The right to repair

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Chalky723
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Re: The right to repair

Post by Chalky723 »

Electric cars are all well & good if they suit your lifestyle and have somewhere to charge them.

Until there is a common infrastructure installed to support them, the cost comes down, they have the same range as ICE then they just won't take off.

I honestly doubt that this country is capable of installing the basic cabling required for all these public charging points - you'd need one outside every terraced house if you wanted to avoid cables draped across pavements, where is all the extra electricity going to be generated? We need to build more nuclear power stations to meet current demand, let alone a future where every household will have at least 1 car on charge per day.

My last 3 cars have cost approx £5k each, they've lasted 120, 180 & 215 thousand miles each. My last bike had 120k on it before it was written off.

Until you've got an electric car/bike that can take me 4 hours away on a Friday night, around on my adventures all weekend in the middle of nowhere & 4 hours home, then I'm simply not interested.

I'm honestly not convinced that Electric is the way to go. Cleaner ICE, Fuel Cells - they might stand a chance. I just can't see a country that can't even build a railway providing the infrastructure....

D
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bowber
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Re: The right to repair

Post by bowber »

Totally off topic now :D

The magic "they" have now come up with Carbon capture using renewables and making petrol and Diesel fuel from the captured Carbon, allegedly lower emissions as it's a synthetic fuel and only puts back the carbon used to make it.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... l-science/

If plants like this can be scaled up and become viable then all us petrol heads can keep using our old fossils of bikes that we currently have.
Don't get me wrong, electric power has its place but not for long journeys at the moment.

Steve
daveuprite
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Re: The right to repair

Post by daveuprite »

Electric vehicles just require you to think slightly differently. It's because we are all so accustomed to the petrol station network that it's sometimes difficult to imagine how the infrastructure might work differently. New places will replace the old petrol stations. Lots of possibilities. Those who can't charge at home due to access use charging points provided at work in the workplace car park. Motorway service areas provide fast chargers up to 22kw for an 80% recharge while you have lunch (many already do). Supermarket car parks have the same facilities while you shop (all new Lidls have them in France). Hotels, conference centres, cinemas... The places to charge easily and while you are doing something else anyway are endless. It's not a case of waiting for the tech to be available - it already is. it's a case of political will to regulate for the change, making it compulsory to install the infrastructure, combined with incentives for buyers to make the change.

It's basically chicken and egg. When people see more infrastructure in place they will be convinced to make the change, and recharge range anxiety decreases. But the big players are always reluctant to commit huge resources until they see the demand actually pushing hard at the door.

60,000 plug in cars were sold (new registrations) in the UK last year, although the majority were PHEVs rather than pure electric. That's the same as the number of conventional VW Golfs sold, and a 14% increase on sales the previous year.

Of course they do not suit everyone's current lifestyle and perceived freedoms, but our freedom to pollute and warm the climate takes away the freedom of low-lying islanders to keep their homes and coral reefs to survive etc etc, so there's far more to the consideration than just personal convenience.

As to carbon capture Steve... There are already billions of carbon capture devices on earth working tirelessly to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere. They are called trees. Nature already absorbs 1/3 of all human caused CO2 emissions. But we are trying to develop expensive (and power-hungry) carbon capture technology to compensate for extracting grotesque quantities of previously trapped fossil fuels from the ground that we needn't do, whilst simultaneously burning down the existing natural means to sequester the emissions. The maddest thing is that we do all this not in ignorance, but in full knowledge of how little sense it all makes. Carbon capture is like repeatedly stabbing yourself in the chest while hooked up to an expensive blood transfusion machine, without it ever occurring to you to stop the stabbing. And we think of ourselves as an intelligent species...
Chalky723
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Re: The right to repair

Post by Chalky723 »

daveuprite wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 4:53 pm Those who can't charge at home due to access use charging points provided at work in the workplace car park. Motorway service areas provide fast chargers up to 22kw for an 80% recharge while you have lunch (many already do).
Not sure how many lunches I'd be expected to eat whilst driving to Scotland or the Alps. :?

As for workplace, supermarket chargers etc, - It all comes under infrastructure that someone has to build and, more importantly, power.

Plus, what about the doubts about Cobalt supplies? They're not sure there's enough left.....

The environmental guilt tripping won't work with 90% of the population that don't have thousands to spunk on a car that may or may not do the job they need it to. A green conscience is very much a luxury for most people, when it comes down to cold, hard cash - they'll do what is most effective for their finances..

My son has a company PHEV. battery range of 50 miles, then 34MPG when it's running on the ICE!!!

I don't doubt we have to change, but I honestly don't think Electric vehicles are the future....

D
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Re: The right to repair

Post by David A »

daveuprite
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Re: The right to repair

Post by daveuprite »

Until you've got an electric car/bike that can take me 4 hours away on a Friday night, around on my adventures all weekend in the middle of nowhere & 4 hours home, then I'm simply not interested.


Then it's not for you at this time. Luckily 99% of people don't share your particular transport needs, so EVs still offer a good solution. Good public policy is not dictated by a small minority.

But for now, you have nothing to fear. The 'freedom' to pollute over long distances is currently well protected.


Before I am fairly accused of hypocrisy myself, yes, I completely admit to being a power-hungry biker with a long background of scroting and wasting fuel. I've owned perhaps 100 bikes over the years, and ridden even more. All powered by the decomposition of irreplaceable 180 million - 65 million year old fossilised organisms.

That does NOT make me a 'petrol-head' I've not had the choice. Born in 1966, all I have had available to feed my addiction to wheelies, burn-outs, races and track-days is petrol. But if cleaner sources had been available I would have been totally happy to mainline my habit using electric power or whatever i could enjoy that minimised the damage I did to our precious environment. Why on earth would you prefer a dirty source of fun to a clean source of fun?

Which is why I am advocate, now that alternatives are becoming available, for us to hold our biking heads up high and adopt cleaner energy sources. If I could afford a Zero S/F and an Alta Redshift MXR, then I would be out buying them right now, and enjoying ultra-low emission biking first-hand.
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Re: The right to repair

Post by catcitrus »

WHY DON'T PEOPLE GET IT ---well to wheel that is----if you think driving an electric vehicle is green?--then think again. I will accept that for inner cities it may help local air quality as far as NOx is concerned--particulates are not an issue if its new vehicle--petrol or diesel--even diesel CARS are using adbleu now as well as having particulate filters and oxidation catalysts. However, back to "well to wheel"--as a general term that looks at where we start --and where we finish. How many mountains , precious local environments and species do we have to destroy to mine the materials used in the manufacture of the batteries and electronics, and how much CO2 is attached to the making of an electric car versus a modern , highly efficient petrol version? I wouldn't mind betting that the electric vehicle produces much more CO2 in its manufacture. Running a well maintained 10 year old petrol or diesel versus buying a new vehicle that has just used up another bucket load of resources?!!--how long before this deficit is overcome by its slightly "greener" credentials--20 years!!?? Modern vehicles have become lardy, heavy and power and natural resource hungry. Just compare the size and weight of the original mini to what they jokingly call a mini now--or an old and new Fiat 500---whatever happened to the basic principles of economy of manufacture and basic fuel economy gains from low weight and aerodynamic drag. The BMW GS is also a prime example--the original 800 at about 170 kg--and the latest hunk of overweight junk--both can cruise at our legal limit and both have similar fuel efficiencies despite the original with old carbs--fuel inject an old GS and see what you get? I just hope that we, the tail, start wagging the dog and get manufacturers to reduce size and weight. Ironically its only us "westerners " that seem to be wedded to great lumps of junk--the rest of the world manages quite well on 250s or smaller.--maybe its because we are also all getting overweight and lacking in flexibility, and can't manage a normal size of car that suited our parents quite well?
qcnr
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Re: The right to repair

Post by qcnr »

The real irony is that we are destraoying nature to be environmentally friendly.
Look at rare metals mining, lithium open mines, the destruction windgenerators (windmills) create.
5% ethanol in your fuel sir, chop down some forests, etc, etc, etc
The problem is people don't think cradle to grave, when they buy new products. Buy a car and keep
it for 10-15 years, then buy another one. Not buy one every 3 years.
Consumerism in the western world is the threat to the environment, not what comes out of an
exhaust pipe.
Oh and how is your electricity produced? But we buy green electricity. Bollocks do you.
Just becaus some company bought a certificate from a trading house, doesn't make your electricity
'green'.
Chalky723
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Re: The right to repair

Post by Chalky723 »

daveuprite wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 7:52 pm
Then it's not for you at this time. Luckily 99% of people don't share your particular transport needs, so EVs still offer a good solution. Good public policy is not dictated by a small minority.

But for now, you have nothing to fear. The 'freedom' to pollute over long distances is currently well protected.
I'd argue that everyone out & about adventuring in the wilds at the weekend share's my particular transport needs, they need reliable transport, that is affordable on a low income, has room & that can last a couple of days without refuelling......

And I'm not sure you thought your patronising little comment out about "long distance pollution". I'm afraid EPV's aren't powered by Unicorn Farts, no matter what the Smuggerazi like to think. The impact of EPV's is greater in the manufacturing process, greater in the maintenance process (battery replacements), they cost more and the infrastructure just isn't there to support them.

Great if you want to whizz around in a city (but why not use the buses then) less good if you want to drive anywhere on a cold, dark, rainy winters day and actually arrive without 5 "lunch" breaks on the way.

D
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Re: The right to repair

Post by daveuprite »

Chalky723 wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 9:12 am
daveuprite wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 7:52 pm
Then it's not for you at this time. Luckily 99% of people don't share your particular transport needs, so EVs still offer a good solution. Good public policy is not dictated by a small minority.

But for now, you have nothing to fear. The 'freedom' to pollute over long distances is currently well protected.
I'd argue that everyone out & about adventuring in the wilds at the weekend share's my particular transport needs, they need reliable transport, that is affordable on a low income, has room & that can last a couple of days without refuelling......

And I'm not sure you thought your patronising little comment out about "long distance pollution". I'm afraid EPV's aren't powered by Unicorn Farts, no matter what the Smuggerazi like to think. The impact of EPV's is greater in the manufacturing process, greater in the maintenance process (battery replacements), they cost more and the infrastructure just isn't there to support them.

Great if you want to whizz around in a city (but why not use the buses then) less good if you want to drive anywhere on a cold, dark, rainy winters day and actually arrive without 5 "lunch" breaks on the way.

D
Not patronizing at all. Just a fact. There's no need to fear facts, just accept them and in the case of pollution you choose to either do something about it or not. Adventure bike riders pollute. That's a fact - no need to feel threatened by it.

I'm a lifelong keen biker, one time racer, and now greenlaner. My hobby emits CO2 (and lots of other nasties) and I am responsible for that. There you go. That wasn't difficult to admit. Bit like an AA meeting...

But there is a rapidly growing partial solution. Not to all the emissions of course. As I have proved above, and could prove again with scientific evidence over and over again, electric vehicles that are charged using the current energy mix in any European country reduce their lifetime operational emissions by between 25 and 80% compared to IC engined vehicles, while the construction and disposal phase for both types of vehicle are similar. Nobody says that EVs produce no lifecycle pollution, but less than ICEs? - yes certainly - and provably so.

You appear to want this not to be true, but it is true. I'd like global warming not to be true, and so would the thousands of scientists researching the subject. But sadly it's a verifiable fact. Just accept it. And it's not 'smug' to say that. It's simply stating the fact. Don't shoot the messengers.
There's no need for people to be defensive or guilty about their current use of fossil fuels. We are all trapped in a huge economic system that has been systematically allowed to become utterly dependent upon fossil fuels. But we have also known about greenhouse gases for over a century and we have had indisputable evidence of their effects on warming levels for about 40 years. So any pleading of ignorance is just ridiculous, and ostrich in the sand denial is absurd.

Which leaves us with inescapable choices to make. Do nothing and let the climate chaos runaway out of control in front of us, or reverse the reasons for it and try to reduce the amount of damage ahead. EVs are just one small imperfect part of the transport sector's solution.
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