Diesels sound crap, kick out crap from the exhaust and are crap to drive.

The electricity used to charge electric only vehicles (and run everything else that runs on electric) comes mostly from power generation plants that burn fossil fuels, this is likely to be the case until (and if) fusion reactors are invented. If fusion reactors were in place tomorrow the electrical supply infrastructure would still need upgrading before the majority of homes could have an electric vehicle.

Countries need revenue from vehicle fuel tax on the one hand but want everyone to be green on the other hand. If it currently costs a motorist something like 15p to drive a mile in a car and government get half the 15p in revenue, that's 7.5p gov gets for the average mile driven. As a nod to green gov allows reduced taxation on green fuels such as LPG and electric vehicles. If there comes a day when everyone runs an electric vehicle, the electric will have to cost at least 7.5p for every mile driven plus whatever extra needs to be factored in to cover the cost of upgrading infrastructure.

The savings enjoyed by running electric vehicles may only last until the electric vehicles get better and start to become more mainstream. While-ever anyone produces petrol, LPG will also be produced and governments that like to nod to green will tax it less heavily than petrol. We could even see a situation in future where it costs less to run a vehicle on LPG than electric... Electric cars are not totally clean, they shift the problem from vehicle exhausts to power station exhausts. Then we could talk about (ref Brian's post) what it takes to get enough lithium to produce batteries for all these electric vehicles and copper for electric cables and transformers.

In the future maybe we'll have to take our dead in our electric cars to recycling centres for rare earth element extraction lol. One of the biggest problems with regards oil use is the rising demand from developing countries like, say, China and India. What would happen if developed countries took a hard line on this - 'Sorry China / India, we developed first and have become accustomed to our way of life, but we're not going to let you do the same as we have/do with oil because there isn't enough to go round'. War? OK. So what if we say to oil producing countries 'We know you only have oil to offer and have based your economies and standards of living on selling oil to the West but we're not going to buy any oil in future, sorry'. War? Well maybe they'll start turning oil into more plastic products such as ships ,etc which become much cheaper than current metal ships but the new products bring problems of their own (plastic on the sea bed etc). Then we might say 'Sorry still no good, you're still causing pollution'. Is it war yet? If only we had nuclear fusion, and that Star Trek technology for producing food etc out of thin air (that runs on lectric).

Simon

At my local ASDA, LPG costs 49.7p, Diesel 109.9 and Petrol 109.9.
There's absolutely no reason why manufacturers can't be told to produce factory fitted LPG cars to give your average non-tinkering motorist the ability to run a car on a lease and with a warranty. The reason it doesn't happen is the car manufacturers are scared that retrofitting LPG kits to existing cars will reduce sales of new ones. They're very happy with the Euro 4,5,6 ladder that penalises people who drive old cars.

IF we are to ever produce a greener economy (and I have serious doubts that it is remotely possible without people voting to return to a pre-industrial level of technology) then we need to rid ourselves of the "need" to buy new and dispose of perfectly good equipment. I can't see how we can produce a green consumer society when it's the act of consumption that drives so much pollution.

For quite a number of years, Vauxhall would supply a car ready fitted with an LPG system, straight from the showroom and with full manufacturers warranty. Many owners were perfectly happy with these and had no problems. The problems came much later, by which time the one employee at the main dealers who had been on the course and knew how to service the gas system had left or retired, nobody else knew anything about it and it never got serviced. The fact that many of these systems continued to run quite happily for 100-150,000 miles with no maintenance whatsoever is testament to the fact that a properly installed LPG system is as, if not more, reliable than a petrol or diesel fuel system. The problem is that once these cars did start to suffer problems (due entirely to the lack of maintenance), coupled with the dire standards of many aftermarket systems, the old wives tales got around about how unreliable LPG systems are and demand fell until Vauxhall decided to drop the option.

Vauxhall weren't alone, Ford, LDV and Mitsubishi (and Volvo too I believe) all also offered an LPG option. All of them did the same as Vauxhall had done though and rather than fit a readily available retrofit kit that would be understood and could be serviced by just about anyone in the LPG trade, they went to a manufacturer and had a bespoke system designed specifically for them. The problems then came because information and spares for the systems were extremely difficult to obtain. The biggest threat to LPG conversions is direct injection engines which are far more difficult to convert than conventional port injection engines.

Another backwards step was the removal of exemption from the London "Congestion Charge" which used to apply to LPG vehicles. I bet Londoners are SO happy that the clean running LPG builders vans were all replaced by diesels with NOx and particulates contributing to their record air pollution stats.

That was something they managed to make far too complicated where you only got the exception if you drove a particular car fitted with a specific LPG system. Unlike the recently introduced French system where my LPG fuelled Range Rover has been issued with a Class 1 vignette, the same as a small engined, Euro 6, petrol car. Had it been running on petrol it would be Class 3, a Euro 6 diesel is Class 4, a Euro 5 diesel is Class 5 and any earlier diesel doesn't get one at all so can't go into Paris, Lyon and Grenoble. Now that is what you call sensible, anything running on LPG or CNG is treated as only one level down from an EV or hybrid.

An EV would be no good to me at all. I have a works van, supplied by a Government Department, that is a stinky diesel, costs the taxpayer £10.40 two or three days a week when I have to go into the congestion charge zone but does between 150 and 200 miles a day. How could I do that, and still get a days work done, in an EV? For my own car, I'm currently the best part of 1,000 miles south of home. While I may do the odd short journey, could I really justify having an EV to go and do the shopping when the rest of the time (every other weekend at the moment) I'm doing anything between 1,000 and 2,000 miles.

I would've clicked 'Like' on the last 4 posts but the facility isn't there ;-)

Had a similar discussion/argument with the mod of a UK Subaru Legacy forum (http://www.uklegacy.com/forums/index.php/topic/144446-tomorrows-world-of-motoring/) before getting myself banned for telling it how it is on a different subject.(explained below). If you read the thread bare in mind that the mod DAZRSK had previously taken every opportunity to criticise LPG conversion over various threads and it seemed to me he started this thread as yet another way of taking a pop.

A few owners of Subaru's all with twin scroll turbo's all fitted with BRC LPG equipment all had the same problems which their installers couldn't sort out even after many return visits. I predicted what the problem would be and drew a few conclusions about the systems and the installers. Everything I said was proven to be true but one guy with the problems took exception to my drawing conclusions (that were correct) because they painted his installer, who was his mate, in a negative light. He threatened the forum with legal action and implied his installer and BRC would also take legal action... He went from saying things like 'I thank Simon profusely for all his help on this' to threatening the forum resulting in my being banned and the whole thread deleted, but only after his problems were solved lol. Had any of the threats been directed at me I would have been happy to go to court with them.

I'm on good terms with the boss of the forum who banned me (not DAZRSK but I'm not on bad terms with him either), the boss is just scared of the hassle he's been threatened with.

Lpgc wrote:

Diesels sound crap, kick out crap from the exhaust and are crap to drive.

The electricity used to charge electric only vehicles (and run everything else that runs on electric) comes mostly from power generation plants that burn fossil fuels, this is likely to be the case until (and if) fusion reactors are invented. If fusion reactors were in place tomorrow the electrical supply infrastructure would still need upgrading before the majority of homes could have an electric vehicle.

Countries need revenue from vehicle fuel tax on the one hand but want everyone to be green on the other hand. If it currently costs a motorist something like 15p to drive a mile in a car and government get half the 15p in revenue, that's 7.5p gov gets for the average mile driven. As a nod to green gov allows reduced taxation on green fuels such as LPG and electric vehicles. If there comes a day when everyone runs an electric vehicle, the electric will have to cost at least 7.5p for every mile driven plus whatever extra needs to be factored in to cover the cost of upgrading infrastructure.

The savings enjoyed by running electric vehicles may only last until the electric vehicles get better and start to become more mainstream. While-ever anyone produces petrol, LPG will also be produced and governments that like to nod to green will tax it less heavily than petrol. We could even see a situation in future where it costs less to run a vehicle on LPG than electric... Electric cars are not totally clean, they shift the problem from vehicle exhausts to power station exhausts. Then we could talk about (ref Brian's post) what it takes to get enough lithium to produce batteries for all these electric vehicles and copper for electric cables and transformers.

In the future maybe we'll have to take our dead in our electric cars to recycling centres for rare earth element extraction lol. One of the biggest problems with regards oil use is the rising demand from developing countries like, say, China and India. What would happen if developed countries took a hard line on this - 'Sorry China / India, we developed first and have become accustomed to our way of life, but we're not going to let you do the same as we have/do with oil because there isn't enough to go round'. War? OK. So what if we say to oil producing countries 'We know you only have oil to offer and have based your economies and standards of living on selling oil to the West but we're not going to buy any oil in future, sorry'. War? Well maybe they'll start turning oil into more plastic products such as ships ,etc which become much cheaper than current metal ships but the new products bring problems of their own (plastic on the sea bed etc). Then we might say 'Sorry still no good, you're still causing pollution'. Is it war yet? If only we had nuclear fusion, and that Star Trek technology for producing food etc out of thin air (that runs on lectric).

Simon

My 330d was one of the best cars i've driven. It wasnt noisey, it was smooth and refined, had oodles of torque from idle and was effortless to drive with nearly 300hp on tap when required. I've also driven a small 1400cc 3 cylinder diesel in a ibiza and it was SIGNIFICANTLY nicer to drive than an identical 1.4 petrol, which would barely pull itself up a hill. So i'm not sure i agree that they're terrible to drive. The emissions are another story ofcourse, but no-ones disputing that.

We've already had days where more than 50% of our electricity generation has come from renewables... Coal stations are expensive and are only turned on when really needed. The grid is getting greener all the time, and as a result so is the miles driven in an EV. The next big step change is grid level storage which is the big thing thats being worked on, various schemes including batteries and heatpumps and compressed gasses.

You make a valid point on taxation, but unlike petrol, its near impossible to tax electricity in the same way. I suspect we'll end up with some sort of mileage or road based charging in the long term.

China and india are already rapidly rolling out renewables, faster than many western countries infact!

The emissions were fine until they started fitting emissions control equipment...

Gilbertd wrote:

An EV would be no good to me at all. I have a works van, supplied by a Government Department, that is a stinky diesel, costs the taxpayer £10.40 two or three days a week when I have to go into the congestion charge zone but does between 150 and 200 miles a day. How could I do that, and still get a days work done, in an EV? For my own car, I'm currently the best part of 1,000 miles south of home. While I may do the odd short journey, could I really justify having an EV to go and do the shopping when the rest of the time (every other weekend at the moment) I'm doing anything between 1,000 and 2,000 miles.

Ofcourse, they;re not perfect, and not for everyone. But a tesla can happily do 200+ miles on a single charge, and theres plenty of space in a van for a big battery pack, after all if it fits under the floor of a big saloon car, it can fit under the floor of a van! The market will grow, and more products will become available. Nissan have been building electric NV200's based on the LEAF running gear, and they seem very popular with councils around this way.

As for your long trips, its very unlikely you drive 1000miles without stopping... My bladder manages about 150-200miles, and my stomach and legs usually want serviced around then too. So you stop, you plug the car in and charge it while you recharge yourself, and 30mins (ish) later its ready to go again. Its no different to my range rover LPG tank, that also only goes about 200miles. Except instead of standing at the pump holding the annoying button while it slowly trickles in, i can go get some food or take a piss or get a coffee while it fills itself.

For us, we have multiple vehicles anyway. Previously we had the 330d, the A4, and the 4x4. I ditched the 330d and swapped it for the EV. I use the EV for my commute, which it makes somewhat nicer due to how it drives. On the days i work from home, the wife uses the EV for running around town. If i have it away at work, she;ll use the A4 instead.

Things will improve markedly for EV's once the 200mile+ cars move from the super premium tesla models, down into the more mainstream. Renaults new Zoe with the 40kwh pack is heading towards that point, and makes a fairly convincing package to replace most small hatchbacks.

Imagine what the world would look like if 100% electricity came from renewables. Imagine how much extra battery capacity would be needed to store power from renewables... or if we're talking grid storage in terms of batteries in electric vehicles, going to be bed at night thinking you've got X range in your car and waking up to find you have half X range in your car and it would take 4 hours to charge back to X range.

Imagine comparing a 1400cc diesel turbo to a 1400cc petrol or LPG turbo, or a 3000cc diesel turbo to a 3000cc petrol or LPG turbo. Comparing a turbo to a none turbo isn't fair but I do remember a track test (by the likes of Top or 5th Gear) that compared a BMW 3L turbo diesel to the 3L normally aspirated petrol version of the same car and the petrol version bet the lap time of the diesel even though it had about 20% less bhp. For a fair test you'd have to be comparing the 330 turbo diesel to something like a modern M3, then come back and tell us which car was the nicest to drive ;-)

Easy to tax electricity in the same way as petrol really - If 1kwh costs X, force the electricity suppliers to charge gov's 70% duty on top of X.

My bit about China and India wasn't intended to be taken completely literally but raises a concept...They missed the boat in terms of early industrialisation, it may be cheaper for them to proceed in the same way the West did and go through the smog stage etc but they'd be doing it on a bigger scale and consuming resources that the Western way of life has depended on for decades, so perhaps it's just as well that they should be at the forefront of developing new clean technologies in order to progress even if it that slows the progress.

Gilbertd wrote:

For quite a number of years, Vauxhall would supply a car ready fitted with an LPG system, straight from the showroom and with full manufacturers warranty. Many owners were perfectly happy with these and had no problems. The problems came much later, by which time the one employee at the main dealers who had been on the course and knew how to service the gas system had left or retired, nobody else knew anything about it and it never got serviced. The fact that many of these systems continued to run quite happily for 100-150,000 miles with no maintenance whatsoever is testament to the fact that a properly installed LPG system is as, if not more, reliable than a petrol or diesel fuel system. The problem is that once these cars did start to suffer problems (due entirely to the lack of maintenance), coupled with the dire standards of many aftermarket systems, the old wives tales got around about how unreliable LPG systems are and demand fell until Vauxhall decided to drop the option.

Vauxhall weren't alone, Ford, LDV and Mitsubishi (and Volvo too I believe) all also offered an LPG option. All of them did the same as Vauxhall had done though and rather than fit a readily available retrofit kit that would be understood and could be serviced by just about anyone in the LPG trade, they went to a manufacturer and had a bespoke system designed specifically for them. The problems then came because information and spares for the systems were extremely difficult to obtain. The biggest threat to LPG conversions is direct injection engines which are far more difficult to convert than conventional port injection engines.

Rover did some as well with some Landi Renzo kits, though the same thing applied with the knowledge becoming lost as staff moved onwards. The MOT tester who lived a couple of doors away from me used to work for Rover before they disappeared, and he had stated they were told you had to be CORGI registered to touch anything to do with it. More obvious misinformation there just showing the issues that LPG hits.

On the direct injection side KME it appears have an option now, though if its any good at the present time is another matter. Hopefully it may end up going further than the previous efforts have managed.

I've heard that CORGI thing before from garages. Never mind that CORGI doesn't even exist any more, it was set up because of the problems of CO poisoning from badly set up gas boilers!

My point on tax is there's no way you'd get away with putting 70% tax on the electricity people use to power their homes, or the electricity that powers industry. If they wanted transport tax, it would need to be only applied to electricity used for transport. With petrol and diesel, the non transport uses are small, so it's generally available pretaxed, and getting it untaxed is a challenge.

As for the turbodiesel thing, sure you make a valid point. But until very recently, a turbo petrol was restricted to the high performance only options. The run of the mill everyday cars had either a turbodiesel, or a naturally aspirated petrol. Don't get me wrong. I'd personally much prefer a turbo petrol or a huge v8, and infact that's exactly what I do have, as well as the EV. But you can't ignore why people buy diesel, they are typically torquier, and easier to drive than a similar spec and size non-turbo petrol. For a given power output, the diesel tends to make that power at a much lower and thus more accessible point in the rev range, which to you average Joe who doesn't rev his petrol to 5k+ means the diesel has much more accessible power. Compare a 2.0 TDI Mondeo to a 2.0 non turbo. They probably both make about 150hp, but the TDI will feel a lot more willing to accelerate, and the petrol you'll need to downshift and rev the nuts off it. It may well be that when driven flat out the petrol is infact faster, but the way your normal Joe drives doesn't realise that performance.

The biggest issue I see with diesel is the millions of folks that have bought them and use them solely for short trips where it's completely pointless. Unfortunately they fixate on the MPG, but don't realise if you only do 5 or 6k s year the difference in fuel is negligible, and they then have all sorts of issues with the engine that cost way more than the fuel savings ever will.

Gov might have a point if they say 'Youre running your cars a bit cheaper, you can afford to pay more for domestic electricity now, and transport is good for the economy, especially now it's green, etc etc'.. But I largely agree with your point on this, as in people won't stomach raised domestic or industrial leccy prices even if transport costs are offset by it. Still, you won;t be charging a future electric car with 300 mile range from a 240v 13 amp socket and any special socket wired to your house to charge an electric car could very easily be fitted with it's own meter... sorted as easily as that. Domestic and industrial leccy the same price as now, car charging leccy to include 70% duty?

Yes a 2.0tdi has more bottom end torque, but I don't think it's fully fair to say this is 'accessible power' because the power band of diesels is generally much shorter than that on a petrol and inside/outside that power band equates to the engine making all/nothing power. The petrol has a wider power band and at least will make power at 5000rpm, furthermore that power band comes in and goes out more progressively. To really push both cars you'd need to do a similar number of gear changes, it is perhaps no coincidence that 6 speed gearboxes became more sought after as diesel engine power bands got more all/nothing... but you could probably get away with fewer gear changes if instead of the 2L TD you had a 3L petrol n/a which might cost a very similar amount to run. It's also not fair to compare what's wanted for road cars to what's wanted for race cars but the point about an n/a petrol of same size and same bhp as a td diesel generally being capable of going faster around a track probably does say something about what type of engine is more flexible in terms of power bands, and throttle response is surely another aspect of nice drive-ability?

Depends on what we call very recently. It doesn't seem long ago that diesels didn't have turbos, now we have lots of run of the mill factory petrol turbos such as 1.0 Ford Ecoboost engines fitted in Fiesta's etc and not designed to be high performance... but would certainly show up a 1.0 turbo diesel.

Agreed on short trips no good for diesels. Ignoring for the moment the other points on stink and noise, lack of long journeys damages diesel dpf's and egr's. That very low rpm torque diesels are so good also implies serious engine vibration on diesels with less than 5 cylinders, which is why they need dmf's, but is also the reason they break dmf's much more regularly than petrols, and dmf's are rather expensive... In the comparison between the 2L TD and the 3L petrol above, not much guessing on which would be more likely to need a dpf, dmf, egr. Like you say, stop start driving in diesels can be a false economy. Until recently I though Adblue was something necessary to brake down the crp in chemical toilets. Just reminded myself of my mate who has some unusual greetings such as (first ever sentence to a stranger) 'Have you had a sht this morning?' and (to old mates) 'Long time no see, are you still driving that old sh*tty toilet around?' I can imagine what he'd say to anyone pouring adblue into a car he didn't like lol.

Simon

Diesels are great for industrial/marine engines pushing high torque at constant (relatively low) revs where the application doesn't require fast or regular accelerations. In those applications they're simple, reliable and efficient. They also get away with being heavy without any great penalty.
The further you stray from that sort of application the more diesels have to depart from their traditional strengths and more complication is added in the form of turbocharging, exhaust gas recirculation and often higher running temps to turn them into something they're not.
You can see the same trend with the teeny tiny petrol turbos that have come in to meet Euro6. We're being forced into building ever more complicated engines to meet silly targets that don't seem to have a great correlation with real world driving conditions.
This is why I run a 4.0 straight six petrol engine in my Jeep which will easily hit 250,000 before any rebuild beyond the occasional headgasket. The warranty expired in 1998 but I don't care. All parts are available because these engines were designed to be used, abused and rebuilt when they became worn.
The same is true (to an extent) for the Rover V8. It can be rebuilt (a bit more often than the Jeep!) and all parts are available.
Nip forward to the M52B30 in the E46 BMW that we used to have. Fantastic performance, no doubt - but if the headgasket went there was a decent chance the head bolts would strip their threads and the block was scrap. Still, it would do 200k if you looked after it.
Now the teeny turbo 3 or 4 pot petrols haven't been out there long enough to be sure but I wouldn't bet on them still being in service after 15 years. Yes, we've moved forward in materials science and engineering experience but they just look too highly stressed to have much longevity, at least to my eyes.

Does this matter? Not if you're a manufacturer who only cares about products during the warranty period. I'd say it's the wrong direction to take if we're looking to reduce the lifetime costs of vehicles both financial and ecological. There are plenty of vehicles out there with life in them it seems absurd to me to say that a brand new vehicle, no matter how economical to run, will have less impact on the environment than one that is effectively recycled. If you're hammering 50k motorway miles a year, fair enough, the economy might make the difference as long as you keep the car for long enough but for the average joe doing 10k a year... how does new make any kind of sense?

A slight tangent but relevant thought came to mind...

In a couple of years time... this current crop of small turbo petrol engined cars are going to become the cheap affordable new/old/used Saxo or Corsa equivalents... we're going to be hearing crappy aftermarket blow off valves everywhere...

In addition to the obligatory paint can exhausts, of course.

Sloth wrote:

A slight tangent but relevant thought came to mind...

In a couple of years time... this current crop of small turbo petrol engined cars are going to become the cheap affordable new/old/used Saxo or Corsa equivalents... we're going to be hearing crappy aftermarket blow off valves everywhere...

In addition to the obligatory paint can exhausts, of course.

You obviously don't live where I do, that's happened already, lol

Dragging this discussion back from the dead following a conversation at work yesterday. One of the women at our place has a Nissan Leaf but lives at what she has now found is the limit of the range for a two way trip. When she got the car she was assured that it would do the round trip on a full charge easily. Not a problem she thought as we have charging points for some of the specialist vehicles with auxiliary batteries to keep them topped up when not being used so she figured she could plug her car in there during the day. First time she did it someone queried it and that caused all sorts of discussions. Upshot is that she has been told that under no circumstances can she plug in to charge it during the day. The argument being that nobody else gets their fuel costs for commuting to work and back reimbursed so why should she? There could well be a tax implication too. She has now found that if it is raining so she needs to have wipers and headlights on, unless she drives at 50mph or less, she doesn't have enough battery power to get home. Despite being a dyed in the wool tree hugger, she's considering changing the car as once winter arrives she is likely to need lights on for both legs of her commute and isn't sure the car will actually make it.

By the way, under the new tax rules introduced in April, even small engined diesels will now have to pay £140 road tax rather than the £20 or £30 that they would have done previously.

Gilbertd: Could your place of work not 'just' offer a pre-payment type meter for your Leafy colleague/s ? ( I couid also suggest her keeping a petrol generator there, that should also prove popular..)

I have noted that lots of folks have been attracted to Electric/Hybrid cars because of reduced "Road Tax" (and/or 'congestion charges')... and then seem displeased when I say, yes, for the moment. And are we all supposed to believe that the Government will actually stand by and watch petrol 'duties' simply evaporate? (Sorry).

Politicians are universally clueless about cars... Michael Gove's announcement that we won't have ICE after 2040 is an absurd 'Crowd Pleaser'
(Even thoufg the French started this particular rumour.....) Pretty sure we won't have Gove in office much longer either, though....)

Really want to 'Save The Planet' Michael ? Then ensure cars are designed to last 200K miles in the first case......

The joys of working in the public sector- true equality gone slightly mad. I used to work for a government agency and their rabid adherence to "benefits" rules, on-site employee car parking as a benefit and thus declarable, and their opinion that if they provided charging points for some employees they'd have to provide fuel pumps for the others (Union would have got cross otherwise), meant that even though they'd considered charging points as part of their environmental responsibility, they couldn't.
Mind you, your green chum was probably remiss in her research before she bought the car. With a new battery the smaller Leaf's best real world distance is only 70-80 miles, so knock off the lights and other essential drain it's probably more like 55! Age the battery a bit, throw in some hills and stop-start and you can probably knock another 15 off that. Starts to look a bit poxy then.
She might have been wise to actually ask the employer whether she could use their power before she got the car as well. I know mine went through a phase where they had a hissy fit about people charging their personal mobiles, until they realised it was pretty impossible to police.
I'm a bit worried that Dave says that In Car Entertainment will be banned after 2040, although I guess I'll be too deaf by then to really care...