Is this the end of diesel cars?

A court in Leipzig, Germany, has today (27th February 2018) ruled that German cities will be permitted to ban diesel vehicles.  The ban will likely only affect the most heavily polluting vehicles and won't happen overnight, 2025 being a year mentioned, but even that is just seven years away, well within the sort of time period that'll make current diesel owners nervous and potential new buyers a whole lot more interested in petrol or, hopefully, electric vehicles.

Although this is just Germany, and no bans yet exist, it's not hard to see the writing on the wall for diesels all over Europe and other parts of the world.  VWs "dieselgate" was followed by report after report finding new problems with these engines at a time when even without such reports, the rise of EV model availability would have been worrying to diesel builders, so it's hard to see how things can get any better following this ruling.

For buyers, it's an interesting time.  I took my Mercedes (petrol) in for a service last week and spent some time browsing the forecourt looking for EV or hybrid models.  I didn't find any, but what I did see was that all but two of the 30 or so cars visible were diesels.  It's hard to imagine that this is a result of demand, given the news over the past year or so, it seems much more likely this is Mercedes desperately trying to shift diesel stock.  So, if you're not worried about a ban, I'd expect to see some substantial deals available very soon.

For owners, it's an interesting time, but more in the sense of the old Chinese curse.  If you currently drive a diesel, especially if you live and/or work in a major European city, this ruling may well feel like unwelcome news from your doctor.  It will, of course, be especially galling to those that were encouraged to buy diesels by their government when not so long ago we were told they were better for the environment.  It'll be interesting to see what happens to the second-hand (sorry, "pre-owned") market after today.

Of course, as with all such news, we're really not looking at diesel cars vanishing from our streets by this time next Wednesday, they'll still be pumping out their particulates all over our countries for at least a couple of decades, but that writing on the wall has just got quite a lot bigger, and even the most ardent diesel fan must be starting to wonder...

Drone Charging? Cute, but pointless

A Korean product designer, Yeop Baek, has come up with a neat idea for solving the "problem" of EVs running out of juice in the middle of nowhere.  The "volt drone"

Cool huh?  Your beloved Chevy Bolt has crawled to a halt in the middle of a desert somewhere, but fear not, a quick tap at an app on your phone will call this flying battery out to your location.  When it lands you pop in the charging lead and before you can blink, you're off on your way.

Sounds great, but there are a few tiny problems with the concept.

Capacity
The article talks about "most remote areas", so let's assume you need at least a 50 mile top-up of your battery.  The original Nissan Leaf 24kWh battery pack, which gave the car just about a 100 mile range with a following wind, weighed 218kg.  That's two big men.  So, let's say the battery pack can get away with being "just" 100kg, that's still a huge weight for a drone.  Such a payload will need a correspondingly large lifting capability and power for the drone itself.  To put things in perspective, when drone nerds talk about a "heavy lift", they're usually talking about something like this:

This is the Alta UAV used for filming and it has an enormous payload.  It can carry up to 9kg.  Yes, nine.  So for a 100kg battery pack, we'd need something 11 times beefier.  I think we can safely say that the image of the volt drone at the top of the page is not realistic.

Range
This thing is supposed to come out to your car in "remote areas", right?  So how far will it have to fly to find you?  A typical "heavy lift" drone like the Alta above has a flight time of about 20 minutes, so unless you're supposed to fold it up and put it in your boot (or trunk), that's 10 minutes out, 10 minutes back.  I couldn't find any stats on how fast these things might fly, but I doubt it'll get above 60 mph, so that's er... 10 miles.  So, as long as your car runs out of juice within 10 miles of the nearest drone depot, you're set.

Landing
Your car can't move, it's got no battery power.  The drone weighs about 250kg (100kg payload, 150kg structure, power, batteries, etc.).  Unless the charging cable is about 10m long, that drone is going to have to land really close to your charging port, because you're not going to able to move it yourself.

Coverage
Let's be really generous and say that we can have a drone that can carry a decent charging pack, that it can fly a round trip of 200 miles and that it can pinpoint its landing position.  How many drones will you need to provide a decent service in, say, Nevada?  I've no idea, but it'll be a lot.  Hundreds at least.  In one State.  Which brings us onto...

Cost
The Alta 8 in its base configuration costs $17,500.  We need something 11 times bigger, with autonomous control, a 100kg battery pack, and a range of 200 miles.  So let's guess that'll cost $200,000.  Each.

Bases
The drones will have to live somewhere while waiting for their call-up.  These bases will need to have charging facilities for the drone and their battery packs, staff to service them (unless they can be hooked up automatically by some horrendously expensive robot), a building for storage and so on.  That ain't gonna be cheap either.

Let's sum up.  For this idea to get off the ground (sorry), you'd need drones that cost $200k each, and you'd need base depots for the drones in a vast network across the US, with each depot probably having at least two drones.

I may not be thinking clearly, but wouldn't it be a lot simpler and probably quite a bit cheaper, just to build a vast network of stations that charged the cars?

Does Hydrogen Have a Future?

Let me make one thing absolutely clear right from the start.  Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology is incredibly cool.  Even the name is cool - a "fuel cell" sounds like something from Star Trek.  The tech in the cars themselves is an impressive feat of engineering and there are companies who are building really easy to deploy filling station solutions that can literally be dropped off the back of a lorry. So why do I believe hydrogen electric vehicles (HEVs) will lose out to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the long run?

Let's start with the assumption that to beat BEVs, HEVs need to offer a clear advantage to the customer.  That's not a terribly safe assumption as there have been examples in the past of superior technology losing to another that's clearly inferior - the epic battle between Sony's Betamax video tape format vs VHS being the most notable example, but I think it's fair in the case of EVs.  HEVs appear to have just one clear advantage over BEVs, their "refuelling" time.  Refilling an HEV is a very similar process to filling a fossil fuelled car - you pull up at the pump, attach the hose, press a button and a few minutes later you can pay and drive away.

But wait, that's a huge advantage, isn't it?  If you asked people what car they'd rather have, one that refuelled in a few minutes or one that might take an hour or more, aren't they all going to choose the one that does it in minutes?  However, my argument is that this advantage is not as large as it might seem, and here's why.

If you ask the question of current drivers, they will all think about the way they refuel their fossil fuelled car.  Everyone must visit a filling station to refuel, and if you drive a lot, that could be 5 or even 10 times a month.  Most people will probably regularly be in a situation where they're tight for time but are forced to stop to refuel.  So it's easy to see why, if you simply swap those fossil fuelling stops for BEV charging, the hour long wait can seem like an enormous pain.

"Seriously? I'm already late for that meeting and now I've got to wait for an hour for my car to charge?"

"What?  I'm going to have to spend 10 hours a month waiting around for my car to fill up?  Not gonna happen."

The reality is though that BEV charging is very different from fossil refuelling.  Simply put, a BEV can charge anywhere there's a power socket.  They can charge at home, at the office, at the shopping centre, a friend's house, a hotel, even a farm in the middle of nowhere (with the owner's permission!).  This means that for the majority of BEV owners, refuelling is something that happens while they're doing something else.  Many will refuel while they're asleep, while they're working at the office, shopping, etc.  Imagine if your fossil-fuel tank was magically filled to the brim every night.  How often would you need to visit a filling station?  I drive about 15,000 miles a year and I can say with some confidence, for me the answer would be possibly never.  Even if I did have to do so occasionally, the "occasionally" changes the impact of that HEV refuelling advantage.  It's seen as a huge advantage only when you think like a fossil fuel user.  If you think like a BEV owner, it's really no advantage at all.

There are other problems with hydrogen refuelling.  There are people making some great solutions for this, but it's not cheap and it's not easy.  Fitting a BEV charging point at its simplest is no more than wiring. Even a more complex charging station is relatively straightforward compared to supplying a hydrogen station.  So availability is going to be a problem.  If you're an independent filling station looking to provide services for green vehicles, right now which technology are you going to choose to support?  A BEV charging point, capable of providing that service to any of the 80 or so BEVs and PHEVs available to buy today, or a hydrogen station able to service the, er, 2 currently available cars?  At the time of writing, there are 4532 electric charging locations in the UK and they're being fitted at the rate of between 50 and 100 per month.  There are 15, fifteen, hydrogen charging stations.

Availability is key.  Remember the Sony Betamax vs VHS battle?  That was won by VHS pretty much purely because of availability, the Betamax technology was superior by any reasonable measure, but VHS won.

There's more.  Major manufacturers are right now faced with tough decisions about the direction their propulsion units are going to take.  Volvo, just this morning, have announced they intend to sell only EVs or PHEVs from 2019, just two years from now.  Just like the filling station owner, these manufacturers are going to have to choose between BEV and HEV.  It's not practical or financially sensible to produce both a BEV and an HEV (in the longer term) because they require fundamentally different chassis designs (if you're going to make the best BEV or HEV you can, rather than a compromise).  If you were BMW, would you choose HEV or BEV right now, especially when you already have several BEVs and PHEVs on sale?

It's possible HEVs will see a brief period of popularity, but I firmly believe BEVs will end up the winners in this electric race.

Debunking the Long Journey ICE Advantage

When the subject of range comes up in an online EV discussion, at some point one or more pro-ICE poeple will say something along the lines of:

"Ah, but I need to drive 400 miles.  In my ICE I only need to stop for 5 minutes to refuel, in an EV I'd need to stop for an hour.  That's why I won't buy an EV."

I got tired of typing out the same replies, so I thought in this blog post I'd summarise the counter-arguments.

How long does a 400 mile journey take?
I'll stick with 400 miles because it's (currently) comfortably beyond the range of any EV on a single charge (although it probably won't be for long) and because it's not too extreme, even in a small island like the UK.  How long you'll be on the road depends ultimately upon your average speed; it's easy to suggest that where your journey includes a lot of motorway (freeway) miles you'll be barrelling along at 70mph, so 400 miles should take only 6 hours or so, right?  Well, having driven countless such long journeys (and further) and blessed with a car that tells me my average speed for every journey, I know that even with a lot of motorway miles, my average speed rarely passes 45mph.  Why?  Because no journey begins and ends precisely on a motorway so you'll always have part of the journey on much slower roads, including periods where you're totally stationary (junctions, traffic controls, etc.), and no journey on a motorway (at least in the UK) doesn't involve at least some periods of slow or even stationary traffic, even outside of busy periods,  So, let's be generous and assume you average 50mph on your 400 mile journey, that's eight hours on the road.

I don't know about you, but if I'm behind the wheel for 8 hours, I'm going to want to stop more than once, and for a lot longer than 5 minutes.  I'm probably going to want to eat, I'm definitely going to want to use the bathroom but most importantly I'm simply going to need to take a break from driving.  How long for?  Well, let's say 4 times in those 8 hours (that's 2 hour driving spells, which falls in line with advice from the AA and note on this page that around 2% of all injury accidents are influenced by fatigue), twice for just 15 minutes and twice for say half an hour.  Oh, hang on, there's that hour I need to recharge my EV and more...

But I'm a superhuman, I don't get tired and I don't need a break...
Well, congratulations, but even if that's true, is having to stop for an hour in an 8 hour journey that much of a big deal?  We all make choices when we choose our cars; some people need an estate to hold dogs, carry packages, etc., some people like 2 seater sports cars, others luxury saloons.  What car you choose will be determined by how important such factors are to you so let's say you really like a saloon with an ordinary boot (trunk) but three or four times a year, you need to move something that won't fit in the boot of that car, do you buy the estate version instead?  No, of course you don't, if 99% of your driving doesn't need an estate, you buy the saloon and find another solution when you need more room.  Choosing an ICE over an EV because of the recharge "problem" over long distances is much the same decision; unless you're driving these sorts of distances very regularly, you're making that decision based upon the minority of your driving, not the majority and that makes no sense.

But what if it's an emergency?  I feel happier having the option...
OK, firstly, how many emergencies, that need your absolute best speed to get 400 miles or more and where adding an hour to the journey is a life or death issue are you going to face in your life?  I'm guessing probably never, but if it does happen, you've got other options.  You could take a train, you could fly, or you could rent a car half-way there, or drive to a rail station closer, or...

Seriously, this argument is like saying I need a car that can turn into a boat in case I'm caught in a flood and you're far, far more likely to find yourself in deep water than you are to be in a situation where recharge time can't be accommodated.

There's an easy option
Remember, we're talking about an 8 hour plus journey that needs to become closer to 9, and only if you're superhuman and can drive for 8 hours without endangering yourself or others and without needing any food or bathroom breaks.  The simple easy solution is, leave an hour earlier.

At the end of the day, this argument is really saying:

"I feel strongly that a minor inconvenience, easily solved and rarely occurring, is worth continuing to support fossil fuel burning vehicles and ongoing pollution."

but I bet that's not how you'll phrase it at parties.

Final note
I can't have an honest post without acknowledging that there are drivers out there who drive long distances daily and for whom that extra hour would make a substantial difference to their routines and, right at this moment, for them an ICE probably makes more sense.  But if you're not one of these drivers, please don't use the long-distance argument, it really doesn't hold together.

Induction charging, cool, but it ain't gonna happen...

We all know about "range anxiety" and other worries about how long it takes to charge your EV, and availability of charging places and.. oh my!  So wouldn't it be cool if you could keep your EV running just by driving along a special road?  Yes, yes, it would, that'd be great, and that's the idea behind induction charging.

Induction is an electrical phenomenon that can create current in a circuit when it passes close to another that's carrying a charge.  The important point being that the two circuits don't need to be in contact so it's ideal for something like vehicles.  Apparently the UK government is actually considering this as an option, as the image on the left (courtesy Highways England) shows.

So what's the problem?  This is wonderful news isn't it?  Er... no.  Let's think about this.  To use an induction system you need two things; cars that use the system to charge and roads that have the system installed.  No country is going to agree to do the work on installing this to their roads unless they know it's going to be used and vital to the economy, that means there will have to be an agreement from all vehicle manufacturers to build using the system.  They'll need to agree upon a standard, at the very least at the country level but in Europe, probably Europe-wide (there's no point in a French driver being unable to cross the border into Italy or Spain). Bear in mind as of today, these manufacturers haven't even agreed on a standard plug and socket for charging.  OK, let's imagine we somehow pull off this diplomatic miracle and get all manufacturers to sign up, now we need the roads.

The picture above is very pretty, but what does it actually show?  Ignoring the actual power cables, what we're looking at is rebuilding an entire lane of the motorway.  Now, we don't need to install this to every road in the UK, that would be unnecessary and silly, so let's just install it to the "A" roads and the motorways.  We don't really need it installed to every mile of these roads either, so let's just aim for 50% or so.  In the UK, that's over 15 thousand miles of road.  Yes, 15,000 (see here).  Wow, that's a lot of roadworks, but it can be done, can't it?  Consider the M3.  Right about now they should be just finishing the upgrade to "smart motorway" between junctions 2 - 4a.  That's 14 (one four) miles where they're effectively replacing the hard shoulder, so it's a good comparison for what's needed for fitting the induction system, digging up one lane.  It's taken 19 months to complete and cost £160 million.  What do we need to do?  Oh yes, 15 thousand miles so that's er... 1696 years of roadworks and a cost of around £170 trillion (I may have rounded these figures a bit).

Of course, you can't effectively use your induction charging car until the induction charging lanes are in place so if my math is correct above, the manufacturers should be getting their first sales by July of 3712, by which time England should have competed in 424 World Cups and may possibly have won one.

OK, this is an argumentum ad absurdum but it's really not that extreme.  Even just 300 miles of motorway is going to take decades to install and cost billions.  You can argue that a project lasting decades is worthwhile if the results are good, but what's going to happen to EV technology in 30 years?  Going right back to the start of this post, the whole push for induction charging is to relieve range anxiety and charging issues we're experiencing today (if you believe the media, which is another story entirely).  Are we still going to have those worries in 30 years time?  I seriously doubt it.  Look at how ranges have improved in just a few years since the introduction of the Tesla S, look at the huge interest in battery technology, exciting inventions almost on the market and think about what may be invented in 30 years that we aren't even thinking about now.

Is the government really going to invest billions of pounds in a project that'll span lifetimes, only to see that it becomes the biggest white elephant ever made?  Sorry, it's cool, but it ain't gonna happen.

Why the Media Love a Tesla Crash

On the 1st of July 2016, Joshua Brown, was driving through Florida when he was involved in an accident that, tragically, ended in his death.  Mr Brown was one of many that died that same day across the US, and one of approximately 33 thousand people that die every year on their roads, yet Mr Brown made headlines around the world; why?

The answer is simple, Mr Brown was driving a Tesla Model S using the "autopilot" feature.

But why was the car so important?  The answer to that question is, regrettably, that the media fundamentally misunderstand the technology, or perhaps worse, make use of general public mis-understanding in order to create sensational headlines.  What most of the stories really wanted to say was that Mr Brown was killed by his car through no fault of his own, that he was let down by technology and that driverless vehicles are unsafe.  Autonomous vehicles are a hot topic and a large proportion of the driving readership are apprehensive about their introduction, so such an event would be "big news".  However, the truth is more mundane, if still tragic.

Firstly, let's look at Tesla's "Autopilot".  The name is perhaps unfortunate because it does conjure an image of autonomous driving, but the reality is that the technology involved is common in many other cars and has been around for many years.  Tesla's Autopilot really does only three things:

• It acts as an "adaptive" cruise control, maintaining a set speed and responding to the speed of vehicles in front of it.
  
• It can maintain position within a lane using the steering.
  
• It can perform lane-changing maneuvers triggered by the driver.

That's it.  That's the lot.  So how different is that from any number of other modern cars?  Adaptive cruise control has been around for at least 12 years.  Mercedes were fitting a version to their cars as early as 2004 and it is now a common feature on most higher-spec cars.  So it's common, and not specific to the Tesla.

Lane keeping is available from Ford, Mercedes and VW to name but three.  So no, that's not specific to the Tesla either.

Actual lane-changing seems, for now, to be the preserve of the Tesla, but it's coming to Mercedes (of course) in the next E-class and others will follow.  Importantly, in the case of Joshua Brown, it appears no lane-changing was involved and, since the move requires driver action (you have to indicate), it's about as far from "autonomous" as you can get.

So, in short, although the accident was awful and a man died, ultimately it was little different from any of the other accidents that occurred that day, and could happen, has happened and will happen many more times to drivers of other vehicles.  Of course, these accidents won't make headlines around the world because, well, they're not really news are they?

Norway ICE free by 2025?

This story has been doing the rounds for some time (as I believe it's been debated on and off) but for some reason it's hit the headlines again today.  Norway's political leaders are pushing to ban the sale of all, yes ALL, internal combustion engined cars by 2025.  Read all about it here in The Independent.

It's worth noting that the decision will be (when it's made) to ban the sale of new ICEs, not to ban existing vehicles (which some of the more scaremongering blogs and posts have sought to suggest).  This may still seem like a draconian move, but bear in mind that 2025 is still 9 years away and given the progress that has been made in the availability of EVs from major manufacturers, the (too slow) but steady increase in charging infrastructure, improvements in range and battery technology in the last 9 years, it's quite possible that come 2025 the idea won't seem as odd as it does now.  There's also the likelihood of a much more interesting second-hand market by then (currently second-hand EVs seem to cost almost as much as buying new).

So is it a reasonable idea?  Whether it's a good idea or not, it's undeniably the sort of thing that's likely to give a boot to those major manufacturers currently dragging their heels in producing a decent, affordable, EV into their range.  While manufacturers may currently be eyeing the increase in EV sales with interest (particularly in Germany where sales are beginning to take hold in what is a fairly strong petrol-head region), there's a big change when an entire country says it'll no longer buy any of your ICEs in what is a fairly short date.

The question is now, will other countries, especially the UK, be bold enough to consider such a step?