Electric cars struggle to spark enthusiasm

[vtsnowedin]

Any house without a road to it's dooryard is worthless.

vts many thanks for your sharp end practical perspective.

The last bit of boreen leading up to a house is probably the least problem and I would be more concerned with the energy and financial cost of upkeeping the hundreds of miles of main artery dual carriageway and motorway. The less traffic volume and vehicle/fuel tax income the less road upkeep can be afforded and once a road starts to really "go" I have seen how it does go.

Apart from the now famous ghost hosing estates of Ireland we also have been left with an enomously expanded motorway system with a peak carrying capacity in parts of at least 10 or 20 times current demand.......

The road of course does have to go all the way from the house to the train station or into town and all the bridges have to be up.
Traffic volumes are still holding up here as the gas tax is only 42.9 cents per US gallon and with the tax a gallon costs $3.15 today. I have never built a new section of road that was not immediately full to it's safe capacity during peak hours. All that will change as we pass peak oil and people will have to stop commuting long distances and the train stations will have to be reopened.
Your underused roads will last longer and when repairs are needed a much thinner overlay will do the job. I have supervised the paving of miles of New Hampshire roads using a mix of just sand and asphalt cement laid to a nominal 3/8 of an inch deep. This uses just 300 short tons to a mile(22 ft. wide) and can cost as little as $40,000 per mile including the re-striping and traffic control. It lasts from five to seven years here with a considerable volume of heavily loaded log trucks and on roads that were never built to a high standard to begin with. We call the worst roads here evolved cow paths and some of them appear to be on an evolutionary dead end. During frost-heave season these so called roads are a thing to behold and a danger to drive on for the uninitiated.

[emordnilap]

As I understand it the penchant for roadbuilding kicked off during the Famine and was (mostly) the fault of the then-british-isles govt. They hit on the bright idea of massive programmes of public works, for which local people would get paid, with money, with which they could then go and buy either (a) non-existant potatoes, or (b) grain, which they hadn't the infrastructure (mills, ovens) to process into owt edible.

At the time, roads were the most obvious choice, of course now they're not but olde habits die hard.

And walls...the 'famine walls', some of them incredible structures. Great way to clear fields of stones too.

The habit was given another fix when the Congested Districts Board came into being to oversee the redistribution of land in the west. In order to be fair, land was re-allocated in strips to include both bad and good land (often from high ground to low, ladder style), with a road running alongside as a consequence.

Thus the Irish penchant for one-off housing miles from any town was born, along with 'ribbon' development.

The few examples of traditional English-type villages were deliberately designed by English and even now feel out of place.

[Potemkin Villager]

I have never built a new section of road that was not immediately full to it's safe capacity during peak hours. All that will change as we pass peak oil and people will have to stop commuting long distances and the train stations will have to be reopened.

Your underused roads will last longer and when repairs are needed a much thinner overlay will do the job.

I agree that untill recently road trffic generally expanded to fill the capacity available and the "build it and they will come" philosophy held sway. Road building organisations invariably produce impressive future demand projections that require asphalt to be layed to infinity and beyond to every habitation in the country.

What we have now an unrealistic expectation that this can continue and the traffic volume will be topped up with individal electric powered vehicles.

Sure the underused roads will last longer with near zero traffic whilst their opportunity cost meant that much more sustainable tramsport modes like rail and canal were not built and now cannot be built......

[vtsnowedin]

[ Road building organisations invariably produce impressive future demand projections that require asphalt to be layed to infinity and beyond to every habitation in the country.

What we have now an unrealistic expectation that this can continue and the traffic volume will be topped up with individal electric powered vehicles.

Sure the underused roads will last longer with near zero traffic whilst their opportunity cost meant that much more sustainable tramsport modes like rail and canal were not built and now cannot be built......

Funny you should say that as the largest paving and aggregate supply company in northern New England now belongs to CRH headquartered in Dublin.
http://www.oldcastle.com/
There is a break even point where it becomes cheaper to maintain a road paved rather then gravel. The exact point is determined by the cost and quality of the local gravel supply etc. but the rule of thumb is five hundred vehicle trips per day. As we go to supper light cars and bicycles the importance of having a smooth tight surface will increase and engineers will have to reassess the cost benefit curve.
I would not despair of building needed rail or canal networks. True we have lost the chance to build them with cheap oil but when the traffic is there creating demand we will build them using the energy and labor of the day. Doing such work along with other renewable energy projects that will mitigate the loss of cheap oil will become the driving force of our economies in the near future.

[emordnilap]

What we have now an unrealistic expectation that this can continue and the traffic volume will be topped up with individal electric powered vehicles.

Just heading back to the topic, Roger. Do you think the (proposed but by no means definite) end to the scrappage scheme will affect electric vehicle sales?

For those outside the island: at the moment, large crowds of new cars are coming onto Irish roads as the people with plenty of money decide to grab some free discount from us beleaguered taxpayers.

Theoretically, this bail-out for car retailers and other rich people ends in March.

Can you tell I don't like the scheme?

[Potemkin Villager]

Just heading back to the topic, Roger. Do you think the (proposed but by no means definite) end to the scrappage scheme will affect electric vehicle sales?

Can you tell I don't like the scheme?

veering off topic moi?

The scrappage scheme certainly has persuaded people who can afford it to buy new cars many of which are lower emission cheaper to run.

I do not know how many electric vehivles have been sold and how much loss leader subsidy (e.g. The pilot wind energy/ electric car demonstration on the Arran Islands) is involved.

[emordnilap]

The scrappage scheme certainly has persuaded people who can afford it to buy new cars many of which are lower emission cheaper to run.

You're being generous there, Roger on the 'many'. 'Some' is probably nearer the mark.

I contend that in some cases, scrappage schemes help people - with lots of money already - get a bigger car than they might have done and sooner than they would have done.

Overall, they are nothing more than car retailer bail-outs, lobbied for by the likes of Bill Cullen, who has stated that youngsters without jobs should work for nothing - while he gets government hand-outs.

My car is ten years old (hey! I could get some of my tax money back if I had €10K to throw around!) and is still doing 50+mpg when we use it; what is the point in 'scrapping' a sound car?

It's been shown time and again that it is much less bad for the biosphere to keep older cars running than creating new ones and these days, a ten-year-old car is not old.

Electric cars can't catch on while FF ones are still so cheap and subsidised to boot.

[vtsnowedin]

The scrappage scheme certainly has persuaded people who can afford it to buy new cars many of which are lower emission cheaper to run.

You're being generous there, Roger on the 'many'. 'Some' is probably nearer the mark.

I contend that in some cases, scrappage schemes help people - with lots of money already - get a bigger car than they might have done and sooner than they would have done.

Overall, they are nothing more than car retailer bail-outs, lobbied for by the likes of Bill Cullen, who has stated that youngsters without jobs should work for nothing - while he gets government hand-outs.

My car is ten years old (hey! I could get some of my tax money back if I had €10K to throw around!) and is still doing 50+mpg when we use it; what is the point in 'scrapping' a sound car?

It's been shown time and again that it is much less bad for the biosphere to keep older cars running than creating new ones and these days, a ten-year-old car is not old.

Electric cars can't catch on while FF ones are still so cheap and subsidised to boot.

I quite agree with the car dealer bailout point. They certainly have a thumb on the scale as they write the rules for these programs by what ever name. If you already needed a new car there isn't anything wrong with them but if you don't need a new one it's a waste and the dealers just use the rules to further confuse the customer toward buying more car then they can afford.
After all these programs are over it will come down to the price of fuel so electric and hybrids should catch on in the UK long before here in the US. I don't think pure electric will be viable for any large part of the market ever, but a hybrid such as the volt will catch on when gas gets up around $12 a gallon or the price comes down a lot. Until you can cost one out for the full lifetime of the vehicle factory to scrap yard and get comparable numbers with a gas or diesel rig the vast majority will stay away caring more for their wallet then the environment.

[DominicJ]

But the Volt uses more fuel than a decent diesel under a bucket load of conditions, actualy the Volts useless under almost all conditions, but even new model Pious cant really compete with a new polo.
If you can drag 100mpg out of a Polo, it makes the electric jump even harder.

Obviously, battery technology is growing at an astounding rate, and shows little sign of giving up, but "the switch" is a lot further away than most seem think.

Especialy in the extreme low end of the market, my first car was £800, my current car was £550.

Its a long time line for a £25k leaf to beat a £10k Micra, its a whole other ball game for it to beat the £1000 second hand Micra
Tesla reckon their battery is nearly new after 100,000 miles, but their battery probably costs £50k.
If the Leaf battery is properly dead after its 30,000 mile warrenty expires, we're in trouble.


****
Apparently the battery is guarenteed for 8 years or 100,000 miles, but I've not read the actual paper work.
Considering it has a 47mile range if averaging 6mph in heavy stop and go traffic with the airconditioner (EPA figures) the UK batteries are going to be taking more of a thrashing then they think.
I dont think its unfair to say they face at least a 25% discharge 5 days a week.

[clv101]

Sure, new technology is rubbish. First computers were the size of buildings and only governments could afford them, the first mobile phones were so big and power hungry, they were actually car phones... Of course any comparison between an electric car like the Leaf (~first commercial model) and a Polo (the culmination of a century's R&D from a multi-billion dollar industry) is going to come out in the Polo's favour.

Your negativity is understandable, not justified in my opinion.

[DominicJ]

Your negativity is understandable, not justified in my opinion.

Personaly, I hope for a future of cheap electric cars for all, I just dont see it in this decade, maybe not even the next, although I hope by 2030 they are least the majority of new cars.

However the idea that they are about to "take off" is premature in my view.
It took 22 years for mobile computers (which includes "luggables") to go from 2% of sales to overtake the sale of desktop machines.
And a PC has a useful life of 3-5 years, a car has a useful life of a decade, although many are renewed on the same 3-5 year rolling cycle.

That actualy fits quite well, 50% of sales by 2030.

[stumuzz]

Can you tell I don't like the scheme?

What do the Irish get out of it? The cars are made in the UK or EU and the scrap cars are being processed in Liverpool. Surely there is more to it than saving the car show rooms?

[emordnilap]

Can you tell I don't like the scheme?

What do the Irish get out of it? The cars are made in the UK or EU and the scrap cars are being processed in Liverpool. Surely there is more to it than saving the car show rooms?

'Growth'.

[vtsnowedin]

Back in the new stone age when I attended college the computers were actually on another college campus and connected to you by phone lines and a large metal box with keyboard called a teletype. There were four of these in a row and you had to reserve your time on them as there were about a hundred other students taking the same computer classes. The language was "Basic" and the computer was in the Kiewit building at Dartmouth some forty miles away.
Imagine my enthusiasm a few years later when I heard about the "Commodore 64" the first real computer that the average guy could afford to buy and own "Personally". Why ,it would store every letter or thing you could write in a lifetime on a few floppy disks and make you file cabinets obsolete.
We have come a long way and for the most part it has been a good thing but the turning point was when they reached affordability with the Commodore -64.
The Volt and Leaf have not yet reached the level of affordability if you compare it to the well known cost of driving an economy car. The largest problem you have is that you have no hard figures on how long the battery will last in real use or how much it will cost to replace it.If on the other hand you compare it to a higher end SUV getting a typical 15 mpg and except some of the company hype as being at least partially based on fact The Volt may be cheaper with gas costing as little as $4.00/gal.
It all comes down to what assumptions you make when you cost it out.
For example if you take a $35,000 SUV getting 15 mpg and drive it 150,000 miles over five years in the US you can add up interest taxes oil changes repairs and tires and come up with a total cost of 45 to 50 thousand dollars cost less fuel and insurance. Add in 10,000 of gas at $4.00 average per gallon and your up to $100,000
Taking that $100,000 budget and working backwards on the Volt you (Making assumptions everyone can argue with) 1200 gallons of fuel to run the backup motor. for $4800 plus $42,000 for the car $5200 in interest @5% $1000 in tires ,$1000 in oil changes for the little motor and a deal of just a $1000 in tax and registration adds up to just $55,000 which leaves you with $45,000 for repairs and battery changes. That should be plenty even if you go through two replacement batteries. So you can drive the commodore-64 of cars and be the coolest greeny on the block for the same price as the soccer mom in lipstick beside you in the Yukon. Good luck taking the hockey team to a game in the volt though on a cold snowy night.

[the mad cyclist]

Back in the new stone age when I attended college the computers were actually on another college campus and connected to you by phone lines and a large metal box with keyboard called a teletype. There were four of these in a row and you had to reserve your time on them as there were about a hundred other students taking the same computer classes. The language was "Basic" and the computer was in the Kiewit building at Dartmouth some forty miles away.

We must be about the same age. I can remember having to mark little boxes on special cards, which then represented one word of code. These were then sent through a machine, which punched a hole through the marked box. Hundreds of these cards were then stacked up in another machine, to enable our very short programs to be read. I thing we were using Fortran. Happy days.