Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms What next Morgan?

Rob the production of hydrogen is very power intensive for the quantities need to fuel cars. Therefore there will be extra pollution from power stations that will be in the countryside.
you are transporting the pollution out of the busy towns into the country just a different place to dump the pollution.

With regards to your point on renewables due to their on / off delivery capacity, no solar at night, no wind power when not windy. To make it worthwhile for companies to run Nuclear or hydrocarbon stations you have to use them during the day and turn off the renewables at times as the other power station owners would close down the hydrocarbon and nuclear stations as the could not cover running costs. They would also no replace ageing stations as the need replace.

There is no real plan to increase renewables that much even if that was possible. What is the cost and when are these large energy storage plant due to be built.

A fully detailed explanation would be nice from you. I'm sure you have a link to that please post.

My thoughts were not electric or hydrogen as the big manufacturers are still playing around without it becoming mainstream. I don't think Morgan would be the natural alternative to a Tesla, Leaf or Prius.
I was thinking more immediate. If Morgan has sold all the eights announcing the future seems good business sense. Likewise when the engines in the classic range become unavailable and the last stock is sold in special editions potential buyers would like to know whether there is something worth waiting for.
This was the case with me when I heard of the new 4 seater.
The 18month to 2 year wait means you are ordering the future so you should have some idea as to what you are likely to get

My guess would be that one thing is certain. The next Morgan will not be diesel powered

I've long predicted that the Aero chassis will continue with a BMW B56 3.0L straight 6 as the Aero 6, the Roadster will probably die. The changes to the front suspension to the Aero chassis were not cheap, but removing the inboard suspension makes enough space for a straight 6. It produces 355 bhp.

For some markets there could be a version using the 2.0L B48, which can go up to 255bhp, as an Aero 4. The B48 is essentially 4 cylinders from the B56.

The +4 will also get the B58 in a lower power version, 180 bhp.

The the 4/4 could get the 1600cc B13 with 140bhp.

This would allow Morgan to use a common electrical system and may other BMW components. It would make an auto box option possible for all the cars.

This evolution will take MMC 5 to 7 years to complete, in my view.

It would also massively lower the CO2 output across the product range and improve mpg. The BMW motors are all hybrid capable, so a hybrid Aero is also possible.

Nearly right. Nuclear power stations have to run full bore (or very nearly so) all the time, 24/7. You can't turn them up or down. For this reason they are relied on to support the demand that's always present, no matter what time of day. This is called Base Load, and it's one reason why EVs charging overnight hold no great problems as far as the National Grid is concerned as all you are doing is making better use of the base load distribution.

When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, renewables produce very cheap power that can be used to fill in the peaks of demand. They are very easy to turn off as you can feather the blades of the turbines when you don't need the power or just spill the output from the solar panels.

Their big problem of course is that you can't turn them on at will if there isn't any wind or sun. A good geographical spread of them helps of course but that's why we still need gas as it's especially turn off and on-able. Coal stations are also very flexible, but of course very dirty in comparison.

That's why strategy is currently ⅓ Nukes, ⅓ Renewables, and ⅓ gas. On the wholesale markets it's the hydrocarbon stations that are the price makers (ie they will only run when the price is right) whereas Nukes and Renewables are price takers (ie they will run as much as they can, hoping to get enough income to cover their costs).

This is why the price of electricity is almost entirely dependent on the wholesale price of gas.

Back to Hydrogen production - if you put a hydrogen cracking plant next to a Nuclear power station, it would actually be very attractive from an energy strategy point of view, as it would enable the power station to become more flexible - it could produce cartloads of power when needed, and when not you just divert it into hydrogen production.

What's stopping this? 2 things: firstly hydrogen doesn't hold out the promise it used to dues to energy density and transport issues, and secondly battery technology is advancing extremely fast in terms of capacity, lifespan and recyclability. That's why the investors are backing battery rather than hydrogen. They could be wrong, and although markets can go horribly wrong in the short term (tulip bulbs) they very rarely do over decades. Batteries are wher it's at as far as they are concerned.

I still think the obvious thing for MMC to be doing at the moment is to put a well-proven hybrid drive train into an aero chassis. It's what they've been given money to do by the Government, and of course BMW have a couple of well-proven versions.

If I was a betting man I'd be putting money on an i8 drivetrain (or variant of it) in an Aero being announced at the 2019 Geneva show.

It seems a shame to me that nobody can just wait in anticipation for the next model to be announced - we have had so many wrong guesses on here since 2009 when I joined the community ..

Just like the kids of today they can't wait for anything anymore either.

John Wells stated very clearly at Geneva that the waiting list was now 6 months only, so where's the rush

Enjoy the IC while you can it's days seem numbered.

Shell already have hydrogen fuel stations in the UK , Germany and California

see this article and animation

https://youtu.be/J-AYYmVSIx4

And here you will see a hydrogen car filling up and driving off (scroll to end of the video)

https://youtu.be/PXt3EcbYEKY

And what would all those weekend Tinkerers do with their spare time if a Morgan became as reliable as a Toyota !!

Morgan certainly couldn't keep up with the number of vehicle recalls that Toyota have had - they all do that sir saves MMC a lot of money every year.