The 'Automotive Environmental' Thread - Electric Cars/Fuel Quality/Alternative Fuel

[Franco Cozzo]

It seems we've got about 76 threads on the go at the moment where we're covering the environmental impacts of cars away from the initial topic intention.

There appears to be some sunshine, kittens, rainbows and unicorns environmental solution being thrown about by various people with vested interests in something to do with May 18th 2019

A particular group of people on the other side of the planet are talking of dates around circa 2030/2040 with a ban on ICE (internal combustion engine) car sales - I think they're in for a rude shock as I doubt battery technology/energy storage solutions have caught up to their expectations, 2030 is only 11 years away and at the rate electric cars have progressed, I don't think they're going to be ready as an ICE replacement prior to 2050, remember the electric car predates internal combustion engine cars.

To me, it seems like we're trying to run before we can even walk, if you wanted to improve the environment, the logical first step would be improving our woeful fuel quality in Australia:

Australia has the worst petrol in the western world

UPDATED: Archaic government standards and lack of action around high sulphur-content fuel means you will have less choice on the showroom floor

https://www.whichcar.com.au/car-news...-western-world

If the government starts dithering on something so basic to mandate better quality fuel and they refuse to do it before 2027, I don't see how they can put measures in place around electric cars by 2030.

Car manufacturers have had to detune their cars for decades here in Australia due to our crap fuel, Mazda in particular has given us half baked variants of their fancy Skyactiv engines because retards still insist on using 91, even our 98 sucks, 9 years ago when I started in the automotive industry we were having issues with new Honda Accord Euros having dramas with our 95 and 98 octane fuel with sub 50,000km on them.

To me, the logical next step for improving what comes out the exhaust pipe of cars is improving the quality of fuel you get at the pump, this one is low hanging fruit.

Then you can follow it up with a move towards phasing out regular unleaded for ethanol based fuels, such as E85 that Brazil has been using for a long time:

https://www.unitedpetroleum.com.au/fuel/e85/

Or even promoting LPG again as its a cleaner fuel than regular unleaded (Who remembers when we made cars which ran on straight LPG? )

These two initial steps are a much more achievable and realistic approach achievable in the short term rather than trying to force everyone over to electric cars, which are having issues with battery technology, having to fight with one hand behind their back because of running into issues between weight and energy density of their power source.

Now don't get me wrong, electric motors make perfect sense for transport, 100% of its torque the moment it starts spinning, realistically electric cars are going to haul *** and they're an efficient way of moving things about, the problem for personal transportation is the energy density vs weight of storage is a serious problem.

Hyundai has released their own electric car - the Iconiq:

https://www.caradvice.com.au/706588/...eview-ev-phev/

The issue here is it only has a 230km range, its not a huge deal, I do a 140km daily commute to and from Melbourne as I live in Boganistan on its regional outskirts, I could make a car with a 230km range work.

My question is about its charging options, the article mentions a 100KW DC fast charger being able to charge it from flat to 80% in 23 minutes, alright cool but I don't think I could have that at home, 100KW at 240V is 416 amps so thats off the cards for a home charger.

The home fast charger will charge it up in around 4 hours, I assume thats going to require three phase power - we don't have three phase power at home, is it even available in a 30 year old residential estate like mine?

What infrastructure changes are required on an estate level to deal with everyone requiring 3 phase power for their fast chargers, or would it even cope with everyone just using the normal power outlets? It struggles now when it rains, or when its hot, or when everyone uses their reverse cycle systems for cooling or heating at the same time.

Given the estimated take up of electric vehicles in 2030, this would require power infrastructure investments on a national level.

I got the 10A 240V outlets everywhere, thats 12 hours charging time on the normal power outlets.

I get home at 6:30PM and I leave for work at 6:30AM, thats cutting it very fine on charging times - what about 5 years later when the battery bank is losing its capacity and nothing is working as efficiently?

Is there a standard for fast charging systems for electric cars? Will the Tesla fast charging system work with Hyundai Iconiq? Think of this like the standard for fuel filling points on cars, an unleaded pump is a specific size, a diesel pump is a specific size, its a universal standard across all car manufacturers so you can fill it with fuel, does this standard exist for the charging points on electric cars? Do they all have to charge at X Voltage at Y amps? Does the connector have to have identical pin position and same connector as each other or is it all proprietary thats different for every manufacturer?

Now the other problem, its $60K, $60K buys you a much nicer regular car than a Hyundai Iconiq.

We've had electric motors powering transportation for over 100 years - trams and trains but trams have the benefit of that pantograph on the top of it following around the power grid up top, trains have a few big diesel engines which just charge battery banks/electric motors.

I'd say a smaller scale variant of this is a good step towards a full electric vehicle, petrol engine rather than diesel, which just charges the battery bank to keep the electric motors powered - exactly the Holden Volt:

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-rev...g-term-2-12819

https://www.drive.com.au/used-car-re...0161011-grzna0

The problem was this is probably a little ahead of its time and it was a sales flop, it was $60K (what was an SS Commodore worth at the time, 2014)

$60K bought you a Holden Volt back in 2014 that no one bought, $60K buys you a Hyundai Iconiq that no one will buy.

The biggest stumbling block for electric cars is energy density of their storage systems, the next for us in Australia is power infrastructure.

Unless you want to have electric cars with pantograph setups on them and we can follow Melbourne's trams around everywhere



Whats your opinions?