In 2019 on the old Cat I submitted a guest post about electric vehicles. I was neither pro nor con towards electric (or other zero emission vehicles) and merely pointed to their inevitability. Part of that post said:
We will notice a profound change over the next few years on the roads, and in the showrooms. Some basic research found:
• Toyota – minimum 10 electric vehicles by 2022-23. Minimum US$13 billion on battery development (excludes vehicle development).
• VW – 50 EV models by 2025/6 (aspirational of 80 models!). Investing US$40 billion in vehicle technology and battery development.
• Hyundai/Kia – 31 to 38 EV models by 2026/7.
• Ford – Offering 16 EVs by 2026.
• Renault/Nissan/Mitsubishi Alliance – 12 new EVs by 2022/3.
• PSA Alliance (Peugeot, Citroen, Opel, Vauxhall) – 15 new EV’s by 2024/5.
I went on to detail Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi, Volvo and others, plus the massive investments of those companies in zero emission vehicles and the planned vehicle releases. I noted that heavy vehicles were an entirely different issue and electricity supply was a concern.
In view of the recent announcement that US President Joe Biden has signed an Executive Order that targets (not mandates) 50 per cent of all new vehicles sold in the US be zero emission by 2030, I thought it was timely to re-visit the issue.
To recap, Biden said: “The future of the auto industry is electric – and made in America. Today I’m signing an executive order with a goal to make 50 per cent of new vehicles sold by 2030 zero-emission – and unveiling steps to reverse the previous administration’s short-sighted rollback of vehicle standards.”
I don’t know whether that target is achievable in the US by 2030 but Ford have already developed the Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle and the soon to arrive electric F-Series pick-up truck. The F-Series is the bestselling vehicle in the US and one of the highest selling vehicles in the world.
Believe it or not, General Motors is bringing back the Hummer as an electric vehicle. The Hummer will be reborn as an all-electric adventure machine in 2023. Using triple electric motors, the Hummer will reportedly launch from 0-100km/h in about 3.5 seconds, which is quicker than the current BMW M3.
Those vehicles are just part of the combined $63 billion Ford and GM will invest in electric vehicles over the coming decade. I’m sure they’re expecting a return on that investment.
The choice of zero-emission vehicles on offer in Australia will increase substantially over the next five years. Based on manufacturer offerings, I expect there will be relatively few new internal combustion engine cars for sale in Australia by 2030/31 and by 2035/6, they will be rare. By 2040, forget it. Australia is too small a market for a manufacturer to justify offering the same model with electric and ICE variants.
What remains unclear is the extent of incentives offered by the federal and state governments to prompt changeover. NSW and Victoria offer modest incentives on registration and vehicle charging costs whilst the federal government offer a very modest concession of the Luxury Car Tax that principally benefits top end Tesla buyers. However, most state governments are also considering a usage charge on owners to offset the forecast loss of fuel tax revenue.
If I may be allowed a prediction, I doubt that incentives will be significant. Governments will be well aware of the inevitability of electric or other zero emission vehicles – after all, at a federal level, they voted for it in the UN.
Therefore, if the world’s manufacturers are headlong changing to zero emission vehicles and the consumer has no choice, why offer incentives? If I was a deceitful tax greedy government with huge debt, I would pay mere lip service to your grumblings. What makes you think our actual government(s) are any different?
The car fleet will just age, and the political class will get the new shiny. They will probably also have special lanes and toll discounts for the virtuous. You could call them the politburo class.
moderated
Where is all the electricity to charge these things going to come from?
Seems to me we’d have to go nuclear.
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Entropy says:
August 13, 2021 at 12:14 pm
…….They will probably also have special lanes and toll discounts for the virtuous. You could call them the politburo class.
Yes, just like in the old USSR where the politburo had special number plates on their vehicles and their chauffeured cars could travel at any speed and ignore other road rules.
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Roger says:
August 13, 2021 at 12:14 pm
Where is all the electricity to charge these things going to come from?
Don’t be ridiculous Roger. You know about the big batteries being built, plus all the roof top solar systems, windmills etc. And wasn’t Scotty going to build a big new gas fired power station? You’re just being obstructionist. Climate DENIER!!!!!
/sarc. Tongue very firmly in cheek.
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Yeah. The guys in the industry have no idea about the industry. Only a politician understands.
And he has a 9-year plan – ‘cos our Uncle Joe is even more brilliant than Russia’s Uncle Joe.
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Albo told us where the electricity will come from … we’ll charge our electric cars at night using our roof top solar panels.
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“…we’ll charge our electric cars at night using our roof top solar panels.”
No, no – you will plug your car in to charge overnight in your special charging point, only to discover in the morning that the grid needed your car battery to “keep the lights on”, so it now has a 10km range, despite the fact that when you plugged it in it had 100km range of a 300km total.
See? – grid scale, distributed storage. And GovCo didn’t have to pay for it either. Of course, if you don’t have a detached garage, you might not be insured if the car catches fire and burns your house down, but that’s a small price to pay to “save” the planet, innit?
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What news about the Chinee car makers?
Havel? Great Wall? LDV? Chery? (and no, Volvo auto has bought out of Geely)
It should be obvious that the promised land EV push is a symbiosis between EU-US governments and regulators. The Nips and Koreans are happy to sell to the woke world, that’s their manufacturing niche, but the CCP will still be churning them out for Asia and Africa, and whichever poor round-eye, far offf the gold-plated grid, that will have to stump up for the bargain basement ICUs.
Asbestos brake sh!tboxes for the doxbox belt will subsidise the flowering of a thousand burning Teslas!
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Most West Australians can hardly keep in a lane, so what will happen when they accelerate at double the speed they are used to?
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I suspect the real reason for electric vehicles is that they can be controlled remotely.
Comrade is trying to leave suburb! Instastop.
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Manufacturers are gearing up for electric vehicles, simply because governments are telling them ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles will be banned or taxed into oblivion in the near future. Several manufacturers are hedging their bets by developing fuel cell and hydrogen alternatives. They know that batteries will always limit the practicality of vehicles. The witness to this is the lack of genuine electric heavy vehicle options for anything other than short trips.
Similar to vehicle manufacturers leaving Australia because they knew the price of electricity alone would make staying here impractical, global manufacturers have the inside track on legislative developments in this space. They have decades of research and investment in ICE that they are abandoning to go down a pathway that is frankly not very impressive. Great, you can get to 100km/h in 3 seconds but only travel less than 100km if you use that capacity.
If there is an open market in the future, new players would fill the ICE space.
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Power electronics has come a long way. Batteries are a weak link in the chain. I expect some kind of hybrid will be the answer to many of these issues. Multi fuel Free piston range extenders or fuel cell equivalents to meet particular markets.
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If the eco warriors get rid of the Petrolem distribution network and the Natural Gas distribution network, they are going to need a very large and vulnerable grid with a massive storage capacity to cover all energy use. All the eggs in one basket, so to speak, and no coal or nuclear? Tell em they’re dreaming.
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Manufacturers are gearing up for electric vehicles, simply because governments are telling them ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles will be banned or taxed into oblivion in the near future. Several manufacturers are hedging their bets by developing fuel cell and hydrogen alternatives. They know that batteries will always limit the practicality of vehicles.
Good comment.
We may get away with electric / battery for short hops around town, but it is useless for longer trips and for hauling cargo. Stuff that Australia depends on.
Hydrogen internal combustion is about the only alternative to that. This (even at half hour long) is a very good watching – people putting their money where their mouth is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Q7nAYjAJY
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Good to see more vehicle discussion!
I’ve been trying to understand today why the manufacturers are getting rid of petrol utes.
What we’re headed toward – designedly – is a two-tier vehicular society.
Electric cars are going to cost a fortune and, once normal vehicles are banned, we will be encouraged (‘nudged’) to have a ‘national conversation’ about public transport.
Driving will become something rich people do.
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C.L. says:
August 13, 2021 at 2:20 pm
Electricity to charge them, alternatives like hydrogen…..yes and yes, but that won’t stop the transition. The decisions have already been made and our opinions were not sought.
I can imagine you’re correct about a two-tier system as for several years, many will not be able to afford to change but the cost of petrol and registration, in particular, will reach (more) punitive levels and the maintenance of an ICE will be, relatively, too high.
It’s not hard to draw a parallel with the way we are being ‘encouraged’ to have a vaccination for covid. In the end, governments will make life very difficult, and potentially more expensive, for those who decline.
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The thing is, all those major car companies have subsidiaries in third world countries that aren’t going to give up production of them. Renault for instance owns both Lada and Dacia. Nissan brought back Datsun as a third world brand. VW makes ( or made) cars specifically for the South American market, especially Brazil. The internal combustion engine might be dead in Europe but I bet there will be a handy grey import market here.
I’ve always said I would consider an electric car if it could give me 750km range like my trusty small car can with the added ability to recharge it’s driving range in the 5 minutes it takes me at the servo (including toilet time). The reality is an electric car can not do that which is why they gave up on electric cars 100 years ago. I will not, under any circumstances reward that snake oil salesman at Tesla
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How many charging stations do you reckon there are going to be on the Nullabor?
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How will we power our tractors?
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Arky on KLF: https://rumble.com/vl1bug-klf-and-burning-a-million-pounds.html
Arky, summarised-
KLF: Burns the equivalent of 1-200,000 man-hours’ owed work and effort.
Society: How DARE you declare we owe you nothing?!
Nice insights, mate.
Money is merely a commodity of exchange. Exactly as you describe it, it is an indebted exchange of labour.
If it is not moving and being exchanged, it is worthless.
If it is not something you wish to be owed to you, then having it is worthless.
And as a means of thumbing one’s nose at an entire social strata (and those in thrall to it) that seeks and worships the concentration of power through acquiring and controlling that commodity of exchange, KLF’s act remains unsurpassed.
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Oops!
Wrong fred.
Lemme try again…
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Went to major shopping centre this morning, out of probably 1000 parking spots, there were three prime position charging stations and despite the fact that the place was a virtual ghost town, one of those was in use.
Im yeah nah on EV take up, people will just nurse their ice vehicles longer, I think that’s already happening in the US.
Americans outside LA and New York cover a lot of miles. EVs and range anxiety. Pffft.
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Damon says:
August 13, 2021 at 2:37 pm
Dunno. How many would you like? Servos will include, and eventually be replaced by, charging stations. With casual eateries while you wait. Perhaps some of those slimmed down hotels that offer just a bed.
Transition in Australia will not be ‘easy’ because of our vast distances and tiny population but that will not allow us to avoid the inevitability. Remember that the overwhelming bulk of our population rarely drive 250+km beyond their home and if they do so, it is between major population centres. Longer trips are usually by air.
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Allergy says:
August 13, 2021 at 2:45 pm
How will we power our tractors?
Horse power, with bonus fertilizer.
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“ How will we power our tractors?”
I expect that agricultural tractors will eventually be electric drive with exchangeable generator/s on board. There maybe facilities for them to feed the grid at peak times when not used for ag purposes.
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To clarify: the ag implements will be electric-self propelled carrying a drop-on genset.
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I will add that Hydrogen is also problematic, Hydrogen atoms are very small and sealing the equipment to transfer it from source to application is tricky (particularly in moving equipment with vibration). The other obstacle is Hydrogen requires high pressure to be condensed to a point where it becomes energy dense enough to be effective. Liquifying it is impractical as it requires very very high pressure and or very very low temperature.
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I will add that Hydrogen is also problematic
Not as problematic as electric/battery. Far Far simpler. And if you look at the vid I posted above – all that you raise has been solved ECONOMICALLY.
To close the loop, you just produce the hydrogen from water etc using solar wind etc.
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The most important question for Canberra will be.
How will we replace that fuel excise tax take?
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a reader says: August 13, 2021, at 2:36 pm
There is a meme going around which says approximately:
“When your EV runs out of juice on a lonely stretch of highway, where will you take your fuel can to fill up with 10L of electricity?”
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Buccaneer says: August 13, 2021, at 3:43 pm
Liquefying should be a process adaptable from well-understood LPG technology. That video hints at some of it but doesn’t go into it fully.
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The fun thing is existing stock. In the EU for example there’s several hundred million petrol and diesel cars on the road right now.
So if they ban new ICE cars from 2025 or whenever those hundreds of millions will all still be there.
The pollies won’t dare close down the petrol distribution network for that reason. If they try punitive taxes all that will happen is a ginormous petrol black market.
And the ICE cars are just going to keep running. And running. Because they’re cheaper by a significant margin and electricity prices will be continue going up due to supply and demand. More demand from EVs + not much new supply = stratospheric electricity prices.
Then two things will happen: the mechanical repair guys will all suddenly become quite well off, and second hand ICE cars will keep on arriving mysteriously into the EU, probably from Turkey and Russia.
So the net result is the EU will have the same number of ICE cars on the road, but they’ll all be old. And this will go on for 50 years at least, seeing that Cubans are still driving 1959 Cadillacs around Havana.
Oh and all the EU car companies will go bankrupt because people will stop buying their cars, because they won’t be offering cars that the public actually wants.
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As it originally was.
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So the net result is the EU will have the same number of ICE cars on the road, but they’ll all be old. And this will go on for 50 years at least, seeing that Cubans are still driving 1959 Cadillacs around Havana.
A few sci-fi type scenarios … the Big EV Battery Tech Companies by hook and crook preventing any more economical / efficient technologies from impinging their dominance – which is subsidised by taxpayers. Black markets providing transport solutions based on old / new tech disguised to look like EV. Mafia / Yakuza enforcing compliance. Cyber Punk meet Steam Punk [or should that be Petrol Punk?]
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I wonder if Arky could add a little modification to mine?
https://ogdaa.blogspot.com/2021/08/fuck-that-slowpoke-in-front-of-me.html
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C.L. says:
August 13, 2021 at 2:20 pm
What we’re headed toward – designedly – is a two-tier vehicular society.
Driving will become something rich people do.
Energy feudalism.
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Bruce of Newcastle says:
August 13, 2021 at 4:02 pm
That’s a very solid comment, Bruce. Food for thought. Cheers.
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Professor Higgins says:
August 13, 2021 at 3:50 pm
The most important question for Canberra will be.
How will we replace that fuel excise tax take?
A distance cap that is dependent upon your social credit score. Exceed your designated cap, pay the fee. A vote for the Year Zero Party adds 5% to your social credit score, therefore your distance cap is extended 5%. Vote conservative, drive an ICE vehicle: lose a % of social credit points; pay a larger fee to travel (in addition to the fuel excise).
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Rorschach – The really entertaining thing is that the Chinese don’t believe in CAGW, and they build lots of cheap ICE cars. Which are increasingly of reasonable quality.
So then the EU forces their own manufacturers to stop making ICE cars. Shortly afterwards there will be at first a trickle, then a flood, of Chinese vehicles coming in via places like Bulgaria and Romania. (These of course will be “used cars”, one owner, very short mileage, with about 30 km on their clocks.)
Now what is going to happen, do you think, when the EU tries to stop the Chinese selling cars to europroles? It’ll be so much fun!
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Nah.
You get two giant magnets, on one you paint the words “The Greens will not approve” and on the other “The unions will not approve”. Between you put a Labor politician with coils of wire running down to their shoes and have them standing on two metal plates.
Then you just let them go – as they swivel away from one option to the other and then back, and so forth, you get a current.
Mind you, if Labor is involved in designing this, they will insist on electromagnets so 10kV energy will produce 10V. But they will insist that it is a job creating screen and gloss over the fact the electromagnets are powered by coal.
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Shortly afterwards there will be at first a trickle, then a flood, of Chinese vehicles coming in via places like Bulgaria and Romania. (These of course will be “used cars”, one owner, very short mileage, with about 30 km on their clocks.)
During the war, and after, a lot of cars ran on Benzene – refined from coal. I reckon there will be a resurgence! [And shops will spring up retrofitting petrol ICE engines…]
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How will we power our tractors? /em>
Why do you need tractors when you have cheerful peasants to pull your plough?
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How will we power our tractors?
Why do you need tractors when you have cheerful peasants to pull your plough?
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The reemergence of electric vehicles is only due to one thing: Central Planning.
I can’t wait to see the manifold unintended consequences.
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Vik’s Big Battery fire …
the one that burned for days …
I said to a work mate, “how are the lobby put a positive spin on that event?”
He looked at me and cocked his head,”Duh, … it was Green Fire”
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Did I miss the part where a point was made?
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Bruce of Newcastle says:
August 13, 2021 at 4:02 pm
The transition from ICE to electric (or other zero emission) will take 20+ years. Easy. But, and unlike the Cubans, it will be accompanied by increasingly punitive taxes of ICE vehicles. What starts as a gradual increase in fuel price via a ‘surcharge’ escalates. Surcharges on registration cost per year, steep and rising transfer fees when you transfer an ICE vehicle to a new owner. There are heaps of ways to make life difficult and expensive. ‘Environmental’ tax per tonne of CO2 emitted from your ICE. No pay, no rego renewal.
It will take years but as I mentioned to CL upthread, there is something of a parallel with the way we are being ‘encouraged’ to have a vaccination for covid. Eventually, life will be difficult and more expensive for those who decline.
Chinese imports of ICE cars? Yeah, maybe but the same punitive taxation and running costs applies. Governments will tax the shite out of ICE cars in future. Also, the major manufacturers will be screaming they have invested ‘$300Bn’ in the past two decades and the “government are allowing us to be be undersold by Beijing”.
No way. No major government will cop the heat.
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The Greentards and Ecoloonies want to stop all travel to save Gaia. They know that electric/battery vehicles are uneconomic and unfeasible (imagine the weight of the battery on a plane to London!). Making travel prohibitively expensive is a way to achieve this goal. Only the rich and entitled will be able to travel (in their private planes!)
Putting the tinfoil hat on again…
The COVID pandemic is also another way of achieving this! The travel restrictions currently in place are unlikely to be lifted as variant after variant of the WuhanFlu (or whatever) emerges. The great unwashed – even if they could afford it – would not be able to travel. A 14 day quarrantine either side will mean your annual leave used up sitting in a hotel room! Not much of a holiday!
I fear for our future. My kids (late teens) have already lost a year and a half of what is usually the best part of our lives locked up. And I can’t see this changing! The Lambda variant is on its way!
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The thing about electric vehicles that bothers me is where the battery tends to be. As in you are sitting on it in hybrids and electric cars. Effectively dangling your balls in a magnetic field for extended periods can’t be good for you.
Perhaps similar to highway patrol officers and fighter pilots apparently come down with certain cancers/ cell derangements at higher rates than the general public. Some put that down to the bandwidth their two-ways run on/in, others to the plethora of electrical devices that end up jammed into patrol cars/ plane cabins.
Haven’t heard anyone connect that theory about covid vaccinations sterilising women with a theoretical concurrent depopulation plan, fait accompli given electric vehicles. Perhaps soon.
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Gee, where’d that last post go to?
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Adam “The choice of zero-emission vehicles on offer in Australia will increase substantially over the next five years.”
.
Great, love to buy a nuclear powered vehicle.
Electric vehicles, of course, have higher emissions then hydrocarbon powered.
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Hydrogen needs to be stored at significantly higher pressures and or lower temperatures than lpg to gain the same energy density as lpg. LPG has around 25% less energy density than petrol. It’s not about tech, it’s about physics… https://energies.airliquide.com/resources-planet-hydrogen/how-hydrogen-stored
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=9991
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Battery powered hand tools are now universal in the building trade ,power extension leads are banned on most building sites as unsafe .
I remember my first battery drill ,a Skil , primitive compared to the modern ones .In other words the improvement in batteries has been huge ,no doubt the car batteries will do the same as time goes by .
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The argument that hydrocarbon fuelled vehicles will just disappear “because government”, ignores some basic realities.
The first is that heavy transport and agriculture require vehicles that can run for majority of the 24hr cycle, and do so with minimal downtime for refuelling … and at remote locations.
The second is that the voters are going to start changing their votes when the costs of production and transport mean that their food, clothing, housing materials and other essentials increase by an order of magnitude.
Speedy tries to brush over the problems by calling them “difficult” and moving on. The real answer is that without a technological breakthrough that is the equivalent of introduction of the ICE, it will be impossibly expensive in both economic and political terms.
He’s talking about replacing the entire grid within 15 years
I don’t think he has the slightest idea of the cost of his proposals – we are talking multiple million$ per farm in replaced machinery, plus massively increasing that grid-capacity to hundreds of thousands of remote and VERY remote areas…. a grid density and capacity that has never been installed anywhere outside urban areas.
So there will continue to be a large and thriving industry producing and distributing diesel.
……. aaaaand no! You don’t get to scream “But TAXES”, without accounting for the fact that taxes get passed on to consumers, and consumers VOTE.
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Vladimir Ilyich …
Firstly, lithium battery technology is approaching its peak theoretical efficiency. The idea that recent levels of improvement can be extrapolated ad infinitum ignores physics and chemistry.
Secondly, the tradies who have embraced cordless tools always have multiple batteries available on-site for instant swap-outs … and have external power supplies for constant recharging. Either grid or a bloody big diesel generator.
Thirdly, the majority of those tools use power intermittently, and at draw levels that are minute by comparison to an industrial engine that must be able to run at constant power for the whole day and half the night.
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EVs are a non starter without a massive investment in nuclear power and having charging stations that can be as quick as a petrol refill and batteries with comparable performance and range.
EVs are a good thing for delivery drones and short haul transport, particularly urban niight deliveries.
EVs as a product just aren’t good enough yet for mass adoption.
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Yah … good posts Peter
The other issue with batteries is that they are based on rare earth metals – and these are (as rare would suggest) in limited and finite supply. So – in the case of EV/battery technology, the costs are going to increase as the demand for these increases and availability decreases…
Two things will occur. One is that the batteries will be restricted to essential services and the rich, and (like for example copper recently) theft of and re-birthing of the batteries may become a thing.
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EVs are a non starter without a massive investment in nuclear power
Not sure how that logically follows … but yes – if EVs are to replace all ICE vehicles, then we will need near double the generation power we have now. The math is easy to do. And no – a roof top solar / power bank will not be able to fully charge a Tesla overnight.
[Besides for the cost of a roof top solar & power bank I can fuel a car for a couple of years! And they have a similar lifespan as modern car … say 10 years … before needing replacement]
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As CL pointed out: look at all countries with high EV, such as norway, and see the disaster:
Much higher overall vehicle prices. Declining vehicle sales
Much lower car ownership rates. Almost no one under 25 can afford a car – the younger generation considered owning a car as out of reach as owning a home.
4×4 off road vehicles cost hundreds of thousands and are owned by super rich only – used 4×4 have become a highly valued commodity as buying a new 4×4 gas guzzler is hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The road taxes and fees are highest in the world.
Used vehicles are actually appreciating in price as there are no cheap vehicles for lower incomes acceptable.
It remains to be seen if EV cars will ever be cheaper than ICE. The underrated cost of EV is the electric motor itself. Electric motors are used in industry for many many decades now and their prices are well understood: they are expensive. Everyone is claiming it’s only battery making the cars expensive, but it’s actually the inverters and motors that contribute more than the batteries, which is why there is still only 1 EV even close to $50,000AUD and dropping the battery price is only going to knock that down by $5k to $8k.
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The irony is that those who are predicting massive technological improvement in batteries are also predicting that new energy sources and cost-effective engine systems running on them will *not* be invented.
Neither is inevitable.
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Mundi makes yet another good point.
Any system has to be priced according to the cost of the whole system….
It’s not just the running cost of the vehicle.
It’s the production cost, the distribution cost, the maintenance cost and the disposal cost.
Solar panels have a limited lifespan and we have hardly started to look at the cost of disposing or recycling them at a national scale.
One suspects that the enthusiasts have limited experience in dealing with production systems and the costs of running them.
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The largest problem is that policy is driving industry to make decisions it would not otherwise make if we had a free market. This policy is driven by ideologues who don’t care about practicality, physics, reality or community. They are not even happy to transition, they want to squash industry and individuals. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/12/clean-fuel-blue-hydrogen-coal-study
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A Moke would make the perfect EV – the classic clown car.
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Toyota Mirai review: it’s not perfect, but it’s pointing the way forward
Jeremy Clarkson
Columnist
Politicians rarely think about the long term; they want flattering headlines now, not praise in the history books. That’s why we are on a headlong rush to rid ourselves of cars with internal combustion engines. Politicians know that right now there is an electric alternative that sort of works, and that can be just about charged up using renewable energy. So that’s two boxes ticked.
I had an electric sports car on test recently and it was wonderful – lovely to drive and fast beyond belief. But there’s no getting round the fact that child slave labour is used to source some of the materials in electric car batteries. And those batteries don’t last forever, of course.
It’s not just me who has concerns. Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Peugeot, Citroën, Opel and Vauxhall, wonders, “Who is taking the 360-degree view?” He explains that European governments, for example, get 448 billion euros ($723 billion) a year by taxing petrol and diesel cars – what will replace that when we all go electric?
Tavares also reckons the seismic shift in the way we move about will cause runaway inflation, and few if any countries are able to provide a satisfactory charging infrastructure. Most importantly, though, he says that if we charge headlong into a new electric future, we will be screwed if, in 10 or 20 years, a better alternative comes along.
Which brings me to the car you see here, the hydrogen fuel cell Toyota Mirai. It looks like a car, but it’s actually a power station in a car-shaped wrapper. You fill the tank with hydrogen in the same way you fill up now with petrol and then off you go, in silence, with nothing but water coming out of the exhaust.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/toyota-mirai-review-its-not-perfect-but-its-pointing-the-way-forward/news-story/f40aa6dd95753046396ab8487aa70056
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We’ll be nicely prepared for a Chicom EMP attack. Nothing will work.
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Speedbox , I may have missed something , but , how will we power our planes , for the long haul trips ? .
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Don’t miss John Hinderaker’s article today:
The Disaster of Green Energy | Power Line (13 Aug)
This is about the materials required for construction of renewable power sources and also EVs. Vast amounts of metals that are not currently being produced at sufficient rates. And when the rate of production doesn’t meet the demand the price goes up…
So EVs are going to get more expensive not less, because it takes a decade or more to pass all the hurdles to construct a mine. And Greens hate mines, so the opposition will be huge.
That then leads me to the fatal flaw of hydrogen fuel cells. All vehicle-suitable ones use platinum group metals (PGMs). Which are exceptionally rare. And no one has succeeded in finding a durable replacement which isn’t costly – despite about a century of effort and especially huge funding in the last several decades (certainly since the Apollo program showed how useful they are).
So, sorry Old Ozzie – the Toyota Mirai may be a nice car, but it will always be a niche vehicle as hydrogen fuel cells are seriously limited by their need for PGMs. As soon as you build more than a few hundred thousand of them the PGM supply will be exceeded and the prices will skyrocket. That happened for rhodium in the 1980’s as I recall: the price went up something like 20-fold in a week or two. It was amazing.
We’re already seeing catalytic converters being stolen from cars, due to the price of PGMs now. If the price doubles or triples it won’t be a nuisance any more, it’ll be a plague.
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So, sorry Old Ozzie – the Toyota Mirai may be a nice car, but it will always be a niche vehicle as hydrogen fuel cells are seriously limited by their need for PGMs. As soon as you build more than a few hundred thousand of them the PGM supply will be exceeded and the prices will skyrocket. That happened for rhodium in the 1980’s as I recall: the price went up something like 20-fold in a week or two. It was amazing.
Further in The Australian Article Jeremy Clarkson says
Brilliant. And elegant. And wonderful. But sadly there are only a handful of hydrogen filling stations in Britain (and three in Australia). So you couldn’t actually go anywhere in a Mirai, even if you’d just spent $100,000 on one. If it were to catch on the cost would come down, but how will that happen when everyone is charging down the rechargeable electric route? It’s like we’re all buying laser discs because we don’t know the internet is coming.
For years I’ve been tearing my hair out over this, convinced that fuel cell technology is the way to go, and I was delighted that Toyota was swimming against the tide with the Mirai. But then I went to see some engineers at the excavator giant JCB and I’m not so sure any more. They explained that the Mirai needs a rechargeable battery to fill the holes where the fuel cell isn’t working at its peak. So it’s not quite as elegant as I’d imagined, and I found that a bit sad. There were a host of other issues too, mainly to do with the pressure needed to fill the tank. And then they explained that JCB had made a normal internal combustion engine run on hydrogen. They took me out to a quarry and showed me: it was powering an excavator that functioned as normal, but the only stuff coming out of the exhaust pipe was steam. This is very intriguing.
The internal combustion engine has been around since the 1800s. We are all familiar with it and we are now very good at making it reliable and cheap. So I now find myself consumed with the idea of using the familiar technology but tweaking it to run on hydrogen. Yes, hydrogen is difficult and expensive to make – it doesn’t like being separated from oxygen – but it is possible, even using solar or geothermal power.
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PeterW says:
August 13, 2021 at 10:29 pm
The argument that hydrocarbon fuelled vehicles will just disappear “because government”, ignores some basic realities. The first is that heavy transport and agriculture require vehicles…..
I specifically said that “heavy vehicles were an entirely different issue””. This post isn’t about heavy vehicles, planes, long distance trains, rockets……I thought it was clear I was talking about consumer passenger cars.
…..technological breakthrough that is the equivalent of introduction of the ICE, it will be impossibly expensive in both economic and political terms. He’s talking about replacing the entire grid within 15 years……
What? ICE cars won’t vanish from our roads in 15 years and I didn’t suggest they would. The transition from ICE to EV will take decades but the costs of maintaining an ICE will be progressively ramped up as EV’s become more common. Think of the covid vaccine as a microcosm of the EV rollout in the sense that as the number of vaccinated people increases, the capacity to pressure the unvaccinated, without community blowback, increases. Ditto with EVs. As the take up increases due to fewer new ICEs being available, the governments will see the opportunity to ramp up the taxes on ICE. It will take many, many years but it becomes almost self-fulfilling.
As to cost, you’re right. It will be gigantic. Which is another reason why the tax concessions will be small. But the change to EV is coming for passenger vehicles – diesel heavy vehicles and machinery is an entirely different issue but in (a long) time, they will not be immune.
Electricity to power these cars is a big problem – agreed – and I don’t know how it will be overcome but the ideologies of nuclear power and ‘going green’ may intersect. Rooftop solar isn’t the answer, nor are windmills.
But, I presume you’ve heard of the global push to nett zero emissions by 2050. There are about 13 million passenger vehicles registered in Australia and it is impossible to achieve nett zero with that number of vehicles on our roads. Alternatively, our market is too small to support ICE and EVs models from the same manufacturer who, by the way, are investing almost countless billions of $ in EV or low emission vehicle technology. They will want a return in that investment.
Finally, I didn’t say I agreed with the changeover – I am pointing to the inevitability. The decisions have already been made in New York and Brussels.
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For Australia; there is the additional issue that the major motor manufacturers will target the more lucrative markets – europe japan us and the like. The population density, the distances between towns, and infrastructure makes it easier to support EVs.
The decision to exit the manufacturers and the fact thatAustralia can no longer produce vehicles suited for us will look short sighted.
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The day they chuck an Electric motor into a 911, I’ll hang up my keys. Not until you experience the visceral ferocity of a flat 6 Boxer engine at 7500 RPM or the spine tingling sound that only a combustion engine can make can, while changing gears faster than you can actually think, can you appreciate the beauty of this technology.
EV’s have a place. They’re a glorified shopping/Golf cart
You can stick them up your arse.
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Speedbox.
Have you forgotten that one of the largest categories of “passenger vehicles” are actually Light Commercial vehicles in various guises.? Vehicles which are required to operate under the same circumstances and with similar constraints as heavy machinery?
The fallacy in claiming that they will become “much more expensive” falls in a heap when you reflect that:
A. The fuelling infrastructure and supply industry will remain in place because it is also required for heavy transport and industry.
B. The free market has proven very good at providing spare parts for older vehicles. I can get parts for 45YO Toyotas off the shelf. That’s without taking into account the increased ability automated milling and 3d-printing to produce custom parts at reduced rates.
C. Any attempt to increase taxes will fall disproportionately upon industry – who will promptly and rightfully claim exemption – and the poor who depend on the used-car market to replace their already used cars.
You aren’t thinking this through.
Electric vehicles with current technology are going to be very much like railways. Filling a particular niche but lacking the flexibility and economic attractiveness to become universal.
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Speedy….
Saying that cost is “a problem” is like saying that death is a problem….. YOU HAVEN’T SOLVED IT.
We do not have unlimited resources.
Yes, the whole “nett zero” thing.
You are treating that like some kind of divine prophecy that has no option but to come true regardless of cost. …… and ignoring the hell out of the reality.
Your argument is a house of cards, built from assumptions stacked upon more assumptions.
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Look, for all the talk of inevitability, it’s so much poppycock. There isn’t the mining, refining & industrial capability in the world to replace the ICE fleet, let alone enough energy to power it. For just the UK alone, to meet their proposed 2050 targets:
Now scale that up by adding in the other developed economies planning on phasing out the ICE.
And as for the energy…
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Another way of examining the cost of anything, is to ask what else you could have spent those resources on.
Put it this way…. You could maybe have your dream of electric infrastructure if you stopped spending money on what?
The Health system?
Social Security?
Education?
Or maybe the military – although positioning ourselves to be taken over at minimum cost (to them) by the kind of people who don’t actually give a damn about Climate Change, is not going to achieve nett-zero anyway.
Think. It. Through.
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Speedy:
I get the position you’ve made, neither for or against.
Unfortunately the politicians think there are votes in it for them and so cost is no object. They can always tax us more – and they will.
This whole Green thing is going to bankrupt Christendom and crush our industries with unsaleable products.
Am I a cynic for thinking that’s what is supposed to happen?
The Green Fantasy of Boutique Power being gathered by sunbeams and breezes cannot sustain an industrial society, which is just what they want.
The Social Credit system is precisely what will deliver their Paradise on Earth, but it will make the Chines Revolution death toll look like a village squabble.
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Winston…
There are votes in it from people who do not think that *they* will be affected. Probably because , like Speedy here, they don’t do the sums or understand the relationship between actions and consequences.
When they find out that their can’t have EVs and the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed…. you think that won’t change?
This is not the first social panic that we’ve seen.
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Is that real c**t of an issue with regard to electric vehicles ever going to change? The one about requiring a replacement battery at some point. Isn’t that around the time you see used hybrid cars going on sale, for about the same cost as the replacement battery will set the buyer back? I once did need to replace the engine on a VS I owned twenty years ago, though the cost was no where near, equal or more than that of the car itself (all because of a faulty temperature gauge).
Really is too bad that Abbott fellow wrought the destruction he did on the car manufacturing industry. The JCB video posted above on running combustion engines on hydrogen sounds promising. Really seems a ( expensive) matter of (re) establishing the physical facilities and relatively simple technicalities of licensing. It would be hard to imagine most car manufacturers don’t for the most part have multiple demonstrated and tested passenger vehicle hydrogen combustion engines ready to scale up production of.
Anybody know a cleverfella, shaman or the like? Perhaps a ceremony or two to bring back, re-invigorate the Holden, the Ford, Toyota, Mitsubishi or all of the above egregore(s). Plans need to be incepted and birthed for some longer term local production of passenger vehicles that run on liquid Hydrogen. Instead of more of the same copying of non-transposable and ultimately impractical “solutions” locally.
Ideally in this less than perfect world with any future supply chain for the Hydrogen eliminating all offshore elements. Following closure of all the local refining facilities in the last ten years, the current situation where fuel is extracted from Bass Strait, shipped to and refined in Malaysia. Then sold back to us after middle men galore fleece the average Australian at every step as well as the excise tax on top.
RobK’s comment above regarding a “…drop on genset.” for agricultural machines. I think I know what is being referred to here. Would be nice wouldn’t it if that sort of thing could be produced given the rather unfriendly established business and industry players that would be likely somewhat unhappy about it(?)
moderated
This was in the week in pictures… watch this space!
https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/08/car-green.jpg?w=640&ssl=1
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“[H2] Liquefying should be a process adaptable from well-understood LPG technology.”
The issue is energy density – neither hydrogen nor methane (“natural gas”) are practical transportation fuels simply because of the need to carry so much of it around, and because to do so requires either very high pressures and/or very low temperatures. The other issue with alternative fuels for petrol ICEs, is mixtures – petrol/LPG are about the same (around 12:1), but (m)ethanol and methane are more like 5:1, so you consume a lot more. While hydrogen is much more tolerant and burns with a very wide mixture range, its low energy density means you still need lots of it to obtain the same performance.
LPG is almost as energy dense as petrol and is a liquid at room temperature and acceptably low (ie, safe) pressures. There is also a great deal of infrastructure already in place for LPG, and this is a very safe product – consider that old gas bottle in the garage, it ain’t self destructed yet! And LPG, unlike petrol and diesel, doesn’t “go off” when stored – you can store LPG for decades and it remains as good as new. With current technologies, changing a ICE to LPG is either no loss of performance (liquid port injected) or an increase in performance (liquid direct injection) – this is not 1970’s taxi stuff any more. LPG is a worthwhile conversion right now – my own car is a 300 HP 5.7 litre V8, and costs less on my daily commute on LPG than the 200 HP 3.5 litre V6 it replaced. And even though it is using the older style vapour injection, the loss of performance is marginal.
It should be reasonably simple to convert hydrogen into methane, and methane into propane (LPG is 60-100% propane, almost always at the low end, as butane is a waste gas at refineries anyway). Propane “made” this way from “renewable” hydrogen could easily be “carbon neutral” as well, so you would gain all the advantages of propane (existent infrastructure, energy density, safety), and keep the “advantages” of renew-a-bubbles too.
There are also some “alternative” ICE designs, like “wobble plate” engines, and the liqui-piston design. That is a rotary engine that is an “inside out” wankel design – the housing is triangular in this design. It’s very clever and can run all sorts of fuels including diesel (they can do up to 25:1 compression), doesn’t have the seal issues of the wankel design, and can be air cooled. The 5 HP version is about 10% of the size and weight of a recip. piston 5HP engine.
IMO, if you want to keep an ICE vehicle, get something long-lived and common (lots of spares available) and make sure it is either LPG, (m)ethanol or diesel – LPG will likely stay around for a while anyway (BBQ etc) so you can just decant a BBQ bottle into the car, (m)ethanol can be home brewed, and diesel can be “brewed” at home-scale from vegetable oil and ethanol.
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“Probably because , like Speedy here, they don’t do the sums or understand the relationship between actions and consequences.”
Yes – you should always ask the lefties “And then what?” Several times. The ideas always sound good, at least until you ask that question. Case in point: “renewables” for electricity generation. They will wear out – “and then what?”. They don’t provide EROI sufficient to make a sustainable industrial society – “and then what”.
No, we’ll continue our slide down to anarcho-tyranny until the fourth turning is complete: bad times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make bad times. We have our weak men, bad times approach, alas…
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Yeah right, I use the English figurative form of “le con” and that sends my post into moderation(?), hence:
Is that real …(le con)… of an issue with regard to electric vehicles ever going to change? The one about requiring a replacement battery at some point. Isn’t that around the time you see used hybrid cars going on sale, for about the same cost as the replacement battery will set the buyer back? I once did need to replace the engine on a VS I owned twenty years ago, though the cost was no where near, equal or more than that of the car itself (all because of a faulty temperature gauge).
Really is too bad that Abbott fellow wrought the destruction he did on the car manufacturing industry. The JCB video posted above on running combustion engines on hydrogen sounds promising. Really seems a ( expensive) matter of (re) establishing the physical facilities and relatively simple technicalities of licensing. It would be hard to imagine most car manufacturers don’t for the most part have multiple demonstrated and tested passenger vehicle hydrogen combustion engines ready to scale up production of.
Anybody know a cleverfella, shaman or the like? Perhaps a ceremony or two to bring back, re-invigorate the Holden, the Ford, Toyota, Mitsubishi or all of the above egregore(s). Plans need to be incepted and birthed for some longer term local production of passenger vehicles that run on liquid Hydrogen. Instead of more of the same copying of non-transposable and ultimately impractical “solutions” locally.
Ideally in this less than perfect world with any future supply chain for the Hydrogen eliminating all offshore elements. Following closure of all the local refining facilities in the last ten years, the current situation where fuel is extracted from Bass Strait, shipped to and refined in Malaysia. Then sold back to us after middle men galore fleece the average Australian at every step as well as the excise tax on top.
RobK’s comment above regarding a “…drop on genset.” for agricultural machines. I think I know what is being referred to here. Would be nice wouldn’t it if that sort of thing could be produced given the rather unfriendly established business and industry players that would be likely somewhat unhappy about it(?)
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“It should be reasonably simple to convert hydrogen into methane…”.
..
By adding carbons.
Which defeats the whole point of using hydrogen in the first place to get around the insane emissions regulations coming our way in the next 5 to ten years.
And the energy density of hydrogen is three times that of petrol, not less.
You need much less per unit weight of the stuff.
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For once it pays to be old and know you will not have too long to put up with this BS. What the politburo don’t understand is that the one thing that expanded the economy was the emergence and success of the middle class. Adding one issue above another will upset that economic miracle and lead to devastation and rebellion. So our billionaires markets and assets will be vaporised. I only wish I could last another 20 years to see the “high fruit hanging in the breeze on Macquarie and Collins Streets”. Good luck Lostralia. I’ll trade mark that name Lostralia, the land where the goose prevailed and the goslings saw fear triumph over freedom.
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“You need much less per unit weight of the stuff.“
Somebody else who believes in the free lunch.
You forgot to add in the weight of the tank….
Either you need to be towing something the size of the Goodyear blimp to get a reasonable range, or you need a very heavy pressure-vessel to run highly compressed H.
Either way, you run into major inefficiencies through the need to carry extra weight or drive against massively increased wind resistance.
Think. It. Through.
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PeterW says:
August 14, 2021 at 8:21 pm
There are votes in it from people who do not think that *they* will be affected. Probably because , like Speedy here, they don’t do the sums or understand the relationship between actions and consequences.
That made me laugh out loud. I can’t say why but it was (inadvertently) funny by you. Suffice to say I am very well acquainted with actions and consequences in business and government. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Peter, as I said upthread…… I didn’t say I agreed with the changeover – I am pointing to the inevitability. The decisions have already been made in New York and Brussels.
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“You forgot to add in the weight of the tank….”
..
Weight of the Toyota Mirai’s fuel tanks = less than 90 kg. + 15 Kg of Hydrogen = 105 kg.
Weight of 60 litres of petrol for a Toyota Camry = 48 kg. + weight of petrol tank = 75Kg.
Difference = 30 Kg.
i.e. fuck all.
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“You need much less per unit weight of the stuff.”
Weight, yes. Try volume instead – you need about 10 times the volume for gaseous hydrogen (compressed) and about 3 times the volume for liquid hydrogen.
So for a 60L petrol tank to be replaced with the same energy content of hydrogen, you need about 600L for gas phase storage, and that is s a pressure vessel for 3,000 – 10,000 PSI (much higher pressure than LPG), not a simple plastic or thin steel tank.
A liquid storage requires a cooling system to keep it liquid (less than -200C, itself a significant injury risk), so it will consume it’s own contents as a fuel in order to do so – park your car for a few days and it will consume all the available fuel trying to keep that fuel liquid. Any cooling failure would result in a catastrophic failure event, as the internal pressure would skyrocket (ie, it’s a time bomb).
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“ Peter, as I said upthread…… I didn’t say I agreed with the changeover – I am pointing to the inevitability. The decisions have already been made in New York and Brussels.”
Decisions which can and probably will be changed, amended, reinterpreted and outright abandoned as soon as it becomes politically inconvenient to stick with them.
You seem to have this weird idea that politician’s promises can be trusted.
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Oh and Speedy..
My most rooted objection to your argument is that it denies us the ability to reject a poor strategy and seek one that is more cost-effective.
Your arguments sounds like nothing so much as that of the Afghan Army. Defeat is inevitable. It is “The will of Allah”, so fighting is useless.
Substitute “The will of Brussels” for that of Allah and there is little difference.
The reality is that the majority of great human successes were achieved by those who did not accept the “inevitable”.
moderated
“The reality is that the majority of great human successes were achieved by those who did not accept the “inevitable”.”
Indeed – Henry Ford’s greatest insight was not the production line, it was that his workers should be able to afford to buy the product they made. That created a massive increase in market and the associated economies of scale.
Sure, he made a motsa, but his workers could afford the “horseless carriage” they were making too…
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