Are we being forced to go electric?

[Rusty Nails]

I'm surprised no-one has yet mentioned that old chestnut of faster acceleration being much safer to get you out of problems e.g. nipping on to motorways in front of oncoming traffic, or less time spent overtaking.

I have to laugh at those idiots who seem to nip in and out of lanes overtaking and have a mental picture of them nipping around the shopping centre or supermarkets like that to save a few seconds.

20mph zones will soon be the norm in towns and cities and faster acceleration is going to be useless.

 

[Fastpedaller]

The EV's may have a lot of torque across the rev range, but I don't think anyone will be able to convince me that if an EV accelerates very fast, that it won't use more power than if it accelerates more slowly.

 

[icowden]

That being the driver, supplied with every new electric vehicle?

Drivers are human. Their error rate is huge. I made my first mistake in years a month or so ago. I was reversing to let a car get past, and hadn't noticed a car zoom up behind me. My car slammed the brakes on before I could react.

 

[icowden]

No complexity at all, it can be set as a parameter in the control system, it's already in the software on FLT's, as for the acceleration, imagine if that Defender that went out of control into the school had been a fast accelerating 2 and a bit tonne EV ,it could have an impact of 90 to 100 MPH hitting those kids

Now imagine that it was fitted with 360 degree cameras, lane keeping, collision detection and medical emergency detection like the vast majority of EVs. It wouldn't have allowed the car to go off the road and would have slammed the brakes on before it could hurtle into the school.

I'm not sure that using a tragedy under investigation for hypothetical point scoring is the right thing to be doing.

Oh - and you do know that an ordinary ICE Land Rover Defender weighs between 2 and 3 tonnes and can reach 60mp h in between 5 and 10 seconds dependent on spec?

 

[CXRAndy]

imagine if that Defender that went out of control into the school had been a fast accelerating 2 and a bit tonne EV ,it could have an impact of 90 to 100 MPH hitting those kids

 

[CXRAndy]

I was driving my wife's model 3 the other day, it was in adaptive autocruise. I came upto the back of a slow moving vehicle that was following a cyclist.

He passed the rider, the car detected the rider and wouldn't accelerate until I began to steer away from the rider

 

[Deleted member 26715]

They could have the acceleration restricted, but that would add complexity and cost, and would give no real benefit,

Seriously? In comparison to some of the other software controls that are on EV's restricting the acceleration would be simply, it's just a limiter placed on the motor, but the meerkat departments don't want that as it can be used as a selling point over ICE

 

[Andy in Germany]

It doesn't have to come with the territory though - cars could have their rate of acceleration restricted.

In itself this would use up the planet's resources at a slower rate.

Surely that would be a good thing?

The "rate of acceleration" is just another example of telling people what they want to hear, and in this case, a lot of people are desperate to believe their lifestyle won't need to change.

Focusing on one easy to remember detail that people can easily understand and relate to means they aren't discussing battery life, the amount of energy availible to charge batteries, long term future of some forms of electricity generation, rarity of lithium, environmental damage from Lithium mining, congestion, and other issues that the industry would really rather we didn't look too closely at. This is also why Musk focused on acceleration and automation even when he was presenting the Tesla truck and claiming it could "beat railways economically"; he wanted -desperately wanted- to make sure no-one considered range and payload.

 

[Pale Rider]

EVs get better. Your supermini will not.

Quite reasonably the major manufacturers will have stopped research spending on their ICE cars, so we will never know if the ICE supermini would have got better.

An honourable mention should be given to Toyota and JCB who are developing hydrogen fuelled ICE engines.

This looks like it could work for commercial vehicles, and Toyota is developing a big V8 aimed at custom cars in the American market.

But it appears a hydrogen engine to power an ordinary hatchback is going to be more difficult.

 

[CXRAndy]

An honourable mention should be given to Toyota and JCB who are developing hydrogen fuelled ICE engines.

It could be viable for industrial vehicles where they are localised in their use.

Toyota are on the other hand trying to keep their ICE business model viable.

I doubt very much they really care how the hydrogen is extracted or chemically formed (not a chemistry bod)

The next 30-50 yrs of BEV is here .

When some other form of propulsion is invented, maybe private car ownership will be a thing I'd the past

 

[Pale Rider]

It could be viable for industrial vehicles where they are localised in their use.

JCB has one of their hydrogen engines running in a rigid HGV.

 

[CXRAndy]

JCB has one of their hydrogen engines running in a rigid HGV.

I'm not saying it's not possible to make any vehicle Hydrogen powered.

The issue is producing enough of the hydrogen without burning fossil fuels to make it.

95% of hydrogen is created by steam methane reformation.

Pointless to burn more fossil fuels to create a clean fuel. The other way it takes an enormous amount of energy by using electrolysis.

Then there is transportation, again far more expensive than moving petrol/diesel

 

[icowden]

Quite reasonably the major manufacturers will have stopped research spending on their ICE cars, so we will never know if the ICE supermini would have got better.

It can't. Petrol and Diesel are not efficient.

An honourable mention should be given to Toyota and JCB who are developing hydrogen fuelled ICE engines.

I can't see any issues with only having 5 hydrogen fuel filling stations left in the UK (down from 14 at the peak of hydrogen).

This looks like it could work for commercial vehicles, and Toyota is developing a big V8 aimed at custom cars in the American market.

It'll be fab until it runs out of fuel. There is zero interest in hydrogen in the face of EVs that can fuel *anywhere*.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

JCB has one of their hydrogen engines running in a rigid HGV.

I'm not saying it's not possible to make any vehicle Hydrogen powered.
The issue is producing enough of the hydrogen without burning fossil fuels to make it.
95% of hydrogen is created by steam methane reformation.
Pointless to burn more fossil fuels to create a clean fuel. The other way it takes an enormous amount of energy by using electrolysis.
Then there is transportation, again far more expensive than moving petrol/diesel

There's a very good youtube
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Q7nAYjAJY
where the Chairman talks about the issues, on searching for that one I have just seen there is what I assume is an update
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6_qAta3Gk8
(not watched it yet) he understands the issues about producing the hydrogen, however surely it's only that it hasn't been fully investigated yet? If the HGV manufacturers also got on board then the development speed would increase. I would have thought the same weight issue applies to HGV's as it does to JCB?

@CXRAndy Many EV owners do not seem to appreciate the highlighted point, I know it's not as high in the UK but in Poland 79% of the Electricity is produced via fossil fuel

 

[Deleted member 26715]

It'll be fab until it runs out of fuel. There is zero interest in hydrogen in the face of EVs that can fuel *anywhere*.

Yeah just like an EV in the middle of the countryside where they bring a diesel generator to get it to a proper charging station.