Fair point ransos, but ultimately that still doesnt offset the extra manufacturing cost or the fact that the battery will need replacing as it becomes less efficient, way before the life of the car is up - this means that drivers will start using the petrol more and more (unaware), reducing overall efficiency and that the car will then become more costly to fix than its value - > scrapped vehicle. Plus we are comparing apples and oranges on effective engine size - you can get a 1.4D to drag around a mondeo sized body easily these days, returning upward of 60mpg. I've no idea of the size of the engine in the prius to be fair.
Plus you're assuming you drive the prius as per the vehicle testing agency specs - as highlighted by topgear recently but is true in actual driving - most people dont drive a prius and get the 57 that molgrips gets, many get a lot less as they drive as per a normal car which the prius doesnt like. I can thrash my 2litre D about all day and still get more mpg than the manufacturer specifies as combined - I rarely see <55mpg despite hoofing it a lot and see >60 on the motorway. With a prius, if you hoof it much at all you'll soon be dropping into the 30s. I'm not saying hoofing is a good idea, but it's what most of the public drive like!
Petrols emit more CO (twice as much). Diesels emit more NOx (20 times as much) - neither of these are problem gases on teh scale of CO2 until they're in a cramped place like a city.
Electric vehicles do have one thing, massive torque from 0rpm - this makes acceleration quick and easy, so despite the short range and low speeds it might still feel nice to drive.
CK.
Take a Chill-Pill, you seem to have some "baggage" related to when you lived at home. Don't take the frustrations about the issues you have about your unique home experience, out on me.
That remark was used to high-light the households where every family member has their own car, used regularly/daily. I was indicating how the car culture in the UK has developed. Thats all. The drive is full over night, empty during the day. All those cars on the road. Will every household be like that one day. Will every household have a seperate car for towing, a special sports car, a car for Monday, a car for Tuesday...
Should there be a limit ?, should people compromise the number of cars they own ? is there a place for the....multipurpose car ?.
As for those who would not be able to, or who would find it extremely difficult to travel without a car due to physical issues, the disabled, the infirm, etc. Of course I'm not saying that they should be denied transport.
But getting back on-topic, should that transport be in an electric powered car ?, imo, no.
Solo.
Solo - wasnt taking out frustrations on anyone, I have no baggage - I just find people a little too judgemental for their own good - you can't group all people as you do. Why is there a family living with all members having their own car - maybe because they all work a long way from the house and no-where near each other. Would it seem better if two people moved away to another house and parked the cars there instead (requiring the building, heating and maintaining of another house)?
While I appreciate your point of view that not everyone needs a car, and I find 2 people driving sod-all miles to 2 geographically close places of work is somewhat irresponsible, you can't simply say "theres X of you, you should have Y cars", every case is different. As I say, parking space-aside, the number of cars (particularly old ones, assuming we're not all buying lots of new ones) is not really important as only one driver exists for each. If you make people compromise you may compromise their career prospects, their earning potential and their quality of life. Is that right? Again, if we all started from a fresh slate something like a truly multipurpose car might make sense - a high efficiency diesel estate does most things (though mine is too small to tow a caravan and I'd need a bigger, less efficient over-all one to do so), but for those that dont have one currently you'd have to force them to buy one or people like yourself would frown on them. While I see your points I question the black-and-white basis on which theyre made.
I agree that (solely) electric power isnt the way forward though 🙂
what about shipping all that lithium about the world to create all the batteries that would be required. Most lithium come form South America by the way
I've never understood why people struggle to achieve the official economy figure for their car. Mine is only 37mpg, yet I average 43-47mpg, depending on the journey.
what about shipping all that lithium about the world to create all the batteries that would be required. Most lithium come form South America by the way
Ah, a voice of someone who has nothing to lose from such a suggestion. Lets stop the industry you rely on for work.
Good point. Anybody here work for BAT? Let's not even think of trying to decrease the size of their industry either, given all those jobs relying on it.
So someone show me a Mondeo sized car that does 74mpg (or even 65 for that matter, or even 57) and I'll be impressed
Maybe you could start by showing us how a Prius is Mondeo sized?
The Focus Econetic (a better comparison in terms of external size) does 65mpg, admittedly with a slightly higher CO2 figure, but without all of the problems associated with manufacture and disposal of the batteries. On top of that it drives better, has more cabin space and a significantly bigger boot.
Still, if the Prius makes [i]you[/i] feel better/smugger/more worthy...
ransos - you must be a smoooooth driver 🙂 Or do long journeys.
Depends what figures your choosing. Figures for my car:
Fuel Consumption (Urban) 40.9 mpg
Fuel Consumption (ExtraUrban) 65.7 mpg
Fuel Consumption (Combined) 54.3 mpg
Extraurban is average 40mph
Urban is average somewhere around the 20s IIRC.
combined is average.
Personally I average ~55ish, I have seen 68 once while slipstreaming a wagon at 56mph for 200 miles. 🙂
It depends how much like the official test track your driving is. Even a long journey on the motoway at 60 you'll struggle to achieve your extraurban figure. The urban figure I never fail to beat. The combined is about my average when used for commuting to work (20 miles a day, mostly open 60 roads). But bear in mind that different cars will react differently to the test. Some cars are much more thirstly on acceleration than others (heavier ones) so if the test for the figures doesnt include much acceleration they'll get worse figures in normal use than in test.
What happens t oall the 3 year old betteries?
I feel hydrogen fuel cell is a much better idea, although the initial outlay may be more expensive.
Electric cars are not as green as people like to make out.
Owning, driving and maintaining a car is still way too cheap, double or treble the costs and then see whether there's still problems with congestion and pollution.
CK.
Exacly ! the point I was making, every case is different. UK car culture encourages/entitles people to take the job which is a two hour commute each way, away from where they live. Our car culture throws up all types of car owning households now.
I was observing [u]our car culture[/u]. I cringed at all those cars going out everyday, onto the roads, thats all. 🙂
I'd take it another step further and ask. For those who work at a keyboard, why, in the 21st C are we still traveling to another place to use the works office and computer.
Can't we as a nation develop a remote working culture, which may just happen to reduce the number of cars needed/used on the roads on a daily basis.
Then we could all use the extra 2 hours a day for cycling, rather than commuting. 😀
I think that having to drive to work can actually hamper your carrer prospects, as we know, theres a limit on how far one can drive to and from work.
I don't want to endorse anyone having their career hampered for lack of ability to get to where its at, and so therefore, their quality of life.
However, there are some who would argue that some levels of quality of life are unsustainable. And our car culture allows people to live a long way from where they work. Is that sustainable.
Either way, you make some good points. 🙂
Ta
Solo.
The prius is a total red herring. An eco car ( a tuatology anyway) would be small and light with a long life span and totally recyclable. Think modern day 2cv.
Priuses are really poor over a total lifetime environmental audit - as are electric cars. All those fancy batteries and high tech stuff.
aP - you want to watch out, we'll have only bankers driving around soon, all living in a flat 2 miles from their workplace in the centre of london and all the normal workers will be unable to get to their place of work due to distances involved.
In actual fact all that'll happen is wages will rise to match, prices of products will rise to match wages and it'll carry on that way.
"I'd take it another step further and ask. For those who work at a keyboard, why, in the 21st C are we still traveling to another place to use the works office and computer."
Good question. I've been doing some research into this recently. I was surprised to conclude that for most people, commuting to work by car produces less CO2 than the extra CO2 arising from heating & powering your home during the day.
Of course there are other benefits - reduced congestion, possibility of giving up car ownership etc.
Bloody right there.
I am one of those people who has to travel 30 miles to work, in traffic. I would rather stay at home and work there but apparently that is not good working practice. I ask how is it not good working practive to have saved money, fuel and time to work in a more comfortable enviroment, away from people who have all manner of nasty germs which get passed around through air conditioning.
I was surprised to conclude that for most people, commuting to work by car produces less CO2 than the extra CO2 arising from heating & powering your home during the day.
So commute in winter, work at home in summer?
CK - the majority of car journeys are less than 3 miles, I'm not quite sure why a modal change would require wages to go up?
Just looked up prius battery life issues, seems low-mileage users suffer the most, as with most batteries if they are used at low duty but frequently they are pretty long-life items. People with <10K miles a year seem to be having issues with the battery keeling over, and its a £2-4000 replacement cost depending on model (but comes with a 7 year warranty, not that that helps the environment).
mol - get using that car, for your wallets sake!
Because its CHANGE that takes the doing, not the actual mode of transport. People live miles from work NOW, if you change how much their transport costs they arent all suddenly going to move house to nearer work. People do a weekly shop at the supermarket 3 miles away NOW, if you make their car cost more to run you'll have to increase the number of buses NOW or people can't get to them, and of course if car costs go up so will bus ticket prices as they're a business.
So commute in winter, work at home in summer?
Indeed(Or commute all year round by bike/ public transport/ car share).
Interestingly, homeworking is usually an environmental benefit in the USA. This is because they mostly commute by car, for long distances, and keep the heating/ aircon on during the day even though they're not at home. Eek!
Regarding the battery thing - the impact is probably overstated as it can be recycled at the end of its lifespan. I don't doubt that there is an impact, but is it a significant addition to the environmental costs of producing a new car? Probably not.
While they can be recycled it still takes a LOT of energy to do so, and since we dont curretnly have any of those batteries (practically) we're stil going to have to produce them from scratch now by mining the hell out of south america.
aP.
I think you're so wrong, jmo.
Taxing the ass off the car owner isn't the answer.
Reading the posts, looks like we're not having the wool pulled over our eyes. Seems that quite a few here think that the electric car isn't the "[i]way forward[/i]".
While I have mentioned the Hydro-Fuel cell car, it was more for the observations the road tester made about modern car culture/useage.
Hydrogen isn't really the answer. Imagine the cost in restructuring the worlds Petro-Chem handling infrustructure to handle pressurized, liquid Hydrogen. California, U.S.A. is trying it, but its costing them loads.
You basically have to start from scratch, I don't believe you can convert the petrol/diesel handling infrastucture of the world to handle (store, transport, pump) Hydrogen.
It may surprize some here to learn that the industry is spending serious time looking into alternatives. The [i]latest[/i] I heard is that Methanol is the future...
Or rather, synthesized methanol.
No major restructuring of the material hanlding infrastructure required, etc, its renewable, although not so sure about the actual emissions ( I didn't invent it, just telling what I heard).
Early days.
Solo.
Well, when you look at it - there's massive industry over capacity, the costs of running a car have fallen in real terms significantly since the early 70s, the price of fuel is within 10% of where it was 10 years ago, - congestion is a significant problem for pretty much every part of the UK. Why not make it equal the costs it causes rather than pander to people's desire for the cheapest?
It is solely because motoring is so much cheaper than it used to be that people are prepared to change their entire lifestyle and live 40 or 50 miles away from their work, employers expect their employees to be prepared to commute those distances and more vulnerable road users have been pushed off the roads.
Why not demand a quality of life distinct from having to run and use cars?
While they can be recycled it still takes a LOT of energy to do so, and since we dont curretnly have any of those batteries (practically) we're stil going to have to produce them from scratch now by mining the hell out of south america.
Yes, I'm sure that's true. But I'd be interested to learn how significant it is compared to the overall impact of producing a new car. Do you know of any research into this?
aP.
Some good points there, but raising the cost?. As others have pointed out, increase something that people beleive to be essential to their way of life, or even earning a living, and their wage demands will increase.
Look at housing. Prices go up, we all need more in the pay-packet in order to buy.
Yes, housing is more important than cars, but the principle is my point. Raise the cost and people demand more pay to afford it.
Furthermore, we in the UK pay £25 Billion in green taxes, yet we cause £5 billion environmental damage.
Oi !, Gordon, wheres the rest of it going !.
Ooh. Don't start me off 🙂
Solo.
Its about regulating demand. Ask yourself (or someone else) 2 questions:
1. Is traffic a problem for you?
2. If so what do you want to do about it?
I know, of course, that the answer to Q2 is make somebody else change rather than me because I am completely unable to do anything differently than I've become accustomed to, but driving in the UK is a chore - no matter what the petrolheads say, for 95% of the country driving is a chore - why not try and do something about that?
As a hint - it doesn't include electric/ hybrid (pertrol and diesel)/ hydrogen fuel cell/ flywheel energy sources in otherwise unchanged cars.
I would give up driving, in fact I didnt own a car or drive for seven years, then I needed to find a new job.
I hate driving, really should save it for taking the bike to foreign trails! I could easily work from home and have mentioned that on a number of occasions, even if I could cut down to three days at home and mid week in the office for catch up meetings.
My other option is to move closer to work, but then I would have to give up living in pastures green where all the riding happens. slightly catch 22 for me. maybe I should loose my job, get my lady producing babies and claim all the benefits of being unemployed and having offspring.....
Seems to be the way to go.
I ditched my car 3.5 years ago and I'm still loving it. You just don't realise how much you time you spend worrying about it and paying for it. Plus I can drink whenever I want, cheers!
I gave up driving (forced, due to car death and lack of finances!). It was the worst 18 months of my life. I had to beg and borrow lifts from people, rely on public transport that failed to get me in on time at least 10% of the time, took me longer to get to places. Meant I couldnt get to do my sports. That period made me realise just how nice it is to have the freedom a car provides. I did cycle to places but the constant rain and wind make anything more than 15 miles a real chore. I enjoy driving too, 95% of country driving is an absolute joy to me, even being stuck in a queue is preferable to being stuck on a train. My fun car is currently in storage and I really honestly do miss it and the smile it brings when I drive it. I've never had to worry about finances on my car, I've always bought cars I coudl afford to run and insure with cash I had in the bank. If I didnt have the cash I'd not buy the car.
ooOOoo - you cant drink and cycle you know, that's still illegal?
MD. Love that post. Yeah, I'd like to give up driving too.
aP.
Traffic is a problem for US. Seperate your hate of the car, from the proposed replacement of current cars with Electric cars.
If human kind finds a solution for a sustainable car, in whatever form that may take, then the car stays, and more importantly, so do we !.
I think we need to try to change car culture, find a [i]better[/i] way to get people to [b]want[/b] to use an alternative.
And where as taxation does have its place. Perhaps we need to change the record and use a less blunt instrument with which to clobber our problems. Aren't we cleverer than just to resort to the treasury all the time.
[i]is there a problem ?, [b]TAX IT LAD, TAX IT ![/b][/i]. Err, no.
I would like to see some of our Gov money go to incentivise employers to have their keyboard jockeys stay at home, use secure IT infrastructures, etc.
Can't we give it a go at least ?.
Solo.
As mentioned earlier solo, it costs more in energy to heat a home during the day than it does to drive to work? Interesting point though - I personally would love to work from home, if I didnt have to communicate with people face to face as part of my job.
Some good points in here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/apr/16/electric-car-government-subsidy
Also mentions using replaceable car batteries as an electricity store so that variable renewable energy sources become more viable!
Yes you could use the whole battery-as-a-storage-for-grid option, but then when the country sees a day or two of no wind no-one can get to work unless we have the fossil capacity backup, not to mention each house would have to have its own inverter technology etc (not that that's impossible, just more problematic than just plugging the car in).
CK.
Yeap, I hadn't missed that statement. However, (here it goes) how many homes have someone drive to work, but leave someone at home for most of the day, electrical goods on standby, etc, etc.
Yeah, I know we'll get into numbers, etc, and that probably isn't a worth-while exercise for this thread.
But as we're being saddle with Nuclear Power Stations then ultimately heating a home would release less CO2 into the atmos....err, maybe...
But then again, if cars become more fuel efficient....Yeah, that may be a point to consider. But there are other advantages to not having to drive to work.
This has been a good thread, I've enjoyed it :-), but got to go out now, on the bike. 😀
Cheers.
Solo.
err... where did I say that I hate cars?
What I hate is the awfulness that they create through waste and pollution, the destruction of our towns and cities and the disenfrachisement that they cause in society.
Do you actually live in the UK? Traffic is an enormous problem here, where I live it can take an hour and a half to drive 4 miles, tell me that there isn't something wrong, surely we should be looking for a solution that reduces our reliance on the thing that seems to cause a lot of problems.
coffeeking - true but if you walk, get a lift, get the train etc....
Maybe it's cos I lived in the sticks, and had to drive EVERYWHERE. Like a 7 mile round trip to get a pack of fags. The novelty of being able to drink when I want has not worn off yet 🙂
I loved driving on country roads too. Even did a few track days. Then I realised I was pushing 1.5 tons of metal, once round the Earth, every year, just to put food on my plate. Madness. So I moved. What I'll do for a next job, I don't know.
But I do know I've put enough crap in the atmosphere. It doesn't need any more from me.
Do you actually live in the UK? Traffic is an enormous problem here, where I live it can take an hour and a half to drive 4 miles, tell me that there isn't something wrong, surely we should be looking for a solution that reduces our reliance on the thing that seems to cause a lot of problems.
I do, always have worked in cities (my job is only done in cities) and lived 10+ miles away (as nice houses in nice areas cost a LOT less and I hate city life in general). Longest I've every queued was on the way into Liverpool on a day when they chose to do a traffic stop on the main route in, during a local derby match day. Took me 1hr and 15 mins to do 17 miles. If it was much worse than that I'd use the bike, but generally its a half-hour job as the road network into Liverpool is pretty good. If it took me 1.5 hours to do 4.5 miles I'd bike it, no questions asked - anyone not doing seems to be mental, but I've never even heard of traffic like that around the north west. Plus I have now got the additional flexibility of being able to work flexi-hours so it can take as little as 20 mins for me to drive into work these days, averaging 45ish overall in a joyful blast through country roads. Driving is a truly wonderful thing - without it I couldnt really bike anywhere too interesting, I couldnt do my other sport at all. In fact I'd become a beer swilling, couch potato that took public transport to the nearest football match - what a great idea 😀
Then I realised I was pushing 1.5 tons of metal, once round the Earth, every year, just to put food on my plate. Madness. So I moved.
Fair enough, but I much prefer the peace, quiet and village atmosphere of living in the sticks with a quiet garden to relax in. If I have to drive for an hour a day to have that I will, for the sake of my family and any future kids I have. Dont get me wrong, if my work would let me work from home or could be placed in the fields nearby I'd jump at the chance, but it cant.
Ban private motoring reintroduce works vans for works business
Bring Taxi rates down
Make decent bikes cheaper
Sort the trains out properly
Move as much freight onto canals as poss
Run the busses on old filtered chip fat, increase fleets and quality considerably
Of course, that'd require considerable eduction, investiment, thought, planning and will. Which ain't gonna happen in a democracy where lowest common denominator thinking pervades and people vote for whoever will allow them to be laziest.
However, (here it goes) how many homes have someone drive to work, but leave someone at home for most of the day
Or even have two people drive to work - how would the figures compare if both home-worked?
Or even have two people drive to work - how would the figures compare if both home-worked?
It's all hugely dependent on personal circumstances. I made an assumption of a 6-mile commute (based on a staff survey), a 6-month heating season, and used averages for fuel efficiency, home energy efficiency etc. I also assumed that the home wouldn't normally be heated during office hours, but would be if you work at home. Overall, it's more energy efficient to drive to work, but of course there are lots of exceptions.
Surely a 6 mile cycle would be rather better?
Surely a 6 mile cycle would be rather better?
Yes, if you commute by bike or public transport (because buses and trains run regardless of whether an individual uses them) then it's nigh-on impossible for homeworking to have a net environmental benefit.
Maybe if you ran a business from a shed? 🙂 Unless you were sourcing parts from the far east though....
Prius batteries seem likely to last the whole lifetime of the car - they are managed differently to the batteries in laptops etc and last far longer. I've read about tests and real world cars that do over 200k miles on the same battery easily enough. There are some battery failures, but there are failures in any component in a car. Plus the battery's modular so you can replace the cells that fail not the whole thing. As of about a year ago I don't think anyone had ever ordered a complete battery pack as a spare part. The battery pack has a 100k mile/8 year warranty in California incidentally.
As for getting decent mileage out of it, it's a buit pointless to buy a fuel efficient car and flog it everywhere. There are a few tricks to learn to get the best economy (i.e. accelerate reasonably briskly to optimise the engine efficiently then back off when you're at speed - rather than accelerating really slowly) but that doesn't take long if you pay attention. I drive the speed limit all the time FWIW.
And yes, it's much more economical to drive a tiny flimsy car but people won't do that. Some folk want a bigger car and want to fit four adults and their stuff in it. You're starting a whole new debate then about lifestyles, which is not something cars like the Prius are designed to address. They exist because people won't give up their luxuries, so they aim to make those luxuries as clean as possible.
CK, you say that vastly higher NOx emissions from diesel is only a problem in cities like that's some kind of insignificant special case... A very great deal of pollution is created in cities dontcha know... 🙂 right where all the people are around to breathe it all in.
I bought my Prius cos it was cool and I liked it. Bluemotion/ecomotive/eDrive etc cars from VW and Volvo etc weren't around then. If they had been I'd have done a lot more test driving.
