Jump to content

phasing out of fossil fuels - programme


magpie patrick

Featured Posts

According to the Forbes article Ian D linked to the average annual mileage is 7000 miles. Ian came up with a figure of 125K being the average mileage before a car is scrapped.

That works out at just under 18 years old. 

 

In my opinion the vast majority of 02 reg cars went to the scrapyard some time ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Cheshire cat said:

According to the Forbes article Ian D linked to the average annual mileage is 7000 miles. Ian came up with a figure of 125K being the average mileage before a car is scrapped.

That works out at just under 18 years old. 

 

In my opinion the vast majority of 02 reg cars went to the scrapyard some time ago.

In 2019 I scrapped a T reg Golf, in 2020 an 02 reg Rover, in both cases I had pushed them to the absolute end of their life, they were both knackered and it was what one might call the domestic electrics that had failed (central locking for example) although the MOT failures were mechanical. Steering Rack for the Golf, Exhaust for the Rover (I could have replaced the exhaust, but the rest of the car was knackered even if it would have passed an MOT) 

 

I suspect the average mileage hides some vast variations. The Golf, the Rover and now the Fusion had all done only 6-800 (yes HUNDRED) miles in the 12 months before I got them, then 15-20,000 in the first year of my ownership.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Interesting. One observation though is where can I find the test done in heavy rain and cold with headlights air con and heating continuously on as in UK winter driving? How much does all the kit whack the battery? Its a hell of a lot of money for tiny cars so how much is a comfy one jaguar sized? 

Our i3 has a of 110/115 miles range, in summer with aircon (which doesn't seem to affect range) I have achieved equivalent of 130 (did about 60 miles and calculated the rest) In very cold weather with heater, wipers, lights and 70 to 90mph I was getting about 90 or more range. 

This was with an indicated and usable battery capacity of 27.2 kwh. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

Our i3 has a of 110/115 miles range, in summer with aircon (which doesn't seem to affect range) I have achieved equivalent of 130 (did about 60 miles and calculated the rest) In very cold weather with heater, wipers, lights and 70 to 90mph I was getting about 90 or more range. 

This was with an indicated and usable battery capacity of 27.2 kwh. 

Thanks. Not so bad as I would have thought, I suppose though moving the car takes more battery capacity than providing heat?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:

Thanks. Not so bad as I would have thought, I suppose though moving the car takes more battery capacity than providing heat?

Yes, when we first got the car I was a bit obsessive with keeping heater or air con low, minimising wipers and lights, penny soon dropped, as you say moving an ev takes up bulk of power. 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

In 2019 I scrapped a T reg Golf, in 2020 an 02 reg Rover, in both cases I had pushed them to the absolute end of their life, they were both knackered and it was what one might call the domestic electrics that had failed (central locking for example) although the MOT failures were mechanical. Steering Rack for the Golf, Exhaust for the Rover (I could have replaced the exhaust, but the rest of the car was knackered even if it would have passed an MOT) 

 

I suspect the average mileage hides some vast variations. The Golf, the Rover and now the Fusion had all done only 6-800 (yes HUNDRED) miles in the 12 months before I got them, then 15-20,000 in the first year of my ownership.

Yes, that's the dictionary definition of "average"... ?

 

As has been pointed out, average annual mileage has been dropping over the years (about 7000 now) as well as average age of cars and age and mileage when scrapped. It's difficult to find up-to-date figures, the latest I can find gave an average age of 8 years and average age at scrapping of 14 years, so I suspect the figure I gave of 125000 miles in the UK (which I did say was quite old) is now lower, probably closer to 100000. Given the lower running costs and maintenance costs of BEV (fact, not speculation) it's possible that the lifetime will go up as they take over, or at least stop falling.

 

Which still means that whatever numbers you take, the environmental impact of BEV over lifetime is much lower than ICE -- even at the (unrealistically worst-case) 50000 break-even mileage in the (biased) article and assuming lifetime stays the same it's halved. With more realistic estimates the drop is bigger, maybe up to 5x smaller if the energy source is "green". YMMV (literally) ?

 

No amount of arguing (with speculation/anecdotes but without proper statistics -- you know, "average" not "my car...") that cars are unreliable and steering racks and lead-free solder and electrolytic capacitors fail is going to change this...

Edited by IanD
  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, IanD said:

Yes, that's the dictionary definition of "average"... ?

 

Average does not necessarily hide VAST variations so stop the snotty attitude - it doesn't do the rest of your argument any good.

 

I'm not against your arguments that BEV's are a good thing

 

As you seem to like needling I will add this though: average mileage has gone down because the number of cars has gone up, when household buy a second car it doesn't do the same mileage as the first one, in fact the first one may do slightly less. We are not driving fewer miles in total and it is the number of miles driven that are the major factor in environmental damage, certainly at point of use.

 

Whilst the pollution problem of vehicles has been a cause celebre for half a century or more, there is a more deep rooted problem cars have - they take up too much room. Colin Buchanan demonstrated this in his "Traffic in Towns", to accommodate the demand for all car journeys would involve wiping out historic town centres to provide roads and car parks. As a transport planner (yes, professionally I have skin in the game just as you do) I have a real concern that electric cars will simply encourage yet more car travel, and driverless cars even more again (as the damn things drop their passengers off then head off to park or get the next lot - most urban roads will see a massive increase in traffic due to this). 

 

The biggest environmental problem with cars (from my profession's standpoint)  is the space they take when they're parked and the space their infrastructure takes when they are moving - and electric cars don't fix it, in fact, they may make it worse if they persuade the population that it's now alright to take the car into town. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Porsche announce production of wind generated E-Fuel (The algae based petrol and diesel) I commented on some weeks ago.

 

This enables ICE engines to continue to be run and meet zero emission standards.

 

Just need someone in the UK to produce it and we can all keep out petrol / diesel cars and boats.

 

Even if it comes out at 2 or 3x the price of existing diesel it will be cheaper than taking out engines and replacing them with £20k-£30k electric systems.

 

 

Porsche reveals its climate-neutral synthetic fuel for use within two years

Is this wind power to e-fuel scheme a get-out-of-jail-free card for petrol engines – and does it leave egg on the face of the UK Government?

Porsche reveals its climate-neutral synthetic fuel for use within two years (telegraph.co.uk)

 

 

Edit fur currections

Currently 5 squids a litre I think it will have to get cheaper, I was reading about it tother day 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I can still remember my Shop Steward predicting that one day petrol would be over a pound per gallon 

I used to cook on a Friday night for myself & SMBO, it became a 'tradition' that we'd have Sirloin steak, onion rings etc etc etc. 

We once commented that one day Steak may reach £1 per pound - Nah it won't no one would buy it.

 

That was the very early 80's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 29/11/2020 at 12:48, Mad Harold said:

During WW2,I was told (but don't know if was true) that private cars used to run on domestic gas.

They apparently had a dirty great inflatable mattress on the roof,and used to inflate them with gas from home.

If hydrogen was much cheaper,it could be a "greener"and simpler way to cut emissions.

As seen on Dad's Army, when Corporal Jones' van was converted to gas.

dadsarmyvan1sb2.8330.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Average does not necessarily hide VAST variations so stop the snotty attitude - it doesn't do the rest of your argument any good.

 

I'm not against your arguments that BEV's are a good thing

 

As you seem to like needling I will add this though: average mileage has gone down because the number of cars has gone up, when household buy a second car it doesn't do the same mileage as the first one, in fact the first one may do slightly less. We are not driving fewer miles in total and it is the number of miles driven that are the major factor in environmental damage, certainly at point of use.

 

Whilst the pollution problem of vehicles has been a cause celebre for half a century or more, there is a more deep rooted problem cars have - they take up too much room. Colin Buchanan demonstrated this in his "Traffic in Towns", to accommodate the demand for all car journeys would involve wiping out historic town centres to provide roads and car parks. As a transport planner (yes, professionally I have skin in the game just as you do) I have a real concern that electric cars will simply encourage yet more car travel, and driverless cars even more again (as the damn things drop their passengers off then head off to park or get the next lot - most urban roads will see a massive increase in traffic due to this). 

 

The biggest environmental problem with cars (from my profession's standpoint)  is the space they take when they're parked and the space their infrastructure takes when they are moving - and electric cars don't fix it, in fact, they may make it worse if they persuade the population that it's now alright to take the car into town. 

The whole point is that average *does* hide vast variations in this case, but not in both directions -- if the average mileage per year is 10000 and the maximum is 100000, the minimum isn't -80000, the distribution is asymmetric and non-Gaussian if you want to be precise ?

 

I completely agree that too many cars being driven too much are an environmental problem, but objecting to BEVs because they might make driving more attractive and increase mileage a little bit doesn't stack up -- even if that does happen it's still better to drive a bit more in something that pollutes far less.

 

What's more likely is that taxes on owning a car and driving it will go up as a way to discourage this, and that CAAS (cars as a service -- shared or glorified taxis, depending on your point of view) will be promoted because it makes much better use of the vehicles that there are -- most cars spend most of their time parked, which just on its own massively increases the CO2 burden of manufacturing them many times over.

 

The way we buy and use cars now has been driven by cheap fossil fuel and ignoring climate change, and this clearly can't continue so people's attitude to and use of cars is going to have to change -- and the same applies to cheap untaxed CO2-spewing airliners, it shouldn't be possible to fly away for the weekend for fifty quid, just like it never used to be. And then there's shipping cheap crap round the world and throwing it away after a couple of years, that also has a huge C02 impact.

 

A lot of things we do are going to have to change and a lot of people aren't going to like it, because our society has been built on cheap energy from fossil fuels and we don't want to give up what this has brought us...

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I can still remember my Shop Steward predicting that one day petrol would be over a pound per gallon 

I can remember being shocked when I first saw petrol at over £1 per litre, and that at a suburban petrol station in Liverpool, not somewhere like motorway services.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

...there is a more deep rooted problem cars have - they take up too much room

this ^^^^

 

The streets where I live are becoming impassible not because of the traffic but because of parked vehicles. I can't think of many high value luxury* items which are bought on the assumption that someone else will pay for their storage when you are not using them (well, I can, canal boats!). It's got to the stage where people will buy and tax a "banger" not as transport but as a sort of small shed for storage. And trailers / caravans don't cost to keep on the road; some of them have got small trees growing around them!

 

{parking rant over}

 

This attitude also skews the costs private v public transport. If the local bus company was allowed to abandon their vehicles where the drivers shift ended they could be much more competitive.

 

[ * - Oh yes it is! ]

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, 1st ade said:

this ^^^^

 

The streets where I live are becoming impassible not because of the traffic but because of parked vehicles. I can't think of many high value luxury* items which are bought on the assumption that someone else will pay for their storage when you are not using them (well, I can, canal boats!). It's got to the stage where people will buy and tax a "banger" not as transport but as a sort of small shed for storage. And trailers / caravans don't cost to keep on the road; some of them have got small trees growing around them!

 

{parking rant over}

 

This attitude also skews the costs private v public transport. If the local bus company was allowed to abandon their vehicles where the drivers shift ended they could be much more competitive.

 

[ * - Oh yes it is! ]

I said earlier that we could end up like Japan no off road parking equals no car! Also the Kei  cars would help (very small cars) 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, 1st ade said:

The streets where I live are becoming impassible not because of the traffic but because of parked vehicles. I can't think of many high value luxury* items which are bought on the assumption that someone else will pay for their storage when you are not using them (well, I can, canal boats!). It's got to the stage where people will buy and tax a "banger" not as transport but as a sort of small shed for storage. And trailers / caravans don't cost to keep on the road; some of them have got small trees growing around them!

The biggest change in the appearance of residential streets from say the the 1950's period to today  are almost all related to car use and parking. It gives you an appreciation of just how much is devoted to them and how much space they take up. With a few exceptions, like the changes in street lighting and the appearance of various utility boxes, many residential streets are unchanged apart from car parking, road markings and so on, which take up much of the space.

A long while ago I saw a TV clip of a group of people walking around wearing car sized cardboard rectangles. It really gave you an appreciation of how much space they took. When they were car sized, not car shaped they drew the eye in the way that the familiar car shapes do not.

Compare these pictures of the same street in Sheffield in 1955 and 2019. The houses have off street parking and are bog standard semi's, so there shouldn't be on street parking if there were one car per house. Not particularly prosperous, but not a down at heel neighbourhood. In the google street view the only gap in the parking is the zig-zag markings outside a primary school and the access for house drive ways for parking!

Jen

 

spacer.png

Screenshot_2020-12-04_08-13-17.jpg.7fd92db06affe47feb2d47c842aa6312.jpg

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The biggest change in the appearance of residential streets from say the the 1950's period to today  are almost all related to car use and parking. It gives you an appreciation of just how much is devoted to them and how much space they take up. With a few exceptions, like the changes in street lighting and the appearance of various utility boxes, many residential streets are unchanged apart from car parking, road markings and so on, which take up much of the space.

A long while ago I saw a TV clip of a group of people walking around wearing car sized cardboard rectangles. It really gave you an appreciation of how much space they took. When they were car sized, not car shaped they drew the eye in the way that the familiar car shapes do not.

Compare these pictures of the same street in Sheffield in 1955 and 2019. The houses have off street parking and are bog standard semi's, so there shouldn't be on street parking if there were one car per house. Not particularly prosperous, but not a down at heel neighbourhood. In the google street view the only gap in the parking is the zig-zag markings outside a primary school and the access for house drive ways for parking!

Jen

 

spacer.png

Screenshot_2020-12-04_08-13-17.jpg.7fd92db06affe47feb2d47c842aa6312.jpg

And one of the reasons for this is not just that people are better off nowadays and cars are - relatively speaking -- cheaper, but that public transport has been drastically chopped and become a lot more expensive. The days when buses (and trains) were cheap and ran until late in the evening are long gone everywhere except in the big cities, so cars and taxis are the only option for many, and a car is cheap and convenient and comfortable.

 

If we want to drastically reduce the number of cars we need credible alternatives, which could be where CAAS might come in if it's cheap enough, quick and convenient. However much you hate Uber you have to admit that they're convenient and easy to use, but we need something a lot better  -- and that pays taxes, and its drivers properly assuming they're not replaced by robots...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, IanD said:

...but that public transport has been drastically chopped and become a lot more expensive. The days when buses (and trains) were cheap and ran until late in the evening are long gone everywhere except in the big cities

Catch 22 - they are more expensive because: -

  • Few people use them (because they have cars)
  • It's no longer seen as acceptable to provide a service "for the public good" (at public expense)
  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, IanD said:

And one of the reasons for this is not just that people are better off nowadays and cars are - relatively speaking -- cheaper, but that public transport has been drastically chopped and become a lot more expensive. The days when buses (and trains) were cheap and ran until late in the evening are long gone everywhere except in the big cities, so cars and taxis are the only option for many, and a car is cheap and convenient and comfortable.

 

If we want to drastically reduce the number of cars we need credible alternatives, which could be where CAAS might come in if it's cheap enough, quick and convenient. However much you hate Uber you have to admit that they're convenient and easy to use, but we need something a lot better  -- and that pays taxes, and its drivers properly assuming they're not replaced by robots...

The two you've missed out are walking and cycling. When the 1955 photo was taken, most people would be getting around that way, along with buses and trams. Employment and shopping would be much more likely to be closer to their homes. The government are making a (for Tories) reasonably good start on encouraging both, with considerable complaints from a noisy minority over a few bike lanes and traffic restricted areas so you can cycle without feeling like you could die at any second and walking without choking on fumes. A lot more still to do. It is a long process, a lot of which involves reducing the distances people travel to reach the places they regularly need to go as well as changing the way they get there.

Jen

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The two you've missed out are walking and cycling. When the 1955 photo was taken, most people would be getting around that way, along with buses and trams. Employment and shopping would be much more likely to be closer to their homes. The government are making a (for Tories) reasonably good start on encouraging both, with considerable complaints from a noisy minority over a few bike lanes and traffic restricted areas so you can cycle without feeling like you could die at any second and walking without choking on fumes. A lot more still to do. It is a long process, a lot of which involves reducing the distances people travel to reach the places they regularly need to go as well as changing the way they get there.

Jen

People are screaming blue murder about it Jen, I overheard a conversation in the DP, all they could complain about was the cycle lanes and the proposed emissions rules for Sheffield. One of Richard's customers has paid to keep a pollution meter at his pub, he monitors it and sends in the results, the only time its had legal readings was in the full lockdown, which shows how crap the air quality is in Sheffield centre 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.