Motoring and the Environment

[richardfrost]

So, I don't want to spark a new debate on electric vehicles and their various variants.

I wondered what people think about whether keeping current vehicles on the road for extreme (greater than 15 years) lifetimes is actually more environmentally sound than creating a myriad new vehicles in more environmentally sound designs.

It seems intuitively right to me that keeping an 'old banger' on the road, provided it is safe, efficiently tuned and not pushing out clouds of fumes, is much more sound than scrapping said vehicles and manufacturing brand new ones in their place.

I firmly believe my 15 year old Jazz is overall more environmentally sound a proposition than my relatively new hybrid Rav4 or a brand new fully electric vehicle. It pushes out relatively low amounts of CO2, does around 50mpg and costs very little in terms of resources, stuff, to keep it going. My super complicated RAV4 does around 44mpg but has so far needed more spare parts in the two years I have had it than the Jazz in the 6 years I have had that.

Whatever motive technology is used for new vehicles, there should be a massive emphasis on simplicity, easy to fix, modular repairs, DIY repairs and upgrades, standardised battery packs etc..

None of this can be expected to arise from the competitive marketplace, so it would need to come from government directives and incentives, much as California has driven automotive efficiency standards in recent decades.

The problem is a lot of this would take the differentials out of motoring, making it difficult to market on exciting features. The emphasis would be on environmentally sound features and lower motoring costs. This might not appeal to the baby boomer generation but it should actually be massively appealing to the Generation Z who will soon become the major market for cars.

What do you think?

[guest7494]

So, I don't want to spark a new debate on electric vehicles and their various variants.

I wondered what people think about whether keeping current vehicles on the road for extreme (greater than 15 years) lifetimes is actually more environmentally sound than creating a myriad new vehicles in more environmentally sound designs.

It seems intuitively right to me that keeping an 'old banger' on the road, provided it is safe, efficiently tuned and not pushing out clouds of fumes, is much more sound than scrapping said vehicles and manufacturing brand new ones in their place.

I firmly believe my 15 year old Jazz is overall more environmentally sound a proposition than my relatively new hybrid Rav4 or a brand new fully electric vehicle. It pushes out relatively low amounts of CO2, does around 50mpg and costs very little in terms of resources, stuff, to keep it going. My super complicated RAV4 does around 44mpg but has so far needed more spare parts in the two years I have had it than the Jazz in the 6 years I have had that.

Whatever motive technology is used for new vehicles, there should be a massive emphasis on simplicity, easy to fix, modular repairs, DIY repairs and upgrades, standardised battery packs etc..

None of this can be expected to arise from the competitive marketplace, so it would need to come from government directives and incentives, much as California has driven automotive efficiency standards in recent decades.

The problem is a lot of this would take the differentials out of motoring, making it difficult to market on exciting features. The emphasis would be on environmentally sound features and lower motoring costs. This might not appeal to the baby boomer generation but it should actually be massively appealing to the Generation Z who will soon become the major market for cars.

What do you think?

Absolutely agree, my sentiments entirely,
 and thanks for recommending winter/all weather tyres on front of my Lovely and friendly Honda Jazz seems a sensible option I shall look into that.

[peteo48]

Something I've mulled over (I should get out more ) several times. You can go on line and, even if you filter out the obviously duff sites, there is a heated argument out there. One thing that seems to be an issue is differing methods in assessing the emissions incurred in making a car and that doesn't help the decision making process.

I've read a couple of books by Mike Berners Lee (brother of Tim) and he's firmly of the view that if you have a modestly sized petrol car you should look after it and get as much useful life out of it as possible. Pre Euro 6 diesels a different matter - get rid especially if you do a lot of town work because of the air quality issues rather than CO2. When the time does come to replace, then you can consider an EV but junking 30 million viable UK cars overnight and building 30 million EVs to replace them (even if it was practical and it isn't) would be an environmental catastrophe.

I quite fancy an EV. I'm concerned about the environment but sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and a big part of why I fancy an EV is because it is a gadget, something different. On one forum I got what I felt was a very sensible answer from an EV owner. He said that taking into account my low mileage, simply going to a second hand EV on environmental grounds didn't even come close to making sense. My Jazz would remain on the road with a new owner, possibly doing more than the 3,000 miles per annum I do, the EV I bought would further diminish the relatively low stock of EVs on the used market and prevent a higher mileage motorist from buying it. He came close to convincing me that getting rid of the Jazz would achieve diddly squat in environmental terms.

I think he's right.

[madasafish]

We run a16 year old Toyota Yaris diesel...It runs like new.. due to annnual maintenance whther needed or not..(Oil and oil filter)
I would say it depends on reliability.

IF the car keeps running wiithout MAJOR overhauls, then yes it will be far more environmentally friendly..(See Cuba with 1950s US cars). But if it keeps requiring overhauls and is used for a lot of miles /year then emissions will be much higher than a later car...So if comparing say a 1980s Mercedes Benz Dieslelaveraging at best 33mpg and doing ovr 10k miles a year  - and with zero emissions equipment - no catalyst even - with a modern one...you are actively posisoning people...and in cities unacceptable.. Especially true for buses and trucks..

[culzean]

Saw a program today where they are planning to plow around disturbing heaven knows what creatures for the nodules that lie on the seabed that are high in metals like cobalt which is needed for EV in large quantities.  I am beginning to think that as long as humans continue to treat the planet like their own personal property and 'want it all, and then some' as their entitlement then no technology is really green at all.  We are gonna have to learn to live within what the planet can sustainably supply,  and at the moment we are using resources up as if there is no tomorrow - and pretty soon there won't be.....

The scrappage schemes for ICE cars to encourage people to get EV makes me think of the government boiler scheme years ago,  scrapping older gas boilers that last for ever and are maybe 70% efficient for newer high-tech condensing boilers 85% efficient that lasted 5 years before they were scrap and cost £2500 to £3000 to replace ( you can now get these boilers with a 10 year guarantee if you can get along without one of your arms and legs ).  I think that environmental issues go by the wayside when governments seem to want to keep economy growing ( bear in mind a lot of these boilers are imported from Germany though ) and the things that they promote today will be seen as folly in the future ( Diesel cars anyone ).  Sure you can get a Hive thermostat and smart boiler now that will save you a few % on heating, but that will cost you £100's of pounds compared to £20 for a decent accurate digital thermostat  that prevents wasteful overshooting on room heating. We have long passed the point of diminishing returns for your money,  where the cost benefit ratio no longer even remotely makes sense,  and in most cases is negative..

[nigelr]

Agree absolutely, and studies have shown that the embodied emissions of a car typically rival the exhaust pipe emissions over its entire lifetime. Indeed, for each mile driven, the emissions from the manufacture of a top-of-the-range car that ends up being scrapped after 100,000 miles may be as much as four times higher than the tailpipe emissions of a typical small car, like our Jazzes, for example. So, keeping a car on the road is a good thing. If you make a car last to 200,000 miles rather than 100,000, then the emissions for each mile the car does in its lifetime may drop by as much as 50%, as a result of getting more distance out of the initial manufacturing emissions.

[John Ratsey]

Don't overlook that a well-maintained vehicle replaced by a new one will then go on to replace something older, and so on down the line so that the worst maintained and most polluting vehicles end up in the scrap yard (look up your previous vehicles in the MOT checker to see how far they went before being scrapped). Incentives such as low emissions zones should help get the worst polluting vehicles off the road although there may be a need to use updated real-life emissions data and not the manufacturers claims.

However, as already noted, the larger vehicles which are almost invariably diesel-powered produce a big share of the undesirable emissions. And in between the cars and those big vehicles are innumerable vans which are also invariably diesel-powered. Many of these (eg the local tradespeople) don't clock up big daily miles and would be well-suited to EV technology. Royal Mail has made a small step in the right direction https://www.smmt.co.uk/2019/07/royal-mail-delivers-on-green-ambitions-with-new-electric-vans/.

However, the quickest win with vehicle emissions would be to lower speed limits on roads (eg 60 mph max on motorways and 50 mph max elsewhere). We know that the lower speed gives a substantial improvement in fuel economy and that means fewer nasties from the exhaust pipe. However, I doubt if the politicians will have the courage to embrace this idea. The next win would be to encourage vehicles to travel less. Road pricing would help with this but is also politically a hot potato. I personally believe that houses should be built where the jobs are (or vice-versa) to minimise commuting and lorries should pay a lot more to use the roads (they are the main cause of damage). Businesses would then be encouraged to rethink their supply chains where currently items made at A get taken to a warehouse at B then onto a distribution centre at C for final delivery back to A. Such a system only works because transport is too cheap. And I'd cut the design speed of HS2 down to 140 mph so that the trains would use a lot less energy (and the railway would be a lot cheaper to build) or, preferably, spend the money on making the rest of the railway network more reliable.

Rant over (for now)!

[richardfrost]

And I'd cut the design speed of HS2 down to 140 mph so that the trains would use a lot less energy (and the railway would be a lot cheaper to build) or, preferably, spend the money on making the rest of the railway network more reliable.

I was with you right up to here. The whole point of HS2 is to go faster than 140mph. The existing network can support speeds up to that. There would be zero point building HS2 and restricting its speed. However, I kind of agree with you because in my opinion HS2 as a proposal is pointless. The top speed is only reached for short periods because of the number of stations it has to go to and the acceleration/deceleration times involved.

Right now, I travel to London from Leeds a few times a year and the earliest train I can get gets me to London Kings Cross around 9am, just as the rush hour is dying down. HS2 would save 20 minutes on that journey. All that money for 20 minutes. And those 20 minutes would be spent queuing and waiting for taxis or underground trains in the rush hour. Overall it might save me 5 minutes off my end to end journey. For me, it is an entirely pointless proposition.

In the North of England, there are as many East/West journeys going on as North/South, and here the train is a dreadful proposition right now, pushing all sorts of vehicles onto the road. The M62 is largely a freight corridor from Liverpool to Hull. If we need a new train line, it is an East/West one mirroring the M62, allowing for freight and commuter travel. The only significant freight at the moment on this line is the wood pellets coming in from the USA and heading to Drax.

[guest4871]

Extremely well stated.

I agree 101% with everything you have said.

HS2, like all railways into London, will draw folk out of the regions into London (not the other way round) where the resident population has already grown by 30% (2 million people) in about 20 years. Travelling on the Tube in London in rush hour is now a very very bad experience.

[Jocko]

Public transport is too expensive in the UK. My step-daughter bought a 4 week rail ticket from Falkirk to Glasgow and it cost her £250. She has lived and worked in Wellington, Hong Kong, and Santiago (Chile) and in all these cities public transport is cheap and very usable.

[peteo48]

That's definitely true. The pricing is all over the place as well. From my house to the centre of Warrington is £3-50 on the bus. It's no more than 2 miles. 2 people would be better off with a taxi. I'm OK because I have a bus pass.

On the other hand, using a senior railcard I can do the 15 miles to Manchester and back, off peak for £5 from my local station (10 minutes walk away).

Finally, from where we live to the centre of Warrington is 90 pence on the train as opposed to £3-50 on the bus as above.

We need an integrated public transport system in the UK, especially in urban areas.

[culzean]

I thought that HS2 only went from London Euston to Birmingham - with no stops between, which means it would have zero benefit for anyone except London and Brum. It is another 'ego' project like useless and very expensive Dome. It seems that HS2 is a lot more expensive and no more useful - they could spend a fraction of the money HS2 will cost upgrading other lines and rolling stock lengthening platforms and make the life of millions of everyday commuters a lot better, rather than just pandering to the few that want to save a few minutes getting from London to Brum.

The justification for carrying on with these useless projects is that so much money has already been spent, but a lot of land and houses have been bought which could be sold off and recoup a lot of it,  as for the engineering work, surely that can be used to improve other lines.  makes more sense to build normal 125mph lines if an increase in capacity is the aim.  UK is not big enough to warrant high speed rail.  The whole HS2 thing was an EU project  anyway, to make it easier for the EU bigwigs to inspect their superstate,  EU plans as far back as 1995 and earlier show the routes,  with even the 'Y' split to Manchester and Leeds.

Every report i have read says HS2 will not add to freight capacity - so where are the benefits to business except to chop a few minutes off an already fast passenger rail journey... what an absolute and obscene waste of money - it will end up costing £200billion and benefit to taxpayer will be 10 pence for every £1 spent at best...

http://www.theeuroprobe.org/2015-088-hs2-controlled-by-eu-not-our-gov/

[madasafish]

The trouble with HS2 is that teh project costs were deliberatley underestimated at the start - By Half..  Otherwise it would not have been started.

And the latest report has the Chairman of the reviewing Group saying one thing - he's in favour. And teh Deputy Chairman says teh opposite - he is a sceptic..

On that basis, I would say they are all liars, it will oevrrun even more. And no more money should be spent. Period..

[John Ratsey]

And the latest report has the Chairman of the reviewing Group saying one thing - he's in favour. And teh Deputy Chairman says teh opposite - he is a sceptic..

I'd trust the latter more - the review chairman was previously HS2 chairman so, as someone somewhere previously commented, putting him in charge of the review is a bit like asking a student to mark their own exam paper.