No more petrol, diesel or hybrid cars from 2035

[marhay70]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-26/ ... /103388902
It has been dubbed the "white gold" of the energy transition, but in the past year the price of lithium has dropped by more than 80 per cent.

Meanwhile, nickel is down more than 40 per cent.

The plummeting prices have pushed WA's major industry players to mothball their mines, workers to lose jobs and the government to all but panic.

Both minerals are key components of batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs).
It's not unusual for critical mineral markets to rapidly fluctuate.

Forecasts of huge demand lead to sudden price hikes that ultimately feed a surge in exploration and production.
Until there's a glut.

That has apparently been the case for lithium and nickel – the supply simply outgrew the rise in demand.

While the uptake of EVs is increasing, the pace has been slower than anticipated.

Like multiculturalism and immigration, electric cars are another thing that politicians, like idiot boy Ryan, are determined to push down our throats.
Every day I'm reading of problems with electric vehicles, from batteries blowing up to huge repair bills to people ditching them and going back to ICE because of unreliability and uncertainty of range. Obviously, the technology is not right yet, the homework hasn't been done and it's better to wait until they get it right before burdening the world with yet another white elephant which future generations will be left to sort out. But that would take brains, foresight and honesty, things which are notably absent in politicians.

[jmayo]

I wonder how many people realise just how stupid and removed from reality most of our modern politicians really are.

And special pride of place goes to the fooking greens both here and elsewhere.

Farmers in Germany are protesting because the government thought they could just remove the derogation that farmers did not have to pay full duties on diesel.

One green politician asked why the farmers couldn't use electric tractors.
WTF.
Yes they should severely limit their tractor options, pay twice the price of a normal comparable sized tractor that will then maybe give them a couple of hours hard work at most before back to the shed for a few hours to recharge a bit.

Talk about a disconnect from reality.

Then the government compromised and said they would bring it in over few years. Farmers told them basically go fook themselves.

[Beatty]

Flip side - there are a few long term reviews, since Teslas are out a few years now, that reflect relatively well on the batteries


The problem with many electric cars now are with small tips writing them off because nobody trusts the batteries not to explode into flames at any point afterwards potentially making them uninsurable in the future.

Certainly possible to engineer a solution to this but that and the fires have put many many people off. Setting the proliferation of EVs back some years.

[Beatty]

This stuff is mad

[marhay70]

This stuff is mad

Sorry, couldn't watch that shite all the way through, FFS if they want to make a point, just make it. What was the result? In as few words as possible please.

[Beatty]

You can see the most watched/replayed points of videos on YouTube by hovering on the timeline.

It's nothing new, the electric cars can be extremely fast. The Tesla's can keep up with and beat cars built for racing.

I do wonder what the roads would be like it everyone had 1,000 horse power equivalent available instantly.

[marhay70]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... -by-peers/

It's all Mr Bean's fault that the arse is falling out of the EV market!
Jesus wept. Billions spent on promoting EVs, Governments passing leg,islation penalising ICE cars and they blame a cartoon character for falling sales.
The fact is, they're overpriced, unreliable, poor value for money, and anything but the green revolution they're made out to be.

[Beatty]

[marhay70]

Good laugh here on the joys of EV driving. Don't hear the gobshite Ryan going on too much about this.

[CelticRambler]

Seeing Citroën launch a new cheap-ish model with a half-decent claimed range I toyed with the idea of trading in my 20-year old Mégane. Due diligence took me to a thread in The Other Place to see what were the latest developments on the charging side of things. Jeeeeez, that was a mistake.

Given that these mobility boxes use electricity as their fuel, it seems logical to me that quick and easy re-fueling when you're using the vehicle should be the most critical aspect. But no, it seems that (a) you first of all have to plan your day/life around the location and availability of charge points, and most especially be prepared to wait and wait and wait; (b) you should only live in/work at/visit places that offer you a socket to plug the thing into so you don't have to pay free-market rates for the leccy, otherwise each km driven is as expensive as with dinojuice; and (c) you absolutely must be prepared to download as many apps as The Powers That Be decide so as to be able to find a charging point and pay for those electrons.

Ideally, you should also only really use the vehicle for journeys that are no longer than a challenging bike-ride. The island-dwelling Plankers are wholly convinced that no two points in the whole world are further apart than Dublin and Galway. FFS

Suffice to say, while I was still dithering I had to go to a festival planning meeting. Mademoiselle Mégane indicated that she could get me there (80km - a short local drive by rural France standards) but couldn't get me home again. So I checked the price of fuel on the government's website (no phone necessary), saw that the cheapest in the département was in the same town as my meeting, called in to the service station afterwards, pre-paid with my credit card (no app necessary) and had 800km's of range restored within ten minutes, including the time needed to print the receipt. That'd be enough to get me to my preferred place of work ... but not home again.

The shiny new Citroën will be staying on the dealer's forecourt for another few years. Maybe when I have my own power-producing roof it might make sense, but not before.

[BrianD3]

For years, I was looking forward to buying an EV, I was doing over 60k kms per year and a home charged EV would have saved me a huge amount in fuel costs. However despite my techno optimism that suitable and cheap EVs would arrive "next year", IMO and taking into account the cost of and issues with public charging, EVs are still too expensive and/or range limited

Also, my personal circumstances changed dramatically during Covid and I'm now down to doing 5k kms per year. Fuel savings from an EV now would be small so bang goes the major advantage of an EV

EV forums are rife with zealotry, fibbing, minimisation, deflection and exaggeration. Comical and somewhat interesting, a form of vehicle related stockholm syndrome perhaps. if someone makes a claim about how cheap their EV is to run, how little they pay in insurance, how long its range is, how little time they spent waiting at a public charger etc. - all of those claims need to be treated with caution. As do claims about other fuel sources i.e. highly exaggerated claims made about Dieselgeddon DPFs, DMFs, EGRs etc. If facts are presented to an EV zealot about the unsuitability of an EV for long commutes etc. they'll often react like a bratty teenager "OMG, you are such an outlier, if you don't want one for your weird use case then just don't buy one".

[marhay70]

Seeing Citroën launch a new cheap-ish model with a half-decent claimed range I toyed with the idea of trading in my 20-year old Mégane. Due diligence took me to a thread in The Other Place to see what were the latest developments on the charging side of things. Jeeeeez, that was a mistake.

Given that these mobility boxes use electricity as their fuel, it seems logical to me that quick and easy re-fueling when you're using the vehicle should be the most critical aspect. But no, it seems that (a) you first of all have to plan your day/life around the location and availability of charge points, and most especially be prepared to wait and wait and wait; (b) you should only live in/work at/visit places that offer you a socket to plug the thing into so you don't have to pay free-market rates for the leccy, otherwise each km driven is as expensive as with dinojuice; and (c) you absolutely must be prepared to download as many apps as The Powers That Be decide so as to be able to find a charging point and pay for those electrons.

Ideally, you should also only really use the vehicle for journeys that are no longer than a challenging bike-ride. The island-dwelling Plankers are wholly convinced that no two points in the whole world are further apart than Dublin and Galway. FFS

Suffice to say, while I was still dithering I had to go to a festival planning meeting. Mademoiselle Mégane indicated that she could get me there (80km - a short local drive by rural France standards) but couldn't get me home again. So I checked the price of fuel on the government's website (no phone necessary), saw that the cheapest in the département was in the same town as my meeting, called in to the service station afterwards, pre-paid with my credit card (no app necessary) and had 800km's of range restored within ten minutes, including the time needed to print the receipt. That'd be enough to get me to my preferred place of work ... but not home again.

The shiny new Citroën will be staying on the dealer's forecourt for another few years. Maybe when I have my own power-producing roof it might make sense, but not before.

Further to this is that the claimed range is for optimum conditions. Now I know they pull that trick for ICE cars too but you can reasonably expect an ICE car to perform the same whether you drive it on a wet day or a dry day, in daylight or in darkness or whether it's the 31st July or 31st December. Not so with EVs, tests have shown that you can expect approximately half the claimed range on a frosty winter's day as on a warm summer's day, something else that's not exactly shouted from the rooftops, and of course wet or foggy days mean lights, demisters, and windscreen wipers which all drain the battery.

[BrianD3]

Further to this is that the claimed range is for optimum conditions. Now I know they pull that trick for ICE cars too but you can reasonably expect an ICE car to perform the same whether you drive it on a wet day or a dry day, in daylight or in darkness or whether it's the 31st July or 31st December. Not so with EVs, tests have shown that you can expect approximately half the claimed range on a frosty winter's day as on a warm summer's day, something else that's not exactly shouted from the rooftops, and of course wet or foggy days mean lights, demisters, and windscreen wipers which all drain the battery.

ICE cars are affected by some of the same factors (hills, wet roads, wind etc.) as EVs but people don't think about ICE range or whether the manufacturer has overstated it as ICE cars have so much range headroom and there are filling stations everywhere. In addition, EVs are affected by some factors that don't really affect ICEs. Imagine if the fuel tank of an ICE car weighed a heavy 200 kg but after a year of ownership, instead of 200 kg of fuel, it "degraded" so that it carried 190 kg of fuel and 10 kg of concrete. LOL.

EVs are up against the laws of physics and thermodynamics and there's a reason why fossil fuelled ICEs rather than BEVs became ubiquitous.

The longest range and most aerodynamic EV currently available is the Mercedes EQS which costs over 100 grand, weighs ~2.5 tonnes and has a 109 kWh battery. A petrol Dacia Sandero costing 18k has considerably more range, weighs ~1.1 tonne and has a 50 litre petrol tank - that's the equivalent of 400 kWh. Much of that will be turned into waste heat of course but is it really waste heat if you are driving 450-500 km on a winter's day (as I used to often do) and want to stay toasty warm.

[CelticRambler]

If facts are presented to an EV zealot about the unsuitability of an EV for long commutes etc. they'll often react like a bratty teenager "OMG, you are such an outlier, if you don't want one for your weird use case then just don't buy one".

That is exactly the treatment I got when I tried to explain that my local journeys are typcially measured in units of 50km, and my "commute" to work is never less than 300km. I know some people who'll drive 1000km in a day, and lots of people who share the driving and do 1500km in a day, and hundreds of people who spend their summer nights and mornings-after parked in a field with nary a socket to be found. The last thing any of them want is to have to stop half an hour into their journey and waste another half hour getting a partial charge so they can get a fifth of the way home.

Much of that will be turned into waste heat of course but is it really waste heat if you are driving 450-500 km on a winter's day (as I used to often do) and want to stay toasty warm.

A few years ago, I took the camper to the depths of the French Jura in the middle of winter. The area is known as "little Siberia" - and for good reason. For the first time ever, the engine temp dropped to "cold" while I was still driving (had done about 150km in the mountains by then). I had to turn off the cab heating because the cold draught on my feet was making my toes numb!

[marhay70]

ICE cars are affected by some of the same factors (hills, wet roads, wind etc.) as EVs but people don't think about ICE range or whether the manufacturer has overstated it as ICE cars have so much range headroom and there are filling stations everywhere. In addition, EVs are affected by some factors that don't really affect ICEs. Imagine if the fuel tank of an ICE car weighed a heavy 200 kg but after a year of ownership, instead of 200 kg of fuel, it "degraded" so that it carried 190 kg of fuel and 10 kg of concrete. LOL.

EVs are up against the laws of physics and thermodynamics and there's a reason why fossil fuelled ICEs rather than BEVs became ubiquitous.

The longest range and most aerodynamic EV currently available is the Mercedes EQS which costs over 100 grand, weighs ~2.5 tonnes and has a 109 kWh battery. A petrol Dacia Sandero costing 18k has considerably more range, weighs ~1.1 tonne and has a 50 litre petrol tank - that's the equivalent of 400 kWh. Much of that will be turned into waste heat of course but is it really waste heat if you are driving 450-500 km on a winter's day (as I used to often do) and want to stay toasty warm.

Range is a huge factor in EV cars, not only for the miles and the cost , but the time it takes to charge and the worry about whether you'll get to the next charging station. If you watch the video I posted, you'll see that the driver was only interested in charging in that way because it would take up to 5 hours to get a range of 170 miles and that was providing there was a charging point free. Add in the fact there was no guarantee that the stated available mileage was accurate.
Way too much stress for my liking. I'll be sticking to my ICE and fcuk what the government or the EU say, they can't close down all the filling stations because there'll be revolution, anyway I don't see many, or even any Ministers, driving around in EVs. I can't see any advantage in switching to an EV either on a cost or on a green bonus basis. I can't see the benefit to climate change, given the pollution and energy used in the manufacture and that's before you add in repairs, insurance (if you can get it), and the fact that the batteries are as easy to dispose of as nuclear waste.

[knownunknown]

Also if grid the car is charged from is burning fossil fuels for its energy then using a battery car for green reasons is fairly ridiculous. Great for the manufacturers of these cars which will have to replace just about every car in the island.

[CelticRambler]

Meh ... I think the environmental pros and cons are arguable both ways, especially the "whole of life" impact depending on how far back in the production process you go. Both camps peddle all kinds of non-factual figures to bolster their arguments, with an awful lot of it based on the notional impact if you change your car every two or three years, because why wouldn't you? Oh, right, yeah - because the three-year-old one works perfectly well and doesn't need to be scrapped. And the twenty year-old one sitting outside my house also runs perfectly well too and as long as I'm still using <7l/100km (petrol) on my four trips a month, there's no good reason to get rid of it.

The whole charging pantomime, though, is a serious drawback and elicits some of the most nonsensical counter-arguments. Needing to download several different apps to be able to find and/or pay for a charge across different networks; and needing to immobilise yourself for ages while the car is charging (these EV owners must drink a heck of a lot of coffee); and needing to organise yourself to get back to the car when charging is finished so as no to incur the wrath of a dozen low-battery consumers ... that's just too much enslaving yourself to the machine instead of having it work for you.

[CelticRambler]

Someone elsewhere posted a "plan your journey in an EV" route planning thing today. For the mess, I thought I'd ask it to get me to work in a Citroën Ami (politely described in motoring circles as a self-propelled wheelie bin - but I think it's got character ... and doesn't need a license because it's technically classed as a quad bike).

Anyhow. One-way trip 600km. Select option "quickest arrival" --> total journey time: 48h24m! So whatever I might be saving in not-that-cheap electricity - compared to my 12l/100km camper diesel, I'd more than spend on overnight accommodation!

Okay, so let's try the same in a real car, say an electric Mégane to match what I've got: 7h16 with four stops, and that's based on driving faster than even Google's most optimistic forecast (a whole hour longer, which is closer to what I'd consider about right if the road conditions are perfect)

[jmayo]

That is exactly the treatment I got when I tried to explain that my local journeys are typcially measured in units of 50km, and my "commute" to work is never less than 300km. I know some people who'll drive 1000km in a day, and lots of people who share the driving and do 1500km in a day, and hundreds of people who spend their summer nights and mornings-after parked in a field with nary a socket to be found. The last thing any of them want is to have to stop half an hour into their journey and waste another half hour getting a partial charge so they can get a fifth of the way home.



A few years ago, I took the camper to the depths of the French Jura in the middle of winter. The area is known as "little Siberia" - and for good reason. For the first time ever, the engine temp dropped to "cold" while I was still driving (had done about 150km in the mountains by then). I had to turn off the cab heating because the cold draught on my feet was making my toes numb!

I drove across France last summer from Cherbourg to Chamonix.
Broke up the journey in Auxerre and had a couple of fuel stops en route.

On the ferry a Swiss registered Tesla was beside us and I can't imagine doing the journey across to Switzerland as you have to make sure you work out your stops.
Now at service stations on motorways there were quite a few charging points so usually shouldn't have to wait too long if at all.

But the thing is you cannot do really like we did which was to head off motorway and into somewhere like Beaune to have nice meal and explore a bit, unless you know exactly where there is number of charging points and then what happens if you have to queue.

Only time I wanted that Tesla was on boat when we waited for 25 minutes to offload, as the Swiss guy was playing solitaire and watching videos on the Tesla display screen.
Granted it probably knocked a couple of kms off his range.

[CelticRambler]

Only time I wanted that Tesla was on boat when we waited for 25 minutes to offload, as the Swiss guy was playing solitaire and watching videos on the Tesla display screen.

My camper doesn't have a widescreen telly on the dashboard ... but do I have a lovely table on which I can spread out hard-copy playing cards if I need to while away a half hour or so. And yes, I do have a set of playing cards as part of my standard cargo for this very purpose!

On the ferry a Swiss registered Tesla was beside us and I can't imagine doing the journey across to Switzerland as you have to make sure you work out your stops ... you cannot do really like we did which was to head off motorway and into somewhere like Beaune to have nice meal and explore a bit, unless you know exactly where there is number of charging points ...

This is probably the strongest point yerman in the video made : watching your state of charge risks becoming an obsession and distracting you from the act of driving. From what I've been reading, it does seem like EVs are most suitable for/promoted by people who love predictable routine in their lives - their regular commute, their reliable overnight charge at home, their always-on phone with an app for everything. Which is fine - every country's economy needs an army of drones to keep the wheels of commerce turning ... but surely the guys and girls making policy decisions at the EU know that there are an awful lot of us "outliers" who'll never sit quietly in such a box?

[BrianD3]

This is probably the strongest point yerman in the video made : watching your state of charge risks becoming an obsession and distracting you from the act of driving. From what I've been reading, it does seem like EVs are most suitable for/promoted by people who love predictable routine in their lives - their regular commute, their reliable overnight charge at home, their always-on phone with an app for everything. Which is fine - every country's economy needs an army of drones to keep the wheels of commerce turning ... but surely the guys and girls making policy decisions at the EU know that there are an awful lot of us "outliers" who'll never sit quietly in such a box?

EV zealots seem to love gadgets (with the EV itself being the ultimate gadget) and using apps to plan a journey, Makes them feel like they are achieving something. Aviate, navigate, communicate! Feel better about themselves by sneering at combustion engine drivers calling them luddites and simpletons who are destroying the planet.

The dinosaurs probably carry CASH in their wallets too. Jeez, get with the programme!

Note the cult like aspects of the EV "movement". Heavy use of acronyms like GOM, SOH, BMS, SuC. Defensiveness, fibs, minimisations, exaggerations and deflections when challenged plus accusations of shilling for Big Oil.

[CelticRambler]

This lovely gem from what started as a relatively benign "I've never driven on the Continent" query:

Make sure you have Ibedrola, Repsol and Zunder apps fully setup and installed as well as Ionity.

Four apps to be able to drive in one country (Spain)? WTF???

[Fratello]

How about:

"Make sure you have plenty of packets of Ibedrola, Repsol and Zunder as well as Ionity as you will need to take all of them to keep calm."

[marhay70]

The cheerleaders were out on Prime Time last night, with the usual RTE version of an incisive interview. For the first time, I've heard a politician admit that perhaps the EV market was faltering, but nevertheless, Joe Public will be bullied into ditching his ICE vehicle by a combination of taxes, disincentives, and other nefarious means. Let's hope that at least the Greens will have been removed from the scene by then, never to return.
I heard an anecdote where an EV driver was told that his EV not only was written off after a minor tip but, far from having even scrap value, would cost him up to £1000 to have it destroyed because of the difficulty of disposing of the batteries. Conveniently, stories like this failed to make the Prime Time programme.

[Setanta]

The cheerleaders were out on Prime Time last night, with the usual RTE version of an incisive interview. For the first time, I've heard a politician admit that perhaps the EV market was faltering, but nevertheless, Joe Public will be bullied into ditching his ICE vehicle by a combination of taxes, disincentives, and other nefarious means. Let's hope that at least the Greens will have been removed from the scene by then, never to return.
I heard an anecdote where an EV driver was told that his EV not only was written off after a minor tip but, far from having even scrap value, would cost him up to £1000 to have it destroyed because of the difficulty of disposing of the batteries. Conveniently, stories like this failed to make the Prime Time programme.

TBF I wouldn't like to be having an electric car in an oven for the modern paints,it's an accident waiting to happen and I'd imagine be hard get insurance for it


They might have to go back using thinner based paint for minor touchups