phasing out of fossil fuels - programme

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, nb Innisfree said:

Pistons and valves jumping up and down, camshafts and chains whizzing round, multiple gears whirring, water pumps pumping, clutches and torque converters slipping and sliding, belts driving alternators, complex pipes channeling hot gases, complex fuel injection, spark plugs, oil and filters, etc etc etc. All held together with bolts and gaskets

Is this the near future? I doubt it somehow. 

And of course electric motors never breakdown, burnout or whatever and last an eternity?

 

 

[peterboat]

35 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

And of course electric motors never breakdown, burnout or whatever and last an eternity?

 

 

Pretty much yes 

[Thomas C King]

6 hours ago, peterboat said:

1.5KW Finesse boats figures

Finesse went cruising up your bit of canal in a 65 footer it was drawing 1.5 KW to cruise at 4mph

Then with today's battery technology I can't see it being feasible for everyone to live as a continuous cruiser on all-electric. Lithiums seem most viable from the point of charging in a reasonable time but, the cost would, for most people, be too high for a few days' cruising. But I can't imagine the alternative of there being charging points in most of the places people typically moor. Neither possibility seems to have a market to support it.

 

If the canals continue being used and lived on, then I can only see it as being because battery costs have come down, or because the way of life on the canals has changed drastically. Less cruising, more staying put and on the grid.

[Alan de Enfield]

10 minutes ago, Thomas C King said:

I can't see it being feasible for everyone to live as a continuous cruiser on all-electric.

Its not, which is why I asked you questions and you answered "I'm only interested in the figures for cruising" and yet now you bring in "all electric".

[Momac]

Imagine this conversation being about a change from horse drawn boats to diesel engines and the same issues about refuelling.

 

Wouldn't it be good if all electric cars used the same size and format of battery .

Rather than recharging the battery  you could go to a station and pick up a fully charged battery and trade in your discharged battery. Just as you do with a gas bottle. So refuelling could be as quick as buying a gas refill. The recharging station then only needs to charge batteries slowly so could use solar and wind to assist ant mains electricity. 

The same philosophy might be applied to cars , boats , any vehicle.

Common formatting was  developed in the past - vinyl records , cassette tapes , video tapes, CD.s,  memory cards . So why not lithium batteries?

Just a thought.

 

[nb Innisfree]

3 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Imagine this conversation being about a change from horse drawn boats to diesel engines and the same issues about refuelling.

 

Wouldn't it be good if all electric cars used the same size and format of battery .

Rather than recharging the battery  you could go to a station and pick up a fully charged battery and trade in your discharged battery. Just as you do with a gas bottle. So refuelling could be as quick as buying a gas refill. The recharging station then only needs to charge batteries slowly so could use solar and wind to assist ant mains electricity. 

The same philosophy might be applied to cars , boats , any vehicle.

Common formatting was  developed in the past - vinyl records , cassette tapes , video tapes, CD.s,  memory cards . So why not lithium batteries?

Just a thought.

 

Heavy, very heavy ?

[transplant]

4 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Rather than recharging the battery  you could go to a station and pick up a fully charged battery and trade in your discharged battery.

Tesla did a pilot program that did just this - https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-program-for-superchargers/

[Momac]

4 minutes ago, transplant said:

Tesla did a pilot program that did just this - https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-program-for-superchargers/

Perhaps they, and others ,  might reconsider .

[transplant]

1 minute ago, MartynG said:

Perhaps they, and others ,  might reconsider .

They've gone all-in on their superchargers instead. 20 minute fill-up can charge to 50%

 

It's much easier for them to build and install those instead of manage battery stations.

[ditchcrawler]

19 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Imagine this conversation being about a change from horse drawn boats to diesel engines and the same issues about refuelling.

 

Wouldn't it be good if all electric cars used the same size and format of battery .

Rather than recharging the battery  you could go to a station and pick up a fully charged battery and trade in your discharged battery. Just as you do with a gas bottle. So refuelling could be as quick as buying a gas refill. The recharging station then only needs to charge batteries slowly so could use solar and wind to assist ant mains electricity. 

The same philosophy might be applied to cars , boats , any vehicle.

 

 

Thats just how we use to do forklifts, a shed full of batteries on charge and charged, Forklift in and out in 2 or 3 minutes. But if you look at the number of cars visiting a Tesco petrol station in a hour you are going to need a big shed and a lot of batteries

[magnetman]

https://www.nio.com/

 

Electric car manufacturer with swappable battery system. 

 

One to watch I reckon. 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

9 hours ago, transplant said:

Tesla did a pilot program that did just this - https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-program-for-superchargers/

Tesla's plan for the future is to make the battery a structural part of the car, saving weight, rather than have a car structure, plus a separate structure holding the battery chemistry. This would make swap out batteries impossible. Swapping out standardised batteries is such an obvious idea, yet all the big car manufacturers are putting their effort in to built in batteries that can be charged quickly. There will have been a mix of technical, commercial and other reasons for them almost all to have gone in this direction, but I don't know what the arguments were. My guess is that a standard battery form factor and swap method and location was too limiting on vehicle design, but that is just my thought. There was a lot of talk of battery swapping initially, yet it isn't happening. One small car manufacturer has no chance as this thing requires economies of scale and standardisation to build the swap stations where people want them.

Jen

 

In over a hundred years, car manufacturers haven't standardised over which side of the car the squashed dinosaur fuel filler cap goes. ?

Edited November 15, 2020 by Jen-in-Wellies

[1st ade]

9 hours ago, MartynG said:

Imagine this conversation being about a change from horse drawn boats to diesel engines and the same issues about refuelling.

Imagine this conversation being about a change from electric boats (or cars) to ICE?

 

"Sorry, you want to introduce a tank of volatile inflammable fluid on vessels and vehicles, refilled by untrained members of the public and supported by chains of "filling stations" with underground tanks? You want to vent combustion products into the atmosphere within feet of the general public? And all to cut the recharge time down from hours to minutes?"

[Momac]

52 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

In over a hundred years, car manufacturers haven't standardised over which side of the car the squashed dinosaur fuel filler cap goes. ?

Nor have boat builders.

 

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 

In over a hundred years, car manufacturers haven't standardised over which side of the car the squashed dinosaur fuel filler cap goes. ?

 

 

That's a non-problem provided that the pump hose is long enough - the same reason it's a non-problem for a boat.

Having said that, it's not unknown for me to reverse the car in so as to get the "right" side towards the pump, which causes all sorts of funny looks.

 

Besides which, oil didn't come from squashed dinosaurs, but from ancient marine organisms, such as plants, algae, and bacteria.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

4 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

That's a non-problem provided that the pump hose is long enough - the same reason it's a non-problem for a boat.

Having said that, it's not unknown for me to reverse the car in so as to get the "right" side towards the pump, which causes all sorts of funny looks.

 

Besides which, oil didn't come from squashed dinosaurs, but from ancient marine organisms, such as plants, algae, and bacteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

[peterboat]

11 hours ago, MartynG said:

Imagine this conversation being about a change from horse drawn boats to diesel engines and the same issues about refuelling.

 

Wouldn't it be good if all electric cars used the same size and format of battery .

Rather than recharging the battery  you could go to a station and pick up a fully charged battery and trade in your discharged battery. Just as you do with a gas bottle. So refuelling could be as quick as buying a gas refill. The recharging station then only needs to charge batteries slowly so could use solar and wind to assist ant mains electricity. 

The same philosophy might be applied to cars , boats , any vehicle.

Common formatting was  developed in the past - vinyl records , cassette tapes , video tapes, CD.s,  memory cards . So why not lithium batteries?

Just a thought.

 

Renault tried it and it was a miserable failure, also the batteries form a major structural part of the vehicle so it's a non starter, plus people charge at home mostly 

8 hours ago, magnetman said:

https://www.nio.com/

 

Electric car manufacturer with swappable battery system. 

 

One to watch I reckon. 

Renault tried it and dumped it ,batteries will be built into the car by Tesla shortly the rest will follow suit

[Sea Dog]

3 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

In over a hundred years, car manufacturers haven't standardised over which side of the car the squashed dinosaur fuel filler cap goes. ?

Every time I get out to fill mine up the filler seems to be in the same place I left it, so perhaps a knot in your hanky will help Jen? 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

7 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Every time I get out to fill mine up the filler seems to be in the same place I left it, so perhaps a knot in your hanky will help Jen? 

There's an idea. I don't own a car at the moment, so any driving I do is of hire cars mainly. Hence this is a lack of standardisation that vexes me! If I was mainly driving cars I'd TWOC'd, then 1) I wouldn't be bragging about it on an open forum and 2) I'd be abandoning and torching them before they needed filling up. ?

Jen

Edited November 15, 2020 by Jen-in-Wellies

[magnetman]

10 hours ago, magnetman said:

https://www.nio.com/

 

Electric car manufacturer with swappable battery system. 

 

One to watch I reckon. 

Well let's just say I wish I had gone with my instincts and put ten grand into it a year ago when the shares were 2 pence. Now over 40 pence. 

 

 

[magnetman]

The thing with canal boats is it doesn't take a lot to push them along. 

 

If there were regular battery swap stations and people were doing say 5 hour cruising days you would probably be looking at a 10kwh battery pack. 

 

LFP weight per Kwh is 6.5kg approximately. So a couple of 33kg batteries for a day of cruising? 

 

Not world endingly heavy. 

 

And on canals there is a bit of tendency for locks to be around. During locking the power use will be zero. So maybe a simple rule of thumb for a canal boat using 2kw for propulsion would be 10kg of battery per hour cruised.

 

This excludes domestic use, which can be provided by solar during cruising season. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by magnetman

[Richard10002]

5 minutes ago, magnetman said:

If there were regular battery swap stations

Can you see that happening in a market as small as the canals?

 

It might work for those who dont cruise much, but CC'ers would struggle.

[ditchcrawler]

4 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 

 

In over a hundred years, car manufacturers haven't standardised over which side of the car the squashed dinosaur fuel filler cap goes. ?

Just as well or the queues at the petrol stations would be twice as long 

 

27 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

 

This excludes domestic use, which can be provided by solar during cruising season. 

 

 

There isn't one

[IanD]

23 hours ago, peterboat said:

1.5KW Finesse boats figures

Finesse went cruising up your bit of canal in a 65 footer it was drawing 1.5 KW to cruise at 4mph

As I said before , that's not a credible figure on a canal -- not arguing with the power (1.5kW=2bhp), just the speed.

 

IIRC the Finesse post said that 1.5kW was the average power they used over a day when cruising, not to do 4mph (which is difficult on most canals anyway).

 

Going by experience plus engine power and propeller curves, on a canal 3kW/4bhp (1400rpm for a Beta 43 with a standard gearbox/prop) is a better estimate at normal cruising speed -- and of course less when passing moored boats (e.g. 1100rpm=1.5kW/2bhp, 1000rpm=1kW/1.3bhp), and zero in locks.

 

So depending on hours spent cruising/passing boats/in lock an average of 1.5kW is perfectly possible, which is 12kWh for a (long) 8 hour day -- or a little more allowing for losses. Could be more with fewer moored boats and locks, could be less with shorter days. YMMV ?

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by IanD

[magnetman]

15 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

 

 

There isn't one

There is for some people. 

 

In fact I would suggest the majority of boat owners / hire boat users  are not cc ers and do little cruising in the colder months. 

 

Yes I know some people, including me, use their boats all year round but if the stories about diesel are true then some behaviour changes are quite possibly going to be needed. 

 

I can't quite believe it could be true but I suspect if push came to shove boating for pleasure or as a cheap lifestyle option would probably not be viewed as essential for society to function properly if the climate change thing kicks in properly. 

Edited November 15, 2020 by magnetman
Typo edit