Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

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Devil
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Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

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The "immense" rise in sales of high-emission sports utility vehicles means they now outsell electric cars in the UK by 37 to one, research has found.
As a result, overall exhaust emissions from new cars have been increasing, not declining, for the past three years, says the UK Energy Research Centre.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50713616

The same problem is rife in Cyprus :( :( :( :evil: :evil:
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71 Trans Am
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Re: Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

Post by 71 Trans Am »

I once listened to a technician giving his views regarding electric vehicle practicality he had worked for many years at Smiths electric vehicles and was now doing courses for Borg Warner, This was ten years ago long before battery technology had got to where it is now. Some of his points still stand today and I think many always will – He gave an example of one single block of flats with 100 occupants all coming home from work in their electric cars and plugging in for the nightly charge (100 charge points to be installed where people could park without causing obstruction) maybe a fairly easy task to install these points for just one block of flats but what about charge points for the whole of the uk.
He said that if only 25% of the uk had electric vehicles Power stations and substations, transformers, supply cables and infrastructure would have to be massively upgraded to support the demand – Street lighting would probably have to be reduced as would demand from each property during charging hours = All of this said The national grid would need to upgrade pylon cables and the demand on these power stations would be immense thus increasing the amount of fuel used to provide the electricity – Battery technology is now very good and getting better but they still need to be charged maybe not every night but certainly every other night if in daily use.
I don’t think electric vehicles will ever catch on mainly because the support infrastructure will never be good enough – I believe hybrid self support vehicles are the way forward but will they be doing enough to combat pollution and the alledged global warming. I think petrol and diesel vehicles will be around for a long time yet even though there is talk of stopping production of diesel vehicles – You need diesel engined buses, and Wagons for sure as the electric powered buses on trial two years ago in the north east of England all burst into flames or got that hot they had to be switched off and that was just carrying passengers what if they had to carry goods under load. TNT parcel carriers trialled 60 parcel vans in London 4 years ago and that got scrapped also.
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cyprusmax47
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Re: Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

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71 Trans Am wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 9:52 pm
I don’t think electric vehicles will ever catch on mainly because the support infrastructure will never be good enough – I believe hybrid self support vehicles are the way forward but will they be doing enough to combat pollution and the alledged global warming. I think petrol and diesel vehicles will be around for a long time yet even though there is talk of stopping production of diesel vehicles – You need diesel engined buses, and Wagons for sure as the electric powered buses on trial two years ago in the north east of England all burst into flames or got that hot they had to be switched off and that was just carrying passengers what if they had to carry goods under load. TNT parcel carriers trialled 60 parcel vans in London 4 years ago and that got scrapped also.
Not so in Switzerland where they are already changed to 6000 e-bikes and recently to e-transporter, 3.5t, produced from MAN Germany, (source: Die Post)
https://post-medien.ch/elektrische-lief ... ustellung/

But I agree, that specially in Cyprus hybrid self support EV's plug-in cars (also SUV's) are the way forward as the infrastructure here is well behind..and that's why I drive the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, first electric car in Green Air's fleet.

Max
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71 Trans Am
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Re: Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

Post by 71 Trans Am »

Hi Max
Yes i have seen the E bikes and i think they are great for places like Switzerland and possibly Amsterdam where bikes are probably more prevalent than cars but the E bikes are not cars and i don't think they would catch on in the UK and the vans 3.5 tonne may be a step in the right direction - TNT in the UK went for 7.5 tonne box vans and it was a major disaster - Obviously just too much weight to pull around and constantly flat batteries or breaking down.
This link was the hype when they first did it -
https://www.tnt.com/express/en_gb/data/ ... tatus.html
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Re: Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

Post by WHL »

Ive often wondered how people living in apartment blocks will be able to charge up their cars, also even if you park out side of your house, do we have extension leads across pavements, tripping people up with compensation lawyers, licking their lips, or do you put electric charge points outside everyone's house, unpractical and never going to happen.
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Re: Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

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Back in 2006 the original drawing board plan which was put together by a joint venture of Nissan SEV and Toyota was to have replacement battery stations, I have seen the batteries in question they looked like a black brief case in every respect and had a handle the same as the brief case with copper tabs on the bottom two corners – These batteries were the type later to be fitted to the TNT parcel vans – Just behind the cab the first two foot of the box body had about twenty of these each side of the vehicle slotted into a frame one on top of each other the full height of the vehicle The plan was you drive around until your batteries get low then you go to your nearest petrol station slot out your flat batteries and exchange for fully charged batteries.
However this flopped before it left the starting blocks – The fuel companies wouldn’t hear of it, And was deemed too dangerous to swap batteries in a fuel station anyway, If the plan had been agreed the cost of the charge facilities in these stations and the amount of batteries that would be required was going to be immense so it just never happened. Now the batteries are built into the vehicle and are smaller and much more efficient – But t t t t t t ! They still need to be charged and this in my opinion will never happen on a National Scale.
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Re: Rise of SUVs 'makes mockery' of electric car push

Post by PolemIan »

That’s a bit of sweeping statement isn’t it Mouse? I’m sure the vast majority people purchase on the basis of of affordability, needs and then style, probably in that order of priority for most. Personally I’m very happy with my newish leviathan which ironically uses about 40% less fuel than the car it replaced. The Earth Sciences group in P3A did a very good presentation on the challenges and associated paradigms a couple of months ago. Here’s the conundrum, Despite the rapid growth from today’s levels, battery demand for stationary storage will make up only 7% of total battery demand in 2040. It will be dwarfed by the electrical vehicle market, which will materially impact the supply-demand balance and prices for finite metals such as lithium and cobalt and many other metals, some of which are on countries defined as politically unstable - or in the case of USA, countries they are not that keen to trade with And those batteries need charging, ideally from renewable sources, but global production of renewable energy by 2050 is forecast to rise to 4,300 gigawatts, or 4.3 terra watts. Sounds a lot, but current demand for energy is 159,000 terra watts. So in 30 years we reckon we can triple our qty of energy from renewable sources to a total equal to 0.000027% of TODAY’S energy demand. Doesn’t really add up does it? Bit of a rethink required me thinks. Oh and total coal production is not forecast to peak until around 2030 when it will be around 4 times the levels of the 1950’s. I fear the current charge to EVs will ultimately be a bit of a dead end.
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