A one year old Diesel car makes so much pollution per mile. You can't undo what was caused by making it or undo poor choices regarding recycling etc.

To scrap that perfectly good vehicle and replace it with an electric one produces more pollution. The level per mile is then less at the vehicle and probably less over all per mile. (Also it'll do fewer miles because of the hours it'll spend plugged in).

There is a break even point. The least pollution probably involves keeping the Diesel vehicle until worn out.

The break even point is not where green cultists and sellers of EV's want you to believe it is: every vehicle replaced now (and again in 18 months time for the sellers and again after that and... ).

There is additionally the efficiency of production. Older designs of EV and those made in small numbers will have the break even point later.

Andy
(also an Automotive Engineer)

That's a complete BS, even when you recycle a part of it you're still burning it.
I strongly just suggest you don't believe in everything you watch on TV, as matter of fact don't watch TV at all with all those green nuts.
Don't believe me either, do your own research and think for yourself.

Electricity for transportation is a dead end road.


p.s.
BTW not that it matters I am an electronic engineer and I love electricity.

As a well-informed electronic engineer you should know that 2 recycling ways of lithium ion battery exists: thermal melting and mechanical shredding. To state that they are simply burned is a confirmed BS.

In the process of melting, the battery cells are melted down. The different melting points allow the raw materials to be separated from each other. Cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium can be recovered to a large extent by the process. However, other materials such as graphite, electrolyte and aluminum are lost.

In the process shredding, the batteries are mechanically reduced in size and sorted into the individual raw materials in the further process. Shredding achieves a recycling rate of 96 percent and the raw materials from recovery are used, for example, in the production of new batteries.

The process of recycling the electric car battery can also save large amounts of CO2 emissions as opposed to new production.

And if electricity for transportation is a dead end road will be latestly decided in a couple of decades when the world reserves of oil are fully gone. Maybe engineers have found at that time a way to produce enormous quantities of electricity which you will definetly need to produce for e-fuels for use in engines with the lowest efficiency (if you compare fossile fuels powered engines with electric engines).

There's also a few schemes to use end-of-life car batteries for town power cells until they're completely unchargeable.

I remember a pro-fossil fuel study a while ago that said a Prius was more environmentally damaging than a new Jeep ... in the actual research they assumed that a Prius was built to last 70,000 miles and a Jeep 300,000. Of course, there are plenty of Prius' that get to around 250,000 miles before needing battery attention and even then it's possible to swap individual cells to keep the car going.

In other news, there's not going to be any scrapping of 1 year old diesels. I don't know about where other people are, but here people sell used cars to other people ... not everyone lives in cities, even here, so it'll have a knock-on effect of people in rural areas being able to get less polluting cars.

E.G. since 2018:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/...car-batteries/

Speaking as a metallurgist I have to confirm Rapax’ statement - the recycling rate of metals in batteries in very high - the metallurgists have spent large amount of time an energy extracting the metals from their ores and so when there is a highly concentrated source - like batteries - they will extract the metal from there in preference -it is waaaaay cheaper and waaaay easier and uses just a small fraction of the energy used to get the metal in the first place.

I think that in a few years time there will be two forms of energy used for cars / bikes etc = batteries and hydrogen - and both of those are electric vehicles. The end of the internal combustion engine as a mass transport energy source is approaching.

Speaking as someone who likes travelling by motorcycle, I'm considering travelling to Asturias and Galicia and maybe ducking down into northern Portugal in the early summer, in order to ride stuff that was too cold and wet earlier this year. I'll likely avoid larger urban areas, not because of their clean air zones, but because my carburettored motorcycle is more fun in the hills and mountains.

(Not a mech/ elec/ auto engineer, nor a metalurgist, so unable to stray off topic).

Hi, on the subject of pedestrianising city centers. For many years (since 1987 until 2021) I was a motorcycle courier in London.
Over the past 5 years or more there has been a creeping policy of pedestrianising the streets of the West End and City and other areas.
This has nothing to do with low emissions, purely banning all vehicles from certain areas, including electric and low emissions vehicles.
The end result being it is impossible to deliver to these areas without getting a fine or a parking ticket.
An example of this, you have a delivery to make to an address in a no vehicle, pedestrians only street. So you get as close as you can to that street and park up in a loading bay or on a single yellow line ( where you are allowed to do when making a delivery). You wander off to make the delivery, then on your return you find you have been given a parking ticket.
Naturally you appeal the parking ticket. But often the appeal is unsuccessful because you are only allowed a few minutes to deliver or the traffic warden didn't see you making a delivery ( well if you are delivering to a different better he wouldn't see you).
So for doing your job you have to pay the fine £60 or more, half a days earnings.
That was one reason why I packed up being a motorcycle courier last year.
Eventually the companies in these areas will find it impossible to function without these deliveries being made. The companies will close down or move out of city centers.
Once they move out these areas will die, no companies, no customers for the cafes, restaurants and shops.
A real genius policy!!!!!!!!

This arguing seems rather pointless. When Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and/or Kawasaki have electric motorcycles on the local dealership floor, I'll consider buying one - and we aren't there yet.

I believe Volvo are the only manufacturer who make the same model with the choice of both ICE and EV.
Assuming you aren't going to throw away an ICE before buying your EV, in comparing both they say the carbon footprint break even point is 200,000km. Less if the electricity used to recharge comes from a low carbon source.


https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-...int-report.pdf

Steady on there Chicken Little. There have been LEZs in the UK and many other cities round the world for years with no trace of a property price crash. If anything the residents appreciate the cleaner air. Taxes on commuters from outside the zones are generally welcomed by residents of the zones, see if you can guess why.

But if you want to pay the £20,000 or so it costs to move house these days so you don't have to buy a bike that's less than 10 years old, that's your choice of course.

Not sure if you've been into many city centres since leaving your courier job, but the ones I've seen seem to be managing to thrive. Deliveries get made outside peak times, people use park and ride schemes, etc. The only places where centres are in serious decay are the ones where employment levels are chronically low already. Traffic is the least of their problems.

Your brand loyalty is admirable but remember, the world's biggest manufacturer of electric cars didn't even start producing cars until 2008, and that was in an environment when EV technology was largely unknown, unlike today when it's common.

I wouldn't buy an EV myself today, but not because I think they're a buzzkill or somehow untrustworthy, rather due to concerns over weight, range and recharging, particularly out in the boonies. Maybe in future that'll become a non issue. Certainly as an urban commuter right now they're a no-brainer. And you don't need to scrap off your 1-year-old oilburner to do it, just sell it on and let somebody else run it in the knowledge that when it eventually dies they'll be buying an EV themselves to replace it.

Honestly, the degree of luddism on here is shocking. Not aimed at you brclarke but some of the guys... doh

Interesting debate, for the most part.

I love my older oil burners, simple to maintain,will run on anything,and were orginally designed to last and last vs today's almost planned obsolete versions.

Those days will not come around again, today manufacturers honestly design to a price point and factor in all sorts of details that were never a concern to designers 30 years ago. And this goes for everything from washing machines to airplane's.

I wont bemoan that, because I cant change those things. Manufactures tell us they build want buyers want, and they seem to get it right most of the time, because folks do buy,perhaps because they have limited choice (price, availability,warranty coverage, included service plan, ect ect) or maybe they really do want that stuff!period.

I do almost all my own maintenance on everything I can, from the house heat pump to my vehicles and everything in between, What I most blown away by, is how crappy a lot of the stuff we buy today is, cheaply made with lots of plastic parts that only snap together once,poor fastener choices,thin sheet metal, name it. Again, nothing I can do about this, as almost every brand of everything has these elements in it.Therefor your choices are limited.

As I have "aged", my biggest gripe is trying to find value in what I purchase, quite hard to do in most consumer products.

In respect to electric vehicles, I am not a fan, but not for the reasons that I like the "noise" a ICE makes, its mainly that fact that I need to spend quite a bit of money to acquire one, and that they are loaded with "features" that I am not really wanting to pay for or want.

But recently on a trip to Portugal I was able to test drive a 2022 Dacia Spring,my god I fell in love,inexpensive to purchase,very easy to drive,and not bogged to the gunnels with "tech", it was just a car with with an electric drive train! How refreshing!

I live near Montreal, I would have one in a heartbeat to commute to the office and do perhaps 90 plus percent of my runs, it has heat,A/C and a radio.5 doors and seating for 4,Awesome! 20K euro including VAT.

Looking at the Dacia, it would need to be slightly adapted for our climate here (there is no underbody splash pan under the mechanical bit up front,and the salty snow would just decimate that). Also since in North America many folks would not know why there can be 3 pedals in a vehicle, they would need to incorporate a P (park) detent in the gear selector,lest we would have run away Dacia's everywhere as no one knows about hand brake use(Parking brakes) here.


I think cities would be nice places if we didnt have the cars and trucks that run through the place all the time (ICE versions), in Montreal they drive 45ft semi trucks through the middle of the city all the time for deliveries ect, silly ,stupid and wasteful , but the high cost of alternatives make it hard to justify the transport companies cost to change the fleet.

So I think we can go ahead and make these LEZ's, but give us (at least in North America) the choices to purchase some of these low power,limited range,shrewdly built vehicles that we can purchase new for 20K, I promise I would the first in line to buy one.

This would save my old Land Cruiser,4Runner and Range Rover for the further away or load carrying jobs that they were designed for.

I may be talking out of my butt here, but as I do have a house with a place to park and recharge the vehicle it would do me nicely, but for those living in more densely populated housing or no on street charging, the electric vehicle dream is not realistic yet, and that fault lies with the cities and governments that talk a good talk, but rarely have to live with the actual facts on the ground.

Anyways, enough of that. Thing change,either by design or decree. I dont have to like it,but I would like my choices to be mine.

Cheers,

Paulo

I quite like the ‘ambience’ that’s been built into fuel driven vehicles- the noise (not the volume so much as the timbre), the driving characteristics etc, but not to the point where if electric vehicles were more practical for the sort of driving / riding I do I wouldn’t jump ship in an instant. Unfortunately they’re not - yet anyway. And if what I saw last week ‘yet’ might be quite some time.

We drove about 300 miles north from our house near Oxford, most of it on the M1 + A1 combination that’s the main artery north. We stopped at two main service stations and looked at what electric charging facilities were available. The answer was three charging points at one and two at the other. That in areas with over 500 cars parked while the owners were taking a break. All the charging points were in use so if you’d turned up with a flat battery it might be a long wait. In the town where I live there are no public charging points at all. Lots of private ones but if you’re a tourist in an electric car, good luck.

I’d be happy to drive electric but not the way things are at present. They’re overpriced and only suitable for commuting 10 or 20 miles each way to work. Anything else becomes an expedition rather than a journey.