SAVE THE PLANET BUT AT WHAT COST TO OTHER MB OWNERS

[lewyboy]

Spot on............................for God's sake don't do what LABOUR advocated a number of years ago on good advice and buy a Diesel................be keeping mine too practical not to. Be good to see a Tesla towing a caravan, they say the Model X can with lots of its inherant technology turned off to allow it, but not seen one yet

I saw one last week in France.

 

[MBDevotee]

Spot on............................for God's sake don't do what LABOUR advocated a number of years ago on good advice and buy a Diesel................be keeping mine too practical not to. Be good to see a Tesla towing a caravan, they say the Model X can with lots of its inherant technology turned off to allow it, but not seen one yet

Seen quite a few, it’s a decent tow car for a small caravan, as is the EV6

Range is an issue for towing though

 

[Phillip Butler]

Points of fact.
Only 3% of global Co2 emmissions are man made.
No one has ever proved that Co2 causes global warming.
The biggest 'greenhouse gas' is water vapour.

 

[C16RKC]

I am fearful.... very fearful....

Confession - I drive an EV.
Next Confession - I did it (originally) to save tax, but I have become a strong advocate....

And I am now probably gonna pi55 off Blobcat - but here goes....

I totally agree with a great deal of what you said above.

Cars only contribute a small amount of CO2 - compared to heavy industry, heating our homes, cattle etc etc etc.....

However, there are a couple of things I'd like to say in the EV's defence....

1) I agree our Elec generation isn't very good CO2 wise - but that's not the EV's fault. If successive governments had pulled their fingers out 30 years ago and slowly brought more nuclear and renewables online rather than focussing on coal and gas we'd be massively better off now, not to mention independent of Putin's gas issue....

2) A used (i.e. already MADE) ICE car is far more environmentally friendly than making a new EV - of that there is no doubt - from a production point of view, but not a point of use view. However if we accept cars have to be made - is it not better to make environmentally friendly ones?

3) EV's could actually reduce electricity use..... bear with me...... So currently there is a problem with electricity supply during peak times, but a significant excess of capacity in the middle of the night if wind is blowing.... If the government (oh look - them again) had done what it should and made all EV's be V2G compliant (Vehicle to grid) then we'd have the most absurdly huge battery storage facility on the planet.... My car is pretty typical - when I am not driving it, it's plugged in. Therefore at times of peak demand there may (in a few years) be 1,000,000 electric cars plugged in - assuming that you could pull 3kwh from each at such a time that would be a 3,000,000 kwh available for short periods - I don't know what our current battery storage is like in the UK - but it's a helluva lot less than that I'll wager. The car then recharges back to full during the periods of low demand (overnight).

Also everyone goes "oh well, 500,000 ev's charging 64kw every night will cripple the grid...." - That's daft. The average commute in the UK is about 15-20m each way - so if all those cars are used "normally" then they will only need about 5kwh each putting in each night. My car replaces it's daily commute electricity in about 40 mins even on a "normal" 7.4kw charger. Even higher mileage users probably won't use much more than 10kwh most days...

4) I use about 1KWH to do 4.2 miles - in 1 litre of petrol there are 9.6kw of energy - so if your car does 40.32 miles per litre it's as efficient as mine.... or 183mpg - EV's are a lot more efficient users of their power.

5) I buy 100% renewable Electricity (or at least that what my supplier claims) - so 100% of my mileage is on renewable energy - if your car is petrol or diesel, 0% is on renewable energy - I do realise my energy supplier may be lying and I'd never know but even so, I guarantee my electricity is a lot more renewable than your petrol / diesel.

As to other issues mentioned -

"There is also the issue that electric cars are not practical for everyone. They are only really any good for those living in cities, or doing low mileages." - sorry that's utter rubbish. In fact in cities less people have a private parking space so EV's are harder to charge - that actually IS an issue!

My car is 18 months old and has done 18k thereabouts - so I don't consider that "low mileage" - I drive all over the place. I have driven from Bristol to Edinburgh..... no problems whatsoever. My Edinburgh trip was completed with 2 x 40 minute stops - on a 6 hour drive I would have stopped that long in a Petrol or Diesel car as well..... My boss does 60,000m per year - he has an EV, every day he goes from his house in the Midlands to Essex or Bath or Solihull or wherever - he loves it and has had no issues either. I could do a 100m commute easily in my car - every day - that's not "low mileage".

I drove from Bristol to Malvern, Malvern to Shropshire, Shropshire back to Malvern and back to Bristol - in one go, with no recharges.... and I still had 35m range left - hardly a "short trip" or "living in a city". Had I needed to I could have popped onto a rapid and put 80% charge in 40 min and done it all again.

Yes I concede, if you want to drive 500m and have some weird determination to do it without a single stop it won't work (yet) but it will soon - the 750km range EV is coming and coming soon (2023 probably...)

"Totally agree.......be interested to see when and where those with electric cars pay their dues!! Perhaps its when they try to dump their batteries!!!" - Why in gods name would you "dump a battery" ??? Modern liquid cooled / heated batteries are showing little or no degradation. If my 64KWH battery goes to less than 70% Capacity in 7 years I'll get a new one under warranty - but it won't - after 18 months 18,000 m it's still showing 99.999% SOH and my range is still 280m or so (actually now showing 314m range as temperatures are optimum at the moment).... !! But in 15 years time, if the battery is at 50% capacity, it will simply be swapped out, and have a second life as a home storage battery - and given a 5kw home storage battery is about £4k at the moment, I could get maybe £10,000 for it? In reality, all I would actually do is swap out the faulty cell(s) and it would be fine I'm sure (there are a lot in there, and it's unlikely they would ALL be faulty OR someone would buy it with the 50% capacity and be happy they only had a 140m range as they don't do that much more than that often.

I accept / agree that they don't have the aural excitement of an ICE car - but that's a trade off - they are lovely in town or on the dull motorway trips where they are smooth and almost silent - Bentley spend a lot to achieve the same levels of refinement.....

I fully accept they are still unsuitable for those who want to tow heavy loads long distances. I fully accept that people may want to keep a fun V8 for "the weekend" or "for fun" - hell I might even do that myself one day - but I will sure as heck be keeping my EV for the "day to day" for the commute and so on. The costs are low, the performance (at normal road speeds) is astonishing, and they are lovely (in a different way) to drive... Everyone I know who's taken the plunge says they are glad they did - I am sure there are the odd exceptions to that.

Sorry I was not saying electric cars are rubbish, far from it. If I could afford one I'd have one now. I regularly look at the cost to convert a classic to electric, but its just too expensive to make it worthwhile right now.

The point I intended was that electric cars are not the immediate solution to global warming; yet they seem to be the immediate focus, and the motorist is bullied by new taxes.

My frustration is that the root cause and solution are never discussed.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

 

[lewyboy]

Sorry I was not saying electric cars are rubbish, far from it. If I could afford one I'd have one now. I regularly look at the cost to convert a classic to electric, but its just too expensive to make it worthwhile right now.

The point I intended was that electric cars are not the immediate solution to global warming; yet they seem to be the immediate focus, and the motorist is bullied by new taxes.

My frustration is that the root cause and solution are never discussed.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

I believe that the solution is a mix of several approaches, less use is probably the biggest influence, people relish the freedom but mostly survived lockdown intact and air quality improved significantly during that time.
Hope I’ve not inspired Botus to kick off an another conspiracy theory

 

[Craiglxviii]

Sorry I was not saying electric cars are rubbish, far from it. If I could afford one I'd have one now. I regularly look at the cost to convert a classic to electric, but its just too expensive to make it worthwhile right now.

The point I intended was that electric cars are not the immediate solution to global warming; yet they seem to be the immediate focus, and the motorist is bullied by new taxes.

My frustration is that the root cause and solution are never discussed.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

As an extremely, hugeously clever friend of mine says, “this is the human penchant for finding really simple solutions to really complex problems”.

 

[V6Matty]

As an extremely, hugeously clever friend of mine says, “this is the human penchant for finding really simple solutions to really complex problems”.

Why make things complicated when a simple solution will work, nothing needs to the perfect when good enough will do

 

[SL63 Mark]

I actually think there will be a place for both

Certain "special" cars will be kept alive for Fun - we still ride horses for example - but it's for leisure and pleasure now, not to really get anywhere..... and EV's will become more used as our day to day transport......

I think you are right. We will probably have an electric shopping trolley for the local trips, but keep the SL63 for high days and holidays, and intercontinenal cruising.

 

[00slk]

.....................................................The point I intended was that electric cars are not the immediate solution to global warming...................................

My frustration is that the root cause and solution are never discussed.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

Exactly, the biggest issue is the demise of the rain forest to make way for building houses for the, ever increasing world population.
Nature knows this is an issue and tried to do something about it, like in past disease's, viruses and pandemic's to no avail because scientist's come up with antidotes and medicines to stop depopulation, which in turn doesn't help save the planet. I know it is not a nice thing to say but humans are living longer because of medicines and this has a major effect on the planet as mentioned above re rainforest clearing!
Then there is the mining of the metals needed to create this waste of time EV's which to me are pointless with the mileage I do every year and inconvenient. The fact that we can just jump in the car and drive off somewhere knowing that the ICE will be there and not...Oh darn, need to charge her up for the next 12 hours!!
However if an EV was made into Hydrogen, I would buy the cell and repower all my diesels

Foot note......I have friends with EV's and Hybrid's they said they are great, they all live in cities and use their EV's to go to the shops or visit family 2 miles down the road. Lynn with the Hybrid said she never puts fuel in the car because I don't drive over 20mph, otherwise the ICE kicks in. City dwellers

 

[C16RKC]

I agree on all accounts Peter.

...and why charge someone like you colossal road tax, when you hardly do any miles?

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

 

[MBDevotee]

Points of fact.
Only 3% of global Co2 emmissions are man made.
No one has ever proved that Co2 causes global warming.
The biggest 'greenhouse gas' is water vapour.

Maybe - but pure logic says we cannot take a resource that has been there for MILLIONS of years, and consume it in just a few hundred without consequence.

Maybe the only consequence will be we run out - but I doubt it.

And plenty of evidence that whilst global climate change has always happened the RATE of change has never been even remotely this fast!

CO2 is only a part of it - there were man made CFC's there are all sorts of other things we do too.

Man is not the ONLY problem - but we are a huge problem.

 

[MBDevotee]

Exactly, the biggest issue is the demise of the rain forest to make way for building houses for the, ever increasing world population.
Nature knows this is an issue and tried to do something about it, like in past disease's, viruses and pandemic's to no avail because scientist's come up with antidotes and medicines to stop depopulation, which in turn doesn't help save the planet. I know it is not a nice thing to say but humans are living longer because of medicines and this has a major effect on the planet as mentioned above re rainforest clearing!
Then there is the mining of the metals needed to create this waste of time EV's which to me are pointless with the mileage I do every year and inconvenient. The fact that we can just jump in the car and drive off somewhere knowing that the ICE will be there and not...Oh darn, need to charge her up for the next 12 hours!!
However if an EV was made into Hydrogen, I would buy the cell and repower all my diesels

Foot note......I have friends with EV's and Hybrid's they said they are great, they all live in cities and use their EV's to go to the shops or visit family 2 miles down the road. Lynn with the Hybrid said she never puts fuel in the car because I don't drive over 20mph, otherwise the ICE kicks in. City dwellers

If you do low miles, yes you will never ever get the money back on an EV and the damage you do buying it will be far more than the damage you do running an old car... I agree.

My EV does plenty of miles a year - my boss does 60k a year - he's had his EV6 Kia for 3 months and done 15,000 miles thereabouts in it. He loves the fact he isn't wasting any time filling up any more (he used to fill 3 or 4 times a week so a good hour or two a week)

But you clearly don't understand how EV's work - your line "Oh darn, need to charge her up for the next 12 hours!!" shows this. I have NEVER come to my car and found it needs charging, I never will - why - because it's always charged obviously! It charges overnight, it charges at work, it charges when I'm parked...... I spend literally no time at all filling my car up - 30 seconds to plug it in at work and 30 seconds to unplug it to go home - I spend way less time fuelling my car than anyone with an ICE.

In fact - one way it was put to me as well - to fill a Merc with a decent range with fuel is about £90

To fill my car with "Electric" is about £5 -

So I would have to work about 4 hours to earn enough to pay for my Merc fill (not knocking Merc - any ICE car) - so my refuel there has taken 4hrs 10min (10 min to fill it and 4 hrs to earn enough to pay for it)

My fill on the EV I'd need to earn £5 or about 15 minutes - and 60 seconds - 30 to plug it in and 30 to unplug it - so a fuel car costs me 4hrs 10 min of my life to refill and an EV 16minutes..... so which car is quicker to refuel looked at like that??

Oh and if I DO need a charge en-route it's 40mins not 12 hours.... Again you are falling for the internet "misinformation" brigade... Most newer EV's more like 20-30 mins - the Hyundai / Kia / Genesis / Taycan takes about 18 minutes and CATL in China have a new battery that takes 8 minutes to go from flat to 80%.....

I completely agree - If you do almost no miles there is no point changing to an EV or if you need to tow 3000kg + trailer there is no EV yet for your needs

But if you are buying a new car anyhow - and you do a decent mileage - THEN an EV makes sense.... even if you do 60,000m a year! (in fact probably more so at that mileage!)

 

[Blobcat]

If you do low miles, yes you will never ever get the money back on an EV and the damage you do buying it will be far more than the damage you do running an old car... I agree.

My EV does plenty of miles a year - my boss does 60k a year - he's had his EV6 Kia for 3 months and done 15,000 miles thereabouts in it. He loves the fact he isn't wasting any time filling up any more (he used to fill 3 or 4 times a week so a good hour or two a week)

But you clearly don't understand how EV's work - your line "Oh darn, need to charge her up for the next 12 hours!!" shows this. I have NEVER come to my car and found it needs charging, I never will - why - because it's always charged obviously! It charges overnight, it charges at work, it charges when I'm parked...... I spend literally no time at all filling my car up - 30 seconds to plug it in at work and 30 seconds to unplug it to go home - I spend way less time fuelling my car than anyone with an ICE.

In fact - one way it was put to me as well - to fill a Merc with a decent range with fuel is about £90

To fill my car with "Electric" is about £5 -

So I would have to work about 4 hours to earn enough to pay for my Merc fill (not knocking Merc - any ICE car) - so my refuel there has taken 4hrs 10min (10 min to fill it and 4 hrs to earn enough to pay for it)

My fill on the EV I'd need to earn £5 or about 15 minutes - and 60 seconds - 30 to plug it in and 30 to unplug it - so a fuel car costs me 4hrs 10 min of my life to refill and an EV 16minutes..... so which car is quicker to refuel looked at like that??

Oh and if I DO need a charge en-route it's 40mins not 12 hours.... Again you are falling for the internet "misinformation" brigade... Most newer EV's more like 20-30 mins - the Hyundai / Kia / Genesis / Taycan takes about 18 minutes and CATL in China have a new battery that takes 8 minutes to go from flat to 80%.....

I completely agree - If you do almost no miles there is no point changing to an EV or if you need to tow 3000kg + trailer there is no EV yet for your needs

But if you are buying a new car anyhow - and you do a decent mileage - THEN an EV makes sense.... even if you do 60,000m a year! (in fact probably more so at that mileage!)

Enjoy your microwaved steak…

 

[Nicklas_Hidegard]

They can actually manufacture 'petrol' using no fossil fuel which might be the future of motoring. No harmful exhausts and is fully compatible with existing petrol (you can mix and match in any quantities). Only drawback is price which is around £10/litre at the moment. Hopefully will be cheaper in the future.

I don't think there 1 solution. EV's work for some and long-term they do as much damage to the planet as Ice cars (if manufacturing millions of cars over 20-30years is factored in). There needs to be several solutions that are used simultaneously.

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[MBDevotee]

I agree with that -- and they need to focus on the OTHER stuff as well - ways of generating power more environmentally, ways humans can do less damage. Deforestation is far more serious yet is being ignored by the world - if they replaced the rainforest that would eat a vast amount of CO2...

Solar isn't being used nearly enough.

In the US - Tesla (and I am not a Tesla lover by the way) are building absolutely massive battery banks (using newer battery chemistry which is a little less damaging) and solar banks. They can run huge banks of chargers, from it - but any excess (and there is currently a large amount) they are filling the batteries and then feeding the grid - it's pretty good. Also the battery banks (and we are talking Megawatt's here) can help when grid demand peaks - it's a pretty good set up.

 

[Blobcat]

I agree with that -- and they need to focus on the OTHER stuff as well - ways of generating power more environmentally, ways humans can do less damage. Deforestation is far more serious yet is being ignored by the world - if they replaced the rainforest that would eat a vast amount of CO2...

Solar isn't being used nearly enough.

In the US - Tesla (and I am not a Tesla lover by the way) are building absolutely massive battery banks (using newer battery chemistry which is a little less damaging) and solar banks. They can run huge banks of chargers, from it - but any excess (and there is currently a large amount) they are filling the batteries and then feeding the grid - it's pretty good. Also the battery banks (and we are talking Megawatt's here) can help when grid demand peaks - it's a pretty good set up.

A different way to save the environment…

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[MBGB]

Glad I started the thread, as it has been really interesting to hear members views and also refreshing to see where we all are in respect of either, a twist or stick into the electric market.........................must go................................... off for a drive in my SL350 before the grid collapses or they turn off the street lights.
Everybody stay safe.

 

[MBDevotee]

A different way to save the environment…

View attachment 79554

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Beautiful thing.

It won't save the planet - but as it's already built it won't harm it to use it every now and then either!

 

[bembo449]

If I cared about the environment I wouldn't have 10 vehicles (think I have 10??) all bad for the environment just great to drive about in when 3 or 4 are tax exempt. I am still not convenient this global warming is recent, overwise it makes the bible tell lies.........

humans are bad for the environment pal but we dont stop people from breeding like rabbits

 

[Alastairp]

Points of fact.
Only 3% of global Co2 emmissions are man made.
No one has ever proved that Co2 causes global warming.
The biggest 'greenhouse gas' is water vapour.

Seriously - water vapour.

Another name for this is "clouds".

Cloud cover blocks out a significant portion of the solar energy that reaches the Earth's surface - I know because I live in Scotland.