I'm a little puzzled and am hoping someone (or perhaps just myself through
writing this down!) can enlighten me. Sorry this is a bit meandering.

You read about the fuel consumption of plug-in hybrids - e.g. average 50mpg
for a large SUV might be suggested.

A lot depends on the nature of use - for example if the vehicle has a
real-world 20 mile electric range (say it's got a 12kWh battery) and a daily
round trip of 50 miles - nominally 20 on electric and 30 on petrol. So it
"appears" to be doing 50mpg and you'd naturally (?) think "Wow that's great -
50mpg! A gallon of petrol costs £7 so it's pretty reasonable from an energy
cost point of view". But of course that ignores the cost of recharging the
battery - which if I understand correctly at 12kWh would require 12 Kw to
charge from zero to max (in broad principles). And if each kW costs 34p
(assuming no special overnight tariffs) then that's more or less £4 on
electricity per day. £4 for 20 miles isn't significantly cheaper than £7 for
the 30 (maybe 15%). So a working week commute (250 miles in total) cost might
be £55. Is my maths correct here?

So have I got this right - at today's energy costs the difference between
running a large PHEV and say it's pure petrol counterpart is say 15% (based
purely on the example above)? And therefore the benefits of the PHEV are more
around the zero tailpipe emissions? Obvously if your typical daily mileage was
around 20 miles and petrol was never used) your cost for 250 miles (2.5 weeks
commuting) would be 12.5 charges £4/charge - still £50.

Or are there ways of charging the vehicle at significantly lower cost? There
were some supermarket chargers that could be used free of charge - I know
Tesco used to offer free charging but that has been replaced now by paid-for
tariffs.

Obviously there is a big advantage to company car drivers as the benefit in
kind is based on emissions.

My interest ultimately is just trying to understand what the true benefits of
a PHEV are - oh another negative is the weight of the batteries which has to
be hauled around.

Meandering ends.

--
jeremy

On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 14:37:25 UTC, jeremy wrote:
> I'm a little puzzled and am hoping someone (or perhaps just myself through
> writing this down!) can enlighten me. Sorry this is a bit meandering.
>
> You read about the fuel consumption of plug-in hybrids - e.g. average 50mpg
> for a large SUV might be suggested.
>
> A lot depends on the nature of use - for example if the vehicle has a
> real-world 20 mile electric range (say it's got a 12kWh battery) and a daily
> round trip of 50 miles - nominally 20 on electric and 30 on petrol.

Except it won't be, because the petrol engine will cut in far earlier, especially if you're getting up to any kind of speed. It won't run on battery for 20 miles and then bring the petrol engine in when the battery's flat.

> So have I got this right - at today's energy costs the difference between
> running a large PHEV and say it's pure petrol counterpart is say 15% (based
> purely on the example above)? And therefore the benefits of the PHEV are more
> around the zero tailpipe emissions?

Only while you're running on battery alone, which won't be that much.

> Obvously if your typical daily mileage was
> around 20 miles and petrol was never used) your cost for 250 miles (2.5 weeks
> commuting) would be 12.5 charges £4/charge - still £50.
>
> Or are there ways of charging the vehicle at significantly lower cost?

Apply the brakes.

On 16 Jan 2023 at 15:12:17 GMT, "ogden" <eldaifo@gmail.com> wrote:

> It won't run on battery for 20 miles and then bring the petrol engine in when
> the battery's flat.

Well sure I appreciate it's in hybrid mode (we assume) and therefore the two
sources will be used in some blended way and I guess the ratio of
electric:petrol is going to vary and depending on driving style and other
variables - if on a daily 50 mile round trip the battery isn't depleted then
it means you're using even more of the more expensive fuel. Mind you, you can
(this is standard?) IMLE force the car into EV mode which one could do in this
example if you wanted to max out the battery. I wonder if there are any other
efficiencies by iperating in hybrid mode (my guess is there aren't).
--
jeremy

ogden <eldaifo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 14:37:25 UTC, jeremy wrote:

>> Or are there ways of charging the vehicle at significantly lower cost?
>
> Apply the brakes.

The main advantage to hybrids (plug in or otherwise) vs ICE vehicles
seems to be that you can save a bit of fuel by using the battery to
accelerate from a stop, where the heat engine is less efficient. You
recover some of the energy needed to do this again, from regenerative
braking. You do lose some fraction of your kinetic energy this way,
but less than the 100% you lose by heating up your brake rotors.

Which is why if you live at the top of a hill you would almost never
want to charge the battery of a hybrid or electric to 100%.

While cruising at a steady speed, the battery, electric motor(s),
and all the extra gubbins needed to integrate the hybrid system are
just excess weight and cost.

[jumps on to soapbox]

The rush to mandate switching to BEVs without simultaneously planning
a systematic approach to addressing the many practical and technical
issues related to charging, is unfortunate. It appears to me, that far
too many people, who _should_ have known better, made the assumption
that the major problem was the lack of the cars themselves, and that
somehow all the other necessary pieces of the puzzle would just fall
into place once more electric cars were on the roads.

Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
much if anything at all.

--
FJR1300A, GL1000, KLR650A6F, EX250J9A, DR200SE, Vespa Ciao

jeremy <jeremy0505@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm a little puzzled and am hoping someone (or perhaps just myself through
> writing this down!) can enlighten me. Sorry this is a bit meandering.
>
> You read about the fuel consumption of plug-in hybrids - e.g. average 50mpg
> for a large SUV might be suggested.
>
> A lot depends on the nature of use - for example if the vehicle has a
> real-world 20 mile electric range (say it's got a 12kWh battery) and a daily
> round trip of 50 miles - nominally 20 on electric and 30 on petrol. So it
> "appears" to be doing 50mpg and you'd naturally (?) think "Wow that's great -
> 50mpg! A gallon of petrol costs £7 so it's pretty reasonable from an energy
> cost point of view". But of course that ignores the cost of recharging the
> battery - which if I understand correctly at 12kWh would require 12 Kw to
> charge from zero to max (in broad principles). And if each kW costs 34p
> (assuming no special overnight tariffs) then that's more or less £4 on
> electricity per day. £4 for 20 miles isn't significantly cheaper than £7 for
> the 30 (maybe 15%). So a working week commute (250 miles in total) cost might
> be £55. Is my maths correct here?
>
> So have I got this right - at today's energy costs the difference between
> running a large PHEV and say it's pure petrol counterpart is say 15% (based
> purely on the example above)? And therefore the benefits of the PHEV are more
> around the zero tailpipe emissions? Obvously if your typical daily mileage was
> around 20 miles and petrol was never used) your cost for 250 miles (2.5 weeks
> commuting) would be 12.5 charges £4/charge - still £50.
>
> Or are there ways of charging the vehicle at significantly lower cost? There
> were some supermarket chargers that could be used free of charge - I know
> Tesco used to offer free charging but that has been replaced now by paid-for
> tariffs.
>
> Obviously there is a big advantage to company car drivers as the benefit in
> kind is based on emissions.
>
> My interest ultimately is just trying to understand what the true benefits of
> a PHEV are - oh another negative is the weight of the batteries which has to
> be hauled around.
>
> Meandering ends.
Just a minor point…

Your 12kWh battery isn’t 100% efficient, a typical figure might be 70%, so
it will take 12/0.7=17kWh of electricity to recharge it.

At e.g. 34p/kWh for mains electricity the cost will be 17x0.34=£5:80 or
29p/mile for the 20-mile range.

For the petrol case, 30mpg = 30/4.55 miles per litre for 6.6 miles at
£1:50, or 22.7 p/mile.

Unless you really need to use the battery, for some reason such as a low
emission zone, forget it.

There might also have been some tax advantages to PHEV company cars.

--
Spike

On 16 Jan 2023 14:37:23 GMT, jeremy <jeremy0505@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>I'm a little puzzled and am hoping someone (or perhaps just myself through
>writing this down!) can enlighten me. Sorry this is a bit meandering.
>
>You read about the fuel consumption of plug-in hybrids - e.g. average 50mpg
>for a large SUV might be suggested.

<big snip>

Rather than bother with the theory I'll share my experience of running
a Toyota Prius PHEV for nearly two years.

The battery (8.8kWh) costs nearly 70p to charge at Octopus' overnight
rate, and is good for 30 miles in winter, 35 in summer. That covers
nearly all of our local mileage. On long journeys of mixed roads, once
the battery has discharged so simply charging on the over-run and
light braking, I get around 80mpg. On motorways at decent motorway
speeds that drops to around 65.

--
Colin Irvine
FJR1300A

On 16 Jan 2023 at 17:51:41 GMT, "Colin Irvine" <look@colinandpat.co.uk> wrote:

> The battery (8.8kWh) costs nearly 70p to charge at Octopus' overnight
> rate

What's the £/kWh on that tariff? Either it's exceptionally low or Spike's
comments about efficiency of ~70% are off the mark.

--
jeremy

On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 16:40:19 UTC, Mark Olson wrote:
> ogden <eld...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 14:37:25 UTC, jeremy wrote:
>
> >> Or are there ways of charging the vehicle at significantly lower cost?
> >
> > Apply the brakes.
> The main advantage to hybrids (plug in or otherwise) vs ICE vehicles
> seems to be that you can save a bit of fuel by using the battery to
> accelerate from a stop, where the heat engine is less efficient. You
> recover some of the energy needed to do this again, from regenerative
> braking. You do lose some fraction of your kinetic energy this way,
> but less than the 100% you lose by heating up your brake rotors.
<snip>

I had a Vauxhall Ampera some years ago (Chevy Volt) it had a notional
45 or so mile range on the battery. I often managed 70+ miles without
the engine starting by the brakes being 'regen' rather than disks.

<snip>
> The rush to mandate switching to BEVs without simultaneously planning
> a systematic approach to addressing the many practical and technical
> issues related to charging, is unfortunate. It appears to me, that far
> too many people, who _should_ have known better, made the assumption
> that the major problem was the lack of the cars themselves, and that
> somehow all the other necessary pieces of the puzzle would just fall
> into place once more electric cars were on the roads.
>
> Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
> coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
> better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
> much if anything at all.

Depends on the region. The UK over the last 12 months has been
(roughly) 36% 'renewables' with the bulk of that (30%) being Wind
and the rest Solar (4.6) and Hydro (1.3). Over the last week it's been
51% Wind, 1.1% Solar and 2.3% Hydro.

I do agree charging needs more thought especially when people don't
have off-street parking.

On 16/01/2023 17:51, Colin Irvine wrote:

>
> Rather than bother with the theory I'll share my experience of running
> a Toyota Prius PHEV for nearly two years.
>
> The battery (8.8kWh) costs nearly 70p to charge at Octopus' overnight
> rate, and is good for 30 miles in winter, 35 in summer. That covers
> nearly all of our local mileage. On long journeys of mixed roads, once
> the battery has discharged so simply charging on the over-run and
> light braking, I get around 80mpg. On motorways at decent motorway
> speeds that drops to around 65.

Rather than bother with the battery theory I'll share my experience of
running a Toyota GR Yaris for a year.

It doesn't cost much to fill up as it has a tiny tank. It does about
35mpg overall and is hilarious.

--
Gyp

On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 17:51:42 UTC, Colin Irvine wrote:
> On 16 Jan 2023 14:37:23 GMT, jeremy <jerem...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Rather than bother with the theory I'll share my experience of running
> a Toyota Prius PHEV for nearly two years.
>
> The battery (8.8kWh) costs nearly 70p to charge at Octopus' overnight
> rate, and is good for 30 miles in winter, 35 in summer. That covers
> nearly all of our local mileage. On long journeys of mixed roads, once
> the battery has discharged so simply charging on the over-run and
> light braking, I get around 80mpg. On motorways at decent motorway
> speeds that drops to around 65.

I've been running a Leaf for three years, using the same tariff it's costing
me 7.5p/kWh to charge. I manage around 4 miles/kWh. As to the charging
efficiency being around 70%, I've read figures of 85-90%.

Either way it's costing me IRO 2p/mile until the tariff changes.

On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 18:16:10 UTC, jeremy wrote:
> On 16 Jan 2023 at 17:51:41 GMT, "Colin Irvine" <lo...@colinandpat.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > The battery (8.8kWh) costs nearly 70p to charge at Octopus' overnight
> > rate
> What's the £/kWh on that tariff? Either it's exceptionally low or Spike's
> comments about efficiency of ~70% are off the mark.

70% is IME off the mark, around 85% or so is more like it.

Also up there you assumed around 20 miles from 12kWh. That seems
to be very low, of course you also said 'large SUV' so that might explain
why it's much lower than I've experienced in a couple of cars of in the
region of 4 miles /kWh. I guess it's the price of driving a brick with poor
wind resistance around?

On 16 Jan 2023 at 18:30:57 GMT, "Stephen Packer" <stephen.packer@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 18:16:10 UTC, jeremy wrote:
>> On 16 Jan 2023 at 17:51:41 GMT, "Colin Irvine" <lo...@colinandpat.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> The battery (8.8kWh) costs nearly 70p to charge at Octopus' overnight
>>> rate
>> What's the £/kWh on that tariff? Either it's exceptionally low or Spike's
>> comments about efficiency of ~70% are off the mark.
>
> 70% is IME off the mark, around 85% or so is more like it.
>
> Also up there you assumed around 20 miles from 12kWh. That seems
> to be very low, of course you also said 'large SUV' so that might explain
> why it's much lower than I've experienced in a couple of cars of in the
> region of 4 miles /kWh. I guess it's the price of driving a brick with poor
> wind resistance around?

Yep I was looking at Volvo XC90 phev models - small battery - and I wasn't
quoting official range but understand it to be "around 20 miles" in real world
conditions.

The tariff you and Colin have seems to be exceptional value and clearly
results in a £/mile on battery of only 20% of what I would (on current tariff)
be able to achieve.

--
jeremy

On 16 Jan 2023 18:16:08 GMT, jeremy <jeremy0505@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 16 Jan 2023 at 17:51:41 GMT, "Colin Irvine" <look@colinandpat.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> The battery (8.8kWh) costs nearly 70p to charge at Octopus' overnight
>> rate
>
>What's the £/kWh on that tariff?

Like Burnt's - 7.5p. So around 2p per mile.

--
Colin Irvine
FJR1300A

jeremy wrote:

>
> Yep I was looking at Volvo XC90 phev models - small battery - and I
> wasn't quoting official range but understand it to be "around 20
> miles" in real world conditions.
>
> The tariff you and Colin have seems to be exceptional value and
> clearly results in a £/mile on battery of only 20% of what I would
> (on current tariff) be able to achieve.

Well, if you are happy to splash in excess of 90 grand on a 2.4t mega
barge then a few pence/mile isn't going to make much difference I would
have thought. Depreciation alone would be in the region of 300 a week.

--

Geoff

On 17/01/2023 00:38 Mark Olson penned these words:
> Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
> coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
> better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
> much if anything at all.

Especially when you consider the carbon and other pollutants involved in the
manufacturing and then subsequent EOL disposal. Chances are that for non
starship mileage private use hanging onto the petrol engined vehicle until it
can no longer be maintained would be less polluting.
--
Ian

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of
the last priest"

On 17 Jan 2023 at 07:12:08 GMT, ""GeoffC"" <me@invalid.nl> wrote:

> jeremy wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Yep I was looking at Volvo XC90 phev models - small battery - and I
>> wasn't quoting official range but understand it to be "around 20
>> miles" in real world conditions.
>>
>> The tariff you and Colin have seems to be exceptional value and
>> clearly results in a £/mile on battery of only 20% of what I would
>> (on current tariff) be able to achieve.
>
>
> Well, if you are happy to splash in excess of 90 grand on a 2.4t mega
> barge then a few pence/mile isn't going to make much difference I would
> have thought. Depreciation alone would be in the region of 300 a week.

Indeed. However this was more a discussion about the true costs of electric vs
petrol and I was using that size of vehicle as an example.
--
jeremy

On Monday, January 16, 2023 at 11:40:19 AM UTC-5, Mark Olson wrote:

> Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
> coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
> better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
> much if anything at all.

Very fair point. In my case, I'll need a new roof in a couple of years, and I'll almost certainly get a solar roof or normal roof plus solar panels. In the interim, I've subscribed to a Solar Farm, who operate arrays of panels in the vast nothingness of Upstate New York, and then feed the electricity into my utility provider. I pay them a discounted rate, and have a warm glow inside that I am an offsetting the appallingness of the fleet of ShiteOldVehicles.

On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 16:38:03 -0000 (UTC), Mark Olson
<olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote:

>Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
>coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
>better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
>much if anything at all.

Google has revealed a lot of conflcting reports on this sort of thing.

*one* page suggested thta even if using pure fossil fuel for energy
generation, an EV would eventually pay for itself simply because they
are more efficient that ICE vehicles. This (I think) assuemd an
average lifespan of 143K miles.

I have also seen pages that say that an EV would start paying back
within the low teens of miles (not sure what energy mix) and others
that claim 70K miles+. Yet others claim never in an EV's lifetime.

A lot seems to depend on vested interest and personal prejudice.

--

-Pip

Pipl <pluscher@live.co.uk> wrote in news:dpkgshd4sqmai6d60d9ol1p795efk8urm0
@4ax.com:

> On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 16:38:03 -0000 (UTC), Mark Olson
> <olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
>>coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
>>better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
>>much if anything at all.
>
> Google has revealed a lot of conflcting reports on this sort of thing.
>
> *one* page suggested thta even if using pure fossil fuel for energy
> generation, an EV would eventually pay for itself simply because they
> are more efficient that ICE vehicles. This (I think) assuemd an
> average lifespan of 143K miles.
>
> I have also seen pages that say that an EV would start paying back
> within the low teens of miles (not sure what energy mix) and others
> that claim 70K miles+. Yet others claim never in an EV's lifetime.
>
> A lot seems to depend on vested interest and personal prejudice.
>

quelle surprise

consumption figures have never been trustworthy c.f. dieselgate

for low mileage users like me, we would never do 70k, let alone 143k before
the vehicle disintegrated. Let alone justify the additional capital cost
compared to ICE and the �50 of petrol used a month, most of which is
covered by my employer's mileage rate.

Pipl <pluscher@live.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 16:38:03 -0000 (UTC), Mark Olson
> <olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
>>coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
>>better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
>>much if anything at all.
>
> Google has revealed a lot of conflcting reports on this sort of thing.
>
> *one* page suggested thta even if using pure fossil fuel for energy
> generation, an EV would eventually pay for itself simply because they
> are more efficient that ICE vehicles. This (I think) assuemd an
> average lifespan of 143K miles.
>
> I have also seen pages that say that an EV would start paying back
> within the low teens of miles (not sure what energy mix) and others
> that claim 70K miles+. Yet others claim never in an EV's lifetime.
>
> A lot seems to depend on vested interest and personal prejudice.

I agree wholeheartedly.

The only thing I think I can say for sure is that unbiased & holistic
analyses that account for the entire lifecycle of EV vs ICE vehicles,
appear to be very thin on the ground. Everyone's got some sort of
axe to grind.

Most people, myself included, would probably have to admit that they
are less motivated by environmental concerns, than practical ones.
I'd love to own an electric car, because I'd be able to charge at home
at level 2 for ~ 95 percent of my miles, avoiding fuel stations and
lots of mechanical maintenance of an ICE car. But since I typically
hold on to a car to somewhere close to end of life, I can't help but
wonder what is going to happen to all the otherwise still serviceable
EVs that are not economical to fit with new batteries.

It's all a bit academic at the moment because we've currently got
two very serviceable cars that show every sign of lasting at least
another 10 years without major repair expenses.

[hurriedly knocks on wood]

--
FJR1300A, GL1000, KLR650A6F, EX250J9A, DR200SE, Vespa Ciao

On 16/01/2023 16:38, Mark Olson wrote:
> ogden <eldaifo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Monday, 16 January 2023 at 14:37:25 UTC, jeremy wrote:
>
>>> Or are there ways of charging the vehicle at significantly lower cost?
>>
>> Apply the brakes.
>
> The main advantage to hybrids (plug in or otherwise) vs ICE vehicles
> seems to be that you can save a bit of fuel by using the battery to
> accelerate from a stop, where the heat engine is less efficient. You
> recover some of the energy needed to do this again, from regenerative
> braking. You do lose some fraction of your kinetic energy this way,
> but less than the 100% you lose by heating up your brake rotors.
>
> Which is why if you live at the top of a hill you would almost never
> want to charge the battery of a hybrid or electric to 100%.
>
> While cruising at a steady speed, the battery, electric motor(s),
> and all the extra gubbins needed to integrate the hybrid system are
> just excess weight and cost.
>
> [jumps on to soapbox]
>
> The rush to mandate switching to BEVs without simultaneously planning
> a systematic approach to addressing the many practical and technical
> issues related to charging, is unfortunate. It appears to me, that far
> too many people, who _should_ have known better, made the assumption
> that the major problem was the lack of the cars themselves, and that
> somehow all the other necessary pieces of the puzzle would just fall
> into place once more electric cars were on the roads.

The lack of BEVs *was* a problem but it has been solved. So much so that
"short memory-itis" has set in and now the moans are about charging
infrastructure.

Charging infrastructure is a chicken and egg problem, just like the
availability of gasoline was when cars were first developed. It will
cease to be a problem sooner or later and then we can look forward to
moans about battery recycling as the generation of BEVs head for the
scrap yard.

You could always move to Wyoming. ;-)

<https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/01/17/wyoming-ban-electric-vehicles-legislation/11067197002/>

> Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
> coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
> better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
> much if anything at all.
>

--
Bruce Horrocks
FJR1300AS

On Wed, 18 Jan 2023 22:20:01 +0000, Bruce Horrocks
<07.013@scorecrow.com> wrote:

>You could always move to Wyoming. ;-)
>
><https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/01/17/wyoming-ban-electric-vehicles-legislation/11067197002/>

heh. I read that on El Reg yesterday
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/wyoming_electric_vehicles_ban/
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

I don't know, but I been told
You never slow down, you never grow old

Mark Olson wrote:

>
> [jumps on to soapbox]
>
> The rush to mandate switching to BEVs without simultaneously planning
> a systematic approach to addressing the many practical and technical
> issues related to charging, is unfortunate. It appears to me, that far
> too many people, who should have known better, made the assumption
> that the major problem was the lack of the cars themselves, and that
> somehow all the other necessary pieces of the puzzle would just fall
> into place once more electric cars were on the roads.

I think it's called "Market driven development" or somesuch, you create
the demand and then the market provideth. I suppose it works up to a
point, a few years back the Chinese government banned petrol mopeds
(almost overnight) and seeing as mopeds are the mainstay of Chinese
transport/catering/industry they had to come up with EV mopeds pdq. I
noticed it here when the price of electric bicycles suddenly plummeted
as the Chinese battery/motor production soared.

>
> Since the electricity on my region's grid is primarily generated by
> coal fired plants, switching to an electric car might make me feel
> better but I'm not sure it would change my carbon contribution by
> much if anything at all.

I think this is a good example of what happens when you leave huge
industries to their own devices. Of course the coal industry is happy
to keep digging/profiting as long as the government allows them, a bit
of lobbying, threatening unemployment armageddon and lubricating the
correct palms helps of course. I like to think that the EU method
differs slightly. First the objective (carbon neutral energy) then the
plan (windmills, solar, Hydrogen etc) and finally the implementation
(if the coal/oil still hasn't started to change then tax 'em till the
pips squeak). All this of course requires Big Government, bold
strategies and far reaching powers, something that seems to set most
Anglo-Saxons a quivering.

--

Geoff

Mark Olson wrote:

>
> The only thing I think I can say for sure is that unbiased & holistic
> analyses that account for the entire lifecycle of EV vs ICE vehicles,
> appear to be very thin on the ground. Everyone's got some sort of
> axe to grind.
>

I sometimes wonder if the lawyers employed by the tobacco industry to
convince us that smoking will make us more attractive to the opposite
sex and that of course lung cancer has nothing whatsoever to do with
tobacco have moved on to their next prestige project, namely trying to
convince us that fossil fuels are the sensible choice for the future
and climate change is nothing more than scare mongering. Two oft heard
arguments spring to mind: 1) a Jeep Cherokee has less environmental
impact than a Toyota Prius and 2) Solar panels don't work at night and
windmills are useless because they only work if it is windy. Yeah those
ones have smartarse lawyer fingerprints all over I reckon.

--

Geoff

ogden wibbled:

> Except it won't be, because the petrol engine will cut in far
> earlier, especially if you're getting up to any kind of speed. It
> won't run on battery for 20 miles and then bring the petrol engine in
> when the battery's flat.

Doesn't that depend upon the type of PHEV? If it's a plug-in hybrid,
won't it use the battery until flat then automatically switch over to
petrol?

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Cab
Z1000 and CB1300 and VeloSolex 3800