From Automotive Management Online
31/07/2020 in Car Dealer News
Cambria Automobiles chief executive Mark Lavery has urged his car retail colleagues to lobby Government over an all-out push to Electric Vehicles (EV) which risks catching UK automotive “sleeping at the wheel”.
Lavery said that there was still time to prevent Government making a decision which would see an all-out ban on internal combustion engine (ICE) and hybrid vehicles as early as 2032, risking both the environment and “thousands” of industry jobs.
The Office for Low Emission Vehicles’ (OLEV) consultation over the proposals ends at midnight tonight (July 31), having been extended from an initial May deadline, and Lavery insisted that it was “not too late” to change what appeared to be a set course.
His comments came as the National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA) today called for hybrids to be excluded from any initial ban on new vehicles sales, and a phased approach be taken towards a zero emission sales target of 2040.
“At the moment, as an industry, we are sleeping at the wheel as the environmental lobbying groups dictate an all-out push for EVs at the exclusion of any other solution,” Lavery told AM in an interview this morning.
“The millions of tonnes of Cobalt that are being pulled out the ground in Africa, the Amnesty International investigation into child slavery in those mining processes, the fact that the Cobalt is shipped to China to be processed and turned into batteries in a coal-powered economy only to be shipped to developed Western countries so we can have zero tailpipe emissions in our towns and cities… All that seems to be overlooked in the pursuit of this one solution.”
EVs ‘not the only solution’
Lavery argued that 35g/km of permanent CO2 is embedded into the emissions of a pure electric vehicles as a result of the battery production, giving the pure electric car only a small emissions advantage over the latest versions of modern turbo-diesel engines.
Pure EVs contain between 10 to 12kg of Cobalt on average, he said, compared to a far lesser amount for zero emissions-capable hybrid vehicles.
Lavery believes that Government must include hybrids and the use of cleaner synthetic fuels in a more gradual shift towards an all-out ban on vehicles which don’t offer zero emissions.
Hydrogen must also attract greater consideration in plans for the future, he added.
“Holistically, pure EVs are worse for the environment than many other solutions and yet the course appears to have been set,” he said.
Economic risks
Lavery met with former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green, at the AM100 group’s Grange Jaguar Land Rover at Woodford to voice his concerns about Government’s policy towards EV adoption.
In its letter to MPs across the country – sent by general managers across the group’s businesses – Cambria also claimed that “thousands” of automotive industry jobs would be lost if Government pursues a rapid all-out shift to pure EVs.
It said: “If we prohibit the sale of hybrid vehicles we will lose thousands and thousands of jobs from our automotive industry manufacturer’s and supply chain like Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin, McLaren, Rolls Royce, Bentley and at the same time arguably damaging the planet further because pure electric is not the only solution.
“Electric propulsion systems are only part of the solution. Hybrid, petrol and diesel propulsion systems are making dramatic improvements and where people were previously not plugging in their vehicles because of the inefficiency that would only allow the vehicle to travel 10 miles on pure electric travel, we are now in a position where most hybrids can do at least 30 miles on electric only charge.
“This covers most people’s daily commute and is already changing behaviours with far more people plugging in the more efficient power units.”
As well as the environmental and economic risks posed by a shift to EVs at the exclusion of ICE and hybrid vehicles, Lavery said that he feared for the future of social mobility.
He said: “The simple fact is that fast-tracking this kind of technology also prices a lot of people out of the market.”
UK electric cars will require twice the world’s supply of cobalt
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/107058/uk-electric-cars-will-require-twice-the-world-s-supply-of-cobalt
Ulric Lyons
You really need to keep up. Your article is a year old. Tesla already have a battery with no cobalt.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/07/11/teslas-shift-to-cobalt-free-batteries-is-its-most-important-move-yet/#68d9ae3046b4
I would love to see it happen but right now most of the technologies discussed in the article you linked to are described as “if they become commercially viable.” Why not just wait until WHEN they are commercially available? Then there will be no need for the government to dictate that we use them. We will PREFER to use them. By the way, commercially viable nuclear fusion energy technology has been “10 years in the future” for the past 30 years.
Don’t be cruel, confusing the local green fairies in Never Never Land with contrary facts based on commercial viability realities! Don’t you know they have every confidence that their gardens’ money trees will support their dreams and block out day time nightmares !
I would love to see it happen but right now most of the technologies discussed in the article you linked to are described as “if they become commercially viable.” Why not just wait until WHEN they are commercially available? Then there will be no need for the government to dictate that we use them. We will PREFER to use them. By the way, commercially viable nuclear fusion energy technology has been “10 years in the future” for the past 30 years.
David Gresh
I would love to see it happen but right now most of the technologies discussed in the article you linked to are described as “if they become commercially viable.””I would love to see it happen but right now most of the technologies discussed in the article you linked to are described as “if they become commercially viable.”
Umm no, not the removal of cobalt, Tesla have already achieved that, which was my point. From the article “cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate batteries are here now. Tesla will be using LFP for the batteries in its Chinese Model 3, after receiving government approval to do so. It is estimated that using LFP batteries will allow a 15-20% reduction in manufacturing cost.”
And where does the phospate come from?
Are there machines powered by electric only that are capable of mining and transporting on an industrial level?
Phosphate is essential for food production. I can see this being yet another unintended consequence of the insane “zero carbon” narrative, the need for which has NO basis in factual science.
The REAL objective here is George Strong “obligation” to destroy our entire economic system.
Instead of desperately lurching from one problematic substitute to another we should make efficient use of the copious fossil fuel resources we already have.
So you replace it with something else, but you still have mining and processing, and thats the point. Mining. Whatever the material it has to be mined. The carbon foot print of this makes EV cars of little benefit.
Just look at the improvement needed to the electrical grid to provide this much power to every house. And how are recharging stations going to work? Are we supposed to sit around for an hour while our cars charge?
A far more interesting alternative is GM plankton and yeast producing alcohol in big solar plants.
Alcohol is pretty much a direct replacement for petrol in cars. It is a known and old technology.
Wow you’re so far behind the times. Forget batteries, here come the fusion cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
As demand increases, so alternate supplies are developed – I believe in the USA, Canada and Australia.
Yes, the DRC is a terrible place and the mining conditions atrocious. If you object I hope you boycott ALL the modern devices which use cobalt.
Lithium mining is now opening up across the globe…
Sweet more toxic pollution to pour into rivers and oceans and get rid of all those pesky animals that true believer say can’t adapt to climate change. If you nutcases keep trying to save the planet you may yet kill it.
The law of unintended consequences and pure stupidity at it’s finest.
I do not believe the people pushing these policies are ignorant of the costs difficulties of upgrading the power supply systems to entire towns in the time they are demanding. Rather, it always appeared that the intent was to destroy the UK car industry. Indeed, it seems to go further than that and the long term plan is to prevent the average person from being able to own and operate their own vehicle(s). The entire plan has been set up by townies who have several forms of public transport available and are following the Agenda 21 ideas of moving people into urban communities.
The COVID-19 work from home edicts have shown that for many working from home can be successful and reduce costs of doing business significantly. This is leading to pressure to move out of large conurbations into smaller towns in more attractive areas. Whoever is pushing this ‘net zero ‘ idea must recalculate how it is going to proceed. Ideally involve engineers who will point out the reality of what is being glibly stated by politicians and those wishing to deindustrialize the UK.
Corporations loves the captive workforce. Politicos love the high-density, concentrated revenue streams and control.
Bingo. At the same time that the ‘elite’ are trying to force everyone into cities, technological change and political chaos is encouraging those who can to leave the cities.
These two trends are going to smack into each other head-first before long.
“The millions of tonnes of Cobalt that are being pulled out the ground in Africa, the Amnesty International investigation into child slavery in those mining processes, the fact that the Cobalt is shipped to China to be processed and turned into batteries in a coal-powered economy only to be shipped to developed Western countries so we can have zero tailpipe emissions in our towns and cities… All that seems to be overlooked in the pursuit of this one solution.”
Greens don’t really want individuals to have cars, so this argument won’t sway them in the slightest. They’d prefer we all get crammed into mass transit, to go from our government appointed apartment complex, after eating our government appointed, environmentally safe breakfast paste, to our government appointed jobs, wearing our government supplied coveralls.
The article does not mention the extra load on the UK Grid. Which itself is becoming less able to handle day yo day demand. Greening of the UK generation capability will mean that you might have an EV, but unless you are politically connected you will not be able to charge the battery let alone drive anywhere.
Which of course, is the whole point of the Green exercise, a return to the 17th Century and the squalor the average citizen lived in .
you will find that National Grid’s annual publication of ‘scenarios’ cover this issue.
I don’t have time to look up a link, but National Grid scenarios should cover it
Three of the four FES scenarios modelled show Great Britain reaches net zero carbon emissions by 2050 or earlier, but make clear this requires immediate action across all key technologies and policy areas, with fundamental changes for energy consumers, particularly in transport, heating and energy efficiency.
From the national grid website
“It’s estimated there will be over 11 million electric vehicles on British roads by 2030 (and over 30m by 2040) in the most stretching net zero scenarios. By 2050 up to 80% of households with an EV will be ‘smart charging’ their car, plugging in outside of the evening peak when energy is cheaper and demand on the grid is lower. 45% of homes will actively help to balance the grid, offering up to 38GW of flexible electricity to help manage peaks and fill troughs in demand.”
So in other words they are confirming that they won’t be able to cope with demand unless people are forced to use electricity when they’re told rather than when they want!
It also assumes widespread adoption of smart meters the installation of which is massively behind schedule due to considerable resistance from the general population.
They don’t. Like much else, they simply assume it isn’t a problem.
“45% of homes will actively help to balance the grid, offering up to 38GW of flexible electricity to help manage peaks and fill troughs in demand.”
So homes will be supplying more than the current total Grid output, which as I write, admittedly on a summer afternoon and during the Covid recession, is just over 32 GW?
The rich elitists want vast country estates like in feudal times. A large manor house and peasants tending their grounds, whilst a games keeper preps for the fall hunts.
It is amazing how the Elites are pushing this feudal system upon us. US Liberals (a misnomer) claim they want Socialism more and more, distribution of wealth, etc all of which feed the feudal system taking over. Already exists in the major city slums that vote 95%+ Democratic to maintain their government subsidised lifestyle. Like in Feudal times the Elites live in fences palatial estates with private guards while they vote to restrict/remove all gun rights from the peons. They appease the brainwashed peons by building Renewable Energy farms making billions off of the government selling electricity for less than it cost to make it and obtaining their profit from the government subsidy. Wages are kept low by importing in workers payed slave wages and even illegal migrant workers asat lower wages.
um… I hate to break it to you, but rich elitists in the UK STILL have vast country estates.
7% of the UK population own 84% of the land (or thereabouts).
The only difference is a few of them are film stars or oligarchs or have oil wealth: but the aristocracy here since 1066 still have most of what they picked up since then!
Only someone in the UK would call their landholdings vast 🙂
Your largest landowner the forestry commission owes a mere 2.2Milion acres spread out across the country. The top 20 pastoral stations in Australia are larger and the largest Anna Creek alone is 5,851,000 acres.
Try going with large by UK standards or expensive estates.
But the point remains: the elite own the land in the UK, just as they have since 1066.
the UK population still has the remnants of the feudal system and is already an urban population
This is a questionable set of aarguments, based on technologies becoming obsolete, such as cobalt
Even using cobalt need not require child labor. Most EV/battery designers are eliminating cobalt and if the glass batteries come to pass, things also will change drastically. Already we have one million mile batteries ready to install in Teslas and million and 250,000 mile batteries to install in other EV brands. Electric cars are significantly simpler and contain far fewer parts than ICE vehicles and now VW and KANDI are introducing EVs at the lower end of the cost scale. EVs simply represent a superior vehicle technology, irrespective of emissions. THAT is why they will dominate.
Then let the market dictate that dominance. EVs only grow because of massive government subsidy and legislative enforcement. If EVs are really the superior choice, then there should be no need to ban their competition.
👍
Dear Mr. Archer, you are 200+% right. In a real market economy the complete EV-hype would collapse with the same speed as a nuclear bomb disintegrates (about 2 ns). The EV-equation from the point of view of the customer: 1,5-2 times higher price for about only 30% benefits (Nutzwert in German) compared to an ICE. Note, that for example the first Porsche in the mid 1920s was also an EV, however the EVs could not achieve a breakthrough in a market enviroment. Even in the US are the EVs classiefied as “luxury cars”. The intention is clear: The masses should not own cars. The CO2- and climate hysteria is part of the ideological support and preparation for the take over of the car industry by new interest groups with the support of the poltics. And the price of the take over should be paid by the masses (the ordinary people) who have only disadvantages from this take over.
Archer, I agree – and for once I agree with Col too. We don’t depend on children to dig up coal, iron ore or bauxite for aluminium. If we want cobalt on an industrial scale, we will dig it up employing the children’s fathers (and maybe mothers) to get it with proper mining technology, paying them enough to feed their offspring and send them to school. I don’t understand why that doesn’t happen now.
If that makes cobalt too expensive, and hence batteries too expensive, to make EVs compete with diesel powered SUVs then sensible folk just won’t buy them (unless forced to!) No child should have to work in a mine. We gave that up in the UK nearly 180 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_and_Collieries_Act_1842
Don’t sleep at the wheel when new technologies come! UK forfeited a chance to become the King of Dirigibles in 1930s.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that electric cars are the future. But no one knows yet how to make a good one.
EVs are EMF nightmares. It would be interesting to see the Cancer Statistics of EV Owners given the pulsed microwave transients that occur in normal operation.
They will also be environmental disposal issues which has yet to be addressed.
You Islanders are probably going to trash the remains in the Oceans and/or Sheep Farms.
Thanks for bringing this up. It would be good to address this thoroughly before mandates unwittingly increase cancer. https://www.saferemr.com/2014/07/shouldnt-hybrid-and-electric-cars-be-re.html
Scissor
I note in the link you provide the use of the words may, could etc regarding the potential risk of emf.
Don’t climate alarmists use similar words. ????
Ozone Burst – EMF/RF/EMI Toxicity Verification—and wait till 5-6G enter the picture.
https//bioinitiative.org
Overall, these 1800 or so new studies report abnormal gene transcription (Section 5); genotoxicity and single-and double-strand DNA damage (Section 6); stress proteins because of the fractal RF-antenna like nature of DNA (Section 7); chromatin condensation and loss of DNA repair capacity in human stem cells (Sections 6 and 15); reduction in free-radical scavengers – particularly melatonin (Sections 5, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17); neurotoxicity in humans and animals (Section 9), carcinogenicity in humans (Sections 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17); serious impacts on human and animal sperm morphology and function (Section 18); effects on offspring behavior (Section 18, 19 and 20); and effects on brain and cranial bone development in the offspring of animals that are exposed to cell phone radiation during pregnancy (Sections 5 and 18). This is only a snapshot of the evidence presented in the BioInitiative 2012 updated report.
Sounds like an alarmist site, looking for an UN support.
And how are all these EVs going to be charged? Roughly how many tons of copper will be required to beef up the entire grid?
“Significantly simpler” and yet ridiculously more expensive.
Certainly not “a questionable set of arguments, based on technologies becoming obsolete,” when you’re talking about a ban on non-EVs by 2032. That’s not far down the road.
“If the glass batteries come to pass, things also will change drastically” certainly falls within “a questionable set of arguments.” The closest development is this, which is already years behind schedule and looks like some sort of joke. https://www.ses.ai/product Solid-state lithium battery research for transpo has had 25 yrs of research with minimal advancement.
Current average vehicle lifetimes are about 11 yrs and under 150k miles. What’s the point of a 1,000k battery right now aside from niche buyers? I think it is ridiculous that I drive 25k miles a year. A 1,000k battery gets me 40 yrs. It gets the average driver 60-70+ years. Nobody wants a car that long. The rest of the vehicle will be essentially obsolete.
Kandi K27 “at the lower end of the cost scale” starts at $20.5k. Range is up to 100 miles, and top speed is a whole 63 mph. Good luck with that. Even if it isn’t a deathtrap – and it certainly looks like it is – the insurance will be more than the car payment (before tax credits).
We haven’t even started talking about the load issues on the power grid.
Hyundai is already guaranteeing hybrid batteries for the lifetime of a car for the first buyer. So why do I need a 1,000k mile battery again?
“Hyundai is already guaranteeing hybrid batteries for the lifetime of a car for the first buyer.”
The ‘first buyer’ part makes it largely irrelevant, because it means there’ll still be little resale value for a car with an old and declining battery. It will only benefit those like us who buy a new car and drive it until it becomes too expensive to fix.
May be, may be… in a far far future.
At the moment I’m driving a diesel MB E-Class T-Model with 1500 km range on a single fuel stop. It takes just 5 minutes to fill the tank once every two weeks.
It is a big and very comfortable car.
If you compare the electricity mix in Germany, my car emits 2x LESS CO2 than an EV.
At the moment, my fuel costs me 6 Euro / 100 km.
Tell me once more, why should I change to an EV?
You must be smoking some good stuff. Tell us again about the Tesla semi-truck and pickup which went into production in 2019.
Electric vehicles have to transport a heavy battery pack (and the battery does not get much lighter, like a gas tank running towards dry does).
That is why they are not popular engineering design. They waste energy. That is a fundamental flaw that politics cannot diminish. Geoff S
Dear Mr. ColMosby,
Every second week a new “super batterie” will be introduced with a loud marketing tam-tam. All these “super batteries” share two common features:
First, prompt will be asked for subsidies from tax money to “change the world”
Second, they work rather well on MS power-point slides, however not in the reality. Oh yes, paper is very patient.
Anthony
I am looking to buy an older vehicle with technology that can be maintained to avoid these unwanted electric toys.
Roger
Somehow after all these years it’s still unthinkingly assumed climate activists are seeking a “solution.”
What’s actually being sought is the accumulation of wealth and power by leveraging the coercive powers of government to force people to surrender their money and personal autonomy in exchange for things very few of them would ever buy, given a choice.
Single/central/collusion… Go left, young man. Go right, with a nominally independent model. Or, stay in the conservative center, with a hybrid model.
DH, thanks for that. As I was reading these comments, I was thinking along the same lines. The people at the top of the pyramid are making fortunes off wind turbines and solar. It’s wealth redistribution in the exact opposite direction to the direction the leftists and phony-leftists whine about.
……. but whenever have leftists and phony-leftists ever done anything that wasn’t upside down?
I used to think this belief was being cynical. Now, it’s blatantly obvious.
Joseph McCarthy is partly responsible for temporarily driving Marxism underground. It would have been better to shine light upon it and open it up for free debate. Now one has to question whether free debate is even possible, but there is hope that the Marxists are making the same error.
It would have been better if people have listened to McCarthy and rooted out the communists who were trying to destroy America. But it was too late by then; their tentacles were too deep into the media and government, and most people didn’t want to listen.
MarkG,
Almost daily I find new documentation revealing the start of the tentacle process. Elsewhere on WUWT just now, we have details of early corruption of science to promote the linear no low dose hypothesis for the safety of nuclear radiation. People on a mission lied, cherry picked data, changed reports and generally did just about any criminal thing they could imagine, to promote their beliefs. Some of this was in the 1920-1960 era. The pattern of deceit has got worse, almost as if there are 2 hman sub-species evolving, one that uses the scientific method and one that exists to diminish it.
Our collective failing has been to disregard this cancer within science, on the reasonable grounds that people would not be that despicable.
They are.
I don’t think McCarthy drove Marxists underground. At least not initially. That was a marketing decision by the Marxists. McCarthy saw through that ruse and tried to advance his own career by pointing something out that most politicians were too timid, too naive, or too polite to notice.
I do see some validity in what you’re saying though. Unfortunately it was too much trouble to engage the ideas on the merits and easier to just demonize and lead an emotional witch hunt. It did little to establish a positive theory about market economies and personal liberty, and largely discredited the idea that Marxists were actively trying to undermine our institutions.
Seeing the effectiveness of the witch hunt, the Marxists were confirmed in their perceived need to hide who they really were. They doubled down on their stealthy attack, claiming victimhood and martyrdom. The long march through the institutions continued unchecked.
Now that they have miseducated several generations, we are reaping the bitter fruits. It’s no longer perceived as necessary to hide one’s Marxism, and liberty is equated with racism.
The injustice of social justice, the progress of social progress, the class-based taxonomic systems, processes, and beliefs (e.g. racism, sexism) of diversity dogma, the bigotry of political congruence (“=”), and the relativity of the Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic quasi-religion (e.g. “ethics”), are driving these issues to the forefront. Losing a cheap buffer to share/shift responsibility in China and normalizing emigration reform in lieu of [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform, may be the last step.
EV’s are going to end up as the vacuum fluorescent bulbs of the vehicle world.
Same single focus push ignoring the science until there is a sudden shift
So there will be a few more trillion dollars waste for nothing, following the ideas of those with zero credibility
I would characterize them as the toxic, underperforming CFLs loved by Greens for their inferior technology and green return.
I see niches for EVs. I don’t see any niches for CFLs.
There was, at the time. They were the convenient, low energy, affordable bulb of choice, with same caveats, in particular for people who were accustomed to saving energy by turning of lights.
““At the moment, as an industry, we are sleeping at the wheel as the environmental lobbying groups dictate an all-out push for EVs at the exclusion of any other solution,” Lavery told AM in an interview this morning.”
A solution to a non-problem. Which then creates a huge, foreseeable problem. The foreseeable problem of too much demand on the grid for non-existent electricity (solar PV at night) and unreliable wind energy. And if the electricity has to then come from fossil fuel such as natural gas as a just-it-time spot market player, there is no benefit only a huge added costs of expensive power to everyone and likely more emissions. Ecotard Greens are absolute morons because they are unable to critically evaluate the nonsense they spew.
Of course if one were to invest in fast start, just-in-time CGT peaking power plants, one could make a fortune selling very expensive electricity to desperate for electricity grid operators to keep the lights on. And they just pass the high cost of that power on through to the consumers making it very expensive to charge you EV at night.
unreliable wind energy
Too cold, too hot, never just… Wait a second. Too slow, too fast, out of range.
Won’t be a problem, because first they have to dig up all the streets to put in beefier cables to carry the load. Without that, and bigger distribution transformers, your local circuits will trip out long before all your neighbours have EVs. Local blackouts ensuring you don’t go anywhere.
The battery is a poor choice (e.g. low energy density, high mass) as an energy carrier for transportation purposes. It is a technology of the past that is chosen for Green applications by virtue of sharing/shifting pollution from where the energy is consumed.
Dear n.n.
You are right. The energy densities:
—Li-batteries: 0,65 MJoule/kg
—Oil, diesel, benzin: 42 MJoule/kg
The numbers speak for themselves.
Uranium 80,620,000 MJ/Kg
Plutonium-239 83,610,000 Mj/Kg
🙂
+97
IanW is right.
The goal is a peasantry tied to the land, as in the autocratic Russia of the Tsars.
The unique phenomenon of old Russia, the “propiska” or internal passport, will soon be our reality.
The ability of Joe Average to get in a car in New York and drive to Denver Colorado, or someone in Amsterdam to drive to Geneva, is going to end, soon.
Toy electric cars requiring frequent long recharging will make the car practical for shopping, school runs and close work commutes only.
Coordinated policies will also shorten all of the above – people will be incentivised to live as close as possible to work, school, shops etc.
In Belgium where I live this is happening already.
Company cars can now only be PHEVs, with long term policy being to move to all electric.
Big incentives are now given to employees to move to within 5km (3 miles) of the workplace.
The saying goes: “het beste transport is geen transport”
– this means “the best transport is no transport”.
And ironically, Belgium (I lived and went to school there in Tevuren in the 80’s) has the largest, most extensive, lit road network in the EU zone!
Antwerp to Luxembourg is about 140 miles… that’s about the longest distance I can find in Belgium
I should think any EV would do that easily and it is probably faster by train…?
I guess you never lived in Belgium then.
Love how globalists dictate how others should live. Hate to mention it but where are the rules for my yacht. I hope the batteries will not change my cruising range. I seem to have problems finding proper ocean charging sites.
Every month or so I do a web search for recent stories about ammonia fuel.
This month we have an announcement of a large plant to make ammonia from ‘green’ electricity in Saudi Arabia. link
Ammonia is much easier to store than hydrogen and has much higher energy density than batteries. It can be burned in an internal combustion engine.
The maritime shipping industry is showing great interest in ammonia fuel because they wouldn’t have to replace their fleet, they would pretty much install new fuel tanks and keep going in their accustomed manner.
Similarly, ammonia fuel solves the battery problem for cars and trucks and even rockets.
seriously? Ammonia is insanely dangerous. The general public has no business going remotely near it without ludicrous safeguards.
And it burns to produce oxides of nitrogen , not only hazardous to lungs but eventually degrading to nitrous and ntric acid. Brilliant. Keep it as a fertilizer.
I found a an inexpensive high density fuel to run my F250, diesel.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1540748918306345
Anything that replaces bunker fuel is a good idea. Picking lumps of soot out of my cocktail just ruins my evening enjoyment when cruising. (Still trying to get the money back from the next cruise when the company went bust on me due to WuFlu 🙁 )
I read that liquid ammonia contains more hydrogen by volume than compressed hydrogen. Probably true, but so does liquid natural gas. And diesel. And water.
More usefully:
liquid H2O – 0MJ/l
Lithium Ion battery – 2.6MJ/l
H2 at 690 bar LHV – 4.5MJ/l
liquid NH3 – 11.5MJ/l
LNG – 22.2 MJ/l
Diesel (and pretty much all other hydrocarbon fuels) – 38.6MJ/l
and for fun – body fat – 35MJ/l
and for outsiders to power cruise ships or even SUVs
boron – 137.8MJ/l
uranium – 1,539,842,000MJ/l
Ammonia from “green ” energy – and hydrogen according to the link ? Ruinously expensive I’d say! And dangerous!And ever so smelly!This horse won’t run.
And the rot from within continues apace. Just think, absent Trump, the US could be continuing down that same road.
I believe the Democrats have said they’re going to ban all ICE cars if they win. So if Trump loses this year, they’ll be right back on schedule for destroying America.
I suppose they intend to import more wood chip from the USA to fire their power stations or import more power from Europe. I suppose they have calculated how much more power is required to fully electrify the fleet. Methinks previous commentators are right— the aim is to “ground“ the British public.
The decision to ban hybrids is particularly stupid. Low speed equals zero emissions in urban areas, exactly where that’s most needed, while the ICE delivers range, usability and most importantly, battery re-charging.
Instead we’re expected to pay for thousands of electric charging points which will inflict abject misery while they’re being built, will cost £billions and be obsolete in no time. Insane and all so avoidable.
Old commie principle. A business model where general immobility, rural depopulation and strict control for all would guarantee eternal power and wellbeing for few.
Ceaușescu attempted it in Romania but failed, Castro dreamed it while the far more merciless Kim dynasty still proves very proficient at the task.
No wonder so many “Juche study groups” soar in the upper layers of Brit’s speculative intelligentsia and corresponding social media.
Hybrids are a much better option than all-electric vehicles.
You won’t disrupt society using hybrids. You don’t need charging stations and an enhanced electrical grid to use hybrids.
Here’s the real answer to all this EV Cr*p:
The future probably is EV’s because the electric motor beats the piston engine. The problem of EV’s is the same as it was over a century ago – the battery. The source of electricity in the future is not likely to be solar/wind but rather thorium liquid salts cooled nuclear reactors. A glass battery using lithium has been patented….super capacitors are still being looked at….fuel cells are still being developed…induction recharging from the roadway may be possible. I just saw a train that uses tractor trailers as cars….I had to rub my eyes at first….the trailers use a dual axle railroad coupling that connects 2 trailers…the rubber tires of the trailers are just inches above the rails….only special trailers work and the entire freight train is composed of this one type of trailer…it’s all about saving money.
Big boats are already often electric.
They just have a big piston engine producing energy in the first place…
Every move away from fossil fuels, except toward nuclear ☢️ , will be punished by worsened reliability, higher cost and economic harm, and reduced safety with rising injuries and fatalities. Plus a host of unforeseen problems such as resource scarcity and new pollution and environmental damage. O and if we’re lucky a war or three thrown in. A global black comedy in which we are all players.
Once we’re all on batteries ICEs will be a plaything for the rich.
Right now, this very day, in Edmonton, Canada, you can buy a safety-inspected, insurable gasoline car for about $2000. You can fuel it anywhere, and you can drive it due north to a city near the Arctic circle in perfect confidence that you will get there.
I’m guessing but the cheapest electric car available in Edmonton (and you’d have to search for it) today would probably cost at least $20,000, and would have a range of about sixty miles. It would take eight hours to recharge. This is where we are after a decade of electric cars.
Let’s see Elon Musk make an electric car that he can sell for more than it cost to make it. He can’t. Tesla has never had a period in its existence when income from sales exceeded production costs. There is no way electric cars can be marketed successfully unless governments ban ICE vehicles. Such a ban would be wildly class discriminatory, because it would make it possible for only affluent people to own personal vehicles.
‘sleeping at the wheel’
Which industry was NOT sleeping at the wheel?
Which commerce?
Which corporation is capable of defending ANYTHING in Europe or in recent US history?
When was the last principled ad you saw from Big Anything?
“The millions of tonnes of Cobalt that are being pulled out the ground in Africa, the Amnesty International investigation into child slavery in those mining processes”
A common but flawed argument against EV and renewable energy.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/06/22/child-labor-in-the-drc-and-climate-change/
I worked for Honda in Swindon in the UK in the mid-1990’s. Back then there was significant over capacity in the car making industry where brand new cars were sent off shore and stored. There are literally millions of unused, delivery mileage, cars being stored and even some are being “recycled”. This is madness!
Well that’s not a problem now as Honda Swindon shut down over Brexit.
Before it did, it had a large solar power supply, interestingly…
Yeah, you have no idea as usual. Honda RAMPED UP PRODUCTION in making cars 24×7 when I left in 1995. ASFAIK stayed that way. They were storing them offshore, the ones they could not sell at least or were for export! The solar thing was like 20 years later!
Honda shutdown because it was too expensive to operate in the UK.
I love IONITI’s 0.79 euros per kWh charging costs. Diesel is cheaperr
If the UK exits the EU with no trade deal, there will not be a UK car industry.
all of it is foreign owned and depends on exporting around 70% of output to the EU: WTO tariffs make it pointless not to move manufacture to an EU country.
you can find a statement to that effect from the management of every UK car maker… except Morgan.
“griff August 3, 2020 at 12:12 am
If the UK exits the EU…”
Clueless Griff. The UK *IS* exited from the EU. Trade deals are mere BS!
Wrong actually UK car manufacturers would have to ramp up given no alternative
https://www.acea.be/news/article/automotive-trade-between-the-united-kingdom-and-its-main-eu-partners
You export 800,000 cars and import 2.3 million.
Meanwhile the German Auto Industry would be plunged into chaos which is why it won’t happen.
Actually, many German cars are actually made overseas. The Amarok is made in Argentina, the Golf in South Africa and others are made in Poland. A large chunk of German cars are not made in Germany.
No you are confusing US or Australian supplies of the same name
German Amaroks are made in Hannover
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Amarok
Passenger car market in Germany by country of manufacture origin
https://www.statista.com/statistics/417007/new-car-registrations-in-germany-by-country-of-origin/
Not one of the countries you mention is even listed .
Nope! Stay away from Wikipedia. German car makers are making cars, but not in Germany.
So why did Nissan announce it was investing in Sunderland and not inside the EU?
Nissan was persuaded to start up in the UK during the Thatcher years, which included significant tax breaks.
I submitted a 56-page response to the “consultation.” I don’t expect it will go anywhere beyond the circular bin; the tone of the proposals suggests that the decisions are already made.
And while I basically agree with Mr. Lavery, I didn’t use any of his arguments. I concentrated more on the sordid history of the bad things the UK political class has done to the citizens over “climate change.” Like their 2002 perversion of the precautionary principle from “Look before you leap” to “If in doubt, government must act.” The 2006 Stern Review, which fiddled the numbers in order to try to make a “business case” for proceeding with climate action. And the 2009 decision to change the valuation of CO2 away from the “social cost of carbon,” which meant that it was no longer possible even to attempt cost-benefit analysis on anything involving CO2 emissions. When all this – and much more – is finally brought out into the open, there will be a lot of very angry people around these parts.
My brother told me that the local EV charging station is now being video monitored, because somebody had attached stickers to each terminal that read: “Coal Power” or “Powered by Coal.”
Now ” that’s funny right there!”
#BlackCoalMatters
In the UK the govt does not want the population to move to EV so much, they want them to move to public transport. Upgrading the local electricity systems to provide for EV charging will cost several billion
And you can bet your last pound, public transport will be for the great unwashed, not for the elites