EAC receives its first six electric cars (CMail article..)

[cyprusmax47]

Confirming my personal opinion: Fossil fuel is out - Electric is the future.... even one of the largest car producers worldwide - Germany - will have to change their production of diesel cars in the coming years towards electric cars. Problem there is only, that a lot of the electricity is still produced from fossil fuel driven generators...as it is in Cyprus with the only difference that we have twice the Sunshine hours here and could do much more to use it.
http://cyprus-mail.com/2017/08/01/eac-r ... tric-cars/

Max

[Lofos-5]

The energy mix of the next decade and beyond is definitely changing - even the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell is switching to an electric car in September. Quite a surprise considering he is the head of the second largest private oil company in the world:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... e-electric

Van Beurden will switch from a diesel car to a plug-in Mercedes-Benz S500e in September, a company spokesman said. Chief Financial Officer Jessica Uhl already drives a BMW i3 electric car.

“The whole move to electrify the economy, electrify mobility in places like northwest Europe, in the U.S., even in China, is a good thing,” Van Beurden said in an interview on Bloomberg TV Tuesday. “We need to be at a much higher degree of electric vehicle penetration -- or hydrogen vehicles or gas vehicles -- if we want to stay within the 2-degrees Celsius outcome.”

The U.K. said Monday it will ban sales of diesel- and gasoline-fueled cars by 2040, two weeks after France announced a similar plan to reduce air pollution and meet targets to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Carmaker Volvo AB said this month it will manufacture only electric or hybrid vehicles from 2019 onwards.

Listen to the short video (<2 min), quite interesting really!

A.

[Devil]

Have a look at http://bnellis.eu/global/gleleccar.html and tell me whether electric cars seem a good idea in the Cyprus context.

[ApusApus]

Have a look at http://bnellis.eu/global/gleleccar.html and tell me whether electric cars seem a good idea in the Cyprus context.

Probably not ............. would give them another reason to park where they shouldn't!


Shane

[cyprusmax47]

The energy mix of the next decade and beyond is definitely changing

The U.K. said Monday it will ban sales of diesel- and gasoline-fueled cars by 2040, two weeks after France announced a similar plan to reduce air pollution and meet targets to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Carmaker Volvo AB said this month it will manufacture only electric or hybrid vehicles from 2019 onwards.

The U.K. target to ban sales of diesel- and gasoline-fueled cars by 2040 is for sure not realistic(much too late) as other countries in Europe are planning to ban much earlier. Specially Scandinavian countries like Norway will allow only electric cars from 2025 but also Holland. Much earlier (2020) wants Austria the "red card" for fossil-driven cars. Even when these countries are relatively small it will make a big difference in demand for electric cars, hence prices will go down and with some subsidies in the beginning people will go for it. In the meantime batteries will be better, lighter, cheaper than at the moment and so the cars. 10 years ago nobody was talking about a smart phone and now?

Max

[Lofos-5]

It is unlikely countries such as India and China that will be quick followers - quite simply because they must as the death toll due to pollutions is a greater cost factor than the additional initial expenses from switching of combustion engines to electric. This won't be an evolutionary thing but rather revolutionary, i.e. it will take far fewer years than many people think (similar as the smart phones as Max mentioned indeed). No wonder oil-income dependent countries like the KSA are worried, whereas Qatar with its immense gas reserves has far less to worry (which partly explains the ongoing crisis here amongst the GCC states).

[Lofos-5]

Have a look at http://bnellis.eu/global/gleleccar.html and tell me whether electric cars seem a good idea in the Cyprus context.

Thanks for your analysis - I personally would like a Tesla but currently feel much safer in my F150 truck here (which is amazingly fuel efficient by the way considering it size and weight...).

Look at

http://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovat ... uture.html
and
http://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovat ... sport.html

There are teams of highly paid engineers looking at the energy mix of the future - hydrocarbons are here to stay for a while to come but there is most certainly no longer any talk about peak oil - this has now shifted to peak demand - and this comes too soon for many nations that have not catered for it soon enough (by diversifying their economies - the KSA being the prime example, now talking about opening up Red Sea resorts inclusive of drinks and bikinis - else no one would want to go, lol).

A.

[Lofos-5]

Gents, your argumentation really does not stand up to what has been achieved over the last decades - what is required is urban planning and it is something that has happened since we have moved out of caves...

I am sure you would have argued against sewage systems and the first electrical grids as well? You both would still be going in your garden with a candle in your hands for your toilet needs then.

You cannot stop progress!

Caveman.jpg (50.73 KiB) Viewed 5348 times

A.

[ApusApus]

And where do we get electricity from anyway without burning something which is where the new leap in technology is really needed?


Shane

[Bograt]

Have a look at http://bnellis.eu/global/gleleccar.html and tell me whether electric cars seem a good idea in the Cyprus context.

Thanks for your analysis - I personally would like a Tesla but currently feel much safer in my F150 truck here (which is amazingly fuel efficient by the way considering it size and weight...).

Now there is a person after my own heart. Teslas and trucks. Yes please.

I wonder why hydrocarbon cars are not touted more. Apparently, petrol stations could be converted to fuel them, so you have a refueling network ready and waiting. They refuel in around 3 minutes. They only emit water. No fossils fuels (ie electric) needed.

Sorry if this answer has been given in some of the links in this thread. I haven't had time to read them (holds hands up).

[PaphosAL]

Any links please, Lloyd, to save me all day searching? Thanks- AL

[Lofos-5]

Not sure if it was Jeremy Clarkson that wrote it. However, whoever the author was was VERY knowledgeable on the way cars should and would be propelled in the future. The resulting conclusion was that electric cars are NOT the way forward (for many of the reasons I gave above)...and that hydrocarbon was the only way forward. Imagine, a refuel in 3 minutes? About the same as a petrol or diesel car now. Way to go!

Jeremy Clarkson, very knowledgebale, in the same sentence- I rest my case .
That bloke might have been funny at some point but when it comes to the future of the automotive industry he is not the first person I would consult...

Tell me why Volvo would make a complete switch to electric (before 2020) and even the American car manufacturers invest hundreds of millions if there is only a hydrocarbon future?

A.

[Devil]

May I point out that petrol (gasoline) and diesel fuels are both hydrocarbons. The above posts make no sense.

[trevnhil]

Perhaps they mean Hydrogen.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle

[Lofos-5]

Perhaps they mean Hydrogen.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle

Yes I think that was what Bograt was referring to.

[Devil]

Have a look at http://bnellis.eu/global/glhydrocar.html

[PolemIan]

At the moment I think I'm with HIC on this one. Even if the efficiency of batteries increases at the rate of PC power - Moore's law, it difficult to envisage a scaleable architecture ready for a chop off of fossil fuels in the next 20 years - which isn't that far away, after all the iPhone for example is already 10 years old and is fundamentally the same - software expands which drives up hardware needs so battery life not that much different. Yes, technology in general does grow at an exponential rather than linear rate, but even so it's a hell of a leap and you still have to manage out the transition period for existing cars which would take many years given that many people can't afford to buy a new car at the drop of a hat. Possibly the best compromise today is the range extender solution e.g. BMW i8 and others? From a consumer perspective with increased US oil independence and old markets such as Iran reopening, oil prices are being lowered and 'range to empty' of oil reserves being extended so the current premium for electric cars added to 'range anxiety' is currently hard for many to justify. In the really long term, electric cars may be just a stepping stone to hydrogen. From a logistics point of view, think of the millions of homes in the UK where people don't have of street parking so can't charge their cars. The cost of the new infrastructure to support this would be immense.

Ian

[WHL]

Relax folks, it will never happen, great having all these mampy pampy ideas, but back to the real world, where we live, not practicable, reminds me of these loony left councils, that put up Nuclear free Zones at great expense over their manors, as if the Russians would program their Nuclear weapons to avoid, Hackney.

[PolemIan]

WHL - Like ! Not forgetting of course the well signposted 'Secret Nuclear Bunker' just outside Brentwood.

[robf]

It will happen, its just a matter of time. The main driver not being long distance travel, but inner cities where air pollution is causing all sorts of problems. Our governments have undertaken to cut inner city pollution drastically, and cannot achieve the targets without banning fossil fuelled cars. Battery technology is on a cusp of drastic improvements http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/130380- ... er-the-air and will soon not only revolutionise car technology but also the way we use electricity in the home. Hydrogen is a possibility, the best so far being Honda's technology which converts the hydrogen into electricity, but the mass production of hydrogen remains problematic and expensive. One of the more interesting solutions being to produce it domestically using solar energy..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel