Why are people buying electric cars?

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There's also synthetic fuels, which I believe can work with current ICE. I believe it's quite energy intensive to make, but there is potential to work alongside renewables and if renewable energy is used to produce it then I believe it can be classed carbon neutral.
 
The article is interesting, but makes no mention of scale.

Would be interesting to see what the energy requirement is for this type of fuel. If it is electricity it needs, how much per mile compared with EVs.

Also, scalability. For example how much crop would be needed for 1 million cars doing 7,000 miles a year. Where would this amount fit in with current farming land use.
 
The issue with Hydrogen is that while it's clean to use it's very dirty and expensive to make. The main reason it has not taken off is the cost of building the gas generating plants coupled with the cost per litre to make it. I posted a short while back about General Motors cancelling the fuel cell manufacturing plant they had planned due to cost.
 
As for Chatgpt what folk don't realise is that it just trawls the net looking for answers to your question but it has no way to tell if what it finds is accurate or not. It relies on people correcting it to get more accurate over time and that in itself has problems.
 
Steep said:
As for Chatgpt what folk don't realise is that it just trawls the net looking for answers to your question but it has no way to tell if what it finds is accurate or not. It relies on people correcting it to get more accurate over time and that in itself has problems.
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No. That's not true.

Source: spent most of the morning working on MCPs and trying to get my head round A2A protocol.
 
Steep said:
The issue with Hydrogen is that while it's clean to use it's very dirty and expensive to make. The main reason it has not taken off is the cost of building the gas generating plants coupled with the cost per litre to make it. I posted a short while back about General Motors cancelling the fuel cell manufacturing plant they had planned due to cost.
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Hydrogen is problematic for lots of reasons: storage is difficult because it will pass through almost any material over time, and can also collect in enclosed spaces in enough quantity to be explosive mixed with air. Production should be able to use solar for hydrolysis, but that will always be a bit lossy compared to using the electricity directly in a car. Now that battery tech and charging are improving it's increasingly unlikely that we'll see a need for hydrogen as a fuel.
 
Pound Coin said:
The article is interesting, but makes no mention of scale.

Would be interesting to see what the energy requirement is for this type of fuel. If it is electricity it needs, how much per mile compared with EVs.

Also, scalability. For example how much crop would be needed for 1 million cars doing 7,000 miles a year. Where would this amount fit in with current farming land use.
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The issue is it basically doesn't scale very far and that's why it's going to be a plaything for the well off not a serious alternative.

Combustion engines being 30% efficient is a big problem compared to electric too.
 
srichards said:
The issue is it basically doesn't scale very far and that's why it's going to be a plaything for the well off not a serious alternative.

Combustion engines being 30% efficient is a big problem compared to electric too.
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It must be remembered that the actual generation of electricity and the infrastucture required isn't always as clean or issue free as some people want us the believe.
 
gman said:
There's also synthetic fuels, which I believe can work with current ICE. I believe it's quite energy intensive to make, but there is potential to work alongside renewables and if renewable energy is used to produce it then I believe it can be classed carbon neutral.
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In the early days of internal combustion, the fuels were pretty much all synthetic rather than underground sourced.
 
Clive K said:
It must be remembered that the actual generation of electricity and the infrastucture required isn't always as clean or issue free as some people want us the believe.
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And the refining of ICE fuels IS clean? IIRC, it uses rather a lot of that "dirty" electricity to do it...
 
Nod said:
And the refining of ICE fuels IS clean? IIRC, it uses rather a lot of that "dirty" electricity to do it...
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I don't think that's what he is implying.
 
gman said:
I don't think that's what he is implying.
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Perhaps not but there's a lot of special pleading going on here.

The generation and distribution of all secondary power is complex, messy and generally not "naice" in the opinion of a certain type of person.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Perhaps not but there's a lot of special pleading going on here.

The generation and distribution of all secondary power is complex, messy and generally not "naice" in the opinion of a certain type of person.
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Pleading?
 
Nod said:
And the refining of ICE fuels IS clean? IIRC, it uses rather a lot of that "dirty" electricity to do it...
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what is unclean about the infrastructure and what issues?

Nod said:
And the refining of ICE fuels IS clean? IIRC, it uses rather a lot of that "dirty" electricity to do it...
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Top 10 emitters in the UK - quite a few refineries in that

1. Drax - Biomass power
2. Port Talbot Steelworks
3. Pembroke - Gas power
4. Fawley Refinery
5. British Steel
6. Valero Refinery
7. Humber Refinery
8. Stanlow Refinery
9. Grain - Gas power
10. Immingham - Gas power


AndrewFlannigan said:
Perhaps not but there's a lot of special pleading going on here.

The generation and distribution of all secondary power is complex, messy and generally not "naice" in the opinion of a certain type of person.
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What is meant by "secondary power"?
 
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jamesev said:
What is meant by "secondary power"?
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Fuel created using a different power source. e.g. petrol refined from crude oil where the process is run by electricity. The primary power is the electricity, the secondary power is the ignition of of the petrol in an engine.

Of course, you could reasonably argue that the petrol provides tertiary power, because the electricity comes from another source (perhaps a water mill or solar cells) and is thus itself secondary power.
 
Nod said:
And the refining of ICE fuels IS clean? IIRC, it uses rather a lot of that "dirty" electricity to do it...
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I'm not saying that it isn't. But human nature being what it is people are unlikely to know what it takes to produce what a member on here refers to as "free, abundent electricity" :rolleyes: let alone make the batteries for EVs.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Fuel created using a different power source. e.g. petrol refined from crude oil where the process is run by electricity. The primary power is the electricity, the secondary power is the ignition of of the petrol in an engine.

Of course, you could reasonably argue that the petrol provides tertiary power, because the electricity comes from another source (perhaps a water mill or solar cells) and is thus itself secondary power.
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This is not a correct understanding as presented. In producing petrol, electricity is not the primary power source, but rather something used to drive the process to extract petrol from crude oil.
 
ancient_mariner said:
This is not a correct understanding as presented. In producing petrol, electricity is not the primary power source, but rather something used to drive the process to extract petrol from crude oil.
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Whereas in producing an EV and getting it to the showroom oil is the primary source of power.
 
Clive K said:
Whereas in producing an EV and getting it to the showroom oil is the primary source of power.
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Isn’t that the same for any vehicle?
 
Everything can be made as complicated as we wish, sometimes we just choose to over simplify instead.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Fuel created using a different power source. e.g. petrol refined from crude oil where the process is run by electricity. The primary power is the electricity, the secondary power is the ignition of of the petrol in an engine.

Of course, you could reasonably argue that the petrol provides tertiary power, because the electricity comes from another source (perhaps a water mill or solar cells) and is thus itself secondary power.
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isn't electricity from fossil fuel based generation a secondary power, based on the premise that you charge from the grid so the source of generation is indistinguishable. I guess the only primary power electricity is if you charge at home and have PV array / battery storage and you know the battery was fully charged from the PV


Clive K said:
Whereas in producing an EV and getting it to the showroom oil is the primary source of power.
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But thats not powering the EV. that's Powering the supply chain.
 
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jamesev said:
isn't electricity from fossil fuel based generation a secondary power, based on the premise that you charge from the grid so the source of generation is indistinguishable. I guess the only primary power electricity is if you charge at home and have PV array / battery storage and you know the battery was fully charged from the PV



But thats not powering the EV. that's Powering the supply chain.
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Digging the lithium will use quite a lot of diesel.
 
Clive K said:
Digging the lithium will use quite a lot of diesel.
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You are so far behind the times, Lithium is on the way out as an EV battery source.
 
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cambsno said:
Why not have a car that is half solar and runs off the sun, and half water wheel for wet days. No pollution at all ;)
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I often wonder why all cars don't have solar panels on them as standard.
 
munch said:
I often wonder why all cars don't have solar panels on them as standard.
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Because compared to moving a car, they generate negligible power. A modern panel the size of a roof in full sun might generate 0.4 kWh / hour.

So in ideal circumstances, you could drive less than 2 miles for an hour's generation.
 
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munch said:
I often wonder why all cars don't have solar panels on them as standard.
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Some Nissan Leafs did have solar panels to keep the 12V battery topped up.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Because cupboard to moving a car, they generate negligible power. A modern panel the size of a roof in full sun might generate 0.4 kWh / hour.

So I'm ideal circumstances, you could drive less than 2 miles for an hour's generation.
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I meant more as a trickle charger, and like some do in the Middle East run Air Con units etc.
 
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