Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) A good explanation and arguement

I will steal that Although only two cars and four bikes now....

Our driving patterns are mainly local with some slightly longer distances up to 60miles each way. A full EV would be ok as the range of most is easily enough for that. Longer distances tend to in the Morgan for events, organised trips and days out with good mileages. I would be more than happy to go EV when the price drops from the current higher levels. Get rid of the stupidly added on unnecessary tech, laziness inducing stuff and I’m in.
Ev with charge limits + extra weight + added power using tech = why?
Planning for a longer journey is no big deal with charging points pre planned in, provided they are available when you get there.
I see a similar scenario to solar energy tariff schemes too. Early days with good incentives (road tax, ULEZ allowances for example). Later reduction of these as the tax revenue from ICE vehicles drops.
We have a Sportage as it meets our needs for lifestyle of passengers ( grandchildren + dog) , load carrying. I like the look of an eNero, marginally smaller but good anyway. Full EV rather than hybrid variant. As a private buyer the buying cost ( outright not PCP etc ) is mid/ upper £30k. A charging dock would be needed ( Gov grant of about £400 I believe would help there).
I drove a hybrid courtesy car last month. Impressive acceleration on hard kick down! Too much tech/gadgets that I wouldn’t use though. Bloody hell who needs electric seat adjustment for a start. Lazy gits need not reply! Distracting displays on the touchscreen. Electric parking brake ( no handbrake turns, then ). What I found distracting initially was the display for battery capacity. There was a temptation to drive to maintain/ increase it. I just want a basic charge remaining gauge to compare with an ICE fuel gauge. The nearest charging point finder on the satnav was good. I suppose I would learn the characteristics of the car eventually but initially I would need test drives to learn.

one at a time...
You are not a nightmare as you can`t drive them machines in parallel.

Fully agree with the public transport topics.
I don`t agree with the automated pods. Think the will have e great effect as using 50 seater buses does not make sense a 24/7.
All that public traffic should be free (tax based) to prevent individual cars in cities.

Although my garage is packed as well I do my city mobility biking as I want to be mobile;-)

An interesting article. It would seem that one or two have not read the bit about centralised Hydrogen production.

This firm ITM Power manufacture self contained electrolysis systems.

And these folks are using it to run buses - Aberdeen Buses

There are also pilot rail projects already running in Germany and Austria.

Palm Springs CA have a fleet of hydrogen buses (had them for years) .... I believe the hydrogen is made with electricity from the wind farms north of the town .... also a pretty much ideal place for solar power.

K

If the Hydrogen is produced from surplus renewable energy then the efficiency argument becomes irrelevant.

AIUI, there is research going into using Hydrogen as the storage medium for surplus UK wind generated electricity.

I remember a pilot project on Shetland some years ago about using a dedicated wind turbine to produce hydrogen ... to me it always made more sense than batteries.

Few years ago I stopped off during a road trip at a huge solar array somewhere in the desert in Arizona .... got chatting to a tech through the fence ...he said they split off hydrogen with some of the daytime output and used it in gas turbine generators so as to give at least some output at night.

K

Large scale coastal power generation means seawater as well for electrolysis. Power plus raw material in the same place.
Milford Haven.....
Only one refinery there after several shut down. You could see supertankers headed there past Lundy from a hilltop near us on clear days. Big buggers!
It has a history of large scale oil refining so experience of logistics and production are there.
The port is already the main importer of gas. Tankers come in, discharge the gas and it is piped underground. The pipeline was laid several years ago. When I visited the PortAuthority control centre there over 30% of the UK gas was coming through.
There are regular tanker trains from there now. Mind you one diesel tanker train derailed last year near Llangennech. It’s the only incident I can remember though. I think it was caused by old rolling stock failures. If hydrogen were the cargo then it is likely new compatible rolling stock would be needed and track refurb.

IIRC there was a study of possibly injecting a percentage of manufactured Hydrogen into the domestic natural gas network to eke it out

There's lots of work going on in this area, have a read of the National Grid's Future Grid strategy:

https://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/gas...ation/transmission-innovation/futuregrid