"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Andy Hall coughed up some electrons that declared:

On 2008-05-27 10:39:18 +0100, Longshanks
said:

* Doctor Drivel wrote:
Which is the vast amount of car journeys. That is why hybrids answer
the current problem. Battery for town, petrol for longer.

The current problem is people use their cars for town.

Umm yes.....

This is because public transport doesn't meet their requirements.

There are then two results:

1) People take their cars to town, which frankly is a PITA because of
parking arrangements being so poor in most places; and so

2) They go to out of town retail parks instead.

This is certainly true. I live in a village 3 miles outside of Tunbridge
Wells.

Oh you poor sod! I feel for you.

Thanks to infrequent busses (outside of the school run hour) and
silly car parking charges to park in town, there are people here who
actually prefer, and claim it is no more expensive, to take their motor to
Bluewater, some 29 miles away.

Go figure what that does to the environment...

It is also a problem created in part by a lack of joined up thinking by
the
local government bodies.

Are you blaming Boris the Turk for this? He can't think joined up or not.

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles
range and outperforms a Porche.

It also has ... a super smooth seamless ride. Fab!

Blimey, why'd they bother starting with a Mini, then - re-engineering the
drivetrain's one thing, but to completely re-engineer the suspension
too...

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles
range and outperforms a Porche.

It also has ... a super smooth seamless ride. Fab!

Blimey, why'd they bother starting with a Mini, then - re-engineering the
drivetrain's one thing, but to completely re-engineer the suspension
too...

What incoherent off topic babble.

"Mary Fisher" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

So how come 1.5kWh only gets the Pious two miles at slug-pace?

What's slug-pace?

Dog slow.

That's meaningless.

Maximum 30mph,

That's the limit in urban areas in UK.

....but more to the point...
and acceleration that would be outstripped by a glacier.

You've just completely discredited your statements.

You've never tried to keep a Pious in ZEV mode, then? Seriously, the
acceleration available before the petrol engine is kicked in
automatically is absolutely woeful.

It takes at least that time to re-charge a driver - efficiently and
enjoyably.

It takes about a minute for the passenger to swap seats with the
driver.

Why would you want to?

Why wouldn't two people share the driving?

Why are you in such a hurry?

Because I'd rather spend an hour at my destination than sat in a motorway
services?

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

Not in London as they have filters. Diesels busses shake like hell on
idle. The sooner they are electric hybrids the better.

Riiiight. Now, that would be "Electric hybrids" with the electricity
generated by what power source...?

Petrol.

Not the 1.9 diesel engines already in use in diesel-electric hybrid buses
in London, then...?

"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

p.s. And Hybrids really aren't in the equation .. 2 mile electric range
and IC powered after that shrug.

Only if you go on long runs. The average town journey has the motor
assisting a lot of the time.

Umm, quite.

In article et,
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 27 May 2008 10:55:09 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Depends where you live. 50 miles is barely enough for our weekly
shopping run, the monthly one is 100 miles...

And how well does an electric car cope with altitude changes?

Properly designed, an electric car will have regen braking. This will
recover a significant amount of the potential energy when you go down hill.

Provided, of course, you don't use the brake pedal!

Regen braking can also recover a significant amount of the KE used in town
driving - stop-start cycle.

--
_ _ ___ ____ Richard Torrens -
| || | / _ \| _ \ See us on www.4qdtec.com and www.4qd.co.uk
| || |_| | | | | | | MOSFET controllers for battery operated motors
|__ _| |_| | |_| | All email addresses are copyright.
|_| \__\_\____/ Unauthorised use on any lists is expressly forbidden.

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

There may well come time however, when we see that any distance over
100 miles is better served by driving to a rail depot, and shifting a
container n(or indeed the whole car, as is done with the channel tunnel)
onto a train, rather than driving it there.

Rail travel is not conspicuously greener* than car travel in the first
place so adding the dead weight of a car to the equation would kill any
potential saving.

*Rail travel is on a par per passenger with an average car with two aboard.

--
Roger Chapman

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...


But what?


Electric cars from non fossil generated electricity will cut both carbon
and other emissions?

Yes but switching to diesel saves precious little. It is a gross
exaggeration to claim that switching to diesel has "dramatically brought
down" fuel consumption let alone carbon consumption and with the price
disparity these days the economic benefit is looking a bit thin as well.

--
Roger Chapman

The message
from Roland Perry contains these words:

"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...

What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Yes but picking a diesel does precious little for carbon saving in the
first place.

--
Roger Chapman

Adrian wrote:
The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

200 miles is a very large threshold. I'd use 50 miles as where "long
distance" starts.

Which, going by the battery-to-mileage efficiency of the Pious would
require 75kWh of capacity.

There's also the problem of people not necessarily having access to
charging sockets at either home _or_ work currently, which would
require a LOT of infrastructure upgrades in order to be provided.

Domestically its a twelve hour charge overnight on cheap rate. Easy
enough for those with garages and well within domestic supply limits.

Can your local substation cope with every house it supplies pulling so
much extra current?

Probably at 30% market penetration and when other domestic usage is
low..e.g. at 'cheap rate' times.


For regulated car parking, again easy enough to add socket-in-pole
charging meters.

Again, can substations cope?

No, they would need upgrading, but thats something that can be done as
needed.


I am sure the same gumenst were applied to the motitr vis a vis the
availability of petrol when horseless carriages were first discussed:
now we have a multi-=billion pound insdutry tankering fuel around to
garages.

At least THEY would diappear from our roads..

Anyway - if 12hrs is only giving you 50 miles range, an hour on a meter's
barely worth bothering with.

you are getting confused. 12 hours at 3Kw is 36Kwh. That is the limit of
a standard 13A socket.

60A at 240v is 172Kwh over 12 hours, That is the limit of a domestic
single phase supply cabling and fusing, though most COULD be upgraded to
100A.

About one hour at 50-200KW is probably the limits of current battery
ability to soak up charge efficiently and safely. THAT needs some custom
charging stations probably fed by a separate substation.



Hardest one is on street unregualated parking. Poeple will have to find
sopmewhere else to park their cars overnight. Oh dear. What a shame.

Congratulations, you've just waved your hand and removed a very large
percentage of urban residents from the equation.

If only it were that simple ;-)

Seriously, its all about cost benefit in the end. People who live in
towns without the nice off street parking with charge, will find that
they have to pay more for motoring: they will either stop motoring, or
sort out how to charge, or stay with petrol/diesel.

Your estate agent will specify house electrical capacity and off street
charging points as part of the literature, and houses which have neither
will not sell well.

Frankly for many people who live in urban terraces, they probably
already walk or cyce to te corner shop anyway; there is no reason why
their cars could not be kept in a local car park, on permanent charge,
ready for when they really need them. Safe from vandalism, and,
possibly, the weather.

A lot of people in London do this anyway. Not the charging bit, but they
rent monitored off road garaging. If electric car tax was adjusted down,
and not too many taxes put on the electricity, it could be made at least
no more expensive.

I really don't see a problem except in the transition. It would make in
fact the risk of visiting such people MUCH easier, as the on street
parking would be available for short term stops.



And where's all this extra electricity coming from, anyway?

About 70 nuclear power stations by my reckoning, and a 3:1 upsize in the
the grid overall.

Quite.

So? that is not half as lunatic as other greenwash ******** that is
propounded.

And would mean cutting our dependence on the middle east and Russia for
petroleum, with obvious advantages. Not to mention hugely swinging the
balance of payments away from imports.




Howver tht would happen over a couple of decades progressively

Oh, well, that's OK then... Just remind me of the timescales being talked
about for the couple of nuclear power stations we might one day get round
to building? Then, of course, there's the political implications of
building even those couple, let alone 70 more...

when its costing you a quid a mile to run the diesel and 2p for the
electric, its amazing how fast peoples objections will disappear...

...even to maybe coal fired stations.

right now we have sufficient off peak generation capacity for a market
penetration of maybe up to 10% or more. We probably have grid capacity
for maybe 30%.

That's already a bigger potential impact than almost any other 'green'
technology has..

If you take - say - 100KWh as being roughly 200 mile range, your off
peak fuel costs equate to - at lets say 5p a unit - about £5 a tank..

Now even a 60mpg diesel is currently at around £20 for the same mileage.
A factor of four, plus all the maintenance costs associated with an IC
engine. And the electric probably outperforms the 60mpg diesel too.
Thats the nice thing with electrics. You can get peak power without
incurring losses or excess weight in the power train. With IC if you
want big power you end up with big components, or highly revving smaller
ones, which leads to larger frictional losses in cruise mode.


A 5000 mile a year driver is probably going to save about a grand on
motoring costs by going electric. £750 on fuel and about £150 on the
service. Oh and there are tax implications too IIRC. Whether the battery
depreciation will match IC car depreciation is a moot point, but at
least with a battery car a second hand model probably is fixable with
just one thing - a reconditioned battery - rather then the zillion
little things that can go badly wrong with an IC car.

That's worth giving up a 400 mile range for, for many people. Who have
driveways that can take an extension cable..


For those with the space to charge, and who run 2 cars or more anyway,
making the small one an electric is economically justifiable already. If
the cars were available. I'd buy one tomorrow, if the price was right.

wrote:
In uk.d-i-y The Natural Philosopher wrote:
wrote:
In uk.d-i-y The Natural Philosopher wrote:
There may well come time however, when we see that any distance over
100 miles is better served by driving to a rail depot, and shifting a
container n(or indeed the whole car, as is done with the channel tunnel)
onto a train, rather than driving it there.

Which is no doubt why MotoRail is a rapidly dying service.

is it?

It certainly was hugely more expensive than the ferrys last time I used
it. I was in a hurry and the hovercraft had vanished..

So I doubt its a technical things: simply the way its priced.

It was certainly a good way to do the crossing: just expensive.

The Chunnel (which I assume you are referring to) is hardly MotoRail,
it just takes your car across the channel because you can't drive on
water.

I'm not even sure the Chunnel is significantly better as regards
carbon emissions than putting your car on a ferry anyway.

Motorail is *long distance* transporting of cars by rail, from Calais
to the South of France for example. It's still available but seems to
be slowly fading away, partly because it's horribly expensive I suspect.

Ah. my mistake.

Its also horribly expensive to actually DRIVE to the south of
France..lowest carbon way is probably by air..

Nayway, shift the taxation and people will follow the money.

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
...

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
...

...

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles
range and outperforms a Porche.

What does 'outperforms' mean?

If it means that it goes faster I'm not interested.

Speed.

A Porche is an extravagent status symbol which wouldn't do what we
demand of our Laguna Estate - which we use for fewer than 3,000 miles a
year.

It also has zero emissions and a super smooth seamless ride. Fab!

I think it might be some time before there will be an electric or dual
powered vehicle which will meet our demands which is sad, we'll probably
be dead by then. If there was one now we'd use it.

Hybrids are availabe to suit your needs.

I'm open to suggestions. It has to have as much cargo space as the estate
plus a large roof box and be able to tow a caravan for up to 300 miles and
back. No electricity available on the sites we visit.

We don't need speed, 50 is fine. No idea what 'seamless ride' means, there
are no seams on our seats :-)

Zero emissions is good.

Mary

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
...

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding
much
like they were saying:

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles
range and outperforms a Porche.

It also has ... a super smooth seamless ride. Fab!

Blimey, why'd they bother starting with a Mini, then - re-engineering the
drivetrain's one thing, but to completely re-engineer the suspension
too...

What incoherent off topic babble.

I didn't understand it either - but I'm only a little woman.

Well, getting littler, Tim!

Mary

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html


hybrid cars are *not* green.. they are an excuse for people to claim they
are green while still burning more fuel than a smaller car does.

"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
...


You haven't a clue how it works! It is brilliant. A seamless quiet
drive - worth buying for that alone. Mine gets 60-65mpg in London. Fab!
They are everywhere in London, The place is swarming with them. Swarming.

Um. Swarming is a means of reproduction ...

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Mike P" gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Rubbish. Rover's K-series weighs about 130kg with transmission. Add
50kg for fuel, and you have a complete powertrain with a 300 mile range
(and five minutes recharge for the next 300 miles) for 40% of that
"half a ton".

The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a four-seater
car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

You must be getting weak. I can carry a 2CV engine and box myself :-)

I can carry 'em separately, but together...? ****, remind me never to get
into an argument with you...

Lack of vocabulary as well as confused thinking.

This will be the last post of yours I read. I know you won't care so don't
waste your weak little fingers in saying so.

Adrian wrote:
The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

And the answer to how big that is, is well under half a tonne for
the smaller one.

...or about half the weight of the rest of the car...

Similar to the power train on an IC car.

Rubbish. Rover's K-series weighs about 130kg with transmission.

And radiator?

Weighs sod all.


Er.. alt least 13 litres of coolant in it, so 13kg..


and starter motor?

I would assume included.

and exhaust system?

10kg at most.


It all adds up,. thats anoteh 25kg weve added to your 130kg.

and fuel pump

Oh, please...

about a kg.


and mountings for all those, and ancillary pipework?

Next-to-nothing.

about 40kg for enough steel to take the torque and vibration of a big IC
engine, and connect the stresses to the suspension pickup points.





Add 50kg for fuel, and you have a complete powertrain with a 300 mile
range (and five minutes recharge for the next 300 miles) for 40% of
that "half a ton".

And costs ten times as much per mile on fuel to run.

These 70 nuclear powerstations and tripling of the National Grid - free
to build, are they?

Nuclear electricity comes in at about 2.5p/Kwh and 90% of that is the
cost of building and decomissioning it.

I suppose you are going to tell me that oil pipelines, oil tankers,
refineries, car engine plants. Motorway service staions are all 'free'
are you?


If you look at the cost of nuclear stations with respect it the oil
import bill, you mihht be surprised at how little real opportunity cost
they add.



Current lipo technology is about 185Wh per kilogram.

http://www.maxamps.com/Lipo-10000-Cell.htm

That puts a 50Kw pack at 270kg.

The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a four-seater
car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

pretty much the same as an electric would be, then.

Apart from the small detail that 200 miles worth of batteries alone would
weigh the same as, if not more than, the petrol car.

So a 2CV weighs 1/4 ton?

But you just said it weighs half a tonne?

A 50KW pack is more than enough to take a 2CV type car 200 miles. It
weighs 275kg or less.

Leaving another 225kg for te rest of the car.

So either you are simple, a liar, or you cant do maths: Your choice really.

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Can your local substation cope with every house it supplies pulling so
much extra current?

Probably at 30% market penetration and when other domestic usage is
low..e.g. at 'cheap rate' times.

I am sure the same gumenst were applied to the motitr vis a vis the
availability of petrol when horseless carriages were first discussed:
now we have a multi-=billion pound insdutry tankering fuel around to
garages.

At least THEY would diappear from our roads..

Not if 70% - especially since that 70% is going to include trucks, vans,
high-mileage cars - are still petrol/diesel.

Anyway - if 12hrs is only giving you 50 miles range, an hour on a
meter's barely worth bothering with.

you are getting confused. 12 hours at 3Kw is 36Kwh. That is the limit of
a standard 13A socket.

Which, on the Pious's 2-miles-from-1.5kWh, is a bit under 50 miles.

Hardest one is on street unregualated parking. Poeple will have to
find sopmewhere else to park their cars overnight. Oh dear. What a
shame.

Congratulations, you've just waved your hand and removed a very large
percentage of urban residents from the equation.

If only it were that simple ;-)

grin

Your estate agent will specify house electrical capacity and off street
charging points as part of the literature, and houses which have neither
will not sell well.

Back to where we were decades ago - private transport was only for the
wealthy.


And where's all this extra electricity coming from, anyway?

About 70 nuclear power stations by my reckoning, and a 3:1 upsize in
the the grid overall.

Quite.

So? that is not half as lunatic as other greenwash ******** that is
propounded.

Indeed not. That's not what I was meaning. It's a realistic assumption,
which nicely illustrates the fact that it's physically impossible and
would be political suicide for any government.

Howver tht would happen over a couple of decades progressively

Oh, well, that's OK then... Just remind me of the timescales being
talked about for the couple of nuclear power stations we might one day
get round to building? Then, of course, there's the political
implications of building even those couple, let alone 70 more...

when its costing you a quid a mile to run the diesel and 2p for the
electric, its amazing how fast peoples objections will disappear...

IIRC the timescale for nuclear power station building is as much down to
the availability of the boys who can do it as planning laws.

..even to maybe coal fired stations.

wince

A 5000 mile a year driver is probably going to save about a grand on
motoring costs by going electric. £750 on fuel and about £150 on the
service. Oh and there are tax implications too IIRC. Whether the battery
depreciation will match IC car depreciation is a moot point, but at
least with a battery car a second hand model probably is fixable with
just one thing - a reconditioned battery - rather then the zillion
little things that can go badly wrong with an IC car.

Given that the only inherent mechanical difference between a battery
electric car and an IC car is the removal of the nice reliable engine and
gearbox and replacement with an electric motor and battery pack, you'll
find that the "zillion little things that can go badly wrong" (which,
these days, are mainly in the multiplexed electronics and safety systems)
are still there in exactly the same form. Very few cars are scrapped
because of terminal engine or transmission wear.

OTOH, there was an example of one of the few recent "realistic" battery
electric production vehicles on fleaBay a year or two back - a Berlingo
electric van. Only about 4-5yo, and low mileage, an equivalent diesel van
would have been worth several thousand pounds, probably about 40% of the
value of a new one.

The electric didn't sell, at a very low opening price of a couple of
hundred quid, despite having been considerably more expensive new. Why?
Because it "only" needed a new battery pack - the parts for which were/
are available, but cost around twice the price of a NEW diesel Berlingo.
I have no doubt that it was eventually broken for the many bits common
with the diesel.

"T i m" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 27 May 2008 13:21:47 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

...

T i m

p.s. And Hybrids really aren't in the equation .. 2 mile electric
range and IC powered after that shrug.

I wouldn't mind returning to steam.

Mary

Rod wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Rod wrote:
Adrian wrote:
Rod gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were
saying:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear
becomes a
bit of a problem.

shrug Easy. Instead of a water-to-air matrix, use an electric
element. The actual air distribution and circulation is electric
anyway. For aircon, the compressor is electrically driven, as many
power steering pumps currently are.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

Just as it isn't in modern common-rail diesels which are so heat
efficient that many of those have an additional diesel-fuelled heater.

As I said to begin with, early electric cars sometimes had a petrol
burner because the designers felt it unwise to use the stored
electric power for heating purposes. Given very low weight, low cost
energy storage perhaps the balance shifts. But most particularly, I
would like to know that the heating energy usage has been fully
factored in - for cold winters - when fuel consumptions are compared.
It could make a huge difference compared to a cool summer.

Well all I know is that it takes less than 500W to heat our smallest
bathroom - about the size of a car - in the coldest weather. That is
slightly less than a brake horsepower.

I am not 100% sure of the figures, but a small car on cruise at
40-50mph uses at least 10bhp i would think. So the power to heat is
not dominant at the very least, and may well be very small, or if you
can tap into the - say - 10% heatloss of the cars power train,
essentially free anyway.

I would expect the electric car would be made from fairly thin metal
to save wight, with foam insulation inside..major heatloss (and heat
gain) would be via the windows. Double glazing, or even reducing
windows and using rear view CCTV for visibility, would actually be an
advantage.


But a small bathroom is probably a) much better insulated b) not subject
to high winds on all six sides c) not allowed to drop to, say, minus 10
C between uses.

The cooling effect of, say, driving at 60 mph into a 40 mph headwind
with outside air temperature at around minus 10 is considerable. (No - I
don't have figures but even with an inefficient petrol engined vehicle
pushing out lots of 'waste' heat it can get pretty cold inside.) Even
if passengers wrap up (in their woolly clothes) the screens still need
heating to keep clear in freezing rain, snow, etc.

Indeed, insulation may save the day. CCTV is a really good idea
(assuming it is done well). But please at least ensure these issues are
factored in.


I am. As I said maybe you need to take as much as 10% of the motive
power to heat the car in sub zero conditions. So its 180 miles, not 200
as you get on a moderate spring day.

You dont need e.g. 50% or any factor that is totally affecting the
performance.

A typical car heater is probably only capable of about a kilowatt
absolutely flat out. As against a full blown radiator, that has to dump
maybe 300KW+ in a big performance saloon.

Its a very small space, is a car inside.

Adrian wrote:
"Mary Fisher" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

So how come 1.5kWh only gets the Pious two miles at slug-pace?

What's slug-pace?

Dog slow.

That's meaningless.

Maximum 30mph,

That's the limit in urban areas in UK.

...but more to the point...
and acceleration that would be outstripped by a glacier.

You've just completely discredited your statements.

You've never tried to keep a Pious in ZEV mode, then? Seriously, the
acceleration available before the petrol engine is kicked in
automatically is absolutely woeful.

It takes at least that time to re-charge a driver - efficiently and
enjoyably.

It takes about a minute for the passenger to swap seats with the
driver.

Why would you want to?

Why wouldn't two people share the driving?

Why are you in such a hurry?

Because I'd rather spend an hour at my destination than sat in a motorway
services?

You can't have done may 'site visits' then, In may cases the motorway
service station is INFINITELY preferable to them ;-)

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Doctor Drivel" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200 miles
range and outperforms a Porche.

It also has ... a super smooth seamless ride. Fab!

Blimey, why'd they bother starting with a Mini, then - re-engineering the
drivetrain's one thing, but to completely re-engineer the suspension
too...

Then there is the bigger body to house the bigger wheels to house the bigger
brakes.
Regenerative brakes aren't going to cut it in an emergency stop from 170 mph
and neither would brakes that fit in a mini body.

Roger wrote:
The message
from Roland Perry contains these words:

"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...

What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Yes but picking a diesel does precious little for carbon saving in the
first place.

Oh, that's not true: they are markedly more efficient at part throttle
cruise than a petrol. nd when blown, pretty good at higher power levels,
too.

Roger wrote:
The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

There may well come time however, when we see that any distance over
100 miles is better served by driving to a rail depot, and shifting a
container n(or indeed the whole car, as is done with the channel tunnel)
onto a train, rather than driving it there.

Rail travel is not conspicuously greener* than car travel in the first
place so adding the dead weight of a car to the equation would kill any
potential saving.

*Rail travel is on a par per passenger with an average car with two aboard.


That depends on how your railway is powerd: if it electric and not from
fossil fuel, its 100% greener..

Roger wrote:
The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...


But what?


Electric cars from non fossil generated electricity will cut both carbon
and other emissions?

Yes but switching to diesel saves precious little.

It probably saves about 30%.

It is a gross
exaggeration to claim that switching to diesel has "dramatically brought
down" fuel consumption let alone carbon consumption and with the price
disparity these days the economic benefit is looking a bit thin as well.


Well it depends on what you call 'dramatic' - i'd say that 30% on mpg
and nearly that on CO2*, is significant, but not dramatic.

The economic benefit is (now) stripped away almost entirely by the high
cost of diesel.

* diesel having less hydrogen to carbon ratio, is somewhat nearer to
coal than to gas..petrol tends in the other direction. Though additives
lower it again.

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Why are you in such a hurry?

Because I'd rather spend an hour at my destination than sat in a
motorway services?

You can't have done may 'site visits' then, In may cases the motorway
service station is INFINITELY preferable to them ;-)

Heh. I have...

OK, so being back home two hours earlier is preferable to an hour in the
services each way...

"Mary Fisher" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200
miles range and outperforms a Porche.

It also has ... a super smooth seamless ride. Fab!

Blimey, why'd they bother starting with a Mini, then - re-engineering
the drivetrain's one thing, but to completely re-engineer the
suspension too...

What incoherent off topic babble.

I didn't understand it either - but I'm only a little woman.

slowly
A Mini doesn't have a "super smooth seamless ride" to start with.

In uk.d-i-y Mary Fisher wrote:

Zero emissions is good.

Zero emissions is nonsense! :-)

--
Chris Green

"Toby Douglass" wrote in
message om...
wrote:
What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal
so far.

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?


Only the older engines on public transport and lorries.
New cars emit virtually nothing.

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Toby Douglass gurgled
happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Hasn't diesel caused a huge soot problem? they emit a lot more
particulate matter?

Not these days. Perticulate emissions have been VERY tightly controlled
in the last couple of rounds of Euro emission standards.

When they're new.

Even with excellent servicing they are smelly in only a few months. I
wouldn't inflict the particulates of a diesel engine on anyone.

Do you want to see the results of my MOT?
Particulates are so low they can't be measured.

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Rubbish. Rover's K-series weighs about 130kg with transmission.

And radiator?

Weighs sod all.

Er.. alt least 13 litres of coolant in it, so 13kg..

Cars with _considerably_ larger engines and cooling system requirements
have far less coolant than that... The K-series holds around 4-5 litres
of coolant in the entire system.

and mountings for all those, and ancillary pipework?

Next-to-nothing.

about 40kg for enough steel to take the torque and vibration of a big IC
engine, and connect the stresses to the suspension pickup points.

How, exactly, were you planning to have this electric car deal with
suspension loadings and collision impacts?

Add 50kg for fuel, and you have a complete powertrain with a 300 mile
range (and five minutes recharge for the next 300 miles) for 40% of
that "half a ton".

And costs ten times as much per mile on fuel to run.

These 70 nuclear powerstations and tripling of the National Grid - free
to build, are they?

Nuclear electricity comes in at about 2.5p/Kwh and 90% of that is the
cost of building and decomissioning it.

I suppose you are going to tell me that oil pipelines, oil tankers,
refineries, car engine plants. Motorway service staions are all 'free'
are you?


If you look at the cost of nuclear stations with respect it the oil
import bill, you mihht be surprised at how little real opportunity cost
they add.



Current lipo technology is about 185Wh per kilogram.

http://www.maxamps.com/Lipo-10000-Cell.htm

That puts a 50Kw pack at 270kg.

The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a
four-seater car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

pretty much the same as an electric would be, then.

Apart from the small detail that 200 miles worth of batteries alone
would weigh the same as, if not more than, the petrol car.

So a 2CV weighs 1/4 ton?

But you just said it weighs half a tonne?

A 50KW pack is more than enough to take a 2CV type car 200 miles. It
weighs 275kg or less.

Leaving another 225kg for te rest of the car.

So either you are simple, a liar, or you cant do maths: Your choice
really.

"magwitch" wrote in message
...
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:41:35
on Tue, 27 May 2008, Roger remarked:
"Cleaner diesel cars have dramatically brought down average emissions in
Europe but diesel now accounts for about half of the market and
carmakers are looking elsewhere to cut their emissions."

Now what emissions would they be then?

I thought the article was all about reducing carbon consumption but ...

What they probably mean is that by introducing cleaner diesels (in the
particulate/smog sense) they have persuaded new buyers to pick a diesel
50% of the time, but that market is now saturated and if they want to
further reduce their *carbon* emissions they must look elsewhere than
sell people the better-mpg diesels which have been achieving that goal so
far.

Diesels don't have catalytic converters... petrol engines do and therefore
emit more C02

Mine does.

"Mary Fisher" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

The powertrain on a 2cv - engine and gearbox - is light enough to be
carried by two people. With 25 litres of fuel, it'll give a
four-seater car weighing half a ton _complete_ a range of 200+ miles.

You must be getting weak. I can carry a 2CV engine and box myself :-)

I can carry 'em separately, but together...? ****, remind me never to
get into an argument with you...

Lack of vocabulary as well as confused thinking.

Ah, killfiling because of wude words.

Are you sure your surname isn't really "Whitehouse"?

"Rod" wrote in message
...
Doctor Drivel wrote:

"Rod" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f2f081e-2...077b07658.html

But how do you heat an electric car? Not much fun using a totally
unheated behicle in the winter. Even keeping the screens clear becomes a
bit of a problem.

Some earlier electric cars had petrol burners to warm the interior. Is
that included in the fuel efficiency claimed?

There is zero insulation in a car. Insulation can be bonded onto the car
panels. Herat can be reclaimed from the electric motor too.

In sunnier climes PV cells can be the whole roof of the car.


But with the super efficent electric motors they use, the 'waste' heat
will be fairly low - and will not devleop until the car has been driven
for a while. So some means is still required for clearing screens and
keeping occupants tolerably comfortable.

Actually, PV cells can be the whole roof of the car in any climes. But
they don't help very much with heating on a dark winter day in the UK.

They don't help much on an even colder night either.

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

Apart from the small detail that 200 miles worth of batteries alone
would weigh the same as, if not more than, the petrol car.

So a 2CV weighs 1/4 ton?

Umm, no.

But you just said it weighs half a tonne?

A 50KW pack is more than enough to take a 2CV type car 200 miles. It
weighs 275kg or less.

shrug OK, fine. So the estimate of half a ton given earlier in the
thread for a 50kWh battery pack was high.

Leaving another 225kg for te rest of the car.

Congratulations, you've just added 200kg to the total kerbweight of that
2cv, since the current powertrain weighs probably about 80kg max.

So either you are simple, a liar, or you cant do maths: Your choice
really.

One of us, anyway.

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
"Mary Fisher" gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying:

The articles are about the future. The electric Mini gets 200
miles range and outperforms a Porche.

It also has ... a super smooth seamless ride. Fab!

Blimey, why'd they bother starting with a Mini, then - re-engineering
the drivetrain's one thing, but to completely re-engineer the
suspension too...

What incoherent off topic babble.

I didn't understand it either - but I'm only a little woman.

slowly
A Mini doesn't have a "super smooth seamless ride" to start with.

You have lost it.

wrote in message
...
In uk.d-i-y Mary Fisher wrote:

Zero emissions is good.

Zero emissions is nonsense! :-)

It is brilliant - no noise or smoke and other nasties.

On 27 May, 15:23, "dennis@home" wrote:

Do you want to see the results of my MOT?
Particulates are so low they can't be measured
....

While the engine is running at full revs under no load. Exactly the
situation an engine finds itelf in most of the time. Not.

The MOT diesel particulates test is a joke. Until last year, I owned a
1993 vintage diesel Fiesta. It threw out plently of smoke under 'hard'
acceleration, but it passed the emissions test with flying colours, at
about 1/10 the permitted limit.

TL

On Tue, 27 May 2008 13:54:34 +0100, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


p.s. And Hybrids really aren't in the equation .. 2 mile electric
range and IC powered after that shrug.

Only if you go on long runs. The average town journey has the motor
assisting a lot of the time.

sigh

And the electric motor gets it's power from (and if you say the
batteries what happens after the two miles)?

No, the ONLY advantage of a Hybrid (over a straight IC car) is that
it can make use of regenerative breaking and only then presumably when
the batteries aren't already fully charged?

Many similar sized cars can do the same mpg (with less complexity) so
nothing gained there either.

All the best ..

T i m