Death of Diesel Cars

[Courier]

People wont be so keen to muller electric vehicles when they prove operable at 1 tenth the cost of their hydrocarbon equivalents.

Tesla model S is £12 a fill up and many places you can do it for free.

Model S is circa 50K which isnt so crazy considering.

I have had a days test drive in a Leaf and found it very driveable but the hire cost for the battery was going to be around 8-9 p per mile - very similar to buying diesel and incapable of a non-stop trip from Yorkshire to Central London and back.
Range twixt re-fuelling has got to be approaching 450 miles to make it a viable proposition and when it does get there then the sky's the limit [emoji848][emoji41]

 

[bovrill]

I have had a days test drive in a Leaf and found it very driveable but the hire cost for the battery was going to be around 8-9 p per mile - very similar to buying diesel and incapable of a non-stop trip from Yorkshire to Central London and back.
Range twixt re-fuelling has got to be approaching 450 miles to make it a viable proposition and when it does get there then the sky's the limit [emoji848][emoji41]

My diesel Fiesta is costing me about 9p/mile in diesel at the moment, up from about 6.5p a couple of summers ago, when fuel was cheaper and I was doing some long runs. With £30/year tax, cheap insurance and a value of bugger all, it would take a very special deal on an electric car to be financially beneficial!

As a comparison my old Discovery was using about 25p/mile in fuel, and I expect whatever truck I get in the next few weeks to be up near that, but it'll be loaded and have a heavy trailer behind it a lot of the time.

 

[Lincsman]

As far as I know the UK no longer has any oil burning power stations, Tony Blair in a policy shift changed them all to gas turbine technology.

Anyway, even if you were to burn petrol or diesel in a power station instead of gas or coal, it would still be cleaner and more efficient than doing the same in a car, plus the emissions can be scrubbed at source.

As I understood it at school every time you changed an energy type some gets wasted, eg petrol car how much petrol is lost as heat through the radiator?.. so changing gas to electricity must loose some, with some more along the way from the power lines... have you seen the florescent stripe light glow in a field under a row of pylons?... its all wasted energy.

 

[Right-arm fast]

Haven't read the whole thread so this may have been put forward before. The problem with diesels is in towns. There's a lot of stopping then pulling off for all vehicles which unfortunately means that the fuelling is changing a lot, and at low revs there maybe slight over fueling until the required speed is reached and the fueling reduced to stop accelerating, this is where the soot Is produced. Also the particulates are trapped/contained between the buildings and sometimes can't be dissipated.
If the cars and trucks and buses ran at 20-30 mph without stopping this would drastically reduce the particulate emissions in towns and cities but this is obviously impossible so I think they will try and tax diesel cars out of major cities but it is not the death of diesel buy a long shot as there's nothing to take its place. Unless the public transport infrastructure is massively upgraded. The Diesel engine is now a victim of its own success in someways.

 

[Roger Perry]

Toyota Prius is a great car and ideally suited to modern city (and country) driving. Think I am right in saying it is the most popular hybrid by far.

 

[Gong Farmer]

...and the most visually unappealing.

 

[Roger Perry]

I guess that beauty is in the eye of the.............

The latest model looks pretty slick..?

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

What I'd really love to know is what it going to cost to replace the battery in Teslas et al when they lose most of their capacity after the first 1000 or so recharge cycles. Much in the same way as phones and laptops do.

When I asked Tesla when the Model S first came out and I test drive one the answer was very wishy washy and not confidence inspiring for an £80k car.

 

[oldoaktree]

What I'd really love to know is what it going to cost to replace the battery in Teslas et al when they lose most of their capacity after the first 1000 or so recharge cycles. Much in the same way as phones and laptops do.

When I asked Tesla when the Model S first came out and I test drive one the answer was very wishy washy and not confidence inspiring for an £80k car.

I got a similar response from Lexus about 6 years ago which put me off so bought something else.
Apart from that the dealer was tip top brought car to farm for test drive did 1st part of the deal in the kitchen couldn't complain about them it was just the batteries that put me off

 

[Cowabunga]

Nissan have a battery rental scheme I think. You buy the Leaf and have the option of renting the batteries, which sounds like an ideal fixed cost solution. Besides which the car and batteries for it and Renault cars are made in the North of England.
If I lived and drove a second car mainly around town or within a ten mile radius of home, I would not hesitate buying one

 

[Ley253]

Just one thing, electric cars have been proven to be the most polluting of all! Due to their extra weight, there are far more brake and tyre particles shed, and they wear more from the road surface.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Just one thing, electric cars have been proven to be the most polluting of all! Due to their extra weight, there are far more brake and tyre particles shed, and they wear more from the road surface.

The current crop of lithium celled cars aren't that heavy though? A model S is a bit over 2 tonne - not that heavy. What study are you quoting?

 

[Courier]

Nissan have a battery rental scheme I think. You buy the Leaf and have the option of renting the batteries, which sounds like an ideal fixed cost solution. Besides which the car and batteries for it and Renault cars are made in the North of England.
If I lived and drove a second car mainly around town or within a ten mile radius of home, I would not hesitate buying one

Last time I enquired the battery rental ended up costing more per mile than I spend on diesel [emoji15]

 

[Courier]

Just one thing, electric cars have been proven to be the most polluting of all! Due to their extra weight, there are far more brake and tyre particles shed, and they wear more from the road surface.

Something of an urban myth in that since much of the braking is through electrical regeneration and doesn't involve brake pads and discs.....

Unless of course you drive like a d**k [emoji15]

 

[Cowabunga]

Last time I enquired the battery rental ended up costing more per mile than I spend on diesel [emoji15]

Did anyone say it was cheap motoring overall? Certainly not me. It is however, quiet and clean. Now if only they would turn all those trains, planes, taxis and all local city traffic electric, what nice places most cities would be combined with trams and pedestrianised streets.

 

[Roger Perry]

Most city transport, buses etc are running on compressed liquid gas, if you are behind one when it pulls away there is just the ripple of heat out of the exhaust.

 

[FonterraFarmer]

...and the most visually unappealing.

You ever seen Roadkill?

 

[Paddington]

Electric cars are more noise polluting than diesel ones. Why ? Well you can't hear them coming up behind you. Alright in towns and cities where there's pavements, but doing some hedging or ditching or moving sheep round here, first thing you hear is Beep, beep !

 

[Christoph1945]

Good point Paddington. As more and more electric cars come onto our roads, I wonder if the child death rate will go up on our roads. Perhaps all electric cars will have to emit some noise via an electric sound box at the front of the vehicle.

Or perhaps have a man with a red flag to walk in front!

 

[marcusthehat]

Our local Toyota dealer was giving me a hard sell re the Prius, when I had went in looking for a diesel with a towbar, I let him talk and talk, he then looked at me blankly when I asked about the towing capacity.
But we cant fit a towbar he said.
I know I said, but I asked for one, so why were you trying to sell me a Prius?
Otherwise have no objection to them, once they start being honest with the test regime that is , which, as I understand currently allows for starting with a fully charged battery and finishes with a discharged battery, which for a battery powered car is quite a wheeze!
m