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Car buyers should have 'long, hard think' about diesel
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Not forgetting disposal at end of life of said battery/accuulators etc.
The Prius, whilst a real first go was less 'green' through it's manufacture than the 'green' credentials it earned use.
Scrappage also involves the generation of a wide variety of waste/,gases/energy.... Whole Life Cycle issues
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The Mustang has only been on sale for a little over a year, apart from the fact that you can't get any if very little discount on the new car, take a look on Autotrader for year old Mustangs, they are selling for practically new car money. The only money you will save is the first years road tax and if the car was specced at over £40k brand new you'll also be paying the extra £340/year for four years before it falls to £140.
You have obviously missed the fact that Australia has recently built it's last car. It's got to get it's rhd cars from somewhere and yes they do ship second hand rhd cars to Australia. I know of someone who makes a nice living who buys up MK1 RS Focus' and ships them off to Australia among other cars as they were never sold out there as new cars. From car forums, I'm aware of several Australian members that have cars that were originally bought in the UK and at some point shipped to Australia.
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I understood that making the batteries and transporting them across created more pollution than the cars saved by being electric. Hence not all that eco-friendly. For electric to really take off, it needs to be as easy to charge as it is to fill up at a petrol station - no more than five minutes, and the range needs to be similar ie 300+ miles between recharges. There needs to be lots of rechargeable stations.
Having said that, I do feel electric cars have their use in urban areas. My drive to work is around ten minutes. Most of the time, I'm in my office. Sometimes I have to go out and about. But an electric car would be useful in this situation and I could leave the 2.0 turbo for other tasks.
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But remember, the rare earths that went into the manufacture of the battery are now located where the demand is and there's huge score for recycling of these materials. A colleague has a first generation Prius and the battery life has far exceeded the initial expectations, and good money is being offered to buy back expired batteries for refurbishment/recycling.
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There are many re-use/recycle elements in modern vehicles. In the case of the Prius, the battery packs were a little hit and miss at first but, as you note, there is a second market for the packs, how long this will last remains to be seen. The 'elephant in the room' remains the deconstruction of expired vehicles (all waste really) as energy, from whatever source, is expended at every stage from cradle to the grave.
HMS Ark Royal is a case in hand - sent in 2013 to Turkey to be scrapped (deemed recycling), but huge elements of the materials used in building it were embedded within it's superstructure, a huge amount of asbestos which is impossible to handle without extreme measures for management of spore release. Wonder why the hulk was sold the a Turkish ship 'recycler' and not a UK/EU company?
As in many cases, government loves good news stories or issues of great 'public' concern..... until the next issue comes along for politicians and pressure groups to lock on to. The high level of NOx in citirs is more about the lack of efficient and integrated public transport systems, lack of delivery hubs close in city centres (eg rail) and, despite road charging, people want to use their cars irrespective of delays/cost). A huge amount of work has been done to make London as unfriendly to motor vehicles as possible. Streets narrowed, parking reduced and subject to variable but expensive parking etc
No, we are going to solve all that by banning diesel driven vehicles..... not a chance, that is like putting an elastoplast on the stump left by an amputated leg. London and the Home Counties is home to getting on for a third of the population ogf the UK, the major cities outside of London are major conubations where people live and work - same problems as London, different scale. Vast areas of the landscape are low population but pretty or owned by the few or 'protected'...
Time to build some new cities, scaled and integrated....
Diesel is a sympton of a much bigger issue..... HS2? No wonder I am PMSL..... Gigabyte Broadband everywhere would bring more prosperity at a fraction of the cost of a vanity project.... Perhaps the overall picture is just too much.... get hung up on diesel eh?
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You diversion into asbestos on Ark Royal is interesting but irrelevant. Asbestos hasn't been used in vehicles for decades.
The End Of Life Vehicle Directive sets very high percentages for the recovery and recycling of materials from cars - currently 95%. It's why you no longer see the composite dashboards and bumpers that were so common during the '80s. I've worked with a breaker to put together their Authorised Treatment Facility application to the Environment Agency. The proportion of troublesome components that can't be recycled or that there's no secondary market for is very small. Truly hazardous components are limited to air bag initiators and a small number of mercury switches. The manufacturers cooperate to produce a guide to the breaking of every model they manufacturer, detailing where the hazardous items are and how they should be removed. And it's freely available through an EU portal to everyone involved in the disposal of End of Live Vehicles.
The market for reconditioned battery packs for electric and hybrid vehicles is still developing, but ultimately these batteries can be dismantled and the materials used recovered for re-use in new products.
I agree with your opinion on HS2 it's designed to make the situation in London worse by further concentrating economic activity in the capital. What's needed are high speed rail routes for freight, connecting regional hubs with the ports and the channel tunnel. Face-to-face meetings can be scaled back and replaced (to an extent) by Skype type technologies, but goods and raw materials will still have to be delivered. Intra- and inter-regional communications need to be improved rather than hub and spoke infrastructure centred on the M25. I'm sure most people here will know at least one major road or rail route in their area that's limiting development but doesn't connect to London - here in the top half of East Angla it's the A17-A47 connection from the A1 at Newark to King's Lynn, Norwich and Great Yarmouth.
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Many people do not consider the whole life cycle energy cost of vehicles. I read somewhere, may very well have been Greenpeace, that for optimum energy efficiency / minimum carbons and taking into account improvements in fuel efficiency of new vehicles, one should keep cars running until well past their 20th birthday due to the amount of energy required for their construction and destruction. It definitely used to be the case that 50% the total amount of energy consumed by a car over its entire life was used in its manufacture and scrapping.
So all these people buying new, more efficient cars every three years are in fact exacerbating the problem of CO2 in the atmosphere.
I work on the basis that when the sills and/or floor start to need welding then it's probably time for a change. I've got one car (manufactured in 2000) in for service today so am using the other (manufacturer in 2002) today. Neither is rusty. Yet.
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Only if they're scrapping them after three years... think about it
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Spores?
Picking up Neil's point, the old Priapus was horribly inefficient in real world compared to a diesel of similar age & size - are they better than normally fuelled cars now?
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Exactly, I've had my Honda derv for over 9 1/2 years and will keep her as long as I can...although the 10G Type R looks nice
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Not really a diversin more of a pointer to a more holistic approach to the ownership of issues.
Government and pressure groups try to keep the scope of problems to extremes.
A good portion of my business was consulting on the emergence of 'sustainability' across the whole range of business/government. The powers that be wanted quick results, business wanted 'green credentials' as a means of garnering 'responsible investors', it was a new dynamic when international agreements were setting global targets or 'aspirations' as I deemed them; which morphed into trajectories. In the end there was so much work on offer I essentially transferrefd my people into some well known companies and closed my company.
The agenda is moving on but the need for quick wins will not actually change anything. I did some work with UNEP and the trans boundary movement of pernicious chemicals still continues to be lucrative for crinal gangs ans has the potential to do more harm than NOx ever will.
So yes diesel (or heavy fuel oil - used for heating homes in areas where natural gas in unavailable amongst many other things) is a problem but there is a whole list of serious issues in the mix..... Diesel cars? THE PROBLEM?
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We used 'spores' as a generic. There is no safe level with Asbestos - a tiny flake is too much. I have even seen metal warning plates screwed into asbestos sheeting!
https://www.emlab.com/s/sampling/env-report-08-2007.html
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I'd normally go with "fibres".
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The testing labs we used went with spores bur fibres is much the same. Brilliant material for what it does but....
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority have their own names for it!
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I can imagine, one of the few things worse than asbestos when decommissioning must be radioactive asbestos!
The worst example of asbestos in a workplace I've ever come across was vehicle related (I used to do Type 1 Presumptive surveys for a previous employer, I don't think they really saved much training us up to do these as for 80% of their sites we'd find something that required bringing in someone licensed for sampling). Some bright spark, several decades before I came across the scene, had decided that a nice tile of asbestos insulating board was just the job for protecting the garage workbench from acid spills when maintaining truck batteries. The area hadn't been used in about ten years and over time the residual acid spills had etched out the cement matrix leaving the the asbestos fibres in the most delicate and fragile of arrangements. I've never backed out of a room so cautiously, holding my breath and trying to avoid creating air movements. Definitely not covered by the Task Manual and the specialists could deal with that one.
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You did the right thing!
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Spores has a very specific meaning. Not trying to be an ass, but it's a little like deciding that a pear was about the same size and shape as a kit lens, so we all had pears on the front of our cameras instead of lenses.
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Let's not forget to produce diesel/petrol, you'd also need so much electricity at the refinery. Whole life cycle analysis usually does not count the cost of crude oil refining process.
I think Tesla has all the right answers. By adopting software upgrades and future features, they are effectively telling people to keep their car for as long as possible. Traditional manufacturers don't do that, they want you to buy their latest and greatest every 3 years, this is a very bad practice and need to stop.
I'm a true believer in software updates. My gaming computer has not received much update since 2012 (only changed graphics card). My phone has not been changed since 2013. My camera is from 2012. Microsoft gives me software upgrades on my computer. Apple provides constant update for my phone. Fujifilm kept my camera up to date and until it is all the hardware can manage. In a few years, Tesla will keep my car up-to-date.
A plug-in hybrid is a very special breed of EV. Their main use-case is not to be plugged in at public chargers. They should be plugged in at home, and commute must be within their range.
There are a wide range of hybrids:
0. No electric motors.
1. Mild parallel hybrid like Prius, Ioniq and Le Ferrari (just drive it normally, benefit of lower emission when in slow traffic)
1.9 Through the road hybrid, like BMW 2 series hybrid, Volvo V60 diesel hybrid (not ideal due to tire wear, but mechanically simple)
2. Plug-in parallel hybrid like Outlander PHEV, Golf GTE, Prius plug-in (not ideal due to compromised powertrains, tiny hardly useful battery and motor, some have missing true EV components such as space heater)
3. Series hybrid like BMW i3 REx, Ampera (IMHO ideal for now, before charging infrastructure catches up. Shame about the selection: only 2 cars)
4. Full EV
Only category 3 and 4 are meant to rely on the public chargers, and that's only when doing long journeys. 90% of the energy should be from plugged in at home.
People's idea of filling up need to change. With an EV, you no longer need to remember to go somewhere to queue and fill up, the EV is always ready in the morning when you are setting off. It's no different to plugging in the smart phone at night.
I think Tesla has all the right answers. By adopting software upgrades and future features, they are effectively telling people to keep their car for as long as possible. Traditional manufacturers don't do that, they want you to buy their latest and greatest every 3 years, this is a very bad practice and need to stop.
I'm a true believer in software updates. My gaming computer has not received much update since 2012 (only changed graphics card). My phone has not been changed since 2013. My camera is from 2012. Microsoft gives me software upgrades on my computer. Apple provides constant update for my phone. Fujifilm kept my camera up to date and until it is all the hardware can manage. In a few years, Tesla will keep my car up-to-date.
A plug-in hybrid is a very special breed of EV. Their main use-case is not to be plugged in at public chargers. They should be plugged in at home, and commute must be within their range.
There are a wide range of hybrids:
0. No electric motors.
1. Mild parallel hybrid like Prius, Ioniq and Le Ferrari (just drive it normally, benefit of lower emission when in slow traffic)
1.9 Through the road hybrid, like BMW 2 series hybrid, Volvo V60 diesel hybrid (not ideal due to tire wear, but mechanically simple)
2. Plug-in parallel hybrid like Outlander PHEV, Golf GTE, Prius plug-in (not ideal due to compromised powertrains, tiny hardly useful battery and motor, some have missing true EV components such as space heater)
3. Series hybrid like BMW i3 REx, Ampera (IMHO ideal for now, before charging infrastructure catches up. Shame about the selection: only 2 cars)
4. Full EV
Only category 3 and 4 are meant to rely on the public chargers, and that's only when doing long journeys. 90% of the energy should be from plugged in at home.
People's idea of filling up need to change. With an EV, you no longer need to remember to go somewhere to queue and fill up, the EV is always ready in the morning when you are setting off. It's no different to plugging in the smart phone at night.
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EV batteries can be recycled as stationary battery. I've got solar panels on my roof, I am going to wait for ~10 years, when recycled EV batteries are widely available and change my relatively cheap inverter to a battery-inverter solution.
i3 for example has 30%-50% less carbon footprint than similar sized normal car, over its lifetime:
http://jalopnik.com/the-bmw-i3-is-officially-much-greener-than-almost-every-1462999376
And Tesla Model S on their pre-owned program costs MORE than their show-room price. I've got a friend who has had his Model S 85 for 1.5 years, bought brand new £60k. To buy the same car approved pre-owned now, you'd have to be looking at £65k!!
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Software upgrades can keep an old product reasonably fresh and relevant, but it's no panacea. And again you're missing a large part of the life cycle of a vehicle. New car buyers through the nose for the new premium and to have the latest technology, then it's onto the secondary market for those that don't want to or can't pay the premium for the new car smell.
It's hardware upgrades that will keep vehicles on the road longer, upgrading batteries and swapping out motors and gear trains.will be part of it. But interiors will get tired just as quickly with electric as diesel vehicles. Does Tesla have proposals for upgrading/replacing seats, carpets and headlining? There's a lot to be said for the old-style chassis+body construction over the modern unibody when it comes to life cycle upgrades.
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People buying a car every 3 years or so has two benefits.
1. Car companies stay in business
2. People remain employed.
People keeping their cars as long as possible has 3 things going against it.
1. Eventually Car company is no longer able to sell cars and goes out of business
2. People lose their jobs.
3. No 2nd hand cars for people to buy who can't afford to, or don't wish to buy them new.
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Whilst to an extent what nilagin says is true, it doesn't take into account the real world. Where fleet buyers tend to change every 3 to 4 years in any case.
If you look at what is happening in the general car market in the UK many cars are now basically being rented. That model only remains viable if the manufactures can then sell those cars on.
If you look at what is happening in the general car market in the UK many cars are now basically being rented. That model only remains viable if the manufactures can then sell those cars on.
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But why? - I suspect it's the standard three year manufacturer warranty and the first MOT that drives this frequency as much as anything else. If the residual values were improved by upgrade paths the fleet cycle might change.
The three year cycle is automotive crack for both manufacturers and consumers - they and us are hooked on a buy-sell-repeat market. I don't think Tesla are trying to compete in the current market, they're trying to change the rules and/or create a new type of market.
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EV batteries can be recycled as stationary battery. I've got solar panels on my roof, I am going to wait for ~10 years, when recycled EV batteries are widely available and change my relatively cheap inverter to a battery-inverter solution.
i3 for example has 30%-50% less carbon footprint than similar sized normal car, over its lifetime:
http://jalopnik.com/the-bmw-i3-is-officially-much-greener-than-almost-every-1462999376
And Tesla Model S on their pre-owned program costs MORE than their show-room price. I've got a friend who has had his Model S 85 for 1.5 years, bought brand new £60k. To buy the same car approved pre-owned now, you'd have to be looking at £65k!!
All well and good.... now upscale your take to include the widest adoptiin of, say, just the UK requirement for lowest emission, lowest build/environmetal impact personal use Tesla like vehicle and we set that requirement into law tomorrow (assume all is geared up for manufacture of the required vehicle), The scrappage scheme is in place to swap out the current polluting vehicles etc..... when do I get mine exactly? Meanwhile in the other countries of the world.....
Back to the thread theme.... I have had a long hard think..... I agree "something must be done". He journey is always started with the first step but realistically, sadly, that first step will never be undertaken until the will for it to happen en masse occurs. Government is mandated to deliver leadership, safety and infrastructure for 5 years st a time. In reality it is 3 years. Year 1 plan and debate priorities, years 2-4 implement plans, year 5 prepare for next election, create blame list, develop plan for next 5 years including the mantra "these difficult times...." all the while most people are battling on, keeping their heads above water and putting their efforts into getting through the current rang of "these difficult times" and not about the need to replace 5, 10, 15, 20 million vehicle in the UK and eventially billions elsewhere.
In essence I am with you 100%... Am I going to do anything to make it happen? Nope. I did have a chat yo my some about his diesel powered Kuga 180, he stared at me and said "Nothing and by the way it' the 220 version". I then thought about my Motorhome with it's Mercedes Diesel powered engine, put the kettle on and wrote this short piece.....
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Traditional manufacturers don't need to offer software upgrades because we drive cars primarily based on hardware that wears and fails, rather than software that crufts up and lacks exciting new features. They might bug-fix, but new software isn't going to bring large increases in perforance that the car wasn't previously capable of, nor will it sort out warped disc rotors, loose suspension joints or a rusty body shell. It might keep the primary buyer amused for an extra year with new sparkly toys on the screen in the cockpit (unlikely) but the people buying and running the car for the next 10-15 years won't give a wet slap.
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That's way too simplistic. The city I live in has pollution levels that frequently exceed the legal limits. Yes we have a high density underground network. A full city wide tram network. A second underground system of regional trains. A full bus network that can somehow, oddly be on time during peak traffic tailback periods 5 out of 6 times per hour, typically at my stop. The 6th bus will be 4-7mins late during rush hour on a bad day. And your one ticket is valid on all networks at all times and shares a single timetable. And is cheap too. And for high-speed trains we have the equivalent of HS2, HS3 and HS4 going out in all directions every 10 minutes to all other cities. And a full set of raised bike lanes, separating cyclists from the traffic in all but the smallest of streets.
So it's not easy to cope with the pollution even if there are good transport networks.
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So does everyone still drive to work then?
In Oxfordshire the car driver is considered a pariah, but the public transport is expensive and covers a very limited area (our village has NO bus service now) rush hour train to London is around £60 return for 2 35 min journeys.
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My experience of Munich was in the mid to late 70s, quite accessible, shops closing around midday on a Saturday and not opening till Monday, and no doubt things have changed considerably since then. That said, it is a compact city in a large country as opposed to London and the Greater London area of over 20 million crammed into a huge collection of towns and villages. Everything is London centric and so it grinds along. I lived in London for most of my life but I now limit my time there. A fantastic place but a mess too. The UK has space to build new cities, has the technology to connect them to be smart but will not. So HS2 will be the next cash sump, Crossrail next to open at a huge cost and meanwhile the Trans-Penine route is a joke. It was awful when I was based in Huddersfield and travelling from Leeds to Manchester in 1995/6 and again in 2005... 12 years on and the situation is still no nearer to bolstering the Northern Powerhouse and so the M62 is still a mess but £50Bn + for HS2 is great..... And the reduction in the use of Diesel 'up North"? Another pipedream. There's nothing simplistic in reality but you really have to laugh sometimes.
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Thankfully things have moved on in Munich over the last quarter century. And the city and transport network has expanded hugely. And yes, it's not as big and sprawling as London. But, like London, and Paris and many other cities, has a dire air pollution problem.
Much of the UK transport network has suffered from neglect. And has not had gradual investment and growth over a long period. So HS2 is trying to play catch up all in one go. Also having incompatible rail and bus systems and tickets run by companies who's aim is to take money out of the system and not put it in, as a non profit investment in infrastructure, is clearly going to keep people in cars.
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Th..th..that's all folks!
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You also have to consider 1) any car sold to the next buyer will still continue to be in service, presumably replacing something truly horrible down the line; 2) cars that are shagged may require a tone of replacement parts - and this means lots of energy intensive manufacturing to make them; 3) the mileage of the car - some 20yo cars have less than 200k, some 3 yo - already past 3/400k (eg. taxi). What figures does GreenFarce use?
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In essence yes. The privatisation of the UK rail system was never going to truly benefit the customer and that many of thr franchises are in the hands of European state owned railways (DB Cargo being the UK's largest rail freight mover) has seen accusations that the margins raised in the UK passenger rail franchises are being fed back to subsidise European state railways, (eg Arriva XC trains owners - DB) in order to keep ticket prices lower there.
So now the price per mile means that it is cheaper to drive at peak times than take the train. In my experience it was cheaper to take 4 people from London to Liverpool by buying a cheap Saloon car at auction (complete with MoT and road tax (not possible now)) paying for fuel and parking and selling the car on return.
Without a joined up approach by central government then there will only be short term knee jerk programmes and no integrated solutions.
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
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Not only is quite a lot of modern cars recycleable, but the materials used also recycled, a lot better than ending up in a scrap heap or landfill somewhere. What's more car factories are getting greener and greener all the time. Just one example from one of many car manufacturers around the world. http://corporate.ford.com/microsite.../environment-operations-emissions-energy.html
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Th..th..that's all folks!
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You better believe scrapyard recycling is incredibly efficient. Almost everything is disassembled and re-sold piece by piece. Just have a look at ebay and I am really grateful for that. Only the frame and some bad bits get crushed as metal waste.
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True, hardware is still a critical part of any car. But let's not forget all cars are getting more and more computer driven features. I'm not suggesting putting in such update system for a 6 year old car.
Features like adaptive cruise control is both hardware limited and software limited. For example the Ioniq I test drove clearly had problems detecting cars cutting in. This can be fixed with a software update given time to tweak the software. Another feature would definitely benefit from software updates is range estimation, this is especially critical on electric cars. Why would the older model of Leaf not use the newer range estimation algorithms used in latest Leaf?
Let's not all forget about security risks for all connected devices if they are not kept up to date.
With bigger and bigger screens taking up the centre console, GUI refresh will also keep the interior feeling fresh and new. Seats and carpets are replaceable items, they are just bolted on. Perhaps in the future there will be a whole new industry: car refresh, where people go there to get a new seat fitted to replace their saggy ones. Although people will still take advantage of this and could create more pollution, because leather and plastic are not exactly environmental friendly.
Are you saying the environment cost of constantly replacing perfectly good cars are worth it compared to those? So switchboard operator, toll collector and train/tube ticket officer should all still be in jobs because we are afraid of moving forward?
When autonomous cars get more common, a whole host of people will loose jobs. With AI becoming more powerful and soon able to write better codes, I will loose my job in 10-20 years. It's all part of moving forward.
You are absolutely right, we can't all go buy a new car at the same time. I'm just here disputing the myths about EV's and hopefully change people's misconception on feasibility of EV's. And also shout about automatic software updates, because I think it's essential in ALL internet connected devices, even just for security updates.
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i've had a long hard think about whether its worth keeping my volvo S60 2.4 turbo auto just to tow our 2 berth caravan ,had a good long chat to the wife about it yesterday
so now we are looking for a good used
4 berth caravan
so now we are looking for a good used
4 berth caravan
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I'm guessing from your screen name that you're not European. In Europe we don't have that kind of consumer culture, that would do the 'refresh my car' thing, and TBH it should be discouraged at all costs - it's a waste on money & resources. And apart from among a few enthusiasts making significant modificationsa to their cars, it's just not normal to change seats. As for screens getting larger, drivers need to be looking out of the window, and the screen should comprise a very minor part of the driving experience (are we seeing smart-phone thinking creeping into driving? Madness!).
Your point about security is good, in that it seems cars can be easily hacked and accessed. It's also a sign of the car industry losing sight of what it means to design things properly, so enabling external connections to cars that allow people to control various aspects, rather than making them self-contained devices. Connectivity is only a tool, and not a destination.
As for other updates - those sound like bug fixes to me. And a 6 year old car is less than half way through its life,
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