It was going to happen sooner or later

[BobMurphy]

LEAVE MY BIKE ALONE!!!

Yup, me too. I have six, four of which are old British Classics. What is going to happen to the Classic Vehicle scene and the sector of the economy that is tied to it??

Friends were visiting on Tuesday with a beautiful 1965 3.4 litre MkII Jag. I think they paid around £18,000 for it. I have tens of thousands tied up in vehicles, is the bottom about to fall out of that market ??

Bob.

 

[BobMurphy]

Personally I think hydrogen is the way forward but it is delivery and containment that present the problems

Separating Hydrogen and Oxygen by Electrolysis takes a lot of power, which has to come from somewhere and, as you say, there are risks with storing Hydrogen, but is it so much worse than LPG?

And what do we do with the Oxygen ?? (put it in canisters and inject it into internal combustion exhaust systems to create clean emissions ?? ). Too much Oxygen in the atmosphere is bad.

At the moment its the most attractive clean technology if you intend travelling more than a hundred or so miles in a trip (we can't all afford Teslars). On the TV last night there was a Taxi filling up at one of the eight Hydrogen Filling Stations in London - it took 3 mins !

We should be planning on how to dispose of the impending "Dead Battery Mountain" we'll be creating .

I see a rapid move to Hybrid vehicles so that hydrocarbon fuel can be used on the open road and Electric Power in towns & cities.

Bob.

 

[clivehorridge]

The underlying conclusion that I have formed is that the move is summed up in Chas' title of this thread, and as such it's a good move and necessary, dates and other aspects aside, for the moment.

Clearly the change will have huge consequences on infrastructure, not least the inevitable process of decreasing the number of fossil fuel stations, because electric charging will be predominantly a "home" activity. That alone will have massive effects on the economy, not to mention tax revenue shifts to wherever, likely to put a massive tax burden on electricity generally. Will we have separate domestic power supplies, one taxed for domestic use and another taxed as road use (like the current red & white diesel scenario)? If so, how will that be policed and enforced? These are all questions unanswered as yet.

What will happen to other fossil fuel burning devices? Motorcycles have already been mentioned, but what about lawn mowers and garden equipment, scooters and the like? Electricity is not a viable alternative for all of these appliances, so where will we go for supplies of fuel for them, when the fuel stations have disappeaared? Many questions to be answered.

IMO, electrically powered vehicles is just another short-term stop-gap approach to transport, the next big announcement will be that electrically powered cars will be banned by the year 2200 . It seems inevitable.

Hydrogen is the way forward, that is if personal transport devices are viable at all, in the longer term future...

 

[Chas]

Yup, me too. I have six, four of which are old British Classics. What is going to happen to the Classic Vehicle scene and the sector of the economy that is tied to it??

Friends were visiting on Tuesday with a beautiful 1965 3.4 litre MkII Jag. I think they paid around £18,000 for it. I have tens of thousands tied up in vehicles, is the bottom about to fall out of that market ??

Bob.

So far it's only a ban on new vehicles, so 'classics' may become even rarer and more valuable if the fuel for them is still available.

 

[frank rabbets]

4p per mile if you turn the car heater on? It's free from an ICE.

 

[Rodger]

So the current political spin is electric vehicles but none of them suggest that short journeys in vehicles with catalytic converters actually put more particulates into the atmosphere than vehicles without them because a CC only operates properly at its operating temperature.
Those of us with older vehicles (pre CC) usually let our vehicles warm up, get the oil round, etc, before commencing our journey and through that sequence they are obviously putting particulates into the atmosphere but not as much as a cold CC does. How many modern vehicles get warmed up before they commence a journey - I suspect not many. So if it is a short journey use you classic car, bike, lawn mower.
Operating below optimum temperature, a CC just soots up destroying its usefulness and , as far as I understand it, the internal operating temp is 300 degrees.

 

[Shayne]

That sounds like there was common sense involved in that Shayne. As common sense is discouraged in this country it would never happen here or if it did it wouldn't be long before some idiot started charging people to park there and ruined the whole thing. When governance is kept compact and lean, good things can happen.

Common sense get real , this was driven by selfishness and nothing more , all gov offices , lawyers , courts etc are in the capital "Douglas" so the aim was to keep the riff raff out allowing the high and mighty to park in town , it's how the world works but the law of averages mean it does sometimes have happy consequences for the common man .

And it was all paid for by the poeople who can't afford to pay parking fines .

 

[SimonD]

Toyota hydrogen car . Roadtest . Early road test shows competitiveness. As others have said, infrastructure will kill the hydrogen market . But Toyota is already onto next generation electric . And if you don't think they can do this, you don't get Toyota.

 

[Chas]

I'm OK, I have a black market supplier of Unicorn farts, pure green energy:

 

[clivehorridge]

At that rate Chas, I recon I could go a long way even without the unicorn, well, according to my missus, that is.

 

[Towpack]

Just a small point re the mining dump trucks - The electric wheel motor ones are powered by an integral diesel generator but have a gross tonnage of 470 whereas the conventional driven (4000bhp V20 quad turbo) gross at 550 tons. That's one more bucket full per trip. My son drives them in BC Canada and where does the coal go (?) - to power UK power stations. That type of coal also comes from Oz, Germany and China.
Personally I think hydrogen is the way forward but it is delivery and containment that present the problems although a while back Honda were supposed to have found a way.

Regards,

Rodger

The biggest wheeled dumpers are currently the diesel electric variety with a payload of 400 tons and a GVW of well over 600 tons. Ditto the wheeled loaders. There comes a point when the efficiency and practicality of such a setup far out ways a conventional mechanical drive, a bit like diesel electric locos pulling 30k+ ton 4 mile long trains.

 

[Dave_S]

Traffic and parking in Douglas Isle of Man is dreadful , so they built a hospital on the outskirts with enough parking for a good percentage of those driving to Douglas for work . I'm not sure of the exact timetable but a bus drives to and from the hospital all day every 20 minutes or so along with every other bus that vaguely ventures near it with a bit of a detour .

Every morning you will see office workers walking or cycling into town having taken advantage of the free parking and being happy about it because they have discovered a clever keep fit program all on thier own .

Good idea in principle, problem is its backfired - try to visit Nobles for a legitimate hospital visit and at times you can't park. I had a devil of a job getting my 4 yo into A&E when she broke her arm - entire car park and the overflow was chocker. Happens all the time.

But yes, in principle getting people to park out of town makes some sense.

 

[Rob Cowell]

Clearly the change will have huge consequences on infrastructure, not least the inevitable process of decreasing the number of fossil fuel stations, because electric charging will be predominantly a "home" activity. That alone will have massive effects on the economy, not to mention tax revenue shifts to wherever, likely to put a massive tax burden on electricity generally.

I was wondering about the revenue generation from fuel duty. It's 3.6% of all public revenue.

http://www.ukpublicrevenue.co.uk/year_revenue_2018UKbn_17bc1n_404144#ukgs302

I assume some of this is partially offset through fewer people needing medical treatment from NOx inhalation, and whatever other nasties are in the air.

 

[GeekOKent]

Anyone worked out where all this electricity is going to come from?

 

[Shayne]

Good idea in principle, problem is its backfired - try to visit Nobles for a legitimate hospital visit and at times you can't park. I had a devil of a job getting my 4 yo into A&E when she broke her arm - entire car park and the overflow was chocker. Happens all the time.

But yes, in principle getting people to park out of town makes some sense.

Poor girl i imagine its was 4 or 5 hours after you got parked that she actually got assessed so efficient are they at Nobles , the same sized A&E in Cardiff deals with like 200 people a day , a whole months work in a day imagine that !

 

[Rob Cowell]

Anyone worked out where all this electricity is going to come from?

I think we have to start with how much electricity is needed? I think we'd start with how much electricity would be needed for car (and I think van?) journeys today and worry about possible increased journey volumes over time later.

So back of a virtual fag packet.

The pure electric Nissan Leaf costs just 3.5 cents a mile based on the national average of 11 cents/kWh of electricity. [1]

So, 1 mile in a nominal electric vehicle needs 3.5/11 = 0.32kWh of electricity

Combined car and van mileage is 301.7bn miles per annum based on 2016 estimates [2]

So electricity required in one year will be, 301.7bn * 0.32kWh = 96.5bn kWh = 96.5TWh

Current (2014) electricity generation is 335TWh [3] with 64.4TWh being from renewable sources.

So, we'd need to increase electricity generation by 96.5/335 = 29%

It's an approximation. What have I got wrong?

I'm quite heartened to see that we currently generate about 32TWh with wind. I'm not a fan of them on the horizon and there are quite a lot about where I live, but if you told me another 3X of that number meant no air quality degredation due to car emissions I'd live with that.

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cro...-cars-cost-less-per-mile-to-operate/index.htm

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...3/vehicle-licensing-january-to-march-2016.pdf

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416310/PN_March_15.pdf

 

[Chas]

I think there will have to be so many millions invested in generating the electricity needed that we may see the 2040 cut off be modified to a phased introduction of all vehicles being electric.

 

[Chas]

You couldn't make it up, so to improve air quality the government are going back to coal to generate the electricity needed for all those electric cars it says here;

http://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/coal-fired/

 

[flint]

I think that it might be worth checking a few other news stories there, not perhaps the most accurate reporting around: http://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/pointing-at-cars/

 

[MarkW]

http://www.suffolkgazette.com/business/cordless-garden-hose/