Ford – altruistic or cynical..?

[John K]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41005208

So change of heart to

"a bunch of bunny huggers who really, really care"

or

"oh no, sales have dropped, my incentive is in danger, what can we do?"

And if they really wanted to do good, they should offer £5,000 for every 'sporty' diesel that gets chopped in 

[Geoff101]

It's rubbish and wasteful. The carbon footprint and other environmental impacts of producing a new car and getting it to a dealer outweighs any saving from difference in emissions according to the information I've been able to find.

What is does is take affordable (and often perfectly decent) used cars off the market so you are forced to buy newer ones. When I was looking for an inexpensive car for my wife a year or two ago, I had no end of dealers telling me that they no longer have cheap trade ins as they all get scrapped on these schemes.

[jeff oakley]

I would say that they are trying to increase sales by latching onto the hysteria that is being spun about the pollution that cars produce. 

There is never anything like a free lunch so somewhere in the deal they will make money from finance or reduce discounts to dealerships. 

They also look a bit more caring until they can get their electric and hybrid ranges out there.

Interestingly yesterday a piece in the paper said that if most homes were charging a car and put on the kettle the main fuse would blow in their home, so still a long way to go with new technology.

[Captain Colonial]

I solved this years ago...

 

[John K]

38 minutes ago, Geoff101 said:

What is does is take affordable (and often perfectly decent) used cars off the market

Agreed..!

I have an 06 95k Mondeo that is currently still serviceable and reliable and apart from being the colour of urine is still a tidy car.

It is probably worth £400 to £500 - but I cannot yet bring myself to get rid of it because where on earth am I going to get  a decent motor for £500.

And leaving aside the financials, it does perhaps 2,000 miles a year. How many years could I run it before the carbon it produces exceeds the carbon require to scrap / recycle and manufacture its replacement?

[John K]

23 minutes ago, Captain Colonial said:

I solved this years ago..

Is the 'fasten up the back' jacket nice and comfy..?

[Dommo]

44 minutes ago, jeff oakley said:

 

Interestingly yesterday a piece in the paper said that if most homes were charging a car and put on the kettle the main fuse would blow in their home, so still a long way to go with new technology.

Papers say a lot! The very very vast majority of home chargers are 7.5kw/32A or less so it would have to be a very small main fuse! 

[Geoff101]

1 hour ago, Dommo said:

Papers say a lot! The very very vast majority of home chargers are 7.5kw/32A or less so it would have to be a very small main fuse! 

3x100A into mine so I'll be ok!

[jeff oakley]

Article was based on information from National grid link below. They are saying that a small charger is okay but the fast chargers they will need will cause problems.

It just reinforces the feeling that we are jumping head long into something that has not been fully thought through.

In other news no new London cab that is not fully electric can be registered after jan 2018, just 5 months away, or any cab over 15 years old even though there is not the infrastructure yet in place.

I agree that there is no point in scrapping good cars, but the green lobby have a history of idiot actions, flying everyone all over the world to attend climate change meetings or sailing around the world in old ships that pollute more than cars as they use heavy oil.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/21/dont-boil-kettle-charging-electric-car-will-blow-fuse-national/

[Dommo]

I hate articles like that. Full of assumptions without much basis. Is the average house really still on 60-80amps? It's 2017. For a range of 300 miles will we really need 90kwh batteries? By the time that kind of battery is available I'd hope we're getting more than 3.3mpkwh. I have to try really hard to get it below 3.5 already.

In 8 hours I'll charge 56kwh at 7.5kw (allowing 0.5kw of waste). At 3.3mpkwh that's 184 miles a day without putting a dent in my household capacity. Most do far less than that.

The world would be a better place if we could all just focus on the facts without newspapers bringing up misused "thought papers" and trying to sell stories from them. I wonder when that paper was written.

[SootySport]

I would be interested in a direct comparison of an EV car and a diesel car of the same make and model from factory to breakers yard.   The CO2 and other emissions would make interesting reading.    

Maybe some reliable institution has already crunched the numbers, I don't know.   If it hasn't been done , why not?  before we jump on the, 'it must be cleaner EV bandwagon'

 

[John K]

9 minutes ago, SootySport said:

Maybe some reliable institution has already crunched the numbers, I don't know.

Try finding one who does not have a vested interest one way or the other...

Again the cynic in me believes the report will always endorse the view of the group paying for the report...

[SootySport]

That's why it needs an independent survey to convince you, I and everyone else of their findings.   A university or someone like Thatcham  Research would be more likely to give a true comparison.

i know the metals in batteries come in for some strong criticism on how they are mined but iron and steel used for internal combustion engines can consume an lot of water during their production.  It all needs to be taken into consideration.    

[jeff oakley]

Some time ago an American company did that and found that if you compared everything in the production to end of life ISTR it was a jeep Cherokee.

You are right there will never be a fully independent one that everyone would agree to being right. New cars are energy hungry to produce and with them being built more and more as a disposable item that will never change even if the end product is more economical to run

 

[John K]

3 hours ago, Dommo said:

I hate articles like that. Full of assumptions without much basis.

 

1 hour ago, SootySport said:

That's why it needs an independent survey to convince you, I and everyone else of their findings

 

1 hour ago, jeff oakley said:

You are right there will never be a fully independent one that everyone would agree to being right

What happened to all of us..? Can you not remember back to when we were snotty nosed, red cheeked kids and full of trust and optimism and belief that if we listened to the adults it would all work out OK.

Exactly what has gone on in our lives to make us such dried out, suspicious, grim and miserable doom mongers..?

Oh wait - Probably the last 40 years...