily get 'rid' of ICE cars but certainly massively cut down on them to a bare minimum usage

 

the problem with Hydrogen is that is costs a huge amount of energy to produce so it seems pointless to use all that energy to create a 'middle man' as it were when you could just put that energy directly into the car.  not to mention obviously with each transfer process you suffer losses so it's actually less efficient than, again, just plugging the car into the mains.  as processes improve the cost and losses are reduced, of course

 

The energy production itself gets more and more clean and efficient all the time with better reactors, wind turbines and so on.  Obviously if you're charging from coal power then there's a fair argument against it but even still it keeps the emissions out of town centers and away from schools at least

 

So the only real problem is infrastructure, which is just a slow give and take process, no one is going to install millions of chargers when there's only thousands of cars.  but millions of people wont buy EV's when there's only thousands of chargers, it's a catch 22 but it will improve gradually over time

Edited by stuart bowes, 13 February 2023 - 09:40 AM.

[unburntfuelinthemorning]

They seem to be building an entire infrastructure for a flawed technology which will ultimately and possibly sooner rather than later be replaced with a far better solution that actually works. The betamax analogy doesn't quite stand up as IIRC it did actually work rather well, it was just out-marketed. All these extremely expensive electric cars will, though, be as desirable as a betamax recorder when a better solution appears.
IMO obviously ;)

Yes I think you're correct that Betamax was better than VHS but the marketing won the day.  I bought into Sony minidiscs.  I liked the idea of them for in car use as you could get better quality sound than cassette tapes, they didn't chew up, you could easily record onto them as you could with cassettes, you didn't need to put them back in a case while driving to protect them, and they were smaller than CDs.  Unfortunately the majority didn't agree with me.  I  didn't get round to getting a player for the car, only the house but at least the little hifi system I bought also had a radio, cassette player and CD player and I could still use the minidiscs I had (until the CD player broke!).  People investing in battery electric vehicles are making a huge investment in a technology which may or may not continue.  Big risk.

[Dandyer1995]

my current company car is full electric. as a run around its great especially as I charge at work for free! plus the 1% benefit in kind! if I had to buy a new daily however it it wouldn't be an electric.

 

Not to mention the vast majority of properties barely have enough power to run a modern house let alone charge an EV on top. Plus what do we do when we have two ev's per household as most has multiple cars!

[stuart bowes]

I don't think specific formats like betamax or minidisc (which I also loved) are a good comparison, they needed a certain exact type of hardware player to be used which isn't the same thing, so when they stopped selling them your player became redundant (but even then you could still listen to the stuff you had, it didn't just stop working) 

 

if we're going down that route ICE cars can be compared to vinyl, they have their faults but people still love that warm fuzzy feeling, you can still use them but over time they're getting more and more worn out

 

the car battery type may change, the way the car works exactly might change, etc but at the end of the day electrical supplies are never going anywhere.  at the bare minimum you can just use a 13a supply at your house, but those charging points are going to be around for a long time, if not more being added..

 

it's not like suddenly you won't be able to charge them, certainly within the lifespan of the car anyway at this point in time

 

you MIGHT not be able to get a new battery for it I suppose that's one argument, but I'm sure there will be companies offering rebuilt units, or repair service, or whatever, enough to get the car to a usual scrappage age 

Edited by stuart bowes, 13 February 2023 - 11:24 AM.

[Lowestoftmodder]

JCB: Building a Hydrogen Future


Toyota FINALLY Revealed New HYDROGEN Combustion Engine

I’d love to see more investment and a wider acceptance to hydrogen being the future fuel but just like many others have said, marketing will decide..

Edited by Lowestoftmodder, 13 February 2023 - 01:54 PM.

[Ethel]

They seem to be building an entire infrastructure for a flawed technology which will ultimately and possibly sooner rather than later be replaced with a far better solution that actually works. The betamax analogy doesn't quite stand up as IIRC it did actually work rather well, it was just out-marketed. All these extremely expensive electric cars will, though, be as desirable as a betamax recorder when a better solution appears.
IMO obviously ;)

It's electricity, we've had it for over a century. Petrol isn't the same as it was when our Minis were young, nor are the pumps we get it from, but they're still on petrol stations, that are supplied with petrol tankers from refineries. Expect 'leccy chargers will evolve just the same. But renewable energy is going to be generated as electricity.

 

Those companies pushing EV technology are now saying that hybrid is the way to go and most now will not charge on your home power supply without major upgrades.
And EV is definately not enviromentally friendly.
And lets not forget the pollies that are forcing the demise of ice cars will be long gone when the acts come in to force.

 

That would make a lot of sense. Less demand on still nascent battery tech & production. Sidesteps the lack of charging away from home.

 

Half of us go to work by car and  3/4 commute under 10 miles. If a plug in hybrid gives more than 20 miles battery range it'll do what an all out EV can do for most of us, most of the time without the teething problems of the tech transition.

 

 

JCB: Building a Hydrogen Future


Toyota FINALLY Revealed New HYDROGEN Combustion Engine

I’d love to see more investment and a wider acceptance to hydrogen being the future fuel but just like many others have said, marketing will decide..

 

 

I'm sure the corporate interest served by having a monopoly on supplying our fossil fuel fix would love a direct replacement. Democratised electricity generation offers more consumer power, whatever definition of the word you take. Owning your own battery pack would do the same.

[bpirie1000]

Let them charge their electric boxes..

leaves more petrol for the rest of us classic owners...

[stuart bowes]

point of order, plug in hybrids are designed to be plugged in every night, it's not a 'take it or leave it' option

 

if you don't plug them you run out quick and then all you've got is an ICE car dragging about a huge pile of extra weight, doing even less mpg than you would without the battery

 

if charged regularly it kicks in when it needs to, assists at certain times, and drives the mpg down

Edited by stuart bowes, 13 February 2023 - 04:17 PM.

[stuart bowes]

Let them charge their electric boxes..

leaves more petrol for the rest of us classic owners...

 

or a bit of both, use an EV for daily commute etc and save yourself the petrol for the fun car at the weekend

[sonscar]

As I said previously research factories making canned stuff such as drinks,plastic stuff such as yoghurt etc.see the scale of production and then realise that the mess your car may produce is but a peanut.look at the amount of plastic tat consumed daily,the multiple product lines in the supermarkets and on and on and on.Steve..

[mab01uk]

Amusing article below on owning and driving an electric Jaguar iPace as published in the Times recently.

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car by Giles Coren.
Friday January 06 2023, 5.00pm GMT, The Times.

The spark is gone — you’re better off walking than relying on useless, unreliable vehicles and chargers that never work

"As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of home, full of luggage on a country lane, it occurs to me not for the first time that if we are going to save the planet we will have to find another way. Because electric cars are not the answer.
Yes, it’s the Jaguar again. My doomed bloody £65,000 iPace that has done nothing but fail at everything it was supposed to do for more than two years now, completely dead this time, its lifeless corpse blocking the single-track road.
I can’t even roll it to a safer spot because it can’t be put in neutral. For when an electric car dies, it dies hard. And then lies there as big and grey and not-going-anywhere as the poacher-slain bull elephant I once saw rotting by a roadside in northern Kenya. Just a bit less smelly.
Not that this is unusual. Since I bought my eco dream car in late 2020, in a deluded Thunbergian frenzy, it has spent more time off the road than on it, beached at the dealership for months at a time on account of innumerable electrical calamities, while I galumph around in the big diesel “courtesy cars” they send me under the terms of the warranty.
But this time I don’t want one. And I don’t want my own car back either. I have asked the guys who sold it to me to sell it again, as soon as it is fixed, to the first mug who walks into the shop. Because I am going back to petrol while there is still time.
And if the government really does ban new wet fuel cars after 2030, then we will eventually have to go back to horses. Because the electric vehicle industry is no readier to get a family home from Cornwall at Christmas time (as I was trying to do) than it is to fly us all to Jupiter. The cars are useless, the infrastructure is not there and you’re honestly better off walking. Even on the really long journeys. In fact, especially on the long journeys. The short ones they can just about manage. It’s no wonder Tesla shares are down 71 per cent. It’s all a huge fraud. And, for me, it’s over.
Yet the new owner of my “preloved” premium electric vehicle, fired with a messianic desire to make a better world for his children, will not know this. He will be delighted with his purchase and overjoyed to find there are still six months of warranty left, little suspecting that once that has expired — and with it the free repairs and replacement cars for those long spells off road — he will be functionally carless.
He will be over the moon to learn that it has “a range of up to 292 miles”. No need to tell him what that really means is “220 miles”. Why electric carmakers are allowed to tell these lies is a mystery to me. As it soon will be to him.
Although for the first few days he won’t worry especially. He’ll think he can just nip into a fuel station and charge it up again. Ho ho ho. No need to tell him that two out of three roadside chargers in this country are broken or busy at any one time. Or that the built-in “find my nearest charge point” function doesn’t work, has never worked, and isn’t meant to work.
Or that apps like Zap-Map don’t work either because the chargers they send you to are always either busy or broken or require a membership card you don’t have or an app you can’t download because there’s no 5G here, in the middle of nowhere, where you will now probably die.
Or that the Society of Motor Manufacturers said this week that only 23 new chargers are being installed nationwide each day, of the 100 per day that were promised (as a proud early adopter, I told myself that charging would become easier as the network grew, but it hasn’t grown, while the number of e-drivers has tripled, so it’s actually harder now than it was two years ago).
There are, of course, plus sides to electric ownership. Such as the camaraderie when we encounter each other, tired and weeping at yet another service station with only two chargers, one of which still has the “this fault has been reported” sign on it from when you were here last August, and the other is of the measly 3kWh variety, which means you will have to spend the night in a Travelodge while your stupid drum lazily inhales enough juice to get home.
Together, in the benighted charging zone, we leccy drivers laugh about what fools we are and drool over the diesel hatchbacks nonchalantly filling up across the way (“imagine getting to a fuel station and knowing for sure you will be able to refuel!”) and talk in the hour-long queue at Exeter services about the petrol car we will buy as soon as we get home.
We filled up there last week on the way back from Cornwall, adding two hours to our four-hour journey, by which time Esther wasn’t speaking to me. She’s been telling me to get rid of the iPace since it ruined last summer’s holidays in both Wales and Devon (“If you won’t let us fly any more, at least buy a car that can get us to the places we’re still allowed to go!”).
But I kept begging her to give me one last chance, as if I’d refused to give up a mistress, rather than a dull family car. Until this time, a couple of miles from home, when a message flashed up on the dash: “Assisted braking not available — proceed with caution.” Then: “Steering control unavailable.”
And then, as I inched off the dual carriageway at our turnoff, begging it to make the last mile, children weeping at the scary noises coming from both car and father: “Gearbox fault detected.” CLUNK. WHIRRR. CRACK.
And dead. Nothing. Poached elephant. I called Jaguar Assist (there is a button in the roof that does it directly — most useful feature on the car) who told me they could have a mechanic there in four hours (who would laugh and say, “Can’t help you, pal. You’ve got a software issue there. I’m just a car mechanic. And this isn’t a car, it’s a laptop on wheels.”)
So Esther and the kids headed for home across the sleety wastes, a vision of post-apocalyptic misery like something out of Cormac McCarthy, while I saw out 2022 waiting for a tow-truck. Again.
But don’t let that put you off. I see in the paper that electric car sales are at record levels and production is struggling to keep up with demand. So why not buy mine? It’s clean as a whistle and boasts super-low mileage. After all, it’s hardly been driven . . ."
https://archive.ph/QuhMb

https://www.thetimes...c-car-dwgs9l9hl

THE AWARD-WINNING ALL-ELECTRIC PERFORMANCE Jaguar iPace SUV:-
https://www.jaguar.c...pace/index.html

 

[Icey]

British car is unreliable...on a Mini forum - hardly news and not unique to electric vehicles. I could counter this with an anecdote from a friend who hated driving his old petrol/diesel cars but now finds every excuse to go out in their new electric car, and while he needs to plan a little more has covered many long journeys without major incident (including trips to Cornwall).

Is the infrastructure flawed - yep. Is it the technology of the future (as we see it today) - yep. Will something come along to change that view - more than likely.

So to answer the original question - has the electric car bubble burst? No, it can't and won't for the foreseeable, to say otherwise at this point is as futile as yelling at the sky (or, as with Mr Coren above, because you're being paid by the word).