Print

[diffwhine]

My wife reads the Daily Mail, but only for a laugh. I find it very absorbing absorbent so it does have some uses - especially these days when the print is fixed properly...

I watched an interesting Panorama programme on EVs the other day. You can't present a full story or argument in half an hour or whatever it was, but it did present some of the facts in a balanced way. I've only driven one full EV and have to say that I was really impressed (the Subaru Solterra). I would happily have one. I like the balance of hybrid vehicles and do think they have a very useful interim place in all this.

Efficiencies improve all the time. If not, I'd be typing this on a Word Processor and calling people with my Motorola brick.

I like being a Luddite, but we have to do something and if EVs are the lesser of multiple evils, bring them on I say.

That's probably seen me excommunicated for heresy, but 

[Alan Drover]

"Green" = "Naive." (and an excuse to jack prices sky high).

[w3526602]

Hi,

In the mid-1980s, a car enthusiast magazine (probably CAR & CONVERSION , possibly HOT CAR), did an article about a home-brewed, battery powered, Triumph Herald, that cost the equivalent of doing 50mpg on petrol, driving in and out of London every day.

I wish I could remember the finer details.

I have identified a source of suitable electric motors ... 40hp and retailing at circa £5.000 to buy.  I think that two S1 80" Land Rovers drove overland, to Singapore (read " FIRST OVERLAND"), towing laden trailers, and full of students, with 46bhp 1600cc engines, so 40hp should be enough for a daily commute to the office.

602

PS, I read FIRST OVERLAND in 1960ish, lying on my RAF bed, at RAF Sharjah.

[Supercal2007]

Meanwhile back at the ranch. I recently had to replace both front tyres on one of my vans due to pothole damage. The roads here are an absolute disgrace. Mainly in my opinion because the council are beyond useless.
This thread has got me thinking though. Why do I run electric vehicles at work?
Do I care about the planet? Of course I do, but that's not the reason. Am I naive? I like to think not. I do think  that when 99.9% of the world's cars are fully electric and all the ICE cars have been scrapped that we will then all be forced to go down another technological route (hydrogen?). Why? To keep people in jobs, to keep factories making something, to keep the world going round. If that is correct, then we are all being brainwashed, but that's not why I buy electric. Is it because I want to lower my carbon footprint and want to be seen to do so? No, however I do now have to monitor how many tons of carbon dioxide my operation emits and my fossil fuel consumption if I want to continue to supply certain customers. Is it because I like new technology? And like doing things differently from the norm? Well yes, but that's not the main reason.
The main reason is of course cost. Ironically, the two tyres I had to replace were on the front of an all electric van. That is the only cost I have incurred in two years of ownership. Of course it has depreciated, but so would one with an engine. Initial cost is not much more either when grants and incentives are taken into consideration. Insurance is no different. Charging costs nothing either because of the solar /battery set up at work. Servicing? Zero cost. Licence - nil £. I'm currently saving circa £6k a year versus a van with an engine. They literally cost me nothing to run them. I ordered 2 lwb high roof  4.25 ton e-Transits last Friday to replace 2 large diesel vans. With all the handouts etc that are available, I would have been daft not to buy electric.
Bring on electric. ICE RIP.

[Exile]

You can drive as many electric vehicles as you want, but if we don't stop humans breeding like rabbits I mean like humans, then we don't have a prayer.

Or maybe, a prayer is all we do have....

[Supercal2007]

 
We're all doomed I tell you! Dooooomed!
 

[Mycroft]

You can drive as many electric vehicles as you want, but if we don't stop humans breeding like rabbits I mean like humans, then we don't have a prayer.

Or maybe, a prayer is all we do have....

Nah, other way around. We'll be worrying FAR more about the effects of the depopulation bomb soon enough.

[w3526602]

Hi,

Has anybody here read ENDER'S GAME ... a Sci-Fi novel, which I read about 50 years ago.

Ender was a "Third", when all other families were limited to 2 children. I don't think that was stressed in the film of the same name.

There are societies that regard large families as desirable. Lots of off-spring to support the "Wrinklies" in their old age. Who can blame them?

I have read that the "Black Death" (plague) reduced the number of humans, thereby re-distributing and localising, Wealth. Unfortunately, it's only the future generations who feel the benefit of that.

If Mankind does not sort the problem, then Mother Nature will.

The 602 Solution? Financial benefits, £££££, for those who volunteer for "The Snip", with the proviso that it must be spent within 2 years.

602

602

[Exile]

The 602 Solution? Financial benefits, £££££, for those who volunteer for "The Snip", with the proviso that it must be spent within 2 years.

Or non-child benefit replacing child benefit payments.

After all, the children you don't have will not need schools, houses, doctors, cars, "cheap" flights etc...

And employers will have to get a lot smarter, rather than endlessly importing cheap labour.

[MineRover]

Agree with all the above points concerning over population, no easy solutions there 

As to the condition of the roads, near where I live they have been building away merrily in Burnham-on-Crouch with hundreds of new houses, for anyone who knows Burnham it is a two road town being tucked away on the Dengie Hundred. Those two roads are taking a real pounding now from extra cars for the residents and from the construction vehicles themselves, all the roads around here are on London Clay and that has moved a lot in the last couple of years hence potholes and undulations.

It is a nightmare situation for the Local Authorities with less money from central government along with lots of new government policy decisions that are passed out to local authority but have no extra money to implement them.   

Then there is the problem of when exactly the works can be done as most works will require closure of the road, not easy and very unpopular... you cannot win! 

[Hairyvike]

The over population problem is, as Mr Thomas correctly states, not a problem....the human race in most regions of the planet is currently not producing enough offspring to even keep the numbers stable....we are going to shrink globally as a populace in fairly short order.
As for the electric cars, there will never be as many EVs as there are ICE motors in the world, at least not while we still rely on lithium for the main ingredient of the batteries; it has been worked out that even if we could mine all of the world's lithium and use it for EV batteries there would only be enough to produce vehicles for less than 1/4 of the number of ICE vehicles at present....but don't worry folks, once the Agenda 2030 and WEF plans for 2050 are all in place we'll all be living in lovely 15 minute cities, own nothing and be happy....

.....what could possibly go wrong?

[linesrg]

I would like to see the calculations that prove EV's are better for the environment taking everything into account. energy used in production, disposal and running of vehicle, mineral extraction, battery production, road wear, provision of charging points etc etc).

The real problem, that no government is prepared to tackle, is the rise in world population. Otherwise we are just running faster and faster to stand still.

And no, I dont read the Daily Mail either.

The calculations are out there if you choose to look - Google is your friend.  Try - https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle

One of the things a number of such articles have previously failed to include is the cost of extracting and transporting the crude oil from wherever to the refineries in the first place with all the attendant emissions.

The cobalt content of newer EV batteries is being reduced which is more than can be said for the oil refining industry which keeps remarkably quiet about how much cobalt it uses.  Lithium content of a 2020 battery was around 3.2% but I believe is less in a newer LFP battery. 

Interestingly while a lot of people seem fixated on there not being enough lithium to go around I read that competition between agriculture and the EV battery demand for phosphorus is another looming challenge.

Regards

Richard

[w3526602]

Hi,

I understand that in periods of RECESSION, the governments (little G) have a policy of organising public works, in order to keep the population busy.

In MK, this seems to involve digging up the roads.

Many yonks ago (perhaps early 1960s, when I spent my evenings in RAF TV lounges), there was an "All Our Yestedays" type program, looking back about 20 years ... but set 50 years in the future, recounting the rioting due to not having sufficient work to do ....

A Union Leader was shouting about having to redecorate his kitchen three times last year, while the bosses always had work available to fill their time.

602

[DogDave]

Used to be that they built things like resovoirs and roads and railways to keep people busy, investing in the future. Now they invent jobs like diversity officers  and the like.

There’s a fairly oft repeated forecast that the children born today, half of will grow up to do jobs that haven’t been invented yet. Sounds crazy but 20 years ago were there people making a living being influencers, diversity officers, or even selling  and fixing EVs? There will always be a way of keeping everyone busy.

[LN11AAB498A]

The future is a pretty scary place, what with riots spreading across France, Putin moving Nuclear weapons into Belarus(?), China, destined to become the world power, spying into our lives, even controlling it, through the very devices we buy from them, and AI doing heaven knows what. (not to belittle the afore mentioned, the following is a light-hearted comment) - And if that wasn`t bad enough, the gentleman's game of cricket now stands accused of bullying sexism & misogyny.

Didn`t Private Frazer once say (many times), "We're doomed we're doomed"   

Who else remembers the 1973 film Soylent Green? staring Charlton Heston as Thorn.

To remind me of the detail I looked this up on Wikipedia.

Set in a dystopian (what a good word) futuristic 2022, with dying oceans, overpopulation, water & food shortages and New York with a population of 40 million, the poor were given wafers of highly processed food called Soylent Green.

With rioting in the streets following shortages of this Soylent Green, Thorn secretly boards a waste truck transporting human bodies from the euthanasia center to a waste-disposal plant, where he witnesses human corpses being processed and turned into Soylent Green..... to spread the truth, Thorn, shouting to the surrounding crowd, "Soylent Green is people!

Just gruesome theatre or could it be a foretelling of our own future where, once again, science fiction becomes reality      I`ll let you decide while you enjoy your Sunday roast