[Closed] No new petrol and diesel cars from 2040

It should be compared like for like, as in quoting Grid figures means adding in tankers etc.

It shouldn't at an organisational level, because those impacts are counted elsewhere in the inventory, so any organisation doing so would be double counting. At a national level, Scope 3 "well to tank" figures exist both for electricity and fossil fuel production. My rough calculations suggest that this results in a 20% uplift for fossil fuel-powered cars, and 17% uplift for electricity production. So not a significant difference overall.

The very nature of highly combustible liquids being transported and stored all around the country means moving electricity should and could be simpler and easier with less restrictions.

spare a thought for all those losing their jobs.. today all petrol and diesel engine development will stop.. highly skilled jobs lost right there.. no investment in engine building plants either.. going forward every single petrol station will close.. every single manufacturer of fuel delivery systems will close down, petrol tanker drivers and manufacturers of tankers will close down. and then the taxation.. where will the cuts come.. at present 80p ish of every litre of fuel is tax at my forecourt that means approx. 170k per week say 8000 petrol stations in uk thats a trifling 1.3 bn a week!! thats half the nhs weekly budget..gone.

This is primarily about local air pollution not Co2 you know.

Edit: also I dont understand the mindset that seeks out obstacles to replacing the power source of vehicles however tenious (as above) new jobs and taxes will be created of course.

What is about burning stuff that people like so much?!

You have to extract and move gas in order to generate electricity...

In terms of clacs if you want to compare like for like at least it should be refinery to tank vs grid, Well to tank is a measurable figure, as places like south australia should be about to show is a generation to plug figure for CO2 with a lot more solar and wind in the mix.

Reading this thread the usual distractions on electric are made with no mention as to the costs and implications of oil, how it's delivered and created etc. that is what we just see as "normal"

Not really, many other ways to generate electricity. Again 20 years to get this sorted and it needs to be the start of long term thinking.

Pie in the sky, I'm afraid. There is no realistic scenario in that timeframe for generating sufficient electricity for mass transport and satisfying existing demand, that doesn't involve significant amounts of fossil fuel combustion. If we're talking 50 years, then maybe.

In terms of clacs if you want to compare like for like at least it should be refinery to tank vs grid, Well to tank is a measurable figure, as places like south australia should be about to show is a generation to plug figure for CO2 with a lot more solar and wind in the mix.

The 17% uplift for electricity is inclusive of renewables supplying the national grid. The 20% uplift for petrol & diesel includes extraction, refining & transport to its point of use. There is of course potential for electricity to improve significantly with more renewables development, but not if we're going to require it for mass transport in the medium term.

Reading this thread the usual distractions on electric are made with no mention as to the costs and implications of oil, how it's delivered and created etc. that is what we just see as "normal"

1 voice in many ransos, in the I'll be alright and it'll never catch on etc. most are just trying really hard to explain why nothing will ever change.

This should trigger the UK into large scale Nuclear builds at this point to be the proper stop gap between the end of fossil and anything else coming along.

sufficient electricity for mass transport

How much extra power would we need if every journey done today was with an electric car?

The exhaust emissions from modern petrol engine cars is H2O so steam.

[img] [/img]

This should trigger the UK into large scale Nuclear builds at this point to be the proper stop gap between the end of fossil and anything else coming along.

Not likley to happen is it. Look how much grumping there has been about the only one we are building and the timescales for nuclear builds are long. Reality is we will probably just burn more gas to produce the electricity.

totalshell - Member

spare a thought for all those losing their jobs.. today all petrol and diesel engine development will stop.. highly skilled jobs lost right there.. no investment in engine building plants either.. going forward every single petrol station will close.. every single manufacturer of fuel delivery systems will close down, petrol tanker drivers and manufacturers of tankers will close down. and then the taxation.. where will the cuts come.. at present 80p ish of every litre of fuel is tax at my forecourt that means approx. 170k per week say 8000 petrol stations in uk thats a trifling 1.3 bn a week!! thats half the nhs weekly budget..gone.

I'd be way more concerned about AI.

It's now up to the government to put pay to lip service and deliver the necessary infrastructure.

dragon - Member

Not likley to happen is it. Look how much grumping there has been about the only one we are building

Largely because we're making an absolute arse of it.

Hopefully, this will usher in the hoverboards we've all been waiting far too long for

How much extra power would we need if every journey done today was with an electric car?

Total petrol & diesel consumption for cars is about 22 million tonnes per year (2014 DfT figures), so let's call it about 27 billion litres. If I compare with electricity using current emissions factors then that equates to about 32 TWh additional electricity consumption.
According to DUKES, annual electricity consumption is around 300 TWh so for cars alone (no vans, no trains, no public transport, no HGVs) you're looking at increasing generation capacity by more than 10%. Considering nuclear and coal decommissioning and the need to decarbonize, you're looking at a couple of new nuclear power stations or doubling our existing wind capacity.

Realistically, we're just going to burn more fossil fuels.

TF1 did an amusing worst case scenario for electric car charging assuming the worst possible day of the year and the current dmeands of petrol cars converted to electricty. The annual holiday cross over weekend that turns the motorways into slow-moving car parks would require the total output of EDF if every car recharged on that journey. Realistically that's not going to happen. Range is increasing and people wil charge up in advance and drive to avoid charging on route as they know the charge points will be busy.

I deliberately chose the slowest of the chargers for my garage to put the least load on the grid. I couldn't think of any time in the last five years I'd have returned with a flat battery and needed a full battery within a couple of hours. The grid doesn't fail when ten houses in a hundred switch on their immersion heater/oven/electric heater/two hob rings/kettle so the impact of 5 x 3.5kW electric cars above seems exaggerated. I checked the highest consumption I'd reached in the house before using the electric car: 29 amps achieved by Madame having a cooking spree with the immersion heater on. The car draws 10 or 14 amps depending on the plug I use and it's easy enough to plug it in before going to bed when electricity demand is low.

(I think 15 kWh(e) per 100 km is perfectly possible

How much of the charging will happen overnight when there is capacity in generation? May reduce the extra capacity needed.

.I'm drivingSouth to North UK, I need to recharge - how long will it take?? Petrol - 5 mins, refill tank and done. Recharging time is the issue that concerns me the most.

Ah, range anxiety*... you're right of course, on that kind of trip [b]you [/b]do need to re-charge, why not plug your car in while you have a nap 😉

*It's less of an issue than most people think, [i]most [/i]journeys are well under the current range limit of electric vehicles, never mind future ones.

And for journeys over the range limit of the car in (again) [i]most[/i] of the time the range only needs to be good enough to get you to your next rest point as nobody should be doing that length journey without rest.

So that leaves the small minority of trips that are longer, and the smaller again subset where they need to be done in one go (swap drivers etc.), which really is a tiny % of trips.

Since this is a such a small minority of trips it can be handled as a fringe case, either vehicle swap**, full battery swap, fast-charge capability* (if possible), alternative transport (ie: train/plane), or god-forbid a fossil fuel powered alternative, but when it's only a tiny % of trips it's suddenly less of an environmental problem.

The environmental aspect of electricity generation and battery production are real and valid issues to address, but as a society it's easier to address those at source through control and improving processes, while having zero air pollution at the user-end, than it is to try and deal with it on a micro scale in the millions of cars on the road. Fix/mitigate at source, no pollution at end user, Vs (unable to) fix at end user.

**OK, unlikely for private cars unless we move to more of a hire/rent model, perfectly possible for corporate

already being looked at, and standardised modular design could make this a lot easier

* even in a non-stop trip you'd have to get out to swap drivers, and you'd likely need a wee sooner or later so a fast-charge not that big of a burden.

You're forgetting energy saving, Ransos. The housing stock is very wastefull and businesses are worse. If I can cut off the gas and reduce my electricity consumption at the same time so can a lot of households. I was producing double the electricity with PV that I was consuming before buying the electric car, I'll get back next year and let you know how much the car has changed that.

nobody should be doing that length journey without rest.

Commercial driving hours is 4.5 he in one stint. Even at 100kmh that is 450km.

You're forgetting energy saving, Ransos.

I chose to consider supply side only for a few reasons:
1. Domestic electricity consumption is reducing, but quite slowly.
2. Domestic heating needs to be decarbonized, which means even more generation capacity.
3. Converting mass private transport to a cheaper fuel source may cause an increase in consumption.

Further reading: [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox ]Jevons' Paradox.[/url]
[url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazzoom%E2%80%93Brookes_postulate ]Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate.[/url]

nobody should be doing that length journey without rest.
Commercial driving hours is 4.5 he in one stint. Even at 100kmh that is 450km.

We're not talking about commercial vehicles though are we?

As far as I know there is no such thing (yet) as a commercially available electric HGV or LGV? And even if we never get one, doing away with fossil fuels for vehicles that don't need to use them is an admirable goal even if some other vehicles, whether they be commercial/HGV/'long-trip' cars still use fossil until an alternative is available.

Remember we don't need to go from Now -> Perfect in one jump, we can still aim to get to 'Better' in an incremental fashion.

Not to mention 60mph average for 4.5hours being an ideal (as in fanciful) situation on most British roads 😉

This is primarily about local air pollution not Co2 you know.

So why the nationwide ban? Ban ICE cars from city centres. Then anyone who really needs to drive in the city can buy an EV. Problem solved.

Or not. In Glasgow the most polluted street - Hope St is bus/taxi only at the monitoring pint . Take every private car off the road and Hope St would still be polluted.

[img] ?type=article-full[/img]

That's Renfield Street.

Still a fair point though. Diesel in cities is a big issue.

Still easier to announce something that [s]will / should[/s] / might happen in 23 years than deal with a current problem

Can I just point out that nobody is going to be completely banning combustion-engined cars from the roads. Sure, new ones won't be built any more, and fuel will get a lot more expensive, but there's enough people out there who [b]like cars[/b] and will want to keep them going as a hobby. These will be classic cars by that point. There won't be many left, they won't do high mileages, and they won't be doing it in city centres during the rush hour while people walk past on their way to work. Their impact becomes trivial. I agree everyone needs a shove towards EV but once the tipping point arrives IC vehicles will die out naturally. They don't need to be banned.

(My fun car does no more than 1500 miles pa and none of that is in city centres. Its pollution is not a big deal. I've no intention of getting rid of it. My diesel commuter does 20k miles pa; that's what needs to be addressed. I will happily change it for a Tesla as soon as I can afford one.)

My diesel commuter does 20k miles pa; that's what needs to be addressed.

Could you simply not commute?

Edukator - Reformed Troll

False: a French TV programme was devoted to a new plant that is recycling lithium batteries. The losses of lithium are low, the environmental impact is low and given the price of lithium it's econmically viable despite being labour intensive at present as there are no robots yet.

Cheers, E,

Just been a' googlin' about Recupyl.

A company I work with bought a licence for their technology in 2005. pilot lines built, but they're not using it. As I understand it, it's still not viable without subsidy. I'm sure things aren't moving forward all the time, in part due to the subsidies.

www.spicy-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SPICY_D1-5_M6_vfinal.pdf

http://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/battery_recycling_as_a_business

Knowing that billions of Li-ion batteries are discarded every year and given the high cost of lithium cobalt oxide, salvaging precious metals should make economic sense and one wonders why so few companies recycle these batteries.

The reason becomes clear when examining the complexity and low yield of recycling. The retrieved raw material barely pays for labor, which includes collection, transport, sorting into batteries chemistries, shredding, separation of metallic and non-metallic materials, neutralizing hazardous substances, smelting, and purification of the recovered metals.

Can we put this to bed now, there is not a vast supply of excessive electricity at night in the UK.

Under present arrangements there is limited supply, but there is a lot of capacity overnight. In the day and under peak load, there is not a lot of excess capacity so we make much more electricity even if we wanted to. That generating capacity is taken offline or wound back overnight to reduce the supply and keep the frequency stable yadda yadda.

So you just keep the generation side running overnight too, and your load becomes flatter and less cyclical so you can use base load for more and need less flexible capacity on top.

It needs a smart grid. But it is a lot better way of managing generation.

It needs a smart grid. But it is a lot better way of managing generation.

I feel human nature would lead to commuters arriving home at 6pm and plugging their EV into charge.So the effect of mass EV uptake would be an increase in peak demand.

AS for giving a smart grid control of charging/discharge of EV batteries the public may not like the idea of any of the limited number of charge/discharge cycles of their EV battery being used for grid management. This would reduce the life of the battery with no benefit to them.

Could it be controlled? How would the grid know that the 3.5Kw load at your house at 6pm was charging an EV and not heating water?

I feel human nature would lead to commuters arriving home at 6pm and plugging their EV into charge.So the effect of mass EV uptake would be an increase in peak demand.

Timed/scheduled chargers would sort that issue in a heartbeat.

AS for giving a smart grid control of charging/discharge of EV batteries the public may not like the idea of any of the limited number of charge/discharge cycles of their EV battery being used for grid management. This would reduce the life of the battery with no benefit to them.

Likewise, who says you have to own the batteries? Leasing with replace/swap at regular intervals or triggered degradation markers could remedy that.

Could it be controlled? How would the grid know that the 3.5Kw load at your house at 6pm was charging an EV and not heating water?

Depends on the kit used to do the charging and how smart the grid is.

The important thing with this like this is not to be shackled by ideas about how things work [i]now[/i], but how they could work in future, as everyone keeps saying the infrastructure isn;t in place yet, so we have an opportunity to do build it right and with these kind of non-problems designed out from the beginning. Basically - Don't be so un-imaginative! 😀

I always assume with things like this that if me or some other random bloke on the internet can poke a hole in it then a much cleverer person than me (who's actual job it is to do this) has already spotted said hole and is thinking about ways round it.

Pulling a quote back from an earlier page, I know...

I've not touched on the Forces, but it seems using fossil fuels is fine for them innit.

Pretty sure they'd kill for vehicles that didn't require massive logistical efforts to ship large quantities of flammables about to run, ran quietly and with a lower thermal signature. Assuming you can do power generation that is.

I'm sure there's been quite a bit of work done on it. Just you wait for the days when solar powered machines become self aware.....

Could it be controlled? How would the grid know that the 3.5Kw load at your house at 6pm was charging an EV and not heating water?

This is where the smart grid comes in. Priced electricity according to demand. You want your kettle boiled when you want a cup of tea, you wouldn't really care if the electricity to boil it was going to be more expensive than at 1 in the morning.

But plenty of other stuff, perfect example being you want you car charged for 7am tomorrow, than can be done via a plug that will get it done at the lowest cost.

Edit: bit slow!

Likewise, who says you have to own the batteries?

I think you don't? Certainly for some manufacturers, they represent more than 50% of the cost of the vehicle and remain the property of the mfr/leasing subsidiary.

Will be interesting to work out how charging of cars is going to work for households that have to park nose to tail on the street in the general vicinity of their house. It's all very well in nice middle class suburban houses with cars parked on drives or in garages but are councils going to dig up every dwelling street in the land and lay provision for hundreds of cars to charge simultaneously per street. I guess they will have to. And some sort of clever smart charging payment where you can charge from any available point rather the one on your own house.

[img] [/img]

Come to think of it - how does it work at the moment? If you bought a leaf and lived on that street how would you charge at night if you can't guarantee the space outside your house is free(assuming there was a charge point outside your house)?

Timed/scheduled chargers would sort that issue in a heartbeat.

Well they haven't solved the current evening peak which could be smoothed by timed water heating, washing machines, tumble driers etc. Might take more than a heartbeat.

In any case National Grid think most people who don't have off street parking will charge their cars during the day away from home. Maybe stopping on the way back from work. So timed charging will have zero effect on that.

So why the nationwide ban? Ban ICE cars from city centres.

Its not a ban, diesels will be long gone by 2040 anyway. Its a red herring to distract people from the lack of government action to reduce air pollution.

Its working because we are obsessed by cars electric or oil burners.

It's not the technology that will hold things back, it's human nature. The same with smart cars. People like owning their own car. Sharing or rent-on-demand isn't going to happen for a long time.
People like having a car that can go for 100's of miles, even if they only do that once a year. The next time we replace my wife's car, I'd be surprised if it wasn't electric (because all of her journeys are easily do-able with electric). Mine, I'm not sure.

Well they haven't solved the current evening peak which could be smoothed by timed water heating, washing machines, tumble driers etc. Might take more than a heartbeat.

But all of those things are on [i]existing [/i]infrastructure, if all domestic EV charges were time/schedule enabled from the outset you're already a step ahead, again don't get stuck in the stuff we already do badly, solutions to do it right are there, it's about how we make sure we do it right.

In any case National Grid think most people who don't have off street parking will charge their cars during the day away from home. Maybe stopping on the way back from work. So timed charging will have zero effect on that.

Not being able to charge at home due to lack of drive/garage is a big issue to overcome, it's certainly one for me in my house, it's more an issue of physical space/delivery than energy supply though, again we need to think cleverer... who says charging stations have to run off grid electricity all the time? perhaps they could be a combo of grid, and cache-battery, you stopping to charge your car on the way home or at work could in fact be charging from a cache-battery warehouse which was charged off-peak.

Replacing all the cars with electric tomorrow wouldn't work, we all know that, but that's why we need to look at how to enable changes over the long term, which means we have time to address the problems and work out solutions.

There [i]are [/i]problems and hurdles to overcome, nobody is denying that, but there [i]are also[/i] solutions, even if we haven't found them all yet, and "it might be hard" isn't a reason not to try, just as "it won't be perfect" isn't a reason not to aim for better.

Will be interesting to work out how charging of cars is going to work for households that have to park nose to tail on the street in the general vicinity of their house. It's all very well in nice middle class suburban houses with cars parked on drives or in garages but are councils going to dig up every dwelling street in the land and lay provision for hundreds of cars to charge simultaneously per street. I guess they will have to. And some sort of clever smart charging payment where you can charge from any available point rather the one on your own house.

This ^^^

We're not talking about commercial vehicles though are we?

No but being as there are no limits on what you can drive S a non commercial driver taking the commercial limits is a starting point for how long is reasonable to drive for without a break.

Smart grids are essential for the adoption of electric cars, but there's nothing new to invent, it just needs rolling out. Ubitricity produce a car charging lamppost, relying in part on the energy savings from brighter, more efficient bulbs. Plug your car in to any free lamppost when you get home, it will charge or discharge as required until it's at the level you need it the next morning; they can either all charge slowly, or take turns, from either the grid or from batteries in your house or the local substation that recharge slowly whilst demand is low. All the cars could briefly power everyone's kettles when eastenders finishes and demand goes extra high. The full 41kWh of a 2017 Zoe will power our house for over a week; even a mostly empty car can do an awful lot of load balancing.

Maybe local grids will need upgrading in places, but there's plenty of time and stuff like that gets maintained and replaced periodically anyway so there's no rush.

This is what smart meters will play a bit part in. The time-of-use tariffs like Greener Energy's Tide are one way of levelling demand, so you can charge your car at full rate at 6pm if you must, you'll just pay through the nose for it. Integrated appliances that run when demand is lower and electricity is cheaper is another.

This ^^^

It [i]is[/i] an issue at the moment without infrastructure, but right now I cant fill my car with petrol at home either, I have to go to a place where it is dispensed. Being that you can dispense electricity in many many more places than petrol I think there might be ways around this long term 😉

Especially when you take into account a Tesla SuperCharger can give you ~170miles of range in ~30 mins, and thats right now with current tech, so if you could get ~80 miles of range in 15 mins at work/shops/charging station it's a viable possibility.

If charging times and range can be improved as well then it becomes less and less of an issue as time goes by and infrastructure improves.

No but being as there are no limits on what you can drive S a non commercial driver taking the commercial limits is a starting point for how long is reasonable to drive for without a break.

Yes, but we weren't talking about commercial vehicles, which could conceivably stay FF powered until a viable alternative is in place, same for 'long trip' cars if it is a regular requirement. Most private journeys involve more stops or shorter distances by their nature anyway. There is an argument that Average Joe should have a lower limit anyway as he's both not used to it, and not adapted to it, nor trained for it.

I also happen to think that the current commercial limits are too high. 4.5 hours of solid concentration on any task is asking a lot, especially when you consider that the result of getting it wrong can be so disastrous. But then I'm not in charge of the rules 😉

Haven't read all of the previous posts on this thread, but here is some first hand experience of the current EV car ownership and usage.

Had a Nissan Leaf since December 2016,24kwh version.
Grant for a 7kwh charger funded by Nissan and I believe the government to help promote ownership.

Most of our journeys are less than 5 miles, rarely use a rapid charger except for longer journeys.
Real life range is about 80 miles, bigger battery cars and improvements in battery efficiencies will expand the range in the near future.

I realise that some people will have difficulties in adapting to EV cars, as off street parking is pretty much essential at the moment if you own EV.

There will be the haters, but the technology and infrastructure will improve and develop , even boosting the economy in terms of new technology infrastructure business.

Storage batteries will become a very big thing to cope with the increased demand for electricity, and the demise of the fossil fuels.

Air quality will improve in cities and densely populated areas.

People will have to look out for cars, as they are so quiet pedestrians and cyclists are not tuned in to listen for this type of traffic.

We are lucky, but the type of household I describe will become increasingly more common.

Solar panels on the roof, EV car, and a storage battery to store the excess energy made from the solar panels to charge the car and home.

It will be a big change, but I remember when all the houses had a fireplace, coal bunker and coal deliveries. Very rare now. Smog in towns and cities.

its changing, but probably at least a decade too late.

Could you simply not commute?

Ah, that chestnut. In theory, yes, but for a range of reasons that would take this thread off topic, I'm choosing to commute at the moment. It's not forever.

People will have to look out for cars, as they are so quiet pedestrians and cyclists are not tuned in to listen for this type of traffic

Zoé makes a cute sci-fi noise below 30kmh and above that the tyre noise is enough. I borrowed a 106 years ago that surprised people.

Grant for a 7kwh charger funded by Nissan and I believe the government to help promote ownership.

In France the grant only covers a 14A (3KW) charge point. You pay the extra if you want a 7KW.

Ubitricity produce a car charging lamppost. Plug your car in to any free lamppost when you get home, it will charge or discharge as required until it's at the level you need it the next morning

The problem is, look at that stock photo of on-street parking above, there are two lampposts and between 30 and 40 cars.

I like electric cars, I've driven a Leaf a few times lately and was really pleasantly surprised by it, but 'charging lampposts' don't do much to address the charging problem.

But the fundamental problems with this are:
1. It's so far away that it lets government get away with doing nothing of any substance now.
2. It was probably going to happen anyway, like someone else said, it would be like announcing in 1990 that typewriters would not be for sale after 2013.
3. We still don't seem to be considering that maybe driving everywhere isn't the answer. Congestion isn't solved (and is possibly made worse, due to 'guilt free' driving) by electric cars. Electric cars aren't much quieter at ~25mph+ than ICE cars. Electric cars are not inherently safer than ICE cars, certainly not to pedestrians and cyclists. A lot of air pollution hasn't come out of an exhaust, it comes from brake pads, tyres and the road itself being ground up and spat into the air. Electric cars do nothing to stop the impact of sedentary lifestyles on the NHS. Our cars are killing us, and electric cars will carry on killing us, just in slightly smaller numbers.

£250m being spent on low emission stuff across the entire country is only twice what was recently spent near me 'improving traffic flow' (i.e. making journeys by motor vehicles more convenient) on a single junction. They've moved the queues up to the next junction along, so now they're going to spend the same again a mile up the road. Then they'll have to do it all again, and again and again and again.

Maybe we need to look at all those short journeys and build infrastructure that makes doing them by bike safe and convenient. It has the highest cost/benefit ratio of any transport infrastructure. We gain from health benefits of more activity, from cleaner air, from quieter streets, from less congestion. It's all good, basically, but we won't do it because we (as a country) love cars and cyclists are lycra-wearing weirdos.

Ah, that chestnut. In theory, yes, but for a range of reasons that would take this thread off topic, I'm choosing to commute at the moment.

I'm not sure it is off-topic tbh. If we removed the millions of people who are driving about the country twice a day to sit infront of a computer at someone else's desk instead of their own, it would have a massive impact on transport infrastructure. And quite possibly much easier to implement than millions of charging stations. Let's face it, travelling when you don't absolutely need to is a waste of energy whether it's electricty or petrol.

I'd have thought that learing how to effectively work remotely for a large section of the population would be the easiest and cheapest thing to do.