Next Car ? Sustainability ? Our Planet ?

[Flood51]

About to put the Cali in storage for the winter and go back to using the BMW (lent to son in law for 4 months since the Southern Trains action on who opens doors, he just brought a Ford Kuga so one more for the environment for RMT).

My wife and I don't change cars very often and both got hooked on BMW's 20 years ago. They are now 9 years old and we were looking for replacements. Wife definitely wants petrol as she feels diesels will be excluded in most cities in the next +5 years. Not sure I agree but VW haven't helped the cause. Anyway I noticed a large number of Tesla's appearing on holiday in Belgium and even more here in the UK so I plan on going electric with a Telsa 3 sometime in 2018/9 when my BMWer gets to 70,000miles. I really like the way Elon Musk isn't some slick presenter like they mostly are and appears to want to help change the environment. Also interested in Telsa Energy using their battery technology for sustainable power.

Telsa 3 if you can bear the Telsa groupies

Powerwall

You have to admire this guy, on the battery tech all his IP is public domain so he doesn't make a cent on the IP.

 

[GrannyJen]

How about an I3 or I8?

 

[Flood51]

I could only afford the i3 and I don't get the feeling BMW have committed to electric, hybrid maybe. You would have to buy the range extender i3 with the 500cc charging engine to get maximum flexibility. Anyway I like the idea of a free recharge at a Telsa supercharging station, 50% charge in 20 minutes for nothing.

I just get a good feeling about Elon Musk (South African/Canadian) he made his billions on PayPal and wants to put something back IMHO.

 

[Californiaman]

A friend was a dynamics engineer at Tesla and I can confirm they're pukka. Have a look at the mini turbine technology being developed by delta motorsport. Could be a really interesting development. The new golf GTE has surprised a few folks with real drivebility and amazing real life consumption.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[Days out]

I remember my first drive in a tesla and it was phenomenal! As a petrol head I always dreaded the day that I'd drive an electric car thinking it would be a disaster but I can say it's brilliant. The acceleration is insane. Literally! But if you drive it hard you will drain the juice quickly. If you can charge it up at work then that would be good.

I bought myself an electric bike to ride to work on in the end and bought a California so no tesla for me....yet!

 

[aBusAndBeyond]

I had an i3 as a demo car for 5 days and it was fantastic. They've just increased the range too so now book figure of 180miles with full battery and 280miles with full battery and one tank of fuel with the range extender. That's great and most people, most of the time, would never need to use the petrol engine. I'm tempted to change our Mini Cooper S for one next year.

 

[sidepod]

Milk float?
0-Vmax in 0.1 s

 

[larrylamb]

Milk float?
0-Vmax in 0.1 s

Dangerous things Milk Floats, run over by one at 13

 

[CaliCrazy]

Got a Nissan Leaf. Ugly but brilliant!

 

[Deskman]

Next car? I don't know, but future sustainability and transportation are not 'best friends'. Electricity is clean in the city but not so very much near the coal power plant which produces the electricity, while the process to recycle batteries is also still not arrived at a environmentally 'neutral' state.

Due to the massive fraud at VW (presumably not much less at other companies) the development of electric cars, better batteries, lighter vehicles will get a boost.

I've read somewhere that the building and disposal of a car are the two dirtiest phases of a cars' lifespan. And driving less is the best way to protect the environment. Which sounds like 'buy a car and don't drive' but does make some sense to me.

 

[andyinluton]

I've read somewhere that the building and disposal of a car are the two dirtiest phases of a cars' lifespan. And driving less is the best way to protect the environment. Which sounds like 'buy a car and don't drive' but does make some sense to me.

Or make cars last longer, every older car still on the road is one less new one to build. Cuba used to take this to extremes.

My view is that the environmentally friendly way is to buy a second hand car & never dispose of it, I'm doing my bit collecting old Porsches

I'm yet to be convinced that when the whole life cycle of a car is taken into consideration a Toyota Prius is any better than a normal petrol car. As others have said the manufacturing and disposal of the battery packs creates a huge amount of pollution.

I read somewhere & it may be wrong, that all the cars on the planet create only 1% of the amount of pollution that container ships make, but as they are difficult to tax nobody cares. Of course all those "green" Prius cars get here on those very same highly polluting ships.

A VW California is a very Green vehicle, they tend to have a long usable life & if holidays are taken in one, in many cases its as an alternative to flying - Leisure flights are a huge source of pollution.

 

[johnyboy]

Well with the German ban voted on we'll hopefully get a nice electric Cali in our lifetimes!

I'm on the list for the Tesla 3 - was going to buy an S to tide me over til delivery but since they announced new cars will all ship with the hardware for level 5 autonomous driving I feared the second hand value plummeting and will wait patiently for the model 3 (I am assuming 2019 as we are RHD, and deliveries also start closest to California in case of needing to get them back to base for fixes.)

 

[Velma's Dad]

I read somewhere & it may be wrong, that all the cars on the planet create only 1% of the amount of pollution that container ships make, but as they are difficult to tax nobody cares. Of course all those "green" Prius cars get here on those very same highly polluting ships.

Given that there are only about 5,000 container ships afloat, I didn't think that statistic would stand up to much scrutiny. But in checking it I was surprised at some of the facts behind it.

A lot of what's been written about pollution by cargo ships seems to stem from a Guardian article of 2009: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-pollution.

The article claimed that "15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars".

As usual, it's a case of "it depends what you mean by pollution". Here the issue appears to be chiefly about the massive amounts of sulphur that many cargo ships emit, due to their use of heavy fuel oil which is extremely dirty. This is claimed to cause many tens of thousands of deaths, especially in Asia so it certainly does seem to be a pretty big problem and hard to regulate.

However, it appears that all shipping contributes perhaps 4% of global emissions of greenhouse gases - so they aren't a massive contributor to climate change (although still a significant source).

 

[Borris]

Or make cars last longer, every older car still on the road is one less new one to build. Cuba used to take this to extremes.

My view is that the environmentally friendly way is to buy a second hand car & never dispose of it, I'm doing my bit collecting old Porsches

I'm yet to be convinced that when the whole life cycle of a car is taken into consideration a Toyota Prius is any better than a normal petrol car. As others have said the manufacturing and disposal of the battery packs creates a huge amount of pollution.

I read somewhere & it may be wrong, that all the cars on the planet create only 1% of the amount of pollution that container ships make, but as they are difficult to tax nobody cares. Of course all those "green" Prius cars get here on those very same highly polluting ships.

A VW California is a very Green vehicle, they tend to have a long usable life & if holidays are taken in one, in many cases its as an alternative to flying - Leisure flights are a huge source of pollution.

Our other car is a 1994 2.5 Mercedes Diesel. It is a sluggish old tub but was built to last. Lift the bonnet and you will find very little plastic just lots of over engineered metal components. No computers of complicated electronic trickery. If properly serviced and looked after it will last for ever. I recently read that there is is suposed to be an old 2.5 litre diesel Mercedes Benz taxi somewhere in Greece still operating with around 4 million miles on the original engine. Surely it is kinder to the planet to keep vehicles like this on the road rather than create a whole lot more pollution by scrapping them and producing new ones every few years?

A friend of ours has just replaced her perfectly servicable but elderly Fiat Panda with a brand new Peugeot eco electric hybrid car and was recently extolling the eco friendly virtues of her new purchase to Mrs B and I. The thing is that she only uses her car about two or three times a week for short trips. The rest of the time it sits in her garage. Some thing her old Panda did just as well but without creating a lot of new pollution.
Question - When people buy these so called eco vehicles are they actually saving the planet or are they helping to create even more pollution than there would otherwise have been?

 

[Deskman]

Question - When people buy these so called eco vehicles are they actually saving the planet or are they helping to create even more pollution than there would otherwise have been?

Our government has made the mistake (NL) to get very low tax on the plugin hybrids like the Mitsubishi Outlander. This car can only be used for shopping on electricity - 50km. For the rest it's just a modern heavy SUV with almost no gain on the ECO territory. Just because of the low tax rate it was a big hit in the Netherlands and almost nowhere else.

And when I'm waiting for at the traffic lights with a Prius next to me 9 out of 10 accelerates full throttle to get first at the next lights. So also there not very much to gain and certainly no eco-aware driver behind the wheel.

 

[greenfintry]

Just talked to someone in our village who got rid of her Outlander hybrid... complete con job.... the hybrid only works if the the temperature outside is less than5C lower than inside, otherwise the ICE is prioritised due to need for the heater..... so works for about 6 days a year in Scotland..... she took it in as she thought it was faulty...

 

[Spartan]

At the risk of going slightly off-topic, according to scholarly thinking/articles, currently there does not appear to be a sound 'ecological' argument for buying any newly produced car (be it traditional combustion engined, hybrid, electric, etc.) - even taking into account the 'dirtier' emissions of older cars and the potential need to replace parts more frequently (and the associated manufacturing emissions required to produce those parts), etc., their ecological footprint is declared to be significantly smaller than that of manufacturing a new car (and subsequent impact of running/driving this car).

N.B. This is based on ecological (and to some extent sustainability) justification only and ignores other factors/motivations (like use/purpose, cost/value, reliability/dependability, quality, safety, retail therapy, ability to make a cup of tea in the middle-of-nowhere, etc.).

I write this for information purposes only; no judgement or opinion is intended.

 

[Velma's Dad]

At the risk of going slightly off-topic, according to scholarly thinking/articles, currently there does not appear to be a sound 'ecological' argument for buying any newly produced car (be it traditional combustion engined, hybrid, electric, etc.) - even taking into account the 'dirtier' emissions of older cars and the potential need to replace parts more frequently (and the associated manufacturing emissions required to produce those parts), etc., their ecological footprint is declared to be significantly smaller than that of manufacturing a new car (and subsequent impact of running/driving this car).

N.B. This is based on ecological (and to some extent sustainability) justification only and ignores other factors/motivations (like use/purpose, cost/value, reliability/dependability, quality, safety, retail therapy, ability to make a cup of tea in the middle-of-nowhere, etc.).

I write this for information purposes only; no judgement or opinion is intended.

Not off-topic at all IMO, very relevant I think and underlines what Borris was saying above. Unfortunately but inevitably, pervasive marketing by the car industry has conditioned us to want to have a brand new car every couple of years, and is now 'selling us' on green features to make us feel good about it.

We buy our family cars at a year or so old (including our Cali) and try to keep them until they're at least six or seven . But I realise that we could keep them a lot longer and they would still be reliable, even if a bit battle scarred and lacking the latest must-have gizmos.

 

[briwy]

Frankly I don't think vehicle manufacturers give a monkeys about the environment, they are there to make money and the only reason they are now making so called environmentally vehicles is because governments are forcing them into it to please voters. A few years ago we were all encouraged by those in power to buy a diesel to save the planet from CO2. Now diesel is apparently unfashionable because of NO and particulates. However, at present there doesn't appear to be a viable alternative to IC engines. No doubt electric cars would come down in price with proper mass production but where is the power going to come from. This country is still close to running out of leccy without further loading from cars. Teslas are a technical feat but how many people actually need a car as advanced as that, or can afford one. Surely in the realms of unaffordable semi supercar at the moment.

 

[Deskman]

Every (big) company has only one single goal: earning money. They need customers who want to pay for the product. No customers, no production.

That is why Audi (=VW) is retracting from LeMans 24 and stepping into the Formula E. It's all in the game.

 

[SqueakyWheel]

Right now, the technology and infrastructure isn’t in place for mass rollout of electric vehicles, but it’s getting very close. The Tesla Model S is an expensive supercar, but the battery packs themselves “only” cost around £12,000. In mass production, the rest of an electric vehicle should cost no more than a traditional ICE one ( + electric motors, but remove the engine, gearbox, fuel systems etc .). And the price of those battery packs is falling rapidly. Tesla claim that their costs have more than halved since 2008, and expect another 30% reduction in the next few years ( before Model 3 ). Bosch claim that they’ll be producing battery packs with double the energy density and half the production cost by 2020.

The additional electricity required is a problem to be solved - the annual use of petrol/diesel is equivalent to about 20% of the UK’s current electrical usage. Could we increase electric generating capacity by 20%+ over the next few years? Perhaps we don’t need to if you consider that electrical usage fluctuates almost 50% throughout the day. If the majority of electric cars were charged overnight, with some intelligence to talk back to the grid, the generating capacity is probably already available. And if cars were left plugged in at other times, the battery packs could be used to buffer excess electricity from solar/wind that currently causes problems on particular days.

 

[snowy55]

I was in motorway service area a couple of weeks ago and there was 6 electric charge points.
There was hundreds of cars in the car parks and a constant stream of vehicles going through the filling station that had about 30 pumps.
Somebody is going to have to pay to dig up an awful lot of car parks if electric cars are going to be anyting like usable.

 

[DavidofHook]

We use our Cali as our main car and we do not expect to replace it for some time. We kept the T4 for 9 years.

We also have, sitting in the garage, a car for Mrs D of H. This is a shopping car and doesn't get out much. It is a Smart of 2003 vintage and is brilliant to drive, cheap to run and, at 2000 miles a year will keep going for ever (I hope). Currently got 37000 on the clock and a 599cc engine.

Incidently, I use it to take people to hospital appointments because It is easy to get in and out of and surprisingly has lots of space. Great car.

We are, accidentally, being very green I think, although it is a bit spoilt because we often go to Australia to see our family which, of course, is not good for the environment.

 

[SqueakyWheel]

I was in motorway service area a couple of weeks ago and there was 6 electric charge points.
There was hundreds of cars in the car parks and a constant stream of vehicles going through the filling station that had about 30 pumps.

Yep, big infrastructure changes will be needed, but I don't think that will be on the forecourt. Current ICE cars have to be filled up at a filling station - most of those cars didn't leave home with a full tank. Electric cars could be filled up overnight on your own driveway, or at the side of the road with the addition of charging points ( e.g. plumbed into lampposts ), so would be starting their journeys already 'full'. Current Teslas have a 300 mile range, but if the 'double capacity by 2020' works out, 600 mile journeys without charging would be possible. The average UK family car does ~150 miles per week. The average company car a little over 300.

I'd be wary about heading off to the south of France if the Cali could only do 600 miles and then needed a guaranteed fast charging station for 12 hours overnight, but for 98% of private car use, I don't think a traditional filling station would be needed. And with most of the population moving to electric cars, perhaps the pressure would be lifted from those of us that needed to use diesel ( you don't hear many complaints about how much pollution the Flying Scotsman is putting out ).

 

[Velma's Dad]

The emergence of driverless cars, aka autonomous vehicles (AV), may also change the market factors for EVs. AVs will I think predominate in shared applications like taxis and car pooling. Those AV use-cases are suited to EVs because they avoid the problem of needing to recharge the vehicle outside homes (obv. not practical without huge infrastructure changes in many British urban streets that lack driveways). The AV/EV taxi or shared-ownership car can dock itself at a charging point in a central location when between jobs.

Although I guess it will be a long time before we buy into the idea of a shared fleet of on-call autonomous Calis. What if you were expecting a Blackberry Ocean for your trip to the the Lake District, and Yellow Beach turned up?