How about some fun on the Forum!

[Rachel]

It is in the creation, shipping and disposal of the electric or electric-hybrid batteries that the problem of CO2 emissions arise.

p.s. would 1 set of batteries last 100,000 miles? How long do they last? Does it depend on the charging/discharge cycle (or have they overcome that problem with modern EV batteries)?

[Furbag]

but while the Gov/EU dont tax the electric thats being used as fuel in road vehicles I'm going to take advantage of this loophole

Yep make the most of it. It was only 15 years ago that govt was wetting itself about diesel cars being "the answer" to the fuel crisis and subsidising the oily stuff accordingly..

Dont forget the big boom of LPG, that use to be dirt cheap, do the conversion and reap the benifits, now thats not that cost effective although its still way cheaper than a gallon of the oily stuff.

[Velocitysurfer]

LPG was also hailed the saviour but didn't quite catch on. It too was less than half the price of petrol (normal unleaded), but at a local garage it is now around 75p a litre (compared to 130.9p for unleaded). Spare a thought for those whose cars prefer superunleaded which is at least 4p/litre dearer than normal unleaded!

[Velocitysurfer]

It is in the creation, shipping and disposal of the electric or electric-hybrid batteries that the problem of CO2 emissions arise.

p.s. would 1 set of batteries last 100,000 miles? How long do they last? Does it depend on the charging/discharge cycle (or have they overcome that problem with modern EV batteries)?

I believe that they last the distance (100,000 miles) but suffer from a drop in performance due to the erratic charging/discharge cycle. I dread to think of the cost of replacing the batteries

Top Gear, a few years back, did a test between a Prius and a BMW M3 around it's test track. The M3 returned better MPG than the Prius. The point being, it was how you drove your car that made a difference to MPG and CO2. How many Hybrids do you see on Motorways

[bandsp]

LPG was also hailed the saviour but didn't quite catch on. It too was less than half the price of petrol (normal unleaded), but at a local garage it is now around 75p a litre (compared to 130.9p for unleaded).

but it's the only way I can approach affording to run my 4 litre V8 ..

[Heuer]

Diesel - fuel of the devil. OK if you are driving 20k miles a year but anything less and the running costs outweigh everything else - DPF's and dual mass flywheels in short order to start with. As for EV's, if my laptop is anything to go by, they will need new batteries within three years (although the industry claims eight years at a cost of £8k). I will stick with my gas guzzlers - anyone know where I can get leaded petrol these days? That of course was another scam! And don't get me started on the 'special tax' on Super unleaded - fuel formulated to give you better performance/mileage is penalised?

As for hydrogen, you won't be getting off this small island with that in your boot.

[Furbag]

As for EV's, if my laptop is anything to go by, they will need new batteries within three years (although the industry claims eight years at a cost of £8k).

My set are around 11yrs old now..... still going strong and returning their original milage

Problem with laptops is they dont fit big enough batteries to them and thus the poor things get abused and fall over prematurely, problem is if they actually fitted a decent battery to a laptop you'd never pick it up

[nick1austin]

deleted

[Rachel]

OK if you are driving 20k miles a year but anything less and the running costs outweigh everything else

Hmmm...
Petrol car = spark plugs, coil, leads every 2 years.
Diesel car = err nothing. Nada. Zip. Squat.

problem is if they actually fitted a decent battery to a laptop you'd never pick it up

Ahh the good old days of luggables. People with laptops nowadays are such wimps!!

[Rachel]

The petrol/EV argument basically boils down to whose figures you believe

No it boils down to where you are drawing the boundaries of the system.

You are following the EV manufacturer's route of just looking at the construction and destruction of the vehicle plus any in-use emissions. You are totally ignoring the CO2 cost of generating the electricity you are using. You quote 30% efficiency for a petrol engine, well electricity generation and distribution is what 18% at best? And since our primary source of leccy in the UK is coal-fired power stations then the CO2 "used" by an electric car far outweighs that of a petrol or diesel car.

In France the comparison is slightly better (since most of their leccy is nuclear generated) but even here an EV exceeds a normal car over the whole lifecycle.

If you are interested in working it out for yourself rather than just picking someone else's figures to "believe", then BMW published the results of their typically Teutonic testing and analysis.

[Brother52]

Nevermind the whole EV vs. IC debate - the UK's electricity generation and distribution infrastructure is barely adequate for current* demands.

(*no pun intended )

[pkr]

OK if you are driving 20k miles a year but anything less and the running costs outweigh everything else

Hmmm...
Petrol car = spark plugs, coil, leads every 2 years.

Not necessarily. Plugs tend to be changed at 5 to 6 year intervals and with each plug having its own coil pack these days, there are no HT leads to change. As to the coil packs, the ones fitted to my hobby car are just over 14 years old and still working fine.

[mrtickle]

Ahh the good old days of luggables. People with laptops nowadays are such wimps!!

The first "portable" I saw was in a full-size suitcase with the display in the lid of the suitcase. It plugged into the mains! Then "laptops" occupied your entire lap of course. Then later "notebooks" which people seem to want to call "laptops"

[Furbag]

Nevermind the whole EV vs. IC debate - the UK's electricity generation and distribution infrastructure is barely adequate for current* demands.

(*no pun intended )

Well spotted Brother52 something that no ones really paid much attention too in this whole EV drive*

(*equally no pun intended )

Winter after winter we get really close to the whole network falling over

[drgeoff]

........ - anyone know where I can get leaded petrol these days? ......

Strangely enough at a party last Saturday I was talking to a chap who has an old MG which can't be run on unleaded petrol. Earlier in the day he had been about to fill up as usual with unleaded but on first checking in the boot for a "bottle of lead" to pour in he found he hadn't any left so he had to drive the short distance back home on what was still in the tank and get alternative transport to the party. I asked where he buys the lead and he said he had no difficulty getting it from a motor factors place.