Rumours today that Peugeot / Citroën are in talks to buy General Motors European operations (i.e. Vauxhall /Opel)
Vauxhalls “that’ll do, let’s go down the pub” design and quality control philosophy combined with Citroën ‘innovative’ electrics – what could possibly go wrong?!

I ran an Omega MV6 a fair few years ago, loved it.

Big, fast and seriously safe/secure place to do a load of miles – and with the Xenon’s was often mistaken for an unmarked policecar (I assume as whenever I came up behind anyone on a dual/m-way they usually moved over 🙂

Then a company petrol Vectra, 70k in 2 years, only changed tyres.

But my diesel Vectra cost far too much to run, too many things failed and/or needed replacing. Bought s/h at 50k, passed on to my son at 100k. No problems now, as I fixed them all.

I had a meeting last week about the next gen diesel emission standards.

I’m guessing that by the time it’s fully rolled out, and all new cars are compliant, diesel will be restricted to large luxury vehicles. There won’t be the margin in anything under €35-40000 to pay for the after treatment kit.

GPFs are on their way in now as well. Particulates from petrols are shit too. Who would have thought it.

So this is something more than the current SCR technology, ghostlymachine?

GPFs are on their way in now as well. Particulates from petrols are shit too. Who would have thought it.

Crazy talk. 😉

just wondering what this debate would have been like if the title was ‘just bought a 2.5 transporter camper to convert to a camper’.

😀

It would have been the usual evangelists v haterz Ton!

It would have been the usual evangelists v haterz Ton!

I doubt it, a chorus of approval all round and requests for regular updates seems more likely to me. Mucky old vans (and woodburning stoves) only produce the good sort of pollution doncha know!

😆

Not so much in the tech side, it’s the test cycles that are being changed.

Both diesel and petrol i understand. No more test beds, except for baseline, looks like it’ll be fully instrumented cars driving round various locations and routes and covering a far fuller range of conditions. Still to be decided how far it will go. But even the least aggressive proposal is going to give some manufacturers real issues.

So all the emissions equipment will need turning up to 11 or 12, except for VW, who will just need to decide whether to even fit it or not……

But is it going to be different tech to what’s already there? Or just more expensive versions of it?

Basically the same tech. Bigger, finer filters, more additives and so on.

This is an interesting question being asked..

We’ve a 2.0L VAG TDI, which I love.. (Octy innit…!)

However, we’re soon to replace it with a Petrol 1.4 TSI Yeti. We don’t do great mileage,and I’m interested to see how small displacement turbo engines fair in day to day use..

Will see if I can be converted away from derv!

DrP

Well, I recently bought a diesel. Basically because the car we wanted only came in diesel – a 10-year-old Volvo. But it’s a combination of family car and shop van, so I’m still ahead environmentally I think.

Ransos & Edukator – the CO2 reference was a typo, had my head in work at that point.

Whoever said burning veg oil is cleaner – no its not, its the temperature that generates NOx not the fuel.

We have enough power for electric? Balls. Over the winter the grid has been importing vast amounts of power and capacity issues are only getting worse in the medium term as more stations shut down and no storage solutions exist. We don’t even have a black start facility in Scotland FFS, if the grid collapsed it would be DAYS before we see power. All the renewables in the country are useless at restarting a grid.

Ton, shame you’re not nearer the Zafira Tourer are silly daft cheap new around Corby and Bedford area.

I saw a lovely delivery miles one the other day for £15k.
Loads of ex-Motability cars around, generally pretty low mileage, and often very low mileage; don’t get looked after very well, but as a big family hauler, possibly not a bad thing, fairly cheap, very low mileage, and the as-new shine taken off, so no reall worries about wear-and-tear from kids and stuff being chucked aboard.
Picking up a Motab Zafira Tourer from a dealer in Trowbridge tomorrow to deliver to another dealer in Burton-on-Trent, I’ve been rather impressed with all of the newer Vauxhalls I’ve driven over the last six-seven months, comfortable, well-equipped, good-looking design, certainly I’d happily have a Vauxhall over a Kia, Nissan, Peugeot…
You even get a heated screen on the Corsa SRi.

We’re seeing a lot of problems with Insignias and especially the hateful Mokka,

S’up with the Mokka, then? I see shit-loads of them around, more than possibly any other crossover SUV, even the Qashqai.
I’ve driven a couple, and liked them a lot, handling was better than most of the competition, good seating position, I’m particularly taken with the top-end Mokka X 1.4 turbo 152ps, lovely looking car, and not bloated like some in its class.

@squirrelking if only there were a few million really big batteries plugged into the grid that could provide that base load.

I dont think ton and his zafira will be bringing Leeds to its knees anytime soon but the cars depreciation will greater than expected as the market for diesels declines over the next five years.

There will be a small shift to petrol but it’ll be our neighbours hybrid that we are eyeing enviously.

Loads of ex-Motability cars around, generally pretty low mileage, and often very low mileage; don’t get looked after very well

it is a ex motability one I have bought. 63 plate with 12k miles on it.

What happened to the vaaaaan ?

What happened to the vaaaaan ?

she who must be obeyed has lost her licence through epilepsy, and decided she don’t want to be driven round in a van.
and you know me Dave……always aim to please…….. 😆

@squirrelking if only there were a few million really big batteries plugged into the grid that could provide that base load.

Of course, why didn’t I think of that! We’ll just simply tell everyone not to drive anywhere every time we have power shortages, I can’t see how that couldn’t possibly work.

And you clearly don’t know how black start works, the power needs to be centralised in order to progressively bring sub-grids back online. It’s not as simple as just flicking a switch hence why the station I work in can’t just fire on it’s 11kV generators and back feed to another station. Also, what powers the grid in order to make the necessary connections? How do you synchronise a million different single phase connections to a common three phase on the grid without having the whole lot fall on arse all over again? This is a more complex problem than you seem to believe, it’s not just quality megawatts we’re talking here but sustained delivery of those megawatts AND the ability to add more grunt through tap changing as needed.

CountZero – Member 

S’up with the Mokka, then? I see shit-loads of them around.

There are loads about, I think they are heavily discounted – I’ve heard they are pushing the Fiesta close for no.1 sales spot in some parts of the country.
I’ve recovered a few with catastrophic engine failures but mostly it’s the usual build quality problems – loose bolts, plastic clips breaking causing wires and pipes to rub through, that sort of thing.

One hyrdro station/nuclear station provides enough juice to provide a start point for getting the grid back up from a blackout Squirrelking and you are well placed to know that.

A million single connections are brought onto a three phase grid every time the sun comes up. I’ve stood in the control rooms of the major Welsh hydro stations as they’ve been spun up and brought on line. Absolutely no problem suddenly dumping enough power for most of Wales into the grid or switching it off; the frequency and voltage went/down up a bit and that was it.

It’s a manageable problem. And GB is a part of the European grid, even if the whole UK goes down it’s highly unlikely to take Europe with it given the limited number of connection point and maximum possible drain (and the fact there a plans and systems to prevent a total continental failure). The cable from France would therefor be another start point in the event of a total UK blackout.

Spain does very nicely with a very high proportion of intermittent renewable energy sources. they briefly got close to 100% on a very windy and sunny day and their objective is 100% by 2020. It all works just fine. One of the nice things about having so many small sources of energy is that changes take place slowly. The wind doesn’t suddenly stop, the sun sets predictably at the end of the day, ther’s pleny of warning that the frequency and voltage are dropping and it’s time to start the hydro or even gas if you are desperate.

On your first point, no it doesnt and yes I am. Nuclear stations cannot operate as “islands” as they lack sufficient control to keep reactors operating at the low loads found on startup, once you lose grid power it’s game over. As for hyrdro, in theory, yes, but you only have one shot at it and in that shot you need to power up all the sub grids between you and the nearest power station, get it on line and thenhave enough reserve to tackle unforseen problems. I’m not confident we have that capability and neither are National Grid.

As for synching all those sources, You were watching one source synch to a master source (the grid). In effect thats one sngle synchronisation with one standard. What happens when you have several discreet sources all trying to connect at once to restart after a blackout? Easy, they won’t as they would need to be individually managed from a single point (as opposed to automatically synching with what they see) which would require a collosal amount of control to get right.

And yes, we are part of the European grid, thats how we (Scotland) are pretty much expecting to restart and why the delay is now days as opposed to hours. I’m not knocking renewables at all, I’m actually quite in favour of them but I also understand the underlying technical problems faced by our infrastructure and that we NEED baseload sources that can be reliably started and sustained come rain or shine. Until we have a better solution that falls on fossil fuels. Believe me, I’d rather have a hydrogen powered turbine on quick spinup duty but the infrastructure does not exist and nor shall it for the forseeable future.

And yes, all those diverse sources are nice, but I’m talking about a complete catastrophic grid collapse, not a cloud passing over the Benidorm solar farm.

You better drop a note to all those people working on and investing in what you know won’t work.

No-one’s investing in solar base capacity are they. Did you really understand what he said?

You better drop a note to all those people working on and investing in what you know won’t work.

What? A black start system based on car batteries all being in the right place, at the right time and in the same charge state? Send me a link please, I’d be happy to peruse the literature that backs such a concept up.

No-one’s investing in solar base capacity are they. Did you really understand what he said?

Clearly not. Of course I know nothing, I only work in the power generation industry and have only studied renewables as part of my degree. I’m not a teacher who once visited a dam and watched something I had a vague understanding of and then connected that with something completely different.

Did Scotland ever have a black start ability? Does the UK? Or does everyone just assume that the entire grid isn’t going to fall over at once?

Exploring Inverkip power station, I once found the massive diesel startup generators – my understanding was that they would fire up from cold, then one smaller boiler would fire up, then finally the main boilers would fire up in sequence. Would a power station like that have the ability to restart the whole grid?

This is your industry apparently I shouldnt have to provide the wiki links. You dived in with this ‘blackstart’ we’re all doomed guff btw the original discusion was nothing to do witht that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

@molgrips I dont know wtf you are on about.

Yes, our black start was Longannet.

Yes it does, there are a number of nominated/contracted strategic sites that are the first to start in such a scenario.

No, that’s the whole point in having a black start provision.

And yes, that’s exactly how it would work.

Basically the boilers can be fired such that they are connected at very low loads (too low for nuclear as explained). Each local sub-grid is then powered up until a super grid connection can be made. At this point I assume there will be a pecking order and each grid synchronises in turn until all grids are powered up and a common level of synchronicity has been reached. Other power stations will then be fed for start-up and then synchronised in turn until the whole system is back up on its feet.

That’s the basic version, the long version is more complicated (and beyond my pay grade) but suffice to say it’s not as simple as just flinging some water out Cruachan and hoping for the best.

This is your industry apparently I shouldnt have to provide the wiki links.

No it’s not, I’m in generation not transportation.

And well done, you have absolutely proven Molgrips right. That entire article is concerned with load balancing which is completely different from black start capability. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

And the black start question is absolutely relevant – we don’t have enough generation capacity as it is and it’s not going to get any better any time soon (in fact it’s going to get worse hence the black start question). So all these electric vehicles you propose are a waste of time if they can’t get charged! If they ran on hot air on the other hand…

Longannet was a 2400 mega watt station.

Dinorwic is 1700 mega watt. Plenty of smaller ones to chose from in Wales and Scotland. The grid just needs organising so it can be connected progressively. I assume that’s the case in France because they seem quite good a shutting bits down as and when necessary.

Starting from hydro is clearly possible with or without a nearby nuclear station.

I might have been a teacher but ain’t thick and have had a number of lives

Back in the day I was one of those irritating environmental bods who led Welsh Water’s acid waters project – I set up and ran the rainfall and surface water monitoring and my name was first on the first paper produced. I then moved on to other things.

I was sometimes closer to the power industry than you perhaps realise, I appeared in a TV programme with a bod from the CEGB who claimed that power stations had nothing to do with acid rain, so I’m quite familiar with power generators who talk rubbish. Anyhow, we won and they ended up fitting scrubbers. The power station visits were part of a programme monitoring the effects of dumping acid upland water into neutral lowland rivers.

Complicated and beyond your pay-grade perhaps, impossible not.

Hybrids. That IMO is what we are ready for.

My mate who bought a Tesla was telling about the fast vs slow charge stations, yes there may be a charging station but its not a lot of use if it takes hours and hours. He has a fast charge in his garage (paid for via a subsidy/grant I think) and a trickle charge at a second home where he can wait all night). Seems limiting to me and a lot of £££ for the privilige

Wow, that’s an absolute wealth of industrial experience with grid operations. If only I had appeared in a TV programme then I could make up utter nonsense and present it as fact. 😆

You know bugger all and frankly you’re embarrassing yourself. You make the assumption that capacity is the driving factor – it’s not. We have Peterhead (everything else is shut) and it doesn’t have sufficient grunt (on site) to start itself up. Hydro is not possible for the reasons I already explained plus it’s reliant on there being enough capacity behind the dam in the beginning! The grid is already arranged in such a way that you describe however you need something reliable to actually drive it in the first place. I don’t know how France runs their grid, only that ours is presumably arranged differently and you can’t just change things overnight (back to the medium term thing I pointed out again).

you know when you wish you had not opened your mouth……..yeah that. 😆

OK Squirrelking I’ve been indulgent, here are some example of your genius.

Note that I’m being very careful to distinguish between the NOx generated and those emitted. The generated NOx are dealt with in the EGR system (which then has a knock on effect of increased particulates so DPF is fitted) and so can be mitigated against.

Wrong; the EGR recycles exhaust gases which contaminate the charge and lower the combustion temperature which reduces the quantity of NOX. The system fails dismally to meet even E5 NOX levels. THe generated NOX is exactly what is emitted – the EGR does nothing to eliminate NOX it simply means less is generated (but still too much) Only aan injected additive can reduce NOX.

diesels still emit half as much permissible CO2 as petrols

This was so clearly rubbish you later retracted it.

All the renewables in the country are useless at restarting a grid

You later admit it’s possible with hydro but might require someone further up the ladder to work out how to do it. The you change your mind again

Hydro is not possible for the reasons I already explained plus it’s reliant on there being enough capacity behind the dam in the beginning!

There lots of hydro schemes and always reserve capacity. They have never all been empty and some are also used for water supply so the water industry sets draw-down levels.

I take it everyone in Paris drives a new car then?

Needs no comment other than to point out you’re not very sensible on here sometimes

I’m also an ex-proof reader and used to be one of the people asked to read papers for peer review so I’m quite good at spotting fatal flaws in posts.

Right I’m done with this cock waving contest. Think what you like, it makes no odds to me but I’m happy you’re talking shite.

And FWIW, you’re also being a pedant in order to try and redeem yourself. Try countering with some actually citeable facts, at least Wilburt tried.

Redeem myself from what?

You launch into a car thread with a pro-diesel anti-electric agenda (“cos they’ll bring the grid down”) and then get upset when people point out that diesels really do pollute more than petrol in terms of public health and there’s capacity to charge electric cars with intelligent metering and more renewables.

Anyhow, anyone can read back and make up their own minds about the relative merits of our contributions.

Hybrids. That IMO is what we are ready for.

Plugin hybrids or electric cars with the range extender. The Passat GTE for example – 30 miles electric range which is fine for most purposes, but it’s a normal 2 litre hybrid when it needs to be. Alternatively the BMW i3 has more electric range but the range extender is just that – not a large quick family saloon type experience like the Passat.

Right I’m done with this cock waving contest. Think what you like, it makes no odds to me but I’m happy you’re talking shite.

And FWIW, you’re also being a pedant in order to try and redeem yourself. Try countering with some actually citeable facts, at least Wilburt tried.

You seem to be upset when people are talking about your area of expertise. Well, that’s exactly how I felt when you were talking complete shite about Euro standards.