More on MOT exemption

[Pete Lewis]

We  built loads of electric trucks  based on the walkthru and later the 50 series  

Thats in the 70s to 90s and they had a range of 40 miles this was all wet batteries ,   4.6 ton truck with 1.5 ton of battery

Very quick ,  long charge times and lots of electrolyte recirculating and venting 

   Apart from battery weight developments things have not moved on much   in mileage  range 

Pete

[Bordfunker]

It’s always struck me that hybrids are an admission of failure, a failure to produce batteries with sufficient capacity, and or the ability to be recharged in a sensible period of time.

They are a pragmatic solution to the problem, but you end up with a vehicle with two power trains, one fossil fuel fed, the other electric, and thus also a load of batteries and a fuel tank.

All of which must introduce a weight penalty when compared with conventional fossil fuelled vehicles, or even straight electrics like the Tesla.

With a 140 mile daily round trip commute, I can’t see either a hybrid or electric featuring any time soon, And that’s before even considering how to charge it.

Karl

[Badwolf]

'Instant charge' batteries have been on the drawing board for years. This is probably one of the latest ideas..

https://www.batterypoweronline.com/markets/charging/instant-charging-technology-to-fully-charge-a-device-in-less-than-15-seconds/

Whether the oil companies will supress it, who knows?

[Anglefire]

Charging in 15secs is the headlines- then go onto say its a battery drill!

72wh battery for a drill is easy (relatively) to charge quickly - a Nissan leaf is about 24kWh and a Tesla anything from 50-80kWh. Not going to be quick in any situation as trying to stuff a 1000A plus in is going to take some serious cables - let alone supply!

[Colin Lindsay]

5 hours ago, Bordfunker said:

With a 140 mile daily round trip commute, I can’t see either a hybrid or electric featuring any time soon, And that’s before even considering how to charge it.

Karl

It's probably a mathematical equation, that those with the shortest daily journeys own the biggest vehicles.

I can understand the ethos behind electric vehicles; the technology just isn't there yet.

[Anglefire]

I know someone who has an outlander phev and according to his stats over ~20000 miles has averaged about 50mpg.  Not bad for a 4x4 

but look more closely and there are times when it’s nearer 30mpg - which I guess is when off grid and using petrol only to recharge the batteries. 

It all depends on usage as to what is best. 

[Bordfunker]

Hybrid 4x4s why?

Most 4x4s never see the verge let alone a muddy lane, particularly where I live in Oxfordshire, so the thought of adding an additional, and redundant power plant to a vehicle that is already laden with all the gubbins required for never 4 wheel drive system that is not required, strikes me as complete madness.

Pair that with the breeze block aerodynamics of most 4x4s and just can’t see what benefit there is for the environment, especially when an ordinary estate car would do the same.

Don'tget me wrong I like 4x4s and there is definitely a time and a place for them, I live next to a working farm so see the farmer out in his Mitsubishi daily, but I don’t see him rushing for PHEV though.

Karl

[Colin Lindsay]

4x4?? Ours (I'm surrounded by three farms) just use tractors for everything, including the weekly shopping from Tescos... and their teenage sons drive round the square outside the local disco at weekends in huge green John Deeres with orange lights flashing. Must impress the Hell out of the girlies.

[rlubikey]

7 hours ago, Badwolf said:

'Instant charge' batteries have been on the drawing board for years. This is probably one of the latest ideas..

https://www.batterypoweronline.com/markets/charging/instant-charging-technology-to-fully-charge-a-device-in-less-than-15-seconds/

Whether the oil companies will supress it, who knows?

The problem with fast charging of any battery technology (though "carbon ion" is a new one on me!) is the infrastructure to support the high charging power. Laying in all that copper so that someone can have their car charged in the time to drink one espresso instead of two cappuccinos and a snack means a lot of money. Copper is *expensive* and someone will have to pay. For "someone", read you and me! The alternative is to have a battery next to each fast charging point. A battery to charge a battery - I kid you not!

No, I'm afraid that if we insist on making mostly short journeys with a few long journeys thrown in, then hybrid vehicles make sense to me. The engine and generator need only be large enough to sustain cruise, so 30bhp or so. You save money and weight by not having the rest of the power train - gearbox, diff, etc. We will soon learn how cheap electric motoring is when we see how much money disappears into the fuel tank for long-distance motoring. Maybe then we will start living more local lives, Who knows? (Well, not me!)

Cheers, Richard

[JohnD]

Richard,

On my travels up and down the Mways, I come across service areas with charging staions for hybrids/electrics.   At the first I saw,  I 'joshed' the restaurant staff, saying that they were a good way of getting the drivers to stay the night, to be told that twenty minutes will give an 80% charge!    It really is espresso time!

But what we REALLY need is a proper public transport system.    MY son & family live in Sarf Lunnon, and the extent, frequency, cheapness and just quality of the public transport they have astounds me.     Last year, I stayed with them to attend the Crystal Palace Sprints.    I had to be at the Palace, less than five miles away, early (0800) on the Sunday morning.  How was I to get there? My cars were in the paddock.     

No probs, Dad, just walk down to the main road, and a bus will be along in a few minutes.    On a Sunday morning, at 0720?    Yes, there's one every twenty minutes!   And there was!

They can choose - CHOOSE! - to go to work by bus, train (Overground), Underground or Docklands Light Railway, all at minimal cost.     No wonder they don't own a car!

The reverse is true of almost every other part of the UK, and the Gov is spending another Xty billion on London Crossrail, while CANCELLING the electrification of the cross-Pennine railways.   Disgraceful, but since when were Tories not disgraceful?

John

[Anglefire]

4 hours ago, Bordfunker said:

Hybrid 4x4s why?

Most 4x4s never see the verge let alone a muddy lane, particularly where I live in Oxfordshire, so the thought of adding an additional, and redundant power plant to a vehicle that is already laden with all the gubbins required for never 4 wheel drive system that is not required, strikes me as complete madness.

Pair that with the breeze block aerodynamics of most 4x4s and just can’t see what benefit there is for the environment, especially when an ordinary estate car would do the same.

Don'tget me wrong I like 4x4s and there is definitely a time and a place for them, I live next to a working farm so see the farmer out in his Mitsubishi daily, but I don’t see him rushing for PHEV though.

Karl

I had a 4x4 for 7 years and some 174k miles - a 7 seater that had 6 people in regularly - and was used off road - and I was a member of the local response group (The volunteers that go out and get nurses in "normal" cars to work) 

I miss it quite a lot as to get the amount of stuff I used to get in it, into my BMW estate I need another car. So an Estate doesn't do what a 4x4 will do - though I get the principle in that 90% of the time, the people that own them do it because they are perceived as safe (They are in that you can see a lot better - especially now the central verges have grass growing 4' high so you can see until you pull out of the junction, and then get wiped out by the car you didn't see..........) and they use them for status more than anything else.

And the idea of a hybrid 4x4 is no more or less practical than a normal car - being bigger it can carry the batteries easier - have you not wondered why a lot of modern cars are built very tall? It is so the batteries can be mounted low down in the "chassis" to keep the centre of gravity low.

And 4x4 electric makes a lot of sense too - electric motors have peak torque at zero rpm - so putting the power through one pair of wheels risks skidding more than through all 4. 

[ShaunW]

There's a raft of plastic twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific. Do you get the feeling that we're just fiddling while Rome burns with these eco projects saving a fraction here and there. 

Thing is with this plastic.... I've always put stuff in the bin. How the heck is it all ending up in the sea. 

What baffles me even more is that when the stuff was invented and everyone in the 50s 60s 70s were making and buying everything in plastic, where did they think it would go? Utter madness to market a product that was so indestructible and destructive. I give it 200 yrs and it's goodbye civilisation hello dead rock. 

 

[NonMember]

3 minutes ago, ShaunW said:

What baffles me even more is that when the stuff was invented and everyone in the 50s 60s 70s were making and buying everything in plastic, where did they think it would go?

In fairness to our ancestors, when plastic was invented (and even much later in the 50s) they weren't actually "buying everything in" it, they were making fairly permanent stuff out of it. They were not expecting to be throwing it all away. That idiocy required near-21st-century thinking. I grew up in the 1970s and all the shopping came home in paper bags, no plastic in sight.

[Pete Lewis]

and one good ka....boom from a volcano and all  improvements are lost for years   nature at its best,  has a way of leveling things ... but not this daft trade in disposable plastic thats been forced upon us.

it was done to be cheaper and puts the costs to the consumer .

bring back the Corona truck and returnable glass bottle deposits and milk bottles , we recycled in the 50 /60s and since their  demise  gone backwards  ever since 

till the   Blue planet wake up call.    

[rlubikey]

3 hours ago, ShaunW said:

What baffles me even more is that when the stuff was invented and everyone in the 50s 60s 70s were making and buying everything in plastic, where did they think it would go?

That's the problem with human beings. We have this wonderful brain and we spend most of our time trying *not* to use it. I know I do! Errr ... don't. Um ... well ... you get the idea.

Seriously - it wasn't in anyone's interest to ask that question. You're a company. You've got a great new product. Then someone asks an awkward question. Are you going to spend time researching this? Sound familiar?

Cheers, Richard

[Colin Lindsay]

Aw no... I can't DO multiple quotes so bear with me and answer your name when called.....

Richard -  you've put an idea into my head, is it feasible to have a fully charged battery at each charging point, so instead of charging YOUR battery you take it out, swap with a full one, and drive off instantaneously? Car designers take note!

Anglefire - I miss my Discovery too.... carried an entire band's worth of equipment on tour plus five people, and went everywhere.

Shawn - I put all my plastic in the bin too, the a local collection company called Bryson House comes along, throws it onto their lorry, and it all blows off again along the road. I can always tell when they've been, the verges are strewn with litter.

Is that everybody or have I missed one?

 

[rlubikey]

Colin, a system to take out a big heavy battery and put the new one in is fraught with problems. The weight, lining it up, sparks & short circuits, standardisation between manufacturers ...

Actually, did you hear about the electric buses in London in the 1900's? They had replaceable battery modules and apparently the whole system worked quite well. Unfortunately it was an investment scam and the whole project - a really good idea - collapsed.

Cheers, Richard

[Anglefire]

Its how the Aussies are doing EV's - have "fuel" stations with standard batteries in charging and you pop along and the battery pack is swapped out. All batteries being leased.

[thescrapman]

On 7/19/2018 at 5:14 PM, ShaunW said:

There's a raft of plastic twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific. Do you get the feeling that we're just fiddling while Rome burns with these eco projects saving a fraction here and there. 

Thing is with this plastic.... I've always put stuff in the bin. How the heck is it all ending up in the sea. 

What baffles me even more is that when the stuff was invented and everyone in the 50s 60s 70s were making and buying everything in plastic, where did they think it would go? Utter madness to market a product that was so indestructible and destructive. I give it 200 yrs and it's goodbye civilisation hello dead rock. 

 

How is it ending up in the sea??

That is the standard method of rubbish disposal in some countries around the world, 

[Colin Lindsay]

Did you see today's BBC News? Britain is sending our wonderfully washed clean and sorted waste off to other countries for recycling. THEY have now decided they can't do it, and are really just dumping it. The waste is washing up elsewhere but as it originated in Britain, guess who's in trouble?

Local recycling centres are the unluckiest places on earth, it's amazing how many of them get grants to startup and are heavily subsidised, amass a huge pile of recycling and then - hey presto - it strangely goes on fire.... it's happened to more than a few in recent years.

[dave.vitesse]

The one of major pollutants in the cities in the 1800/1900's was horse dung. Evidently the streets were full of the stuff and unbeknown at the time it was steaming off greenhouse gasses.  It was collected by more horse, producing more of the stuff, drawn vehicles and taken out to the country. At least it rotted down and hopefully  produced some good end the end. But I guess besides looking after the animals that is one of the reasons why motor transport was so successful.

Gives a new meaning to the saying "Mind how you go sir" 

Dave  

[Colin Lindsay]

23 minutes ago, dave.vitesse said:

The one of major pollutants in the cities in the 1800/1900's was horse dung.

It still is - this is the side area of our stable, which thanks to adverts on Gumtree has shrunk by about half in the last two weeks as gardeners come and remove it for free.

Despite being free for collection I've had a messages complaining that I won't deliver for free too...

[dave.vitesse]

Colin, Pick your own I guess.

Dave

[dougbgt6]

So basically Colin you're full of...………..

db

[Pete Lewis]

I dung know about that