Writing on the wall for some manufacturers?

[bigstraight6]

15 minutes ago, SiC said:

Average age of a car before being scrapped is 13.9yrs in the UK iirc. Most cars currently are well on their way to be fucked by 10 years old anyway! Yet we still have 20yr old cars.

But the data from electric cars so far is that they are pretty durable. Even hybrids like the Prius last for hundreds of thousands of miles.

Batteries by definition are made up of multiple cells. Those cells can be and are replaceable. You'll see a cottage industry appearing to rebuild these (expensive) packs.

I’m doing quite well then as my collection of 4 daily use petrol and derv engined cars are all aged between 15 and 21 years old and they all still perform as well as when they were built. Can the traction batteries on electrics be rebuilt? Everything battery powered I’ve owned and the battery dies means replacement is the only option…

[Cookiesouwest]

Interesting thread. Cant comment on all points raised.

But - Vauxhall. Their future has been questioned. Both production and brand.

Production will end, if the owners can get cars built cheaper elsewhere. But that applies to all factories regardless of who owns the brand.

But the brand will survive. Why? Well (and I can't remember who) a journalist asked the top frenchie guy, why the hell would you buy the loss making Vauxhall?

The answer - We bought it, because there are enough customers in the UK who will not buy a French car. But they will / do buy Vauxhalls. We want those customers.

And Vauxhall is now in profit and has the best selling car in UK.

 

[garethj]

20 hours ago, carburettor said:

Even the pre-facelift 155 was based on an extended  Tipo floor pan wasn’t it?

Small point of order, a floor pan pressing does not make it the same car.  I’ve driven a base model Golf and a GTi and they felt totally different, they shared a lot more than a floor pan.

It’s just the largest sheet metal pressing on a car and is very expensive to tool up.  Carrying it between cars makes financial sense but you’d need princess and the pea levels of sensitivity to notice the bit of metal where the seat runners weld to.

Dunno which manufactures will go, but I keep half an eye on YouTube reviews of new electric cars from China and they’re definitely going to take some UK sales soon.

[AnnoyingPentium]

25 minutes ago, Cookiesouwest said:

And Vauxhall is now in profit and has the best selling car in UK.

I see them everywhere, especially the new Corsas.

IMO, as is common with a lot of other GM owned things, they were running Opel/Vauxhall into the ground like the others.

[SiC]

27 minutes ago, bigstraight6 said:

Can the traction batteries on electrics be rebuilt?

Plenty of DIY videos out there on how to for major manufacturers. You can bet your bottom dollar that, even if manufacturers try locking things down harder, there will be plenty of enterprising Eastern European folk who will figure out how to get around any restrictions. Especially given the high cost of replacement of batteries. Just look at all the remapping software, Adblue bypass, etc that is out there already. The manufacturers tried hard to stop that but it is regularly and quickly cracked. 

Cheap consumer battery stuff is too cheap to be worth while repairing. But even then you get aftermarket Chinese packs that have cracked the authentication and BMS Comms to make aftermarket packs.

[catsinthewelder]

3 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

I see them everywhere, especially the new Corsas.

IMO, as is common with a lot of other GM owned things, they were running Opel/Vauxhall into the ground like the others.

Google Stellantis 😉 

Edid, sorry I read were as are 🙈

[AnnoyingPentium]

Just now, catsinthewelder said:

Google Stellantis 😉

Point taken. 😆

[Mally]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

I think as there’s less moving friction bits to go wrong then maybe couple of grand on refurbing the batteries might not be such a big deal. Who fucking knows, I expect someone will find out in 20 years.

It won't be me!

[carburettor]

Just now, Mally said:

It won't be me!

Me neither ☠️ 

[Poweredbyhopealone]

15 hours ago, grogee said:

Interesting points, to which I'd add a couple of things:

1) there's very little lithium in li-ion cells, despite the name. Although a rise won't be good news for manufacturers, it will create more demand for lithium which in turn may encourage more/better recycling of used cells (something the world is largely ignoring at present).

2) What you say about hydrogen is true. Unless it's generated by splitting water using 100% renewable energy, it's just shifting the problem somewhere else. Which brings me to

3) Infrastructure for electric cars is a short hop away from complete. After all, how many homes don't have electricity? Or electric street lamps outside? 

It's tricky for cities and flat dwellers I admit but not insurmountable. In contrast, hydrogen is a non-starter in terms of useable, ready infrastructure. There's a handful of pilot schemes like TRL and Honda and that's it. Why would you choose to invest in supplying hydrogen, when you could invest in the already accepted electric infrastructure?

Nobody can go and buy and use a hydrogen car today. Everybody can buy an electric car today. Some can even use it if they've got a suitable charge point to use. 

I readily admit that electricity production has its own environmental cost, but it does at least move the local NOx problem away from city centres. EVs are a step towards greener transport that are fully compatible with any future improvement in renewable supply. 

If only our twattish government would persue renewables...

I have to agree with you on a lot of this, I should have made it a bit more clear about a few things. All raw materials used to make batteries are reducing in availability although yes recycling hasn't really been adressed and I must admit I know nothing about that aspect of it yields and so on+.  I was using lithium as an example but you're right less than 1% of a battery is made of lithium.

Considering the tories love for bri'ish nuclear power I think that Hydrogen wil have a bigger place than currently seems possible, there's already excess capacity on the grid from renewables (i'm thinkinng of wind in particular here) which at the moment they just switch off. With nuclear thats less viable so *hopefully* this excess will be used to make pink hydrogen. Which I can then put in my Toyota Mirai which i can buy today if i had 60 grand

Lots of if's there though, as always with things that rely on legislation.

As far as the electrical network I don't know enough to comment, but I don't think it's going to be as easy as all that, especially as we move away from gas boilers and rely more on heat pumps. Which I am very much in favour of btw.

Thanks grogee I really enjoy having these conversations without people getting all foamy at the mouth

[grogee]

13 minutes ago, Poweredbyhopealone said:

I have to agree with you on a lot of this, I should have made it a bit more clear about a few things. All raw materials used to make batteries are reducing in availability although yes recycling hasn't really been adressed and I must admit I know nothing about that aspect of it yields and so on+.  I was using lithium as an example but you're right less than 1% of a battery is made of lithium.

Considering the tories love for bri'ish nuclear power I think that Hydrogen wil have a bigger place than currently seems possible, there's already excess capacity on the grid from renewables (i'm thinkinng of wind in particular here) which at the moment they just switch off. With nuclear thats less viable so *hopefully* this excess will be used to make pink hydrogen. Which I can then put in my Toyota Mirai which i can buy today if i had 60 grand

Lots of if's there though, as always with things that rely on legislation.

As far as the electrical network I don't know enough to comment, but I don't think it's going to be as easy as all that, especially as we move away from gas boilers and rely more on heat pumps. Which I am very much in favour of btw.

Thanks grogee I really enjoy having these conversations without people getting all foamy at the mouth

It's a really interesting time, like the VHS and Betamax of cars. Worth remembering that Betamax was technically 'better' but didn't win/dominate. 

There's also vanadium batteries (for stationary energy storage) that might swing the equation one way or another - as you say, storing renewable energy somehow could unlock a lot more of it. 

I don't have a vested interest or a favourite but I do get cross about the good press 'alternative' fuel gets without explaining where it comes from. Electricity or hydrogen could both come from non-renewable sources, which doesn't solve the problem. 

There are reasons to be cheerful though, not a lot of people know that a quarter of the UK's electricity comes from renewables - though we could get into an argument about the definition of renewables and I CBA with that. 

Yours is an interesting area of study, I hope it makes you big bucks one day. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

If there's anything to take from this thread it's that this country is up the shitter. 😆

[sierraman]

Converting existing boilers to hydrogen makes much more sense than these heat pumps. Quite a few new boilers are hydrogen ready according to the manufacturers.

[Poweredbyhopealone]

Just now, grogee said:

It's a really interesting time, like the VHS and Betamax of cars. Worth remembering that Betamax was technically'better' but didn't win/dominate. 

There's also vanadium batteries (for stationary energy storage) that might swing the equation one way or another - as you say, storing renewable energy somehow could unlock a lot more of it. 

I don't have a vested interest or a favourite but I do get cross about the good press 'alternative' fuel gets without explaining where it comes from. Electricity of hydrogen could both come from non-renewable sources, which doesn't solve the problem. 

There are reasons to be cheerful though, not a lot of people know that a quarter of the UK's electricity comes from renewables - though we could get into an argument about the definition of renewables and I CBA with that. 

Yours is an interesting area of study, I hope it makes you big bucks one day. 

Me too mate, me too. A hundred grand (three degrees, mainenance loans and other things) worth of debt and an ever increasing repayment criteria make the whole thing terrifying.

I'm not putting bets on the winner yet either. Probably it's all too late anyway and we're all going to freeze to death, drown or be choked by a plague of insects.

[Poweredbyhopealone]

1 minute ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

If there's anything to take from this thread it's that this country is up the shitter. 😆

Yes.

[grogee]

11 hours ago, SiC said:

Plenty of DIY videos out there on how to for major manufacturers. You can bet your bottom dollar that, even if manufacturers try locking things down harder, there will be plenty of enterprising Eastern European folk who will figure out how to get around any restrictions. Especially given the high cost of replacement of batteries. Just look at all the remapping software, Adblue bypass, etc that is out there already. The manufacturers tried hard to stop that but it is regularly and quickly cracked. 

Cheap consumer battery stuff is too cheap to be worth while repairing. But even then you get aftermarket Chinese packs that have cracked the authentication and BMS Comms to make aftermarket packs.

This, in spades. 

If you have an otherwise good/serviceable car with some value, but it's rendered a write off because of OEM repair costs, aftermarket will step in. There's a long history of this happening and the EV market is begging to be exploited. Traditional repairers are wary/not familiar but the EV stock is growing and for enterprising individuals prepared to repair batteries, the world is their oyster. 

Unfortunately there will also be cowboys who attempt repairs without knowledge, equipment, training and facilities who will make (fatal) headlines about 'dangerous' battery repairs.

[Poweredbyhopealone]

Just now, sierraman said:

Converting existing boilers to hydrogen makes much more sense than these heat pumps. Quite a few new boilers are hydrogen ready according to the manufacturers.

Yeah this is a big possibility. Sadly you need a shit load more Hydrogen than you do natural gas to make the same heat. Heat pumps are much more efficient but only when the building is designed around them. Negative pressure building I think it's called?

[sierraman]

3 minutes ago, Poweredbyhopealone said:

Yeah this is a big possibility. Sadly you need a shit load more Hydrogen than you do natural gas to make the same heat. Heat pumps are much more efficient but only when the building is designed around them. Negative pressure building I think it's called?

The issue is, for most people anyway, a boiler replacement is £2-3k. A heat pump is £15k. That’s £15,000 that most people haven’t got. 

[Poweredbyhopealone]

4 minutes ago, grogee said:

This, in spades. 

If you have an otherwise good/serviceable car with some value, but it's rendered a write off because of OEM repair costs, aftermarket will step in. There's a long history of this happening and the EV market is begging to be exploited. Traditional repairers are wary/not familiar but the EV stock is growing and for enterprising individuals prepared to repair batteries, the world is their oyster. 

Unfortunately there will also be cowboys who attempt repairs without knowledge, equipment, training and facilities who will make (fatal) headlines about 'dangerous' battery repairs.

I remeber a (possibly apocryphal) story about the R35 Nissan GTR. Nissan said to tuning companies "You cant/ wont want to change the fuelling map on the car, its fast enough already and its locked by software" A friend of mine worked for Abbey motorsport at the time and they managed to change it in about a week after getting hold of a car. Batteries will go the same way for sure.

[tooSavvy]

8 minutes ago, grogee said:

This, in spades. 

....unfortunately there will also be cowboys who attempt repairs without knowledge, equipment, training and facilities who will make (fatal) headlines about 'dangerous' battery repairs.

Escooters on LU ban..... Tesla 'oops!' conflagration......

Yupp..... Dodgy 'refurb' battery pack issues will be the stuff of DailyFail headlines 😱

[Poweredbyhopealone]

Just now, sierraman said:

The issue is, for most people anyway, a boiler replacement is £2-3k. A heat pump is £15k. That’s £15,000 that most people haven’t got. 

A very good point. Gvt incentives would solve this of course but I'm not so naiive to think that the tories would be on board with that unless their mates have money in the heat pup manufacturers/ installers

[Ghosty]

On 1/27/2022 at 1:29 AM, carburettor said:

Not too sure about Infiniti though 😬

Infiniti haven't sold anything in Europe for 2 years, because nobody bought them in the first place. 

[sierraman]

5 minutes ago, Poweredbyhopealone said:

A very good point. Gvt incentives would solve this of course but I'm not so naiive to think that the tories would be on board with that unless their mates have money in the heat pup manufacturers/ installers

Where’s the money coming from to give myself and tens of millions of others £12k towards the cost? The answer to that will simply be borrow your way out of it. The people coming up with nonsense like this haven’t lived in the real world. 

[treehugger]

28 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

If there's anything to take from this thread it's that this country is up the shitter. 😆

Don't you mean down the shitter? 

Think up the shitter means something else 😂

[Poweredbyhopealone]

17 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Where’s the money coming from to give myself and tens of millions of others £12k towards the cost? The answer to that will simply be borrow your way out of it. The people coming up with nonsense like this haven’t lived in the real world. 

No need to be like that. I'm not saying I have all the answers but this type of attitude is damaging. We have to do something and this is a viable option.

For some buildings / applications.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Poweredbyhopealone
Qualifier

[castros_bro]

5 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

If there's anything to take from this thread it's that this country is up the shitter. 😆

No,   It's that things are happening and if you don't want to take notice then you can always just use Daily Fail Clickbate as your source of information.

There's a UK trial of real life 600+ domestic heating boilers modified for Hydrogen, following on from other trials

The Motorway services on M25 at Cobham have Hydrogen fuel pump.

Hydrogen fueled vehicles are (generally) electric vehicles with fuel cells.

Solid oxide fuel cell stacks made in UK have Intellectual  Property owned by Ceres Power so commercially sensitive.

Solid Oxide fuel cells are possibly 80% efficient where as yer internal combustion maybe 20% and can be run on LPG, methane or Hydrogen which leads to...

You can buy a domestic set up where you can get a fuel cell running on mains gas so maybe produce electricity more efficiently/cheaper than that supplied by the electrical mains. Stuff like https://www.viessmann.co.uk/products/combined-heat-and-power/fuel-cell

Renewable electricity setups, in some places, is being fitted with Solid oxide electrolyser cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_oxide_electrolyzer_cell   so producing Hydrogen at source which can be piped or stored.

Morocco   https://www.ecohz.com/noor-solar-power-in-morocco Solar using molton salt as heat storage the using this heat to make electricity when it's needed.

Portugal  EDP + Others doing Solar to Hydrogen https://www.power-technology.com/news/edp-hydrogen-portugal/

And then there's Riversimple  https://riversimple.com/

 

There are a lot of things going on but, for  some people, it seems better not to make the effort to find out but just whinge.

[Poweredbyhopealone]

4 minutes ago, castros_bro said:

No,   It that things are happening and if you don't want to take notice then you can always just use Daily Fail Clickbate as your source of information.

There's a UK trial of real life 600+ domestic heating boilers modified for Hydrogen, following on from other trials

The Motorway services on M25 at Cobham have Hydrogen fuel pump.

Hydrogen fueled vehicles are (generally) electric vehicles with solid oxide fuel cells.

Solid oxide fuel cell stacks made in UK have Intellectual  Property owned by Ceres Power so commercially sensitive.

Solid Oxide fuel cells are possibly 80% efficient where as yer internal combustion maybe 20% and can be run on LPG, methane or Hydrogen which leads to...

You can buy a domestic set up where you can get a fuel cell running on mains gas so maybe produce electricity more efficiently/cheaper than that supplied by the electrical mains. Stuff like https://www.viessmann.co.uk/products/combined-heat-and-power/fuel-cell

Renewable electricity setups, in some places, is being fitted with Solid oxide electrolyser cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_oxide_electrolyzer_cell   so producing Hydrogen at source which can be piped or stored.

Morocco   https://www.ecohz.com/noor-solar-power-in-morocco Solar using molton salt as heat storage the using this heat to make electricity when it's needed.

Portugal  EDP + Others doing Solar to Hydrogen https://www.power-technology.com/news/edp-hydrogen-portugal/

And then there's Riversimple  https://riversimple.com/

 

There are a lot of things going on but, for  some people, it seems better not to make the effort to find out but just whinge.

I think that the Mirai actually uses a Proton Exchange fuel cell type, and I know for a fact that the TFL buses do. Solid oxide is generally but not exclusively tipped for use in industrial settings because they run so hot they need loads of shielding and take a good while to start up. Not ideal for transport ops. Its a nerdy thing to dispute but like I say, I'm interested.

All the things you say are happening and its good to have hope, but I also understand why some would feel otherwise.

Also I think @AnnoyingPentium was joking....

[sierraman]

1 hour ago, Poweredbyhopealone said:

No need to be like that. I'm not saying I have all the answers but this type of attitude is damaging. We have to do something and this is a viable option.

For some buildings / applications.

I frequently find that disagreement with where we are going gets you labelled as a ‘non believer’. I maintain what I’m saying in that peoplesit there philosophising about the environment but want everyone to pay the price for it. In this instance it’s £15k. 

[Poweredbyhopealone]

1 minute ago, sierraman said:

I frequently find that disagreement with where we are going gets you labelled as a ‘non believer’. I maintain what I’m saying in that peoplesit there philosophising about the environment but want everyone to pay the price for it. In this instance it’s £15k. 

Yeah I understand that, but its hardly philosiphising at this point. I mean, we have the proof that we have to do something about how we as human beings treat the environment in which we live, or we wont be able to live in it any more.

Like I said I'm not pretending to have all the answers, and I'm not saying that you personally or anyone else should have to shell out for new technology, but the response of "too much money, wont work" is a frustrating one because it belittles the work of thousands of people who are genuinely doing their best to improve the situation.

Not trying to convert you, just show you the other side of the argument.

[sierraman]

It’s not an argument at all, it’s debate which is rarely had in this day an age.