EV conversions

[monkie]

3 hours ago, Snagger said:

One big reason to now doubt their practicality, in one word: Switzerland.  If they, as one of the more ardent environmentally sensitive countries, can propose bans on charging EVs, then it will be easy for other governments to follow suit.

I don't know if it follows that if Switzerland do something then it necessarily makes it easy for other governments to follow suit? From what I know of Switzerland from just visiting a few times is they seem to be more strict on what you can and can't do which is generally accepted by the citizens, more so than would be in the UK. 

I am broadly in favour of EVs and think they are a good thing,  however for a long time I have questioned if there is enough resilience in our grid to cope with a mass change from ICE to EV. I'm not convinced there has been enough thought into long term green energy production that truly gets us away from burning gas. I don't accept many arguments against nuclear; one being the plants take a long time build before they come on line - surely that is an argument to actually hurry up and start building more rather than add even more delay by dithering. 

It is a serious concern that IF there is not the capacity in the grid then people would have difficulty to cook meals or heat their homes unless charging of EVs is somehow managed. 

[jeremy996]

Just got my copy of LRM in the post. Rather limp article about the Munro, implying it was a Grenadier competitor and taking advantage of JLR nor being able to copywrite the look of the old Defender. if you are going to rehash a press release, at least read the whole thing.

In better news, Autocar have two articles touching on the Munro, https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/business-government-and-legislation/can-scotland-re-establish-its-automotive-industry and https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/munro-mk1-ev-defender-rival-be-revealed-next-week

[Nonimouse]

1 hour ago, jeremy996 said:

Just got my copy of LRM in the post. Rather limp article about the Munro, implying it was a Grenadier competitor and taking advantage of JLR nor being able to copywrite the look of the old Defender. if you are going to rehash a press release, at least read the whole thing.

In better news, Autocar have two articles touching on the Munro, https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/business-government-and-legislation/can-scotland-re-establish-its-automotive-industry and https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/munro-mk1-ev-defender-rival-be-revealed-next-week

LRM's new editior will be taking over very soon. He actually knows about writing and editing

[Snagger]

Who is that?

[reb78]

25 minutes ago, Nonimouse said:

LRM's new editior will be taking over very soon. He actually knows about writing and editing

Does he know about grammar? I gave up with the magazine years ago as no-one who wrote or edited it seemed to have a clue about how to make it readable!

[jeremy996]

Some more in Autocar about the Munro; https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/munro-mk1-electric-ineos-grenadier-rival-375bhp 

I'm not sure about the looks; I love the look of the Ibex but either the photography is awful or someone has bashed it with the ugly stick.

STOP PRESS: looked at the Munro website, that particular vehicle has been uglified

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by jeremy996
Add video

[Nonimouse]

15 hours ago, Snagger said:

Who is that?

Martin Domney from LROi. Excellent technical knowledge and a very keen classic car/land rover owner/enthusiast

[Snagger]

I haven’t picked up LRO in years as I didn’t like the over-commercialised nature and quite a few of their team wrote in a way that I didn’t enjoy, but I’m not familiar with his work.  Fingers crossed - I occasionally buy LRM despite it costing £10 per copy here and being a month behind.  It could do with a few changes, but I found it more engaging.  I just ended my CLR subscription.  It focused on the vehicles I interested in, but was a little light on the technical and as was too dry for me - it seemed more into the clubs and camping in cold, windy parts of the UK.

[Nonimouse]

21 minutes ago, Snagger said:

I haven’t picked up LRO in years as I didn’t like the over-commercialised nature and quite a few of their team wrote in a way that I didn’t enjoy, but I’m not familiar with his work.  Fingers crossed - I occasionally buy LRM despite it costing £10 per copy here and being a month behind.  It could do with a few changes, but I found it more engaging.  I just ended my CLR subscription.  It focused on the vehicles I interested in, but was a little light on the technical and as was too dry for me - it seemed more into the clubs and camping in cold, windy parts of the UK.

I get LRO as a free sub. I like some of the scribes, but others are just same old , same old

I rarely look at LRM, although it was my favourite mag as a scribe. SInce the present Editor took over, it's gone down hill in a big way. I don't think it's even on the ABC list

CLR is just John Carrolls personal blog. It can be very boring and low in technical value

I do get TOR as a free sub. but it generally stays in it's wrapper, then a firnds teenage son takes it away. 

It's a very sad state of affairs really. But Martin is a time served LR mechanic, as well as having a skill with words. Nice bloke

[Daan]

Interesting that the LRO spanner guy got the top job at LRM!

Anyway, back to the Munro, it runs disco 2 axles by the looks of it, I wonder how they get hold of them, if they want to build 5000 per year? I cannot see Land rover assisting them in bulding a competitor of sorts, especially after Ineos was pretty much shown the door asking for defender rights.

Before it comes to the 5K per annum, I'd say a nose job is in order. Just make it looks like Mikes ibex, and it will be fine!

Daan

[Gazzar]

What's the hardest part of an axle to manufacture? 

[miketomcat]

I believe foers bought direct from land rover at one point so maybe they have an existing deal. Assuming gkn made the d2 axle you could buy direct from them granted you'd need to buy 1k at a time. I suppose it depends on who designed them gkn or land rover.

Mike

[Nonimouse]

9 hours ago, Daan said:

Interesting that the LRO spanner guy got the top job at LRM!

 

Daan

Last weekend, I was marshalling on a BAMA 'excercise'. Martin was there, as was Neil Waterson, Editor of LROi (he was CoC). What was good to see is that they are both friends, and there is no issue at Martin's move. Neil is a genuine enthusias, and very knowledgable. However he's been 'over managed' by senior management. Hence the reason some of the contributors are maybe not the best...

 

Enough said, my apologies for yet another thread divergence

[Nonimouse]

1 hour ago, miketomcat said:

I believe foers bought direct from land rover at one point so maybe they have an existing deal. Assuming gkn made the d2 axle you could buy direct from them granted you'd need to buy 1k at a time. I suppose it depends on who designed them gkn or land rover.

Mike

I would say that's about the nail on the head, Mike. Land Rover had them made by someone else. I expect they were designed out of house and there was a production deal.

[FridgeFreezer]

6 hours ago, Nonimouse said:

I would say that's about the nail on the head, Mike. Land Rover had them made by someone else. I expect they were designed out of house and there was a production deal.

When we did the factory tour the bare chassis rolling in had GKN labels on them, LR are just assembling stuff like everyone else.

[Nonimouse]

1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

When we did the factory tour the bare chassis rolling in had GKN labels on them, LR are just assembling stuff like everyone else.

It's a low volume manufacturer - most efficient way is to buy in, thus throwing liability and production costs to someone else

[Snagger]

I read Gary Pusey’s article in the Jan23 LRM edition.  It seems that even if only the UK was to electrify all vehicles, there isn’t enough global production of the various metals to do it, let alone convert or replace the world fleet.  It also stated that another 225,000 power stations would be needed in addition to existing capacity.  The article portrays the replacement of the bulk of ICE vehicles as impossible.  Interesting if even remotely accurate.

It is curious that the article was printed the very month after a multi-page feature on London Electric Cars and their converted 90.  Seems a little schizophrenic of the magazine to hype EV conversions in one edition, then trash them in the next…

[Gazzar]

I suspect that there isn't enough metal in production to replace the dinosaur powered existing fleet.

There are statistics, and statistics.

My view on all this is that the fossil fuels are too valuable as raw materials to be wasted on energy production. 

So we need alternatives, EV and electric being only one of them.

I really like the carbon capture synthetic fuel idea, windmill powered. But it's just one of many options.

[monkie]

A sustainable power dense production of electricity is we desperately need to feed our energy demands as we switch from burning fuels to using electricity, but somehow can't figure it out properly.

I was interested to see that when we recently had the cold snap and power demand was up, our wind and solar was not able to contribute much. 

 

[FridgeFreezer]

1 hour ago, monkie said:

I was interested to see that when we recently had the cold snap and power demand was up, our wind and solar was not able to contribute much. 

But...

6 hours ago, Gazzar said:

There are statistics, and statistics.

We had a very cold but also very still and overcast period, which is an unfortunate combination - but as this stuff moves on there's huge work going into storage technologies and the like.

Ultimately people can grumble all they like but EV's becoming the dominant form for cars looks pretty inevitable - and they will solve all of these "impossible" problems that mean it can't possibly work.

Same thing with renewables - they're inevitable, they're getting better and cheaper all the time, and the problems are being solved at pace & scale.

In the meantime, no-one's coming for your old ICE car if you're dead set on keeping it, because 99% of the population don't care if their car runs on oil or ribena as long as it gets them from A to B, and once that 99% have cycled through the remaining stock of ICE euroboxes and crossover-SUV's and are on to EV's no-one is going to care about a few folks running "classic" cars on fossil fuels any more than they care about steam enthusiasts burning coal in their traction engines.

[monkie]

47 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

We had a very cold but also very still and overcast period, which is an unfortunate combination - but as this stuff moves on there's huge work going into storage technologies and the like.

Demand is ever increasing, switching from ICE to EV (as I am) will increase demand on the grid. To store it, you need to generate it. I don't think wind and solar is a long term answer to relied upon as we transition away from coal, oil and gas. Storage can help flatten out peaks in demand, it won't cope for a few days of still and low light conditions. 

 

I think you have hit the nail on the head about most people (particularly younger people who will be new drivers) not really caring about if a car is EV or ICE. 

Those of us with diesel land rovers will become Fred Dibnah types of characters. 

[Snagger]

If Pusey’s article is right, then second hand cars are going to become much more valuable.  There just isn’t enough production of the metals to have a large EV market, so new car sales look like they will drop steeply.  It wasn’t just the battery metals that were mentioned, but neodymium and other metals used in motors.  So, that will also affect HFC car production.  Hard to see a way around it.  The UK ban on new ICE sales in 2030 and EU in 2035 might get pushed back just to keep the automotive industry going, but without that, production will be cut to a fraction of current numbers, assuming the article stats are credible.

[sean f]

A lot of this will come down to economics, currently there is an undeniable shortage of supply (and potential reserves) of various products required for batteries or motors, this will mean they get more expensive (demand and supply economics), once the price goes up it will be financially worthwhile to invest in ways around it, either more actively finding new sources, better ways of extracting them or finding alternatives, some of these won't end up working long term, others will. I work in oil drilling, there were predictions in the 70's North Sea oil would only last 25 years, its still going long after that, some of this was finding more but a lot was technology, oil fields drilled 30 years ago but written off as to difficult to drill are now being drilled and produced, from my side of this, thin twisted reservoirs used to be unviable, but now we are drilling and turning the well accurately enough to put enough hole in the reservoir to make them viable. To give some idea of current technology I drilled a well earlier in the year and at the end was just over 2ft from the planned position, to envision this, bury a car in the ground in any orientation and we can drill a hole 4 miles long and turn the path to line up and drill through it length ways, 20 years ago that just wasn't possible, now we do it regularly. Similar improvement will come about with required materials for EV vehicles, but on what time line I have no idea, its not likely to be quick.   

At the moment most EV cars are roughly  150-200% more expensive to buy than a similar new ICE model so it takes a bit of work for them to be viable for a lot of people, sure this will change as some of the products are mass produced and become cheaper or alternative systems of some sort are invented. National grid infrastructure is not currently up to providing the power to charge a nations worth of EV's, again it can be fixed but will require some serious money and investments in generation and cable running. How this is got into vehicles when no off street parking is available will require even more investment, again nothing that can't be fixed if enough money is thrown at it.

For renewable electricity generation to upscale and start being a realistic alternative to traditional generated power, some form of mass energy storage will be required, if I knew what form that is going to take I would be investing and making lots of money, unfortunately I don't, again economics will likely be the driver to investing and coming up with something. The basic idea is not new, I am sure I have read about a project somewhere where from quite a few years ago they pump water up to a reservoir during low demand and then let it back down via a turbine during the peak demands.

[landroversforever]

42 minutes ago, sean f said:

To give some idea of current technology I drilled a well earlier in the year and at the end was just over 2ft from the planned position, to envision this, bury a car in the ground in any orientation and we can drill a hole 4 miles long and turn the path to line up and drill through it length ways, 20 years ago that just wasn't possible, now we do it regularly.

How do you know where the end of it is at a given time? And which way it’s pointing? 

[monkie]

1 hour ago, sean f said:

The basic idea is not new, I am sure I have read about a project somewhere where from quite a few years ago they pump water up to a reservoir during low demand and then let it back down via a turbine during the peak demands.

It is a great idea, we already do this in the UK and it is shown in the gridwatch data as pumped storage.