NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Yeah, thats close to universal now. I'd be very
tempted to go for steel wheels with a new car
with alloys, I couldnt care less what it looks like.

I've often wondered what the attraction with alloy wheels is, given that
they are softer and can deform if you accidentally scrape the wheel along
a kerb while parking.

Its really just appearance.

My previous car (a Pug 306) happened to come with alloy wheels, but I'd
never pay extra for them.

I'd personally pay extra for steel wheels.

And I ditched the wheel trims on the Getz steel wheels.

On Thu, 18 Apr 2019 00:59:09 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Yeah, that¢s close to universal now. I'd be very
tempted to go for steel wheels with a new car
with alloys, I couldn¢t care less what it looks like.

Was is that NY fool's unexpected answer that made you get up and start
trolling at 00:59 in Australia? Or did you realize that even at Easter no
one in your neighbourhood will talk to you, you disgusting senile pest?

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing senile Rot:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID:

On 16/04/2019 08:10, Chris J Dixon wrote:
ARW wrote:

I actually had a trolley jack when I got my puncture. The trouble is it
does not fit under the car with a completely flat tyre. It took me 30
seconds to find something to drive onto to lift the car and fit the jack
under it.

Would that have been the spare tyre you drove onto?

Not in this case. I had access to a brick. Someone 3 doors down is
having an extension built so I raided the skip.


--
Adam

In article ,
NY wrote:
I've often wondered what the attraction with alloy wheels is,

Looks. Same as anything car wise. Otherwise we'd all be driving Allegros.

--
*Rehab is for quitters

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
NY wrote:
I've often wondered what the attraction with alloy wheels is,

Looks. Same as anything car wise. Otherwise we'd all be driving Allegros.

No we wouldn't. After this time, the Allegro would probably be a pile of
rust on the driveway :-( Also you picked a bad example because the quartic
steering wheel would probably have put a lot of people off buying in the
first place (I know it would have put me off).

Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish them
from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims. Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

I wonder what cars we'll be driving by the time the 2040 ban on petrol and
diesel cars comes into effect and all cars are fitted with speed limiters.
Driving will probably be very boring, with everyone going at exactly the
same speed (overtaking will be impossible on a motorway if everyone is doing
70.0 mph). And we'll all have to stop every 200 or so miles for an enforced
and prolonged recharging stop - that's the hurdle that really hasn't been
overcome yet: limited range coupled with *very* long recharging times. When
they bring out an electric car with a 700 mile range which can be recharged
in 5 mins to give another 700 miles, then I might be interested.

I wonder if the reduced range will cause people to move back to towns and
cities or on railway/bus routes, reversing the trend of the last 50 years.

"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
NY wrote:

I've often wondered what the attraction with alloy wheels is,

Looks. Same as anything car wise. Otherwise we'd all be driving Allegros.

Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that,

Sure, but there is plenty of other styling stuff like that.

and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish them from
steel wheels with metallic wheel trims.

Dunno, those stand out like dogs balls imo.

Not *everyone* is taken in by posing and bragging rights of alloys.

Sure, but its those that do that make a difference to the sales of your car.

I wonder what cars we'll be driving by the time the 2040 ban on petrol and
diesel cars comes into effect and all cars are fitted with speed limiters.

I can't see that happening myself whatever they currently claim.

Driving will probably be very boring, with everyone going at exactly the
same speed (overtaking will be impossible on a motorway if everyone is
doing 70.0 mph).

Can't see that happening either myself.

And we'll all have to stop every 200 or so miles for an enforced and
prolonged recharging stop - that's the hurdle that really hasn't been
overcome yet: limited range coupled with *very* long recharging times.

And that’s just one of the reasons I can't see a ban happening.

When they bring out an electric car with a 700 mile range which can be
recharged in 5 mins to give another 700 miles, then I might be interested.

Can't see that happening in just 20 years either, but I could be
wrong there with the faster charging given what has been seen
with phones. But it remains to be seen what that will do to the
useful life of the battery. Can't see that anyone will be prepared
to swap by far the most expensive part of the car every 2 years either.

I wonder if the reduced range will cause people to move back to towns and
cities or on railway/bus routes, reversing the trend of the last 50 years.

IMO its more likely to see the ban canned instead.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
And we'll all have to stop every 200 or so miles for an enforced and
prolonged recharging stop - that's the hurdle that really hasn't been
overcome yet: limited range coupled with *very* long recharging times.

And that’s just one of the reasons I can't see a ban happening.

When they bring out an electric car with a 700 mile range which can be
recharged in 5 mins to give another 700 miles, then I might be
interested.

Can't see that happening in just 20 years either, but I could be
wrong there with the faster charging given what has been seen
with phones. But it remains to be seen what that will do to the
useful life of the battery. Can't see that anyone will be prepared
to swap by far the most expensive part of the car every 2 years either.

Yes I think when the date of the ban starts to become imminent, they'll
decide that technology just hasn't moved on far enough for "no fossil-fuel
cars" to be realistic.

It's a *very* tall order being able to recharge an electric car in the same
time that you can fill a car with petrol or diesel.

My car has a 60-litre tank and that gives me a range of 650-700 miles (it's
diesel, so the economy is better than for petrol). I can fill up in 5
minutes (at the most, with a painfully slow pump).

Diesel has an energy density of 38.5 MJ/litre. So 60 litres in 5 minutes
(300 seconds) is:

60*38.5/300 MJ/sec = 7.7 MJ/sec, aka 7.7 MW (gulp!)

That is one hell of a lot of power. Even if 99.9% of the electric power goes
into chemical energy, and only 0.1% is wasted as heat, that's

7.7 * (0.1/100) = 7.7 kW

of waste heat that you need to dispose of, to avoid the batteries
overheating. I bet my estimate of 99.9% efficiency is wildly optimistic.

Irrespective of the battery technology that you use, you're still got the
problem of needing to get the same amount of energy into the battery in the
same length of time.


OK, so electric cars are probably more efficient. You may not need as much
electric energy as you do petrol/diesel energy to propel the car the same
distance at comparable speeds and accelerations. You can also use
regenerative braking to charge the batteries a little bit when the brakes
are applied. But I doubt it's going to be an order of magnitude difference.


So, maybe the way forward is replaceable batteries. Or else replaceable gas
in a fuel cell, so you are taking on board chemical energy rather than
electrical that has to be converted to chemical. The husband of one of my
mum's friends is (or was until he retired) a professor of fuel technology. I
remember him talking about fuel cells back in the 1970s as being a more
energy-dense way of storing and generating the electricity needed for
electric vehicles.

On Wednesday, 17 April 2019 19:53:17 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
NY wrote:
I've often wondered what the attraction with alloy wheels is,

Looks. Same as anything car wise. Otherwise we'd all be driving Allegros.

No we wouldn't. After this time, the Allegro would probably be a pile of
rust on the driveway :-( Also you picked a bad example because the quartic
steering wheel would probably have put a lot of people off buying in the
first place (I know it would have put me off).

Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish them
from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims. Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

I wonder what cars we'll be driving by the time the 2040 ban on petrol and
diesel cars comes into effect and all cars are fitted with speed limiters.
Driving will probably be very boring, with everyone going at exactly the
same speed (overtaking will be impossible on a motorway if everyone is doing
70.0 mph). And we'll all have to stop every 200 or so miles for an enforced
and prolonged recharging stop - that's the hurdle that really hasn't been
overcome yet: limited range coupled with *very* long recharging times. When
they bring out an electric car with a 700 mile range which can be recharged
in 5 mins to give another 700 miles, then I might be interested.

I wonder if the reduced range will cause people to move back to towns and
cities or on railway/bus routes, reversing the trend of the last 50 years.

Politicians saying we'll ban something 20 years later means approximately nothing.

Quick recharge is already doable: swap the battery pack. Charge the driver per charge used. If you can recharge the pack in 15 minutes it's doable at least for low use garage forecourts. Busy ones would need a big recharging shed with a busy forklift.

The other way to tackle the problem is improve the energy efficiency of cars. That is entirely doable. Gotta wonder why mfrs don't seem to care on that point. Many buyers do.


NT

On Thu, 18 Apr 2019 05:57:47 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Can't see that happening in just 20 years either,

In 20 years you won't be around anymore, luckily you abnormal 85-year-old
senile pest!

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing senile Rot:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID:

On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 21:35:18 +0100, NY, an obviously mentally challenged
troll-feeding senile idiot, blathered:



Yes I think when the date of the ba

Looks like senile Rot found a friend ...another senile asshole like himself!
LOL

wrote in message
...
On Wednesday, 17 April 2019 19:53:17 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
NY wrote:
I've often wondered what the attraction with alloy wheels is,

Looks. Same as anything car wise. Otherwise we'd all be driving
Allegros.

No we wouldn't. After this time, the Allegro would probably be a pile of
rust on the driveway :-( Also you picked a bad example because the
quartic
steering wheel would probably have put a lot of people off buying in the
first place (I know it would have put me off).

Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them
from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims. Not *everyone* is taken in
by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

I wonder what cars we'll be driving by the time the 2040 ban on petrol
and
diesel cars comes into effect and all cars are fitted with speed
limiters.
Driving will probably be very boring, with everyone going at exactly the
same speed (overtaking will be impossible on a motorway if everyone is
doing
70.0 mph). And we'll all have to stop every 200 or so miles for an
enforced
and prolonged recharging stop - that's the hurdle that really hasn't been
overcome yet: limited range coupled with *very* long recharging times.
When
they bring out an electric car with a 700 mile range which can be
recharged
in 5 mins to give another 700 miles, then I might be interested.

I wonder if the reduced range will cause people to move back to towns and
cities or on railway/bus routes, reversing the trend of the last 50
years.

Politicians saying we'll ban something 20 years later means approximately
nothing.

Quick recharge is already doable: swap the battery
pack. Charge the driver per charge used.

Trouble is that that still doesnt work with all the cars being
recharged with a battery swap because it still takes too long
to charge the battery. You would need a huge shed of batterys
being charged for an hour or so to keep up with demand.

If you can recharge the pack in 15 minutes it's
doable at least for low use garage forecourts.

Trouble is that you would need 3 times the forecourt size
assuming most currently recharge their petrol/diesel cars
in 5 mins and its the peak number of cars being recharged
at once that matters, not the non peak volume of cars.

Busy ones would need a big recharging shed with a busy forklift.

Cant see that working either.

The other way to tackle the problem is improve
the energy efficiency of cars. That is entirely doable.

No it isnt given that we have been doing that for a century now.

Gotta wonder why mfrs don't seem to care on that point.

Corse they do.

Many buyers do.

And plenty of manufacturers make cars for those buyers.

On Thu, 18 Apr 2019 07:25:12 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rot Speed,
the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Politicians saying we'll ban something 20 years later means approximately
nothing.

Quick recharge is already doable: swap the battery
pack. Charge the driver per charge used.

Trouble is that

....you are a self-opinionated, self-important, bigmouthed, senile pest.

--
Bill Wright addressing senile Ozzie cretin Rot Speed:
"Well you make up a lot of stuff and it's total ******** most of it."
MID:

On Wednesday, 17 April 2019 22:25:22 UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
tabbypurr wrote in message
...

Politicians saying we'll ban something 20 years later means approximately
nothing.

Quick recharge is already doable: swap the battery
pack. Charge the driver per charge used.

Trouble is that that still doesnt work with all the cars being
recharged with a battery swap because it still takes too long
to charge the battery. You would need a huge shed of batterys
being charged for an hour or so to keep up with demand.

which is precisely what i said

If you can recharge the pack in 15 minutes it's
doable at least for low use garage forecourts.

Trouble is that you would need 3 times the forecourt size

yep. Doable, but at a price.

assuming most currently recharge their petrol/diesel cars
in 5 mins and its the peak number of cars being recharged
at once that matters, not the non peak volume of cars.

Busy ones would need a big recharging shed with a busy forklift.

Cant see that working either.

exactly who cares that you can't see it?

The other way to tackle the problem is improve
the energy efficiency of cars. That is entirely doable.

No it isnt given that we have been doing that for a century now.

Gotta wonder why mfrs don't seem to care on that point.

Corse they do.

Many buyers do.

And plenty of manufacturers make cars for those buyers.

So yet another subject on which you now jack, cba to find out & think you know it all.


NT

wrote in message
...
On Wednesday, 17 April 2019 22:25:22 UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
tabbypurr wrote in message
...

Politicians saying we'll ban something 20 years later means
approximately
nothing.

Quick recharge is already doable: swap the battery
pack. Charge the driver per charge used.

Trouble is that that still doesnt work with all the cars being
recharged with a battery swap because it still takes too long
to charge the battery. You would need a huge shed of batterys
being charged for an hour or so to keep up with demand.

which is precisely what i said

If you can recharge the pack in 15 minutes it's
doable at least for low use garage forecourts.

Trouble is that you would need 3 times the forecourt size

yep. Doable, but at a price.

assuming most currently recharge their petrol/diesel cars
in 5 mins and its the peak number of cars being recharged
at once that matters, not the non peak volume of cars.

Busy ones would need a big recharging shed with a busy forklift.

Cant see that working either.

exactly who cares that you can't see it?

The other way to tackle the problem is improve
the energy efficiency of cars. That is entirely doable.

No it isnt given that we have been doing that for a century now.

Gotta wonder why mfrs don't seem to care on that point.

Corse they do.

Many buyers do.

And plenty of manufacturers make cars for those buyers.

So yet another subject on which you now jack, cba to find out & think you
know it all.

You never could bull**** your way out of a wet paper bag.

Look at the small diesels, ****wit child.

In article ,
NY wrote:
Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims.

You might be. Most can tell imitation alloys at a glance.

Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

Given the vast majority of cars - other than basic shopping trolleys -
have them, hardly anything to brag about.

--
*If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 18 Apr 2019 09:26:04 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rot Speed,
the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


So yet another subject on which you now jack, cba to find out & think you
know it all.

You never could bull**** your way out of a wet paper bag.

Look at the small diesels, ****wit child.

You certainly KEEP bull****ting your way into your grave, you abnormal,
despicable 85-year-old senile pest!

--
"Anonymous" to trolling senile Rot Speed:
"You can **** off as you know less than pig **** you sad
little ignorant ****."
MID:

On 17/04/2019 21:35, NY wrote:

Diesel has an energy density of 38.5 MJ/litre. So 60 litres in 5 minutes
(300 seconds) is:

60*38.5/300 MJ/sec = 7.7 MJ/sec, aka 7.7 MW (gulp!)

The filling station at my local Asda has 8 pumps. If we all used
electric cars and didn't change our usage patterns they'd need to be
replaced with 8 super fast recharging points and need a 62 MW power
supply to provide the 5 minute recharge. Scale that up for the whole
country and you have a massive infrastructure problem.

Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be problematic.

On 18/04/2019 09:33, Mike Clarke wrote:
On 17/04/2019 21:35, NY wrote:

Diesel has an energy density of 38.5 MJ/litre. So 60 litres in 5
minutes (300 seconds) is:

60*38.5/300 MJ/sec = 7.7 MJ/sec, aka 7.7 MW (gulp!)

The filling station at my local Asda has 8 pumps. If we all used
electric cars and didn't change our usage patterns they'd need to be
replaced with 8 super fast recharging points and need a 62 MW power
supply to provide the 5 minute recharge. Scale that up for the whole
country and you have a massive infrastructure problem.

Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course for
more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is
buildable over the same sort of period that a petrol and diesel based
infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

i.e. 1-3 decades

--
€œIt is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established
authorities are wrong.€�

ۥ Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course for
more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is buildable
over the same sort of period that a petrol and diesel based
infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

Yes. What worries me is that we may find that we have to alter our habits,
scheduling in longer breaks whenever the car is getting low on power,
whereas we are used to filling up in a few minutes whenever we need to
(without having to plan ahead).

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at both ends,
but I bet there will be lots of times when you get to work and find that
there are no free charging points in the car park so you waste a lot of work
time going round the neighbouring area to find somewhere that you can hook
up so you'll be able to get home again in the evening.

Hopefully the number of charging points will keep pace with the number of
cars (ideally one for every parking space in a car park). I've heard that in
some places, people with petrol/diesel cars are parking in charging spaces -
deliberately rather than just because it's the only free space, as if in
some sort of protest.

Fast recharging sounds great until you do the sums and realise just how much
energy you need to get into a car battery to match the "recharge rate" of
filling up with a tank of petrol/diesel, and how much of that energy, even
at very high efficiency, will go as heat, with the problem of how to dispose
of that heat safely to avoid things melting.


If we can crack the power problem, electric cars sound great: to have a car
that can accelerate smoothly from 0 to 60 without any mechanical change of
gear, and where the driver directly controls the rate of the car's
acceleration, without having to make allowances for acceleration in a higher
gear being less, and without having to overcome the problem of smoothly
changing down after approaching a junction and wanting to accelerate away
again.

On 18/04/2019 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:
That's just the one petrol station. Anyone know how many there are
across the country? Not that they'd all be using

essentially you can look at stats for trmspotrt fuel divide the energy
by about three* and end up with a national incease in grid capacity.

I made it that we would need to go to about 200GW capaciy from about
60GW to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE by electricity.

So a long term tripling of overall grid capacity in the next 50 years or
so,.



*assuming leccy power about 100% with regen braking, and diesl/petrol
around 33%


--
Theres a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons
that sound good.

Burton Hillis (William Vaughn, American columnist)

On 18/04/2019 00:32, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
NY wrote:
Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims.

You might be. Most can tell imitation alloys at a glance.

Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

Given the vast majority of cars - other than basic shopping trolleys -
have them, hardly anything to brag about.

Even my wife's 14 year old Matiz has alloy wheels - and that it pretty
well the definition of a basic shopping trolley!

SteveW

On 18/04/2019 11:01, Steve Walker wrote:
On 18/04/2019 00:32, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Â*Â*Â* NY wrote:
Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims.

You might be. Most can tell imitation alloys at a glance.

Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

Given the vast majority of cars - other than basic shopping trolleys -
have them, hardly anything to brag about.

Even my wife's 14 year old Matiz has alloy wheels - and that it pretty
well the definition of a basic shopping trolley!

SteveW
Alloys dont need hubcaps to make them pretty.

Pressed steel wheels are plain ugly

And I'd guess that the casting/machining is no great cost compared with
steel and spot welds and a hub cap.


--
"When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics."

Josef Stalin

On 18/04/2019 10:01, NY wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course for
more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is
buildable over the same sort of period that aÂ* petrol and diesel based
infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

Yes. What worries me is that we may find that we have to alter our
habits, scheduling in longer breaks whenever the car is getting low on
power, whereas we are used to filling up in a few minutes whenever we
need to (without having to plan ahead).

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at both
ends,

How many people drive 120 miles to work and 120 mile back every day?

On Sunday, 14 April 2019 16:29:06 UTC+1, The Nomad wrote:
On Sun, 14 Apr 2019 15:44:24 +0100, ARW
wrote:

Snip

It has been suggested (by a bloke in the pub) that the wheel nuts are
different for alloy and steel wheels.

This is I believe to be true ... and may well be why a steel rim with
alloy style nuts/studs is speed limited.

Avpx

My Citigo has steel wheels and the spare is the same size. It has the sticker but as I said above, the garage explained that it would be fine as the same spare is provided for all models in the range.

Jonathan

"dennis@home" wrote in message
...
On 18/04/2019 10:01, NY wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be
problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course for
more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is
buildable over the same sort of period that a petrol and diesel based
infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

Yes. What worries me is that we may find that we have to alter our
habits, scheduling in longer breaks whenever the car is getting low on
power, whereas we are used to filling up in a few minutes whenever we
need to (without having to plan ahead).

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at both
ends,

How many people drive 120 miles to work and 120 mile back every day?

Plenty of long distance truck drivers.

On Fri, 19 Apr 2019 04:18:42 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rot Speed,
the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at both
ends,

How many people drive 120 miles to work and 120 mile back every day?

Plenty of long distance truck drivers.

They don't drive 120 miles to work, asshole! Driving long distances IS their
work, senile idiot!

--
"Anonymous" to trolling senile Rot Speed:
"You can **** off as you know less than pig **** you sad
little ignorant ****."
MID:

On Thursday, 18 April 2019 09:33:38 UTC+1, Mike Clarke wrote:
On 17/04/2019 21:35, NY wrote:

Diesel has an energy density of 38.5 MJ/litre. So 60 litres in 5 minutes
(300 seconds) is:

60*38.5/300 MJ/sec = 7.7 MJ/sec, aka 7.7 MW (gulp!)

The filling station at my local Asda has 8 pumps. If we all used
electric cars and didn't change our usage patterns they'd need to be
replaced with 8 super fast recharging points and need a 62 MW power
supply to provide the 5 minute recharge. Scale that up for the whole
country and you have a massive infrastructure problem.

Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines

With electric the bulk of the losses move to the power station instead. And of course the car has to move more weight, creating more losses.

the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be problematic.

A magic new battery that can store far more per kg isn't going to happen any year soon. What options does that leave?
1. not going electric
2. going hybrid
3. going electric with any of
- lots of charging points to enable small battery use
- much lower Cd, which isn't hard to achieve
- in some areas it may be possible to run small vehicle routes as well as large, enabling safe use of golfcart size cars, where electric power works much better
- battery swapping
- charge as you go networks, probably overhead wires
- some new approach to crash safety that permits use of lightweight vehicles

Once you've come up with the possible ways to make electric work, those are the only options.


NT

On Thursday, 18 April 2019 10:01:46 UTC+1, NY wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course for
more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is buildable
over the same sort of period that a petrol and diesel based
infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

Yes. What worries me is that we may find that we have to alter our habits,
scheduling in longer breaks whenever the car is getting low on power,
whereas we are used to filling up in a few minutes whenever we need to
(without having to plan ahead).

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at both ends,
but I bet there will be lots of times when you get to work and find that
there are no free charging points in the car park so you waste a lot of work
time going round the neighbouring area to find somewhere that you can hook
up so you'll be able to get home again in the evening.

Hopefully the number of charging points will keep pace with the number of
cars (ideally one for every parking space in a car park). I've heard that in
some places, people with petrol/diesel cars are parking in charging spaces -
deliberately rather than just because it's the only free space, as if in
some sort of protest.

Fast recharging sounds great until you do the sums and realise just how much
energy you need to get into a car battery to match the "recharge rate" of
filling up with a tank of petrol/diesel, and how much of that energy, even
at very high efficiency, will go as heat, with the problem of how to dispose
of that heat safely to avoid things melting.

There might be one way to get lots of charge points out there. Permit house & business owners to resell grid electricity at sufficient profit to make it worth fitting a charging point outside.


If we can crack the power problem, electric cars sound great: to have a car
that can accelerate smoothly from 0 to 60 without any mechanical change of
gear, and where the driver directly controls the rate of the car's
acceleration, without having to make allowances for acceleration in a higher
gear being less, and without having to overcome the problem of smoothly
changing down after approaching a junction and wanting to accelerate away
again.

Cars have been able to do that for decades using variable gearing. Except the decreasing acceleration at speed which happens with all engine types: petrol, diesel, electric & steam.


NT

On 18/04/2019 19:18, Rod Speed wrote:


"dennis@home" wrote in message
...
On 18/04/2019 10:01, NY wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if
the power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be
problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course
for more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is
buildable over the same sort of period that aÂ* petrol and diesel
based infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

Yes. What worries me is that we may find that we have to alter our
habits, scheduling in longer breaks whenever the car is getting low
on power, whereas we are used to filling up in a few minutes whenever
we need to (without having to plan ahead).

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at
both ends,

How many people drive 120 miles to work and 120 mile back every day?

Plenty of long distance truck drivers.

trucks you idiot.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
...
On 18/04/2019 19:18, Rod Speed wrote:


"dennis@home" wrote in message
...
On 18/04/2019 10:01, NY wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be
problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course for
more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is
buildable over the same sort of period that a petrol and diesel based
infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

Yes. What worries me is that we may find that we have to alter our
habits, scheduling in longer breaks whenever the car is getting low on
power, whereas we are used to filling up in a few minutes whenever we
need to (without having to plan ahead).

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at both
ends,

How many people drive 120 miles to work and 120 mile back every day?

Plenty of long distance truck drivers.

trucks you idiot.

Try that again in english. Even google translate doesnt do gobbledegook
yet.

On Fri, 19 Apr 2019 09:12:07 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rot Speed,
the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

How many people drive 120 miles to work and 120 mile back every day?

Plenty of long distance truck drivers.

trucks you idiot.

Try that again in english. Even google translate doesn¢t do gobbledegook
yet.

Is your senile "mind" overtaxed again, you idiot?

--
Bill Wright addressing senile Ozzie cretin Rot Speed:
"Well you make up a lot of stuff and it's total ******** most of it."
MID:

In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
On 18/04/2019 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:
That's just the one petrol station. Anyone know how many there are
across the country? Not that they'd all be using

essentially you can look at stats for trmspotrt fuel divide the energy
by about three* and end up with a national incease in grid capacity.

I made it that we would need to go to about 200GW capaciy from about
60GW to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE by electricity.



So a long term tripling of overall grid capacity in the next 50 years or
so,.

And the very awkward question is where the **** is that going to come
from?...


--
Tony Sayer


Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a keyboard, and he will reveal himself.

On 17/04/2019 19:52, NY wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
* NY wrote:
I've often wondered what the attraction with alloy wheels is,

Looks. Same as anything car wise. Otherwise we'd all be driving Allegros.

No we wouldn't. After this time, the Allegro would probably be a pile of
rust on the driveway :-( Also you picked a bad example because the
quartic steering wheel would probably have put a lot of people off
buying in the first place (I know it would have put me off).

Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims. Not *everyone* is
taken in by posing and bragging rights of alloys.

I wonder what cars we'll be driving by the time the 2040 ban on petrol
and diesel cars comes into effect and all cars are fitted with speed
limiters. Driving will probably be very boring, with everyone going at
exactly the same speed (overtaking will be impossible on a motorway if
everyone is doing 70.0 mph). And we'll all have to stop every 200 or so
miles for an enforced and prolonged recharging stop - that's the hurdle
that really hasn't been overcome yet: limited range coupled with *very*
long recharging times. When they bring out an electric car with a 700
mile range which can be recharged in 5 mins to give another 700 miles,
then I might be interested.

I wonder if the reduced range will cause people to move back to towns
and cities or on railway/bus routes, reversing the trend of the last 50
years.

The Beeching cuts will stop that for many people.

--
Adam

On 18/04/2019 11:39, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/04/2019 11:01, Steve Walker wrote:
On 18/04/2019 00:32, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Â*Â*Â* NY wrote:
Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't affect
the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims.

You might be. Most can tell imitation alloys at a glance.

Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

Given the vast majority of cars - other than basic shopping trolleys -
have them, hardly anything to brag about.

Even my wife's 14 year old Matiz has alloy wheels - and that it pretty
well the definition of a basic shopping trolley!

SteveW
Alloys dont need hubcaps to make them pretty.

Pressed steel wheels are plain ugly

And I'd guess that the casting/machining is no great cost compared with
steel and spot welds and a hub cap.


If it's round and works I'm happy.

And the sad virgins with bright coloured break calipers behind their
alloy wheels need to get a life and not a Porsche.

--
Adam

On 18/04/2019 13:44, dennis@home wrote:
On 18/04/2019 10:01, NY wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Since electric motors should be much more efficient than internal
combustion engines the above figures are pessimistic but even if the
power requirement was only 30% of the above they'd still be
problematic.

If we can actually produce an acceptable battery car in due course
for more than intra urban short hops, then all the infrastructure is
buildable over the same sort of period that aÂ* petrol and diesel
based infrastructure was rolled out in the last century.

Yes. What worries me is that we may find that we have to alter our
habits, scheduling in longer breaks whenever the car is getting low on
power, whereas we are used to filling up in a few minutes whenever we
need to (without having to plan ahead).

It's fine for people who have a commute with recharging points at both
ends,

How many people drive 120 miles to work and 120 mile back every day?


I did 843 miles this week and it's a 4 day week.






--
Adam

On 19/04/2019 17:05, tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
On 18/04/2019 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:
That's just the one petrol station. Anyone know how many there are
across the country? Not that they'd all be using

essentially you can look at stats for trmspotrt fuel divide the energy
by about three* and end up with a national incease in grid capacity.

I made it that we would need to go to about 200GW capaciy from about
60GW to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE by electricity.



So a long term tripling of overall grid capacity in the next 50 years or
so,.

And the very awkward question is where the **** is that going to come
from?...



From a plug:-)

--
Adam

On 19/04/2019 18:21, ARW wrote:
On 18/04/2019 11:39, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/04/2019 11:01, Steve Walker wrote:
On 18/04/2019 00:32, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Â*Â*Â* NY wrote:
Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't
affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything
like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims.

You might be. Most can tell imitation alloys at a glance.

Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

Given the vast majority of cars - other than basic shopping trolleys -
have them, hardly anything to brag about.

Even my wife's 14 year old Matiz has alloy wheels - and that it
pretty well the definition of a basic shopping trolley!

SteveW
Alloys dont need hubcaps to make them pretty.

Pressed steel wheels are plain ugly

And I'd guess that the casting/machining is no great cost compared
with steel and spot welds and a hub cap.


If it's round and works I'm happy.

And the sad virgins with bright coloured break calipers behind their
alloy wheels need to get a life and not a Porsche.

Any envy here perchance?

"Fredxx" wrote in message
...
If it's round and works I'm happy.

And the sad virgins with bright coloured break calipers behind their
alloy wheels need to get a life and not a Porsche.

I agree.

Any envy here perchance?

Certainly not in my case. I'd be interested to try driving a Porsche as long
as I was fully insured, but I wouldn't want to own one - I'd be too worried
that it would get stolen or damaged by someone who was envious... or that
I'd be thought of as having a small penis ;-) (*)


The same applies to personalised number plates. I would actively *not* want
a personalised plate because I like my car to blend in and not stand out
from the crowd.

I'm sure that says a lot about my personality.


(*) My wife refers to sports cars and other noisy, over-powered cars as
"penis cars" on the grounds that they are allegedly bought as compensation
by men who are under-sized.

On 19/04/2019 19:00, Fredxx wrote:
On 19/04/2019 18:21, ARW wrote:
On 18/04/2019 11:39, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/04/2019 11:01, Steve Walker wrote:
On 18/04/2019 00:32, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Â*Â*Â* NY wrote:
Alloys are the one fad that I've never understood. They don't
affect the
performance or road holding or comfort or fuel economy or anything
like
that, and from a few metres away you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
them from steel wheels with metallic wheel trims.

You might be. Most can tell imitation alloys at a glance.

Not *everyone* is taken in by
posing and bragging rights of alloys.

Given the vast majority of cars - other than basic shopping trolleys -
have them, hardly anything to brag about.

Even my wife's 14 year old Matiz has alloy wheels - and that it
pretty well the definition of a basic shopping trolley!

SteveW
Alloys dont need hubcaps to make them pretty.

Pressed steel wheels are plain ugly

And I'd guess that the casting/machining is no great cost compared
with steel and spot welds and a hub cap.


If it's round and works I'm happy.

And the sad virgins with bright coloured break calipers behind their
alloy wheels need to get a life and not a Porsche.

Any envy here perchance?


No. And a Merc Maybach can only go as fast as my van in London. But at
least I get a shag when I get home and I don't have to have a wank over
the car bonnet.

--
Adam

On 19/04/2019 17:05, tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
On 18/04/2019 10:57, Tim Streater wrote:
That's just the one petrol station. Anyone know how many there are
across the country? Not that they'd all be using

essentially you can look at stats for trmspotrt fuel divide the energy
by about three* and end up with a national incease in grid capacity.

I made it that we would need to go to about 200GW capaciy from about
60GW to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE by electricity.



So a long term tripling of overall grid capacity in the next 50 years or
so,.

And the very awkward question is where the **** is that going to come
from?...


your leccy bills of course


--
Climate Change: Socialism wearing a lab coat.