Electric cars.

[pilgrimhudd]

I’ve had my solar panels for coming up to 13 years now and have been monitoring output since installation. Obviously some years are sunnier than other but I haven’t seen any noticeable degradation in output. If anything, it’s increasing!

View attachment 89452

Blimey, 2011 was bleak.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Actually very interesting how consistent that is.

 

[Benfleet Brewery]

Blimey, 2011 was bleak.

Ha ha, sorry, should have explained, they were installed on 10th December 2011

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Ha ha, sorry, should have explained, they were installed on 10th December 2011

Ha I guessed that, sorry was just trying to be funny.

 

[gavp1979]

Have you got figures to back this up?

In my head, efficiency deterioration is around 0.5% per year meaning effective lifespan is around 30 years for modern panels.
Average uk electric is 34p per kWh at the minute given an 8 year payback for the typical household.

So 20+ years in the black by my reckoning.

Has he bollocks, like most of his comments on this thread it is sensationalist nonsense with absolutely no facts to back it up just to cause controversy, the very fact that these posts appeared more than a month after the thread went dead say a lot

 

[Justin Dean]

No, a truck engine/gearbox weights 1450Kg and the fuel 500 Kg then when you add in the weight of the cooling system and all other components an EV doesn't need i imagine there is not a huge difference between the two, we have a maximum weight for LGV's in the UK so they will not be allowed over that.

An EV uses regenerative braking which is not as harsh as manual breaking i imagine an EV would cause less damage not more.

Who said Lgv. Cars

 

[Alastair70]

Having recently got a quote for panels that's not far off what I was told, panels and battery paid off in 10 years. 25 year warranty and I think they said less deterioration than that, but I'm sure that's what they would say, it must be ballpark.

I worked out a 10 year payback on a 10 grand install when electricity was 18p per kWh. (3.5kW panels and a 5.2kW battery).
But I’m doing 600+ miles a week in an EV so I’ve got the usage to make it work. Now electricity is nearly doubled in price so the ROI will improve significantly.

 

[Justin Dean]

Having recently got a quote for panels that's not far off what I was told, panels and battery paid off in 10 years. 25 year warranty and I think they said less deterioration than that, but I'm sure that's what they would say, it must be ballpark.

25 year warranty. No way. It’s all lies. Modern panels 10 years. It’s the wild west. It needs to be cheaper otherwise it is break even at best.

 

[Justin Dean]

Have you got figures to back this up?

In my head, efficiency deterioration is around 0.5% per year meaning effective lifespan is around 30 years for modern panels.
Average uk electric is 34p per kWh at the minute given an 8 year payback for the typical household.

So 20+ years in the black by my reckoning.

I do not believe this . I have had quotes and none of them gave anything like that. I did the maths and it is a loss in every case. Maybe if you have a big house with lots of panels it is a better equation but for most people it is a con economically. I appreciate some say no but this it what most people believe and why there a few houses with solar panels. Like heat pumps. Too expensive and imagine every house has a heat pump and how much noise they make. It would be awful.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Who said Lgv. Cars

For some reason i thought you meant trucks the same will apply to cars!

 

[starseeker]

For some reason i thought you meant trucks the same will apply to cars!

The battery in a car weighs roughly a ton ,an engine and gearbox ,cooling etc will be nothing like

 

[Northern_Brewer]

For some reason i thought you meant trucks the same will apply to cars!

Electric cars are quite a bit heavier, like 30% or so, whereas the difference for trucks is far less. That's why they're talking about a weight allowance of only 3% or so for electric trucks -and there's talk that some of the shorter-range ones will soon weigh less than their diesel equivalents, as technology improves.

 

[Alastair70]

I do not believe this . I have had quotes and none of them gave anything like that. I did the maths and it is a loss in every case. Maybe if you have a big house with lots of panels it is a better equation but for most people it is a con economically. I appreciate some say no but this it what most people believe and why there a few houses with solar panels. Like heat pumps. Too expensive and imagine every house has a heat pump and how much noise they make. It would be awful.

There’s a 25 year efficiency guarantee on my panels, if they stop earning their keep within that time, they get swapped out.
I’ve shown you my working out (separate post). Do you want to share yours, then we might be able to see where the disconnect is.

 

[hoppyscotty]

The battery in a car weighs roughly a ton ,an engine and gearbox ,cooling etc will be nothing like

Not sure about that, but will probably depend on the class of car. For example we went from a 2.0ltr diesel X3 to a Tesla Model Y Long Range. the kerb weight of the cars is very similar around 1,900 kg. The battery and both motors on the Tesla weigh in at 881kg according to Google. Its a 75kwh battery pack in the Tesla so a reasonably big one.

I'm sure I totted up the weight of the x3 engine, gearbox and 4wd transmission was about the same weight if not a bit more, so in a car of this class I think the two things net out. Might not net out with a smaller 2wd car where you have less transmission weight.

Also the new Tesla truck weighs 3.5 tons more than a similar Diesel truck. I don't believe that 'improving technology' will reduce weight of battery ev's. Unless we come up with a drastically new technology...which I don't believe we are. Alot of talk about possible new technologies, but most if not all wont see the light of day or is many many decades away, or ridiculously expensive or difficult to scale so downsides outweigh the benefits. It'll be like the promise of fusion....every year it's only ten years away. The industry I work within is very involved in looking for new technologies to enable transition away from fossil fuelled power and invests hundreds of billions of dollars a year in R&D globally, and so far the electric/battery opportunities are looking pretty unpromising and bleak....certainly nothing that is less than about 30 - 50 years away. The most promise are in synthetic substitute fuels for normal IC engines. You just cant beat the power density of liquid fuel. Going back to my Tesla...the battery weight over 700kg and can store sufficient power for upto 280 miles (bearing in mind an EV car is far more efficient than a diesel car in terms of miles per KW). The fuel tank on the old X3 was around 70 litres capacity, so around 70kg when brimmed, and that was good for well over 500 miles. And when you scale this up to large power machines and power system this makes a huge difference. You can just about get away with it with cars and trucks, but thats about it.

 

[Justin Dean]

There’s a 25 year efficiency guarantee on my panels, if they stop earning their keep within that time, they get swapped out.
I’ve shown you my working out (separate post). Do you want to share yours, then we might be able to see where the disconnect is.

That is a nice deal. All the quotes I have got are nothing near that. Certainly no swapping out.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Not sure about that, but will probably depend on the class of car. For example we went from a 2.0ltr diesel X3 to a Tesla Model Y Long Range. the kerb weight of the cars is very similar around 1,900 kg. The battery and both motors on the Tesla weigh in at 881kg according to Google. Its a 75kwh battery pack in the Tesla so a reasonably big one.

It's more obvious when you compare like with like, electric versions of a fossil fuel car. It's not ideal in some ways, as a chassis designed for both systems will have compromises in both directions, but eg the electric Mini has a 32.6kWh battery for a range of 140 miles, and is 1775kg versus 1280kg for the petrol Cooper S.

 

[hoppyscotty]

It's more obvious when you compare like with like, electric versions of a fossil fuel car. It's not ideal in some ways, as a chassis designed for both systems will have compromises in both directions, but eg the electric Mini has a 32.6kWh battery for a range of 140 miles, and is 1775kg versus 1280kg for the petrol Cooper S.

Wow, that is a horrendous difference in weight! unbelievable that a small 2wd electric hatchback is only a couple of hundred KG's lighter than a large family 4wd SUV. I understood that carrying around a heavy 4wd transmission makes cars heavy and the Tesla gets 4wd via two relatively lightweight motors (around 100kg a piece), but scaled down that is a huge gap.

But having said all that cars have been getting heavier for the last 30 years. Back when I were a lad a small hatchback was typically under (just) 1,000kg and I was lucky to be getting 30mpg from a 4 speed box and carburettor engine. These days you're looking at 300kg's more with double the power and around double the MPG, slashing of emissions, along with the improvement in safety, chassis dynamics, overall tech etc, so that goes to show the progress made in conventional ICE cars.

I'm a big fan of the synthetic replacement fuels. Seems daft to scrap overnight millions of perfectly serviceable and efficient cars with a couple of decades worth of useful life still left in them and replace them, along with all the global infrastructure that supports them, with a whole fleet of brand new cars all made from fresh resources just dug out of the earths crust, from questionable regimes in far away places, all in the name of sustainability. Not sure we can call that progress.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I think the major damage to roads was done when we had to allow heavier articulated trucks on UK roads I did read somewhere that it could shorten the life of existing roads by 10 years in some cases. My wifes swift sport is under 1000kg has northward of 140hp and does over 40mpg. I follow lightweight philosophy when it comes to buying cars ever since I learnt the hard way with a 1.8 vauxhall zafira. Beautiful family mpv but really heavy and 32mpg was the best I got out of it. It would be better to limit weight or also tax cars on weight. Less weight more mpg everything else being equal.

we have a number of bridges near us reduced to 1 lane and traffic lights to stop reduce the wear on a weakening bridge. its cheaper than rebuilding a new stronger bridge.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Well of course Audi showed the way with its little A2...what a visionary piece of kit that was. True innovation. Super lightweight and very efficient even by todays standards. A car ahead of its time. Imagine if the concept of that car was pursued and continued to be developed. We'd have cars today that were 20% lighter and 20% more efficient.

The state of the roads is just tragic. We're reaping the results of tragic lack of planning and any form of transport infrastructure strategy for the last 40 years, largely due to the activists of the 80's and 90's that made infrastructure planning and strategy and the mere suggestion of building much needed new roads and infrastructure a toxic political hot potato that no government of any colour was prepared to touch. The result is crap roads stifling traffic flow, causing more congestion that is degrading air quality.

Of course sat nav's don't help either as they bring big heavy trucks off the main roads and onto smaller minor roads not able to cope with the weight just to shave off a few miles or minutes from their journey times. We have it around where I live....loads of articulated lorries thundering through the village, threading the needle on minor country B-roads, just to cut the corner between the intersection of two main dual carriageway A-roads to save a few miles instead of remaining on the main roads to the junction. Utter madness.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

According to this a EV can be 30% heavier than a ICE so when you take away the engine, gearbox, cooling system and everything the EV doesn't need the difference is going to be similar to people driving a small ICE car to a huge petrol/diesel Chelsea tractor, therefore going back to your original question damage to the roads by EV's is not going to be any more of an issue than it is now.

You might have read that electric cars can tip the scales at noticeably higher weights than their petrol or diesel equivalents. And it’s true – the main requirement to accelerate a car swiftly from standstill to motorway speeds (and even beyond) is having plenty of power and when it comes to an all-electric vehicle that power has to be stored in a big bank of battery cells. So many cells, in fact, that together they can add as much as 30% to the overall weight of the car compared to a combustion-engined equivalent.