Are we being forced to go electric?

[Alex321]

Yes I've seen that, but I wasn't denying that HGVs cause damage, I was explainig a viewpoint that cars do too. Something you seem unwilling to acknowledge for some reason.

Because the damage caused by even the heaviest cars is tiny compared to even the lightest HGV.

Yet in a dazzling display of cognitive dissonance you point out that damage to raods is proportional to the fourth power of weight.

This proves my point about vehicle weight gains over decades being a bad thing, beacuse the doubling of the Mini Cooper weight between 1980 and 2020 means the new model causes 16x the wear & tear to roads.

This will only get worse as cars become heavier through electrification; which is something you and others have dismissed as having a trivial impact. Well let's run the figures.

The Electric mini is 1440 Kg compared to the original 620 Kg, so that's 29x the wear & tear.

But compared to the current Mini, it is nowhere near as big a difference. The lightest 3 door mini currently available is 1250Kg.

What about other EVs?
The very lightest Tesala Model Y is (accordingly to Google) 1,909 Kg. That's 92x the wear & tear. Ninety Two!

92 times the wear and tear of just about the lightest commonly available car from 70 years ago. I don't think there are any cars currently available weighing as little as that original mini.

There are some heavier ICE beasts on the road, so I hate to think what will happen when they get large batteries.



We're discussing damage to roads caused by weight. And you want to disregard weight. What are you smoking?
I think you have to do rather more than change your method of vehicle propulsion if you want to be seen as some kind of environmental saint , aka CXRGreta.


Blimey. You celebrate and boast the capability of aggressive acceleration, that will literally abrade the road surface and exacerbate the weight problems above? You are an exacerbater!

Please point out anywhere he has "celebrated" or "boasted" it?

All he is doing there is pointing out that it is inherent in the electric motor.

 

[Alex321]

That's not what that says at all, indeed it's the exact opposite of what it says!

Contrary to an often-held assumption, EU states would not have to import most of their hydrogen from other continents as domestic production would be cheaper and sufficient to meet demand, according to the report.

Actually, it was exactly what it said.

The paragraph you quote does NOT mean it is actually economical in the long term. Whether it is economical or not does not depend o whether the hydrogen has to be imported or not (though that is one factor).

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Actually, it was exactly what it said.

The paragraph you quote does NOT mean it is actually economical in the long term. Whether it is economical or not does not depend o whether the hydrogen has to be imported or not (though that is one factor).

We seem to be reading entirely different documents.

France and Spain would become Europe’s most important hydrogen producers because they have more favourable conditions for renewable energy generation, according to the report.

The report cites German hydrogen as being uneconomic and says other states would be the prime producers if optimised for cost.

How France and Spain being the major producers in a hydrogen economy set up at the lowest costs for consumers and industry can be interpreted as assessing green hydrogen as uneconomic is mysterious to me at least. Perhaps I've missed something?

 

[classic33]

Because the damage caused by even the heaviest cars is tiny compared to even the lightest HGV.


But compared to the current Mini, it is nowhere near as big a difference. The lightest 3 door mini currently available is 1250Kg.

92 times the wear and tear of just about the lightest commonly available car from 70 years ago. I don't think there are any cars currently available weighing as little as that original mini.

Cars make up the largest number of vehicles on UK roads though
Cars make up the majority of licensed vehicles. In the United Kingdom, there were 33.2 million cars (81.5 per cent), 4.63 million LGVs (11.4 per cent), 0.54 million HGVs (1.3 per cent), 1.36 million motorcycles (3.3 per cent), 0.15 million buses & coaches (0.4 per cent) and 0.84 million other vehicles (2 per cent) licensed at the end of September 2022.

And there won't be that many HGV's using the roads in residential areas.

 

[Alex321]

We seem to be reading entirely different documents.

France and Spain would become Europe’s most important hydrogen producers because they have more favourable conditions for renewable energy generation, according to the report.

The report cites German hydrogen as being uneconomic and says other states would be the prime producers if optimised for cost.

How France and Spain being the major producers in a hydrogen economy set up at the lowest costs for consumers and industry can be interpreted as assessing green hydrogen as uneconomic is mysterious to me at least. Perhaps I've missed something?

The only country it actually mentions as being economic or not is Germany.

But I admit, I was misreading that the same way @CXRAndy did, as meaning it would be uneconomic in the EU, rather than just in Germany.

 

[Chislenko]

Cars make up the largest number of vehicles on UK roads though
Cars make up the majority of licensed vehicles. In the United Kingdom, there were 33.2 million cars (81.5 per cent), 4.63 million LGVs (11.4 per cent), 0.54 million HGVs (1.3 per cent), 1.36 million motorcycles (3.3 per cent), 0.15 million buses & coaches (0.4 per cent) and 0.84 million other vehicles (2 per cent) licensed at the end of September 2022.

And there won't be that many HGV's using the roads in residential areas.

That's only 99.9%🙂

 

[Alex321]

Cars make up the largest number of vehicles on UK roads though
Cars make up the majority of licensed vehicles. In the United Kingdom, there were 33.2 million cars (81.5 per cent), 4.63 million LGVs (11.4 per cent), 0.54 million HGVs (1.3 per cent), 1.36 million motorcycles (3.3 per cent), 0.15 million buses & coaches (0.4 per cent) and 0.84 million other vehicles (2 per cent) licensed at the end of September 2022.

And there won't be that many HGV's using the roads in residential areas.

But that 1.3% HGV are more than 20 times as heavy each as the 82% cars are.

Which means each HGV mile will do 160,000 times as much damage as each car mile.

And they will be doing a lot more than 1.3% of the miles, as average annual HGV mileage is about 10 times average car mileage.

 

[CXRAndy]

Looks at housing estate roads, they don't have groves worn in them- until a few HGV go down the road, break the surfaces up , potholes grow.

 

[classic33]

But that 1.3% HGV are more than 20 times as heavy each as the 82% cars are.

Which means each HGV mile will do 160,000 times as much damage as each car mile.

And they will be doing a lot more than 1.3% of the miles, as average annual HGV mileage is about 10 times average car mileage.

You can prove the first part?
Remember the earlier post that it's the number of axles, wheels, more than the weight that does the damage.

How many cars are never driven on motorways?

 

[Alex321]

You can prove the first part?
Remember the earlier post that it's the number of axles, wheels, more than the weight that does the damage.

That is a good point. It is the weight, but weight per axle that matters more than the overall weight, and HGVs do have rather more axles to distribute the weight over.

A loaded 6 axle artic will typically weigh around 38 tonnes, which (simplified) mans 6.3 tonnes per axle.

A 1.5 tonne car will be 0.75 tonnes per axle.

So only around 8.5 times the weight per axle, which means "only" 5220 times as much damage per axle. With tree times as many axles, giving roughly 15,000 times as much damage per truck, rather than the 160,000 I suggested above.

It does still mean the vast majority of the overall damage to roads is done by HGVs.

How many cars are never driven on motorways?

I have no idea, nor am I sure why you want to know.

Probably not many for never, but quite a few will be very rarely.

 

[lazybloke]

Because the damage caused by even the heaviest cars is tiny compared to even the lightest HGV.

I agreed that HGVs cause more damage; much more damage.
That doesn't mean cars don't cause damage; just go and look at roads where HGVs are banned and see if you can find some potholes. They weren't caused by pedestrians.

Obviously weather and poor maintenance are also reasons for road damage, but you can't write-off the weight of cars as irrelevant.

But compared to the current Mini, it is nowhere near as big a difference The lightest 3 door mini currently available is 1250Kg.

I complained about the significant weight gain over a period of several decades. The smaller weight gain in a more narrow choice of time window is neither here nor there.
Try integrating/extrapolating?

92 times the wear and tear of just about the lightest commonly available car from 70 years ago. I don't think there are any cars currently available weighing as little as that original mini.

WHOOSH! - that's my point; the vast majority of cars have become too heavy.

I would say that about ICE cars on their own... Do you really think adding a few hundred Kg of batteries is trivial?
Weight is one refinement where cars, and especially EVs, have a long way to go.

Please point out anywhere he has "celebrated" or "boasted" it?

The implication was here:

Even my lowly Nissan Leaf can out perform many other cars and will surprise all but the most powerful ice cars in mid range acceleration

A quick search found more; I hope not all EV drivers feel some kind of superiority complex, and feel the need to put ICE car drivers in their place:

If you show them an EV streaking away from a similar sized ICE car, then they understand.

Boast/celebration:

My model S in standard form has over 600bhp, the Plaid are over 1000bhp.
To be honest, 600hp is blooming phenomenal in acceleration,

 

[CXRAndy]

We already know the vast majority of damage is from HGVs.

How much it maybe interesting road wear, its a tangent to the main thrust, that cars.vans and not before long HGVs will be electric in the UK.

 

[Alex321]

We already know the vast majority of damage is from HGVs.

How much it maybe interesting road wear, its a tangent to the main thrust, that cars.vans and not before long HGVs will be electric in the UK.

But while that was the original point of the thread, it has been much more about whether we should be going electric than whether we are.

And one of the arguments against is the increased weight of Electric vehicles over ICE vehicles.

 

[Buck]

I don’t think EVs will get any lighter in the short term even though weight has a big impact on the holy grail of distance between charges.

My reading is that their priorities are range in the context of bigger batteries until technology enables more KWh for less weight/space and cost efficiencies.

 

[CXRAndy]

Nikola back from the dead.

650hp constant electric semi 1000hp peak for overtaking/hills etc. Sandy Munroe likes what he's driven on the initial offering.

View: https://youtu.be/LUA7Il252Ng


This is good news for trucking the world over