Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

i think the data is out there. twisted by whoever is lobbying for what. the 2006 transporter will hopefully tranport you and yours for many years to come yet.

my issue, already voiced enough in here already, is the rush for EV then powering them by the same fossils anyway.

but I am a fossil

Said it before but our 2017 Leaf 30kw is perfect for all short and medium journeys.

The cost of the car AND cost of 5.7kw of panels / 10wkh of batteries is less per month than our 3.0 subaru and road tax was running us.

Seems to add up well.

That is also covering 95% of the house electric bill, although we still need to work on better utilising the electricity we make.

1 Attachment

The UK grid has a surprisingly large percentage of renewables that will only increase.

Local air pollution from (pre Euro 6) diesels is awful. Most of them should never have been allowed on the road.

What's the deal with chasing Mercedes for money because they lied about emissions on a vehicle I drive. People keep telling me I should do it but it sounds like the latest ambulance chasing kind of lawyering.

I went ahead and put the details into one of the firms websites, apparently my vehicle is not on the list of affected vehicles.

Isn't the big problem with EVs what happens when you need to change the battery pack? From what I've seen that totals your car straight away as replacing it is so prohibitively expensive... Not a problem for you leasing types but what about everyone else that buys in to electric? Serious question BTW, not trolling...

Most electric cars are able to switch packs fairly easily.

For example, all eNiro are currently being recalled due to faulty LG Chem packs. They’re not totalling the cars, they’re just switching them out.

Both Renault and Nissan have battery leasing schemes where you don’t own the pack and they’re swapped as needed.

It’s expensive now but, when batteries on things like the current Tesla actually need changing (around 250-500k miles), batteries will be much lower cost.

Certain particulate pollution in increased in diesels that are in a start stop environment especially busses as a prime example.

According to my Audi mechanic, batteries for the Audi eTron are £29,000 to replace and £4,000 in labour costs. Guarantee lasts for three years. Not the cheapest investment!

Anyone who buys a new Audi, let alone one of their BEVs deserves to be overcharged (no pun intended).

Renault Zoe replacement batteries are around €8k including fitting and come with an 8 year, 160k km warranty.

This is the bit I don't quite get - how does one find out whether keeping their/an older car on the road and reducing demand for new cars is more or less beneficial than buying a new hybrid?

That's not the hard bit.

If you have an old car and the choice is buying a new hybrid or keeping your old car then while it is highly likely that the new car will produce less emissions while running it will take fucking forever for that minor difference to offset the the shit-tonnes of emissions created to put that new car in your hands.

That's straightforward.

What is complicated is working out the knock on consumer purchases:

• Are you getting rid of your car because it doesn't work or because you were going to buy a new car anyway?
  
• Is your car being scrapped, or is someone buying it?
  Is the buyer getting their first car, or replacing a worse polluting one?
  
• etc.
  
  

If you want a simple rule to follow; buying anything new is bad.

Those are good points. If I was to move on from my big diesel, it’ll most likely be sold to fund the new car. The next buyer could well keep using it for another decade. 😬

What is frustrating is that environmental cost and disposal is not priced (or taxed) into new sales.

It's obvious why that is. It would cut car sales overnight and imposed a roughly similar figure to all cars regardless of cost. So a new Zafira would jump from say £18k to £60k, while a X5 would go from £60k to £100k.

So what you are saying is to buy older V8’s and keep them well maintained so they have low (relative) emissions?

This is true of hybrids but it’s been proven, again and again, that BEVs overcome manufacturing output and grid output of greenhouse gases within 2 years of purchase vs a standard diesel from even 3 or 4 years ago.

Making the switch is empirically better for the environment than any other option with the exception of literally scrapping that BEV inside 2 years.

Just so I'm clear I understand you correctly;

You are saying that the total emissions of a new EV over a 2yr period (including manufacture and transportation) = just the emissions created by running a diesel for 2yrs?

Do you have a link to those figures?

Would i be mad or sensible to buy a Range Rover with the 3.0 bmw engine, I understand they're solid engines. Say 250km on it

I ask as I was looking at discovery and on the 4x4 forum that said avoid the 2.7 engine and better to get 3.0 on RR.

Pretty sure there is a harry's garage where he talks about this.

Could also be in one of his newer Defender videos.

I would suggest that it will largely depend on having someone a) local, b) both good and honest and c) well priced who can look after it. Whilst that’s true of all vehicles it becomes harder the more unusual they are. Is there a local Rangie specialist? If so, do it.

I don't really think "sensible" and "range rover" go together in the same sentence.

Except perhaps with a phrase such as "didn't buy" in between.

I drive a 190k 20year old diesel that does 60mpg. It burns fuel efficiently albeit leaving nasty particulates unburnt. I'm doing this in my own country and seeing and feeling guilty on the effects of it. There is a revulsion to the tons of the stuff that it has chucked out over the years. But, the amount of harm its production caused is diminishing by every mile that gets put on to it. The parts for maintenance are similar to any new vehicle and parts for repair come from a pool of vehicles life expired.
What I am not doing is sitting in my EV feeling holier than though, whilst swathes of, generally, the third world is being dug up and poisoned whilst using child labour to do it.
Ethical values, we all need more and need to know where to place them. Don't get me wrong, I'm the last to be righteous, (and preaching) sat here surrounded by goods made by children in third word countries whilst the bosses fly off in to space.
But I don't feel good about it.

I would suggest buying anything that its owners nickname 'rangie' is reason enough to avoid.

Yeah, I'm highly sceptical of those statements too. It would have to based on the most optimal manufacturing and mining etc with carbon offsets/sequestration ect. Which probably doesn't happen in reality.

sat here surrounded by goods made by children in third world countries whilst the bosses fly off in to space

nicely put.

I'd like to see a bit more transparency on the sustainability (or otherwise, I just don't know at this point) of Li or other forms of battery. At the moment, it does feel as though we are exporting our pollution to places conveniently out of sight.

Not sure if Wired counts as a scholarly source but this article seems quite balanced:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact