Off Topic The Environmental & Pollution Thread

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The downside of an EV. Stopped at Didcot at the Best Western but the Polar charger wasn’t working, which is really annoying (it was showing as ok on zap-map). So called a lady at Polar and she was really good - directed us to the Best Western at Newbury (20 miles away) to a charger which is free apart from a £1.50 connection fee.
So, a quick Becks Blue and a visit to their loo and we’re off again ...... Will have plenty to get back home to Romsey and “granny charge” overnight.
 
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davecg69 said:
The downside of an EV. Stopped at Didcot at the Best Western but the Polar charger wasn’t working, which is really annoying (it was showing as ok on zap-map). So called a lady at Polar and she was really good - directed us to the Best Western at Newbury (20 miles away) to a charger which is free apart from a £1.50 connection fee.
So, a quick Becks Blue and a visit to their loo and we’re off again ...... Will have plenty to get back home to Romsey and “granny charge” overnight.
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[I'll preface this answer by stating that I do admittedly praise Tesla a lot. But with good reason. They are years ahead, and they manage to do the "logical right thing" practically all the time]

Yep Dave, this is the unfortunate side effect of charging at a non-Tesla charging station. The reliability is definitely not 100%. Saying that, it's not terrible either. I just wish other automakers weren't so thick headed as to give Tesla a buzz and ask if they could use the Tesla network, pretty please? But they won't do it. I've never heard of a Tesla Supercharger not working except for in cases of vandalism. Did you know that there are already more charging stations than fuel stations?
 
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davecg69 said:
Ssdly, no - 36p per kWh .... so probably about £12. Which is expensive to be honest. But the journey up to Burnley cost about £45 in petrol (in a fiat 500), so £12 home ain’t too bad :emoticon-0103-cool:
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Avoid Ionity Rapid Chargers [the ones owned by several legacy car manufacturers]. They've recently put the price per kWh up to 69p. That's another way of them subtlely [?] making you think twice about buying an EV while praising them for being the future of transport.

https://www.businesscar.co.uk/news/2020/jan-20-26/ionity-bumps-up-prices-for-ad-hoc-charging?

There are plenty of other chargers.
 
I remember the other day that Kaito had doubts about autonomous cars, and whether they could have the ability to drive themselves for donkey's years, after I mentioned about "Robotaxis". At the time I meant to find this video, but got distracted by life. I may have mentioned that autonomous driving is very much on the horizon, and I know I explained a little about machine learning, and how Tesla has billions of miles of driven data, and accumulating more at a faster rate each day [more cars sold, more driven data]. Tesla talks about their Full Self Driving [FSD] system as being "feature complete" very soon indeed. Maybe just a few weeks or months. Then they will release the FSD. However, it won't be FSD, but a hampered system, with many features turned off because they have to be pass checked by regulators. This might take anything from 2-5 years, depending upon the country and regulators. For example, already we, in the UK and Europe, have a stilted version of Tesla's Autopilot system, because our roads are narrower, our cities more congested, and our regulators more cautious, than say in the USA or China. So they'll take a bit longer, and meanwhile Tesla's system will just get better and better. But you can buy a Tesla now and in a couple or more years' time it'll get an over-the-air update to switch everything on, and be bang upto date like one that has just rolled off the factory assembly line that day.

So what does FSD look like when you turn it on properly? Well, this Tesla video is from mid-2019 when the system was nearly sorted, so they did a demo of how it could be. It's speeded up because watching something like this could be boring. You could always watch it at a slower speed. Note the mph. The car is travelling at realistic road speeds. Note that it stops at junctions and at lights, but customer cars don't yet. An example of a feature not being allowed to be turned on in the real world yet. The driver is obviously there just in case. But in just several years to come there won't be a driver in a robotaxi, or a steering wheel for that matter, 'cause the car will be safer without them:

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In the demo the car has been given a destination and with a flick of the stalk it starts to execute it, in the way it thinks fit. All those lane changes and speeds and stops are what it has decided, while keeping its passenger safe from other traffic.
Does it scare you? I'll admit, my instinct hedged against it when I first saw it months ago, while my logic said, "don't be stupid, it'll be fine". Because it will. This is just very early days stuff. In a couple of decades or so people may well gasp that we were allowed to drive our dangerous metal boxes at all. :cool:
 
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Number 1 Jasper said:
You don't get something for nothing .


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-latin-america-50123703/are-electric-cars-as-green-as-you-think
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To actually suggest that this is something that puts fossil fuels in a better light is misleading at best, and almost criminal at worst. You mine the Lithium once per vehicle. In a fossil fuelled car, you keep returning, and you put the combusted poisons into the atmosphere. You can get Lithium practically anywhere, as it is super abundant. So presently it is obtained in the cheapest places, because production of batteries is constrained by supply. That won't be forever, as the world wakes up.
 
TheSecondStain said:
To actually suggest that this is something that puts fossil fuels in a better light is misleading at best, and almost criminal at worst. You mine the Lithium once per vehicle. In a fossil fuelled car, you keep returning, and you put the combusted poisons into the atmosphere. You can get Lithium practically anywhere, as it is super abundant. So presently it is obtained in the cheapest places, because production of batteries is constrained by supply. That won't be forever, as the world wakes up.
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Sorry TSS, but you know very well that isn’t how Capitalism works.
 
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TheSecondStain said:
It's early days, Chilco. Various companies are trying to limit their supplies from sensitive areas. Most of the problem is actually coming from supplies to smartphones. I do keep myself quite well informed on this stuff.
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I’m uncomfortable about having to mine resources from anywhere, for anything. That isn’t the way to save the planet, in my opinion, and I’m quite well informed too. I have long thought that lithium ion batteries aren’t the long term answer. While not being up to speed yet, graphene would be a better option if they can scale up the capacity.
 
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TheSecondStain said:
To actually suggest that this is something that puts fossil fuels in a better light is misleading at best, and almost criminal at worst. You mine the Lithium once per vehicle. In a fossil fuelled car, you keep returning, and you put the combusted poisons into the atmosphere. You can get Lithium practically anywhere, as it is super abundant. So presently it is obtained in the cheapest places, because production of batteries is constrained by supply. That won't be forever, as the world wakes up.
Click to expand...


All I have said is you don’t get something for nothing . Get off your high horse for once and accept EV.s aren’t perfect ok ?
 
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ChilcoSaint said:
I’m uncomfortable about having to mine resources from anywhere, for anything. That isn’t the way to save the planet, in my opinion, and I’m quite well informed too. I have long thought that lithium ion batteries aren’t the long term answer. While not being up to speed yet, graphene would be a better option if they can scale up the capacity.
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Any production! Any at all, helps to screw up the planet. The best way to save our habitat is to shut ourselves down right now. But we have to be realistic. As I've said before, I'm an environmentalist way before I'm a follower of technology. But the realism is that we have to select the lesser of several evils. I appreciate you mentioning the graphene battery, but we are miles away from that happening, and we can't afford to stop eliminating the diesel/petrol vehicle. Every day of delay is $2.75 billion for the fossil fuel industries. And they mine ores like crazy. When the graphene battery is ready to be industrialised then we can go with it.
 
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The government has announced it is bringing forward the sale ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040 to 2035.
This is better, but it still way too late. If I was in charge I'd make my latest date 2030 and see if I could reel that in even closer, as the electrified revolution ramps up. Gathering all the articles I've read, and what I already know, my best guess is that the industry will be more than ready by 2030. One or two car companies are going to go bust if they don't merge though. Fiat/Chrysler is joining with PSA, for one example.

BBC News - Petrol and diesel car sales ban brought forward to 2035
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51366123
 
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