Diesels

There's still time for a u turn when they realise theyve messed up and not built enough infrastructure,
It really won't happen.

The cost for EVs is only going to continue to drop. When they're equal in purchase price as well as cheaper to run and maintain (as they already are) the only people who'll buy Petrol cars will be those who can't charge it at home or work. That's a reasonable fraction of the market but not enough to put EVs back in the bag.

But who knows, maybe this will be the first year in the last 10 where battery prices haven't dropped between 13% and 19%.

Fun fact, the Nissan Leaf launched in 2010 with a 24kWh battery. That probably cost around $20,000 then. Now the top of the line model has a 62kWh battery that probably cost around $9,920 in 2019 when it launched.
 
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It is the TN-C-S thing which is a worry, never really safe, the video I watched said 500 reported loss of PEN per year with 10% causing injury, and TN-C-S was not permitted for caravans, boats, and petrol stations due to the danger.

The EV is same as caravan, with one change, the fire regulations need some where like 3 meters between caravan and a building so if the caravan has a TT supply and building TN-C-S you have a gradient over at least 3 meters, but cars are parked closer than 3 meters to the building, and also often parked where it would be very hard to safely put in an earth rod, remember services tend to run between the house and road, so goodness knows what one will hit when knocking in an earth rod.

With a three phase supply with loss of PEN one phase will likely go over 254 volt or under 207 volt reasonably rapid, so if the supply is tripped with under or over voltage line - neutral first followed by earth then it is unlikely anyone will touch the EV in the short time it takes to trip. But with a single phase only to the charge point the time before the volts go under or over the limits can be a lot longer.

Also with solar panels you may get over 254 volt before solar panels trip, and the charging pod does not auto reset, so there is the problem of returning to car in morning only to find it has not been charged, due to a solar panel tripping it out.

I was told 25 volt is enough to kill a cow, the human body may be able to stand 50 now they are saying 70 volt, but the drives and streets are not restricted to the human animal, badgers, foxes, cats, and many other animals may touch the car, so in the garage 70 volt may be OK where standing on a relativity dry concrete floor, but even in a gated drive you need to consider cats and postman, and with an un-gated drive small children may walk in, and their threshold is much lower.

It is not just the EV owner at risk, it is others, and I am not convinced TN-C-S single phase will ever be safe without a reference earth rod.

The other worry is charging away from owners home. The owner may have a charging pod with all the safeties required, but when he visits some one, it is likely the garden supply will be used, often only protected with a type AC RCD and on a TN-C-S supply which has no PEN loss detection, so it is only a matter of time before some one is killed, and most likely is elderly or child, both tend to touch cars.

And I have not yet talked about the fire risk, we have seen the recall of mobile phones due to battery fires, these are rather small batteries, the EV battery is much larger.

Also the damage to the environment as we try and dispose of these batteries. Compared with rare metals in a battery the diesel engine is clean. What we need is lighter cars, the lighter the car is, the less tyre wear, and it is the plastic used to make tyres which is washed off the roads into rivers and the sea which is a major problem. We need to reduce the use of impact zones so we can reduce car weight, so reduce fuel used, and reduce plastic waste, and all other pollutants. And also for shared roads with cycles ban armaco barriers. Being hit by a car and pushed through a hedge is bad, be being trapped between car and armaco barriers is worse.

So if you look at the accidents with a volvo and a relents per cars on the road, the volvo is far higher as the volvo driver knows he if protected and the relent driver knows he is venerable, if the drivers are made more venerable they will drive with more care, so it will cut down accidents. As proved with accident figures with relent 3 wheel cars.

OK 3 wheel cars made of fibre glass maybe a step too far, but the old citron 2CV with a carburettor did 60 MPH, same weight with modern engine it would be over the 100 MPG and no need for electric cars.
 
Hmmmmmmm this sounds very stressful, WTF is going to happen to the vintage/collectors cars? Do they get scraped!!!!!
Investment tip - buy shares in companies making stuff to allow the engines in such cars to run on alcohol.
 
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Oh, and by the way, its disiesel.
 
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So if you look at the accidents with a volvo and a relents per cars on the road, the volvo is far higher as the volvo driver knows he if protected and the relent driver knows he is venerable, if the drivers are made more venerable they will drive with more care, so it will cut down accidents. As proved with accident figures with relent 3 wheel cars.
Are they the same as those Reliant 3 wheelers? :D
 
Also the damage to the environment as we try and dispose of these batteries. Compared with rare metals in a battery the diesel engine is clean.
No issues with the rest of your post, interesting stuff that's beyond my knowledge base.

But battery recycling isn't much of a risk to the environment at all. Mostly because the battery materials are valuable enough to be recycled. The main challenge with recycling EV batteries at the moment is lack of supply as they're not being scrapped in enough volume.

The process of extracting the materials in the first place is moderately environmentally grueling, but so is Diesel or petrol extraction and you need far far more of those than lithium, Nickel, Cobalt or Iron. A modern EV* might need 5kg of Cobalt for a battery that'll do 250,000 miles before being reused in stationary storage or recycled. To do the same miles in a 50 mpg car you'd use 22,000 litres of petrol.

*Except for the more recent ones that use LiFe batteries that don't use any Cobalt. Theyre probably going to dominate the budget/mass market as they're much cheaper and safer.
 
A modern EV* might need 5kg of Cobalt for a battery that'll do 250,000 miles before being reused in stationary storage or recycled.
There will also be a good amount in the electric-motor magnets . The Congo produces over 70% of the world's supply, much being dug out by child-labour or slaves (on-going civil-war prisoners )
The other problem of rare-earth metals ( cobalt is not one ) - many of which are needed in EV's - is that China currently produces 70% ( from memory ) of world requirements. One reason for this is that they happen to be sitting on lots of neodymium (magnets ), yttrium and terbium (Tv's and computers ), lanthanum ( cameras and lenses ), but the other is that the refining processes are so filthy that they would either be prohibited or very costly in the West.

If China blocked exports, it would mean production of smartphones, EV's and a raft iof other electrical goods would be severely affected. They have vaguely mentioned "restricting supply to ensure domestic needs " in the recent past, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it reported again whilst there is so much China/West tension.

This is such a strategic matter , that it could potentially lengthen the life of the i.c. engine, although it is obvious that this would be anathema to the Green movement in many countries.
 
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Of course there’ll carry on regardless, you seriously don’t think China and India give a sh#t about pollution do you!? Even America! We are just pi##ing in the wind if we think we’re going to save the world.....
Yes, and equally idiotic is the idea of scrapping gas-fired heating. Is eg Germany going to do likewise, when they're building a new gas pipe from Russia?
 
This is such a strategic matter , that it could potentially lengthen the life of the i.c. engine, although it is obvious that this would be anathema to the Green movement in many countries.
It could be, thankfully there's plenty of the badly named Rare earth elements all over the place, it's just everywhere outside of China has decided not to invest.

Although that's now changing. If they refuse to export then the Burmese, Australian and American mines will get more funding and scaled up.

Bluntly, it's less of a strategic risk than Oil or Gas.
 
If China blocked exports, it would mean production of smartphones, EV's and a raft iof other electrical goods would be severely affected.

EU has twigged that paying other countries to produce our essentials exposes us to potential supply problems.

Vaccine shortages started people thinking. And one badly-parked boat. Chips? Sorry, mate, none to be had.

"Just in time" means no stock in the warehouse.

https://www.ft.com/content/b5f72f88-814f-4697-8b83-e7d120c81fdc
 
But battery recycling isn't much of a risk to the environment at all.
Too right.

I mean, there isnt one example of any existing recycling/recovery operations being shipped out to countries with lax or unenforced environmental or worker safety standards in order to lower the cost of the operations which might give rise to a concern that it could happen with EV batteries, is there.
 
Yes, and equally idiotic is the idea of scrapping gas-fired heating. Is eg Germany going to do likewise, when they're building a new gas pipe from Russia?

It's possible. A few years ago Germany introduced new standards on boilers, and non-conforming existing boilers had to be replaced. Nobody could ignore/dodge this because there is a law that chimneys have to be swept annually ( introduced during the 1930's ) and the sweeps ( who have a legal monopoly over their district )make sure that this happens.

There are also parliamentary elections in September, and for the first time the Green Party has overtaken the Social Democratic Party to become the challenger to the Christian Democrats ( Merkel's party). There are numerous large cities in Germany that , from mid-2020 required diesels to be Euro 6 or better to be able to enter, so you can see that some pretty tough regulations have already been applied, and the Greens are pushing for greater subsidies to public transport to make personal transport unnecessary.

They also started a furore in the press by launching a campaign a year ago that houses are basically wasteful and people should live in flats.
 
They also started a furore in the press by launching a campaign a year ago that houses are basically wasteful and people should live in flats.

how bloody silly.

i can see the point they are trying to make, but there are many other factors to take into account on ones ability to live in a flat.

i personally couldnt live in a flat, i'd go mad all couped up without my own personal space etc

the UK has already done social experiments of sticking people in flats that lived in houses and it did not work out, there was great social decline, the negatives of this far outweigh the positive impact.
 
It could be, thankfully there's plenty of the badly named Rare earth elements all over the place, it's just everywhere outside of China has decided not to invest.

Although that's now changing. If they refuse to export then the Burmese, Australian and American mines will get more funding and scaled up.

yes, there is lots around, but unfortunately is is not often found in large, easily minable concentrations.

"If they refuse to export then the Burmese, Australian and American mines will get more funding and scaled up."

There is no US mine in production. Australia sends its ores to China for processing, and I would be pretty sure that Burma does too.
 
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