Electric Cars - the discussion continues.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Get yourself an electric bike nomad. Best thing I ever bought, it was under 1000 dollars.

Don't ride it on the roads tho, all bikes should ride on the footpaths I reckon. If you compare the kinetic energies of 1. a fat lady with shopping... (50J )   2. a guy on an electric bike....( 450J ) 3. A mentally deficient road-rager in his big SUV( 216,000 J ).

You will see where the bike rightfully belongs.

[facthunter]

IF you old stinky diesel is making soot and is reported  it may be off the road and it should be. Those emissions are probably the most dangerous of all.. I was behind a not so old, LDV recently  and it was pouring out soot pretty continuously which indicates something is very wrong for a modern vehicle. You are allowed short periods of soot, but the Best of the modern things are really good.  You really don't see anything but heat haze coming out of their stacks.  Nev

[onetrack]

I've seen quite a number of "name brand" European diesels pouring out black soot upon acceleration or pulling a trailer at highway speed.

So I think their high-tech Euro 5 & Euro 6 emission systems must be pretty deficient, or they're easily put out of proper operation.

 

I personally believe that in the future, some type of add-on soot and pollutant collector will be mandated for older diesels. I would imagine with tighter emissions legislation in the next few years, this will mean that any diesel emitting any visible emission for any length of time, will either be put off the road, or be forced to install a pollutant collection system.

 

As it stands now, a vehicle can only be stickered for emissions if it produces visible smoke for 10 seconds or more.

 

Edited December 18, 2021 by onetrack

[facthunter]

You DO see Some but I'm inclined to think they are not well serviced. The EGR modulates actively and has to be in good condition. Also some might have tweeked the "chip" to get more grunt. Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

 

I personally believe that in the future, some type of add-on soot and pollutant collector will be mandated for older diesels

I don't think that would be too difficult to do it physically, but the problem is that the Diesel Particle Filter (DPF) is not the simple catalytic converter that we have in spark ignition engines.

 

The DPF does what its name implies. It filters particles from the exhaust stream. As a result, the filter eventually begins to clog. As they are fitted now, there are sensors associated with the DPF unit that keep the Engine Control Module up to date on the clogging. When that clogging reaches a certain level, the ECM lights a warning light to inform the driver to carry out a DPF burn off. That mainly consists of a 15 to 30 minute continuous run at engine speeds above 2000 RPM - a quick run down the highway.

 

While it would be possible to retrofit a DPF to an older vehicle, there would have to be an electronic module to run the monitoring function since an old vehicle is unlikely to have an ECM, or if it does, it would not have the monitoring programming or module.

 

A big problem with the DPF is likely to be owner ignorance relating to maintenance. The DPF needs to heat up before it can efficiently burn off the particles and self-clean. When a DPF-fitted vehicle is only used to run the kids to school and to go to the gym then the shopping centre, the DPF will not get hot enough to look after itself. Eventually it will partially clog and the warning light will come on. How many drivers know what that light indicates and how to deal with it? I must admit that it is only after writing these few posts that the penny has dropped about the notices I see in new minibuses I've been driving. How would a Yummy Mummy react? 

 

More than likely she'd keep driving. Maybe tell her husband, who'd have no clue either and tell her, in the usual male way, " Must be a loose wire. Ignore it." Then the DPF gets fully clogged and it has to be replaced at a price for the part o$2000 and way upwards.

[facthunter]

Taking the Kids to school or short trips to the station ruin many Cars. Perfect solution there is a cheap thing  converted to a  hybrid.  Nev

[nomadpete]

I'd love to buy an electric bicycle. But there are a couple of reasons for me not to.

 

1. As far as I know, electric bicycles are restricted to a maximum power of 250Watts. That is one third of a horsepower, which is insufficient to drag my heavy ass up my driveway. Which is nearly 1/2k with average gradient approaching 20 degrees.

 

2. Although my local shops are only 8k distant, there are no footpaths, only a narrow 'highway' that is frequented by B doubles and logging trucks. I won't contemplate sharing that road with them, whilst travelling at bicycle speeds.

 

3. I'm in Tasmania. Do you really expect me to trundle down to the shops on a bicycle in midwinter, through the snow and rain?

[Bruce Tuncks]

You are right about restricted to 250 watts. AND they are also restricted to "pedal assist" so there is a sender on the pedal crank which has magnets and a hall-effect pickup to send out pulses when you are moving the pedals.

I agree that your situation is not right for a bike. The worst is the roadway.

 

[Marty_d]

Pretty sure you can buy more powerful ones.  I don't think the wallopers will be pulling over cyclists to check their wattage.

[nomadpete]

Unless I can outrun a speeding road train, I aint gunna play chicken on the highway.

I'll stick to my polluting 1100cc cycle thanks.

 

PS, power 'assissted' bicycles are also restricted to a maximum speed of 40kph. Which makes sense for a bicycle. Having said that I have seen electric scooters mixing it with city traffic at much higher speeds. And they used to call me a Temporary Australian when I used to commute on a motorbike

Edited December 19, 2021 by nomadpete

[old man emu]

My son has an electric scooter like this that, if the speed control chip is disabled, can reach 130 Kph.

 

Doing that, of course would be stupid, but these scooters do have a place in inner-city transportation. The NSW Government has maintained a  legal prohibition on the use of these scooters on public roads due to "safety concerns", i.e. collisions with other road users. The prohibition relies on the definition of a motorised scooter. The Australian Road Rules (Federal) allow the use of these scooters on public roads provided the motor does not produce more than 200 Watts and the scooter does not exceed 10 Kph [ARR 244A(e)].  But New South Wales Road Rules, which in general terms are a cut and paste of the Federal ones, have omitted that sub-rule, making any use of motorised scooters illegal on public roads. That's a pretty flimsy excuse when one considers that bicycles are allowed to use these roads, and if you are in any of our cities you will quickly see examples of dangerous use of bicycles, mainly by food deliverers. 

 

Meantime, there are many retailers supplying these scooters to the under-40's. 

[nomadpete]

The example that came to my mind was a scooter I watched in four lanes of heavy traffic, doing 60kph and zipping between buses, trucks and surprised motorists. I half expected to see him between the duals a nearby truck. 

These things have a high c of g that prevents them from braking as effectively as other vehicles, and tiny wheels which are more prone to the surface imperfection that are so common on our roads. They are also unregistered motor vehicles.

No doubt they are fun. But not safe on fast roads, nor safe on footpaths where unsuspecting pedestrians are at risk.

[onetrack]

OME - AFAIC, the DPF system is a total technology failure. The system has been the cause of a major number of recalls, added substantially to the costs of running a diesel vehicle, increases fuel consumption (because an additional injector is fitted to inject fuel into the DPF to burn off the soot), and has been the cause of a number of vehicle and grass fires, thanks to the massive heat generation ability of these horrible devices. 

Add in the massive cost of repairing or replacing them, and you have a major cost burden on current diesel vehicle owners. Oh, and in the case of AdBlue systems, you've got the constant cost of AdBlue - and now a shortage of AdBlue which will end up putting your modern diesel off the road.

 

In underground mines and areas of fume, smoke and ignition dangers, there's a simple exhaust scrubber system retrofitted to diesel engines, which is basically a tank of water through which the exhaust gas passes. Sometimes a catalyst is added to the tank to improve the pollutant capture.

Regardless, there are any number of aftermarket exhaust scrubbers available, which are simple to fit, and which are maintenance-free and long-lasting.

 

https://www.catalyticexhaust.com/product/diesel-exhaust-purifier-scrubbers

[Jerry_Atrick]

An informative take on EV's contribution to a reduction on CO2 emissions

 

[old man emu]

He goes on about the emissions related to the manufacture of the vehicle's components, frame and body. Let's be fair. Let's take the Hyundai Kona as an example. 

 

This vehicle is available with either ICE or Electric as the power source. It would be pretty reasonable to surmise that the finished products contain close to the same amounts of steel and plastic. Maybe a bit more steel and aluminium for the ICE version. But for argument's sake, let's just say they are the same, except for the power generator.

 

It therefore stands to reason that the ICE version will be producing pollutants all the time its power generator is operating. You might well ask, "What about the emissions from electricity generation?" Well, I'll counter with, "What about the emissions from electricity generation needed to refine the crude oil to get petrol and lubricating oil?" 

 

Perhaps when everything is accounted for, and all the sums are done similar ICE and EV vehicles produce the same amount of emissions, but they are produced in different places.

 

Perhaps Zero Emissions fall into the same category as Perpetual Motion machines. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

You raise a good point, OME. It's not clear whether Cadogan's total CO2 emission over the life of an ICE car includes the emissions used to produce the fuel. After all, it has to be mined, transported ot a refinery, refined and then tranported to a servo. Then there is the electricity to dispense the fuel, too. So, it may be understating CO2 associated with ICE in a like for like comparison (obviously, some of the CO2 used in the production and/or distribution of electricity may also not be included, but it would seem a bit less).

 

So, it may be that an EV is, say 25 - 30% better over the arbitrary  average lifecycle. In Australia, that would increase the reduction of CO2 emissions by about, say, to 3% in total. It is still not zero emission as claimed by everyone and that is the point of the video.

 

What he doesn't cover is total cost of ownership comparison over the life of the vehicle, as EVs have a lot less maintenance required than ICE cars - although, for a 10 year life span, will there be a requirement to renew some or all of the battery cells, and if so, what is the average and how much to they cost (and add to emissions as battery production is the big CO2 emitter in the manufacture of EV's)?

 

Nor does he mentioned the benefit of no emissions at use - i.e. in those built up urban areas where fumes are causing illness and in some cases, death.. that has to be a big advantage to EVs - esp when powered from green sources, although emissions from coal plants also cause devastation and when in close proximity of populations the same respiratory issues.

 

I still generally agree with his point - it is not zero, or even net zero emissions as a  product.

[old man emu]

I suppose that the truth of the matter is in the realisation of a plan. Every plan, no matter what it deals with, has goals. The ultimate goal is to score all the little goals along the way. Zero Emissions might be the ultimate goal, which might not be possible to reach. However, scoring those intermediate goals leaves you in a better place than when you started. 

   

 

We hear of collateral damage in warfare. Maybe we should start looking at the collateral benefits of EVs and ignore their collateral damage.

[onetrack]

There are many hidden advantages to EV's. Very little lubricant is required, so a major reduction in lube oil production, transportation, use and disposal.

There's no transmissions or axle assemblies required - so no manufacturing requirements there, either. That's a huge saving in mining metals, transporting them, turning them into components.

 

The EV's are light on braking, with regenerative braking replacing massive use of brakes in fossil-fuel vehicles. That's a major saving in producing brake materials, and disposal of same.

There's no clutches, so similar savings to brakes in that department, with clutch manufacturing becoming a dying industry.

 

There's a massive investment in oil well equipment, oil refineries, oil tankers, oil and fuel storage farms, piping, transportation of fossil fuels. The savings there must be mind-boggling, I've never seen them calculated precisely. Even just owning a fuel storage depot is a massive money spinner for multiple global corporations - including here in Australia.

 

The talk is all about fossil fuel being used to generate electricity. That is going to be a thing of the past, as solar and windpower generated power becomes dominant. Already, the percentage of power generated by these two sources is substantial, and increasing yearly.

 

There's still the potential of geo-thermal power. There's plenty of hot rocks within close reach of many areas. I'm surprised more use isn't being made of volcanoes - imagine the power going to waste in just one volcano! Deep mines have massive potential to provide huge amounts of heat. 

 

EV's will become dominant within 10 years, there's nothing surer. What with steady, incremental development of batteries, ultra-capacitors, electronics, electric motor design with improved materials, the future is looking very electrically-oriented to me.

Young people in the future will examine history and marvel at the waste of the fossil-fuel era. The amount of heat we have wasted from burning fossil fuels is immeasurable.

Cadogan is a foul-mouthed, know-it-all Luddite who is diametrically opposed to anything that is not fossil-fuel powered with a humungous V8. A self-appointed "Expert", not one appointed by his peers.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by onetrack

[willedoo]

I used to wonder what the oil companies would do once their market share died off, considering oil is one of the biggest world economies. But now, it looks like any sensible company is looking at ways to jump on the bandwagon and grab a slice of the renewables profit.

 

Countries like Russia are a good example. Their reliance on oil and gas as a percentage of income has dropped to somewhere in the 20-30% region, down from being their major source of income. This has been helped by U.S. and European sanctions forcing Russia to diversify it's economy for their benefit. The other factor is that they've seen the writing on the wall for fossil fuels and are moving into renewables. From memory, I think Russia is the biggest manufacturer of solar panels in Europe, as one example.

 

I don't know for sure, but I would assume Middle Eastern oil producing countries would be thinking along similar lines and starting to transition toward making money from other sources than hydrocarbons.

 

 

[old man emu]

We forget that crude oil is not all used as a heat source. Petrochemicals are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds. From them are made all the various "plastics" and man-made fibres. A petrochemical is any chemical manufactured from crude oil and natural gas as distinct from fuels and other products, derived from crude oil and natural gas, and used for a variety of commercial purposes. 

 

By reducing the amount of crude oil directed into heat production, which results in total loss of the long-chain carbon molecules, we will have more of those molecules to convert into products that don't result in total loss. It is true that at the moment, a lot of petrochemical products are unrecovered pollutants, but when an effort is made to recover them, they can be recycled many times over, thus continuing to provide raw materials.

[onetrack]

The Saudis live in fear of the end of the oil age, and are frantically re-investing their petro-dollars into any other renewable energy area of promise.

 

In 2000, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia, gave an interview, in which he said:

 

“Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil – and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end, not because we have a lack of oil.”

 

In Daniel Yergin's latest book, he opines that oil use will underpin the worlds economies for a long time to come. He may be right - but the money being poured into renewables and technological advances in renewable energy processes, is huge and accelerating - and this will quite likely end oils dominance more than any other development - including even EV's.

 

https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/the-end-of-the-oil-age-by-edoardo-campanella-2021-04

 

I find the interesting part is that the Japanese vehicle manufacturers are taking several hedging bets, by not slavishly flocking to one single source of energy or vehicle power.

They are hedging their bets with investment in hydrogen and fuel cells and possibly even other energy formats, to ensure they have a good spread.

They well understand how important it is, to never be almost 100% reliant on one supply source, or one type of major energy input into your economy.

 

Personally, I look forward to the time when major wars do not come about, because the reasons behind the war are related to securing energy sources - and in particular, oil.

Maybe we will have wars over rare mineral resources, but I believe they are less likely because it generally doesn't take long to find an alternative mineral resource.

 

Fights over the rare earth elements, such as those used in electronics and magnets and electric motors, could be the worry for the future.

Neodymium in particular, shows signs of a rare earth metal that could become critical in our future.

 

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2019/3/234917-electronics-need-rare-earths/fulltext

[red750]

[kgwilson]

Electric vehicles are the future of personal transport and also for public commuting. I don't think that is in doubt. Hydrogen power is still a way off but that will become more viable as it is sourced from massive wind and solar generating farms currently in the pipeline. The 50000 hectare site in WA will produce more energy than the entire country uses currently from all sources (excluding transport).

 

The development of battery technology in the past year has been staggering. BYD in China produce a new blade battery that has improved energy density dramatically, is guaranteed for 500,000 km and should last for up to 2 million km. When its output degrades after the car is worn out at say 500,000 km it can be used as energy storage for your home charged via your rooftop solar. A number of BYD, NIO, XPENG & other Chinese EVs now have a 1000 km range. CATL is the worlds largest battery manufacturer and now supplies TESLA with batteries for its EVs. CATL is also Chinese. There are 300 Chinese EV manufacturers producing more than 700 different models from basic boxes to ultra luxurious top of the range limousines.

 

The argument about EVs using more fossil fuel to produce only make sense to those who look backward. Obviously everything being produced now uses materials made with the assistance from fossil fuels and existing steel making technology. This is also changing. Green steel has already been produced in Germany using no coal at all. Plastics are almost all recyclable so the argument is largely from human dinosaurs.

 

China is now the worlds factory. Politics aside their technology is mind boggling and their infrastructure projects over the last 20 years are just astonishing.

 

The projects happening in Australia are also mind blowing. Just check https://reneweconomy.com.au/

 

A Melburnian, Sam Evans has a youtube channel called The Electric Viking. He puts out several videos a week covering electric car developments around the world. There are hundreds of Videos on all things Electric Cars. Have a look. The development in just the past year is incredible.

 

The cheapest Electric car in China is $US4,000.00. The BYD Dolphin a Corolla sized hatchback is to be released in Australia this year. The price in China is around $US20,000.00. It looks good, very high tech, has the new blade battery with a 1/2 million km battery warranty.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Both informative and agree.

 

My son, the other day was talking about a company and how it was simply too big fail and they had so much money, the could invest to adapt. The problem is, often these large companies become myopic in their views and become incapable.. And when they do, it's half arsed and the horse has already bolted. I then game him a history lesson in Kodak and how, when they finally conceded the world would want to move on, their efforts were too little, too feeble, and too late.

 

Fossil fuel companies are heading the same way, though it will take a longer time because of how much society has come to rely on them and how emerging markets won;t receive the investments to bring them into better technology. But, it will come. Electric and hydrogen vehicles are still in the introduction phase of their lifecycle (despite electric vehicles being around for a very long time), while renewable and green energy is entering its maturing phase. The fossil fuel lobby has a lot of money and clout, but ultimately, they won't be able to stand in the way of progress and they will have to either adapt or die. Auto makers are realising this (partly driven by government policy, but also partly by seeing the writing on the wall). They are in a better position to adapt as while the ICU is an integral part of their final product - the car - their final product can be easily adapted to change the power generation unit; the investment in plant, equipment, and technology by the fossil fuel companies it not so easily adaptable. But they will have to adapt as it doesn't matter how much they pay off governments, innovation will eventually drive change and if they are not part of it, they will eventually die. At least they have time on their side because of the deep-rooted dependence we have on fossil fuels.

 

Yes -  like Japan and Taiwan, and every other country that has a good manufacturing base, China is coming up the tech innovation curve very nicely,. I suppose it in an example of the benefits of an autocratic state that keeps cost inputs artificially low - you can virtually force that innovation.  Whereas other countries are squandering their manufacturing base, China, through its iron grip, can keep it progressing when human behaviour is such that wages would be rising fast, and greed would get in the way of progress.

 

 

Now, Pipestrel has a CS-23 (VLA I think) certified electric plane., It only has the endurance of about an hour... as technology improves, so will electric planes performance and range. There are also both hydrogen and electric commuter "airliners" under development. Can you imagine the benefits to society when those roaring engines are replaced by only the noise of the air of the props (and, yes, you can hear them).. There will be less requirement for noise abatement, less fatiguing flights due to not having the vibration of an ICU trying to tear itself apart, less maintenance due to less moving parts and less vibration, etc.

 

[old man emu]

I noticed that my local major shopping centre is in the process of installing a bank of storage batteries to work with the solar panels they are putting on the roof. I also hear that Bunnings is installing similar systems in all its sites. (They get their parts wholesale.)

 

In my , old, local area  new residential buildings have over the past few years been required to install water tanks to harvest rainwater. How difficult would it be to require each dwelling to have solar panels, and for real estate developers to install batteries throughout their developments. Just look at southwest Sydney. Acres and acres of land is being turned into residential estates. At least half of that acreage will be under the shadow of house rooves. 

 

Then there are the expanses of land shadowed by the rooves of warehouses and industrial units.