Former Green minister regrets decision to promote diesel engines

ELM327

I'm actually a fan of the diesel engine. The problem is the fuel that is now used for it.
Originally the diesel engine was designed to run on any oil fuel, like peanut oil, for areas where petroleum fuels would not be accessible. Then with cheap oil, they decided to name diesel fuel as such and design and optimize the diesel engine to work with a petroleum based oil.

We should go back and make diesels like they did to the turn of the 21st century and before, that could be run on veg oil with little to no modification. I know, as I've ran a couple of cars on ~80% veg oil before. With zero modification, and the only issues were that the fuel filter needed cleaning every 10k miles.

Special Circumstances

ELM327 wrote: »

the only issues were that the fuel filter needed cleaning every 10k miles.

That and the emissions I suppose.

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

zilog_jones

ELM327 wrote: »

We should go back and make diesels like they did to the turn of the 21st century and before, that could be run on veg oil with little to no modification. I know, as I've ran a couple of cars on ~80% veg oil before. With zero modification, and the only issues were that the fuel filter needed cleaning every 10k miles.

Re-using waste oil or oil from renewable sources is great, but does not solve the problem with NOx or particulate emissions.

Special Circumstances

draiochtanois wrote: »

Green refers to their naivety not a duty of care to the environment .....

An Comhaontas Glasraí

goz83

zilog_jones wrote: »

Re-using waste oil or oil from renewable sources is great, but does not solve the problem with NOx or particulate emissions.

I would also be constantly craving fish and chips

Patser

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Yes and No, for starters, most People won't buy an EV until range is at least 300 Kms but could still take a long time for Irish People to adopt. The other issue is lack of choice in EV makes and models.

Most charging will take place at home especially the larger the battery, there'll be much less need for public charging in a 300 Km + Ev than a 120 Km Ev for instance.

The greatest challenge is for people with no home charging such as apartment owners and people who have no driveway, people renting etc. for these people fast charging maybe the only solution and then we'll need a lot more chargers. Perhaps more work charging too.

This I agree with a lot. EVs are great if you accept compromises at the moment, and the improvements in range coming on line will overcome at lot of those.

But still there is a lack of choice. Thinking of a pure BEV as a family option on you've got the Leaf and Ioniq as 4 door, sub €30k options only. I know there's the e-golf but they're hard to source, same with the electric Soul. All BMW options including the small (strictly 4 seater) i3 I'm thinking about start around €40k ish. It does make you wonder that if Electric is so great currently as some suggest, where's my Opel, Honda, Citroën, Toyota etc run of the mill Leaf competitors.

Add the that the current trend in car purchases for crossovers, and until the Kia Niro BEV comes on stream I can't think of a single option (ok Tesla Model X if you've won the lottery).

Other concerns like early adoption syndrome - original i3s for example have no fast charge socket, so are already outdated and down severely on resale price. Equally all these new longer range EVs will damage existing car values. Have put some off.

To link this back to the Greens in power, they bear some of the blame for EVs not taking off too. Not only did they encourage diesel almost as an environmentally friendly option, I remember either Sargent or Ryan posing with G-Whizzes saying how great electric cars could be. Yes they were probably seeing the potential of what is now coming on stream but the G Whiz was such a terrible thing in all regards, that it reinforced the idea that electric cars were rubbish, underpowered and gimmicky.

unkel

Couldn't agree more, Patser.

Patser wrote: »

It does make you wonder that if Electric is so great currently as some suggest, where's my Opel, Honda, Citroën, Toyota etc run of the mill Leaf competitors.

I wonder about that too. I guess lack of vision? Focus on different strategies / technologies like diesel and / or hydrogen?

Honda seems to only focus on those. Why Toyota still don't make EVs (after having hybrids for 2 decades) is completely beyond me. PSA have nothing, do they? Opel (GM) does make competent EVs though, we just don't get them here. BMW is up there with the best and even more so Tesla, but all their cars are expensive and not in budget segments for now. Renault is there at the budget and, the Zoe is Europe's best selling EV, isn't it? Range has just massively increased (on paper anyway), so that's a step forward

But until batteries become cheaper, we won't see popular forms like cross overs / SUVs / MPVs as pure electric because they basically need at least 40kWh, but preferably 60kWh and that would make them too expensive at present

Patser

Zoe is a nice car but only available as a 2 door hatch, and yes GM have the Chevy Volt with impressive figures but as you said not available in RHD version - maybe they got burnt by the Ampera failure. PSA definitely went big on diesel but did experiment with hybrid and even hydraulic systems.

Maybe hindsight comes into play. 10 years ago there were multiple alternative energy sources being pursued. Saab went big on biofuels, hydrogen was (and is) mentioned as an option. Others are now focusing in smaller and smaller tweaked petrol engines. VAG tsi for example, Ford have nice ones too.

But Leaf is now almost 7 years old and until the Ioniq's launch had an free field (I'm not counting the fluence ze because of Renault's suicidal battery lease scheme). Surely if it was such an obvious technological advance, a no brainer, we'd have multiple options by now.

zilog_jones

unkel wrote: »

Why Toyota still don't make EVs (after having hybrids for 2 decades) is completely beyond me.

They're working on it: http://www.autoblog.com/2016/11/07/toyota-electric-vehicle-mass-production-2020/

In previous years, they said they didn't think the range was good enough. They also invested heavily in hydrogen fuel cells with the Mirai.
There were two previous incarnations of RAV4 EVs (last one using Tesla batteries/powertrains) but they were pretty much just compliance vehicles for California.

PSA have nothing, do they?

Peugeot iOn and Citroen C-Zero, but they're just badge-engineered Mitsubishi i-MiEVs and probably out of production now. They have some hybrids but they're diesel :rolleyes:

KCross

Patser wrote: »

Surely if it was such an obvious technological advance, a no brainer, we'd have multiple options by now.

Its a no brainer for the consumer due to reduced running and servicing costs. Its not a no brainer for the manufacturers. Its actually the opposite as they make so much on parts on ICE they will lose out big time if/when all cars are EV's.

The only reason they are starting to make EV's is because Tesla is forcing their hand.

unkel

And I guess we should have mentioned Mercedes-Benz too with some (token) EVs. Sure they were extremely innovative once, back in 1886 (131 years ago), but not so much since

I do think VAG will start playing a major role. With still a lot of dynastic political power behind it that gave us marvels such as the Bugatti Veyron, once they have truly switched off the investments in diesels and switched to spending money developing EVs, they will be a force of power

Bit of a shame they have to pay all those billions in US fines. That's not helping any of us at all. I bet the US manufacturers are having a good old laugh about this though. It's not unlike war-repayments all over again and look what happened the last time!

Patser

unkel wrote: »

And I guess we should have mentioned Mercedes-Benz too with some (token) EVs. Sure they were extremely innovative once, back in 1886 (131 years ago), but not so much since

Ahem, get with the times!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEjTwsfqHOY

https://youtu.be/iEjTwsfqHOY

goz83

Patser wrote: »

Ahem, get with the times!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEjTwsfqHOY

https://youtu.be/iEjTwsfqHOY

I want one :pac:

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goz83 wrote: »

I want one :pac:

Me too, ever since Seinfeld.

cros13

unkel wrote: »

I wonder about that too. I guess lack of vision? Focus on different strategies / technologies like diesel and / or hydrogen?

Honda seems to only focus on those. Why Toyota still don't make EVs (after having hybrids for 2 decades) is completely beyond me. PSA have nothing, do they? Opel (GM) does make competent EVs though, we just don't get them here. BMW is up there with the best and even more so Tesla, but all their cars are expensive and not in budget segments for now. Renault is there at the budget and, the Zoe is Europe's best selling EV, isn't it?

Most car companies decided long ago that their added value was the combustion engine... and moved a lot of the engineering outside of that to outsourced suppliers... the reality of an EV dominated future is only just dawning on them... and they mostly lack the engineering and design staff to do anything about it.

BMW launched the i3 (which is based on a range-extended EV concept they had on the shelf back in 2001), around 2009 they gave a bunch of money to the engineers to build it as a concept car for the road (and a useful car for emissions credits and fleet averages)... the Quandt family had bought a stake in SGL carbon fiber around the same time and the rest is history. The team that designed and built the i3 and i8 have mostly left BMW after seeing follow-up projects under-funded or delayed and are now at Tesla, FF, Lucid Motors and several chinese manufacturers. The current plan is extending PHEV powertrains (bought in from ZF) across the range and they have a 90kWh class 3-series and X3 in their back pocket to try to put up a show against Tesla if it comes to it (though Samsung SDI won't be able to supply enough batteries)

Opel have the Ampera-e (but not in RHD) and at least until PSA rolled in had the official goal of becoming an EV only car maker by 2025.

PSA have a platform in development but the goalposts are moving to quick for them to keep up. They've done several redesigns. Until then they have europe's newest EV on the market: the Peugeot Partner Tepee electric (It's another iMiEV powertrain PoS). Some cars were planned under the DS brand but they are waiting on that common EV platform.

Toyota have a crash EV program headed by their CEO and top engineering management after they finally realised the hydrogen sh*te was never going to compete with BEV.

Mazda are planning an EV for 2019 and had the Deimo EV program in Japan. They were working on Wankel range extenders too.

Daimler has seen the EV light and is building a pair of battery plants for future models....along with defunding all fuel cell passenger vehicles.

Honda are off in la-la land still with a new Clarity EV due in europe this summer... with equivalent range to a 24kWh Leaf for €30k+. Meanwhile they've made and sold less fuel cell vehicles worldwide in 10 years than Nissan has sold Leafs in Ireland.

VW/Skoda/Seat/Audi.... is trying to stall, they eventually realised this summer (after every analyst and their neighbor's dog had told them repeatedly) that they won't get enough batteries for volume production of any of their planned cars on the open market so they've finally resigned themselves to building a battery plant.

Renault, is planning at least two new cars based on the 2018 Leaf's platform along with a cheap EV the french government has been handing them development funding for.

Mitsubishi has a mid range full-electric crossover on the roadmap... and a rollout of PHEV tech across the range.

Fiat Chrysler ... they're away with the fairies, Sergio Marchionne might have signed the company's death warrant by failing to start an EV program early enough... bitching about being forced to build the 500e and telling people not to buy it.

Volvo is going full EV across the range by 2025 starting with the XC40.

Hyundai/Kia are just realising the mistake they've made ploughing money into FCEVs. They have some aggressive moves planned to correct their mistake, next year's crossover EV being the first volley.

So yeah... they've mostly all been caught unprepared and are 10-15 years behind Tesla.

zilog_jones

It will be interesting to see if Mazda get anywhere with their Wankel-based range extender. Rotary engines are compact, with decent power-to-weight ratio, they run very smoothly and allegedly (according to Mazda) very efficiently at constant speed - so it sounds like they will be very well suited to this application.

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cros13 wrote: »

Fiat Chrysler ... they're away with the fairies, Sergio Marchionne might have signed the company's death warrant by failing to start an EV program early enough... bitching about being forced to build the 500e and telling people not to buy it.

Should have stuck to the Western movie soundtracks.
Ecstasy of Gold. What. A. Choon.

cros13

zilog_jones wrote: »

It will be interesting to see if Mazda get anywhere with their Wankel-based range extender. Rotary engines are compact, with decent power-to-weight ratio, they run very smoothly and allegedly (according to Mazda) very efficiently at constant speed - so it sounds like they will be very well suited to this application.

Yeah... and in a 30-40kWh EV it won't get used often so fuel efficiency doesn't matter, but size weight and power does.

KCross

cros13 wrote: »

The current plan is extending PHEV powertrains (bought in from ZF) across the range and they have a 90kWh class 3-series and X3 in their back pocket to try to put up a show against Tesla if it comes to it (though Samsung SDI won't be able to supply enough batteries)




Daimler has seen the EV light and is building a pair of battery plants for future models....along with defunding all fuel cell passenger vehicles.




VW/Skoda/Seat/Audi.... is trying to stall, they eventually realised this summer (after every analyst and their neighbor's dog had told them repeatedly) that they won't get enough batteries for volume production of any of their planned cars on the open market so they've finally resigned themselves to building a battery plant.

So, access to batteries is the "big" issue then?
Is building a battery plant necessarily going to solve that? Wont getting access to the required raw materials from the mining companies be a limiting factor no matter how many plants you have?

Or can the mining companies ramp up production? I thought there were limitations to how quickly the materials can be mined? e.g. Li-ion is usually got by drying in the sun!

Also, wont Tesla have the raw material all tied up when they get their giga factory up and running before everyone else?

cros13 wrote: »

So yeah... they've mostly all been caught unprepared and are 10-15 years behind Tesla.

That might explain why Tesla's market value is passing out the incumbent manufacturers without actually making any money!

cros13

KCross wrote: »

So, access to batteries is the "big" issue then?

Pretty much. The major battery manufacturers were burned by automakers telling them to build plants in the late 00s and then failing to deliver the demand... the resulting crash in the lithium ion market brought half the industry to the wall or close to it.
So it's a combination this time of the scale of the battery production required and that the existing players have been burned before.

The major manufacturers are already set to quadruple 2015 output by 2020... but that would only be enough to supply production of ~1.5 to 2 million vehicles.... if all global lithium ion cell production (including for consumer electronics) was re-tooled for vehicle cells.
European passenger car sales alone are 12-13 million annually.

KCross wrote: »

Is building a battery plant necessarily going to solve that? Wont getting access to the required raw materials from the mining companies be a limiting factor no matter how many plants you have?

The bulk of the materials are available on the open market in much larger quantities for other industries. Aluminium, graphite, copper and nickel are the main ones. Lithium is common as muck and depending on the form and cost of extraction we have basically unlimited scaling with 12-24 months notice.

Cobalt is a slightly different story but there are chemistries (like Lithium Iron Phosphate or Lithium Manganese Oxide (which the 24kWh Leaf uses)) that use little or no cobalt, and low-cobalt variants of NCA and NMC chemistries are ready or close to ready for commercial production.

KCross wrote: »

Or can the mining companies ramp up production? I thought there were limitations to how quickly the materials can be mined? e.g. Li-ion is usually got by drying in the sun!

Also, wont Tesla have the raw material all tied up when they get their giga factory up and running before everyone else?

That's a known quantity because Tesla have already publically agreed the contracts for most of their raw material supply. Tesla have also been working on low-cobalt chemistries specifically.

KCross wrote: »

That might explain why Tesla's market value is passing out the incumbent manufacturers without actually making any money!

Well in fairness they're making a lot of money (€7 billion in revenue in 2016 and 20%+ margin on the Model S and X) but their capital expenditures are awe-inspiringly massive with three massive factories under construction/expansion, thousands of engineers in R&D.

Just to elaborate on the scale of what they are doing:

The Fremont factory was one of the largest car factories in the world the day Tesla moved in (having been Toyota's largest plant outside Japan, a joint venture with GM). Tesla are now doubling its size (it's already the 2nd largest building on earth by footprint and employs ten thousand people).
From 500,000sqm to over 900,000sqm (for reference... this modest 25 bed 25 bath house in cork is 925sqm including the stables) Fitout, expansion and initial costs for the new construction alone are close to $1.5 billion.

This is it today:



This is the expansion:



Gigafactory 1 will be the 2nd largest building by usable volume on earth... just beaten by Boeing's Everett factory. The total construction and fitout costs are expected to reach €6-7 billion. Line 1 is in operation with Line 2 starting this summer.



Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo NY will be the largest solar panel production facility on the planet by 2022 (taking over from Trina Solar's facility in China). By the time it starts production this summer it will have cost almost $1.3 billion.



Tesla's capital expenditure for 2016 and 2017 leading up to the model 3 will exceed the Irish government's entire 2017 capital budget.. every school and hospital build and expansion, IT project, road project, flood barrier, luas track and IDA factory build.

BoatMad

I don't know , my other "car " is a 3 litre diesel pickup !!!!

Adding some extra lights to the light bar this month, all I need now is a gun rack

aliveandkicking

From reading Cros13's fantastic last couple of posts on this thread there now​ seems to be a real danger that mass adoption of EVs is going to be seriously hampered by the lack of availability of batteries in the short term. Is this why Hyundai can't make enough Ioniqs to meet demand? It is a depressing scenario that the big auto manufacturers have to continue churning out diesel cars because they are unable to source enough batteries to enable mass volume production of EVs.

unkel

aliveandkicking wrote: »

Is this why Hyundai can't make enough Ioniqs to meet demand?

I'm getting the impression that yes that's the reason. cros13 might be able to confirm. And yes, that's pretty depressing

cros13

Yeah... I think the only way around it is electrification of high margin models first... and then a massive battery plant building program with the proceeds.
Hyundai's issue is related to LG Chem being unable to supply enough cells. The GM Bolt/Opel Ampera-e is also having issues with supply of cells from LG Chem.
LG Chem has two new factories opening this summer... but between them they'll only be able to supply 100k to 150k of production across all the PHEVs and BEVs of all the makes using LG Chem cells.
That's everyone from Renault/Nissan, Daimler-Mercedes, to Kia/Hyundai and GM.

Tesla of course has already planned for all of this.

aliveandkicking

Has the gigafactory got any spare capacity to supply the market or will it be strictly Tesla only? Would other auto manufacturers even consider purchasing batteries from a direct rival?

unkel

Even if they could supply the market, Tesla wouldn't, would they?

Looks like it will work out very well for them. I can see the usual manufacturers of premium cars like C-class, A4, 3-series (direct competition) taking a big hit in a few years time. Probably also the manufacturers of not so premium cars. Who'd want to buy a €30k Avensis / Mondeo / Insignia when you can buy a €40k Model 3 (and make up for the difference in purchase price with cashflow savings within a year or two)?

cros13

aliveandkicking wrote: »

Has the gigafactory got any spare capacity to supply the market or will it be strictly Tesla only? Would other auto manufacturers even consider purchasing batteries from a direct rival?

They'll have quite a bit of spare capacity and Tesla have already stated they have no issue reselling cells.

However there are two issues:

The biggest is that most automakers have chosen to use prismatic cells to simplify battery pack design, but the Gigafactory is only producing 2170 cylindrical cells.

Tesla's Energy Storage business could soak up any and all spare capacity given the current demand on the utility side alone.

zilog_jones

aliveandkicking wrote: »

Has the gigafactory got any spare capacity to supply the market or will it be strictly Tesla only? Would other auto manufacturers even consider purchasing batteries from a direct rival?

Tesla already worked with Toyota in the past, with the production of the second generation RAV4 EV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV#Second_generation

Less than 2500 were built though.

cros13

And Daimler is still getting the B-Class Electric powertrain from Tesla.
And the 2nd-gen Smart ED powertrain.

But then they're even more reliant on Tesla than just using them as a cell supplier.