Re: New BBC soap: Bert Coules?

Diesel cars are just the latest political hobby-horse. Britain is one of the few countries in the EU where diesel is dearer than petrol. The latest diesels are environmentally friendly in that the amount of pollution coming out of the exhaust is slightly less than the amount of pollution sucked into the engine air intake. Also, diesel engines produce less CO2 per mile travelled than equivalent petrol vehicles do. It is all a subtle ruse to shorten the perceived residual life of vehicles already on the road, which keeps the sales of new vehicles reasonably high.

And no, I don't own a diesel vehicle!

Jim

And how. "Punchbag" would be more accurate than just "hobby-horse" )-:.

(Interesting. If true, where does the difference _go_?)

Especially (I think) when idling.

There's also the point that they tend to need less maintenance, and the fuel needs less refining.

I would take all this "by 2030/2040/2050" talk more seriously if it were to talk about "vehicles" rather than "cars". OK, there's _some_ attention being given to buses, but I've seen precious little even _mention_ of freight vehicles.

And I don't see _any_ sign of much commitment to implement the huge number of rapid-charging points around the country needed - even just for cars, certainly not for goods vehicles.

Fully electric lorries are being rapidly rolled out for local deliveries, but the operators are not making a big deal of it. A couple of the parcel delivery firms are well on their way to having a 100% electric fleet in some areas, but all you will notice is a small sign buried under the company logo saying "100% electric". I am seeing more and more small vans in London with a small "e" either before or after the model number or name. You have to look really closely to notice it.

You won't see the ones for goods vehicles, as they are all in the depots, and as I drive round in many areas, I see things like sockets on lamp posts and fast chargers springing up on the kerbside in residential areas as well as public and private car parks. Tesla are rapidly rolling out charging points for their vehicles, especially in places such as motorway services. I've not seen many of them in use, but they are there...

I'm beginning to see a *lot* of charging points springing up for the latest London type cabs, which are capable of doing 30 miles without running their engine, and also get charged while the driver is having a snack or their lunch.

I am delighted to hear it.

Again, excellent news.

Maybe there _will_ be adequate provision after all.

Do they have them at taxi ranks? (Have any quick connect/disconnect ones been devised - ideally not involving cables at all? [And I don't mean wireless.])

Your post seems like good news - and highlights how we (including me) are misled by lack of coverage. As you say, it's happening without much fuss. Within big cities, anyway.

I think it's very regionally patchy: where I am (Kent, Folkestone/Ashford) I've seen little sign of charging points. (There are a couple at Junction 8 services on the M20.) [I may do my best to get a couple in Charing!] I have also not _been aware_ of much - beyond prototypes - happening for "big rigs" - the sort that pulls containers on motorways. [I've always thought that a lot more of that should be on rail anyway, but clearly the country's economy thinks otherwise.]

Well, they're all diesel, you see, Sir. Always have been, always will be. What size battery do you think they'd need for a 40-tonner, eh? And how long would that that to charge? Can't afford to have 'em off the road that long, Sir.

Ah well, Sir, that's because the majority of electric vehicles can't take it, so there's no demand. That means there are no points, so there are no electric vehicles.

It's a bugger's muddle, and no mistake.

Dunno how they're going to solve that one.

A few companies near me have charging points in a parking area. One of them is in regular daily use. Someone arrives in an e-Up and connects to the charger for the day, then drives away in the evening. The other one has a couple of spaces "reserved for electric vehicles only" and there is a dual outlet charging point between the two. I have not seen it in use, but I don't go that way often.

I have also not _been aware_ of much - beyond

Tesla has a model ready for production,

The thing that puzzles me is that most electric vehicles spend most of their time stationary, so why is nobody fitting solar cells to the roof, bonnet (and boot if there is one) to recharge the battery rather than relying on fixed charging points. OK, for heavily used vehicles charging points would still be necessary, but for the typical commuter or second car driver, there is enough daylight to keep the charge topped up, and that would be completely free electricity.

Jim

I haven't investigated exactly what the process is, but as I understand it the net effect is to turn NO2 in the atmosphere into nitrogen and water vapour, neither of which are harmful. I think the extra hydrogen to do that comes from whatever happens to the "blue" additive that gets used up.

Jim

Typical 24 hour charge power...20Kw

Typcal 24 hr solar panel 2 sq m ...200W

Take your pick, cables or wireless.

But, it takes only about ten seconds to plug a car into a point and authorise it to supply power or disconnect it. When I plug mine in, the main delay is getting the lead out of the boot (It's an old one, with a non-standard connector) and telling the charger I only want 13 Amps.

The app I use shows 9 publicly accessible 7 kilowatt charging points in Ashford, including 4 at a BP station, 6 in Folkestone, and a couple nearish to Charing at the Holiday Inn Ashford North, one of which hasn't been used for four weeks.

If you can persuade a local business it's a good idea, if the power is available nearby, it only costs a few hundred to install a charger, and they may even get rent from the operator, as well as a subsidy from the Government. But if nobody in town has an electric car, there's no point. Which came first, the egg or the chicken?

You could install one accessible from the kerbside outside your home, after a bit of faff with the council, as well as one in your garage or drive.

I am currently planning to open a business to the public, and will, of course, be installing at least one pair of charging points as part of the building works. Selfish of me, as I may well take the electric car with me, though for mine, a 16 Amp site socket screwed to the wall will do the job well enough.

For the big rigs, the problem is that the increased weight of the batteries compared to a diesel drivetrain reduces the payload massively, and the freight industry currently even goes to the lengths of using aluminium wheels to squeeze in a few extra kilos of goods. Even the fuel saving you would get on local work doesn't make the extra weight of a hybrid system worth the loss in payload.

Charging could be done using the same contactless chargers or pantograph systems currently being used in a few places for buses. The contactless systems cost about £20,000 to install, plus the grid feed. The pantographs are cheaper, but more delicate.

and they don't work too well in multistorey car parks

I wish people would stop asking that question when its obviously the egg to anyone that believes in evolution.

Dinosaurs hatched from eggs long before chickens evolved.

Then there were fish before that.

In this case, then, which is the "egg" and which is the "chicken"?

And if you look at the situation, even mammals "hatch" from an egg, as the sac inside the uterus performs many of the functions of a shelled egg.

Frenchmen are restricted by law to having only one egg for breakfast because it is considered to be enough. :-)

Diesels are also about 30% more efficient than petrol-engined cars. It was a terrible blunder of epic proportions to announce the discontinuation of the manufacture of diesels, just when the investment programs for cleaner diesel engines was really starting to bear fruit.

I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but you've reminded me of something that was talked about, but seems to have disappeared without trace; battery _exchange_. Obviously charging is far less fuss, both practically [just needs a petrol-pump-like thing, not a storage warehouse with chargers] and technically [what would be needed in the vehicle] (and probably safety concerns too [though we manage petrol pumps OK]).

Maybe it'll reappear when EVs are commonplace. Or _maybe_ charging will have improved.

(I should hope not: the air _is_ 75-80% [I think] nitrogen anyway!)

I hadn't thought it included the NOxes. That's perfectly reasonable, of course. Presumably the _particulate_ component of what comes out is increased - or not? If it isn't (i. e. if the engine burns particles that are in the air), then that _really_ needs wider publicity!

I don't really blame the manufacturers; they could see which way the politicians were going.

Diesel-electric hybrids would have been an excellent transitional phase, what with their lower consumption anyway, and Diesels being more suited to the backup-charging type use (that's why they use them in buses). (Yes, I know there are a few D-H cars. But expensive, and probably not now going to get much development, with Diesel being such a hate target.)