| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Silas |
Nissan Electric Carhttp://www.reuters.com/article/gwmEnergy/idUS300561397620090803Looks good to me... |
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| cab |
Great... Starts with:
Classic press release spin. Ends with:
So not that great a jump on their competition. And, as ever, of most limited worth unless we're generating the energy sustainably. Or, in other words, nothing but greenwash to make motorists feel better. |
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| Behemoth |
Reduces particulate emmissions and noise in built up areas though. Doesn't address the issues of energy production. | ||||||
| Treacodactyl |
Particulate emission reduction is the only good thing I could think of, I expect it'll have to generate some artificial noise to stop people being run over.
With a claimed 100 mile range, I'd expect that to be about 70 to 80 miles in the real world, I bet it would just end up as a second or even third car for well off families. |
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| Silas |
I meant that it is great that there is now a real live practical electric car that will be in showrooms for general sale by the end of next year - it matters not who makes it. The fact that other manufacturers are competeing is brilliant, it will push progress along very fast for better batteries etc. Wonderful news in my opinion. |
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| RichardW |
With a £20k price tag that's a given anyway plus running costs are steep too. Unless you do LOTs of miles its cheaper to run a car that does good MPG. Add on a £100 per month bat rental & its a crappy deal. 80% charge in under 30 mins . I wonder what supply is needed for that as its nearly 20kwh of charge plus losses so a 50kw supply look about right to do it in under 30 mins. I wonder if you could plug into an industrial 3 phase supply if you needed a top up? Or 8 hours from a home 3kw 13 amp supply. 24kwh 100 mile range is about 35p per mile (at 14p per unit day time rate) or 10p mile E7 rate plus £3 day bat rental. Running costs per year on 8000 miles rental £1200 elec (all E7) £77 total 1277 (16p per mile) So running costs seem steep compared to a 60mpg car over 8000miles per year (£646 per year or 8p per mile). Plus lower miles make it even worse. I know its not the thing you do to save costs but the masses wont buy it unless its cheaper to buy, the rentals cheaper & the running costs is cheaper. Even allowing for lower / free road tax its still not comparable. |
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| cab |
I can't immediately fathom how we'd get enough electricity down the lines to make any kind of meaningful impact using electric cars like this. | ||||||
| Silas |
Some interesting points here. However, realistically, there are not that many ic cars that do 60mpg overall, 40/45 is more realistic. Also, I make battery hire to be £1095 , not £1200 (unless I am missing something) and you are assuming that this is what the charge will be, I think it will be a lot less. Also, £20,000 for the car is wrong, I expect it will be avaloable from £14,000. Now, you have to remember that a start has to be made somewhere. We need to get these things on the road - innovation and development will follow, you only need to look at mobile phone technology to see how far and how fast these things can develop. I really think that all downsizers should embrace this development. |
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| Bernie66 |
sometime the word "cost" should be seen in non fiscal terms if at all possible. | ||||||
| Silas |
You probably won't need to. There is a school of thought that there will be 'battery changing stations' instead of petrol stations. Also, there is an idea that supermarket car parks will have charging bays so you can re-charge when you do your shopping (Wahy - Tesco!). |
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| RichardW |
Prices & rental I used were from HERE
So the recharge points will make the elec locally? No they will use the power grid so Cabs point is very valid. Till the elec is green, elec cars are no better than fossil fuel ones. In fact by the time the losses for elec transmission, charging, storage (batts loose charge just sitting there) & the battery pollution in manufacture & de comisioning are counted I still feel they are green wash of the worst type. They are getting better but they are not there yet. All they are doing is moving the pollution so its also a NIMBY issue. Richard |
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| cab |
Tescos do not have a competitor electrical distribution grid. |
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| RichardW |
Thats is very true. Sadly people actually have to pay for them. As most people are skint & likely to stay that way here in the real world money counts. Either you can afford it or you cant. It matters not IF its green or not at that point in the decision making. If you need transport & you have X to spend then its X that will get spent be it on green or not. Its only once you have the money can you choose to spend it wisely. |
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| vegplot |
There has to be starting point where electric cars become the accepted norm rather than some kind of hobby car. I am concerned they will be hindered by bad press as their performance and cost is found to be poor compared to fossil fueled cars.
I personally don't have a great deal of faith in seeing battery technology improving rapidly enough to make electric cars appeal to anyone except city users who journeys are relatively short. This is why I see hydrogen as being the 'better' technology despite it's shortcomings. Hydrogen has the advantage that internal combustion engines can use it a a fuel with little adaptation thus at least proving similar performance levels to fossil fueled cars and this may prevent the electric car from having it's reputation dented. However, as Silas says, it is a start. |
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| Silas |
No, I don't expect supermarkets to make electricity, but for people who live in High Rise flats or sheltered accomodation where it may be difficult for a personal supply to be used to top up the car it will be useful. Do you have any idea just how much energy and poloution is caused by the production of ic engines? No? Well nor do I, but I would bet it is a hell of a lot more than will be used for battery and electric motor manufacture. I suggest you start to look on the positive side of this technology, it is in its infancy, but it is clearly the way forward. |
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| Treacodactyl |
Why? I doesn't seem like much, if any, of a step forward. If these sorts of cars take off in the next couple of years it'll mean more coal, oil, and gas being used to produce the power as it's not going to come from anywhere else for many years to come. What's Nissan's stance on where the energy will come from, or does it not have one? |
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| Silas |
I really don't believe you lot sometimes. | ||||||
| Silas |
I'm not even going to bother with this one... |
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| Behemoth |
What colour will it be and will there be a hot hatch version?
While battery production can involve the same heavy metals that we have been trying to remove from industrial processes and chemicals, it would be handy to have a viable technology and socially acceptable vehicles available for when we reach our renewable energy nirvana. Battery technology, renewable enrgy and sustainable communities with reduced car dependency are all required to have any impact on emissions and the environment. progress will be at different speeds. I think reducing car dependency will have the greater effect and take longer than the others. |
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| Silas |
Quite. These things are not, by some miracle, going to be delivered all at the same time one morning in August. The first step is a viable electric car that is genuinly desirable, it looks very much like we will have this next year. I will buy one - it is perfect for my needs. |
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| vegplot |
I'd like to but won't, not just yet as it's not practical around here. I'm glad Nissan and others have started production but saddened by the technology they've chosen. | ||||||
| cab |
No there doesn't. There has to be a starting point in people accepting that the laws of thermodynamics apply here; we do not generate sufficient green energy to allow us to travel the way that most now do in the West. We don't do it now and we're not going to. |
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| cab |
Really? Why? I'd imagine it would be the other way round. Internal combustion engines are, when it comes down to it, not all that complex; metals molded and pressed with ever increasing amounts of electronics as add ons, for the most part. Start including rechargable batteries in there and you've got more complex materials, more difficult manufacture... My assumption would be that the energy requred to produce an electric car would be CONSIDERABLY higher. Don't know though. |
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| RichardW |
Electric cars wont be the solution until battery tech is much better than it is now and more green elec is produced. I have been considering one but I would only have one on green elec (so that means making it myself realistically). At current prices I can afford the solar system to travel about 6 miles per day using solar power. Plus not go to far in winter.
Now if I had a site with a suitable water power resource things would be different. |
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| Silas |
ALL ic engines use a cast block, that is a massive lump of metal, be it steel, alloy or whatever, it has to be melted and cast - huge amounts of energy expended, it then has to have probably sixty or more machinings before it can even be stared to be used, and that is just the block! The same goes for the cylinder head, pistons, crankshafts, con rods, etc etc. Then you have to do the same with the gearbox. And the differential. I would bet that the energy costs of an electric power unit compared to an ic one is about one third, if that. |
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| Silas |
Well, its a bit chicken and egg isn't it? You have to start somewhere and the logical place to start is with the car and then just watch the technology improve. It will you know. |
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| cab |
All the same costs are incurred in producing components for the electric car though, surely? Toyota have been quite notoriously quiet when quizzed on energy cost of production for the Prius... Why do you suppose that is? |
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| Silas |
The Prius is not an electric car. No, the electric motor is basically very simple compared to an ic engine. |
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| cab |
Lets see if we can find some numbers. http://www.green-car-guide.com/news/report-emissions-continue-to-fall.html 2.5 MWh/unit in 2006, 0.7 tonnes of CO2, 3.3cubic meters of water. Haven't found typical figures for electric car production. Have you? |
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| Silas |
Well, as there is no appreciable production line manufacturing for electric cars yet, it bis unlikely there will be comparative figures. Yet. However, the 12% reduction is an interesting figure - saving 1 million tonnes of CO2 each year - does that mean a 12% reduction saves 1 million tonnes or does or mean that the reduction over 10 years has saved 1 million each year (10 million tonnes). It is not very clear. I am surprised that you seem to think thet the current ic powered cars are environmentally better that the electric alternative. |
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| cab |
It would be number two on my sales pitch. You use less energy producing it, we use less energy manufacturing it. And I can't find such a fact anywhere on the Nissan Leaf website. Suspicious, imho.
I don't; there is nothing much to choose between the infernal combustion engine and the greenwashed electric cars. |
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| vegplot |
As it stands at the moment the electric car would be more so due the energy required to produce the batteries. Batteries of any sort aren't green solutions due to mining, mineral extraction, waste etc. produced and it's one of the reason I don't like battery technology as it stands. However, you do make gains in the transmission. As Silas rightly says you can do away with complex components like IC engines and gearboxs with electric motors one on each wheel is good. It's a mistake to compare emerging new solutions with existing as it's not a like for like comparison. Instead you have to look ahead and make a good deal of assumptions based on the potential of the new technology. This makes data backed debate a little difficult as it's often difficult to get reliable data on something which is starting the beginning of it's development cycle. That is of course unless one's objective is to attempt to discredit any replacement for the fossil fueled cars with cars powered by another source in an attempt to rid the world of cars. |
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| cab |
You're looking for the new solution to be in the right sort of ballpark though. If production is, say, twice as energy expensive that would ring alarm bells. If its, say, 20% more energy expensive then you'd look at whether or not there is scope for improving the technology, you could make some assumptions about how things might improve. I wouldn't seek to discredit the manufacture of such vehicles based on differences that could likely be overcome, but I'd certainly be skeptical about bigger differences. And whether they're big or small differences, I would require that the data be made available. |
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| Jonnyboy |
I'm with Silas, this is emerging technology. It will get cheaper and more efficient as demand drives sales.
As the pollution from cars reduces then the drive to improve generation will increase. It's all good. Doing nothing because it ain't perfect is daft, expecting cars to disappear or Britain to become a bike riding nirvana will never happen, it's pointless discussing it as a viable alternative. |
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| vegplot |
These vehicles aren't the soultion, that is yet to come but they are just the start. I can understand the electric car manuafacturers not wanting to publicise the data because it's likely to have a negative PR but they need to sales to further the development cycle. As Silas says a magic solution won't appear overnight and if the electric car is shot down before it has a chance to mature then what progress is being made? I have every faith in the electric car as viable alternative which is from a sustainability point of view much more attractive than what we're using today. It's not here yet though. |
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| Behemoth |
We're rolling out some new metering technology and such a project will get more efficient during delivery. i.e. the unit rate will fall with experience and learning. If we don't do it the unit rate will always be high. | ||||||
| cab |
How are they the start? They're only even a step in the 'right direction' if we start generating a heck of a lot more sustainable electricity, and we're not even beginning to approach getting serious on generating enough green electricity to fit our current needs. We can't replace oil use, or anything approaching the scale of it, with sustainably generated electricity. There isn't, there won't be, there can't be, that much of it, unless we somehow crack something like nuclear fusion.
Nor is there yet any reason to have 'faith' in the electric car being a solid part of the solution. Its greenwashing at worst, nimbyish removal of particulates from one place to another at best. |
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| Silas |
https://www.nissan-zeroemission.com/EN/
I don't know if you can access the above site, but it is quite interesting. |
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| cab |
Thats pretty much a given; but you can probably determine a likely rate of improvement, you can often have an idea of how scale will improve efficiency. If it looked from early data that efficiency could never be good enough to justify a new metering technology then presumably you'd reassess whether or not to continue with the roll out? |
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| cab |
Firefox fancies that site to be a security risk... |
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| Behemoth |
true but I have no idea if it is the case here, I'd like to have seent the justification for the first railway engine ("tracks you say, so where are they?") - but as I've said this is not a single issue where a single breakthrough or attempt will resolve all the problems. It's many parallel strands.
If we are going to use renewable energy in future we need a viable means of storing and using it. Deployment, development and improvement of technologies would seem to have a place in that. |
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| Silas |
No, its a secure site, but you may not be able to access it as I think it is a dealer only one - it is quite safe though. |
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| Nick |
It's easy to access, even with Firefox. | ||||||
| vegplot |
The impetus to develop ever higher efficiences has potential in the electric car, we've already reached the zenith with fossil fueled cars. It's going to take a revolution in energy generation and transport policy to acheive a sustainable transport infrastructure. The electric car is but a piece of the puzzle as recent developments are just the start. I doubt very much whether we'll be using anything like the same energy/mile as we do now, it will be and have to be much lower. The electric car has the potential to get us there, whether it's ultimatley sustainable only time will tell but it's potential is far better than what we have at present. |
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| vegplot |
It's just a security warning to say the secure certificate has expired, doesn't originate from a trusted certificate provider or the certificate secure URL doesn't match that of the site. | ||||||
| Treacodactyl |
As I mentioned earlier, what has happened with some of the current electric cars is that they have been bought as a 2nd or 3rd car and people tend to use them when they don't really need them at all. If anything people might make extra journeys as they think they are emission free when in fact they will be responsible for more emissions, just somewhere else. It might be a bit like LPG, a fair bit of money spent on infrastructure and cars and something better comes along making all that investment worthless. This might be a good development or it could well be a red herring. |
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| boisdevie1 |
We just have to accept that in the future we should, wherever possible, travel a good deal less. And I'm not sure electric cars are that efficient when you think where the power comes from. | ||||||
| vegplot |
Think of the electric car as a vehicle as a more adpative vehicle whose fuel is electricity but electricity which can be generated by a range of processes, some sustainable and others not. |
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| boisdevie1 |
Fine. But unfortunately the electricity in most cases comes from fossil or nuclear. if you can connect your electric car to a wind turbine then that's wonderful. I'm just not that optimistic. |
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| Behemoth |
The car itself is not Satan's chariot of the apocalypse. | ||||||
| Silas |
Where do you think the fuel for current road vehicle comes from then? A car at present has to use either petrol or diesel. These are fossil fuels and rthey will run out. It is clearly not sustainable to use bio-fuels. Electric cars use electricity. There are many ways of generating electruicity, soem good, some not so good some bad, but none are worse than using refined oil products. |
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| cab |
Thats a little far away from the side point I was referring to, which was more specific about the energy involved in producing an electric car relative to a normal one. I don't expect the former to be the 'final' figure that we'd see, but I'd like to see where it is now and what feasilbe projections there are for it. Doesn't seem unreasonable. |
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| cab |
Doesn't matter whether its a bit lower or quite a bit lower, it would have to be massively lower while we also make huge savings on electricity use elsewhere to even begin to come close to where we need to be, but even then we require enormous increases in renewable generation. The electric car is almost a red herring; we haven't got the electricity for it, it isn't obvious at all where said electricity will come from. |
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| Silas |
Its simple really, we just make more electricity. |
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| cab |
Such hyperbole don't help. But really, unless you've got a solution for nuclear fusion then we'll have to be using a heck of a lot less energy in transport. Personalised motor transport powered directly or indirectly by fossil fuel ain't sustainable, and personalised motor transport powered by renewable energy isn't feasilbe. |
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| cab |
Fissible material runs out very fast if you use it for powering transport, even if go along with the absurd idea of extracting uranium from seawater. Besides, we're already factoring in nuclear to supply the electricty demands that are current; the level of renewable generation is currently a joke and plans to increase it are so poor that we're closing down the only wind blade production plant in the UK. Where you going to get this electric from then? |
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| Silas |
Well, untill we get new generation nuclear power stations on board, we can use the surplus oil production left over from the use of electric cars to generate the electric they need.
We have been down this road before and it has been demonstrated to you that there is plenty of fissionable material for donkeys years yet. |
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| Behemoth |
Doesn't it? Some pages ago I suggested that the reduction in car dependency was the action that would have the most impact and and the one that would take the longest to acheive. |
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| cab |
Which is a good argument against the electric car, from a certain perspective. Anything that prevents us from becoming weaned off the car is a bad thing. |
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| Behemoth |
First rebuild your cities. | ||||||
| RichardW |
Well if they were only ever charged at night then the fact that lots of elec is wasted at night as they cant turn the power station off & its just free wheeling (but still consuming the same or nearly the same resources) they power needed is available. Like most things now days this is coming to the market place before any real world R&D has been done & its actually ready to fulfil the needs of the market place. Its left up to the consumer to buy a substandard product (early adopters always pay more & suffer worse products) at high prices so that they can then "fix" the issues later. |
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| Treacodactyl |
Generating electricity from oil is less efficient than using oil derivatives in an ICE due to the generation, transmission and charging losses. So an electric car could easily be worse than a petrol or diesel car. As it takes years to build more nuclear stations and all renewables planed for years to come will not even replace our current fossil fuel electrical generation then any extra requirement will just be met by fossil fuels. |
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| Silas |
I am not sure that you are correct here. Road fuel is highly refined, so although it is not the most efficient way of generating electricity, it is probably a cheaper way than having to highly refine fuel for road use. |
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| Treacodactyl |
A quick google suggests the efficiency of an oil-fired power station is about 40%, super-efficient gas fired stations may get up to 60%. I know energy will be used to crack crude and transport the fuels to the forecourt but I doubt it's anywhere near the same amount of energy that's wasted in electricity generation.
I thought it was widely accepted that running cars on petrol or diesel was far more efficient than generating electricity from oil to charge electric car batteries? I'm sure there's research out there if you're interested. Now charging batteries at night might start make sense, but are people going to be forced to only charge them at night? Edit to add, I forgot to take the efficiency of the ICE into account so for simplicity we could assume the losses are the same for the power station. So that just leaves transmission losses and charging losses. A quick google suggests something like 20 -30%, still seems less efficient than a diesel car. |
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| vegplot |
You're completely missing my point. I'm not justifying the electric car, in this case Nissan's Leaf, as I think it's not the solution. You are right there needs to be a pardigm shift in our energy and transport policy but it is still valid to say the electric car is a step in the right direction. I doubt we will have anything ready by the time peak oil hits and we'll then have to do something or not travel. |
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| vegplot |
You're still comparing the ICE/fossil fuel and electric cars. It's pointless. As its stands the ICE car wins hands down but it's a dead end. It has readched the end of it's life or will do very shortly. Think electric - not fossil fuel electric forget about mains charging we're too far away for that to happen in the next 50 years or more. Instead look at electric transport innovations and technological advances in electric motor design and fuel cell technologies for instance. Think how the humble electric wheel chair has changed the mobility impaired transport lifestyle as an example. |
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| Treacodactyl |
We're talking about the new Nissan electric car so of course I'll compare it to a ICE/fossil fuel car. I agree ICE is coming to a dead end but I'm not convinced the large battery powered cars will not reach the dead end sooner. I agree that something else might come along, which adds weight to my argument. |
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| Behemoth |
I'm assuming that we'll still have a need and desire for motive power in the future (tractors, ambulances, buses, delivery vehicles, construction etc) and they'll need some sort of engine/motor. |