Something that small should be much lighter.
An ICE VW UP still weighs a tonne. Modern cars have taken on a lot of extra weight to keep us safe (when inside them).
Anyway, sounds like many of us are up for vehicle weight being one of the considerations when calculating car related taxation. Would be interesting to see how that would play out in the media if a political party adopted it as a proposal.
Works for me, I’d make it so the ‘ordinary’ driving licence allows you drive say; up to a 1.5lt 4 door, maybe 2 tonnes, after that you want more engine? more people? you take an annual [paid for] test and pay more tax. You want a 4×4? prove that you live on a farm, or in the highlands, I’d ban the sale of things like Range Rovers or Q7s etc anyway, and make max curb rate weight rules for everything else.
Is that because YOU don't need anything bigger/larger etc etc?
My 4x4 is a saloon, I live rural and no one clears the road passing our house of snow, nor grits it - winter tyres go on in Oct to be taken off in May.
Ramping up car taxes and abolish stamp duty to encourage people to co-locate near their employment would be beneficial to everyone.
Folk don't work for the same employer for ever, this isn't the 60's. And what about when you get laid off, only look for work in your local area or expected to move and then what about the next time? For the record I've been laid off 6 times, and expecting it again this year.
@Fueled I understand the concept you are describing. But I don't think it's useful to attempt to use this concept for carbon accounting where EVs are concerned. The mistake you are making is assuming that EVs that are responsible for extra demand and not everything else. This is just creative accounting, and you seem to be using it to burst the bubble of EV evangelists. Similar to the accusations that EV fans think they are 'saving the planet'. Whilst there may be some people who think along those lines, I am certainly not under any illusions that anything I do is 'saving the planet'; but I do know that the choices I make can affect my overall impact.
The French scheme with the Renault Five is interesting… not just using the car battery to shift energy demand in the home, but across the local grid as a whole.
This was mooted right from the start of the current EV market. Nissan, being one of the first developers, used the CHAdeMO connector on their cars which was always bi-directional, however it became the Betamax of charging standards and even they have been forced to drop it. Just as that has happened, Octopus have finally announced the commercial availability of a bi-directional home charger that you can use today to convert your Leaf into battery storage - hence the earlier comment. I'm not sure how this is feasible with a CCS connector, it seems Renault have developed something that may be proprietary. But yes, it's a brilliant idea.
An EV will generally be around £10-15k more for an equivalent spec. to an ICE due to the battery cost
I don't think this is the case any more. Manufacturers are obfuscating this by filling EVs with gadgets so you end up comparing them with top spec ICE models. Which isn't necessarily wrong. The main problem is that the cheapest ICEs are a lot cheaper than the cheapest EVs; but like-for-like there's not a huge amount in it.
Cheapest iD3 is £35k, cheapest Golf is £27k. But the Golf has a bog standard 112 bhp petrol engine with a manual transmission, whereas the iD3 has 200bhp and is effectively automatic. If you bump that petrol Golf up to 150bhp and make it automatic then it becomes £31k and the difference is down to £4k. But - you are getting these things on the iD3 whether you want them or not. So is it actually a fair comparison? If you want the things then it is, but not if you don't.
An ICE VW UP still weighs a tonne.
Yes, proves the point. Nearly 30% more is nuts, imagine how efficient EVs would be with weight parity. Iirc our Zoe weighs more than our golf estate.
I'd love to be able to use the car as a battery for the house. During the sunnier months we'd never need to import and in the winter our entire import would be during lowest demand periods.
Light, strong, cheap – pick TWO
In this case all 3, the ICE version.
@molgrips comparing the headline power is flawed. The id3 is 200bhp and I bet 2t. The golf is 112bhp and probably 1.3. not so much difference in the bhp/t figures.
imagine how efficient EVs would be with weight parity.
If you have regenerative braking makes almost no difference. Once a mass is moving it doesn't need any energy to keep it moving. There is an immaterial amount more tyre drag from the additional weight, but the extra energy required to accelerate the car is mostly recovered during deceleration.
If you have regenerative braking makes almost no difference. Once a mass is moving it doesn’t need any energy to keep it moving.
Drag says otherwise and regen while good does not reclaim that much if the input energy. So yes less mass less energy available to reclaim but at the same time significantly less used to accelerate it in the first place.
My Seat Mii (ICE version) has a kerb weight of 865kg. Same vehicle as the VW Up! and well under a tonne.
The Mii Electric is 1235kg. I suspect if just searching for VW Up weight the results are a range that covers both ICE and electric.
No, the weight range for the current ICE UP straddles the tonne mark, without the EV being included.
The EV is, as said, 30% more again.
New cars are heavy. Their EV variants heavier still. And in all its forms, that's still a light car compared to what's selling in big numbers new right now. Qashqai's weigh 30% more again.
I suppose one of the reasons you might be a bit hacked off if you have a newish EV is that existing low taxes on diesels (many of which fiddled their emissions reports) have remained unchanged, but it doesn't seem to be a problem to do this to EV drivers.
Personal suspicion is that over the next few months there will be a lot more anti-EV legislation pushed through or announced as the government try to appeal to their target demographic of grey-haired climate deniers.
That's a huge range of weights and I cant think of any spec differences that would account for > 135kg.
@Molgrips I think we have to agree to disagree. I've run out of analogies or ways to explain it. For every additional EV plugged into the grid to get 1kwh of charge, one additional kwh has to be generated by burning gas. The same is true for every additional pair of hair straighteners, or every additional lightbuld. We already use more electricty than we generate via renewables, so the additional has to come from gas. This will be true until our renewable generation is large enough to not need topping up with gas.
It isn't creative accounting and I am not trying to disparage EVs. It is just an often overlooked fact.
@molgrips comparing the headline power is flawed. The id3 is 200bhp and I bet 2t. The golf is 112bhp and probably 1.3. not so much difference in the bhp/t figures.
The Golf Match with 115 ps has a 0-60 time of 9.9s versus 7.4s for the iD3, so regardless of the bhp/t the iD3 is a lot quicker. Even the 150ps version does it in 8.6s. But whether or not this constitutes like for like depends on if you care.
I’ve run out of analogies or ways to explain it.
I fully understand your point. I just don't think you can use that reasoning to make the claim that EVs are 100% fossil fuelled; because by allocating fossil generation to EVs you are at the same time allocating renewable generation to other things that could just as easily not be plugged in.
For every additional EV plugged into the grid to get 1kwh of charge, one additional kwh has to be generated by burning gas.
You agree that a percentage of electricity is produced from renewables, right? So who is using that "green" electricity?
Even if they are (they aren't) the switch away from ICE to electric powered solely by energy produced solely by gas (no such thing available) then you're still reducing emissions by a significant amount. It's not worth the argument. Reduce emissions by 25%... or by 60%... or perhaps even by 100%... all these scenarios suggest that any new car you buy should be electric if emission are a concern (and they should be). If the worst case you can cherry pick is a 25% reduction... it's a no brainer. If you're buying new.
Can we agree that while the charging of all the EVs currently in existence today might be partly powered by renewables, each new EV added to the cohort will be powered by gas? Or, equivalently, owing to the addition of this new EV, the proportion of EV charging done by using renewables will decrease?
and regen while good does not reclaim that much if the input energy.
Regen is (currently) able to reclaim >60% of the brake energy in normal driving and stick it back in the battery.
The limitation is usually overheating the battery and safety/stability limitations.
Some investigation into use of alternative battery design is underway that will allow more energy from regen to go back into storage.
You agree that a percentage of electricity is produced from renewables, right? So who is using that “green” electricity?
We all are. We have used the whole lot of it, and we cant squeeze out any more. Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
each new EV added to the cohort will be powered by gas? Or, equivalently, owing to the addition of this new EV, the proportion of EV charging done by using renewables will decrease?
No, because renewable production in future will increase as future cars are bought.
You're cherry picking again. We can look at increases in EV ownership in the future, but not while discounting how our energy production will also be changing in future.
Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
But you keep doing that.
As we move to more renewables, energy consumption that can be shifted away from peak times will be absolutely key. EV cars fit into that well. We need smart white goods that do it more as well. I'm currently just setting mine off with a timed delay to operate at usually low demand times... but we should crack on with all new white goods being smart enough to run themselves when demand is low and renewable generation high.
Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
Bingo !!!
I have been talking about the marginal generation of additional power, not allocating our existing production or consumption.
I completely agree that we will produce more renewable power in the future, and if we produce enough to not need to top it up with gas, then this problem will go away.
I fully understand your point. I just don’t think you can use that reasoning to make the claim that EVs are 100% fossil fuelled; because by allocating fossil generation to EVs you are at the same time allocating renewable generation to other things that could just as easily not be plugged in.
ok, lets work an example - numbers themselves are a bit made up to be round numbers, to simplify things, but are approximately right
lets say you have a 100kwh car that charges using a 10kw charger at home, overnight, from empty to full (ignoring charging losses etc).
That night, there is 1 GW of demand on the grid. That is being made up of 80% renewables, and 20% gas. The gas costs 200g co2 per 1kwh produced. The entire output of the grid (1000mw) is covered by using 200mw from gas, producing 40000000g of Co2 per hour (40 tonnes) - of the course of the 10 hour night this is [b]400 tonnes[/b] of co2.
using the "average mix" maths, the overall mix of the grid is 80% renewable, and so for every 10kwh of electricity produced the grid is producing 400g co2 - so charging your car from empty to full emits [b]4kg co2[/b] by those maths
however, what actually happens when you plug your car in is instead of there being 1gw of demand on the grid, there's now 1.00001 GW of demand - 10kw more than there was before. The grid can't turn up the renewable production of electricity as its always maxxed out, all the time, so instead it has to meet 100% of that extra 10kw by turning gas up a little bit. Instead of the grid producing 800mw from renewables and 200mw from gas, its producing 800mw from renewables and 200.01mw from gas. This is a small amount, but it means the total co2 output of the grid is now 40,002,000g ([b]40.002 tonnes[/b]) of Co2 per hour, and 400.02 tonnes of CO2 over the course of the night. You plugging your car in has been met 100% through fossil fuels, at [b]a cost of 20kg of co2[/b] being produced that would not have been produced otherwise.
This is the same cost as me turning my computer on, and would be the same saving if someone didn't have their emersion heater on. All of the marginal load is met through gas
There are very rare occasions (once or twice per year) where this isn't the case and all of our load is met by renewables and things have to just be "turned down" to avoid over-producing, in those instances, yes, your load is met by renewables but otherwise its 100% fossil fuel.
As more renewables are added to the grid - the mix will change (from say 80% renewable to 90% in the course of a night) - and the number of incidences where everything is met by renewables will rise, a tiny bit, but its still negligable. What charging an ev overnight will do is increase the night time grid base load and make it more attractive to install more wind farms, but that's likekly to happen anyway
If you actually want to produce less CO2 rather than greenwash, an EV is a good start (as it produces less CO2, even when powered by fossil fuels, than an ICE car), but it'd make more difference to spend £10k less on a fuel efficient car and £10k on solar panels (no battery, that's just gaming the system) than it would to spend £10k more on an EV, or better still change your lifestyle to consume less
Regen is (currently) able to reclaim >60% of the brake energy in normal driving and stick it back in the battery.
Key bit being 'of the brake energy' which is very different to the energy required to get the vehicle to speed and then maintain it at that speed? That figure will not then include the losses converting that stored energy back to motion. It also assumes the driver can drive in such a way that regen is doing the breaking rather than the friction brakes.
Trying to allocate who used which unit of electricity is arbitrary and pointless.
Yes some energy companies try to do this by selling you a product that says all your energy comes from renewables. It doesn't, they might buy sufficient renewable energy to cover your usage over time but at any given moment in time you'll be using a mix.
ok, lets work an example – numbers themselves are a bit made up to be round numbers, to simplify things, but are approximately right
That was a lot of words to restate Fueled's case. Now tell us why the same argument doesn't apply to every single electrical appliance in the country.
Now tell us why the same argument doesn’t apply to every single electrical appliance in the country.
It does apply to every electrical appliance! Every unit of electricity we don't use is a unit less than has to be generated by gas. Until we stop having to use gas. Gas is the difference between renewable supply and overall demand (a bit simplistic but basically true).
That was a lot of words to restate Fueled’s case. Now tell us why the same argument doesn’t apply to every single electrical appliance in the country.
yep, it does apply to them all. Turning off your immersion heater saves gas being burned, turning on your tv causes gas to be burned, which is why its the marginal load. If you got [i]everybody[/i] to turn off their tv, to the point that the load was being 100% met through renewables, adding an extra ev would be 100% met through renewables, otherwise its 100% met through fossil.
It does!
So every electrical appliance is 100% fueled by gas?
Every unit of electricity we don’t use is a unit less than has to be generated by gas. Until we stop having to use gas. Gas is the difference between renewable supply and overall demand
Self evidently. In a static world. But that doesn't mean that moly's EV is 100% powered by gas. When he plugs in his car he doesn't get 100% gas-sourced electricity. He says "shove up, I'm 'avin' a piece o' that renewable pie, you lot budge over" (TBF I have never heard molgrips speak, and I doubt he talks like that, but you get the idea.) So him plugging in is the same as you not turning off your immersion, or tj insisting on eating hot food.
And when Moly gets a piece of the renewable pie, everyone else has less renewable pie, and so has to have a little bit more gas pie. And so the gas pie has to be made a little bit bigger, because the renewable pie is a fixed size, until we build more renewables.
The gas pie had to be made bigger by the exact amount that Moly needed to charge his/her EV.
When he plugs in his car he doesn’t get 100% gas-sourced electricity
go through the example I produced and show where it doesn't involve 20kg of Co2 being produced. The mix comes from a variety of sources, granted, but the impact is 100% gas. Trying to claim that the co2 impact of plugging in is 4kg is nonsense.
Again... even if it was true... switching from burning petrol or diesel in your car.... to using electricity instead... even if that is 100% gas generated electricity (which we don't have)... STILL reduces emissions significantly. So, if you're buying a new car... buy a lower emissions one.
Kelvin - I don't think anyone is disputing that.
Do you understand the difference between a marginal tax rate and an average tax rate?
No, I was hoping for a big strong man to explain it to me. Using simple words, of course.
switching from burning petrol or diesel in your car…. to using electricity instead… even if that is 100% gas generated electricity (which we don’t have)… STILL reduces emissions significantly. So, if you’re buying a new car… buy a lower emissions one.
This is true but its a small effect compared to what is needed. So use a car less. Build your life around not having one. Use a bike, an ebike or a small scooter. all options with far less CO2 production.
I live in Scotland, we produce per capita more renewable electricity than elsewhere in the UK, so based on how generators are charged more to add electricity onto the grid the further they are away from London, surely MORE of the electricity I use is from non-fossil fuel generators than you folk in the South?
Key bit being ‘of the brake energy’ which is very different to the energy required to get the vehicle to speed and then maintain it at that speed? That figure will not then include the losses converting that stored energy back to motion. It also assumes the driver can drive in such a way that regen is doing the breaking rather than the friction brakes.
Yes, all cars require energy to overcome drag and to accelerate, it's the same amount of wheel torque irrelevant of how it's generated. Benefit with EV is the efficiency from battery to wheel. It's massively higher than fuel tank to wheel. (Roughly 35% Vs 90% from what i can remember). Downside with EV is the weight increase. But that's been a thing in automotive for a couple of decades, at least.
Most cars have brake blending, so it doesn't matter how you slow down, using the brake pedal still activates the motor braking before the friction brakes come in to play. If you're regularly overcoming the amount of braking that the motors can provide, you should probably get some driving lessons.
The marginal use argument is an interesting one and I can see the argument. If I currently consume x kw of power in a day then some percentage of that comes from renewables and some from fossil fuels, but the amount from renewables can’t be increased. So, if I now add y kw of demand for my new EV that extra bit comes from fossil fuels. Makes sense, but there are at least a couple of issues with that argument.
One, it assumes that the EV was the optional bit. Want if I buy an EV but also reduce my demand elsewhere?
Two, it assumes that there are no periods during the day where renewables can supply 100% of the demand on the grid. If there are (or will be in future) then charging EVs is probably a good way to use that extra capacity.
It’s an interesting discussion and useful to remind people that just switching to an EV may not be doing as much good as they think. But it doesn’t change the fundamentals. It’s a good idea to switch from ICE cars to EVs for personal transportation. It’s a good idea to increase the amount of energy generated by renewables and it’s a good idea to reduce your overall demand for energy. The latter is probably the most important but all three are part of the solution.
Two, it assumes that there are no periods during the day where renewables can supply 100% of the demand on the grid. If there are (or will be in future) then charging EVs is probably a good way to use that extra capacity.
it is a decent use, but the total impact is still not co2-free. This "spare" electricity is today stored by pumping water uphill, then released by letting the water flow back downhill, in massive resovoirs. This isn't 100% efficient (approx 90%) - but it means that the 100kwh that are "spare" at midnight could either go into your car, or could offset 90kwh of gas-produced electricity later in the day, when demand is higher. It would only be if we had such long periods of renewable-only production that the resovoirs were completely full that we can really claim the ev use is truely co2-free
It would only be if we had such long periods of renewable-only production that the resovoirs were completely full that we can really claim the ev use is truely co2-free
No you cannot. EVs still have a CO2 cost in building and disposing of them and all electricity has a CO2 cost in generating it - again the building and disposing of the generators - mainly in the concrete used in construiction and the fuel burnt in building the generators
You can only ever state lower or low CO2.
Don't be fooled by the greenwash
