Europe - The Official Thread

[Outspacer]

Surprised no one posted this.

EU and really Germany to push for banning petrol and diesel car sales from 2030 onwards... seems insane to me that we are almost 10 years away from it!

You're making quite the leap there, considering that (at this stage) it's merely a study commissioned by GreenPeace.

 

[baldgye]

You're making quite the leap there, considering that (at this stage) it's merely a study commissioned by GreenPeace.

Not just

 

[Outspacer]

Not just

That would've been a helpful link in your original post, thanks!

I'm not too familiar with the German gov, or whether this really means 'Germany' or just the Bundesrat. It has submitted a bill to the EU, but would that necessarily mean that the relevant German representative(s) in the EU would vote for it when/if the EU votes on it?

 

[baldgye]

That would've been a helpful link in your original post, thanks!

I'm not too familiar with the German gov, or whether this really means 'Germany' or just the Bundesrat. It has submitted a bill to the EU, but would that necessarily mean that the relevant German representative(s) in the EU would vote for it when/if the EU votes on it?

Yeah, fair cop. I ****ed up my original link and linked the wrong thing.

But I’ve no idea, I imagine it’s a fair distance from law but the U.K. seem set on a similar time frame for doing the same as does the EU, so I imagine it’s more down to hashing out the details with the car manufacturers into something reasonable.

 

[Outspacer]

Yeah, fair cop. I ****ed up my original link and linked the wrong thing.

But I’ve no idea, I imagine it’s a fair distance from law but the U.K. seem set on a similar time frame for doing the same as does the EU, so I imagine it’s more down to hashing out the details with the car manufacturers into something reasonable.

I'm guessing it hasn't got very far since that Bundesrat bill was back in Oct 2016: http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/...-dieselautos-ab-2030-verbieten-a-1115671.html

Two years on and it seems to need support from Greepeace (exact same conclusion - amazing!), so the link to the recent study was worth posting as well At the end of the study's summary, they note:

Since this study only investigated the TTW [tank to wheel] emissions, a closer look has to be taken at the
upstream chain of the energy supply of electricity and hydrogen to be able to give a definitive
conclusion to the question. The same also applies for synthetic and renewable fuels if they are
taken into consideration

There are many problems supply-side with the feasibility of any big shift to electric, let alone a sudden one. When something is not possible, it can't be done. Power stations take years to build, and face opposition.

So I don't know really what these moves are - a mixture of virtue signalling and a warning flag*? Political, not to be seen as at fault when such measures are blocked by others / practicalities? Because that seems the inevitable outcome.

* edit: as in, preparation for significant further taxation.

 

[PocketZeven]

In my country it isnt very difficult to find a charging station. A lot can change in 11-12 years. Nobody else here with electric/phev experience?

 

[TenEightyOne]

In my country it isnt very difficult to find a charging station. A lot can change in 11-12 years. Nobody else here with electric/phev experience?

They seem reasonably common in Britain, 18000 charge points as opposed to 8,500 petrol stations, but it's not a like-for-like comparison. If one presumes an average of 6 pumps per petrol station then that's 51,000 petrol pumps. I guess it's worth noting that despite there being roughly three petrol pumps for every charging point an electric vehicle can spend two hours at a charge point compared to the 3 minutes (rough guess) an ICE vehicle spends at a petrol pump. That means that you'd need a couple of million charge points to have parity.

 

[baldgye]

They seem reasonably common in Britain, 18000 charge points as opposed to 8,500 petrol stations, but it's not a like-for-like comparison. If one presumes an average of 6 pumps per petrol station then that's 51,000 petrol pumps. I guess it's worth noting that despite there being roughly three petrol pumps for every charging point an electric vehicle can spend two hours at a charge point compared to the 3 minutes (rough guess) an ICE vehicle spends at a petrol pump. That means that you'd need a couple of million charge points to have parity.

Every charge point I’ve come across is also private and /or attached to special parking bays... not just something you can stop by and fill up at

 

[ExigeEvan]

Is the legislation only aimed at non-hybrid vehicles?

Every charge point I’ve come across is also private and /or attached to special parking bays... not just something you can stop by and fill up at

EV parking spots are usually clearly marked to prevent them being blocked by ICE cars.

There are a variety of networks in the UK. Ecotricity own the chargers at nearly all motorway service areas. Tesla also have multiple bays at a large (and growing) network around the UK.

Some Lidl stores (and even rarer Tesco) have PodPoint facilities, and some gyms have VolTech rapid chargers.

Numerous hotels have Tesla, ZeroCarbonWorld and Polar chargers available for guests.

The issue is that there are many older chargers at destinations (3kw or worse), and the rapids/fasts are split between AC Type 2, Chademo and CCS (and Tesla). But most networks also require prior registration, some require membership and nearly all require an App to manage.

 

[Outspacer]

They seem reasonably common in Britain, 18000 charge points as opposed to 8,500 petrol stations, but it's not a like-for-like comparison. If one presumes an average of 6 pumps per petrol station then that's 51,000 petrol pumps. I guess it's worth noting that despite there being roughly three petrol pumps for every charging point an electric vehicle can spend two hours at a charge point compared to the 3 minutes (rough guess) an ICE vehicle spends at a petrol pump. That means that you'd need a couple of million charge points to have parity.

Numbers, yum

About 31 million cars average 6500 miles a year for a total of 250 billion miles. (source)

Assuming 40 mpg (optimistic) and an average 20% efficiency for petrol, and 60% eff. for electric (source), that's...
250 Gm / 40 mpg = 6.25 Gg
6.25 Gg * 33.7 kWh/gallon = 210.6 TWh / year (excluding adjustments for efficiencies)
210.625 TWh * 20% / 60% = 70.2 TWh / year

A large-ish (1 GW) power station could produce 8.76 TWh / year (assuming no slowdowns or interruptions).

Only at least eight new large power stations then. Or import it, but we import an uncomfortable amount already.

For perspective, total electricity consumption in UK is around 350 TWh/year (source). Even though our consumption has fallen by close to 10% since 2010 (yay LEDs!), that's nowhere near 70 TWh / year, and stations have been shutdown in that time.

 

[Imari]

How could it? If the EU forces, by law, that all new cars be non-petrol, what relevance would petrol motor-sports have?

What relevance does historical car racing have?

People will still love to come out and see the old bangers thrashing around, even if there's none on the road any more.

Though after thinking about it more, batteries are an actual issue. The batteries in the current F1 cars will stop working in something like 7-8 years(?) and the engines will be literally worthless and unusable. Can you imagine, an entire generation of F1 cars totally unable to move unless the engineer bespoke engines to move them about it for demo runs, but never being able to actually drive them on the original engines.... awful.

How do they keep all those crazy F1 cars from the 90's and earlier running? That must involve some sort of magic, because maintenance, restoration and rebuilds definitely aren't an option.

 

[baldgye]

What relevance does historical car racing have?

People will still love to come out and see the old bangers thrashing around, even if there's none on the road any more.



How do they keep all those crazy F1 cars from the 90's and earlier running? That must involve some sort of magic, because maintenance, restoration and rebuilds definitely aren't an option.

I meant modern racing series... and older F1 cars are mainted and run on the old original laptops.
I mean, I’m no expert but I remember hearing Paddy Lowe talking about how modern F1 engines in the future could become unusable due to the battery systems dying and replacing them/updating them might not be feasible

 

[ExigeEvan]

Only at least eight new large power stations then. Or import it, but we import an uncomfortable amount already.

It would be really helpful if some experts looked into this...

They did!

https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/ne...-demand-spike-with-help-from-smart-technology

So we don't actually need to increase our peak production capability, we need to better manage our peak usage.

That will be a combination of smart grid, smart storage, smart homes, disyributed production and undoubtedly varying electricity costs throughout the day (like Eco7 is now).

National Grid have even acknowledged that heating will have to shift to Heatpump (electricity demand) or Hydrogen supplementation if we want to decrease our domestic CO2.

 

[Outspacer]

It would be really helpful if some experts looked into this...

They did!

https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/ne...-demand-spike-with-help-from-smart-technology

So we don't actually need to increase our peak production capability, we need to better manage our peak usage.

That will be a combination of smart grid, smart storage, smart homes, disyributed production and undoubtedly varying electricity costs throughout the day (like Eco7 is now).

National Grid have even acknowledged that heating will have to shift to Heatpump (electricity demand) or Hydrogen supplementation if we want to decrease our domestic CO2.

Hey, I just wanted to throw some numbers around. The power stations line isn't the main takeaway, it's that at least 70 TWh/year more would be consumed if the entire fleet is electric (assuming we still travel as many miles by car) which is at least 20% more than we consume now. My calcs didn't even include vans, let alone trucks.

I can't read that article without dicking around. This is all I see:

National Grid scenarios suggest UK peak demand could increase by just 8GW with the help of flexible technologies, despite millions of electric vehicles hitting the road

The UK can avoid a sharp increase in peak electricity demand by mid-century by ensuring the rollout of millions of electric vehicles (EVs) is combined with smart charging and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies....

That's pure chance that I've matched their figure, I hadn't read that and I honestly wasn't aiming for any particular figure.

 

[ExigeEvan]

That's pure chance that I've matched their figure, I hadn't read that and I honestly wasn't aiming for any particular figure.

Not quite.

You looked at the UK production and stated we needed an additional 8 plants to make up the production kWh across a year. However, that's assuming that the UK runs all energy production flat out.

It doesn't, our gas electricity production for example largely follows demand, whilst others like Nuclear provide constant baseline. Coal for example is brought online during winter when electricity prices are high enough to make coal economic.

What does that all mean? In simple terms that don't address open/closure of plants, we can meet EV demand by running more of our energy production more of the time with reduced variability in production throughout the day.

See www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk to understand to rise and fall in UK (and French) production.

 

[Outspacer]

Not quite.

You looked at the UK production and stated we needed an additional 8 plants to make up the production kWh across a year. However, that's assuming that the UK runs all energy production flat out.

It doesn't, our gas electricity production for example largely follows demand, whilst others like Nuclear provide constant baseline. Coal for example is brought online during winter when electricity prices are high enough to make coal economic.

What does that all mean? In simple terms that don't address open/closure of plants, we can meet EV demand by running more of our energy production more of the time with reduced variability in production throughout the day.

See www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk to understand to rise and fall in UK (and French) production.

I didn't state anything quite so, and stated the assumption. I threw some numbers around to get an idea of the size of the change. I know very well that load isn't constant and power stations don't run 100% all the time.

8GW more peak output means more generation - or direct equivalent, like storage - is required. We don't have a lot spare at peak time at all. All of the other smart stuff is on top of that, which matches me saying 'at least' about the 70 TWh/yr.

70 TWh/yr is about 8GW constant (albeit in practice biased to more in evening/night). That's equivalent to about 8 stations running full tilt non-stop. So the only word you're really quibbling over is 'new'. Fine I'll give you that, they may not be new power stations, but it is new demand and that's the size of it.

 

[ExigeEvan]

70 TWh/yr is about 8GW constant (albeit in practice biased to more in evening/night). That's equivalent to about 8 stations running full tilt non-stop. So the only word you're really quibbling over is 'new'. Fine I'll give you that, they may not be new power stations, but it is new demand and that's the size of it.

It's not a quibble by any means, saying we need an additional 8GW constant/8 new powerstations, is a huge claim given that the UK grid with wind/solar is about 55GW (with about 45GW being throttle controlled).

 

[Outspacer]

It's not a quibble by any means, saying we need an additional 8GW constant/8 new powerstations, is a huge claim given that the UK grid with wind/solar is about 55GW (with about 45GW being throttle controlled).

Well it is at least 8GW on average that would be needed to charge the entire fleet. Is there any part of my math you disagree with?

Seeing as the dial is marked with amber and red above 45GW, we could use that figure. 8GW is not an insignificant amount at all, about 20%. According to the link you gave about the National Grid's study of scenarios we'd need about 8GW more at peak time - and that figure relies on other connected EVs providing 8GW back to the grid.

The full report is Future Energy Scenarios 2018. The Key Messages section (p2-3) and pages 50, 72 & 82 are interesting and relevant to our debate, without getting side-tracked by the countless other issues considered.

They lead with "Capacity could increase from 103 GW today to between 189 GW and 268 GW by 2050, with the more decarbonised scenarios requiring the highest capacities. Up to 65 per cent of generation could be local by 2050." which is a marked increase. I'm not sure what accounts for the difference between the 45/55GW you mention and the 103GW.

So I can't really see what your point/objection is. In fact far more than 8GW is anticipated (for various reasons including EVs), and nothing in that report sounds to me like "we can meet EV demand by running more of our energy production more of the time with reduced variability in production throughout the day", as you claimed. Whether it's new power stations and/or some alternative, it will require huge investment.

 

[ryzno]

I just want to chime in on the electric cars subject.
Where do these governments and companies think we are going to get money to pay for all this carp?
I've never bought a new car in my life and I never plan to.
The price of new cars and trucks is utterly ridiculous, not to mention having to pay full coverage insurance.
I also have 2 years mechanic training/experience. I've never bought something I knew I couldn't fix myself.
One day they are going to ban non-electric vehicles.
Not to mention when they master self driving cars, one day they are going to ban regular cars.
I remember Obama's car trade in bailout. Just like the housing crash, the repo men were having a field day.

This another government idea I don't like.

 

[Northstar]

Where do these governments and companies think we are going to get money to pay for all this carp?

Presumably the same place people get the money for ICE cars.

I've never bought a new car in my life and I never plan to.

Obviously lots of people do go the new route. There's certainly benefits to going the new route, whether they outweigh the negatives is a personal choice.

I also have 2 years mechanic training/experience. I've never bought something I knew I couldn't fix myself.

Than you'll either have to learn something new or cave in and pay someone. Whether the government is involved or not new technology will make it's way into things and people in that industry will either have to adapt or find something else. This isn't limited to the automotive field either.

One day they are going to ban non-electric vehicles.

For on-road use perhaps. Granted by than the market will have likely moved away from ICE based cars anyways.

Not to mention when they master self driving cars, one day they are going to ban regular cars.

Considering they haven't even mastered civilian GPS yet, a crucial component of autonomous vehicles, I wouldn't worry about that.

 

[PocketZeven]

They seem reasonably common in Britain, 18000 charge points as opposed to 8,500 petrol stations, but it's not a like-for-like comparison. If one presumes an average of 6 pumps per petrol station then that's 51,000 petrol pumps. I guess it's worth noting that despite there being roughly three petrol pumps for every charging point an electric vehicle can spend two hours at a charge point compared to the 3 minutes (rough guess) an ICE vehicle spends at a petrol pump. That means that you'd need a couple of million charge points to have parity.

My point was these charging points have been growing rapidly. Imagine how many charging points there will be in the future.

 

[TenEightyOne]

My point was these charging points have been growing rapidly. Imagine how many charging points there will be in the future.

More than 2,000,000 if there are to be a usable amount by today's standards.

 

[PocketZeven]

More than 2,000,000 if there are to be a usable amount by today's standards.

Also they arent comparable 1 to 1. People who have their own garages or drive can easily charge overnight at home. Charging stations will more likely be stationed near workplaces etc. Charging station need considerable less room then gasoline stations. I also believe in 10 years the range should be at least doubled and charging time halved.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Also they arent comparable 1 to 1. People who have their own garages or drive can easily charge overnight at home

What do they do after 300 miles? That's half the range of a petrol hybrid.

 

[ExigeEvan]

What do they do after 300 miles? That's half the range of a petrol hybrid.

How many petrol hybrids have a 50l tank?

 

[TenEightyOne]

How many petrol hybrids have a 50l tank?

You're right, the range is very often half of what I'd said.

 

[PocketZeven]

What do they do after 300 miles? That's half the range of a petrol hybrid.

Just get a powerbank

Kidding aside. In my case I drive electric on short distances within cities work/home etc. Long distances I am happy to have a petrol engine there for the range (30L). As for full electric it is a matter of planning ahead. A number of my friends have a Tesla Model S and they already plan where they will park ahead of departure. Do take in account I live in a country where you can drive from one side to another within 3 hours (max 300 km).

 

[TenEightyOne]

In my case I drive electric on short distances within cities work/home etc. Long distances I am happy to have a petrol engine there for the range (30L).

Which is kind of the point of a discussion about all electric vehicles.

As for full electric it is a matter of planning ahead. A number of my friends have a Tesla Model S and they already plan where they will park ahead of departure.

There are times and places where I can see that either not being feasible or being ludicrously expensive.

Do take in account I live in a country where you can drive from one side to another within 3 hours (max 300 km).

So do I (England) but you also have to take into account that people in Belgiumland might like to travel cross-border or that people in Britainland might want to go from Edinburgh to London.

 

[PocketZeven]

Which is kind of the point of a discussion about all electric vehicles.



There are times and places where I can see that either not being feasible or being ludicrously expensive.



So do I (England) but you also have to take into account that people in Belgiumland might like to travel cross-border or that people in Britainland might want to go from Edinburgh to London.

What factors make it expensive or not feasible in the UK? I do know there are a lot less charging stations in the UK probably. In the case of the Netherlands, most cities have parkingplaces for EV/phev and most parking garages as well. Hopefully wireless induction charging will eventually make its way to cars as well, which will hopefully solves practical issues as well.
Look at the map in the link:

https://oplaadpalen.nl/?sw=N

Within the Tesla supercharger network it is actually do-able to drive crosscountry. You might need to take a longer route, but I have heard about people traveling across europe.

https://www.tesla.com/nl_NL/supercharger

 

[ExigeEvan]

There are times and places where I can see that either not being feasible or being ludicrously expensive.

Not in a Tesla in the UK.

There are more than enough Tesla rapid charger sites around the UK and plenty of hotels with overnight charging available.

Id you own a Tesla you can afford a slightly more expensive hotel.