I understand that a car weighing X tonnes requires Y units of energy to move it along. Energy in equals energy out minus friction, drag, engine efficiency, etc. This energy comes from the fuel, irrespective of whether the fuel is petrol, liquefied petroleum gas, diesel or electricity. Electricity is not a primary fuel, so somewhere a primary fuel has to be burned in order to charge the car's batteries. So how can an electric car be any environmentally cleaner than another car of the same weight? This puzzles me. It seems so obvious that I must be missing something.

You are not missing anything. That is exactly how I put it to Bamber Gascoigne on Sky News in October, when we were discussing Richmond council's street parking tax. His reply was that he had the electricity for his G-Wizz electric car specially cabled to him from wind farms. Yes, really.

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ffs , these people really don't have a clue do they...


I suppose you could always charge it up from your own B&Q wind turbine on the house roof, might give you enough charge (in a hurricane) to get it off the drive.

Jon.

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300tdi Disco XS
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two main points re electric cars.
first is that they are much more efficient.
an ICE engine is very inefficient, about 45%. most of the fuel is wasted as heat, ie heating up a useless lump of metal.

second point is that electric can be generated by sun, wind, water, nuclear, etc.. and you are not using up finite resources of fossil fuel.

the downside of course is that you have a limited range and then you need to stop and charge the batteries for 8 hrs!
ICE fuel is just so much more convenient, and you get a lot of power in a handy gallon of petrol container.


ps.
ive never seen a proper study on the whole life of a car, production/use etc.. i dont see how anyone can go on about my disco destroying the planet when my neighbour may have an electric car, that requires new set of batteries every 3 years and he changes his car every 3 yrs cause he likes the new fashionable model! and the car is finally scrapped after say 9 yrs!
it takes a hellava lot of energy just to make a car in the first place.

pps. with 75% of landys ever made, still on the road, it maybe the most eco friendly car on earth!
tell your local tree hugger.

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get some gorm.

i think the point being made is that although electricity can be made by environmentally friendly sources - most is still made by burning fossil fuels - what is the efficiency of that?
As you stated it also depends on the environmental impact of the car manufacture, components used and its life expectancy.

The best thing I have heard of, about electric power, is that the torque is rev independant - ie you get full torque capacity from 0-max rpm.

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The biggest con Ive seen is the prius, all the celebs drive them. They cost heaps more to produce, weigh more and cost a fortune yet in effect only return about 45mpg. a golf diesel will do 60-70mpg

And all those batteries will cause mega pollution to produce and to scrap every 3 years. The really efficient electric or hybrid car will only arrive with some great leap forward in battery efficiency, weight, price and ease of manufacture. Hasn't happened yet.

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How about hydrogen fuel cell cars, burning hydrogen in a catalyst to produce a decent amount of electric charge and driving the motors with that. Sounds better than having to charge your car up, and because your generating your electric as you go you don't need all the batteries.


Jon.

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300tdi Disco XS
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You still have to make the hydrogen, and at the moment pretty much the only way to do that is using electricity derived from fossil fuels.

You're right that it'd probably be cheaper (ie less environmentally damaging) to make a hydrogen car than a battery powered one though. However you then need the infrastructure to distribute the hydrogen, which doesn't exist, whereas it does for electricity.

There's no simple answer, but I think ormus' point about the cost (environmentally and monetary) of new cars is a good one - far better to drive a relatively efficient 20 year old landy than a super efficient brand new shiny thing.

Did anyone see the Top Gear episode where they ran a Rover 45 on poo?

Yeah - 1 on petrol, one on methane from cow poo and another on methane from human poo...

Petrol was fastest, followed by human poo and very briefly after cow poo.

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Adz
200 Tdi Defender 90 CSW - Wiv a snorkel and 136,000 miles on it. Oh yeah... and an axe in the back