It's to late for biscuit time ; so pass the hip flask and settle in.
Thanks, but your lack of a "P" means we don't take your thoughts seriously
I have a P, and think your desperation to include Brexit is amusing and agree with mitsumonkey. HTH.
Thanks.
Nothing to contribute to the thread then.
it is probably not far off the average cost of a new electric car. The nissan leaf (which is the 'crappiest' electric car I could think of) starts at £27k
A new Renault Zoe is 15 to 20k will get you 120 miles in any weather conditions, charges overnight at you house in an hour at thousand of charge points. That may not be enough for some but is for most.
It's the glee with which the alt facts brigade churn out their misinformation that makes me wonder what they are really scared of.
which is fine if your car is used for the school run or a short journey to work and back.
I use a combination of my push bike and my electric cargo bike to complete my errands through the week. How ever what if i want to go skiing/or cycling/or running / or camping (which is mostly why i own a car) up the cairngorms at the weekend. Aint goign to be charging it when i get there. I have seen with my own eyes a leafs Miles per charge plummet in -10 (a colleague has one for traveling to and from work where the alternative is 20 miles by bike each way for what is a 6 mile journey by car) I'm prepared to accept the change but its not at its usefulness yet for rural travel - if your in south east england then it may be the best thing ever but in north east scotland - its a no from me- Especially as i cant have a fast charge point at the house due to country supply electric (low amps coming to the house)
@wilburt: One of the worst things about "fake news" and "alternative facts" is the way it's become a rebuttal to someone else's opinion.
He's not claiming that all EVs burst into flames, or that they can only be used when it's not raining so you don't get electrocuted. He's giving his opinion on the things he thinks will limit their uptake.
mrmo and Matt
It's not 2500 deaths, it's 1700.
These are caused by ALL vehicles, so even if you banned private cars it probably wouldn't change due to in increase in other vehicles and people walking and cycling.
And we pretty much have the safest roads for a country of our size in the world.
I do think this scheme could be a partial success, but the success will only be realised if folks committing to new purchases have faith in both the economic outlook and have a vehicle that fits the current criteria (whatever that is, since we're not clear)
I would be more convinced if this scheme actually targeted the major polluting vehicles like taxis, busses and trucks and ambulances and other service vehicles including the military.
As is, it's falling to the general public to fund a bit part scheme in times of upheaval and uncertainty.
I'll agree to some extent my willfull angst over Brexit does indeed annoy and possibly derail threads, sorry about that but in my defence Y'oHoneur my point made earlier is this scheme is flawed in so many ways that it will hardly be of benefit to anyone in real terms.
And I do think it's to appease the Motor Industry in the first instance, with a thin veil of social responsibility as the main soundbite.
It'll be most interesting to see the full details as they are released, and where in the country it is targeted at/to and the cries of "it's not fair, why can't we...." by the Press and Public alike.
we pretty much have the safest roads for [b]for drivers, not pedestrians or cyclists,[/b] for a country of our size in the world
FTFY
Alternative transport ideas are bollox. They won't be bug enough to stop effectively the selfish human.
Other countries have much greater public transport usage. Aren't they human?
I do think ideas like this are economic stimulus dressed up as green measures though.
the alternative is 20 miles by bike each way for what is a 6 mile journey by car
Where?
aberdeen ; westhill - dyce.
Your welcome to try the 6 mile direct road by bike. I assure you will be knocked off before the weeks out trying to do it at rush hour.
aberdeen ; westhill - dyce.
Interesting. Google gives a cycling route along what looks like a pretty low quality trail. I wonder if being in Scotland it lacks the distinction between different types of off-road? Looks like it might be nice in the dry....
i use said trail through the moor it in the dry when i want to ride by mountain bike. Its a mountain bike trail, certainly not conducive to a non cyclist taking up cycling to get to his work.
theres a reason it doesnt have houses on it. Its wet even in the dry and in the wet its a bog - they have put boardwalk across the worst of it.
Realistically you need to cycle into sheddocksley and then down the howes for a safe cycle path route.
[url= https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/514912/road-use-statistics.pdf ]sauce[/url]increases in average trip lengths since
the 1970s, which rose over 50% to 7 miles in 2014
with an average trip length of 7 miles, i think we can probably state with some confidence that even if we went crazy and that doubled again over the next twenty years, and you were doing that 3 times a day, then a vehicle with a ( reliable ) range of only 100 miles would be more than adequate for most users needs.
while a trip to the cairngorms may be a very pleasant way to spend one's time it's not average use. you're free to carry on using your oil burner.
from a personal POV i'd be happy to switch now. tesla's model three out next (this?) year, and with the government's 4.5k incentive they're going to work out about 30k. i'm just not in the market for a new car.
id argue that its the average use that needs to change - but thats not going to happen.
we are heading towards WALL-E state 😉
we all know diesels dont like small journeys - they are almost self restricting as they go bang these days if you use them for small journeys exclusively. How many big bills before people start using alternative methods.
mrmo and MattIt's not 2500 deaths, it's 1700.
These are caused by ALL vehicles, so even if you banned private cars it probably wouldn't change due to in increase in other vehicles and people walking and cycling.
And we pretty much have the safest roads for a country of our size in the world.
Safe because everyone has been scared off the roads? why is it that kids don't cycle? Why do so few adults cycle any more.
as for the 2500, v 1700, i was going from memory but if we add pollution in, much of which is traffic related we get 40000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35629034
with an average trip length of 7 miles, i think we can probably state with some confidence that even if we went crazy and that doubled again over the next twenty years, and you were doing that 3 times a day, then a vehicle with a ( reliable ) range of only 100 miles would be more than adequate for most users needs.
But it's not about 'average' trip length. Average doesn't mean that's what everyone's doing. Most people do lots of short trips then the occasional long one. People are a bit wary of shelling out £15k on a car then still being stuck when they want to go up to Mum and Dad's at the other end of the country.
BMW's car club isn't a bad idea.
The last (and only, to date) scrappage scheme was designed to boost the car industry, so not much comparison with this one, which is designed to reduce particulates (not NOx which is still high in later diesels). No scrappage scheme deals with overall energy use including the energy used to build a new car, or the problems with disposing of old batteries (maybe not a big deal if they can be recycled - IANAE).
I think the manufactures are looking at those non average trips. Being able to fulfil them is part of the sense of freedom people want when they get a car.
A true EV zeolot would say they are possible if you plan and the cars help you do that, but we don't like planning.
I know Fiat in California offer a one day a month car hire for the big trips but perhaps the only real answer is by having two or more cars.
So for families like mine with three cars, we can keep hold of an oil burner for the long trips and an EV for everyday use.
So I realise that wouldn't work for everyone but it would work and increasingly does for lots of people.
I have a test of a Zoe at the weekend, I'll let you know what its like.
But it's not about 'average' trip length. Average doesn't mean that's what everyone's doing. Most people do lots of short trips then the occasional long one. People are a bit wary of shelling out £15k on a car then still being stuck when they want to go up to Mum and Dad's at the other end of the country.
no, but it is what the average person is doing, on an average day. inevitably there are outliers. i think we all understand what an average is.
how often do you go to mum and dad's? if they live more than 200 miles away, in the case of tesla's model 3, then yeah, you're going to have to factor in a recharge stop somewhere. i take the point that some people won't buy in on that basis, simply because some people struggle with reality a bit. 😉
how often do you go to mum and dad's?
Monthly, easily in our case. It's 75 miles away, and we might only be there 5 hours. And we might then go somewhere else whilst we're there. So if we had a Tesla we might squeeze by, but no chance in a leaf. I doubt we're that unusual.
So even if a Tesla could be relied upon to do that kind of distance, you're asking people to buy a £30k car? For most people that's pretty ludicrous.
Now don't get me wrong - I love the idea of EV, but there are still big reasons why they aren't desirable for a main family car for a lot of people. They'd be brilliant for most people's second cars, but even £15k on a second car is only accessible to a small section of the population.
So for families like mine with three cars, we can keep hold of an oil burner for the long trips and an EV for everyday use.
Yes - if you can afford one. I'd try pretty hard to replace our Prius with an EV, which will be when it dies, because it's become a second car.
So del in your alternate reality 😉 what your saying is I should spend 30k on a car that I only use at weekends ?
I haven't spent more than 4k on a car in my life. Even with the scrap scheme I don't see that changing any time soon
@bikebouy leave the Brexit stuff out eh ?
Diesel cars have been a humugous scam propped up by meaningless emissions testing. The writing is on the wall. In Paris (I think all of France) now you have to buy a small Vignette (sticker) for €5 based on car age and fuel type and they will be used to ban certain cars (ie old diesels) totally on days when pollution is bad.
I gave diesel a go with 2.7TDI 2007 car and whikst a great motor over 100k mikes you didn't have to be a scientist to work out all the soot coming oit of the back wasn't good (and yes I understand the difference in particulates)
Monthly, easily in our case. It's 75 miles away, and we might only be there 5 hours. And we might then go somewhere else whilst we're there. So if we had a Tesla we might squeeze by, but no chance in a leaf. I doubt we're that unusual.
stated range of the model 3 is 215 miles, so i reckon yes, you'd squeeze by, with apparently 65 miles of range in hand you could take them out for the day too. 😉
@ both mol and TR, i'm not advocating everyone go out and buy them, and i did also say i wasn't in the market for a new car myself, but the proposal that they are not viable as a means of transport is not, for many people, actually true, is it?
plenty of people gadding about in new motors, you only have to look at rush-hour traffic to see that. leased/pcp/hp whatever, those things filter on to the SH market. in ten years they'll be affordable for a lot of people. if it's not for you ( for whatever reason ), then that's fine, for a while at least you'll have choice. 😉
Aren't low emissions cars part of the problem though? Diesel's have low CO2 but high NOx? Or have they fixed that with the new rules?
I'd like to know what the proportions are for private, fleet etc, as every time I go to our royal mail depot to collect a parcel I am met with something like this
[img] 
[/img]
with upto maybe 20 diesel vans parked up, ready to be used on successions of short stop-start urban journeys. And I'm sat in an office in central Oxford where all I can here outside the window are stationary, idling diesel buses and coaches.
I commute by bike or train and my ancient diesel Alhambra (which was 10 years old when I bought it!) only gets used for occasional longer journeys (be it a CX race 30 miles away, a trip to Wales or in extremes to the Alps) so if/when it dies or gets legislated off the road I can't justify the expense of replacing it with a brand new car so it'll be something used anyway.
How did we get into this position where the governments got the facts on diesel vehicles sooo wrong?
Who advised them ?
Who lied to them ?
If people lied on such a scale why is no one going to jail ?
It seams like a win win again for the car manufacturer's at the public expense. 😡
How did we get into this position where the governments got the facts on diesel vehicles sooo wrong?
Who advised them ?
Who lied to them ?
If people lied on such a scale why is no one going to jail ?It seams like a win win again for the car manufacturer's at the public expense.
No need for conspiracy theories.
Quick history of car emissions:
1) Petrol engines dominate in early cars because diesels were crap.
2) Diesel engines take over in bigger vehicles because they used so much less fuel (we're talking 1940's here with the adoption of things like swirl chambers making diesel usable on the road).
3) 1980's and smog is a problem, so petrol engines get catalysts and electronic fuel injection, making them about as efficient as they're ever likely to be with very clean exhaust emissions (relatively).
4) 1990's Diesels get common rail injection when Fiat invents it, almost goes bankrupt, Bosch buys the patent and sells it to everyone.
5) 2000's/2010's, petrol gets variable valve timing, direct injection and turbo's bringing it's efficiency up further but still not quite diesel.
Politically smog was a big deal in the 80's, so we got rid of the worst offenders (VOC emissions from petrol engines). There's a political element to this, Thatcher wanted to push forward lean burning petrol engines as an alternative, the EU wanted catalysts. With hindsight she may have been right (the latest petrol engines are lean burning and have catalysts but at the time the two weren't compatible).
Politically CO2 was a big deal in the late 2000's so we went after the worst offenders (big petrol engines). So anything bigger than a Mondeo became a diesel.
Now NOX and particulates are a political issue, but this time it's diesel engines that are the problem, they're no worse than they were in the 70's (they're better) there's just far more of them.
Electric cars can be very cheap. Just buy them second hand:
Why don't I see hybrid vans? A hybrid Hiace seems like an obvious idea.
Del - Memberleased/pcp/hp whatever, those things filter on to the SH market. in ten years they'll be affordable for a lot of people
Unless the battery dies- taking a Tesla S as an example (just because it was the first google hit) the battery warranty is 8 years and 125000 miles (*), at which point they expect it to have degraded by around 30%, and the replacement cost is $12000 US.
Remains to be seen how this will really pan out but it seems pretty much accepted that an electric car has a shorter realistic lifespan than an ice car. A 10 year old Tesla may well be one of the shittiest used propositions of all time. Who fancies buying a car for £2000 that might need a replacement part that costs £10000? Puts my new turbo in perspective... (equally, who fancies trying to sell that car?)
(* It's not a new-for-old warranty, they reserve the right to fit an equivalent recon battery in the typical degradation profile so your 7 year old dead battery may be replaced by something that performs like a 7 year old good battery. It also doesn't include that expected lifetime degradation)
$12k is a lot, but £2k is no worse than a £500 banger and £1500 of fuel for the year.
And if manufacturers standardise their batteries (even just within their own company), then leasing a battery becomes easy, they just lease you the battery util the car itself dies, then lease it to someone else. So you're only paying for the years you use the battery for.
And $12k is probably what a dealer would charge to do an engine swap on a modern car that's done 125,000 miles.
I guess because vans typically do long journeys at higher speed with poor aerodynamics. Hybrids and electric cars work best when they can recover the energy so they need to waste as little as possible pushing the vehicle through the air.Why don't I see hybrid vans? A hybrid Hiace seems like an obvious idea.
your theory works assuming electricity is free tinas....
your theory works assuming electricity is free tinas....
It is if you own a Tesla and charge it on the street.
Or if you charge at home it works out at 3p/mile. Petrol costs about 13p. So we're talking about £350 Vs £1500. Even if the battery cost was £1000/year it's still cheaper (assuming the IC engine has perfect reliability and the battery does need replacing).
And $12k is probably what a dealer would charge to do an engine swap on a modern car that's done 125,000 miles.
Wasn't there someone on here talking about an engine swap in (IIRC) a diesel Passat? And he was being quoted £1500 for it. And that's not a standard maintenance item at 125k miles is it?
I'd like to see more electric cars. But I wouldn't buy one now because I can't afford it and I wouldn't be able to charge it up a home or at work due to the parking arrangements.
How did we get into this position where the governments got the facts on diesel vehicles sooo wrong?
Who advised them ?
Who lied to them ?
If people lied on such a scale why is no one going to jail ?
Interestingly(perhaps only to me), I had this conversation at least 10 years ago on a BMW forum with some Americans. I was saying why don't you lot embrace diesels and they were saying because they put out particles that kill you.
Seems they were correct but why the average bloke on US forum knew what nobody with a responsibility for transport in the UK did, I'm not sure.
Suspect we just wanted to sell a few cars.
Why don't I see hybrid vans?
EV vans would be a great idea for town deliveries/work.
How did we get into this position where the governments got the facts on diesel vehicles sooo wrong?
They didn't, really. They encouraged low CO2 cars, which is a good idea. They simply didn't realise that NOx would become quite such a problem. This might be a big mistake or an understandable one, but it was just that. Remember when the CO2 rated VED came out hybrids were new tree hugger weirdo tech, and there were no eco-boost petrol type things and no EVs.
And they didn't specifically promote diesels anyway - just low CO2.
Seems they were correct but why the average bloke on US forum knew what nobody with a responsibility for transport in the UK did, I'm not sure.
Most people in the US are pretty conservative. Petrol heads fantasise over big old V8s for some reason. So the concept of an economical car is anathema. Couple that with some really crap diesels being made during the 70s oil crisis and you give the typical petrol head lots of reasons to *choose* not to like diesels. So they pick up on the bad things reported in the press more than they would otherwise. And TBH the press report it more.
Anyway - how much particulates do DPF equipped cars actually emit?
Who fancies buying a car for £2000 that might need a replacement part that costs £10000?
A Leaf battery won't cost anywhere near that I reckon.
Wasn't there someone on here talking about an engine swap in (IIRC) a diesel Passat? And he was being quoted £1500 for it. And that's not a standard maintenance item at 125k miles is it?
Yes, but that's comparing fitting a brand spanking new battery at dealer prices. To an engine from a breakers yard fitted at a normal garage.
Nissan charge between £70 and £113 per month battery rental for the Leaf.
So that's:
£350 electricity + £1110 for 12,000 miles of motoring (assuming you go for the longest lease and 12,000 miles)
Or in my current car:
£1550 in petrol + £200 in tax.
So if I walked out the house today with enough ££££ to buy a car, the electric one would work out cheaper to run by about £300/year, even including leasing a battery to minimise the risk of having to buy a new battery if it dies. If I just buy the battery outright it's only £5000 for as long as it lasts (10 years at £500/year?).
Anyway - how much particulates do DPF equipped cars actually emit?
In the real world, or on the test rig when it's not regenerating?
[i]Seems they were correct but why the average bloke on US forum knew what nobody with a responsibility for transport in the UK did, I'm not sure. [/I]
Because it didn't matter as the Govt had changed the rules so diesels were cheaper to own/run (especially for company cars).
I had my last company petrol car 2006-2008. After that I went for the allowance as I didn't want to run a diesel. Funny now that I've just bought a diesel, although a +300bhp one 🙂
Anyway - how much particulates do DPF equipped cars actually emit?
In the real world, or on the test rig when it's not regenerating
Quite. I thought the problem was that the most dangerous stuff is too small to get caught in the DPF.
Yes, but that's comparing fitting a brand spanking new battery at dealer prices. To an engine from a breakers yard fitted at a normal garage.
Yeah, that's a fair point. How long has the Model S been out now? Five years? It will be interesting to see how many functional batteries are sitting in breakers yards in another five years time.
In the real world, or on the test rig when it's not regenerating?
Are you saying there's a difference? Are you saying that when they regenerate they create more particulates?
Facts, not insinuation 🙂
There appears to be a market in second hand batteries developing. Online theres video of BMW reusing them as base load for the grid.
